I Wish You Were Here

(one)

It is almost impossible for me to write about this right now. It may never be possible for me to write about this, to write something coherent and cogent and meaningful. I have always been compelled to process my emotions on paper, with a pen, though sometimes they remain eternally a maelstrom of words, desperate or vengeful or livid or desolate or delirious. 

Phil is my first friend to die. He was my age, give or take a few months, working hard, dreaming strong. He was killed. Saying the words, typing the words, is a surreal act, one that even with repetition has not made these past few days soak in yet. I have been to other funerals, though, the ones of vivid memory can be counted on a single hand. My first at the small age of three years old, accompanied by my favorite stuffed animals: my Polish great-grandmother. I remember the taste of homemade fried chicken, to this day, of simple white meat to sweet, coating so crisp, prepared with love from memory, hands automatically performing the actions, prepared by an army of old-guard Polish women from that corner of Baltimore. My paternal grandparents, in middle school. An acquaintance's mother, destroyed by breast cancer, whose service caused me to wail, thinking of my own mother's inevitable death.

He was a beautiful, beautiful person, and was a dear, loving friend to me during those most emotionally-fraught years, when all is raw and seemingly so unfettered, so impossible to control and to reign and to understand. I know I will never forget that type of warmth, that lust for love and life and true, deep friendships, that lust for mischievous fun, but I now, naturally, find myself struggling to grasp at memories, at snippets of conversations, of moments alone, together, wondering, joking, laughing. Our friendship was one built from the seeming mundane things of growing up: exasperation at strict teachers, worry over grades, worry over social acceptance, obsession with fledgling romantic entanglements and woesWe were together in happiness, and sometimes, in fear. I have never fully resolved those fears, not yet, but they were diminished in his presence. This effect he had, a certain self-assurance, a warm comfort, is unique, and he generously shared this gift with all his many friends. 

It is impossible for me to write about this now, to give this tragedy some meaning. Trying to speak with our mutual friends, friends who also grew up with us, I have only superficial words. I can only let myself feel the full brunt of the pain, feel its force, and try to take comfort in the memories, in the beauty and good that came from his too short life.

(two)

We get into the car and we begin to drive, aimless, anxious. Tall, tall cups of black espresso, made palatable with thick foam milk and too much sugar, warm our hands and as we sip, warm our blood, hasten that thump-thump of the heart. Eventually, we begin to head north, north, and just keep going. Laughing, we decide to drive to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with no sense of motive or purpose other than the beauty of that open highway, freckled with potholes, black gravel crumbling. A frivolous adventure. We crack the windows of the car and take long, shallow drags of cigarettes, nicotine consummating with caffeine to make us even more giddy.

Our parents call and we lie to them, pretend to be driving home from the mall near home. We keep driving north, unconcerned that as soon as we reach the small town, we will have to head back.

Every ten minutes or so, the same song blares from the speakers, the latest hit by Destiny's Child and we shout-sing along each time. As the song closes, we each take a long drag, exhale and listen, exhale and listen.

(three)

In the summers, my mother bakes peach pies, the fruit fresh and almost too-sweet from the spring months of hot sun. We come to my house and a newly-baked pie sits quiet on the counter, still warm, potent peach perfume permeating the kitchen. We begin to gingerly slice into the golden crust and my mother shrugs, hands us forks, and instead we get to work on the entire pie, devouring the sticky goodness, perfect chemistry of sugar, butter, cinnamon, fruit meat. In a matter of moments, quick maneuvers of the forks, the pie is gone. We have eaten it all. Just some crust crumbs and streaks of filling scatter the glass bottom of the dish.

(four)

The sky is near dark. We hide in a black night, the moon low and demure, waning, sit in a circle in a decrepit tennis court beside her house, green surface sadly sagging. Sipping from plastic cups of cheap alcohol, pale beer or maybe some concoction of blood red juice and astringent vodka, we swap jokes and stories. It is summer and the Future looms, a brilliant expanse of unknown potential, as distant and intangible to us as the specks of stars scattered in the black. In a few months, we, our bodies, here, concrete, able to touch and be touched, would scatter, to new towns and new states, unsure but excited. We sip and talk, divulge our secrets, sitting so close we are almost touching.

