On Writing (and Not Writing)

Writing after so long, my joints feel rusted and achy. Sitting down to write even this took the effort of climbing a mountain (or at least a really tall hill) and the procrastination of a month. 

I hope that I can slide into my voice again like a pair of well-worn gloves, or find a new one that’s suitable. I hope my writing muscles haven’t atrophied and I’ll find my way again with some stretching, but for now, I feel adrift, and scared that I can no longer do the thing I used to do. That I can no longer claim my love of reading and writing when I no longer read and write.

Not writing has made writing terrifying. This document sat blank for weeks as I sat steeped in my terror before I could make myself mar the white sheet.

Before putting pen to paper, my pages of ideas are just beautiful potential swirling around in my head. Realizing them would mean to make them imperfect. What if I find I’m a worse writer than I used to be, after gathering dust? What if I am no better after all this time? I don’t feel very funny anymore.

Other things are just so much easier than creation. I’m learning Python and I have a job. During the school year I studied and did STEM. For all these things, I just follow the instructions, or memorize, or use the problem to find the solution. Writing and drawing is creating from scratch, and that’s harder and scarier. It means pulling things out of my own brain and examining them and I’m not sure I’ll like what I find. I read instead of write, and I don’t have to use my brain for that, I can just fall in love over and over.

Writing feels like a luxury of time that I’ve convinced myself I don’t have. In the race to go to the college I want, to get the grades I want, to be the living version of STEM, writing seems like a waste of time when I could be doing something “productive”. But when I know I will have time in the future, writing is the thing I look forward to. The dream of writing feeds me through the bleak months of the grind, but when I have time (like now, in this easy breezy summer), I don’t, because there are easier things, because I still feel like, I always feel like, I’m running out of time. 

And still I have a hunger for writing. It fills a space in me that has been empty for too long.

And still I feel written out. After writing essay after essay after essay for colleges and scholarships that all amounted to nothing, after the exhaustion of writing and building a version of myself that wasn’t a lie but felt too shiny, the dings and dents glossed over, I feel written out and dry. But I guess that writing isn’t this writing. This writing feeds, it doesn’t drain, even if it’s scary.

I think I need to make time to write.

South of the Border, West of the Sun- Book Review

South of the Border, West of the Sun is a short novel by Haruki Murakami.

Growing up in the suburbs of post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father’s record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.

~

This book put me under a spell. I read it in a day, with the constant sound of the engine speeding me through the pages as a car drove me to a far off location. Haruki Murakami is known for the dream-like quality in his works, much like the endless stretch of the road that expanded in front of me, something I failed to see in the surrealist narrative of Kafka on the Shore and instead saw in this much more realistic novel.

Honestly, reading this book was such a smooth experience. The language was simple, the story was too, and the characters were so real. I didn’t even notice that I liked them, since they were so natural, like everyday people I would see on the street and how the things that would be revealed about them came in such a seamless way.

First of all, Hajime is a only child, a trait I share. I think this trait defines him well, as he dwells on how people may think he is entitled and he does end up being selfish throughout his life by cheating on women he is in relationships with. He first does this with a lover he had in high school, Izumi with her own cousin, then circles back around to cheating with Yukiko (his wife) with his childhood best friend. He laments that this inner selfishness can’t be changed.

I know. How the hell do I like a dolt who cheats on women?

Well, in my defense, the book spends numerous chapters building up on the nuances of this character, of how, with his restaurant business he has the ability of the seeking out the most passionate people in their jobs. Or how he still keeps on swimming laps after high school every morning because he is dedicated to his health. Or how he cares for his family over business, only keeping two bars as to not forget about them. So, I don’t only like a dolt who cheats on women; I like Hajime.

Shimamoto’s character development is opposite to Hajime’s and instead of building up her life story too, the author shrouds her life with smoke, so the only glimmer we can see is the lit end of her cigarette. We barely know anything about her- only how she displays herself in conversation. She keeps herself secret.

And intends to set that secret aflame.

