Why don’t you?
Months after moving back into my teenage bedroom, having traded a secure life for an unbeckoned fate, I began sorting through belongings I’d abandoned. Diaries filled with earnest poetry, photo albums from adolescence, letters from ghosts. Near the bottom of the box, I found two drawings folded around a letter I hadn’t read in years.
It was from a girl a few years younger than me. We used to ride the school bus home together. She told me she liked to draw but hated everything she made. I said I wanted to see one of her drawings. When she finally brought one, I told her I could never do what she did. I was being more honest than nice. She seemed doubtful. Until that moment, she had believed that anyone could do what she did.
One drawing was a mandala, the other a portrait of me. In her letter, she wrote that our conversations inspired her to start drawing again. She hoped it wasn’t weird that she’d drawn my portrait. When I was younger, I valued the portrait more than the words. Now it seems silly. What is a greater gift from an artist than inspiring them to make more art?
I think about that often, how far sincere support can carry a person. I was reading Zia Ahmed’s ArabLit interview when I came across his account of how he got his start in translation:
My wife Anna and I often read aloud to each other when we come across something interesting.
I said, “I can’t believe nobody’s translated this!” And she said, “Why don’t you?”
One nudge. Just a little faith. Encouragement doesn’t have to be loud to be life-changing. Sometimes all it takes is a persistent nudge.
In Dangerous Relationships, Dr. Mohamed Taha argues that perseverance and positive intimate relationships can steer a person away from lifelong mental health struggles their environment might otherwise impose.
That doesn’t seem far-fetched to me. The most secure people I know carry a calm confidence, anchored by the knowledge that they have survived trying times and a support system will hold them steady when they falter again.
There’s a line from Taylor Troesh’s blog that I return to often. In his post Why I didn't play this harpsichord sooner, he writes about finding his way back to music after years of absence:
It took years of sincere support and psychiatry and sobriety attempts and persistence and unsexy chores and staring into the placid jaws of boredom, but my music eventually found its way home.
I read that sentence again and again, weighing each word as if it could unveil an alchemical formula. Only in loving, and being loved in return, did I learn what it takes to become the person you’re meant to be. Curiosity, resilience and sincere support are the catalysts that turn lead into gold.
Be open. Persevere. Surround yourself with people who are generous with their love. It can be as simple as someone you love saying "Why don’t you?". That is enough to change a life.