Refusing Echo

Instructor Introduction

My advanced essay course focuses on the lyric essay—a genre that encourages blending research of various sorts with reflections on personal experience, all while taking liberties with poetic voice. Such essays often deviate from the narrow path of linear argument by embracing digression and eschewing artificially stable endings. Sometimes these essays weave together several thematic strands to produce written tapestries that span multiple genres, time periods, and locations. Sophie Wolf’s essay “Refusing Echo” achieves this weaving beautifully. Her lyrical voice flits deftly between the narrative of her first queer relationship—one that was both intoxicating and controlling—and Ovid’s telling of the myth of Narcissus and Echo. The resonances that Sophie’s essay provokes are urgent and challenging. Telling this sort of story is not without its risks, and Sophie’s courage in bringing these experiences into language is a gift to all of us. I am perhaps most grateful for her probing self-reflection, the persistent care she brings as she listens to her own voice, her own memory, even as it is diminished by an abusive partner or distorted by the churnings of a bureaucratic machine. Hers is the kind of sensitive portrait of desire we need more of.

— Kelly Hoffer

“Her voice still continues.”

The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Book 3, Fable VI: Echo and Narcissus^[1]

As a teenager, I prided myself on my sense of self control. My high school crises were small and forgettable, mostly centered around college prep or cleaning my bedroom, but apart from those trivial obstacles my life was quite orderly. I worked three shifts a week at a Mexican restaurant downtown, and I left my car on a nearby side street where old people were less likely to wave me into a space if I tried a second (or third, or fourth) time to wiggle my way in. I passed my parallel parking section of driver’s ed on the first go. I’d only had my grandpa’s 2004 Toyota Avalon for a year and I drove it reverently, fearful that reckless driving might taint its unimpeachable purity. I felt the same way about reckless parking. City meters expired every four hours, so every four hours on the dot I went flying out the yellow back door of the kitchen to slam quarters down a machine’s throat a block away. All of this is to say, not once did I get a ticket. I saw it as a badge for my innate orderliness. Then I turned twenty.

I didn’t break any rules. The letters were big and red. “Violation” seems like a strong word. What did I violate? Was I not the one who was violated? The word implies that there is a moment of invasion, the millisecond when the rubber band breaks, when the balloon pops, when all of a sudden I realize it’s time to say “please stop” or “no” or “I think I should sleep in my own bed tonight.” My self-respect was lost. I didn’t topple it all on my own, I had help along the way, but I am the one who received that tidy envelope. I am the one who is now tarnished. The mark is tiny and erasable from the record, its commonality making it practically invisible in plain sight, but nonetheless I am looked down upon by the rest of the street. It’s a symbol. Why did I let that happen to myself? Please, don’t blame me. I didn’t break any rules.

I fell in love with a girl for the first time my sophomore year of college. I’d been in love once before; my high school boyfriend had swoopy hair and a nicotine addiction, and when I lost my virginity we ate Noodles and Company in his bed, sitting side by side and giggling like kindergarteners. I loved him, I think, but then again, maybe the first time you fall in love it’s more about you than it is about the other person. At long last, I allowed him to crack open my protective shell (please know that this is no erotic analogy; the sex itself was unremarkable), I felt myself soften to a state of emotional vulnerability, and the act of doing so was more terrible and thrilling than the heartbreak to follow. He cheated, we broke up, and that was that. I was devastated, because it was the first time I’d allowed myself to be so defenseless. Still, I did everything right; returned his things, never contacted him again, didn’t indulge the overwhelming urge to forgive when it wasn’t merited. He was out of my life.

She was different; she was an obsession. She was fluid in her femininity, choosing instead to refer to herself as a “woman*”, often voicing the asterisk. She simultaneously embodied a specific and chosen masculinity that I was fervently drawn to. She was beautiful and deliciously sarcastic and one of the smartest people I knew, and we met in the spring, a week before my study abroad trip to Spain. Upon my return three months later I broke a myriad of traffic laws after not sleeping on the plane to get to her as fast as I could. I remember I wore a shirt I’d picked out specifically to see her, creamy white with a tiny pink bow midway down my chest, and I laughed out of nerves, half-blinded by the afternoon sun as I ran up the porch steps into her arms. She moved slowly and deliberately; her eyes were golden with electricity. Her hair was still wet from the shower, a detail I am sure of because I tangled my fingers in it. She was the kind of person to record my favorite teas and childhood pet’s names and take notes on the novels I recommended. The journal she wrote in was black and brand new like the giddy, gleeful feeling that made me feel like incessantly smiling or screaming or curling up into a ball. I basked in the luck of having found such an attentive partner. She confessed that her recent ex-girlfriend told her she was “too much”, and I, convinced she could do no wrong, promised her she wasn’t– she just loved hard. I recalled her disclosure months later, throat prickling, when I found my front door lock code that I’d never shared on that same list, nestled between “Bossa Nova, Tea Haus” and “Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë.”

