A Stitch of Time

by Lauren Marks

  •  •  •

  Jonah and I had seen each other right before I left for Paris. We both had plans to leave the city that summer: me for the European tour, him for Alaska.

  We ate at our favorite bistro in the West Village, Tartine, which had a bring-your-own-booze policy. We quickly drank a very big and very cheap bottle of red wine, and ended up on the far side of tipsy. It had been an intimate night out, but as we arrived at the Union Square subway, Jonah told me he wanted to sleep at his place that night, and I took that to mean that I wasn’t invited. Being alone didn’t normally upset me, but we wouldn’t be seeing each other for two and a half months. Why didn’t he want to spend our last few nights together? In protest, I crossed my arms and planted myself on a bench. A light rain had already started to fall, and though my teeth began to chatter, I was unwilling to get up. Jonah remained standing.

  I wanted him to change his mind, but more than that, I wanted an explanation. Any explanation. An alcohol-fueled insecurity was bringing out a neurotic streak in me, my ability to be agonizingly self-critical. And when I felt I might be failing at something, my frantic mind could quickly veer toward panic or despair, and my inner voice would go into overdrive. Why was he being so withholding? Was he leaving me that night so he could see another woman?

  Any reassurance from Jonah could have stopped me from going down this rabbit hole, but he just stood there.

  I want to go home. He shrugged. So I am going home.

  Though we were prone to debates and disagreements, Jonah and I rarely fought, at least not in the traditional sense—unlike most couples, we didn’t snap at each other and never shouted. We shared a strong sense of curiosity and loved asking questions about the world, but we used different manners of inquiry when answering these questions, and we often arrived at very different conclusions. I loved that Jonah spoke his mind regardless of popular view. After all, it was what had drawn me to him in the first place. It was wonderful when we fought the good fight on the same side, and what others perceived as his obstinacy, I saw as conviction. But his particular brand of insistence was so uncompromising it could be alienating to others. Friends had dropped out of his life, and there were even a few directors who didn’t work with him anymore because of it. He would defend his positions on matters of capital T truth, and if people were wounded as a byproduct of his scrutiny, he paid very little attention to that. But he could never be as objective as he wanted to be. He suffered from unpredictable mood swings, and these tempers kept him tethered to the limits of his very subjective experience, something all people are prey to. However challenging these traits might have been, there were plenty of reasons I was drawn to the extremity of his personality. In the beginning of our relationship, I was a somewhat temperamental force myself. Cocky, even. However, being Jonah’s partner while he experienced these swings had made me much more empathetic to him. Unfortunately, in the moments in which he’d become most detached, I’d want to draw closer.

  As I sat at the station in Union Square, I blinked raindrops off my eyelashes, trying to stifle a quiver in my voice.

  Why does it have to be so difficult between us? I asked him. All of this. We love each other, but at this point in our relationship, shouldn’t we be better partners?

  Partners, huh, he said. An odd term to use. Like your parents? His tone was lacking any sympathy, drained of its intonation as well. It would frustrate me to no end when he sounded like that. Privately, I referred to this as his “robot voice.”

  While the wine had made me sappy, it had made him stoic. Well, we’re not setting up an advertising agency together, if that’s what you mean, Jonah said. So is that what you are really talking about?

  At the mention of my parents, I became convinced that Jonah was suggesting that this was my slant way of broaching the topic of marriage. I was almost twenty-seven. I didn’t know if I wanted to marry Jonah, didn’t know if I wanted to marry anyone. But, in my petulant boozy stupor, I became utterly convinced that he should want to marry me. And at that hour of the night, I didn’t want to be analyzed or reasoned with. I wanted to be small as a dime, so Jonah could slip me into his coat pocket and carry me home.

  Instead, I descended into the subway station alone, and wrung out my dripping skirt, thinking that this might be the beginning of an end for us. It wouldn’t have been our first separation, but it had the potential to be the final one.

  Jonah called me the next day, though. He was in a much better mood, kinder, and we both apologized for our behavior. He even brought over a present wrapped for my birthday, an occasion that would take place while we were thousands of miles away from each other. And we made up in our usual way—in bed.

  13

  In mid-December, I had another consult with Dr. Russin, in her office on a leafy Pasadena street. She had asked me to come by so we could talk about a somewhat sensitive subject.

  There’s no specific cause for concern, she said as we sat down. But during the treatment of your ruptured aneurysm, the CT scan in Edinburgh detected something of note. You seem to have another aneurysm as well.

  The news came as a shock. I stared at her in teary disbelief, hoping I had misunderstood.

  I have two aneurysms in my brain?

  It appears so, but the second is quite small, she said, looking at her clipboard. You need to remember lots of people have aneurysms. Not all of them rupture. In fact, most don’t. And this one is much smaller than the first. We just have to keep an eye on it.

