At Last!

This project began just over two years ago when I decided I’d force myself to start doing some fiction writing. I’d done this before, about a decade ago, when I would read a Hemingway short story every day and then I’d do my best to write a story as closely to his style as possible. It was an exercise in being evocative with few words, not an effort at genius.

The act of writing here is partly desperation; I am exhausted from writing about housing. It is also therapy; these latest revised chapters are now integrated into my weekly therapy sessions. My therapist isn’t acting only as an editor but to work with me on maintaining the effort, finding some value in personal awareness, and maybe improving my skills in communicating. The first of these chapters was written ten years ago. The first thought of the story was in 2004 in a trip home to New Mexico. The chapters are littered with actual verbatim quotes from emails, conversations, and journals.

The story is like a house with rooms containing scenes from the lives of these people. It is not organized chronologically but randomly. The first chapter is the front door, the last one is the back door. It is of no importance how one wanders through the house.

The story is vaguely autobiographical with some scenes borrowing heavily from my own lived experience. Often while listening to music, I will see one of these scenes play out peopled with these characters. All I do is write what I saw and heard them say.

It’s Bildungsroman. It’s romance. It’s really bad. But it often makes me happy. It is my Ark. It is my white whale.

At this point the story is called, At Last! after the important Etta James record. It’s also what my therapist will say after he’s done having to read it every week. This is where we are so far in our reading through it. New chapters are often being added. So far there are about 34. The last chapter is not on this page yet.

If you feel like reading, you must start at At Last! After that pick whatever chapter, read that, then return to this page. You can read them in order or not. It doesn’t matter.