Friday, August 06, 2010

My Weekend Crush

And now, for a love story. My crushes are normally on people, sometimes on concepts, rarely on things. I choose who captivated me, what moved me in any given week from the silly to sublime. But today my crush is on words. Not so much the putting together and pulling apart of them, even though their placement is impeccable here. No, this crush is all about the feeling behind them. The emotions, the memories, the unstoppable force. While the words are unique to their writer, we have all been there.

Yesterday morning I awoke to find an email from a friend recommending a story in the New York Times. In the hustle and bustle of getting ready for work I put it on my mental “To Do” list. Then the office was a mad rush of hurried phone calls and scribbled Post-Its. Just before leaving my desk for the day, I rediscovered her email. Wanting something to unwind with, and knowing my friend’s unwavering good taste (thanks, Scribegrrrl & Scribegrrrl’s girl), I clicked the link. The link led me to the Times’ Modern Love collection, a weekly essay ruminating on matters of the heart published from reader submissions. But really, what it was was a gift.

Because what I read, in part, was this:
She was a poet living in a castle-like apartment flooded with plants and books I’d never heard of. The details of her exotic childhood, I learned, included an organic farm in rural Texas and a private girls’ school. She did origami and left it hidden for strangers to find, knew the secrets of library basements and overgrown alleyways, and wore vintage hats covered in rusty brooches. She was into queer theory. She got her clothes from the Goodwill Dumpster. She was everything I’d dreamed of but never knew existed.

So now I want to pass that gift on to you. It should take you 5 minutes, no more than 10. Please read “A Kite That Couldn’t Be Tied Down” by Lisa Ruth Brunner. Enjoy. I’ll be waiting.

Her story, a love story, is gorgeous beyond adjectives. We all have that girl, the first, the one. She may not have worn thrift store cast-offs or left delicate paper sculptures in her wake, but she was how we knew. We probably didn’t travel to the Gobi Desert or Moscow or even Pittsburg with her, but she opened us to a wider world. The girl we will always think is pretty. The girl who will always make us catch our breath. She might be sitting right beside you. She might be only moments in time. Still this story, these words, brought her rushing back sweetly into that small space you forgot was empty. Thank you, Lisa. Happy weekend, all.

32 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:20 AM

    Wow! This was fantastic! Thanks DS for this! What a wonderful Friday gift!

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  2. Thank you for the gift..It was absolutely beautiful. =)

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  3. ;) babs5:25 AM

    beautiful story!
    I can already see the movie poster for its adaptation...

    I wonder who the girl is now.

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  4. Thank you! What a beautiful way to start an otherwise dull Friday morning.

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  5. Anonymous8:20 AM

    sometimes words strung into sentences have that power to sweep you of your feet and transpose you to quite a different time/place. verbal madeleines (pardon the proust). thanks for the lyrical reminder and the link to a celebration of first love.

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  6. Karmen8:24 AM

    Thanks DS. What a lovely way to start my weekend.

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  7. Looks like we have fallen for the same crush...at the last minute, I added a link to this essay on my Friday Favorites list. I usually only do four...but I ran across the story early this morning and added it. It is truly lovely. BTW - your Safety of Objects made the list too...I guess it's all DS all the time over at my place this week. LOL!

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  8. Thanks for sharing that - beautiful - made me cry...

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  9. I rarely get goosebumps, but from this I got shivers from my feet to the top of my head. Amazing!

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  10. I literally could not look away. What a beautiful piece, one of the rare ones that, somehow, seems to just keep washing over you long after you've finished. Thanks so much for sharing. Definitely Weekend Crush worthy. (Oh, how pedestrian my own 'girl with a kite' seems now...)

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  11. TACrawford10:33 AM

    Ah, yes, we all have that one that opened our eyes, swelled our heart two sizes, and then left us to figure it out on our own.

    A bow and thank you to the illusive girl who will aways have a piece of my heart.

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  12. Kirsten12:42 PM

    Thank you for sharing that beautiful story. It made me smile a bitterweet smile, for I remembered how I fell in love with my very own special woman. Now times have changed, and mostly we fight and argue over the silliest things. It's hard to admit you have failed, and we're not quite there yet. But now I remembered how it all began, and even though it's even more painful it also leaves me with a warm feeling. We were in love once.
    Happy week-end to you.

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  13. Your words alone were enough to make me emotional. That is rare and thank you. I think! Not sure what kind of quivering wreck I'll become if I read your source text...

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  14. Wow, that was perfect.
    I have one of those girls. I'm still following her, but have come to realize that we would be terrible together. But that doesn't stop me from loving her.

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  15. I read this when you posted the link on twitter. It's beautiful but painful like a fresh bruise. I'm recently returned from a trip I took in which I finally had to accept that she was never mine.
    It's so bittersweet but this makes it a little less lonely.

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  16. Emily3:45 PM

    Wow- truly powerful, emotional words. I'm such a sucker for stories like this. What's weird for me is that soon, I will be going to college in Pittsburgh after coming from an average suburban upbringing, and I'm majoring in English writing. I hope I can one day put to words a magical experience that's just as moving as this.

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  17. NinaS3:58 PM

    Last night my house mate was talking about people just now being born who will never know the world wiout internet, and asking whether this was a pity. I thought no, because every awful thing that the internet has put into the public domain is balanced out (over-powered?) by the opportunties to connect, to share, to realise that across this planet and across our different angles and life stories, we can find little pieces like this that make us know that the world and our human stories within it can be beautiful.
    Thanks for sharing this, Dorothy.

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  18. Wow, that was beautiful.
    Really, beautiful.
    Wish I could write something like that someday ;)

    Ingrid

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  19. Thank you for sharing this...I was transported back to memories of a certain someone. I miss her.

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  20. wow.. that story hit me hard.
    thank you for sharing it :)
    this especially made an impact on me:

    'The only thing worse than losing her was the realization that I’d never had her.'

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  21. That was really well written and sweet. Thanks for a good read.

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  22. I think it's both sad and beautiful that so many of us relate to that moment when we realized our own Girl With A Kite was never ours to begin with but that wouldn't change how hard we'd fallen for her. Or maybe it's just me.

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  23. Anonymous8:30 PM

    Bittersweet...

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  24. Anonymous4:44 AM

    Beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
    :-)

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  25. A wonderful "weekend crush"! Thank you (and Scribegrrrl) for sharing!

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  26. Anonymous1:40 PM

    "we would be terrible together. But that doesn't stop me from loving her."

    I can definitely relate to that.

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  27. Anonymous3:30 PM

    I too love words. Thanks for sharing!

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  28. On Autostraddle they found the kite-flyer. In case anyone is wondering who she is :)

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  29. That was the nicest story I've read in a long time. Maybe it's just the late-night-essay-writing-eyes I've got going on, but I almost got a bit teary eyed at the end there :)

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  30. JMagic1:36 PM

    At the end of the day and among all VD postings...this is my ab-fav. Paid it forward to make sure it reaches as many souls out there as possible.

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  31. Anonymous2:38 PM

    I can't find anything on autostraddle. But I'd really like to read something by that woman with the kite. It sounds like it could be interesting. (Or it could be completely self-involved.) Too bad Lisa is doing real, serious work now, instead of writing more. She might be more interesting to read than the now highly acclaimed author after all.

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