I took a break from my first story just after I started rewriting it. For the fourth time. I swear, I could put a whole novel together from just the endless revisions. But this story, tentatively called Three Days to Beit Lehem, is completely different. I had a weird dream a few weeks ago — must have been the AP exams that did it, that delivered that final death-kick to my sanity-starved brain. All I really remember from it like this:
It was a nice name, no doubt, but who in their right mind would name the son of God Warren?
This, thankfully, took a more serious track. I found myself a Hebrew font (hooray!), and got to work looking up names, places, dates, and telling myself that I’ll make my best effort to read the New Testament to get even a little more religious background so I can bring some humanity into the stories. Because, frankly, they’re a bit one-sided, aren’t they? Being a non-Christian, this is already difficult enough. At least I haven’t written whales into the story, but what more could you expect from someone whose favorite smells include melted butter, Mazda, and garage?
Alef
She named the child three months before it tranquilly, unnaturally, made its first soggy appearance in the world. Yosef had argued for weeks before the birth that surely the child’s name should be Achim, or Eliakim, or Heli, the name of his father. But Miryam was adamant.
“I had a revelation!” she shouted. She had become quite tempestuous in this late stage of her pregnancy, and in the hurried move to Beit Lehem, at last refused to listen to Yosef’s pleadings at all. “The child’s father has chosen a name.”
“But Yeshua is such an uncommon name!” he protested, bringing his two mules to the front of the house where Miryam sat in the shade. He had had the same dream, but he did not tell his wife. She liked it better that way, where she alone was the chosen one. It was an enormous weight for such a young girl, but she bore it regally, a living golden girdle around her waist.
Miryam laughed at him, “And who would name the son of Yahweh Heli?”
So that was how it would be with her. For nine long months, Yosef struggled to make room for his — no, his — child, avoiding the curious glances of those in the open markets and alleys who longed for him to explain how the biologically-impossible had blossomed, so incredibly, in Miryam, his young bride. Left to Miryam’s cheerful banter about her child being the very son of God, the townspeople looked upon him as an outsider, a tangent point to Miryam’s family on heaven and earth. When the time of the census arrived, just as Miryam was coming to term, Yosef lamented the poor timing and rejoiced the event all in the same moment. It would do precious good for both Miryam and himself to leave crowded Hagalil behind them for a few days, to let the rumors run dry. And to return with a son — the son of Yahweh himself! Yosef, though his limbs were sore and his hair was gray, would show the people of Hagalil that he would be the best of fathers to this child. He had heard, many times, of the Roman pontifices, with their slaughters and their intolerance. No, his son, Yosef’s son, would be a man for the ages.
I feel as if I can write. I feel as if all it will take to move forward in my novel — or a new post — is dedication. I can supply that; dedication is simple. But I can’t make the words come out right. It’s a strange feeling of helplessness and overwhelming weakness when the most minuscule things cannot properly represent themselves on paper. It is not as if I haven’t tried; I’m terrified that it is a chance of heart. We all want to write The Great American Novel, because what we really seek is recognition on a grand scale. I wrote sporadically through February. I was so close, it seemed, to the biggest writing breakthrough of my life. Spring Break brought that to ruins, and I still can’t manage even a page of what I had hoped would be the greatest chronicle I had ever written.
To a certain extent, the possibilities are still very present. I could escape this downward cycle and write again, something magnificent, something inspired. But I know the words will leave me behind. There’s no more room for grandiloquent prose, or history, or fables. But what if that is all I can manage? It’s a strange feeling, writer’s block. It’s cruel and scathing and yet so ordinary. The characters of my novel are dying and flailing, and although I’m captivated with the idea of saving them, I’m not sure that I can. The dedication is there, but it always takes something more than I cannot always muster. When I cannot write, I draw, and when I cannot draw, I write. I very sincerely hope that this is a short period of transition, and not the end of all things, which I have so fervently echoed in my writing. Maybe all I need is a vision. Maybe.
I have my optimism and my good fortune to thank when I state that I've never been wholly stressed or depressed, but I'm wondering if the minor episodes of stress I've had this year and in years before have started to add up. Recently, my lower back has been hurting me, and I have some sort of ache in my upper back, around my left shoulder-blade (it's been there since an October marching practice, freshman year - more than two years ago, and it has been examined). No amount of stretching, popping, or massaging has seemed to get rid of either. Normally, I can brag on my ability to sleep through hurricanes (but I cannot sleep through very loud thunder) and the like. Yesterday, my lower back hurt worse than ever. I couldn't sit up without feeling sore. For the past two days, I've had difficulties even falling asleep. The only times I recall that I haven't been able to go to sleep are the days before major competitions, where I'm so excited (note: not nervous, excited) that I can't stop from rotating around my room until I finally curl up somewhere and sleep. And I'm sixteen — this is something that might trouble my parents (but never my dog), not me. And I'm wondering if it's onset by someone, not something. And it's not right or fair.
I want to say I feel wound in my workload, but I know it's not that. Judging by the fact that I was able to fall asleep in my friend's car within minutes of the heat being turned on (It's cold and windy in Houston; can you believe it?), it's not a constant repetitive thing. But when it does hit me, it's worse and worse. My theory, which is as good as anyone else's, is that my mind's always on too many things, and that's what makes me feel cluttered. They're little things — observations, pictures, quotes for my novel, scenes for my novel, political theories, musings — that would never affect me maliciously. But when do thoughts lead to pain? And why, Aaron, why?
As a closing gesture, during our Latin Club field trip to Texas Children's Hospital today (the Latin Club — of which I am the webmaster — had collected coloring books, crayons, games, and miniature ornaments to give to patients in the Hematology/Oncology and Cardiology wards), I met a man who understood that value was something man-made. A diamond is only a diamond because we want it to be. What makes a diamond more precious than water, which is necessary for us to sustain life? What makes a piece of plastic worthless? Why must money equal power, and power equal ignorance? Why are newborns so frail and tiny and yet so strong? Aaron, this is what you must learn: what makes a baby wiser and stronger than a man is the trust, faith, and compassion it shows. A baby will always be mightier than a man because the potential of a baby is so great (this child could save the world, and this child could end it and similar suppositions). But the hope is what keeps an infant going — and what should keep you going, if you ever decide that you will be in all cases the man who lost it all.
