In Conversation: Kris / Chane

In my typical fashion, I'm about to give a lot of background information that nobody really asked for, but if you're already here, then this is what you involuntarily signed up for. Buckle up.

This entire academic year has been insanely all over the place, both on a larger-scale, but also on a very personal level. It almost felt like my mental state changed as the terms did. Term 1, a.k.a. the time after summer and before Christmas, was particularly difficult. I spent all of four months absolutely despising my university, myself, my place in this world, and most of all London. It was like everything I was feeling could be blamed on the city alone, and I think I used the phrase "I hate the person I've become since I've been here" more times than I've read the word "unprecedented" in the last week or so. Around October, shit really hit the fan, as my inner poet might say. I was so overwhelmed by absolutely everything, my mental health was deteriorating, and so I packed up a bag of stuff and went to stay at two friends' house nearby, without really telling anybody where I was or where I was going. I switched off my phone and deleted social media and made a lot of people very worried, which I'm sorry I did. I couldn't deal with the absolute flood catalysing in my head, and all I could think to do was disappear.

While I was there, things didn't necessarily get easier, but on one of the final days, when my housemates had finally managed to get in touch with me I sat down and decided to write them an apology note, so when I would finally go home I wouldn't forget anything I wanted to say, and explain what happened to the best of my ability. Writing this note kind of gave me an idea, and I stayed up until maybe 3AM drafting letters to every person I've ever loved in my life; not with any particular intention in terms of content, but just going through things. It became a way to separate and organise some of the knotted mess going on in my head, as I wrote letters to friends, parents, exes and cities. A little while later, when looking back at them and attempting to write a couple more letters, I thought this had potential to be a pretty interesting, anonymous of course, collection of letters and pieces about love, human connection and experience; how topical, right? As I was thinking this, if my memory serves me right I was chatting to a long-time friend as we were trying to fit each other in for coffee with our (his) busy schedule. Kristian, the mystery busy man, is a friend from my middle and high school, under whose editorial authority I worked for my school's literary magazine for 4 or 5 years. As we had a pretty well established level of trust, I asked him to read through some of the letters I had and give some advice, or as our English teacher and magazine supervisor liked to call it 'elements of goodness' and 'constructive criticism' on how to improve the letters and make them ever so slightly more universally relatable.

Although this is a project I've kind of abandoned for the time being, as with most things, I thought it would be interesting to rummage through some archives. I see this as a good opportunity to finally share some snippets from selected pieces, along with some conversation between Kris and I in regards to them. This is both an opportunity for me to share some of my writing, in a way that's not simply posting a poem and going 'here's my poem, read it', and play on the whole idea of staying connected while being physically distant, by giving insight into this conversation, as well as incorporating somebody else's thoughts into my own blog.

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So, to begin, I didn't tell Kristian about my project until we could meet up in person. As we were both back home in Sofia for the November reading week, and we met up for coffee after I had teased that I had a little project proposition for him, if he was up for it. After getting through the 'jist' and reading a couple excerpts, namely from my love letter to Sofia, which I had written most recently, we moved on to other topics of conversation. When I got home that night, I went into my folder and made sure to remove all the names, and just number the letters so that they were easy to refer to in feedback. I sent him a link to the folder with all my drafts, signing

sincerely,

kind regards,

kindest regards,

best,

thanks,

cheers,

love,

kisses,

bisous,

Nona

Just a little over 24hrs later (this is the fastest working editor, if anyone's hiring, get on this guy's neck ASAP), I get an email back, starting dearest, kindest, with at least a paragraph of comments and feedback for each piece. So let's get into it.

The first thing Kris says is that he likes the pieces and he thinks they work well together; One Thousand Empty Boxes and 2. are easily my favourite. I'll get into 2. in due time, but here's One Thousand Empty Boxes, so you can pass your own judgement.

