September 2nd, 2009
Dear Rachael S,
Dear Rachael S,
I write to you because we are old friends and I miss you. How is Colorado? More importantly, how are you?
I am changing. This seems important to tell you. I cannot tell you exactly why I am changing. I don't think I yet know. Or that it can't be defined. Whatever it is, it is drastic, I think. Is it that I'm growing up? I don't know. There are so many things that seem very small, but they are the ripples that create the wake that rocks the boat.
Here is an example. My room in Seattle is very large. It is so large that I have not enough things to fill it. I have always wanted such a vast space. And I have been content with this space for some time. But this morning I woke up and I felt smothered by the vastness. That the room is so very large that it ought to not have walls at all - nor roof nor anything. It is so great that it ought to not be a room in the first place. And because of this, I felt very limited and very smuthered by the existence of walls in my very vast, very large, very great room.
Here is another example. My body is changing. My breasts somehow seem more perky, more full. I look at my body in the mirror and what I expect to see is not there. When I think I will see an aged woman, I see a woman with the breasts of a still developing adolescent. They do not droop or seem bored as they once did. They seem full of life and perseverence and passion. They seem ready for a husband and suckling children.
My womb also has changed. I have always desired children, but in such a vague and ideal way. My belly now glows with a longing to be with child, to do what it was created to do, to have a lover. It lives as a paradox; to be both full and empty: full of desire for that which it is empty of, and empty of that which it desires to be full of. I do not know how others do not see the glow. It is as bright as a torch in a midnight cavern. It has become the light which illuminates the path before me. I do not know if this is a good thing.
I just returned from a trip to the mountains of North Carolina. I stayed there in a cabin. One morning my will beckoned me outside. So each foot fell in front of the other, leading me down a gravel path along a shallow river. I came to a bridge and there I found myself standing. I say that I found myself standing there because I had no intention of stopping. But it seems my feet had intentions of their own, or perhaps that the bridge had called me rather than my will. And so I stood. I began to think. And as I began to think, I realized that I felt quite liberated.
There is something about the mountains. In the mountains, life is just life. That is all. But in the city life is not just life. It is life with this and life with that; life with work and life with play; life with social norms and life with status quo; life with deadlines and life with expectations; life with budgets and life with a need to fill our diaries with nonsense meetings, errands, and social requirements. And standing on that bridge that unified land and land, I decided that I much prefered just life and perhaps I ought to stay. But I turned and heard MY life calling me; calling me back to a life that is not just life, but life that is life with all the things that adulterate just life.
"You are not making any sense," the mirror said.
"Yes, I know," she replied. "But does it even matter?"
"No, I suppose it does not."
They paused and stood a while face to face, she fixated on the mirror and the mirror fixated on her.
"Do you love me?" asked the mirror.
"I love they way you speak and I love the way you laugh and I love the way you sigh and I love the way your cheeks make dimples when you are not really smiling but only pretending," she said back.
"But do you love ME?" asked the mirror again.
"If you are the way you speak and the way you laugh and the way you sigh and the way your cheeks make dimples when you are not really smiling but only pretending, then yes. I do love you."
"But I am not the way I speak and the way I laugh and the way I sigh and the way my cheeks make dimples when I am not really smiling but only pretending."
"Then what are you?"
"I am...just...me."
She paused a second. Or perhaps it was longer. It seemed longer. More like a minute or several minutes or possibly even an hour. But it must have only been a second.
"Then I don't know," she finally said. "I don't know just you."
I am also sad or perhaps melancholy or perhaps fragile. Yes, I must be fragile. Fragile in a good way. It is not the sort of fragile that means I will be broken beyond repair. It is somehow different, though also, in a way, the same. I am fragile, or becoming fragile, in a way that makes me think I'm really just becoming a woman. It is as if I am suddenly so thin, so breakable, so vulnerable, but yet also strong. I feel that I am spreading out into vastness, like a drop of oil gliding over the surface of water, molecules splitting into halves and fourths and eighths and sixteenths until there is nothing seperating water from air - though there is something, but it is mostly nothing. Yet this water becomes my strength and the very thing that keeps me together. And while I can be broken, my mostly nothing surface disturbed by quick or heavy penetrations, it is the water that pulls me back together once more. And because of this I know I am fragile in a good way.
