(this is a joke for an assignment but like seriously I'm good at all these things hire me)

UNEMPLOYED:

15 year old girl

SKILLS: awkward conversation, eating large amounts of tacos, some embroidery experience, can kick a soccer ball a considerable distance, sleeping through alarms

CONTACT INFO: helen.gehle@gmail.com

Reflection on Ta-Nehisi Coates

In the video Ta-Nehisi says ¨I knew what kind of writer I wanted to be, I was not becoming that writer¨ and I can really relate to that. My writing has evolved a lot, because I've evolved a lot, and it hasn't really become what I'd expected when I first started writing.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, I don't know if it's something anyone can really predict about themselves, but it's interesting and somewhat reassuring to see someone whose career revolves around writing still struggling with things I struggle with and have struggled with.  Another thing he mentioned was how his main advice towards young writers is perseverance, and I think that's a good reminder for me.  A lot of the time I have an idea and I sit down to write, and I find myself writing something that sounds and feels wrong, and I have to just write it over and over until it's something I don't hate. Or sometimes I think I'm writing something completely different, and then I realize I'm writing a different version of a previous draft. Every idea, with enough time and editing, can be turned into something decent and I think that's important to remember even if, at the time, it feels like you're just writing the same thing over and over.

Why I Write

I've never been someone who seeks a lot of attention. I'm the shy girl in the back of the room who likes to wear flowers in her hair and doodle in the margins. I have no great aspirations of fame or fortune, in fact most of my fantasies of the future involve a small cottage in Europe or living in some unknown corner of the coastline. But until then, writing has been my refuge.  I don't know how else to say it besides that whether it's scribbling under my psychology notes or sitting up at 2 AM typing, writing gives me some sort of strength.  Though I've never actively sought power, I do have authority over my words, and that's something that's meant a lot to me my whole life.  

I always found it funny that the first thing I learned to write was my name.  My first story, the only story I could write, was something that was entirely and by definition, me.  But then, after I was given more letters, more rules, more details, I wrote about anything but myself.  I wrote of girls on sailboats, in trees, riding elephants, girls who could see past the stars. And I always thought this was how people wrote. Their writing wasn't supposed to reflect them, it was supposed to tell stories of foreign landscapes and people who lived adventures on the sea and children who could fly out of bedroom windows.  

Then, I met this author in the sixth grade.  I don't even remember her name if I'm being honest.  I just remember this one thing that she said to us that changed my writing forever. ¨Write for the reader out there that is you¨ . That really stuck with me, and it helped me begin to find my purpose in writing. It helped me realize that the only person I needed to write for was myself.  I went full circle, in a way, to when I could only write my name over and over.  But now I can go so much further than that.  Since then I think I've come to know myself better, and that's why I write. To understand the things I can't understand until I've read them, to have written words when spoken ones fail me. So I'm not writing stories of strangers, but I'm not writing my name over and over either.

Ocracoke

Sitting on the dock that night, watching Sirius glow in the sky, raising our feet to the stars and realizing millions of galaxies were contained in our pinky toes, I was struck by the simple enormity of our universe. If I can even call it ours.  It all came crashing down on us like the waves we’d been jumping hours ago.  Our heads on each others shoulders, just watching everything that is real become silhouettes while everything that seems magic becomes brilliant orange red pink blending into a rich glowing blue gray black.

We never wasted an hour of daylight. Always dancing with sand in our hair, sunshine in our smiles, playing cards or paddleball, joking, and laughing at our own clumsiness until we felt as sick as the time we ate all those chips ahoy in the car trunk.

But at night we became the philosophers of our generation.  You would quote some famous author and I’d try to profoundly summarize my opinions. We loved discussing the finer details of loving and being a good person, the hidden fears we had tucked away, and why johnny cash impressions were oh so terribly difficult for a teenage girl.  

There were shoes optional walks that we took under the island stars.  First sitting on the harbor, feet swinging, a certain thrill coming from the independence of it all and the slight danger we felt from the open water, unsure of its black depth.  Sometimes we would lay down, your voice twirling its way through the moments whether it was singing or talking about the time your sister was crazy.  Sometimes I’d jump in, sharing my own anecdotes or trying to be witty. But almost always I drew that giggling laugh from you and it made me laugh and we’d just laugh together for a little while. Neither of us quite sure why.  

Then we would get up and walk the gravely road that ran along the docks.  Live music and laughter would bubble out from bars and the murmurs of passing bikers added a nice background noise while we talked about past friendships and admitted fears of growing old (specifically above the age of 60) and our tenth grade class schedules (specifically whether they would involve each other).  I would burp and you would glare and I would laugh and then you would too.  It was a cycle that would recur probably every few minutes.  A cycle that still never really ends.

We loved to analyze our own friendship. How it began, how it will end (preferably never) and why it happened.  We tried to list our similarities and got tired of listing things because you would say something and I would say saaaame and I would say something and you would say saaame. So we had to decide that we were essentially the same person but not.  Every night our feet carried us faster than we thought and we would end up at the ice cream window before we were ready. I was still finishing my thoughts on the finer points of Dudley Dursley’s personality as the man behind the window interrupted with ¨would you like to order something??¨

I don’t think we ever stopped talking the whole night. It was like we both had so much to share. So many pieces of ourselves to hand over and trade. I gathered my scraps of you and tucked them away fondly, knowing you a little better now.  And now that I think about it that’s why we walked. To share the intimacy of being alone together with each other’s words, to know each other and grow on each other.  We built on each other with book store opinions and smoothie decisions and biking lessons.  Stacking memories on memories until we had no more to hand over. By the end of the night we were girls with empty hands. We’d given each other all the things we’d held before, but instead of tucking our hands in our pockets, we held them out under the starlight of Sirius glowing over the harbor and let the new memories of sunny beach days with sand in our hair and sunshine in our smiles, fall like stardust, into our palms.