Summer Reading pt 1
My friend Tony lent me this book to read, The Chronology of Water: A Memoir, by Lidia Yuknavitch - he'd talked about it briefly a few times as a thing written by a friend. I'm about half way through it now. I wouldn't suggest it to any delicate flowers with PTSD triggers to recall their stressful youth or shit relationships with their parents, or loss and grief. No. Wait until your therapist gives you a green light to boldly face everything you've been hiding from yourself. I wish I'd gotten this disclaimer before cracking its spine. I wasn't expecting it to have triggers in every chapter, it does. It's brilliantly written so I keep reading. I'm trained to face my fears and was always one to poke a wound until it doesn't hurt anymore. So I keep reading.
A few days ago T. and I talked about the book again (this is a guy with a mfa in english :-/ not sure if I'm well prepared to hold a conversation about reading material with him). When we talked, I was hanging out with him because I desperately needed a comforting hug and a shoulder to cry on as a result of reading this book - I didn't tell him that though. I will. Eventually. He told me he thought the book was depressing. That's all he really said for the time being. For me the book hits too close to home, I relate to it in an uncomfortably intimate way. (I did tell him that.) I wish it didn't. I wish it were just someone else's story I was reading. I wasn't prepared to be confronting my buried memories as a result of opening this book. I wasn't prepared for a sucker punch on the first page. I wasn't prepared to find myself poking at wounds I thought I'd already poked at so much they don't hurt anymore. They do. A lot. I wish they didn't. I wish they were still buried deep in the pits of my dark core.
I foresee T. and I will talk about The Chronology of Water again after I've finished reading it. At this point I'm a little afraid to continue on. I feel like I already know how it ends. Maybe there are other surprises in there for me - maybe there is a happy ending. I'll report back with something a little more cohesive once I've finished reading it.
A few days ago T. and I talked about the book again (this is a guy with a mfa in english :-/ not sure if I'm well prepared to hold a conversation about reading material with him). When we talked, I was hanging out with him because I desperately needed a comforting hug and a shoulder to cry on as a result of reading this book - I didn't tell him that though. I will. Eventually. He told me he thought the book was depressing. That's all he really said for the time being. For me the book hits too close to home, I relate to it in an uncomfortably intimate way. (I did tell him that.) I wish it didn't. I wish it were just someone else's story I was reading. I wasn't prepared to be confronting my buried memories as a result of opening this book. I wasn't prepared for a sucker punch on the first page. I wasn't prepared to find myself poking at wounds I thought I'd already poked at so much they don't hurt anymore. They do. A lot. I wish they didn't. I wish they were still buried deep in the pits of my dark core.
I foresee T. and I will talk about The Chronology of Water again after I've finished reading it. At this point I'm a little afraid to continue on. I feel like I already know how it ends. Maybe there are other surprises in there for me - maybe there is a happy ending. I'll report back with something a little more cohesive once I've finished reading it.
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