#second loves

Sense & Sensibility has Marianne and Colonel Brandon both finding a second love and a lot of people hate that story line, not just because of the age gap, but because it's somehow impure or lesser as a second choice (so they basically believe the same as early novel Marianne). It's pretty clear in the novel that Mr. Dashwood also found true love on his second try. Mr. Weston in Emma was happier in his second marriage, but he still loved his first wife. You don't see these narratives very often or as main stories.

I wish we had less endless "will they won't theys" and more "no, we won't, this is irreconcilable" because life is long and so is marriage. It's okay to break up because you have different beliefs, different lifestyles, or because one of you doesn't want kids (glaring at How I Met Your Mother). Not wanting to live in your dinky hometown forever is actually a pretty good reason to separate. It's okay to really love someone and also acknowledge that it cannot work long-term. It's okay to grow apart and realize that you shouldn't marry, especially if you started dating young. I don't usually worry about "the children" when it comes to media, but I wish they had more positive examples of this. I've seen a lot of people in real life stick it out in relationships that just were never going to work and they knew it, but LOVE.

A few years back, I was working at a literary foundation where the poet Simone White was teaching an evening poetry workshop. It was called Reading Hard, and the premise of it was that over the course of the 8 weeks, participants would try to read the entire catalog of a writer of their choice. The “hard” wasn’t just the difficulty of the task, but the intensity of it. Like loving hard. Putting the full brunt of one’s intention into the act.

Not really participating in the workshop, but catching glimmers from my desk, I decided I would play along, literally. I would try to learn to play every composition by Thelonious Monk. At the time, I thought Monk had only 55 compositions (in reality, it’s around 70). That is somehow doable, right?

Besides his manageable number of compositions, I thought Monk was a good subject of intense study because I wasn’t in love with him. In college, a professor had told us to pick research topics that we kind of hated. I never fully understood her, but came to believe it had something to do with the way you look at something you deeply love: you don’t see it. Like with rose-colored glasses, or no glasses at all.

I was also in an on-again-off-again relationship with Robin D.G. Kelly’s biography of him, and I wanted to finish the giant book like some people want to catch a giant fish. I thought: I will learn all his songs as I learn about his life.

Monk’s most famous song is “’Round Midnight.” Though the way most musicians play it, so romantically, moodily, literally like a midnight ballad of seduction, it sounds nothing like a Monk tune. Monk tunes are more angular. Like the hats he wore. Like the flatted fifths he was known for, and the flat fingers my piano teacher told me I shouldn’t imitate.

His songs generally aren’t ponderous or melancholy, the way “’Round Midnight” has become. A lot of the times, they seem like texts, meant to be interpreted, projected on to, especially when you hear him play solo, no accompaniment, so simple, it could be each song’s first draft.

I found that some of his songs are perfectly composed; I can play them as transcribed in my little Thelonious Monk fakebook, and they sound like the record (e.g., “Monk’s Mood”). I found that many songs weren’t so songlike–that the colloquial term “tune” might better describe them (like “Little Rootie Tootie”). I nearly hurt my brain trying to play the counterpoint of “Friday the 13th.” I learned “Brilliant Corners” by ear. I still don’t know the bridge to “Monk’s Mood” despite having read this great document in which he says “THE INSIDE OF THE TUNE (THE BRIDGE) IS THE PART THAT MAKES THE OUTSIDE SOUND GOOD.” I already knew “Blue Monk” and “Ruby My Dear” from when I was in high school. I could never get the feel, the inside part of “Crepuscule with Nellie.” And I am in love, madly in love with his only waltz, “Ugly Beauty,” which I heard for the first time in August of 2010, Gretchen Parlato singing, with lyrics, retitled as “Still We Dream.”

You and I I think we know the reason why So far it’s been quite charming … Round and round The carousel is winding down And still we dream of love 

I was in love, or on the brink of what I thought was love, with a maybe-ing, sometime-ing guy. So I listened to this song. And after listening to Gretchen, I listened to Carmen McRae sing it. And after that, I went back to my fakebook, all the way to the end, and I taught myself this little ditty, sometimes playing it out of time, as I’d heard Gretchen first sing it, and then in 3, like the waltz it is, all the while holding on to the melancholy something inside, the something I sometimes feel in Monk, sometimes don’t, the melancholy thread that is always there, I think, if you know how to play it.

