Noteworthy

It’s a better rejection this time, which is sort of an accomplishment. There are some nice comments from the publishing company, like how my writing shows promise and that my pacing is good… never mind the fact that in my all my college writing workshop classes, ‘good pacing’ was code for I had nothing nice to say, and this is me fulfilling the requirement of coming up with something. I toss the letter into the air like a graduation cap and let it fall on over my head with a sigh.

There is a canister of candies on my bookshelf propping up my notebooks, the plastic seal still in tact. I’d gotten the candies for my grandfather, actually; he always took me to the same donut shop because he loved the candies they brought with the bill. I got the idea to buy them for him in bulk, but they were hard to find. By the time I had finally found them and they had finally come in from overseas, my last chance to surprise him had already come and gone.

Grandpa had passed away a year ago, and it had taken that long for my mother, waiting until I was in a better place to receive it, to bring the last of what he left me in a cardboard box.

Opening it, I find it’s a box inside of a box, with a bright red envelope on top that I recognize as a card Grandpa’s friends had given him for his birthday years ago.

My grandfather never was a gambler, but his friends were. It was a game amongst them that his friends bought him scratch-off and lottery tickets for his birthdays, and he bought them books for theirs. When my grandfather would open his birthday cards and read the words (he always asked for paragraphs inside, not just signatures), only to find a lottery ticket tucked inside, he’d give a full-hearted laugh with his head thrown back, as though every time it was a surprise.

I was six years old when he got this particular card, and it wasn’t a surprise to me. I couldn’t understand why my grandfather didn’t buy lottery tickets and scratch-offs for himself, anyways: they were fun, they couldn’t be that expensive, and the results were different every time.

“Grandpa,” I said, sipping my coffee for effect. I say ‘coffee’, but it was really a mug of hot chocolate with about a tablespoon of decaf. But, as far as I was concerned at the time, my grandfather and I were drinking the same stuff, and that made us colleagues. “What do you think you will win today?” My eyes were alight on the brightly-colored ticket in his hand. “I think you will win ten dollars.”

He laughed. “What is the ten dollars for?”

“It’s ten dollars when we go to the movies.” I brought my mug down with both of my hands, thudding it heavily. It was a thick-bottomed mug, so it was fun to use recklessly.

“Not anymore it’s not…. Especially not with your snacks,” he pointed, teasingly. “But what I really need to win right about now is $5.”

“What do you want for $5?” I leaned in closer, conspiratorially.

He glanced all around him, looking carefully. “If I don’t win the $5, I won’t be able to pay for our coffees and donuts… so we might have to wash dishes in the back until our debts are paid.”

I gasped. “Be serious!”

He felt the unscratched surface of the ticket for a while and held it up to his ear as if listening for the heartbeat of winnings inside. “I think…that this just might be enough to take you to the movies.”

$20,000 CASH PRIZE shone at the top of the card in holographic letters, more money than I’d ever heard of in my life. “Grandpa, what would you do if you won the big cash prize?”

He smiled, but it was not a big smile. It was a smile I only ever saw adults do, because there was something sad inside of it. He ruffled the top of my hair which, at the time, was still my unfortunate bowl cut. “Why don’t you tell me what you would want?”

I giggled, which took some of the sad away from his smile. “You first.”

“I’ll tell you, then,” he said. “Only you have to promise not to laugh, because I will be telling you the truth.”

This was exciting. I gave him my earnestness. “Okay. I’m ready.”

He reveled in my suspense before taking out a notebook from his pocket. It was a very familiar sight to me: black, slim profile, rounded corners but still sleek, secured elegantly with a plain black band. It was the only kind he ever used, and it was always fun to go with him to the local art supply store to get one, because if I could show him that I filled up my notebook (and with complete sentences), he would get me one, too. “I would get another notebook,” he said.

“But you would get another notebook anyways. Your notebook is almost all full.” It was true; I’d noticed when we were writing earlier. Our weekend ritual, when he would pick me up from my mom’s house, was to write together at the donut shop. Everybody there knew our orders already, so we would start writing as soon as we sat down while we waited for our coffees.

