One of my favourite books is The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. You’re likely to find it in the children’s section of the library, but I have found it so rich in very adult wisdom that I prescribed it for my Grade 11 class every one of the seventeen years that I was a French teacher and loved rereading it with my class every time.

There’s a scene in which the Little Prince arrives on Earth at last, after visiting six other planets during his journey from his own planet. He finds himself in the desert in Africa. He asks a flower where the people are.

Having once seen a caravan of people passing in the distance, the flower replies, ‘People? There are six or seven of them, I think. I saw them years ago. But you never know where to find them. The wind carries them around. They don’t have roots; that makes them very uncomfortable.’

I’ve found myself thinking about the Little Prince’s encounter with this flower while musing over the different reactions and responses that people have to my writing. How is it possible that one person finds a particular piece of writing sad, but another thinks it’s funny? That one person offers me a solution, while another gives me comforting words? That it resonates with one person, but leaves another cold? You might think that my sisters would be more likely to have similar reactions to the same piece, but even that isn’t true: one of them related strongly to a specific piece, but another didn’t connect with it at all.

And of course that’s because we all interpret what we see and hear through our own lived experience, just as the flower’s ‘knowledge’ about people was based on her experience of life. When you hear my story, you interpret it through your view of the world. You focus on the elements of it that have relevance to you and completely ignore other aspects of it. And so your response to it has very little to do with me or my story, and everything to do with you and your life.

I’ve always loved poetry, but for some years got hooked by the discrepancy between my reaction to a poem and what the poet was actually thinking about or intending when writing it. Was my response still valid if it differed from what the poet had meant readers to understand? Shouldn’t poets accompany their work with a little blurb explaining the background and message of a poem to ensure that readers understood it properly? Thankfully I let go of that concern after a while. No long-dead (or still-living) poet is checking up to make sure I have interpreted a poem ‘correctly’. And in the same way, I have no rights of ownership over your response to my writing. You are free and welcome to find whatever meaning – or lack of meaning – you choose in it. And just as I’m delighted if you love what I write, I have to accept your opinion if it’s not so positive or even if I feel you’ve missed the point entirely. You may have missed my point, but what could be more valid and meaningful in the context of your own life than your own point?

Read whatever you like into my writing. It’s my gift to you. Your gift to me is taking the time to read my words and give them new meaning … for you.

NEXT