If I'm remembering correctly the poem was supposed to be a sort of introductory piece to the entire collection, and give way to the diversity within; I never intended for it to be just a bunch of letters, but rather also poems, short stories, vignettes, et cetera, all concerned with a common theme: human connection. Although from a primarily personal experience, being universal enough to relate to any wider audience. One of the things which I think was causing me a lot of internal distress at the time, was a horrible state of writer's block, I wanted to write so badly but couldn't get any words on the page. This was one out of three poems sent for review, but the only one addressed in the feedback; take that as you will.

The first thing Kris said was both general, and in terms of letter 1. specifically. It was to do with my authorial voice, and intended audience: who are these written for. If they're more for you, then I think they're finished works - they read true for you and that's all that matters. But if we're opening them up, I think more context would help.

28.10.2019

11:30PM

Although the date is quite self-explanatory, I thought it would be interesting to reflect back on what time of day, or night, each letter was written at.

I think I loved you. I did love you. For like a minute. Or a slightly longer second. I did, really, I think. But what I really wanted to tell you is that you broke me.

Kris goes on, while some could stand on their own really well, others like that one were really heavy on writing about feelings, and it's easy as a reader to gloss over or lose the thread.

When I made the conscious decision, which it was, it was a conscious decision, to start things up with you again, I think I kind of loved you then. I know you think I’m selfish and indecisive and a horrible person for all the times I’ve ended things or cut you off; “fucked [you] over”. But each of those times ‘it’ was something that I did want, that somehow ended up shattering to pieces when it started manifesting into something different, something more; to a different degree every time. But that last time really broke me to bits.

Reflected in the rest of the letter as well, as Kris put it, this letter was without a clear cast of characters or idea of what happened, making it hard for 'Nona', or my individual authorial voice to shine through. Although I'm definitely not trying to excuse myself, for the sake of self-reflection I think a lot of that came from two places: attempting to make it as universal as possible, I guess to the point of losing my voice, as well as making it as anonymous as possible. Which is stupid, given that these were never intended to be sent, or published with a name. Ideally, solely the person the letter was about would know it's about them, and that's ultimately their right.

After you and I ended things, I would flinch at the feeling of anyone touching me [...] got to the point where I wouldn’t even allow my own hands to touch me. For so long. I was at work the other day, and a girl at the bar was trying to get my attention so she just touched my hand and I felt one hundred thousand lightning bolts of panic rush through my body, at the brink of tears, and barely got myself to just say “please don’t touch me.” You really broke me.

That was that for Number 1.

Number 2: I have no comments, I think it's fantastic.

You are a tough one, really. You entered my life, I thought, at age eleven.

Back in the first part of his feedback, Kris used letter 2. as a point of comparison in order to point out what worked well and what didn't: you get a really good balance of figuring out what's going on in the narrative exposition, as well as understanding the experience and feeling to it (i.e. the writing-as-art dimension).

I loved you, hated you, resented you, and now I think I love you again.

[...] one of the building blocks of my ‘crazy’). I’ll try to come back to the fact that I do love you now, and try to tone down the bitchy attitude I feel like is starting to come across, but I believe I’ve got good reason to act the way I do, what do you think?

...like 2. and 3., I read them and think, "Yup, that's Nona, only Nona could have written that."

I love you for loving me, [...]

[...] when both of your parents begin to build families of their own, and you move away, I find myself never quite fitting into either tetris.

[...] I love you for loving Her and making Her happy.

Only note is, it took me a couple of reads to get a sense of what role the person being discussed occupies in your life. I would say try to figure out a way to make it more explicit...

active-cheater-bystander

Also, "active-cheater-bystander" is not a word. This made me giggle.

Number 3 is fantastic because I love writing that explores very specific dynamics in a very specific way.

You were my first best friend. You were the first person I ever had a sleepover with. You were the first girl I ever saw naked, in the most innocent, child / friend way. You were the first person who made me feel inferior beyond comprehension.

