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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 1, 2010 16:57:34 GMT -5
RamblesNovember 1st. Kind of late to jump on the bandwagon when so many people have already sketched out plotlines and characters. But better late than never, hmm?  Right now Nanowrimo.org is being ridiculous. I'm trying to sign up for an account but the connection keeps timing out. Oh well. November is actually a very bad month for me to commit myself to any extra writing, because I'm on a quarter system, so it's the month of midterms. >< I have a 5-page paper due tomorrow as I type. But when I tried JaNoWriMo earlier this year, I felt like I was doing it more or less alone - whereas during the month of November, so many people on this familiar forum are writing. The energy is tangible. Maybe some of it will rub off on me? In any case, even if I don't manage to write 50,000 words of this project by November 30, it would still be a start. I've been wanting to write this story since summer but never managed to force myself to. Well now, here's my chance. The (lack of a) PlanThe story is going to be easy to write, in the sense that... it's already written. It's a fictionalized version of my first experience with romantic love. So the plot and characters are already there, but I expect they will change as they come under my pen. The story is also going to be difficult to write, in the sense that I will have to dredge up many memories which are buried deep in my heart. It's going to hurt. But it will be a learning process. The story seems to fit best into the NaNo category of "Literary Fiction." It doesn't have a crazy plotline - the main focus is on description, inner psychology and character development. Which might strike some people as boring, but whatever. The point is to sort through and share these feelings, not to become some superstar author. First 200 words!
Where would I place the beginning? At the tip of the sunbeam that touched his face so suddenly one distant, wintry morning? At the end of the row of seats in that lecture hall? At the point on the paper where his pencil came down? At the edge of his coat? At the pause just after one of his funny phrases, and just before laughter? At the line of his closed eyelids, at the surface of his brow, at the sad glimpse in his eyes when he said "thank you"?
Was there even a beginning? Isn’t time supposed to be there always, from start to finish? When I look forward, the structure of time is always there, leading me on and on, through schedules, over deadlines, past appointments and meetings and all those little road-signs that show me the way.
But when I look back, time betrays me. I can no longer feel the minutes, the hours, the days, the structure that is supposed to hold all my scattered memories together. There is no road. All I have left is a dream, a stream of countless images that surface and resurface in no particular order.
A dream – but that’s all I’ve really lost. I must remember that.
XP Very vague and not quite attention-grabbing so far. But hopefully it'll get better.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 1, 2010 19:35:55 GMT -5
Could be that I'm being influenced by The House on Mango Street, a short novel I'm reading for my American Lit class. It's a series of vignettes, light and simple on the surface but deeply meaningful within. So the first memory that I dredged up from my heart poured out this way, short and sweet. I think I will make the entire story a series of short scenes, not necessarily in chronological order, and with a lot of detail left out, but still, a story.
"What color are your eyes?"
She sat on the couch dangling her legs, with her head tilted at a half-shy, half-curious angle, tilted toward him. The question had simply burst out of her, like a sudden splash of confetti.
He smiled. "What do you think?"
"Um..." She looked closely at him. He gazed unabashedly back, amusement twinkling at the corners of his eyes. "I'm not really sure," she said finally. "I thought they were brown before, but now they look... gray. With a little bit of green in them. Maybe a little blue."
"They're called hazel," he informed her.
"Oh." She continued staring in awe.
He laughed. "What color are yours?" – lifting his eyebrows to be obnoxious on purpose.
She giggled in delight. "They're brown," she answered. "Not black, but dark brown." And she opened her eyes wider so he could see.
"I see," he said, with genuine curiosity.
It was the first time she had studied a white boy so closely, and she imagined it was his first time studying an Asian girl too.
When she was younger she liked to tell everyone that her favorite color was ultraviolet, because it was mysterious and uncommon and not directly accessible. When you tell people that your favorite color is blue or yellow or pink, clear images come into their minds and they can make quick judgments about your personality. Ultraviolet makes them think twice.
But hazel – with that elusive, strangely moving quality – perhaps hazel, from now on, would be her favorite color.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2010 21:52:18 GMT -5
Awww Yoyo this is adorable yet bittersweet at the same time. I really admire you for writing about your own experiences, fictionalized or not. And just - the way you write it is really pretty, for lack of a better word. I really like vignettes, and I like how you're making this a collection of events instead of a standard, linear plot. And, just, yeah. :3
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 2, 2010 17:11:12 GMT -5
Awww Yoyo this is adorable yet bittersweet at the same time. I really admire you for writing about your own experiences, fictionalized or not. And just - the way you write it is really pretty, for lack of a better word. I really like vignettes, and I like how you're making this a collection of events instead of a standard, linear plot. And, just, yeah. :3 Aww, thank you! I really appreciate the support. So yesterday I clocked in at 600+ words, already 1,000 behind. XP But maybe I could cheat and count the 2000+ words I wrote for class. >_> Have my character write a paper or something. I'll try to catch up though. Anyway. New vignette. 
The first time she saw him, he was sitting alone at the end of the row. There was something about him – a kind of scholarly quietness – that made her want to sit next to him. So she did. He had a bright brown coat draped over the back of his chair. Most of the boys that she'd seen on campus liked to wear black, gray or blue, the colors of steel, coolness and masculinity. But this boy had an independent air. He did not mind being different – perhaps he even enjoyed being different.
She did not have an opportunity to talk to him then, because a hush swept over the lecture hall in preparation for linguistics class. The professor moved into their sphere of attention and began to share the art of dissecting words and phrases. Pulling meaning out of sounds and scribbles, delving deep into the human mind.
At a crossroads along the journey toward meaning, the professor issued an edict of exploration: "Take ten minutes to work in groups on this problem set."
So the boy with the brown coat turned toward her and smiled at her for the first time. He told her the string of sounds that was his name, and she told him hers.
Whenever she started a story in her free time, the first thing she liked to consult was her dictionary of names. She poured great effort into naming her characters. She wanted each name to make sense, to be justifiable. She wanted to weave the characters' personalities, histories, and possibilities into the names that she gave.
But she learned in linguistics class that day that a name – a string of arbitrary symbols – can mean so much more than what it means.
Edit: Managed to fill yesterday's quota! Now to start on today's.
There he was! The boy in the brown coat, only a few steps ahead of her! She ran to catch up, the excitement bubbling in her chest, fluttering and rising until it flew from her lips in an exclamation of his name.
He turned. "Hi," he responded, with that calm, slightly amused smile that she was beginning to adore.
She was so happy to see him that she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I just came over from a career fair!"
"Yeah?" he continued to look amusedly at her.
"I was curious to see what they had to offer," she went on. "But everything that was there had to do with business or non-profit. I don't want to go into business."
"What do you want to be?"
"A professor," she said. "I think it would be nice to write and teach. And do my own research."
A light came into his eyes. "That's what I want to do too."
She fell into step beside him, and together they resumed their walk to class.
"I just came over from the library," he said, showing her the armful of books that he was carrying. She looked with interest at the titles. They mostly had to do with philosophy, and they all seemed very intellectual and deep.
She listened with fascination as he talked about his research. He was one year older and doing a lot more advanced material than she was. Also he was studying cognitive science, which seemed to her extraordinarily lofty and complex. While he was designing experiments and analyzing theories, prepared to follow each explanation as far as it would go, she was exploring the far more ordinary realm of everyday human experience.
She liked the sound of his voice.
He had the weirdest ideas.
"I think that when I become a professor, I'll give a very special multiple-choice exam," he said. "Naturally, if you get every question right, you'll earn a perfect grade. But if you manage to get every question wrong, then you'll earn a perfect grade as well."
She looked thoughtfully at him.
"You have to really know the material to get every question wrong," he explained. "If you just guess your way through, statistically speaking you're almost guaranteed to accidentally get a few questions right."
"But what if someone gets just one question right?" she asked.
"Then they fail," he answered calmly, without the slightest hesitation.
She laughed. "Ohhhh, you are so evil!"
"I doubt anyone would take the risk anyway," he chuckled.
Maybe I would, she thought, but she didn't say it. Probability had never made much sense to her. You could look into the branching future and put numbers on every branch, you could say that this future world had such-and-such a chance of becoming real... but in the end, when you get there, there is only one world where there once were so many possible alternatives. And when you look back, everything that has ever happened has a 100% chance of having already happened.
Sometimes people put too much stock in numbers, she thinks. She has often been criticized for believing too sincerely in fantasies, but deep inside she still holds on to the tiny hope that anything - no matter how miraculous - anything might come true.
He had a way of inclining his head when he was speaking to her. He was much taller than she was and it was a graceful way for him to make eye contact. But never once did she feel that he was lowering himself to her level – every time he inclined his head, she felt a little flush of pleasure, knowing that he was paying attention to what she had to say, knowing that he respected all her words no matter how small they were.
He was gentlemanly toward her. She could tell by his amused smile that he was often tickled by her spontaneous words. She found that with him she had little reason to hold back anything. She displayed her anxieties, her raptures and her dreams, offering up every tidbit of feeling that sprouted within her on a daily basis. And he never belittled or ignored her emotions. When he texted her one day to tell her that he would not be coming to class, he ended his message by saying, "Don't be worried!" And those three little words were enough to sustain her through her disappointment, keep her focused on the lecture for his sake although she had looked forward so eagerly to his being there.
"No, no," he would say, whenever she berated herself – "I'll be there," he would say, whenever she expressed need. She felt as though she had found new warmth in her life, someone strong and kind and huggable with whom she would be completely safe.
Sometimes, too, he would behave almost like a little boy. The topic about which they bantered the most was the topic of getting a healthy amount of sleep.
"Did you get enough sleep last night?" she patted his shoulder, when she noticed that he was yawning.
"Oh, I had lots of sleep last night. Really!" he protested. "Seven hours!"
"That's not a lot," she pouted, but let him doze off in peace as the subway train rattled on.
At the coffee shop or at the convenience store, he would almost inevitably get a caffeinated drink, completely ignoring the unholiness of the hour.
She put on her best disapproving look. "I strongly advise against caffeine right now."
"Well," he turned to her, "I reject your advice. I want caffeine." And he stamped his foot for additional emphasis, but he couldn't hold back that smile of amusement that broke over his face.
Oh, she enjoyed herself so much whenever she was with him, and she liked to scold him for not taking better care of himself, even though it was entirely her fault that he was so sleep-deprived in the first place.
"Don't sleep too late," she said gently, after hugging him at parting.
"I won't," he smiled, and she watched with a twinge of sadness as he disappeared once more into the night.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 2, 2010 23:42:32 GMT -5
I am so glad I decided to make this a series of vignettes. They're quick to write and I don't have to stress out over plot holes. I feel a mild sense of accomplishment after each one, like a pause for breath. I think I'm beginning to get really into the swing of things. Hopefully this feeling will last!
"Hopefully you'll be able to recognize me," he said with a wink, after they'd decided to meet up in the evening for a study date.
He meant it as a joke, but she actually did feel a little nervous. She hadn't grown up in an area where there were many white people, and she'd read in a study somewhere that people weren't good at distinguishing between individuals of other ethnicities if they hadn't grown up with a lot of exposure to them.
There would be many people at the café. Would she be able to pick him out?
But all her fears evaporated when she walked into the café at the agreed-upon time and spotted him right away, like a candle in the crowd. She bounced across the floor, her heart high-sailing, and he looked up and smiled his little, amused smile.
She was sure now that she would be able to recognize his shadow, his laughter, his footstep, his coat, his gesture anywhere – no matter how many years or miles away.
She began to look forward more and more to the walks.
Walking is one of the most magical activities in the world. For a person who is very young, very old or recovering from a great hurt, walking is the ultimate achievement, the portal to the future. Once it is mastered, it becomes effortless. And for two people in the prime of life, walking is an amazing way to relax and to explore.
At first they fell into a rhythm of simply walking back from class together. Her dorm was in the same direction as his apartment, so he would always accompany her on that fifteen-minute walk. As they walked they chatted about anything and everything. Walking with him lifted her to a higher plane of existence, made the very trees and buildings more brilliant and beautiful.
When they began to get dinner together more often, they developed a habit of always walking out far. There were plenty of places close by where one could eat, but they walked and walked and walked, taking a turn or a side-road completely on a whim, until they stopped, exhausted, at a restaurant that was as mediocre as all the ones they had left behind anyway.
They sometimes took the subway train back, because they'd walked so far and the night-veil had fallen so steeply. Once he covered her shoulders with his coat, because she'd forgotten to bring an extra one, and when they stepped out of a restaurant they'd found that the world had suddenly become a lot darker and colder.
The roads were extraordinarily serene at midnight. Moonlight like touches of silence, trees like standing dreams, and only the slightest whisper of an occasional car.
And the lake, in the distance, always glimmering and moving, glimmering and moving out far, far, far.
Text messages are priceless.
In long-gone days, people used to pore over sheet after sheet of paper, putting down as many thoughts as they could think of to send across to their loved ones. It took such a long time for those thoughts to reach the other side. Hours, days, even weeks. People did not have the luxury of hearing back immediately, of glimpsing the spontaneity before a written response. The waiting went on in slow, undulant waves, eating slowly away at the shore, until the next letter came like a splash of dawn, another reason to get up and embrace the day.
She thought she was very lucky to live in the era of text messages. Even the few minutes in between messages seemed to her a long time – but not too long, just long enough to support the delicious anticipation that would spring up anew with each new message.
