My characters grow restless. Winter is the hardest time of year for writing, I think, though there are plenty of people that would say that is just an excuse. I don't make the time for them so they find ways to insinuate themselves into my day, even if it is just a flash of a scene I see for a brief moment. I know they are always there, always watching, always waiting for their moment to come out and breathe onto the paper. I hold them back in a way, even as I give them the chance to live. Their lives depend on me, on my dedication to giving it to them, and it's understandable that they get a little anxious when I don't show them the proper respect. They are calling me now, living in scenes behind my eyelids and threatening to disappear forever if I don't write them down.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Fine Line
I have always considered the line between writer and full on schizophrenic to be delicate. I think the only difference may be that the writer makes money (theoretically) from his hallucinations, while a schizo is victimized by them. At any rate, it is a jagged-edged gift, to be born with the power to create people and then to listen to them constantly speaking to you in your head.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I Am
I was reading the ending of "The Amber Spyglass" today when I finished and turned to the page of acknowledgements at the back of the book. It's something I like to do just as a curiousity, and I was surprised to find Phillip Pullman's credits quite lengthy. There is one line in there that I loved, and I felt compelled to share: I have stolen ideas from every book I've ever read. I got to thinking about this and realized, beyond the admission that other people's ideas are inspiring to you, how every book you read is tiny piece of the ultimate shape you become, as a person, and especially as a writer.
I have a unique way of recognizing correct spelling. I remember every word I have ever read, and each word was added to my vocabularly the instant I saw it used in a sentence. My spelling is from visual memory, and if I have seen a word I will be able to spell it, based on the "looks right" rule that is so dependable. I do not always know how to pronounce every word, which has caused me some embarrassment when I have to admit that I have never heard anyone say it. I have seen it written, and have inferred its meaning from the context, and this is how I learn. I bring this up because I feel that my writing voice has been created in this way; I have taken the shape of what I have read into myself and made it part of me, part of who I am and part of the goal that all writers have when they set out to put their words on paper.
Who would I be if I had not read the Fountainhead, and heard the resonance of the law I had always kept dear to my heart: "bring yourself to bear with everything you can muster, and let nothing tear you down"? Who would I be if I had not first journeyed across the universe in a Wrinkle in Time, and learned that there is good and evil and that evil should be fought to the last? Who would I be if I had not read Jane Austen, and realized that I do enjoy the ridiculous, and so "dearly love to laugh?" All of these people, with their words like ropes thrown to me across the span of space and time, building me up into what I am. They have thrown me something to grasp and take into myself, their being, their message, their love- and I have done it.
Now I start my own journey, a journey I have been trying and failing to take like so many people before and after me. I read the words I have written and I think badly of them: who will read this and find resonance? Who will find these words in a part of their own heart, and with my help bring it to light? But I needn't worry about that. I can't see what will happen in the future, if any of the words I write will see the light of day. I can't known if anyone will find resonance with me, if anyone will take a tiny part of me into themselves and let me live on, in my own beautiful immortality, a part of them forever. I may never know if I will change the world in a tiny way. But I must try, because to not try is to betray those who have built me up for this purpose.
We are all a chain, reaching through each other forever, and I won't let you down.
I have a unique way of recognizing correct spelling. I remember every word I have ever read, and each word was added to my vocabularly the instant I saw it used in a sentence. My spelling is from visual memory, and if I have seen a word I will be able to spell it, based on the "looks right" rule that is so dependable. I do not always know how to pronounce every word, which has caused me some embarrassment when I have to admit that I have never heard anyone say it. I have seen it written, and have inferred its meaning from the context, and this is how I learn. I bring this up because I feel that my writing voice has been created in this way; I have taken the shape of what I have read into myself and made it part of me, part of who I am and part of the goal that all writers have when they set out to put their words on paper.
Who would I be if I had not read the Fountainhead, and heard the resonance of the law I had always kept dear to my heart: "bring yourself to bear with everything you can muster, and let nothing tear you down"? Who would I be if I had not first journeyed across the universe in a Wrinkle in Time, and learned that there is good and evil and that evil should be fought to the last? Who would I be if I had not read Jane Austen, and realized that I do enjoy the ridiculous, and so "dearly love to laugh?" All of these people, with their words like ropes thrown to me across the span of space and time, building me up into what I am. They have thrown me something to grasp and take into myself, their being, their message, their love- and I have done it.
