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Last night I had sushi on The Drive with two strangers.
One was a small town, boarding school girl with wides eyes and a soft voice. She loved to talk with constant questions on her tongue and a tack in her fingers - always trying to pinpoint who you are before you can even show her. She reminded me of a deer with long legs and a quiet soul, but I think underneath, she secretly has a lion heart. I bet she is the type of girl who needs to sit on her hands to keep herself from reading the end of a book before she finishes it.
The other was a man with an adventurous spirit and shoulders wide enough to carry all of the things that he has seen. He holds words well in his mouth, has lips lined with wit, and is gifted in curling the corners of your smile towards the heavens. He wears his heart on his sleeve and drinks up good stories like he has been thirsty for a hundred years.
They were writers and storytellers, just like me. Over raw fish, we practiced our craft and jumped from comedy to drama to fiction. It was an evening of scratching surfaces and laughter, but also of peeling back layers and wanting to know and be known.
In my stage play class, I was taught that the job of a playwright is to change people and shed new light. I believe in this truth so strongly, and I want it to leak into everything that I write and see.