the photograph: that day

Now this one is a challenging assignment. For Ms. Graham's class, we were to write (or rewrite) a scene from Penelope Lively's The Photograph using Kath's point of view (first person or third person). I chose the third person point of view to agree with the overall feeling of the book (it is a lovely, somewhat devastating book, though) and picked up the chapter "That Day" from the novel.

WARNING: THIS REWRITE-UP CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE MAJOR PLOT OF THE BOOK

***

The tides kept coming in, endlessly, like when Kath was a child, spinning in her full-circle ruched skirt. The pink ruffles flew around her, engulfing her as she spun and spun, faster and faster, then slower and slower, until she came to a complete stop and laughed as she tumbled down in her mother’s arms. It was a day in the field. Elaine was out there collecting flowers to take home to add in her catalogue of plants.

Her mother was long gone now and these weren’t those tides that took Kath to her happy place. These weren’t those tides.

The tides started in the morning. The first wave only brushed her toes and ankles. That was when Glyn woke up abruptly and complained why Kath hadn’t woken him up. The second one came when he refused to stay longer, just four minutes, for a boiled egg. It would only take her four minutes to gather her nerve to ask him the question and get his answer or tell him the statement and get his reply. The third wave came when they were at the door and, even after stalling him a bit, she still couldn’t conjure up her courage to say what she felt was needed to be said. She stopped short, suddenly wary of her insignificance but didn’t know how to assess nor confirm it, how to analyze it the way Glyn did. So she let him drive away.

The fourth wave came when she was washing the dishes. She dropped Glyn’s coffee mug and it fell into pieces. A ceramic shard cut her finger as she was picking up the debris. No, this can’t be happening to me. I can’t even do things right. Then she walked to a teak table, to a telephone that was on it, picked up the receiver and dialed a number. There was a pulsing tone on the other end.

Julia? Hi, this is Kath! Splendid! Listen, are you available to go to the pictures tonight? They’re showing something and the paper gives it rave reviews and… Oh? Oh, I’m sorry. I hope he gets better. Oh is that him crying? Alright, no, that’s fine, really. You take care and say hi to little Chris. Yes, ciao, darling!

And that was the fifth wave.

Kath put the receiver down. She had nothing to do. For the first time in her life, she really had nothing to do and no desire to fix the situation.

She went to the back porch and looked at the garden. The flowers, the plants, the landscape, they were all Elaine’s ideas. How Elaine had enthusiastically offered her help in designing Glyn and Kath’s square garden, and now, on the first autumn day, the bougainvillea was swathed in tiny pink blossoms, the red roses were swaying, dancing under the whispers and the blows of the cool wind, and the cherry tree Kath had planted earlier that year had grown. Elaine went berserk when she found out about the cherry tree. “It is out of place! It completely doesn’t match! The shades won’t give the roses enough sun they need when it grows tall!” she said, but Kath was determined and it was one of those rare moments when Elaine surrendered.

Kath sat there for hours. Looking at the garden. At the flowers. At the squirrels darting to and fro, collecting provisions for the upcoming winter. At the pigeons resting before flying to some place warmer. Then she went inside to the telephone. She knew she had to do it. If she couldn’t do it face to face, then she would do it using the phone. She would. She had to. So she dialed.

No answer, and the pulsing, promising tone gave way to busy. She dialed again, still the same. And again, and again, until…

Hello. Yes, this is Kath Peters, is Glyn there? No? Alright. No, that should be quite alright. In fact, no, could you just tell him that I called and if he could call back? Thank you. No, that’s it. Goodbye.

When she hung up, she felt the sixth wave coming in, this time sweeping up to her knees. Through the windows, she could see the short cherry tree. The tip of some leaves had started turning bright auburn, agreeing with the season. She dialed another number.

Hello, Sonia? Hi, this is Kath. Is Elaine there? Oh, when do you suppose she’ll return? Oh, alright. No. Sorry? Oh, no, just tell her I rang and if she could call back. Thank you. How are you? Oh, busy? I say. The garden is just lovely! Funny you should mention it. I was just looking at it and I thought I would give Elaine a call to say how it has turned out even lovelier than in summer. No, I can’t tell, but they look healthy. No, no hole in the leaves or anything, I suppose. Oh? Which one are those? Oh, the little colorful ones? That should be nice, I’ll look it up. Sorry? Oh, no, not at all. Well, thank you, Sonia. No, just tell her that. Yes. Alright. Goodbye.

