Paper Stars
I had always wanted it like this, this kind of story, you on the other side of the planet, meeting once every few seasons, each time all the more special having been apart for so long, the exchange of letters and longings and the hovering feeling of having you being here without you being here. I had always wanted this. But today I feel espeically empty, even though I confirm once again I am blessed with what I've always wanted -- a glass jar of paper stars. People are always eager to throw a clump of their reality at me. They would say, "This is impractical. You've learned your lesson and it's time to move on." They don't know how lifeless they look when they say things like that.
The past seven years have given me much hope, a face, an expression, a muffled voice that awaits me at the end of a broken day. I remember many nights in my room under orange lights, pressing ink into my rarely-used stationery paper, with most certainty, all the time thinking of you and how you say you'd wait, assuring me there'll always be a place where things are in place.
You were always on my mind. How my young heart likes to drift about, but at least in the countless times I think of you, at least in those moments, I am ever so ready to give you my open palm and on it you'd see a flickering tint and I'd say to you, "this is truly me," and we'd stand there and watch it flutter in the air, curling and wavering about. It's probably easier that way, just let its movement tell the story. I wonder why in moments like that I couldn't have sat down to write you something, or taken a picture of the street and with its foreign billboards and the pedestrians that are looking or not looking at me while I think of you. You would have a whole collection of boxes by now. It's always as if the act of making something would cut into my thoughts which end up fading and I'd find myself in real place and real time again: a table, a chair, a cool night in Toronto. But that's okay, I'd tell myself, I'll tell you all about it the next time we meet.
It's not impractical. A person who spends every summer morning tending to her flowers in the garden is not impractical. A person who wakes up early eeryday to run the the same track around the neighbourhood is not impractical. A person who prays before bed every night is not impractical.
There's one thing I don't understand. I know, I know, that I'll always love you. I know it. Yet a mist has come over the image of the two of us together. There's a gap in my understanding that I'm trying to fill. There's something grand about it. People try to fill it for me with their clump of reality, and they'd say it's everybody's reality, with it comes a tone of resignation and submission to their sad truth. They don't live here. They're just passers-by. But if I had the chance to articulate it to you, I'm sure you'd understand.
Let me tell you this much, there aren't many of us left in this world. At least I'd like to think about it that way. As long as we wait patiently and unselfishly, there will come a time when we'll find our own truth, where things have always been in place and will always be in place.
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***It was a grayish day in actuality... It was brewing up a great rain but it never came, instead the air was wet and suffocating. I wrote at home in the morning, made lunch, then went to my favourite coffee shop and settled in a bright corner just behind the brick column to relieve myself of the sight of the gray sky. I tried to continue from p.70 of Mrs. Dalloway but I couldn't. The words just passed through my head and I found myself rereading the same paragraphs. So I turned to writing instead, and wrote what I have posted above. Then instead of making the necessary turn for home, I went straight to explore the mysterious patch of land to the east of my home. I came across the 'Hamlets' of Green River, Brougham, and Claremount. What placid names, and not too far from my home. When I got home there was still plenty of daylight but I fell into a coma and slept for 13 hours.
The past seven years have given me much hope, a face, an expression, a muffled voice that awaits me at the end of a broken day. I remember many nights in my room under orange lights, pressing ink into my rarely-used stationery paper, with most certainty, all the time thinking of you and how you say you'd wait, assuring me there'll always be a place where things are in place.
You were always on my mind. How my young heart likes to drift about, but at least in the countless times I think of you, at least in those moments, I am ever so ready to give you my open palm and on it you'd see a flickering tint and I'd say to you, "this is truly me," and we'd stand there and watch it flutter in the air, curling and wavering about. It's probably easier that way, just let its movement tell the story. I wonder why in moments like that I couldn't have sat down to write you something, or taken a picture of the street and with its foreign billboards and the pedestrians that are looking or not looking at me while I think of you. You would have a whole collection of boxes by now. It's always as if the act of making something would cut into my thoughts which end up fading and I'd find myself in real place and real time again: a table, a chair, a cool night in Toronto. But that's okay, I'd tell myself, I'll tell you all about it the next time we meet.
It's not impractical. A person who spends every summer morning tending to her flowers in the garden is not impractical. A person who wakes up early eeryday to run the the same track around the neighbourhood is not impractical. A person who prays before bed every night is not impractical.
There's one thing I don't understand. I know, I know, that I'll always love you. I know it. Yet a mist has come over the image of the two of us together. There's a gap in my understanding that I'm trying to fill. There's something grand about it. People try to fill it for me with their clump of reality, and they'd say it's everybody's reality, with it comes a tone of resignation and submission to their sad truth. They don't live here. They're just passers-by. But if I had the chance to articulate it to you, I'm sure you'd understand.
Let me tell you this much, there aren't many of us left in this world. At least I'd like to think about it that way. As long as we wait patiently and unselfishly, there will come a time when we'll find our own truth, where things have always been in place and will always be in place.
---------------------------
***It was a grayish day in actuality... It was brewing up a great rain but it never came, instead the air was wet and suffocating. I wrote at home in the morning, made lunch, then went to my favourite coffee shop and settled in a bright corner just behind the brick column to relieve myself of the sight of the gray sky. I tried to continue from p.70 of Mrs. Dalloway but I couldn't. The words just passed through my head and I found myself rereading the same paragraphs. So I turned to writing instead, and wrote what I have posted above. Then instead of making the necessary turn for home, I went straight to explore the mysterious patch of land to the east of my home. I came across the 'Hamlets' of Green River, Brougham, and Claremount. What placid names, and not too far from my home. When I got home there was still plenty of daylight but I fell into a coma and slept for 13 hours.
posted by Adam C at
1:05 AM
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