Look Up

Good writing freaks me out. I don't know why this is. I'm re-reading one of my favorite books, "A Complicated Kindness," by Miriam Toews, and it's somehow even more stirring than I remember. It's just that every line seems so perfectly constructed and sensibly placed and I don't think I could ever create something so natural. And in the story the characters, though it almost seems inaccurate to call them that, are so heartbreakingly real.

"Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and bang, you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing."

I don't know why but sometimes when things are normal I feel so panicky. Things start to slip away, or maybe it's the other way around, and I'm slipping away from everything else.

In 5th grade I heard the Everclear song "Father of Mine" and later "Wonderful" and I wrote to Art Alexakis about how wow, those songs are so amazing and so my life, I've got so much pre-teen angst because my parents have been divorced for my whole life and gosh I just wish I could be normal. He e-mailed back in a few short lines and without proper punctuation, but it meant a lot at the time: "people always think their lives suck, until they meet someone whose life really sucks. normal is what you make it".

In October I took advantage of Chuck Palahniuk's limited time offer to write, and yesterday I received a response. "Some [of my stories] are extreme - but so is life. We can't deal with tragedy by pretending it doesn't happen."

It felt the same as getting that e-mail from Art Alexakis when I was 11. Some sort of idolized hero can still recognize where I'm coming from. Maybe it's childlike hope. But I can appreciate that.

"I'll count the steps to happiness I've missed..."

posted by Allison Francis @ 12:10 AM