Words on Napkins
When I lived out of state, I had a little house on a quiet street, and I worked hard de-cluttering this little house room by room until the entire place looked lovely and inviting. I bought a chair, I added a TV, I had tile installed in the bathroom, I framed my favorite pictures with friends and family and my travels and I put them up all over the place. The house was an extension of the inner me. And after a good amount of time, all that was left of the clutter was whittled down into one booby trap of a closet.
I remember sitting in my red room (the room I painted red) with my feet up, watching my new TV and feeling so accomplished at the organization of my little house. Mentally, the place felt good, right out to every corner. All of the mess was contained in that one small closet in the red room. But it was a doozy of a closet.
Opening the closet was a multi-step process:
Turn the knob without moving the door.
Pull the door open one inch, then two, to make sure nothing leaning against the door falls.
2a. As you do this, listen for anything scraping the door, indicating that it will fall if you open the door the whole way. (Based on the scraping sound, either figure out what that item is or at least determine whether it sounds like something that can fall without breaking, like metal or plastic…)
Finally, and only as a last resort, slowly open the door fully and assess any near-collapses.
Inside, the closet was stuffed floor to ceiling with bric-a-brac, holiday decorations, wrapping paper, tax files, stacks of random papers, and boxes of napkins that I’d written on.
When I moved, most of the contents of this closet were the first things I boxed up. (I dreaded potential buyers opening that closet, and I’d also been told that the psychological profile of a homebuyer includes wanting to see empty closet floors; otherwise, they assume a house is too small to fit a person’s belongings.) I didn’t pack those napkins for storage, though. I kept them with me. They’re the notes I write to myself as I sit in restaurants overhearing conversations, or as I sit in traffic when song lyrics strike up an idea (napkins in the glove box), when I’m walking down the street and get that aha moment with a character I’d been trying to figure out (random napkin from my purse or pocket when I can’t find paper)…
When I’m busy, these napkins get put into boxes so they don’t get lost. Sometimes they’d get upgraded to bigger boxes when I was working two jobs or planning my cross-country move or when I was writing a completely different project. Of all the things in that closet, the decorations, the candles, and even the tax files, I don’t put much value into anything as much as I do those napkins and their scribbles.
The reason why is profound: I can be in the middle of writing something creative and suddenly say out loud, “Blue napkin.” I get up, go to the boxes, and sort through until I find a blue napkin. And crazily enough, the words on it will fit into the story I’m writing, just where I’d left off. Every single time.
~
Stories From the Roadis a fun summer read. It’s my newest book, and it’s on Amazon.