The seventh wave reached up to her hips as Kath replaced the receiver.

She hung her head down and pressed her palms on the teak table. Then Kath turned her head towards another room, and walked to that room, toward a landing cupboard in the corner, the one stacked high with papers and what Glyn called low-use materials. She opened the cupboard, took a chair and placed it in front of the cupboard, and climbed on it, reached to the back of the top shelf. Her palm was slit repeatedly by the thin edge of the papers until she felt a folder. She pinched it between her index finger and her thumb and drew it out from its papery siblings.

Kath knew exactly what was inside the folder and so she didn’t open it. Instead, she took a pencil and with a few strokes, wrote a message in thin, capital letters on the front of the folder. Then she replaced it inside the shelf, safely hidden behind the papers, climbed down from the chair, and closed the cupboard. By this time, the eighth wave was already scooping in, covering her up to her stomach.

I can’t call Mary. I don’t need her affirmation. I know how she feels. Just like how Polly feels. But I need to know from Glyn. I need to know from Elaine.

Kath returned to the kitchen and saw the glass bowl stacked with fruit. Apples.

She recalled her conversation with Oliver that day as Polly was picking up windfall apples in Elaine’s garden. My heart is not broken. The thing is to move away. Before they change their minds. The ninth wave went up to her chest.

Apples.

When Kath was a child, her mother told her a story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. How Snow White ran away from her evil stepmother. How she ended up in the cabin that housed seven little people. How her evil stepmother, always hot on her trail, gave her a poisoned apple and eventually put her to sleep. How she was awakened by a prince, a passing prince who snobbishly and presumptuously roused her with true love’s kiss. Snow White had never known the prince and the prince had never known her. He was only attracted by her beauty. The prince had never known her, and therefore had never loved her. He was only attracted by her beauty. But Snow White loved him till the happy end.

That story did more to Kath than just refusing Jenny as her father’s new wife. Yet the deepest effect of that tale had been obscure to her, until this moment, when the tenth wave swallowed her up to her chin.

Kath stared at the red apples, stacked and piled one on top of the other. If only I could sleep.

She hadn’t eaten ever since breakfast but she didn’t feel hungry. She felt the emptiness inside her stomach, but not hunger, no, she felt barren. Snow White had the seven dwarves. Kath pressed her right palm on her stomach.

The autumn sun had set two hours ago and Kath was back in the bedroom. She was holding thin lozenges, as red as the apples, but smaller. She had given enough time for the two people to whom she had given everything, but the phone never rang back and Kath knew she had finally received their affirmation. Then, with a rare determination, she swallowed the apple-red tablets, one by one by one, and by the time Glyn came home twenty five minutes after that, Kath had long been swept into the sea.

***

let them eat fruitcake: then

This is another assignment from Ms. Graham's class. We were to use Switchback Time (a concept by Joan Silber of going forward and backward in time and isolating each section) in this writing.

To be honest, I've been using and abusing too much switchback that I find this particular piece a bit tedious and somewhat pedantic.

***

It didn’t take a long time for me to plan on going home after the strings of events that had managed to almost drain me. Even my new boss had offered me to take the weekend off on Columbus Day when the restaurant was normally crowded. I told her that I would somehow make it up to her, a promise I hoped I could keep.

I was still on the phone with Mama during my on-line search for an airplane ticket back to New York. I was able to keep her on the phone until I had entered my debit card number on the airline website and secured my round- trip tickets: the earliest flight to JFK on Friday and the last one back to SFO on Monday. Then I told her the exact dates I was going to come and there was an even bigger smile in her voice.

The week went by faster than I had expected and then Friday came. Through the bus ride and the BART, I was smiling to myself, feeling the familiar ache returning to my cheeks, replacing another ache that had been haunting my heart and mangling my mind. Then as the BART reached its final destination, I hauled my backpack and my sleepy body off my seat and hopped off the car onto the platform.

