Wednesday – January 16, 2013
I arrived at Grand Central Station in time to catch the 6:45 train. I quickly stepped into one of the cars and sat down on the end of a three-seat bench. The train was crowded and in no time, the other seats filled up. A women stood over me and asked to take the seat next to mine. I nodded and let her in.
We started to talk and she told me she had walked up to Grand Central from 14th Street because she couldn’t get on the subway. I told her I usually try to avoid rush hour. She asked me what I do in my retirement and I told her about my writing group and how I enjoy writing and sharing with a wonderful group of women.
She began to talk about the challenges of writing and described her experience of initially writing for other people. Then she discovered the joy of writing for herself. She had found her voice, I thought. She said she had started writing vignettes about her personal life, but lately she was writing longer pieces with broad themes of common human emotions and experiences. She built her stories around a tiny kernel of personal events or people in her life, but her stories were largely fiction. I marveled at how easily she could cross over from reality to fiction.
I watched as the woman took her cell phone out of her bag and scrolled through her Notes app. She spoke softly as she handed her phone to me. “I guess I can show you my writing, since I don’t know you.” I slowly read a beautiful and very well constructed poem. I was surprised how good it was. “Rap, tap, tap,” the poem began to describe the sound of a branch outside a window gently tapping on the side of a house. Her imagery was clear and her word-choices were perfect. A pang of envy ran through my body. She said she wrote easily and didn’t know where the ideas and inspirations came from. “They just flow when I start writing,” she stated.
I told her honestly what I liked about the poem and how good it was. She said she had a long commute on the train and she writes every day on her cell phone. Then she scrolled through a hugh number of entries and handed her phone to me again. I read a touching story of a woman who yearned to have meaningful communication with her father but arrived too late to talk to him. The story was still a draft and needed work in the middle, but the beginning and end of the story were well constructed.
All of a sudden I realized that people were lining up in the aisle and we had arrived at my station. I quickly told the woman that I thought her writing was wonderful and encouraged her to keep writing. I assured her that her writing was very good. She beamed and extended her hand, “Thank you. My name is Sondi. It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “What a wonderful chance meeting this has been. I don’t usually share my writing with anyone. I appreciate your encouragement.”
I shook her hand as I introduced myself and thanked her for inspiring me. I waved goodby and smiled as I walked to the open door of the train. I glanced back at Sondi. Her head was down over her cell phone. Her fingers were busily typing on the tiny keys.
I smiled as I stepped onto the platform and into the cold night air. It felt good to have met an author who needed encouragement and a few kind words. I hope to read Sondi’s literary works in an important literary vehicle in the future. Her writing was that good. Who knows, perhaps I launched a new exciting career for a stranger.