I am sitting by a marsh, breaking my long silence in Winter Light.
I asked myself, what could I write that was worth reading? I still do not know, but I write now to record a moment.
Darkness has lain heavily on me, but here there is no darkness. I am sitting in winter light-- a cold, clear half-light that can never satisfy. I wonder why I always come here in winter, when it is so brown and dead. I guess I come here in the summer, too, but my feeling of acute longing for the place isn't the same.
I will confess my worries to the trees:
Health, which always submits to the passage of time.
Mortality, so transient. Death, intangible.
Purpose, which will drive me to madness.
Age, which is only imaginary.
Love, which will break me again and again.
I don't know-- I don't understand what it is you do. But I am here, and as soon as I find the way to you I will be there. Even though I don't understand anything-- not why life must be this way, why things fall as they do.
The wind is cold. The leaves are brown. The ground is wet, but this is no ball gown I'm wearing.
This is the place that has been made today. Tomorrow it won't be the same. Perhaps there will never be a marsh that looks like this again. That is the way the wetlands are.
But now I believe that everything is possible. I can feel the shadows of past places and I am there now, and I am the same. This is not me, but the girl who wandered woods who is fortunate enough to have a Treo in her hands to record her thoughts instantaneously to the world.
The lady is wandering the woods. I can smell the smoke from a travelling caravan. I can feel the restless excitement of the travellers. I want to be with them, not wandering in the woods alone.
What will I sell?
I want to sell my talents, not my patience. Not my hours of sunlight. Not my pride. I want something to want the craft wrought with these hands. I want to belong to myself every moment of every day.
I am telling you these secrets, trees. What should I do now?