I have a special treat for you this week. This week on the blog I present you TWO narratives on LOST. The first comes from the fabulous Amye Archer. Amye Archer holds an MFA from Wilkes University. You can find her at www.amyearcher.com. Trust me...you NEED to read her work. My writing will follow her piece.
Please consider following the blog and/or leave a comment if you appreciate what you read. Tell me how you interpret LOST. I am always looking for feedback and would welcome yours.
Now...let's get to the writing---------
LOST:
adjective
- unable to find one’s way; not knowing one’s whereabouts
- (of a person) very confused or insecure or in great difficulties
- denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered
- (of time or an opportunity) not used advantageously; wasted
- having perished or been destroyed
- (of a game or contest) in which a defeat has been sustained
________________________________________________________________________
Amye Archer on LOST
I am six and the lure of a good candy bar pulls me from my
mother's hip and into a story that will follow me forever. How I scream when I turn to find her
gone. How I scream even though she is
three feet away in the next aisle. How I
scream when I think I'm alone. How I
scream.
My parents divorce in a pressure cooker. My mother sleeps on the couch, my father
searches other women for a trace of her.
I am in the garden of their collapsed marriage. It is calm here. My roots stretch out and attach to the wrong
man. We survive the blast.
My husband moves out on a Thursday night. I try not to scream when I notice he's
gone. I attach the prefix "ex"
to my memories of him.
I am 27 and use my last hundred bucks to buy a black
acoustic guitar from a small shop in Wilkes-Barre. I buy a chord book and memorize them all,
minor, major, open, flat. I play a lot
of Tom Petty. My neighbors complain. Then, on a hot fall night a boy teaches me to
play Radiohead's Creep, my favorite song.
He presses my plump fingers down into a bar chord and slides our fused
hands up and down the thick neck. We
make music together. I mistake his
kindness for love.
I walk the streets with Paul Simon in my ears. Trees hang over me like fallen arches. The sidewalks carry me to a new life. I worry they will collapse before I make it
home.
I look at the clock: 2:06 PM. I still have four minutes before I have to
leave to pick my daughters up from school.
Four whole minutes to cry. 2:09
PM: I pool cold water between my hands and splash my red beating face. I drip one drop of Visine in each eye, brush
my teeth, and leave.
There are things I knew for certain two years ago: my
marriage was strong, my kids were happy, I was becoming a writer, I was already
a good mother, my husband was happy.
Now, I don't think any of those are true, they feel like certainties
that belong to someone else and they are hers
and not mine. I feel like I have
somehow shattered, like I am in pieces, like there is nothing but tissue paper
gauzing my insides together.
I write secret letters to my husband. Letters begging him to hang onto me-like I
can anchor us to something bigger. Like
I'm not weightless and floating away. I
fold the notes like footballs and shove them in a drawer. I save the notes for the other side of
this. For the other side of LOST.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Virginia Grove on LOST
Two wind chimes sound. The bamboo chime
taps out the soft sound of hollow raindrops while the aluminum chime sings
Amazing Grace. I start to hum and then sing, beginning with the ascending
perfect fourth--A-MA. I continue, changing gears...Do, Re, Me, Fa, ... sing the
Do-Fa fourth, before returning to the -zing grace.
How sweet the sound...
I'm reminded of music theory class, wedged into the wooden desks at Marywood as an undergrad music therapy major, a book bag full of music theory, percussion methods, and vocal performance texts, practice books for piano and bassoon, and all the other things I carried...
I decided I'd major in music therapy when I was in eighth grade. To combine my love of music and helping others seemed the only appropriate way I could pay forward what music had given me. Music was, and will forever be, my first love. As I grew, music was my loyal friend, confidant, and greatest source of comfort and I saturated myself in it from elementary school through high school and into my days as an undergrad. In elementary school, I sang in my church choir, the French Choir, started on clarinet, and tried out for handbells (I didn't make the group-- my right hand didn't ring bells well, my left hand--my non-dominant hand--was the best bell ringer that side of Philadelphia). In middle school, I continued on clarinet and in school and church choir. I took private vocal and instrumental lessons. I played clarinet and started on bassoon in high school, playing whichever was most appropriate in marching band, concert band, orchestra, and wind ensemble. I continued singing in 'homeroom chorus' an abbreviated opportunity choir set up for those who couldn't fit any other aspect of the vocal program into their schedules. And then I applied to and auditioned at a handful of schools where I could major in music therapy with bassoon as my primary instrument. For as much as I loved playing and singing in a group though, the greatest joy surrounded solitary music. Alone in a car, singing to whatever was playing, I was happy. With my Walkman attached to my pocket and my headphones on, I was happy. Listening to my blue and white stereo in my blue and white bedroom while pressing play and record to tape my favorite songs off the radio, I was happy. I was happy practicing my clarinet or bassoon, particularly when no one was home. Experimenting with chords and rhythm on my white guitar or my keyboard, I was happy.