(image taken from A Well-Traveled Woman)

A Cinematic Tribute to Carver

Weaving a classic Raymond Carver story, Hollywood blockbuster action films, Broadway business, media politics, ever-evolving social marketing platforms, and an array of character psychoses from schizophrenic paranoia to delusional narcissism into a compelling tale is a tall order; Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers, and he delivers a beautifully and meticulously wrought tapestry. Birdman was much anticipated and upon release, was an immediate success among the masses and much lauded by film and cultural critics. The humming buzz is much deserved: well acted, well directed, well written. For me, much of the praise and the intrigue of the film is owed to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and his extended frenetic sweeping takes and camera movements, which lend the film its pulsing, sweating energy, its hallucinogenic effect, its pervasive improvisational sway. The choreography of the camera coalesces with the rapid, scat-style drumming score that hums, rapping and beating in a fever.

With moments of whim and fantasy, coupled with the visual and aural kinetics of the camera and drum, the film at first seems incongruous to the minimal style and subtle tone of the central piece of fiction, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," which washed-up and possibly deranged protagonist Riggan Thomson adapts for his precarious Broadway theater debut. After seeing the film a few weeks back, it took some marination time for the realization that the circuitous roving of the camera in Birdman, circling and bobbing through the long corridors and winding staircases of the back of the Broadway theater, mirrors the passing of the gin bottles between the two couples in "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," around and around the table. The selection of story was precise and purposeful, from a character and symbolism perspective: both address the complexities of inadequacy, expectation combating with reality, the throes of addiction. While the thematic tie was immediately satisfying and realized, for me, the complementing geometry of each work, sweeping circles, from one character to the next, seems more than merely fortuitous.

As a vehement lover of books and the written word, I generally approach film adaptations of favorite novels and stories with ambivalence. The power, the beauty, the truth of language is not always possible to capture, and while a different medium can provoke other thoughts or emotions, I am more apt to disappointment if the effect is lackluster compared to the original. Here, I greatly admire the construct, the assimilation of such a powerful literary work, reappropriated and working within the confines of a separate but equally compelling narrative. Again, well tied into the film's commentary on the marketing power of viral social media content and our self-reappropriation in digital realms. A delightfully intricate film experience and certainly money well spent to view in the theaters.   

(image taken from Business Insider)  

Dreams Pass Into the Reality of Action

Since I was a very small girl, I have been haunted with recurring dreams, dreams so vivid and so repetitive, it is as though when my eyes close, my neurons slowly drift to sleep, I am forced to watch the same film, over and over. Rather than a passive watching though, I am moving, speaking, acting, and yet seem unable to act of my own volition, stuck in an unconscious track, following the script word for word.

In recent years, one of these dreams, transpiring every few months, is elegantly simple in its stress-inducing dilemma: I am still a student, it is exam week, and I have discovered that I have failed to attend two of my courses the entire semester. For some reason, it is nearly always a European history course of some sort and a class on differential equations. Panicked, I wrack my brain, I fret, how is it possible that I could neglect such a grave obligation for weeks, for months. What was I doing instead of attending class? Was something else more pressing? In this dream world, have I been shirking responsibility for leisure, for pleasure? In the dream, it is never obvious if, up until that realization of missing the classes, I was blissfully ignorant and happy. There is only a numbing stress, which persists, bleeds into my reality when I wake. My breath seems to take a moment to recover, my heart thumps in uneven patterns, gesticulating wildly. Once the dream-state blurs, it always seems silly, to have such a pronounced homeostatic response to something which, comparatively, is insignificant. Even if these events were true, I missed classes, failed miserably, this is hardly a tragedy. A challenge, a setback, but a course of events that could, with the proper amount of determination and spunk and intelligence, be easily overcome. Later to be attributed to something that builds character.

Metaphorically, there could be something deeper here, a profound fear that there is something going on, something looming, that I am ignoring until it is too late. Temporality here is cruel, my enemy. How will I react when the monster bares its teeth, gnashes its jaws in my face, after leaping out from what previously were a set of plush bushes. Will I have the strength and the courage to take action, or will I be a coward, allow myself to be eaten.

Last night, I lived this dream. This morning, as with most mornings, I stayed cowered under my thick, warm blankets, trying to hide from the cold air and the rising sun, light creeping stealthily between the cracks of my drapes hung at the tall windows.

