Lori Comes to Thanksgiving
and brings her best friend, Huxley.
Walking across the lawn toward the old bench, feeling little of the sun’s warmth in November, I wipe my brow and settle my hat back on my head as I rest from pruning branches, sitting on the garden bench. I’m still thinking about the story I’ve started.
It’s good sometimes to leave the confines of the page, breathe some fresh air, and think different thoughts.
“Hey, Mr. Harry. Come over and help me, will you?”
No need to introduce Lori to you anymore, right? A figment of my imagination that I prefer to call my muse. I see her plainly; her face is pushing between the wrought iron gates; such a face, I wonder, full rosy cheeks, perfect nose, a chin without any sign of blemish, eyes never staring and never vacant, though her left eye has a cast. You know the kind of face I mean. It is freshly scrubbed, so endearing it breaks your heart, and a halo of cascading red hair encircles all of it. You see it once and never forget its symmetry.
“I’m coming, Lori.”
I leave the bench. “Now then, Lori, how are you?”
“I’m happy, Mr. Harry. Is it okay to sit on the bench with you?” She asks, eyes pleading.
“But of course.”
I’ve learned that only when we refuse to pause in wonder do we dare go beyond the limits of our imagination. I take her tiny hand in mine.
“Mr. Harry, do you care about the characters you write about? You being a writer, I mean.” She asks the question in the way of knowing the answer before the question is put.
“Well, Lori. I suppose I do. But I also care about the reader. Sometimes, too much.”
“Did you know I have an imaginary friend?”
“You do?” I say.
“He’s my favorite friend, Mr. Harry.”
“Yes, dear, I think imaginary friends can be like that. Do you see your friend often?”
“Only at special times,” she says, answering my question in her own way. “Like today, Thanksgiving, this is a special day.”
“Very special, Lori. So, you’ll see your friend today?”
I momentarily reflect on all my experiences with the fictional characters that have become friends, so entwined with my own life are they, walking with me on sandy beaches, making love so passionately and uninhibitedly. I live on the beach. The place where I so often find new friends.
“Will you have many friends around the table, Mr. Harry?”
“I will, loved ones, family, mostly.”
“Would you invite me and my best friend, Mr. Harry?”
It would be my pleasure, Lori. What is his name?”
Mostly, when the sun kisses the ocean goodnight, that’s when many of my friends come. Most times, they live in a whirling world of wind, seldom seeing anyone, inspiring me to walk, to wind my way through the narrow passages of my imagination, the plants and flowers hanging down from windows and walls, the wet streets, the shop signs, beautifully hand-painted portraits, each one so individual. It is an enchantment to wander freely with only words being my guide.
“Huxley. My friend flew here non-stop through the night.”
“I see.”
“Will you help him, Mr. Harry?”
“We should go and see what we can do, Lori,” I say, taking her hand. She skips along at my side.
I pull open the wide barn doors. The world beyond these doors is not always pleasant. The hinges creak, and dirt is scuffed under the broken foot of the door.
“Keep hold of my hand, Lori.”
I have learned that there is a vast difference between belief and knowing. In the act of writing, I have managed, vainly, to convince myself I have seen and felt things that other writers have yet to discover. In my quest to knock on the hallowed doors of publication, I have suffered highs and lows and believe other writers have never faced those two extremities.
In reality, writing is a discipline. I cannot write a book using preconceived notions that I have something unique to say. The fact is this: there is nothing unique to say anymore, only new ways to say old things.
A door will always open; query-by-query, wonder-by-wonder, the source of knowledge will be tapped and absorbed. Perhaps that opening will be preceded by a thin, wavering crack of hope, but I must have given something of myself to my art to open wide. I must have the determination to learn something every day. I must be respectful of advice. I must listen intently to criticism and value it accordingly.
“There he is, Mr. Harry.” Lori points high into the corner of the old barn.
Lori climbs the ladder before I can hold her back, her sun hat floating to the dust and owl droppings below.
“Com’on, Huxley, you can make it. Just open your eyes, talk to me; say something,” she pleaded.
As a writer, I’m often lonely. Unable to embrace other writers totally and completely because there are things I have seen — as yet undiscovered.
“It’s okay, Huxley. I think you just passed out; you haven’t eaten in almost five full days. Here, let me help you down. Hop onto my arm.”
Lori carefully brings the owl’s outflung wing back inside.
As I keep telling myself, there is a vast chasm between belief and knowing. When I truly knock upon these hallowed doors of my imagination, I fully expect to leave my beliefs behind. That knock will be answered only from the world of my childhood, and reality will become but a precious memory.
So, I listen again, more closely this time, to the writer I know I can be.
Huxley seems to scramble a bit and then somehow balances on Lori’s arms. It is a precarious manoeuvre, I can tell you. This barn owl is ready for something to eat. Soon, the three of us are sitting on the old bench. Huxley looks pretty good; his eyes are bright but blinking.
“Mr. Harry, I know Huxley has to leave. It would be cruel to want his friendship in daylight. I will see him tonight. I’m okay with that.”
I understand what writing is about. Certain beliefs I’ve left behind. Reading critically, listening carefully, and educating myself in the murky depths of good grammar is not easy for me. I constantly listen to the voice inside me telling me to demonstrate on paper the writer I know I can be. This is why, as I move among the nouns and verbs, striking out adjectives, I listen more and more to the voice.
Is this the best it can be?
“I’ll take Huxley back to the barn now, Mr. Harry.”
Writing is flying; the best I can hope for is that someone who loves me will be there to catch me upon falling.
There will be many around our thanksgiving table, but two of them only I will see.
Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.
Peace and Love be upon you.
