Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Inner city Melbourne has an on going love affair with Plane Trees. Their thick trunks and upward reaching branches curl like fingers around power lines and wooden telegraph poles.

The Old Woman sat despondently in her seat, on the Number 96 tram. She had taken this route most of her long life. She always loved looking out at the swinging leaves of the Plane trees as the tram sped past.

Another Melbourne windy day.  She hated the wind.  It messed with her hair and her heart. Today she was tired.  Today she felt old. She had cut marks on her palms from the Aldi shopping bags she carried. Her hair had decided it didn’t want to stay within the multitude of pins carefully placed 5 hours ago and she realised she would be opening her front door again, to an empty house.

She looked around in dismay at the youths on the tram.  All those young people with bad posture – hunched shoulders and stretched necks – looking at their phones whilst life whizzed by.

But the quiet, well dressed Asian man in the corner caught her eye.

He was crying.

She had never witnessed an Asian person crying before.

The Asian man kept to himself – as tears streamed down his face.  He kept his sunglasses on and made no eye contact.

It moved her.

As the tram approached the Old Woman’s stop – she walked towards the Asian Man.

“You’re alright love.  I know it’s hard – but you must keep going.  I’m sure things will turn around” she said. The Asian man looked at the small, white, shrivelled lady in front of him. He could see a hard life in her eyes.  Touched, he took her hand as a lifetime of polite upbringing kicked in.

“ You are right” he said “it is hard, but the kindness of strangers and moments like these make it better”

The Old Woman smiled as she walked away from the tram stop, knowing she had made a connection.

The Asian man vowed never to be caught out not taking a hay ever tablet ever again.

FIN

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

They told me on Monday morning that I could be discharged on Tuesday. “Great, what time?” I asked. I was visualising packing my bags on Monday night, injecting myself with my last Heparin shot, checking my obs, filling out my chart and dispensing my pain killers. You know, just to make it easy for them. Can’t let anything hold up this discharge.

Then on Monday night, the plastics doctor came around and said, “Well, we’ll see”. “We’ll see? What do you mean we’ll see?” He said it would depend on the last drain tube and whether it was ready to come out – they didn’t like to send patients home with drain tubes still in. I started to panic. My eyes widened, the tears welled and I made it very clear to him that it was no longer beneficial for me to be in hospital. I could no longer heal there. I needed to go home. He agreed. Look, whether it was the tears or the firm grip I had of his right arm, I’m not sure, but whatever the reason, I was discharged on Tuesday morning, and with one drain tube still in. See? You don’t want to mess with me. That goes for the doctors, and you, cancer. Yes you, mother-fucking cancer. Don’t you know? I am a warrior.

Whilst coming home felt amazing, the 8 nights prior to that had been a great lesson on “How to Surrender 101”. Nothing like having someone sponge bath you whilst you lie in bed. Having someone help pull your knickers up. Having someone help you out of bed and support you while you shuffle, bent over, whilst dangling 4 drain tubes, a catheter and an IV from your mutilated body, 5 meters to a recliner, only to fall down in sheer exhaustion.

Seriously, it felt like I had turned 90 overnight? Nup. I was 36 and diagnosed with breast cancer. I just had my left breast and 18 lymph nodes removed. Then they took the fat from my belly and made me a new boob. The doctors kept calling this “tummy tuck” a benefit of reconstructive surgery. I called it sprucing up a shit situation.

Everything post surgery was completely exhausting. When I took control of my own knicker-pulling-up, it was as if I would emerge from the bathroom having run an ultra marathon. I would be out of breath, red in the face, dizzy and sweating. I’d then have to take a nap.

The nights were the longest and the hardest though.

Night 1 – I didn’t sleep. My obs and the new boob were being checked every 30 minutes – sleeping wasn’t an option. Plus I was on morphine, so you know, wasn’t even really “in bed”. Just hovering, watching from above and re-visiting all my past lives. Standard morphine experience, right?

Night 2 – I was being checked every hour, but I did get a few hours in, here and there. It’s weird though, I would close my eyes for what would feel like 20 minutes, open them and look at the clock to see that only 15 seconds had gone past. Looking at the clock became an obsession.

