Nine moments of being read by a stranger.
The Substack has, after fourteen months of mostly-quiet posting, sixty-three subscribers. Most of them are friends-of-friends. Some are real strangers. On a Wednesday in late April, an email arrives from a name Jan does not recognize. The sender is Mira, from Toronto. The email is, by any measure, careful. She has read a piece Jan wrote in February — the one about her grandmother's hands, the one Jan had been almost too tired to post. Mira's father died in February too. The hands match.
The inbox says 1. The number had stayed at zero for most of fourteen months.
The last time it was 1, Ana was here and we read the comment together and decided it was a friend's mistake. This Wednesday I was alone. Clicked. The comment was an email reply forwarded in — the kind of clerical confusion that sometimes happens. The email was four paragraphs long. Careful. The cursor blinked at me. Scrolled to the top. Read the first line.
The email was from someone named Mira.
About the piece I wrote in February about my grandmother's hands. Wrote the piece on a Sunday I hadn't been planning to write. Posted it at the end of a long day, without ceremony. Eleven likes. Had, until this Wednesday, zero replies. Mira wrote four paragraphs. Mira's father died in February. Hadn't known how to say it to anyone. Her father took his coffee, she wrote, with three sugars, and she hadn't yet been able to say his name out loud to a person who didn't know him. She said his name, that Tuesday, in the email to me. He was Jonathan. Read the email three times in fourteen minutes.
Got off the chair.
Went to the bedroom. Lay down on the floor. The ceiling had a small new crack near the light fixture I hadn't seen before. Hadn't been down there in something like a year. The reasons were: a person in Toronto read a piece I wrote about my grandmother's hands and told me her father's name. The reasons were: I didn't know what to do with my hands. I'd been writing into an empty room for fourteen months and a stranger had just walked in and turned on the light. Mim came in. Assessed. Lay down beside me. I let out a long exhale that sounded entirely too loud for the apartment.
Typed a reply.
Four lines of the most wooden condolences I'd ever read. Deleted. Typed seven lines that were somehow worse. Read them aloud. I sounded like I was performing for her. Changed the second sentence. Changed it back. Sat glaring at the cursor, genuinely annoyed at my own inability to just say thank you. After thirty-eight minutes, gave up. Clicked Save Draft. Made tea. Left the mug on the counter. Completely forgot about it.
Walked the eleven blocks twice.
Finished the errand at the bodega in four minutes. No other errand. Walked past my own apartment. Went two blocks past. Came back. Carrying the email — not on my phone, in my head. The email said: I had not known how to say it to anyone. Tried to think the work this writing does in the world. Didn't like that phrase. Sounds like a thing on a wellness poster. What had actually happened: a person read something I wrote and said the name of her dead father out loud. My smallness had been the right size for someone else's.
Tried to tell Greg about the email.
The Wednesday speech had, for four years, been about whatever was in my chest. This Wednesday, I knelt in front of the pot and felt completely ridiculous. I was talking to a plant about a stranger in Toronto. I stopped mid-sentence. "She told me his name," I said to the leaves. "His name was Jonathan." I waited for the profound feeling to settle in. It didn't. I just felt like a person kneeling on a hardwood floor, over-analyzing a nice email. Greg, predictably, did not offer any perspective. I watered him, spilled a little on the floor, and didn't bother to wipe it up immediately.
Friday morning, the notebook.
The second page of the third one. Hadn't, until I wrote it down, landed on the work this writing was made for. Tried the work this writing does — disliked it. Tried what writing is for — too large. The right phrase was the smallest one. The writing was made for a Wednesday inbox in late April from a person in Toronto whose father took his coffee with three sugars. Until Mira, a room with few people in it. After Mira, still a room with few people in it. The only difference: she was, now, in it.
Sent the reply at 7:14 PM on Saturday.
Four paragraphs. Included I'm so glad you said his name. Saying it is a thing. Included one paragraph about my grandmother—her hands, the things she hadn't said out loud—that I hadn't written for the Substack yet. Cut the line that offered anything I can do, let me know. There was nothing I could do. Stared at the send button until my eyes watered, holding my breath for no reason I could name. Pressed it. The small whoosh. Closed the laptop with a snap. Made tea. Sat on the couch.
The following Wednesday the number was, again, 1. Mira replied.
Three paragraphs. Thanked me for the saying is a thing. Told me her father had been a high school history teacher in Hamilton for thirty-six years. Told me he said we'll get there about every drive of more than fifteen minutes — and she'd started saying it to herself in the car now, three months on. The last line: I'm glad you write. I'm going to keep reading. Read it. Read it again. Didn't, this Wednesday, lie down on the floor. Drank the tea. Closed the laptop.