Stories that Stay With You

In middle school, I read a short story about a blue jay called "Bobo." I don't really remember the story at all, and I don't remember being particularly impressed by it. What I do know is that I mentioned the story in one of my old middle school writings--a reference that tells me that I liked the story and maybe even wanted a pet blue jay of my own. Though this is hard for me to wrap my head around since I actually strongly dislike birds, and you couldn't pay me enough to have one in my house.

Until I remembered "Bobo," I thought that stories that stick with you stick with you forever. I realized that maybe some stories don't stick with you as much leave a delicate impression that can be easily molded as you change as person.

When I first read Jacob Have I Loved, I thought it was amazing. I thought I had found a masterpiece of writing that I would love forever and carry with me for the rest of my life. I'm not sure how long it took me afterward to decide the story is odd and depressing. I found I didn't care for the heroine's personality, didn't like that she fell in love with a man in his 70s, thought the ending was rushed, and wasn't impacted by the final scene.

(I'm not saying it's not a good book. In my memory, it's a well-written and engaging coming-of-age story. It just didn't appeal to me.)

But then there are the stories that do stick with you forever, like a bumper sticker you can't get off your car. This is one of them.

John, a young poor farmer, marries well-to-do girl Mary. Soon after their wedding, he finds a book of English poetry and decides to memorize a poem and surprise her with it.

John tells Mary that though he doesn't have a phonograph like she had, he will give her what he can. He recites the poem he's memorized, and Mary is delighted and concludes that he wrote it. Before he has time to explain, Mary excitedly tells him how talented he is. Not wanting to disappoint her, John decides to memorize more poems and recites them to her over the years.

Years later, their children come to visit and the daughter shows her mother the poetry book. She tells her, "Can't you see that dad has been lying to you all these years?" Mary responds, "No, he never lied to me. He never told me that he wrote those poems. I was the one who assumed he had. And I'm glad you showed this to me because now I know how much your father loves me." Mary resolves to never tell John that she knows his secret.

One day, Mary becomes ill and on her deathbed, she tells her husband," John, poem. A new one." But John is out of poems, having memorized and recited all the poems in the book. So he makes one up on the spot. "John, you wrote it," she says when he's done. "Yes," he says truthfully. She dies thinking it wasn't his work, and on her grave, John places the book of poems.

I read this story in school, but, for some reason, couldn't find it in the book I thought I read it. I have no idea who wrote it and I've tried Googling for it to no avail. But who know? Maybe someone out there in the world will read this and tell me where it comes from.

In the meantime, the enchantment is this: Not all stories stick with you, but the ones that do are the ones that matter.

The More We Get Together

When I was a kid, I used to watch a show called Kid Songs, which was basically TRL for prepubescents.

The songs were upbeat, playful and optimistic, and, as a young, impressionable child, you couldn't really help but believe everything they were singing, especially when they all looked so happy singing together. I mean, they had a song called "I Like Trucks" and you sang along, even if you had never been in a truck.

Several of these songs still roam around my musical memory, especially one that I heard a lot.

The more we get together, together, together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
'Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we'll be

The word "together" drills into your mind like a not-so-subliminal message: "Get all your friends together and everyone will be happy!" After all, who doesn't want their friends to like each other? Surely, even those who are convinced their groups wouldn't cohere still wouldn't want these groups to strongly dislike each other. Those who like having different friend groups would prefer these friends to be indifferent to each other and not uncomfortable with each other.

Google+ (which I still insist is underrated) understood that people have different groups of friends and created circles so people can decide what to share with each one. I know this works for some people. I, too, used to think having different groups of friends worked well when you liked everyone equally.

But the thing is, I've never really seen equality of friendship in these situations. People always seem to be more friends with one group than another.

Or jealousy gets in the way. Feelings get hurt. Promises are made only to be broken. People form bonds with some that they don't form with others, and professional and personal interests get in the way of strengthening existing bonds.

It's hard for me to fully articulate what happened to me last year that made me think hard about this topic. It took a while to come to an anticlimactic head, and involved different social settings. All the world's a stage and there were many scenery changes and even costume changes on my part.

A series of events--fortunate and unfortunate, personal and professional--and the people that participated in these events combined and disconnected to form a web that I felt I couldn't unstick myself from. People's attitudes ebbed and flowed, actions were misunderstood, time was spent with some people and not with others, and, as always, things were said to people's faces and behind people's backs.

In the end, the web seemed to kicked me out of its own will. I was left floating aimlessly in the wind, shell shocked and wondering what had happened. Wondering most of all if I should reach out. If it was my job to call or text and make sure things were okay. But did it really matter if no one cared to be reaching out to me?

