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Just checking if you are here

September 5, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

When I started Danuta Hinc Blog in the last week of January this year I didn’t know what to expect but the anticipation of what might or might not happen had kept me up long hours at night for many weeks.

The most terrifying question that had been coming to my mind:  Will anyone be interested in reading what I wanted to share?

The very question has given birth to a new ritual in my life called “Just checking if you are here.”

It translates into something very practical: Every morning, as my coffee is brewing, I open the blog to check the blog’s stats.  And every morning, as I see the numbers growing, my heart races the same way.

As of today, the blog is steadily approaching 10,000 hits.  I can sleep now.  Why?  Because I know I am not alone.  I know someone is reading, someone is there for me.

What I have learned is:  Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing that you, my reader were here.  Your presents in my blog makes me believe that you are interested in my impressions and meditations on various aspects of my experience.

And as I check the links of the hits in my blog, I can see that my readers come to me from Europe, Asia, Africa, both Americas, and Australia.  Thank you for accepting my invitation!

I was inspired to write this post because of the beautiful and humbling comment by Heather I have recently received on the About me page.

Here is the comment:

Dear Danuta,

It is really inspiring and pleasant to read your blog!

Very nourishing indeed.

Thank you so much for opening your heart widely.

And here is my answer to Heather:

Dear Heather,

My writing and opening exists only with your reading and accepting–we are in it together.

Thank you for being here for me.

Nothing is more rewarding to me than seeing that someone appreciates what is essential to me–to find the connection with another, to share, to inspire.

With deepest gratitude to all of you.  Thank you for being in my life.

[It's 5:55PM on Sunday, September 5, 2010.  As I was about to click the "Publish" button, I have received this email from Helen:

I wanted to tell you how impressive the blog you shared with us was.  You are skilled and passionate -- a very inviting medium for your students.]

I can’t even express my joy.  Thank you!


Posted in Meditations on life, People in my life | 6 Comments »

Memories: How much do we remember?

August 28, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

I came to believe that the me inside of me is the same since my earliest memories can reach.

I came to believe that time and experience have changed my flesh and matured my way of thinking but have had no impact on the core or the essence of what constitutes the me.

And I think that the me is the part of me that remembers.

Here is what I remember when I look at the picture you see in this post.

My mom leans over me and picks me up.  She places me on the chair.  The cushion of the chair is soft and springy.  I try to be still and I am afraid to lean back.  I look down and I see the tips of my yellow shoes being scratched and I don’t like it.  Mom asks me to hold my doll and then she moves back a couple of steps to look at me.

“No.  It doesn’t look right.  The doll is too big.  It covers her too much,”  my mom says to the photographer, a woman who will take my picture.

Both women look at me, come closer to the chair and then move back.  They move fast, I try to be still.

“Do you have a toy we can borrow?  Something smaller?”  my mom asks.

The photographer passes me on the left and disappears behind the black curtain.  I turn slowly to look back, to see what she is doing.  I want to go there with her.  I want to see what’s behind the black curtain.

She comes back and hands me a little puppet.

“That’s better,” my mom says and comes closer.  She touches my hands and says:

“Danuta, don’t squeeze it so much.  Hold it gently.”

I understand what she says and I want to do it but I can’t.  My hands don’t listen to me.  I can’t even open them.  I try to be still on the soft cushion.  I can feel the springs in the cushion and this is what makes me be still.

Mom places my doll on the chair next to me and she lifts the doll’s arm.  Now she moves back and says:

“Danuta, smile.”  And she smiles at me in a strange way.

She encourages me a couple of times.  I remember what smile is but somehow I can’t do it.  I am confused.

Today, when I look at the picture the me inside of me comes to the surface and I am the one year old Danuta on the chair again, as if there was no time that past between then and now.

When I become still and look down (but sort of inward), I see two women hovering over me.  I don’t really remember the exact words (I can’t hear them) but I remember what was being said.

