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Health & Fitness

The Stranger I Met Today

The Talking Heads posed the question. "You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?" A man asked himself the same question at a recent festival.

I met a lot of people at the Woodbury Fall Arts Festival while promoting The Writing Blueprint, an editing and writing support company that I established in 2011.  Some people attending the event had never heard of TWB, so I fielded a few questions about whether I was an architect (the ‘blueprint’ part) or a teacher (the ‘writing’ part). 

One of my most memorable encounters of the day was with a man that I’ll call Paul. Paul wasn’t paying attention to the flow of the vendor set-up and unintentionally took the dead end that led to TWB. The TWB booth was more of a destination booth, as festival-goers had to veer off the main path to reach me. (Fortunately, I had hung a large banner that lured curious writers and a few architecture enthusiasts over to me throughout the day.) But, there were folks that arrived at my table accidentally. Some, who weren’t seeking information about TWB, would try to discreetly backtrack. Some would freeze when they realized that they could not continue on to more exhibitor tables, usually about ten feet away from the TWB booth. 

The ones who froze would stand there, jerking their heads from side to side, mentally mapping their way back to the street food and artists. I’d attempt to lessen that awkwardness by offering the candy bowl and suggesting that they write a sentence on the board for our Community Writing Project. Sometimes the lost people participated, sometimes they did not. 

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Paul was within feet of my table when he realized that he would have to pull a 180 to get back to the rest of the happenings. So, I smiled and said “Hello”. Here’s how our conversation went:

“Hi”.

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 “Are you enjoying the Fall Arts Festival?” I asked him to get the conversation rolling. 

Long pause.

“Yeah.”

“Me too.  It’s been great weather, don’t you think?”

“Yup.”

“Would you like some candy?”

“Nah.”

“Would you like to add a sentence to our story?”

“Nah.”

“Did you see how many people are here? The organizers did a great job.”

“Yeah.”

Long pause.

“So, what do you do at,” he glanced at the banner, “the Writing Blueprint?”

“We provide editing and writing support for emerging writers.  Are you a writer?”

“No. Why would I want to do that?”

“Maybe you have a story to tell.”

Longest pause.

“Well, then I better go and get started,” he said.  He turned right around and walked away.  If I hadn’t known that he was just looking for a way back to the hot wings truck or the musician’s stage, I would have thought that he was completely serious. 

Lesson Learned

Paul was a man of few words, but what he had to say got right to the point. Paul, perhaps you are a writer. 

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