This is all vaguely poetic, of course, but the feelings I went through while trying to cope when it was all over were real. I still struggle with them, which I try to convince myself is normal.

Sometimes, I wonder if I was selfish in wanting everything to turn out a specific way and trying to talk people into going that way. Then I try to convince myself that I was trying as hard as possible to not be controlling, since "controlling" is never one of the words I want associated with me.

I don't know how much longer all these thoughts will float in and out of my mind. I'll be frying eggs or going through Facebook or taking a shower and the thoughts will just come to me and I'll dwell on them somewhat pathetically.

What I have stopped doing is trying to understand why everything had to happen the way it did. Sometimes, things just don't work out for us and that's the way it is. Our world is messed up that way. The unfair part is how things that fall apart for you fall into place for other people. That's when it hurts.

As much as I thought the theory "the more we get together, the happier we'll be" would come through in the end, it didn't. Groups of people join and dismantle, led by common denominators and uncommon circumstances that get blown out of proportion, and all that's left is dust, texts, hurt, and photos.

There isn't really an enchantment here. Maybe I just haven't found it yet.

Are you really an original?

When I was younger, I would fill in the paint bubbles.

Now, that I've discovered the Internet, I've gotten swept up in the wave of nostalgia that 90s kids seem to be going through now. Not too long ago, I saw a post online that asked, "Did you ever open Paint, draw a bunch of lines and fill in the bubbles?"

I realized that I wasn't the only person who did this. What I thought was a wholly original idea was actually a logical action that thousands, maybe even millions, of other kids did.

Then I grew up and realized every 90s kid did that. Like, all of them.

Finding out things like this make you question yourself. Sure, it's one thing to see posts about how you constantly lost your scrunchies. But to see that you used a program that was supposedly going to unleash your creativity the same way everyone else did--it makes you feel less creative. Less unique.

It's easy to get discouraged when other people have similar ideas, especially when you're creative or when your livelihood depends on creativity. But maybe you don't need a lot of original ideas to be happy with yourself. Maybe you just need one.

The thing is finding that one idea while keeping in mind that you share experiences with others simply because you're human and there's something beautiful about that. As a professor of mine once said, "There are no new stories; just new ways to tell them." We're all constantly sharing stories because we all experience the same things so it makes sense that we occasionally think the same thoughts or feel the same emotions as others.

Once you think of it, it's a banal concept and we see it everywhere. But it's still worth thinking about and writing about.

So the enchantment is this: We can be the same and different at the same time.

The Monopoly Problem

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with Monopoly. Unlike most people, there is more love in my ratio than hate.

I have three different versions of Monopoly: the classic one, there Here and Now Edition and a reproduction of the first version that came out.

I also have the app on my tablet and a 15-year-old electronic version that's not as fancy and graphically beautiful as the app but still serves its purpose well.

But it doesn't matter how many version of Monopoly you have if there's no one to play with. The thing is though, people usually don't want to play Monopoly because it takes hours to play. Once, I actually showed the Here and Now game to some friends because they wanted to see it with the clear understanding that we weren't going to play. That would be crazy.

My mom has plenty of stories of days-long games with siblings, which required physically moving the game to different locations in the house to keep playing. That's true dedication to the game--a dedication I've yet to find among others.

And it seems to me that's what we're all looking for: someone who wants to play Monopoly with us. No, more than that. Someone who wants to do something that we want to do and be willing to play with us for a few hours, maybe even a few days and, sometimes, the rest of our lives.

With the electronic version, I play with virtual characters who each have a different personality. But they don't grow or develop as players. After years of playing, I know exactly which character will do what under certain circumstances and I use this knowledge to my advantage. It's not as challenging as playing with real people. After a while, you instinctively know what each character will do to win. Hot Shot and Greedy Grannie are always going to ask you to trade even when they have little to offer, Connie Cashola and Penny Wise will always be smart about their trades and say no to offers that won't benefit them, and Diamond Jim will always be easy to fool at the beginning of the game. And every one of them can be persuaded with exorbitant amounts of money.

Playing with a real person is different. Mostly, because a lot of people don't really trade on Monopoly (then again, how would I really know that right?), and also because they have brains. You can interact with them. And that's what we really want: the connection with others. In the end, even for those who are really competitive, a game of Monopoly is just a game. There's no real money, no real risk, no real mortgages to pay off. But the people are real and their reactions to us and even the game tells us more aobut them, lets us see other layers of their personality.

So the enchantment is this: It's more fun to play with friends, no matter what game it is.