My friend was telling me about the romcom series Nobody Wants This, and she said the end of the first season made her angry, because the main characters have a very good reason not to be together, but stuck together anyway because of love even though it will destroy the male lead's lifelong career goals. And it made me think, I totally understand why we have so many stories about fated first love and love conquering all, but sometimes I wish we had a few more stories about how it's okay to give up and find someone new.
Sense & Sensibility has Marianne and Colonel Brandon both finding a second love and a lot of people hate that story line, not just because of the age gap, but because it's somehow impure or lesser as a second choice (so they basically believe the same as early novel Marianne). It's pretty clear in the novel that Mr. Dashwood also found true love on his second try. Mr. Weston in Emma was happier in his second marriage, but he still loved his first wife. You don't see these narratives very often or as main stories.
I wish we had less endless "will they won't theys" and more "no, we won't, this is irreconcilable" because life is long and so is marriage. It's okay to break up because you have different beliefs, different lifestyles, or because one of you doesn't want kids (glaring at How I Met Your Mother). Not wanting to live in your dinky hometown forever is actually a pretty good reason to separate. It's okay to really love someone and also acknowledge that it cannot work long-term. It's okay to grow apart and realize that you shouldn't marry, especially if you started dating young. I don't usually worry about "the children" when it comes to media, but I wish they had more positive examples of this. I've seen a lot of people in real life stick it out in relationships that just were never going to work and they knew it, but LOVE.
There are so few stories where a main character genuinely loved someone, it didn't work (either because of death or break-up) and then they find love again, even though this happens in real life all the time. People find love again. I even believe that Anne Elliot & Captain Wentworth could have found love again if they hadn't reunited. Love isn't tainted or diminished by being experienced twice and I wish we could find that more beautiful.
A few years back, I was working at a literary foundation where the poet Simone White was teaching an evening poetry workshop. It was called Reading Hard, and the premise of it was that over the course of the 8 weeks, participants would try to read the entire catalog of a writer of their choice. The “hard” wasn’t just the difficulty of the task, but the intensity of it. Like loving hard. Putting the full brunt of one’s intention into the act.
Not really participating in the workshop, but catching glimmers from my desk, I decided I would play along, literally. I would try to learn to play every composition by Thelonious Monk. At the time, I thought Monk had only 55 compositions (in reality, it’s around 70). That is somehow doable, right?
Besides his manageable number of compositions, I thought Monk was a good subject of intense study because I wasn’t in love with him. In college, a professor had told us to pick research topics that we kind of hated. I never fully understood her, but came to believe it had something to do with the way you look at something you deeply love: you don’t see it. Like with rose-colored glasses, or no glasses at all.
I was also in an on-again-off-again relationship with Robin D.G. Kelly’s biography of him, and I wanted to finish the giant book like some people want to catch a giant fish. I thought: I will learn all his songs as I learn about his life.
Monk’s most famous song is “’Round Midnight.” Though the way most musicians play it, so romantically, moodily, literally like a midnight ballad of seduction, it sounds nothing like a Monk tune. Monk tunes are more angular. Like the hats he wore. Like the flatted fifths he was known for, and the flat fingers my piano teacher told me I shouldn’t imitate.
His songs generally aren’t ponderous or melancholy, the way “’Round Midnight” has become. A lot of the times, they seem like texts, meant to be interpreted, projected on to, especially when you hear him play solo, no accompaniment, so simple, it could be each song’s first draft.
I found that some of his songs are perfectly composed; I can play them as transcribed in my little Thelonious Monk fakebook, and they sound like the record (e.g., “Monk’s Mood”). I found that many songs weren’t so songlike–that the colloquial term “tune” might better describe them (like “Little Rootie Tootie”). I nearly hurt my brain trying to play the counterpoint of “Friday the 13th.” I learned “Brilliant Corners” by ear. I still don’t know the bridge to “Monk’s Mood” despite having read this great document in which he says “THE INSIDE OF THE TUNE (THE BRIDGE) IS THE PART THAT MAKES THE OUTSIDE SOUND GOOD.” I already knew “Blue Monk” and “Ruby My Dear” from when I was in high school. I could never get the feel, the inside part of “Crepuscule with Nellie.” And I am in love, madly in love with his only waltz, “Ugly Beauty,” which I heard for the first time in August of 2010, Gretchen Parlato singing, with lyrics, retitled as “Still We Dream.”
