Parul Goes to India

June 7 - June 20

          Dicta-poem

          You can write about

          a despondent woman wanting

          to give up on life. But

          leave out the names.

          Tell them about her

          problems, her woes... 

          Tell them how she 

          wasted a whole day just 

          crying her eyes out 

          apparently for no reason 

          at all. And then the next 

          morning she started 

          panicking because she 

          had to study for her finals 

          You’re not really 

          writing this, are you? 

          ...now I’m afraid to speak.

June 7

School’s out, tests are done. I’ve got a week before summer school, time to read one or two Hemingways and start kicking around few story ideas of my own. Meanwhile, Parul leaves for India on Saturday, for six weeks. I’m sure I’ll miss her, but right now I feel like it hasn’t hit me —like I’m gonna miss her bad about the third or fourth week in. Things have been going good for us. Not perfect, but that in itself says something. We know each other pretty well, and still we love each other —can’t explain it, but it’s true. And we’re talking more frankly about “the inevitable” lately —it depends on my meeting her folks and her being baptized, but Parul called these “technicalities.” I laughed, and agreed. God will be with us, one way or the other. I do hope we will face our future thoughtfully —but for now I hope she enjoys India!

June 8

It started to hit today, and she’s not even gone. This is love: dependence, longing. I am going to miss Parul. I know she’ll be back and I know this trip is what she wanted for a long time, but I’m still wishing —very selfishly —that she could be staying here with me or that I could go there with her. Someday. Thank you God for Parul, for love. And she’s bringing a bible with her —inspire her, God, to read it and read it.

The family went to Grandma’s this weekend. I think of Don now God, and I pray that this trip will be refreshing for him and not tiring. I think of Josh, too, and I thank you Lord for the “refreshment” you’ve already given him. Keep it up, Lord, for Josh’s sake, and —thinking selfishly again —for the sake of us who want him to keep on being him, as a Josh-style support and witness to your presence. God, I pray the same for Don. I don’t appreciate the “Don style” sometimes, but your presence and support works though him just as much. The evidence, again, is in the people around him. Help me, Lord, be one of those people.

June 9

Parul is on her way to India now. We had a perfect goodbye, which makes me feel good now, but there were several goodbyes before the final one, and I’m afraid that in the time before the last time I may have said things wrong. Love should make that never matter, shouldn’t it? Or is it “always matter”?

Anyway, this morning Parul dropped by at 9:00, said “I have until 11:00 —and I want to go shopping.” I am not a good shopper, especially on a tight schedule, and more especially when I really wanted those two hours alone with her. So I rushed her and grew impatient with her, and as a result we did get at least half an hour of privacy. This was our first goodbye. We made love, and it was good. We said goodbye, sweetly, and I thought the six weeks had begun.

But what I had rushed her on, buying a jacket without letting her try it on, back-fired. Three hours later, she called from the airport to say it was too small and I would need to arrange with her cousin to have it exchanged. It was an awkward call, and in my clumsiness I had forgotten to say I was sorry (another never/always paradox of love?). And I hung up. I had said I loved her again, but I felt depressed. Her 5:30 flight time came and went with no last-minute goodbye. 

Then at 8:30, a late call from O’Hare: her original flight was cancelled, and she was just about to get on the next flight over. So here was the goodbye call. And it was very gushy. All things got said this time, and “I love you” was said a couple more times, by both sides, for good measure.

Parul is on her way to India now, and true love makes the world much smaller and these six weeks more bearable. Thank you God, for second chances.

June 11

It’s been a very productive, purposefully busy day. I washed my car inside and out. I walked, brushed and moussed the dog and cleaned up his area. I washed dishes and cleaned the house a little. I looked at my bible study lesson. I did a load of laundry. I read 100 pages of A Farewell to Arms. I played piano for five minutes. I watched two movies. I ate too much. I may get a lot done in the next six weeks, but I may also gain weight. One way or another, it’s gonna be a dragged out stretch of time. School starts next week, though —that should help. 

