Language

I didn't know your language. And you didn't understand mine. So we invented our own. We kept it hidden from the world, laughed at its ease and marveled at how well we got to know one another. I thought with time you'd understand my language while you thought we should leave our own behind.

But to lose myself, to become submerged in your world was something I could not do. Had you left me to myself one day, I'd have nothing to live on. You possess that amazing skill, of building yourself again from scratch while I struggle with the little that I have.

Let our language join the extinct languages of the world. Let's become history, a memory the world forgets. Let what we once were become a lesson taught to the naïve. Let's become an example. Return to your homeland and never forget your letters. I cease to speak that forlorn language we once created and you shall cease to understand it. Because my friend, that is the way of the world.

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - Jan-Philipp Sendker

"Love has so many different faces that our imagination is not prepared to see them all."
"Why does it have to be so difficult?"
“Because we see only what we already know. We project our own capacities—for good as well as evil—onto the other person. Then we acknowledge as love primarily those things that correspond to our own image thereof. We wish to be loved as we ourselves would love. Any other way makes us uncomfortable. We respond with doubt and suspicion. We misinterpret the signs. We do not understand the language. We accuse. We assert that the other person does not love us. But perhaps he merely loves us in some idiosyncratic way that we fail to recognize."

Doors

She didn’t know how to close doors or how to open them even. All she knew how to do was sit in the middle idly, staring into the void. Usually someone took pity on her and led her the rest of the way out. But if they stop their charity, where will she end up?

Note to Self

If you took yourself seriously, everything would be different. Trust me.

Serious Question

Why do we have double-standards when it comes to viewing ourselves and viewing other people? Something someone does is acceptable but when you catch yourself in the act all hells break loose? Why do I expect from myself what I never expect from others? What if I was fair to myself for once, would it be so bad? What if I was selfish for once? What if I simply questioned things out-loud without regretting sounding ungrateful?
Will the world stop spinning?

I don't know.

The Paris Wife - Paula McLain

Listen to: Make Believe - Nora Bayes 

I wish it was possible for me to meet Hemingway and his wife, and have a long talk with them. Separately and then together. I have a million question to ask, and I might even get heated up. I'd like to discuss his writing, their relationship, her hopes, his dreams and their Paris. I really liked the first half of the book but afterwards, I started getting emotionally involved. I was angry at Hemingway or Hadley, shifting between one then the other and afterwards angry at both. I don't usually have this type of anger with characters, it's usually frustrations and nothing beyond that. Yet The Paris Wife made me angry so many times, as well as a few smiles and frowns here and there. I think it's the fact that they're not fictional characters, they're real, they went through this and they endured. At least Hadley did, and Hemingway doing his best till he shot himself, always knowing this was how he would go. Imagine that you have Hemingway, his first wife and their life together. Romancing a writer, living in Paris, Hemingway's struggle and how his wife lived through it all. It's just my type of book, but it crushes so many notions you might have before hand. Don't expect a romantic story, and never expect to be told what to think. It doesn't give you Paris at its finest. It gives a sense of realistic Paris. The one where artists drank their hearts out and kept daring each other to outdo each other; writing, boxing, romancing and drinking. But what was scandalous anymore? They all lived on edge, and so there's nothing shocking about the book, at least nothing the writer feels horrified about. She's maybe staying true to her story telling but she made it feel as if you're in the early 20th century with them, as much true emotion is withheld...

The writing isn't among the top of the reasons I loved this book. The writing itself wasn't bad, but it's not something you notice as you read. Perhaps I would have paid more attention to it had I not been so deeply engrossed with the details of their lives and the people they knew. They got to meet the people now considered to be icons in literature including Fitzgerald and Joyce. I loved it when the author delved into that part, how Hemingway was given advice on his writing, how Paris launched his writing career, how difficult it must have been.

I have so many thoughts about this book. Hadley is eight years older, but when she meets Hemingway her life starts. He puts his faith in her and she has to endure the moodiness of a writer, the lonely life it can be and make sure she was there for him every step of the way. Perhaps she just was the Paris Wife and nothing more, who would know for sure?

"Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all."

Hemingway was born to write, and Hadley... she looked for happiness more than anything else.

Why couldn't I be happy? And just what was happiness anyway? Could you fake it, as Nora Bayes insisted? Could you force it like a spring bulb in your kitchen, or rub up against it at a party in Chicago and catch it like a cold?


Maybe happiness was an hourglass already running out, the grains tipping, sifting past each other. Maybe it was a state of mind -as Nora Bayes insisted- a country you could sculpt out of air and then dance into.

"It's freedom you want, then?"
"Good God, yes. Don't you?"
"I don't know. I want to be happy I suppose."
"Happiness is so awfully complicated, but freedom isn't. You're either tied down or you're not."

She thought life began and ended with Hemingway. So much so that when he left for business for the first time, she had no idea what to do with herself. That kind of reliance... it speaks so much of her love for him but she knew not who she was when he was gone. She sacrificed years of her life for him, being desolate in Paris, in company not exactly hers, away from home. She had faith in his writing. She had faith she was enough for him, but who was enough for Hemingway? He was impulsive as a young man and he lived his life that way. She was always wondering if there was more to his love for her than his need for the sense of normal he felt with her.

