You are only 22, once. That’s a year that you can fall madly in love. You can also crash so hard that you don’t know how you will ever pick yourself again.
The music in this novel I am going to write all reflects a time when I was twenty or so. Twenty two. This morning I thought about the roses.
I wrote this:
They were stolen roses. I never knew where they came from only that every time he drove up he had one. It was the same in Los Angeles. He always had one. Sometimes they were wrapped in tinfoil, and I thought to myself that they were from his garden. But maybe that was her garden. I didn’t like the foil, but for a long time I kept them. I put them in my glove compartment because we were always driving in a city where the freeways are vast snakes. He took me there once, because he wanted to show me his darkroom. Where he was developing me. He had me climb the ladder to the attic. I had to walk by the African violets that were sitting on little lace doilies that covered nearly every surface. — from “Where I Laid Me Down To Sleep” — by Valentine Bonnaire #Nanowrimo 2013
And I listened to Joni Mitchell sing this:
You can wake up and think to yourself, “Where will I ever begin?”
And then you can say, I’m writing Herstory, which was something feminists used to call their narratives, so it’s a little like that except I want it to be cautionary, and actually it’s very much about love.
xxoo!
Adrienne
Happy Halloween to all…
Going to go out, get a few pumpkins and some candy, carve them, try and eat lunch, — waiting to start the composition.
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 