Walter

It was 10pm on a Saturday night. I was sitting on the 4 train heading back to my apartment in Brooklyn. Staring straight ahead and burning a hole through the ad on the wall in front of me. I had just walked out on a Tinder date that was a disaster before it started. Now I was on my way home, angry and confused. All my friends were having a good experience with dating apps. It was like the internet just handed them their soulmates. I couldn’t understand why this was so difficult for me. Trying to make sense of—why, was making me feel dizzy. I am an honest empathetic law abiding citizen. I vote and give money and food to the homeless. I am smart enough to have a job with health insurance, but I choose to work as a mentor in a mice infested elementary school that lacks basic resources. I put my heart and soul into my students and do my best to make the world a better place. I volunteer at the food bank in Harlem every Saturday. Why is the universe punishing me?

All trains going from Manhattan to Brooklyn on a Saturday night are usually empty with an exception to a few homeless people making their beds out of the car benches. Everyone else was packed on the trains going the opposite way. Even though my car was mostly empty, I was so consumed by anxiety I barely noticed the homeless man who was approaching me to ask if he could sit next to me. I could hear and see him, but I stared straight ahead as if he wasn’t there. I blurted out to him “sure!”.

He sat down and rested his head against the wall, gently closing his eyes. We sat together in silence for about five minutes before he spoke up “stop thinking about it so much”. The vibration of his voice was warm enough to shake me out of my disassociated haze. I turned toward him looking confused “what are you talking about?”. He softened his gaze and replied “what ever is on your mind right now, no matter how important it might be, it’s not worth thinking about so hard while you’re stuck on a train underground”. I felt sheepish receiving advice from a man who’s life seemed to be much harder than mine. I wondered how he had the energy to reach out to me when he didn’t know where he was going to sleep tonight.

We started talking about the weather. Winter was a gloomy time to be in the city. Everyone who works a 9-5 only gets to see the sun if they have a window in their office. Everyone but me seamed to find joy in the clubs and bars. Going out after work felt like a catch 22 because I was either stuck outside in the cold or stuck inside a small space crammed with a bunch of transplants and tourists. Most of them, overwhelmed by choices, had a bad habit of moving on to the next shiny object when the person standing in front of them wasn’t willing to give themselves up right away. I loved New York. I loved being at the center of the universe, but I hated that everyone else wanted to be here too.

The old man smiled and held out his hand “I’m Walter”. I shook his hand and asked about the little black book he was holding in his lap. I couldn’t tell if it was the hard cover of an old library book. He laughed “it’s a notebook, I like to keep a journal to collect my thoughts. I picked it up out of a box on the street in China town right before I walked onto this train car and saw you sitting in here in this corner like an electrocuted teddy bear….Do you like to journal?”

“Not really” I said

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t make me feel good”

“That’s because writing makes you feel vulnerable. Why are you afraid of feeling vulnerable?”

I knew the answer to his question but I couldn’t answer because I didn’t have the courage to cry in front of a stranger. My jaw tightened as his question sank in. The light in his eyes dimmed as he watched my face harden. He didn’t have to say anything. We both knew why I was afraid of my own vulnerability.

I couldn’t control my body as my head turned back toward the wall in front of me and my eyes stiffened back into anxiety. Walter nudged my arm with his little black notebook. As I turned back again to look at him he was smiling at me warmly as he held out his notebook. “I think you need this notebook more than I do”. I looked at him blankly, searching for the right words to politely reject his offer. He rolled his eyes and frowned “Let this little black notebook teach you how to receive from those who like to give without expectation”. I stared down at the notebook for a moment. When I finally took it from his hand I felt so stupid I couldn’t look him in the eye. He nodded at the book “write one page of whatever is on your mind first thing in the morning. Do it every day as soon as you wake up and see what happens”. Before I could respond the train had reached my stop. I apologized for not having more time to talk with him and said goodbye.

I walked home with my new notebook, the first notebook I had ever owned. I set my new book inside the drawer of my night stand and forgot about it. I didn’t touch it for four years. I rediscovered it when I was packing my things to move to a new apartment. I chose to keep it because the memory of Walter made me feel good, but the idea of keeping a journal meant nothing to me. I put it back in my night stand drawer at my new place and didn’t touch it for two more years.