I remember the feelings and moods of that day more than anything else.  My mom was nervous because my father was late.  I don’t remember him joining us but I know that he came because I have a picture of the three of us from that day.  I also remember the speed of things, much too fast for me.  The photographer going behind the curtain, my mom moving back and forth to look at me, wobbly chair, my immobile hands.  I remember wearing an amber color top with one button on the back and black pants.  And of course the ankle high leather shoes.

Even though, I came to believe that the me is the core or the essence of me, sometimes I wonder if I am right.  Do I really bypass the time?  Can I feel the moment from years ago?  Can I truly remember?  How much of the me is shaped by stories I have heard and told over the years of my life?  Why is it that the me feels so strongly like the essence of who I am?  Like the place where I belong? Like home.

Posted in Childhood memories, Meditations on life | Tagged , | 28 Comments »

Plastic Prayers

August 21, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

This is not a secret that we learn from each other but if it comes to my students I always feel a certain unease knowing how much I enjoy learning in the classes I actually teach.

I am paid for teaching not learning after all, right?

I meet interesting people in my writing classes, they all are called my students.  They share with me their lives, their passions, their sorrows, and sometimes their most intimate secrets and they always, always, always teach me something new.

Last semester, a question of ones identity was raised during a writing assignment titled “Journeys” and inevitably a question of higher power or god became a part of the preceding discussion.

As we struggled to find answers one of my students, David asked why we have to do it.

“What do you mean?” I didn’t understand his reservations.

“I mean,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “Why do we have to continuously ask questions that don’t have any answers?  What’s the point?  Who cares if God exists or not?  Would you live your life in a different way if you knew the answer?  I wouldn’t.”

“What do you propose, David?”  I asked mechanically, feeling myself being stretched beyond my expectation.

“Just be,”  he said.  “Just live. Just be your best and enjoy life.”

When I teach I feel like a child in a candy store.  So much to see!  So much to taste!

And then I ask myself the same questions: Is it wrong for me to learn from my students?  Is is wrong to look forward to the new class of students with the highest anticipation knowing that our exchange will teach me something new?

Later on, David had sent me his interpretation of the “journey/life.”  This is the image you see above in this post. Make sure to click on the image to enlarge it and to see the rich fabric of the “journey/life” as seen by David.

I became very excited seeing the hands holding praying beads.  I have immediately imagined a life of a monk who devoted his life to meditation.  I could see him walking slowly through a zen garden contemplating his breath and at the same time focusing on the rhythm of his steps.

Many questions, that sprouted from the imagined monk, came to my mind and I have contacted David.

“My goodness, I love the piece!”  I couldn’t hold back my excitement.

“Can you tell me something about the person on the picture?  Is this a monk?”  I asked with the highest hopes.

“This is a manikin,”  David answered.

“No, no, no!”  A silent yet loud scream invaded my head.

“I wanted something beautiful, alive, perhaps romantic!”  I wanted to say but didn’t.

“The title is Plastic Prayers,”  he added. I am still dwelling on David’s interpretation of the journey we call life as I read the quote he forwarded to me along with the Plastic Prayers.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?

–Epicurus

Posted in Meditations on life, People in my life | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments »

The day I met my baby sister Aleksandra

August 15, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

I was three years, three months, and one week old on the day my baby sister, Aleksandra, was born.

I didn’t know my mom was pregnant and I didn’t know I lived in Poland.  I didn’t know there was a world outside of my own and I didn’t know I had my own world.

I lived from one moment to another, without any purpose other than being, watching, and taking it all in.

My father took me to the hospital to meet Ola (a short form for Aleksandra) three days after she was born.  For some reason I was also supposed to see my mom but I couldn’t understand why. There was really nothing new or exciting about seeing mom even though my father tried to make me as excited as he was.  He talked about mom all the way to the hospital but all I wanted was to see my sister.

It was the beginning of June.  Looking up at trees was both scary and exhilarating.  I liked the way the light seeped through leaves and I liked the way the leaves moved in the wind–waving to me constantly but looking up while walking made me dizzy.

