All She Needs

The first thing that happened was that she got in. Or rather, the second. She hadn't noticed the first yet. The first thing that happened was she found it. Or rather, it found her, but she didn't know that yet, either. In fact, the first thing that happened was that she made her choice. But it didn't look like a choice yet, and she rather wasn't ready to make it.

The first thing that happened was that three things happened at once. Or rather, three things happened at very different times but things aren't always as they seem, and this time three very different things happened at three very different times and three things ended up happening. At the same time.

She got in.

She found it.

She made her choice.

Although she'd been waiting for months, she wasn't at all ready for the email. Maybe she had waited so long she'd let go of possibility, possibly it was because she was on an out-of-character, alcohol-induced vacation with her best friends when it arrived with an innocent 'ding', but most probably because she'd never really believed anything would come of it in the first place.

There it was, an invitation to interview at Oxford University for a Masters of Creative Writing. An invitation to a future she could barely imagine, as a student at the best university in the world. Where she could be talented enough, write well enough, be good enough. An invitation to the rest of a life too magical to be real.

But it was - real - and there she sat, on the edge of a dingy hostel bed in her underwear, with salt in her hair and alcohol on her breath, and her friends watching (impatiently). And she emailed back: "Yes, I'll be there".

And then she had to be ready.

She was absolutely not ready. All she'd ever wanted to be was a writer, and here she could become one. A real one. All she'd ever wanted was to be a writer: here she was, where writers got published and wordsmiths were remembered and myths were born.

All she had to do, was get it right.

Swerving sleeping bags on the sidewalk she walked. Nerves sparking, in a cafe across the street, she watched people in and out of the gilded front doors, wondering if they were competing for the same spot as her.

She shifted in her seat. The seat shifted with her. Reaching under the cushion she discovered a little, black, book. It sat in her hand, unassuming, yet - somehow - inviting. Smooth against her skin, it was a relief from the coarseness of her panic. She traced the edges, unexpected curved corners smooth as she wished her thoughts. The black band a ticket to somewhere she'd never been.

Putting the book down, she turned back to her meal.

It's always the important things we mess up, too nervous of getting it wrong to get it right. Trying to anticipate any possible question and every possible right answer, she couldn't stomach the sandwich she'd ordered. Leaving with the boxed food, handing it to the woman sitting on the sidewalk outside, she tried to regain control over herself. In a park nearby, she walked, the too-warm-for-February air too gentle against her spinning edges. In the waiting room she scrolled her phone, Black Lives Matter protests overflowing her feeds. Finally, she sat. Tried to breath. This would be ok. They'd see it in her. They had to.

Something nudged her ribs. Checking her purse, she found the same little, black, book.

There are many notebooks in this world. Shiny ones, snarky ones, uplifting ones, colourful ones, leather ones, and fuzzy ones. Ones that comes with keys, with quotes, with guides. But this was the first one she ever felt like she had to open.

Nothing left to try, she did.

There was an inscription there, written in big, bold letters. It sai--

"Miss? They're ready for you."

The more you want something, the more you risk letting it fall to pieces through fingers that held on too tight. The more you want to get in, the more you twist your answers into inconceivable fantasies of fiction that do nothing more than assure you won't be the pick, because you never even showed up. The more you want to win, the more you build the challenge up, the more you agonize over whether what you could write could be good enough, the longer the blank page stares back at you, unwilling to yield up demanded perfection - until the deadline comes, and the words did not.

But sometimes. In those rarest of occasions. Sometimes you hold tight enough that it doesn't crumble. You hold tight enough to turn dust to stone, wishes to magic, endings into fairytales. Sometimes you open your fist, and a diamond falls out. The interview goes well, anyways. Sometimes what you make - or write - is exactly good enough.

She got in to Oxford.

She found it in the back of the little black book.

She made her choice about what came next.

Have you ever had a moment of such profound joy, it could only be followed by profound despair?

She. Got. In.

To Oxford.

She was going to be a student at the greatest school in the world.

She was going inside those walled palaces.

She was going to be a writer.

She was good enough.

And then she read the second sentence. Something about admission cohorts and eligibility status and international students. Something about 'it's on you'. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. Except one line. The only one that really mattered.

None of the promised funding was there.

Tuition was £10 000.

That's $20 000.