  That wasn’t much of a consolation. After all the doctor’s visits, I’d learned that location was everything inside the skull. My first aneurysm had been near the language centers of the brain, and as a result, the damage had dramatically reshaped my ability to use language and affected my entire world. If there was another rupture in a different part of my brain, what else could be compromised? My motor skills? My eyesight? My capacity to reason morally?

  Suddenly, I thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of American Transcendentalism; I had recently discovered that in his later years, he too had had aphasia. It was a progressive form that appeared to have developed alongside his Alzheimer’s, though at the time that disease did not yet have a name. In On Nature, he had written:

  “Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

  It gave me comfort that near the end of Emerson’s life, he somewhat became that figure he’d once written about, less like a man, more like a gaze. He couldn’t write in his later years or read without assistance. When he picked up one of his own books, he couldn’t even identify the author. There was no medical recourse for treating his condition, though it was reported that as his intellectual, cognitive, and executive functions degenerated, his humor never soured. Long after the onset of his dementia, an acquaintance asked how he was feeling. He responded by saying, “Quite well. I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well.”

  If there was to be another change in the topography of my brain, I prayed my cortical map would be changed for the better. Let me be Emersonion, I thought. Let me become grateful, even for my lack.

  what if i begin again. find my losses grea the same or greater than this time? let me be like emerson; thankful for his dimension (?). when he orients for a moment, long enough to answer the question “how are doing” and to reply “i have lost my mental faculties, but I’m perfectly well, thank you.”

  14

  I was jumping up and down on my mother’s plush white couch—in my arms was a story Justine had photocopied for me. Though I had read the pages back in high school, everything about it on this go-around was breathtakingly new. “A Soldier’s Home” was changing everything. I scurried to the phone to call Grace.

  Grace, I can read this! I exclaimed. I mean, I can actually read this!

 
She laughed. Grace had been patient with my outbursts over the last few months, and she encouraged me to contact her when I encountered any new developments in my language.

  This sounds great, she said, but maybe you can catch me up first.

  I explained that I was reading Hemingway for speech therapy. A story from In Our Time.

  There is this scene with Krebs in his parents’ home after the war, I explained to her. His mother is telling him not to muss his father’s paper, but he could probably borrow his car. Like he is still a kid. After what Krebs has just gone through, this scene—it’s all ludicrous, right?

  Definitely, Grace said. And purposely so.

  But what is so amazing is that Hemingway doesn’t say anything about the scope of the change that’s taken place, I continued. And Krebs doesn’t say anything about that either. There is a whole atmosphere apart from the words on the page.

  Yeah, Hemingway is famous for his sparse language, Grace said approvingly. Leaving things to the reader’s imagination.

  It’s perfect, I said. Even the name of the story is perfect, isn’t it? “A Soldier’s Home”? Because that’s not even possible, right? There is no such thing as home for a soldier. Not anymore. I was nearly breathless.

  Grace, I said. There is this thing that is not on the page here, but what could have been on the page. You know? I don’t know what to call it exactly. But it’s the entire story not being told. . . .

  Are you talking about reading between the lines? Grace asked. Like subtext?

  Subtext—that’s it! I started jumping again. That is exactly it! Sub-text.

  This revelation fully winded me.

  I hadn’t had this skill since the aneurysm’s rupture. Until this very second, I couldn’t read between the lines. And the craziest thing is I didn’t know I had lost that ability.

  That’s . . . Wow. I don’t know, Grace said. That’s pretty hard for me to imagine, so this must be really disorienting for you.

  I don’t know what it is. I paused. It’s amazing, actually. But now that I have this skill back, it feels dangerous too. Because now I have something too precious to lose.

  Wish I could be a fly on the wall during your speech therapy! Grace said. I might even be able to pick up some tips for my own sessions at the writing center.

  Grace had all but finished the course requirements for her PhD in English at Columbia University, and she was working as the assistant director in the writing center on campus.

  It’s just interesting to see the building blocks of language from this vantage point, she continued. Surprising to think about the sort of things you are working on.

  Mainly I’ve been working on this essay, I said. Hours every day. And still it’s taking months to finish.

  Hmm. You’ve mentioned it before, she said. I’d love to see it sometime.

  You would? I asked, a little surprised.

  Of course, silly. It would be much more fun than putting together the annual report for the writing center, that’s for sure.

  Grace told me that she was headed back to California for the holidays.

  Why don’t you send a draft of your essay before I get there? she suggested. Then we can discuss it in person.

  •  •  •

  The night before Christmas Eve, we met at Grace’s parents’ condo in Arcadia and headed down to the basement office to chat. For years, the two of us had exchanged our work, providing feedback and volleying back and forth to clarify our ideas. We grabbed mismatched chairs and faced each other like chess pieces. She took out my essay, but for some reason, she seemed nervous.

  I’m not sure how to begin, she said. And I noticed her tone sounded uncertain, too.

  Just tell me what you think, I said.

  Well . . . It’s kind of . . . It’s sort of . . . She took a moment to compose herself. I’m just going to talk to you like someone who has just come through the doors of the writing center, is that okay? In third person. I think it’s important to deal with text impersonally sometimes. That’s what you want, right?

