Deep Cuts

I just finished this novel two minutes ago. I’m reminded that I love reading novels because it increases my capacity for empathy and emotion, which I try to numb out and run from in my own life. But if this character can feel that much heartbreak over and over, then I think I should be able to handle a tinge of insecurity, a flash of anger.

But still - how could Percy handle having her heart ache like that for years? Emotional resilience is a skill I have not come close to mastering. She accepted her pain and anger and jealousy like a champ, eventually using it to get what she always wanted. How?!

I relate to that sickly and strong combination of love, passion, jealousy, and rage, all pushing and competing for center stage when you’re in the face of one person. One perfect person. It always makes me wonder if I’m in love with them, or really just want to be them.

After all those years, they (Joe and Percy) are finally making it work. Accepting they need both - the music and the physicality. Accepting that those two things are the same in a way. The innately spiritual aspect of it: “the best stuff happened when you kept the borders between your mind and body as open and porous as humanly possible.”

Other things that I loved and found relatable: her conversations with her mom about how she’s so smart and why is she wasting her time and intelligence on pop music; the hints of counter-culture and indie that I never understood having been born in the years this was taking place; her desire for more; the way her life just flowed, and she accepted it, and there wasn’t so much forcing. Her dreams slowly coming true while sitting with that undercurrent of jealousy of Joe. Still having the capacity to be so happy for him. Her relationship with Zoe, how it came about, how it was special. The safety of Raj, the safety her mom has with her dad. And there it is again. The whispers of more. That whisper is something I’ve written about in personal essays, and it is so perfectly captured in this novel throughout the entire story line.

I seem to always fall in love with main characters in well-written novels, but how could you not? Get to know anyone well enough, and there is almost always a sense of understanding and relation.

Thank you, novels - especially this one - for teaching me how to feel again, even when it hurts and it’s a massive, swirling punchbowl of shit-I-don’t-want-to-feel.