Being a writer does not mean being too proud to look up words in the dictionary. In fact, the opposite is true. Not recognizing a word gives me a panicky, disconnected feeling-almost like a strange child walking up to me and calling me "mom."
And so I reached for my Canadian Oxford to find out what on earth a "pip" was. (It is a seed from a fruit, like an orange or apple.) No sooner did I solve the mystery of the pip than a new puzzle appeared.
As I flipped through the pages of my dictionary, a few loose notes fell from between the covers. They were bright, encouraging notes with lines reading, "Best of luck on exams to you as well!" and "Hello Jessica, have a brilliant day!"
The notes were signed by someone named Yan, which was as foreign to me as the word "pip." Who had left me these notes? And when?
I stared at the notes, hoping to stir up a memory or two of the person named Yan. She was obviously a girl, as I knew of no males who would draw little smiling flowers on a note. And I obviously knew Yan in college, which the reference to exams made clear.
Before I came close to solving my own case of the mystery note-writer, I started contem-plating the actual messages on the notes. One note contained a quotation by Virgina Woolf:
"So the days pass, and I ask myself whether one is not hypnotized, as a child by a silver globe, by life, and whether this is living."
The quotation was familiar, and I suddenly remembered reading it the first time, after Yan had taped it to my locker. I did not understand it then. This time, it made perfect sense.
Yan had a locker beside mine during my first year of college. Back then I had a pad of pink post-it notes I used liberally for everyone but myself. (Why make a note to self when you can make a note to someone else?) This sparked an adhesive correspondence between me and Yan. I used to carefully peel her notes off my locker door and tuck each one into my shiny new Canadian Oxford dictionary, which I knew I would never sell.
Just like the Virginia Woolf quotation, the days have passed. Many words, memos and e-mails have flown by, mesmerizing in their demand for time and energy. Few of those messages ever resurface, and even fewer have meaning beyond their original intent.
Life has distracted me enough to forget what Yan's face looked like. I wonder if she kept my notes, and if I wrote for her any words worth reading again.
Thank you, Yan from the past, who has brought new life to the task of looking up words in the dictionary. A note of kindness and a pip of wisdom travels a long, long way.