In the hospital, my father and I waited in a large and cold foyer, sitting on a wooden bench situated along the wall on the right side from the front door.   At some point a lady in a white dress, white tights, white shoes, and a white, strangely bended, piece of cardboard on her head, came to us and announced that my sister was ready for me to see her.  She also announced that my father was not allowed to go upstairs with us.  “Will you go with me?”  She asked and I grabbed her hand immediately, looking straight at her face.  “Yes,” I answered thinking that I will ask her about the white cardboard later.  Nothing was as important to me at that moment as seeing my baby sister.

We walked two flights of wide and shiny stairs that smelled like the stairs at my doctor’s office but weren’t made of tiny white and black tiles but something much bigger, one big rock.

At the top of the stairs was a very heavy wooden door with a curved door handle situated way above my head.  The white lady pressed the handle and we entered the room. “We have to be very quiet because they babies are asleep.”  She whispered and I nodded.

There were boxes on wheels along all four walls.  In each box lay a baby with its head pointing at the wall its feet directed to the middle of the room.

“Now,” the white lady leaned closer to my face, “go ahead, pick your sister.”  She said smiling.

“Okay.”  I answered and let go of her hand.

I came to my toes as I stopped at a box that had a glass top and looked the the baby inside. “I don’t want this one.”  I said to the white lady.  And when she asked me why I told her that the baby was too small.

I walked from one box to another until I came across the one with a perfect baby.  The baby’s head was as big as mine and the baby’s cheeks were much bigger than mine.  When the baby yawned I saw that its mouth, although not having any teeth, was enormous.

“I want this one!”  I said in a bit too loud voice.

“Why?” The white lady asked giggling.

“Because this one is the biggest.”

“Do you like big babies?”

“Of course!  She will grow fast and she will play with me very soon.”  I explained my choice.

“That’s so amazing!”  She said and squad next to me.  “Danuta, the baby you picked actually is your sister.”

“I know,” I answered.

I didn’t understand why the white lady was suddenly so excited.  I didn’t understand why she used the word “actually.”  I didn’t know that the odds of picking my own sister were one in thirty.  And I didn’t know what odds were.

All I knew was that I came to the hospital to see my new baby sister.  I knew that the white lady asked me to pick my new sister and that I did. Didn’t I?

P.S. For those of you who are reading my posts regularly:  On the picture in this post I am wearing the infamous short dress.

Posted in Childhood memories, People in my life | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments »

On the nature of freedom: holding on to your scars and yet letting go

August 11, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

Inspired by a conversation I had with a friend, I am reading a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish, and I am thinking about the appealing and yet strange concept of freedom.

The question I see being asked and answered in the poem constitutes not what defines freedom but how it is achieved.

The speaker in the poem talks about the life experience of the tremendous fish, he/she is holding after catching, written on the fish itself:

five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.

The painfully long and descriptive narrative makes me stop and draws me so closely to the examined fish that I eventually identify myself with the strange experience written on the mouth of the fish.

And I remember being four years old.

I am running down the hill with a stick, as tall as me, I had found in the garden.  I get to the front steps of my house and as I place the stick on the first step, I lean forward fast and the sharp end of the stick enters my skin exactly where my left eyebrow ends.  Blood fills my eye and I can’t see anything but it doesn’t scare me as much as the scream of my mother.

My father picks me up and runs to the street  to catch a car that will take us to the hospital.  My favorite yellow skirt with the comfortable elastic band is stained and I don’t like it.  The car that takes us to the hospital is black and it’s dashboard is adored with tiny plastic flowers behind a tiny fence.

I don’t remember the first hospital visit but I am scared to go there for the removal of the stitches.  And I remember that visit vividly.

