Yesterday, I picked up my pen and resumed copying pages for the first time since March 9th, well over one month ago. My hands felt stiff and unfamiliar with putting words onto the page. It took the whole chapter to reacquaint my mind with the story.
Alexey Alexandrovitch has decided not to divorce Anna, and to allow her continue her relationship with Vronsky, provided she does not bring disgrace to them publicly and that she agree not to bring him into their home. Alexandrovitch's decision is not made in a spirit of forgiveness or compassion. No, he has decided that granting a divorce would be the compassionate choice, because she would be able to go off with her lover. Alexandrovitch wants to punish his wife. Part 3 of the novel ended with Vronsky and Alexey Alexandrovitch passing each other at the front door of the Karenin's home. Anna has summoned Vronksy there, because she thinks her husband will be out. In the opening of Part 4, Vronksy mentally rationalizes Anna's tiresome jealousy, her change from the woman he fell in love with, her nagging inquiries into what he has been doing with his evenings. For the first time, Anna foreshadows her own death, a vision that comes to her in a dream. She will die giving birth to his baby. Both she and Vronsky are unsettled by this notion.
In the time since copyin the last line of Part 3 and the opening lines of Part 4, I have lived an entired life. I finished my short story collection, Three Sisters. I submitted the full collection to three book prize contests and individual stories to many journals and publications. I baked bread, sewed curtains for the bathroom, visited my son at college, and took my 2-year-old nephew to the park to play in the dirt and collect rocks in an abandoned water bottle. I watched movies, smart movies and really silly movies, and the entire season of The Voice (I am torn between rooting for Joshua and Meghan). I began a creative writing workshop for middle school students. I went on dates with my husband. I saw 17 off to the prom.
This past month has been about my story.
I suppose this made returning to Anna Karenina more difficult. I can only describe yesterday's labors as maddening. I use this word intentionally, as this is how Sophia Tolstoy was seen at the end of her husband's life. And no wonder, I thought yesterday as I copied Vronsky's thoughts about how annoying Anna had become. Sophia had been driven crazy by the constant presence of someone else's stories in her mind, stifling her own voice. I began to think of Leo's actions as a form of emotional abuse, a placing of his hand over his wife's mouth, silencing her screams.
When I finished Three Sisters and snapped my laptop closed, I felt a sense of something completely unknown. At that moment, it didn't matter if my book was published. It didn't even matter if anyone ever read those stories. I had heard my own voice for the first time, maybe ever. It would not be an understatement to say that the moment I heard the click of my laptop changed everything for me. I have a voice. It is my voice. I recognize it and know how to distinguish it from the many voices that have filled my head over the years, some of them not very pleasant. Even the kind voices--my husband, my children, my mother and sister, my friends--have always seemed a bit disconnected and so, not quite believable. It is easy to dismiss those kind voices as just that: being kind rather than truthful.
And so now, I am faced with a decision. Can I go on copying someone else's story without silencing my own voice?
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