  Sure! I said eagerly. Go ahead.

  This essay has many impressive attributes, she began, which are in no small part offering a glimpse into an experience most people will never have. But I have some concerns, I guess. Because the piece strikes me as . . . incomplete.

  Dutifully, I started to take notes. Is my grammar so bad? I asked.

  No, no. It’s something else, she said. She flipped to a page she highlighted, and then read something I had written back to me:

  I started hearing from dozens of people, some I hadn’t heard from in years. The tenor of all the emails, that my parents read me aloud from the inclined bed, was approximately the same, eerily similar, “Get well soon,” “You’ll be back to your old self again in no time,” and, always, “Persevere!”

  Over these two months since the aneurysm I have started to a incubate an uneasiness with these cheers of “perseverance.” And I’ve started to believe that it might be advising me badly. I take even the issue with the timbre used of the well-wishers. Disappoint. Condolences. Regret. Unexpectedly, I struggle with these correspondences. I couldn’t possibly describe this experience I’ve had, and I’m still having. And all of its sub-sets of experiences. I might begin with: Altering. Exhilarating. Ineffable.

  Grace stopped there. Now see, there is this big meta-story missing for me, she explained. The author of this piece is being supported entirely by a network of people around her, yet she doesn’t discuss this web of support at all. Her statements strike me as insensitive or, at least, incredibly unaware.

  I was a little confused. Well, those people aren’t really the point of the piece for m . . . I mean, the author, I said a bit defensively. She is incredibly grateful for everyone, of course. But the essay is about the complications of perseverance, and about words themselves. I pointed out another section in the essay to prove my point, and read it to Grace.

  No one has asked about this, so I can only believe that they don’t know to question it, about the gift of wordlessness. The silence, the stillness, the absence of words, is a once in a lifetime experience. In Edinburgh I found quietness I had never believed existed. A nothing mind, a fragment of flotsam. Often, I don’t conjure a full thought for hours at a time, and would have the words to keep or shape it when it came. I am a buoyant child’s bath toy, bobbing along unconcerned atop of an expanse of an unknown sea.

  But Grace countered that. Even that excerpt deals with other people, she said. Look at the beginning of the paragraph: “No one has asked” the author something. That means that these expectations about perseverance appear to come from sources outside her. It echoes back to the group who “might be advising her badly.” Other people are directly implicated in this piece, as kind of, maligning sources.

  That’s not the intent at all, I protested. It’s just like Krebs, a soldier with no home to come home to.

  But this author is not a soldier, Grace said. And this is not a war.

  I took a moment. I understood she was being literal, but I felt Grace was missing something. Maybe my aphasia didn’t involve guns or uniforms, but I had undergone a trauma that had caused an unexpected and profound change in my worldview. Like Krebs, this powerful experience had rendered me, in the eyes of others, fragile and in need of constant supervision and care.

  Okay. Guess I see your point, I said. But even with all of this amazing personal support, what if the author feels like this is a small part of something much bigger? What if she feels her experience is somewhat fateful? As if the whole thing was . . . meant to be.

  The fluorescent bulb above us flickered and Grace’s blue-green eyes twitched. Well, since that idea doesn’t jive with my worldview as a reader, the writer would become an unreliable narrator to me. She read again from the essay:

  I bristle even writing the word “recovery.” I have a thorny relationship with its semantics. Re-turn. Re-member. Re-cover. Every word implies getting back, but there is no back to go to.
This is not a physical injury like a sprain or break, which needs to be mended. There is no pain and there is no cure, and this is as it should be. This is not a revival, but a genesis.

  Don’t you see how problematic this is? Grace shook her head. Because text like that makes me think the author is sick and just wants to stay sick.

  For almost a full minute after she said that, there was no sound in that basement in Arcadia, except the rolling buzz of the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling.

  The Girl I Used to Be would have agonized over such a scathing interpretation of herself, especially from someone she so deeply admired. But in this new life, I was more curious than upset. My interactions with Justine about this essay had mainly consisted of agreement and encouragement. The way Grace had received this piece presented a wholly unexpected challenge. Although I already knew my language could be wobbly, it hadn’t occurred to me that even after all that time on my own, selecting what I thought were the exact right words, my actual message could still be misunderstood.

  Would you let me expand on my final point, actually? Grace asked, her tender eyes starting to fill. It’s not my impression that the writer won’t physically recover. She is well on the road already—it’s apparent in her text. But this author has some unreasonable viewpoints, and some people might be concerned that she won’t recover from those ways of thinking.

  This was an incredible thing to consider. Grace had known so much about me for so long, and vice versa. We’d forged our own senses of self, side by side, and in no small part, our friendship was based around the language we used together. And I don’t think we’d ever been more linguistically disconnected than we were in this moment. The essay had simultaneously done much more and much less than I thought it would. It was meant to be all about words, but Grace had added something to it that I had not even been aware of: this piece of writing put language first and people second.