Finding Your Voice: A Conversation with Pepe and the Inspiration to Empower Your Writing
Once, I met this fellow with sharp eyes, a cracked smile, and the smell of burnt wood carrying him around.
Like incense. The good kind. Not the cheap one you find in a convenience store, but the great kind, the one you find in alleyways, in the mom-and-pop shops around your neighborhood.
What a peculiar person.
His name is Pepe.
This is how we met.
I was watching some friends play pool when this odd man approached me and asked, “Do you have some matches?”
I looked at him, then at one of my friends. With my thumb, I mimicked the motion of starting a flame. My friend understood, took a lighter from his pocket, and handed it to me.
I passed it to Pepe.
“I’m going to go outside,” he said. “Can I take the lighter with me?”
“Yes,” I said.
I signaled to my friend and went outside with him.
Outside, he cupped the lighter against the wind. The tip glowed, smoke curled around his cracked smile, and then the conversation began.
“What do you do?” Pepe asked.
“I’m a writer,” I replied.
“Have I seen your work? Are you published?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“What about those who want to read it and never got the chance?”
“They never asked. And chance for what?”
“To read it. Appreciate your art. Feel it. Maybe even live it.”
“Oh. Maybe I will.”
“Will do what?”
“Show my work.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“I don’t know. Read it in the street if I have to.”
“What if they don’t want to listen?”
“The ones who will listen are the ones I’m looking for.”
“But if you never show your work, they never will.”
“Then help me.”
“Help you? You need to help yourself.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it then.”
Savvy bird, that one. He makes you do things you didn’t even realize you were capable of doing.
Once, I told him, “What if they don’t understand my work?”
He said, “It doesn’t matter. Find your voice. That will carry your feelings. After that, you will make them hear you, even if they don’t listen. They will cry once they get home, and they will never know what hit them, or where they are.”
So here I am, carrying my voice in a second language, one I have used for less than a third of my life.
But Pepe makes me do what requires me to be uncomfortable.
What will Pepe ask you?
What are you avoiding that you know you need to do?