A mother by invention, I took care of N for a week, then E after they both got sick. It felt comfortable, natural. The rhythm of bowls of soup and tissues, finding a new movie to watch, an extra blanket during a nap. It is dead cold out there, -32C today. Waking up in the hard air, I remember moments from my childhood on the farm. The downstairs toilet was always frozen over, and we would pee in it, trying to melt the layer of ice at the bottom. Under ski masks, inside metallic snowsuits we plodded down the driveway for a quarter of a mile to wait for the school bus in the dim light. We were the first ones on, and the last ones off.
Coming home from school, I would lay down in one of the fields, dry stalks of wheat poking through the heavy snow. I would build tiny amusement parks for the mice to play in. A slide. A go-kart track. A swimming pool.
I am working on a book that touches on some of this. The story about building worlds in the snow,
Wild Asparagus is deeply personal. At the end, I jump from the dinner table and run outside, convinced someone is calling my name but no one is there. Just the mountains, an empty tire swing and the dogs. I crouch down in that tall grass and hide. I don't want to go back inside.
In the beginning, I thought being a writer was a bit like playing god - deciding people's fates, orchestrating each path, making it rain, making them fight. I watch E spending an entire day coming up with names for the girls in her stories. This is the initial thrill, the exhilaration of being able to control something. Eventually, we learn that humility is the final destination. Listening to the characters, instead of telling them what to do. It sounds so simple now, but it took me years to embrace.
Somehow, I had to surrender to the stories.
Every time I pass a garbage can that is on fire here, every time I open a box of eggs in the market to find half of them broken I have a choice to make. No one is watching. No one seems to care. It all adds up to a moment of surrender, or choosing - inventing. There is no controlling anything here. There is no fresh pen, no empty piece of paper. It may read like a story, but it isn't one.
No, we have to invent our happiness.
Comments
And, I found that acting is like that, too. At first you may think it is about you, and your "decisions", but then you realize the thrill of giving in, and letting the character take you over.
Yes you struck a nerve there. I find the same in painting. The portrait is IN the paper, the canvas. It's just a matter of bringing if forth with the brush.
And humility is one of the greatest secrets of life, isn't it? To truly understand and embrace it is a miracle , a liberation. The gateway to so much. Thank you for the reminder.
Happy Valentine's