The Oracle
An accidental photograph reveals her for what she really is. Just another Human being, as vulnerable as the next one. Not defensive, opinionated, the voice of all disapproval, just another person. One who is aging and has lost some of her hardness. Her body melts with age, and so too does her heart. Peeling potatoes over the kitchen sink. She is preparing to feed the five thousand again.
In her attic are boxes- dusty and almost forgotten- but not discarded. Boxes that contain your youth, and those of the others. Kept in preparedness for when you might call for them, or when you might approve their disposal. Funny how you no longer need them, and you may never ask to see these things again, but still they sit and wait. This is what she does for you.
In the photograph her veins are evident. They have always been there, dark and prominent, like the painful etching of your lives upon her legs. They trace your existence. If you look closely they are road map in blues and purples, plotting out the journey of your life, and those of the others. Some collide in bruises, others run parallel, all meeting eventually at some swollen artery. Weddings and funerals mainly. She has poor circulation, and I guess, so do we.
If we knew the way, would we cause her less pain? But these maps make sense only in retrospect.
No one can divine your future. Not even she can tell you how it’s all going to be.
Rivka Jacobs
If I’m interpreting this correctly, she could be a Great Goddess, or one of the Delphic priestesses, immortal. “An accidental photograph” … catches her in human form. At the same time, you are also symbolizing a grandmother, a matriarch of a family, whose family home preserves the childhood remnants of multiple generations. Someone who has been like a icon, like a goddess to the family, but in this photo reveals she is aging and human.
I love the way you’ve blended the two possibilities, almost imperceptibly.
I like the use of the varicose veins as an analogy to a road map, a map of the life of her family’s history. I really like the line, “She has poor circulation, and I guess, so do we.” Again, you symbolize the human condition with the immediate and familial. It’s almost like the entire human race has poor circulation, and the “blockages” of human existence map themselves on the legs of this “Great Mother.” All the while, she is someone’s aging grandma, or great-grandma, in a small and private kitchen.
Again, I don’t know if I’m over-interpreting, but that’s what I got when reading. It’s a lovely piece. Very touching and moving. Great work, Bridgeen.
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Bridgeen Gillespie
Thanks Rivka. I love your interpretations. You are always so willing to go with my metaphors and mythological allusions. I wanted to find some way to talk about my own mother (that’s really her) and have the reader feel this could be their mother too.
To me the accidental photograph encapsulates the moment when you first see a parent, not as a parent, and all the negative connotations that might have, but as a human being. One who is doing their best, despite mistakes along the way. Same goes for the veins, we cause hurt too with out knowing. My mum has 7 children, in no small way our births contributed to those veins development.
I was pleased that you understood what i meant by poor circulation….I wasn’t sure that line was going to work. b.x
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chrissasterling
I think my head just exploded.
Like Rivka, I adore the parallel you made between her veins and history to a road map. The poor circulation correlation is so profound that I think I can sit and stew on that for a bit and come back later.
Yes, that is surely what I need to do.
What I do love, and am inspired by after reading this? Is to know that some of the human kind is circulating, which is how I got to read this very piece.
I fucking love technology.
xo
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Squish
“They trace your existence. If you look closely they are road map in blues and purples, plotting out the journey of your life, and those of the others.”
These two lines broke my heart. Made me sorry for all the bruises and pain I’ve caused, and for my lack of understanding that I was their cause…
This is beautiful.
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chrissasterling
I felt as Squish did, I felt horrible for causing pain that I didn’t realize would leave a lifelong scar.
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