I left the letter on the kitchen counter. I had covered it in flour and was tracing new letters over it with my finger. Odd behavior, I know, but my own logic was twisted up in my actions. Maybe it is something I could explain to you, if I ever get the chance. I am all out of chances.
I was standing over your letter, tracing you a new one when it happened. I had the perfect view, from where I was, of the door as it swung open. It wasn’t as dramatic as I always imagined it would be. I had left the door unlocked, a completely accidental error in my judgment. It meant that there was no kicking down of the door. Nor was there a clever scheme that involved a lost child or some other made up thing designed to make me open the door. I heard an odd bump and looked up to see my door swinging open.
He was scrawny, not strong or thick in any way. I had always imagined that if this sort of thing happened, he would be strong. He would be the kind of big man who could overtake me with a look. The man in front of me was not the man that I imagined. He looked young. Younger than me. He could not grow a real moustache, though it was apparent that he had tried. I saw him and I wasn’t even scared. I was surprised. There is a difference, or maybe there was right then. I almost opened my mouth to speak, maybe to ask him if I could help him in some way. Then I saw the gun.
My palm fell flat onto the flour. No more letters over letters. Just a handprint surrounded by scribbles. A gun. A gun. He had it pointed at my head. I didn’t really even know what to do. My thoughts swam in desperation. Then I went blank. There was nothing left to think. Nothing to think about.
This is the beginning of a story I wrote that was basically all about how much I love my words and how much I love writing. It was a strange story and I wrote it at the very beginning of this period where I started writing a lot more than I had been writing before. I think that because I was out of practice it didn’t turn out very good. It certainly didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped that it would.
The story centers around this main character, the first person narrator. She is desperately in love with someone that she can’t have or who perhaps doesn’t want her, so she wrote him a letter. What happens in the story is that these guys come into her house, tie her up, and deposit her in the bathroom. Then they start looking around and they find the letter. Instead of just leaving it where it is, one of the guys takes it and makes her read it aloud as if she wrote it for him. He makes her write a new version of the letter, replacing only her former lover’s name with his. After she has done this he points the gun at her and makes her tell him that she loves him. These two acts take away all the power of the letter.
The thief leaves without taking any of the things that thieves are known to take, such as televisions and DVD players. The only thing he takes from her is this new letter, the one that he had her write his name into. She doesn’t want the old one anymore. It has been tainted. After she calls the police she sits down to have a cigarette. It is her first cigarette since the letter’s original intended recipient told her that he could never date a smoker. When the thief took the letter, he took away all hope of her ever getting her ex-lover back as well.
That explanation makes it seems very complicated and maybe it is. Like I said, I wrote this after a period when I hadn’t been doing very much writing, so I was out of practice. Anyway, this piece meant two things for me. First, it taught me that I need to write on a regular basis or else my stories come out all mushy. Second, it made me really think about the power that I give to my words and how crappy I feel when other people take them and switch all the meanings around. When she writes the new letter for the thief she only changes one thing, but that one thing is the one thing that makes all the difference. I think that I will always worry about people changing my words around. It won’t be the same as it is in this story. I don’t think that anyone is going to break into my house and steal my notebooks and make me change words so that things are all about them. I think that my fear is that people won’t understand what it is that I am trying to say and will take things to mean something other than what they are.
I guess that’s just one of the risks that come with my chosen profession. It’s just a hard one for me to swallow.
Showing posts with label #9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #9. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Relationships 5/4/06
I like falling in love with the wrong kind of man. I know I’m doing it, in the way everyone always knows what they are doing, regardless of what they might say to themselves. Thus far, I have put behind me two alcoholics, one pot-head, and five republicans. These are serious men. They are serious about the jobs they lose due to their hangovers. They are serious about the clothing they wear. They are very serious about their political affiliations. They are not, however, serious about me. I am sure that I amuse them at first. They shake their serious heads at my clumsiness, they complement the passion of my kisses, and they openly admire the way my legs pop out of vintage skirts. They like me, I hope, but they are too serious and eventually they remind me that I should be as well.