"How is your work coming along? I am more than halfway through my second paper. =)"
"Slowly but surely. It's hard to concentrate. Glad your work is progressing!"
"OMG, you talk the same way I do! I say 'slowly but surely' all the time. XD"
"Hahaha, great minds speak alike."
Later: "I am done with my paper. =DDD"
"Congratulations!!!"
"Will you be free this evening? I miss you so much."
"I think I'm free until 11. Would you like to have dinner?"
"Absolutely."
Later: "I'm free anytime."
A little gem, every one.
Edit: 2,822 words at the end of Day 2. Now I'm 512 words behind instead of 1,000 words behind. Not too bad, I suppose. I do wish I'd managed to carve out a better start, though. |
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 4, 2010 0:13:33 GMT -5
Day 3. 4,012 words. Still behind, but I'm happy with how the story is progressing so far. I also worked on my research job and homework today. I'm looking forward to the weekend when I'll have a little more time.
He had the most special hands.
He held his pencil wrong, with every finger-tip against the wood. He said that many people had tried to correct him over the years. He'd tried to hold his pencil the right way, with three fingers cramped and curled underneath, but no amount of practice could make it right for him.
Often when he walked alone, he listened to his iPod, and moved his hands to conduct an imaginary orchestra.
He drew quotation marks in the air when he wanted to emphasize something in a funny or ironic way, sometimes not even consciously. He would always extend the second and third fingers of each hand, long and dramatic, bending only at the farthermost knuckle.
He typed quickly and furtively on his cellphone in response to some text message about his film project. He glanced apologetically at her each time he slid out his cellphone, torn between multiple obligations but striving to fulfill them all.
She wanted to hold his hand. But it was winter, bitterly cold, and they often walked side by side, gloved hands shoved deep in their pockets.
The shelves of sheet music hummed softly in the dimness. She stood at his side, scanning row after row, picking up booklets and listening to the signs on the paper. There were so many possibilities! So many ways four hands could dance in harmony.
They finally picked a lively Dvorak piece. He happened to be familiar with it, and he passed her one of his iPod ear-buds so they could both listen to it. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that she, too, had heard it before. It wasn't until later, when they were walking out of the library, that she remembered where she'd heard it.
"I played in a string orchestra once," she told him. "That was one of the pieces we learned for a competition."
"What instrument did you play?"
"Cello. I wanted to learn to play the violin, but there were too many students who already knew how to play it. All the music experience I had was piano."
And so she shared with him another story from her past life. She didn't often tell this story because it was so humiliating. How she'd entered the orchestra with such high hopes. How she'd discovered only later that its main values were recognition and excellence, not friendship and learning. How she'd felt guilty for not practicing harder than she already did. How she'd eventually been removed from the performance group and placed into the "training" group because her novice skills were preventing the team from winning a gold medal. How she gave up cello two years later and left the orchestra.
He listened to her, as always.
Often he shared with her little pieces of his past too. How he'd lived "in the middle of nowhere." How he'd been in a home-schooling program, how he'd enjoyed reading and learning on his own, how he'd found himself at the edges of social circles when he ventured later into the world of formal schooling.
Stories are the foundation of every friendship. Bridging the gap between present and past, expanding the link from the present moment backward, to form a spiral braid of time – as though the two threads had spun together always, and not simply crossed at a single point.
They walked through the threads upon which musical notes were hung. They entered the forbidden building with its rooms of pianos. They weren't music students – they weren't supposed to be there – but they were there, placing words and instructions aside, working together to produce a mortal music that all humans could hear.
Horoscopes were silly. Of course they were. They had no scientific backing to them, and if one believed too sincerely in silly things like horoscopes, one could be easily manipulated by fortune-tellers.
She carried a lucky charm in her purse – a piece of silk embroidered with the sign of a horse, representing her birth-year – absolutely not because she was superstitious. Nobody who was smart and rational believed in things like the Year of the Horse anymore. Oh no, the only reason she carried that charm was because her father had given it to her. Since she was living so far away from home, she wanted to keep the goodwill of her family close by her side.
She researched the love predictions for this year – the Year of the Tiger – absolutely not because she was superstitious either. Predictions and quizzes were just – fun. Yes, that was what they were. People filled out silly quizzes on Facebook and read horoscopes all the time simply because – it was fun. Of course nobody really believed in any of that stuff, not in today's world of Google and Wikipedia and oceans and oceans of knowledge.
He gave her a toy tiger to humor her, because she'd mentioned that it was the Year of the Tiger. She was far more delighted with it than she let him know. She put in on her bed and hugged it every night, and also gave it a name.
His star-sign, Libra, was compatible with hers, Scorpio. He had the same birthday as her mother. And the first day he'd asked her out was also the anniversary of her parents' marriage. What fun coincidences.
When she hugged her tiger during the evenings that he was too busy, the loneliness welled up and spilled from her eyes. She told herself that it was just chemicals, just a mood swing brought on by her period.
If she had met another attractive male in another time, another place, she would have experienced the same chemically-induced emotions. Absolutely.
The fact that it was him who was now the object of her intense desire was mere coincidence.
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Post by Jayeee on Nov 4, 2010 16:49:35 GMT -5
OoOoO, Yoyote, this is a really lovely NaNo!
I really applaud and envy you for doing something this personal and detailed.
I'm enjoying reading these a lot!
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 5, 2010 0:05:09 GMT -5
OoOoO, Yoyote, this is a really lovely NaNo! I really applaud and envy you for doing something this personal and detailed. I'm enjoying reading these a lot! Thank you, Jaye.  Today I clocked in at 5,681 words, just before midnight. Phew. I'm roughly 1,000 words behind schedule again, but I'm too tired right now to try to write more. I'm pretty happy with what I've written today though. One more day to the weekend!
"My apartment has often been described as clinical," he joked, as he stepped back to let her in.
She took off her boots and looked around. "Wow."
"Yeah." He seemed a little embarrassed. "My roommate and I don't get along very well, so we keep the common spaces clean to avoid conflict."
She gravitated toward the couch because it looked very comfortable. But, guided by her parents' advice to stay cautious, she sat down on the far left and put her laptop casually on her right. He sat down next to her laptop.
They chatted for a while, and then proceeded to do their homework. After all, it was for the purpose of studying that they'd gotten together.
Some way through the worksheet, she was feeling great. So she pulled the laptop onto her lap and opened it to reference some notes. She glanced at him, but he was still busy writing on his worksheet. At the end of the worksheet, they compared answers.
Then he stood up and invited her to his bedroom. She knew she had nothing to fear, so she followed. There was an electronic keyboard in his bedroom, a boom-box with shelves of CDs, and many, many books. He sat down to play some music for her. He told her that his favorite composer was Beethoven; she watched with fascination as he tackled the chords. A look of focused emotion came into his face that she had never seen before.
"You're pretty good," she said, and he laughed and denied it. She was amused, because she'd thought that only Asians reacted so humbly to praise.
Then she tried to play a little Debussy from memory, but didn't get very far, so he showed her more of his music collection. He got to talking about his childhood and how he used to go to church, and he put on some organ music.
"Want to go eat?" she said, after they'd spent about an hour listening to music.
"Sure! Where do you want to go?"
He knew the city far better than she did because he was living off-campus, so he took her to a Pan-Asian stir-fry restaurant. It was a very innovative restaurant, with ingredients from all kinds of Asian countries ranging from China to Korea to Japan. The mish-mash of different cultures actually tasted pretty awesome.
Afterward they went back to his apartment, and she showed him a poem she'd written that was shaped like a Hershey's kiss. She liked to write visual poetry, molding words into interesting shapes. He showed her some sonnets that he'd written in a creative writing class. When she got up to leave some time later, he made her a gift of some excellent chocolate from Norway.
It was delicious.
"Was that a date?" she asked.
"I think so, yeah," he said.
They had just walked out of the movie theater, and the night was deep around them. The movie had been an entertaining 3-D one, transporting them to a glorious planet far away from Earth. He continued wearing his 3-D glasses afterward just for fun, and nearly tripped down the stairs. She laughed with him.
But now the world was quiet, and the stars were twinkling.
He glanced timidly at her. "Sorry I'm not very good at..." – and didn't finish the sentence.
"Have you ever dated anyone before?" she asked.
"No."
"Me neither." They walked together in silence for a few moments, and then she said, "It's okay, we're both learning."
He seemed relieved.
Outside her dorm, she stretched out her arms to hug him for the first time. A look of pleasant surprise lit up his features, and he leaned over to hug her back. She returned to her dorm room with a spring in her step.
He hadn't touched her or kissed her in the movie theater like the books said people were supposed to, but that was okay. It had still been a movie date. After all, they still needed time to get to know each other better.
It was performance day! She felt as though she'd waded through mountains and rivers to reach it.
She studied her reflection in the mirror. Long, dark hair smoothed into a ponytail, with a glittering hairclip on each side of her head. Daubs of gold on her blazing red costume. Light in her eyes and a flush in her cheeks.
She was standing in the backroom among several other dancers, applying final touches of make-up to her face. The room was saturated with voices.
"Can you help me with this zip?"
"Does anyone have blush?"
"Oops!"
"Where did I put my scarf?"
"Thanks."
"People in the third dance, get ready! The first dance is almost done."
"Is anyone changing back there?"
"Did anyone see my scarf?"
"No problem."
"People in the third dance!"
"I can't find my scarf!"
"Hurry up!"
But for her there was only one voice. She ran to her purse to pick up her cellphone, and her face was glowing with a radiance which had nothing to do with make-up.
"Can I go watch the other dances?" she asked her choreographer.
"Just make sure you're back at least two dances before our performance."
"Okay," she said. "I'll keep my cellphone on vibrate in case you need to call me."
Most of the performers were sitting in the balcony, but she slipped into the audience. He'd told her in his text message that he was sitting near the front, at the far right. She crept forward in the darkness, past row after row...
And there he was! – wearing a soft purple jacket, leaning leisurely to one side with his chin cupped in his hand, just the way he liked to do in class. She briefly considered sneaking up on him and saying, "Boo!" but her feet were carrying her forward too quickly. Before she had time to finish the thought, she found herself jumping into his field of vision with a breathless "Hiii!"
He looked up – and was speechless.
"How do I look?" she said.
He put up both thumbs.
She dropped quietly into the seat next to him. He averted his gaze for a moment, and then looked at her again. Later, when the music in the auditorium had quietened down, he leaned closer and said, "Your costume is nice."
She blushed and glanced down at her lap. "Thank you."
The other performances whirled by before their eyes, just as though they were sitting in a kaleidoscope. There were hip-hop dances, traditional Chinese dances, and one or two skits. Finally it was her turn to prepare to go onstage.
"Chinese dance is very collectivistic, so you might not be able to tell which one is me," she whispered to him, "but just relax and enjoy the show."
He nodded.
She flitted out of the audience and joined her fellow dancers in the backroom. It took her some scurrying to find her fan, but soon it was safely in her hand, a folded red flower ready to spill open.
Quietly the dancers made their way backstage, giving one another last-minute words of encouragement. From behind the curtain, she peeped at the audience. She couldn't see him because the stage lights were in her eyes, but she imagined that he was watching with an open, expectant face.
The choreographer was giving some final, whispered instructions. "Concentrate and relax. Don't worry if you make a slight mistake – just keep going and no one will notice."
The girls fingered their fans and breathed.
And then the moment came. The lights went out; the emcees started speaking. She filed onstage with her fellow dancers, past those who had just finished performing. "Good job!" she whispered to a shadow that brushed past her. "Good luck!" the shadow whispered back.
There was a pause after the emcees stepped aside. The drums started up; the lights flashed on. And she ran forward with the other girls and leaped into dance.
Fire – they were personifying fire. Curls of flame jumping up and down. A ripple of red spreading from one fan to the next. Incandescent life and passion, rising and falling in sweeps, whirling away and rushing back again.
When it was over, she ran to the dressing-room. As she changed back into her normal clothes, she could still feel the drums pounding in her chest and the applause ringing in her ears.
Transformed back into an ordinary girl, she sneaked once more into the audience, and this time no one gave her a second glance. But he was waiting for her with a big smile on his face. The moment she sat down, he leaned over and whispered, "Good job!"
The rest of the show sped past in a blur, and before long she found herself getting up to leave. The world was dark and cold once more when they meandered out of the auditorium. He accompanied her a little way, but stopped next to the library.
"I'm going to do some work now," he said gently.
A well of something bubbled up in her – sorrow that the long-anticipated evening was over so quickly? Guilt for taking up hours of his time when he had so much work to do? Gratitude that he'd made the effort to come and see what she had practiced so long to achieve?
She reached out and gave him a hug. He smiled reassuringly at her and disappeared into the library, but his warmth remained with her on the pensive walk back.
She dreamed of healing him.
She dreamed of walking up to where he sat with his back to her, where he typed so resolutely away at his computer. Mounds of paper piled up around him, pulling him into the void of work, the swirl of present moments, the rhythm of obligation after obligation. No time for past secrets, no time for buried feelings, no time for distant hopes or future dreams.
He hadn't drunk anything in hours.
She filled a cup with warm water and placed it by his hand. Then she put her hands on his shoulders, bent over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He glanced up at her then, glanced up with those incredible eyes of his, and smiled a brief, apologetic smile.
And she lay in bed thinking about his smile, thinking and drifting between layers of dream.
