The little black book

My great aunt Ina had been a recluse. We never saw her at family gatherings, she never invited us to her sprawling, gated, private estate. She sent no greetings on holidays. It was almost as if she didn't exist, just a faded black and white photograph tucked in a long forgotten box proved that she lived. Well, that and the birthday book.

Ever since I turned 10, every year on my birthday a small almost flat package would arrive like clockwork, the address written in curling, elegant script and inside a small, black lined notebook with a plain white card. The card always wished me felicitations on my birthday and then would urge me to use the book to harness my imagination and write a story for her, or record my thoughts or recount my travels, recipes, jokes or games. Great Aunt Ina always included a return envelope, already addressed, postage paid and the ease of returning the book, once full, would hang over my head until I could complete the task. Sometimes it took me mere days to spin a short story or recount something wonderful, terrible or hilarious from my daily life. Some years it felt like torture to have this extra bit of homework that I would slog my way through, sending it in, less than pleased, with my last minute effort. Several years I wrote in it daily, like a diary, recounting the absurd, mundane and special. I don’t know why I always faithfully did it. I didn’t know the woman, felt no real kinship or connection to her. Maybe it was the general respect for my elders, drilled into me since birth by my parents, or maybe it was just a glint of fun for a secret I shared with a stranger. Whatever my reason was I always completed the book, I never told anyone about it but I always finished and sent it back. I never knew what happened to those books, it didn't seem to matter and once they were sent out I would forget them and my great aunt until my next birthday came around and there it would be, my black notebook, my thick white card and the return envelope, stamped and expectant. 

Years passed and I grew. My writing improving and my adventures expanding. I finished high-school and went on to college where I majored in American literature and creative writing. I graduated and went on for my masters and though the schooling was expensive and the workload intense I thrived. I loved the reading, the writing, the storytelling and how something I put onto paper could transform the world and transport the reader. it was like I created magic out of ink and parchment and I loved it. I didn’t remember where my love of writing had come from or when it had started but writing and recording things was a part of me and a part of how I thought, it flowed from me, needing to get out!

Still, no matter where I was living my black book arrived yearly, becoming, as I matured and honed my skill, a delightful exercise in trying to share the magical world that lived inside my head.

When I graduated I moved to a different city and applied to every newspaper and magazine in the vicinity. There was one I had singled out and I desperately wished to work for, their stories speaking of a better world, a brighter day, things hopeful and joyful and warm. It was my greatest wish to spread as much positivity in a world that I found to be more and more divisive, harsh, hopeless and cold. As I sat for my interview the gentleman across the desk laid a thick file on his desk and looked at me inquiringly. he wanted to know how someone with such an impressive body of work had landed at his door. I was confused, having written for my school papers but not considering the work to be vast but I smiled and said the expected things about how much I admired what they did and how they were having a positive impact in an impossible world.

I got the job.

On my 30th birthday I got my black book but this time there was no card or return address. This time the address was written in a different hand, a masculine print. This time the book was already filled with words. I read the beautiful script, familiar to me from the outside of my packages from years past and the cards tucked inside. I discovered that my great aunt Ina had been a shut in most of her existence, her diseased and twisted bones had kept her indoors and secluded for most of her life, locked away for safety and out of fear. She had feared being hurt or hurting herself in the outside world and most of all she had worried about the words and actions of others who, when they saw her, would not understand her deformities or understand her limitations. She had been lonely and had tried many ways to entertain and amuse herself. Ina discovered that, while she did not have a gift for storytelling, she had a voracious appetite for reading and proceeded to devour literature, poetry, mystery, thrillers, romances, histories, biographies, manuals, and cookbooks. She read everything she could lay her hands on and when I came of age she read what I wrote, soaking in the thoughts and feelings of a child, a teenager, a young woman and the woman I was to that day. Stuck in her home she had vicariously lived my life with me and watched me grow. She had also submitted my stories to various publications over time, in children's magazines and compilations of magical realism, fiction and biography. My stories had been published for years without anyone ever knowing, spreading their hope and joy to the world and planting seeds for future generations. I had never submitted things, locked inside myself in fear of what people might say when they witnessed my written soul. I had a crippling fear of, outside of my school-work and a once yearly notebook, sharing what I wrote. I was overcome. I couldn’t believe how much she had believed in me and I couldn’t believe how many people had liked my work enough to publish it. I felt changed, I felt suddenly confident and purposeful. I came to the last page where my great aunt’s lawyer had written that upon her recent death, Ina had left me what was rightfully mine, the residuals of my stories, a large sum of $20,000.

Years have passed, I am now a proud and published author, I write for my own joy and I write to make the world better. Every year on my birthday I buy a small black notebook and I fill it, often I write an imagined life free from pain and loneliness for my late great aunt, sometimes I write autobiographical recounts of my own life, how it has grown and changed and how I have, but more often than not I write about how I wish the world to be and how I think this can happen. I write stories of magic, caring, and healing, and love. I write my entire universe, contained in a small black notebook.