I had been warned about the intensity of romantic relationships between women; I had only ever dated men. “That’s just how it is with lesbians,” my queer older sister told me late one Friday night as we split a bottle of wine. And it certainly seemed so. My new girlfriend said “I love you” the day I arrived back home, only the third time I had ever seen her in person. A split second before she could interpret my shocked silence, I said it back, willing my proclamation to be true so early on, but the seed of my first doubt was sown. I’d come back from another country to a home life I barely recognized, one filled with her. She was sleeping over for several nights in a row. Eight hours spent together felt like one. I’d open the door of her basement apartment and the world outside would be unexpectedly dark or bright. My sister assured me we were just “U-Hauling”. I convinced myself not to worry about the spiraling feeling that came with losing time. Sure, I’d never done this before, but we were just gay. We were just young. That’s just how it is.

She was an accomplished artist, even got into NYU’s art program, but I didn’t understand all of her work. Most of it featured a dark color palette and eyes that wept black ink, flooding thick ribbons down the canvas, pooling near the bottom. They made me feel apprehensive, even surveilled. One such eye was painted on the wall above her bed. But no matter, because she produced some pieces I loved beyond words. She’d been hired by the Classics department at our university to draw all the constellations in the sky: a “constellation reconstructionist”, she called herself. She worked sometimes for weeks on each meticulous illustration, but it became a ritual that before she sent them to her employer, she’d reveal to me the final product. I was enamored with her work, for they reminded me of the iridescent illustrations in the book of Greek mythology gifted to me as a child. She indulged that love of stories by retelling me every tale to be memorialized in the sky. I inhaled the tragic events that led to Orion’s placement there by Artemis. I learned that Andromeda was chained to the rock by her own parents. The constellation project spanned over months of our relationship, and once we’d broken up, I went home to page through my blue-covered mythology book that suddenly assumed a double meaning.

There was no mention of Echo. Not in the stars, and not in the book.

Famously retold by the poet Ovid, Echo’s story belongs to Narcissus. Voice stolen by the queen of the gods, cursed to repeat only the words of others, Echo first laid eyes on her beloved as he netted a stag^[2]. He was beautiful; she fell in love. She followed him further into the forest, silent, unable to speak, and with each step, that love grew. She wished to speak softly, to speak at all, but she could not. As they wandered, he shouted, “Is there anyone here?” “Here!” Echo cried joyfully. But he was confused, and continued to call out, for she did not reveal herself instantly. Exasperated, he called this mystery voice to him, and Echo echoed his wish, taking it as a declaration of love. She ran to embrace him, yet he threw her off and hurled words of disgust. Ashamed and heartbroken, Echo followed Narcissus and continued deeper into the wood. He bent down for a drink at a stream and caught a glimpse of his own reflection. Entranced by his beauty, unable to move from the spot, he wasted away. Echo’s body faded– but somehow, we have all heard her voice.

I was always aware of how image-conscious my lover was. She built a facade around herself, this darkened, emblazoned personality, full of moody poetry and snippets of muted color. She wrote in calligraphy, switching styles every few words, exaggerating loops or lines depending on her tone. She compiled elaborate playlists of music with cryptic names, also written in strange fonts. Sometimes when she spoke, I could practically hear a new font reflected in each sentence. Often when we argued she would bring up some snippet of a phrase that had gotten stuck in her head, a lyrical quip she’d thought up that she regarded as true genius, explicatory of our joys or problems or worries. She nurtured those little sayings like baby birds through her art and her writing. I longed for full explanations, detailed stories like the ones in the sky. I begged for straightforwardness. She showed me her private diary once, an act I found surprising and strange, but not as strange as its pages, full of that same careful writing. I wondered where she put all her uncensored thoughts. I wanted to see that version.

I cannot help but wonder what Narcissus saw in the pool that kept him there. As a child, his parents sought out their son’s prophecy. He would live a long life, the prophet said, “If he never recognizes himself.”^[3] Life cut short by self-recognition; life elongated by ignorance. Imperfections are more visible close-up, but no matter; Narcissus wasted his life away admiring the image that he had come to love above any other. I imagine Narcissus, like the girl I loved, had an expansive personality. No room for two, and so the second would be diminished. Echo, they shall speak for us. Speak for us. I did not fault my lover for who she was, and I did not wish for her to feel threatened by my own voice, but when I began speaking up I watched her utterly transform. Her eyes grew hard as she dropped the act of possession as protection, disappeared into someone bitter and cruel who I did not know. I recall my genuine fear. I looked her in the eyes, but I did not know this girl. I could see, but I was not seen. I do not believe she could see herself. Perhaps she was lonely. I understood Echo’s urge to remain at Narcissus’ side even once he rejected her. Perhaps that made her even more determined to keep him company.

