Character Observations

I have never considered myself a journaler.  You could look at the pile of battered notebooks on the closet shelf and argue.  There is always a notebook open on the desk, ready to accept ideas.  I jot down inspirational bits that I hear from other people, or snatches of plot or beauty.  Sometimes I draft blog posts or notes to friends when I’m away from the computer.  Mostly I jot down observations of character.  People I see doing whatever they do.  If those people stick in my head as I move through my day or week, they might end up there on the page.

Some I describe in a few sentences or fragments.

Cashier/neighbor who always calls me Mrs. Smith.  He was a drum major in the marching band when we moved here.  The band theme one year had to do with the pyramids, and his eyes are stunning with a little kohl eyeliner.

The man who sat next to me at last week’s football game filled many pages.  He was lovely, and more complicated and interesting than initial appearances suggested.  Still others pop up in the pages over and over again.  They are characters or fragments of character that I can’t shake out of my brain.  One character appears very frequently in the notebook pages even though I have never met him.  The idea of him is boiled down into a two-word phrase that appears in the margins of the notebook in a variety of contexts.  Because this is a real person, tangentially connected to me, for the sake of idea- and identity-protection, let’s call my Frequent Flyer.

I have tried several times to build a story around the Frequent Flyer.  None of them have ever quite achieved the potential for beauty and irony that I see in the character.  So I tuck him away each time, believing that eventually I will find a worthy tale.

But now, the story has come to me.

My Frequent Flyer’s life goes on.  This time I may get to play a role in the story.  The best part of this opportunity is that even if I never write a satisfying story about the Frequent Flyer, I have a chance to be a part of his life in what I hope is a positive (though very small) way.  That is worth so much more to me than a good story idea.  The irony that this is the best idea (so far) does not escape me, and it’s a plot twist I never would have imagined.  

A pile of notebooks on the desk