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 we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry.
Be Charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and loose not the glory of the Mite.
Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness.
I haven't any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life. If I weakened it enough it would cease to be language at all. As when you try to turn the gas-ring a little lower still, and it merely goes out.
I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world.
It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.
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