It Was Never Me

Inspired by the italian movie "La Grande Bellezza".

She's gone now. Nothing I can do about it. The memory of her voice starts to fade, the pain of slowly letting go of her rushes through my veins. I let myself drop to the floor, catching a small glimpse under what used to be our bed. A journal stares right back at me, suddenly feeding into my hopeful desire to have a proper goodbye and yet a sweet reminder. The sound of her might leave my head, but her words shall stick until I no longer am.

(...)

Oh, how naive of me! To try and penetrate a dead woman's mind.

Fifty-two years alongside her. Fifty-two years of complete devotion and soft chills whenever those eyes glanced at mine. An entire life summarized in two lines.

"Oh, My sweet Paul...

He was a good companion through this journey."

A good companion.

52 years, 2 lines.

Two lines among an entire journal about the true occupant of her heart.

Pages and pages of the most poetic feelings. The exact same ones I could write about her...but meant entirely for someone else.

How to comprehend the fraudulent bubble I lived in? Excruciating to think all those happy moments and intense desires were always existing alongside a wish to be experiencing them with another...

Why couldn't my naive scenario last a little longer? You never really believe ignorance is bliss until you figure out you've been living under the shadows of it...

Oh, but don't you worry, my sweet Caroline...Wherever you are, just know that It was lovely to live from the leftovers of your love...

Reviews

[Too Poetic]

Wow, I do apologize for me taking so long to review this, an expetional piece, the very first lines are gripping. At last, this was the very first thing I reviewed and I was not disappointed, you always have a way of gripping the reader, I will continue to review your work though yet again my personal life has consumed my own work I will try to come on daily to post and review.

[Chip Murison]

Really terrific write. I wouldn't call it a story though. It is really more like a poem even though it isn't laid out that way. I like it lot and felt the punch in the gut he must have felt from reading her journal.

[S. von Glaubitz]

I'd like to see this movie! You've excellently captured the emotion you were inspired by. It's stripped down, but I think that's what makes it work. I could feel the sting when I read the sentence "Two lines among an entire journal about the true occupant of her heart." Are you going to let this inspiration take you any further?

[hypochondrita]

I thought I should mention that the plot lead by this story is merely present in the movie, in fact it's just mentioned in the overall story which actually follows the life of the man the jornal was written about. As for digging more into the subject, I didn't really have any plans for it. But thank you for the kind words, they're well appreciated.

[irene clairfontaine]

this is so beautifuly written I can't even describe the feeling it gave me. truly a wonderful piece,
"Wherever you are, just know that It was lovely to live from the leftovers of your love..." heart breaking, yet the lines are breathtaking

[Jones Crimson]

So you've basically written down a generalization of paranoia and regret preying on the less desirable emotions? Yeah, its well written and it works, I guess.

I'm sure many people will enjoy it and all that, but if it were even a few lines longer I probably would have lost interest completely and not written this review because to me it feels like a waste of brainpower to even attempt to compare to some one who wasted an entire fifty two years in complete ignorance. Then he began exclaiming his desire to go back to that!

Life not well lived, man.

[Kathrin S]

I really like this. It's well paced, well written (grammatically), and I found it interesting. I don't have any criticism at all - all the parts fit together well and it's a very engaging piece.

I was also surprised to read that you were inspired to write this because of a movie. What an interesting way to find ideas for a story.

[JayG]

This has meaning to you, because as you read you hold a picture of the scene in your mind, thus "filling in the blanks." But for a reader, someone they know nothing about is talking about someone they've not met. So while the story lives for you, the reader has zero context to give meaning for the words.

Added to that, while you read, you hear your storytelling performance, and your voice is filled with emotion. You use cadence, intensity, timbre, and all the tricks of speech to provide the emotional part of the performance. The reader hears only a monotone.

As you read, you use gesture, expression, and body language to amplify or modulate the audio performance. You can feel the gestures. You wear the expressions. The reader sees nothing because your performance can't make it to the page.

The really short version:

“There’s no such thing as a born writer. It’s a skill you’ve got to learn, just like learning how to be a bricklayer or a carpenter.”
~ Larry Brown

To that I'll add that none of the skills we practiced in writing so many reports and essays in school work for fiction because they're nonfiction skills. Nor does reading fiction teach us, because we see only the finished, and polished product. To create the product, ourselves, we need the process.

So keep writing, of course. But at the same time, put some time aside to acquire the skills the pros feel are necessary. It will be time well spent. And your local library's fiction writing section is a great resource.

For a sampling of the issues involved you may want to look at my writing articles. They aimed at the hopeful writer.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/