Writing for me is mainly a solitary activity. I do my best thinking when I’m alone, music and TV off or at the least turned to something I can ignore. Baxter – long-suffering beagle – can be by my side, but only if he promises to keep his snoring to a minimum. Will – long-suffering husband – generally keeps to another room when I’m writing, lest he be subjected to my nasty-but-well-meant (“Can’t you see I’m working?”) comments. There are only two humans in my house and three bedrooms, but sometimes I long for a little cabin or shack or shed or teepee out back, where I can seriously retreat from the rest of life.
Failing that, I go to the Queen Bean, a little coffeehouse on 14th. It’s not solitude, but since the music stays in the background and the people basically keep to themselves, it’s the next best thing. It’s solitude’s slightly more populous cousin with endless access to caffeine.
I have a favorite spot: an interior table with a lamp and access to a power strip. I have a favorite drink: a non-fat chai latte (writing is not only solitary, but sedentary, after all). If I do hit it big someday, the ‘Bean gets a mention in the acknowledgements (the way it has in my other blog), because in this funky little converted house, I’ve done some of my best writing. At least half of my novel was written here, in between spurts of checking my email (free wi-fi has become quite a problem, really) and staring out the window at a tree I keep meaning to classify. When I’m brushing up against a deadline, I head right for the ‘Bean and order myself not to move from my seat, the way I can’t seem to do at home, where laundry lurks in unsightly piles and there is always a dish waiting to be washed or gunk in the corners of the sink begging for close attention with a toothpick.
Somehow sitting in the ‘Bean gives me this romantic feeling, like I’m an ex-pat at a Paris café, two tables down from Jake Barnes. Everyone here seems artsy in one way or another, committed to their craft. Even the guy next to me, studying 3 x 5 cards printed with the tiny, precise lettering of an engineer, is poised for greatness. The woman who needs to be reminded to take her cell phone outside is some sort of editor, complete with thick-framed glasses and a sweet little iMac. On weekends, I bump into the graphic novelist who knows my husband but can never seem to remember my name. That’s fine; judging by his portfolio, he’s a talented artist. Judging by his conversation, he’s a bit of a pig. If I get stuck in my writing, I can always eavesdrop and transcribe a conversation from a nearby table. I’m still waiting to find a place in my writing for the guy who says to the girl, quite earnestly, “So, what’s your backstory?” How true! I remember thinking. We all have a backstory…
Today, I type this while waiting for inspiration to strike. It’s an exercise more than anything else, a few dry brush strokes that will give way to the bigger picture. In a minute I might give in and check my email or bring my cup to the counter for a re-chai. But for now I sit back and breathe it in, this almost-solitary solitude.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Word To Your Mother
My mom, a special ed teacher, rode my academic ass for the better part of my life. While the rest of you did your homework, she layered additional learning tasks. Every week I was required to take three reading comprehension tests. No, I’m not kidding. When I passed, I got a point and when I earned enough points, she would take me over to the toy store to pick out a prize.
Like other parents, my mother also pushed me to read, regularly taking me to the local library and bookstore. This backfired when, for my twelfth birthday, she gave me a dictionary.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I said with a huff.
“No, you didn’t. But you should have.”
I peeled back the cover.
“I already wrote your name in it so, no, you can’t return it,” my mom said as she collected the discarded wrapping paper.
To show my dissatisfaction, I refused to use it.
“What does discursive mean?” I asked.
“Go look it up,” my mom instructed as she rinsed some potatoes.
“Nah.”
To this day, the spine and pages of that dictionary remain pristine. You see, I hated learning vocabulary. Remembering origins and roots made my brain hurt. And even when I finally learned what a word meant, I rarely understood how to use it in a sentence. Or at least in a sentence more complex than ‘this is [insert adjective here]’.
A few years ago, as my writing habit became more of a passion, I vowed to grow my vocabulary. I signed up for Word of the Day. I even started a blog where I posted a word’s definition, tried using it in three different sentences, and then invited my readers to participate. Things were going well until I visited my then boyfriend in Alaska. Standing alongside a stream, glacier melt running through the wilderness, I turned to this one-time NASA astronaut candidate and tried to show off.
“The turgid waters rush over the slippery rocks and down toward the forest,” I said with a proud smile.
“Turbid,” he said with a chuckle.
“Fuck.”
Not having a large vocabulary is like trying to paint only with primary colors. After a while, you get pretty tired of blue. But I haven’t given up yet. One trick I recently learned was to print out what I’ve written and then go through and circle any word I think can be improved. Then I scour the thesaurus and dictionary for ideas. It’s actually done wonders for my writing. Especially my novel. I mean, in the span of 40,000 words, variety is crucial.
Even with this trick under my belt, I still know I can do more. But what? No, I am serious. How do you guys build your vocabulary? And if any of you suggest vocab cards, I will cut you.
Like other parents, my mother also pushed me to read, regularly taking me to the local library and bookstore. This backfired when, for my twelfth birthday, she gave me a dictionary.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I said with a huff.
“No, you didn’t. But you should have.”
I peeled back the cover.
“I already wrote your name in it so, no, you can’t return it,” my mom said as she collected the discarded wrapping paper.
To show my dissatisfaction, I refused to use it.
“What does discursive mean?” I asked.
“Go look it up,” my mom instructed as she rinsed some potatoes.
“Nah.”
To this day, the spine and pages of that dictionary remain pristine. You see, I hated learning vocabulary. Remembering origins and roots made my brain hurt. And even when I finally learned what a word meant, I rarely understood how to use it in a sentence. Or at least in a sentence more complex than ‘this is [insert adjective here]’.
A few years ago, as my writing habit became more of a passion, I vowed to grow my vocabulary. I signed up for Word of the Day. I even started a blog where I posted a word’s definition, tried using it in three different sentences, and then invited my readers to participate. Things were going well until I visited my then boyfriend in Alaska. Standing alongside a stream, glacier melt running through the wilderness, I turned to this one-time NASA astronaut candidate and tried to show off.
“The turgid waters rush over the slippery rocks and down toward the forest,” I said with a proud smile.
“Turbid,” he said with a chuckle.
“Fuck.”
Not having a large vocabulary is like trying to paint only with primary colors. After a while, you get pretty tired of blue. But I haven’t given up yet. One trick I recently learned was to print out what I’ve written and then go through and circle any word I think can be improved. Then I scour the thesaurus and dictionary for ideas. It’s actually done wonders for my writing. Especially my novel. I mean, in the span of 40,000 words, variety is crucial.
Even with this trick under my belt, I still know I can do more. But what? No, I am serious. How do you guys build your vocabulary? And if any of you suggest vocab cards, I will cut you.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
What fresh hell is this?
Z is trying to get me healthy. I’m not unhealthy in the sense of having a cold or rheumatism, but since I started Z and since I started the MFA program, I haven’t been living “a healthy lifestyle.”
Oh, who am I kidding. I’ve never seriously had one. I don’t eat green vegetables and for five of the seven years I belonged to my gym I was mostly paying fat tax. One day a month I would sheepishly hand my payment to the ex-Marine in sweatpants, climb onto the treadmill, and vow to do better in the coming weeks. But then I’d forget to go. Eventually, I started mailing my payments in, which is so much easier.
Z, on the other hand, eats like a sensible person and knows himself well enough that he recognizes that daily exercise keeps him balanced and happy. I often suspect that if our paths had crossed in high school we never would have noticed each other. A girl with her nose in a book has little time for boys shoulder deep in rugby scrums. Thank goodness he came to Indiana for two years and learned how to be sedentary or I never would have met him.
Where I am from, the land is mostly flat, so Seattle was a surprise to me. We live on First Hill. When I am at the bottom sucking down a chocolate shake at Red Robin and looking out at the beauty of Elliott Bay, the horizon—if you ignore the Olympic Mountain Range in the distance--is horizantalish like home. But then we start to climb up to the peak where we live, and the huffing and palpitating and cursing begin. By the time we reach the front door (at the top of an additional 22 steps), I’m thinking of it as Fresh Hell instead of First Hill.
The first two weeks I was here, the hills and living with no car was completely kicking my backside. Even now, when we walk the five blocks to downtown, I navigate our journey home completely based on which streets have the lowest inclines and if we can time our outings so we could get into the convention center before 10 p.m. when the doors lock, because there in the heart of the building, is a giant, glorious series of escalators that will carry us up half of the hill we would otherwise have to climb. Z doesn’t understand. He does no huffing and puffing. And lately, he’s been tricking me into more walks that are purposeless, save for the health benefit.