"I hope we'll get lucky enough to grow old together. You see them on the street, those couples who've been married so long you can't tell them apart. How'd that be?"
"I'd love to look like you," I said. "I'd love to be you."
I'd never said anything truer. I would gladly have climbed out of my skin and into his that night, because I believed that was what love meant. Hadn't I just felt us collapsing into one another, until there was no difference between us?

Both of them angered me at the end. His unfaithfulness, and her acceptance.

There are some who said I should have fought harder or longer for my marriage, but in the end fighting for a love that was already gone felt like trying to live in the ruins of a lost city.

Just what is always and forever? How can we make such promises when change is out of our hands? Why stay if another was making you happy? Why can't one person be enough with all their flaws and imperfections? I don't think it's possible for me to express my feelings towards the end for I would spoil details and I've already said a lot. Can I judge their relationship? Perhaps it was something she lacked, perhaps it was him, perhaps it was both of them. In the end, like the book says:

"Maybe no one can know how it is for anyone else."

The tree that foresake me

Plant your roots deep in my garden. Make the shadow of your branches haunt my dreams, while the rustling of your leaves becomes my companion. Stand there like a 100 year old tree. Un-phased by the forever changing world. Let me sit beside your roots and read out loud; to you and you alone. You’ll never complain, never contradict me, always understand. I’ll belong somewhere, to that spot in my garden with a lovely humming bird that nestled guarding its eggs. I leave you only to have the pleasure of always finding you awaiting.

A tree was deaf with a painted understanding smile, and I was gullible… All I had to blame was myself, for the only thing that misled me was my imagination. My sense of belonging came tumbling to the ground the day they decided you were to be chopped down mercilessly. I beheld the world’s power on you, and I grew tall then. I think the world wants me to be what you were to me, and try as I might to reject its pleadings I know not the power of my will.

Dedicated to Nema; someone I can always count on.

Where We Belong

I was dancing on the moon,
No rhythm, no gravity
You already reached the stars
Oh, how blinded you were by their light
I gave up on my moon dance
I returned to gravity
 There was a meadow; green and empty
It became my new home
So I could watch you from afar
Making sure whatever star held you captive,
Didn't burn itself out,
Didn't turn into a black-hole,
Didn't consume you completely
The moon was never my place
You mistakenly thought I belonged to a constellation
So you went out star hunting
I am only a light to guide you home
You belong to your heart
And I belong to...mine.

Life forcing itself

This is not me. I don't know who this is but it's not me. I don't know where I found all that courage from. I said what needed to be said at the right time and I put everything else aside, my pride on the line but not my dignity. I turned around, walked away from the scene and sat again with my friends. I sat staring at the table, I had no idea what was going on around me. I had to get away for a second. I went to get myself some water. I felt a knot tying in my throat, tears were so close to gushing out. This is not me. I don't cry. Now I can go on a whole day without food. I could sit without saying any word for hours on a stretch. I stared at how people got so worked up on things and envied them. I used to be like that, this is not me. I'm sure it will pass, I'll make sure it does. No one seemed to change, they all were the same and I....became an outcast in that moment. It didn't feel good. No one noticed, and I sat there in-between. Wishing they did, wishing someone forced those tears and words out of me, at the same time wishing they wouldn't because this is not me, they can't know. If you can't understand it, how will you ever be able to explain it? I needed someone at that moment, but I let no one in. I was failing everyone around me, and I didn't care. I'm telling you, this is not me. I care, I listen and I am there. But I didn't care, I was listening and I am nowhere near where I need to be. 
Tell me, who is this?

Mrs. Dalloway and my illness

I'm sick. My complexion is pale. I lie on the couch of my living room. The TV is switched on, vibrant colors I never see in my daily life are on full display. I pretend to be interested in the show, because of the fake sense of normal it gives. It's ironic because there's no one around to pretend that to, just myself. It's rather sad too, isn't it? How I lie to myself so. I keep thinking of how I need to mop the floor, dust my bookshelf, take down the laundry, and countless little things. The house needs me if no one else does. I liked how depended on me. She'd call me to switch off the lights to her room, share a thought or a memory, ask me to indulge in one of her whims, watch TV with her. My mere presence was all that she needed. I was envious of that ability; to not be scared of words. I didn't utter my words when I thought them meaningless, and now as I begin to realize their weight, I shy away even more. I can never be sure of anything these days. All these uncertainties we like to entertain. Now, perhaps I don't need anybody anymore, all I need is their need for me. How untrue.

I think that in another place, time...another soul...another me... There would be a knock on the door. I take a few minutes to leave my couch, and to my suprise I find the most beautiful purple bouquet of flowers you'll ever lay eyes on. "Get well soon," the note says. I take it inside, and just sit holding them. I never wonder who they could be from but that gesture is what gets me through my illness. I take myself out of that scene with a strange smile playing on my lips. You'd think an image such as this would make me depressed. How could I not think about who is it from? There my imagination begins to fall short, the scene I pictured is flawed. I delude myself thinking I sit happily holding the flowers, they'd be so much more. So much more. I stop daydreaming and leave the couch. I pick up my copy of Mrs. Dalloway. Flowers brought her to my mind. I go with her to buy flowers for her party. I am no longer ill. I am floating free in Woolf's mind. I strangely think I've never bought myself flowers, I've never bought anyone flowers. I reluctantly close the book to think, about flowers, and nothing else.