no such thing as an ending
“This, reader, is where I draw the line and the curtain.
I could end this book in a lot of different places, just as I began by circling, over and over, back to the day of my father’s death. I could end in bed with my husband, in the graveyard, in the church in Italy, in my psychiatrist’s office…
Or I could end driving in Connecticut, toward the highway, away from the sign that says POLICE STATION. Knowing that I’ll never know the whole story. Knowing that I’ll never feel his death as fully and directly as I might wish to; and that perhaps as a result I’ll never be done feeling it.
Knowing that if I could somehow get him back, rewind the tape, look into his eyes, and say, ‘Please don’t do it,’ he might look away from me and do it anyway.
And knowing that wherever I am, I am always moving, and I will never be in one place for long.”
-The Suicide Index, Joan Wickersham, pg 316.
This is exactly why I think endings are so hard. They don’t really exist, or maybe there are millions of them; every second is a possible stopping point. A professor once told us to try to end our work on “a held breath,” and I think that’s absolutely right, the closest thing to an ending any of us can hope to touch - a stillness, a beat, the space between movement. Nothing can be wrapped up and finished, because nothing can be caught.
Or something like that.
Also: I should not drink coffee. But I’m going to do it anyway.