But then again... God, I am an anxious person. I have been fretting lately, trying to write something, some semblance of a short story. I’m not a natural, though, God, and I need your help. But I think I know what you’re saying now, that I shouldn’t put all my hopes in one bucket, that I shouldn’t be a slave to this pen. Okay, God. But if you want something else for me, the way I’ve been you’re going to have to shout it in my ear and take me by the hand.

God, I want to write. And yes, God, I want to write for your glory. I want it to be mainstream, but I’d like to show that it can be both: theological and popular, of reason and of faith. And now you’re saying that I’m too specific, too narrow, too demanding. Yes, God, I know —and that’s why I’m so anxious and frustrated, isn’t it? Lord God help me to put it all in your hands. Help me to know that you know what’s best, not me. Help me to hear myself talking —no that’s not it, is it? Help me to hear you talking to me.

And God bless Parul in India. Let me trust you with her, too, so that I don’t faithlessly worry or selfishly yearn. Let me know that you know what’s best for her too, and that you direct what’s best for us all. And in that direction, remind us to acknowledge you. Motivate Parul to open the bible she’s brought with her, and let me open the one I have here... Thank you God. Amen.

June 12

Another busy-productive day: I finished A Farewell to Arms. I took an hour and a half hike, through the forest preserve. I ate conscientiously today, not completely disciplined but with an improved restraint. And I played around with a short story I’ve been working on. This one might pan out —become complete, that is, if not publicly palatable. It is another story about death —but it isn’t like that. The promise of the story is explicitly about life and “wanting to live,” but it revolves around a discussion about gravestone epitaphs. 

On the top of my mind, but not yet written it into the story, is this: “I am the resurrection... the way, the truth and the life.” My characters want life —I now have to show them that life, as the verse runs in my mind, without sounding preachy or sermonesque.

This may be a response to the attitudes of Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms. I can’t pin his death perception down in one sentence, but there is not any thought of the life of the resurrection. You live, you die in his book. And in my book, too, you live, you die, but I want to show something else. I want to show the necessary. I aspire higher than Hemingway, that means.

But thank you for today, God. Bless Joshua, Daniel, Annie, Don, Mom. Bless all my relatives and friends and acquaintances. God bless the people I don’t know and even the people I know and hate. And maybe by praying this I can reach beyond whatever clique circle of friends I might have, Lord. 

Maybe by writing this story I can be a better Christian. 

I can be a servant through my pen, Lord, if it is your will. And why wouldn’t it be?

But why do I feel like I’m begging? Free association will be my downfall.

“Can be” is still not “is.” ...But thank you God. Amen.

June 14

Ideas, germs abound; sometimes it seems like I could write all day long. I’m sure I’ve picked the proper direction at such sometimes; I’m positive then that I am a writer. But these germs and ideas are all very much in their infant stages. I’m learning that I’ve got a lot to learn. Things don’t just flow from head to lead. The sparks fizzle more than they catch, and even when they seem to catch there are countless steps to the blazing success I dream of, countless steps past the few combusted embers I’ve managed to produce. I do like the sparks, though, while they sparkle and catch and smoke; even at these minor stages of combustion, I like what can be done with words, and I have to stop and appreciate what God allows me.

I’ve finished a rough draft of the story I had alluded to. It’s not great, and really it’s not very good, but I have a certain pride, a certain good feeling that I will never apologize for, because the spark has caught and filled five pages, 1,200 words. If it’s kind of an ambiguous fire, or a somewhat lifeless fire (and my story is all of these, I will be told), I will still have my good feeling and I will still thank God, because there is a flame where once was only a spark, and there was a spark where once was nothing at all.

That “certain pride,” by the way, is not pride about what I have personally done. Maybe I don’t even have to say this, but I used the word... maybe the better word is fascination, about what I can do. Yes. God, thank you.