People were always coming and going. It wasn't safe to become too attached to any person or any place – better to stay empty in the first place than to know extraordinary fulfillment and then have all that joy and meaning gouged out of you. She knew that perfectly well.
The last place she'd passed through, she hadn't made any lasting friendships. She'd carried herself like a tourist, polite and curious, and moved on just as soon as she had completed that stage of her journey. There was no reason for her to impose herself on other people. The other students had grown up together, known one another years before they were even aware of her existence, and she was extraneous. Yes, it was nice to have her – yes, she made for an interesting addition at the lunch table – but no, she wasn't needed. And she accepted that.
Wherever she did perceive a need, she tried to fill it. Translated for new immigrants who could barely speak English. Answered the teacher's question if no one else spoke. And she faded into the background the moment the need was no longer there. Backed out of the mended circle, which would continue turning without her.
The Earth turned, the Sun turned, the galaxies turned, the universe turned. Nothing stayed still. And most importantly, caught in the flow of movement, people came and went, like sprinkles of stardust. She was just another sparkle among millions of others, small, insignificant, filling a temporary space. She understood deeply that the universe did not revolve around her.
But after he came into her life, the world seemed to become a lot smaller. Years shrank down to hours, and the only distance that mattered anymore was that between him and her.
He was only in his third year and she in her second year, but already she was dreading the day of his graduation.
I'm saving number 14 for the Valentine's Day scene, which I haven't managed to put into words yet. |
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 7, 2010 18:27:07 GMT -5
Heaven knows, I needed that extra hour today (the end of Daylight Savings Time). For the previous few days I was really struggling to keep up, and I didn't write a single word on Friday. But yesterday I recuperated, slept until 1:30pm, and wrote a few thousand words. Today I caught up some more. Right now it's 5:25pm, I'm at 10,012 words, and I'll try to hit at least the 12k mark after dinner.
On the evening of Valentine's Day, she looked at herself in the mirror. She had spent a long time dreaming and preparing, but now she stood with smooth-combed hair, luminous lips and radiant eyes. She was wearing a form-fitting pink jacket with subtle white and blue patterns, a tank-top to go underneath, and a sleek black skirt. She changed her pose and felt a fluttery feeling.
Her cellphone rang. She picked it up with excited fingers. He was waiting for her in the lobby!
Her heart skipped in a way that was becoming familiar to her when she stepped out and saw him. Partly due to her happiness, and partly due to his dark blue outfit, she thought he looked even more amazing than usual. He smiled, inclined his head, and she ran to hug him.
"I've put on a tie for the occasion," he announced, and then looked down at himself. "Sorry it's not very visible," he added.
She laughed. "It's beautiful."
They wandered out into town, plan-less as usual, looking vaguely for a place where they could eat. Finally they walked into a Thai restaurant and sat down in an atmosphere of wood, plants, pictures and glass.
"They're playing Chinese music," she informed him. "Probably fooling everyone into thinking that it's Thai."
He had been fooled, but now he was in on the joke too, and he looked at the oblivious customers in a new and different way. They laughed together in a moment of careless merriment.
While waiting for their food to arrive, he pulled out several books from his bag and made a show of telling her how each one related to his research interests. She listened as usual, admiring his face and his voice. Then he took out the last book and said, nonchalantly, "This one is for you."
"For me?" she clasped her hands together.
He smiled amusedly.
She fingered the large tome in awe. It was fully 700 pages long, and as she flipped through it, she saw diagrams, pictures, numbers, and words.
"I will start reading it over break," she promised him.
"Take your time," he said. "It took me four months to get through."
In the summer months long after Valentine's Day, the book would provide her with much-needed solace, challenging her intellectually and giving her reason to have faith in humanity when everything around her seemed to lose its meaning.
The meal was a refreshing one. They started with satay, because she'd mentioned, upon glancing at the menu, that she recognized this Singaporean dish. She felt slightly guilty when he proceeded to order it, because it seemed to her an unnecessary expenditure. But he was curious to try it, and it really was quite delicious when it came.
They both had noodles for the main course. She teased him into using chopsticks, and he humored her for a little while.
"You're not supposed to cross them," she said.
"But I want to cross them!" he protested, and put on his little-boy expression until she relented.
For dessert they had green tea ice cream, her favorite. She couldn't believe how good he was to her.
He escorted her back to her dorm, and they stood for a moment at the doorway. The way that the moonlight fell around his figure touched her immeasurably, and she said in a timid voice, "Can I give you a kiss?"
He smiled. "Yeah, sure."
She was going to kiss him on the cheek, but he leaned over and kissed her quickly on the lips. Her eyes lit up and a flush came into her face. Deep inside, she was squealing, "My first kiss!!!"
But he stepped back immediately afterward, inclined his head as though in acknowledgment of her pleasure, and raised his hand to wave goodbye. It was the first and last kiss that he would ever give her.
Later in the evening, she told him via e-mail that she was feeling too ecstatic to work on her paper for class. She'd meant it as an "Oh my goodness, it was an amazing night. Thank you so much!" - and she rather expected him to react in a similar way. But his reply, when it came, was extraordinarily calm, just like one of his indulgent smiles: "I usually put on Bach when I need something to help me work."
So she listened to the music that he habitually listened to, until her heartbeat slowed to a manageable rhythm. But still sweet and exciting and layered, like a fugue.
He always walked by her side, not in front, even if it meant going to the edge of the pavement and circling around a lamp-post. He sometimes held doors open for her, but never rushed forward to do so, and just as often she would do the same for him.
Once, when they were together in a student lounge, the windows were open and a chilly wind was coming in. He turned around at the same time that she did to close the windows. In order to close one of those windows, one had to slide a huge pane of glass down, and it was likely that the frames hadn't been oiled in a long time.
He closed one window with fairly little effort. At the other window, she had to stand up to press her entire weight down on the edge of the glass pane before it would move. But he didn't offer to help her at all. He simply sat and smiled encouragingly at her, trusting in her efforts and letting her know that he was there if needed. Every time she looked back on that precious moment later on, she would feel a small flowering of joy.
She knew that he liked her independence. He'd said so, once, in an admiring way, "You walk fast." He explained to her that a person's gait was closely related to her personality.
There was only one occasion where she felt a clear impulse to depend on him. It was when they were watching an opera about a wedding. Several times she leaned closer and closer, but never quite made it. During intermission they lay back, looked at each other and chatted leisurely, and she had the perfect opportunity to do it then, but didn't manage to. When the opera resumed, he leaned forward, and her opportunity was gone.
She wrote to him afterward: "I have a small confession to make... During the performance, I noticed that the girl in front of us was leaning on the boy's shoulder. I thought about leaning on your shoulder too, but finally decided against it, because I wasn't sure... Would you have felt awkward? Or would you have liked it?"
His response was reassuring: "That's hardly a confession =). I'm pretty sure it would not have been awkward."
So why didn't I do it? she thought. It would have been so easy, just a momentary release, an absolute faith in his strength and stability.
"All right, let's play this Imperialist game," she said, after he had given her a quick introduction to the board game called Risk.
He indicated the boxes of playing pieces. "You pick first."
"Is there a color that you always like to use?" she asked.
"Yes, but that will depend on what you pick."
"I'm guessing you don't like pink?" She hovered her hand over the box of pink pieces.
"Well, I usually pick red, because it looks very menacing," he said. "But if you're going with pink—"
"Oh." She put down the box of pink pieces. "I'll go with green then, because it doesn't look menacing." She gave him a dangerous grin.
He smiled. "All right, let's be Christmassy."
The little green and red armies spread across the imaginary parallel world. At first the green armies put up an enthusiastic fight, but soon they began to lose quite pathetically. The red armies accumulated patiently on select territories, now and then making a forceful, sweeping attack.
"My samurai!" she exclaimed, as one of his armies pushed through Japan. "Noooooo!"
The more she squealed, the more coolly he made his moves. He did not go easy on her simply because she was a beginner.
"Madagascar," he said intently, reaching for the dice.
"Uh oh," she replied.
Three of his pieces were taken out before he managed to capture the territory. "Man, this place is a fortress!" he said.
She laughed.
The bloodshed continued. Finally, the entire board was covered in red.
"Congratulations, you dominate the world," she said.
He looked thoughtfully at a small cluster of unused red pieces. "I usually like to finish with just one big army," he mused. "Didn't do it so neatly this time." Then he emerged from intense game-mode back into normal-mode, and smiled.
She laughed. It was so typical of him, to strive to perfection even in a recreational board game.
They played chess after that, and she was struck again by how amazingly defensive he was. Just as in Risk, where he built up his armies and refused to sacrifice them until his sweeping attack, in chess he carefully avoided all the chains of sacrifice that she set up. The result was a very slow, meticulous game, gradually shaping in his favor, until he had only his king and queen left, and she had only her king.
The lounge was very quiet. He made his final move.
She looked at the board and burst into laughter. "Stalemate!" she declared.
"What?" he blinked, studied the board, and thrust his hands into the air. "What?" he repeated emphatically.
She patted his back. "It's all right," she said.
"I lost," he said mournfully.
"No you didn't! It was a draw."
"Still counts as a loss."
She almost felt bad for drawing with him then, for pricking at the arrogance which she found so endearing.
"I have a present for you," she announced, hiding it behind her back.
"Aw, you don't have to give me anything," he smiled.
But she wanted to. He had given her so much, and she wanted to give back. "You mentioned that you liked dogs," she explained. "So I got you a dog – it's not a very big dog, but still, a dog." She placed a little toy dog in his palm.
"Aww, it's very cute," he said, turning it over. There was a red heart embroidered into its back. He touched it tentatively with his finger, and she thought she saw a kind of fearful sadness in his gaze. But it was gone as quickly as it had come, and he looked up with a smile.
Her next gift for him was the first work of literary translation that she had ever attempted.
"Wow," he said, leafing through the pages. "Wow." She had carefully copied the original Chinese words onto each page and added her own translation.
"Even though it's a picture book and it looks simple, the story is very profound," she explained. "It's not something that children would understand on their first reading. Kind of like Le Petit Prince."
"Did the author draw all of these pictures as well?"
"Yes."
He gazed at the surreal pictures of elevators, garden mazes, and bookshelves. Then he put the book carefully into his backpack, and they moved on to talk about other things.
Her parents had thought it was very strange of her to give him a book that dealt with themes of death and loss. "Not a good omen," her mother had said.
But for him and for her, death had been a common topic from the beginning. It was part of the cycle of life, after all, and every thoughtful person would have had to contemplate it at some point.
She told him about her childhood fear of oblivion, about the inexplicable grief and trauma she experienced after her goldfish died. He told her about his mother's early death and how he sometimes imagined what his life would have been like had his mother survived.
They emerged from a café at a starlit hour and came across a group of students who were laughing and playing without a care in the world.
"They haven't been talking about death for the past few hours," he observed, with the slight, amused smile that she adored so much.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 9, 2010 0:25:33 GMT -5
Word-count-wise, I'm on track. 13,354 words at the end of Day 8.
It was the last linguistics class of the term. She had bittersweet feelings going into it. This was the class where she'd met him; this was the class that had held for her so many wonderful memories, and now it was coming to an end.
After the professor finished a thank-you speech, everyone applauded. He told her then that it was one of his favorite moments at the end of every term, when the students clap to express their appreciation of the professor.
After class, she suggested that they study together that evening to prepare for their final exam, and he agreed. They walked over to the student activity center together.
On the way there, he asked her if she wanted to participate in a study he was conducting for his cognitive psych research project, and she said yes. She mentioned having participated in psych studies before, where she looked at pictures and rated her happiness on a scale of 1 to 10. He replied, "Oh, I wouldn't ask you to rate your happiness." Then he quickly corrected himself, "I mean, I care about your happiness, but... for reasons other than the purposes of my study."
She looked at him then, and he smiled.
They arrived at the student activity center, bought some food, sat down, and ended up not doing the review problems after all. First she filled out a survey for his study – he wanted to investigate how people decided whether somebody was responsible for an outcome or not. It was a serious philosophical question, but his humor was unmistakable even in a research survey. Each question put forth some variation of a scenario where a guy made a choice between boots and tennis shoes, and subsequently ended up with either dry or wet feet. As the scenarios increased in complexity, the guy had less and less direct control over the outcome. All kinds of ridiculous concepts were brought in, such as special waterproof tennis shoes, holes in boots, and irrational beliefs. She found herself laughing as she proceeded through the survey, and she glanced up and caught his mild, amused smile, which only added to her mirth.
After she had finished his survey, they sat and chatted about miscellaneous things. She made an observation about the advertisements in the student center, and then checked herself: "Wait, it's supposed to be pronounced AD-ver-tyz-ment, isn't it?"
"That's how the people here generally say it," he replied. "But keep saying ad-VER-dis-ment – it's cute."
She smiled, unafraid to show her teeth even though she was wearing braces. With him she felt as though she could display all her quirks and still be appreciated.
Perhaps he felt the same way as well. He showed her a poem that he'd written in English class, saying, "You can keep it if you like. The library printer glitched and gave me more copies than I needed. I was like: what am I going to do with all these copies? Stand by the road and give them to people?"
She laughed. "Maybe you'll earn a reputation as a poet." And part of her meant it too; she could tell that he enjoyed having his ego fed.