Night 3 – I lost my shit. I kept dropping everything over the side of the bed and couldn’t retrieve it without buzzing a nurse. And then, the worst thing of all happened – I dropped the buzzer. And then there was the smell of my left armpit. I lost it because I had BO and there was nothing I could do about it. I cried a lot.

Night 4 – I slept like a babe and was woken every two hours.

Night 5 – First night in a share room and I cried all night. I was so uncomfortable from having been in the jack-knife position for 5 days straight. My back was sore, my neck was sore, but ironically nothing from the surgery was sore. I just wanted to go home. The nurses kept telling me how brilliant I was healing, how strong I was, how much progress I had made in such little time. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to sleep on my tum and be in my own bed. Neither was going to happen.

Night 6 – Worst night of my life. A patient across the hall freaked out. He was threatening to kill himself and everyone in the building. He kept screaming that the nurses were raping him, screaming at security, asking them to shoot him then and there for $100,000. He repeated “$100,000, shoot me now!” 100,000 times. I was petrified.

To top it off, the douche bag in the bed next to me had visitors sneak in at 11:30pm – some woman and two very small children. Whilst the psycho was going off, this woman just kept talking louder and louder, laughing and telling jokes, as if nothing was going on. I couldn’t understand how she could not be reacting to the death threats from across the hall.

The fear took over my body and I started to hyperventilate. I started crying out for help, but no-one could hear me over all the commotion. Then it occurred to me. I was dead. I had obviously died and was in-between lives; the realm of the afterlife the Tibetans call bardo. This experience was so terrifying and surreal that it couldn’t possibly be real. “Fuck. I’m dead.”

Strangely, I didn’t cry.

“Sorry I’m late love, three of my patients have gone crazy tonight”, the nurse said.

I am alive.

Relieved, I asked her if they would be moved to a high security ward? “No. But don’t worry, we are safe now. All three have been shackled”.

Night 7 – The douche bag had his TV on ALL night, with the volume up loud – no headphones. I wanted to kill him. I lay there all night, thinking about all the ways I could do it.

Night 8 – I had the room to myself. Slept well. Woke early. Packed my bags ready to go home to my own bed and my six year old.

I may not have entered bardo that terrifying night, but I know I was close. Teetering on the edge. In a way it was a blessing though; facing death gave me life, and I had never felt stronger.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

The Australian Sex Party rep hands me a flyer as I bolt for the 7:45am. I swipe my MYKI with seconds to spare. Grateful for a seat, I read the flyer salaciously headed ‘Take a New Position’. The reverse exerts that “Only the Australian Sex Party has a common sense approach to infrastructure investment” and lists various public transport policies.

I am a public transport user. I no longer own a car – my $1000 bomb gave up the ghost. The reality of the situation: I have to get to work on the other side of the city. My options: 1) an eighteen-year-old bicycle covered in rust, cobwebs and a creeper; 2) a bank account that can only afford another bomb and 3) top up MYKI and download a timetable.

Please stand well behind the yellow line.

The Napthine Government promises a new 3.9 billion dollar plan which equals a new tram or train every month for ten years.

The girl behind me talks on her mobile the entire forty minutes of the trip: “So mum said to me ‘you’re not getting back with him are you?’ and I said ‘Oh Mum please. Hardly.’ I mean. Seriously? I know right? And she said ‘Well?’.

The Labor Party promises 24-hour public transport on weekends.

A velvety female voice offers me a “very warm welcome to Flinders Street Platform One”, as though it were somewhere delicious rather than the beginning of our Wednesday grind.

Poor Train Service Can Bring Down A Government, Shane Green, The Age 8^th November 2014.

A tiny, elderly dot of Chinese woman stands among the commuters. We look like Easter Island statues in comparison. She sees something familiar in the crowd. Delight spreads across her face as she inches across the carriage to a dapper young Chinese man who is plugged into headphones and minding his own business. Regardless, she launches into a conversation in Mandarin. He looks down and gives a half-smile. He does not know this woman but seems resigned to the fact that she recognizes him in some way.

The Australian Greens urge everyone to attend a public transport rally.

“And I said we’re not talking about having kids until you start looking after the ones you already have”.

I lodge a complaint with Metro after a train door nearly closes on my arm.

A velvety male voice welcomes me to Platform One and urges me to have an “awesome night”.