There are two doctors in the room.  My mom, who is wearing a nice gray suit and high heels, is asked to leave the room.  I scream.  Her face is filled with sorrow.  I know she doesn’t want to leave but the doctors are in charge.  I am scared.  I scream again.  Somehow I end up on a table, high above the floor, and the doctors ask me to lie down.  I say, no!  They put me down by force and I scream again.  And then I fight them with all my force.  They give up.  One of them leaves the room.  I sit up but can’t get down because the table is too high.

The doors open and four men enter the room.  They force me to lie down.  I fight for a brief moment.  And then I see the bright ceiling and I can’t move.  Four men are holding me down and the fifth one is hovering above me, touching my forehead.  In the last moment of my fight against all odds I scream: “Gentlemen, please, let go of me!  I have something very interesting I need to tell you!”  They all laugh and let go of me.

My mom enters the room and I run to her.  I don’t remember the moment my stitches were removed. All I remember is the fight — my body turning into a tight string under the unbearable pressure, blinding lights on the ceiling, my mom’s face, and the roaring laughs.

The fish in the poem made me see myself in a different perspective.  It made me remember the hook I carry exactly where the left eyebrow ends, six little indentations left by the stitches.

The speaker in the poem sees himself/herself as well:

Here and there
his brown skin hung like strips
like ancient wall-paper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wall-paper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.

I read “brown skin” and I see liver spots.  I read “ancient wall-paper” and I see skin wrinkled with time.  I read “full-blown roses stained” and I see white hair.  I read “lost through age” and I see something lost and gained through age.

The fish in the poem certainly is not an object of beauty but a symbol of strength, gained through life experience, and surrender (the fish doesn’t fight) in the moment of being caught.

In the end, the fish is being released. It’s a beautiful testimony to freedom achieved by strength, throughout its life, and surrender, letting go, in the last moments.

When I imagine the spaciousness of the waters the fish was returned to (for the sixth time), I think of the appealing aspects of freedom — the lack of boundaries and the plentiful of choices.   When I think of how his/her freedom was achieved through a long life and painful experiences, I know nothing is free.

And when I think of the speaker in the poem releasing the fish and the doctors that had released me I know that sometimes freedom is simply offered.  How strange, I want to say.  Sometimes, freedom doesn’t depend on our actions but simply comes to us as a gift.

Posted in Childhood memories, Poetry | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

Inception: or dream up your life

August 6, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

I saw Inception last week, a film set in the architecture of a mind.  In the movie, Dom Cobb enters the dreams of powerful people to obtain and extract valuable information. The plot centers on Cobb’s biggest challenge: planting an idea in someone else’s mind, an act known as “inception.”

The visual and conceptual worlds created in the movie are deeply multilayered, blurring the lines between reality and dream, between a dream and a dream within a dream, between a dream within a dream within a dream. The characters can lose themselves anytime, anywhere — if they forget who they really are while in the dream state.

The confusion of dreams and reality in Inception led me to ponder the blurring between ourselves and others and what this implies about our identities.  We influence each other in everyday life to the point that we can’t determine where ourselves end and others begin.  Is it even possible to determine the origins of oneself?

When I think about my own origins, I think of Heraclitus‘ river and his famous quote:

Στην ίδια ποτάμια μας βήμα και όμως δεν το βήμα, θα υπάρχουν και την ίδια στιγμή που δεν υπάρχουν.

“Into the same rivers we step and yet we do not step, we exist and at the same time we do not exist.”

When I look into the reflection of that river, I see myself  but I also see others.

I see Maciej, my high school classmate and my boyfriend.  This is the first time I am at his house.  We are standing in the living room.  I see a silk arrangement, autumn leaves,  in the vase  on the table and I say, we have the same arrangement at my house except that all the leaves are green.  Maciej laughs and says, you don’t have to lie.  I am not but he doesn’t believe me. And then he dies in a motorcycle accident.  I imagine the way his bike slides on sand spilled on the asphalt by a sand truck.  I imagine how the bike hits the tree on the side of the road.  I imagine Maciej’s thick black hair colored with blood and I want to wash it and dry it with the linen towel he liked, and I think that he will never find out the truth about the trivial lie that wasn’t a lie.

