So Carlyn’s new motivational approach is to get me to follow fan authors that I like. I make a note of people who have written stories that I really love. Being a psychologist, she of course has built an elaborate personality model to predict and describe different kinds of readers. Evidently, I’m a “lost friend”, someone who is sad the story is over, and comes here to continue it. We are attached to characters, canon, and will not tolerate alternative universes. I’m not sure how I feel about being in the most rigid category. Mostly, I’m kind of amazed at how clever Carlyn is, and how funny it is that we never put down being psychologists, even when we are doing something unrelated to psychology.
But something happened. Ok, I’m a witch, so shit like this is always happening. But even all these years later, when something happens, I still meet it with awe and wonder. Like we never get used to synchronicity. I was reading and following the authors, and then I read a story that grabbed me so hard I wanted to slap someone. I was just really caught by it, and that is what I want when I’m reading fiction. I want to be kidnapped and dragged off into some other world. This person had it down, and I was just kind of blown away by how much it affected me. So, I sent them a comment.
“Ack! OMG you left me dying and bleeding on the sidewalk. I might hate you.”
They replied, “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Right. These are ordinary people writing out of love. I don’t know why I thought they would never respond. So, I have a short exchange with a stranger that is changing my life. It changed the way I thought about writing. It made me ask a question that haunted me for weeks.
“I love the way you write. I want to touch people that way. How do you even do it? How do you get that kind of power behind your words?”
And here it is. The something that happened.
“I am madly and passionately in love with these characters. They are my friends and lovers. I just let that guide me,” he said. “So, tell me what are you madly and passionately in love with?”
I burst into tears reading this response. What the hell? Why was I completely taken out by this? Probably because I had been depressed for so long that when I first heard the question, I thought to myself that I wasn’t in love with anything. I could not retrieve the passion that I know existed. I mean, I have felt it before, I have felt it all my life. But here I sat, bereft that I could not think of a single thing. Not one blasted thing. I felt empty, and strangely, that gave me hope. That maybe if I could just lean into that emptiness I might find a little spark. I desperately needed that spark. After 6 long months of being in wound care and waiting to heal so I could get joint replacement surgery, and still with no end in sight, it was hard to remember the me that shines and glitters.
So basically, this stranger has fucked me up. And now I have to go find out what I am in love with. I feel that rumbling, like the vibration on the tracks when a train is coming. We’ll see what happens. That’s all I can do, really. But I can feel this pressure under my sternum, like a bird is thrashing in there and wanting to get out. A witch like me, we know when we’re in trouble. This would be one of those moments.
Seyewailo 