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Non-fiction / Swan Song2
Grace
I still pray for the bravery I summoned that day walking through the foreign halls. I didn’t cry until I got home that afternoon, hugged my pink stuffed mouse, Rose, who had survived four moves with me before the ripe age of thirteen. Four do-overs. Four first days of school. That afternoon I wept for the simple reasons of loneliness and defeat.
Those things changed. I grew and understood that life was one day at a time, not a lifetime in a day.
you can still summon the memory of the black swan
on the pond of your childhood…
there is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s,
it will always whisper, you can’t have it all,
but there is this.1
(1:Barbara Ras’ poem, “You Can’t Have It All.”)
“Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring (Psalm 27:14).”
Delay
And the rain stops and you wait and worry if it’s safe now to look over the edge. You wait for the water to rest from the rain because you like green better than brown. And you decide that it can’t be any worse than last time you looked at yourself. And you peer through the tall reeds that stand taller now that the rain has stopped.
The face you see is so foreign and forlorn that it startles you, because it is your own and you have avoided looking at it for so long. It has changed, slightly hardened now with determination to be strong and beautiful. Your neck is graceful, like a swooping vase holding a single orange-red flower. You haven’t spoken since the day before, when you wailed alone in the solace of the trees. And now you whisper, barely breathe one short note in an opus of unsung songs in your lonely life. You will always whisper, you can’t have it all, but there is this.
And you breathe in slowly and let out the loudest sound you can. Your swan song. It’s funny and beautiful and loud at the same time. So miserable as to be ridiculous. You slide into the pond and slowly start paddling towards the center. Paddle out of the tall reeds into the endless expanse of glassy water, into tomorrow. And out of the reeds all around you, there are others with swooping necks and orange-red flower mouths who honk responses to your jubilant call. And they answer you and flock around you, and there is so much love that you don’t know what to do except honk excitedly with the others that look like you. Sound like you. Belong with you.
Swan Song: The phrase “swan song” refers to the mute swan and to the completely false, but famous, ancient legend that the swan is utterly silent until the last moment of its life, and sings one achingly beautiful song just before dying:
The silver swan, which, living, had no note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
thus sung her first and last and sung no more.2
(2: Orlando Gibbons madrigal)
Choice
For years she worried what people said and thought about her. She felt as though she still stuck out, even though her friendships were slowly evolving. Boys even paid attention to her, since she had braces now, and a well-rehearsed smile. In world history, she sat next to a popular girl who never spoke to her. Never spoke to anyone who rode the bus to school, who wore ratty shoes, was too tall or too short. Because of this girl’s presence, she was always careful to look her best and not do anything stupid or extraordinary. Like raise her hand to answer lengthy questions, even though she knew the answers. Or sneeze.
“I heard Charles wants to ask you out,” the popular girl said one day. She maintained a cat-like smirk on her make-upped face. The popular girl’s manicured hand touched her arm. “Maybe you can come over this weekend with some other people and I’ll invite him too.”
She smiled politely at the popular girl who had never spoken to her before this moment. Something made her uneasy. Sincerity. She turned towards the map of the world and feigned attentiveness to the lesson while she thought about the proposition.
She was smart, and decided not to take the bait.
Definitions: Cygnus: From Latin: swan. A constellation in the northern hemisphere between Pegasus and Draco in the Milky Way; contains a black hole.
Broken
When she was seventeen, she went to her first prom. Her parents decided to sell the house and divorce, again, and there was nothing she could do except keep her room clean in case realtors showed up and cry in the shower, so no one would suspect her of tears. So she stood in her powder blue gown in her bedroom, dreaming of beautiful nights and romance, when the doorbell rang. She ran out of her bedroom, expecting her boyfriend to whisk her away from the broken home.
“Hello? Anyone here? Hello? Well! Oh my goodness! What a greeting!” said the realtor with bouffant hair and orange-red lipstick. “Don’t you just look precious?”
She stopped, shocked at the realtor and curious Indian family standing in the entrance hall, eyes already scanning the corners of the house, the closet space; was the lighting good enough? Could the den be expanded into the backyard?
She pivoted and ran into the blue striped bathroom, the solace, so that she could silently shake instead of cry, and not hear the realtor’s comments about spaciousness, square footage, and storage closets. She didn’t dare peer at her face in the mirror, for it was contorted into the paled slack common of misery. So miserable. This is ridiculous.
There were things in the past that hurt her. Like her grandmother passing away. And the next year, when her grandfather was in the hospital with advanced Parkinson’s, she combed his stray hairs into place to make this last picture of him right. And then she made friends who she loved, and who loved and carried her. And those friends could hurt her, but instead they hurt themselves to feel better. A scar, a lie, a fight, a hug.
So when she was hurt, she knew it could always be worse. She couldn’t have it all, but there was this.
Temperment: Although the mute swan can be tame, especially to those who feed it daily, it is aggressive in defense of its nest. Its size and impressive hissing make it a formidable adversary for other animals.
Moment
I am still dark haired, but my mother switched to a platinum-blonde popular with women in Texas. I stand tall at 5-foot-2 with shoulders back. I have the same brown eyes as before, only they’ve changed in depth after seeing what I’ve seen and doing what I’ve done. Arguments. Heartbreak. Divorce. Death. College. Mean words that don’t go away. Things I see that I should not. Uncertainty. A young woman’s eyes still dewy with potential, but slightly hardened with determination, like an acorn that sinks into the chocolate earth, determined to become a great oak. The kind of oak that families picnic under in the spring. Where Mom fusses over the potato salad, the kids play too close to the pond, trying to feed the ducks. Watch out for those ducks, they might be mean. Even the swans, so graceful with their swooping necks, like vases holding a single orange-red flower. The swans are unpredictable: wild card samurais of the pond.