I see my mother’s eyes wide open, her eyebrows lifted to make me believe her words.  And I do because I am six years old.  She says: You should wear this underwear because it might be cold and we don’t want you to catch a cold.  And then she says, in even more convincing voice, that I look beautiful. This is a special day for me.  My aunt, my mother’s sister, a teacher, is taking me to her school to attend a class.  The family wants me to experience real classroom time.  It’s so much fun, they say.  They want me to see it because next year I will be in a first grade. I am wearing a lavender-pink long sleeve dress that covers only about a third of my thigh. I am also wearing thick white tights and a long bulky underwear that shows through the tights about five centimeters (two inches) below the short dress.  My aunt asks my mother: Do you have to dress her like this?  And she points to my underwear.  My mother says something that I don’t remember but I remember my aunt shaking her head. I feel excited and beautiful until we enter the school and I don’t know why I still believe the words I have heard from my mom.

I see the priest who taught me catechism in high school.  He talks about abortions and shows us a fully formed fetus in a jar of formalin.  I see myself getting up and pointing my finger at him saying: You are an idiot!  How can you say this is a fully formed human being and then show us the fully formed human being in a jar.  Why don’t you respect the fully formed human being?   You are a fully formed idiot! Then I leave the classroom. The next day, the priest comes to my house and talks to my parents.  He says that I am a rare eagle and that he respects me but doesn’t want any trouble in class.  My three-years-younger sister, Aleksandra, says: Let’s close the windows to make sure she won’t fly out.

I see them all — family members, teachers, friends, students, neighbors, passengers on trains and buses, authors, poets, politicians, actors, waitresses, cleaning ladies, priests.  Their words and actions embedded in me, my words and actions embedded in them, forming what is called life.

I suddenly know that I step into Heraclitus’ river in every single moment of my life.  I can’t separate myself from the river and I can’t live without leaving my own trace. We exist interconnected in a constant flow, constant change, in constant Panta Rei.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

The World As I See It

August 1, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

I have been rearranging and sorting things at my house for several weeks now and I have learned something new about myself.

I am unable to let go of anything without giving it time and consideration.  Starting with the long silk skirt my late mother gave me twenty years ago, through pieces of rock, glass, and wood I found three years ago at the bank of my childhood river in Poland, to scraps of paper with notes I had made several years ago.

And all the other things?

What is it about the necklace I received from my “boyfriend” when I was seven years old?  Why do I have to keep it?  I remember the boy vividly.  His name was Detlef and he lived on Siedlungsring in East Berlin.  We visited his family every summer for a couple of weeks when I was a child.  Detlef and I used to ride together on his bike.  I would have to sit either on the back or on the frame between Detlef’s arms.  I remember I liked his clothes and I would ask him to let me wear his sweaters.

What is it about the red pencil holder (with a zipper shredded to pieces now) I used in elementary school? Why do I have to keep it? I remember my teacher, Mrs. Klewer, and her clear voice when she sang for us playing piano.  I remember staring at the golden clip in her wavy hair and thinking about the freckles on her face and hands that moved so effortlessly on the white and black keys.

How about the long plastic ice cream spoons from (then) East Germany?  I don’t use them but I keep them in my cabinet. I remember my grandfather’s story. He told me that story on a hot summer day while we were eating ice cream using the long plastic spoons.  His spoon was purple, mine was yellow.

“What is the difference between heaven and hell, Danuta?”  He asked one of those questions that always led him to telling me a story.

“What is it?”  I asked in anticipation.

“The spoons!”  he said.

“The spoons?” I asked.

“Yes!  Heaven and hell look exactly the same.  There are very, very long tables set up in heaven and very, very long tables set up in hell.  In both places the tables are full of the most delicious foods one can possibly imagine.  People are allowed to eat as much as they want but they have to use very, very long spoons.  The spoons are longer than a human arm.”  He said.

“How can they eat then?” I asked.

