I’ve been steering my life from my bed for three days now, with this nasty high-fever-flu-yuck. It feels right to repost what I wrote a year ago today, when I was beginning the book that would change my life: Dani Shapiro‘s Devotion.
Incidentally, Glenda pointed out that my post last week about Rodin’s Cathedral was an echo of Albert Steiglitz’s portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe’s hands. That portrait was the frontispiece of my college thesis, which was about Anne Sexton. And Dani writes, in the pages of Devotion, about Anne Sexton.
Around and around we go, dancing with the same themes over and over again, welcoming new voices and bidding farewell to others … oh I am so fortunate to be a part of this dance.
Pain Engraves a Deeper Memory
I can’t put Devotion down. Run, don’t walk, to buy it. To say I’m obsessed is an understatement. I feel as though Dani Shapiro is speaking straight from my heart, albeit far more elegantly and eloquently than I ever could. I’m about 2/3 of the way through and I have underlined at least a big chunk of most of the pages. I love Dani’s voice, she writes about the same things that are utterly preoccupying me right now, and I just don’t even have words yet for the way this story is touching me. I am sure this will be the first of many posts about this book.
But one passage in particular is on my mind today. I’ve been thinking for weeks that I needed to write about how this is my blog. Not my life. Not my spirit. I get a fair number of inquiries, from people in person and through email, people I know personally and people I don’t, asking if I am okay. These people mean well, I’m sure of it. And I am often taken aback by the question because I am more than okay. I am well. I realize that people are responding to what they read here, and I know this is a public forum and that of course I choose what I write and publish.
This is what I read in Devotion that brought this recent issue to mind:
“The poet Anne Sexton was once asked why she wrote almost exclusively about dark and difficult subjects: Pain engraves a deeper memory was her response.”
I love Anne Sexton, wrote my thesis in college on her, and any mention of her makes me feel instantly connected. I’m surprised, actually, that I had never heard this sentence. “I look for uncomplicated hymns, but love has none,” is one of my favorite quotations of both hers and all time. This one goes on that list. I think there is power and truth in those five words.
Yes. I have long responded to those who, from their experience on this blog, express concern that I seem gloomy and sad that that isn’t true – it’s just that I find in the more complicated thoughts more fertile ground for exploration. The grayer parts of my heart and head are where the interesting stuff to write about is, at least to my mind. I am not particularly interested in reading anyone writing about how fantastic and perfect their life is, least of all me. And, while my life is absolutely, inarguably rich and full and tremendously blessed, it’s not true that I experience every day as unmitigated sunshine. I don’t.
I’ve written before about how I “incline towards melancholy.” There’s no question about that. But I also firmly believe that this tendency to feel things deeply also allows me to experience a surpassing joy that might not be available to me without the darkness. I still don’t know if this connection is about capacity or contrast; I’m not sure it matters. I think I lean towards capacity, though: because of the deep scars that pain has engraved into my spirit, there is a deep repository for joy, when it comes, to fill.
The introspection on this blog is definitely part of my personality, and there is nothing inauthentic here. But the blog is also not a comprehensive representation of my life; far from it. I understand the confusion that occurs there and know that it comes from a place of support and love. I guess I just felt compelled to say, in the echoing voices of two of my literary idols, that my choice of topics is just because pain engraves a deeper memory.
Love this post.
And the dance. It is amazing, no?
Love, the softest kleenex and your favorite tea to you….
Oh yes, yes it does. I sense that fundamental okayness in you, perhaps because I feel it in myself and therefore find it easier to recognize? And to echo Christa, the dance…it is amazing, yes. Wishing you strong lungs and legs again soon.
Namaste to the place of melancholy in the chiaroscuro of a life richly lived… nevertheless I send healing wishes for the fluish side of things.
I understand this completely. For me, the catharsis of writing about the more difficult feelings and issues lessens their hold over me and swings the pendulum back toward the light. It is BECAUSE I write my way through the dark that my “real life” of everyday holds a whole lot more sunshine than is sometimes evident from my blog.
Feel better soon.
I’m not sure I read this post the first time you published it. I suspect it was just before we “met”, because it was you who led me to read Devotion, and love it I did.
I had a discussion this weekend with my closest girlfriend. She is new to reading my blog, not being one to spend any time online. She read a post and discussed it with her husband (my Twitter detox post) and said she was worried about me and what could she do? I found the conversation awkward. I struggle when my real life meets my online life because they are both ME, they are different as well. The things that I share online, like you, come from a vulnerable and newly discovered place. I feel uncomfortable with it in real life, and comfortable with it here. I suspect you can understand perfectly.
I love Anne Sexton, too, love how she says so many things, like, “Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face.” Ah, yes.
Thanks for the mention of Dani’s book, I need to check it out!
Hope you’re up & about & feeling better!
Pain engraves a deeper memory – that is such a perfect explanation after the feelings I’ve experienced after the death of my father. In many ways I can’t go back to before he passed. It’s not that I’m sad at all times, but I feel things more deeply. I’ve learned to embrace the pendulum completely, whatever its swing.