I will still work to improve the current story, because there is ambiguity and lifelessness and pointlessness and a lack of depth. Maybe I’ll work at it and never get it right, but that’s all right, because I’ve got other ideas after this one.... 

Sometimes it seems like I could write all day long —but thank you God, sometimes and always.

June 15

And then some days I don’t feel like writing at all.

June 16

Yesterday. Last night specifically. With an attitude not born of despondency, just low energy.

I’ve been keeping myself very busy. For the last five days I’ve walked six miles a day at an hour and a half clip. I’ve lost five pounds this week. I’ve read fifty pages of Hemingway daily, almost through The Sun Also Rises. I’m also going to work and keeping my room and my car clean. Yesterday I took care of a few phone calls Parul wanted me to make, to housing, to finance, to Zaba.

I’m still waiting for Parul’s letter so I can have an address to write back to her. It takes time, though, even as I have a feeling time is flying for Parul. I will understand if she gets caught up in the excitement of her first big adventure. Meanwhile, I’m working today, Saturday, and I have to go, right now!

June 17

Continually busy. It’s becoming a need. I finished reading The Sun Also Rises. I’m keeping to my walking schedule and today, having time off from work and school, I watched three movies and wrote a short story. And I went to church in the morning. At least one of the movies and part of the book made me miss Parul. I still haven’t heard from her.

School starts tomorrow, and work continues. I will keep busy and get busier. And yet —I’m a walking paradox —I’ve got the anticipatory Monday blahs. I’d rather not go to work or to school, I don’t want to, but I guess I have to. Right now, I guess I’m just tired. I had been feeling good, no need to be depressed, but I hope tiredness doesn’t bring about another swing.

There is something else, though. This week Josh will be in the hospital —his last chemo! —and Friday Don will get his chemo. Next week is sure to be a downer. God take it out of me, let me think and pray for Josh and Don and Parul.

June 20

School has started. This summer looks like it is going to be a relatively light load. We have two stories to write and I’ve already submitted the first, something I’d written three months ago. For the second story, I’m kicking at a dozen embers, but so far nothing has combusted.

Josh’s low white blood count has pushed his last chemo treatment out one week. Don still goes in Friday for a one night dosage.

I haven’t hear from Parul yet. It’s been ten days. I’m worried —not for her, I think she’s all right, I’m just not sure about myself. The sun also rises, though, and we will be together in four and a half weeks.

 ⇋

Biding Time

Scene 1: The clock, twelve feet up a brown brick wall, says it is five minutes after one, almost exactly. The second hand is only two ticks away from the twelve. One tick. Now it is exactly five minutes after one.

Sojan had said one o’clock. I was to meet her in front of the L section in the library. She would recognize me, she said, but I would have to be sure to be there. You will recognize me? I asked. She said yes, she remembered me from two years ago when I had dated her cousin once. I couldn’t remember her cousin. No matter.

“You’ll be carrying the jacket,” I said. “I’ll recognize you.”

“Yes,” she said. “One o’clock.”

I hung up the phone and rummaged around for some scratch paper and then a pen. Her name was Sojan; we would meet on Monday at one sharp.

Now it is Monday and it is twelve minutes after one. I don’t even know this person. She is the cousin of someone I once dated, someone named —I don’t remember. Her name is Sojan and I had been at her house last week. I don’t remember that either. It was Friday night and I had been pretty wrecked.

“What did we do there?” I asked my friends.

“We had a good time. You slept.”

“How long?”

“Three hours maybe. You passed out almost as soon as we got there. We had to carry you to the car.”

Three hours and I didn’t even open my eyes. I don’t remember anything.

Now it is seventeen minutes after the hour. I need a smoke. The second hand moves very slowly and I start to wonder. “What time is it?” I ask someone nearby. He looks at his wrist. “A quarter after,” he whispers. According to his watch, then, the clock is right. More or less. 

The jacket is bright red. There’s no way I’ll miss her. She said the wallet was still in the pocket.

“I dated your cousin?”

“Yes, you went to a movie.”

