{"id":11,"date":"2009-07-07T20:49:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T00:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/?page_id=11"},"modified":"2009-10-30T13:55:03","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T17:55:03","slug":"a-beginning","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/you-can-go-home-again\/a-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

My hand starts shaking very time I put my pen to the bit of tissue in front of me. Little blobs of ink get absorbed and look like musky snowflakes…<\/p>\n

It is too sunny outside to complement my spirits. The very beauty of it makes the contrast; I\u2019m more like the dirty melting snow.<\/p>\n

Study hall number one: all the castles in this encyclopedia can take me away–right out of this century. I can sit on the stone steps and dangle my feet in the water, search out the lost trail with Admiral Meaulnes…population charts are stark as study hall.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still dark. The wind is light and sweet and warm, but it chills me under my flapping coat. It\u2019s like last April or a cold summer. The sky is turning pink at the edges. By the time I get to school it will be light.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay I leave this thing here?\u201d I asked the bus driver. My voice sounded strange. That was the first time I\u2019d ever said anything aloud on the early bus breaking my bond of silent anonymity with the others.<\/p>\n

Tenacious snowflakes, fat and few…reaching school, damp…The room is black, the darkness is heavy and dense. I wonder how long I can stand it.<\/p>\n

I hate study hall, and I was glared out of my comfortable seat in the library. Now this sweet, dispenser soap smelling place is my refuge. I feel sick and gray like the sky. I think it\u2019s seeping under this windowpane to catch me and blow me around bare trees and windswept roofs.<\/p>\n

I am in study hall again<\/em>. I spend nine-tenths of my academic hours in this ridiculous room with its family of desks. All I ever do is daydream. It\u2019s like math class, only not so bad. There the theorems fly over me, crawl under me and seep around me; but nothing ever hits. The people here are either scratching or chewing or drumming or staring into air. I can\u2019t concentrate among people. I\u2019m so conscious of them: I watch their eyes and delve into their thoughts and make myself look studious or something,<\/p>\n

After I slid out Volume 9 looking for more castles, I decided to turn to Falstaff.<\/p>\n

Falstaff and Shakespeare were last year. Last year is a period in my life\u2014so far\u2014that probably will never be integrated with the rest. It was removed, metaphysical, beautiful, painful, and it\u2019s over. Shoved aside for facts and grades and nerves and tears\u2014not even the right kind of tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cFalsetto\u2014a forced form of sound production employed to obtain notes above the natural range of the voice.\u201d <\/em> That is a capsule of my thoughts and work this year. I can\u2019t stand the waste.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe it! They have Edward Fitzball, Fitzgerald (a house in Ireland), Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Thomas, George Francis, Raymond, and a city, Fitzgerald, in Georgia, pop. 8,170\u2014but no F. Scott Fitzgerald!<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. <\/em>Carcassonne\u2014the fortifications of this ancient walled city were constructed by the Romans and the Visigoths…<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. <\/em>An old road in Les Andelys, Normandy. <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/em><\/p>\n

    It looks like a cottage in fairy tales. I don\u2019t see how there can be places like that while we run around the neon parapets of the Daitch Shopwell.<\/p>\n

    That woman makes me furious! Just because I told her some of the things I think and what bothers me, she treats me like some kind of a dangerous mental case.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHow is life treating you today?\u201d<\/p>\n

    Adults are all alike. They treat you like big buddies and then go and analyze you in their spare time. It was fun talking to her for a while about Europe. In just have to go back. The trouble is that you have to have money. I think I\u2019ll marry four rich old men and completely exploit<\/em> them. Then I can do what I please. It\u2019s easy enough to say that money isn\u2019t everything and you should do what you really like. But the truth is, to be completely free, you\u2019ve got to have lots of money.<\/p>\n

    I can\u2019t stand<\/em> this math class. It makes me so mad. I know I\u2019m going to do nothing but sit here and look at my little street map of Paris. I registered an ink spot on the corner where our hotel was last summer. Rue de l\u2019Echelle at rue d\u2019Argentueil. I wish I were still there, walking through the drizzle in my trench coat. I love trench coats, especially my really old one that was made in England. It fits so comfortably.<\/p>\n

    \"paris<\/p>\n

    Oh, good. Now we\u2019re going to hear the merits of modern mathematics. I don\u2019t see how anyone can keep his mind in order, going from number to number, plane to plane: I can\u2019t even describe the confusion in my own mind…<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe ones who don\u2019t die….\u201d<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s a nice morbid remark. You can kill people but you couldn’t possibly put an end to complex words? numbers? ideas? flitting around in their brains. It\u2019s like the idea of thought\u2014not people\u2014being the life eternal.<\/p>\n

    Math conference was very enlightening today. Much better with only three people in the class. Pretty soon I started thinking about James Joyce and the \u201cnicens little boy\u201d and the \u201cmoocow.\u201d It must be hard to write what you think so anyone else can understand it. I don\u2019t think anyone else really feels the same about anything; you do your best to understand the other person\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

    I had a vision in class today of a person in big, black sunglasses with tears running out from under the lenses.<\/p>\n

    I miss him. He was so nice, and he acted so happy all the time. It really killed you to look at him, though, because you could see he was really lonely. I remember one night: \u201cYou\u2019re funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The way he laughed at me, I wanted to say, \u201cI love you.\u201d I don\u2019t even know you, but I do.<\/p>\n

    I am so hungry. I keep writhing around. If you can imagine food: pizza, the crust rough on your tongue, tomato sauce, chocolate cake with fudgy icing oozing between molars, cool coffee ice cream.<\/p>\n

    I love the lavatory. You can lean out the window and get cool air on your face and hair while you keep your toes warm under the radiator. I\u2019m in a good mood. It would be funny to take an end of the toilet paper roll and wind it in and out all around the room.<\/p>\n

    Today I found an end to my lethargy or rebelliousness. He told me all I needed was a good kick in the pants. I think half the time I\u2019m being brash\u2014openly daring people to put me down.<\/p>\n

    …was thinking about \u201cuniversality in thought\u201d again. It\u2019s very complicated. Maybe the general or remembered feeling or thought can be the same for two people while the personal connotations and impressions are unique. It\u2019s like the section about Joyce, James Aloysius, ne<\/em> 2\/2\/82, and the separation of art from the citizen.<\/p>\n

    Can you make a movie of a poem?<\/p>\n

    People are so funny. I think I have one real friend. I think people who are mentally sympathetic have a tough time acting human toward each other. You can\u2019t judge anything by its durability. Probably the hardest person to get along with is the one you like best. Friendship is a funny thing. Sometimes I m convinced I can get along without people. I love playing roles. You can read about the best people to imitate.<\/p>\n

    …really not friends at all anymore. There must be something left; we were so close. I guess we were united because neither of us knew where we were going. Well, that\u2019s one direction I\u2019d rather not take.<\/p>\n

    …hate sitting through the long, drawn-out discussions. I\u2019m embarrassed at how easily I can put my mind on some remote thought. I wish they wouldn\u2019t try to be nice and give me everything. I know I\u2019m wrong. What can I do? I really don\u2019t care about my town, even if it does mean getting a job. I\u2019m not going to the library and reads its history either. I wish they would let me alone. I may run.<\/p>\n

    He\u2019s having a party tonight.<\/p>\n

    It was over two years ago that we were together. It was one of those sweet summers quickly betrayed by September and school and football practice.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI really don\u2019t want<\/em> to go out for football.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t, then. Besides. you can come visit me at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

    This year I watched him and heard about him.<\/p>\n

    \u201cHe\u2019s the biggest guy on the team and the most chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

    At the end of August into September we sat under the trees and I did my French reading and he pulled up grass by the roots.<\/p>\n

    \u201cDid you really write the letter?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt came from the bottom of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cWhat should I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cWrite me one from the bottom of your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

    I was worried about losing him to school, but the letter said not to worry, to think only about wonderful things.<\/p>\n

    I slept with his sweater; we talked for three hours; he kept my torn pocket.<\/p>\n

    He kissed me for the first time and we both burst out laughing, sputtering all over each other. He kissed me for the last time, and I didn\u2019t even know it.<\/p>\n

    Tonight I\u2019ll take a shower and think about those people. Then maybe I\u2019ll look out the window for a while, over the boatyard and frozen harbor. I\u2019m not sad or happy, but I can feel there is something beyond. The greatness of the sky dwarfs all of us: lost loves, best friends, worst enemies, people, places, ideas. But this immediate smallness is a beginning, and there is no end.<\/p>\n

    From the January, 1965 issue of Seventeen<\/em> magazine. First prize in the annual short story contest. And not a popular winner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My hand starts shaking very time I put my pen to the bit of tissue in front of me. Little blobs of ink get absorbed and look like musky snowflakes… It is too sunny outside to complement my spirits. The very beauty of it makes the contrast; I\u2019m more like the dirty melting snow. Study […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":85,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions\/90"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tracyyoung.info\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}