I think sometimes - particularly when the format is letter-writing, which is closer to personal essay-writing than poetry - you can write really beautiful, gut-wrenching stuff without needing to make it artistic.

I loved you. Looking back at it, it was a little bit of an infatuation, I feel like even my parents felt that.

[...] so toxic.

While I was very intent on you being my best friend, you kind of gave yourself the liberty to decide. While on some days you felt like I was worthy to be your best friend, on others you were painfully direct about awarding that title to someone else.

"While I was very intent on you being my best friend, you kind of gave yourself the liberty to decide" isn't a very literary sentence, but it's absolutely powerful.

Kristian pointed me to an article by Natalie Beach from The Cut, exploring her own friendship dynamics, and the idea of feeling like a Beta in a relationship with an Alpha; all these things which hold universally true.

This letter was slightly different to the rest, in that it actually contained a vignette within it. I had written this vignette years ago, in 2014, and it just happened to be about a shared experience with the person to whom the letter was addressed. It seemed like a fitting time to incorporate something like this, again reinforcing the idea of diversity in forms. I'm attaching the said vignette below, for anyone curious to read it, although not essential to the nature of this post, which is to catch the dynamics of the conversation. But if you are indeed curious, I should also mention it was meant to be a pastiche to the writing style of Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street.

Also, instead of just copy-and-pasting the text into this post, I thought I'd find a scan of the story in its original form, back in 2014. Funnily enough, as I mentioned before, Kris was editor-in-chief for LUX for years, including when this was first published!

30.10.2019

7:35AM

7:35AM: what does that mean? Psychoanalyse me and let me know. Superficially, it is proof of the fact that I, as a human being, am incapable of getting a good night's sleep.

I think the way we met turned out to be one of the greatest accidents. [...] I am so grateful for that most random sequence of events.

You should send number 5 to the person if you haven't already :) - that was his only comment. I opened a new tab and sent the person the letter.

I'll jump to Number 7, but only briefly. This one was a love letter to Sofia, which I plan to explore and discuss in a separate post, focusing on the city primarily, and the writing as a secondary thing. But here's an excerpt:

There are very few things that I think could even come close to comparing to the image of you, central tsum area, drowning in the honey-maple golden hour sunset. The different shades of brown pouring over beige buildings all dripping in pools of warmth, the baby blue sky beginning to shift colours. You are magic. You’re breathtaking at all hours of the day and night, but in this moment you are magic.

I didn’t always love you. I didn’t know you, then I loved someone and somewhere else, then I resented you for a while, making myself infatuated with empty places. But I love you now, one of my warmest, purest ‘I love you’s.

I love that I thought number 7 was about a real person at first. Well done.

And finally, Number 4 was the last piece addressed.

29.10.2019

12AM - 8AM

This was a tough one to get out, hence why I imagine I started it, left it and went back to it the next morning.

I have a bit of an issue with that now (telling people I love them). Maybe it’s an inherent fear of losing them. Maybe it’s something else; the fact that I’m stubborn. But I’m saying it now, in this series of letters, I loved, or love, you.

And that paragraph in number 4 - [ ] it ties the others in really well stylistically as a series.

I would walk past certain places and the ghost of you, holding my hand, would send what I can only describe as a missile of emptiness and void through my stomach.

Maybe that’s why I find it so difficult to live down the time I was still with you. While I hate the person I am, and have become since coming to London, I think I associate the time we were together with a version of myself I miss. A version of myself I want to come back to so badly; but I can’t find my way. Not yet, at least.

But, at the same time, just like that you managed to flip my entire world. Just as you made me feel all those things, I gave you the power to take them away.

An editor's note for that one specifically, the letter starts repeating itself a little after that same paragraph. Readers are vicious gremlins, they lose interest if they're not getting something they haven't gotten before.

...

As always, let me know if you have any questions about the comments. Otherwise, good work Noni. I'm excited to see how these develop!

Me,

Kris