When writing doesn’t touch hearts, but inadvertently restores fears.
A Lori Visit
(Lori is a child muse. Through my own thoughtlessness, my stories about Lori have been misinterpreted in a disturbing way. I apologize to those who saw something sinister in the relationship between author and his child muse.)
.
Stepping barefoot across the lawn, I head toward the old garden bench where I can sit and gaze out across the Pacific Ocean, feeling the sun’s warmth. I’m thinking about a story I’ve started. It’s good sometimes to leave the confines of the page, breathe some fresh air, and think different thoughts.
“Hello Mr. Harry. How are you today?” I look toward the gate and my heart does that little flippy thing.
It’s a visit from Lori, her face pushing between the bars of the wrought iron gate. Such a face, I wonder, round cheeks, imperfect nose, a chin without blemish, one blue eye cast. You know the kind of face, fresh-scrubbed, so endearing it breaks your heart, and all of it encircled by a halo of tumbling wheat ocean hair. You see it once and never forget its symmetry.
“Now then, Lori… I’m perfectly fine…how are you?”
“Help me with the gate, please,” she asks, eyes pleading, and continues, “I think you are busy being alone. You like that, don’t you…” I would have answered something; something that might not hurt her, but she went on… “will you give me a piggyback to the bench, Mr. Harry?”
“Of course, child.”
I take her arms and twirl her onto my shoulders.
“It’s kind of scary, Mr. Harry…” I feel the warmth of her hands on my head, the trust, and yes, the trepidation.
“I’ve got you, Lori…you’re safe with me.”
“Because you love me…?”
How much better life is to be a friend and have their utter trust, to have been with a friend when all they held in their hand was a shredded tissue, and to know why it is they now keep a scrapbook on the bedside table.
“Yes, Lori, that is indeed why.” She leans forward putting her hands under my chin, whispering into my ear.
It maybe that when the writer’s creative juices determine, a friend might say something he or she would not say in the reality; encourage this change, for are we writers not trying to create a different voice from the real-life model. Our perspective’s change when the position we observe is from a different viewpoint.
“There are times when I wonder if you love me, Mr. Harry…when something, or someone, occupies your mind so much that you forget me; I’m sad when you allow that to happen.”
Shame is a strong and powerful emotion; it has a feeling all its own; one that sits uneasily on the page, quite different from embarrassment. I’m not good at shame. The hardest thing to do, I have found, is to feel helpful toward a friend going through a period of shame. All these years I have failed the memory of love, and been neglectful in its duty. I can’t simply put it right on the page.
“I’m so sorry, Lori…” I’m my own guilt’s target. I realize that I’m sometimes not open to my friends.
Clichés, like spitting blood, mark a bruise on the page, rupturing our character on the inside.
“But I will always love you, Mr. Harry,” she whispers, “…just be here for me, okay?”
“I will, Lori. It won’t happen again.”
She rolls my ears over, touches my face; love coming through her fingers, cooling my skin, inflating a ruptured heart.
“Put me down here, Mr. Harry. It’s time I was going.”
It is a strange feeling, this writing: the unfamiliar, yet familiar; the real, deep sadness and yet the heart-stopping relief. I will miss my little muse so much. At the same time, for my purposes, she isn’t leaving fast enough.
I cannot wait another minute to start caring so much for my friends.
Hello, this might be of some interest. If you would like to join Medium as a Member, giving you access to every story I write, and the whole shabang of talented writers on Medium, and you want to join up, read, or earn yourself a few coins writing, please think about using this LINK to become a member. Cost $5. You’ll be gifting me a cup of coffee, and treating yourself to the wonderland of Medium.com💜✍️
