Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ok, I'm going to shut my eyes tight and post this, from my first day. Gotta start somewhere…


Do you accept the conditions? she heard the voice within her and it was faint from all the times she'd had to promise it into silence because it never seemed to approve of anything she did or had done for a while, because she had forgotten about the deep soul search that had brought her so close, forgotten it now in the great longing for a love that could be all hers, that would not leave, not die, not abuse… that would be as father and mother to her in ways her parents had never been, that would be as sister and brother, that would be everything she had ever wanted and missed and not had, the be all and end all of a life’s worth of searching.

She closed her eyes and what she took as her soul’s longing answered yes.

Are you sure?

Yes! She opened her eyes and the face from the dream swam into focus against the deep blue sky that smiled on her body where it lay golden brown against the pale yellow of towel and brilliant white of sand, basking in the glow of afternoon sun that felt so good but could never be more than a poor substitute for the warmth of the love that she ached for, that she knew she deserved, that she had had glimpses of, and that had always vanished in the mirage of an endless desert that described the barrenness of her twenty-two years. As it did now.

She closed her eyes once more, and her heart with it. The voice, the promise she had taken from it, even the conditions, all were mirage. As usual. Sighing audibly now, she shifted her position slowly, slowly turning onto her left side, then all the way over until she was lying on her belly. And between the long sighs she brushed away the small whisper that asked if she would really sell her soul for the dream. Brushed it away as she brushed away the teardrops that squeezed from behind tight shut lids, as she brushed the sand off her arms, as she brushed the bikini straps off her shoulders after untying them, as she brushed the…

She felt it first, a slight shifting of sand beside her, and the sound that accompanied it was as if the sand was answering her sigh for sigh. Her eyes popped open and she turned her head to her right and there, lying on a bright red towel placed right up next to hers, smiling into her eyes were the eyes that belonged to the face that had haunted her since the dream.

You, she breathed.

You, he teased, and reached across her. Is this your tanning lotion? He held the cocoa brown plastic bottle up for her to see.

Yes, she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

May I? he asked and it was an obvious rhetorical question because he was already spreading the lotion over  her back. And she felt that he did not spread it so much as he massaged with it, he caressed with it, he made love with it. And her eyes closed and her body sighed, yes, yes, yes. And the small voice that had scarcely reached her consciousness such a short time earlier, and the questions and the conditions it had irked her with, and the love longings of her unfulfilled lifetime were a thing of the past as she succumbed to the pleasure of his warm hands on her shoulders and on her back and on the back of her legs, and to his fingers teasing the upper and lower and outer and inner edges of material whose sole purpose it was to keep her decent on this public beach. And yes and yes and yes…

And late, late as the sun lost its heat and the breeze cooled the white sand and the soft murmur of surf turned first to a muted roar and then to the thunder and crash and doom that signalled high tide, she regained a sense of herself and the other, of the public beach, of the crashing tide — and she flinched and moaned and pulled away from him, and he looked at her and drew back, sat up again and asked: Do you want some fish and chips? And she nodded, content to let him go for a moment, and he kissed her shoulder and stood up and brushed the sand off his legs. He swept up his towel and shook the sand off that as well and rolled it up, squatted down again to unzip the bag that she just now noticed waited on the sand below his towel and placed the rolled up towel in it. Then he stood up again with the bag in his right hand, and walked away from her.

Are… She bit her lip on the question she had been about to ask and watched him vanish in the direction of the concession stands. In the direction of the change houses too, an unkindness mocked within her. This voice she knew well, this voice unlike the other, she had never in her whole life managed to silence. This voice, she sometimes felt — as if she could foretell her own future — this voice would one day be the undoing of her, unless she could tame it, beat it into submission like the other. But she had never been able to — beating didn’t work and ignoring, which had been surprisingly successful with the other, had only succeeded in rendering this one more strident, more invasive, more persistent.

But was he coming back? the question not trusted to voice, but manifesting itself in the way teeth dug into lips. Oh ye of little faith, she chided herself in the biblical way she had been taught; she used the words without thought, as people do who have been brainwashed into thinking, being, speaking in prescribed ways. He’ll be back. Have you no faith?

No. Again she didn’t trust herself to speak the words. Not now, not when she was so close. And, and… And the face and the body and the doings were exactly as in her dreams, and was that not proof that it was meant to be? Their meeting was meant to be, twin souls merging at last. Had he not agreed it was meant to be?

