As I sit here, thirteen minutes until class begins, I feel it is a good idea to write about what I want to do for my personal essay.
Initially, I have wanted to write about how life cannot be resolved with sword fights. The phrase "I wish we could still solve our problems with sword fights" was to be my diving board, my stepping stone to a greater essay. And yet, I realize that somehow my heart is not in it. Is it because this is a new form of writing, this sort of philosophical, abstract sort of writing? Is it not grounded enough in reality for me? Is it because it's too pessimistic? With the new perspectives I've gained on life in the past few months, is my ability to write something cynical or sad stunted? Is it because it's too personal? Is it because I do not, on some level, want to write about the strange, complicated, overly-human troubles I find myself in? I do want to take on that challenge, but I believe it is a challenge to first be undertaken on my own terms, rather than as a graded assignment.
I think, instead, I want to write a story. My study group from last workshop helped me realize this, (as they appropriately just walk by). I can't really quite remember their names right now, but they helped me realize that I have so many stories in my life I could write of. My friends always tell me that my life is an anime. Why not write one of those episodes? The trick will be finding one of those episodes that really resonates, that really has detail that I can pay attention to. What about... the cove. We wrote that description piece about it, and there have been so many times that I have been there with someone that was dear and close to me. The cove... Or maybe the beach, in the chill October air, all alone together except for the stars and sea, dancing upon wet sand with moves we half-knew, half-made up right there and then. Would such a story be long enough? Seven to eight pages I believe the narrative was to be, which is to say three and a half to four pages.
Perhaps the multiple stories of the cove would be best. The different scenery each time. The first time I really arrived at it, that first summer after the divorce. Standing there against the grey sky, a storm keeping it cool even in June, looking at that ocean and trying to find comfort in that great, grey mass that was so larger than all of my troubles.
My first kiss at the cove, where I brought Kaitlyn... Well no, Kaitlyn brought me over six years ago. The darkness and the stars, the ocean black and lapping against the rocks. Climbing those rocks, the risk adding to the excitement as we finally found a place we could sit together, and... meet.
Going to that cove at 2AM all by myself, something, something troubling me enough to want to go down to the ocean at that late hour, leaving the hot, loud room that I shared with my sister and trying to find something cool, something refreshing, something comforting at the end of that long, dark tunnel of trees.
Bringing Sarah Judd there on our first date, before we even kissed. Bringing her there after the long car ride, the talk of appreciating the beauty in the world sparking the desire to bring her there, one of the most beautiful places I knew. Finding it to be instead full of fog, the stars long covered and yet still finding it beautiful to simply sit there together.
Bringing Alex there at the beginning of the summer, that memory that has faded more than I can even remember, but lying there with her on the path, talking about things, saying what I can look upon now as truly stupid things, but what meant so much at the time. The mix of all those feelings and confusion, and yet the comfort and joy of staring up at the stars with someone you barely know and yet care so much for.
The winter memory, bringing Lizzey there at the end of our first real date, our first real date after being together for long months. Feeling our way through the stomped down path in the newly-fallen snow, holding hands to catch one another as we fell. Gloves and scarves and coats and hats did not keep closeness from us as love was really acknowledged, if not said aloud.
And the very simple memory, the memory that has repeated itself with different scenery each time, of coming home from far away places and performing the ritual, seeing the old friend, going down to the water no matter the weather or season or tide, and touching it, just touching it, as a way of saying hello. My old friend.
All my old friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment