If I’m so lucky, why do I feel like I’m in a war camp, just trying to hold on? I’m rationing what I have left and let me tell you, it isn’t much. The days are getting long and the nights are even longer and yet, there’s never enough time.
The cat strikes nine and I’m panicking. Why is it the cat with the attitude, the one I’m allergic to, gets so many chances but the loyal dog died last year? That should tell me more than it does but everything is out of my hands. I’m running out of time.
Let’s talk about implications, pedagogy, banal questions and you. In fact, I’m so interested in you we should scratch the rest and only talk about you. Tell me about how you met your fiancé and what you’re studying now and of course, your goals. What is it that you hope to do with your life? Tell me more about your dissertation and your opinion on feminist neoliberalism and that time you and your friends went to that protest. I’m fascinated.
As for my life, I hope to love it. I’ll dance with it and seduce it and never force it to do anything it’s not ready for. I look in the mirror and my body gives me a flat, disinterested look because I haven’t started yet. I’m still pushing it along. I’ve learned nothing except maybe basic geometry.
I remember something: my mother told me to “fix my face.” I was offended and I said so and she said that I need to appreciate my youth and make the most of it because one day I’ll miss it. Because it isn’t unlimited. Because I’m almost out of time. Don't worry though, this doesn't apply to you.
Just keep striving for more, never give up. Once you achieve a dream, make a new one. That way, you’ll never be happy with what you have. You can just keep on wanting more. If you stop, you probably aren’t going very far with your life. Just keep that in mind.
Starting in that kind of tension is very cool. It makes this feel a little desperate, not reaching or contrived, just desperate, but that makes the calm, pedagogic ending disappointing. Jess (when it switches to 2nd?) works as a reference for your own future, and that’s interesting, but she disappears so that when your mother gets brought in, I’m not sure how to read the couple ending paragraphs. Is that your personal philosophy?
ReplyDeleteI’m happy that this surprises me often by jumping to pets, body, education, family, time, though clearly making the connections, as opposed to jumping and letting us infer something, which is done by plenty of people often enough
I really like how you play with the allusion of time and getting older. The phrase "the cat strikes nine and I'm panicking"-seems like an allusion to time like the clock striking nine, but also is an allusion to the cat has nine lives metaphor. The one thing that you need to watch for is when you say you will seduce your life but then come right back and say you would not force it to do anything. This is just a slight contradiction.
ReplyDeleteI like your tone and the ideas you bring up in this piece. The only thing is that I'm left wondering who is Jess? What is your relationship to him or her? What is the situation that caused you to write this to him or her? For ex) I feel that if they are younger or older, a friend or family member, it will change how I read the piece and what you are saying, so if you could add a sentence or two at the beginning about that it would be good. Also, I think it would be interesting if you made this into a letter to Jess, just a thought.
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