self ANALyzing

Thursday, October 06, 2005 self ANALyzing.. Current mood: restless Anyone who has not read The Poisonwood Bible should be forced to at gun point. I have read it countless times. But as there are some of you who have not, I feel the need to share. Mama says their skin bears scars different from ours because their skin is a map of all the sorrows in their lives. I held him in my arms at night and saw parts of his soul turn to ash. Then I saw him reborn, with a stone in place of his heart. Listen little beast. Judge me as you will, but first listen. I am your mother. What happened to us could have happened anywhere, to any mother. I'm not the first woman on earth to have seen her daughters posessed. For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathen who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadfull poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease, they'll bend to his light. Oh, a wife may revile such a man with every silent curse she knows. But she can't throw stones. A stone would fly straight through him and strike the child made in his image, clipping out an eye or a tongue or an outstretched hand. It's no use. There are no weapon for this fight. There are countless laws of man and of nature, and none of these is on your side. Your arms go weak in their sockets, your heart comes up empty. You understand that the thing you love more than this world grew from a devil's seed. It was you who let him plant it. The day does come, finally, when a daughter can walk away from a man such as that - if she's lucky. His own ferocity turns over inside her and she turns away hard, never to speak to him again. Instead she'll begin talking to you, her mother, demanding with a world of indignation: How could you let him? Why? There are so many answers. All of them are faultess, and none good enough. Hi, me again. Such complicated relationships between us and our parents. Love, resentment, bitterness, on both sides, so rarely forgiveness, understanding... if only, why didn't, why did... Then it moves on to current relationships, our 'partners'. Such similar words, parents, partners. We take all those things with us, and expect others to be just fine with our idiosyncrasies. Unconditional love. But perhaps not really believe, after all, "a woman is responsible for original sin." Aren't we all, and we never let ourselves forget it. Never stop second guessing ourselves. Damn it, I should have, why did I.... At least I didn't come from the devil's seed. I just hung out with him on occasion. : ) Maybe that's why I'm oh so good at evilness now.