In 2006, on the second day of my blogging adventure, I posted a poem entitled "Reunion," along with an explanation that the title of this blog came from that poem.
"Reunion" is in the sidebar, as it has been since my first day as a blogger, even though I've always doubted that it shed enough light on the obscure blog title. I'm leaving it in the sidebar because it's old and comfortable and makes me feel good.
Last night, twenty-one years after I wrote "Reunion," words with another velvet-sacks theme crawled into my head while I tried to ignore them and go to sleep. They insisted on lining themselves up first one way, then another, a couple of words and phrases changing places like chorus dancers who have suddenly realized they're out of position on the stage. The words wouldn't leave me alone until I turned on the light and wrote them down.
I'm calling this little piece of prose "The Introvert," and giving it the top spot in the sidebar because I think it does a better job than "Reunion" of explaining the velvet sacks metaphor. I'm not sure why these words came when they did, the way they did, or why, coincidentally, they were accompanied by a distinct mental image of a medieval maiden in a dark, dank castle keep. I wish I knew the rest of the maiden's story.
What do you think this is about?
Each time I visit your blog, I read Reunion...don't really know why, except I like the cadence of the words, which sound like a song to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you have written another. And have had visions of the maiden in the dank castle Keep. How very interesting! I wonder if these are her words coming to the fore through you...or were YOU the maiden in the Keep in a former life?
Perhaps the maiden will show herself to you again...and you could ask her.
Maybe the trinkets in the velvet sacks are all the maiden has to call her very own. Memories are something that no one can take away from you, or that can have a price tag. That makes them all the more precious. And, in being protective of her words, that makes them more valuable because she doesn't let them out very often.
ReplyDeleteI told ya I'm bad at interpreting poetry!!
Marion, the mental image of the maiden was like a still shot; she wasn't doing much talking. Maybe I was remembering the cover of a romance novel or something. Wouldn't it be fun if I could ask her.
ReplyDeleteJanet, I'm kind of thinking along similar lines. I thought one possibility is that she has been overlooked or diminished in some way, that she knows intellectually that her trinkets (and her ideas?) are only valuable to her and doesn't want others to belittle them.
I chose "The Introvert" as the title because I recognized that this girl shares some introversion traits with me. Neither of us opens up much with people we don't know or trust.
Another thought is that this chick is a hoarder, loads up on all kinds of crap at the dollar store and the thrift shop, and hides it in pretty little bags. Thousands of pretty little bags, stacked all the way up to eye level, so many that they block the door. Do you think I watch too much TV or what?
Yep, you've been watching too much TV!
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