Now I start my own journey, a journey I have been trying and failing to take like so many people before and after me. I read the words I have written and I think badly of them: who will read this and find resonance? Who will find these words in a part of their own heart, and with my help bring it to light? But I needn't worry about that. I can't see what will happen in the future, if any of the words I write will see the light of day. I can't known if anyone will find resonance with me, if anyone will take a tiny part of me into themselves and let me live on, in my own beautiful immortality, a part of them forever. I may never know if I will change the world in a tiny way. But I must try, because to not try is to betray those who have built me up for this purpose.
We are all a chain, reaching through each other forever, and I won't let you down.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Time's Top 100 Books
I was wiling away another boring, useless morning of work when I saw an ad for the Time's list of top 100 books. Curious, I clicked the link and was presented with a helpfully alphabetical list of what Time Magazine, (or at least, whomever considers themselves the literary expert at Time Magazine) considers the top 100 books of all time.
On the list, I found the typical books you'd all expect. 1984. Animal Farm. The Sound and the Fury. The Grapes of Wrath, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Native Son, etc etc. A round robin of racially, thematically, and time period-ly diverse stories that anyone with an English major or a vague conception of literary canon would agree is "good literature." There are a few newbies thoughtfully entered into the list, but for the most part, they stick to the "greats," or what I consider anyone whose name you bring up in a Starbucks and have people nod knowingly, whether they'd read the book or not. These are people we are expected to read, expected to know, expected to absorb into our own identity as 21st century American writers. There were quite a few I did not recognize, so I clicked on them and read the blurbs. I wanted to get an idea of what it was I was missing, and why these books were continually being taught in sophomore English class.
As I read on, I started to notice a pattern in these books. It's something I've dealt with for a long time, as an avid reader and aspiring writer, this pattern, and I am starting to get an idea of the literary environment I live in. Many of the novels detail "quiet lives of desperation," as Thoreau would say. People who have grown helpless, bored, or unseated by their belief that they have no control over their lives. They are langorous and despairing. They, like my least favorite and only personally trashed book (100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) tell a story of people who live lives that make no difference whatsoever. They almost revel in the fact that they will never achieve happiness, and that the insanity of a quietly accepting that is more logical than the unflinching desire to chase it. These are people who live with no hopes, no dreams, and no self-respect. They desire nothing and achieve nothing. They have acceptance and apathy. They are worthless.
I feel like I am going crazy sometimes when I read that this kind of thing is popular. Why do people love books that are urbane and spiritless? Why do they rejoice in mundanity? And most of all, why are these books considered an accurate reflection of humanity? I have only inhabited one body during my time on Earth, but I have never felt an inkling of those feelings, and I never will. I feel like that is the most evil thing I have ever heard of, and yet people accept it, laud it, even love it! And why? Why do they like books written about people without even a shred of heroic quality? Why do they want to read about weaklings and cowards and people who willfully destroy themselves? I don't understand it, and I wish someone would explain it to me.
Here is a blurb about a book by John Updike called "Rabbit, Run." If anyone would like to explain to me the merit of this book, please be my guest. I quite honestly do not understand it.
"At the center of the crack-up is Harry ("Rabbit") Angstrom. In the small Pennsylvania suburb where he was born and lives, he had been a schoolboy hero, a basketball player of exciting skill. That was the high point of his life. Now, out of the army and in his mid-20s, he has reached a personal nadir. The old hero of the courts works as a demonstrator of a kitchen gadget. His wife is dull, losing her looks, and spends most of her time before the TV set with an oldfashioned. Not knowing what he wants, but hating what he has, Rabbit walks out on his wife and child, gets into his car and simply runs away.
At his hollow center, Rabbit is ineffectual. He cannot even run away cleanly, gets lost on the road and returns—but not to his wife. He turns to his old high school coach and through him meets a girl who has slipped into casual prostitution. The first night, he pays. Then he and Ruth simply begin living together. Big, shrewd, and without illusions, she knows Rabbit is no prize, but neither is she. It is when the local Episcopal minister shows up to make Rabbit see the moral wrong of his desertion that all the weak strands of his character begin to tangle up. The minister is a weakling himself, but he is persistent. What follows is the revolting zigzag course of a weak, sensual, selfish and confused moral bankrupt. He returns to his wife; he walks out again; a tragic incident sends him back to her once more-and again he runs out. Can he go back to Ruth, pregnant and contemptuous of his weakness? When he goes out on a simple errand, all his failings converge on him at once, and again he runs, runs, runs. "
Why would I want to read something like this? I know people are like this, I suppose, but maybe I try too hard to shelter myself from it. I don't WANT to know people like this. I don't want people to accept this for themselves. I want people to stretch the boundaries of what they are to see what they can be, and to run for THAT with all the will they can muster.
Is my idea of humanity outdated or ridiculous? Is it true that most people have given up trying to be great, and are satisfied with just being relatively good sometimes?
Or maybe my idea of literature is wrong. I read things that I feel will improve me and guide me down my own path to becoming great. I want to read things inspiring and glinting with hope. I want to read things that set me on fire.
Maybe different things resonate with different people? All I know is that despair does NOT resonate with me.
On the list, I found the typical books you'd all expect. 1984. Animal Farm. The Sound and the Fury. The Grapes of Wrath, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Native Son, etc etc. A round robin of racially, thematically, and time period-ly diverse stories that anyone with an English major or a vague conception of literary canon would agree is "good literature." There are a few newbies thoughtfully entered into the list, but for the most part, they stick to the "greats," or what I consider anyone whose name you bring up in a Starbucks and have people nod knowingly, whether they'd read the book or not. These are people we are expected to read, expected to know, expected to absorb into our own identity as 21st century American writers. There were quite a few I did not recognize, so I clicked on them and read the blurbs. I wanted to get an idea of what it was I was missing, and why these books were continually being taught in sophomore English class.
As I read on, I started to notice a pattern in these books. It's something I've dealt with for a long time, as an avid reader and aspiring writer, this pattern, and I am starting to get an idea of the literary environment I live in. Many of the novels detail "quiet lives of desperation," as Thoreau would say. People who have grown helpless, bored, or unseated by their belief that they have no control over their lives. They are langorous and despairing. They, like my least favorite and only personally trashed book (100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) tell a story of people who live lives that make no difference whatsoever. They almost revel in the fact that they will never achieve happiness, and that the insanity of a quietly accepting that is more logical than the unflinching desire to chase it. These are people who live with no hopes, no dreams, and no self-respect. They desire nothing and achieve nothing. They have acceptance and apathy. They are worthless.
I feel like I am going crazy sometimes when I read that this kind of thing is popular. Why do people love books that are urbane and spiritless? Why do they rejoice in mundanity? And most of all, why are these books considered an accurate reflection of humanity? I have only inhabited one body during my time on Earth, but I have never felt an inkling of those feelings, and I never will. I feel like that is the most evil thing I have ever heard of, and yet people accept it, laud it, even love it! And why? Why do they like books written about people without even a shred of heroic quality? Why do they want to read about weaklings and cowards and people who willfully destroy themselves? I don't understand it, and I wish someone would explain it to me.
Here is a blurb about a book by John Updike called "Rabbit, Run." If anyone would like to explain to me the merit of this book, please be my guest. I quite honestly do not understand it.
"At the center of the crack-up is Harry ("Rabbit") Angstrom. In the small Pennsylvania suburb where he was born and lives, he had been a schoolboy hero, a basketball player of exciting skill. That was the high point of his life. Now, out of the army and in his mid-20s, he has reached a personal nadir. The old hero of the courts works as a demonstrator of a kitchen gadget. His wife is dull, losing her looks, and spends most of her time before the TV set with an oldfashioned. Not knowing what he wants, but hating what he has, Rabbit walks out on his wife and child, gets into his car and simply runs away.
At his hollow center, Rabbit is ineffectual. He cannot even run away cleanly, gets lost on the road and returns—but not to his wife. He turns to his old high school coach and through him meets a girl who has slipped into casual prostitution. The first night, he pays. Then he and Ruth simply begin living together. Big, shrewd, and without illusions, she knows Rabbit is no prize, but neither is she. It is when the local Episcopal minister shows up to make Rabbit see the moral wrong of his desertion that all the weak strands of his character begin to tangle up. The minister is a weakling himself, but he is persistent. What follows is the revolting zigzag course of a weak, sensual, selfish and confused moral bankrupt. He returns to his wife; he walks out again; a tragic incident sends him back to her once more-and again he runs out. Can he go back to Ruth, pregnant and contemptuous of his weakness? When he goes out on a simple errand, all his failings converge on him at once, and again he runs, runs, runs. "
Why would I want to read something like this? I know people are like this, I suppose, but maybe I try too hard to shelter myself from it. I don't WANT to know people like this. I don't want people to accept this for themselves. I want people to stretch the boundaries of what they are to see what they can be, and to run for THAT with all the will they can muster.
