lately

RealSimple cover, November 2004

i've been having sacred autumnal experiences.

the first is detailed in the post below - an autumn afternoon spent under down quilts listening to the mournful violin cadenzas of Shostakovich. every time i get into bed these days, i feel like i'm bedding down for months of hibernation - folding myself into blankets, burrowing into the pillows, humming myself to sleep on the last energies of the day.

this morning i lit 2 small candles in my pitch-dark bathroom because i couldn't bear to turn on the lights. i never turn the lights on when i shower; it's just that before this morning (at 5:07 a.m.), it was always bright enough outside that alternate light wasn't necessary. and i have a skylight in my bathroom. (have i ever told you that?) anyway, it's not just that harsh light is offensive to my retinas in the morning; it's that the soothing dance and shadow of candles on the wall, on skin, is so much more preferable to anything else.

illumination & shadow
hibernation & awakening

i find myself lighting candles for no reason other than that it's beautiful. the other night i was bunkered down in my room and went to the living room for something. i was compelled to light one solitary candle on the bookshelf, bringing the spines of Auden, Eliot, and Dickinson to life. i wasn't spending any time in that room, but the thought of one brave flickering presence there brought a quiet smile to my face as i retreated to my haven.

sometimes i think i've come across myself 7, 8 years ago. and with startling clarity, i see the film reel of my years laid on the lit surface of my mind. on it there are scenes, some traumatic and memorable, others ordinary and forgotten. a still life in motion, a girl in formation, a heart captured. i encountered 2 of me last night --- 2 specimens of myself at a previous stage of development in all their girl-boned glory. their outlines were dull and a bit undefined, but at their centers, they shone. and i realized this is what i was (and sometimes, still am), this is what i looked like, this was my ragged breath through tears and my young hands trembling, seeking, supplicating.

this is me now,

going back in time to me then,

guiding, comforting, seeing. saying,
things will be all right.

things are

all right.

it may as well have been my tears falling into our clasped hands, the heat of someone else's palm on my shoulder blade, someone else's finger tracing the cross on my forehead. is it me, or you? is it now, or then? in these moments it's hard to tell.

on this linear way, i'm looping back to intersect with my past (just as Yeats said it would be), making a stitch in the fabric of time. life isn't a straight line after all, which isn't to say there's never any progress, but you visit frames taken years ago. you visit yourself in the future.

turning and turning in the widening gyre

things fall apart,

but the center will hold.
i am living proof.