A Public Transport Users Association experiment concludes that it’s quicker to walk than catch a bus.

A woman on her mobile recounts a house inspection. “There were shards of asbestos in the yard. Shards of asbestos. Is that normal? Maybe it is in the northern suburbs? I don’t know…….maybe if I bought in the eastern suburbs there wouldn’t be so much asbestos”. We all shift in our seats feeling accused and slighted.

A young couple kiss and cuddle, oblivious to peak hour and the crowd growing with each stop. Their bags are taking up two extra seats. A man asks with a sigh if they would not mind moving their bags so people can sit down. Although surprised, the boy obliges and the girl sulks. The kissing stops. Mothers board with kids on scooters, a tradie slumbers, books are read, games are played and passengers look out the window. The train arrives at another station and leaves.

The train waits on the curve at Rushall Station. The driver informs us the train is waiting.

The train sits just outside Flinders Street Station. The driver informs us the train is waiting.

I receive an 824-word reply from Metro Customer Relations. The letter has sub-headings documenting their “investigation” of CCTV footage of the incident I complained about. They “regret” my experience but are sure that I would “appreciate” that “should a driver wait until every person has cleared the platform, a ‘domino’ effect would be created whereby the train is further delayed leading to even more further departure delays to that service and others to follow”.

I may be single-handedly to blame for delays in peak-hour public transport.

Attention customers! Your 7:15 South Morang Line has been delayed and is now expected in two minutes.

This train is not taking passengers.

Metro has removed all rubbish bins from Flinders Street Station for security reasons.

At Southern Cross a man sits down next to me straight off the V/Line from Moe. He hasn’t been to “the city” for fifteen years. “Not for me”, he explains. He seems nervous, so far away from the familiar, and a little lonely. I look around the packed and silent carriage. I cannot snub him so I nod as an encouragement to continue. He grew up in Preston, which is where he is heading to see his friend who is dying of cancer. She is home from hospital because there is nothing more to be done. He is sad for her and it’s obvious they used to be more than just friends. He recounts his memories as the train passes from station to station.

Close to my home, he asks me, “What about you, are you coming home from work girly?”

I nod.

“You catch public transport to work?”

Smiling, I say that I do catch public transport.

stella.glorie@yahoo.com.au

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Things I find myself thinking about #1: age.

It’s one if those things that you can never escape, but no matter how hard you try you can never get right.

When you’re young you spend all your time trying to fake older; when you’re older you spend all your time trying to fake young.

And there’s always something in the age basket to keep you worrying.     Lankiness. Pimples. Grey hair.   Wrinkles.

Sometimes, if you’re really blessed, all of the above.

But even if you reach Nirvana, even if you somehow manage to crack that  coconut and skull the luscious, miracle-inducing nectar within, where does that you?
Out of your depth, that’s what.
The 15 year old who convinces the barman she’s really 18. The 39 year old who manages to botox her way to 29. Both reeling from a world they weren’t ready for (and only one of them able to frown about it), because there’s a world of difference between 15 and 18, and today’s 29 is  just a different world.
So what do we do?
Enjoy it.
Be who you are.
Whatever number that might be.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Humiliation sears events onto your memory.

Guy tried not to cringe as Billy moved across the playground towards him. Guy, not big for his age, usually spent his time at school staying out of people’s way, particularly the year 8 ‘bully Billy’. So, it was a bit out of the blue when one day Billy had swaggered up to him. But, instead of the usual threat, it’d been ‘Come over to mine tomorrow – it’s my birthday’, and he’d even held out an invitation, neatly written out by a mother hopeful for Billy to invite some actual friends over instead of fresh victims.

The day dawned. The party was ok, with some daggy games supervised by Billy’s mother, a nice woman who asked everyone to call her Sally. Billy was still a bit of a dick, but it was easy to ignore in a group. Guy didn’t see much to worry about when Sally had to run up to the house to check the sausage rolls and the kids meandered further down the back.

‘This is boring,’ said Billy, ‘I know a better game… Party trick, who’s got a party trick?’

He grinned at the others.

‘Hey you. Guy. Come ‘ere, you’re gonna help me with my party trick.’

Guy moved over, warily, not wanting to obey but aware from past experience of the hardness of Billy’s fists if he didn’t comply.

