The indomitable human spirit

I’ve been reading a lot, and writing a lot of poems, and probably going mad.

A week ago I finished reading Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, a page-turner, and was left feeling empty by the disappointing and unresolved ending. Then I got a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s Stella Maris, which I couldn’t put down. I keep losing time to reading and rereading her. (sidenote: I haven’t read The Passenger, its brother-book, yet. I’m not ready to. )

I am, perhaps, easily impressed – but I love this book. She scrambles my brain. I’ve been carrying her with me like a Bible. Logically, the nihilstic ideas (sidenote: The futility of language. The horror of the human mind. Solipsism. ) she presents should make me feel more depressed, but instead she makes me feel strangely hopeful, happy, willing to revel in the absurd. She guides me, putting into words ideas I never knew how to describe, and still don’t.

I tried to pay attention in class, my brain left buzzing after a fresh reread. The professor wanted us to reflect on epiphanies we’ve had in nature.

One person talked about their gratitude for being able to witness the forest come to life in spring.

Another talked about taking naps on the beach until the sun came up during quarantine-time, & how the human mind isn’t big enough to comprehend the ocean’s vastness. Instead, she noticed how her mind could appreciate littler thoughts, like “the sun’s warmth on my skin feels really good.”

One girl said there’s so much beauty in the world. I wonder if she realized that this includes her. She has a nose and brown hair that make her look like a dream of some ancient Greek nymph come to life. She likes writing stories and poems and every story she writes is about being in love and men breaking her heart.

When she says hello to me, I suddenly dream of becoming fiction. I am a perfect man who will never disappoint, and I treat her the way we should always have been treated. It is a story with a beginning, a plot, a meaning, and no end.