You and I
I think we know the reason why
So far it’s been quite charming
…
Round and round
The carousel is winding down
And still we dream of love
I was in love, or on the brink of what I thought was love, with a maybe-ing, sometime-ing guy. So I listened to this song. And after listening to Gretchen, I listened to Carmen McRae sing it. And after that, I went back to my fakebook, all the way to the end, and I taught myself this little ditty, sometimes playing it out of time, as I’d heard Gretchen first sing it, and then in 3, like the waltz it is, all the while holding on to the melancholy something inside, the something I sometimes feel in Monk, sometimes don’t, the melancholy thread that is always there, I think, if you know how to play it.
Below, a vintage clip of me playing “Ugly Beauty” in a very fancy friend’s house with totally different hair!
22 // Dear August,
I wrote this a long time ago, but it has recently become relevant again. This is for him.
*
You may have been my first love, and I think I may have been yours, but being who we were at the time, neither one of us was brave enough. And so we decided to go with our second loves, where the stakes were not as high.
Mine ended rather quickly, he was just not who I wanted him to be. But you, you have found her. Now, she has you and I have become the girl you tell her about when it’s late at night and she’s holding your hand and you talk about how you were once young and stupidly in love with this girl you barely knew. I do believe we knew each other, but it was the way in which you know only as much as you care to remember. You no longer need to remember.
I am happy that you have found her. I do really want you to be happy and if that’s not with me, I understand. But, we have always been honest with each other and in the stupid face of keeping up appearances, I should add I am also a bit jealous and more than a tad sad. I have you and you have her. I told you about her and now you tell her about me.
After all these years, I’m still finding a way to be okay with that.
*
August, I like to think that by writing about him, I’m finding a way to be without him. It is, however, also possible that I am only making things harder for myself. But I think this is the best I can do for now; writing him down, leaving him behind.
P.S. My hand gets cold at night and there’s no one there to hold it, so I sleep with an extra duvet. I’ve learned to love myself instead of his ghost.
hinny!!! BUT!!! a twist: they never really got together until later in life, after falling in love with other ppl (do i smell.... either a drinny or drarry backgroud?? Dunno) and it’s all good and beautiful bc when they do end up falling they know it’s the best love of their lives.............
(I def did a shit job at explaining it but.... bi!hinny meeting on later in life after getting their hearts broken and then finding ~*home*~ in each other....)
Thank you so much for the "I wish you would write a fic where..." ask!
So at first I had no idea what to do with this idea, but this prof!Harry and mum!Ginny came out of nowhere. Here's a crazy (1k words!) glimpse of a world where Luna/Ginny have separated that I would not have ever thought up without you! (Sorry no Drinny/Drarry at least in the snippet.)
Maybe someone else will write the rest of it one day. Hope you enjoy.
*
Ginny gazed up at the looming castle, nostalgia burning in her chest as she walked up the path from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts. Her lips quirked up as she drew closer. McGonagall stood beside the gates, tall and prim as if she had not aged a day in the past fifteen years.
“Miss Weasley,” she greeted her with a small smile of her own.
“If you’ll call me Ginny then,” Ginny returned with a cheeky grin. “Thanks again for letting me come early. I—it’s been…” She trailed off, that ache suddenly swelling up inside her.
“Students were very excited about having a professional Quidditch player hold flying lessons,” McGonagall said, smoothly covering Ginny’s stumbling with grace. Gratitude helped sooth the ache.
“Wow, everything looks the same,” Ginny said, taking things in as they began walking through the castle. The portraits, banners, candles, even the moving stairs were all where they used to be.
