My favorite line of prose from Rachel Swirsky appears in her short story Tea Time: “You might as well say that falling silent is the same as silently falling.” Tea Time is about the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, who fall into a love affair while caught in a loop of time, only for the love affair to slowly break down as the loop of time ends. Interspersed throughout the story are short lyrical asides. One such aside begins as such, “You may think it’s fair to conclude that since the hatter loves his hare, it’s clear that the hare loves his hatter. You are mistaken. It’s not the same thing a bit!”
Oh, woe! So it would seem that the hare doesn’t quite return the hatter’s love. Or at least not in the same way. These lyrical reversals appear several times throughout the story. Here is one set:
You might as well say that to lose what you love is the same as to love what you lose.
You might as well say that we meet then we part is the same as we part then we meet.
You might as well say that I’m undone by love is the same as my love is undone.
Other than simply being gorgeous, these reversals serve as lyrical expressions and metaphors for the hare and hatter’s relationship. Each phrase is a repetition of itself, but also a reversal, so that the opposites stand in contrast and comparison. Each sentence is a small moment of disintegration as the phrase turns itself on its head, just as the hare and hatter are being turned on their heads.
The three sentences asks us to read them together, since each uses the same structure: “You might as well say that _________ is the same as _________.” The repetition of sentence structure creates uniformity of tone and allows phrases to build on each other. So let’s take a closer look at the phrases themselves.
We begin with, “You might as well say that to lose what you love is the same as to love what you lose.” The two key ideas are ‘to lose what you love’ and ‘to love what you lose.’ This begs the question, if the hatter loses the hare (what he loves) does that mean he loves the hare (what he lost)? In other words, does the hatter only love the hare after he lost him? Would the hatter be unable to love the hare if he had not lost him? Or are they unrelated and once the hare is lost, the hatter will no longer love him? Very quickly we find ourselves in a loop, unable to distinguish whether love or loss came first, which is exactly where the hare and hatter have found themselves.
The next sentence is, “You might as well say that we meet then we part is the same as we part then we meet.” The key phrases are ‘we meet then we part’ and ‘we part then we meet.’ The dichotomy is clearer here. The space between meeting and parting is very different than the space between parting and meeting. It’s the difference between being together and being apart. But putting them side by side asks us not to just compare how they are different but how they are the same. Perhaps the time spent together is beginning to be gloomy and sad, as the two miss each other even though they are together. Maybe the hatter longs to meet again, to have a happy reunion in the midst of a sad togetherness.
Now let’s layer meeting and parting back on loving and losing. If the hatter parts with the hare, losing him, will they meet again? Does the hatter’s love mean they are doomed to part? Or destined to meet?? Is losing what you love like meeting or parting? Is loving like meeting or parting? You might also express this in images: the hatter watching the hare leave; the hatter waiting for the hare to return; the hatter meeting the hare, who he is already losing. Parting is, after all, losing. And, you could argue, meeting is loving – a burst of love and joy. From this we can see that much of the hatter and the hare’s love and loss is mixed up in the fact that they have met and, being stuck in time, are unable to part. But parting is inevitable and the hatter fears that, just as he fears the inevitable loss of love.
Then the final sentence, “You might as well say that I’m undone by love is the same as my love is undone.” They key phrases are ‘I’m undone by love’ and ‘my love is undone.’ Again, some questions: if the hatter is undone by love, flung into madness or a loop of time or emotionally wrought by a doomed love affair, does that mean his love will ultimately fail? Is the hatter’s love fated to fail? Was the undoing of his love what undid him? I would say the answer to this last especially, is yes.
When the hatter and the hare ultimately part, when they lose each other, when the loop of time ends, the hatter returns to madness and is undone. Perhaps it was inevitable, as parting and losing are inevitable. Or perhaps it was the hatter’s preoccupation with loving and losing and meeting and parting that undid his love. Perhaps he undid himself. At this point in the story, we don’t know that the hatter and the hare’s love will fail, but these sentences foreshadow that inevitable loss, especially when we consider that every single one of these sentences is a callback to the first reversal, “You may think it’s fair to conclude that since the hatter loves his hare, it’s clear that the hare loves his hatter. You are mistaken. It’s not the same thing a bit!” So each of these sentences is a reminder that the hare doesn’t love the hatter.
There’s another aside comprised of the same types of sentences, which you may explore on your own. But I want to talk about the final reversal, “You might as well say that falling silent is the same as silently falling.” At the end of the story, the hatter and hare’s relationship ends. This sentence expresses a beautiful image of the two characters falling silent and then expresses a very physical representation of the gut-wrenching loss in the phrase ‘silently falling.’ And (three for the price of one!) it expresses the moment when the hatter finds himself falling – into despair, into madness, into infinity.
If you still haven’t read Tea Time, I highly recommend it. It’s a touch earthy, if that’s not to your taste. But it’s absolutely beautiful and I love the way Swirsky uses repeated sentence structures here and elsewhere to create rhythms and themes.