The first real pangs of yearning to go home began when, in the waiting area of the gate, in one of my rare moments of warm-heartedness towards children, I giggled silently to myself when I heard a mother attempting to tell a joke to her son and proceeded to tickling him when he didn’t laugh. He finally relented. My wandering thoughts were suddenly plucked and plunged into a cabinet full of memories, and I landed in a folder of that day in the car.

It was snowing outside. In the backseat, I saw Mama and a boy, he couldn’t be more than four years old. I didn’t know who the boy was at first, but then I noticed a scar on his right leg. I knew that scar. I still had it, though it had faded. I still remembered how I got it: a little prancing along the edge of a gutter and a little slip followed by a loud wailing and Mama came rushing out to rush me inside the house and put iodine and bandaged the wound.

“Mama, I’m bored!” the young boy said in that irritating whiny tone that all children make.

“Daddy will be out soon, sweetie,” she replied with a smile, then looked out of the window. I followed her gaze and saw a church. I remembered that church. It was where Dad and Mama got married, where Ben and I were baptized, and where Ben and I went for our confirmation. It was one of those Wednesdays when Dad gave his legal service for free at the church.

“I wish he’d come out sooner,” the boy replied, still whining. Yet Mama looked back at him with an even wider smile that slanted her eyes into short back lines.

“Would you like to play a game?” she asked.

“Would I?” the boy said. They giggled at his enthusiasm. Mama took a worn gray blanket from the back compartment.

“I’ll be the mother hen, and you’ll be the chick,” she spread the blanket on the boy, covering him from head to toe. “This is you inside the egg, what do you feel?”

“Warm!”

“What do you hear?”

“Your voice!”

“What do you see?”

“Nothing! It’s dark!” the boy replied.

“Would you like to see the light, then?” she asked.

“Yes, please!” the boy said.

“Alright, but you will need to let go off the warmth for a bit. Follow my voice and come out of the egg,” Mama replied. I could see the boy’s body wiggling underneath the blanket, and slowly his head came out, then his arms, then his body.

“Mama, it’s cold!” he protested.

“Then come here, come here under my wings!” she said, and the boy scrambled into her arms. “Oh, no! Look! There’s a nasty hawk up there!” Mama warned. The boy let out a muffled scream and ducked his head under her armpit. I giggled. “But you don’t have to worry, for you are safe with me,” she said.

“I know, Mama. I will never, ever leave you,” said the boy as he kissed her cheek.

The boarding announcement whisked me back to the waiting area of SFO. I got up and defeated the deadening burden of my backpack. Then I realized that in that car, in that moment, that young boy hadn’t had the slightest idea that he would’ve ended up thousands of miles away from the safety of her mother, ducking for cover every time hawks attacked him, over and over again.

Then, with a determined stride, I braced myself for the joys of budget flying: a six-hour flight in a cramped seat, hopefully next to someone not too obnoxious.

***

william faulkner's go down, moses

For Ms. Rosemary Graham's class, we were to read William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses. It was (finally) over and she asked us to explain why the novel ends with Delta Autumn and Go Down, Moses, and why Faulkner insisted that it should be a novel and not a collection of short stories.

Here's my thought.

***

To me, finishing this novel is like losing a chatty good friend: it’s relieving once you get to the end, but you’ll still miss your good friend. There is a noticeable transition of the tone and style of writing as we get to the end of Go Down, Moses.

What starts as a harsh, raw, cowboy adventure-like story, changes to deep and spiritual (in both the stereotypical African-American world as evident in Pantaloon in Black and the stereotypical Native American world in The Old People), and finally concludes in a mature, poignant, polished, sweet, and dare I say, feminine fashion.

