LaToya S. Watkins | I Have Always Wanted to Be Change

‘Tis 12:03 a.m. and I am still awake, sitting in front of my computer. I have tried the bed this evening, but it is not very inviting at the moment. I am tired and in need of rest, but she does not beckon me tonight. I chipped away at several freelance projects and my own second novel today, so I must admit that I have been removed from myself by Khaled Hosseini. I saw the movie first, The Kite Runner, and afterward I was compelled to read the book. As I finished the last page just before bed last night, I cried.

I marveled at the idea that a stranger could move me and change who I am, even if just by a tiny bit. I experienced some of the sadness and sorrow that must have resided deep within him to allow such a beautiful yet tragic work to come forth. Strangely, I connected pieces of the story with J. California Cooper’s Some People Some Other Place. However, the sadness of the two stories was the only correlation I made. Sadness all over the world, I suppose—sadness that if revealed in literature or art, period, can inject change in humanity. Or perhaps, it is revealed through art, but is ceaseless, which is sadness just the same.


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