Mountain

I'm climbing a mountain in my mind; a mountain I might never reach the summit of. A mountain surrounded by mist, its top clouded in fog. I, a tiny dot on its side, making a valiant effort to ascend it.

Picture credit: Giant Mountains, Landscape with Rising Fog, 1820, Caspar David Friedrich (source: WikiArt).

From journal, November 2021.

One Sitting

To read in one sitting is to unappreciate the novel; it's a giving in to gratification. To read in one sitting is to undervalue a writer's work; it undermines their thought, their time, their effort. To read in one sitting is to miscomprehend the novel: made, as it is, in parts, of parts, even if there are breaks in it. The novel laboured over deserves time given to it; to read in one sitting makes all it contains disposable. To read in one sitting is not to sit with the novel.

Picture credit: Meditation, Madame Monet Sitting on a Sofa, 1871, Claude Monet (source: WikiArt).

From journal, November 2021.

Stream

A stream of consciousness that sets its own pace and pulls the reader with it; words flow like water, a few stops, a few capital letters, but mostly commas and semi-colons. A small sea of thought that grows vast as the questions come faster and expand; its waves increasing and building. The inner turmoil of people, of women; the conflicted, doubting self. Philosophic fiction. That is Clarice Lispector: unafraid of breaking rules; unafraid of honest prose. Unafraid, too, of showing us to ourselves. Alone, inside our own system, we know how to feel and act; with someone we contain ourselves and become unknowable. We ask: will we work? are we working? do I have regrets? The answers changing each time they are returned to: perhaps in the words alone or the tone, if not the actual meaning of the response; perhaps in how we tell the reason or story to ourselves. I felt this...; I felt that...; I thought...; I didn't think that...; and then the inevitable, beginning with: if I..., had I..., would I.... always trailing off with dot, dot, dot. These unrealised paths visited often, for it is here a stream of consciousness leads.

Picture credit: On the Stream of Life, 1896, Hugo Simberg (source WikiArt).

From journal, November 2021.

The Wall Clock

In Cousin Phillis I found sentences that could with very few changes be fitted to my circumstances and character. The misfortune of being scholarly! Which will never be, if I can help it, forgot or neglected, for the fear of doing either – bidden by other responsibilities – turned me from ever considering Wife and Mother. And yet a reclusive life makes one hot and cold with shyness, amongst strangers or with acquaintances, whether addressing them directly or via an instrument – a voice transported over a crackling line. The flush of heat, the hurried words; the calmness that after takes a while to descend, as a task achieved courses through the veins. Confidence in such things is not a scholar's life, and it's hard to trick or convince the mind otherwise.
A scholar's life is silence; a silence that enables one to take note of the double tick of the wall clock, 'perpetually clicking out the passage of moments.'
The eye reads a further line, a new thought occurs, which the mind ponders, turns it over, back and forth, so as to consider its every angle: could it be used to good effect? Is it a full stop or a dot, dot, dot? The wall clock tick-ticks.

Picture credit: Junghans Wall Clock Model 32-03-89, Max Bill, 1957 (source: WikiArt).

See Cousin Phillis and Other Stories by Elizabeth Gaskell. 

From journal, November 2021.