Random untitled navel-gazing piece:

Only one scene in Garden State made me cry. As the movie is nearing the end, when Andrew and Sam are sitting in the bathtub where his mother died, Andrew tells Sam, "When I'm with you I feel safe...like I'm home."

I want that, and I haven't felt like that with anyone for a long time. Romantically, I mean, which is a whole different level, a whole different type of feeling like home, than there is with friendship. But on this romantic level, there's really only been one person in my life who's been home to me.

Long ago, when I was another girl entirely, J. used to be home to me. Or, rather, I made myself think that he was, because of how much I wanted him to be. I wanted his life to be mine, wanted to merge my life with his and willingly erase all the traces of the things about my life that were ugly, or embarassing, or sub-standard. That was the problem, I think. He could never have really been home to me, because I never felt like I was good enough, never felt like I belonged with him. And isn't that the defining aspect of "home," of your soul's true home –- that you know you belong there? Though maybe he felt like home to me because it reminded me of the flesh-and-blood DNA home I came from, where I also felt like I wasn't good enough.

C. wasn't home to me. I wanted him to be, so much, but he wasn't. He's that intriguing, exotic location that I really enjoy, that I'm fascinated with, that I think I could make my home in. Ultimately, though, I could never live in those locations. They're always lacking something. The ease, the warmth, the welcome. I lacked that sense of ease with C. He's another relationship where I didn't feel good enough, that in some way I was inadequate, though I still can't quite articulate what it is that I think I was lacking. I just know that I always felt inferior, not hugely so, but enough to put me off-balance.

With J., and with C., I always felt like I was trying so hard to be good enough. I was always hyper-aware of everything about myself –- how I dressed, how I looked, how I was speaking, how I sat, stood, walked, what sort of preferences I had for food, music, movies, books. There was this sense –- and I'm sure that, if it didn't start with me, that I magnified the hell out of it –- that I had to get everything right to keep the relationship going, to keep them in my life. And ultimately, of course, because I can't escape who I am, any more than they can escape who they are, the relationships didn't work, no matter how much I wanted them to.

L., though –- L. was home to me. He was as familiar to me as my own thoughts, and my home as completely as any I've ever had. The sense of ease, of belonging, of not having to try and try and try to get things right -– I felt secure. And not the type of security that comes from knowing that he would never leave me –- the type of security where I felt like I knew for the first time which way my internal compass was pointed. My soul was quiet with him. I never felt inadequate, which is sadly comical, since I was ultimately inadequate in the one way that I could never, ever, change. And so, despite the fact that he was the truest home I've known, it still wasn't the right home.

And I've felt homeless for too long now.

As you say, Steph, it does need some editing and polishing, but yes. Make that Yes! it makes all kinds of sense. Very strong and very affecting. And something that most of us can relate to, on at least some level.

And, I just now found it. I haven't seen Garden State, so as soon as I saw the first line, I thought uh-oh, movie, won't have anything intelligent to say, best keep moving. I've read it now.

In re the piece, it's extremely powerful. It actually made me hear music in my head, in this case, "Unsent", Alannis Morisette's thing about unsent letters to old lovers. There's a certain congruence between the two.

In terms of polishing and length, I think the power in it, the sense of longing it conveys, the quietude behind it, negates any need for polish (or my definition of polish) - it might actually damage it. And I don't think it needs adding to, unless you've left out something deliberately.

edit: Bev, why do you think it needs editing? I thought it was clear, and very straightforward, and very poignant as is.

Liked it a lot, Tep. Except it made me conscious I've never had someone like that, not really. Although I thought so once.

the sense of longing it conveys

See, that's the tone that my small group got, in spades, but I didn't intend for it to come across that way. I don't know if that's good or bad.

As somebody who writes best naked(emotionally, you pervs,) I think it's good.

I don't know if that's good or bad.

Honestly? Neither. It's what it is.

That's one of those emotional feedback "ping ping ping" moments: while it may not be what you intended, it's what a chunk of readership took away from it, courtesy of their own issues, at least in part.

So the piece gets an emotional landscape, a whole secondary life, that you, as the author, didn't intend.

When mine do that, people always say "That's so sad!" And I think "It is?" I guess I'm better at playing hurt than I thought.

erika, nope - it's sad as filtered through the reader, not sad as you wrote it. That's the point, for me; that's where the work gets its own life, not from what I meant, but from what the reader, any and all readers, take away from it.

Said it before, saying it again. If the reviewer in Jacksonville saw the plague in Plainsong as "a sly take on the Rapture", how is she wrong? She's only wrong if she insists it's what I meant or had in mind when I was writing it.

But what I meant doesn't and shouldn't dilute her take on it, because it's valid for her, and it gives her acceptance or dismissal of the book a whole new dimension.

And somewhere in the Bible Belt, where they actually believe in this Rapture thing, someone's read it and taken that with them into their memory banks, and the book has a different breath from where I was going with it.

Where's the downside?

I want that, and I haven't felt like that with anyone for a long time. Romantically, I mean, which is a whole different level, a whole different type of feeling like home, than there is with friendship.

This could be cleaner. "I want that, and I haven't felt that with anyone for a long time. Not romantically, which is a completely different level, a different type of feeling like home than there is with friendship."

"Or, rather, I made myself think that he was, because of how much I wanted him to be."

Small things which would help the flow without diluting the power. It is wonderful as is. I think a small polish could still make it better. YPMV.