Play In The Snow And Watch For Friends

Harper wrote a story.

It’s about a friend who recently moved away.

 

p. 5 – “When she left I gave her a wintery hug. p. 6 – “And she left. Waaaaa!”

Yes, wouldn’t a snow party be grand?

This last page slays me. “Well if you don’t have your friend then you can be mine or make new friends until you won’t want one anymore. Just play in the snow and watch for friends.”

I wonder what happened in between the time Harper wrote pages 5 and 6, then 7 and 8, and finally the conclusion. Did she get sad? And if so, did she have a doubt that she couldn’t end her story? Because a lot of times, when I write a story I think I’m writing and it takes a turn, I get pretty flustered. I want to get up from my chair and fold laundry, roast a chicken, or teach myself how to knit. I want to do anything but attend to the story that took a turn away from my plan.

If she got uncomfortable, I never knew. I ran up and down those stairs bringing up toys, and laundry, or whatever else I thought I needed to do while she sat there and wrote. “I’m writing a story with page numbers,” is all she told me.

One of the greatest compliments Lauren Winner ever paid me on my writing was to say, “I wish I had written that,” in the margins of my essays I gave her.

“Just play in the snow and watch for friends.”

I love that last line. I wish I had written it.