Saturday, Traveling to LA

    A bearded man poorly plays old Americana music while I listen to meditation music in my earphones to subtly drown the sound out. I am reading Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! 

One of the characters speaks of her novelist friend's response to a question she asks her. It strikes me like an alligator's jaw locking onto its dinner. She is asked if she methodically plans out her books step by step or if she writes as she goes, without a roadmap. The novelist's response being,

    "Behind me is silence and ahead of me is silence."

 

Monday, Traveling home

    I finished Martyr! on my return flight. It was as if all the angels in heaven intervened and granted me the uncommon luxury of two empty seats beside me. I let out every sob necessary with each remaining page I turned. Too many whimpers of resonance to count. In her own words, the character Orkideh says, 

    "I was not often 'a person to whom things happened'. And when I was, I had the sanctuary of imagination of art."