Since the weather has been good, he sometimes lures me out with the promise of some treat at the end: a movie, supper, a neighborhood we haven’t yet been in that I’d like to see. When we get back—after the agonizing climb up First Hill—he asks expectantly if I feel better. Of course I don’t feel better. I’m sweaty and out of breath and my muscles are twitching. Maybe LATER I’ll feel the benefits. I might sleep better. My pants might eventually be less tight. But during or right after the walk? When I get back from a walk I start seriously considering the benefits of an adjustable bed and a motorized scooter.
When I give my students writing exercise, they react like I do to the walks. They do it only because there is a space in the gradebook that needs filling. You’d think when I say, “We’re going to do a fastwrite” that I’ve said, “Drop and give me twenty.” And even though I love writing in ways most of my students cannot fathom, I am sometimes the same way. If I’ve been away from the keyboard for a while, when I come back to it, my brain aches and looks for every excuse there is to escape the torture (i.e. I’ve got an infected hangnail that hurts when I depress the keys, the mail is bound to be here soon and I should just wait to start then, that laundry isn’t going to wash itself!).
But the thing about sitting down and doing the writing is I never feel worse once I’m done. My joints don’t creak. My brain doesn’t immediately try to think up excuses for getting out of it the next day. I feel a little bouncy and invigorated. It really isn’t fresh hell at all. Maybe after a few more walks I’ll feel the same way about exercise too. I have my doubts.
Oh, who am I kidding. I’ve never seriously had one. I don’t eat green vegetables and for five of the seven years I belonged to my gym I was mostly paying fat tax. One day a month I would sheepishly hand my payment to the ex-Marine in sweatpants, climb onto the treadmill, and vow to do better in the coming weeks. But then I’d forget to go. Eventually, I started mailing my payments in, which is so much easier.
Z, on the other hand, eats like a sensible person and knows himself well enough that he recognizes that daily exercise keeps him balanced and happy. I often suspect that if our paths had crossed in high school we never would have noticed each other. A girl with her nose in a book has little time for boys shoulder deep in rugby scrums. Thank goodness he came to Indiana for two years and learned how to be sedentary or I never would have met him.
Where I am from, the land is mostly flat, so Seattle was a surprise to me. We live on First Hill. When I am at the bottom sucking down a chocolate shake at Red Robin and looking out at the beauty of Elliott Bay, the horizon—if you ignore the Olympic Mountain Range in the distance--is horizantalish like home. But then we start to climb up to the peak where we live, and the huffing and palpitating and cursing begin. By the time we reach the front door (at the top of an additional 22 steps), I’m thinking of it as Fresh Hell instead of First Hill.
The first two weeks I was here, the hills and living with no car was completely kicking my backside. Even now, when we walk the five blocks to downtown, I navigate our journey home completely based on which streets have the lowest inclines and if we can time our outings so we could get into the convention center before 10 p.m. when the doors lock, because there in the heart of the building, is a giant, glorious series of escalators that will carry us up half of the hill we would otherwise have to climb. Z doesn’t understand. He does no huffing and puffing. And lately, he’s been tricking me into more walks that are purposeless, save for the health benefit.
Since the weather has been good, he sometimes lures me out with the promise of some treat at the end: a movie, supper, a neighborhood we haven’t yet been in that I’d like to see. When we get back—after the agonizing climb up First Hill—he asks expectantly if I feel better. Of course I don’t feel better. I’m sweaty and out of breath and my muscles are twitching. Maybe LATER I’ll feel the benefits. I might sleep better. My pants might eventually be less tight. But during or right after the walk? When I get back from a walk I start seriously considering the benefits of an adjustable bed and a motorized scooter.
When I give my students writing exercise, they react like I do to the walks. They do it only because there is a space in the gradebook that needs filling. You’d think when I say, “We’re going to do a fastwrite” that I’ve said, “Drop and give me twenty.” And even though I love writing in ways most of my students cannot fathom, I am sometimes the same way. If I’ve been away from the keyboard for a while, when I come back to it, my brain aches and looks for every excuse there is to escape the torture (i.e. I’ve got an infected hangnail that hurts when I depress the keys, the mail is bound to be here soon and I should just wait to start then, that laundry isn’t going to wash itself!).
