It's funny, you know, how the silences in our life just seem to build up over time. I have a character in the short story I've been writing who has to deal with an extended silence with a woman he grew up with and has had an intermittent affair with over the last ten years. And living in his skin has been really hard. He talks about the silences between the passionate moments in his time with her, and how difficult that is for him to handle. He talks about the petty jealousies and outright anger he feels at not knowing how she is, what she's doing, etc. When he finds out about her death he has this enormous sense of guilt and loss, but can't show it.
Weird.
I've never felt anything like this until I tried to live in his shoes, and boy does it suck. I guess one of the perils of writing is that you get too close to the characters you create, almost as if you're living their lives. The subtitle of this blog states "I write because I want to have more than one life."
Thank you Anne Tyler.
Sometimes many lives are confusing. And painful.
Time for a drink, I guess. Or another round of typing.
1 comment:
Did your character learn that life is a crap shoot? Luck plays a part, but everyone makes choices. We are not void of responsibility in the paths we choose and it sounds like maybe he lost in his Vegas run.
But the question remains..."Is it better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?"
Sometimes it is harder to see the land, but the future is unknown and shutting doors before ever considering what lies behind them is definately not okay.
So I guess I'll stick with the first part of the quote. It all hurts. Yet knowing it exists, experiencing love's touch...I'll take whatever pain goes along with it; it's worth it.
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