I love this book. I read it because I needed a break from academic articles. Submerging myself in the free-for-all, let's play forever with uncertainty in our ivory tower until we die - reading these had me down in the doubts. Just plain old aching. [I'm still asking God: How does it all fit, these valid points and You? I know they can, I just don't know the how yet. Why do I still have to deal with this? Can I be a meaning-of-life-deep-thoughts person and a real-life-feet-on-the-ground person? And I love new ideas and I know I could do academia, but do I want to? Could I survive it? And will I feel like a failure for the rest of my life if I don't pursue it? Can I be in it without being of it? And why am I regressing to Jr. High italics???]
So you see. I just needed some thing that doesn't use phrases like "performing identity" or "poetics of gender." So I picked up this slim and lyrical book.
"A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all. Strange seizures beset us. Frank Conroy loved his yo-yo tricks, Emily Dickinson her slant of light."
And it got me thinking about the obscure things I love. Like a certain shade of pink, the one in the Dr. Seuss alphabet book that is the color of the fizzy drink and the weird crocodile creature. And tilt-top tea tables. Gaslight lamps. Real shutters on inside windows. Single drawers in bedside tables. (The last three are from Peter Pan the stage version. Umm.) The bowl of mush and dollhouse in Goodnight Moon. The rim of water surface that you look at in the pool through your goggles. Making half-moon indentions on aloe leaves or yellow squash with my thumbnail. The sandy stone doorsteps on old cabins. How when you press the button on our fridge to change from ice to water dispenser it sounds just like "A Million Ways" by OK Go. And the high heel shoes the girl wore in that Care Bear book at my grandparents' house! I have been searching all my life for those shoes.
I've revealed enough of my weirdness. Your turn.
2 comments:
Because italics will always be.
I'll shamelessly copy this post sometime soon, after pondering the randomosities in my life too....
Anna, now that I am "outed" I can write you and let you know how much I have loved reading your ponderings! You are one of the most intelligent, beautiful, authentic, and gifted writers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing! Keep it up! Please know that I have been praying for you! And, your questions about God .. . He will answer them for you! My biggest "Aha" came when I realized it is He who holds onto me and not vice-versa, because I am just so totally incapable and unworthy! Have a wonderful day, my dear!
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