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| I took this photo in Arizona and then turned it into a digital watercolor. |
"Sometimes I try to write about you, about us, and the words just crumble. Ashes, dead petals. I go aphasic, although I'm supposed to be skillful with words. I sit here broken. I make a move to put it all down, and a million marbles skitter across the floor and into crevices and down vents. I can't whip our story into some tidy, domesticated thing, so it lives in the wild and scratches at the window when I dream. I can't make it come here when I call it, or be what I want. I never could do that." -- Christie Chapman
Christie Chapman, on her quote above:
"Here's what I guess I am trying to say. Let's say you lived some big, poignant story with a person. You shared some adventure with someone. Then it ended. It lives in the past, for all sorts of very good (if painful to think about) reasons. Yet the memories creep into your mind and even into your dreams all the time. It feels like this great, meaningful story... and you feel that if you could just somehow weave these experiences into a coherent piece of writing that resonates with others, you would not only do the story justice but finally move past it a little. You would have tamed it, or at least translated it into words. You would have won out, at least a little, against its tyranny over your emotions.
"Only, you can't put this big, amazing story into words. It's elusive; it lives in the ether and won't let you translate it (put it into a labeled jar). So the story is this wild, untameable force. And for that reason, you worry it will always have power over you. Sometimes domestication is a good thing, dammit."
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