On those days, my grandfather always encouraged me not to just write for the sake of writing, because then I would sound like a person rambling, and my notebooks would be filled with nothing I would want to remember. Even though I was eager to fill them up to get another one, he encouraged me to be expressive and creative with my words, to take pride and care. Think of someone who buys a card for you and someone who makes one for you, he explained. The more effort you give, the more special it will be. So I wrote my most precious thoughts— stories, questions, dreams, memories— sticking to the ideas and words that moved me, the things that made my hand feel excited to write down.

When my notebooks were full, I would happily bring them to my grandfather for inspection. He wouldn’t read the words, explaining to me that it was important for me to know my words were private (despite the fact that I was sure to read out any part I was proud of). He would simply flip through them to verify that I had fully utilized each page. Satisfied, he would scribble something down on the front page, secure the band around the cover, and place it on his bookshelf amongst the classics.

I had questioned why he did it. It wasn’t a real book after all. His answer was always the same: that for him it was a real book, and that he hoped it would feel like a real book to me, too. That keeping it on the bookshelf next to his favorite books would remind me that my notebooks belonged there.

How can you know you love my writing, I would ask him, if you never read it?

Because you are my favorite person, and if you were excited to write it, I know it is exciting.

“You could afford a lot more than one notebook with $20,000,” I continued.

“Why would I want anything more than that? It’s a good practice, you know, to know when you’re content and don’t need any more than what you have. That’s a way to a happy life.”

“It’s just a notebook,” I pried, head full of rampant, colorful wants. “$20,000….”

He shook his head with a smile. “Someday, one of these notebooks of yours might go on to make you more than $20,000, if you set your mind to it.”

The bill had come around to our table with the usual brightly-wrapped candies. Grandpa’s face lit up when he saw them, as if this did not happen every time.

He admitted once that this wasn’t even his favorite donut shop, but that he kept coming here because of the candies that came with the bill. What made them special was that they all had funny jokes and witty sayings on the wrappers. This is exactly the sort of thing your grandmother would have laughed at, he’d told me. This is something she would have come up with. He thought of it as her way to keep in touch with him, and even if it meant eating the second-best donuts in the city, he never missed out on it.

He opened the shiny wrapper and read the message after paying. “Get a load of this one,” he laughed, eyes shining. “Everything is a boomerang if you throw it upwards. Heh! Wonderful.” He inscribed it on the end page of his notebook. “That’s a good one, darling.” The band was set gently back into place. “Just when I was feeling like I’ve got nothing good in here,” he tossed his little black notebook in the in air, and caught it cheerfully as it came down. “I’m reminded that it’s good for something!”

“$20,000, Grandpa, and you can have another boomerang.” I stuck my tongue out and winked.

Nostalgic now, I open the box inside of the first one, already knowing what I will find there: my childhood notebooks, carefully preserved. The front page of each signed by me, dated approvingly by Grandpa, and with little messages from him scrawled in each. An old first aid tin sits in the corner of the box, and I know I’ll find some of his old notebooks in there, too, when I feel ready for them.

The birthday card has the same old candy wrapper taped inside and an old receipt tucked within. My grandfather’s writing coasts across the faded print: I tossed this boomerang upward for you, and now I’m hoping you’ll catch it! A highlighter marks the cash payout. My eyes sting with a burst of heavy tears. He’d actually won, and I’d never known. And now, this was his elaborate way to show that he’d left the prize to me.

I think back to the shelves he used to keep my notebooks on, displaying them like they were works of art. To this day, I use the same kind of notebooks that we always did, but they’re kept now on the shelf over my desk, obscured by clutter. I reach for them and place them amongst the old ones, so that they might absorb the excitement or sense of hope in those childish words. My recent notebooks were ones that I dragged myself to work in, full of words that made me groan and worry. Here, mixed in with the collection of notebooks that were so precious to my grandfather, and precious because of how happy the times were when I’d written in them, I try my best to see them the way my grandfather would have, in a new light.

It’s all bringing me back to what it felt like, once— back to before, when it wasn’t about publishing or rejection or any of it, because I didn’t know anything about that. Back to our coffees on Saturdays and writing the words my hands were excited to write.

My grandfather died with hundreds of those notebooks filled up. Despite his dreams, he never did get published. But I know he never regretted it. If he would have known from the beginning how it would have turned out, he would have done just the same, because it was what he loved.

And I love it, too. Unconditionally. I just needed a reminder.

“I would use it to buy notebooks, too,” I say out loud to him, hoping that the candy wrappers might make it easier for him to hear my answer.