I rewrote a piece that I finished writing when I moved here in 2012. For the original is lost from my other blog and computer. My other blog site which required a separate purchase of a server to store my work, Fat Cow. I had my brother proof-read it for me as every writer needs an editor. You should have seen his face while going over the passages I wrote. For, I believe now, he was getting information from another person in an ear piece. At the time – not a code, or secret word – I never understood why my brother when visiting me would change from contact lenses to glasses, and so on. However, I believe, he was doing as he was instructed.
See, as I wrote before not everyone has God moments, so how could they have known the great history between David and I? All they had to do was ask. I am not letting the persons responsible off the hook. Boundaries were crossed. Just because you can do something does not mean you should do something. I could jump off a cliff. Should I, no.
The loss of the relationship between David and I – is incomparable. Not one man, as I have been allowed to have – can compare to what happened between the two of us. I simply have been looking and wanting a man (a real man who was born a man, doesn’t want to be anything else, but a man, that loves women, who love men – tired of writing this) that would be able to make me feel that deeply, that greatly, that much passion again. For after someone like David, anything less – is less.
There are a lot of variables which have changed my present thinking, however the past does not and cannot alter. I understand my TiVo was bugged, recording me and my family as it went. Electronically, possibly altering my thought. So, what I thought and believed was a God moment might have been contrived by an outside influence.
For we are talking about decades here. Like the time I went to Asheville, NC. Ate dinner at a food court in a mall, and I felt – aware. Like the fact that the electric bill I paid every single month at my former house increased so much, I wondered if I wasn’t paying for several neighbors electric bills. That they had bugged and altered the electrical wires of my house and account. In a way, forcing me out of my house I spent so much time and money on. The house my brother wanted to retire in. Making me believe it was impossible for me to pay for, and keep up with.
Some of the words, and phrasing is exactly as I wrote it before. Some details I did not write back in, for a better read.
What?!
Are you kidding me?!
That’s it?!
That’s the ending?!
You got to be fucking kidding me?!
What the hell was that?!
That’s the end.
That’s the end?
That’s the ending?!
I can’t believe it.
There must be more to it than that.
What the hell was that?!
Oh my God?!
Oh my God!!!!!
UGH!!!!!
I must be missing something. That cannot be it!
That’s the fucking ENDING?!
AAAHHHHHH!!!!!
How can that be the ending?!
How is that the end?
How is that a good ending?!
What?!
I mean what the fuck?!
What a waste of time, energy, and money! For that?!
For that?! I left my house?! For that I spent my valuable time and precious money?!
For that?!
What the…
UGH!!!!!
This went on for days.
After going to the movie theater to watch New Moon, I became enraged.
For days.
I was so angry, in fact, I had to check myself.
Why did that ending upset me making me so angry it consumed my thoughts for days and days afterwards?
Like every other person in the entire world, I was bombarded with how Twilight took over the entire planet. It was on every television station, in magazines, on radio stations, and in stores. The actors were everywhere making appearances and giving interviews. Billboards, posters, and merchandising were everywhere consuming our daily lives. And, I for one, was not having it.
I am a cerebral person.
I am not interested in teen-aged vampires and wolves. I’m too fucking old, man. I wasn’t even a teen-ager when I was a teen-ager.
I had no interest whatsoever in watching Twilight. I was not about to become one of those Twi-hard fans. Certainly, there was higher art out there to be viewed to enlighten my mind. Learn more about the world and cultures. That, was not gonna happen watching Twilight.
However, it turns out that is exactly what happened.
Succumbing to the inevitable, I went to see Twilight in the theaters. Hmm, that was not so bad. In fact, it was enjoyable. It was pleasant to watch. Characters, location, story – that was all fine. I can hardly wait to see the next one, I thought to myself.
Then, New Moon.
What the…
What the fuck!
Ugh!
A wedding?!
A fucking wedding?!
That is the ending to New Moon?!
Dumb.
What a waste!
People liked that?!
Did people actually get excited over that ending?!
Oh my GOD!!!!!
There has to be more.
Someone must have gotten something wrong. The book to film translation must have left something out, or created something that didn’t exist, or screwed something up somewhere.
I must read the books.