Is my idea of humanity outdated or ridiculous? Is it true that most people have given up trying to be great, and are satisfied with just being relatively good sometimes?
Or maybe my idea of literature is wrong. I read things that I feel will improve me and guide me down my own path to becoming great. I want to read things inspiring and glinting with hope. I want to read things that set me on fire.
Maybe different things resonate with different people? All I know is that despair does NOT resonate with me.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Just While Jobs
Everyone starts out with a dream of what they want to be. Its pull may be great or wistful, and the obstacles barring its acheivement may be moutainous or nonexistent. But everyone starts out wishing to be something, and the rest of their life is just the background noise for that ultimate plotline.
Or so I thought.
Sometimes the line toward your destiny is not drawn in at all. Sometimes there are interruptions, complications, and the ever-pressing demands that society has deemed necessary for life. And that's when you have to start getting creative. Your goal is still there, it's just that now there's a moat and a castle fortress and maybe even a frothing-mawed monster standing imposingly before you, making your ultimate goal just a little harder to reach.
For me, that monster is my student loans and that castle the money to support myself. I have had to get jobs using only a fraction of my skills, just to be able to pay for those "necessities" that I need to live. The things that are not, apparently as necessary as that gleaming beacon of hope which is my goal of being a published writer. I have had to take a just while job.
I have started to realize that every job I've ever had was something I was doing "just while" I was doing something else. My first job, at McDonald's was something to do just while I was in high school. Then, I did a couple of jobs just while I was getting through college. None of these jobs were anywhere near in line with my ultimate goal of being a writer, because unfortunately, the road to that job is not paved with easily measurable stepping stones.
And now I am at a crossroads. My just while job is so soul-crushing, so incredibly awful that it's actually leaving me with nothing when I go to pick up my pen. I don't want to think, don't want to weave sweetly ironic tales of magic. I just want to go to bed and when I wake up, have all my financial problems disappear in a cloud of magical dust. Maybe if I build up enough magic from not writing, I can make it all disappear in one big poof! Okay, maybe not.
All of this, I am sure seems very whiny. I'm sure any one person could tell me that I could just get another job. And I'm sure that eventually, I could. But I don't want another just while job, and that is exactly what it would be.
I want my job. My job is to wake up and be happy at all the promise in the day ahead. My job is to watch people, to know people, to get inside their heads and figure out why the ticks are ticks instead of tocks. My job is to write something they understand, they relate to, they feel is truth somewhere inside themselves that they forgot existed. My job is to be a writer. And that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to keep digging and clawing my way up after I get knocked down. I'm going to keep putting pen on paper, keeping clicking away at the keys until something finally takes. Because I see my destiny, even through the stones of that stupid castle, and through the waterlogged matted hair of that moat monster. No one is going to keep me from it. Not even this just while job.
Or so I thought.
Sometimes the line toward your destiny is not drawn in at all. Sometimes there are interruptions, complications, and the ever-pressing demands that society has deemed necessary for life. And that's when you have to start getting creative. Your goal is still there, it's just that now there's a moat and a castle fortress and maybe even a frothing-mawed monster standing imposingly before you, making your ultimate goal just a little harder to reach.
For me, that monster is my student loans and that castle the money to support myself. I have had to get jobs using only a fraction of my skills, just to be able to pay for those "necessities" that I need to live. The things that are not, apparently as necessary as that gleaming beacon of hope which is my goal of being a published writer. I have had to take a just while job.
I have started to realize that every job I've ever had was something I was doing "just while" I was doing something else. My first job, at McDonald's was something to do just while I was in high school. Then, I did a couple of jobs just while I was getting through college. None of these jobs were anywhere near in line with my ultimate goal of being a writer, because unfortunately, the road to that job is not paved with easily measurable stepping stones.
And now I am at a crossroads. My just while job is so soul-crushing, so incredibly awful that it's actually leaving me with nothing when I go to pick up my pen. I don't want to think, don't want to weave sweetly ironic tales of magic. I just want to go to bed and when I wake up, have all my financial problems disappear in a cloud of magical dust. Maybe if I build up enough magic from not writing, I can make it all disappear in one big poof! Okay, maybe not.
All of this, I am sure seems very whiny. I'm sure any one person could tell me that I could just get another job. And I'm sure that eventually, I could. But I don't want another just while job, and that is exactly what it would be.
