Viewing through words

I sat in a hard-backed patio chair outside of Starbucks, searching for a word. The search had taken me through three lattes and half-a-days time. What word could be so important as to consume so much time you would ask? Well I knew the meaning, even had the proper image fixed firmly in my mind. The problem, though, was the fellows that surrounded the blank, a description of a Fremont fair; accurate, colorful and detailed. Yet it was the same boring drivel I`d been doing for the past year. Perhaps the word alluded me then because I was loathe to finish such a waste of language and skill. My desire was to write stories that mirrored the great blooming trees found in the imagination of children. I wanted my ideas to take root and spread great canopies of flowering thought through my reader`s brains. But I would accomplish nothing if I was stuck turning out filler articles for a paper that had no guts to offer even one bias opinion of its own, neutrality to the detriment of creativity and growth! But I wanted to write so much! I wanted to express through words all the unique angles of life, a view I knew was vague, idealistic and born of a mind given to much day-dreaming.

So I angrily sipped my latte, quietly bemoaning my situation and deciding if I should give in to pressure and write the article with stale words or answer to my inner poet and risk the ire of editors for a "flowery" piece. Such was my dilemma and such was my life. That`s when I noticed a scruffy and perhaps deranged man sitting out on a sidewalk a few feet down. He sat against a cement light post, mumbling and making erratic hand gestures. Oddly enough, it appeared as if he was writing something on a scrap of yellow paper. The air of some homeless destitute hung around him, and yet as a fellow writer I couldn`t help but notice the way he held the pen gracefully and wrote in a flowing way across the paper. It spoke of some form of education and the possession of at least a little sanity.

I guess I stared too long for when I lifted my gaze from his hands his eyes met mine in a steely blue, and for an instant I didn`t see a crusty man in a dirt brown jacket. Instead an intense young spirit so sure and confident poured across the distance. I broke my gaze first, feeling a little shame and fear, sure that he could somehow peer through my sophistication and knowledge to see the true thoughts and feelings that lay underneath, things I wanted hidden. I spent a few minutes in defeat choosing the least pathetic and most pleasing word for the article, packed up and stood. The man was gone from the cement post, instead ambling down the street away from me, a little unsteadily and leaning on various things for support. I saw then, that where he had been lay that little sheet of yellow paper, seemingly forgotten. Not really knowing why I picked it before heading home. Tiny, neat cursive writing filled one side of the paper and, feeling a little secretive, I tucked inside my bag to read later where the public world would not intrude on curious perusals.