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HOW DID WE GET TO BE HERE?
Mary rocked backwards in her chair, pondering the question. A one book wonder, or at least one book author. Translated into numerous languages, read in countries she’d never even been to, studied by school children. Was it enough?
WHAT WAS THE MOMENT?
She always wanted to be a writer. Or at least, writing. Where was the distinction? What was her life if she was not a writer?
DREAMS DON'T DIE
But do they change? Or is it the people who change?
Mary thought back to her childhood: where did it begin? She was always telling stories; it was a way to fill the empty space around her. As a girl, she wasn't encouraged to play outside. Somewhat of a loner, without many friends (since she couldn't figure out what to say, or when to stop saying things) Mary’s companions were not many others could see. So she began telling stories to the air around her, and holding court with the animals on her bed. Paper was scarce; it was war time and her family lived in the mountains of New York, but the animals were a captive and supportive audience.
And then school came. Entranced by the loops of cursive Mary found that she could not stop writing, every scrap of paper was filled with words. Her parents were indifferent, had their own lives, were severe, and writing those stories were her escape.
So what happens now? Dreams don't die and yet she can't write anymore. Something that used to be automatic. She could blame the typewriter. It was fun to master, to go from searching for the keys to letting her fingers flow. Like the loops of handwriting. Like the arcs of stories. Everything was circular. There was satisfaction in hearing the ding at the end of a line. But even Popular Science couldn't hold her attention anymore.
TEND YOUR DREAM
What does it mean to tend something? Was it like the vegetables in the victory garden? Turn the soil, water it, turn it again, and then plant the seeds, methodically in straight lines, and water them every day. Turn the words into stories into articles into books into —- she paused. What was there after book? It was as though the split between Charley and Frank split her. How could she tend anything as precious as stories when she couldn't even tend the most important people in her life, the only friends she had truly had. (Of course there was Evelyn, but Evelyn was more of a sister than anything else.)
Her classmates at Barnard were sweet, and smart, but Frank and Charley, a power duo and when she was welcomed in, well, even Dumas couldn't write three musketeers as close as they were.
Frank's music.
Every time Mary heard a piano she was transported back to that rooftop, that moment, this is where we began, it was as if she herself were Sputnik, hurtling through space, time, reality to that moment where writing was something more than a thing she couldn't stop doing, but an intention. A dream. Dreams begin, but they're like stardust — mystical even — made up of layer upon layer.
And so it is with a story. Just like a song containing elements: chords, key signatures, perhaps lyrics. Writing and composing are they that different? Is that why her simpler relationship with Charley lasted longer?
HOW DID IT HAPPEN
Staring into the glass on what passed as a desk in her squalid Manhattan studio, Mary sighed. Deadlines loomed and she was no further on her book. Not for the first time she wished that intense staring at the water would turn it into vodka. Jesus did it with wine, Mary wondered why she couldn’t do the same. The Catholicism of her youth was filled with such stories. If Jesus could bring sight to the blind Mary reflected on why healing a friendship felt so impossible.
HERE’S TO US
Like the cobwebs in the corners of her kitchen cupboard, dreams were fragile but resilient. Threading a clean sheet of paper into her typewriter, Mary ran her fingers over the keys. Shutting her eyes, Mary trusted her fingers to simply create, hands and brain in direct communication, letters to words to sentences.
She opened her eyes and laughed. On the half typed sheet in front of her was the beginning of a story about childhood pals and their adventures growing up together.