Delta Autumn serves as the much-needed closure of the relationship among McCaslin (represented by Isaac), Edmonds (represented by Carothers), and Beauchamp (represented by the unnamed woman who bears the child of Roth Edmonds) as well as a warning (that seems to go unheeded) of overhunting and deforestation. Go Down, Moses explores the demise of Samuel Worsham Beauchamp and captures the sadness, almost like a curse, of the Beauchamps. It begins in a funny, rather comical way with Tennie Beauchamp and “Tomey’s Turl” (Was), then it becomes grim, though still somewhat sweet, with Lucas and Mollie Beauchamp (The Fire and the Hearth), finally it ends with Samuel’s death (Go Down, Moses). This sadness even transpires to Rider and Mannie (Pantaloon in Black), two people unrelated to the Beauchamps except for the fact that they live in Lucas’s cabin.

Nevertheless, no matter how much the tones change, there is always the familiarity in the sentences (the last sentence of the first chapter and the last sentence of the last chapter sound suspiciously the same). Indeed, it is the last two chapters that will make me forever miss Go Down, Moses. Then again, I can always reread it to remember the passion – and confusion – of William Faulkner.

***

I had to say that it was quite a challenge to read Faulkner because the campus book store was out of it so I had to purchase the Kindle version of it, and I couldn't make notes or read it on the bus or on the train (I don't have Kindle, so I download it to my laptop).

sylvia and assia

I finished reading Yehuda Koren's and Eilat Negev's Lover of Unreason in three days. I couldn't put it down. Coincidentally, last week's lecture at school was about feminism, so I did a piece on these two women: Sylvia Plath and Assia Wevill.

In the early 1960s, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were considered the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of the literary world, especially in poetry. In 1962, this “power couple” got acquainted with David and Assia Wevill. David was also a poet who greatly admired both Hughes and Plath, while Assia, she herself an admirer of Hughes’ and Plath’s work, held a career in advertising. Assia later became the force that invaded the marriage of Ted’s and Sylvia’s, claiming, “I’m going to seduce Ted!” to Angela Landels, Assia’s former boss at Colman, Prentice, and Varley.

It is easy to blame Assia as the one who has destroyed Ted’s and Sylvia’s marriage, since she is known for her infidelity, although not promiscuity. She was able to be polyandrous, yet keeping it fair between the two men she was currently involved with. One may put it bluntly as to say that she had it coming. Indeed, Assia committed suicide in a manner not unlike Sylvia’s. Their deaths were only eight years apart.

The difference was Assia also intentionally killed Shura, her only child (allegedly with Ted Hughes) while Sylvia sealed the door cracks of the kitchen to the other room where Frieda and Nicholas were sleeping, so the gas would not seep out of the kitchen and killed the two children. Sylvia’s way of leaving her children behind was seen by one side of feminists as maternal, the character used time and again to describe Sylvia. However, another side of the feminists regards Assia’s method to leave no one behind, especially Shura, Assia’s heart and soul, as altruistic.

“The mother knows the nature and quality of her act, and that killing is legally wrong; however, the mother often believes she’s doing what is morally right for her child. These mothers see their children as an extension of themselves, do not want to leave them motherless in a cruel world and believe that the child will be better off in heaven without them. The mother sees ‘hell on earth’. It’s so miserable that she can no longer stand to live. To leave that child in that world… and motherless, on top of it, will be more terrible than to murder,” explains Dr. Philip Resnick, a renowned American forensic psychiatrist and leading expert of filicide (murder based on love), who published his findings on the subject of altruistic suicide in the year of Assia’s death.

Shura was considered as an illegitimate child. It was obvious that Hughes was not proud of her, calling Shura “her [Assia’s] daughter” and only mentioning Shura in his letters one time. Ted mentioned the nanny more than he mentioned Shura in his letters. This fact and Assia’s belief that Ted did not love Shura as much as he loved Frieda and Nicholas, prompted Assia to take Shura with her.

Here we see the complexity that women faced, even when they were about to take their own lives. Sylvia must have believed that her children would lead a better, happier life, and that it was all about her: her depression, her mood swings, and her suicidal behavior. On the other hand, Assia must have worried that nobody would be able to take care of Shura. It was through these tragedies that these two women, these two rivals, became both famous and infamous. Sylvia was considered to be a good mother. She was able to juggle between writing and doing domestic work. Assia, on the other hand, although a good mother, was considered a rather sloppy housewife. Yet, these two women, as different as they were, could not make Ted Hughes love them enough, to avoid their untimely death.

