Spring Cleaning
Finding The Right Words
I was traveling when I was asked to contribute to WHAT TO READ WHEN for The Rumpus. I looked at the books in my bag. Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda was among them.
I have come back to lines from ‘I Have Gone Marking,’ by Neruda over and over again:
“Between the lips and the voice something goes dying.
Something with the wings of a bird, something of anguish and oblivion.
The way nets cannot hold water.”
It’s true. Too often, what my body feels, knows, and wants to communicate cannot be translated into words.
With the pending assignment, I reflected on other books, words, and poems I’ve carried with me throughout the years. A swirl of ideas circled through my head:
What To Read When You Want To Get Lost
What To Read When You Feel Numb
What To Read When You’ve Accumulated Too Much
What To Read When You Need To Rewild
What to Read When The Ground Gives Way
What to Read You’re At A Loss For Words
What to Read When It’s Time To Pare Down
What To Read When It’s Time To Let Go
What To Read When You’ve Accumulated Too Much
What To Read When You’ve Accumulated Too Much…
Since I am moving, trying to travel light and we are on the cusp of spring when we rearrange cluttered spaces, ‘What To Read When You’ve Accumulated Too Much’ felt right. You can read it here.
Also, I need to include Women Who Run With The Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes which is not on that list but should be. The book’s tattered, underlined pages have been by my bedside for almost two decades. Here is one of my favorite passages:
”The body is like an earth. It is a land unto itself. It is as vulnerable to overbuilding, being carved into parcels, cut off, overmined, and shorn of its power as any landscape. The wilder woman will not be easily swayed by redevelopment schemes. For her, the questions are not how to form but how to feel.”
What about you? What books and words have you held close over the years?
