When I write there is something inside me that stops functioning, something that becomes silent. I let something take over inside me that probably flows from femininity. But everything shuts off — the analytical way of thinking. It’s as if I’m returning to a wild country. ~ Marguerite Duras
I don’t know where that wild country is. I’ve never been allowed to go there. My life has been drawn in the silhouette of a man. All that is feminine, in the true essence of the word, has been shunned and disapproved.
Wildness, chaos, disorder are things to be corrected and put right. Somehow our intuitive nature is simply original sin — to be resisted, controlled and mastered. Mastery over one’s self seems to be what we are taught to strive for. We are never allowed to simply be.
How is it possible to write without thinking, to tap into this feminine intelligence that exists in the ground, the trees and the birds sitting on the electricity wire? How is it that as I age I want to grow my hair, wear patterned clothes and traipse barefoot through the world, feeling the warm bitumen and the cool tiles underneath my feet? I want to go wild, feral, hippy.
And yet I don’t think I have paid my dues to the sisterhood because I’ve had no children. I am no different to a man. I have relinquished my differences and have become the same.
Construct is what men do — they build with a plan. Destruct is what women do. Pull apart, strip back, uncover what is hiding in the shadows. Silence. Silence. Nothing. Stillness. The gap between the words, the white space in the photograph, the echo of the last note.
A quiet mind, not from stopping the thoughts but by ceasing to make them. Giving up, giving in, letting go, being comfortable with what ‘is’.
My writing is full of masculine theories and ideas. Bricks pushed together to form a solid house. What does a woman build, if she builds at all? Doesn’t she gather the left over branches and twigs and fashion of shelter for when it rains? But when it is sunny, she lies on her back on the grass and lets her soul leak into the atmosphere.
What does she need a house for anyway? The natural world isn’t her enemy, it is an extension of her personality, her identity and her name.
Wow, beautifully written, I was actually taken away into the forest for a moment! Thank you!
Thank you for your lovely comment Cathy. It’s so wonderful to know you’re still around after all these years ♥
I wholeheartedly support becoming a wild, feral hippy! There’s a deep joy in being able to bask in simple beauties and wonders. Women construct just as much as men though, their constructions just tend to be emotional, ethereal creations you can’t see or touch, but you FEEL them there, and it’s obvious when they fall apart or go away.