Sources of Inspiration

Several years ago, the phone jangled the early evening and I was jarred from the pile of articles and papers in which I was buried. Chai's voice was charged with odd excitement as she asked, "Guess what? There's the famous photo of Alice Liddel on display at the Art Institute!" "In Chicago?" My brain felt fuzzy, as if I'd left it in imaginary scholarly discussions.

"You know who that is, right? The photos of Charles Dodgson are on display!" She pressed.

"Hmmm...well, do you want to go down there? I could drive."

"Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland." I could sense Chai was trying to be patient, as as if leading a child to understanding.

"Oh! Ok, really? Sure, let's go!" I finally got it. I could hear a mental "geez" going off in my friend's mind.

And so, on a brisk, cool day, we drove to Chicago and travelled to the basement of the Art Institute to examine the works of this mysterious figure--Dodgson. At the time, I didn't know a whole lot about him, or about the real Alice, and I as perused the photos, I could not find even a hint of the famous Wonderland they created. My conversation with Chai mostly revolved around the role of youth and childhood in the Victorian era, and what the girls' parents might have thought about Dodgson photographing their pre-pubescent daughters. Were they flattered? Uneasy?

Since then, I've read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. While Dodgson and his photographs and stories make some others I know uneasy, scared, or even offended, I find them all fertile ground for thought.

Recently, I read Melanie Benjamin's captivating new historical novel (almost a biography, but better), Alice I Have Been, about Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell). Benjamin is from Chicago, and in the afterword, she confesses that she found inspiration for her book at the very same display of Dodgson's photographs--the basement exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute.

What Benjamin's novel does so well is to allow Dodgson and Alice's relationship to remain somewhat liminal. While the rest of the world questions whether Dodgson was a full-blown pedophile or whether the two were "just friends," Benjamin blurs the two extremes and allows us, the readers, to keep believing the best of them--that relationships can and do exist outside of the quick labels society is so ready to assign them.

For many years, Chai was one of my best friends, starting in 9th grade and until we had a falling out in graduate school, after which I have never seen or heard from her again--a friendship span of about 10 years. She certainly is one of the closest friends I've ever had. Ours wasn't the proverbial "female friendship" of shared giggles and shopping--we didn't talk very much about men (or boys) at all. I can count the number of times we went shopping on one hand--or maybe one finger. Instead, we went to obscure foreign films, art exhibits, poetry readings, ridiculous things like country music concerts and biker bars, college hockey games once I moved to Madison. Despite living in the same city (or same state when I went to college)--we eschewed phone and email for letters--lots of them--long letters sent by snail mail. There was nothing really too "strange" about it, but we were not immune society's desire to categorize and label even female friendships--we were often mistaken for a same-sex couple. I'm not sure whether this was due to our apparent utter lack of interest in the men around us, or whether it was indeed the fact that our friendship didn't exhibit stereotypical "shop, gossip, and giggle" behavior--but I suspect it was the latter.

It was a friendship based on a lot of shared thoughts, goals, and dreams--not of love and romance, or marriage and children--but of travel, education, and self-betterment. From the time I was 18, I did go on to travel--a lot--and pursue education. But unlike Chai, I started to open myself up to the world of love relationships, dating, and marriage.

By the time we were both in grad school, we had both undergone wild transformations (college, travel, and one's early 20's will do that to a person). Chai had not travelled or worked full-time like I had, and was instead pursuing an MBA with some vigor. I was just beginning to go back to school for a master's in social sciences, something she had come to see as utterly impractical.

The fight began with a text message. I was in a business class (earning a concurrent certificate in nonprofit management) and bored to tears when I decided to see how text messaging worked, and sent one to her about not being able to meet her later that week afterall. To my surprise, I received a furious email in response. "What's wrong with you? A TEXT? Is this what our relationship has come to? TEXTING?"

And that pretty much distilled things: we had changed so irrevocably that we could not go on without addressing it. I accused her, rather tactlessly, of becoming ruthless in her desire for career and success, of feeling like she had to forsake the things we both used to love in order to present herself as a Type A. She spat back that I was melodramatic and self-centered, my head was in the clouds, and that I was selling myself short by "being in love with a white guy from Iowa." Well, I thought. That's it. So what if he's white. And I happen to like a lot of people from Iowa. It struck me as rather ironic--afterall, when I'd married a non-white guy from Nepal, I received a lot of negative reactions from others, and here I was about to marry a white guy from Iowa--and receiving negative reactions.

It was a prime lesson that no matter what we do in life, not everyone will be happy for us. In hindsight, although I am not climbing my way up a career ladder or making a competitive salary, I have become a better person. A much better person. And I am becoming a better person all the time. And who knows, maybe Chai has too. But at the time, we could not see the "better--" all we could see were the changes. If we truly, truly love someone, we desire to see them grow, change, come closer to realizing their fullest potential for well-being. Yet some relationships have so much passion that any change that we perceive takes away from our loved one's treasured qualities seems automatically bad in our own biased eyes.

Since that day, I have never seen or heard from or about Chai again. It's as if she simply vanished, but I did not dream her. Several of my friends (and husband, the white guy from Iowa) met and remember her--but they never talk about her either. It's as if her memory is little more than a fanciful tale of an imaginary best friend who accompanied me on almost every adventure from the time I was 15 until I was 25.

Dodgson and Alice also had a falling out, or at the very least, a sudden, wide, and mysterious separation. There are many theories about what caused their spectacular rift, but my personal belief is that they both "merely" underwent changes. Yet, the legend of their unconventional relationship has lived on in our culture for over a century, giving people like me the hope that something beautiful, enduring, and life-changing can happen if we are courageous enough to befriend bravely.

I find an interminable amount of inspiration in both liminality and special friendships/relationships.

Since our falling out, I think of Chai with surprising rarity--a year or more has elapsed between calling her to mind. I have no desire to find her, see her, learn what she's up to now--but reading Alice I Have Been, and the thought of our visiting the same exhibit together that inspired Benjamin's novel, has made me put the pieces of thought together. This is a relationship from which I can draw inspiration for the rest of my life.