He watched her as she immersed herself in his poem. It was a surprisingly complex poem, written in first-person, containing all kinds of musings about morality and death while sitting on a subway train. She felt her heartbeat accelerating with the intensity of the words. Finally she broke the moment by lifting her gaze from the poem. "I'm going to study it," she declared, folding it up and putting it into her purse.
"Oh no," he said, feigning terror, but unable to keep his pleasure hidden.
He had a commitment to attend to later in the evening, so he accompanied her back to her dorm. It was a perfectly ordinary walk, but she tried to memorize every second of it, because it was the last walk that she would ever have with him back from linguistics class again.
I really need to work on developing his character more so that the turning point in the plot will be utterly shattering, not only for her, but also for the reader. But today and yesterday I was in the mood mostly to write about the psychological reverberations that came with the turning points. I'll save numbers 22, 23, 24, 27, 28 and 29 for more character development when I'm in a better mood to write them. Warning: the following sections are very emotionally intense. They might not make much sense without the chunks of character development that I have yet to produce.
Toward the end of the term, she sat at her desk trying to get a good start on a final paper, but the words that kept scrolling across her consciousness were words that were unrelated to her paper. After trying repeatedly to brush them aside, she finally accepted that the only way to deal with them would be to let them out.
So she settled down to write some of the most important words she had ever written in her life, to tell him that she loved him.
I'm writing this email on Monday night, but I will refrain from clicking "send" until Tuesday at 5pm, so that it won't distract you from your paper. I really want you to do well... you're probably working hard on it now as I write.
The point of this email – the thesis, so to speak – is that I have been thinking about you a lot and I want to let you know about my feelings. I realize that it is important not to be too demanding, because that is emotionally taxing for both parties, but at the same time, it is important to communicate. That is why I decided to write to you.
You appeared genuinely surprised and confused today when I caught up with you after class and blurted out, "I missed you." After all, it's only been three and a half days since I saw you on Thursday. So I will try to explain my statement here, because I tend to express myself best in writing.
On Friday, after I turned in my French paper – the third paper I had to turn in that week – I felt deeply relieved. All that week I had been up to my neck in work, which had occupied a great deal more of my intellectual and emotional capacity than I'd fully realized. Suddenly I didn't have anything due until the first day of finals week! At first I felt buoyant, but then it dawned on me that... the term was pretty much over.
It is one thing to know something rationally, but for me at least, processing it emotionally takes longer. It's like after I moved to Canada, I knew I wouldn't be going to my Singaporean high school anymore, but part of me still half-expected to see my friends and teachers in my suddenly foreign surroundings. Also, after I moved to college, I was initially caught in the happy whirl of welcome week, but after I'd had time to process the transition a little more, I cried in the middle of the night. I realized I would be spending only a few months with my family each year from then on. It was an overwhelming concept.
The bewilderment I felt over the weekend was of similar magnitude to what I felt on those two occasions. The term was over – that meant, among other things, no more linguistics classes with you. It was possible that I wouldn't get to see you again until after my spring break trip! I hadn't been away from you for longer than four days at a time since I started getting to know you, and my moments with you had been so full of joy. The prospect of a two-to-three week separation immediately after such regularity seemed unbearable.
I reassured myself that you would be in touch as soon as you were able, that we would find opportunities to get together during reading week and maybe even during finals week. I told myself that you were busy, that I should be considerate and trusting toward you. The rational side of me won, for I managed not to bombard you with text messages. I also got some reading done. But on Sunday afternoon, when I hadn't heard from you for almost three days, I succumbed to my emotions and cried in the shower.
At first I tried to blame it on my period, on stress, but those weren't satisfactory explanations in and of themselves. I'd been through them before without experiencing such intense emotions. So I concluded that I had to be in love.
I have control over it to the extent that I can channel my feelings into writing, art, music and dance. I was unusually expressive at dance practice on Saturday morning. But this kind of control is nowhere near as solid as the control I have over, say, syntactical trees... and that makes me afraid.
Well, it is time to bring this extremely long email to a close. One of my greatest flaws, as well as my greatest virtues, is my honesty. Maybe I should have withheld more of this from you, but I just feel so much better for sharing it, and I trust that you are mature enough to understand. Please be in touch as soon as you are able – if you need to drop off the face of the planet for a few days because of exams and papers, just let me know so I'm not left feeling anxious.
I know that a real, committed relationship takes time to build, and I am willing to work patiently to get there. For now, it's enough just to share wonderful moments with you when we both have the chance. Please tell me if there's anything I can do to make our friendship/relationship better.
Yours,
She signed her name and felt a heavy wall of silence lift from her heart.
Tuesday passed by slowly, but the cumulative slowness of all those hours could not compare to the slowness of the minute just before she pressed "Send." She stared at the computer screen, wondering if she was doing the right thing, wondering if she would cause him stress, wondering if she was being selfish by unloading her feelings onto him.
But she had no choice. The entire weight of the wall of silence hovered above her, threatening to crush her, threatening to enclose her once more if she didn't press "Send."
So she did – and passed the night wading through torrents of dreams until Wednesday morning.
She glanced at the time-stamp on his email and felt a stab of guilt. He hadn't been able to sleep until almost 4 a.m., and he had had to write a paper before that too. But helplessly, hungrily, she went on to read his verbal expression of his love for her.
If it isn't obvious from the time that this message is reaching your inbox, this took me a long time to write (the actual writing took over 2 hours, while the pondering took all the time since I've received it), in large part because I spent a long time trying to figure out exactly what I feel. You note that you are best at expressing yourself in writing, and this is true of me as well. I also tend to be more open, perhaps because I know that I can revise my thoughts before sending an email, so I have to be more reserved when speaking in person for fear of saying something I didn't intend.
I'm very glad that you wrote to me, and I don't think your honesty is a flaw at all. I wish that I had more of that honesty and, in a very real sense, bravery, when it comes to expressing my own feelings. I'm going to do my best to exhibit those qualities in writing this email, but I will probably fall short of that goal. Thank you, by the way, for waiting until after I had turned in my paper to send your message. It would have been fine to send it at any time, and I certainly could have written my paper, but I really do appreciate your consideration for me.
I'll begin with stating something that I hope is very obvious, namely that I like you very much. When I seemed surprised and confused on Monday, that was because I was surprised to see you out of context, not because I was surprised to hear that you had missed me. I also misunderstood what you said at first, which only added to my confusion. I just want to clarify that before I move on to the feelings.
I would be misleading you if I didn't tell you that there are two things about me that make a lasting relationship difficult. The first is something you know, that I have a tendency to overextend my time in every direction. This term was probably the least busy term I've had in a year and a half, and it was certainly and by far the least busy I'll have until I graduate. Next term, I start the philosophy honors sequence, which I'm told is itself like taking 2 classes timewise, and then I have 4 additional courses on top of that. During the fall, I'll be finishing philosophy honors, starting cognitive science honors, and also beginning shooting on my film, which will take up most of my weekend time that wasn't already taken up with my academic work. What I'm saying is that I'm not going to be able to give you the time that you really deserve. You are a marvelous person, and I would feel awful if I kept you from having a fulfilling relationship because I can't devote a big enough part of my time – not to mention my soul, so to speak – to you.
The second thing is something that I've never explicitly mentioned, but you have probably guessed at. I have a very difficult time, for whatever reason, with romantic relationships. Intimacy, both physical and emotional, makes me nervous, which is probably why I try to counterfeit intimacy with romantic gestures (to the extent that I even do that). I can't really say I've ever been in love with anyone in a romantic sense. As I say, I like you very much; in fact, I love you platonically; but I have never loved anyone in a romantic sense, or even really been infatuated to be honest. It's probably some chemical that my brain doesn't produce, or something like that. I don't know. To be honest (and I have quite literally never told anyone this before) I've sometimes wondered if I might be homosexual, but that kind of intimacy seems, if anything, even more terrifying and unsettling. My life is not difficult to live, but I hate the consequence that it's having right now, that it's keeping me from loving you in the way that I should. This makes me feel terrible, and I wish I could feel differently, but I just can't. Maybe with time I can learn to love, but it would be dishonest of me to suggest that this is likely to occur in the year I have remaining here.
I don't really know what to suggest at this point. Being with you makes me very happy, and I want very deeply to continue being friends. I am tempted to say that we should try to develop our romantic relationship further, in spite of what I am saying, but I'm not sure how mature or realistic that would be. What makes this so difficult for me is in part that I value your friendship so highly, and in part that I want to prevent you from suffering. Because of these biases, it is hard for me to take a rational stance on this. I am also tempted to say that I should let you decide what we should do, but I'm worried that I only want to do that because it would seem to alleviate some of the blame from me. Of course, that is ridiculous, because this is entirely my fault, and I should have been more upfront with you to begin with, especially about my difficulty with intimacy.
What I'm saying is that I don't have a solution and I don't know what to say or do. If you think that in spite of what I've said we can continue to be close friends, that would make me very happy. If you're disgusted with me and wish to never see me again, I would understand that unequivocally and I can help you bring this about. I don't think that it's realistic to suppose that our relationship is going to become much deeper romantically than it is. I keep writing things like "but I've been wrong before" and "If you think we should try, we should" but I think this is my very intense guilt speaking, not any intellectual or emotional truth. I went to the bathroom a moment ago and stared into the mirror, wondering whether I'm making a mistake, wondering whether I should be happy that there's no hell for me to go to or whether I should wish to be sent there.
I've been feeling for perhaps two weeks that I needed to articulate some of these emotions, but I've been putting it off, mainly because of my guilt and my desire to keep things the way they are, since I do like our relationship the way it is now. This procrastination is completely unacceptable, and I can't express how deeply sorry I am for the pain that I've caused you. I would like very much to remain friends with you, and it is likely that if a romantic relationship is tabled, at least for now, that I will be better able to be emotionally intimate with you. Maybe someday that kind of intimacy can develop again into something romantic, but for the moment, you deserve someone who can dedicate himself to making you happy, and if anything could prove that I don't fit that bill, it is my failure to be honest with you about my fear of intimacy.
You haven't been "clingy," you haven't been pushy, and you haven't done anything wrong whatsoever. You have been more than understanding about my hesitation with physical intimacy, and I can tell that you can tell that I have this problem. Sending me your email was a brave and honest gesture that only wins you points in my book. This is just the right time for me to tell you the truth, and I really am sorry that the truth is so unpleasant.
I want to continue to share wonderful moments, and I want to be your friend. I want to keep going to the opera and walking by the lake and eating nice dinners and complaining about how unscientific syntax and morphology are. If you still want to, I would love to play the duet with you on Sunday, and I would enjoy spending time with you this week, now that all of my papers are finished. As I've said, though, if you don't feel that way about me in light of this email, I would understand completely. If you want to take some time away from me, or to talk about all this in person, or to never see me again, or to see me tomorrow, any of these are completely reasonable reactions. I would ask your forgiveness, but I think it might be too much to ask.
If this seems very confusing, it's because I am confused and have very conflicted feelings, and I wish I could be more helpful.
Now it's time for a haunted dream – not the first one, and surely not the last.
Love,
And there was the name which had fallen so sharply and sweetly into her heart that first day.
She couldn't speak to him for a week. Her rational side told her to keep her distance from him from now on so that she could learn to regard him as no more than a brotherly figure. Her emotional side urged her to continue being as kind and sweet to him as she could manage, to enjoy all the time she could get with him before his graduation and hope that a miracle would ultimately happen.
Two phrases from his letter kept echoing in her mind: "My life is not difficult to live, but I hate the consequence that it's having right now, that it's keeping me from loving you in the way that I should." It made her cry to think about the immensity of his selflessness – that he could understand how much she cared about him, think from her point of view, and reassure her that he would be fine. But she found it so hard to believe that his life was "not difficult to live" – she felt so sad whenever she pictured him falling asleep while reading, as he'd told her he often liked to do. She wanted him to fall asleep while holding someone, even if that someone could not be her.
She told herself that it was likely he had a huge wall around his heart, because of the lack of feminine tenderness in his life after his mother died when he was only five. "Maybe with time I can learn to love" was a phrase that shone through his tangle of conflicting emotions.
She wanted to unlock his love, even if the process took years. But she felt an overwhelming sense of doom – what if she was only hurting him, and herself, by holding on to impossible hopes? What if he really couldn't devote himself to a romantic relationship with her?
The more fiercely she stared into the future, the mistier it seemed. Finally she buried her fears and tried to live only in the present moment, only for the precious moments that he could share with her before his graduation. She loved him too much to leave him now.
