The Things We Need

As a sports fan, it tickles me to know about athletes' good luck charms- the items they believe will help them win games. Things like socks, a certain bat, or even a pair of lucky underwear. It's funny that these men and women, who have practiced until their bodies are beyond hurt, think a sock will make all the difference. Forget skills, precision, expertise. We've got SOCKS!

What's even funnier is realizing that I, too, have my little trinkets that help me write and perform, and without them everything feels wrong and out of place. My grandmother's ring, a novelty pencil from Jamaica that I dubbed Barrington Mon and a bullet on a chain given to me by a sweet Vietnamese suitor back in high school; these are the things I need.

If I dare read in front of a crowd and am not wearing Grandma's ring or my bullet necklace, I freak out inside. If I'm at the computer or writing in my journal and Barrington Mon is not nearby, I can't focus on the story I'm trying to write.

Of course it's silly to depend on them. After all, I have my MFA, I have all this talent, I have all these stories that want and need to be told. A pencil or a piece of jewelry should not stand in the way of that. But it does.

Maybe it's a side effect of a Catholic upbringing, with a tinge of santeria and brujeria, or maybe athletes and writers like me know something you don't: objects can hold a certain energy, and transfer that energy on to us. I need Grandma's ring with me at every reading because she's not here in body. Barrington Mon reminds me to be easy and trust the light within (advice given to me by the friend who gifted me the pencil) and that bullet gives me courage to release the secret tales on paper I dare not speak in life.

Crazy or not, these are the things I need.

xoxo,
Raquel Ivelisse