(how you live your life I don't care, but I'll sell my arms for you, hold your secrets forever) Ondaatje is always in my head. You must read The English Patient, and you must read Coming Through Slaughter.
One day I'll come swimming
beside your ship or someone will
and if you hear the siren
listen to it. For if you close your ears
only nothing happens. You will never change.
Here is what I believe, that my life... that your life, we're intertwined. There are some moments when I swear, I swear that we are connected through thoughts and soul and time, distance. My best dreams that I have are about you, every wish on every star, all of it. And those moments, little looks and words and all of that, the vagueness and things you said (I didn't have to say anything), that they are beads on a necklace- next to my heart always. I have this recurring dream where I'm running after you up stairs and you are always just out of the frame but I can still feel your presence, I know you were just there. I wake up and I swear you were just there. And through time zones we still have the same thought at the same time, through rain gutters, monsoon (this is how you touch other women /the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.) And intertwined as I believe our lives are, I've learned to be happy with our distance, with our different lives. You there, with her, and me here, with him. Or him. Or him or him or him but the point is, I'm okay with our separate lives. And this proves to me that I love you, and this proves to me also that I'm not in love with you. And everything, all of the moments that we think about, that we replay in our minds, those are absolutely sacred to me. And I keep them close, I keep you close. So we can keep our secrets, we can hide the moments down in our souls, deep in our memory. But when you see a certain sky, catch a certain scent... if someone talks like I do (when someone stands like you do) pull out one of our diamond moments (like the first time you took my hand) and float through it, and I will too. And after years we'll see each other and not tell anyone. I won't tell her and you won't tell him.
Just don't tell her, or anyone. I haven't. That was ours. This is ours. The other truth is that my heart is still mending from you, sometimes a love lost song or movie catches me off guard and I can't breathe for a second. But time is going by, and that's good. I expect to be completely over you in another two years time and you will just be an old friend, a memory. So let me be your old friend, memory.
When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.
These are the words that are constantly in my head. You don't have to understand them or like them, but I do. You must read The English Patient. You must read the chapter entitle Katharine. You don't have to even read the book, just read the story ("I don't miss you yet." "You will.") Just read it, okay? (How does this happen, to fall in love and be disassembled?)
Call me. Will you call me?
8.07.2008
On Men, Movies and How Epsom Salt Has Changed My Life
I've never subscribed to the belief that you shouldn't date someone who you wouldn't marry. I don't think that the success of a relationship is defined by how long it lasts, but more how you grow as a person, how you change. I look back a certain amount of time in my life, a fraction of what my life will be, and I see all the beautiful discoveries I made about the world and myself with the help of this other person and it is success. The point of the dates I go on, or the men I spend my time with, or how I live my life in general is not to find someone who I can plan a big party with and then attempt to live together and reproduce and find comfort and companionship. Not that I don't believe in marriage and I'm sure I'll take my walk down the aisle some day, but it's not this huge thing that must happen for me. You could argue that I'm only (almost!) 22 and I will feel that way in 5 years, and maybe I will, but while I certainly don't feel the desire to tie myself to someone for the rest of my life as soon as possible, I do strongly feel the desire to become a stable enough person to provide a home for children who need one. I realize that the whole family thing works best with two parents, but one is infinitely better than none. Anyway, what I'm getting at here is I feel quite solitary in my firm belief that it is okay to date and otherwise spend a great deal of time with someone who know you are never going to marry.
I've had several people say to me lately, "Oh Katie, you should meet SoandSo, he's in his mid 20s and nice looking and wants a girlfriend" and when I hear this I want to run away from and certainly never meet this man who is looking just for a girlfriend. What that says to me is that this man has set up in his head a certain set of requirements and if I, or some other girl who happens along first, meets those requirements he will desire her to be his girlfriend, then fiance, et cetera. And I suppose that that is enough for most people, but it is definitely not enough for me. I just feel as though all of society, especially those who are in my age range, are spending most of their time in search of this person who will meet their requirements. Maybe it's the whole years and years of societal pressure that says you're nothing if not neatly married and tied with a ribbon before your 30th birthday. And especially for women! I feel like for all the Jane Austens and Carrie Bradshaws in the world it is still frowned upon to be an unmarried woman at any age. And that is why, when I tell someone that I'm dating someone but I would never marry them, I'm asked why I'm wasting my time. First of all, any relationship with any human being is time well spent, secondly there is no giant clock ticking over my shoulder. I do not plan on having children biologically and I don't feel a husband is necessary to raise children. I sound so bitter here, but I swear lately I've been questioned on my dating life incessantly and asked, and I quote, about "marital prospects" (like I'm at a horse auction or something- "oh sorry, this one's teeth look bad, offer withdrawn, show me the next!"). It's kind of funny to hear the questions from my friends who perhaps married a little quickly because I hear the accent of jealousy, for all their declarations of happiness you can't deny how fun it is be entirely your own person.
