THE ISOLATION JOURNALS - DAY NINE - LOVE FLOATS

Today’s prompt:

Choose a line from a book—you can grab the nearest one and flip it open to a random page, or pick an old favorite you’ve memorized by heart. Whatever grabs your attention; whatever intrigues. Use it as the opening sentence for today’s journal entry, and let the words flow from there. 

Love Floats

“Keep passing the open windows.”

My brother and I said those words to one another countless times: at the close of our letters and emails, before we ended our long-distance phone calls, when we hugged each other good-bye. It was our favorite line from one of our favorite books (The Hotel New Hampshire) by one of our favorite writers (John Irving).

I believe we would have adored the book even if the main characters weren’t named John and Franny. Like the fictitious siblings, my brother (John) and I (Annie) were very close. An ex-boyfriend once said my brother and I were “unusually close,” using a tone that implied some sort of perversion. In the book, John and Franny do end up engaging in some perverted acts. My brother and I were very close, but in a wholly unperverted way.

“I am not a poet,” the narrator says. “I was not even the writer in our family.” And so it was for us. My brother John was the writer. He was the one who majored in English and kept journals and dreamt of moving to New York City to write the great American novel. I had no such delusions.

Thus, it came as something of a surprise when, in my late 40s, I was inspired to try my hand at writing. I was an innocent wandering in the literary wilderness. When I finished the first draft of my first novel, I knew whose opinion mattered most to me: my brother’s. I felt nervous, almost embarrassed, to share my childish words with him. I worried he might be critical, maybe even cruel, but he couldn’t have been more supportive. His generous praise lifted me up like a cloud.

That book went nowhere.

I had better luck with my second novel, a domestic thriller very loosely inspired by our life experiences. I received expressions of interest to my queries. An agent offered representation. And finally, a publishing contract. My brother was with me every step of the way. He was my biggest fan.

Shortly after I inked my book deal, my brother was dead by suicide. The two events are completely unrelated, but they’ll forever be connected in my heart. His pride, our joy, my grief.

At the end of the second-to-last chapter of The Hotel New Hampshire, the narrator quotes from a poem by Donald Justice:

How shall I speak of doom, and ours in special,

But as of something altogether common?

By this point in the book, the fictitious family has experienced adventure, loss, comedy, and tragedy. The story is nearing its end. The narrator concludes:

Add doom to the list, then. Especially in families, doom is “altogether common.” Sorrow floats; love, too; and – in the long run—doom. It floats, too.

I think about these words, and my brother especially, as I prepare to release my debut novel in the midst of a global pandemic. I wonder what my wise and witty brother would make of it all. Doom is indeed altogether common. And so, too, sorrow.

But that’s not what I think my brother would say.

What he would say is this:

Love floats.