‘You’re gonna go over to this wall… And stand there… I’m gonna get this rooster to perform a trick for us all.’

He led Guy over to a large, decrepit chook shed. He pushed Guy roughly up against it , chicken wire cutting into his face while the smell of chook poo choked his throat.

It was suddenly clear to Guy that Billy had pulled this party trick before, because the rooster knew what to do. He came barrelling over and took aim right at Guy’s…

‘Cock onya cock! Cock onya cock! Gay, you’re gay’, the kids sing-songed at Guy as he bolted up the yard, faster than bully Billy for once but still too late to avoid the pain.

Kate Olivieri uses her love for policy writing to avoid writing fiction or anything fun in general. She can write on buses, trains, planes, and friends’ houses, just not in her lovely Boudoir Office with the double french doors. She attends Gunnas classes to get a super awesome kick up the bum to write. Kate can be found faffing about on Twitter @kateolivieri, and on tumblr reviewing vintage relationship advice manuals at http://sexadvicefrom1949.tumblr.com.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

She breathes. It thumps.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

It’s 5.30 pm and the screech of Daniel’s van tyres roll around the corner up to my drive. I’ve been getting ready for the past half hour, and feeling pretty happy with what I’m wearing. A modern skirt, a floral top with the buttons high up my chest and my favourite pair of cherry doc martins that make me feel slightly alternative but still feminine. I have my hair half-up and half-down with a little bit of fringe showing. I’m barely wearing makeup but it feels good to have a reason to dress up. The only thing bugging me is that I’m sitting with that same gnawing feeling as last week. I haven’t done my homework, and I’m hoping I don’t asked any questions.

This is briefly forgotten as Daniel, freckly, gangly and dressed in a non-brand name t-shirt and shorts bounds into the house with an air of familiarity and starts chatting about computers with my younger brother. Dan and Leon have always had plenty in common. Leon has even joined Dan’s university Ultimate Frisbee team, but he’s still a bit too young to come along with us tonight, even though I suspect Dan wishes he could for a bit of extra male company.

Dan and I hop in his van and make general talk. Growing up together, we have the familiarity of close cousins. We chat about our part time jobs, we chat about uni and we talk about the songs we’ve been listening to on the radio. Dan started learning guitar about a year before and he’s become pretty good. Sometimes when he is practicing chords we try out a few songs together. Lately we’ve been working on “More than Words” by Extreme and we think we are on our way. We have the harmonies ok, the tender quieter parts and we (well I) know how to belt out the really intense chorus with feeling. (“That III already knowww”) If we keep learning more songs- who knows where it could lead? Probably singing in front of a group near a campfire. That would be cool.

25 minutes and a few heartfelt renditions later, we pull into the massive carpark of our Saturday night destination. Other young people – university age and older are starting to file in, stopping outside for light conversation and gabbling as teens do. A few of us are in couples – not many though. Most of us are single.

Dan and I pretty much separate as soon as we arrive. We aren’t a couple. And that needs to stay clear. He goes off and finds a group of guys chatting and catching up, equally gangly as him. As for me, I start to seek out the small group of girls that I know will chat with me for the night. I stay close, so I make sure to have some people to sit with.

Sitting down now, the church hasn’t made any change to it’s layout to accommodate the weekly young adults meeting. We are in pews, and there isn’t much of an attempt to make the environment inviting to young people. Still, we are here. I make sure as I look around that I am one hundred percent surrounded by girls. There is no way I want to be seen to be sitting near a boy. Not next to me, not in front of me or behind me or at any cross-angle that could be interpreted that I have strategically positioned myself near the opposite sex. I want to attract absolutely no attention whatsoever. So far, so good for tonight.

The girls on either side of me are dressed in a similar way. Perhaps our collective style could be considered ‘the practical, modest teens of the 90’s’. We are holding similar bibles with our modern well-worn covers filled with notes, lining and evidence of previous journaling. There is no way that you want to have a squeaky clean bible in this setting. Bibles should be well-thumbed through, have underlining, highlighting and notes in margins. A new bible? That is cause for a good five minute conversation about which one we chose, why we chose it, who gave it to us, why we love it and so on. We all know that we’ve chosen The New King James Version though. Choosing anything else would be a dilution of the true word. We have our notebooks, our pens, our notes from last week, and our homework.

