"71. I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness. I have been finding this hard to do.
72. It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one's solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem. Can blue solve the problem, or can it at least keep me company within it? --No, not exactly. It cannot love me that way; it has no arms. But sometimes I do feel its presence to be a sort of wink--Here you are again, it says, and so am I." (p.28)
In times of extreme loneliness, humans often have a tendency to turn to something, someone, almost anything, often in an act of desperation, to fill what they perceive as a void of sorts. And it's apparent in stanza seventy-one that Nelson is struggling with loneliness. She explicitly state that she has not been successful in finding dignity in feeling lonesome. This is why I particularly like the sentence "Can blue solve the problem, or can it at least keep me company within it?" I think she's probably more spot on with the latter thought, but either way this is a perfect example of our human tendency to feel the sometimes frantic need for emotional fulfillment. "Something is lacking and so someone or something must be found to stop this feeling", is all too common of a thought process, yet also arguably a permanent and somewhat unavoidable part of being human.
"Perhaps writing is not really pharmakon, but more of a mordant - a means of binding color to its object - or of feeding it into it, like a tattoo needle drumming ink into skin. But 'mordant,' too, has a double edge: it derives from mordere, to bite - so it is not just a fixative or preserver, but also an acid, a corrosive." This passage illustrates one of my favorite techniques of Nelson, which is exploring the definitions and origins of words in order to extract a deeper meaning from them. She also compares and contrasts the meanings behind words in order to find the one that best fits the concept she is trying to describe, as she does in this passage. I emulate this somewhat in my project already, as I compare several different potential interpretations of my airplane dreams, but I like the idea of pinpointing a specific word relevant to my story and delving into its definition to see where that takes me. I also appreciate her inclusion of quotes from various sources, particularly other artists and writers, and either arguing with or expanding on them in a way that benefits her own purpose. She rarely inserts another person's words into her writing unless she has something to say about it or it speaks powerfully enough on its own, and I would like to do the same thing with my project.
ReplyDeleteI actually was also really captivated by this section. I love how throughout the book she sort of celebrates her loneliness. Not to say she thinks it's a good thing, but she certainly never shies away from it. This establishes a relationship built on honesty with the reader, which I have found extremely important for the style in which she writes. I also really like how she talks about turning to the color blue in her state of extreme loneliness. The book, to me, is often about exploring whether or not the color blue means anything in reality. Is it just a distraction she has produced to try and avoid the reality of her lonely and sad state? Or is it something of substance? Something of true importance that plays a legitimate role in her life. It is this exploration throughout the text that is my favorite Maggie Nelson writing. In times of despair human beings turn to something to help them fight through the pain and move on. Usually it is a hobby. Sometimes it's destructive, sometimes productive. But in this case it's a color. How can a color help one cope? It seems to help, but Nelson know it isn't real. I like how she relates to common human emotion through something so abstract.
ReplyDeleteFirst I would like to say that stanza 71 also struck me because there is a poetic sadness in it that seems to be completely unmatched by any other phrase in the entire book. One stanza in the second half of the book that really stood out to me was number 130. It says "we cannot read the darkness. We cannot read it. It is a form of madness, albeit a common one, that we try." I think this speaks specifically to me because my project has a very dark subject matter, and what Nelson is saying is that no matter how hard you try to figure it out or explain it, you'll never truly understand it wholly. This resonates with me quite a bit because I can never truly understand how every victim feels, why people sexually assault others, or even encompass all of the darkness of the act itself. All I can do is speak to how I feel and what I think and while I won't grasp the entirety of it, I can at least try.
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