I must read the books, so I can understand where Hollywood screwed up. Because there must be more to the story than a wedding as an ending.
I ordered the books from Amazon. All the books available to purchase.
Then, I started to read.
Flip the page, flip the page, flip the page. Hmm, easy to read. Flip the page, flip the page. I was beginning to enjoy the sound of that. Flip the page, flip the page, and I was done reading Twilight.
Alright, on to New Moon. Reading and reading all night long with the television on and the sound muted while my mother was sleeping. Still keeping an ever-present eye open if her heart went into fibrillation. Stopping to take her to the toilet, or bedside commode, or water, or to write-talk to her, or anything else that would keep her going, and healthier than in a nursing home.
Flip the page, I’m done reading New Moon, and that is exactly how New Moon the movie ended?! There must be more. I must read them all. More importantly, I want to read them. I want to read all of them.
Television and internet searches had been my only reprieve from the excruciatingly, confining, boredom of my situation. Hours and hours, and hours and hours – alone – while being around others. I longed to know more about the world. I longed to know what was going on in the world. I longed to be a part of the world again.
Reading.
Reading was helping me.
Reading was helping my brain.
I had been traumatized by my mother’s strokes. I had been traumatized by her last stroke. I was at a loss at how to continue since she and I had been preparing to move to California. She had said she felt like it was going to be a big year. I felt something was going to happen. I thought we were going to move to California. I thought I was finally going to leave Florida which is what I’ve wanted to do almost from the moment I arrived.
Then, I found her face down on our kitchen floor. And, I didn’t know what to do.
Shock.
Shock can last a long time.
Shock can happen for years.
I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know how else to live. I didn’t know how else to manage my mother and father. Move away? Leave her in the care of my father?!
I had never been so alone.
I had never been so alone with my family.
Families don’t happen in half hour or hour time slots.
Reading was helping me. Connecting brain matter and tissues, sparking my brain to think again. Words were helping.
Then, the memories started returning to me.
Catherine and Heathcliff.
Didn’t…
Didn’t David?
Wasn’t that in the courtyard at HCC?
Didn’t David stop for just a moment?
Didn’t David stop being, DAVID?
Didn’t David stop being the screaming man who enjoyed humiliating me, and in the smallest, almost a whisper tell me he and I were like Catherine and Heathcliff? All those years ago? He had that way of reaching the deepest part of me. That place that makes you stop. The place where no one and nothing else matters, but the present.
And, for a moment, I believed him.
But, I mean come on! This is David. This is David Wolfe. He must be trying to find some way to make fun of me and nothing more.
I almost turned.
I almost turned to the library to find out about Catherine and Heathcliff that day.
Wait, what?!
September 13?
Bella’s birthday in Twilight is the same birthday as mine?!
Catherine and Heathcliff, too? Catherine and Heathcliff are also in Twilight?!
Sitting in the back seat while my brother drove, mom in the passenger seat enjoying the scenery as it went by, I began to tell my brother how much I enjoyed reading after I finished The Twilight Saga. I couldn’t think of what to read next. Creggan suggested I read Wuthering Heights.
Wheeling my mother into the entrance of Target, as the routine went one person wheeled the wheelchair, another person was in front of the wheelchair either blocking people from walking right into the wheelchair – as I discovered a great number of people are completely oblivious to wheelchairs with their eyes in front occasionally it is important to look down for others – or, pulling items from the shelves for my mother to look at, my brother said holding up the book, they have Wuthering Heights.
In the bargain section at Target was Wuthering Heights. For less than a few dollars, I bought Wuthering Heights.
A much different read than Twilight.
Accents are not as easily read. However, I enjoyed Catherine and Heathcliff together.
Wait, what?!
That’s it?!
Volume one and she’s dead?!
Come on!
Nobody wanted it to be over. Catherine didn’t want it to be over. Heathcliff didn’t want it to be over. And, she dies! She dies?!
UGH!
Then, the memories again.
Anna Karenina.
How many arguments did David and I have in the short time we went to college together? Our arguments seem like the summation of my entire life.
Anna Karen, David said.
Anna Karenina, I said.
