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| Daydream Andrew Wyeth |
I had to stop myself from looking through the photos of Sophie's birth when I looked at one of myself and noted how "awful" I looked. I was rummaging through for a picture to publish with this post. Obviously, I didn't find one.
I teared up today, right before I went on a walk with Sophie. Henry asked me what was wrong, and I told him that I felt burdened. The words came out before I could stop them, and Henry said by Sophie? And I said, yes, and he said, we all are, and I told him that was true but I wanted to hold it for him and his brother, too. The burden, that is. Then I went on the walk with Sophie and cried some more, in the sunlight, behind my green glasses. I'll always have to pay someone to help me with the burden, I thought. That's an awful thought, for those of you who don't know what it's like, but it's an awful thought even for those who do.
Why do we loathe our graveyard thoughts? Why not let them rise to the surface, simmer there and evaporate without mockery? Why at the very least not treat them lovingly? I should say I, not we, as I can't speak for you.
I'm re-reading Updike's Couples. It really is scandalous, but I really do like it.
Here's a sentence that would knock my socks off if I wore them:
Harold believed that beauty was what happened between people, was in a sense the trace of what had happened, so he in truth found her, though minutely creased and puckered and sagging, more beautiful than the unused girl whose ruins she thought of herself as inhabiting.
