1 Write what you know

Every teacher gives me the same advice: “Write what you know.”

But I don’t write stories. I’m a musician. I write songs.

Well … I try to write songs, but I am afraid.

“Write what you know,” they say again and again.

But I don’t think I know very much yet. I’m young. I’m in a new country. And I’m learning a new language. What do I know?

“Write what you know—”
But—
Stop saying But— all the time! You’re just making excuses!
But—
Alma!

(Sometimes I talk to myself in my head.)

My name is Alma. I am 28 years old. I live in Portland now, but I was born in Guatemala. And for a while, my family lived in different villages in Mexico. We moved a lot, so I don’t know much about any of those places.

I’m a baker. I make pies: fruit or cream; one crust or two; apple, banana, blueberry, chocolate, coconut, key lime, lemon-lime, peach, pumpkin, and strawberry. I can make pies, but I don’t know much about bread or cookies or cakes. Not yet.

At the end of each long day, I hang up my apron stained by fruit. I wash my hands that are sticky from sugar. I grab an old, wooden ukulele, and I walk to a small coffee shop at the university on the other side of downtown. I sit in the corner by the big window. I sit in the corner on a wooden chair that does not match the plastic table. I sit in the corner, and I play songs on my old, wooden ukulele.

Plink, plink, plink, plunk.

By the way … do you know what a ukulele is? It’s a tiny little guitar with four strings. And it always seems a bit out of place—like me. I read about the ukulele online. I like to read about things online; I’m always curious about where things come from and how they move around the world. For example, you might think the ukulele is from Hawaii. It is, but it isn’t, not originally.

Immigrants from Portugal first brought tiny guitars to Hawaii, and that’s where they got their name. In the Hawaiian language, the word “ukulele” translates (sort of) as “jumping flea.” Maybe it describes the musician’s fingers because they are always moving around …. just like me. Later, musicians brought the ukulele to the rest of the United States and the world.

Plink, plink, plink, plunk.

I sit in the corner, and I play songs on my old, wooden ukulele.

One song is about cats (of course). I love my kitty cat. Yes, I do …. When I play the song about cats, people pull out their phones and show me pictures of their cat. Sometimes someone shows me a picture of their dog, which I don’t really understand. I mean, if a person sings about their love for their cat, why do you show them your dog? It doesn’t make sense. That much I know.

That makes me think of the four strings on the ukulele. Each is a different note, or pitch. Musicians remember them with the sentence My dog has fleas.

Jumping fleas, dogs with fleas … What is the connection between fleas and ukuleles? I wish I knew.

I wrote another song. It is about a sunny, warm day at a beach in Hawaii. It is the complete opposite of the weather in Portland most of the time. And it’s the kind of song most people expect from a ukulele. Aloha, Big Kahuna, aloha …. When I play the song about Hawaii, most people put a dollar in my tip jar. They probably think I am planning a trip. But I am not. I don’t really like the beach. There is too much wet sand at the beach. I lived on a beach in Mexico one summer, and, honestly, I’m still cleaning wet sand from between my toes.

What I want most is to write a song about falling in love. The problem is this: I don’t know if I have ever been in love. How does it feel? I don’t know what love is like, so I don’t know what to write.

“Write what you know,” my teachers say.

OK. Here goes:

I don’t want to put down my phone—
—and be alone—
[What rhymes with “alone”?]

Plink, plink, plink, plunk.

I can’t. I don’t know love. Not yet. Someday. Soon.

OK, to be honest, now I am blushing. I admit it! Oh, my gosh. If you could see my red face. Why am I blushing?

I blush because I am shy. My song makes no sense. And when I look up from my ukulele, there is Quang standing before me.