I wonder how long it takes to write a novel. In short, the novel is never-ending because our own novel never ends. I’m encouraged yet disconcerted to tell you my story and how I got here. I am still in the process of deconstructing and rebuilding myself. My hope is this novel helps one of you to do the same. Or at least to imagine that there is another way. Your dreams can come true, they are not just a figment of the imagination.

I grew up in a very loving household. I was sheltered from the world. When a professor once asked me, would I rather live in blissful ignorance or the pain of knowing, I chose blissful ignorance. Yet one like me can’t live in blissful ignorance, because my soul lives in the pain of knowing. Over and over again in my life, I had to learn this lesson; that pain is inevitable, it is how we handle it that either builds or destroys us. It destroyed me.

Born in Chicago but raised in Tokyo, my life was blissfully ignorant. I easily gave in to others expectations, listened to what even a first grader would tell me, and life seemed fine. I remember climbing to the top portion of the jungle gym and Lola told me no – you can’t climb to the top, it is only for my friends. I thought Lola was my friend, but clearly even then I rationalized it by ignorance. I was hurt but I was ok. I didn’t understand, but I didn’t want to understand. It reminds me now of the first boy I had an almost friendship with. I was less than four years old; in pre-k, and my friend Stephanie said no I like him, you can’t like him. Later after moving back to the United States the same events and emotions happened. Marcy had a crush on John, and even though he “liked liked me” as a later Suzanna would tell me, I didn’t yet understand the difference between men and women, even in second grade. I easily conceded to Marcy and John turned out to be one of the most popular kids in elementary, middle, and high school – playing with Klay Thompson in high school and later even growing up to play basketball with Kevin Love at UCLA. He was quite a star, I always thought of him as the one I missed out on, but I somehow never built confidence in my blissful ignorance to even decipher the world around and inside of me. Maybe our second-grade dilemma was always why he was kind to me, even when later when I never seemed to fit in with the popular crowd in high school.

Living in blissful ignorance got me into lots of trouble. When I was young and old that story seemed to repeat itself. I hope to change that now, knowing that a world of blissful ignorance is simply impossible except for those people in life who proceed with blinders.

As I go through my journey, it constantly surprises me. In part, because I do not know myself. Instead I am defined by the stories around me. The ones you grow up with. The ones people tell you about yourself that become so engrained in your soul you start to believe them to be real. The ones you think are your identity. The ones that become your identity. Letting go of those projections, those fairytales, those judgements leaves nothing.

That is in part how I feel, a nothingless being attached to the world by a balloon string. Rediscovering who I am for the first time at 31 is a daze. Everything I once was is no more. Yes, there is excitement, but ultimately I am attached to an infinite universe that has no attachments. Paradoxes have always filled my life, and my heart. The trite statement of a double edged sword doesn’t feel trite in this context.

As I discover for the first time who I am, potentially just connected to the universe instead of a part of it, I’m encouraged by writing. The infinite combinations of letters and words and syntax have always fascinated me. Unfortunately, I not only listened to stories told to me by other people; I listened to stories that I told myself. One of them was that I’d never have enough money to support myself as a constructer of the words I carefully craft.

Sometimes I am too careful. That is a pitfall we all fall into. Perfectionism. As I grow, I realize this too is an illusion. Just like the stories that surround my very being.

As I deconstruct these notions, I hope I find solace. Harmony is my ultimate motivator. For 31 years, I’ve been motivated by fear.

I have to thank certain creative spirits who seemed to come into my life at opportune moments. An artist, a hairdresser, a dog, a matchmaker, a spirit. All of them called me to a quest to uncover what I thought was the universe, but is really myself.

There are certain people who go through life with blinders. I am not one of them. My earliest spiritual memory was sneaking into a church, playing the piano and crying in front of the Virgin Mary on the floor. No one knew I was there. Except the universe.

It was then I cried for the universe. For the pain that existed in villages in Africa that didn’t have clean running water and whose crops were extorted by even bigger entities.

In fact, aren’t we all entities? Society and cultural constructions make us believe that we are people. But we exist in time. We are unbelievably indescribable though I try to somehow place words together so others and myself can find meaning. Recently someone told me that I needed a body of work to show to those if I really wanted to pursue writing. I am hopeful but not persistent enough to know if that will materialize. Though not in retrospect, everything can materialize. But it materializes in the present. My grammar is not Joan Didion, I was not taught by Vogue. My sentences don’t always have a cause and effect, a noun and a verb. But they are real to me. And in the end, isn’t that all that matters?