Someone to Run With

Tamar noticed that she had never met a person she felt so comfortable being silent with.

Cosa credi? Che voglia stare sola? Ma sono fatta così, non riesco ad avvicinarmi veramente a nessuno. È un dato di fatto. È come se mi mancasse quella parte d'anima che si incastra negli altri, come nel Lego. Che si unisce veramente a qualcun altro. Alla fine tutto cade a pezzi. Famiglia, amici. Non resta più niente.

again, her singing was her only absolute, the only thing that was completely her. a thousand classes hadn't given her this concrete insight: her voice was her place in the world, the home she leaves in the morning and returns to at night, in which she can be herself in her entirety and hope to be loved for all that she is and in spite of all she is.

He played the opening bars again, opening a door for her, inviting her to join. She started quietly, almost voiceless, only a thin string of sound weaving herself into his tune, as if her voice were just another string on the guitar between his fingers. She had to be careful, so no one saw the changes on her face. But she didn't want to be careful; she couldn't be careful. He played and she sang to him, and inside her more and more blocks of ice began to melt, cracking and falling into the frozen sea between them. She sang of all the things that were happening to her and him, the world that collapsed over both of them, the things that might be in store, if only they dared to believe it was possible.

Now--she reached down that far, she submerged her filthy self, full of choked cries, of loneliness and poison, until she felt it rising up. It was being pulled out, saved from herself--and she was rising along with it, slowly: who she was now, what she had lost in the past year, and what was growing, slowly, inside her, in spite of everything.

...c'è chi non si sente soffocare in una stanza dopo cinquant'anni e c'è a chi non basta un'intera nazione.