sylvia says

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I have taken to reading the unabridged journals of Sylvia Plath recently.  For those of you who don’t know Sylvia Plath, she was an American poet, who is probably most famous for her work, The Bell Jar.  Many people also are familiar with how she committed suicide – by putting her head in an oven and turning the gas on.  However, I like to focus on her ability as a writer and how she was able to communicate her sorrow rather than the circumstances of her death.  I mean, her depression is pretty obvious in her writing – there’s no denying that – I just think there’s more going on than that alone.

‘There’s just no good time to read ‘The Bell Jar”.

 – Or at least this is what I’ve decided based on this logic: if you’re happy, won’t it depress you?  If you’re already unhappy and you read this depressing novel, won’t it further depress you?  Regardless, I’d really like to read this work someday, at the very least to better understand what a complex and talented woman Sylvia was.

My mother said, ‘You know, you look a little bit like her‘.

I got an eerie feeling when she said that.

The strange thing about reading these journals – painstakingly accurate, but ultimately depressing entries about her years in college and her battles with self-doubt – is that I feel like I’ve had the same thoughts as Sylvia.

In fact, if you were to look at my journals from when I was eighteen, I feel like you might be able to pinpoint similarities.

In the way that she thinks about life and relationships and even just in her tendency to watch people  – I felt like someone had taken the thoughts I’d been thinking and called them Sylvia Plath’s.

She often talks about ‘practicing’ her ability to be objective when describing scenarios – I have often felt like certain situations provide ‘challenges’ for myself.  Am I able to write about this objectively?  Can I capture the essence of this evening while still using brevity?

Also, she will sometimes take you step-by-step through a description, explaining why she uses certain words, and what images those words imply.  As a poet, and just a fan of words in general,  I admire how analytical Sylvia can be about her writing, and relate to the instances when she says she always seems to end up using flowery verse (high use of imagery in her prose) instead of being short and frank about what she’s experiencing.

(Some of you might know that I’m a wordy lady – but I am equally fascinated by description that is brief, and the description I find in sonnets that rambles on like a river.  I think both can be used effectively, and I think each technique paints a different picture of what an event was like.  This is one of my current fascinations – how would the difference in description of a situation influence how you experience it as a reader?  If I were to write about death in a stream of consciousness way, would you feel more connected to emotion of the event than if I wrote in iambic pentameter?  When I read sonnets, I often feel that the background is so deeply and completely illustrated that I get caught up in what meadows look like and tend to lose sight of the meaning.  Don’t get me wrong – I love sonnets.  Maybe I’ll just devote a post to them and get back to Sylvia…)

But when I say that I relate to the thoughts Sylvia expresses in her journals, this is not to say that I find myself as depressed as her.   Certainly, when I used to be serious about being a writer, I felt like my writing wasn’t worth shit.  Unfortunately, Sylvia seems to feel the same way.  In certain entries, Sylvia says, ‘And what do I have to show for my eighteen years?‘ – which is a thought that I know crossed my mind in the summer after high school, when I suddenly found myself robbed of personal context.  (Hell, I probably had this thought yesterday, but this time, when I question myself, I feel like I have a solid answer to use in my rebuttal).

The most overwhelming feeling of all upon reading Sylvia’s journals, is that perhaps it is alright to think as much as I do.  When you read about someone who was as talented as Sylvia Plath – I would argue that she’s a genius – and you realize that she sometimes struggled with depression, and felt a bit manic based on the way she pursued her writing, it feels sort of comforting.  Maybe it’s alright to feel a little bit crazy in your own skin or a little bit unsure about your talents – the important part is that you’re not alone in that feeling.  I think it’s something that most artists relate to – wanting to be better and struggling with your own insecurity.  How can you not feel vulnerable when you share part of your inner self with the world?

I think writing can enable both self-therapy and a downward spiral, depending on the mood and intent.  I try not to question my self as much as I used to, and I think that might’ve been the root of Sylvia’s depression.  I mean, I can hardly say I’m an expert on her life and her writing, but from what I am learning about her via her journals, I feel like I know her personally.