Ted Hughes lived on and became a celebrated poet, receiving literary honors. He died of cancer in 1998 with a wife beside him. He might be a genius, but I would never touch his work with a ten-foot pole.

guess what came in the mail

I just got accepted at St. Mary's College of California for the MFA program in Creative Writing in Fiction.

This is...

This is clearly, one step, no... ONE LEAP towards world domination literary world domination becoming a disciplined writer that I wish to be.

So umm... I went on a shopping spree on Amazon.com and bought three books out of my very long wish list and now the books are here.

Or were here, since I got the books yesterday and I've been reading my first one called Lover of Unreason by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev. It's an interesting biography about Assia Wevill, Ted Hughes' other woman in his marriage to Sylvia Plath. Even as a hardcore Plath fan (I'm going to have a bell jar tattooed on my arm this year), I find Assia's character sometimes endearing. I'm on page 73 (of 227 - my God the fonts are small and the book is quite big) now and I just adore how the two authors described Assia's life in a neutral, academic way.

Next up is The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (edited by Karen V. Kukil). I had no idea that this book would have 675 pages with the same small fonts and relatively same book size with the Assia Wevill one.

Then again, it's Plath. I always have high expectations on her work and she never fails to impress me. And yes, I'm writing in present tense.

The final book will be Snow by Orhan Pamuk. I read My Name is Red years ago and was absolutely smitten by how Pamuk wrote it. I fell in love with him (and found out that he's rather cute - HAHA. This is absolutely not professional or academical whatsoever). I just picked Snow out of the blue. This will be my second Orhan Pamuk, so I don't really know what to expect.

amy tan on creativity

This one is an assignment in the Lecture & Listening class.

Amy Tan, the celebrated American novelist of Chinese descendant, delivered an interesting presentation hosted by TED.org. She spoke about the three Ns. The first N is Nature. Creativity may come naturally, from an abnormal chromosome produced by our brain. This chromosome makes us generate ideas. She mentioned about depression, that great artists such as Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath (my favorite poet/author), and Edgar Allan Poe suffered from depression. The second N is Nurture. Childhood trauma can be really good materials. She gave an anecdote that when she was young, her IQ test told her that she was going to become a brain surgeon, so she studied lots. The last N is Nightmare.

In a nutshell, Tan summed creativity as the sense of inability to repress looking at anything in life. As a writer, it is important to be able to receive inspiration from everything. She also stated that creative people are multidimensional, able to see through multiple layers of an issue. This makes sense since the ability to see and analyze many layers becomes the backbone of a rich and vibrant writing. In her presentation, she talked about how she received her inspiration, an experience that she described as ambiguous. She needs moral ambiguity to write stories. This moral ambiguity creates a sequence of responses and intentions, the fuel of her stories.

I am still in the middle of reading The Joy Luck Club, the first of her novels. The Joy Luck Club explores mother-daughter relationships of four women and each of their mothers. More specifically, Chinese mothers who went to the United States, seeking for a better life and future. All of the women had a somewhat murky past. They found each other through a Mah Jong club that they named “Joy Luck”. Friendship bloomed in that club, as well as competition. Being very close to my mother, needless to say, there were instances when I found myself crying on the bus while reading the book. The book itself is almost autobiographical to Tan’s life. Facets of her and her mother’s history serve as the basis of the stories in The Joy Luck Club.

Tan’s idea of creativity is relatable, at least to me. Creativity comes to me when I have an enquiry, when I begin to question aspects of life, and in some cases, of death. I sometimes make up my own answers and assumptions to some questions, as for the rest, I do research. The research depends on the time and resources. If I have enough time and resources, I’ll do a thorough analysis. If I don’t, I will have to be satisfied with what I have and go on with my life. Perhaps along the way, I will get more answers.

Nonetheless, these questions, including the what-ifs have become the source of my inspiration. I create a dialog within my head, with hypotheses and more questions. I will have these conversations until I’m ready to sleep. Usually they calm me down because I’m assured I will have enough to write.

Amy Tan believes that one characteristic of a good writer is that he or she never stops thinking. If that is the case, then I believe I have the making of a good writer.