February 2013, Rhydin
My therapist says I should write. Talk about irony. Me, write. I'm a writer, I tell him. It's what I do. Not fiction, he says. He wants me to write about myself. There's not much to write about, I tell him. I'm not very interesting. Write the story of your life, he says. My life. Me. Michael Donnelly. Where shall I begin, I ask. At the beginning, he says. But I'm going to skip forward. The first time I saw Elena De Luca was on that silly television variety show she did with her sisters. There was a brother, too, I think, but you hardly ever saw him. Too busy with ballet or baseball. I'm not sure which. It was the girls I remember. Theresa, Mataya, and Elena. Theresa was a dark-haired beauty who always seemed a little aloof, as if the show meant nothing to her. She was only there because it was expected of her and because the other two wouldn't hear of doing it without her. Mataya was a live-wire, full of energy and wit and life. Anyone with eyes in their head could tell she was the real star of the show. She was going somewhere. She was going to be someone someday. She burned brightly, day to Theresa's night, light to her dark. There was such a contrast between the two sisters, it was hard to believe they were related. Then there was the youngest, Elena. Flaxen-haired and green-eyed, she was almost elfin in appearance. How can I possibly describe her" Words don't do her justice. She was, in a word, beautiful. Angelic. At least, to me. Quiet and almost shy, there was a sadness about her that I found intriguing. I fell in love with her, along with everyone else, and over the years, watched her grow up right before my eyes on prime time television. She was a star and I was no one. She lived in New York, I lived in Boston, and while the two cities weren't so far apart, we might as well have lived a world away. I pined for her, even though I knew our meeting was as unlikely as being struck by lightning. Even so, I fancied one day we would meet, and she would fall in love with me at first sight. I would sweep her off her feet, and we would live happily ever after, like in the movies.
It was nothing more than a fantasy really, but I've always been something of a dreamer with my head in the clouds, spinning dreams of one kind of another. That was how it all started really. With a dream. A silly dream that I put onto paper. My high school English teacher was a dark-haired woman with horn-rimmed glasses and a sadistic love for her red pen. I used to imagine her sitting up in bed late at night, laughing maniacally as she read the compositions she had assigned for homework. Compositions with silly subjects that stymied the most creative brains. The Life of a Doorknob, for example. Everyone knows that doorknobs are inanimate objects that have no lives. I imagined all the hands that might touch that knob and the stories it might have to tell. Ms. - I never found out if she was really a Miss or a Mrs. - Garrison gave me an A. Not an A plus. No one ever got an A plus. Nothing is perfect, Michael, she'd tell me. And yet, I had apparently come close enough for an A. Ms. Garrison, I learned later, had a fondness for Hemingway. Whenever we wanted to distract her from boring lessons about Homer, we would ask a question about Hemingway, and class would fly by in no time. It was Ms. Garrison who first recognized something in me, some innate talent for words that I hardly knew I possessed - the ability to tell a story.
I had always loved to read, my nose buried in a book whenever I had a chance. My father gave up on baseball when I was still young and surrendered me to my mother's passion for music and literature. I couldn't hit the ball to save my life anyway, but I could play Debussy and recite Shakespeare with skill and passion beyond my years. It became something of a joke when I turned fifteen and tried out for the high school football team, mostly because it was a good way to impress girls. Girls weren't impressed by good grades. They wanted a boyfriend who had a letterman jacket. Trophy boyfriends. Status. I didn't make the team and opted for the school newspaper instead. It was the kiss of death for dating, but I digress. As I was saying, it all started with a dream and some silly story. It was my first real piece of fiction. The first time I'd ever written anything without being given a subject to write about. I submitted it for extra credit to Ms. Garrison's red pen, and the rest, as they say, is history. She loved it so much she submitted it for publication to a small local press that was putting together an anthology of fiction from independent and unknown writers. From that moment on, every chance I got, I put pen to paper. It didn't get me any dates, but it did get me my first by-line. I had fallen in love with words, much to my father's chagrin. An English degree is a waste of time, he used to tell me, even after I went off to college. I should be studying Business or Biology or any number of courses that would guarantee me a job once I graduated. What was I going to do with an English degree" Write a novel, I'd tell him. The Great American Novel. And he'd laugh, but after my first novel made the New York Times Best-Seller List, he stopped laughing and doors started opening.