[9:40:10 PM] Her: I don't know if I should be telling you this... but right now I have another reason to work hard [9:40:37 PM] Her: I want to go to the same city as you, after graduation [9:40:52 PM] Her: I know you will get into a great school [9:41:14 PM] Him: I hope we do end up in the same city [9:41:43 PM] Him: I want to stay friends with you [9:41:55 PM] Her: *hugs* [9:42:01 PM] Her: sorry about getting a little sentimental there [9:42:07 PM] Him: haha, that's okay [9:42:37 PM] Her: I learned a lot when I was at my friend D's place in Montreal [9:42:42 PM] Him: oh? [9:43:01 PM] Her: I might have mentioned to you before that she's in a long-distance relationship [9:43:18 PM] Her: she told me a little more about that, when we were walking in the botanical garden [9:44:04 PM] Her: sometimes I feel like a character in a story [9:44:07 PM] Her: it's all too neat [9:44:13 PM] Her: D's situation is almost the exact reversal of my own [9:44:29 PM] Him: how so? [9:45:18 PM] Her: she is an only child, and her father has always been somewhat absent from her life [9:46:32 PM] Her: the boy who became attracted to her – his name is K – has both parents as well as a sister [9:46:54 PM] Her: after they were friends for a while, he started wanting to get closer to her [9:47:25 PM] Her: but she felt she couldn't, somehow [9:47:47 PM] Him: I see what you mean about being the reversal [9:47:55 PM] Him: there's almost a perfect mapping, if I understand what you're getting at, hahaha [9:48:34 PM] Him: There's no emoticon for 'sad smile' which is what I was looking for [9:48:35 PM] Him: oh well [9:48:44 PM] Her: well, after that crisis, D went to McGill University [9:48:51 PM] Her: and K went into the Singaporean Armed Forces [9:49:05 PM] Her: so they were physically apart [9:49:50 PM] Her: but the distance gave both of them time to think, and they are now close friends again [9:50:25 PM] Her: D is going back to Singapore to see him next week [9:50:33 PM] Him: I see [9:50:41 PM] Him: well that's a happy ending [9:50:43 PM] Him: or middle anyway [9:50:52 PM] Her: they have a lot of uncertainty in front of them [9:51:04 PM] Her: K's term of service doesn't end until he is 21 [9:51:16 PM] Her: but... I'm happy for them [9:51:36 PM] Her: that they decided to venture forward despite the fear [9:53:12 PM] Her: I should stop making you uncomfortable now =S [9:53:16 PM] Him: Hahahahaha [9:53:23 PM] Him: you're just assuming I'm uncomfortable [9:53:27 PM] Him: actually I was trying to think of what to say [9:53:34 PM] Her: well, I can't see your face [9:53:48 PM] Him: true, which is probably good because I'm trying to do more than one thing right now [9:54:12 PM] Him: I know there's something I have to say here [9:54:15 PM] Him: hahaha [9:55:21 PM] Her: you don't have to say anything yet [9:55:25 PM] Her: I want to give you time [9:55:37 PM] Him: that's not quite what I mean though [9:56:10 PM] Her: I'm sorry for all the stupid things I said when I was naive and infatuated [9:56:19 PM] Her: I promise to be patient from now on [9:56:21 PM] Him: no, they weren't stupid at all [9:56:24 PM] Him: they were very important to say [9:56:31 PM] Him: I really wish I could be as open as you have been [9:57:01 PM] Him: it's just very difficult for me [9:57:13 PM] Him: especially as I've said a lot of things in the past that somewhat contradict each other [9:57:19 PM] Him: partly because it's difficult to be honest with myself [9:58:01 PM] Him: what I said about not being attracted to women was true [9:58:28 PM] Him: which has absolutely nothing to do with you [9:58:39 PM] Him: I really love you, in a platonic sense [9:59:22 PM] Him: and I'm becoming more and more confident that it's just how I am [9:59:29 PM] Her: how can you be so sure? [9:59:52 PM] Her: my mom said that my dad wasn't interested in women at all until he was in his mid-twenties [10:00:09 PM] Her: women just tend to mature faster, generally [10:00:22 PM] Him: I don't think it's an issue of maturity [10:00:30 PM] Him: I think it's an issue of self-honesty [10:01:00 PM] Him: I grew up in a pretty red-neck, Christian area, and I didn't see very much sexual diversity [10:01:51 PM] Him: am I making you uncomfortable? [10:01:52 PM] Him: I hope not [10:02:03 PM] Her: I am listening :3 [10:02:09 PM] Him: haha, okay [10:02:50 PM] Him: what I'm saying is that it's very difficult to be honest in an environment like that [10:03:03 PM] Him: I went to a high school with 1200 "straight" students [10:03:18 PM] Him: which is statistically less likely than that octopus guessing the world cup winners by chance [10:03:30 PM] Her: *sad smile* [10:03:34 PM] Him: hahahaha [10:03:38 PM] Him: I thought that was a good one [10:03:42 PM] Him: anyway [10:03:56 PM] Him: do you see where I'm going with this? [10:04:02 PM] Her: please continue [10:04:13 PM] Him: I'm sort of babbling, hahahaha [10:04:41 PM] Him: I'm saying that I never really considered my sexual identity very much until I met you [10:04:50 PM] Him: even that's not totally true [10:05:05 PM] Him: I put a lot of effort into somewhat consciously tricking myself into thinking I'm attracted to women [10:05:16 PM] Him: but anyway, I'm now seeing that for what it was [10:05:48 PM] Him: and objectively evaluating the evidence [10:05:59 PM] Him: I'm now nearly certain that I'm gay [10:06:11 PM] Her: do you have a boyfriend then? [10:06:30 PM] Him: that was a very good way of taking that! [10:06:32 PM] Him: hahaha [10:06:32 PM] Him: thanks [10:06:48 PM] Him: no, not exactly, but I did meet someone a couple months ago who I like [10:06:57 PM] Him: is it okay if we don't go into too much detail? [10:07:03 PM] Him: this is indeed making me a little bit uncomfortable [10:07:06 PM] Her: ok [10:07:10 PM] Him: I do think, however, that you deserve as much explanation as you want [10:07:21 PM] Him: given the things that I've said to you over the past months [10:07:42 PM] Him: some of which were evading this fact [10:07:57 PM] Her: ;_; [10:08:30 PM] Him: I'm sorry! [10:08:43 PM] Him: I should have been more forthright with you [10:09:08 PM] Him: if it's any comfort though, the only other person I've told was a girl who asked me out on a date [10:09:14 PM] Him: you're one of my closest friends in the world [10:09:32 PM] Her: I treasure you as a friend too [10:10:25 PM] Her: well, I'm glad you told me all this [10:10:33 PM] Him: I am too [10:10:47 PM] Him: although it breaks my heart at how this must make you feel [10:10:50 PM] Him: I really am sorry [10:10:56 PM] Him: and I should have told you earlier [10:11:01 PM] Her: it's not your fault that you didn't know [10:11:13 PM] Him: I didn't know, but I had suspicions [10:11:22 PM] Him: I really should have been more forthright [10:11:34 PM] Him: but I feel like I'm done confessing things now [10:11:42 PM] Him: I don't think there's anything important about me you don't know now [10:11:46 PM] Her: okay [10:11:55 PM] Her: I am going to spend the rest of summer getting over you [10:12:25 PM] Him: Let me know if there's anything I can do. [10:12:46 PM] Him: Part of the reason I delayed telling you was because I knew how this would make you feel [10:13:01 PM] Him: I was hoping that once I told you I didn't think we would be able to get married that it might be easier [10:13:46 PM] Her: I just assumed it was because you needed time to be "tamed" [10:13:52 PM] Her: like in Le Petit Prince [10:14:05 PM] Her: I never really gave up hope, although I tried [10:14:50 PM] Her: hope is a cruel thing [10:15:09 PM] Him: You're right. [10:16:22 PM] Him: Do you think it's better that this happen when you're in Vancouver or Evanston? [10:16:36 PM] Him: not that there's anything we can do about that anymore..... [10:16:53 PM] Her: I don't know... I am very lonely here, but at least you're not physically nearby [10:17:14 PM] Her: I know that if I were in Evanston, I'd ask you to come to me, and you'd say yes, because you are a kind person [10:17:18 PM] Her: but it would only make things worse [10:17:30 PM] Him: You're probably right [10:17:44 PM] Her: have you spoken to your dad about this? [10:17:54 PM] Him: No [10:18:02 PM] Him: that's going to be almost as hard as telling you [10:18:12 PM] Him: maybe harder in a very different way [10:19:40 PM] Him: my dad's very homophobic even though he's not religious [10:19:49 PM] Him: he's had very few experiences with gay people, and they've all been extremely negative [10:19:52 PM] Him: the only two I know of: [10:20:09 PM] Him: (1) A neighbor when he was growing up, who was mentally ill and contracted AIDS [10:20:26 PM] Him: (2) My uncle, who drank himself to death about 6 years ago [10:21:00 PM] Her: I can only wish you good luck [10:21:06 PM] Her: I can't believe how hard that must be for you [10:21:18 PM] Him: it's not easy [10:21:19 PM] Her: your dad loves you very much [10:21:23 PM] Him: he does, and he still will [10:21:28 PM] Him: but it's going to be very very hard for him [10:21:36 PM] Him: he's going to assume it's his fault for not remarrying after my mother died [10:21:43 PM] Her: D: [10:22:02 PM] Him: which I don't think is probably it, although I would be lying if I didn't say it was possible that that contributed [10:22:14 PM] Him: I don't think there's anything morally wrong with being gay [10:22:24 PM] Him: and I'm sure I'll get more and more comfortable with the idea once I tell more people [10:22:41 PM] Him: but he certainly does, and he is going to feel very guilty about it [10:22:41 PM] Him: maybe forever [10:22:55 PM] Him: he thinks it's a "sad" lifestyle [10:23:13 PM] Her: I think it's sadder to live alone with no close companions [10:23:22 PM] Her: but at least you will have someone [10:23:41 PM] Him: I don't think it's a matter of "at least" for me, although I can certainly understand why you would see it that way [10:23:50 PM] Him: I think I'll be just as happy as I otherwise would be [10:23:59 PM] Him: with the exception of the difficulty from society [10:24:08 PM] Him: but honestly, I don't think society is that homophobic anymore [10:24:10 PM] Him: not in the big picture [10:24:20 PM] Him: just my family is the problem [10:24:28 PM] Him: once I tell my friends, I doubt any of them will have a problem with it [10:25:04 PM] Her: I should have seen this coming [10:25:11 PM] Him: I don't know if you "should have" [10:25:20 PM] Him: that sounds like it was really obvious [10:25:32 PM] Him: I was hardly clear from the start [10:25:38 PM] Her: I kept crying in the middle of the night whenever I thought about you [10:25:40 PM] Her: I just didn't know why [10:25:48 PM] Him: I see [10:26:23 PM] Her: it is past midnight on your side now [10:26:26 PM] Her: I mustn't keep you up [10:26:39 PM] Him: I'm not tired at all [10:26:48 PM] Him: but if you would prefer not to talk to me any longer [10:26:50 PM] Him: I more than understand [10:27:01 PM] Her: I don't think you understand how much I love you at this point [10:27:34 PM] Him: I try to, but it's not an experience I've had to the same extent [10:27:51 PM] Him: so it really is difficult to understand, you're right [10:28:00 PM] Him: intellectually sure, but not on a really visceral level [10:28:07 PM] Her: you're working on agency attribution, aren't you? [10:28:15 PM] Her: it is impossible for me to harbor any resentment against you [10:28:48 PM] Her: because I attribute no immorality to your behavior [10:29:03 PM] Him: that's nice of you to say [10:29:07 PM] Her: in fact, I have a hard time even seeing your flaws [10:29:18 PM] Him: well, they exist, sad to say [10:29:37 PM] Him: and you are very much the victim of them [10:29:49 PM] Him: I'm gradually learning to be more self-honest about this [10:31:22 PM] Him: if my learning curve were a few months earlier, I'm sure we could have avoided this [10:33:26 PM] Her: we are both victims of that indecipherable phenomenon which we call fate [10:34:16 PM] Him: I don't really consider myself a victim, but you have a fair point I suppose [10:34:35 PM] Him: there's only a certain extent to which we can control our actions [10:34:50 PM] Her: and our feelings [10:35:02 PM] Him: Absolutely [10:35:03 PM] Him: That's true [10:35:06 PM] Her: but I guess the world wouldn't be as beautiful if we could consciously control everything [10:35:17 PM] Him: That's true too [10:35:36 PM] Him: Suffering is a very poetic experience, even though it is horrible to have to go through [10:36:11 PM] Her: maybe it's what I need to make my writing better [10:36:37 PM] Him: I'm sure this will make a good story [10:36:45 PM] Him: maybe that would be helpful for you? [10:36:50 PM] Her: maybe [10:37:22 PM] Him: I have a tendency to encapsulate my woe in fiction sometimes, when I feel woe [10:37:45 PM] Him: I think what you're going through is probably worse than the worst sadness I've ever felt though [10:38:06 PM] Her: I've never lost a parent [10:38:15 PM] Her: I am very lucky, mostly, in other areas of my life [10:38:38 PM] Him: I don't really remember what I felt when I was 5 [10:38:50 PM] Him: it was a long time coming though [10:38:55 PM] Him: not totally unexpected [10:40:50 PM] Her: I want so much to give you the feminine tenderness that you've been deprived of [10:40:56 PM] Her: but I should stop blabbering now [10:41:11 PM] Him: you should do whatever makes you feel better [10:42:18 PM] Her: you've been very kind [10:42:37 PM] Her: you saw me off to the airport [10:43:20 PM] Him: I wanted to spend more time with you before you went to Montreal [10:43:32 PM] Her: you're probably the closest friend I've got [10:44:08 PM] Him: you're definitely mine [10:44:31 PM] Her: maybe in the future you can be godfather of my children, if I'm ever lucky enough to have any [10:44:43 PM] Him: [10:45:19 PM] Him: I'm sure you'll find someone you love just as much who is in love with you as much as you are with him. [10:45:25 PM] Him: It's a big world. [10:45:30 PM] Her: I hope so [10:46:28 PM] Her: I think I'm going to go to bed now [10:46:50 PM] Her: tomorrow morning my mom is taking me to practice driving [10:47:01 PM] Him: Okay. [10:47:49 PM] Her: I shall have to tell her sometime that you are not my boyfriend [10:47:54 PM] Her: she gets overexcited very easily [10:48:09 PM] Him: I'm sure you'll come up with a better way than I came up with for telling you. [10:48:25 PM] Him: even though I thought about this for a while [10:48:48 PM] Him: I wish you luck with telling her. [10:49:04 PM] Him: Let me know if there's ever anything I can do to help with anything. [10:49:06 PM] Her: thank you [10:49:17 PM] Her: good night [10:49:23 PM] Him: Good night
The concept of true love, she thought, was strange and misleading.
