bb, I love this so so so so so deeply and I have read this over now so many times. <3333 I love your terse, damaged, hopeful (even when she knows better than hoping), frenetic Amelia. I love her stop and starts and stutters and great, sweeping, haphazard strides. I love her giant, mythic Texas. I love the true stream of consciousness, Modernist flavor to this--echoes of Virginia Woolf in all the best ways.
There was something one of my NF teachers was always insistent about in undergrad--and it was writing people with compassion. It didn't matter if you agreed with them, or if you liked them--what mattered was being able to hold those opinions (and perhaps even voice them--this wasn't about sugar-coating, or playing nice, etc.; you were still allowed to disagree, and to dislike) at the same time as you were extending compassion to them, in your portrait of them. And that's what this piece really rings with, bb. Amelia is Amelia in this, in ways and nuances and facets that can only be told with real compassion. <3333
no subject
There was something one of my NF teachers was always insistent about in undergrad--and it was writing people with compassion. It didn't matter if you agreed with them, or if you liked them--what mattered was being able to hold those opinions (and perhaps even voice them--this wasn't about sugar-coating, or playing nice, etc.; you were still allowed to disagree, and to dislike) at the same time as you were extending compassion to them, in your portrait of them. And that's what this piece really rings with, bb. Amelia is Amelia in this, in ways and nuances and facets that can only be told with real compassion. <3333
This is FABULOUS.