Yesterday’s cartoon was drawn to “Suzanne,” the Leonard Cohen song as arranged and sung by Nina Simone. I think this self-portrait is ugly and embarrassing, but that does not prevent me from sharing it; because, honestly, I was feeling impatient and irritable as I drew, so it’s an accurate emotional reflection, as these quick self-portraits so often are. Let me be forever honest.
What’s on your mind?
I noticed how there were children in the song, leaning out for love and they would lean that way forever. Now I notice the word forever coming forward; an oddly common word that’s used in our language to express a human-timeline-challenging concept that we humans nevertheless seem to take comfort in imagining. Oh to occupy a space so much vaster than our finite earthly selves, to be unpinned in time.
I’m thinking, too, about the word “let” from the poem I listened to while meditating just now (Kei Miller’s “A Poem for Letting Yourself Be,” from Poetry Unbound). Let. It brought forth tears, that simple short word. Permission given. To just be. To be anything at all. A word I’ve given no thought to previously. Layered with conceptual associations that bring relief: to not stand in the way of; to allow. It’s a word that washes over and through, without force.
xo, Carrie