“That’s the difference between heaven and hell.”  He said.  “People in hell starve through the entire eternity and people in heaven are always full and satisfied.”

“How come?  They have the same long spoons.”  I asked.

“In heaven, Danuta, they feed each other.”

How about the now-see-through bath towel that was mine when I was an infant?  I don’t remember the towel being used ever but I remember the stories of my birth.  “We were lucky.  We got to the hospital before the snow storm.  When you were born the snow was two meters high.  Everything was so quiet.”  My father remembered.  “We were so happy you were born.”  He said.  “Didn’t you want a boy?” I asked him.  “No.  After your twin sisters died, three years before you were born, all we wanted was a healthy child.”

And how about my mother’s winter coat I have in my closet?  It still smells like her even though she passed away ten years ago.  I remember her hands and how she touched my face saying, “I love you so much, so much.”  I remember her laugh and her high heels.  “I always wanted my daughters to be taller than me.  Thank God, you and your sister are tall.”  She would joke.  “And I wanted you to have long legs because mine are short.”  She would say.  “Why didn’t you ask God for skinny legs?”  my sister would joke back.  I smell my mother’s winter coat and I miss her so much, so much.

As I struggle through clothes, objects, books, notebooks, pictures, postcards,  I come to the conclusion or truth that was eloquently described by Albert Einstein in his essay titled “The World As I See It.”

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

Posted in Childhood memories, Meditations on life | 10 Comments »

Catching the fugitive pieces of our days

July 25, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

Anne Michaels is one of my favorite writers.  Her “Fugitive Pieces” is one of my favorite novels.

In her novel, not only was she able to resurrect for me the most mystical places of Poland, like the city of Biskupin, but she also was able to draw a magical map of the most beautiful places of Greece, like the island of Zakynthos. And all of it in the horrors of World War II.

Her prose is mesmerizing and taunting.  Once you step into her world, you won’t leave.  Michaels’ words will be etched into you forever and you will be coming back to the source, to her world, to remember the nature of language, to understand memory, to learn how joy is lost, and how suffering becomes the fabric and essence of one’s life.  She will show you how to live, and how to die.

I know why we bury our dead and mark the place with stone, with the heaviest, most permanent thing we can think of: because the dead are everywhere but the ground.

Michaels knows how to make the reader her prisoner and her salvation.

You will be her prisoner in a small room and she will let you see just the blue sky and the blue water.  She will push you into the wall and let you hear what happens to your family, the people you love most.  She will bury you under the ground and will let you feel the roots of trees and grass.  She will place you under a coat of a giant and will let you hear his heart.

Her salvation comes with your remembrance of the world she created — of Poland and Biskupin, of Greece and Zakynthos, of Jews and the Holocaust, of the beginning of everything, and of the end of everything.

And she will reveal to you the beginning and the end of everything — like in the story of a respected rabbi.

The rabbi decided to travel disguised as a poor peasant on a train.  While on the train, he is ignored and even disrespected.  Later on, when the community learns that it was him on the train, they apologize to him many times for many months but are unable to receive his forgiveness.

Finally, they ask him what they need to do to be granted his forgiveness and he answers that he can’t forgive them because he was not ignored or disrespected. Instead, it was the poor peasant on the train who was ignored and disrespected.  He tells them that they need to seek forgiveness of the poor peasant on the train.

All this time you have been asking the wrong man.  You must ask the man on the train to forgive you.

According to Michaels, every word spoken, every gesture,  every action, and every thought  stays in the place of forever and can not be erased or changed.  The personal becomes universal in every single second of every minute of every hour of every day of every life.  And in this concept one can learn how to sustain life and how to escape death — in every single second of everyday.

But the rabbi’s point is even more tyrannical:nothing erases the immoral act.  Not forgiveness.  Not confession.

Posted in Authors, Guest Writers/Authors | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

The tortuous boomerang journey of naming my novel

July 16, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

When I started writing my first novel, the one that will be published in November this year, I came up with a working title: To Kill the Other.  I have to admit that throughout the many years of working on the novel, the title found a place in my heart and mind. But I always thought of it as temporary.

