This is an excerpt of a post by Jason Garner. You can read the full post here.
I have a friend, a brilliant writer, whose name is John Tarrant. I say he’s my friend though I can’t say I’ve known him long or even well, in the way we mean that in today’s world. But we’ve sat together … he’s shared some koans. I’ve read his books, and he’s sent me poems. And he’s read mine. So we know each other … perhaps in the only way two men really can ― beyond the show. He’s opened his soul and I’ve opened mine and we’ve journeyed inside together and read the words and felt the pain and laughed a bit at the absurd nature of it all. That’s why I say he is my friend.
I want to write like him. I knew it from the first line I read:
Inside each shard of time is a glow everlasting. Getting lost and distracted in this way is what life is for.
I don’t think I’ve ever told him this. Like most of what he knows of me he’ll read it for the first time. But I’d like to write as he does. He inspires me, takes me to a better place. Not like Disneyland but a truer place, one of authenticity and possibility. I don’t think if I shared this with him he’d agree. He’s not that kind of friend, the ones who hope to make you as they are. Instead, I think (perhaps I know) he’d say I should learn to write like me. And then instead of teaching, he’d shine a light … on me instead of on him. That’s why I say he is my friend.
I wonder how many of us have friends like this. I wonder if we ever allow the time. Do we ever invite at all, or crack our hearts and make room for the new? Not the news, the endless summary of all that’s been. Not that. But the new, what’s yet to be, our hopes and dreams and possibilities. That’s what I mean when I say friend ― a carrier of possibility.
This is an excerpt of a post by Jason Garner. You can read the full post here.