Diving is a great metaphor and a very specific sport. Do you dive? Did you know you would employ this theme before you put pen to paper?
It’s been years since I’ve gone diving, but I loved it. I had no clue I’d be employing it in this piece, but I’ve always loved Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck,” so it kind of comes up all the time. I flipped a diving fact around in this, you actually release air from your dive vest to sink, not to rise. Was that intentional? Let’s say it was.
I’ll admit I sobbed when the full impact of this line hit me, “Leave the pearls on the bottom, the terrors in their cave.” It was leaving those pearls in order to rise that gutted me. Tell us more about the pearls.
Oof, sorry! To be honest, I found myself in a pretty dark place after my dad’s death. And while it’s painful, there’s also this hypnotic siren-like quality that suicidality can have at times. So, I guess that’s the pearls, the intrusive thoughts that would come and I would have to guide myself away from. It was in the middle of one of those experiences when I literally heard my Dad’s voice say, “Keep your blood in your body, baby.” And it broke the spell.
The watch is almost a part of the character’s body, a stand-in for the father she lost. Do you think people can choose the objects that will/do represent them, or do you think they become organically?
This question really got me thinking about what objects might represent us when we’re gone. We end up with these objects that become talismans of people we’ve lost and it’s this totally organic process, I think, by which these objects gain their meaning. Like, does the vintage crockpot represent my dead mom or her Edie Brickell concert tee? And wouldn’t she rather be represented by her pearl necklace that I lost in college? It cracks me up to think of a friend wearing my knee-high monkey socks and remembering me. I think I’d like them to become my talisman.
