Love letter 2 Virginia Woolf
I can understand why Virginia Woolf would have chosen a river to sink into.
I think of Lily sitting at a dinner table surrounded by competing voices.
considering to herself the placement of a tree, in a painting no one but herself cared to create.
Deciding to move the tree “rather more to the middle,” though they all were talking, and had wants of each other, and of her, and none of them knew or cared about the tree.
Hard work, to fight for a tree that only exists for you, to decide where to fix it, what spot to fix it to, while you’re surrounded by such relentless movement.
Movement, voices, and the
teams of teeming thoughtless
agreement rushing each other along,
swirling each other forward in
a faithful flood.
Now resist it all.
And stand still in the flood, or move contrary to the motion, or move rather to the middle and fix yourself there.
While they speak and plan, you’ll make plans for your tree; it is your tree.
How long can you plan alone for a tree before you need rest too badly to continue?
A fifty-years’ flood would wear out a tree, let alone a woman, even a woman of extraordinary vision! Virginia! She filled her pockets with rocks, yes? And walked into the moving water, and sank, and stayed.
I don’t approve.
I’m pained, I miss her, we need each other. I’m pained she’s gone,
but I understand.
We have to speak, to hear each other.
We have to make a grove, and stretch our tender roots, and stay.
The trees in the everglades share a root structure, and live
inundated that way.
They slow even the water with their stillness.
They feel the ground together.
They stay in touch, staying still like that.
