The Autobiography of Laurel Last

They call it autobiography because it the story that writes itself.

It is never about you, really, but about the somebody adjacent that made the plot possible.

It is like rendering a parabola; the bio requires two points, mirroring every interval. There is the vertex, the focus, the directrix, and the axis of symmetry, that links the entirety.

I don’t remember how I was born, and I suppose none of us truly do, except by the stories told to us, and these become integral, as having certain prospective truth; that which will shape us. Along the same line, I recall vaguely what I did yesterday, but not as well as I recollect certain fiction that I’ve poured over; and it makes me incomprehensively sad that these tales won’t be read the same way, as we tread into the future.

Each book itself an incarnation, a character. I remember my Cervante’s Don Quixote, an ochre cloth bound double volume boxed set, the print so intricate and fine I could not parse through the bundle, succumbing to fatigue, and I surmised that it was a part of the plot, quixotic. I remember, my beloved Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. I covered this one in old brown shopping paper, like might be used at butcher shop. The cover crumbling, and the pages so deeply nicotined they made a tobacco chewer’s smile seem merely ecru. And I remember too my old charming French existential story collection, whose pages were so lacework brittle, that a little triangle remained in the hand if a corner was inadvertently dog eared. I had proffered scotch tape to bandage, but the new material resulted in three breaks instead of one, and so repair proved futile.

I wonder how many of you are left, reading, even if scrolling down with a finger, rolling along paragraphs, on a cold plastic screen. I want you to know, if I were a book, I’d be warm white fine-tooth vellum with the letters so emphatically pressed that they’d left an indent on the page, with serifs.

Life, I’ve learned is about accepting the wasting of time.

I am cynically honored that you are making this observation with me— that way we can both reassure each other that it is only partly true.

We have this dilemma at the outset in our autobiography: I will write what flows from synapsis to fingertips; You will read it, and what backpedals from retina to the conscious, shall be an entity almost entirely unique to yourself.

We can agree in this way to some sliding-scale co-authorship. This is the first moment of our past, present and tomorrow. And now what to do with this space?

Fill it, of course.

You will walk down these same steps. Careful! They are deteriorating on the left-hand side, and there is only one rail. By luck it is on the right, going down. The steps are generous, four feet wide and walking alone there is a reasonable sense of confidence. Walking side by side, together, it is best to hold hands, just in case. On the dilapidated edge, is the appearance of wilderness…

There are blackberries, the uncultivated kind that are hard, bright red, and small, but these will ripen in the fullness of summer sun into juicy purple capsules of C vitamins and sunshine. It’s a promise of health in the impulse to forage. Pushing beyond the briars, there are exposed areas of packed dirt and half buried rocks, promising uncertain footing. A tangle of vines obscures the way, but it seems as if a warm marshy clearing lies just a bit farther. Pausing, we can hear the soothing pulse of running water. Maybe a creak or deeper stream. It is deceptive we know because calm waters run deep and small waters are likewise quiet. There is a temptation to cross the tattered edge of the stairs, that Nature is trying to reclaim, and ascertain what is what...

To the right lies a manicured garden. It has a pebbled path, and the lawn beckons into a maze. It’s manmade, but its structure inevitably replicates the order of the cosmos in neat compactness. One component of the design chains to another; and forms layers like skin, arteries, and substructures, to hold it all upright. The branches of the thorned hedges have been bleached in the afternoon sun into stark blanched living-skeletons, one on top of another, ornamented by fairly uniform little leaves with marron veins and serrated edges turning from yellow to green. These are variously sized yet arguably identical to a mother pattern. Each new branch birthing more tiny leaves, eventually crowning them with rosette blossoms of gradient pinks and purples, blushing in the morning and all the more so in the evening. The hedges are precisely clipped.

At the top of the stairs, we look again, from the right to the left; and we agree to explore them both, separately.

* * *

Tomorrow, we will...