Where once my laughter made them smile, it begins to annoy. “Do you think this is a joke?” they ask, their faces wrinkling at the brow. We are required to have serious talks regarding the nature of my activities. “Don’t walk outside barefoot,” they chide. “Are you really wearing that?” they ask. Finally, and with the most anger, they merely say “No.” Then it is over and I must say goodbye, an event always harder for me than it seems to be for them.
I spend a lot of time crying. I write desperate poems and letters. Things that never reach their intended audience but instead remain half written on tear stained pages of my notebooks. Eventually, I muster up the courage to be honest with myself. I finally come to terms with what I always knew, that it would never work.
I’ve been doing this for years, and my problems don’t seem to be going away. The only difference is that where before I believed that there were no problems, now I allow myself some concessions. If now I know his drinking is excessive, I imagine we’ll have it under control soon. If his close minded right wing supremacy is driving me crazy, I take it upon myself to open his eyes. Before I just thought that my loving him was enough to keep up together, now I imagine my love is enough to make him change so that we can stay together. It is a minor difference, but even that is progress.
These men are not so kind to me. They do not see my compromises. They never see the things I am giving up, the things I don’t talk about. All they see is that it isn’t going to work. Perhaps they are more sensible than I. Maybe their serious dispositions have served them well in this regard. I think that it is perhaps the reason I so admire them. We both know from the beginning that it won’t work, that I am not the right kind of girl, but they don’t let their emotions get in the way of this. For them, when it is over, it is over. My smile no longer causes theirs. My clumsiness is an annoyance they must live with. They are exhausted by my old tricks, while I retain my fascination with theirs. I lag behind as they move on to some simple blonde who has no expectations beyond a diamond in a year or two.
I am wondering why I subject myself to these most certain heartbreaks. I wonder why I chose these men, when there are so many reasons why I should not. Now I say this. Now, when these men are locked inside some drawer in a faraway corner of my mind. Now, when my memories of them contain more sorrow than they do fondness. I know that sometime, most likely in the not-too-distant future I will meet another one of these men and I will forget the lessons taught to me by those that came before him. I will fall in love with his serious countenance and slowly creep towards heartbreak once again. After all, men don’t fall in love with girls who laugh when everyone else is straight-faced. They cannot actually be with someone who appreciates the fell of grass between their toes. Even the most passionate of kisses is not enough to bind him to me.
I wrote this post after a bad situation with a guy, which I’m sure you could have figured out. I think that writing it was very therapeutic for me. The part about me finding another guy I wasn’t compatible with in again in the “not-too-distant future” didn’t really work out. I actually didn’t meet someone I was even slightly interested in for two years after this. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had just recognized a pattern for myself. I think that I still fall into patterns. We all do.
At the time I wrote this I was going through a period where I was trying to write creative non-fiction. I wrote a few essays and was actually really big into blogging on myspace (I deleted the profile, so don’t bother trying to find me). This was my favorite essay at the time because I meant the things that I said. The other ones seemed really forced. I think that creative non-fiction is a hard thing for me to write because I tend to focus on themes and life just keeps on moving ahead so I don’t have a lot of endings. You need endings with essays. You need them with life too. I’m very bad with endings.
Where once my laughter made them smile, it begins to annoy. “Do you think this is a joke?” they ask, their faces wrinkling at the brow. We are required to have serious talks regarding the nature of my activities. “Don’t walk outside barefoot,” they chide. “Are you really wearing that?” they ask. Finally, and with the most anger, they merely say “No.” Then it is over and I must say goodbye, an event always harder for me than it seems to be for them.
I spend a lot of time crying. I write desperate poems and letters. Things that never reach their intended audience but instead remain half written on tear stained pages of my notebooks. Eventually, I muster up the courage to be honest with myself. I finally come to terms with what I always knew, that it would never work.
