I’ll put it out there: I am scarred by the nostalgic indicipherability of my own desires; I an engulfed by the intimidating unknown, pushed through darkness and dragged down by the irretrievable past sweetness of my memories.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the complexities of desire and memory, revealing how past experiences can shape our current fears and uncertainties.
Anne Sexton's quote delves into the intricate relationship between our desires and memories, highlighting the emotional turmoil that arises from nostalgia and the challenges of confronting the unknown. It suggests that the beauty of past experiences can eventually lead to a sense of paralysis, as one grapples with the weight of what has been lost and the fear of what lies ahead. The imagery of being 'engulfed by the intimidating unknown' and 'dragged down by the irretrievable past sweetness' underscores a deep sense of internal conflict, illustrating how the past can haunt us while we seek to navigate our desires in the present.
In practice
During a discussion about the impact of past relationships on present lives.
The Witch's Life" When I was a child there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story window from behind the wrinkled curtains and sometimes she would open the window and yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp and a voice like a boulder. I think of her sometimes now and wonder if I am becoming her.
Do you like me?” No answer. Silence bounced, fell off his tongue and sat between us and clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. It tore cigarettes out of my mouth. We exchanged blind words, and I did not cry, I did not beg, but blackness filled my ears, blackness lunged in my heart, and something that had been good, a sort of kindly oxygen, turned into a gas oven.
Don't bite till you know if it's bread or stone.
Abundance is scooped from abundance yet abundance remains.
I find now, swallowing one teaspoon of pain, that it drops downward to the past where it mixes with last year’s cupful and downward into a decade’s quart and downward into a lifetime’s ocean. I alternate treading water and deadman’s float.
I am your dwarf. I am the enemy within. I am the boss of your dreams. See. Your hand shakes. It is not palsy or booze. It is your Doppelganger trying to get out. Beware...Beware...
If a man devotes himself to the instructions of his own unconscious, it can bestow this gift [of renewal], so that suddenly life, which has been stale and dull, turns into a rich unending inner adventure, full of creative possibilities
Man cannot produce a single work without the assistance of the slow, assiduous, corrosive worm of thought.
When you judge others, look at yourself - You too have flaws and the divine nature has accepted you with all your flaws. It doesn't judge you. Who are you to judge?
IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.
Right now you can allow yourself to experience a very simple sense of not knowing - not knowing what or who you are, not knowing what this moment is, not knowing anything. If you give yourself this gift of not knowing and you follow it, a vast spaciousness and mysterious openness dawns within you. Relaxing into not knowing is almost like surrendering into a big, comfortable chair; you just fall into a field of possibility.
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