Apparently I have a thing for poets who write novels.
Perhaps one day I'll marry one, or better yet, become one. Anyway, my most recent pleasurable discovery came in the form of "Hannah Coulter" by Wendell Berry. I knew it was going to be good when I was reading it on the beach with tears coming to my eyes, warmth to my heart, and the frantic need for a pen! And in the margin I wrote -"That is exactly how it feels!"
I like to mark up my books - no I LOVE to mark up my books. It's the way I salute the author for their beauty and technique. But more importantly, it's the way I discover things I need.
I needed this book. I needed Wendell Berry to put my feelings into words and also engage me in a good story. Besides the accomplishment of perfectly capturing a woman's mind in this faux autobiography, Berry also captured my own raw heart. Here's what I found:
1st. ME The perfect definition of my right now = "I was a half lost, ignorant girl, trying to find my way into womanhood and a decent-paying job" and "Time doesn't stop. Your life doesn't stop and wait until you get ready to start living it"
2nd. LOVE. I've been in love once. You can scoff all you want at that and claim I know nothing of true sacrificing love since I've never been married or given my "whole" self to someone, and perhaps this is true, but what I know of love so far is all I can go off of. When you are in love, it's as if there is no time and the clock on the dashboard is your worst enemy. I think I once described it as "the time when I feel like all those outside realities that clamp down on our being "us" don't really exist. It's a dream. It's another time and a different world where the possibility of us just being together actually exists and it feels good." But, Wendell Berry got it better. Here's his definition:
"The room of love is another world. You go there wearing no watch, watching no clock. It is the world without end, so small that two people can hold it in their arms, and yet it is bigger than worlds on worlds, for it contains the longing of all things to be together, and to be at rest together. You come together to the day's end, weary and sore, troubled and afraid. You take it all into your arms, it goes away, and there you are where giving and taking are the same, and you live a little while entirely in a gift"
That is beautiful. I look forward to that room of love, but Berry writes that "you can't get there just by wanting to...the meeting is prepared in the long day, in the work of years, in the keeping of faith, in kindness"
3rd. Grief In many ways this goes along with the discoveries on love because "you can't give yourself over to love for somebody without giving yourself over to suffering" (Berry). Love requires vulnerability - the possibility to hurt and be hurt by the ones we most care about. Sometimes break ups feel like new beginnings and sometimes they feel like deaths. When a part of you dies, or when that someone you loved has died (literally or metaphorically), you grieve. It's natural. It's the memories running through your brain as you fail to sleep, or the explosion that hits you in the morning when you realize -yes, this is still real. "But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery" (Berry).
And here's the thing. Life always calls you back and we are loved all the way through. We don't quit living. We beat on. Life "calls [us] into work and pleasure, goodness and beauty, and the company of other loved ones" (Berry). Soon times passes and we heal. Little pleasures return from the most ordinary of things -green grass, crickets, clouds, laughter. Love carries us.
So there you go. My gushing about my most recent read. Hopefully I've intrigued you enough to want to pick this one up at the library, but if not---thanks for indulging me and my raw thoughts. I know I've been posting a lot recently, but now i'm heading out of the country and you can have a break until I return with more musings.
"The room of love is another world. You go there wearing no watch, watching no clock. It is the world without end, so small that two people can hold it in their arms, and yet it is bigger than worlds on worlds, for it contains the longing of all things to be together, and to be at rest together. You come together to the day's end, weary and sore, troubled and afraid. You take it all into your arms, it goes away, and there you are where giving and taking are the same, and you live a little while entirely in a gift"
That is beautiful. I look forward to that room of love, but Berry writes that "you can't get there just by wanting to...the meeting is prepared in the long day, in the work of years, in the keeping of faith, in kindness"
3rd. Grief In many ways this goes along with the discoveries on love because "you can't give yourself over to love for somebody without giving yourself over to suffering" (Berry). Love requires vulnerability - the possibility to hurt and be hurt by the ones we most care about. Sometimes break ups feel like new beginnings and sometimes they feel like deaths. When a part of you dies, or when that someone you loved has died (literally or metaphorically), you grieve. It's natural. It's the memories running through your brain as you fail to sleep, or the explosion that hits you in the morning when you realize -yes, this is still real. "But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery" (Berry).
And here's the thing. Life always calls you back and we are loved all the way through. We don't quit living. We beat on. Life "calls [us] into work and pleasure, goodness and beauty, and the company of other loved ones" (Berry). Soon times passes and we heal. Little pleasures return from the most ordinary of things -green grass, crickets, clouds, laughter. Love carries us.
So there you go. My gushing about my most recent read. Hopefully I've intrigued you enough to want to pick this one up at the library, but if not---thanks for indulging me and my raw thoughts. I know I've been posting a lot recently, but now i'm heading out of the country and you can have a break until I return with more musings.
I loved those parts too...totally remember that last quote. So glad u liked my rec. so much ;)
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