Chapter Text
I was baptized on a sunny day, in a backyard swimming pool. The water was warm. There was grass in the bottom of the pool. I was not baptized into a Church, I did not become a member of a denomination, and in fact I have not been in contact with anyone from that community for five years.
There is a poem I have been trying to memorize for a year now. “The Prestige” by Hanif Abdurraqib. “the poem begins not where the knife enters/ but where the blade twists.”
Where the blade twists: A mortal wound. The poem begins at the point of no return.
Baptism is a kind of drowning.
I have not memorized a poem in five years. That was how I first knew something was wrong.
***
The division of art into highbrow and lowbrow is fascinating to me. Forget quality, forget craft, it is all about barriers of entry. How much about stories do you have to know before you find a given story compelling? How long do you have to listen before you can join the conversation?
Fanficion is a direct response to an existing work of fiction, what is referred to as “canon” by the fans. The form is like if a review and an analysis and an extrapolation had a plot. When I explained some of this to my grandmother she was confused by my use of “canon,” as she had only heard the term in reference to the Christian Bible.
We all exist in this world, together. All of our stories are, in some way, about existing in this world, together. Why do we value stories that create their own context more than we value stories that exist within the context of other stories? Does not all art exist within the context of other art? Does not everything people do exist in the context of everything people have ever done? There is a history, a legacy, to every artform we are bold enough to name an artform.
It does feel a little sacrilegious, what I do.
***
The first story I remember writing was a re-telling of the first marathon. It was a script for a home-made movie. I do not remember how old I was. Nine, maybe ten?
The movie was what my siblings and I decided to do for our final project in our history class. I adapted the script from our textbook, cast my siblings in their roles, and together we made costumes out of our mother’s sheets and props from of our father’s woodpile. We filmed two takes. I think that movie survives to this day on my mother’s FaceBook page. Nine, maybe eight years after I wrote that story I finally admitted to myself that I had the capacity to write anything at all.
The story of the first marathon is the story of a man who accepts the responsibility of warning his people of an advancing enemy, so they can ready themselves to fight. The man pushes himself to run so fast and so hard over such a distance that he drops dead as soon as he has fulfilled this responsibility.
Maybe, even at nine, I knew some things about myself.
***
The thing that happens when you want to die is that you can no longer be bothered by the work of living. I could not be bothered to shower. I could not be bothered to sleep. I could not be bothered to eat. And, I could not be bothered to read. I think, for me, these things are the same.
I needed food. I needed stories. I would reach the point where my body would rebel and demand. After days of nothing I would order enough takeout for three people and binge all of it, make myself sick with it. After weeks of nothing I would pick a TV show at random and binge all of it, make myself sick with it.
In the aftermath, my uncle told me I should stop reading because it was doing me more harm than good. I wanted to point to his full cupboards and scream at the hypocrisy. I wanted to demand: “Does man live on bread alone?”
***
When I was a child a teacher asked my class if we would value an item more if it was a gift or if we bought it ourselves. Most students said they would value it more if they bought it themselves; if they put in time to earn money and select the specific item they wanted. I said I would value it more if it was a gift, if I knew someone else had put in time to earn money and select the specific item they knew I wanted.
Everybody in that class hated me.
***
When I was a child I loved stories of children who saved their worlds. Fiction or nonfiction, didn’t matter. It comforted me to know children were capable of fulfilling this kind of responsibility; that I was capable of fulfilling my responsibilities.
When I turned eighteen I was no longer responsible for anything or anyone but myself. I felt relief so profound I almost drowned in it. And I felt, somehow, I had failed.
***
Novels have wider reach than fanfiction. More discerning readership. I could do so much more if I would get over myself and write novels.
But, I am not excited for my novels the way I am excited for my fic. I do not know why. I love my novels. I love spending time with them, outlining their stories, building their worlds, establishing their characters. But, I am not compelled to write my novels from deep within my soul.
When I want to die I re-read the comments on my fic. Sometimes that only makes me want to die more. What kind of inconsiderate person spends good government money to get a degree in writing, only to spend all their time writing fanfiction? For free, and for so few?
My stories exist in a bubble. I want it to stay that way. I want to stay where I am, content with my community. Is this a sin? Is not English language publishing simply a different, larger bubble? If I love writing, shouldn’t I want to be good at it?
I want to write. That is all I want to do. I want to write, but I do not want to be a writer. I want to write whatever I want whenever I want, and be free from the responsibility of finishing, and sharing, and improving. I want to write horrible, horrible things only I am allowed to read. I want to write one beautiful story and hide it in the ground.
I wanted to die before I wanted to write, I think. I don’t remember. Maybe those desires originated at the same time, from the same point of no return.
I want to believe I am alive for some great mission, some great call, some great purpose. I need a responsibility to justify my continued existence. But—I will survive without writing novels. And—I may not survive without writing fanfiction. I do not know how to reconcile these wants and needs. There is something wrong with me, and I do not know how to fix it.
The best writing advice I ever received was to read the kind of stories I wanted to write. Read what you want to write. Sounds simple. It is not simple. Am I allowed to save myself?
It is inconceivable that God would give me a gift solely for my own benefit. I refuse to believe that I am enough of a reason.
***
I am not a strong swimmer. I never practice. Is this a sin? If I love swimming, shouldn’t I want to be good at it?
If I become a stronger swimmer, I am less likely to drown.
***
I read that essay, “On Fear,” by Mary Ruefle. I read the first line and almost couldn’t read the rest. “I suppose, as a poet, among my fears can be counted the deep-seated uneasiness that one day it will be revealed that I consecrated my life to an imbecility. Part of what I mean—what I think I mean—by “imbecility” is something intrinsically unnecessary and superfluous and thereby unintentionally cruel.”
I do not know if she was referring to poetry specifically or to storytelling more broadly. I think it does not matter. Better sacrilegious than imbecilic.
“I don’t want to live the wrong life and then die.” This is from Station Eleven. I don’t remember if it was in the book, but it is in the TV show. An actor says this, and an artist writes it down.
I don’t want to live the wrong life and then die.
***
My parents named me for a prophet. I don’t think about that often. It is a common name, and it is my name, and so I think of it in terms of its commonness and myself. But, my parents named me for a prophet.
I hate the word “potential.” May God strike me down with fire if I ever tell a child they have potential.
***
I no longer believe that God is going to change me, after fifteen years of terror and hope. God is not going to change me. I do not know how to reconcile this realization with the promise that God is going to save me. God would have to change me to save me, and He is not going to change me.
I want to be a part of this world and I want to be totally separate from it. I did not ask for Story. I cannot live without Story. I want God to be clear about His expectations and my responsibilities, regarding this gift. I want to know why He won’t change me. I want my God to give me permission to waste my time, or reassure me that nothing I do is a waste of time. Time is a gift, too.
God made me. I think about that sometimes; how we were made in His image, how David, the Poet, was said to be a man after God’s own heart.
He made me. He gave me Story. Most of what I have wanted for the last five years is to go back to that moment when fingers tangled in the neck of my shirt and bite the hand that saved me.
***
At the very end of Station Eleven, in a hotel beside the sea, the artist is dying. She is on the phone with a man across the world, who is also dying. She tells him, “There is no rescue mission.”