I’ve been doing this for years, and my problems don’t seem to be going away. The only difference is that where before I believed that there were no problems, now I allow myself some concessions. If now I know his drinking is excessive, I imagine we’ll have it under control soon. If his close minded right wing supremacy is driving me crazy, I take it upon myself to open his eyes. Before I just thought that my loving him was enough to keep up together, now I imagine my love is enough to make him change so that we can stay together. It is a minor difference, but even that is progress.
These men are not so kind to me. They do not see my compromises. They never see the things I am giving up, the things I don’t talk about. All they see is that it isn’t going to work. Perhaps they are more sensible than I. Maybe their serious dispositions have served them well in this regard. I think that it is perhaps the reason I so admire them. We both know from the beginning that it won’t work, that I am not the right kind of girl, but they don’t let their emotions get in the way of this. For them, when it is over, it is over. My smile no longer causes theirs. My clumsiness is an annoyance they must live with. They are exhausted by my old tricks, while I retain my fascination with theirs. I lag behind as they move on to some simple blonde who has no expectations beyond a diamond in a year or two.
I am wondering why I subject myself to these most certain heartbreaks. I wonder why I chose these men, when there are so many reasons why I should not. Now I say this. Now, when these men are locked inside some drawer in a faraway corner of my mind. Now, when my memories of them contain more sorrow than they do fondness. I know that sometime, most likely in the not-too-distant future I will meet another one of these men and I will forget the lessons taught to me by those that came before him. I will fall in love with his serious countenance and slowly creep towards heartbreak once again. After all, men don’t fall in love with girls who laugh when everyone else is straight-faced. They cannot actually be with someone who appreciates the fell of grass between their toes. Even the most passionate of kisses is not enough to bind him to me.
I wrote this post after a bad situation with a guy, which I’m sure you could have figured out. I think that writing it was very therapeutic for me. The part about me finding another guy I wasn’t compatible with in again in the “not-too-distant future” didn’t really work out. I actually didn’t meet someone I was even slightly interested in for two years after this. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had just recognized a pattern for myself. I think that I still fall into patterns. We all do.
At the time I wrote this I was going through a period where I was trying to write creative non-fiction. I wrote a few essays and was actually really big into blogging on myspace (I deleted the profile, so don’t bother trying to find me). This was my favorite essay at the time because I meant the things that I said. The other ones seemed really forced. I think that creative non-fiction is a hard thing for me to write because I tend to focus on themes and life just keeps on moving ahead so I don’t have a lot of endings. You need endings with essays. You need them with life too. I’m very bad with endings.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
8/17/06 Going to a Workshop
Jesus called Brian liked to disrupt church services. It was part of the reason that I believed in him, whatever he was. “It’s so diluted,” he would say while pulling open the door to the church lobby. A different church every week. This week the unfortunate souls at the First Methodist Baptist Church of Christ were going to be privy to his rage, and mine too, I guess, since I was tagging along. “First Methodist Baptist,” he spat, “These people can’t even make up their minds.” On he marched toward the doors, behind which held the dutiful, if confused, churchgoers.
He thrust the doors open with a bang, and rushed up the aisle. I rushed after him, unaware of what really, I was supposed to be doing.
“Attention, Meth Addicts,” he screamed. I caught the reference too late and after I had whispered loudly, “They’re Christians, not drug addicts.”
Jesus called Brian laughed over his shoulder, he would tell me later that I had added a genius comical touch to the event.
This writing comes from a writing workshop I went to at Barnes and Noble once. They would have this workshop once a week and I thought it seemed like a good opportunity to get some feedback on my work. I soon discovered that you probably shouldn’t just find random strangers to do this sort of thing. It’s not a good idea to find all of your best friends either because they are just going to tell you how much they love everything. The reason that you shouldn’t go to workshops with strangers is that you have no idea what they are writing or what kind of writers they are. It turns out that these people were romance writers.
