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Julia Trojan ([personal profile] goldstarwife) wrote2019-03-06 03:19 am

(no subject)

One of the first things Julia did upon arriving in Darrow was settle into a routine. At the time, it seemed like the only way she could possibly keep going in the face of so much loss. That grief doesn't feel quite so overwhelming anymore, which she's sure is due in no small part to Donny's presence, no matter how many people they're still without, but she's stuck by that all the same. What she's noticed, though, is that there's a sort of pattern within that, a going back and forth where music is concerned. She bought herself that ukulele in her first few days here, then didn't touch it for weeks. Since then, she's steadily fluctuated between knowing that music is what she loves, the thing that makes her happiest, and a belief that it's better not to let herself go there. For a little while, back home, she lived in a fairy tale, but that glimmer of a career is gone now, and she ought to be sensible and keep her head on straight.

So she plays for a while, if only in the privacy of her own apartment, and then stops for a while, unable to decide on a happy medium. On Valentine's Day, she promised Donny one gig, even suggested it herself; now, that seems practically unfathomable, something she can't begin to justify. And if her feelings about him tend to be similar — oscillating between thinking she ought to just say something and being certain that it's safer not to — it doesn't seem worth leaning too hard on that comparison.

All the while, though, she writes. The lyrics or poems or whatever they are wind up being about him, mostly, which means she can never show them to him, but at least she has an outlet for the mess of feelings in her head. It isn't like she ever started doing that with the intention of turning them into songs, after all, and Donny is the one of them who's a composer.

She can't really explain why, then, she takes out her ukulele for the first time in weeks and sits on the couch with her notebook, strumming a few chords as she looks at her own words. There isn't much of a melody there and she doesn't really intend for there to be, but it's the closest she can get to imagining what it would sound like if she did let these poems become songs, which seems in turn like the likeliest way she could ever admit to her feelings. It's nice to try to envision, even if she knows it's a fantasy. Maybe this is just the best middle ground she can get — something she can acknowledge on her own, something she doesn't just put away and ignore, but nothing for which she would shatter the safety she has.