There was no split when I wrote in first person. Only third. I was sitting in the cool of my kitchen trying to explain it all to my friend Lena, who had come to the city for a brief moment before heading back out to sea. Her ship was departing in two days.
"Okay," she said, running her hand over her blonde buzzcut, a rare sign of focus. "Okay, as in, I'm still not sure if I get it. Why would it make any difference?"
"I have no clue. Maybe it's just the idea of putting a name to something," I said, "or someone. It gets even worse when I throw in a last name."
The previous summer we had gone on a sailing trip alongside some other friends. She would watch me sitting cross-legged on deck with notebook and pen in hand, struggling to write, sunrays beaming right through our shades, the wind rustling our drying towels in the midmorning air, caressing my cheek, picking up a page or two from under my fingers as if to peek at my earlier work, all scrapped by then.
"What does the split mean, exactly?" Lena asked. She checked her watch. She was supposed to see her parents later that afternoon.
"I think it just means I always catch myself writing some kind of couple. Pairs of characters who contrast each other in various ways. No one I write about stays by themselves for too long. It just happens naturally."
"You mean they fall into relationships."
"Well, yeah, different kinds. Not always romantic. There's just always some kind of line of division."
"What if someone prefers being by themselves?"
"I don't think that's how it works for me. I think two characters will always add up to one person. Again, I'm only talking about my work."
"I think that's really limiting," Lena said.
"You're probably right. I just can't seem to do it any other way."
She shrugged and we moved onto other matters.
I had not gotten much writing done during that sailing trip. It seemed too peaceful of an environment for me, a moment out of my world combined with the faint realization that to Lena that was the world. She had lived on a boat for most of her adult life. I wondered how it felt to be away from it all, on stable ground. Or perhaps there was always some kind of sway.
We said our goodbyes and she headed off for dinner with the lovely Mr and Mrs Visconti at a local Vietnamese restaurant. They would end up chatting about life, problems at work, the pace of it all. I knew she was happy to see them. Wherever she would end up, it seemed good to have some kind of a beacon, a steady place that she could return to, no matter what.
A few days had passed and Lena found herself at sea again, her mind lulled by the waves, thinking about our conversation. When the ship arrived at a new port, she would go out into the city, part sheer curiosity, part genuine attempt to find whatever it was she believed she was missing, walking the seaside streets at night and popping into half-sanitary establishments, conversing with people from all currents of life, having them introduce themselves, usually by first name only, sometimes by full name, only to return to the ship without much lasting knowledge.
I might have given her the wrong idea. Or perhaps it was too egoistic to assume so.
At sea, her mind would ease, but a kind of fire remained lit in the distance, a halted passion to be picked up on another day. She knew nowhere better to be lost.
The sun kept beaming down, day after day without rest, pushing heat in and pushing sweat out. The splash of the waves kept her hands cool. There was the sun and there was the sea, reminding everyone of their presence one after another, the inhale and the exhale.
Lena looked down on her reddened fingers, rope marks running perpendicular across them. She felt that there never was any holding. There was just letting go. Whatever this thought meant. The language was lacking. Whatever it was, it was in the motions, not the words, and it was in her, not in here.
She was presently at a tattoo parlor, midday, browsing through the sheets of drawings. It was a small establishment, hidden in a shadowy alley, away from the sunray scattershot. The room was pleasantly cool.
The middle-aged woman on the other end of the needle smiled at her reassuringly. "Any specific ideas?" she asked Lena.
"Um." She did the hair rustle thing again. "I'm not sure. I feel like I should have been more sure before I came here."
"Well, it's okay. I've seen all kinds of people turn up at my shop. If you're here, it means something. At least that's what I believe."
The sun kept beaming.
"Okay, well," Lena said. She took a deep breath. "I think it would be nice to have a tattoo that's a star, on my back. Something to use for guidance. Yes, I would like to have a tattoo that could be the beginning of a new constellation."
They all are, I thought.
And then back out to sea.