She looked at the emptiness of where he had vanished and saw now that except for a few signs of life the beach had emptied itself of bodies eager for sun, and she felt the growing denial in the breeze that was no longer a welcome coolness, and she heard the surf and the surf was louder and more urgent and instead of a rhythm of life that signified two bodies merging and coming to satisfaction and to conclusion and to the end of desire, the surf pounded and thundered the portent of doom, narrowing the expanse of beach, of the land, of the life of it, and why had she thought that just then, and where was he… And as the beach shrank under the driving surf so did her spirit, her body feeling chilled now, waiting for the fish and chips and soul and body that were surely on their way to her now, and her eyes refused to look now as she searched in her bag for a shirt that would warm the body that had begun to feel the old shrivelling sensation that she remembered from her childhood and teenage years and indeed, all the years of her life, the shrinking into the self that begins from the first abandonment of the father because the mother discovered the secret that was not to be told, and of the mother because she could not forgive the intimacy that the daughter had experienced with her husband, even though the daughter was only eight, even though it could not have been her fault, even though…

She shivered now into the long, full-sleeved red and black checkered man’s flannel shirt she had thought to pack even while deriding herself for thinking of such a shirt on such a day, and she lay back and still refused to look across the shrinking sand and she blinked back the tears that wouldn’t be held and she shook herself and told herself not to be a fool, did she want to be seen crying, by him, if — no, when — he returned with the fish and chips, and with himself, oh god, please, please, please… and even as she tried to keep the feelings at bay she curled up the foetus of her, under the lack, the unattainability of love, and the fear of living and living and never owning it — life, love — never experiencing it as ongoing, as something that lasts, and as something that reaches beyond the reality of abandonment.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

There is something absolutely riveting - beguiling, is that what I mean? - about this Ruth. The juxtaposition of lyrical, deep, tormented, circling, powerful, inner dialogue with the moments of almost hilarious interaction with the man …You, he teased, and reached across her. Is this your tanning lotion?

Brilliant.

For me this does feel like a kind of prologue to a novel. I'm hoping we get to unravel this young woman's life, bit by bit, all the intimations and suggestions and hints to be opened out and explored, so we know why she is here now… if not in chronological order at least in some way as we see her in her life as it unfolds. Actually that's what I really want to see, how she navigates through, given what's on her plate, so to speak (and I don't mean fish and chips!). I have a sense of danger. She's wounded. She's in great need of love and kindness. Will this man be give it to her? Can any man give it to her? Does he return with the fish and chips and they live happily ever after??

Curiously I think there's a bit of a theme happening -  the piece I'm working on, some of what I've read of Ayla's, and this. All very different, but something the same at the heart. Well maybe just in this moment!

Lovely writing. Flat? hardly.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Maybe not flat, I think flat was what I was thinking after the first couple of days when nothing more wanted to come… Don't know, it makes me uncomfortable somehow, not sure why.

Thanks.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Flat?  Are you serious?  This is so lyrical it reads like a poem, a song.  It's almost eerie and yet it's soft and lush and and sad and and …circling and …I don't know - so unique!  If it were to be a prologue, I would read it and feel sure that I had a very special treat in store. I would be very anxious for Chapter One although not anxious for the prologue to end, does that make sense?
Yowsers, Ruth.  xo (I think we cross-posted and you explained away the flat)

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Hey Ayla, thanks.

Yeah, the flat was perhaps more about how I was feeling inside myself as opposed to how I felt about the story, but I think for a while there it all seemed the same… if you know what I mean (not sure I do).

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth, everything Sandra and Ayla said. I'm pretty amazed at what you posted here, within sentences a universe of a character unfolds with psychological depth, precison and abundance of sensuous detail. I get a sense of doom hanging over this young woman, oh so vulnerable in her longing for

a love that could be all hers, that would not leave, not die, not abuse… that would be as father and mother to her in ways her parents had never been, that would be as sister and brother, that would be everything she had ever wanted and missed and not had, the be all and end all of a life’s worth of searching.

And so familar. The universal curse of the wounded soul, beautifully and masterfully put into words here, tragically bound to find disappointment, loss and pain instead… Like Sandra, a sense the beginning of a novel here. It could be about what brought her to this point, but also about the places her longing takes her and whether she finds what she really needs to heal the wound… wonderful material. (I'm NOT going to say how terribly envious I am! ;)

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Can I just add that this is immensely beautiful? Really. And even with the circular pattern of the writing, the flow is so absolutely clear and gripping. Lovely, lovely.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Gabriele, Andrea, thanks so much for reading and commenting, appreciating. I'm feeling a bit differently about the writing of this now, thanks to y'all.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Day 2 (took me a while to get up the courage :)

Lying there she thought of the men that had been in her life and were gone. And she started, not with the first, not with the one she had wished would leave her alone, no, not with her father, but she started with the student she had met at the university bus station and he had talked her up and he had kissed her and sweet-talked her until she was beside herself and abandoned the buses and abandoned herself and after it was over he had told her he loved her and she had had such high hopes that here was someone, here was what had always been missing from her life and it was called love. Love. A word she had never before heard used in relation to herself. A word that was reserved for God, and for neighbours, and which was deserved by and the God-given right of everyone except herself.

What does it feel like, to know that every single one of God’s creatures deserves love, except for the one from whom love is demanded? The one who is bled dry, time after time after time, by the vampires that are the gods, the neighbours, the parents, the siblings, and whoever else but always the other, another. What kind of foundation for love? And the truth is, it is no foundation for love, it is a foundation for an extreme form of self-loathing, a twisted self-vampirism, an offering of oneself again and again, a virgin served up live to placate the gods, and never is there an end to the hunger of gods. And in all fairness and in all justice and in all the fields and forests of well-meaning, goodness of meaning, what chance for love, what chance for anything innocent does the child forced into giving and giving and never being deemed worthy of receiving — especially something as soul-nourishing as love — have?

