The Llama's Hanson writings |
Glint of Heaven (8/97-10/97) "We were like the homemade play-doh I had made with my mother as a little girl, I thought somewhat incoherently as I rested my cheek against his soggy shirt. When you're a little kid you're hell bent on mixing colors, and, no matter how much your parents warn you, you feel the need to attach the red play-doh to the yellow, but as you hold the two in you warm hand you realize it's not going to work out the way you planned. The two colors would begin to melt together, creating a new shade made muddy by mixing bits of both of the originals. Taylor and I stood so close, wet clothes pressed against wet clothes, that we were starting to become that play-doh, melding into a new amalgm." Just
One of Those Things (11/97-8/98) "I slipped into the uncontrolable flow of time and watched the next few weeks drift by at a remarkable speed. Somehow I was reminded of childhood summers spent with my Grandparents in a little log cabin they had received as a wedding present from my Grandmother’s parents. It had been the perfect place for a child, surrounded by woods that in the imaginings of one day could be the forest primeval, and in the dreams of the next just as easily become the skyscrapers of Fifth avenue. When I was with Ike I could almost smell the warm life of freshly cut grass, and hear the songs of a thousand unidentified birds ringing in my ears. Back then when the days were a thousand hours long, and every week stretched into unimaginable eternity, one of my favorite activities had been skipping stones across a wide, flat pond that I had stumbled across a mile or two into the woods. I would search out the perfect stone, one smooth and round, and with a practiced flick of my shoulder it would dance across the water, leaving a series of perfect concentric circles in its wake." Lived
(9/98-1/01) "And when I heard a gentle knocking on my closed door I could feel myself beginning a downward spiral, almost like when I was a little girl riding the big, curly slide in the elementary school playground. I would start off breathless and excited, but as I felt gravity wrap itself around my little body, tugging me ever faster and closer to the brink of control, I would wonder why I had begun the ride at all. The sky had always seemed so blue as I whizzed downward, watching the horizon above me before I finally clenched my eyes shut and gave myself up to the fear -- the fear of getting hurt, the fear of never stopping and just soaring into that same blue sky with no way to stop." Runaway Run (2/01- ) "Oh. My. God. David Letterman is waiting for me. What’s wrong with this world? I’m a writer. I write books. Am I completely socially inept because I spend 90% of any given week in front of a computer, frantically pounding out cosmologies of my own creation, or does it work the other way around? Is writing my easy out of human contact? I can’t say for sure, but all I know is that I’m not supposed to be here; I’m supposed to be toiling in obscurity, damnit! I don’t think that’s too much to ask…what does a girl have to do to be an unappreciated starving artist these days?"
Short Stories: Both of them "'I
can’t even believe it, Nattie. But I think it finally happened, what we always wanted—”
She whispered it like the most amazing, most precious secret ever, her voice quiet and
soft and awed. “We’re finally grownups. For real. No more high school, no more
dim inbred All We Do Is Say
Goodbye 'So why do you want me to stop being nice, anyway?' He asks, combing his fingers gently through my ratty-feeling hair. 'So when I look at you I can think, ‘gee. What a jerk. Thank God I’m going back to school next week and won’t have to deal with him anymore.’' Upstairs I can hear the quiet, homey noises of Taylor’s parents moving around, the nearly lost clicking of lights being turned off and the faint sound of doors being locked for the night." To the Past and Future
Isaacs "All of my friends think that this is the weirdest Christmas tradition in the history of the world, this obligatory Hanson letter-to-yourself. I kind of like it, personally, more than a lot of the other things we do. Christmas trees come and go, ornaments break, needles shed, and all they do is make yet another mess to clean up after when the holiday season finally ends. This letter, soon to be added to the ever-heightening stack in my closet, in comparision, is something that I'll have forever. It's like traveling through time, almost, and having a conversation with myself, how I have been and how I will be." Where
you find it Closing Time |
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