Casting glances beside me, I try to assess the depth to the level of commitment my peers have given to last week’s assignment. Did they do dot points? Did they write in essay form? Did they answer each question with a good meaty paragraph, considered, precise but not too indulgent? It was hard to tell. They weren’t giving over much, but I suspected that everyone had done their homework in the room in some form of earnest commitment to God that I probably didn’t have. I scanned over last week’s questions and looked at the scribbled pen notes I’d made underneath them less than two hours earlier. I started mentally preparing the life-relevant points I would have to make during our sharing time.

The band hadn’t started yet, and I looked over at Chelsea, one of our leader’s daughters who is the same age as me. She is sitting gracefully with a couple of friends, her clothes framing her petite figure beautifully, her modest demeanour naturally attracting admiration from boys. Not withstanding her status already elevated as a leader’s daughter and the pressure that must accompany that title, she wears the role with grace, and is truly a girl-next-door beauty worth admiring for her talents and intellect. Friendliness aside, I know we’ll never be great friends. Tainted previously from a couple of falls from grace in my earlier teen years, I still carry a quiet reputation. I can arouse suspicion of my motives in seconds. A furtive glance, eye contact held a little too long, a conversation with a little too much smile. It’s not worth it, to be accepted here is to understand this and accept my place.

The music strikes up, and the youth leader with his thick black beard and black-rimmed glasses takes to the microphone. His name is Dave. Dave is a far too casual and too friendly a name for a man of Dave’s intensity. He can’t be that old, early thirties at best. And as he welcomes the group and starts the first song, his eyes move around the room, taking in each young person there. Assessing the earnestness of our singing, clocking the choice of our clothes. Analyzing the state of our souls.

Usually I don’t mind joining in song. In fact it is the one true enjoyment that growing up in a strict church has afforded me all these years until university age. I hold my melody well, be sure to manage my volume as to not stand out, and add little harmony inflections to demonstrate my devotion and earnestness. But Dave’s eyes, his intense stare is difficult to avoid. I try my best to keep check on where he is looking while simultaneously being ready to appear earnest and devoted in my singing. The worst thing that could happen is that our eyes could meet. If they do, and on previous Saturday nights they have, I know exactly what his cold, hard look means when delivered to me. It means he sees my soul, and that God thinks that my soul is pretty much shit. And my soul is shit because I live like a sinful, unworthy young woman. And I live like a sinful unworthy young woman, because that’s who I am and who my family is, and it is plain to see, and Dave thinks I should know it. So he tells me with his eyes.

And why does Dave know this? In short, Dave knows this because God has deemed our relatively small Australia–wide Christian movement of maybe five thousand people to have a special ‘dispensation’ from God through our leaders who can show the true way of living as Christians. This is why we have been blessed to sing our own unique songs written by Chelsea’s Dad (a composer) among others and why our leaders have been blessed with the direct word of God to write in their own dissertations to pass down to their congregation. David has had a few of his own dispensations that have resulted in dissertations. The last one, which was the subject of last week’s assignment, I remember now, sits uncompleted in my Bible cover.

The mood of the music has now transitioned from an optimistic call to gather and worship, to one of an earnest and solemn reflection of our hearts. Our voices are lower and quieter as we start to assess our internal state of affairs. Have I sinned against you lately God? Am I all you want me to be? Can I ever be worthy of your love? Head bowed, I answer within myself, Yes, No, No. Around me are the murmurs of young people speaking in tongues, indecipherably in admission of their wrongs, seeking forgiveness, listening for some kind of affirmation that can come only from God – or someone who has the authority to speak as if God speaks through him.

Dave sees his chance “Lord Heavenly Father, you are so great. You are so great and we are so unworthy of your love.” “Yes Lord” We young people nod our heads and murmur. 20 minutes of verbal prostration passes. God, presumably exhausted by our sorrowful admissions of doing ‘something’ wrong finally speaks through Dave who lets us all sit down. God has said what he needs to say through song. But he’s not finished yet with us through Dave’s sermon.