She thought of Justin, whose body she had learned so well, who she had let go because she had dreamed a dream, who had gone in despair far from her, from the life and the love they had made, to Cambodia to teach English. A teacher he had been, like her. They had had everything in common, she had loved him, she thought. But then she'd had that dream, and he was not part of it, though the dream had come while she was sleeping with him in the guesthouse on Pender Island, in the middle of the afternoon, after making earth-shattering, but not soul-satisfying love. And because of the dream that didn't include him she had been content to have him go, and now the memory of him seared through her gut like a fresh wound, how they had kept in touch and then for a long time he hadn't written a word and out of the blue, a police notice sent to her because her name had been among those who were to be contacted in the event of his death. A break-in in the middle of the night, they'd said, a possibly drug-related death; they were investigating. And then she had heard no more, his death hanging over her like a judgment. What if she had caused it, by her rejection, her sending him away? He had loved her, that she knew. He had been deeply hurt when she threw him off, just like that, after the dream. Sorry, buddy, it’s been nice, but you’re not the one. My dreams have declared it. A pawn, he was. A pawn on the way to true love.

She thought of Mahmud then, from an earlier time. She had been desperately in love with him. With his soul music, his black body, his… everything about him. But in spite of all they had shared, and in spite of everything she’d done to keep him, to snare him, he had refused to marry her. He wasn’t into marriage, he’d said. And she remembered now how betrayed she’d felt when scarcely a year later he’d married someone else. Not into her, he should have said, not that way at least.

And why had she been so insistent on marriage anyway? Somehow free love was one thing and she liked it well enough, but some part of her craved legitimacy. She heard the laughter of ridicule again, from somewhere inside her, she could almost see that part of her rolling on her body's floor, holding his (why did she think of him as male?) shaking gut with the humour of it.

Craved legitimacy? You? It was a moment before the voice came again, but when it did the words spurted out between gasps: It's not about legitimacy. It’s about security. Believe me. You want the prince of fairy tales, you want so desperately to believe in happy endings that you’re willing to do anything to make it happen. Well, guess what? There is no happy ending. Oh, there are endings all right… So just go on doing what you’re doing. Go on searching and searching for that perfect one. Go on rejecting because you think there’s better to be found, go on hoping and wishing and dreaming. And just go on. Happy endings! Ha ha ha… I can tell you right now, keep going the way you’re going and you’ll have the mother of happy endings. Not! The end is yet to come, ha ha!

Oh and speaking of happy endings? You had better stop praying for this guy to come back with the fish and chips, with the body, with the lies… Yes, lies. You’d be better off praying for him to never come back. Happy endings indeed!

She pulled her beach bag toward her and felt in the back flap of it for her watch, and when she saw what time it was she thought the voice had something at least, in any case it didn’t look like he’d be back, the man of her dreams. She sat up slowly and forced herself to look and saw that the beach was almost deserted now. She shook herself mentally for her stupidity in believing in the dream once again and resigned, she rose to her knees and to her feet, stepped off the towel and pulled it up, shaking it without energy but not wanting sand in her bag. She rolled it up and put it under her arm, brushed the sand off herself. She was not cold now — the flannel shirt that had once belonged to Justin could still warm her. No, she was not cold but she found herself very hungry, now that she had given up hoping against hope, given up deluding herself, and she thought about getting in her car and driving home, but she’d have to stop somewhere and get something to eat because her side of the refrigerator she shared with her roommate was completely bare.

The concession will be open still, she thought then. I should get some fish and chips. She didn’t want to, thinking about the man and the promise and the disappointment, but she threw back her shoulders and forced herself to go.

In the car later she admitted to herself that in spite of everything she had still hoped she would see him at the concession or anywhere on the way there, on the way to the street parking. But she hadn’t and that was that. She reached for the newspaper-wrapped package she had placed on the passenger seat, opened it and picked up the large piece of cod in its thick batter dripping with calories, swaddled it in a wad of napkins she had remembered to take until the wad was soaked, then took fresh napkins and repeated the process, and when the napkins on the outside no longer showed oil she took the fish out and wolfed it down, bite after bite and interspersed with fries.

