Today I'm going to write about writing.
I am desperate to get this play done. It's got to be done by May. I've got to have it finished with "the End" scrawled on the last page. It's got to be copied three times, and one's got to be archived in the Copyrights Registration building. And then another copy is going into Peter's hands. (Of course, when it's done, I'll put it on my site, so don't be whinin' for a copy - you'll get one.) I don't know why it's so urgent that I give him a copy. But it is.
So I went out to work on my play last night. I couldn't work in my room because something always goes wrong when I try to start work in my room, unless it's 11 PM or so already -- the girl next-door usually starts a fucken love-in, as if she psychically knows exactly when I'm sitting down to write.
So I went to the performing arts building. I felt a little put off, not knowing which doors it was kosher to open, which rooms it was okay to be in, who'd be invading the area within the next ten minutes. Finally, I settled in the lobby of the actual theater; it's carpeted in dark red, and filled with ornate decor: the chairs are particularly beautiful.
Pretending I was supposed to be there, I whooped out my notebook (the special notebook that contains nothing but my play, my synopsis, and choice R.E.M. lyrics), printouts of my play, an unused Papermate, and a picture of Peter. I tucked the picture deep into the pocket of the notebook; I don't want the play to be about him. It's going to be for him in part, but not about him. So the picture needs to stay hidden unless I need massive inspiration to get my ass working.
I wonder a lot about my writing. I wonder how well people can see into my writing. I wonder how much of ME, my identity, IS my writing. With being a writer, a journalist, or whatever, there is a tremendous responsibility to be honest. Because it seems like no one can ever fully know you through your words. You can read my journal entries, and they may touch you in the most unbelievable ways, but how much of ME are you really getting? You don't know what I look like, you don't see or hear me speaking these words to you, you don't know that as I type, I'm picking at my cuticles between words, which is a really gross habit of mine. There are all sorts of things you miss, things I censor out, things that just can't BE explained through words, things that make me ME that just aren't in this journal. "Write a fifty-word essay on who you are, Helena..." Well, FUCK! *I* don't know! I'd say, "a writer," but that's not complete. I'd say, "I am my writing," but I don't know if it's true anymore.
Let me talk about Jayden now. Jayden and I were actually discussing something like this last night, incidentally, but I'm going to talk about HER. If I didn't know Jayden personally, if I'd found her page through Yahoo or something, I would proclaim myself instantly in love. I don't mean "in love" like "Oh, I'm SOOO in love with the Backstreet Boys," but in a way that would give me a compulsion to write her fifteen love letters a day filled with marriage proposals. If all I knew of Jayden was her letters to me (all of which I still have), her emails, and her journal, I would swear on everything sacred I'd found true love. But I know her in person, too, and not just by her words. And although she's one of the closest people in the world to me, and I'd rather spend time with her than almost anyone in the world, and I have NEVER been unhappy in her presence, I just don't feel EXACTLY the same way about HER as I do about HER in her letters. Does that make sense? Not because I was expecting more from the words than what is put before me, but because I cannot fully absorb all the little details of HER - the way she moves, the way she looks, the way her voice sounds. It is hard to reconcile that person with the person in the letters. It's like Plato's mind-body problem or whatever it was -- there's never really an answer as to where the Self lies, and for one puny little human to understand an entire person is one hell of a task.
Peter fell in love with my letters. I began compulsively writing him these long letters about my life and about our relationship and about how much he meant to me. And he fell in love. I watched him fall in love: he lovingly saved every word I ever gave him, packed them all into a special box reserved just for me, laughed and cried over them, read them aloud to other people, read them to himself when he was lonely, hung them on his refrigerator... Yes, it's love. that complete tenderness in his eyes as he reads gives it away. But... there's something missing. There are a lot of things you fill in with your mind when you read, even if you know the author pretty damn well. Writing is genderless, faceless, voiceless. You never see how the words walk, how they move. The person in the words isn't really a person, only a spirit. So if my words are my spirit, is my body just the vehicle that types the words up? I don't know. I don't think so. There is more to me than my words. This doesn't altogether make me happy. It would be great to be a simple subject-predicate 32-flavor sentence. But I, Helena, am more than emotion. I, Helena, am more than words. I, Helena, am 32 flavors and then some. No, that doesn't make me happy at all. I have great confidence in my words. I'm not always sure about ME. I know my words are worthy of being loved. I don't think I am.