I hope you will write me also.
Sincerely,
I am changing. This seems important to tell you. I cannot tell you exactly why I am changing. I don't think I yet know. Or that it can't be defined. Whatever it is, it is drastic, I think. Is it that I'm growing up? I don't know. There are so many things that seem very small, but they are the ripples that create the wake that rocks the boat.
Here is an example. My room in Seattle is very large. It is so large that I have not enough things to fill it. I have always wanted such a vast space. And I have been content with this space for some time. But this morning I woke up and I felt smothered by the vastness. That the room is so very large that it ought to not have walls at all - nor roof nor anything. It is so great that it ought to not be a room in the first place. And because of this, I felt very limited and very smuthered by the existence of walls in my very vast, very large, very great room.
Here is another example. My body is changing. My breasts somehow seem more perky, more full. I look at my body in the mirror and what I expect to see is not there. When I think I will see an aged woman, I see a woman with the breasts of a still developing adolescent. They do not droop or seem bored as they once did. They seem full of life and perseverence and passion. They seem ready for a husband and suckling children.
My womb also has changed. I have always desired children, but in such a vague and ideal way. My belly now glows with a longing to be with child, to do what it was created to do, to have a lover. It lives as a paradox; to be both full and empty: full of desire for that which it is empty of, and empty of that which it desires to be full of. I do not know how others do not see the glow. It is as bright as a torch in a midnight cavern. It has become the light which illuminates the path before me. I do not know if this is a good thing.
I just returned from a trip to the mountains of North Carolina. I stayed there in a cabin. One morning my will beckoned me outside. So each foot fell in front of the other, leading me down a gravel path along a shallow river. I came to a bridge and there I found myself standing. I say that I found myself standing there because I had no intention of stopping. But it seems my feet had intentions of their own, or perhaps that the bridge had called me rather than my will. And so I stood. I began to think. And as I began to think, I realized that I felt quite liberated.
There is something about the mountains. In the mountains, life is just life. That is all. But in the city life is not just life. It is life with this and life with that; life with work and life with play; life with social norms and life with status quo; life with deadlines and life with expectations; life with budgets and life with a need to fill our diaries with nonsense meetings, errands, and social requirements. And standing on that bridge that unified land and land, I decided that I much prefered just life and perhaps I ought to stay. But I turned and heard MY life calling me; calling me back to a life that is not just life, but life that is life with all the things that adulterate just life.
"You are not making any sense," the mirror said.
"Yes, I know," she replied. "But does it even matter?"
"No, I suppose it does not."
They paused and stood a while face to face, she fixated on the mirror and the mirror fixated on her.
"Do you love me?" asked the mirror.
"I love they way you speak and I love the way you laugh and I love the way you sigh and I love the way your cheeks make dimples when you are not really smiling but only pretending," she said back.
"But do you love ME?" asked the mirror again.
"If you are the way you speak and the way you laugh and the way you sigh and the way your cheeks make dimples when you are not really smiling but only pretending, then yes. I do love you."
"But I am not the way I speak and the way I laugh and the way I sigh and the way my cheeks make dimples when I am not really smiling but only pretending."
"Then what are you?"
"I am...just...me."
She paused a second. Or perhaps it was longer. It seemed longer. More like a minute or several minutes or possibly even an hour. But it must have only been a second.
"Then I don't know," she finally said. "I don't know just you."
I am also sad or perhaps melancholy or perhaps fragile. Yes, I must be fragile. Fragile in a good way. It is not the sort of fragile that means I will be broken beyond repair. It is somehow different, though also, in a way, the same. I am fragile, or becoming fragile, in a way that makes me think I'm really just becoming a woman. It is as if I am suddenly so thin, so breakable, so vulnerable, but yet also strong. I feel that I am spreading out into vastness, like a drop of oil gliding over the surface of water, molecules splitting into halves and fourths and eighths and sixteenths until there is nothing seperating water from air - though there is something, but it is mostly nothing. Yet this water becomes my strength and the very thing that keeps me together. And while I can be broken, my mostly nothing surface disturbed by quick or heavy penetrations, it is the water that pulls me back together once more. And because of this I know I am fragile in a good way.
I hope you will write me also.
Sincerely,
Dylan King
No comments:
Post a Comment