I will have to back up a little because 1993 is not ready to be discussed yet. She and I have had many conversations this week about what it was like to be introduced at such an early place in the story, and I’m letting her be who she is. Still a little shy and feeling immature in her tattered clothing.
So, about five minutes ago, we made an agreement. She will let me know when the time is right for sharing her most intimate secrets with a trusting audience, and I will back off until given further notice.
Which leads me to poetry and J. Alfred Prufrock.
1988. Running my fingers along the book spines of the Red Oak Intermediate School library, somehow I happened upon my first book of poetry. It must have an anthology of poems. Pulling it off the shelf, it weighed heavy with its bulky hardback cover and thick pages. My right hand rested open and flat on the table of contents, and I spanned down, looking for an attractive poem title. And there it was, “She Walks in Beauty,” by Lord Byron. Forgive me. I must share.
My heart was captured. Raptured. Fractured.
Yes, I did. I started writing poetry after that. And, as you can see, my poetry writing skills haven’t progressed much since age 11.
However, the writing was solace for me. Scribbling words that took form with rhyming end-syllables comforted me through at least four years of heart breaking middle school soul-searching. Piles of 100-page notebooks hosted my most heartfelt words, raw with early adolescent emotions. Poetry — reading, writing, memorizing — it provided me a safe place to escape.
The words of other writers have always fed this hungry girl when she has felt malnourished by this world’s empty promises.
Today, I took time to read and then listen to T.S. Eliot read his poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” He and his lover take an evening stroll, and he speaks intimately of his insecurities, of his place in his present world. I find myself reading and rereading this stanza, hoping desperately that the Lord will guide me in this process of knowing and being known and healing.
Knowing. Measuring. Questioning. It’s everything I’m doing and some of what I’m undoing.
And maybe, after soaking up this sun beaming, clear-blue-sky Texas weekend, you’ll find yourself tired at the day’s end and wanting to read Eliot’s poem yourself. I leave you these, his beautifully crafted words to ponder.