Writing is a way of finding meaning in life, in the ordinary things of life. So when I take the Metro, I take my writer’s notebook with me, and something will happen on the Metro that will really feel like an ordinary experience that is somehow extraordinary, and I’ll want to capture it.
So just the other day, I was riding, and there was this wonderful moment. It was rush hour, and everyone was in a bad mood and very quiet, not speaking, and this lady baby was on the train, and this little baby took off her shoe, and she threw it, and the shoe went sailing across and landed far away from the parent.
And there was something about that moment that just opened up this joy, and everyone on the train started to laugh. All of these people in their gray and black suits were suddenly bending over to pick up this little shoe, and it was a very ordinary moment, but I wrote a poem about it. And that’s what a writer does. A writer sees something ordinary and wants to write about it and find what the meaning is in it.
So as a writer, I’m never bored because I’m constantly looking around the world and finding things in it that I think I want to both acknowledge and appreciate.
One of my favorite books as a child was Harriet the Spy about a little girl who keeps a spy notebook and writes down conversations that she hears, and that book made a huge impression on me. I immediately began a spy notebook when I was in the fifth grade, and yes, I still think that every writer is a spy of sorts. I am always on the lookout, and my ears and eyes are always open for, again, what is ordinary and yet extraordinary about life.