One pen — thousand of lives
You meet people in your life who change you for the better, and they don’t even know they did so.
A few days ago, I was on a road trip, and I had one of the best experiences, which reinforced my faith in humanity and the possibility of a change into better and kinder humans.
I met a girl my age who kept carrying a notebook around. Her sister kept jokingly saying „It is not like your inspiration is going to come right now, on a road trip, in the car”. She kept smiling and holding onto her notebook.
At a certain point, she asked if anyone had a black pen, and, without any second thought, I gave her mine. I understand her; poetry should always be written with a black pen and in a small notebook. I remember smiling when I first saw her small notebook and smiling when I saw her writing with my pen. All I could think right then was that, soon, I was going to hold in my hands a pen someone had written meaningful poetry with. A pen that traveled through someone’s emotions.
When we parted, my mom asked me if I had taken my pen back, and just then I realized I hadn’t. I didn’t think about it. It didn’t matter back then, because by the time I was already home, I had talked about my favorite authors, poetry, and prose, all with a stranger I met on a random road trip. Where I grew up, writing wasn’t considered a hobby; you couldn’t even mention it as a job. And so when I meet people who write, I feel like I finally remember the reason I moved to this other, unknown world.
I didn’t get my pen back, but I hope that her poem turned out well. I hope she writes many more poems with that pen and that many people get to read her works.
On some days, you will meet people who will change your life and remind you about the core and purpose of being human. This is the fourth time I am telling this story to someone. Although the works I have written with that pen won’t be read by dozens of people, and maybe the poems she has written won’t be read by thousands of people, and our works together will be read by nearly one thousand people, the story of our meeting will surely remain in my other friends’ hearts and in the hearts of the people who will read this. Maybe she is talking about me too. Maybe she is not. Maybe she is putting these feelings on paper in another format, maybe with someone else in mind.
She kept collecting flowers and pressing them between the pages of her notebook. She said that a poem would come out of those. I am still thinking about that poem and what type of poem it could be. I will keep on trying to write poems about flowers, or maybe placing flowers on a page, until I find that feeling that the words on paper represent what she was trying to tell me.
Is it sad that you have experiences like this only once in a while? I would say not necessarily. As much as I love having friends with whom I can have experiences like this daily, I think that having moments like this with strangers is meant for the days when you lose hope not only in humanity but also in yourself. It feels different to see an unknown piece of the world reach out its hand to you and hand you gentleness. While strangers are meant to give you hope, friends are meant to help you create a place of gentleness prepared to store that hope.
