Skeletal The sun was a bright disc in the cloudless sky, casting over everything an oppressive heat that was made only somewhat bearable by a slight, warm breeze rustling through the trees. It was that awkward period towards the end of summer break where it was really a bit too early to begin thinking seriously about school starting in September, but each careless day was tainted slightly by the knowledge that soon you would again have responsibilities. Instead of making the most of the time we had, my best friend Miranda and I instead often wasted our days hanging around the neighborhood doing nothing or sitting around on her front step. Miranda lived in an unexciting looking house that was painted a light beige and had a roof made of tiles that had faded from black to a worn-out gray. The only thing that made her house stand out from the other houses on her street was the Japanese maple tree on her front lawn.
Miranda’s house was a twin, and a few feet to the right of my friend’s front step was another that looked fairly identical. The neighbors were rarely home, however, so we had claimed their step for ourselves, to be used as an asylum when the wasps situated in a small nest above Miranda’s doorstep began to act up. I’m not sure they ever knew or cared that their front step no longer belonged to them. On this day, the heat had caused the wasps to become restless and so we were situated in our makeshift wasp-escape place, whiling away the time talking and drawing on the ground with sidewalk chalk. We weren't doing anything incredibly interesting, but it seemed like we were having fun just by being in each other's company. “My aunt Mary is coming over later today. Well, she’s not my real aunt but her and my grandma have been friends since they were kids in, like, the 1940s. Isn’t that cool?” Miranda said, brushing her brunette bangs out of her eyes. Her grandmother trimmed her hair for her, and the bangs always seemed to come out the slightest bit uneven. “My grandma says everyone should have a friend like that, that they know their whole life.” “That’s true,” I said. I figured having a best friend for that long must be something like having a sister that you had picked. Miranda brushed her bangs out of her eyes again, this time smearing pink sidewalk chalk all over her forehead. “When she told me that, I said, ‘that’s easy, I already have the friend I’m going to be friends with my whole life!’” she said, smiling and pushing me good-naturedly. I smiled, pushing her back. ~~~ As the years passed, Miranda and I saw each other less and less. She got taller and thinner and started wearing makeup, while I continued to resemble something like a baked potato. I got the feeling that our friendship had been put aside for more interesting things, that it didn’t fit into her “cool girl” lifestyle anymore. I started to feel stupid for being the only one who cared about the friendship, so I stopped making an effort to keep it alive. Once I stopped calling her, we nearly stopped talking altogether. ~~~ The decades old metal clanged loudly as I slammed my locker shut, the loud noise barely audible over the cacophony of students talking in the high school hallway. The commotion of changing classes made it impossible to hear anything that didn’t break the sound barrier, so I was incredibly startled when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I whirled around. It was Miranda. “Hey, girl!” she said, as if everything was like it had been years ago. “Oh… hey.” I wasn’t sure how you were supposed to interact with an almost-but-not-quite-former friend who you had technically not ended on bad terms with, but had become the sort of person that I didn't have anything in common with; didn't really WANT to have anything in common with. So I just said ‘hey’. Miranda brushed her light blonde bangs out of her eyes. She’d had her hair bleached from her natural brunette. She’d always made fun of me in the past for being reluctant to dye my dull, ash brown hair to something lighter. “How have you been?” “I mean, I’m still alive.” There was the odd awkwardness of making small talk with someone who practically used to be your sister. At some point, Miranda and I had stopped being ‘BFFs’ and become barely more than casual acquaintances. I wondered when the turning point had been. The start of middle school? When we had stopped liking the same music? There had been a time when we had spent nearly every day together; where we had known each other so long and spent so much time together that we were practically two halves of a whole. You could have one without the other, but there would have been the underlying sense that something was missing. Now, it was rare that we would see each other more than once every few months. And even that felt pointless and unbearable, like trying to defibrillate a skeleton. Miranda glanced across the hall. There were several people who seemed to be waiting for her to finish up. They all looked like they type of person I would avoid. “Listen, I have to go. We’ll hang out soon, alright?” ~~~ We didn’t speak again that year. Or the next. It was hard to accept that Miranda and I’s friendship was dead. But we could never go back to being the way we were as kids. We had just become entirely different people. ~~~ My phone beeped cheerily, the screen lighting up with multiple notifications. The artificial light cast a sickly looking glow over the walls of the dimly lit room; it had just begun to grow dark outside. I glanced at my phone, the unnatural, white light hurting my eyes a bit as I scrolled through the messages. ‘hey, why don’t you ever text me anymore? I miss you girl’ Did I even know this person anymore? I had at one point, but that felt like a lifetime ago. I hesitated a moment before hitting the phone’s lock button; the messages could wait, they weren’t that important. The room fell back into semidarkness.
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My process for writing my hiraeth was a literal dumpster fire. I don't think I followed a single one of my six steps lol. I wrote it in my room late at night all in one sitting close to the due date, like I have done and likely will continue to do for every single school project ever. This is definitely a terrible approach, but it kind of works for me since the pressure of knowing something is due soon really helps me focus and write instead of stressing about ideas. I found the initial choosing of a topic to be the most difficult part. It was hard for me to think of something in my boring life that fit the theme of the project and was something that I was comfortable writing about. The free write we did in class helped a bit, though, since I was forced to think of possible topics to write about. Once I finally found a topic and started writing, the project felt a lot easier.
I think the best adaptation to my writing process would be to try and get in the habit of beginning projects a bit earlier, though. This would give me time to proofread my work (if I’m not too embarrassed to ever look at it again, which I usually am) or possibly have someone else look over it and give feedback (which I literally never do because I don’t like to feel the soul-crushing judgement of others). Overall, writing my hiraeth was kind of a struggle and I’m not really looking forward to having to expand on it more in the future. Slow Death This is my hiraeth draft - I might edit this tomorrow but I wanted to post it to my blog just in case.
