Scavengers have been out in the night again. They leave only an outline of themselves -- a colander, a curtain. Look closely and you can see where they trod, to what lengths they sought sustenance in this cold.
To say my interior winter is cold is to say a lion is fierce. How do we measure our interior seasons? Not with blunt tools that call cold cold. Face-numbing, organ-gripping howl, ice so thick it's no longer clear. Most of us survive winter by waiting her out, knowing that spring will come.
The last time I experienced winter -- and by "experienced" I mean I did not just travel through it by going from A to B as quickly as I could -- I woke to the splendor of each morning, blinded by Our Grand Dame's making. I don't know who "our" is when I'm talking about Our Grand Dame, only that she is not my interior winter alone, no matter how personal winter can feel. I lived that winter in a barn on the edge of the earth. Each morning I had to shield my eyes. Spring was not a hoped-for, foregone conclusion; the word "loam" was nowhere in my vocabulary. It was only Our Grand Dame and me, her sun and her moon casting oblong shadows on snow. She held me in the cup of her knotted hand, talking of tasks and barriers. She was trying to tell me that to live fully is to forgive our scavengers their nature.
5 comments:
In a barn on the edge of the earth. Must have been beautiful, even despite the winter. Lovely. Xo.
Sounds like you have given / opened yourself up to something that did not go as planned and so this thing "preyed" on you like a "scavenger", making your life at the moment cold like winter? You sound like a internally wounded bird that can not figure out how to flee from an onslaught of cold. To be honest, at the heart of this writing it sounds like a projection! A metaphor for your own handling of life? Are you the scavenger? not bothering to identify properly what you feed on, and just merely eating up anything (people, experiences, daily happening) that indulges your cold winter interior? This sounds like an addict. Often the sick embrace the cold because it easily presents itself as a force in their life, as opposed the routine, mundane, lukewarm temperature of daily life, which could be turned hot by our own internal thermostat. The ice is so thick it is no longer clear, sounds like an admittance that you can not even see clearly clouded by your cold winter interior. Healthy people do not wait out winter, they wrap themselves with blankets and breath the love of their own warm breath against their body until their insides turn winter to spring. Maybe that is what you are doing by writing these posts, although, I am afraid this writing is only more indulgence for you-the-scavenger, whirling large snow flakes that shroud you. Only you hold the key to your happiness. Get it together, be a real women, bring positivity to the world, do not indulge the cold so much (leave the addict self behind) it only leaves a chill in you and people around you. Learn to forgive, to grow, und you vill like it!
btw... for a wounded woman's blog, whats up with the seductive objectifying silhouette of a women with her legs spread at the top of the blog? Statement about the world, Indulgence in the pain?
Dont mean to be harsh here, just reading. I have very little sympathy for those who play the victim very long! Emotions are valid, but you need to learn how to forgive (yourself most of all). We all do not control life, so take it all a little more lightly. Good luck to you.
Anonymous:
The "interior winter" idea came from a writing prompt that a friend gave to me. In a season or two I may write an "interior summer" piece, which will no doubt be more satisfactory for you.
But yes, I do think we're all scavengers in our own ways. Me, you, anyone. I think it's important to acknowledge that aspect of our humanity (and to accept that it's part of nature). And I also think it's important to acknowledge -- even write about -- own interior winters, our cold selves that startle us. But it's true that life not about these two extremes: summer and winter. It is also about the routine and mundane. I will try to write something about quotidian lukewarm life for you at some point.
With all your mud slinging, though, I might advise you to take life more lightly, too.
Thanks for reading,
Sarah
If writing as projection or metaphor were a valid criticism, then most of the work we have grown to love and that which has sparked the deepest of feelings in us would be off the table. I think what's painful about this is what is painful for any artist who is putting revealing work into the world--prose, or a song, say. It is naturally up for this kind of simplistic scrutiny. In this case, the piece strikes me as something that this person just can't relate to and is enjoying the anonymous place of psycho analyzing or putting into place their self-gratifying signs and symbols. It reminds me of people who say, "I only like dance music. Not sad songs." Maybe some of the analysis is even true. Maybe you do need to forgive yourself. More painful, and pretty generic and applicable to anyone i know including myself. But is that the point? If you put things into a different context, this type of commentary is rather comical. If someone were to listen to my songs, for example, and tell me to be a real woman and get over things, I would say, "yeah, okay, but did you HEAR the song?" Did you hear the melody? That guitar part? It killed me. Did it kill you? Did you feel something? That time and place? And are we a little more connected, you and me? One who writes wants their personal and human feeling/experience to be related to by a reader, or listener, or viewer. It's one of the main pursuits to crafting something.The crafting of language with feeling and imagery and yes metaphor is the point--all of which is done in a surprising, strong, intense, and eloquent way by you, Sarah, in this piece. To boil down the contents without it's poetics as if this were a yahoo group chat session seems very out of place. The point is the writing. And what puritanical version of feminism is being adhered to by criticizing the blog image? I believe this work was made by a nyc artist (woman) and is obviously something that the writer feels she can identify with. Being bold enough to form your own image and voice in this world is one of the most difficult things one can pursue. This is extremely good writing and I encourage you to remember that letting work out means letting all kinds of criticisms in. You obviously know what you are doing. Keep it up, and please "forgive" that post.
Gotta rise out of 'em ! - success
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