“Yes, though we have made some improvements. You may choose to stop by the Great Hall seeing as you have some time before the first lesson. I’m afraid I must leave you, though I am sure you know your way around,” McGonagall said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Yes ma’am,” Ginny said, grinning sheepishly, wondering if McGonagall knew more than she let on about that map the twins had given her years ago.
She waited five full beats after McGonagall’s elegant green robes disappeared around the corner before she checked her watch. Maybe she had time to poke her head into the old Gryffindor common room.
As she made her way there, classes started to be let out. Students flooded the hallways, their hands ladened with books. Ginny watched them with amusement as she walked by, wondering how on earth she had ever been that small. Several of them did double-takes with slackened jaws, and she held up a finger to her lips and gave them a wink.
Distracted by a flash of red hair as she rounded the corner, she was completely blindsided when she ran straight into something. Parchments seemed to burst into the air, blinding her temporarily. Hands shot out and wrapped around her waist (Merlin when was the last time someone touched her?), drawing her close to a warm body.
“Are you all right?”
When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at the most startling green eyes she had ever seen.
“Fine,” she said, hating that she sounded breathy.
He released her and took a respectful step back. Those green eyes widen as he started to tilt backward, his foot sliding on a parchment. Without thinking, Ginny lurched forward to grab his arm and gave a strong tug, which propelled him forward, pressing her against a wall.
She felt color flood her face as she could hear his breath next to her ear.
“Sorry,” he said, immediately lurched back. For the first time, she was able to get a good look at the stranger who had first saved her and then had saved from some ridiculous tumble. He was a good head taller than her, with round spectacles to hide his brilliant eyes. He raked a hand through his disheveled black hair, a sheepish and shy grin on his reddened face.
“No, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” Ginny apologized.
“Ah shite,” he surprised her by swearing (not very Professorly because surely that’s what he must be, though he was clearly on the younger side) as he seemed to realize all the parchment—probably student essays—littered on the floor, students whispering as they passed them. He bent down to grab them, and she knelt down to help, trying not to think too hard about the way her heart seemed to be beating at a slightly increased rate.
Ginny reached out for the last parchment at the same time as he did, his fingers brushing against hers (were those flying calluses?). They both jerked back, looking at each other, only to dissolve into laughter.
“Sorry about making you lose all your essays,” she said, picking up the last one as they both rose to their feet. She held out the ones she had gathered.
“Thank you,” he said, giving her a crooked smile that made him look younger than he probably was. Then, it was as if realization struck them at the same time.
“You’re–” they both started.
“MUM!” a loud voice pierced the air.
Ginny immediately dragged her eyes away from Harry Potter (the Harry Potter!) to turn toward the voice. She opened her arms just in time for a small being to jump into her arms.
“Lily!” she cried out, real joy rushing through her for the first time in a long time. She held her daughter tight, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. She leaned down to press a kiss against her forehead.
She wasn’t sure if she imagined the sharp intake beside her, but her focus was forced back to her wiggling daughter.
“Mum,” her daughter complained, “no one calls me that but you.”
“Okay, Miss Pandora Lily Lovegood-Weasley,” Ginny chuckled, rolling her eyes. She stopped when she realized Harry Potter was looking at her with the strangest expression. Crap, she had just rolled her eyes at Harry Potter, as if he was — it was an icy knife pressed against her heart. Nope, nope, not going there.
“Mum,” Pandora pulled at her sleeve. Ginny looked down at the wide, silvery eyes that reminded her painfully of her former partner. “Is Mummy here too?”
Ginny shook her head, pushing down on the pain. “She’s still in Sri Lanka, Lils.”
“Oh,” she said, face falling. “I thought maybe you two…”
Ginny swallowed the lump in her throat and brushed back her daughter’s red hair. “Hey, but I’m here all day. I’ll be teaching flying lessons later, remember?”
“Yeah.” Pandora broke out in a wide smile. “But I get those all the time at home.”
“Which means maybe you can help me, yeah?” Ginny wiggled her eyebrows.
“Yes!” Pandora pressed her face into Ginny’s chest again—Merlin, she was growing again. “Oh, hi Professor Potter. What are you doing here?”
