Alright, well, I'm all about writing at the moment, but I'm all about writing a paper that I have been fighting into existence for the past few weeks. It seems that I must fight it some more. Thus I decided to post something different today. I opened up the file that is my "book" or my "story" or really just my massive, fictional work in progress (which is a complete and utter unedited sloppy mess but is, at least, something) and pulled a random excerpt to share here for the week. Before getting to that, however, I want to share a photo of our new family member, Dolphinslayer (I wanted to name him Freckles, but Dominic said that sounded too much like the name of a creepy clown, so we settled on Dolphinslayer):
May you live long and prosper Sir Dragonslayer!
So here is my excerpt, enjoy, or don't, but hey, you can't say I didn't blog ;) :
Mary lay in bed that night staring
at the ceiling. A pale pink ceiling. From the corners of her eyes she could see
the shadows of her bookshelves, littered haphazardly with the books that she
had chosen not to take with her to Sliding Hill. It had not been an easy
decision. Choosing which books to take were like weeding out friends…who to
leave behind? Who to take with you? It was not always an easy choice- beside
the immediate ones, the automatics.
At that moment she felt nothing.
She felt neither tired nor awake, sad nor happy. She felt mostly empty. Tapped
out. There was nothing there, no emotions, no matter where her
thoughts took her. For a moment she would feel as if, perhaps, she might be…but
then it would go, as the thought went, and she would be considering another potential but empty feeling.
And then she thought of her
favorite childhood movie. And it made her happy. It made her feel warm and
comforted, just thinking of her favorite scenes, the music, the colors, all the
things that drew her as a child. Those things that never changed. Do you ever
stop loving the movies you loved as a child?
Bruce loved the film Never Ending
Story. It was a little known fact. He had a huge poster in his room at
home. She always knew when he was thinking deeply about something that troubled
him, because he would rub his chin and look at that poster, eyes slightly
narrowed. Considering it like an art critic examining a new artist’s canvas. It
was such an intense examining look. It was as if he took comfort in the images
there, the feelings they invoked, comfort enough to think of the deeper things
he usually tried to avoid.
His letters to her sat on the
bedside table, still bundled up and in the large manila envelop. They felt like
another presence in the room- as if some creature were sitting, hunched on the
night stand, staring at her with big, open Why-won’t-you-look-at-me?!
eyes.
She rolled over to glare at a
wooden file cabinet to the other side of her bed. One of the few things she had
inherited from her father. In it she had stored all the stories and poems she
had written over the years. English major, after all. She had been writing
silly bits and pieces for as long as she could conceive of being able to do so.
And even before then she had stories going in her head. Nothing’s better than
that which you can imagine and be made real.
Still feeling that creature glaring
at her back, she opened the top drawer and pulled out a file. A poetry file
dated to her second year of college. Her poetry had never been very good. It
had been something for her eyes only- a quick vent when she desperately needed
to get something out on paper. Getting things out on paper was always a source
of purging for her. It always made her feel better. It was as if putting it on
paper got it out of yourself, you could look at it separately, distinctly, and
then go about your life. Poetry was that for her. It served no purpose but
getting out an emotion so that it could stop crippling her- get it out so that
should could go about her business.
The flip side of this was that when
you went back and read it, days, weeks, months, even years later those feelings
all came back to you, crisp and clear, as you remember why you wrote it, what
you were thinking, how you were feeling.
The first poem was dated to an
early evening, Wednesday.
“Disjointed Faces”
I saw the scratches on
his guitar
And knew that it was
one of those weeks
Where life flows
Like a series of short
stories
A warm week of rain
and sun
I feel perfect and
pretty
And you are shrouded
In silvery perfection
A series of days where
I feel happy
And guilty
Because there are others
Who aren’t and can
never be
But they lack a happy
tack
You
And you(a)r(e) silent
Humble
Perfection
{I dreamed last night
Of razors and hair
Of helping you shave
Of skin that was bare}
Daffodils rest
Beneath a sea of sky
The red on the white bathroom
floor
Makes me feel as if I
must, for a moment
Lie down
And I recall the
shallowness of it all
The two sided faces
Those darting eyes
The conspiracy behind
forced places
But the sun and the
perfect blue sky
Under which dozens of
happy Daffodils lie
Thanks to you
You and your silver
I no longer think
about
The disjointed faces
It was a day where she had felt
separated from the rest of the world because of her happiness. Her love for
Bruce was so profound at that moment, in spite of his absence that she had felt
guilty in her happiness. She had it so
much better than everyone else.
She felt a shudder run down her
spin and to dispel the oncoming feeling she quickly flipped the page.
Each day draws us
closer
To what might be a
permanent goodbye
The longer you are
away
The more I feel
That you are only
another
Perfect imagination
Questions appear
Encircling a little
bit of everything
Am I?
Need I?
Tell me
How?
Running
Perfectly
Oscillating
Leaving, loving,
seething
Only
Going, knowing,
seeing…
Years and fluttering
hopes
Feelings stick between
our toes
It is the last place
to hide them
I never felt the
negative about my passions
Until
Until
I realized there might
be something more.
She took a moment to cope with a
feeling she was not quite sure of.
Mary swung her legs over the bed
and, carrying her comforter with her, like a child on a Sunday morning,
shuffled out into the hallway. She opened one of the hall closets in which her
mother kept all their old childhood movies. She dug around until she found it-
a battered VHS. Walt Disney’s The Little
Mermaid. How many times had she watched that movie? How many times after
they gave Orleans
away? How many times after a bad day at school did she come running with such a
distinct purpose to that movie, that tiny VHS....
She made her way to the living room
and stuck it in the old combination VHS/DVD player. Amazing it still worked. It
would be sad when it broke. But the good thing about a childhood movie- as
opposed to a childhood toy or blanket- you could go out and buy another one and
it would be just the same- maybe even better. Digitally re-mastered with better
sound, better picture quality.
As soon as it begun, the Disney
castle, the foggy sea, Mary felt a joy rise up inside of her that she had not
felt for a very long time. Everything else was nothing. Sliding Hill was an
imaginary place: something distant and unknown. A bad dream perhaps. The only
things that were real were Ariel, Sebastian, Flounder, and Eric- oh Eric! The
sea witch- stab her with a boat, that should do it. The music with such
soothing consistent familiarity that she could sing along with. She could feel Ariel’s
passion for something more. Hope for that first kiss. So much love and joy and pain and recovery
in such a tiny children’s movie. And she knew the whole time exactly what was
going to happen. No doubt there; things are going to end well.
Mary watched until the VHS
finally clicked off and began to rewind itself. This put her to watching a late
night television show which broke her feelings and concentration on that other
time and place, and she all at once felt profoundly depressed and utterly
alone.
~~~~Fin!
Well that's all I have for now. I hope everyone is well. Have a Happy Week!