While Dave delivers his sermon to us with remarkably similar themes to what God had to say to us during worship time, I glance over at Dave’s wife, Naylene. Naylene is plain. Plainer than an averagely plain woman because it is clear that she had taken quite a bit of care to become as plain as she actually is. She has made sure to not die her hair or fashion it into anything that could be considered distracting. She has made sure to select her palate in pleasant, but subtle tones. Almost no flesh shows on her chest or legs. I start to wonder whether she’s self-conscious about her feminine figure. I settle on the probability that her look is part and parcel with being acceptable as a youth pastor’s wife. Looking around the room. Naylene is one of 4 young married women who have modeled of purity and devotion, considered eligible to marry. These ladies might be my peers one day, should I ever get married. Should I ever be approved to date a boy.

Considering this prospect of dating, I maintain my earnest listening face, and flick to the passage of the bible as Dave instructs us to do so. I start a mental calculation of the boys in Young Adults in Brisbane around my age, and begin to narrow down those who may or may not be allowed to date me in the future. How long in the future? I’ve only very recently reformed myself from a bout of high school rebellion of an on and off again relationship with a gorgeous Seventh Day Adventist Samoan boy. 9 months of reformation versus 2 years of guilty sexual transgression. My maths calculated I’d be waiting to date for at least 4 years, and that the majority of my peers would be allowed first. My reforming was going to take a while.

Eliminating the sweet guys, the older guys the boys who lived in other regions. (Could I date someone from Toowoomba?) I reduced the number of suitable prospects throughout the sermon. Dave had by now cleverly tied in last week’s assignment to the current sermon and was asking different young adults to provide the answers. I was so distracted with my calculation by then, that I could only hope he wasn’t going to select me this time. Just as Dave made his final point, and asked us to stand to worship God and really say sorry properly to God this time, I realized I only had one true candidate for marriage. It would have to be someone in this room – that was no question – and it was very likely going to have to be Daniel.

Poor Daniel. He had to already bear the brunt of being the guy who grew up with me. His embarrassed looks when mentioning my hot Samoan ex-boyfriend were enough to know there could never be a physical attraction. He would always have to carry the stigma of the tainted girl should we be arranged to marry. I couldn’t do it to the guy. Or myself. For the first time that night, I imagined what it would be like when I inevitably became a mother.

I imagined my future daughter. She’d be spirited like me I’m sure. Brimming with enthusiasm. I bet she’ll be creative too. I bet she’ll want to be an actress and do drama and sing and dance. I bet she will want to travel too. I bet she’ll want to spend a good deal of her life living overseas, soaking up experiences, living life. She might be interested in social justice. She might even want to be a Baptist.

Imagining my beautiful daughter, I started to imagine myself as a mother. All things going well, all things become accepted and being allowed to marry, I would be like Naylene. I stole another look at Naylene. Standing in her pew, centre front, full view of her husband. She was completely accepting of her role as wife, submitted fully to her husband and her female elders and bearer of the next generation of our church family. Naylene wasn’t going to live overseas and have an exotic life. Naylene wasn’t going to audition for acting school.

Returning my thoughts to my daughter-to-be, I made my decision. I didn’t want her life filled with Naylenes. She doesn’t deserve a life filled with the judgment of God handed down by Dave and the future Daves to come. There are far more enjoyable ways to spend a Saturday night as an 18 year old than being morally berated in a church service. I briefly acknowledged the cost of the decision I was making, which I was always aware of. For her freedom, I will be cut off. For her future choices, I will lose the contact of peers and families that I had grown up with my whole life. For the sake of her freedom, and mine, I’ll shame my immediate family, who will be unfairly question and kept at distance once it is realized my family won’t be shunning me too.

don’t have to think too much about the costs. They’ve always hovered nearby me. I doubt anyone will be surprised that I’m the one who will have turned out to be ‘fallen’. I move through the social part of the evening in banal conversation and stuff a couple of pieces of Woolworths cake into my mouth before Dan and I slam his van doors and warm up the engine for the drive home. We try another couple harmonies of More Than Words and I know it’s not just me- we sound pretty good. Dan jokes that we should try out the song at our next Young Adults Camp Retreat. I give him a smile, but don’t answer him. As his van pulls out of my drive I think how great it has been to have a friend like Daniel and try to imagine what my next months’ worth of Saturday nights could look like and who I might spend them with. I can’t. It’s blank. It will be up to me to figure that out. And that’s a really, really good thing.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer