EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode, I share my humanitarian state of mind from an early age by reciting a short story I wrote when I was eight years old. Thank goodness this wasn't the foreshadowing or defining moment of my career in storytelling.

TRANSCRIPT

Okay, so today I'm laughing at the MIND CHALK thought.

Last night, I was going through some papers that I had taken from my childhood room, which my childhood room is the exact same way I left it when I was 18 years old and went off to College—sans, the bed, a chest of drawers, my desk, which had a massive hutch on it, and I can dive into all that later.

On my last trip home, I was looking through boxes and you know, for years my mother has asked, “Please take all the stuff in your closet to your new home. You don't live here anymore.” While she's now using my room as a storage closet for Christmas decorations and things she doesn't want in the upstairs.

So anyway, I'm going through these boxes and I come across a yellowing old notebook paper with lots of tears in it. It's super brittle. To unfold it, I had to be really, really careful. It was lined, a lined notebook paper. Remember like the ones with the little three-hole punches for the binders?

 So I have this page and it's front and back.

It's a little story that I wrote. I was eight years old. It was written in 1973. And it's titled, ‘Written and Illustrated by Jenée Arthur”—how creative. Now, the only illustration is a flower. [I’m going to put it in the show notes so you can see it cuz it's kind of hilarious. Even my writing—my penmanship. This is back in the day when the accent mark is between my two E's.

So the accentéute, which is again the accent mark, I placed between the two E's rather than on the first E of the double E because back then, at eight years, I had no clue where it was supposed to go. To this day, I wonder why my Irish parents gave me a French name, Jenée Antoinette. Apparently, it's my Aunt Janice's fault.

So anyway, I want to read this to you because it's hilarious and it's also a little telling about sort of the way that I viewed the world back then and kind of still do today.

Okay.
 
 “When I was seven years old.” 

Yeah, that's how it starts. I'm eight when I'm writing this, so like a year ago, but okay. 

“When I was seven years old, I told a friend I wanted to discover what life was really about.” 

Oh, and forewarning. There are a lot of interchanging tenses in this writing. Um, yeah, and I know a lot hasn't changed. I still do that, which is why I so desperately need an editor. But anyway, starting over…
 
 “When I was seven years old, I told a friend I wanted to discover what life was really about. One day I decided that I was getting…”

By the way, getting is spelled G E T T I N G? Yeah. Okay.
 
 “I was getting…” 

Okay, let's start over. 

“I told a friend I wanted to discover what life was really about. I was getting old enough to go out on my own.” 

Oh, really? 

“So the next day I looked out my window and a sad feeling came over me. The world had changed since long ago. It had been done by people because ever since the world was made, it had been beautiful.” 

What in the hell does that mean? Okay. 

“And I went all over the world trying to figure…”

Oh, that's the other thing I start sentences with ‘and.’ I still do that, but anyway. 

“And I went all over the world trying to find a place that life may have stayed the same since the world began.

I looked and I looked and I looked, but everything was the same.” 

Hmm. Try to make sense out of that! 

“The rivers were polluted and all the junkyards were the same. I hoped that someday the world would change like the beginning of the centuries, but I just can't hope for these things. I have to do something because I am responsible too.”

Hmm. Very astute little Née Née. 

“Maybe someday everyone will try to discover things and they will think that they are responsible for things too.
 
When I returned to my country, we all started doing something about it. Most of the time when I looked at the world, I realized…” 

By the way, realize is spelled R E L I Z E. Good lord. Okay.

“I realized that I had looked a little happier because…" 

No, no, no, no. 

“I realized that it had looked a little happier because someone cared. 
 
 “One day a tear came rolling down my face because the world we tried to make beautiful had become a junkyard.” 

Okay, now just a caveat here. That little tear running down my face, I am clear. Well, I'm not clear because I don't remember myself when I wrote this. But I'm pretty certain that that little tear coming down is a total reference to that old commercial about not littering. With the Indian. At the very end of the commercial, the Indian picks up litter or something and a little tear is coming down [his cheek].

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what it's in reference to. Because by the way, that commercial was very, very affecting. I have a whole other MIND CHALK episode I'm going do on that one particular thought because to this day, and hence this little story I wrote when I was eight years old, pollution makes me crazy.

And the fact that people litter. I don't understand people. Anyway, we'll discuss that another time. But back to my little story. 

“One day a tear came running down my face because the world we tried to make beautiful had become a junkyard. Men were killing in battle and in war, hundreds of people were killed.
 
Hundreds.

“If only people would understand that life isn't death.” 

What in the hell does that even mean? Okay, hold on.

“If people would only understand that life isn't death and it won't last forever, maybe a flower may live longer. To see a flower grow will help make someone happy and to see someone else happy makes you happy.”

Oh boy, Little Née Née just wanted everyone to be happy, let me tell you. I mean, her happiness depended a lot on other people's happiness. So this little bit at the very end says a lot about her. 

I'm not so much like her anymore. I don't really care about your happiness as much as I care about my own. That's not entirely true, but I'm not quite as dependent, if you will, on other people's happiness for my own. Let's just put it that way. Okay. Back to the story. 

“To see a flower grow will make someone happy and to see someone else happy makes you happy.” 

It says you, but I think what she really means is that her world would be happy. Yeah, I was totally projecting there. I'm certain of it. 

Interestingly as I read that again, “To see a flower grow will make someone happy and to see someone else happy makes you happy.” It's kind of the psychology I used on my siblings when I was young. You know, I was getting old enough to know how to, I don't know, persuade or manipulate them. And it was like I would convince them through injecting these little things. I would use things like, “Well Jason, if you see a flower grow, it'll make you happy.”

Or “Jerrod, if you do this, you'll be this.” 

Like, I would implant these little things in their mind and they'd be like, “Oh yeah. Okay.” 
 
So, you know, just another sidebar about my personality. Incredibly, let's say persuasive or manipulative, maybe. I try to do it for more benevolent things now rather than nefarious things like getting my siblings to do things I don't want to do. But anyway, 

I read that little story and I thought, “Oh God, I've got to share this. It is so bad that it's so good.” 

It's so bad that it's so good. 

Okay, that's all I've got. 

See you tomorrow.

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The podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jenée Arthur.
Cover art by Jenée Arthur
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