vinylgirl's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- when we wake it's all been erased and so it seems only in dreams. This entry is devoted to my short story. I was actually really anxious to start this assignment, which is unusual for me. I started to formulate ideas based on different things that were floating around my mind at the time of the assignment. I began to compile small pieces and ideas from my journals, conversations I had, concepts I was working with for my isu, and pieces from my life. Throughout my journals I had written about the concept of dreams v. reality or the concept of idealism and these snippets functioned as a large part of my story. The other major contributing factor was a series of conversations I had with a boy named Erick. Naturally I built upon these conversations in order to make the story more interesting but overall most of the dialogue is drawn entirely from our conversations. I think that this assignment came at a perfect time for me. I had one of those ideas that you foster and carry with you until something really spectacular comes along, something that the idea could really lend itself to. I just felt really inspired and it moved along quite well. I wrote down the beginnings of the story in a notebook and used that notebook to collect all the ideas, the journal clippings and notes, to use as a resource. The story is also very much autobiographically based. I found that everything moved along well and I didn�t really have a period of block where I couldn�t move the story along. During the entire process I was continually getting feedback on my story as I built on it. I feel that this was extremely helpful since I was able to either validate that it was really turning into something or I could revise as necessary. The feedback I received from people was mostly positive, they really liked the overall concept of the story and felt for the main character, the reaction was great. It was also easier once I translated the entire story from the notebook onto my computer, which made editing much easier. I would still, however, bring my notebook with me to school and get feedback as well as add to what I had whenever I got an idea. It became very much my pet project. I think what really made this assignment wonderful for me was that I finally found a good process. The best thing you can do for yourself, as a writer is to write what you know. I think too often we attempt to capture some incredibly intense and passionate feeling into whatever we write. It�s the "all or death" mentality. But I believe that the best and most incredible stories are real. I always wanted to do something profound like base a story around a crowded subway station, analyzing all of the little stories or making some up for all of the passers-by. I think the real stories are in the tiny seemingly insignificant things that we often discard. Not to say that fantasy-based stories are not effective or beautiful but I just prefer a realistic story. All and all I am tremendously pleased with the final product. I guess there is some fear, especially since it such a piece or self expression and so based on my life, that if it does not come across well I will feel very discouraged and personally damaged. I suppose that is the fear that all artists have that if an attempt to use a mirror image of real life will ultimately flop and their best resource is thus rendered useless. But it is an attempt that is very much worth taking for even the smallest measurement of potential success if a good reason to go forward, even if it is only personal documentation in the end. When we wake, it�s all been erased and so it seems only in dreams. "Dreams lie" Erick sighed, as he pushed the overhanging pieces of his ashen-blonde shaggy hair from his face. His skin was taut with youth with jutting cheekbones and a forceful jaw built tightly as a bear trap. His skin had a sun kissed hue but was laced with the coarse stubble of a rebel. He stared at me with a tremendous pity in deep-pocketed gray eyes. His intense stare focused on my slumped figure. As much as he attempted to project strength, he had shining eyelids trimmed with thick doll like eyelashes and the slender artistic hands of a boy who uses his mind more than his muscles. "It�s so sad that you feel that way" I mumbled defensively, dusting a solitary lash from my rosy cheek. My olive green eyes burned with intense concentration on Erick�s movements blinking intermittently, flapping my thick eyelashes like oriental fans. I focused especially on his lips, those cherry romantic lips that pursed together to form the daily poetry that escaped his mouth. Feeling mildly childish, I offered him the eyelash I cradled on the tip of my index finger. Erick ignored my gesture to awaken him from his comatose state and my face with skin that was usually a soft ivory tone now blazed red with humiliation. My nerves slightly awry, I stroked my feminine hands through my long auburn hair, pushing the locks that often functioned as a frame out of my slightly heart shaped face with delicate cheekbones. Erick jolted slightly as if suddenly plunked back into reality and rose from the weathered steps turning to stand across from me on the porch. He was an understated fashion guru, wearing a vintage red plaid cowboy shirt with brown trim for decoration over his faded oldschool Levi�s jeans, topping off the outfit with his heavily worn and loved black Converse chucks. "I have to get going. I�ll talk to you later." I sat silently as an awkward moment ensued, I straightened my white floral patterned dress that was dotted with bright pink blooms, jade green stems, and golden yellow and black accents. The silk wrap dress hung perfectly over my petite frame with a v-neck and tie at waist level that accentuated my figure with the a-line skirt falling just below the knee. It was too hot to wear stockings so I went with bare legs and feet clad in tired brown Birkenstocks. I remember that I wore it because Erick thought I looked great in it. Erick nodded recognizing the tension and pivoted away from me. He began to stroll across the pebbled walk with both hands plunged into the pockets of his vintage jeans. I watched as he ever so casually strolled away. "I�ll see you later Erick" I blurted stupefied, "I have a feeling this is the last time for a while." My mouth remained open after the last syllables dropped from my plump red lips. Erick glanced back at me from the end of the walk; his eyes darted up and down frantically as he nodded. "Maybe you�re right". He continued his exit turning right and travelling parallel to Culham St. Just as he disappeared from view I allowed the first tear to slither down my face. I didn�t want him to see me cry, to think that he affected me, to think that he was special or something crazy like that. Mostly because it was entirely true. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes and stroking my palms up and down my thighs and on the skirt of my dress tapping my palms as they reached my knees. Feeling strong enough to stand, I rose from the steps and ventured back in to the house rubbing my arms from the cold. I paused for a second though, examining the porch and it�s surroundings. It looked different then it usually does. The steps up to the porch revealed stripped paint and I recalled all of the times we sat on those steps, just talking for hours and I never noticed how shabby they were. I liked just watching him and the way he moved his hands when he got excited about what he was talking about. I remembered the way that these steps always seemed to fit the two of us perfectly in between its rickety railings. The way the creaky floorboards, that we once danced on in moments of silliness, are surrounded by run down hand rails we used to lean against when we talked philosophy. The way that somehow the one dim sconce on the ceiling by the front door illuminated his facial expressions and reflected in his eyes. But now it is just a porch and these elements seem so much less magical. It�s funny how when you�re with someone you really care about you don�t feel the cold, fear, time, or pain or even notice your surroundings but as soon as they leave, all of these return but they feel new. I shut the door softly behind me and fall with my full weight leaning against the glass paneled front door, with my head falling back gently. Suddenly the one flight of stairs seemed so ominous. I proceeded up them slowly on the trek to the bathroom. He�s gone. He�s really gone this time. And you are winded from one flight of stairs. Your heart is racing, breathing intensified. A lump is forming in your throat. I tell myself I shouldn�t be upset. Maybe he was an illusion, a figment of my vivid and runaway imagination. Maybe it�s easier to believe he never really existed. But I remember when we stood so close I could feel his breathing through my body. That looking at him was enough for me. Because sometimes words don�t fit. Suddenly it�s real and I feel shaken. I want to sit on the cold tile of the bathroom floor because I don�t know what else to do. I pull on a sweater pretending that the cold is from the summer air conditioning and not from the gaping hole that remains from where my heart was excavated. So I sat with my back against the cold porcelain of the bathtub, knees pulled up to my chest, one hand over my heart, feeling it�s intense beating and my shaky breaths. I repeat the words "Just breathe" trying desperately to solidify myself. Managing to pull myself up to the vanity, I glance into the mirror, "I look like a train-wreck". All I can think is, you are a foolish girl to think he might have loved you. You are not a pretty girl; you simply exist passing through life as a fleeting thought, a footnote. I took a couple wobbly steps backwards and fell into that familiar slump against the tub. I close my eyes and I see freedom. Freedom is hands floating out the window of some speeding sedan on the highway. Chestnut and auburn hair floats light as paper in the down wind. It�s an oldschool chocolate sedan with cracked leather seats. I turn back into the car to see love in the form of a boy driving casually with one arm hanging out the driver side window and down the side of the car. Every once and a while he glances at me then back to the mirrors and the empty stretch of highway. The radio is broken and has been for a while but it doesn�t matter because we talk. And it is the greatest conversation. When there are pauses or breaks they are filled with comfortable silence. Silence filled with the constant hum of our solid V8, and the hiss of cool air seething in through the half-cracked windows. I peer at him and place a tender kiss on his lightly bronzed shoulder before resting my chin on it so I can look up at him. He returns the favor with a kiss on my forehead; I close my eyes as he does so because it feels better that way. Freedom is driving past the relationship boundaries of shoulds, musts and don�ts. It�s comfort in silence. Pleasure in simply observing every nuance of the person you love. And love. Love is an open highway in a speeding sedan with the radio broken and no place to go. Open my eyes and its back to the sterile bathroom. Tiny floral patterned wallpaper with stark white fixtures and four 60 watts blaring in your eyes. We don�t own a vintage sedan and there are no open highways for miles. Faintly through the door I can hear the muffled chorus of "Close to me" by The Cure. "You know what romance is?" I mused, "It�s a song by The Cure". I gripped Erick�s hand tightly. We walked steadily up the walkway of my home, slightly out of sequence with Erick falling a little behind me on each step. You never really think much of it at the time but the moment I close the door my mind begins to scatter itself amongst every second of our time together. I begin to place way too much significance on things. I remember all these fragments in my mind and I can�t help but doubt my memory, wondering that perhaps my mind would alter things and that my minds objectivity would fail. As though I am cutting up a movie reel, laying out the frames one by one on my bedroom floor and pasting single words and phrases underneath each frame. I begin to feel crazy and anal rententive; a frame can be as small as the blink of an eye. How could it possibly hold so much weight? Oh but it can. The way he turned slightly when we hugged, the way his eyes catch the light and seem to reveal some hidden truth. Or perhaps it was merely coincidence. Erick continued his straightforward glance, his hand only loosely gripping mine and no consideration for my musings. He shifted his stare down to his wrist