Before Ginny could reprimand Pandora for her rudeness (oh God, she was become her mum, wasn’t she?), Professor Potter spoke.
“Hi Miss Lovegood-Weasley.” Professor Potter gave Pandora a smile that made Ginny melt a little inside. “Your mum was helping me out. It’s nice that you get to see her during the school year, isn’t it?”
Pandora flushed with pleasure and nodded. “She’s the best Quidditch player in the world.”
Much to Ginny’s embarrassment, Professor Potter nodded solemnly. “That she is. Now, I know it’s exciting to see her, but don’t you have class?”
Pandora swiveled her head left and right, realizing that the halls were nearly empty once more. She exclaimed loudly in a way that made Ginny sure that she was spending far too much time with her Uncle Ron. “I have to go, Mum! I’ll see you next class?”
And with that, her chaos of a daughter was already running down the hall, her radish earrings swinging cheerfully in her wake.
Ginny turned back to Professor Potter, trying to will the heat away from her cheeks. “Thank you. I hope she isn’t too much trouble for you.”
“Oh, trouble seems to find me,” he grinned sheepishly, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.
“Is that so?” Ginny heard herself say, and goodness gracious was she flirting with her daughter’s teacher?
———
Okay! That's it! In my head, Luna and Ginny loved each other, but with Ginny always on the road for Quidditch, and Luna would travel with Pandora Lily (who Luna birthed with one of the Weasley boys as a donor). But all the time away made them grow distant and decide they should divorce.
And yes, Pandora after Luna's mum, and Ginny decided to name Lily after Lily Evans but not because she had a thing for Harry Potter, but more out of reverence to a strong woman who saved the Wizarding World and her son. Harry never went to Hogwarts, but decided that he wanted to teach there since he never got the chance to be a student. I am not a Drarry shipper, but I imagine he did get his heart broken a few times before too.
Pandora has a role of some kind in bringing Harry and Ginny together, but it's not determined if she meant to or not, haha.
Annnnnd, so begins this Harry/Ginny romance. Anyone want to write the rest?
Five years later and I run into you at an airport in New York. You’re sitting at the gate, holding hands with your husband. I’m waiting for a flight to take me into the arms of a woman I might love, if we can just get the timing right. You and I stare at each other for a moment, taking in the changes the years have created.
You shaved your head, your jaw is sharper, and your shoulders filled out in a wonderful way. When you move, it is with a confidence you never had before. You look happy- and your smile is still the same.
My hair has gotten long, my cheekbones stand out, and greyscale tattoos peek out from under my sleeves and skirt. I’ve finally made a home for myself in my skin. I smile back at you- a little sharper than I used to be.
There’s a picture I saved from all those years ago- kept in a notebook I almost let burn when I was cleansing my life of a few things I kept around for too long. We were so different then, so young and idealistic and untried. I loved you then. And you loved me. We didn’t know any better.
I meet your husband, hear about the life you’re building together. He looks at you like you are the most precious thing in the world- and I am so happy for you. There was never space for bitterness or regrets between us. I tell you about my new Maybe, and you hug me tight and tell me good luck. Tell me to take every chance I get, to be brave and believe what you taught me- that I am wonderful and worthwhile and deserving of only good things.
The plane starts to board. One last hug and I leave you behind again, walking away without looking back- just like I told you I would.
I let myself indulge in memories until take-off. Then I tuck you away back into my past and instead look forward to the beautiful second love waiting for me at the baggage claim.
Maybe I'll always love him.
It's only natural,
I've known him my whole life.
But I can never have him.
And I can live with that.
You're kind to me,
with a light within your dark that calls to my own.
I can see myself loving you;
I already appreciate you.
The seeds are rooted and they glow
when I'm with you.
I think you can grow to love me too.
Will you feel second-best?
Wonder if I'm wishing your touch was his
and there won't ever be peace in our kiss?
I can't promise I won't at first
but not for long.
I welcome your path
and your life for his.
I can live with that,
can you?
