"I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo."
from The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
I've said this before; I'll say it again. Sylvia Plath is one of my favorite poets. The brilliance of her poetry is blinding in a very unsettling way; it's as if she has caught me naked in the vastness of my parched, cracked desert, sitting spread-eagle, under a cloudlessly hot indigo sky. She also wrote some startling prose. As I struggle to write a collection of short stories, stories which I hope will eventually become the wellspring of a memoir, I re-read her novel, The Bell Jar, for inspiration. Why do I relate?
When I was eighteen and lost (oh, hell, who am I trying to fool? I'm still lost), I went to a career placement center for women. They were going to help me get a good job, and they were going to teach me the things I needed to know: how to dress properly, the finer points of office etiquette, typing proficiency, and all the other things necessary for becoming a good secretary. Of course, I would have to work my way up to that, but receptionist jobs are very respectable, too, they assured me. I told them what I really wanted to learn was how to become a waitress. They couldn't help me.
Now I want to be a writer. I'm still looking for help.
I like to read startling books, no, I require startling books, when I need a nudge. The glass on my bell jar has cracked; it's too late to go back now. But how to proceed? I am new at all this; I haven't a clue what I'm doing. I am writing a memoir because I need to write it; I need an exorcism. Maybe what I write will be shit, I don't know. Or maybe I'll be the next Sylvia Plath.
Sylvia scares me. Which is exactly why I am so enchantingly lured, into her dark and intensely pulsating embrace. I was hoping that what I read would prod my brain to remember--to feel what I long ago embalmed in the bowels of my soul. I am at a loss to find the memories that have poisoned the very red of my marrow. Perhaps it is too late. Perhaps the demons of my pain have already killed me. Perhaps I will be unable to purge this fetid miasma from my belly. Perhaps I am indeed, nothing more than a still and empty hole in the eye of the tornado that I have created.
