I accidentally wore my Segullah t-shirt to the bank last week.
“So you’re a writer,” the banker said.
Dang, I forgot I was wearing that shirt.
“Um, yeah,” I said (my brilliant way with words already obvious).
“What do you write?” he asked.
Dang again, why do people always ask that?
“Creative non-fiction,” I said, hoping that would be a conversation stopper (and figuring that it sounded better than “nothing lately”).
A few seconds of silence.
“I actually like to write, too,” the banker said.
Well, I was not expecting that. “What do you like to write?” I said, because two can play at that game.
“Oh, mostly fiction,” he said, “just short things. I haven’t started on ‘my book’ yet,” making quote marks in the air with his fingers.
And just like that, we were friends (except that I can’t remember his name now). But I know that he knows what it feels like to struggle in front of a blank screen. I know that he knows the thrill of creating a world with words, the hope of finding the perfect phrase, and the fear of being told that the thoughts he’s wrung onto the page don’t really mean anything.
I know that he feels the both the weight of laying claim to a title like “writer” and the simultaneous joke of it all, because when it comes down to it, everyone and their dog is “writing a book” (said with air quotes). Being a writer is at once presumptuous and pedestrian.
I used to think that writing was about what I produced. I thought that in order to be a writer I had to…you know, write something. Or have written something. Or be planning to write something.
But now I consider myself a writer because I love it. That’s all. And I’ll wear my shirt because it’s not so much about me as it is about opening the door to have a conversation with someone else.
And it’s a cute shirt.
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