There are so many types of love in the world, all equally true. There's the love that a parent feels for a child, and vice versa. There's the love that siblings feel for each other. And of course there's romantic love. Beyond kinship ties, love also extends into mentorships and friendships. All of these ties are called "love," but they are colored by very different drives.
Drives like maternal instincts and sexual desire made the concept of true love hard to pin down. Most of the explanations that she'd encountered focused on drives, but she didn't like any of these explanations. They made people seem like nothing more than travel-units, steered from Birth to Death by drives.
She believed that love was higher than that. Kinship, mentorship and friendship could all be called love because love was not just about drives, not just about wanting to sleep with someone, to reproduce and to raise some offspring before arriving at Death, the final destination.
"What does it really mean to love someone?" she wondered.
She recalled all the examples of love that she had known in her life. Her mother at her side when she was burning with fever, placing a cold, soft towel on her forehead, feeding her oatmeal and comforting her with words. Her father leading her and her brother on adventurous treks to places unknown, laughing and conquering obstacles along the way. Her high school teacher spending hours reading her journal, correcting her grammar mistakes and providing her with encouragement. Her girlhood friend presenting her with a hand-drawn card, saying seriously, "Don't open it until your birthday." Yes, she knew what love was, even if she couldn't articulate it.
"Do I love him?" she asked herself, and the answer was, "Absolutely."
"Does he love me?" she asked herself, and the answer was also, "Absolutely."
"Is our love true?" and the answer was, again, "Absolutely."
But when she tried asking herself, "Would we be happy in a romantic relationship?"
The answer was no. It puzzled her and made her very sad.
She had many elaborate fantasies. When she couldn't sleep, she would summon up one of them, like drawing water from a bottomless well, and she would indulge in it, sink fully into it, let it take her into the world of dreams.
Usually, in the fantasies, she was doing something that she normally could not do – whether because of the laws of her upbringing, because of the laws of the land where she currently found herself, or simply because of the laws of physics.
In one of her fantasies, she was at a party getting drunk. For the record, she had only ever been to one party where there had been any alcohol, and she had never gotten drunk in her life, although she had seen what drunken behavior looked like. But fantasies don't have to have any basis on reality.
The party was a lively one, with seas upon seas of people. She was there with him as well as some of their mutual friends, and many, many strangers.
She had had a lot to drink, but it didn't feel like a lot because she wasn't dizzy. She was only aware that the sound quality of the world had changed. The things that people were saying no longer seemed so clear. The colors of the world had changed, too. Become more vivid, but in a confusing way. She felt soft and relaxed, she smiled more, and she no longer cared what other people thought. Time no longer mattered – she was fully immersed in the heat of the present.
At some point he disentangled himself from the other strands of conversation and looked at her with concern. He opened his mouth and spoke, but she couldn't make out what he was saying.
"You are so beautiful," she told him, putting her head against his shoulder. "I love you. I'll love you forever." Her hand reached across his body.
He started back, alarmed. Voices and noises rippled through the crowd, and somebody pulled her away from him.
"Don't leave me," she said, gesturing vaguely in his direction. "Please don't leave me. I'm so sorry."
The somebody who wasn't him helped her to her feet.
"Will you be my boyfriend?" she asked, but received no answer.
Somebody laid her down on a couch while somebody else debated how to get her to a safe place. In the middle of the haze of words, she mumbled, "Nobody wants to be my boyfriend," and cried.
She didn't know why she kept drawing this fantasy up from the well. She didn't want it to come true, not really. It would be a huge embarrassment, not only for herself, but also for him, and it would only make things worse. He would probably be overwhelmed with guilt once more, would probably deprive himself of even more sleep than before. He probably wouldn't report her for sexual harassment because he was too kind to do such a thing, but he would very likely stop spending time with her, and she wouldn't be able to bear that. It was one thing to lose a romantic relationship which had never been real in the first place, but to lose a friendship which was completely real – that would be devastating.
Not to mention the phenomenal risks that came with getting drunk. She'd heard of people getting raped or getting sick as a result of having had too much alcohol. No way was she ever going to reveal her deepest weaknesses that way.
She pushed the fantasy back into the well and emerged to face another day. Another series of tasks and commitments until that hour of blurred reality when the fantasies would bob up again.
"Would you be jealous at all if I got a boyfriend?" she asked him.
He glanced away. "I'm trying not to think about the answer that you'd like me to give," he explained. After a few moments, he said helplessly, "I'm still kind of doing it, though."
She looked down at her food.
Finally he gazed deep into her eyes and spoke as truthfully as he could. "If you found someone else," he began slowly, "I would be happy for you – and for him. In fact," he added in a gentle tone, "I think it's something that you should do."
She tried to smile through her tears, and he smiled sadly back. On the surface, she thanked him for being honest and reassured him that she wasn't angry at him, but deep down, the sadness would continue for a long, long time.
This memory – of him saying those few, straightforward words – was one that she would replay over and over later on. His answer wasn't at all difficult to understand on a linguistic level. But every time she tried to process it emotionally, it would morph into a fantasy.
The fantasy always began with her kneeling by his side as he lay on a couch. She was there to care for him in his hour of greatest need, many years after their youth, when everyone else had deserted him. He was realizing for the first time how fragile and unstable most people and places were. In all the chaos of the world, nothing stayed still except bonds of true love.
He lay back, closed his eyes and tried to take in the unreality of the moment. Finally he managed to say, "Do you – still love me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't think it's something that I can rationally explain." A lump came into her throat, and all she could do for several moments was simply to hold his hand.
His eyes glimmered with pain as well. "I am so sorry," he said. "I didn't realize—"
"I'm sorry too," she whispered. "I don't want you to be plagued by guilt. I want you to be happy. But I can't help – I can't help loving you."
He gazed into her hopeless eyes. "If that's the way you feel," he said at last, "I'm not going to let you suffer any longer."
She glanced away. "I don't want to be a burden to you."
"You have never been a burden," he said. "You are the kindest companion that I could ask for, and I've been foolish not to see that. Even taking into account the fact that I am gay, I think – it might be possible for us to have a life together after all. "
"Oh! I can't ask you to make that sacrifice for me." She hid her face in her hands.
"I've nothing left to lose," he said. "I've tried sex, I've enjoyed it, and I don't desire it anymore. Unless you do – I won't stand in your way. But you understand that I would never feel comfortable being physically intimate with you."
"That's all right," she said tearfully. "We don't have to have sex. All I really want is to be with you, to share as many hours of my life with you as possible before death comes."
He let her caress his hair, and she murmured, "I must be dreaming..."
Indeed, she was only dreaming.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 10, 2010 1:19:48 GMT -5
Managed to write a little more character development today, leading up to the turning point.
"Blue and orange are complementary colors," she explained to him. "They make each other stand out."
She was sharing with him one of her favorite lines of French Surrealist poetry, "Le ciel est bleu comme une orange," which could be directly translated as "The sky is blue like an orange." One could attempt to process it logically, to read it as "The sky is blue the way an orange is blue, i.e. not blue," which was a possible interpretation.
But the real beauty of it, she said, emerged when one was not trying to read it logically. At an emotional level, all kinds of imagery could be evoked by those simple words: a blue sky, round like an orange, like the orange sun, and sweet like an orange, like the sun-washed earth – a universe filled with cycles of blue and orange, sun and sea, lively and turning. It was an overwhelming flux of images that could only be produced through a multiplicity of meaning, through a distortion of everyday language.
"Hmm, interesting," he said, but it was possible that he was only paying attention because he liked to hear her talk.
She didn't mind. Apart from certain areas in linguistics and philosophy, where their disciplines overlapped the most, they were studying very different things. He was trained in and seemed to have a talent for systematic, analytical thinking, whereas she had great difficulty organizing her thoughts linearly. When he showed her some papers he had written for a philosophy class, she was blown away by how lucid his arguments were. His voice, too, was friendly throughout, guiding and debating with the reader but never once appearing lofty or disrespectful.
"I really enjoyed reading your papers!" she gushed in her email. "You have a distinctive voice and a great sense of humor. Your mind is so much more rational than mine! I think we both considered a lot of the same questions, such as 'How can anyone claim to know what God's nature is?' and 'How is this a perfect world?' My approaches to those questions tended to be filled with emotional protests and visual metaphors, but your papers were so much calmer in tone... very beautiful, in a different way."
His reply was reassuring, as always: "My mind isn't more rational than yours – it's just that people reason in different ways. Some people reason more analytically and linearly, and other people reason in a much more associative, sometimes emotional, way. These are both valid approaches to reasoning, and everyone combines both approaches to some extent. I often see the analytic stuff bleeding into my creative work, which is sometimes interesting, but also sometimes not what I really want."
Reading his kind words always gave her a little thrill. She felt immeasurably fortunate to have found someone who could appreciate her as an equal, especially someone as admirable as he.
They played piano together more and more often. After having performed the lively Dvorak piece at a talent show, they moved on to attempt all kinds of other pieces that they had never heard before. The latest piece they'd picked up was by Schubert, and it looked intriguing.
He started to learn the Secondo part, because that was the part he had played for the Dvorak piece. Usually, when they were tackling a new piece, they would plunge into it together, but this time he found himself playing alone. He stopped and glanced at her, surprised.
"My part doesn't start until four bars later," she explained, pointing at the sheet music.
"Oh!" He looked embarrassed. "I guess I'll just start playing, then."
When it was her turn to come in, she slipped up, and it was her turn to be embarrassed. After a few more failed starts, she admitted, "I just don't understand this rhythm. Can we switch parts?"
"Sure."
That went a lot better, so he continued to be Primo from then on. Later, he found a professional recording of the piece, and they listened to it in quiet awe. It was much, much more powerful than either of them had initially assumed. It was beautiful, sad and strengthening all at once, in a way that words could not fully articulate.
Naturally, after hearing the recording, the piece became irresistible to them. Neither of them was exceptionally skilled at piano, but they held on to the dream of playing the piece in that magical way nonetheless.
They bantered sometimes when they were practicing. Each time she made a mistake, she would exclaim in a tragic voice that absolutely compelled forgiveness, "I'm sorry!!"
"No, no," he would say good-humoredly, "it's my fault too."
Occasionally, after she had caused them to attempt the same section multiple times without success, he would put on a frowny face and say, "All right, I'm not going to claim responsibility this time." And eventually they would get it right. She never felt threatened, for he was incredibly patient with her, but she did feel challenged enough to put in her best efforts.
At other times, it was he who caused them to slip up.
"Eurgh!" she grimaced exaggeratedly, when he stumbled across a series of runs that were supposed to flow gracefully above her accompaniment.
He put on his little-boy face, looking chastised. "Fine," he said. "I'll do it perfectly this time, okay?" And they repeated the section until they got it right.
There were some sections, however, that seemed to evade their sincerest efforts.
"As long as we keep skipping this part, we'll be able to master it one day," he joked, after they had given up on it for the umpteenth time.
"That makes perfect sense," she responded, laughing.
"Indeed!"
They never managed to master the entire piece, let alone play it professionally, but they created wonderful memories in the process of exploring it. Months later, when they no longer spent as much time together, he would go alone to the lake, turn on his iPod and listen to Schubert.
"What is your opinion with regards to late-night practicing?"
She jumped at the text message. It almost seemed like a miracle – a salve from out of the blue. She replied to explain that it was too late to play piano according to dorm rules, because people might be sleeping, but that she would be happy to take a walk with him.
He consented. And so, whereas just minutes ago she had been tossing and turning in bed, she now found herself waiting eagerly for him in the lobby.
Soon, he appeared at the glass doors, waving excitedly at her. She ran out into the night to meet him.
"I couldn't sleep," she said, throwing her arms around him. "I was just thinking about you when you texted."
"I couldn't sleep either," he told her.
"Maybe it's the caffeine," she said, not fully believing it, but he accepted the excuse wholeheartedly.
Spontaneously, without thinking about it, they walked out onto the moonlit pavement and turned northward. They walked past building after building, until the entire university campus was far behind them and they crossed into a neighboring district. Still they kept walking, as naturally and effortlessly as they followed each other's lines of thought in conversation.
They paused in front of the Baha'i temple to admire how its domed roof glimmered in the moonlight. They talked for a while about the quirkiness of the Baha'i faith, how it attempted to encompass all faiths but could, ironically, only manage to gather a very small following.
Then he began a short monologue about the moon and its position in the sky relative to time and place.
"Oh, wait, the moon is right there." He bent down to observe it from her vantage point, and then looked at her with a question in his eyes. "You must have been able to see it the whole time I was talking about it being behind the temple."
She smiled and didn't reply. How was it possible for her to explain how much she enjoyed listening to his voice even when he was spouting utter nonsense?
Toward the end of the walk, when they were only minutes away from her dorm, she finally voiced the question that had been sitting on her mind.