Have you ever had a moment so full of joy you knew it couldn't last?

She got in to Oxford.

Except she couldn't go.

All that stood between her and her every dream was $20 000. She'd never needed anything more in her life.

And that was the point.

What would you do with $20 000? With money large enough to make a difference? Do you know your answer?

You have no idea. Because once it's in your hand, everything changes.

Once it was in her hand, everything changed.

If you went back and asked her how she found it, she couldn't tell you. The whole moment froze in time, blurred at the edges, outside of reality. A moment so unbelievable, you couldn't ask her about it. Because she never told anyone it ever happened.

There she was, on the precipice of all her dreams, her goals, her most secret desires for a place in this world. There she was, on the edge of reality because all those dreams could never be. Because she'd never have $20 000. There she sat, with the little black book in her hands, forgotten, until then.

And she opened it.

For some reason she let the pages flutter through her fingers, a crinkle to match her cracking hopes. Something made the book fall open to the last page, and reveal the hidden pocket at the back. Somehow she thought to check inside.

And what she found was a cheque.

For $20 000.

A funny thing happens when everything you wished for comes true, and it's staring you in the face, and asking you: 'what comes next?'.

She stared at that damn cheque for so long she wasn't sure if she was worried it would disappear ... or hoping it did.

Because when everything you wished for arrives, then you have a choice to make. You have to decide what comes next.

All she'd ever needed was this cheque, this $20 000.

It was all she'd ever needed.

And that was the point.

That's when she found it.

The courage to do the unthinkable.

All she had ever needed was this $20 000.

Not food in an empty fridge or sleep on a night of grief or warmth from a concrete bed or love from a missing parent or safety from the sirens of police with guns.

$20 000. To go to school to learn to write.

She looked down at this little black book. This book that had showed up out of nowhere and dared her to do something she couldn't imagine, in an inscription she'd barely bothered to read.

To write.

Not during class with professors teaching something no one taught the ones who made the work they admired.

Not after completing a degree that would somehow make her wildest dreams legitimate to a world that never understands.

Dared her to write.

Now.

By herself.

In this little, black, book.

Just like every artist she'd ever loved had done. Vincent Van Gogh, Sappo, Bruce Chatwin, Taylor Swift, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, Pablo Picasso, Amanda Gorman, Tamora Pierce, Shakespeare, who never went to school.

She read the inscription that hadn't made sense before. She turned the next page. And she did.

In case of loss, please return to:

Whoever needs it most.

And then? Write. Regardless.

As a reward: $

Everything.

She got in.

She found it.

That's when she made her choice.

1. Return to whoever needs it most.
2. Write. Regardless.

Three weeks later a letter was delivered to Oxford. The envelope was decorated with international postage stamps. The inside was devoid of anything but neatly written words, tightly packed as if difficult to put down, on what appeared to be a ripped out page from a little lined notebook.

It was filed with a pile of a hundred other responses. Boxes checked 'Yes' or 'No'. No one blinked an eye. No one knew of any reason to.

Three months later things were different, slightly. Twenty-thousand dollars doesn't go far, when it goes wide. But it was a new book in little hands. It was a blazer for a single mom with an interview tomorrow. It was a psychologist's bill that wasn't so high for a session or two, a warm place to sleep, food on the table, and a night without nightmares. It was donations to groups that did things that mattered with initials like B.L.M. It was 'how can I help?' that ended with 'consider it done'.

It was not a girl, who'd already gotten to go to school, going again. It was not another seat in a white classroom in a room named after a man who's remembered for taking what wasn't his. It was also not a hero, or a saviour, or the lack of regret. It was just the next right thing. Then it was gone. And there was another writer in the world, anyways. Another writer with a little, black, book.

Three years later a typed letter was delivered to a small apartment on the other side of the world from the big school with the fancy name. The envelope was as pristine as the publishing company who sent it. Inside, a short letter, generic, with her name at the top, and the title of her book on the third line for accounting purposes. It was the first letter of its kind she had received.

Enclosed was a cheque for $0.20.

She ran her thumb over the little black book. Smiled, till she thought she'd break. Everything. She breathed in. Opened the book to the next blank page (there weren't very many left). Picked up her pen. Breathed out.

And kept writing.

And all she ever needed, was her little, black, book.

At least, that's what I hope I'd do.

If this was me.

Because it is.