But the thing about sitting down and doing the writing is I never feel worse once I’m done. My joints don’t creak. My brain doesn’t immediately try to think up excuses for getting out of it the next day. I feel a little bouncy and invigorated. It really isn’t fresh hell at all. Maybe after a few more walks I’ll feel the same way about exercise too. I have my doubts.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Before Literary Success...
William Shakespeare was an actor and theatre manager.
Charlotte Bronte was an underpaid and overworked governess.
Charles Dickens, as a child laborer, pasted labels on bottles of shoe polish. Later he clerked in a law office.
James Joyce, an accomplished tenor, paid the bills by singing.
Mark Twain was a typesetter and steamboat captain.
T.S. Eliot worked for Lloyd’s Bank of London.
William Faulkner delivered mail for the University of Mississippi.
William Carlos Williams was a doctor who made house calls.
Wallace Stevens sold insurance, eventually becoming a company vice president.
Ernest Hemingway drove an ambulance in World War I.
John Steinbeck was a tour guide and caretaker at a fish hatchery.
Raymond Carver worked as a janitor and delivery man.
Paula Treick DeBoard worked as a babysitter, clothes ironer, donut maker, fry girl, switchboard operator, banquet server, typist, in-home caregiver, donut wrapper, transcriptionist, paginator, pitter, ad copy editor, public relations flack, quasi marketing expert, teacher (substitute, summer school, night school, Saturday school, English), yearbook advisor, department chair, donut eater, ticket taker, essay rater, and well… the list will no doubt continue.
Right now it’s good for me to remember that everyone starts somewhere.
Charlotte Bronte was an underpaid and overworked governess.
Charles Dickens, as a child laborer, pasted labels on bottles of shoe polish. Later he clerked in a law office.
James Joyce, an accomplished tenor, paid the bills by singing.
Mark Twain was a typesetter and steamboat captain.
T.S. Eliot worked for Lloyd’s Bank of London.
William Faulkner delivered mail for the University of Mississippi.
William Carlos Williams was a doctor who made house calls.
Wallace Stevens sold insurance, eventually becoming a company vice president.
Ernest Hemingway drove an ambulance in World War I.
John Steinbeck was a tour guide and caretaker at a fish hatchery.
Raymond Carver worked as a janitor and delivery man.
Paula Treick DeBoard worked as a babysitter, clothes ironer, donut maker, fry girl, switchboard operator, banquet server, typist, in-home caregiver, donut wrapper, transcriptionist, paginator, pitter, ad copy editor, public relations flack, quasi marketing expert, teacher (substitute, summer school, night school, Saturday school, English), yearbook advisor, department chair, donut eater, ticket taker, essay rater, and well… the list will no doubt continue.
Right now it’s good for me to remember that everyone starts somewhere.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Edit. Delete. Retry.
It’s mid-term and there are papers to grade, I have to figure out the 25 words that will be read as I walk across the stage to collect my degree in July, there’s a presentation draft and essay due in a week, and I’m trying to figure out how a person is supposed juggle husband and family/friends when she returns home for her first post-wedding visit. (Both sides would insist they don’t need juggling, but I’m a child of divorce and my brain insists otherwise.) So what have I been thinking about for the last few days?
Well, frankly, Sandra Bullock and her disappointing husband.
As a newlywed and a person roughly the same age as Bullock (and as the above-mentioned child of divorce), a person might assume that one or all of these are the reasons I keep pouring over photos of the tattooed webcam porno queen/other woman or thinking about—whether the timing was intentional or not—how mean it was that she barely got any time at all to enjoy that Oscar statuette before her life got all crumbly and ugly.
But no, the real reason is that I keep thinking how writing is better than real life, primarily because in writing, you can revise. You can, for instance, get to the end of your story and realize that a character doesn’t belong and should have never been included in the main character’s trajectory and backspace him right out of existence. Or, if you see real value in the growth for the main character caused by the inclusion of the badly behaved secondary character, you can make sure she has an air-tight pre-nup and a nightstand full of condoms that she has insisted he use since they got together. You can also make sure that there is a Justin Matissee on her horizon that will make all the recent yuck of her life suddenly worth it. At the very least, you can make sure that her acceptance speech for a major award does not include a teary, heart-felt reference to the man about to harsh her Oscar high.
