Every Woman is an Island

No woman is an island? I think that's wrong. Every woman is an island. There are things that rise above the waterline—there are boats that journey to and fro on lapping waves—and all these things are good. But your island, the Isle of You, is a place where others are not meant to dwell: if they come, it is as visitors. They have islands of their own to return to. And what do they know of your secret soil deep beneath the rocks, of the volcanic stirrings that pulled you from the sea? You cannot explain these things because there are not words to explain them; or there are words but which would take a life's whole span to speak. The language between islands is like the language between stars, high flooded promontories gazing out across an emptiness, who cherish others, loving what they see. They love your trees, they love your orbit and your tide. But at your white-hot core of spinning fire, at your roots beneath the stone and storied sea, at your heart-springs, they can only guess.

A Thing Too Beautiful

Sometimes I don't want to see a thing too beautiful. I've been taking my beauty in pieces lately, like nibbles on a cookie with afternoon tea. Once upon a time I'd hurl the whole tea down my throat, inhale the cookie, and go charging out the door. Crocodilian. But it has a strange way, with the years, of changing things beneath your skin...a little, a very little, so maybe no one notices but you. Then one day you wake up and your body rebels at the concept of throwing back the tea. Your body rebels at the large bite, at the rushedness of things. And it's all too much at once; it's a poison in high doses. Go slow. The world outside your door will wait, so sit there for a while, a little while, at your table, taking in the light...

View from the Window at Le Gras

The first photograph, taken at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes in 1826, ten years after Byron, Shelley, and Mary Godwin found refuge at Lake Geneva during The Year Without a Summer, ten years before the HMS Beagle carried Charles Darwin home to England’s shores.  Its light has crystallised since then, a hundred and eighty-nine years hence, but you can still see, if you try, the dappled gold that decks the Bourgogne country-side, and taste the scent of grapes upon the air.