Getting to the "Why?"
By Judy Kellem

In the lull of everyday, routine life, it is easy to dismiss one's
experiences and surroundings as droll and predictable - unworthy of being
put to page - impossible to "dramatize" at all. The hungry writer in this
mindset will easily tell the self that "there's nothing to say" as each
aspect of her very existence is rapidly flung into the "boring" can, the
events of her life dismissed as if she were merely surfing uninteresting
programs on the boob-tube.

But this is the first mistake of the would-be artist. For what the working
author knows is that everything that happens, from the cup of coffee one
stirs in the morning to the argument one has with a lover later that night -
EVERY LITTLE THING - is potentially rife with story.

I was recently reminded of this by a seven-year-old.

My family took a ten-day vacation to Negril, Jamaica. We had never been and
traveled during off season, when business had so slowed to a halt that our
colonial style hotel was eerily vacant and the pulse of true Jamaica could
breathe through, unmasked by dog and pony shows for teeming tourists. From
the second I deboarded the plane, I was acutely tuned into the rich
atmosphere of our surroundings. As we drove the two hours from Montego Bay
to Negril, the landscape beyond the taxi windows told a tale of stunning
nature and crushing history. My seven-year-old step-son, Michael -
precocious, wildly smart for his years - immediately riddled me with
questions and I soon found myself trying to soft shoe tales of colonialism
and slavery, unsure if he was old enough to handle humanity's ugliness.

We soon got our bearings and began a system wherein I stayed with our 19
month old at her comfort zone in the unused pool and my husband kept Michael
and his 21 year-old sister, Lena happy on the beach. Despite hours of
playing "Diego and Mario" floating on boats and the precious repetitions of
10 hour chats with a baby, I was bursting with narrative - clawing my way to
my journal once everyone was fed and asleep.

I confess that I have not been so passionate when at home. The creative
vigor I felt after just one day spent watching the staff at the hotel,
observing the drug hustlers and fruit hawkers on the beach, how they
proudly, desperately, worked the sparse vacationers for a livelihood --these
tourists who lazily sauntered about the nirvanic shores, string bikinis and
blase attitudes noxious before the raw realness of the Jamaican hustlers'
survival -- this inspiration felt so fresh. It was all I could do to get
everything down! Whereas at home, meandering the well-worn paths of our
local supermarket, the pharmacy, the baby gym - generally going about the
business of being me - I so often fought to find a pulse. What relief to be
so feverishly possessed!

At the same time, I was reading a book my mother had pressed upon me - a
book which I would not have stayed with past the first thirty pages had she
not given me a solemn look as she stroked the hard cover of the novel like a
baby's belly and said with great pathos, "This book is....well... you'll see..."
The book was, in sum, a very thin plot designed for the writer to hang all
kinds of moments, thoughts, experiences he'd had in a semi-narrative way. I
bemoaned the "chutzpah" of this author to get away with so little "real"
structure and puzzled at the choice of publishers who are usually so
merciless about such details, while of course reading along with an eye bent
on cracking the case of how this writer pulled off the crime.

And then the moment of epiphany came.

It was 89 degrees out and I had my 19-month-old daughter on my hip as we
made our way back from a swing set on the beach to her perch at the pool.
My step-son Michael and step-daughter, Lena, were unexpectedly trailing
behind us, conversing about all the boys on the beach who had asked Lena out
on dates, offering free jet ski rides, invites to parties and freebees into
local clubs. She'd graciously smiled at them all, engaging each one in light
conversation, then accepted some of the gifts, declining others, while
Michael stood by perplexed and enraged.

"Why did they do that and why did you act like you did?" I heard Michael
implore.

She burst out laughing and retorted from behind large, dark sunglasses, "You
ask why of this world, kid, you're gonna get real disappointed!"

Michael was shut down in the instant.

But I was awoken!

Later, as Michael and I were on our way with the baby to meet my husband and
Lena at a restaurant, I let him know I'd been listening and had a couple of
cents to throw in.

"Michael," I said, "It's a beautiful thing that you ask 'why' - that is the
heart of all matters. The world may try to tell you that there is no reason
- that why is a useless question - that answers don't exist. But they do."
I glanced at him and he was listening with a furrowed brow. "You still
thinking about being a great artist after you finish being a mathematician?"
I asked.

"Yeah..." he sighed.

"Well the job of the artist is to insist that there are solid answers to
every question of 'why'. The artist is the one who looks underneath the
surface of things, who investigates the cracks in between moments in life -
he puts on his scuba gear and goes deep down below what everyone else just
accepts as 'life' and discovers where the truth lies. When he finds it, he
expresses it, he makes it FELT!"

Michael looked at me like I was a Christmas fruitcake, but he grinned and I
could see that he was actually thinking about the gobbely-gook I'd just
said.

Upon return from our vacation, still brimming with Jamaican impressions
about which to write, I took a gander at my "common" surroundings and knew
that long after I'd purged those ten days for all they were worth on paper,
there was a treasure island of jewels to be mined in my own humble backyard.
I finished that book my mother had given me, which didn't even show
obligation to rally with some momentous, plotty ending. It closed with
profound, thought-provoking subtlety and I laughed at my own arrogance.
Peering at the picture of the author, I thought, "I owe you an apology. You
got to your 'why'. You got to it."

Now, I said to myself, I need to get to mine.

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