Searching for Sylvie Lee

by Jean Kwok

Willa Cather: “The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.”

Sometimes people think it’s about competing with each other because they divide you into sections and everyone inside a section is graded on a bell curve. That kind of thinking makes you insane. I never considered anyone else. I only made sure I competed against myself.” I

When you truly love someone and you see them again, even if it is many years later, their new face blends back into their old face and it is like no time has passed at all.

learned that if you do not speak, no one will ever hear you.”

Filip went to the kitchen and returned with a ceramic bowl filled with water. He came over, picked up my right hand, and placed it inside the bowl. The water was warm, his fingers light against my wrist. This close to him, I caught a whiff of smoke and bergamot. “Does that feel good?” I nodded. “Now, take out your hand and flick the droplets off. As you do that, imagine all of your tension falling away with the water. Very good.” Then he gently dried my hand with a small cloth, massaging every digit, and placed the bow in between my loosened fingers. “Hold it lightly, do not tense up. Now you are ready.”

As I had known it would, my playing drove Helena insane. This gave me great pleasure. She asked me to practice at Lukas’s apartment, which I only did when she was not at home. I was horrible at something for the first time in my overcontrolled life and I reveled in it. I poured my grief, pain, and ugliness, my misformed eye into my playing. I lost myself in the clumsiness of my fingers, the awkwardness of my body, the peeping, cracking sounds that came from my cello. This was indeed my instrument and it voiced all the rage and frustration that I could not.

We weave our own webs. Then they trap us.