If only we were allowed to edit all the scripts.
Well, frankly, Sandra Bullock and her disappointing husband.
As a newlywed and a person roughly the same age as Bullock (and as the above-mentioned child of divorce), a person might assume that one or all of these are the reasons I keep pouring over photos of the tattooed webcam porno queen/other woman or thinking about—whether the timing was intentional or not—how mean it was that she barely got any time at all to enjoy that Oscar statuette before her life got all crumbly and ugly.
But no, the real reason is that I keep thinking how writing is better than real life, primarily because in writing, you can revise. You can, for instance, get to the end of your story and realize that a character doesn’t belong and should have never been included in the main character’s trajectory and backspace him right out of existence. Or, if you see real value in the growth for the main character caused by the inclusion of the badly behaved secondary character, you can make sure she has an air-tight pre-nup and a nightstand full of condoms that she has insisted he use since they got together. You can also make sure that there is a Justin Matissee on her horizon that will make all the recent yuck of her life suddenly worth it. At the very least, you can make sure that her acceptance speech for a major award does not include a teary, heart-felt reference to the man about to harsh her Oscar high.
If only we were allowed to edit all the scripts.
Friday, March 19, 2010
You've Got a Friend
I know I’m stating the obvious here but writing is a very solitary process. You sit alone at your desk. You quietly create characters in your head. Sometimes you hit your stride, whipping out ten pages in two hours. Other times you belabor an idea for a month and still can’t get your footing. Either way, you go at it alone.
“I’m stuck,” I complained to a coworker.
“I’ve got nothing left,” I whined to my sister.
No matter how hard I thought, no matter how much I read, I couldn’t find inspiration for the next story of my collection. Horizontal on my sofa, watching the cast of The Real Housewives of New York bicker, I tried to conjure up a plot. I knew I had come to a really bad place when I seriously considered writing a story about a guy who, while driving home from banging a hooker, accidentally hits a runner on the side of the road and leaves him for dead. All I was missing was an alien.
At the end of my rope, I stepped out of my one-woman writing cave and reached out to friends. I sent one email to Paula because she has read my entire collection so far and another email to Ryane because she’s politely listened to me yap about it. In both, I summarized what I had to date, noting the chapter number, main character and plot. Then I pleaded for suggestions. “What’s missing?” I asked.
Both ladies wrote back within a few hours and both provided incredible feedback. “Write about a slumber party,” Paula excitedly suggested, pointing out that this will fill the gap where my main character leaps in age and develop her in a new way. “Write a story from the birth father’s POV,” Ryane proposed, explaining how cool it would be for the reader to have his perspective. I was suddenly fidgety with excitement.
It’s been a few days since those seeds were planted. Nothing has been written but that’s because I’m too busy thinking things through. Saturday I’ll meet my friend Allison in Princeton for a day of spring shopping. Later that night, I might try to catch American Buffalo at the McCarter. And then Sunday? Sunday I will return to my writing cave. I will ignore incoming calls and refuse to check Facebook. I will disappear to the deep darkness that is the writing life, toting nothing more than my laptop and a nice chilled bottle of Sokol Blosser’s Evolution. But the entire time, I’ll know I have my friends within reach in case I hit another wall.
“I’m stuck,” I complained to a coworker.
“I’ve got nothing left,” I whined to my sister.
No matter how hard I thought, no matter how much I read, I couldn’t find inspiration for the next story of my collection. Horizontal on my sofa, watching the cast of The Real Housewives of New York bicker, I tried to conjure up a plot. I knew I had come to a really bad place when I seriously considered writing a story about a guy who, while driving home from banging a hooker, accidentally hits a runner on the side of the road and leaves him for dead. All I was missing was an alien.
At the end of my rope, I stepped out of my one-woman writing cave and reached out to friends. I sent one email to Paula because she has read my entire collection so far and another email to Ryane because she’s politely listened to me yap about it. In both, I summarized what I had to date, noting the chapter number, main character and plot. Then I pleaded for suggestions. “What’s missing?” I asked.
