I just concluded reading the book A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi and there were these chapters made up of nothing but the diary entries of Edmond Charlot, the bookseller of the Les Vraies Richesses (the bookshop).
Some of his diary entries were paragraphs long, others just a curt sentence. Some were written a day after the other, while others had weeks between them. It struck me that while these individual entries might tell little of each moment when read void of context, they were still immensely valuable at capturing Edmond’s story when put together as a whole!
For so long I’ve put off writing because of the pressure to put out something ‘perfect’ – at least as good as it could be in my eyes. But Kaouther* made me see once again the value in writing even if just a sentence.
No pressure. No need for wordplay or beautiful conclusions.
Just one sentence. Maybe more.
If God wills.
Bismillah.
*while writing this I had the epiphany that Kaouther is perhaps the arabic كوثر, which is amazing because 1) I work with an organization of the exact name 2) i love that the meaning is abundance... May this be the start of an abundance of (good) words. One sentence at a time.