There isn't music I don't like, save for the heavy, violent, angry music my good friend refers to as the 'Kill your mother, kill your father, put the dog in the oven-----ahhhhhhh' music. I could do without most of that music (though, believe me, there are days). I went through phases of addictions to pop music, classical music, a long phase of a deep, deep love of show tunes, Christian music, country music, and nearly everything on the spectrum. Like other forms of creative expression, when I could connect with the vibration of and the story in and behind the music, the music, my friend, spoke for me and...my story...
I once was lost...
Moving away from home to go to college was disorienting. In the spin of that period of time, I eventually dropped out of the music program (frustrated with the narrow focus of the department), started as an English major (realizing how much I missed the intricacies of language) and then, incapable of going to classes post 9/11, was 'let go' from the college. Rather than withdrawing from classes for fear that I would need to go home a failure, I simply stopped going and took failing grades where only 'A's belonged. I started work as a telemarketer, a poor choice for someone who dislikes the phone as much as I did...and still do. I eventually lost that job. I left my desk to head to the bathroom one morning or afternoon and completely lost track of time and myself. After that, I'd ride to work with Kim, who would work while I'd stay in the car, terrified, for the length of her workday. I don't recall how long this went on. I started a new job a period of time after that, one where I would have done editing work. When, after training, I was told I had a beautiful speaking voice and was going to be put on the phones instead, I set up my desk as though I'd continue on, and right before lunch packed all of my things in my bag, called Kim, went to lunch, and never went back. Not long after that, I started as a temporary employee at Prudential and was hired on as a full-time employee less than a year later. And I'm still there...10+ years, home owners, car owners, four academic degrees (three my own and one Kim's), and two major health challenges (one my own and one Kim's), and one pretty fabulous wedding later.
During that first attempt at an undergrad degree, I tried hard to fix myself. I talked with the school counselor (she only wanted to talk about my family and all I wanted was help getting to class), attempted to find someone to talk to outside of the school when the school counselor didn't help (and couldn't afford to pay that one, or the next one, or the next one), and took various medications my mother had from the drug reps in an effort to gain some kind of emotional stability and to lose weight (because obviously, I'd be happier if I wasn't also fat).
How sweet the sound...
I'm reminded of music theory class, wedged into the wooden desks at Marywood as an undergrad music therapy major, a book bag full of music theory, percussion methods, and vocal performance texts, practice books for piano and bassoon, and all the other things I carried...
I decided I'd major in music therapy when I was in eighth grade. To combine my love of music and helping others seemed the only appropriate way I could pay forward what music had given me. Music was, and will forever be, my first love. As I grew, music was my loyal friend, confidant, and greatest source of comfort and I saturated myself in it from elementary school through high school and into my days as an undergrad. In elementary school, I sang in my church choir, the French Choir, started on clarinet, and tried out for handbells (I didn't make the group-- my right hand didn't ring bells well, my left hand--my non-dominant hand--was the best bell ringer that side of Philadelphia). In middle school, I continued on clarinet and in school and church choir. I took private vocal and instrumental lessons. I played clarinet and started on bassoon in high school, playing whichever was most appropriate in marching band, concert band, orchestra, and wind ensemble. I continued singing in 'homeroom chorus' an abbreviated opportunity choir set up for those who couldn't fit any other aspect of the vocal program into their schedules. And then I applied to and auditioned at a handful of schools where I could major in music therapy with bassoon as my primary instrument. For as much as I loved playing and singing in a group though, the greatest joy surrounded solitary music. Alone in a car, singing to whatever was playing, I was happy. With my Walkman attached to my pocket and my headphones on, I was happy. Listening to my blue and white stereo in my blue and white bedroom while pressing play and record to tape my favorite songs off the radio, I was happy. I was happy practicing my clarinet or bassoon, particularly when no one was home. Experimenting with chords and rhythm on my white guitar or my keyboard, I was happy.
There isn't music I don't like, save for the heavy, violent, angry music my good friend refers to as the 'Kill your mother, kill your father, put the dog in the oven-----ahhhhhhh' music. I could do without most of that music (though, believe me, there are days). I went through phases of addictions to pop music, classical music, a long phase of a deep, deep love of show tunes, Christian music, country music, and nearly everything on the spectrum. Like other forms of creative expression, when I could connect with the vibration of and the story in and behind the music, the music, my friend, spoke for me and...my story...
