Excerpt from Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim (to end the year)

This is a passage from my book Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim that a few others have posted online and, to end the year, I thought I would post it as well:


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I remember how at this moment we both stopped. We had come to a plateau and the view was particularly stunning. From here you could look over the entire forest. Within the forest there had been a great deal of fighting. And you could even spot a few craters where stray bombs had felled the trees. But the forest was still thick, those trees would grow back, and listening to the silence on the tape crackle with background wildlife I remembered us standing side by side, taking in the landscape as fully as possible. It would be nice to be back there now.

—What do you think about on your walks?

—I try not to think too much. Mostly just take in my surroundings. To see every tree and pebble and insect. To feel how it all interrelates. How all these things need each other and none of them actually need us. How all of it would thrive so much more fully if we were gone.

—That sounds almost fatalist. Or nihilist.

—I don’t think so. There is a kind of humility I find so important. Knowing human beings aren’t actually the centre of anything. We’ve done considerable damage thinking we’re the centre of the world.

—Why is that damaging?

—Because when you’re the centre of the world, you can do whatever you want. The world revolves around you. And we’re not the centre of anything. We’re just full of ourselves.

As we stood there quietly inhaling the view, I tried to have some thoughts about the landscape that spread out in front of us. There was a forest and a river. At least, when you looked in this direction there was a forest and a river. I knew if we snaked our way around to the other side of the mountain the view would be rocks and hills and ridges. Dirt and sand. I didn’t know enough about geology to hazard a guess as to why one side was so lush and green and the other was not. I was about to ask a question along these lines when my thoughts were interrupted.

—I don’t know if I want this on the record. But since you’re recording me anyway, I guess I won’t object.

—If you like I can stop recording.

—No, it’s all right. Maybe it’s good that you have a record of what I’m about to say.

There is a long pause. So long that I wonder if the tape recorder had stopped working, but the background sounds of the mountain assure me the tape is still rolling.

—What is it you want to say?

—What I want to say is that I simply don’t like the fact that you’re here. It doesn’t sit well with me.

—I’m sorry to hear that.

I remember the tension in my body as I braced myself for whatever she was about to say. Whatever it was, I was sure there would be a great deal of truth to it, that I would largely agree with her arguments. I was there to learn, and unfortunately that also included learning more of the reasons why I should have never ended up there in the first place.

—You’re going to write about us, but you’re never going to get it right. I can feel that just from the way you are in the world. But that’s not it, that’s not quite what I mean. Whatever you write might not do us much good, but from what I can tell, you’re sincere enough, so it probably also won’t do much harm. It’s really something else, I’m not even sure I can fully articulate it.

—I’m listening. Don’t worry, I can take it.

—I’m definitely not worried about hurting your feelings.

—Why not?

—Any of us here, all of us, we might be killed any day now, any minute. Our lives are what matters. In this context your feelings definitely don’t matter.

—The criticism I’ve already received is that I’m only a tourist here, I have no real commitment to this place. I’m not invested enough.

—That’s certainly true.

—But that’s not what you’re trying to tell me. You want to say something else.

—You want to learn from us but you can’t because it’s always going to be about you. I don’t know why exactly. And I don’t even want to know why. But that’s the way that I see it. That’s what I see.

—You’re probably right. So what I should do is leave?

—Yes, you should leave.

But of course I didn’t leave right away. I think that mountainside conversation was maybe five or six weeks before I went out on my first patrol, which as we now know resulted in my capture and interrogation. And I remember how I spent those five or six weeks thinking she was right, that I should leave now. That now was really the time to go—what was I waiting for? I often say that when I don’t know what to do I become paralyzed, but here was a situation where even when I did know what to do I found myself paralyzed. I knew I couldn’t stay but neither could I get myself to start leaving. It went on like that for week after week after week. The tape continued.

—I understand what you’re saying.

—That’s the thing. You understand. You can leave. But do you also understand that I can’t?

—You can’t leave because this is your home. This is your home and you have to stay here and fight for it?

—You really have a romantic idea of us, don’t you?

—I’m sorry. Tell me. Why can’t you leave?

—I can’t leave because I have no money. No passport. No way to get anywhere. No other country that would take me in.

—But do you want to leave?

—I want the freedom you take for granted. All the freedoms. The freedom to walk up this mountain and know it’s my home, to know it will survive, and also the freedom to tomorrow be on a tropical beach and forget this war for as long as I choose, until I recover, until I’m ready to come back to it. It’s not that I would actually get on a plane and go anywhere. Perhaps quietly walking up this mountain once a week is enough for me. But why can’t I have that freedom? Just to know it’s possible, just to know that I can. And then it sounds like this is about me, or about you, but it has nothing to do with me or you. Some people can go wherever they want, and others can’t, and it’s the worst bullshit I’ve ever heard. Maybe that’s really what I’m getting at. Some people can go wherever they want, meaning you can also pick up and come here, no one will stop you, we even welcome you with open arms. Because we’re not stupid. We also know you have access that we don’t so easily have. More of a voice on the world stage. But what we have to say, what we’re actually living, is so clearly more important than anything you will ever write. And it fucking sucks that you have more of a voice than us. It’s bullshit and it fucking sucks, but that’s the way the world is, for now at least, and therefore the only thing me telling you all this actually does is give me a chance to vent and complain.

I remember the feeling of standing there on the mountainside, looking over the endless expanse of forest, her voice as she told me: “You’re going to write about us but you’re never going to get it right.” And once again it makes me realize how never in my life as a writer have I genuinely tried to get anything “right,” if getting it right means an accurate portrayal of reality, or even if it means providing access to something we might call truth or wisdom. In fact, it now seems to me, I have attempted to do almost the opposite, a search for how to “get it wrong” as evocatively as possible. Or to fully engage in the struggle between getting it right and getting it wrong. Of course, I’m always considering ethics, so I would never want to be ethically wrong, or to harm anyone with my words, but nonetheless there is the desire to be artistically off-kilter in ways that create the possibility of seeing things anew. To fully admit that I don’t know. But now I’m not so sure. Rethinking all such assumptions might be one of the many ways I find myself trying to change.



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