So, Hajime seeks to illuminate the rest of her, to find the light at the end of the tunnel, to dive back into the past when they both shared their childhood, South of the Border and West of the Sun. The metaphors of the title are perfect; haunting even, South of the Border being from a song by Nat King Cole they both listened to when they were younger and the West of the Sun referring to a disease that Siberian farmers get with the repetitive seasons- when they get tired of life. It is the equation of Hajime’s mid-life crisis, in how he tries to run back to the times before and makes ripples through the life he has now.

The other characters serve as examples to Hajime, as signs of where he can stay or go. Yukiko is practical- someone who is a signal of stability and of the present day. Izumi is a broken girl who cannot move on from her heartbreak, who warns Hajime just by her wretched appearance in a taxi not to pursue Shimamoto once she’s gone.

I don’t like how Izumi’s cousin was written though; she seemed to be there just to push the plot forward. She is just a woman who has a lot of sex with Hajime during his years at college and is a minor character.

One gripe I do have with Haruki Murakami’s writing in general is that he does this weird thing where like in maybe two pages into a female character getting introduced he writes about their breasts. It makes me question his respect for women and his reasons for characterizing women this way. Why would he write them around the male character like that?

Despite his reasons, I received the women as being important people influencing Hajime, independent in their own lives, lost in their own circles of the past and future. It is just Hajime’s fatal flaw- his selfishness- that ropes them all together and his need for the past that makes him remember them again.

“The sad truth is that certain types of things can’t go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can’t go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that’s how it will stay forever.”

Even if that message isn’t very uplifting, Hajime still has hope for the future of himself and his daughters, visualizing rain on the deep blue sea at the end. This book is whirlpool of different realities throughout time and how they culminate in one’s mind, how when they become overwhelming it is best to focus on the present time and day, and just keep swimming.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Butterfly Effect

Warnings: mental illness, animal and child abuse, graphic gore

~

I examine the butterfly pinned on the table: stained glass window membranes, mushy eggplant guts and midnight seaweed skin. Its legs still writhe. My fingernails sear the edges of its wings, cuts them fresh off. Its legs still writhe. I pluck the antennas like eyelashes, squish the eyes like globs of ink-oil, and tear the body segments apart onto the rough-soft paper towel. Disseminated. Dead. Its legs are still. 

One day, I’ll do the same to you.

~

I am a mother. I live in a cottage. There are rolling hills of sweet grass, hair dried willow trees, and kids whose imaginations have run far away. Schizophrenics- that’s what the doctors call them, but I call them the Lost Boys. Perhaps, that makes me Peter Pan, to lead them through their fantasies, or Wendy to sing their delusions to sleep. 

I don’t know. I’m not familiar with fairytales. Can you tell me one? 

~

I asked you that on the morning you arrived on my doorstep. 

You were a pale faced child who took on the spirit of a butterfly- the same ink-oil eyes, delicate antenna lashes and a mosaic of a mind behind the flapping six-year old arms. You have your hair pulled in a tight blonde braid and you wear a sky blue dress as you prance about. Your lips flutter with teensy giggles. I want to catch them in the air. 

And pin them to the wall. 

~

Junonia almana. 

The peacock pansy, with fuzzy mustard wings and those cocoa hue owl eyes that watch me through the glass. It is framed on the basement drywall, in a new place, rearranged with the others for a new blank space- approximately 50 by 150 square inches in area. There are larger pins. Bolts. And rope. 

Just like your pretty little braids.

~

I comb your frayed locks, free from those little ginger roots. You gaze into the mirror, bite your nails and curl up in your seat so your knees pillow your chin. A cocoon. I tug on your longest lock, what you think is a silkworm shaving.  

“Don’t-” I say, “we’ll go to bed soon.” 

You water your eyes at me, lips in a red larvae pout.

I yank the hair from your head. The wailing takes a while to settle.

~

I sew your silk back on the next morning. Your glass eyes are beading with crystal, and your nose blushes with rosy sniffles as you wince at every prick of the needle. In, out, in, out- skin and blood and dandruff and tousles of rope thread hair. 

“It hurts,” your tears pool on your cheeks, “Can you stop, Miss?” 

“No,” My lips thin into a straight line. 

I can’t let the doctors know. 

~

The doctors flood into the cottage. They take the lost boys one by one, cultivating caterpillars into their nests. Some are bribed with leaves, others simply slink in, and all of them leave slimy paths behind. Good riddance. 