``` I pressed a button on my phone, causing the screen to light up with the time. 3:36. Only just under two and a half hours until I would have to be home for dinner. I exhaled and placed my phone back down on the concrete step, returning my attention back to the street in front of me. The sun was a bright disc in the cloudless sky, casting over everything an oppressive heat that was made only somewhat bearable by a slight, warm breeze rustling through the trees. It was that awkward period towards the end of summer break where it was really a bit too early to begin thinking seriously about school starting in September, but each careless day was tainted slightly by the knowledge that soon you would again have responsibilities. Instead of making the most of the time we had, my best friend Miranda and I instead often wasted our days hanging around the neighborhood doing nothing or sitting around on her front step. Miranda lived in an unexciting looking house that was painted a light beige and had a roof made of tiles that had faded from black to a worn-out gray. The only thing that made her house stand out from the other houses on her street was the Japanese maple tree on her front lawn. I glanced over at Miranda, seeing her completely engrossed in playing on her phone. I clicked my own phone again. 3:39. I sighed again. Time seemed to be passing incredibly slow. That was the way it always was hanging out with Miranda, nowadays. At some point, Miranda and I had stopped being ‘BFFs’ and become barely more than casual acquaintances. I wondered when the turning point had been. The start of middle school? When we had stopped liking the same music? There had been a time when we had spent nearly every day together; where we had known each other so long and spent so much time together that we were practically two halves of a whole. You could have one without the other, but there would have been the underlying sense that something was missing. Now, it was rare that we would see each other more than once a month. And even that felt pointless and unbearable, like trying to defibrillate a skeleton. I clicked my phone. 3:47. Still not enough time had passed. I thought of years back, to when Miranda and I had been kids. Miranda’s house was a twin, and a few feet to the right of my friend’s front step was another that looked fairly identical. The neighbors were rarely home, however, so we had claimed their step for ourselves, to be used as an asylum when the wasps situated in a small nest above Miranda’s doorstep began to act up. I’m not sure they ever knew or cared that their front step no longer belonged to them. On days like this, when the heat caused the wasps to become restless, we would hide in our makeshift wasp-escape place, happily wiling away the time talking and making shaky chalk drawings on the bumpy sidewalk. We weren’t doing anything incredibly interesting, but back then it seemed like we could have fun just being in each other’s company. In the present, it all seemed insufferably boring. 3:51. Getting closer. It was hard to accept that Miranda and I had outgrown our friendship. That we could never go back to being the way we were as kids. But we had just become entirely different people. We still called each other best friends and did many of the best friend things we used to do together, but now it felt hollow and meaningless, like a person carrying out a tradition thats meaning had been lost to history. Even though letting go of the friendship would feel like all the time spent being Miranda’s friend had been wasted, it had to be done. I spared another glance over at Miranda. She was still starting at her phone screen. It should have seemed strange that my best friend and I hadn’t spoken a word to each other in nearly a half even though we were sitting right next to each other, but somehow, it didn’t seem unnatural for us. We had simply run out of things to say to each other. 3:58. Miranda and I had grown up together. And now we had grown apart. 4:00. Only two more hours. I exhaled. I could do this. The sun was a bright disc in the cloudless sky, casting over everything an oppressive heat that was made only somewhat bearable by a slight, warm breeze rustling through the trees. It was that awkward period towards the end of summer break where it was really a bit too early to begin thinking seriously about school starting in September, but each careless day was tainted slightly by the knowledge that soon you would again have responsibilities. Instead of making the most of the time we had, my best friend and I instead often wasted our days hanging around the neighborhood doing nothing or sitting around on her front step. My friend lived in an unexciting looking house that was painted a light beige and had a roof made of tiles that had faded from black to a worn-out gray. The only thing that made her house stand out from the other houses on her street was the Japanese maple tree on her front lawn.
My friend’s house was a twin, and a few feet to the right of my friend’s front step was another that looked fairly identical. The neighbors were rarely home, however, so we had claimed their step for ourselves, to be used as an asylum when the wasps situated in a small nest above my friend’s doorstep began to act up. I’m not sure they ever knew or cared that their front step no longer belonged to them. On this day, the heat had caused the wasps to become restless and so we were situated in our makeshift wasp-escape place, whiling away the time talking and drawing on the ground with sidewalk chalk. We weren't doing anything incredibly interesting, but it seemed like we were having fun just by being in each other's company. to be continued... I had no idea what the word hiraeth meant when I first heard it. I thought it might be a word like 'neveah', where it's another word backwards, since it didn't look like English. When we learned the definition of the word my initial interpretation of it was that it referred to a feeling like nostalgia, where you wish for an idealized home that couldn’t possibly exist but is everything you’ve ever wanted. Similar to the feeling you get when you look back on your past and wish that things had been different.
To be honest, I’ve had a really tough time thinking of a topic for my hiraeth project. I’ve lived in the same house my entire life so I don’t really have a literal home that I can’t go back to. However, my childhood best friend moved away a few years ago and I was thinking that I might write about how the symbolic ’home’ of her and I’s friendship is now gone. When we were kids I practically lived over her house since I disliked being at home, but as we got older we gradually grew apart to the point where we hadn’t spoken in months before she moved away. It still feels weird to drive by her street and see a different family living in the house she and I practically grew up in, though. I’m thinking that I’ll write a narrative for my hiraeth, even though I’m terrible at writing short stories. It seems really weird to write a story where one of the characters is myself, though, so I might end up doing a letter or something instead. |
Charlottebuckle up homestuck cause this is my blog Archives
May 2017
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