When the novel was finished, the first comment I received from the publisher reinforced the idea that the title was wrong. “People don’t like the word kill,” I was told. “But don’t worry; your editor will help you to find something more suitable.”

As the manuscript went through all the necessary ablutions in copy editing, I was searching for a new title.  I was determined to come up with something absolutely perfect before my editor saw the manuscript.

What did I do?

I have spent hours on the phone with my friends and, although they were all surprised that I was searching for a new title, they promised to think about it. “What’s wrong with the one you have?” they asked. But hearing the urgent desperation in my voice, they didn’t argue with me too long.

My son, Alex, also didn’t see a reason to change the working title. “I love it!  To Kill the Other is perfect,” he said as he was walking out the room hurriedly. But I couldn’t tell if the statement came from a true conviction or from the fact that sixteen year old people are constantly preoccupied with something and have to rush to attend to the important “stuff” of their daily lives.

I have asked my friends on Facebook to vote on a title and they did.  Some of them even took the time to explain their choices.

Here are the titles that were considered in the course of the copy editing process:

1) In the Name of the Father

2) Killing the Other

3) Altitude

4) Lost

5) Boy

6) Twins

7) Water

8) Fallen Angels

9) Away from Life

10) The Other Twin

11) To Kill the Other

All the titles expressed something about the novel, but none of them said the exact and precise thing that needed to be said. For me, the disturbing discovery was that I — the book’s author — did not seem to know what exactly and precisely needed to be communicated by the title.

And then came the day when Emily, my editor, sent her first changes back to me and said, “I love the title To Kill the Other.“

“Oh, no!”  I said.

“Oh, yes!” Emily said.

Suddenly the impermanence of my working title became irrelevant and the familiar feeling associated with the so-old title swept over me. I felt as if I had just met a friend I hadn’t seen for years and I realized that not only had I missed my friend dearly, but I was also grateful that our relationship had been resurrected.

I also came to a conclusion that I saw my friend, the tentative working title, in a different, more favorable light thanks to the exhausting search through all the possibilities.

This made me think that no journey is ever lost. Even if the trajectory of our travels leads us right back home, to the place of the beginning, we are not the same — nothing is the same. Everything is different, and even though it seems to be familiar, it is changed forever.

Posted in My first novel | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

I finished my novel—but it isn’t finished with me

July 12, 2010 by Danuta Hinc

I have been imagining the moments of going through the last edits of my first novel for years now.  In my imagination, I could see myself staring at the woods behind my window with a “satisfying feeling of fullness,” as one of my friends once described it for me.

I could see myself leaning back on the chair, as I was looking at the woods, and putting my legs up on the desk. Perhaps sighing, or maybe saying, yes!

Sometimes, in the most intimate moments, I could actually see the sky above the roof of my house split open and I could hear clearly audible words of praise from the One who cannot be seen.

I have imagined that in the moment of completion I would feel that my novel was mature, perfectly ripened and ready to be released into the world with the most powerful message one could ever imagine!

Finally, the moment came, and for the past month I have been editing my first novel for the last time, with anticipation of what will happen when the last period sees the light of my page.

Last Friday, July 9th, I have put the last period down and nothing happened.

I feel empty.  I feel my novel is as open as it has always been.  I would like to re-write the 307 pages all over again.  The voice in my head screams, I know how to do it now!  And I don’t know how to let go of it.

I feel as if I had been pregnant for years.  Even though I tried desperately to find someone who could answer my questions, there was  no one  to tell  me anything, even my due date.  I got to know the baby I was carrying very well and I couldn’t wait for it to see the light of the day.

And when the baby was finally born, it left for college the same day.

I have so much still to tell you, I scream at night, longing for something that perhaps has never been mine anyway.

Posted in Meditations on life, My first novel | Tagged , , | 5 Comments »

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