"What is your greatest wish?" she asked.
"Wow, that is so deep!" he joked. "I shouldn't let these silences grow."
She smiled, half-embarrassed, but something about the way she looked down at the ground compelled him to think seriously about her question.
"Well," he replied, "I think I just want to be happy."
"Do you see yourself married in the future?" she blurted out. "Maybe with kids?"
He wasn't able to answer for a while. What was it in his gaze – sorrow? guilt? uncertainty? "No," he said at last. "I don't think so. The idea of marriage – scares me."
"Why?"
"I don't want to be tied down," he answered.
They walked in silence for a while, and then he asked, "What about you? Where do you see yourself in the future?"
"I don't know," she said. "Like you, I want to be happy. I think I'd like to go to grad school and get a job, but... something's missing from that picture." Family, her inner voice prodded. But she didn’t say it.
Her parents had always taught her to plan, to have a clear goal in mind and take measurable steps toward it. For as long as she could remember, she had held on to the dream of having a stable job that she enjoyed, and a husband and children to care for.
But could a person really plan for and strive toward a pre-imagined future? Her family had drifted around the world – ironically, as a direct result of all their meticulous plans.
She was no longer sure if she really wanted the things that she wanted, or if she had merely been taught to want them. Was it possible to be happy without them?
Isn't that what anyone really wished for, in the end? Simply – to be happy?
She hugged him at parting, as usual, and he seemed relieved that she still wanted to hug him. But deep inside, she was very troubled.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 11, 2010 1:03:50 GMT -5
Wrote just one vignette today. Or I guess it should more accurately be called a chapter, since it's much longer and more plot-driven than, say, number 9. But whatever. 
He'd told her not to worry about him, but she couldn't help worrying. The thought of him in any pain made her want to run to him and comfort him in whatever ways she could. But at the same time, she didn't want to weigh him down, didn't want to cause him stress at a time when he probably preferred to be alone.
He had experienced stomach pains for two days. On the evening of the day when he couldn't come to class, she texted him to express her concern and offered to bring him some easily digestible food. He insisted that he was fine, although he said it was "very nice" of her to want to help.
She tried to believe him, but her intuition told her that he was in more pain than he was willing to admit. She thought back to freshman year, when she had suffered an acute ear infection herself. There were times when she was sorely tempted to take more painkillers than she was supposed to, because the pain was so intense. She missed several days of classes, spent a ridiculous amount of time in bed, and had to see a specialist at the hospital, but throughout the ordeal she had kept largely to herself, not wanting to impose her problems on anyone.
It was likely that he felt the same way. Well, she would respect his need to be alone, but she couldn't help thinking about him from afar, all the same.
The next day, she texted him again, wording her message as casually as she could: "How are you feeling today?"
And the reply came like a stab to her own stomach: "I'm at the emergency room. I might need an appendectomy."
Fantasy and reality reeled around her. She took several deep breaths, clutching at the living air, reminding herself that she was truly in the present moment. She told herself that he would be fine, that out of consideration for him she should stay calm and avoid disturbing him.
For three or four hours, she made several half-hearted attempts to work on a paper, but her thoughts would not be tamed. In an attempt to anchor her emotions, she allowed herself to research "appendicitis" on the Internet. It was not a wise decision. Immediately her imagination was fueled with all kinds of horrific details, and she had a harder time focusing than ever. Finally, she picked up the phone and called Patient Services. They said that he was still in the ER, and asked if she would like her call to be transferred there.
"Yes," she responded without thinking, and was put on hold. In that pause between silence and speech, a crowd of thoughts pressed through her head: Was she doing the right thing? Was she being selfish by taking up space on the phone line when so many other anxious relatives and friends were desperate to get through? She wasn't even able to help him at this time, anyway. She should hang up now before she caused more damage – but her fingers had turned to stone.
Then someone picked up and said, "Who are you looking for again?" and she repeated his name, and heard her call being transferred again.
After what felt like an eternity, she thought she heard him say, "Hello?" By then she had been so bewildered by all the call-transferring that she blurted out, almost in tears, "What is going on?"
The voice on the other end was steady and kind, but it turned out to be his father's and not his. Embarrassment flooded her face. For a few seconds she was at a loss for words, but his father was remarkably comprehending, and assured her that "the doctors are figuring out what to do."
"Will he be okay?" she asked stupidly.
"Of course." – spoken in a most gentle tone. So that was where he inherited such patience from!
After she hung up, she felt much better, though still a little shaky from shock.
Later that day, she received another text message from him, saying that the doctors were planning to drain out his abscess first and then wait a few weeks to do the appendectomy, because it would be too risky to operate immediately in his case. She wasn't sure if that was good news or bad news, but she was glad to hear from him all the same.
"You probably can't visit today," he told her, as though able to read her mood. But he gave her the number to his hospital room and invited her to visit after he had had some rest.
She passed through a night of unsteady dreams.
The next day, she called his hospital room, and his father answered cheerfully, "I'll get him!"
And then he came on! The first syllable of his voice triggered an instant stir in her heart – was it joy? relief? fear? She asked if it was okay for her to visit in about half an hour, and he said yes. Calmed by the sense of purpose, she put on her jacket, slipped on her shoes, and began the half-hour walk to the hospital.
She realized while walking that she should probably have waited to see him, because his father was obviously there with him – but it was as though she were being pulled forward beyond the reach of rational politeness. It was too late now. She forced her guilt aside and focused only on the fact that she was going to see him soon. Yes, she was going to see him soon.
Outside his hospital room, she paused to steady herself before knocking. Then she plunged bravely into the present moment, knocked, heard him say, "Come in!" – and entered.
Her gaze went at once to the hospital bed.
And there he was – wrenchingly fragile, but just as beautiful as ever. He smiled, and that smile made her instantly want to hold him tight, if only it wouldn't hurt him. She could hardly believe how strong and optimistic he stayed despite his pain.
He introduced her to his father, who was watching amusedly from a corner. Her guilt returned – was she depriving him of family time? But his father kindly acknowledged her, shook hands with her and then went out of the room, leaving her alone with him.
"You can sit down," he smiled, pointing at the chair, so she did.
He remained a quirky intellectual even in the hospital bed. He told her about the side-effects of being on morphine, about how the intravenous drip felt like water running underneath his skin, and about how at least six nurses and eight doctors had examined him. She listened to the details of his medical adventure with fascination and sympathy, and soon became relaxed, even happy. The equipment in the room no longer seemed strange and forbidding – like mysterious torture-devices – but became objects of discovery.
"What is that?" she inquired at one point, looking curiously at a machine with a chart beside his bed.
"It can be used to monitor my heartbeat if necessary," he said. "Right now it doesn't show anything, but don't worry, I'm not dead."
He said it so calmly that she laughed in delight.
Then she remembered that she was there to bring him some joy as well. So she shared with him news from school and told him about her dance practice and her French paper. The more she chatted, the more she was able to forget her anxieties and let her sweetness shine. He seemed happy to listen to her rambles, smiling and saying, "Yeah?" and reaching now and then for his glass of ice-water to gargle, because he wasn't allowed to drink anything.
Once or twice a nurse came in asking about his pain level, and he answered lightly, "About three. Maybe four. Somewhere in between."
He did not ask her to leave, even after she'd stayed far longer than a visitor was supposed to stay. She felt warm and accepted by his bedside, but finally she decided that she couldn't impose herself on him any longer. He needed to rest, and besides, it was almost time for his next dose of morphine.
"Can I visit you again sometime?" she asked timidly, and was glad when he replied with a smile, "Just give me a call to let me know when you're coming."
Before leaving, she succumbed to a strange impulse and bent over the bed to kiss him on the forehead. At the moment when he realized what she was doing, he closed his eyes, and an expression of pain flitted across his features. When it was over, he opened his eyes and said quietly, “Thank you.”
She stood up, embarrassed now, and almost fled the room. But when she reached the door, she paused to look back, and there he was, giving her the reassuring smile that had such a profound effect on her.
In total she would visit him three times, but she didn't kiss him on her next two visits. He had already put up with too much for her sake.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 13, 2010 17:34:20 GMT -5
I am about 2,800 words behind... *gulp* But the break from writing yesterday was definitely worth it. I invited the real person on whom my male character is based to read everything I've written so far, and we had a great conversation about it. I've also since gone back and edited a few of the previous scenes.
The term was over.
She repeated that fact a few times to herself, in order to absorb it properly. The term was over.
In previous years, she'd looked forward eagerly to summer vacation, because that meant travel and fun. This summer would be especially fun, because she was going to Montreal to visit a friend she had known in Singapore whom she had not seen in five years. And then she would fly to Vancouver to spend some quality time with family. She had so much to look forward to.
But now that the term was really over, she found herself wrestling with mixed emotions. All those classes, all of that work, all those beautiful evenings with him – were over. She wouldn't get to see him in person again for three months.
"What time is your flight tomorrow?"
He had sent the text message a few hours ago, but she had only just received it, on account of having been in and out of buildings where there was no cellphone access. She read it now with bittersweet pleasure. She was glad that he still cared enough about her to ask her about her departure, but at the same time she was sad to be reminded of her departure.
She texted back, "4pm. I'll leave campus at 1."
Then she pushed her mixed emotions aside, for she still had a series of miscellaneous tasks weighing on her mind – do laundry, finish packing, withdraw money for the trip, so on and so forth. After submitting her last final paper, the next task on her list was to go the library to print her plane ticket. So she headed over there to do so, and on her way out, she bumped into someone. She looked up hurriedly, about to say sorry, and – it was him!
He seemed amused by her open, surprised expression. The next moment, she was wrapping her arms around him in delight. He hugged her back, and then they simultaneously began walking out of the library together.
"I just printed out my plane ticket," she said, showing it to him.
He smiled. "Exciting!"
That simple word from him made her feel somewhat better. Indeed, it was exciting to be going to Montreal!
His cellphone buzzed. "Oh! I just got your message."
She looked a little sadly at him. "Are you coming to say goodbye to me tomorrow?"
"If I can get up on time," he joked, but when she displayed signs of worry, he reassured her that he had finished most of his work and that he would be happy to see her off.
They parted then, for she still had many tasks to complete by the end of the day, but they agreed to get together the next day.
On the morning of her departure, she pushed her boxes of belongings out into the corridor and waited for the storage people to arrive. Her roommate was still sleeping, but would be leaving later in the day. Their room had been stripped clean of all posters, books, clothes and other things – it looked strange now, so bare, where previously it had been so full of life. She gave it a final glance, closed the door quietly behind her, and checked out of the room.
Another ending, another beginning, she thought.
After the storage people had taken her boxes, she texted him, and he promised to come soon.
There was a slight drizzle dampening the campus. People bustled around moving boxes and balancing umbrellas. She stood alone, out of the way of all the activity. A few parents hurried by, glancing curiously at her, but she kept her gaze on her cellphone.
"I'm waiting in the sheltered walkway," she told him, and presently he came, dressed in a green jacket and looking as huggable as ever, if a little sleepy.
"Do you want to get lunch together?" he asked.
"Yeah, sure. But let's go somewhere near the bus station so I won't be late."
He glanced at his watch. "Oh, we have about an hour."
They sat down in a restaurant that served noodles. After he took off his jacket, she remarked that he looked good in his shirt, which had the letters CRC printed across the front for Communications Residential College, where he'd lived in his freshman year.
"It stands for the cool residential college," he answered sagely.
She laughed. And so they eased into light chit-chat and had a good time. It was interesting, she thought, how every time she said farewell to someone, their final conversation was always about something cheerful and inconsequential.
After lunch, he asked her, "Do you need any help with your luggage or anything? I could accompany you to the airport."
She looked up in surprise. "That would be very kind of you," she said.
"It's no problem at all," he answered. "I like airports." And he told her how he had sometimes taken a subway train for the entire route, just for fun, and how he had wandered around an airport, just for fun as well. There was something about the atmosphere of these places that stimulated his thoughts.
She smiled then, because she understood that at heart he was a traveler too. There weren't many people she knew who appreciated the monotony of life for what it was, but who could also break out of it every now and then in search of new experiences.
They boarded the bus and sat back as the city rushed by. Just as the hospital atmosphere had prompted him to tell her about his medical adventures, so now they found themselves talking about their travel experiences. He told her that he'd been on several road trips to Canada and that he enjoyed being in the remote North, standing with his father at the edge of the frost.
She had much more experience with air travel than with road trips, having lived for years in Singapore, which was a little island surrounded by ocean. She told him that she didn't like air travel very much, because it required her to sit for hours with nothing to look at but clouds. But she conceded that it was exciting to go to a completely unfamiliar place.
He had toured some places in Europe. She had never been to Europe, but had traveled quite extensively around Asia, and also visited Australia as a child, although her memories of Australia were foggy.
She told him about the road trips that she had been on with other students over the past two spring breaks. She was highly motivated to participate in these trips, to travel through the States in a van and serve local communities, partly because she wanted to become more American.
"I learned a lot of pop music on those long drives," she said happily. "Also we played games in the van. There was one game where one person would give a category, and then we'd take turns naming something in that category. If you couldn't name something that had already been named, then you were out. The last person remaining would be the winner."
He considered this. "Does the person who starts a round also get to be the first to name something in that category?"
"I think so."
"Well, if I were to start a round," he said with a mischievous smile, "I would give the category, 'deities in the Christian religion,' and then I would say 'God,' and thus emerge the winner."
