What writers can learn from the mantis shrimp.
…and why sensitivity is a creative person’s greatest gift.
A childhood memory: I am walking down a cement sidewalk that links one winding suburban street to another, abridging the route to the neighborhood pool. The air swells with ordinary birdsong and bug sounds against a manicured backdrop of green.
I look down at my feet at just the right moment. The breeze reaches like an arm for a singular fallen leaf, lifts it, pirouettes it in a perfect spiral, and places it back on the ground. I stop for a second, struck with wonder.
“ Beautiful,” I think to myself. And then, “Nobody else would notice or care.” I clutch the image to my chest and continue walking. I tell no one, sure they won’t get it. I keep it to myself like secret treasure for years. All these years.
My cache of childhood memories is slim. This one glistens.
I was not a big fan of the suburbs in general. I wanted the exuberant razzle-dazzle of New York City, with its sugared peanuts, its pulsing lights, its jiggling crowds. I thought that Times Square was the coolest, most exciting place in the whole entire world, the way it was never not crackling with sensory stimulation, how it kept my jaw dropped.
