Facebook, ah Facebook, one of our modern most devilish distractions. I should leave it alone, but I'm driven by curiosity and the desire to look inside peoples' half-open curtains. Can any writer really ignore the possibilities that might be revealed through the flimsy folds or beneath the blinds in the beacon of that yellow-white light, in the flickering strobe of a TV, or in this case, computer screen.
Still, I find that nothing can take the place of a good old-fashioned walk. A million, jillion stories are taking place just a few yards from where you are striding down the sidewalk, supposedly minding your own business. Comedy, tragedy, violence, love, lust, family reunions, family dysfunctions, loneliness, sadness, joy, every "ism" or addiction you can think of are being played out on the small, unintended public stage of a living room, kitchen, bedroom where someone forgot to close the blinds. I look. I always look. Don't you? But I try not to look like I'm looking.
I'm listening, too, trying to hear the story, fill it out with what has led up to the present interaction. Is it another man, a woman, a bully at school today? She says her mother is coming for a week. He says "the hell you say" and a door slams, the volume to the TV rises like a wave into the street. Punk rock, hip-hop, folk songs, Bach stretches between houses like an old phone party line where one voice overrides another until you're not sure which one is speaking to you; or if they all are.
This is what facebook used to look like. Where would we have gotten songs like "Pretty Woman" or "The Girl from Impanema" if writers hadn't been out walking, looking, paying attention? Walt Whitman, Steinbeck, Mary Oliver, Stephen King (he's the only one I know that got hit by a car so don't let that stop you), Thomas Wolfe, Lucille Clifton, Thoreau, Robert Frost, Raymond Carver, O. Henry. All these great authors and many, many more have been walkers and voyeurs. How many stories, poems, even novels got their start from a writer who passed an open window, or from a stranger simply tipping their hat to a lady who strolled down a boardwalk across the street?
Yes, now we have facebook and think we need not go for our story-seeking walks any longer. Why waste the time and energy when we can, with a wave of our hand, bring up a whole community of people and their stories, the ones they're willing to tell, along with the ones who tell too much? Remember, though, most people put on their best face before they write--they don't call it facebook for nothing.
Some, it's true, like my friend, Sue Ann from Maine, are just as much themselves on fb as they would be if you were to run into them on the street on any given day. For this reason, and the fact that she is without a doubt one of the most honest and interesting human beings I've ever met with a thousand great stories to tell, would make a stroll through facebook worthwhile. Occasionally. But she is herself too busy shoveling snow off the roof, driving her tractor, drinking beer with her friend boys, or running the pet squirrel out of the homemade apple pie to spend all her time on face book.
Remember, too, these are your "friends." They are your friends for a reason; mainly because you share interests in common. It's like trying to learn some new style from the people you grew up with--you already know what they'll be wearing and will probably be dressed a lot like them to boot. No, you've got to get out in the streets, travel to a new part of town, or a different town entirely to be inspired. Get out there and go walking, gang! Not only is it good for the creative spirit in you, it's good for the body and clears the mind. Oh, yeah, and it makes you realize you are vital part of a big, diverse world that can't be contained within the four sides of a computer screen, no matter how many friends you may have on facebook.
—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.
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