It was good, but the calories, she thought, and then, I have to go. Before I go, I should get rid of it. And the car was not that far off from the concession and from the change room and so she went into the change room that was empty and stood leaning down over the sink and didn’t stick her three fingers down her throat because she had learned how to not be so obvious, and she made herself gag by working her saliva and constricting her throat and by ordering herself mentally to get rid of it, get rid of it, get rid of it. And it came, the fries, the fish, more and more, a ghastly mess of half chewed, slimy remnants of what she had eaten. And when nothing more came she looked into the sink and she thought, how disgusting that somebody will have to see this and maybe clean it up, and she started for the door and hated herself for being so uncaring and went back to the sink and hated herself for what she did to her body and she almost gagged all over again at the mess that was her body, that was the sink and she thought in her despair, I will kill myself. I will kill myself, I know it. I have tried and I have tried and I just don’t know what to do any more. Nothing works, nothing works, nothing works. But she went to the paper towel dispenser and rolled down a length of towelling, folded it in half and took it to the sink and holding her breath, placed the centre of the long piece of towel over the sink and wrapped the paper over and around the worst of the chunks of what had been fish and fries and picked it up and carried it at arms’ length over to the garbage disposal that was part of the paper towel dispenser and that bulged with good, clean and barely crumpled papers, and she forced her disgusting towel-wrapped package down as deep as she could into the bin. Then she returned to the sink and ran water over what remained there and splashed it around and over the basin parts that the tap couldn’t reach. Hot water would have been better, she knew, but cold water would have to do, since that’s what there was. And having done that she left the change room and she still felt terrible and she still felt deprived and she still felt as if there was no hope left in life and she still felt… but she walked out of there and she walked back to her car, got in and drove away. And she knew that the next day was a working day and she thought of the kids she would teach, and how in spite of the difficulties the teaching was a good thing, perhaps the only good thing she still managed to do. And she thought that she had survived another day. A day of a short lived promise, a broken promise — no, she thought, not that, the broken promise was only in her thoughts, in her willingness to believe in the fairy tale. But tomorrow was another day, and she thought that she would see it and that it would be better than today. And today would have been all right, she would have been fine by herself. If only he hadn’t showed up and made her believe in the dream again…

She shook herself there, car idling at the last controlled intersection before home, and willed the light to turn green while she could still think green and not believe her future was as dead as the red light that held her.

What fut…? The cruel one’s voice was cut short by a sharp honk from the car behind her and a bellowed Go already! She took her foot off the brake, eased the transmission into gear, and pressed down with the ball of her right foot on the gas pedal.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

I'm so so glad you posted, Ruth.

Very touched by this. Very drawn in. Hooked in a way, almost without my wanting it to. I was wanting some of the told events to be 'shown' and I also wanted to hear them exactly as they were written, as in this way I felt more and more inside the I character, almost irrevocably so.

his death hanging over her like a judgment. What if she had caused it, by her rejection, her sending him away?

sigh…

And then, when we get to the scene in the change room, I can't go back, because I'm inside, because I'm well and truly hooked.

I am very curious about the fish & chip guy. Was he real? Or was he 'created' by the sheer force of her emotions, her need, her love, her desire? It makes me think, actually, about how we (I) have done this with, to, men, both real and imaginary.

And, I'm mmazed at the story, (with a capital T and a capital S) that is swirling around some of us these days.

Wonderful writing.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

I was wanting some of the told events to be 'shown' and I also wanted to hear them exactly as they were written, as in this way I felt more and more inside the I character, almost irrevocably so.

I hear you, Sandra. A huge part of my reluctance to post (besides something about the story itself) has been me being at odds with what feels like looseness in my writing, mostly stream-of-consciousness, and the long sections of talk talk talk and not showing. I like to think I'm a better writer than that, tighter, maybe I mean. :)

I was thinking earlier about what Nono said on today's Day thread about going back into a scene and expanding on it, immersing oneself in the details of it. What a great idea for the next time I'm at a loss as to how to continue my on-again off-again novel.

As for the fish & chip guy, I'm not sure he's real either, but I do kinda feel like the story demands it now…

Thanks so much for your comment.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

I don't know, Ruth.  I can see what both you and Sandra mean, the way this voice is coming out is different and it takes a minute to get used to but I wouldn't say that it was looseness.  That doesn't feel like an apt description.  It's different and in the end that's what I especially like about it.  What's wrong with a unique style of writing?  (I was even asking myself, does Ruthie always write like this, trying to remember).  It's magical.  That's what it is.  Magical.  My only worry, if I were to be writing this, would be if I could keep it up.  If there came a change it would have to be slight, carefully done and maybe just here and there for clarity.  Personally, I hope you can keep to this voice.
I cried.  I just sat and bawled.  I had to take a break and go blow my nose.  You moved me. 
Much Love

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

I thought both of these were just incredibly beautiful pieces of writing Ruth. I was drawn in by the first, and felt spit out by the second - spit out in the sense that I felt very raw and emotional after reading it. I cried too. I can't see clearly to pick out my favorite lines, but just wanted to tell you that I am in awe.

xo

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth,

I wanted to start reading the other stories posted.  It will probably be one at a time, as I can.  Yours was at the top when I looked.

Nothing really new to add.  I feel a sympathetic understanding with the character, though I haven't experienced the worst of these things, I've certainly experienced the betrayal of hopes and beliefs in love.  Especially, in my younger days.

I too was sucked into and along the story.  It felt like almost that same kind of morbid curiosity one feels with a sad but “hot” media story.  I want more and more and I'm so grateful it isn't me but as a women, it's all me and I understand that.

I dread it but I “know” this woman's dreams won't work out, never work out, and I'm vindicated when it happens.

It's all so real, I want it to work out, I want her to overcome it and have the happy ending but I fear, deep in that same place I “knew”, that something will happen.  The hope and the dread will work together to keep me turning the pages.