(image taken from Fine Art America)

It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career

My fiction workshop is drawing to a close, this autumn moving past me, my world, with a celerity that was shocking, leaving me cold and alone in its wake. Though I have not quite completed my work and entered an appropriate phase to reflect, overall, my course has been a success. It was a fresh perspective, it was a plunging into something familiar yet still unknown, like diving into a new pool of water, a lake; I know how to swim, the maneuvers, the strokes, I know the feel of water rushing past my body as I break the surface with my hands, head, torso, but each body of water has its own mysteries beneath. Having studied fiction as an undergraduate, the workshop format was familiar, but the dynamics of the group, the instructor, as changing as an organic creature.

Ever the pessimist, ever my own critic, while I am pleased that this experience has been inspiring, I have been and continue to be a bit disappointed in my own performance. My own lack of discipline. While the spark, the desire, to write has been ignited, actual pen to paper, capturing the words that drift feverishly through my cortical corners, snippets, circumstances, has been substantially little. Still, despite this class, despite a welcome and encouraging community, I do not write, at least, not as much as one should. Should. Ever an amorphous concept, fluid, changeling, subject to my harsh biases. Afraid, or more accurately, lazy, I let the words, the stories, flounder listlessly in my mind. Working full time at a demanding career, while trying to pursue something more, something I feel I must, at least for my sanity, is beyond challenging, and I know, rationally, that I should be kinder to myself, be more forgiving.

While still a student, in middle school, in high school, in university, I received much praise, encouragement, pushing: this is what you should do. This is what you must do. When I was younger, this thrilled me, and convinced me. As I grew older, approached that age of metaphoric umbilical cord snapping, this burdened me. It seemed impossible, or perhaps to be lies, told for convenience, to placate. Doubting, I began to instead believe that, like for so many, there existed a palpable artistic sentiment, without the intuition, the genius, the dedication.

Refused to accept a notion of calling, refused to place a bet on talent. Instead, I stumbled forward, into accidental industry, found comfort, some challenges of a different ilk, found struggle.

Earlier in the semester, I read the first portion of a story in draft to my class; mulling over it these few weeks, I have mapped out the second portion, a sort of one-two punch of a structure. Now, to just write it.

(image taken from Vintage Everyday)

Homecoming Wedding

Drawn to my home town by a wedding, a friend from high school. Tender years of adolescence, of potential, that seemed so insufferable and tough at the time. From similar familial environments, more or less, we all studied diligently, discovered a love for vintage jewels, stole bouts of liquor from our parents to create some tame trouble for ourselves. Scattered to various geographies for university, unique coordinates, we kept in loose touch, more or less, reverting to old ways, old patterns, during holidays, summer vacation. Friendships not quite founded on tedium, but a sort of easy comfort, and familiarity.

I took the train south. I no longer own a car, able to commute, transmute, glide with ease from neighborhood to neighborhood, rattling with strangers underground. My parents retrieve me from the station, drive me to their new home, their retirement home, a handful of physical miles from, and great atmospheric distances from, the coddled suburban development of my youth. 

The night of the wedding, my mother drives us to the venue, a stiff country club. Polished, in sleek dresses, sparkling earrings, fancy. I forget that it has been more than a decade. Whisked back.

We would get ready for dances collectively, a gaggle of giggling girls, girls giggling from glugging clandestine vodka, drunk from cheap perfume. Piling into the back seat, squirming unnaturally to look natural. We wear brightly colored dresses, taunting polyester plumage.

 I forget that it has been more than a decade. What has happened in this time? Circling in some other city, occasionally called back, returning obediently like a falcon.

(image taken from Humble Pie Vintage)

Deep End

For our first class assignment, my first academic assignment in over five years, we are asked to bring three pages, three pages of exemplary work we admire, three pages of work that we are proud of, or three pages of work that we are struggling with. I chose the last, a struggle. The rest of the class clutches books by Dostoevsky, by Bernhard, by Walcott, by Sebald. Foolishly, wrongly, I assumed we would hand in our pages, silently. After the class shuffles in, young and old and somewhere between young and old, tired and carrying the weight of our days, some stooped slightly, others acutely, the instructor announces that we will take turns reading aloud the passage we selected. Trial by action. A toss into the pool.

