Sunrise, Sunset
Outside my window this morning, a sherbet
sunrise drifts slowly upwards into a pale, powder blue sky, floating softly in
chiffon ribbons of baby pinks and melted mango, swaths of creamy yellow gently
wafting in the new light of the sun. It is exquisite. It is a gift, just as are
the winter blue sky and thin black branches and the whiter than white snow on
the roof on the house beside me, the lacy shadows of lilacs on the fence, the
glistening silver icicles that hang from the eaves. Why, it’s enough to make a
body want to write a poem - or almost enough. To tell you the truth, I
hardly ever write poetry anymore and that’s because I’ve learned that I’m
better at this kind of thing than the other. You know, essays of no real
consequence, slices of life, so to speak, sometimes pithy observations about
the world and my apprehensions of it. Lately I’ve been reading the works of two
of my favorite writers, David Sedaris and Emily Dickenson, and while I am
admiring of the latter’s gifts, I’m certainly not in the same league as Ms.
Dickenson when it comes to writing poetry – whereas I always enjoy the very
clever, very droll Mr. Sedaris, and on a few occasions have myself managed to
write something that could be considered rather like one of his acerbic, witty
and self-effacing pieces, and thus feel a real sense of kinship with the wag, a
term I feel sure David would appreciate my calling him, if he and I were on a
first name basis, that is.
These dual natures have jockeyed for
position in Sarah the writer for a long time now, alter egos, if you will –two
distinct personalities living in one body, though not so dramatically opposed
as, let’s say, Lois Lane and Superwoman, or those Fight Club guys whose
names escape me now. No, I identify more with the poet standing at the fork in
the road, considering both paths ahead of him – or her. My inner
poetess/essayist often do battle in my writing, and here is a case in point:
while searching the world of fiction for a metaphor, the writer discovers her
reach wanting. She doesn’t really remember the name of the Chuck
Palahniuk’s protagonist - or his alter ego! She knows she’s not the least bit
interested in ripping off her reporter’s glasses or donning terrible French
blue tights, skimpy one piece and flapping cape, though she would be able to
dream up a backstory for Lois, revealing the source of her exhibitionist
tendencies, for instance. Your writer realizes that she generally eschews
existential subjects, spends little time fretting over roads not taken, and
prefers to leave digging too far beneath the surface to the Frosts and
Dickensons of the world. To just get on with being funny, if possible. To tell
you the truth, if this were a gameshow it might be time for the question, Will
the real Sarah please stand up?
The problem is that I’ve been living with
both women all my life, and those close to me are pretty much used to it as
well. It is new for you, I know, and hard to tell which person you are meeting
on any given day, based on the pieces I share. You sometimes get the poet,
sometimes the essayist, though I would sincerely hate for you to think I’m
schizophrenic or anything like that. Ok, I know I know, that’s not funny. Or is
it? Pretty sure I know what David would say, but I’m not so sure Emily would
agree. I don’t think she had a flippant bone in her body, whereas his entire
skeletal system is rubber. Bounce bounce bounce! A few hours earlier this
morning, I stood in rapt wonder at the radiance of the vista before me,
concocted the phrase a sherbet sunrise, then sat down to write at my
computer. Got so far, then could go no further, because, really, what would be
the point? To illustrate to my reader how beautiful the world is, at least this
part of it? Or would it be to wow you with my virtuosity as a wordsmith? I
don’t know that I really need to do the first, or that I really ought
to try the second.
So now, about eight hundred words into this
piece, I find myself once again at the interesting juncture of my two personas
meeting; I will confess that these days I am more and more inclined to give
free rein to the smart-ass, wise-cracking, red-hatted old lady in the purple
dress who, while certainly tender-hearted and sympathetic to my
wide-eyed-wonder, little-girl self, wants finally to ride her horse bareback,
thundering across the plains, hands held high in the air as she whoops for joy,
galloping off into the sunset. A brilliant amethyst and rich dark lavender sunset
in a sky shot with gleaming golden rays of sunshine slowly enfolded into deep
night’s blue velvet arms. And can’t you just see that old broad’s smile?!
Sarah Prospero
Sarah
Christie Prospero lives and writes in Almonte, mostly memoir, happy to be
realizing at last a long-held dream to be doing exactly as she pleases - most
of the time, that is. Sarah’s work has previously been published in the Globe
and Mail’s First Person, in Canadian Stories, on
CBC’s Sunday Edition, in the on-line magazine Story
Quilt, as well as in Ariel Chart.