The amount that I wrote between New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (morning) astounds me.  I felt kind of like I was acting like a sympathetic setting for Sylvia’s thoughts to flow through me – when I used to have to analyze poetry in grade twelve, a sympathetic setting is kind of like when the environment starts to interact/respond to the feelings of the character (ex// it starts raining outside when the character feels miserable).  I wrote some profound things, some of which appeared to have a dark undercurrent I was not even aware of.  The peculiar thing is that I was very happy at the time – which only speaks to the role that the media I’m ingesting has on how I write. Hm- interesting!

Here are some of my favourite entries/quotes from Sylvia’s journals!

“I love people.  Everybody.  I love them, I think, as a stamp collector loves his collection.  Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me.  My love’s not impersonal yet not wholly subjective either.  I would like to be everyone, a cripple, a dying man, a whore, and then come back to write about my thoughts, my emotions, as that person.  But I am not omniscient.  I have to live my life, and that is the only one I’ll ever have.  And you cannot regard your own life with objective curiosity all the time…”

I relate to the above entry in the way that I feel like I am constantly searching, like some kind of magpie in my own memories.  I often wonder if I know where the line is – is it possible to go too far in liquifying your life into art?  But lately, I think about how the events in my life are like kindling for a creative fire.  Making art or music or good writing can help to clarify how I feel about what goes on in my life.  As a writer, the idea of ‘wanting to be everyone’ certainly applies as well – if you want to write or communicate honestly, you desire to put yourself in the position of someone else.  Everyday is like research into a common human experience.

“I walked to the door with him and stepped outside into the cool August night.  ‘Come here,’ he said.  ‘I’ll whisper something: I like you, but not too much.  I don’t want to like anybody too much.’  Then it hit me and I just blurted, ‘I like people too much or not at all.  I’ve got to go down deep to fall into people, to really know them.’  He was definite, ‘Nobody knows me.’  So that was it; the end.  ‘Goodbye for good, then,’ I said.  He looked hard at me, a smile twisting his mouth, ‘You lucky kid; you don’t know how lucky you are.’  I was crying quietly, my face contorted.  ‘Stop it!’  The words came like knife thrusts, and then gentleness, ‘In case I don’t see you, have a nice time at Smith.’  ‘Have a hell of a nice life,’ I said.  And he walked off down the path with his jaunty, independent stride.  And I stood there where he left me, tremulous with love and longing, weeping in the dark.  That night it was hard to get to sleep.”

If I can confess – and I think I can, because a blog lends itself to confession – I almost cried when I read this entry.  I’ve already mentioned that I like getting to know people, but what I didn’t mention is that I’ve been in situations where I’ve had limited access.  It’s extremely hard when someone you care about won’t let you in, and something about her line, ‘I’ve got to go down deep to fall into people, to get to know them’, really hit home for me.  I think that we’re all a little afraid of sharing that deepest part of ourselves  – but I think that when you see that part of someone, that’s what it’s like to fall in love.  There was something so heartbreaking to me about how transient and aloof this guy was, because I am a person that cares.  When I care about someone, I care about them completely, and I find that I’ve encountered people like this man, who try not to like anyone too much.  But I’m of the belief that you can only be loved if you’re willing to put yourself in the position to be loved.  I just think that position scares people.

“Click-click: tick-tick

clock snips time in two

Lap of rain
In the drain pipe
Two o’clock
And never you.
Never you, down the evening,
I cannot
Cry, or even smile
Acidly or bitter-sweetly
For never you and incompletely.
Things surround me;
I could touch
Soap or toothbrush
Desk or chair.
Never mind the there dimensions
All is flat, and you not there.
Letters, papers, stamps
And white. And black.
Typewritten-you, and there
It is.
The trickle, liquid trickle
Of rain in drain-pipe
Is voice enough
For me tonight.
And the click-click
Hard quick click-click
Of the clock
Is pain enough,
Enough heart-beat
For me tonight.
The narrow cot,
The iron bed
Is space enough
And warmth enough…
Enough, enough.
To bed and sleep
And tearless creep
The formless seconds
Minutes hours
And never you
The raindrops weep
And never you
And tick-tick,
        tick-tick
        pass the hours.”

I also find this article extremely interesting in its discussion of Sylvia’s life – they describe her as ‘maddeningly fragmented’, which I definitely agree with.

Anyway, I think I’ve let my words get away on me again.  That’s all for now!