I never actually opened my very first notebook until the fateful morning I woke up in a fiery rage. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I woke up one day and nothing in my life was okay. I already felt like this most of the time, but today it was beyond unbearable. It was suddenly unacceptable and no longer possible to keeping living this way. I was overwhelmed by blame and resentment. A shit list of all the people who had ever hurt me started to collect itself in my mind. I lied in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling ashamed about how unsuccessful I was. I had been living in New York for seven years now and felt like I had nothing to show for it. I felt so overwhelmed by anger that my body was shaking in desperation to get my thoughts under control. Walter’s smiling face flashed in my mind. "I like to collect my thoughts" he said. The only source of writing material I had was his gift, the little musty and fragile black notebook buried at the bottom of my night stand drawer.

I ripped the drawer open and grabbed the book so quickly I almost ripped it in half. I started scribbling words so fast I ripped the first page. The first ten pages were so cluttered with scribbled letters it looked like unreadable word salad. But clarity didn’t matter because collecting my thoughts with my own handwriting gave me a sense of peace I had never felt before. Writing in this notebook gave me control of my feelings and the ability to see my life through a different lens. I had never been able to look at myself, at my habits and thought patterns from a third point of view. It had always been my perspective versus the perspective of someone who was trying to hurt me. Is this what Walter meant by vulnerable? Why did it take me six years to realize feeling vulnerable wasn’t that scary?! It actually felt really good. Now I felt silly!

I took up every corner of that little black notebook until there was no space left to write. Within six months, all of my favorite writers were pushed to the bottom of my bookcase and replaced with my own hand written work. My first notebook still sits on the top shelf with “Walter” written across the front cover in a metallic silver sharpie.

After blanketing that notebook in words, it took me a year to find the courage to go back and read it. It wasn’t easy. It was mostly about my father, a man I’ve tried so hard to forget. He loathed everything about me. He hated that I was barefoot and rolling in a mud puddle most of the time. I was never “ladylike enough” to be presentable for his friends. I was “so loud the neighbors can hear you when you open your big mouth”. I remember watching his body stiffen in discomfort as he actively ignored me shouting “Dad look at me!” from the top of the highest tree in the park. I completely forgot I was a loud child because I hadn’t made a peep in years.

When I was seven, dad brought home a box of baby turkeys for our family to raise. I got so excited watching them scamper and chirp in the dirt, I accidentally stepped on one. She spent several hours huddled in the corner of her chicken wired box cooing in pain. I thought if I could just sit near her and love her, she would feel better. Dad disagreed. He scooped her up and set her on top of the woodpile in the back yard and practiced shooting rocks at her with his sling shot until one finally killed her. He was annoyed by me blubbering in the background because he couldn’t practice his aim with some peace and quiet. “It was a stupid baby turkey, a meaningless liability.” He rejected my invitation to her funeral and yelled at me a few hours later when he discovered I decorated her grave with all the tulips in the front yard.

When I finally reviewed a year of my own hand writing, I began to see how I was taught by my parents to disown everything I was actually good at because everything that made me unique made them uncomfortable. My therapist couldn’t help me. Maya Angelou and Walter couldn’t help me either. The only person who could help me was me and my willingness to give my vulnerability to a notebook.

Once I felt comfortable reading my own work, I started sharing it with other people. I had success once in a while, but wasn’t driven by the results because I was having fun. Having a platform to share my stories made me feel good and feeling good was becoming an essential need. It was a need I never knew how to meet appropriately until I rediscovered that little black notebook hiding in the back of my nightstand drawer. I never had significant success in my writing career until I shared how I was inspired to become a writer in the first place. I finally shared my story about Walter, the kind stranger who gave me the only thing he had. My career started with that little black note book. The true stories I once wrote by hand evolved into fictional short stories that rewarded me with a $100 here and $500 there. But the story that changed my life was the most raw story of all, the story about how Walter inspired my courage to surrender.

After years of writing in my notebook everyday, my home is now piled to the ceiling with my own work. I’ve made decent money on some the stories I’ve published, but the story that gave me abundance was the story about my train ride with Walter.

Who knew that taking advice from someone who gave away the only thing he had, a little black notebook, would lead me to financial freedom. A freedom no one in the history of my family had ever experienced. My ancestors have been poor for one thousand years because no one in my family ever had the courage to be authentic.

I am not a descendent of African American slaves like Walter was. The generational pain in my family doesn’t compare to individuals who are still suffering the consequences of slavery. I am sure this is why Walter was struggling with homelessness. I broke a family curse by embracing my vulnerability and it was the greatest financial decision I’ve ever made. But I feel overwhelmed by sadness when I think about Walter and realize that it didn’t matter how brilliant and talented he was. His generational burden was much heavier than mine. This is why I could make it and Walter couldn’t.