The Art of Unfinished Stories**

Barcelona, 09:05 AM

The café table wobbles slightly as I set down my coffee, the unevenness familiar now, like an old friend’s quirks. Across from me, Claudia flips through my latest film shots—blurry tram rides in Lisbon, half-developed, the edges still holding secrets. She pauses at one: a fisherman’s hands, weathered and stained with salt, mending a net. The frame cuts off at his wrists, the rest left to imagination.

“No te molesta?” she asks, tapping the incomplete image. Doesn’t it bother you?

A year ago, it would have. The Sofia who needed perfect compositions, who agonized over cropping and clarity, would’ve tossed this shot aside. But the woman who’s learned to ride wrong metro lines and sit in rainstorms? She’s starting to love the unfinished edges.

Last night, I found a half-written essay in my notes from Turkey—three paragraphs about pomegranate vendors in Kadiköy, abandoned mid-thought. Instead of deleting it, I sent it to Aylin with a voice note: “Maybe some stories aren’t meant to be completed. Maybe they’re just seeds.”

She replied with a photo of her own: a single coffee cup left on a windowsill, steam still rising. No caption needed.

Marcos’ workshop starts tomorrow. I’ve prepared nothing—no PowerPoints, no perfect portfolio. Just a box of expired film and the truth: I don’t know everything, but I know how to listen. Isn’t that what mentoring really is? Showing the cracks where the light gets in?

The barista brings us pan con tomate, the bread still warm. Claudia tears off a piece, tomato pulp staining her fingertips. “You’re different,” she says, not unkindly. “More… abierta.” Open.

She’s right. The woman who used to measure her worth in bylines and borders crossed now finds grace in unanswered emails, in film rolls left undeveloped, in the way the afternoon light slants across her unmade bed.

Growth, I’m learning, isn’t about tying everything with perfect bows. It’s about letting the net mend itself, one imperfect stitch at a time.

—Sofia