I want my job. My job is to wake up and be happy at all the promise in the day ahead. My job is to watch people, to know people, to get inside their heads and figure out why the ticks are ticks instead of tocks. My job is to write something they understand, they relate to, they feel is truth somewhere inside themselves that they forgot existed. My job is to be a writer. And that's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to keep digging and clawing my way up after I get knocked down. I'm going to keep putting pen on paper, keeping clicking away at the keys until something finally takes. Because I see my destiny, even through the stones of that stupid castle, and through the waterlogged matted hair of that moat monster. No one is going to keep me from it. Not even this just while job.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
I just realized
That the voice inside my head sounds like Cate Blanchett narrating the first Lord of the Rings movie. How sophisticated! I wonder if my inner me is half as majestic.
Also, how can I get paid for writing things all day? Every day I convince myself that I need money to work. And that working here is worth it. Every day I have to convince myself of that. I'd love to have a job where I forgot that I was making money.
I'm working on a new story. It might be in Caderyn, and it might not. What I do know is that it's fun, and it has a great little heroine.
I have to be strong, I have to be tough. And I have to get the hell out of here! Wish me luck, iconoclasts of the universe!
Also, how can I get paid for writing things all day? Every day I convince myself that I need money to work. And that working here is worth it. Every day I have to convince myself of that. I'd love to have a job where I forgot that I was making money.
I'm working on a new story. It might be in Caderyn, and it might not. What I do know is that it's fun, and it has a great little heroine.
I have to be strong, I have to be tough. And I have to get the hell out of here! Wish me luck, iconoclasts of the universe!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Words Move Me
Words are my coiled rope, clipped to my waist, ready to catch me if I jump too far away from the cliff's edge. They call me back to my place, still my tears when I am crying, and fill me with unsuspecting hope when I need it. They are my buoy. I am a writer because I adore words. They are the foundation of the castle that I live in. They are the ground that the trees spring from in my world. They swirl around, in a nebulous cluster, ready to hit me at any time with their irrevocable force. They are everything to me.
So when I feel the way I feel now, I like to reach back for the stars that guide me. I like to reach out and let them fill me with their magic.
"You may have success in life, but then ask yourself - what kind of life was it? What good was it if you've never done the thing you wanted to do all your life or went where your heart and soul wanted to go. When you find that feeling, stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off."
Joseph Campbell
"If you can see your path laid out ahead of you step by step, then you know it’s not your path."
Joseph Campbell
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or faraway."
Henry David Thoreau
"Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky."
Ojibway Dream Song
The las one always hits me the hardest, because it's so true. I am so fortunate, I have so much to be thankful for. I should never complain. I should be full of radiance and never let a glimmer of anything else tarnish that. I believe, like they all believed, in something that exists only in my own mind. I have to stay strong and bring it forth. Because if I falter, they will all die with me.
So when I feel the way I feel now, I like to reach back for the stars that guide me. I like to reach out and let them fill me with their magic.
"You may have success in life, but then ask yourself - what kind of life was it? What good was it if you've never done the thing you wanted to do all your life or went where your heart and soul wanted to go. When you find that feeling, stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off."
Joseph Campbell
"If you can see your path laid out ahead of you step by step, then you know it’s not your path."
Joseph Campbell
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or faraway."
Henry David Thoreau
"Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky."
Ojibway Dream Song
The las one always hits me the hardest, because it's so true. I am so fortunate, I have so much to be thankful for. I should never complain. I should be full of radiance and never let a glimmer of anything else tarnish that. I believe, like they all believed, in something that exists only in my own mind. I have to stay strong and bring it forth. Because if I falter, they will all die with me.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
To My Students
I wanted to write you this letter on the one-year anniversary of leaving China. I started to write it last July, but I don't know what happened. Maybe I felt like what I had to say was too small and disorganized. Maybe I just got distracted wth the necessities of living every day life. But mostly I think I was afraid that you would be disappointed with me, forgetting the lessons you taught me as I took on the role of your teacher. At any rate, I didn't write to you, and I'm sorry.
Last night I had a dream. I dreamt that I was in China again, and I was alive with excitement to see you all. I had a friend with me, and I pointed you out to her, each of you by name. Your faces were so vivid to me, and I remember thinking that I was afraid that you had forgotten me, and that other teachers had replaced me in your hearts. It is a childish, selfish fear, but for some reason when I woke up I felt inspired to finish this letter to you. After all, what I have to say to you is important to me.
When I left China, it was with a sense of excitement to finally return to my family and friends. I had learned a lot on my little adventure, but I was happy to be home again. I was happy with the thought of not living out of a suitcase anymore, happy to think that once again I could be solid and put down roots. To have more money than what I needed to barely scrape by.