Thanks for sharing -
Deb

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth - just wanted to add, is that what I feel is happening here is a kind of hovering, a circling that has to happen before the big dive. Not that there's not been diving here, there has. But I really do feel you are on the 'right' track. You'll know when it's time to move more into showing. It's already started to happen here. Everything you have written feels 'necessary'. Whether or not it ends up in the book is irrelevant right now. Something big is pulling, and you'll know when the right time is to tug on the line.
xo

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth, what is mentioned here is what I feel is such a challenge when writing a novel, the showing versus telling. I think if this were not Nanowrimo, it could be easier to show more, but it is something, for me at least, about the word count that creates a pressure that comes out in my writing as telling when I want to be showing. Yet, with both excerpts of yours, I was drawn in completely, willingly, wanting to go through the highs and the lows with your character.

I agree with Sandra that things will come out onto the page as they do, and you will decide what to do with them once they are all there. I think this is a very fascinating look at a woman in all of her facets, some of which reveal so much more by what is not exactly said. I feel that need to be thin that would take her to such lengths, and then the emotions that come up after the purge, but there is so much more to it, I suspect, than mere calories in and calories out. That's what has my brain spinning, wanting more, wanting to know the pain that has caused this. It feels very riveting to me.

Love,
Andrea

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ayla, Leigh-Anne, Deb, Sandra again, Andrea:

You guys are so awesome, coming here and reading and appreciating verbally. It means a lot to me to read your comments about this part of the story that came out like blazes in the first two days, and then left me feeling flat and stuck and… I didn't actually think I'd share these pages, but now I'm glad I did.

Sandra: …what I feel is happening here is a kind of hovering, a circling that has to happen before the big dive.

That makes sense, thanks, and from the writing I've done since it looks like there might be a whole lot more circling to do before the actual dive. :) I'm ok with that as long as it doesn't start looking like the circling is an end in itself. And I'm thinking that, so far at least, I'm on track (for the amount of time I've spent writing anyway). There is so much 'stuff'… and this isn't a story I've attempted before, or even thought I would/could attempt. And part of me is concerned with thinking that if I'm going to do this already then I should make it as true as possible, and yes, I know that sort of thinking is a block in itself…

And I meant but forgot to comment to what you said in your earlier post (and I think elsewhere as well, though not in the same words), about being amazed at the story, (with a capital T and a capital S) that is swirling around some of us these days. How true, and it feels good to be in such excellent company. Courage in numbers, as the saying goes.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth: And part of me is concerned with thinking that if I'm going to do this already then I should make it as true as possible, and yes, I know that sort of thinking is a block in itself…

This made me think of that Diana Athill interview I posted.
Her talking about 'getting it right'. I think there are two approaches to this, and one 'works', the other can get in the way. The one is really climbing in there, as if it were happening now, as you write, seeing everything, feeling it and so on, and writing it down, not looking for better words, but experiencing as fully as possible the world that you find yourself in, the other is wanting to the piece to be 'true' in the sense of 'how it really happened'. I think if one does the first, then the second naturally occurs, regardless of the truth of the actual facts. But I know you know this.

My sense is that you ARE climbing in here, it might look a little different to some ways of climbing in, but it's happening.

Interestingly I have a different but similar struggle: wanting it to be absolutely 'true' but at the same time not tied down and limited by 'actual' events… it feels like walking on a tightrope!

xo

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Hmm, yes, and I'm coming from having heard but not actually witnessed much of what happened, and wanting to get it 'right' regardless. Like a mystery, working back from some event that was the culmination of everything that came before, trying to piece together a jigsaw puzzle life.

Like my I-character said at the end of Day 5 (not posted), I will ask the question again, and maybe I’ll just keep asking it if nothing else comes: Why should I remember when I really haven’t a clue of what went before? Why? What? How?

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

from Day 10


A motel? I asked. I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. I’m a married woman now, I said, and didn’t tell him what a disaster the marriage was turning out to be. And you’re married… I let the words hang, knowing he had been but not knowing any more than that, some marriages don’t last very long.

Just for talking, he assured me. Not for cheating on your husband. As for me, nah, my marriage didn’t work out, went the way of the dodo. He laughed. He didn’t seem any too sad about it. Now you, he half teased, if it had been you… he looked at me quite seriously for a moment. You’re looking good.

Oh Mahmud, I said, and sighed. If only… But you weren’t ready for marriage, not then, not with me.

I'll admit it, he said, I was afraid. I was crazy about you but you seemed so fragile, so vulnerable. You never talked about it, or very little — I remember something about your father — and I didn't know if I'd be able to handle being with someone… you were so emotionally charged… So I said that, about not being ready to settle down. And you split…

I started crying, or not really crying but the tears started in my eyes and he looked at me and in the gentlest voice said: Can you hold those for a sec, hon? I’m just going to go over to the office and get a key. I nodded, I couldn’t have said anything then no matter how hard I tried.

