A Crowd of Questions
By Elizabeth Carr
Laura and Tom sat on the silly black vinyl stools. Sitting across from each they only had 15 minutes to ask their questions.
Laura had a grin on her face.
"So, you're from California; tell me about what that was like growing up," she began.
She asked about his mother. She listened intensely and scribbled as fast as she could in her steno pad. She paused, listening for uncomfortable silences that she knew he would fill.
"You seem very confident. When is a moment that you're not confident?" she asked.
Tom said he didn't want to go there.
Laura's arms stretched out toward Tom. "Is it a girl?" she said.
Tom was toast.
My job, as part of the audience was to listen to what Tom and Laura were asking and critique it—and eventually write my own lead with a group of my peers based on the information that was revealed.
After the 15 minutes were up, it was Tom's turn to get back at Laura, and she was ready.
He started off by asking her where she was from.
She fought him by telling him that he was making statements that were masquerading as questions.
"What's your family like?" Tom asked.
Laura fidgeted with her Poynter badge.
"My mom, she doesn't know me that well."
Laura pulled the ID badge farther away from her chest, crossed and uncrossed her legs.
After a few more questions, Tom made some headway.
"I don't like to be looked at, I don't like what other people will see," Laura said.
Tom didn't have a follow-up question.
The entire room roared a collective "ohhhhhhhhh" when we realized 15 minutes were up.
How could he let her go after an answer like that?
***
When the package from Poynter arrived in my mailbox I was excited. Not only did I get mail, but inside there would be information about the people I would get to know during the summer.
I decided I'd wait to read everyone's blurb until I got back to my room. Until I could brew a cup of coffee, settle onto my bed, put my feet up and learn about these people in peace.
I opened my fifth-floor dorm room, flicked on the light, checked my voicemail and got the coffee started. When there was enough coffee in the pot for a cup I poured it into my Virginian-Pilot mug and sat cross-legged on my bed.
I looked at the blurbs. "Summer Fellows 2004" it was titled.
I started reading.
Colleges hit me in the face so hard when I stared at them on the page I imagined sticker shock felt like this. Names like Brown and Berkeley. Why would these people take my quaint little girls' college seriously?
Did my internships at The Boston Globe and The Virginian-Pilot hold up?
And more importantly who—on this list of names—would I become friends with? Who would I call at night when I was bored? Who would I drink beer with? Who would I cook for?
I took another sip of my coffee staring at the names on the page. I burned my tongue and swallowed hard.
"Hey Elizabeth," my friend Cate said as she walked into my room.
I handed her the packet of names.
"Shit" was all she said as she handed the packet back to me.
***
Sometimes I secretly wish I didn't have to ask any questions—that I could just blend into vanilla-colored walls and take it all in, writing only for myself.
I want to be the reporter who always asks meaningful questions. In fact, I'm scared that at any moment I'll ask a stupid one.
If it's one of those days I want to shut off the curiosity just for one day.
To not stop and ask the man who sits at the bus stop I drive by every day why he sits alone. And why, on hot days he wears a long-sleeved shirt. I wish I could stop asking questions of my friends, co-workers and myself. But I can't.
I can never shut it off. So I learn to ask better questions.
Anais Nin called writing breathing. It's not the writing for me—it's asking the questions.
I feel like a 5-year-old, asking more questions than I get answers to, and am often disappointed by the replies. "Why" is my favorite thing to ask. I never grew out of that game, the one where an adult says something and after everything you ask why. Every answer becomes a question and the game never ends.
But I'm not 5. I'm 22.
I compare notes with my peers—asking what they think about war. About sex. About the role the media play in their lives. I read blogs, live-journals, the Onion. I listen to NPR in between flipping to the only '80s station I've found on the radio.
I wonder if I'm crazy.
I get to work early and leave late. I call my friends to chat, and even when I'm partying I'm thinking about my next story.
It's in my blood.
And sometimes, I get exhausted from all the effort—especially when it comes to friends.
***
My group during Tom and Laura's interview session was told to write about Laura. But, we only had the information Tom got out of her to write about. I am in love with questions and I had to listen to someone else asking them.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to ask the questions. I suspected Laura was just giving Tom bait, feeding him lines he wanted to hear and not really giving him anything. I felt like she was just acting. I knew the act well because I too am a bullet-dodger. And Laura was dodging them all.
What was growing up like for her? Was she making things up? How could I tell if she was? Why was she giving Tom such a hard time in her answers?
I had so many questions floating in my head that I couldn't pay attention to the task at hand—to listen anyway and write from what we heard. I couldn't just sit back and watch someone else do all the work. I started asking myself what was wrong with me and then realized that I was now asking questions of myself.
Just. Shut. It. Off. I told myself.
At night when I try to sleep, I can't shut my brain off. I have to get up—write something—anything. I feel compelled to call the girl who calls me Mamma and ask her what she's doing, hoping she'll say she can't sleep because she can't shut her brain off either. That girl is Laura—a friend I barely know.
I call her my friend, but I still haven't asked her the questions I have wanted to since that day Tom interviewed her. Why does she call me Mamma—a term I imagine she calls many people, but has somehow reserved for me? We've sat by the pool on hot days drinking beer and doing laundry talking about our boyfriends, our stories—everything but ourselves.
I've been a horrible reporter.
I have failed to ask any of the questions I want answered—and it's not because I don't want to, it's because I am too scared.
Strangers I've interviewed for stories don't expect anything from me beyond interacting with them for that story. If I asked Laura the questions that I can ask strangers so easily, I don't know what she'd expect.
The easy way to find out would be to ask—and I know that, but I just can't. And maybe it's because I haven't pushed her that we're friends at all.
So I've failed with Laura as a reporter, but in terms of our friendship I'd like to think I'll do better job.
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