The truth is, Snow White bit into the blood-red apple and died.
There never was a prince.
In the face of repeated experiences of overwhelming helplessness and bewilderment, the child must find a way to make sense of a confused and confusing world; there may be little option but to escape into the reassuring world of personal fantasies made up of variations on the disconcertingly discredited family fairy tales. The loss of innocence is always painful, and grown-up acceptance of this inevitable transformation offers no guarantee that we will not fall on hard times again. But those of us who have had to deny our loss by willfully insisting on replacing the original state with pseudo-innocence are subject to anxiety and depression whenever this theatrical pose is in jeopardy. In addition to the chance blows to which life subjects everyone else, we add the needless suffering that comes from the impossible demands that we be special, and that the world be fair and just. Cellar Door @ 8:24 PM |
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lips? Stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? - a note infallible
Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift,
Hours minutes, noon midnight? And all eyes
Blind with the pin and wed but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why then the world and all that's in't is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
Nor nothing have these nothings
If this be nothing.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
The truth is, Snow White bit into the blood-red apple and died.
There never was a prince.
In the face of repeated experiences of overwhelming helplessness and bewilderment, the child must find a way to make sense of a confused and confusing world; there may be little option but to escape into the reassuring world of personal fantasies made up of variations on the disconcertingly discredited family fairy tales. The loss of innocence is always painful, and grown-up acceptance of this inevitable transformation offers no guarantee that we will not fall on hard times again. But those of us who have had to deny our loss by willfully insisting on replacing the original state with pseudo-innocence are subject to anxiety and depression whenever this theatrical pose is in jeopardy. In addition to the chance blows to which life subjects everyone else, we add the needless suffering that comes from the impossible demands that we be special, and that the world be fair and just. Cellar Door@ 8:24 PM |
