Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:35:32 UTC
Is happiness always a compromise?
Contentment is a feeling you say? Are you sure it’s not an absence of feeling? I liken it to that particular numbness one gets after a visit to the dentist. Not in pain nor out of it, slightly drugged. Contentment is the positive side of resignation. It has its appeal but it’s no good wearing an overcoat and furry slippers and heavy gloves when what the body really wants is to be naked.
Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:41:23 UTC
I don’t lack self-confidence but I’m not beautiful, that is a word reserved for very few people, people such as Louise herself. I told her this. ‘You can’t see what I can see.’ She stroked my face. ‘You are a pool of clear water where the light plays.’
In silence and in darkness we loved each other and as I traced her bones with my palm I wondered what time would do to skin that was so new to me. Could I ever feel any less for this body? Why does ardour pass? Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll own the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.
Destiny is a worrying concept. I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose.
Why is the mind incapable of deciding its own subject matter? Why when we desperately want to think of one thing do we invariably think of another?
Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:43:11 UTC
You said, ‘I’m going to leave him because my love for you makes any other life a lie.’ I’ve hidden those words in the lining of my coat. I take them out like a jeweled thief when no-one’s watching. They haven’t faded. Nothing about you has faded. You are still the colour of my blood. You are my blood. When I look in the mirror it’s not my own face I see. Your body is twice. Once you once me. Can I be sure which is which
( ... )
Jeanette Winterson's Written on the BodyprettyparadoxJanuary 31 2008, 06:46:47 UTC
She got up to make coffee and brought it in fresh with the smell of plantations and sun. The aromatic steam warmed our faces and clouded my glasses. She drew a heart on each lens. ‘So that you won’t see anybody but me,’ she said. Her hair cinnabar red, her body all the treasures of Egypt. There won’t be another find like you Louise. I won’t see anybody else
( ... )
Comments 15
Contentment is a feeling you say? Are you sure it’s not an absence of feeling? I liken it to that particular numbness one gets after a visit to the dentist. Not in pain nor out of it, slightly drugged. Contentment is the positive side of resignation. It has its appeal but it’s no good wearing an overcoat and furry slippers and heavy gloves when what the body really wants is to be naked.
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‘You can’t see what I can see.’ She stroked my face.
‘You are a pool of clear water where the light plays.’
In silence and in darkness we loved each other and as I traced her bones with my palm I wondered what time would do to skin that was so new to me. Could I ever feel any less for this body? Why does ardour pass? Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll own the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.
Destiny is a worrying concept. I don’t want to be fated, I want to choose.
Why is the mind incapable of deciding its own subject matter? Why when we desperately want to think of one thing do we invariably think of another?
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