After beating around the bush in about sixty or sventy thousand letters, I finally wrote the one in which I told Peter the truth about my feelings for him. I gave it to him in person so he'd get the best of both worlds: a few sentences, a glance up at my face, a little bit more emotion on the page, a trembling, nervous girl sitting in front of him... He read it and it tore him in half, right down the middle. He fell in love with the thing who had written those words, who cared about him so deeply, who proclaimed to love him more than life itself, who swore undying loyalty and admitted years of utter passion in just a few pages. I saw the look in his eyes, the perfect longing to be with that author. And he looked up at me, and was bewildered. There is too much more to me that doesn't seem in sync with the perfection and purity of those words. I'm not the beauty in the reader's imaginary picture: I'm just ordinary little Helena: 32 flavors and then some. No waffle cone, no sprinkles, something of a klutz, shyer than I'll EVER tell anyone who reads this, not a witty comedienne, not a temptress, not a model, kinda ugly, awfully geeky. I'm not the kind of person people fall in love with. My words are. But my words are only a little piece of a person.
Okay, so I'm paranoid. I'm afraid of someone reading my stories - maybe the one about the kid who killed himself a couple years ago - and feeling the pain and the emotion I put into that story. I'm afraid that the reader will swear undying love to the author of the story, and change his mind when he sees I'm more complex than my sentence structure. This journal has given me a lot of those fears. I imagine Jeff reading entries here, telling me he loves me, and being disappointed when I'm back home and we go out partying together again. I imagine him - and plenty of other people - falling in love with someone they think they know, and ending up disillusioned and wondering where the love of their life went when they look into my eyes and don't quite see the passion and the love from the story.
Do you love me or my sentence structure? Am I desireable when I'm not just a voice in your head speaking pretty words through your eyes and into your brain? Am I worth anything without my vocabulary?
As I said, I'm fairly confident in my talent. Since I was 3 or 4, I knew I was going to be a writer. Not a second has gone by - not in my entire life, waking or sleeping, where I haven't mentally narrated the events of my life. I've never submitted anything to a contest and not won the contest (although I'm still waiting on notification from the last people I sent a story to...). I've never written something sad and not seen tears fall. I've never written anything funny and not heard giggles. I'm not really very afraid of rejection in this context. I don't mean to sound like an egocentric little bitch, but I AM good, and I have been given a talent. I have a calling, and I know what it is.
I wish I could be my journal. I wish I could be my letters. I wish I could be as simple as my words. I wish I knew how to change myself to be perfect. Oh, I can recognize passive voice from six miles away (not that I always DO anything about it, and not that my writing's perfect, but it COULD be if I tried hard enough - and many times, I do...), and I can fix all the mistakes in my syntax and spelling and all of that. I can make people love anything I write. But I don't know how to fix myself up, to make myself seem as beautiful and pure and passionate as my words. If people were ice cream, I couldn't make myself into any interesting sundae: I'm limited to 32 boring stupid ugly klutzy flavors -- in my words, you'll find the "and then some."
I packed up my things as I finished correcting the first few scenes of my play. Emerging from the theater, I sat down on a bench, thinking about drama, and grammar, and Peter. It had been too long, I decided, since I'd sat outside a theater building, inhaling the scent of sweaty actors, frustrated directors, chain-smoking stage-managers, and blubbery set-builders. I'd missed it. The night wrapped around me and held me closely, and the theater stood guard over me. I felt very at-home; more so than I have felt in Santa Fe before.
My bench stood between three streetlamps. There is noplace in Santa Fe where one can go to see the stars, because streetlamps in Santa Fe greatly outnumber blade of grass in upstate New York. I looked at the streetlamp nearest me. My play laid in my lap. Suddenly, the streetlamp went out with a little flicker. ("They always do that when I walk under them!" --Peter, both in real life and as quoted in my book...) My gaze turned to the stars, still faint, but recognizable as stars. I made my wish, sending it off to Wishland with a little imaginary burst of light. The streetlamp came back on with a little *pop* and a sudden gust of wind blew at me from absolutely nowhere. The pages of my notebook fluttered. I looked down at my page of characters, skimming it with my eyes and mentally hugging each character, knowing them, feeling them, loving them for who they are.
I stood up, closed my notebook, and left the theater, wondering who I am.
Love,
Helena*
[Ironically, my computer just ate my entry the first time I tried to write this... I had to rewrite the entire thing...]
"What would you do if my heart was torn in two? More than words to show you feel that your love for me is real... What would you say if I took those words away? Then you couldn't make things new just by saying I love you..." --"More than Words" by Extreme.
"I am thirty-two flavors and then some and I'm beyond your peripheral vision, so you might want to turn your head. 'cause someday you're going to get hungry and eat most of the words you just said..." --"32 Flavors," by Ani DiFranco
"Why can't you LOVE ME?" --A movie I didn't see...