Reading Reflections: "Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes

“La Somnambule”-

    “His chest was as heavy as if it were supporting the combined weight of their apparel and their destiny. …and looking at her he knew that he was not sufficient to make her what he had hoped…” pg 44

                  One cannot will another to be something they are not. This is futile. Firstly, because it rarely comes of any change at all, and secondly, if change occurs, it is traitorous and wayward – would you befriend, let alone love, such a thing? A true change must occur outside of control, for a change is a death of old truths and there is no control in death.

“Night Watch”-

    “Love becomes the deposit of the heart, analogous in all degrees to the “findings” in a tomb. As in one will be charted the taken place of the body, the raiment, the utensils necessary to its other life, so in the heart of the lover will be traced, as an indelible shadow, that which he loves. In Nora’s heart lay the fossil of Robin, intaglio of her identity, and about it for its maintenance ran Nora’s blood. Thus the body of Robin could never be unloved, corrupt or put away. Robin was now beyond timely changes…” pg 56

                  The lesson in love is learning who to give that to. It is a feeling out of the selves – yours and that future lover. You’re being knows if that being will break or be broken. Even when one says, ‘I had no idea’ or ‘there was no way of knowing’, this is a lie to your self, a discredit to intuition and souls and the subconscious. There is knowing if we are open to listening to it. I would rather hear, ‘I knew this would happen, but refused to believe’. If you were completely taken aback by your lovers actions, they could not have been your lover, they could not have ever really had your love or you accepted theirs. Love does not blind, love opens the self to that self it loves and sees it in a way no other can even imagine to do so. And in the immense care and feeling and fear of lose, fear of the utter pain capable only through utter vulnerability, love makes excuses and ignores key details of intuition that warn of a wandering lover, a selfish lover. And that is not to say a terrible lover, but rather a being with a love incompatible to your own. And so, leave it. Leave it if you know, and be assured, deep down in the creases of thought and heart and soul, you know.