(For all of this I'm saying here, go back to my March 6th entry, I do believe in true love and I do believe that I am destined for it.)
And now briefly on movies and Epsom salt:
I've watched Atonement and Becoming Jane lately. Both beautiful period pieces. Both heartbreaking. Both inspiring me to get my act together and write so I can finally, finally really try a shot at making movies. I just want to write movies and create characters and stories and show them to people. Every single molecule in my body just wants to be making movies with people who share this passion. There. That is something I feel incomplete without.
I injured my leg a few months ago in the big dance number in the last play I did and since then have been dealing with a calf muscle that wouldn't stop cramping. And by cramping I mean pain on a level 9, wake you up from sleep crying, all of a sudden can't walk, getting in the way of watching The Dark Knight cramping. On the advice of a Chiropractor I've been taking muscle relaxers (thanks to my mom who horded leftover meds from a car accident last December), but obviously that is a temporary fix and I prefer to live my life fairly substance free. Enter Dr Teal and his Epsom salt. I swear 30 minutes in a hot tub with 1 cup of the stuff has improved my situation hugely. Score one point for nature!
So sleep now. The next week I'll be with friends constantly, Hello Birthday!
Love,
K
I've had several people say to me lately, "Oh Katie, you should meet SoandSo, he's in his mid 20s and nice looking and wants a girlfriend" and when I hear this I want to run away from and certainly never meet this man who is looking just for a girlfriend. What that says to me is that this man has set up in his head a certain set of requirements and if I, or some other girl who happens along first, meets those requirements he will desire her to be his girlfriend, then fiance, et cetera. And I suppose that that is enough for most people, but it is definitely not enough for me. I just feel as though all of society, especially those who are in my age range, are spending most of their time in search of this person who will meet their requirements. Maybe it's the whole years and years of societal pressure that says you're nothing if not neatly married and tied with a ribbon before your 30th birthday. And especially for women! I feel like for all the Jane Austens and Carrie Bradshaws in the world it is still frowned upon to be an unmarried woman at any age. And that is why, when I tell someone that I'm dating someone but I would never marry them, I'm asked why I'm wasting my time. First of all, any relationship with any human being is time well spent, secondly there is no giant clock ticking over my shoulder. I do not plan on having children biologically and I don't feel a husband is necessary to raise children. I sound so bitter here, but I swear lately I've been questioned on my dating life incessantly and asked, and I quote, about "marital prospects" (like I'm at a horse auction or something- "oh sorry, this one's teeth look bad, offer withdrawn, show me the next!"). It's kind of funny to hear the questions from my friends who perhaps married a little quickly because I hear the accent of jealousy, for all their declarations of happiness you can't deny how fun it is be entirely your own person.
(For all of this I'm saying here, go back to my March 6th entry, I do believe in true love and I do believe that I am destined for it.)
And now briefly on movies and Epsom salt:
I've watched Atonement and Becoming Jane lately. Both beautiful period pieces. Both heartbreaking. Both inspiring me to get my act together and write so I can finally, finally really try a shot at making movies. I just want to write movies and create characters and stories and show them to people. Every single molecule in my body just wants to be making movies with people who share this passion. There. That is something I feel incomplete without.
I injured my leg a few months ago in the big dance number in the last play I did and since then have been dealing with a calf muscle that wouldn't stop cramping. And by cramping I mean pain on a level 9, wake you up from sleep crying, all of a sudden can't walk, getting in the way of watching The Dark Knight cramping. On the advice of a Chiropractor I've been taking muscle relaxers (thanks to my mom who horded leftover meds from a car accident last December), but obviously that is a temporary fix and I prefer to live my life fairly substance free. Enter Dr Teal and his Epsom salt. I swear 30 minutes in a hot tub with 1 cup of the stuff has improved my situation hugely. Score one point for nature!
So sleep now. The next week I'll be with friends constantly, Hello Birthday!
Love,
K
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