The Moon and Sixpence.
(Friday, October 27, 2006)
"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar with him from birth. Here at last he finds rest."
Where have I gone?
(Thursday, October 26, 2006)
I have not felt like speaking, or making my presence known anywhere. I've been feeling fearful, and once again clamming myself up into the shell of solitude that I trust. My place of solitude is soothing, familiar, and constant. The only flaw it has--and it's a big one--is that it's so tempting to stay inside... and inside, I will never grow out, I will simply remain content to boil in self-pity and victimhood and feed off of my own tears.
Why is our own pain so comfortable to us, even though it is, in fact, pain?
I doubt things I never thought I could doubt, and the struggle of feeling too sensitive, too emotional, lacking so much self-esteem and integrity, has entered a new level. I thought I was making progress; I felt myself battling my way up the hill--but now I feel as though I've fallen face forward and slid back down, and now I'm staring up toward the top, which is higher than ever.
When I'm me, when I'm emotional, when I turn myself inside out and expose my vulnerabilities and just how sensitive I can be, I get hit right on the weak spot. And so I've been holing up, afraid to admit just how bad I'm feeling, afraid of hearing "be a strong woman!"
What is a strong woman, exactly? One who takes insults, hurts, pain, with a grain of salt and laughs them off? One who never cries? I KNOW that's not true... but I've lost my conceptions of what a "strong woman is," and how to be one, or whether it's even important. I'm lost.
Why should I have to live up to this? Why can't I just cry?
Friday the 13th.
(Saturday, October 14, 2006)
Last night, I took a walk to the market on the corner for some odds and ends. It was Friday the 13th, and as I crossed the alley I saw a cat scamper across the street onto the other side. I delighted in this, and as I headed down the street, crisp leaves fluttering in whirlwinds upon the breeze, the evening hovering at that near-dark, not night, but not still dusk, I was exquisitely at peace. I ducked beneath the evergreen boughs that hang over the neighbor's fence, and my mind got to churning, thinking about myths and age-old stories.
I'm currently taking a class that examines the myths and history that grew into the tales of vampires, and eventually, into the novel of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Being so chin-deep in Gothic literature and tracing such an intriguing trend through different tales, novels, and movies, has been so enlightening. When one thinks vampire, one usually thinks... silly, rather than creepy. But we learn of the vampire so based on myth and history, that for the hour of class, we begin to believe that perhaps vampires really do exist... and it has made this Halloween season all the more enjoyable for me.
This time of year always makes me feel like a child. I enjoy so many things simplistic -- going to fall festivals and weaving my way through corn mazes, drinking hot cocoa, raking leaves, dressing up, and carving pumpkins. My favorite, though, is Halloween night, pulling the couch up to the TV and watching scary movies while waiting for the trick or treaters. What is your favorite time or memory from this season?
Sunday Scribblings.
(Sunday, October 01, 2006)
The Skin...
Of his arms, spread with a blanket of blonde down, a soft complement to the sinewy veins and muscles beneath.
Of his hands, coarse and ridged upon the thumb, smooth and ruddy upon the palms; life-lined with gentle rifts.
Of his face, veiled with the growth of strawberry blonde beard, long, soft whiskers and short, prickly stubble. Dimpled with shallow nitches upon the cheeks; wrinkled subtly with laughter at the corners of the eyes.
What a lovely exercise for Sunday Scribblings, to take note of the little nooks and crannies of the one I love, and revel secretly for a few moments in his beauty.
© Megan K. 2006-2007