When was it that I had last read aloud, before a group? Definitively, I recall a time, a Sunday morning, possibly late spring, in church, reading a passage from the New Testament before my congregation, my voice clear and steadfast, despite, even then, a wavering, a skepticism, questioning the rhetorical argument, questioning the philosophical and scientific validity of organized religion, the cultural impact of such dogma. Afterwards, the people gathered in a large hall, the foyer to the house of worship, swallowing cheap sugar cookies and sticky lemonade like communion, swapping gossip about the achievements and failures of their children, the illnesses of their parents. They grasped my hand, expressed their gratitude, their compliments. I enjoyed standing before them, reading to an audience, even though it was not my words. My father smiled.

Now, I must read three pages and pretend not to struggle through it. The pits of my arms grow warm, palpitate with a new dew, as though my heart has split, a large cell at the end of mitosis, and migrated to live, one chunk under each shoulder, in the cave crevice. I try to read slowly, deliberately, though, I cannot gauge from the stares of the others whether my pace is appropriate, my words compelling. Sentences seem too long. This is always my tendency, in spoken and written word, to effuse, to string clause upon clause like copious beads, to qualify, to intersect a sentence with a related tangent, an aside. I try to read deliberately. I try not to slice my tongue along the long length of clauses, of sentences, of pages of woven words. Some of the imagery, inked in my memory like a tattoo, still seem strong, to me, and I desperately pray that the class agrees, finds some truth or some beauty or some something in them. 

When I finish, the instructor poses a question: why am I struggling with this piece? What am I struggling with? The question seems obvious, though, I do not answer this way: I struggle with all of my writing, always. When I write in my head, mentally, and when I take the dare to commit those words to paper, the struggle, the fear, tantalizing, persists. 

(image taken from This Recording)

Shifting Contents

(one)

It is an evening in early November, somewhere between chilled and frigid, and we are house sitting for a pilates instructor. Situated, snuggled, along a slope towards a gorge, geographically characteristic of this area in western New York, the house features an impressive yet unassuming tiered porch, complete with steaming hot tub. We sit together in the tub, sipping cheap red wine, swathed in steam and our sweat. Above our heads, the black quilt of night sky is dazzling with patchwork clusters of stars, constellations of our own imagining we draw with fingertips. We talk and laugh, slowly, lethargic from the effort of staying awake in the warm water, lethargic from our dinner of wicked and delicious frozen pizza. A girls only sleepover, a welcome respite from the typical weekend evening of too much plastic vodka, too much beer, dancing until the moon sets, cumbersome sexual stumblings with boys we do not like and will, more than likely, forget about, or have a hard time remembering names, fuzzy details, a year from now. Fights with friends, angst toward stubborn parents, stress over difficult classes, fear of never being noticed let alone loved by him, all slowly dissipates, becomes as ephemeral and intangible as the lazy paths of steam, winding and ambling, disappearing into the dark. The future as unreal and benign as the steam, rising from lapping water in the tub. We are comfortable, in this beautiful house, in beautiful woods, wrapped in dark warmth.

(two)

Although exploring the demise and the birth of two separate romantic relationships with two very different men, using a fascinating and fluid travel log structure, detailing accounts in various cities, crowded and remote, most compelling in Pam Houston's novel Contents May Have Shifted is the span and depth of the fierce bonds between the narrator and her female friends. The women spend weekends together, reunited, at hot springs spas in the west, write thoughtful letters to one another between visits, travel to the far reaches of southeast Asia to explore spiritual havens, untouched, together imbued with potent feelings of heritage and calm. They embark on adventures, gunning down water rapids in rushing rivers, coaxing teams of dogs to guide and glide them along snow-covered paths, trusting in the physicality, in the confidence, of the other. The narrator invites these women into her home, a secluded ranch in a small town, time passing, but not, between cups of tea, glasses of wine. Amidst constant change, shifting jobs and partners and cities, the women are true to one another; their love is admirable, and is enviable.

At the finish of this novel, I was inspired. Inspired to explore the unknown, inspired to confront my fear, fear of unknown in friendships, fear of unknown in strangers, fear of unknown in alien lands, majestic and mundane alike. Inspired to travel, beyond the comfort realm. Inspired to work harder to continue to forge deep, meaningful bonds with my female friends, to seek comfort in their strength, to be proud, internally but also vocally, of the beautiful and wonderful things they do. Inspired to write more, and specifically inspired by her fluid narrative structure, short vignettes passing through temporal and physical space, single molecules beautiful on their own, but organic and fascinating when woven together collectively.

(image taken from The Women's Eye)