I only think of the white coat, white mask doctors, and their syringe slits of eyes that scan us with pinpoint precision. I clench your hand tight. 

I’ll never let them have you. 

~

We run down the dark stairway, slipper flats and baby bare feet tip-tap against the ashwood. We spill out into the basement- the clothes I scrimmied off you splayed on the tile floor. You shiver under my touch, as my cuticles indicate lines upon your back. 

I drag out my butterfly canopies from the closet. Layered blankets: monarchs, swallowtails, painted ladies, buckeyes, blue sulphurs all weaved together. 

Remember the fairytale you told me? What if I said I could make it come true?

~

“Miss, I-” 

“Hush.” 

I sew the quilts onto your back, stitching them to the skin with black thread. In, out, in, out. My needle is diligent, but my eyes are disorderly. They look at places they shouldn’t. They linger as I work. In, out, in, out- eggplant mush and seaweed skin and a set of prismatic wings, spread before me like Neverland. 

~

My butterfly.

Carmilla- Book Review

A classic (and sapphic!) Victorian vampire novella, which influenced Bram Stoker’s later treatment of the vampire mythos in Dracula. It was written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. 

~

So… I was first influenced to pick up this book because of a Kpop music video. This one to be exact: 

There was a stan twitter theory that the music video was based on Carmilla’s storyline. So, after my gay ass heard it was the first lesbian vampire novel- I just had to read it. I had it on my Goodreads “to read” list for MONTHS and I finally got to it this week. 

I devoured this book. It was a fun time, with a lot of spooky and romantic moments. But, it was also infuriating and puzzling- both due to the age and the drawn out ending. (I’ll touch on that later.)

What really surprised me was how overt the relationship was. I thought it would be the standard queerbait- a glance here, a hug there, maybe holding hands, but I was so wrong. There was not a pinch of homophobia in this book! (I am exaggerating; the links between sickness/evil and lesbianism are there, but I felt it wasn’t written with that purpose.) The way Carmilla just exists in our main character’s mind is so riveting- as someone who is both so lovely and so strange and all around so mysterious. Laura describes her feelings as, “a paradox” of “adoration and also abhorrence”. Peak tsundere? 

Carmilla is so flirty too and not exactly subtle about it. “Her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, ‘You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever.'” Like if that is not a declaration of undying love, I don’t know what is. Through these flirtations, Carmilla also alludes to her being a vampire, which filled me with a rising dread. I felt conflicted, much like Laura in her paradox. 

At one point in the story, the two girls watch a funeral progress. Laura sees it as an honor to the girl who died and is worried a plague is coming. While Carmilla loathes it, with all the religious imagery and hymns. She lashes out, “What a fuss! Why, you must die- everyone must die- and all are happier when they do.” I laughed for six consecutive minutes. Carmilla is such an entertaining character- probably my favorite vampire. 

I did find the other characters (Laura included) a bit dense, but not to a fault. 

If anything, it only built up the terror aspect of the story as I waited for characters to inevitably die as the details of Carmilla’s backstory and Laura’s sickly condition emerged. 

Except that didn’t happen.

Carmilla’s story was revealed at such a slow pace. It was unearthed by a general who was at loss by his “ward’s” recent death. His recollection was really excessive and repetitive from things that were hinted at before and kind of made the story drag. 

I hoped it would climax into something meaningful when Carmilla eventually came to the village ruins with Madame Fontaine later, but it didn’t. She took an old man by the wrist as he was about to attack her and ran off. The general confirmed her as a vampire too. 

There was no final closure between the girls, not even a glance. The next time Laura saw her was in a coffin, steak through her heart. It was so tragic and I was devastated they couldn’t be together. I mean, it was written like that since the beginning, but I still had some hope! Maybe Carmilla could drink animal blood? 

Even though I was heartbroken, I wished that the story focused more on Laura’s emotions when she found out about Carmilla’s nature. I felt like those feelings were rushed (unlike the flirty gay ones). 

But, what we do get is a stunning last paragraph, one that reminded me of why I loved the story in the first place. The growing romance, the growing fear, and their shared dreams. 

This will definitely be one of those books I’ll come back to when I need a gothic gay moment.

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.