Both ladies wrote back within a few hours and both provided incredible feedback. “Write about a slumber party,” Paula excitedly suggested, pointing out that this will fill the gap where my main character leaps in age and develop her in a new way. “Write a story from the birth father’s POV,” Ryane proposed, explaining how cool it would be for the reader to have his perspective. I was suddenly fidgety with excitement.
It’s been a few days since those seeds were planted. Nothing has been written but that’s because I’m too busy thinking things through. Saturday I’ll meet my friend Allison in Princeton for a day of spring shopping. Later that night, I might try to catch American Buffalo at the McCarter. And then Sunday? Sunday I will return to my writing cave. I will ignore incoming calls and refuse to check Facebook. I will disappear to the deep darkness that is the writing life, toting nothing more than my laptop and a nice chilled bottle of Sokol Blosser’s Evolution. But the entire time, I’ll know I have my friends within reach in case I hit another wall.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Recharging
On Saturday, I drove 360 miles from my house in California to Ashland, Oregon, and then on Sunday, I drove 360 miles back. It wasn’t a life-threatening situation or a quick trip home – it was purely for pleasure. Ashland is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and it’s one of my favorite places to visit. Not just for Shakespeare (and the host of other plays), but for the sweet small town, the literate population, the cozy pubs, the meandering paths through Lithia Park. And then to see a world-class production of Hamlet to boot? Bliss.
Alisha, my fellow English teacher and partner-in-crime was up for the ride – miles of tedious I-5, then breathtaking Shasta and towering redwood forests at the border. There wasn’t a chance of being bored or sleepy – we talked for five-and-a-half hours each way, pausing only for caffeine and potty breaks.
That evening we saw a modern production of Hamlet, and even if there was a brief period during Act IV where my eyelids slid closed, it was fantastic. Hamlet himself looked like a cross between Conan O’Brien and Beavis; Rosencrantz and Gildenstern were two lovely women – it was tragic indeed when they were pronounced dead; four “Playas” came onstage to rap the play-within-a-play; Ophelia went delightfully mad.
Maybe it was kind of a crazy idea, especially with daylight savings cutting our trip a valuable hour shorter, but for about thirty-six hours I didn’t think at all about my novel. I browsed a bookstore, enjoyed a masterpiece of world literature, and talked about books and the teaching of books – and I got out of my own head. I was able to forget, completely, the problems of how to work in a certain scene, of which “darlings” still needed to be killed, of how in the heck I was going to wrap this thing up in time.
Today, only slightly sleepy, I was back on task. I plowed through about twelve pages which tomorrow will need an editing eye. I was able to climb right back inside Kirsten’s head, following my writer’s instinct.
720 miles in two days? As it turned out, not a bad idea at all. I guess I’m thinking of it now as a sort of recharging, a realignment of purpose. My own world had been feeling claustrophobic – it was nice to breathe someone else’s air, even if it was only for a few hours.
Alisha, my fellow English teacher and partner-in-crime was up for the ride – miles of tedious I-5, then breathtaking Shasta and towering redwood forests at the border. There wasn’t a chance of being bored or sleepy – we talked for five-and-a-half hours each way, pausing only for caffeine and potty breaks.
That evening we saw a modern production of Hamlet, and even if there was a brief period during Act IV where my eyelids slid closed, it was fantastic. Hamlet himself looked like a cross between Conan O’Brien and Beavis; Rosencrantz and Gildenstern were two lovely women – it was tragic indeed when they were pronounced dead; four “Playas” came onstage to rap the play-within-a-play; Ophelia went delightfully mad.
Maybe it was kind of a crazy idea, especially with daylight savings cutting our trip a valuable hour shorter, but for about thirty-six hours I didn’t think at all about my novel. I browsed a bookstore, enjoyed a masterpiece of world literature, and talked about books and the teaching of books – and I got out of my own head. I was able to forget, completely, the problems of how to work in a certain scene, of which “darlings” still needed to be killed, of how in the heck I was going to wrap this thing up in time.
Today, only slightly sleepy, I was back on task. I plowed through about twelve pages which tomorrow will need an editing eye. I was able to climb right back inside Kirsten’s head, following my writer’s instinct.
720 miles in two days? As it turned out, not a bad idea at all. I guess I’m thinking of it now as a sort of recharging, a realignment of purpose. My own world had been feeling claustrophobic – it was nice to breathe someone else’s air, even if it was only for a few hours.
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