I once was lost...
Moving away from home to go to college was disorienting. In the spin of that period of time, I eventually dropped out of the music program (frustrated with the narrow focus of the department), started as an English major (realizing how much I missed the intricacies of language) and then, incapable of going to classes post 9/11, was 'let go' from the college. Rather than withdrawing from classes for fear that I would need to go home a failure, I simply stopped going and took failing grades where only 'A's belonged. I started work as a telemarketer, a poor choice for someone who dislikes the phone as much as I did...and still do. I eventually lost that job. I left my desk to head to the bathroom one morning or afternoon and completely lost track of time and myself. After that, I'd ride to work with Kim, who would work while I'd stay in the car, terrified, for the length of her workday. I don't recall how long this went on. I started a new job a period of time after that, one where I would have done editing work. When, after training, I was told I had a beautiful speaking voice and was going to be put on the phones instead, I set up my desk as though I'd continue on, and right before lunch packed all of my things in my bag, called Kim, went to lunch, and never went back. Not long after that, I started as a temporary employee at Prudential and was hired on as a full-time employee less than a year later. And I'm still there...10+ years, home owners, car owners, four academic degrees (three my own and one Kim's), and two major health challenges (one my own and one Kim's), and one pretty fabulous wedding later.
During that first attempt at an undergrad degree, I tried hard to fix myself. I talked with the school counselor (she only wanted to talk about my family and all I wanted was help getting to class), attempted to find someone to talk to outside of the school when the school counselor didn't help (and couldn't afford to pay that one, or the next one, or the next one), and took various medications my mother had from the drug reps in an effort to gain some kind of emotional stability and to lose weight (because obviously, I'd be happier if I wasn't also fat).
My senses changed during that period of
time. Smells were paralyzing. Sound--particularly repetitive sound-- turned
more maddening than I'd ever remembered it being. Anything along the scale of
physical contact was risky. Even my vision was impacted to the degree that I'd
lose my sight entirely for periods of time. And so, I drew and painted and
wrote and read and listened to music and used everything I had in my backpack
in an effort feel less lost.
I could never sustain ‘less lost’ (just as I haven't been able to sustain weight loss). If anything, I felt more lost. I ended up in the emergency room a handful of times (and can think of one additional time I should have) for overdosing on prescription or OTC medication. The lone remaining Xanax sample pack I'd taken from my mother's grab bag of drugs and missed taking in the one attempt, was confiscated from the purple foot locker in my dorm room and attached to my file in the school nurse's office. I wanted so desperately to fall the rest of the way into lost...to blend into the world as part of it, but to be indistinguishable and untouchable and to, in every possible way, extinguish expectation. So I worked to push away from people I loved or who loved me. I stopped writing and drawing and reading and worked to stay still...very still...still and quiet. I wanted to be overlooked, ignored, and abandoned entirely so that everything made sense and the tension and conflict between home and away, between caring and not caring, between school and no school, between fat and thin, between safety and danger, between what some people led me to believe and what others wanted me to believe, between dead and alive, stopped. In the tension and conflict I self-imposed an expectation to equalize or diffuse--to level off-- to harmonize-- and when I couldn't, when I failed to create conditions where other people were OK and couldn't make myself OK, the degree of self-loathing was impenetrable and the words I spoke to myself could have killed me if only I'd spoken them at myself in an even harsher way.
There's a very distinct line between wanting to die and wanting to kill yourself. Wanting to die requires lining up circumstances in a way that the desired result can be produced. Wanting to kill yourself required a strength I didn't--and don't--have. There is a wise truth in recognizing not everyone wishes to live out a life sentence.
I should be dead many times over, more times than anyone knows, and figuring out what to do with that and then, if you figure out what to do figuring out how to do what you've figured out, creates a pressure and a tension that feels all too similar. Thoughts can change so quickly but feelings, once you can get them, take you where they will. I am still too much in my head with my thoughts while I try to figure out how to invite and manage feeling. So I remove and remove and remove-- I fall into the cradle of the arts and I rest.
If I could have captured that Ginny-- boxed her, framed her, painted her--I would have sat her up somewhere, like an Elf on the Shelf, and told her sit and wait it out. I'd have told her sometimes you won't find someone who can fix what hurts because sometimes you need to be lost in the hurt until you heal yourself. I'd have told her to try to feel less stupid and needy and small and unworthy when wanting to reach out for help or after having reached out for help because she wasn't stupid or needy or small or unworthy...rather, she was hurt. I'd have told her I understood how difficult it could be to believe me and that it mattered that she didn't, but that if she could pretend like she did--like she could pretend herself into other worlds worlds away from where she was lost...worlds where the wretch like her could be saved...she'd find out she was OK.
