Discoveries
Recently I discovered that an old friend from junior high and high school, whom I'd lost track of when we all dispersed for college, is living a couple of blocks from me. I'd been passing her place on my bike without knowing it!
Anyway, I sat in her cozy room with a loom at one end, quilt-making goodies at the other, surrounded by books, as we caught up with forty years of life, after which she presented me with a battered notebook that had been unearthed from her mother's garage after the latter passed. Here was the carbon copy of the novel another friend and I had written in ninth grade, and sent off to Knopf, certain we were to embark on careers writing historical adventures for kids.
I won't bore on about the piece--I know that juvenilia is only interesting to the writer--but it was strange, seeing the me of then as demonstrated in those pages. (Because I can still see which bits are mine.) The utter obliviousness to how adults think and act! (And the rage at adult hypocrisy!) The howlingly awful prose and trainwreck pacing! But here and there an almost good line, a funny staged bit, which I'm sure reflect my reading of the time.
Anyway, it's odd to meet oneself again, especially in the context of meeting another person who knew that "me" so long ago, and hasn't since. A delightful surprise, most welcome, as another local friend is not doing so well.
Anyway, I sat in her cozy room with a loom at one end, quilt-making goodies at the other, surrounded by books, as we caught up with forty years of life, after which she presented me with a battered notebook that had been unearthed from her mother's garage after the latter passed. Here was the carbon copy of the novel another friend and I had written in ninth grade, and sent off to Knopf, certain we were to embark on careers writing historical adventures for kids.
I won't bore on about the piece--I know that juvenilia is only interesting to the writer--but it was strange, seeing the me of then as demonstrated in those pages. (Because I can still see which bits are mine.) The utter obliviousness to how adults think and act! (And the rage at adult hypocrisy!) The howlingly awful prose and trainwreck pacing! But here and there an almost good line, a funny staged bit, which I'm sure reflect my reading of the time.
Anyway, it's odd to meet oneself again, especially in the context of meeting another person who knew that "me" so long ago, and hasn't since. A delightful surprise, most welcome, as another local friend is not doing so well.