In my relationship we both paid a price. Each time I welcomed her back into my bed or into my life as a true, equal partner, I meant it. The spidering cracks that inched their way along the foundations of our relationship widened with increased pressure, but something that feels so good couldn’t possibly be bad– or so I thought. I loathe giving up any blame. If it’s mine, I can dissect it, I can understand it, I can learn to be better. My loved ones were obstinate, said she was bad for me. Time and again I countered, no, we were bad for each other. She was brutal in front of my dearest friends, who stared at me in disbelief. She dismissed my enthusiasm, or worry, or nostalgia. She seemed to know everything about me, so I started making up facts to make sure I wasn’t losing memories. You already told me about that. She leaned against me to press her ear to my chest. Your heart is beating fast. Are you telling me the truth? She clung to me for hours after an argument. Just this once, I need you to choose me instead of you. And when my head felt blurry, when she chased me down the stairs and stood bathed in my car headlights, you can’t leave. I’ll always love you. You are the worst version of yourself. I want to spend my life with you. Selfish. Pathetic. Perfect. Beautiful. When I was utterly undone, she was there to reconstruct me, to put an exhausted, helpless, disgusting girl to bed. I was stuck in her spider web, but the feeling was oh-so-familiar. Might as well sleep in her bed, might as well give my body to her, might as well ignore the little voice of reason at the base of my skull, because it was a relief to find the state of being possessed sexy instead of suffocating.

When Echo bursts out of the woods to embrace her love, the moment is tragic. “[Narcissus] exclaims, ‘Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.’ She answers nothing but ‘Have the enjoyment of me.’”^[4] Mortified, Echo runs to hide, but she is not discouraged in her love. I recall the many late nights I found myself outside her door breathing arctic air, or inside my own door curling my toes in defense of that frigid, pervasive strip along the floor, waiting for her face to appear.  “Have the enjoyment of me.” Is this not what I said?

How can I express how enthralling it feels to finally feel alive, finally feel the sort of alignment with love and physicality that humans have expressed in art and writing for centuries, in a body that you did not expect? I expected a man. That is not who I found. I was hopeless against her pull. She introduced me to my own queerness in a myriad of ways, helped define me as a person, and it was as if I had become the woman I had always sought to be. On one “break” that we took from dating one another, she slept with someone else. I was devastated. “It’s just sex,” she said, raising an eyebrow at me and looking back down at her coffee cup. And I realized: this bond I’d been drunk off of for months only existed in my head. The sense of understanding crept down the back of my neck, across my shoulders, stiffened my spine. She’d been out since middle school. We were twenty now, and in college. “Have the enjoyment of me.” I couldn’t stop.

So, if a queer relationship was all I had ever wanted, why did I still feel like I was “the woman”? I spent most of my time protecting her generous ego and fragile self-esteem. The worst was when we went out to clubs or bars together. I’d get dressed, do my makeup. But I always knew there was a fine line to walk. What I could and couldn’t wear, just how pretty I could look without her getting insecure. Worse than the anger was the sadness. She’d take one look at me and begin to express that she felt ugly, or insufficient, or just downright upset. At first, I helped her pick outfits, did her makeup if she wanted, got her a drink, and escorted her downstairs to my friends. But we always fought when we came home.

Again, I went to my sister for advice. “Well, gender roles can play into lesbian relationships, too,” she said. “And your girlfriend’s pretty butch.” I was confused. Was this not exactly what I had been avoiding? I’d ended things with my previous male partner because he was overly controlling. Was this some sick pattern of mine, seeking out people who wished to dominate me? What started with skimming a Reddit thread turned into poring over academic articles published online. In a 2006 study, it was found that more masculine lesbian women were more likely to use aggression to resolve issues in their relationship. This tendency towards aggressive behavior was heightened by an insecure attachment style^[5]. A study completed in 2005 found that feminine queer women were more likely to experience aggression from other queer community members.^[6] On social media I watched countless queer women joke about “love-bombing”, or overloading a partner with attention in hopes of winning their affections. The pieces click into place as I look back, but I am loath to subscribe to what appears to have been an obviously predictable pattern.

