The Big Brick Review

Building on the narrative of our lives...one brick at a time.


Dear Me (Note to Self)

by E. Zosia Green

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.  ~Anais Nin

Dear Me,

My Dear.

To find your thoughts sandwiched there, in your sketchbook, where you used to draw when you thought that was your path. Stumbling upon your written word buried in the thick black cloth-bound book, between the charcoal face that grew from random lines, and the sketch of a logo from graphic design. Among indiscriminate scribbles and road trip driving directions; you were never organized, always grabbed for whatever paper was there—notebooks or Post-its or envelope flaps (You will change in some ways, but not that. As I write to you now, thirteen years later, I’m using your sketchbook, just a couple of pages past your prose.) 

I can’t say with confidence that you wrote it here to hide it. Yet there is no date; you wrote it almost dead center, middle of the book. In case anyone decided to flip through, chances are they wouldn’t find it. You always kept your thoughts—the soft ones, the dark ones, the ones that hurt or held hope—you always kept them concealed.  It could take a person years of flipping through pages to get to them, like peeling layers of a tulip bulb. Once they got close to the center page, you’d distract them, hold the pages together in one sly move, flip further back to the silly sketches and still-lifes. You’d only show your abstractions. An image can’t be challenged—or worse, understood.

Here is the thing, Dear me, back then. You with your lowercase initials, your name starting in letters as small as you felt—e.g. (just a footnote, an aside).  The thing is, Dear me, you were right. About halfway between now and then, you’ll look back at these pages and scoff at your silliness—your beliefs based on feeling, not facts. You’ll let them talk you out of what you know to be true (you know more than you know, Dear me, you do).  You’ll put all your faith in figures, read their theories, flip their charts, analyze and dissect.  As if the laws of the laboratory could apply to real life.

For years you’ll draw nothing but conclusions. You’ll abandon your convictions one by one, like petals and leaves dropped from a dying flower. The more you drop, the less you’ll be able to rely on your own reserves. One day you’ll find yourself standing there, a naked stem in the sun. Feeling the warmth but unable to give back, to show your colors, your petals, your stuff. Your stem will grow limp under the weight of your head, stripped of splendor. 

It’s not until you let go of that plucked version of you, and let the old blossom die and return to the earth—until you go another layer deeper into the bulb and draw from what’s there—that you’ll emerge again, stem stronger, petals intact.  But I won’t tell you when. In all honesty, Dear me, I can’t. Hope cannot be handed over; flowers bloom on faith, not facts.

E. Zosia Green often wishes she could go back and talk to her past self, but knows she's the last person she'd listen to. This piece stemmed from a 2013 creative writing course assignment to write a letter to your younger self. One year later, she can't decide if perhaps it was the other way around. Zosia is now working on two book projects, one about saving the world, and one about the world saving you. 

"Dear Me" photo © 2014 Gregory Gerard

 

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