In a few minutes he was back with a key and a room number and he came round to open my door and pulled me out of the car and guided me, in the shelter of his arm, to the room. As soon as we got in the door and he had closed it, he wrapped both warm strong, familiar arms around me and we stood there, him not hugging me so much as holding me, one hand reaching up now and again to remember my hair, shoulders, face, his fingers wiping at the tears that wouldn't stop coming, and all the time he was crooning softly into my ear, little nothings really, the kind that are so comforting to a child when she has fallen down and scraped her knee or maybe just her ego. And when I was all cried out and quiet again, he still didn't let go of me but sidled with me still in his arms over to the window and closed the drapes partially and then he led me over to one of the two double beds in the room, the one furthest from the window, the far side of the bed. He let go of me then and he sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside him, reached again for my hand and drew me down. He looked at me and brushed the flat of his thumbs under my eyes that must have still sparkled tears, and then he feathered his fingers over my face so gently that I almost started crying again, but he stopped when he saw that, and just held me, and he grinned at me and said: Well then…

Oh, I sighed, you just can’t even imagine how good it is to see you. Everything…

Sh, sh, he said and placed the blunt forward tip of his little finger over my mouth. And I’m glad we met again too, he said. You are such a special special woman. I’m still crazy about you, he said, but I know you’re married and as far as I’m concerned we’re just here to talk, to catch up.

So we talked and talked, about the old times and I told him a little but not much about my marriage and was torn, I really wanted to do more than talk. I wanted to hold him and love him and I wanted more than anything to be made to feel special, I wanted to be with someone who wouldn’t — never did — ridicule me or put me down.


My sister paused in her narrative and I took the opportunity to edge in a word.

You mean, Ray does? I was guessing, but I knew Marv and I knew Ray was perhaps a bit classier, more educated although I wasn’t sure about that, and definitely better looking and in better shape, but I knew that deep down they had been cut from the very same bolt of cloth.

She just nodded. Marv? she asked.

I pressed my lips together, and didn’t nod, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t need me to, that she could tell from having seen him and the two of us together, the interactions, maybe, and the bulk of him, the attitude, the tough guy hiding behind a veneer of charm as thin or thick as he cared to make it.

At least Ray doesn’t look like dad, I said, showing her the smile side of my face. Her answering smile was even more lopsided than mine and after a while we just couldn’t help it, we both burst out laughing, if a little hysterically.

When we calmed down again, she said, Anyway, so that’s why I was so late, sorry. We didn’t do anything more than talk — although we could have, she added reflectively — but the time just got away on me. There’s more that I haven’t told you yet, something that happened not today but long ago around the time I split up with him.

I always thought, I said, from the way you talked in the past, that he was the one that left you, but you’re saying now — or from what you said a while back it was you? Because he didn’t want to get married then?

Yes, she nodded. And I did, I just wanted it so desperately and I thought I was ready. I have always wanted to be part of a family, I hated being alone and always feeling I had no one, I didn’t belong anywhere. Always feeling like an outsider.

I could certainly identify with that feeling. And I could remember times when I thought it would be great to be married, but I don’t know, not at any price. I shook myself mentally: that would be true for her too — the not at just any price part. But she had loved Mahmud and from what she’d said, he’d have been perfect for her, the one who would have been able to settle her maybe. Maybe not, I reflected, maybe he would have tired of her neuroses, the kind of neurosis that we all — we sisters — seemed to be saddled with.

So anyway, you did come eventually, I said, to the airport I meant, and that's all that matters. Are you going to see him again now that you’ve reconnected?

I don’t think so, she said, with a sideways look. I don’t think it would be wise, it wouldn’t stay platonic long, and then what?

Well, what about it? I said. It’s not like Ray is your ideal mate. And if he ridicules you and makes you feel like shit, maybe it would be better to dump him and see where another relationship might go? Especially one with someone as wonderful and gentle and caring as your Mahmud?

Not my Mahmud, she answered, stubborn. And Ray isn’t like that all the time, she added defensively, and turned the heat onto me. What about Marv? she said. You’re still with him, right?

I sighed, she was right, who was I to talk when I couldn’t seem to quit the relationship I was in either, and with a man who could be blood brothers with hers, at least as far as intents and purposes and attitudes and control issues and — what else? isn’t that enough? — are concerned.

We’re in the same boat, I said, looking at her. Maybe we should help each other…

She shook her head. I can’t, she said. The dream, remember? I just know it was meant to be with Ray, we met again in this life to be together or to work through things we hadn’t worked out before.

I was silent. I didn’t know enough about how reincarnation and karma and all that stuff was supposed to work. To tell the truth, I didn’t even like to talk about it, it spooked me out too much even when she did. But I hoped that I would never let anything tell me to stay in a marriage or relationship that had such obviously bad effects on me…

I shook myself out of it. Hypocrite! I scolded.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

What a surprise that Mahmud really did just want to talk.  As I read, I was just thinking, “uh huh, a hotel room to just talk, sure!”  I'm curious about the relationship between the I-characters sister and Mahmud in their younger days …hoping for a flashback?  What were these sisters like as teens or very young women?  What was their relationship like then?  Were they always so close?  (I don't have a sister and am always fascinated to know more about how sisters interact and love).  And these marriages …lots to work with here, Ruth.  Certainly leaves me wanting more! 
Thank you for posting.  This has a completely different feel than the first two posts and I'm just crazy to keep reading because I've been pulled in head first.(with every post that is, not just this one)
Love you

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth, I read the third, new piece this morning, while checking my email. Only wanted to have a short look but got hooked immediately and had to read the whole thing. Loved it. Great interaction, first the Mahmud scene, then the two siserters. Loved everything, the dialog, the themes, the undercurrent, especially in the second piece. That sister and her fatal dream! Oh boy! VERY interesting stuff.

