“I meet you. I remember you. Who are you? You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. How could I know this city was tailor-made for love? How could I know you fit my body like a glove? I like you. How unlikely. I like you. How slow all of a sudden. How sweet. You cannot know. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. I have time. Please, devour me. Deform me to the point of ugliness. Why not you? Why not you in this city and in this night, so like other cities and other nights you can hardly tell the difference? I beg of you.” – Marguerite Duras, from Hiroshima Mon Amour.
“Today is made of yesterday, each time I steal toward rites I do not know, waiting for the lost ingredient, as if salt or money or even lust would keep us calm and prove us whole at last.” – Anne Sexton, from ‘The Lost Ingredient.’
Late in the afternoon, dreaming. There’s warmth on everything. Yesterday I made this cheesecake. I’ve made it again and again over the course of the week. Part because I craved it and part because I came home to place of dessert tables and long Wintered dinners that turn into never-ending evenings. And then I think about this cheesecake and become light-headed again. Hungering sets in. Afternoon shadows devour. It’s all over.
“Strengthened by the goodness of winter fruit, I brought the fire into the house. The civilization of storms dripped from the overhanging tiles. I’ll now be free to detest tradition, to dream of the frost of those that passed on the scarcely captious pathways. But to whom will I entrust my unborn children? Solitude was without its spaces; the white flame sank and its warmth only offered an expiring gesture.”- René Char, from End of Solemnities.
“In the unaltered parts she said the wounds inflicted on us by these swords of the sun were dealt by heaven. They left no visible trace, no scar either on our flesh or in our thoughts. They neither wounded nor consoled. It was a matter of something else. Somewhere else. Far away from where we might have thought. The wounds did not herald or confirm anything that could be taught. What they did was produce a new perception, an inner difference at the heart of meaning.” – Marguerite Duras, an excerpt from Emily L.
“I am not sure at all if love is salve or just a deeper kind of wound. I do not think it matters.” Erica Jong, from ‘The Evidence.’
Tonight I am missing something I do not know. I do not know what I am missing and yet I’m missing it. I know I’m missing something and that something I cannot grasp. I feel the unknown clutch of an unknown hand pressed against my throat. And I’m searching myself to discover what it is I’m without. Also to whom the hand belongs. But that I don’t know either. And yet, the missing isn’t really a missing at all. The something has created a void. And the missing fills it. Maybe that’s the greatest paradox of all. There’s nothing missing in me because there’s nothing to be missed.
“Beauty makes me hopeless. I don’t care why anymore I just want to get away. When I look at the city of Paris I long to wrap my legs around it. When I watch you dancing there is a heartless immensity like a sailor in a dead-calm sea. Desire as round as peaches bloom in me all night, I no longer gather what falls.” – Anne Carson, an excerpt from ‘Plainwater: Essays and Poetry.”
I won’t speak much within this post, rather, I’ll let the sentiment above do all the talking. I’ve returned home from the sea. And I’m here for a few weeks before I leave again. There’s still so much for me to catch up on, but I won’t let it stop these regular posts. I’ve been loving bringing them to you. I mentioned in stories that I’ll be leaving to live in Paris for the Winter. And while the European Winter is still so far, the snow-coated dream of it has resulted in many thirstful nights of anticipation. Here’s hoping it dies down before it drowns me completely.