The way that this workshop worked was that they would give us all little prompts and then we would go around the table and write about these things. Jesus called Brian was a part of a story that I was working on, or that I had been working on in some form or another since my freshman year of college. It never really evolved much and I think that I moved past it, though he does show up from time to time if I need something exciting to happen. I don’t remember what the prompts were exactly, I just know that there were three of them. I don’t think that anything really important came out of this group. There was no criticism what-so-ever. You would just read what you had just wrote out loud and everyone would not and say “That’s interesting” before they would read their romance story. No matter what the prompt was, it could fit into the plot of their current project.
There was also an eleven year old there. I think that was the weirdest thing about this whole group. The eleven year old. She shouldn’t have been there. I understand if she wants to be a writer and this is something that she finds fun, but a person can’t write the kinds of things that they really want to write if there is an eleven year old hanging around. Actually, one of the prompts inspired me to write a story that involved drug use. One of the characters sat on a bed rolling a joint and talking about Amsterdam. I got a lot of terse looks for that one. People were motioning with their eyes towards the little girl.
It was the first time and last time I went to that workshop (or really, I think that we should call it a group because nothing was really work-shopped). I couldn’t stand the idea of having my writing critiqued by someone who hadn’t reached puberty yet. I don’t write for children. I also didn’t want to listen to anymore chit chat about romance novels or the romance novel industry, which might be completely different than the book industry seeing as they will sometimes just hand you the plot and you don’t have to think about it at all. Maybe I was being snobby. I don’t care. I still wouldn’t join a group like that. I have other people read my work but I think that they are people who understand better the things that I am trying to do with my writing. You have to be able to trust the people that you trust with your work. It’s redundant, but true.
He thrust the doors open with a bang, and rushed up the aisle. I rushed after him, unaware of what really, I was supposed to be doing.
“Attention, Meth Addicts,” he screamed. I caught the reference too late and after I had whispered loudly, “They’re Christians, not drug addicts.”
Jesus called Brian laughed over his shoulder, he would tell me later that I had added a genius comical touch to the event.
This writing comes from a writing workshop I went to at Barnes and Noble once. They would have this workshop once a week and I thought it seemed like a good opportunity to get some feedback on my work. I soon discovered that you probably shouldn’t just find random strangers to do this sort of thing. It’s not a good idea to find all of your best friends either because they are just going to tell you how much they love everything. The reason that you shouldn’t go to workshops with strangers is that you have no idea what they are writing or what kind of writers they are. It turns out that these people were romance writers.
The way that this workshop worked was that they would give us all little prompts and then we would go around the table and write about these things. Jesus called Brian was a part of a story that I was working on, or that I had been working on in some form or another since my freshman year of college. It never really evolved much and I think that I moved past it, though he does show up from time to time if I need something exciting to happen. I don’t remember what the prompts were exactly, I just know that there were three of them. I don’t think that anything really important came out of this group. There was no criticism what-so-ever. You would just read what you had just wrote out loud and everyone would not and say “That’s interesting” before they would read their romance story. No matter what the prompt was, it could fit into the plot of their current project.
There was also an eleven year old there. I think that was the weirdest thing about this whole group. The eleven year old. She shouldn’t have been there. I understand if she wants to be a writer and this is something that she finds fun, but a person can’t write the kinds of things that they really want to write if there is an eleven year old hanging around. Actually, one of the prompts inspired me to write a story that involved drug use. One of the characters sat on a bed rolling a joint and talking about Amsterdam. I got a lot of terse looks for that one. People were motioning with their eyes towards the little girl.
It was the first time and last time I went to that workshop (or really, I think that we should call it a group because nothing was really work-shopped). I couldn’t stand the idea of having my writing critiqued by someone who hadn’t reached puberty yet. I don’t write for children. I also didn’t want to listen to anymore chit chat about romance novels or the romance novel industry, which might be completely different than the book industry seeing as they will sometimes just hand you the plot and you don’t have to think about it at all. Maybe I was being snobby. I don’t care. I still wouldn’t join a group like that. I have other people read my work but I think that they are people who understand better the things that I am trying to do with my writing. You have to be able to trust the people that you trust with your work. It’s redundant, but true.
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