My therapist says I should write. Talk about irony. Me, write. I'm a writer, I tell him. It's what I do. Not fiction, he says. He wants me to write about myself. There's not much to write about, I tell him. I'm not very interesting. Write the story of your life, he says. My life. Me. Michael Donnelly. Where shall I begin, I ask. At the beginning, he says. But I'm going to skip forward. The first time I saw Elena De Luca was on that silly television variety show she did with her sisters. There was a brother, too, I think, but you hardly ever saw him. Too busy with ballet or baseball. I'm not sure which. It was the girls I remember. Theresa, Mataya, and Elena. Theresa was a dark-haired beauty who always seemed a little aloof, as if the show meant nothing to her. She was only there because it was expected of her and because the other two wouldn't hear of doing it without her. Mataya was a live-wire, full of energy and wit and life. Anyone with eyes in their head could tell she was the real star of the show. She was going somewhere. She was going to be someone someday. She burned brightly, day to Theresa's night, light to her dark. There was such a contrast between the two sisters, it was hard to believe they were related. Then there was the youngest, Elena. Flaxen-haired and green-eyed, she was almost elfin in appearance. How can I possibly describe her" Words don't do her justice. She was, in a word, beautiful. Angelic. At least, to me. Quiet and almost shy, there was a sadness about her that I found intriguing. I fell in love with her, along with everyone else, and over the years, watched her grow up right before my eyes on prime time television. She was a star and I was no one. She lived in New York, I lived in Boston, and while the two cities weren't so far apart, we might as well have lived a world away. I pined for her, even though I knew our meeting was as unlikely as being struck by lightning. Even so, I fancied one day we would meet, and she would fall in love with me at first sight. I would sweep her off her feet, and we would live happily ever after, like in the movies.
It was nothing more than a fantasy really, but I've always been something of a dreamer with my head in the clouds, spinning dreams of one kind of another. That was how it all started really. With a dream. A silly dream that I put onto paper. My high school English teacher was a dark-haired woman with horn-rimmed glasses and a sadistic love for her red pen. I used to imagine her sitting up in bed late at night, laughing maniacally as she read the compositions she had assigned for homework. Compositions with silly subjects that stymied the most creative brains. The Life of a Doorknob, for example. Everyone knows that doorknobs are inanimate objects that have no lives. I imagined all the hands that might touch that knob and the stories it might have to tell. Ms. - I never found out if she was really a Miss or a Mrs. - Garrison gave me an A. Not an A plus. No one ever got an A plus. Nothing is perfect, Michael, she'd tell me. And yet, I had apparently come close enough for an A. Ms. Garrison, I learned later, had a fondness for Hemingway. Whenever we wanted to distract her from boring lessons about Homer, we would ask a question about Hemingway, and class would fly by in no time. It was Ms. Garrison who first recognized something in me, some innate talent for words that I hardly knew I possessed - the ability to tell a story.
I had always loved to read, my nose buried in a book whenever I had a chance. My father gave up on baseball when I was still young and surrendered me to my mother's passion for music and literature. I couldn't hit the ball to save my life anyway, but I could play Debussy and recite Shakespeare with skill and passion beyond my years. It became something of a joke when I turned fifteen and tried out for the high school football team, mostly because it was a good way to impress girls. Girls weren't impressed by good grades. They wanted a boyfriend who had a letterman jacket. Trophy boyfriends. Status. I didn't make the team and opted for the school newspaper instead. It was the kiss of death for dating, but I digress. As I was saying, it all started with a dream and some silly story. It was my first real piece of fiction. The first time I'd ever written anything without being given a subject to write about. I submitted it for extra credit to Ms. Garrison's red pen, and the rest, as they say, is history. She loved it so much she submitted it for publication to a small local press that was putting together an anthology of fiction from independent and unknown writers. From that moment on, every chance I got, I put pen to paper. It didn't get me any dates, but it did get me my first by-line. I had fallen in love with words, much to my father's chagrin. An English degree is a waste of time, he used to tell me, even after I went off to college. I should be studying Business or Biology or any number of courses that would guarantee me a job once I graduated. What was I going to do with an English degree" Write a novel, I'd tell him. The Great American Novel. And he'd laugh, but after my first novel made the New York Times Best-Seller List, he stopped laughing and doors started opening.