Ginny wanted to be back on her bed at Mom-Mom's house, curled up in her pjs on the blanket, curling her toes around the bumps and pulls on the bedspread, with a tiny copy of Black Beauty in her lap. She wanted her head on the rust-colored, satin pillowcase. She wanted to smell wet grass in the backyard and honeybuns baking in the oven. That Ginny wanted to get to classes and prove she could be successful. But she just felt lost and alone because, in so many ways, she was.
But now am...
found? Yes and no. I'm not that person anymore. I'm not not that person anymore. I've grown beyond her and yet she comes along. Most times, she is harmony when I am melody. Other times, she is the dissonant melody and I am left trying to harmonize.
I could never sustain ‘less lost’ (just as I haven't been able to sustain weight loss). If anything, I felt more lost. I ended up in the emergency room a handful of times (and can think of one additional time I should have) for overdosing on prescription or OTC medication. The lone remaining Xanax sample pack I'd taken from my mother's grab bag of drugs and missed taking in the one attempt, was confiscated from the purple foot locker in my dorm room and attached to my file in the school nurse's office. I wanted so desperately to fall the rest of the way into lost...to blend into the world as part of it, but to be indistinguishable and untouchable and to, in every possible way, extinguish expectation. So I worked to push away from people I loved or who loved me. I stopped writing and drawing and reading and worked to stay still...very still...still and quiet. I wanted to be overlooked, ignored, and abandoned entirely so that everything made sense and the tension and conflict between home and away, between caring and not caring, between school and no school, between fat and thin, between safety and danger, between what some people led me to believe and what others wanted me to believe, between dead and alive, stopped. In the tension and conflict I self-imposed an expectation to equalize or diffuse--to level off-- to harmonize-- and when I couldn't, when I failed to create conditions where other people were OK and couldn't make myself OK, the degree of self-loathing was impenetrable and the words I spoke to myself could have killed me if only I'd spoken them at myself in an even harsher way.
There's a very distinct line between wanting to die and wanting to kill yourself. Wanting to die requires lining up circumstances in a way that the desired result can be produced. Wanting to kill yourself required a strength I didn't--and don't--have. There is a wise truth in recognizing not everyone wishes to live out a life sentence.
I should be dead many times over, more times than anyone knows, and figuring out what to do with that and then, if you figure out what to do figuring out how to do what you've figured out, creates a pressure and a tension that feels all too similar. Thoughts can change so quickly but feelings, once you can get them, take you where they will. I am still too much in my head with my thoughts while I try to figure out how to invite and manage feeling. So I remove and remove and remove-- I fall into the cradle of the arts and I rest.
If I could have captured that Ginny-- boxed her, framed her, painted her--I would have sat her up somewhere, like an Elf on the Shelf, and told her sit and wait it out. I'd have told her sometimes you won't find someone who can fix what hurts because sometimes you need to be lost in the hurt until you heal yourself. I'd have told her to try to feel less stupid and needy and small and unworthy when wanting to reach out for help or after having reached out for help because she wasn't stupid or needy or small or unworthy...rather, she was hurt. I'd have told her I understood how difficult it could be to believe me and that it mattered that she didn't, but that if she could pretend like she did--like she could pretend herself into other worlds worlds away from where she was lost...worlds where the wretch like her could be saved...she'd find out she was OK.
Ginny wanted to be back on her bed at Mom-Mom's house, curled up in her pjs on the blanket, curling her toes around the bumps and pulls on the bedspread, with a tiny copy of Black Beauty in her lap. She wanted her head on the rust-colored, satin pillowcase. She wanted to smell wet grass in the backyard and honeybuns baking in the oven. That Ginny wanted to get to classes and prove she could be successful. But she just felt lost and alone because, in so many ways, she was.
But now am...
found? Yes and no. I'm not that person anymore. I'm not not that person anymore. I've grown beyond her and yet she comes along. Most times, she is harmony when I am melody. Other times, she is the dissonant melody and I am left trying to harmonize.
Right now, today, her song is too long and
too intense and the sensations her music brings are unnerving.
Right now, today, I'm just trying to remove
myself from sensation unlike sensation I've felt before.
I'm dissonant trying to resolve.
Goosebumps! Gorgeous writing.
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