muttering #3

An illicit quality to the simplicity of this relationship. It is the illicitness of lovers—early lovers. Early lovers who can’t do anything but stare at each other amazed at each other’s presence. The rest of the world does not intrude. I’ve heard it called "being in a bubble with your baby." But the way women talk about it does not really tell the truth. Because if the truth were spoken, it might be taken from them. It might be shameful--misconstrued. An all-encompassing love. A jealous love. A myopic love. A competitive love. A love of that leaves you with a confusion of bodies—of whose is whose.

A woman whose mother was dying once said to me “Our mothers are our lovers.” I thought she was crazy.

to bear

She hugs a stuffed bear. She opens her mouth and a word—or something sounding like a word—comes out. Bear. . . It comes out like a half world. “Ba.” The B is solid, but the vowel sounds strange. Not quite an e—nor an a, nor an o. A floating vowel. She hides her face. Without the final consonant it is strangely naked, a half formed word.

This is the astonishing thing: she grows shy.

Yes. That’s it. I say, bear, and she avoids my eyes.

The whole world of meaning and symbol.

It is difficult to bear. The transition from—what?—to differentiation.

She pulls an object out of the undifferentiated mass of objects and she shrinks as if from the implications of this.

It is difficult to bear.

To hear language in formation.

For a few more days, she does not try to speak.

A part of me mourns the loss of the unnamed world,

In the beginning was the word. To name things. Then the symbol of the thing. The beginning of “as if” time—a time of metaphor.