The Poet on the Checkout Line — Storytellers Are Everywhere You Are
I’d seen her many times before.
For years, we’d smiled, made small talk, chatted about the bitterly cold weather or how to cook sweet potatoes. This is the way in a small town supermarket, family-owned and operated for years. She would run items past the scanner, help pack the bags, hand me change with a bright smile and happy “Have a great day!”
Then, one day, we changed. I was fresh out of small talk and didn’t know or care about the weather, so when she asked me how I was, I told her the truth: the hero has gone flat and boring and I don’t know what to do.
Instead of drawing back, she leaned in. Tell me more. So I did.
She asked a few questions and everything got turned around right. I blinked at her, thanked her, asked how she knew what to ask me and how to listen.
I write stories, she said. I write poetry, too. That’s what I really love. Where can I find what you write, we asked one another. My work is out in the world and hers is kept quiet and dark in the dozens of notebooks that her husband knows to ignore. She thinks she will start a blog one day, share her stories with readers, but not right now. Her job and her classes take all the energy she has.
Now, when I go to the market, I look for her, ask her how her work is going, encourage her to enroll at a class that excites her. We talk about books, movies, sports teams, all the stories that we love, live, and write. Now and then she’ll tell me what she’s working on, what interests or baffles her, a line of verse that she’s been mulling.
Her checkout line gets longer than anyone else’s when we get to talking. I try to keep the conversation short, but it’s tough to manage. Writing is lonely work, rewarding and joyous, but lonely, long, and hard. When you find a poet at the cash register, you cherish every word.