and to his watch, with a conservative expression he sighed "You�re a mans ruin. It�s almost 1 AM." "Speaking of which." I began, "Did you know that your dreams that occur in the deepest part of your sleep are prophetic?" I informed him, "They predict the future through symbolism. Every detail, even the smallest and seemingly insignificant can act as a clue to solving the conflicts of your conscious life." "Dreams lie" Erick sighed as he dropped my hand and made his way onto the porch, settling himself down on the top step. "I don�t think dreams lie" I retorted, following his lead and moving onto the porch but standing instead beside him, leaning on the railing with elbows on the railing and my chin rested in my palms. "But they can be deceptive, you can control everything that happens. You can work it all out in your mind, as a testing ground. You overstep boundaries; some even set by yourself. I mean, you know it isn�t what would really happen but it is a nice illusion, an escape." "That�s not deception though, that�s idealism" Erick commented � now interested in the conversation for the first time that night. "Well, what if I told you that I dreamt about this exact moment last night?" I offered moving to sit down beside him my shoulder brushing his. How do you tell someone that last night you dreamt about this exact moment? How do you explain that the feeling was so vivid it was a cold finger caressing my spine? So real, that the next day, when they were the first one to greet you in an empty hallway at school the next morning, you wanted to touch them, to feel the touch of last night. To tell them that you never really thought of them that way but today, you watched every movement of their lips and felt a shiver when they touched your hand. That dream has startled your emotions, just like if someone stuck their hand into a school of fish forcing them to scatter. You wake up and feel flustered, you think somehow they know. That they slipped into your unconsciousness world and absorbed every detail, something I wish I could do. Or did they simply read it in your body language, avoiding eye contact, fidgeting and awkwardness. To live my life through my minds biased recreations. That way you remember something that happened in an exciting moment, the more you think about it, the more it goes through a vicious editing process. Clipping and adding pieces to create the story, so convincing you can't remember what really happened. It's similar to the idea that the more you hear something, even if it is a lie, it becomes truth. "How could you have dreamt about this exact moment" Erick quipped. "Last night I dreamt of you and I. We sat here on these weathered steps of this well loved home. In the silent of the moment, I caught your stare as I gazed out onto the world, my elbows resting on my knees. I had this feeling I had to tell you. I had to tell you I adore you. So as I gazed out at this same twilight sky I tried to think of some way to phrase it. Being the analogy queen I am, I used that sky for my inspiration. I said to you, �As I look at this night sky I realize that before, I never saw how these huge balls of gas fit together to make something. To make something meaningful, but then my father taught me about the stars and the constellations and sparse bits of gas turned into animals, people, and objects. Just like how you made me see how much beauty there is in life you are the teacher that allowed me to see the constellations of life, to see how it all fits together to make sense." I half whispered feeling the weight of his stare stacked onto the ominous silence. Erick shifted in his seated position leaning his full body weight on his arms that stretched out behind him. I could feel in this gesture that he was trying to formulate some sort of a response, one filled with the smallest quantity of pain filled ammunition. Finally cutting the tension he mumbled "Oh Alli, you really need to start living with your eyes open" "I always have my eyes open" I laughed, "That�s how I observe so much and see all the little things that you miss with your over-rationalizing." "My over-rationalizing allows me to see what is real, what is tangible" Erick forced as he grabbed onto the nearby post with a tightened fist. "There are a lot of things that we believe in that aren�t tangible" I defended, "You believe in love right, we can feel love, we can experience it without touching it. You can feel love, can�t you? I know that I do. Sitting here with you is love. It�s beautiful and real." Erick turned to face me and grabbed hold of my hands turning my body towards his. His thumbs caressed the backs of my hands and his eyes were teeming with misplaced compassion. I carefully watched his lips with that particular anxiety, should I be fearful or should I feel comfort. Suddenly, the lips I observed so intently began to move and sound emerged. "Love is beautiful and love is real. But love, is not on this porch, not under these stars and not in these hands." He brashly released my hands and turned back to his original position. As though he had just told me my family was dead he raised both hands to the sides of his head and streamed his fingers through his hair inhaling and exhaling deeply in rhythm. I sat unmoved with both hands still poised like a zombie straight ahead. Feeling an obligation to further explain and realizing the shock I was in Erick quickly stammered "It�s not that you aren�t one of the most incredible people I have ever met. I mean you�re beautiful and smart and I can talk to you about anything but I just don�t feel what you feel." "You have a poetic soul and suddenly you are spouting hallmark sentiments" I combated, awakened from my trance. "Dreams lie. A dream, no matter where it falls in your course of sleep, can�t predict the course of events, what someone will say, how they will react. The more you rely on them as the guide to how you live, the more detached you will become from what is real. You can no longer differentiate between what is real and what you dreamed and eventually you start to believe that your dreams are real." "Some of it was dreams and some of it was real" I stammered. "Dreams lie" Erick sighed. Love Alli xoxox 7:16 p.m. - 2002-11-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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