I am moving toward my next writing project, and at the same time I had begun reading The Waves by Virginia Woolf again, unintentional timing, as I had just finished my second book of poems in all its formats.
Words were coming last night, a long, side path opening up to me, one I had not seen, or had gone down before, and I felt a kind of spirit in them that reminded me of that book I am reading without meaning to copy it or trying to. I had felt a natural affinity with the author and had mentioned her toward the end of the post I had written about my own healing story on this blog. I will pick up where she left off.
*
A memoir story of my own ~
I step in, he sits across from me, I think, ‘Oh, that is the priest who during his homilies may spontaneously sing parts of his own songs that sound improvised on the spot, with classic 1940s jazz melodies.’
I tell him my sin. He pauses a moment and glances away to look into the distance, he is beginning to smile and turns back to me. I see he is trying not to laugh as it might insult me, but he can’t help it, laughing amusingly, he says, “That isn’t a sin, but would you like to be a priest?”
I wasn’t insulted, remember that well, and maybe I didn’t have a sin to tell then, but I was also consistently afraid to live…
*
The Waves Rolled In… (on starting The Waves by Virginia Woolf)
Blush of Dawn 