Below, a vintage clip of me playing “Ugly Beauty” in a very fancy friend’s house with totally different hair!

(I def did a shit job at explaining it but.... bi!hinny meeting on later in life after getting their hearts broken and then finding ~*home*~ in each other....)

Thank you so much for the "I wish you would write a fic where..." ask!

So at first I had no idea what to do with this idea, but this prof!Harry and mum!Ginny came out of nowhere. Here's a crazy (1k words!) glimpse of a world where Luna/Ginny have separated that I would not have ever thought up without you! (Sorry no Drinny/Drarry at least in the snippet.)

Maybe someone else will write the rest of it one day. Hope you enjoy.

*

Ginny gazed up at the looming castle, nostalgia burning in her chest as she walked up the path from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts. Her lips quirked up as she drew closer. McGonagall stood beside the gates, tall and prim as if she had not aged a day in the past fifteen years.

“Miss Weasley,” she greeted her with a small smile of her own.

“Professor – sorry, Headmistress,” Ginny corrected herself.

“Minerva, please.” McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

“If you’ll call me Ginny then,” Ginny returned with a cheeky grin. “Thanks again for letting me come early. I—it’s been…” She trailed off, that ache suddenly swelling up inside her.

“Students were very excited about having a professional Quidditch player hold flying lessons,” McGonagall said, smoothly covering Ginny’s stumbling with grace. Gratitude helped sooth the ache.

“Wow, everything looks the same,” Ginny said, taking things in as they began walking through the castle. The portraits, banners, candles, even the moving stairs were all where they used to be.

“Yes, though we have made some improvements. You may choose to stop by the Great Hall seeing as you have some time before the first lesson. I’m afraid I must leave you, though I am sure you know your way around,” McGonagall said with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes ma’am,” Ginny said, grinning sheepishly, wondering if McGonagall knew more than she let on about that map the twins had given her years ago.

She waited five full beats after McGonagall’s elegant green robes disappeared around the corner before she checked her watch. Maybe she had time to poke her head into the old Gryffindor common room.

As she made her way there, classes started to be let out. Students flooded the hallways, their hands ladened with books. Ginny watched them with amusement as she walked by, wondering how on earth she had ever been that small. Several of them did double-takes with slackened jaws, and she held up a finger to her lips and gave them a wink.

Distracted by a flash of red hair as she rounded the corner, she was completely blindsided when she ran straight into something. Parchments seemed to burst into the air, blinding her temporarily. Hands shot out and wrapped around her waist (Merlin when was the last time someone touched her?), drawing her close to a warm body.

“Are you all right?”

When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at the most startling green eyes she had ever seen.

You shaved your head, your jaw is sharper, and your shoulders filled out in a wonderful way. When you move, it is with a confidence you never had before. You look happy- and your smile is still the same.

My hair has gotten long, my cheekbones stand out, and greyscale tattoos peek out from under my sleeves and skirt. I’ve finally made a home for myself in my skin. I smile back at you- a little sharper than I used to be.

There’s a picture I saved from all those years ago- kept in a notebook I almost let burn when I was cleansing my life of a few things I kept around for too long. We were so different then, so young and idealistic and untried. I loved you then. And you loved me. We didn’t know any better.

I meet your husband, hear about the life you’re building together. He looks at you like you are the most precious thing in the world- and I am so happy for you. There was never space for bitterness or regrets between us. I tell you about my new Maybe, and you hug me tight and tell me good luck. Tell me to take every chance I get, to be brave and believe what you taught me- that I am wonderful and worthwhile and deserving of only good things.

The plane starts to board. One last hug and I leave you behind again, walking away without looking back- just like I told you I would.

I let myself indulge in memories until take-off. Then I tuck you away back into my past and instead look forward to the beautiful second love waiting for me at the baggage claim.