You Want To Be Noticed, So Nobody Will Notice You

Eleanor says:

You want to be noticed in a very big way just so you can scream to the world so they won’t notice you anymore: “Stop looking at me! Let me be!” And then, you can fold up your chair, tuck it under your arm, and walk back inside, where nobody can see you and your life can become anonymous again. As if nothing at all had happened. You aren’t special. You aren’t old enough to be special. Not special enough for everybody to be hounding you like this, asking you questions. You didn’t even do anything. Maybe this is what being famous feels like, but you aren’t famous. Not for being good, and you’re not notorious for any bad qualities that have manifested themselves beyond your person. In other words, you don’t rob banks, as if somebody your age really robs banks, or, maybe this is more realistic for a pre-bank-robbing notorious kind of person. You don’t throw rocks from atop an overpass at passing cars for thrills. You aren’t anyone but a ten-year-old kid. And the more you don’t say anything, the more they ask. And they keep on asking, even after you’re standing there, tears overflowing your tiny eyes, your head shaking, your little hands knotted up in tight fists. That’s when you figure it all out on your own. That the best way to get people to leave you alone is to have them talk about you, but not to you. So you’ve figured it out, that you have to make yourself noticed – not just noticed, actually, but have people stop what they’re doing entirely, to have all of their senses focused on you, and then after that, so they call one another up on the phone. People in five other houses can see you in your backyard. They’ll watch. It’s only natural to look out the kitchen window. Dinner time. You know they’re watching. So you walk outside with a lawn chair, and you go to the very back of your yard, and you sit down, long enough that anybody watching is going to be wondering why you’re sitting there, what is he doing? And that’s the very moment you stand up and turn around and around and around in a circle, and scream, scream to them, and to the rest of the world you can’t see, with all of the lung power you can muster: “Stop looking at me!” And now, go inside to hide. The shadows are friendly. But even inside, even in the shadows, you still quiver, you’re still shaking, you’re still screaming, though in a whisper, “Let me be. Please, let me be.” 

*
"Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area."
-- Nadine Gordimer

How To Write A Fairy Tale: Instructions

FOR REFERENCE: see Jay Spain's fairy tale for Eleanor: "It Is All Of Us"

Step One: Despite the description of such stories, fairy tales do not need include any appearance by a fairy, or fairies.

Step Two: Fairy tales do require an element of fear.

Which leads to,

Step Three: What frightens you? Or better yet, what frightens you more than anything else, more than anything you can imagine? And this begs the question, yes, if what frightens you is more than you can imagine, then even you do not know the answer to this question and must find out on your own, and you may or may not succeed by allowing yourself to go inside yourself, to places inside yourself you have never before visited, but have existed all along. You must take this journey, on your own, and face whatever it is you need to face –- one-on-one.

Ask the question again, What frightens you?

Step Four: Begin the fairy tale, and just go as fast as you can, without even thinking, really -- and see where it leads you, and maybe, somewhere deep along the way -- there, near the ending, you're almost to Step Five, now -- there, you will find the ultimate happiness, the kind that exists beyond the fear. Happily ever after.
NOTE:  Sometimes, there is no happily ever after, and that's okay too.  Sometimes there is enlightenment, however subtle.

Step Five: "Fairy tales must be shared, not kept to yourself. Because once you share your fairy tale with the person of your choosing, you can begin getting better again. The person you're sharing your fairy tale with doesn't even have to know that you've been hurting. But you need to make it especially scary and convincing. That's all."

(Eleanor, whispering into her Biographer's ear.)

*
"Now," Eleanor says, "you must release yourself from fear. Say it out loud. Write it down to remind yourself later. We've been through this -- you remember. We've been through this a million times. Release yourself from fear. Then the beginning -- begins."

Her Biographer thinks, It sounds way too easy. (Eleanor, inside his thoughts, shakes her head. You haven't learned how yet, she is thinking, and thinking this in a place where her Biographer can't find her.)