One of the most epic battles my mother and I ever had was about me hiding in my room. I was thirteen or some other horrifying age, fraught with hormones and bad hair and worse clothes and a rebellious body and everything in my life just. felt. wrong. So, I spent a lot of time in my room, as nerdy teenagers are prone to do. I read Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub and Dean Koontz. I wrote short stories and novels about betrayal and heartache and vampires and sex. (All things I knew very little about but imagined vividly.) I wrote a world that was better and worse than mine. I wrote about how very badly people can hurt each other, and how they help each other heal. I wrote about the soft rustling creak of death’s approach in the darkness and the cool panic of fingers just missing the light switch. I wrote my adolescence in first and third person, and sometimes I didn’t stop for days.
You can imagine my mother’s concern.
Events related to growing up, gaining maturity, grief, shame, healing and true love made writing unnecessary, I thought. There wasn’t any need for text therapy, anymore. I thought. And so I submerged myself with quiet joy into beige normality. I stopped writing. And even my dreams became sepia, non-threatening and tame.
I find myself again at a point in my life where I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. My daughter is explosively revealing herself to be some emissary from a far off light system, and though I would miss her terribly, I’m not entirely sure I would resist if her own kind came to claim her. My body rebels against the limits my life proscribes. Things are sagging and folding in unpleasant ways. Injuries refuse to fully heal. And this story I started some weeks ago….
In a way, I’m an adolescent again, afraid to turn off the light. It’s waiting for me. I can see it there restlessly biding its time. Except now I know what love is. I know of betrayal and how time often heals nothing at all. I know that life and death rustle together, permeating the minutiae of our every day. I know that the rain stops. And that first deep breath is always the hardest one.
I’m dreaming in colour again. That frightens me. Though the world, at this age, frightens me less.
Well put, Desi.
I particularly like how you tied your situation back to your daughter’s. Do you think young-Desi would sympathize with young-daughter today?
Love the line “… I’m not entirely sure I would resist if her own kind came to claim her.” My wife felt that way about our daughter from about 13-22 years old. :) Don’t worry, the time goes by so very quickly.
Thanks, MJ. I think 6yo Desi would absolutely relate to what my daughter is going through. I’m sure the two of them would be giggling and/or screaming into each other’s faces if they had the opportunity. (Which, come to think of it, really isn’t that different from she and me, right now.) I think my struggle is wanting to catch her before she falls, while at the same time knowing full well she has to fall. And the part where she’s just enough like me to drive me out of my mind doesn’t help, either. We’ve got our time ahead of us, and I am (mostly) grateful for it. She is going to be an amazing woman, one day.
Hang in there.
Thanks. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster, lately, and hanging in seems like a better alternative than falling out during the next loop-de-loop. Here’s to white knuckles!
Beautiful, beautiful post. I’m not sure how the whole guest post / reblog thing works yet, but I’d love to share this with my readers with a link back to your blog. (I’m a little overwhelmed by my training schedule at my new job, and am looking for some content to flesh out my blog until I settle in and can write regularly again.)
That subtle shift from ‘creak’ to ‘rustle’ was just brilliant.
Oh, thank you so much! Yes, you’re welcome to share this post, reblog, and/or link up to it. I’m honoured and thrilled that you would! :-)
“And so I submerged myself with quiet joy into beige normality.” We need Simon & Garfunkle to set that to music.
I only locked myself in my room and beat the crap out of my guitar as a teenager. To the tune of religious songs, no less. In my case, my mother could *hear* what I was doing… Didn’t alleviate the conflict much.
Hahahaha! My mum plays the electric guitar, so she probably would have been THRILLED if I were holed up in my room trying to make music (though she may not have been quite as supportive of the religious tone). I did once spend an hour or so singing ‘Give Peace a Chance’ at the top of my lungs around 2am…. Oh, yes, there was conflict!
Got it !!
I’ve got a few thousand words sort of revising themselves in my head, and I’m hoping hard they’ll be ready to go for reading week. (That is, if I can motivate myself to get my homework done in time and/or otherwise self-justify a week’s worth of hooky.) I can’t wait to share them with you!
This made my heart hurt and my head shake in agreement. As the writer, this must mean your doing it right :)
or you’re. Grammar seems harder before coffee :)
Amen to that!
You’re a sweetheart, Tori. Thanks so much for this. I really do hope I’m doing it right :-)
Beautiful! Simply beautiful!
Thanks, Belle!
Wow Desi! I feel that entire piece…and your story is right on. Beautiful. I can’t wait to read more.
“time often heals nothing at all”
i feel that way sometimes
((hugs))
Thanks, Nat. Someday soon I need to make some time to catch up with you. How have you been?
Back from an incredible trip to Lusaka. Been off the blogosphere for a while. Slowly easing back. Very very happy to read yours as always. Thanks for asking. Would be lovely to catch up!
mercy. that is a stunning piece of writing.. just stunning.. c
Thank you, sweet lady. What a lovely comment!