Walsenburg - Lorelei, the girl at The Alamo Arcade. The young girl who worked there was just about seventeen years old, and spent most of her time behind the front counter with her school books spread out before her. When she wasn’t doing homework she was writing in a spiral notebook and doodling on the pages, so I knew it couldnt have been for school. I asked her one day what she wrote about all of the time and she said, “oh you know, anything.” The idea that she could write about “anything” all day long intrigued me! Writing, just for the sake of writing, and not because a teacher made you do it? Id never heard of such a thing! “But… how do you know what to write? Where do you start?” She turned the page in her notebook and held her pencil in anticipation above the first line. “You just write … anything… [then she started with two large words in swirly cursive across the top line, “Eats Oranges… ... ... and wraps the peel around his finger…”] ... like that. Then you just keep writing whatever else comes to mind.” What!? What!? You mean you could use an entire notebook to write about eating oranges and anything else and nothing at all, all at the same time?? There didn’t have to be a reason for it? No subject? No assignment? No punctuation or penmanship grades? I NEEDED a notebook! “Is it like a diary?” “No. It’s just, like… a journal, but not a diary. You don’t write “Dear Diary” when you write… you just write about anything at all.” “Why do you write so much? Do you like it? I like writing, a LOT.” I added that last bit with a little too much excitement. She just smiled at me, put her pencil down and reached into her book bag to take out another spiral notebook. “Do you want one?” I looked at that green notebook she held out to me, wanting to grab it with both hands and run, but I hadn’t meant to make it seem as though I was begging her to give me something – after all, she gave me free credits on the games nearly every time I walked in the door. “No thank you. I have a bunch of those at home.” That was a lie. I had never owned a spiral notebook in my life! Just five cent PeeChee notebooks and loose leaf paper with wide lines that I hated, but had to share with my brother. I wanted that green spiral notebook more than I had remembered wanting anything else in the world! She put it on the counter and told me I could take it if I changed my mind, then she went back to writing. I sat, acting indifferent to the mighty greenness of that notebook, sitting just inches away from my hands, and at last I got up and said it was time for me to leave. I thought about crossing the street to ask my mom for money to go buy a new notebook, but I already knew she would ask me what I needed it for, and if I tried to explain to her that it was just for writing in, writing anything in, writing anything that was really nothing at all and maybe things about eating oranges, she might not understand why it was a necessity, and would immediately tell me no. So instead I headed up the street to the Ben Franklin Five and Dime store to go look at the notebooks they had and find out how much they would cost. I could collect bottles around the town trashcans for a few days and probably pay for one before the weekend. I didnt find enough bottles to pay for a new spiral notebook. Instead, my first “journal” turned out to be about twenty sheets of wide-lined loose leaf paper stapled together along the left side margin. I wrote “PRIVATE” on the front page, but then realized that if it said it was private, my brother was absolutely guaranteed to steal it from me, so I tore off the first page and printed my name up in the right corner of the front page, just as we did in school when we turned in homework. If that didn’t guarantee its privacy from my brother, nothing would. I wrote as small as I could across each line, but I wrote for long periods of time whenever I opened up that journal, and by the end of the week I had already used up every line on both the front and back of each page. I thought of adding more pages, or just making another journal, but I was using up all of my school paper to do this, and we were running low, so instead I turned the journal upside down and began using the journal backwards. The wide lines made it possible for me to use the last page as the first, and writing underneath the lines I had already written. Anyone who might have picked up my journal would have seen a mess of words going in two different directions, and tired themselves out trying to follow along, but I was able to read it perfectly. I wrote less frequently, hoping to make the lines last longer, and at the first opportunity available I dropped the hint to mom that we were nearly out of school writing paper… oh, and that my teacher said it would be good if I had one of those fat spiral notebooks. I lied to my mom, knowing she didn’t have the kind of money to buy a fat spiral notebook, but I wanted one really badly! That week she gave me money to go to Safeway and buy the supplies we needed. I grabbed a pack of loose leaf that we were nearly out of due to my new career as a writer, and I stood in front of the fat five-subject, college ruled spiral notebooks for at least ten minutes contemplating which color best suited my personality. Red was exciting, daring and dangerous! Blue was calm and scheduled and proper. Black was for liars and thieves - I put the black one back and picked up the red one again. They cost nearly five dollars of the ten mom had given me. Each time I picked one up I would fan the pages, sniffing the newness of each page, and I would make sure there were no bent corners or torn sheets inside. Then I would see the price again and put it back on the shelf. After struggling with my desire for a five subject college ruled spiral notebook against knowing that mom had said to try not to spend too much, I ended up leaving the store with just a small pack of loose leaf paper and some new pencils. Mom never asked if I got the notebook, and I never told her that I had lied about needing it. Instead I compromised and gathered up my old graded homework pages to staple together and write on the unused back sides. It was a perfect solution! From that day on, I began to journal regularly, and that simple conversation with Lorelei would eventually turn to hundreds of long hand written journals and blogs. On the rare occasion when I would sit to write, but no words would come, I always started with the exact same words… “Eats Oranges.” (On a side note - if anyone of my FB friends remembers a girl named Lorelei from Walsenburg - probably around 50 yrs old - tell her I said Hi! And Thank You!)
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 23:29:49 +0000
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