Tin Music

October 23, 2012 By in Petulance 34 Comments

Today I am wandering. I’ve driven far out to the countryside, so close to the ocean that I can smell salt in the rain. I don’t know where I am except that it’s warm here and dry, and my waitress’s face is scrubbed, hipster-fresh, framed by a soft tangle of curls at the temples. The table is thick with lacquer and in my palm is a hot cup; on the glossy surface of my coffee, I can see the lights from overhead and the letters on the window, a scene in slanted miniature, obscured by a fog of steam. From behind the counter, a tinny radio is playing a song from a band I can’t name . . . between the drinks and subtle things, the holes in my apologies . . . but I tap my foot more in impatience than sympathetic rhythm.

What the hell am I doing here? Why can’t I be who I want to be, when I want to be so much more. Only selfish people spend so much time alone, because we can’t bear the interruptions to our trains of precious thought. We only want to watch, and remain coyly uninvolved. We sidle up closer, not out of craving for love and human contact, but out of an ugly, relentless curiosity at your expense. You’re on my stage, hipster chick, with that smooth cheek and ratty shoe, and I’ve got no pity for your bitten nails or the way you tug your sweater down, because what matters to me is the story you’re living and how I can warp it to fit into mine.

If I could be anything I would be invisible, and I would follow you.

Do you owe an apology, and would you give it if you could?

34 Responses

  1. God, I hope I don’t owe one. Because if I do, I’ve forgotten, and I don’t need the guilt.

    I love how you describe this scene and your thoughts. Of course I’ve thought similar things in my own head, except I usually want to follow the interesting character because I hope we can become friends, or at least live a story in tandem. I can disguise her in the story. She’ll never know.

  2. Oh the beauty in that, my dear. I admire you so.

    The desire to be alone. To be anonymous and follow characters shadowlike–that has always been my preference to anything else. The freedom of that.

    I owe lots of apologies. Probably more to my husband than anyone else. He’s a good man, and I am not such a good wife. He met me at the time when critical mass and arrogance converged within me, and there’s no going back. I do what I do. Period.

    Enjoy the sea. The waitress. The time. It’s what fuels you and must not be turned away.

  3. We writers are creeps, Averil. Welcome to the guild. We know you didn’t just arrive.

    I’ve long since lost track of all those to whom I owe apologies. That’s a lie. I haven’t lost track. Not of all of them. There’s no forgiveness I could ask.

    Fuck it. Those to whom I think I owe apologies probably never give me a moment’s thought. I can torment myself all I want. They’ve left me long behind.

    I made promises to god and i broke those promisesandforthatthereisnoforgiveness

    I’m such a phony shit. A frightened nothing, a coward hiding behind my poses.

    People frighten me and they’re stupid and I prefer to play alone. So I am a writer, a less than lesser god in a solipsistic universe inhabited by shadows.

    Wanna be my friend? Watch out, I might use something I see in you in one of my stories somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ll change all the names so that only you and I will know what an inspiration you may have been to me. If anyone asks if the story is true, I’ll say, It’s as true as you want it to be.

    When I was a little boy and learned that certain marks on pages were the words of wonderful stories, I decided that was magic and I wanted to make that magic. I loved that magic and the magicians who made it and wanted in return to feel or imagine some such similar love being reflected back upon me.

    Hey, Averil, baby, sidle on up over here. Sit here beside me. You and me, sister, we’re a lot alike. We steal things that can’t be seen in manners undetectable then corrupt them to our own twisted purposes. We may as well be video cameras hidden in bathrooms.

    We are what we are. We are writers. We bear witness to the human condition. Dirty work, but someone has to do it.

  4. Sounds like you’re in just the right place. Wish I were there. Oh wait, I AM there because you wrote my way there.

    My husband just emailed me from work to say, “Go read Averil’s blog. She can write.”

    Yes sir, she sure as hell can.

  5. Writing is a mental illness, don’t cha know.

    Those little voices in our heads, the ones which make up stories we want to read, stories we want to live, stories to save us from ourselves, they are the halleluiahs from a choir of hypocrites. Those Sunday singers, they aren’t raising their voices to the almighty out of love or fear, they just want someone to hear how well they sing. We hide behind our graffiti, not because we have something to say which in important, we just want someone to like our tag.

    I must apologize to myself for being such a shit, for wasting time dissecting other people’s lives when I should have been dissecting, analyzing and pinning my own to the bottom of the black waxy tray.

    Hey, I like writing like this. Makes me feel grown-up. Thanks Averil and thanks Tetman, you guys are inspiring.

    • “We hide behind our graffiti, not because we have something to say which in important, we just want someone to like our tag.”

      This is so awful that it’s probably true. On the other hand, I wonder if the elite writers feel this way, or if the pleasure of their own writing is enough to push them past the need for approval.

      • A little Rust-Oleum, a quiet moment by the side of the building, nobody approves unless you spell their name right.

        No matter how elite, we all need approval or why bother. Once your own opinion, is the only opinion, you’re narcissistically doomed.

  7. Set this to music. It sounded lyrical to me. Perhaps Sara Bareilles could sing it?

    I’m sure there’s someone, but I’ve definitely forgotten who at this point. Sometimes I feel like all I do is apologize. Can’t someone say sorry to me for once? *sigh*

  8. Wow, love the description. I always admire when writers can put description “in disguise.” You don’t even realize you’re reading a description cause it feels like you are seeing and observing it on your own.

  9. Yesterday I spent hours walking around a convention center asking myself “why, why, why” and wanting to apologize to myself, but I felt I didn’t have the right. Does that count?

  10. I want to write like you when I grow up.
    My favorite part was that you didn’t even know where you were. You, my dear, have found home.

    • I didn’t know where I was either; I got in the car and headed west. Got thirsty, got coffee, turned around and came home. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Lyra.

  11. I don’t like owing anything to anyone. Tell me that I’ve offended, and I, like Puck’s last monologue, will amend. There are times, albeit seldom, when I realize the infraction on the my own and initiate atonement but, more often than not, relationships are torn because I have said or done some insensitive thing. I wish people were more direct with their feelings but, more than that, I wish I were more cognizant.

    The upside to spending so much time alone is that you reduce the number of people you hurt. If you can deal with the loneliness, it’s really not such a bad place to be.

    • This hurts to read. I have lost meaningful friendships because of that same insensitivity, or impatience, or sometimes from just loving too much. In friendships, there are offenders and those who tend to get offended, and I fall very much into the former category.

      I have been waiting to get lonely out here all alone, but so far it hasn’t happened. I keep thinking it should.

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