Looking for John

I know a guy. He knows how to write. He can read the hearts of the people he meets. He can also play the guitar. How well he knows how to do all these things, honestly, I don’t know. You can call him John, although his name is much longer and more composite. John should be in his fifties by now. He doesn’t need much money to live on. His wife is the only love of his life. He has a small house. Three sons. He had a lovely dog, died of old age last year.

I just started writing this story. The challenge “Members-Only” is almost over, there are only four hours left. As always, I decided at the last moment. John wouldn't have been so hesitant. So far there are 12 stories per page, multiplied by 75 pages. In total 900 stories. In total 900 beautiful hopes. John would be happy to read them all. He is curious, he deciphers the words between the lines, feels on his own skin the life of which the stories are soaked.

I didn't waste any time looking. I'm well aware that it's impossible for John to have submitted a story. That's just the way he is, he would even practice bartering in everyday life. He believes that the stories he writes can ease the pain, at least a little, or make a day with no sun and no rain seem cheerful. And he doesn't need to be told: bravo! John gifts his words. I once realized that a girl was writing two verses of a John's poem on a stone. Some children in a circle on a meadow, were reciting a nursery rhyme of his. My dad keeps a note in his wallet with the title of a book of his. Sometimes I felt like I listened to John's words in the wind, in the leaves, in my thoughts.

John and I are fraternal friends, we've known each other since childhood. Yet we are different. John is a writer. I'm the one who hopes one day to spend my days writing stories that others will want to read. Yet my curriculum vitae is as varied as it is useless. I wouldn't exactly say I'm at the center of my Ikigai. For example, I can distinguish, from a distance of three hundred meters, the squeaking of the wheels of a shopping cart from the crying of a six-year-old child. I can sing at least five songs from some folk repertoire, gargling with carbonated mineral water. I know how to walk into a clothing store without getting caught in a mannequin and falling ruinously into the window, nine times out of ten. I can eat on the fly a piece of banana thrown from the third floor balcony. And other funny stuff.

How do we become who we are? Walking, John would tell me, one summer blue night, under the veranda, sitting in his favorite chair, with his favorite guitar beside him. And I, as usual, would reply that he's right. I'm not the sum of the funny things I can do. I'm not a patchwork of talents. I’m not the binding of the pages I have written. I am on my way to myself.

I am John. I am looking for John. The road to becoming oneself is actually a maze of roads, a map to be interpreted with the alphabet of the time. Roads can go round and round. A shortcut may appear suddenly. What I write can remain hidden. What I write may meet the smile, the nostalgia, the fragility, the trust of others.

Each of us is looking for John. Each of us is on the way. And the road, perhaps, also passes through a temporary place of “Members-Only”, a place where someone offers us shelter for the night or simply a lemonade or a coffee. Each of us is on the way. And the road, perhaps, also passes through this little story.