LETTER 2
Dear Wren,
I watched you move a bookshelf by yourself on Wednesday.
The shop faces the street, and I was passing, and you had one shoulder braced against a six-foot oak shelving unit and the expression of a woman who had decided the shelving unit was going to move whether it agreed or not. It moved. You won. I kept walking. But I thought about it afterward.
I wish you had asked for help. Your brother, maybe. Or someone else from town. This is a town that likes to help. More than that, it's a town that likes to nose into each other's business.
But perhaps you don't want that. I can understand that instinct. Growing up, I had a complete inability to ask anyone for help, as though asking was an admission of something.
Then I joined the service, and the service cured me of it efficiently.
You stop being precious about asking for help when not asking has consequences beyond a sore shoulder. You learn pretty quickly that being useful to someone you care about is not a burden. It's a necessity during conflict.
This town isn't a battlefield, though it can often feel like a war zone with all the gossip and nosing that goes on. I want you to know that asking for a hand is not inconveniencing anyone. You're giving them something to do with the part of themselves that wants to show up for people.
I have been thinking about how to say this to you without introducing myself. What I came up with is gossip. I started mentioning that the bookshop owner was moving in largely on her own and could probably use some hands. I said it at the ranch. I said it at the town business board meeting. I said it at the gym to three people who know everyone worth knowing in this town.
I doubt anyone remembers I brought it up. That's the thing about mentioning things; by the time the help arrives, the origin is invisible. What's left is just people showing up, which is what people here do.
This town is a unit. I don't know if you've worked that out yet. It functions the way a good unit functions. It doesn't keep score unless it's under Friday Night Lights. There is a collective understanding that we're all in it together, and when one person needs something, the unit responds, and nobody makes a speech about it. They just come with their hands already out.
You came from somewhere that probably didn't work like that. Most places don't. And you have the self-sufficient quality of someone who learned, wherever you came from, that relying on people was a variable you couldn't always control, so you'd rather move the shelving unit alone at the cost of your shoulder than find out nobody was coming.
I understand that. I am not without sympathy for it.
Recognize that they came then, and they'll come again if you ask. They'll arrive with hands out before you've had a chance to frame the question. That's what you've moved into. That's the town.
In the meantime — and I say this with no agenda beyond the practical — you should ask for help more. Put it in the window if you have to. Strong back wanted, Wednesday mornings, inquire within. Someone will come.
And if they don't, I'll hear about it and I'll find a way to mention it somewhere.
That's what I can offer from this distance. I'm told I'm useful when I put my mind to it, which is most of the time when there isn't a pen in my hand and I'm not busy making a fool of myself on stationery.
I hope the shelf is where you wanted it.
I hope the shop is beginning to feel like yours.
I hope you're glad you came here. Because I am. I'm glad you came here.
— Your Secret Admirer
