Many, many years ago, I read a book by Fay Weldon and was captivated by one paragraph. I remember fumbling around late at night by the weak light of the bedside lamp for a scrap of paper upon which to record the words. I knew I would want to read them again.
The scrap of paper ended up being the back of an envelope -- deep red, maybe a Valentine? -- and I wrote straight across the flap. A little less glue and I'd have half a profound thought. (Not the first time.) The paper was folded and tucked in my address book where it has remained to this day. I read it now and again. It still gives me pause that one writer's words can strike a reader like lightning, true and to the core. I want to write like that. I want to make someone stop, go back, read again, and feel a connection.
I pulled that scrap of paper out tonight on purpose. Because words can close the distance between writer and reader. Words can.
"...Erotic consciousness. Reader, what is etched in yours? What collar-bone, what little patch of textured skin, what dangling pendant? Think! Remember! Keep back the glacier of age by the sheer warmth, the sheer force of sexual recollections, wild imaginings! It can be done: it is worth the doing."I'm amazed at the prescience that made me respond to those words. At the time, the glacier of age wasn't even visible on the horizon. Maybe I knew that many of my years would be spent remembering, rather than doing. Or maybe I was just glad to be in the midst of making those memories hand over breast.
I'm ready to make more.
Note: I think this quote was from
The Shrapnel Academy, but really, you can't go wrong with any Fay Weldon.
Tell all your single friends -- books can amaze.
XO, JamieSmitten