“And you were there?”

“No. You passed me on the street, and my cousin introduced you to me.”

“And you remember that?”

“Sure.”

She said the name of the girl, her cousin, my date two years back, and I did not recognize it, and now I’ve forgotten it again. Maybe she thinks I’m someone else.

“No, I will recognize you from the other night, too,” she said.

“Right. Last Friday. I’ll see you at one.”

It is now one twenty five. I need the jacket. I need the wallet. They aren’t mine, but I must have them, to return them to the person I got them from. It’s a long story.

Her name is Sojan. I had to ask her to repeat it, and I still wasn’t sure, so I asked her to spell it. S-O-J-A-N. She already knew my name. Sojan. She is Oriental, and her cousin is someone I had once dated, someone whose name slips my mind. I vaguely remember the date now. I have not dated very many Oriental girls.

1:33. Twenty seven minutes to one. Or twenty nine, by that man’s watch. We did not specify AM or PM, but of course the library isn’t open in the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure we said Monday. I should have written it down. I wonder if we had actually agreed on the L section.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Have you seen someone... I’m looking for... She’s Asian. She’s carrying a red jacket... Her name is Sojan.”

It’s a long story, that jacket. It wasn’t mine, but I had one just like it. I mixed it up with someone else’s somewhere, and someone else went home with mine. By the time we figured it all out I didn’t have the jacket anymore because I had left it at someone’s house. Sojan’s house. The other guy stopped by with mine and I didn’t have his. He threw my jacket back at me —it wasn’t worth much, he said —but he wouldn’t give me my wallet back because he thought I was lying. I don’t remember what he said his jacket was worth, but it was quite a bit more than mine. And it had his wallet in it.

It’s 1:39. Almost forty minutes. She must have forgotten. We did say this Monday, and I’m sure I would have seen her. Sojan. Oriental. I haven’t dated many Oriental girls. None since —I can’t remember the name. It must have been a short romance. She must have jilted me. Sojan, where are you? Sojan. So, John. So, John, you may never get your wallet back.

I remember the guy’s jacket, it was just like mine. Very red. Maybe it was worth more than mine, but anyway it had this guy’s wallet in it, and I have to get it back to him.

He didn’t believe me, but he said he would wait until after I talked to my friends. As a matter of courtesy.

Forty four minutes after one. Sixteen minutes before two. I have been here almost forty five minutes. The second hand sweeps along so slowly when you watch it. There, now it is 1:45. So slowly, and yet when you look away and come right back, five or six minutes have gone by.

Maybe she’s waiting for me somewhere else. Sitting in the periodical section or pacing the lobby, tapping her fingers and watching some other clock tick slowly past the meeting time. She would have given up by now.

Sojan, Sojan, Sojan. I don’t know what she looks like.

She sounded very patient on the phone. I will give her until two, because I am sure we said the L section. L for lobby? But I won’t move until two. I want to go check the lobby, maybe take a quick tour of the rest of the library, but surely we’ll miss each other that way. She’ll get to the L section and I won’t be here, I’ll be in the periodicals maybe and she’ll give up and go home. So I’ll wait here, at least until two.

1:55. She’s stood me up. Sojan —I don’t remember her last name. I don’t know her phone number either, so I’ll have to wait until she calls me again. Or maybe my friends can take me back to her house. She didn’t want me to meet her there for some reason, but she hasn’t shown up here. It’s 1:56. I’m tired of watching the clock. I’m going home.

“John!”

“Sojan?”

“Yes. I have your jacket. Where were you?”

“I... I was right here.”

“But I’ve been waiting for you in the lobby, like we said, 1:00pm.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Yes —I mean —I guess I remembered it wrong.”

“Well, anyway, here’s the jacket.”

“How long were you here?”

“An hour. I’m surprised you didn’t pass me on the way in.”

“Yes. Well, thank you Sojan. Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem. See you again maybe,”

“Yeah. Maybe sometime.”

It is a minute after two.