Back and forth, and back and forth. Both of us trying to prove and tell the other they were wrong. Both of us believing we were correct, and the other was wrong.
So, I read Anna Karenina.
It turns out both David and I were both correct. So, we fought for nothing.
Anna Karenina was intimidating by its size. I thought it was going to take me years to read.
Boring. Dry. Paperwork. I am reading about government officials stamping paperwork? Try reading that in the middle of the night when you are beyond stress-exhausted.
Mowing grass with a scythe? I am reading about mowing grass? I am reading about physical activity being good for the mind, body, and soul? Russian aristocracy. I am reading about the daily routine and boredom of aristocracy? So much of Anna Karenina was either so out-of-date thinking-writing that I found it redundantly boring, or so beyond contemporary living, I found it dull and unrelatable.
However, there was Levin. There was Kitty. Levin being Tolstoy, and Kitty, Tolstoy’s wife. I could see them. I could imagine them in Russia. I could see their love for each other.
It took me months, not years to finish reading Anna Karenina. Then, wait…what?! Part Seven and the story is over?! Why is there a Part Eight?! Why are there still pages to be read?
Oh my God, it was a tedious read. Middle of the night while the world was asleep I was up trying to read classical Russian literature, and my mother won’t fall asleep this night. Agitating me. Why is that?!
So, I move to another room to read. Why won’t she fall asleep? Read Cherith, get it done. Read. Read. I’m reading. I’m reading as best I can. Reading. Reading. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven words…the book starts to slip from my hands, spinning, the room is spinning. I am sitting down, and I feel I am stumbling. I reach for the book. Grabbing, pulling the book back to me. Breathe. Breathe Cherith. Breathe.
Seven words and I thought of David.
Seven words, and I instantly wanted to talk to David again. Make it right again. Make it ok again.
Seven words.
Read Cherith, finish reading.
A few more nights and I finished Anna Karenina. Yet, I was so struck. It lingered in me. It resonated in me. So, I decided there must be more. I read the introduction, the notes, every last bit of sentences within that book, I read.
I don’t like to read the introductions before I read the book. I don’t want to be influenced by it. I want to meet the book where I find it. Then, there it was. The struggle Leo Tolstoy found himself in when his publisher did not want and did not publish the book as Leo Tolstoy had written it. Unable to allow the degradation of his words, thoughts, ideas, politics, and story, Leo Tolstoy published Anna Karenina as we know it today himself at his own expense. What must that have been like? To be at the end of your career, well-known, famous around the world, wealthy, a land-owner, a well-liked writer of high regard, and your publisher turns you down?
Those seven words were an epiphany to me. In those seven words cultures and worlds could be understood. Those seven words changed my world in a moment.
I had to know more.
I had to learn more.
I had to read more.
I wanted it all now. I wanted to read every one and everything. Who else? What next? Which book do I read next?
It wasn’t just the epiphany, or the memories. It was the words. Underlining as I went, I discovered vocabulary that doesn’t reside on every street corner. Underlining the words, I didn’t know the meaning to, underlined passages that moved me, underlined as a reference.
I discovered John Muir – one of the most beautiful sentences ever written, Jane Austen, Zora Neale Hurston, Natsume Soseki, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Walt Whitman, and Pablo Neruda, just to name a few.
I discovered a love for classical literature and its beautiful expanse.
I discovered poetry and its ability to make ordinary exquisite.
I discovered short stories, my greatest love of all. Short stories being the abstract art of the literary world. For short stories exist all on their own. They do not require a beginning, or an end. They simply are. Short stories simply exist without need.
Short stories, I believe, to be the greatest literary art form.
I learned from them. I learned from all of the writers, their stories, and their characters. And, I wanted to know more. I wanted to read more. I want to read more.
From wherever you start, you’ll never know to where the journey will take you.
If it hadn’t read Twilight, I would never have read Wuthering Heights. If I hadn’t read Wuthering Heights, I would never have read Anna Karenina. If I hadn’t read Anna Karenina, I would never have read those seven words. If I hadn’t read those seven words, the universe wouldn’t have expanded and collapsed in the blink of an eye.
Twilight was my gateway drug to the literary world.
And, I will read again.
WE - DO NOT AGREE! 