The Love Stories

When I was young my aunt asked almost every Christmas what I wanted to be when I grew up. She suggested I be a nurse, a teacher, a hairdresser. But really, I had no idea. I liked drawing, I loved writing, but these were not jobs I was told, they were hobbies, so they did not count. Plus, as my mother pointed out incessantly, my grammar was excruciating so I had no hope.

Therefore, I did what was expected of me and I studied a field that would provide me with a real job, but a job completely ill suited to me.

The fact was, I really liked writing and I thought it was a good idea to write for a living. However, I also knew that any ambition I would voice would be received with sneer and sarcasm from my mother and brother, thus I was not particularly inclined to share my aspirations with them. Once in a while, the longing would resurface but to protect my dream, I would bury it deeper and deeper until one day I forgot all about it. It all came back when I started working with John. Or should I say, it is only at that time that it no longer appeared absurd.

When I was young, young enough for my grammar or syntaxes not to matter, I wrote a book. Given that I did not know how to write at the time, I had chosen to illustrate it. I asked my mother to write down the title, so that I could trace the words on the cover. A book must have a title. It was called “The shock of the future”. What a title for a five-year old! On the first page, the first drawing was one of a beautiful brown horse and on the second drawing, the horse had been butchered. All the little stories were similar and in retrospect, quite morbid. I guess the future did not seem all that promising to me. Obviously, my mother was not too impressed, but no so surprised as to wonder where I got that kind of ideas from.

From there on, my writing career became sporadic and secret.

I have often heard authors say in interviews that writers can only write well about what they know well. The first time I heard that, I was heartbroken. I knew about drama, loss, hurt, abandonment, loneliness and broken heart, but of nothing else. I had nothing to write about, nothing had ever happened to me.

After much thought to the matter, my teenage mind concluded that I could only write very sad love stories with tragic endings. Of course, I knew nothing about love, but I certainly knew a great deal about the craving for it. The only problem was that I hated that kind of books, it was so sappy, so unrealistic. Needless to say, I was devastated at the perspective that my most cherished desire could only serve that kind of material. I had Pulitzer Prizes in mind, not Harlequin.

At university, I took a class in literature, in creative writing. The idea of writing stories for credits seemed marvelous. The first story I wrote was a fantastic story about an illegitimate son of Leon Trotsky who while in exile in Montreal, had become a mute homeless until the day he had won the lottery. All the stories were read in class and then handed in for markings. After the reading, I got good revues. The professor thought it was very well written, fantastic syntaxes. Gosh was I ever proud. When I received my mark though, I barely passed. A note on the last page justified the marking by the fact that the grammar sucked.

All these years, I knew I could write well, I just couldn’t master the grammar. Nothing I did could ever change that. That is, until I realized that I could simply change language. Suddenly everything became possible. And check it out, soon you’ll be able to buy my book in any bookstore and it won’t be a love story.

The last Christmas that my aunt asked what I wanted to be when I grew up; I had a slightly clearer idea and probably far too much imagination for an eight-year old. I told her that I wanted to live in a big city like New York, have a beautiful apartment in a high rise where I could see the night lights and have tons of lovers. I remember the nervous laugh and the impressive silence in the room. She never asked me again.