I looked at myself in the mirror. “One thing I remember about you, you want to love so badly,” he had said earlier. My eyes looked tired. I remember this apartment being much larger. I returned to the living room and muttered something about how I didn’t mean to leave with his heart in my teeth all over again. We smiled and shared a hug and a laugh and I pushed myself into the cold night air in search for a cab.
There is something about returning to familiar words and thoughts, something about the writing process - that makes me think of old lovers. There exists a lingering familiarity in the way my fingers run over your back, or the keys of the computer, and the recurring words and thoughts that come to mind. What if we could revise our affairs as we do our words? In psychology they speak about the unreliability of memory: our emotions influence the perception of what we believe to have occurred. Certainly, this is true for we the lovers that were once interlaced in sheets and at this moment walk down separate sidewalks in the city; the once besotted now carrying two entirely different versions of our own demise. But what if we could rewind our steps - click, click, click, and bring us back to the bench where we separated in the park. What if, instead of the finality of my words, I only listened harder and you had been more compassionate. By examining my failed attempts at love I revisit my writing process and draw parallel between the two endeavors.
I am in charge of my writing, or at least, I’d like to think so. I delete and edit as I’d like to, adjusting the angle of my perspective and coaxing you along. I control how much I write, who reads it, and what criticism to take on board. It is not the same for love, however. I am at the mercy of the heavens for when love is to enter my life, and what I am to do with it. We have no control over whom we love or who loves us back.
Just as we write our words, it is God that plays with his lover-pawns. Does He ever hope for a re-write? Is it our words that reach out to us for revision as lovers reach up to God in hopes of a re-do? Or is it the reversal; is it the writer that sees the magnitude of pace and placement, as the all-knowing God understands the importance of the larger story to come? He knows that which the lovers do not. Examining my life in relation to love, as a piece of God’s work-in-progress, I am presented with key-terms. I would like to divide my current life-draft into the recurring challenges of both mother-love and romantic-love. It is through these trials that I am able to inspire revision in my life after the fact, over and over again, in hopes of understanding what it is that He has in store for me.
There is the certain topic, just as there is the certain lover, which is a consistent source of inspiration for me. Both mirror each other, as they are failed attempts at love. The failure lies in their rejection of me, not in my failure to give. It is rejection that inspires resilience, I have found. The topic that I continually find myself writing about is my mother. Under no circumstance did my mother deny my love; to the contrary, she was a source of inspiration and confidence. But when she left the earth it was a source of rejection, from God I thought at times, and just as a snubbed lover attempts reconciliation so I sought after her love even though she was no longer present. The love I felt for her was reworded and refined as I sought to extrapolate meaning from her departure through poetry and letters and autobiographical accounts. Depending on my mood, she took on the form of an angel or a painting or fire; at times she chose to leave and at others she was abducted from her throne. Such is the beauty of writing, through my familiar metaphors I could refer to her in various projects and much to my chagrin, the reader would never notice that I was referencing her, it was a quiet homage to her throughout my work. Just as my mother serves as a fixation for my writing, there is a particular lover that operates as an obsessive platform for my sentiments. Just as I revise the consequence of her departure, so do I insist upon modifying the reason for your misconstrued departure, dear lover. As it is rejection that leads to resilience, for there is something we must spring from in order to be uplifted, it is compassion that levels our buoyant frame within the quest for love, both in our writing and our relationships.
It is the conversation, real or imagined, between the muse and the creator that advances the dialogue toward resolution. Back to the imaginary bench in the park where I sat alone after my lover departed, I am left with so many things unsaid. I am armed with ammunition in my mind of what I should have could have would have. If only we could scratch that and start again, as we do on paper. The dialogue between the two sources, arguing, conferring or furthering the quest for understanding echoes reason in both cases. The relationship must be harmonious, however. There is nothing more inane than forced dialogue. The compassion that arises from when to speak and when to wait is relevant in both our relationships and our writing. We place and trace the words from their original source of conflict and develop our argument skillfully. This is the goal anyhow. The dexterity improves over time and what was once awkward and frightening comes more easily. Or at least we’d like to think so, for both relevant endeavors.
I am thwarted back to his original diagnoses of me wanting to love so badly, and draw parallel with me wanting to write well so badly. Good writing springs from the rejection of bad writing, and compassion for the piece leads to revision and reconciliation within the work. Sometimes it is the wanting that can get in the way of the doing, however. My father always says you cannot want something and have something at the same time. So must I be content with what I have in order to appreciate it so that I may move forward gracefully and knowingly. So here it is that I will leave you, dear muse, as I have written myself into a circle, and there is no point writing to you when I want you so badly. Simply put, I must have what I have, even if that is only a pedestal from which you will be adored in the kingdom of my mind and the dominion of my writing.