"There has to be some rule against that!" she protested.
"The games that people play on road trips never have well-defined rules," he answered matter-of-factly, "so you can exploit that." – with a sagacious wink.
She laughed and laughed.
They reached the airport finally. After getting off the bus, he nobly proceeded to drag her suitcase for her. At the bottom of an escalator, however, he stopped for a few seconds because he couldn't figure out how to pull the suitcase onto it. She realized only after she'd been swept halfway up by the stream of travelers that he was still stuck down there. She watched in amusement as he lifted the entire suitcase and put it on a step, and then stepped onto the escalator himself.
"Hmm, I should learn how to pull the suitcase onto the escalator," he remarked thoughtfully, upon rejoining her at the top.
"Thank you very much for helping me," she replied.
As they approached the next escalator, he observed the other travelers, and pulled her suitcase smoothly onto the escalator.
"You got it!" she said.
She told him while they were waiting in the check-in line that he looked really cute when he was winking, which he often liked to do when he felt the need to emphasize a point.
He laughed embarrassedly. "Oh wow, I really must pay attention to what I do with my eyes from now on." In the next few minutes of conversation, he visibly tried to avoid winking, but his efforts only made him more endearing than ever.
After she checked in, they saw on the TV screens that her flight was delayed, so he stayed with her for another hour before she went in to the security check. They wandered around the airport and around conversation topics, simply enjoying each other's company.
Finally it was time for her to go. They hugged at parting, and she sat quietly at the boarding gate afterward, still trying to convince herself that the term was over.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 14, 2010 19:20:04 GMT -5
Whoever contributed to modern communications technology deserved a million thanks, in her opinion.
She missed him sorely when she was away from him, even when she had lots of activities to occupy her in the meantime. She was deeply grateful for the existence of wireless networks which could carry just enough of his presence to her to ease the ache of separation.
Once, he went out for a walk in the middle of the night, carrying her voice with him on his phone. She could hear a dog barking in his vicinity, and the sounds of rushing cars. He described to her the things that he saw as he walked, and she almost felt as though she were walking with him, even though they were physically separated by thousands of miles.
She sent him a postcard from Montreal and video-chatted with him one evening, when the friend with whom she was staying was also video-chatting with an overseas friend.
Occasionally he sent her a short, lighthearted email, such as "Did you see this underground city in Montreal?" with a link to a Wikipedia entry. She was very happy to know that he still thought of her from time to time, even when he was engaged in his summer research work.
After she had left behind the historic buildings, the exotic French accents, the wine and the street art of Montreal, she returned to her family in Vancouver, and time passed by more slowly than ever. As she worked through the book he had given to her, she thought of him. As she practiced on her family's piano, she thought of him. And as she walked among the trees, she thought of him.
"I'll make a special effort to come online," he'd promised her before summer started. When she asked him when he would be online, he said he wasn't sure. Of course he wasn't sure. It was rather ridiculous to schedule casual meetings months in advance. Only class schedules and work schedules merited that kind of planning.
So she ended up spending many evenings sitting quietly at her computer, hoping to catch him online. She was often disappointed, but it wasn't his fault that she missed him so much. He was only a catalyst, not a direct cause, of her torrential feelings.
The times when he did come online to chat, she felt privileged to be a small part of his life so far away. Sometimes he was brainstorming ideas for a research survey. One time he was making chocolate mousse at midnight for everyone in his lab, and he allowed her to listen to the goings-on in his kitchen.
"This texture could stand to be whippier," he said thoughtfully, after a few minutes of clinking sounds. And then – "This is probably enough to give you a heart attack. Which is actually not what I had in mind for my professor!"
The funny little things that he said, so naturally and so effortlessly, never failed to make her laugh. Each moment he could spare for her was a blessing, a droplet in her reservoir of happiness that she would need to draw upon later.
Now for something completely different - a meta-scene! This one comes after 35, but I have yet to finish 34 and 35.
Now I am almost halfway through this story, word-count-wise, and I'm taking a break to reflect on my progress. I'm writing it as part of the event National Novel Writing Month, which basically encourages anyone who wants to write a novel to simply sit down and do so. The goal for each participant is to produce 50,000 words in 30 days during the month of November. The reason for specifying a word-count goal is that it removes the focus from self-debilitating thoughts such as "Am I ready for this?" and "Is what I'm writing good enough?" – and instead challenges the participant to just write and keep writing. Rough drafts can always be edited later, whereas swirls of thought will eventually fade away if they are not put into words.
I've wanted to write this story since summer, about four months ago, but didn't get around to doing so because I couldn't find the strength to articulate my memories. When November rolled around, however, I decided finally that I had to seize this chance. The NaNo spirit is infectious and stimulating. Large numbers of participants are active on Internet forums, updating their word-count every day, sharing excerpts and character sketches, and pushing one another on through the writing process. Although these participants have different reasons for wanting to write a novel, and their drafts fall into a wide variety of genres, they are united in their energy and their determination. NaNoWriMo is a highly inspiring example of the democratization of literature. (Oh look, there's the academic side of me talking!)
Language is power, as I recently argued in a paper I had to write for my American Literature class. Specifically, I was interested in the power of language to heal. There are two opposing impulses when it comes to dealing with sad memories – to bury them and never speak of them again, or to come to terms with them by speaking about them. After closely analyzing four main characters from the texts we read in class, I concluded that "Learning to accept yesterday's sorrows, to work through them with love and respect, is the best cure for trauma that no amount of silence can ever blanket away."
My professor responded with some very encouraging feedback: "Nice job here, Stephanie. You've offered a number of fresh and insightful readings in this essay. Though there are still some things we can continue to work on, for the most part the analysis here is carefully paced and fully formed. Keep turning over and working with the concepts we discussed in class while also paying close attention to the specifics of the textual evidence. Keep up the good work!" And she gave me an A–.
So the events of my life never fail to amaze me. Even though I had to take time away from my NaNo to work on that paper, the very process of writing the paper has also helped me to feel more confident about my NaNo.
Recently I met with the real person on whom my male character is based, and I told him about my NaNo.
"I like how you said that you took time away from your novel to work on your paper," he said.
"Oh, I have my priorities straight," I replied, and we both laughed.
I invited him over to read what I've written so far. It was actually him who gave me the idea to include a meta-scene. So here it is! Most of the following description and dialogue is pulled from my memory of yesterday, which hasn't been too dulled by time yet.
I have to admit, I was nervous about showing my work to him. Some of it is intensely emotional, and I wasn't sure if he would be able to handle it – or if it would even be fair to expose him to it, since he was only the catalyst and not the direct cause of much of my sadness.
But he was kind and patient, as always. I'd wanted only to show him a few excerpts, in consideration of the fact that he was busy with grad school applications and with his film project, but he willingly sat down and read all of the rambles that I'd produced. When he'd finished, I went to his side, and together we looked through the pages once more.
"I don't think what you're writing here is rambles," he told me. "If anything, I think you could be more rambly," he added, with his usual touch of humor.
He told me that reading my portrayal of the male character was "a weird experience" for him, but still "really cool". "I hope I didn't actually say some of the things that this character says!" he exclaimed.
"My memory isn't perfect," I assured him. "I made up a lot of dialogue, but some of it was direct quotes."
"God, I sound like such a jerk!" he laughed, while re-reading some of the dialogue between the characters. "'They're called hazel,' he informed her," he read aloud, in a pretentious tone that made both of us laugh.
I remember him telling me the color of his eyes in a much nicer tone, but maybe I was just too awestruck at the time. I'm not sure. Anyway, I am not rewriting that scene.
"This does sound like something I would say though," he indicated the beginning of chapter 4, smiling in a way that seemed to say I had captured his speech well.
At chapter 5, he protested, "I don't think I was being childish! I intended to be mock-childish."
I smiled and didn't reply.
"Did this actually happen?" he asked, when we got to chapter 6.
"It was before the opera," I answered. "I played with chronology a little bit."
"Oh! The opera." And he was deep in thought for a few moments, as though reliving the memory.
At chapter 8, he asked, "Were these actual text messages?"
"Oh, yeah. I copied them from my cellphone."
"Cool."
I told him that chapter 9 was one of my favorites, and he said that he liked it too. He looked with new curiosity at his own hands while drawing quotation marks in the air. "Hmm, I do kind of do that." He caught my eye and smiled. "You are very observant."
"Thank you."
At chapter 11, he asked, "Did I know that it was the Year of the Tiger when I gave you the tiger?"
"I think so. Our linguistics professor – what was her name?"
He reminded me.
"Oh, yeah. She gave us an example once of a grammatically correct but nonsensical utterance. I think it had to do with 'galloping tigers' or something like that. I told you afterward why I found it so extremely funny. And you agreed that it made the tiger seem 'undignified.'"
"Was it during an event that we had that conversation?"
"It was on one of our ordinary walks back from class."
He scrolled through the scene about the movie-date, and the Valentine's Day chapter. "I remember that," he said quietly.
At chapter 15, he smiled. "This part about the dance is well-written."
When we got to the window-shutting scene in chapter 18, he asked,"Did this actually happen?"
"It was before our piano performance," I reminded him.
"I don't remember that," he admitted.
But it was a trivial incident anyway – I probably imbued it with more emotional meaning than it actually had.
At chapter 21, he hovered the mouse over the word "cute" in surprise. "Did I really say that?"
"You did," I pouted.
"It sounds so – heterosexual!" But he looked at my pout and didn't insist.
"She could tell that he enjoyed having his ego fed," he read aloud, and we both laughed. My words sound so different when he's reading them!
He did the same with chapter 23, reading aloud in a sarcastic voice, "Neither of them was exceptionally skilled at piano? No, no, they're both exceptional pianists! Right?" he insisted, with his characteristic wink that never failed to make me laugh.
When we came to the emotionally intense chapters, he said that they were "interesting," but I didn't press him for further comment. I'm not sure I would have shown them to him anyway, if he hadn't decided of his own free will to read beyond the excerpts I had selected. He told me once that breaking my heart was something he would "probably never forgive [him]self for" – and that saddens me.
He said he hadn't expected the female character to be so "sympathetic" to the male character. "I mean, obviously I'm not evil, but I'm sure there are more things that you could be angry about."
"But – this really is how I felt," I said.
"I'm sure it's an accurate reflection of your feelings," he agreed, more gently. He went back to chapter 26 and mused, "I think you're overemphasizing my selflessness here. I'm not really as selfless as you describe me to be."
An idea popped into my head. "You could co-write this novel with me if you want," I offered. "It could use more chapters from the male character's perspective."
He seemed to hesitate. "Should I write in first-person or in third-person?"
"Up to you. I find it easier to write in third-person because it distances myself from the story. But the hospital scene was originally written in first-person – I changed the pronouns afterward."
"If you send me this draft, I'll think about it," he said.
I will send it to him after I finish writing this meta-scene.
While he and I were talking, my roommate happened to enter the room with her boyfriend. I hadn't expected her to be back so soon because she tends to stay over at her boyfriend's apartment a lot. But we introduced the two guys to each other, and then my roommate said, "Oh! You're showing him your novel! That's so cool."
"She's writing a novel?" her boyfriend inquired.
I answered in the affirmative.
"Is it good?"
My roommate caught on to my embarrassment. "Go on with what you were doing," she said kindly.
For a moment my guest and I looked at each other, and then he resumed carefully, "This character here is very – scholarly. His real-life counterpart" – with a raise of the eyebrows – "is not that scholarly. He procrastinates a lot, and often checks out books from the library that he doesn't end up reading."
My roommate started giggling behind us, while her boyfriend, oblivious, sat down on her bed. But she understood that we needed some privacy, so she led her boyfriend out of the room after she'd picked up some of her belongings.
After we were alone once more, he asked, "Did I actually have an armful of books when you met me that time on the way to class?"
"Oh, yeah."
"I don't usually carry an armful of books," he said contemplatively.
"I don't usually go to internship conferences either," I answered. First impressions can be arbitrary, but they are amazing in that way.
We reminisced for a while. Talking about the wonderful experiences that we shared in the past made me feel happy, somehow more anchored in the present.
Toward the end, he asked a little shyly, with regard to my using writing as therapy, "Is it – helping?"
I assured him that it was.
He confessed to me then that he'd drunk a glass of rice wine before dinner, in the hope that it would enable him to be more honest with me.
"I don't think it worked," he reflected. "Or maybe it did. I think I was a little more open."
He appeared calm as always when speaking about such things, but I was touched. "Thank you so much for making the effort to do this," I said. "I really appreciate it."
When he got up to leave at last, it was already past 11pm. "Time with you always goes by so quickly," I sighed.
"Just imagine what it must be like to be me!" he responded.
I was immediately tickled. "Wow. You must live twice as fast as everyone else!"
He has a way of helping me to see the lighter side of everything.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Nov 21, 2010 22:12:04 GMT -5
I am currently about 6,000 words behind where I'm supposed to be. XP I blame the Neopets plot, and my end-of-term work. But at least Thanksgiving break is coming soon, and I am still making progress! ^^; The story has taken a turn - it's a little more humorous now, and also a little more rambly. Not sure if that's a good thing. I'd post excerpts, but it is beginning to feel more and more like a story-version of what I usually write in my diary. In other words, closer to real life. Perhaps it's because the events are closer to where I am now in time, so they no longer feel like fiction/memory so much. Anyway. I'll keep you guys updated. |
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