Marblehead Lighthouse on Lake Erie.
Why create? Virginia Woolf answers this in her novel, To The Lighthouse. We create because we have to, because it keeps us sane, because it's a way to feel what it means to be alive. This is what Woolf says at the end of her novel. The character is just finishing a painting:
Quickly...she turned to her canvas. there it was--her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues. its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue. I have had my vision.
Marianne Moore:
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So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.
That lighthouse photo is fabulous!
ReplyDeleteLove this post. It is comforting to me, because so much of the time I feel like an outsider and misunderstood and yet that is exactly the way I feel about my art (writing)-----except that I need to make some money to survive, and I need some way to get health insurance (having been turned down by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield) and I crave publication in places that more people will read my work. But it has to be MY work, I can't compromise and write trash (intentionally!) just to get published in a commercial or national magazine. Best, Teagrapple
ReplyDeleteI agree, I relate to this. I write because I have to, and it does keep me sane, and happy.
ReplyDeleteA beautiful passage!
ReplyDeleteWonderful post. It can be testing being a writer as not many, even close ones, might understand what you go through, what you need as a writer.
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