But when I returned, I found that I was actually quite unhappy. It took me a long time to get a job, and an even longer time to adjust to living with someone else again. I had been terribly lonely while I was in China, even with your wonderful friendship, but having someone around me constantly just didn't fit at first. I had gotten to used to my solitary life, walking two miles to the grocery store, listening to music. Sitting at a coffeeshop and writing, watching people interact around me. Running on the track at night, going to the dance club on the weekend. I spent most of my time alone, but I knew that I ever needed anyone, I could just call one of you.
You always included me in your parties, your outings, your lunches and your lives. I appreciated how much you encouraged me to explore China, to interact with new people, and to try to be the best kind of teacher I could. I worked hard on your lessons because I wanted them to be helpful to you. I wanted you to get everything you could out of my class, and mostly I wanted you to come away with the impression that people from my country are open, friendly, and fun. We're not all like the ones you see on the movies.
One thing I learned when I came back to my home is that you can live, painfully, with only half a heart. You, my students, and all of China will always have the other half. I loved my life when I lived there with you, and I loved all of you very much. You made me change in a way that was necessary, in a way that made me stronger and braver than I have ever been. It made me appreciate what I have and what I don't. And it made me miss you so very much. There is always a part of me that will belong only to you.
I hope that you will all go out and do things that are scary to you, that you push yourself past your comfort zones and try something new. I hope you follow after the dreams you chased when I met you. I hope you know that when your country was in the spot light at the last Olympic games, I was looking at you proudly saying "That used to be my home," while tears formed in my eyes.
I hope someday that my life can be as lovely as it was when I was with you. I hope to have the time for all the things I love, and also the time to stop, arrested by the beauty of a flowering peach tree, as I saw a girl once do in China. I hope you know how much you all mean to me, and that I think of you often. I hope that I will make you proud.
All my love always,
Miss Kayla
Last night I had a dream. I dreamt that I was in China again, and I was alive with excitement to see you all. I had a friend with me, and I pointed you out to her, each of you by name. Your faces were so vivid to me, and I remember thinking that I was afraid that you had forgotten me, and that other teachers had replaced me in your hearts. It is a childish, selfish fear, but for some reason when I woke up I felt inspired to finish this letter to you. After all, what I have to say to you is important to me.
When I left China, it was with a sense of excitement to finally return to my family and friends. I had learned a lot on my little adventure, but I was happy to be home again. I was happy with the thought of not living out of a suitcase anymore, happy to think that once again I could be solid and put down roots. To have more money than what I needed to barely scrape by.
But when I returned, I found that I was actually quite unhappy. It took me a long time to get a job, and an even longer time to adjust to living with someone else again. I had been terribly lonely while I was in China, even with your wonderful friendship, but having someone around me constantly just didn't fit at first. I had gotten to used to my solitary life, walking two miles to the grocery store, listening to music. Sitting at a coffeeshop and writing, watching people interact around me. Running on the track at night, going to the dance club on the weekend. I spent most of my time alone, but I knew that I ever needed anyone, I could just call one of you.
You always included me in your parties, your outings, your lunches and your lives. I appreciated how much you encouraged me to explore China, to interact with new people, and to try to be the best kind of teacher I could. I worked hard on your lessons because I wanted them to be helpful to you. I wanted you to get everything you could out of my class, and mostly I wanted you to come away with the impression that people from my country are open, friendly, and fun. We're not all like the ones you see on the movies.
One thing I learned when I came back to my home is that you can live, painfully, with only half a heart. You, my students, and all of China will always have the other half. I loved my life when I lived there with you, and I loved all of you very much. You made me change in a way that was necessary, in a way that made me stronger and braver than I have ever been. It made me appreciate what I have and what I don't. And it made me miss you so very much. There is always a part of me that will belong only to you.
I hope that you will all go out and do things that are scary to you, that you push yourself past your comfort zones and try something new. I hope you follow after the dreams you chased when I met you. I hope you know that when your country was in the spot light at the last Olympic games, I was looking at you proudly saying "That used to be my home," while tears formed in my eyes.
I hope someday that my life can be as lovely as it was when I was with you. I hope to have the time for all the things I love, and also the time to stop, arrested by the beauty of a flowering peach tree, as I saw a girl once do in China. I hope you know how much you all mean to me, and that I think of you often. I hope that I will make you proud.
All my love always,
Miss Kayla
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