Only when it was quiet and I was alone, coming back in the early mornings, slipping past my roommates’ cracked doors, switching back on my phone’s location services, I felt the doubt flood in. Could I even remember what was real? She left me notes, picked me flowers. I know that happened, because I still have them. I wish I could keep the slammed doors, the smack of her hand on the table, folded up and tucked away in the back of my closet. She stroked my hair and pressed her lips against my bare shoulder when I woke up, which made my stomach feel like light sparkling on the bottom of a swimming pool in summer. The mornings were pure and white like the dresses she liked me best in. We were absolved of our sins, and we woke up new. As I got dressed for work, I dragged the time out, made us coffee, made her laugh, desperate to savor the moments of goodness, of gentleness. I was late. I parked in the faculty parking lot. I wasn’t shocked that University parking tickets are twice as expensive.

The emptiness of losing someone set in early, because I began to lose myself first. “Her voice and bones are left.” This condemned state is what Echo is reduced to by the end of her fable. And yet, her voice remains. But why did her voice linger even after death? I try to think logically. We only hear Echo in certain spaces, spaces that lack anything to absorb the sound waves that are reflected back off of smooth and flat surfaces^[7]. Empty places. Places where we are more likely to be alone. My head is one of those places. My memories of memories are fragmented, and they bounce back and forth with pieces flying off in odd directions. What I can remember of my lover, I remember. What Echo can say of her lover, she says. It has to be good enough. We recall what has been, what is already in the past. It is punishment to relieve and restate and live one step behind until the walls lose their impermeability. Only then can life move on, and for a moment, maybe things will go silent.

What is the best way to identify something? To say it like it is, as my mom would recommend? In a Primate Behavior course I once watched videos of a chimpanzee identifying where a ball was hidden under a cup. To indicate the correct cup, it jerked its head. Ball, or no ball. Can I just point at something and nod? Will I get a treat like the chimp? I prefer strawberries over grapes. Abuse, or no abuse? It’s an ugly word– writing it made me blink hard and flex my fingers. It wasn’t remotely included in my self-descriptive vocabulary until I met with a university advisor, hopeful that I could enroll in a class remotely due to concerns about a classmate. I was vague, I left the worst bits out, I omitted names and switched pronouns. I was so careful. I’d never been worthy of mandated reporting before, but before 5 o’clock that day I received a horribly sterile email from the Title IX university office. “Gender-based misconduct”, I read, aghast. “Intimate partner violence.” “Psychological abuse.” The words made my cheeks burn hotter than my four parking tickets of the semester. I had the option to file a formal complaint. I didn’t take it. What had I done? My first fear: she would find out. My second: her future would be ruined. My third: maybe the email wasn’t entirely unwarranted.

What is the source of authority in validating a queer relationship? How close it can come to resemble a straight one? How polarizingly opposite? I don’t know if discrimination can be gender-based if we’re both women. In lesbian dating culture, drama is the norm. Getting your heart ripped out after weeks or even days is common. Codependence is expected. The intimacy of female friendships is inextricably intertwined with the elation of falling in love. It is beautiful, but its aftermath is torture.

I took a long walk to calm myself, and I emailed the Title IX advisor back. I accepted the offer to talk more, because if I talked, I’d be informed if I ever registered for the same classes as my ex. Someone would be looking out for me, and I needed that support. She and I had the same double major. It was probable. But would this be confidential, I asked? Out of formality. Just to check. It wasn’t. The advisor sent me one final email. Do you confirm that you do not wish to seek any further services or file a report with the university regarding your case? I guess not. Some forgotten file has my name on it. It’s my very own Metamorphoses.

The idea of becoming forgotten after all I lost makes me tearful. I go to the window, look up at the night sky, and pick a star for Echo.

^[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21765/21765-h/21765-h.htm

^[2] The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Fables VI and VII. Translated by Henry T. Riley. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21765/21765-h/21765-h.htm

^[3] The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Fable VI. Translated by Henry T. Riley. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21765/21765-h/21765-h.htm

^[4]  The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Fable VI. Translated by Henry T. Riley. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21765/21765-h/21765-h.htm

^[5] McKenry, Serovich, Mason, and Mosack (2006) in Trotman’s “Relationship and Power Dynamics in Women's Same Sex Abusive Couples” (2017). p 8. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1619&context=oa_diss

^[6] Balsam and Szymanski (2005) in Trotman’s “Relationship and Power Dynamics in Women's Same Sex Abusive Couples” (2017). p 7. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1619&context=oa_diss

^[7] “How Echos Work- What Causes an Echo to Occur” (2021). https://www.soundassured.com/blogs/blog/how-echoes-work-what-causes-echoes-to-occur