And now there are things that give me tremendous joy. Solace. My father’s strength and perseverance; like granite. And my sister who cares more for others than herself. Girlfriends that never change and girlfriends that do. My dog, who always forgives and skids on the wood floors when she runs to greet me. Orange-red sunsets pocked with clouds. My mother’s tears when she tells me I am a woman of grace, bestower of beauty and charm.
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July 14, 2006
Deleted User
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Aww, I really like this. It has a sweet err to it. A feeling of youth. I don’t know. I just really enjoyed this and feel you did a great job.
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einjeru reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed reading this piece of work. The detail was wonderful. This was truly great! keep it up!
trerin02 reviewed Version 1 -
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Great writing. I really enjoyed it. my only suggestion is to keep writing!
Lady_J reviewed Version 1 -
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I really enjoyed reading your piece.The beginning read more like a poem than a story. I love your use of emotions. It was bejautiful and sad all at once, which I loved.
FriendsSmile reviewed Version 1 -
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Third time’s a charm? I did this review twice and the urbis server croaked…hope it wasn’t something I wrote, lol.
Splitting this piece into two parts hurt the overall flow, I think. I would rather have sat down and read it at one swoop. As it was, I had to go back and review the first part again to better review this part.
Some superb lines…”Four do-overs. Four first days of school.”, ” ... life was one day at a time, not a lifetime in a day.”, and especially “My mother’s tears when she tells me I am a woman of grace, bestower of beauty and charm.”
Now for the nitty-gritty stuff—
First, I have the same issue in part 2 as I do in part 1—weak sentance starters…and..so…and…
I thought the line “There were things in the past that hurt her.” was a very weak lead in for a very emotionally charged paragraph.
In the paragraph where you discuss the oak, I had visual issues with ” acorn that sinks into the chocolate earth”. To me, “sinks” just does not do it. Generally, acorns are buried by squirrels or buried by years of leaves from the parent tree. Given that you are using the oak as a symbol of strength, I think you could actually make this a separate paragraph, throw in a few factoids, and really call this out. When that was done, I would change the descriptor of your fathter in the last paragraph from “granite” to “oak”.
Last, personal issue, I really had problems with the “wild card samurais”. I have no problem with swan/samurai imagery…its the “wild card”—I think of gambling dens or computer search engines. Not sure what I would suggest as a replacement, but I think this descriptive phrase could be improved.
Great job, overall. (I really, really resonate to that last sentance…how beautifully phrased.)
Pogopaws reviewed Version 1 -
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Beautifully written. Your use of words is both eloquent and startling. “Your neck is graceful, like a swooping vase holding a single orange-red flower.” ”...like an acorn that sinks into the chocolate earth…”
There is more of poetry than prose here, and mastery which belies your years. Brava!
teaddub reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow. Ok. Very nice. Well, to start with there is the theme. It has an underlying theme, one that is hard to peg the first time through, that I may still be missing because the two pieces are so far apart. I am getting that you are a product of your past, bad and good, but the bad is what has stuck in your mind. I think your audience is anyone who has spent time as the new kid, or had to wear braces, or have any kind of changes made to their appearance. I think most teenage girls would be able to identify with this except the one who won’t talk to you if you rode the bus to school.
I really like your writing, you have a style that is very sweet, and yet cuts to the bone of the matter to leave our emtions bleeding and bare. I have seen this in a few rare and very well done pieces. Nice work, but I am not sure this is ready to publish.
First, you have a working knowledge of some devices that work to push your piece and your subject as well as the theme along, but do you think you overused them? One of these devices, for example is the power three. Every sentance that offered a choice offered three. I felt this diminished this power. I noticed it most in the first piece. Do you think the piece would be as powerful and heartwrenching if you toned that issue down a little? Or maybe even more powerful?
Second, the bit about the swans is cool, but the bit about the ducks didn’t really add. It doesn’t hurt, per se, but it doesn’t help either. Try to just drop it and see if your piece carries the same weight. It is a beatifully written part, but use it in a different piece.
Third, don’t break it up like this in the future. I really liked it but could not really read them both together without losing that beautiful cadence and having to find it agin.
Which brings up the last point. I had a hard time with this but does your cadence lose a little of its rhythm in the begginnig of this half? Is the first person maybe not fitting as well as the third and second do? I know that toward the end when you finished off with first person, the cadence dissapeared altogether. Maybe try again, this time leave everything that was first person here in the third person and see if it doesn’t maintain that beautiful flow that carries us through the rest of the piece. Some of your reviewers didn’t like the change from third to second person, I thought it worked well, but having the frst person view as well may be too much.
PurpleSun reviewed Version 1 -
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Interesting! Answered a lot of questions I had after reading the first half. Great way to keep us wondering if it is you till the end though. very effective. only a few grammar errors, but that can be fixed. i would like to see a bit more characterization of your mother, and more tales of previous moves. That would give your reader more of a view of your exhaustion with the situation. you are a good writer, keep going! i look foward to seeing more from you.
June 12, 2006
Deleted User
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I’ll keep this short since a lot of the issues with this carry over from the first part (commas, perspective switching).
It seems like you skip around too much and that you try to pack a lot into a little amount of space. There is enough material here that it could be expanded into a novella.
Maybe try and only describe the entrance into the new school. You could probably work in the themes of divorce, growth, and death into that narrative. Unless you wanted to turn this into a novella.
This right here is beautiful writing:
“You haven’t spoken since the day before, when you wailed alone in the solace of the trees. And now you whisper, barely breathe one short note in an opus of unsung songs in your lonely life.”
kglinux reviewed Version 1 -
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This piece is unique in its incorporation of other writer’s elements and its play back and forth between the protagonist and the swans.
I think you have done well on this piece. Good work.
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