I've read Proust. I can say that now. Okay, so millions of people can say that now. What I'd rather be able to say that I've read Proust, understand Proust and can eloquently speak about Proust. (I can't.) And it's not like I read him in his native language or intend to read further in the one book of an 11-volume series that I did attempt (made it halfway by assignment not choice). And would I have made it more than 10 pages without assignment? I guess that's what grad school is all about.
My first assignment was to write like Proust. A Proustian extended metaphor, Proust style. It's convoluted and long. Does that mean I succeeded?
Her decision to continue in the relationship was like descending a long staircase, the momentum of the first step, whether that first step was her acceptance of his dinner invitation (albeit delayed and on her own terms), or her agreement to follow dinner with a drink, or her extension of an email of thank you the day after the drink (more laden with solemnity than appreciation), carried her to the next step and the next and the next until she was no longer stepping down of her own accord but instead charged forward by a mixture of momentum, muscle memory, reflex and a desire to get to the end, able to steer herself to the left if she perceived herself floating right, grab the handrail to temper her speed or instability, but not able to stop herself outright, or if she did manage to take pause on a step, she found herself to have lost sight of the beginning altogether, the staircase converging into a pinpoint or darkness and the beginning of the journey likewise converged into a string of nondescript events blurred by time, and bereft of the energy required to climb back up from whence she came, the beginning and the rest of the stairs weigh down on her, estimating the effort of ascent to be triple that of the descent, and the estimation of effort compounded exponentially by the memories connected with those stairs in the past, as will our memories of hurt and injury outweigh all the others and happen again and again so that their weight becomes heavier and more precise than any other until the burden of retracing our steps feels fatal and impossible, and standing still feels like a trap, leaving the only rational choice to move forward.
So, her journey continues, that inevitable desire to reach the end prevails even though the end is a darkness that is vast and has not converged into a single point as the beginning of the journey, but leaves an expanse that is unknown except for her impenetrable faith that it will have an end and that she will come to the end if she just continues and sometimes hurries towards it, sometimes sits back and lets her feet do the work, sometimes loses sight of descending at all, becomes so confident in her descent that she looks forward to the wall across from the stairs, gets lost in the detail of a crack of a wall and that crack reminds her of the insects that could be crawling in that crack and of all the creatures and animals in the city that she forgets about but that exist in numbers far more considerable than her kind, and the steps move under her feet effortlessly until her thoughts are penetrated with a fraction of doubt that there are any steps left or that her gait has changed so that she’ll miss a step or overstep and fall and the doubt grows into a physical surge of fear that electrifies her body and snaps her back into time and her descent and she lowers her eyes down to check that there are steps left and that her toe is about to touch down on something concrete rather than the edge of a step or an empty space and, having lost that slight control that she used to possess, out of reach of the handrail or the ability to command her leg muscles to contract and temper her pace, will send her rolling into the vast expanse and she will reach the end as she always knew but more battered than her fluid gate would have gotten her there if only she had remained focused on the goal and cognizant of each step.
