Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

I’ve been think­ing about what it means to turn our expe­ri­ences into words to be shared with oth­ers. Also, the disin­gen­u­ous­ness of describ­ing this process as “shar­ing.” Almost all of the writ­ers I know hope to see their words val­ued not only in a your-truth-touched-my-heart sense, but also with an I‑will-rec­og­nize-that-mak­ing-these-words-are-your-work-and-you-have-bills-to-pay exchange. But what’s the mea­sure? What’s the bal­ance between using our expe­ri­ence to – hope­ful­ly – con­nect with oth­ers and offer some­thing use­ful, ver­sus exploit­ing our­selves and our loved ones for mon­e­tary gain?

(I may be over­think­ing this. Thanks, Jonathan Evi­son, for the reveal­ing num­bers in  “How Much Do Nov­el­ists Make?”)

No sur­prise that this is what’s on my mind right now. Fri­day morn­ing, my bud­dies Kari, Pam, and I are off to the Wild Moun­tain Mem­oir Retreat, where we’ll spend the week­end study­ing our craft. Tomor­row also marks three weeks that my pro­pos­al has been out in the world, mak­ing the rounds among pos­si­ble pub­lish­ers. Know­ing this, car­ry­ing on with ordi­nary life has been tough. In the midst of clean­ing the cat box, or wip­ing tooth­paste goo out of the sink, the reminder strikes: Some­one in New York is read­ing the most inti­mate details of my life (as cap­tured in 94 pages) right now, weigh­ing their worth. 

What is the worth of words? How does any­one decide?

Even as those ques­tions cart­wheel through my mind, there’s noth­ing I can do to speed up or affect my book’s process right now. Dai­ly life con­tin­ues – cat box, tooth­paste goo, and all. I focus on remem­ber­ing to breathe, going to yoga and cut­ting back on cof­fee, and con­sid­er what an exquis­ite moment in time this is, regard­less of the out­come. Per­spec­tive comes with the mem­o­ry of the first words I sold.

*****

When I was 19, I spent a lot of time sit­ting on San Fran­cis­co side­walks, with a few detours to Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard. I trav­eled light: a sleep­ing bag anoth­er kid had kicked down to me, and a back­pack that most­ly held note­books and pens.

I usu­al­ly perched in front of the Fisherman’s Wharf Ben & Jerry’s. The man­ag­er was a kind man, fre­quent­ly offer­ing hot water to refresh my teacup, and the side­walk was wide enough to unob­tru­sive­ly plant myself cross-legged on the curb, with this card­board sign propped at my knee:

 

Tele as Traveling Storyteller, 1997

 

May 23, mid-after­noon. A tall man paused to study my sign, then looked at me very seri­ous­ly. With a but­ter-brick­le smooth voice, he asked, “Would you write me a poem?”

I don’t write poems. Oth­ers – June Jor­dan, Vivian Faith Prescott, Joel Brady-Pow­er – string words togeth­er in ways that make my heart sigh and nod, but apart from some angst‑y ado­les­cent efforts best left in the past, that’s not how words come to me.

I would’ve explained that, but his plain­tive request sound­ed just like a line from one of my favorite books: “If you please – draw me a sheep!” The pilot couldn’t deny the Lit­tle Prince his sheep, and nei­ther could I deny Andres from Bolivia his poem. I want­ed to hon­or this man who wore tint­ed glass­es over sad dark eyes, who admit­ted he’d been hav­ing “an up-and-down day.”

So the wan­der­ing sto­ry col­lec­tor who didn’t write poet­ry agreed to write a poem.

Bright­en­ing, Andres said that he’d be back in 15 to 20 min­utes. With that tight dead­line, I got to work.

Fif­teen years lat­er, the bat­tered jour­nal that held that poem sits here, open on my desk. My own red ink scrawl tells what hap­pened next.

Andres came back. He said he’d been going to stay in the U.S. anoth­er week, but “after last night, I’ll leave in two days.” He didn’t elab­o­rate. I told him it wasn’t a great poem, and he stood in front of me to read it. His eyes light­ened; he said it was bet­ter than I could know, that it real­ly helped him and was just what he’d need­ed. He gave me $7, and I gave him a hug. 

Would this be a bet­ter sto­ry if I’d scrib­bled a copy of that poem for myself – and now, for you? Maybe. More like­ly it tru­ly was a ter­ri­ble poem, good only for the per­son it was writ­ten for. I like this sto­ry end­ing as it does: with the ragged edge of a sin­gle page torn loose from that journal’s bind­ing as the only remain­ing whis­per of our exchange – that, and the mem­o­ry of two strangers meet­ing over words, man­ag­ing to per­fect­ly val­ue what each oth­er need­ed at that par­tic­u­lar moment in time.

 

Tomorrow’s a big day, sure, but two days ago was pret­ty spe­cial, too. Hap­py belat­ed birth­day, Dad! I don’t always read the cal­en­dar so well, but I do love you.