MY ENCOUNTER WITH THE OTHER AND WITH MYSELFBy Lily Scott

The first time I met Judine I felt as though I were peering into the eyes of my eldest human ancestor, witnessing the archetypal image of myself. She had soft lips commonly held in a half smile, bones of normal size, a fastidious persona—protection from the elements. She was sarcastic, smart, independent (likes to be in charge), a mother, a golden goose.
Judine and I met in an unusual way. I had seen her around town, never walking, always in a red hearse-shaped coach with her driver. Later I learned that the car was for the conveyance of fresh, steaming croissants baked at home and sold in town, construction supplies for the vahaza hotel, bodies (though living) and many other items of enterprise for Judine’s family. While the car was unique, it was Judine in the passenger seat that I noticed. Her black, wiry hair tied at the base of her skull in a neat ponytail. Her moumou “tent” dress with colorful designs. Her fixed vision and air of importance, not self-importance, but self-respect. In her red hearse, however, was not how I met Judine.
I met Judine the morning I woke up from a night at the discoteque with her son, Lalaina.
After a shower and change of clothes offered by a woman who worked for Judine, Judine served croissants, still steaming so it must have been morning, a glass of chocolate milk and fruit on her sun-lit veranda. Like a well-acquainted couple, Lalaina and I ate together. Judine pulled up a third chair and began what would become a lifelong conversation. A conversation that continues to occur mostly in my dreams and aspirations.
Our feminine energy and entrepreneurial spirit had been consociates on the island of Madagascar for several weeks prior to our meeting vis-à-vis. On the veranda I immediately internalized her presence and while it was swirling in my body and overactive hungover mind, I became completely captivated with Judine’s graceful speech and movement.
After that first encounter, Judine and I spent many days together. Lalaina and I did not spend any more nights together. Judine became the subject of a short research project I conducted, an eth-know-graphy, a transcription of conversations and memories of experiences and observations on female small business owners in Fort Dauphin, a mid-sized coastal town in southeastern Madagascar.
While in Madagascar I wrote several short stories—the hilarity of a spandex-clad jazzercise class with several women from town and my American friend Miss Doubilet. We taught the class how to dance the electric slide, they taught us how to move our hips. I also conveyed the story of my experience playing soccer on an overgrown field with the boys of Fort Dauphin.
Meeting Judine, a woman who inspired me, reflected me, and led me to realize that memories can be deceitful and writing them down similarly transforming. To this day, I read the short stories I wrote in Madagascar and recount the deceitful memories as they were written; I invent and re-invent the experiences through body memory as I read. Only recently have I realized what an impact Judine had on my experience in Madagascar and generally on my disposition and self-exploration.
While Judine is not specifically the reason that I write, my encounter with the other, and with myself as an observer and a participant is why I write. I write to capture a moment, a sensation—I hold the memory of the moment it in my body for some time, allowing the moment to take the shape of my body, to fall into the contours of my experience and to emerge on the page as something other, but bigger, than what was intended.
I do not consider myself a writer, but I have realized that this has less to do with the fact that I do not write—because I do—but more with my previously held linear notions of “career” and the importance of being defined (for reasons of ego). Letting these notions go means that I can do no wrong, that I have no shame or guilt or fear. Letting go means that I have no expectations for the experiences that come into my life and leaves me open to encounter the other as a stranger, to be an observer and collector of stories, images, songs and dance.
I write to invite chance into my life, to, as Kerouac said, “be submissive to everything, open, listening.” I write to remind myself of just how in love with my life I am. I write to beg from each experience the beauty and the disgrace. I write to prove to myself that I can.