Just now I read the piece intbetween and loved it too. Very different feel to it. I think it's masterfully done. Painful, but good. The inner dialog, her relationship to men, to her self, her body… I worry about this character!

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Oh, yay! Lately when I want to comment on the prose threat, it has been freezing so I have to close my browser and try again. So, I did, and here I am. I want to say I agree with everything that Ayla and Gabriele said. Oh, those control issues that the men have. It tells me that both of these women may be in trouble. I should know.
I cannot wait to read more and find out where the sisters go next.

xo

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Thanks, you guys, for reading, commenting, encouraging. I have to say I liked writing this part because in spite of undercurrent, etc, it seemed less emotional, nice to get out of the intensity sometimes.

Love the questions and the observations, they're very helpful.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

from Day 13


And the morning and the evening were the first day.

I looked at the words I’d written. Something in the back of my mind had been nattering at me all month, ever since the third day when I couldn’t figure out where to go from where I’d left my heroine, after the beach scene and her disappointment, sitting in front of a red light at an intersection with some jerk in the car behind hers honking and shouting at her to get going. Ten days of denying expression to the words, ten days of refusing to allow them their say. And who knows where my story might have gone from there, rather than this non-story, or at best, bits and pieces of story, almost drivel that it’s become. Except for some good bits… I’ll say it again, no, write it, and I’ll write it not like I did at the beginning of this day, but like it wanted to get written in the first place, with the morning and evening parts switched the other way around:

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

See, that was the thing — that I would have thought it should be morning, and then evening. That’s the logical way and everybody knows that if you’re talking about one day, it should be morning first and evening last. Because that’s just how the day works.

But what if that isn’t the way it works? interjects a soft, almost hesitant voice. Just because you think the day begins with the sun rising and ends with it setting, just because you think that’s the way it is, does that make it how it really is? Does it make it true?   I almost didn’t hear that last part because at the word “rising” a loud OH! had startled out of my mouth, bursting as it seemed from some hidden depth of my being. It sounded like a  cry, short, cut off, as when one discovers a thought and the meaning of it that fly in the face of logic, of everything that one had ever believed or been taught.

OH! There was a day, and it wasn’t the day I read about in the Sunday School books where Joshua was losing a battle and asked God to intervene, not in the battle but in the logical process of sun rising and sun setting and the evening and the morning being the first or the whatevereth day. I am thinking of that story and thinking, God intervened in the logic of it and he made it so the sun did not set that day. At all. Or at least not until after Joshua’s army had defeated the — whoever it was, and who can remember, but whatever army he was fighting that day.

And the evening and the morning were the first day. And I’m catapulted into that illogical sequence of the sun setting and the sun rising and I am thinking that it is true, that that night in November, 19__, the sun set and it set on the last breath you took, ever, in this life, and  presumably in Portland Oregon as in other parts of the world the sun rose again in the morning, but for you it didn’t. And for me, where I was in Calgary it must have risen, technically, although I don’t remember it now. And if it did, it rose only temporarily because on that day I was at work in my office, taking measurements from some blueprints of office or apartment building or school or hospital drawings so that I could estimate how much material would be required to insulate the pipes and ducts and other equipment in the building that would keep water running hot or cold without too much energy loss, that would maintain the building’s heating system with the greatest possible efficiency. And at that moment, before the phone call, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to hang on, hang on with everything I'd got, to this moment. Hang on, while life as you know it remains, hang on because even if you think it sucks and there are times when you think it’s not worth living and is it coffee time yet or lunch time, and… and… Hang on, because when that phone rings the sun sets, even if it has just risen, even if it’s still early morning. And there should be a warning on phones, a self destruct device that explodes the thing before it can impart bad news to you, the one who answers dutifully on the first or second ring.

And I’m thinking the sun appeared to rise for me that day, to set that night, and to rise again in the following morning before I heard the news that the world — a big part of the world, my world anyway — had ended. What world, I ask, would not have you in it? You?!

And the sun appeared to rise and it appeared to set and then it appeared to rise again, and then in one second of phone ringing and answering and a few husky words, I knew it had been illusion — two risings and one setting, complete illusion — and that it would not be possible in reality to have those risings and settings again for a long time. And I knew it if for no other reason because I had already been there, I had been there with Matt, and that was a scant ten years earlier. And that too was at night, and the difference was that I knew it right away — or as soon as I could convince, or as soon as the doctors and his family and whoever was around — as soon as they could convince me that he was not breathing and would not breathe again. Ever. I was there, and still it took what feels like years till I was convinced of the fact that he was dead — to all intents and purposes at the time, dead to me, as a living breathing being anyway, dead in that end-of-the-world way. And of course I never saw him again — living or dead — after that time in the emergency room of the hospital I’d driven him to, knowing it was already too late… I never saw him again because I refused to. Refused to go to the funeral home after the body was put on display, refused to play ring-around-the-coffin. Refused to put my broken self on display.

