Emma sat, cross-legged by the window of her solemn, quaint apartment.  She could hear the faint hum of the city outside her window, but in here, everything was still. The soft afternoon light filtered into the room through her light white curtains, and glowed softly on the empty page of the notebook that lay open before her. She stared at it, blankly, wondering what to write. Emma had kept this unique notebook for ages since her grandmother gifted it to her, and frankly, had now become used to the routine of staring at its blank pages every afternoon.

Emma’s grandmother had always encouraged her to write; “You can capture your dreams and thought in a page. I want you to try it,” the woman would always say. But for Emma, every afternoon after a long fruitless stare, she would conclude that the notebook was going to find its use in something else—a rough book for her crazy baking recipes, maybe? What else was a little old notebook going to do for her anyway?

But today felt unusual. Today, her heart had been too heavy from the longing for all that she wanted to become. Lately, nothing seemed to be going right with her little bakery. It was her dream to make it the best in town, but she just wasn’t sure how. This was why she was seated here, again. 

As she gazed at the open page, untouched and waiting, her mind drifted… Just yesterday, she had completed the final chapter from Nicholas Spark’s, “The Notebook.” It was a long read, and quite hilarious that she had been reading about a notebook just while she was facing a dilemma with one. But it didn’t seem coincidental.  

A frail Noah, the protagonist of Spark’s book, had preserved the memories of himself and his lover in a notebook that he could now read to her while she suffered dementia in a nursing home. At first, it was just a love story from a notebook that Noah read every day by his ill lover’s bedside. But when the plot twist came, it revealed that the story from the notebook was in truth, theirs—Noah and his lover’s. And at last, his lover remembered it, she remembered him. 

Yesterday, as she read, Emma felt a tear slide down her cheeks. The book was many shades of emotional, thought-provoking too; What if Noah never wrote down their memories? What if his lover never got the chance to remember who he was, or the love that they had both shared? It was in that moment she remembered the story her grandmother first tried to lure her into writing with, “The Freedom Writers Diary.” Her grandmother would bring the topic up over the kitchen counter as they brewed tea for breakfast together; how a group of students were taught to record their thoughts and feelings into diaries and how those students used these books to overcome personal challenges and express their identities. Her words—which she probably burrowed from the author– always were, “Writing is a weapon, more powerful than any fist or knife.” Emma would chorus it alongside. It had become a popular end-of-speech remark, and Emma knew all the words like she knew her name. 

This was why today, the blank page open in front of her held so much more meaning. An empty notebook could be filled with so much hope, joy, and love, if only someone just made it happen. She wanted to fill her notebook with her own stories. She could tell her dreams and her fears, she could experience new possibilities, and keep track of all her goals. She could take her life by the horns; whatever she wanted, whatever she thought of, wherever she wanted to be, she was going to put it down.

Emma sniffed, culling the tear and snot that had threatened to drop, back in. She drew in a long breath, and then let it out in a tired heavy sigh. She clicked her pen ready,

“I’m not sure how this works, but I’m doing this!” 

It was a beginning.

****

The scent of sweet vanilla and a fresh yeasty aroma lingered in the air. Emma swept through the pile of paper cups and confetti that had littered the floor. She was fatigued, but not enough to wear out the broad smile that had stayed on her face all evening. The grand reopening of her up-town bakery had been a resounding success. There was a swarm of customers. And now, when all the guests had left her to her new beginning, nothing but peace washed over her. She picked up an empty wine bottle from the floor and placed it on the counter. It was then her eyes fell on it–the notebook, lying open on the counter.

As she lifted it, her mind wandered back to the journey that had brought her to this moment. She smiled, this time proudly. It had started on just an empty page like this, and then a couple more. From the earliest pages, she flipped through. There were ripped edges; pages she had torn away on the days she felt nothing but frustration. There were other pages that made her laugh a bit too loudly, and the ones she could…well, consider publishing as a book for the breakthrough it offered her.

But as she held the book up, a piece of paper slipped out. She picked it up to see; it carried a sentence that her grandmother had written long ago, “a single notebook could be the clean slate for a new beginning.”

At White Shawarma, this is what we sell!