With you it was the other way around, wasn’t it? I did see you — sorry, your body — at the funeral home, in the viewing room, even if not at the funeral itself because somebody had requested that the coffin be kept closed. But I didn’t see what happened before, the events that led up to that conclusion, and it still isn’t clear to me, even after all these years, how that thing that had happened could possibly have happened. It seems to me so much is hidden around that, so much gives the whole thing an ugly flavour of intrigue. Like how come Ray was at the house even before the police? In the house, even though you had never, and for good reason, given him a key? And how come the police didn’t have a problem with that — him the angry husband who was obviously not on good terms with you, willing to go to jail even rather than pay the allowance he had been ordered by the courts to pay, pending final settlement of the divorce and custody suits.

I wonder now whether if God hadn’t intervened in the setting of the sun that day, would Joshua’s people have been annihilated, the Israelites or whoever they were, annihilated right off the face of the earth? And how that would have altered the history of the world. And I wonder whether if God had intervened in your case (even if no one thought to beg it of him) and in Matt's, if he’d kept the sun at mid day for as long as it took, wouldn't the two of you, my beloveds, be alive today? Wouldn't we all be living and laughing and loving, having the time of our lives?

You especially, thinking of the way you died — so desperate, so completely at the end of your rope — wouldn't you have held on if the sun had refused to set that evening? Life doesn’t seem fair sometimes, does it? The way these interventions are pulled for some and not for others.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth.
Ruth.

Some weeping going on.

Thank you.

This is more than beautiful. And there is more for me to say but I can't for reasons that will become clear.

S.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

dear rudyan.
I have only read day one so far. so I am a little out of touch and I didn't read the other comments.
I was riveted by your words and the feelings and sensations that they evoked. I loved way you compared the sound of the ocean crashing with the coming together and subsequent parting of two lovers.
I understood her fear and her need to ask are you coming back. that is very familiar to me.
I love it.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Dear Ruth,
This must have been a tough write.  Just beautifully done and absolutely heart wrenching.  Heart wrenching.  And did I mention beautiful?
XO Ayla

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Hey Jen, thanks for reading day 1 and for your detailed comment, telling me how it made you feel, what you identified with. It is always good to have your feedback.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Sandra, Ayla, some part of me always cringes at posting stuff like this. You guys are so good at reassuring me… And I know that sometimes there just aren't words to say.

For me the ability to write is more and more the ability to make people (readers) feel that they are reading the story as if it were written on their own bones. But to keep the sentimentality out of it, that's difficult. And having said that, if/when I'm right in there I don't worry about it, I leave sentimentality to figure itself out.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

Ruth, I came back tonight to read your last bit here. I remember I had started it some time ago but left it for later, because it seemed like something very complex and intense that would need my full capacity of taking it infinally. Now 'later' has come and I'm glad I read it. I don't think you need to worry about sentimentality. Heartbreakingly well written, about things so painful and emotional true and without a grain of sentimentality in it.

I love the recurring theme of the sun and the first day. Masterfully pulling the pieces together, giving a sense of direction and at the same time a beautiful metaphor (is that the right word?) for fate, or rather the futile wish of being able to change it, or a God who makes exceptions… so beautifully written.

And I wonder whether if God had intervened in your case (even if no one thought to beg it of him) and in Matt's, if he’d kept the sun at mid day for as long as it took, wouldn't the two of you, my beloveds, be alive today? Wouldn't we all be living and laughing and loving, having the time of our lives?

I don't know whether you are willing and ready to hear this, dear one, but in my eyes this is the kind of stuff great literature is made of. I don't think there is one sentimental bone in you, frankly, and not that I mind sentimental. There is something that goes much deeper, though, and that's what you've got and what shines through in whatever you write, what shines and aches powerfully through this exerpt.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

I could have sworn I commented on this, but I can't find it so I am not sure what happened to it. maybe it is buried down there somewhere.
I will just have to do it again, just in case. I thought this was exceptional.
I could taste her fear that he would not come back and they way she had to fight with herself not to ask him.
I like the analogy of the surf and two lovers. the way she had to put on her shirt to get warm. the shrinking sand.
really well done.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

oh I am so glad that I decided to take some time tonight to read and catch up on people's excerpts… I've read all of yours again - three times now, Ruth, and each time I find them more and more touching… well, no wait, it is more that they touch me more and more on a deep level. Achingly beautiful. I love the exchange with Mahamud, the desire, the sisters, the letter, so many other things… I felt like I was being transported into this world, like floating on water. I also really like the theme of the sun and the first day. It's very intense for me to read the last excerpt - I love reading your writing, and I hope that you will keep posting excerpts. I can't wait to read more.

wonderful wonderful work…

xo
la

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

would love some more!

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

ditto to Ayla. I was just coming here, thinking, I'd like to read some Ruth.

Re: Capricorn's Moon (NaNo excerpts)

(getting too long, thread 2 here)