Page 21: A thought experiment

Marching into May in mesmerance

Sometimes we sit down to write and can’t think of anything to write about; so, I turn to page 21 ^[2] Natalie Goldberg,  1986,Writing Down the Bones, p. 21., that’s the number which registers and recollects my “birth” day, the day of the month in which I was born. I like the number, but not the event it seeks to celebrate and so I don’t; not since I turned 21. When I was a little girl, fretting and frowning I would often ask my Mum, “Why did you born me then?” She would look at me perplexed, her mother’s love desperately searching for a way to speak to her daughter’s unbearable socha.^[3]From John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, “The hidden vulnerablity of others”, everyone searching for something that we are not yet, something that we hope to be. But ultimately, silence, at once bitter and sweet, would save us both from getting lost in that moment of ordinary life interrupted. Every year, as day 21 of my birth month approaches, I feel the funeral in my brain ^[4] Emily Dickinson, 1970, The Complete Poems, #280, p. 128. slowly begin to march.  

The month of March begins and slowly the morning turns a mint shade of green as I write my way beyond it. ^[5]Virginia Woolf, 1929, A Room of One’s Own, p. 21. I long for burnt orange and the gentle wisdom of my grandmother who whispers with grace as she sips her tea. If recollecting her in writing were forgetting, then I remember not. And if forgetting her, recollecting, how near I had forgot.^[6] Emily Dickinson, 1970, The Complete Poems, #33, p. 21. When I write I escape myself, I uproot myself; I leave from within my own house of memories, I don’t return. ^[7]Hélène Cixous, 1993, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing, p. 21. I am writing my way down to a cradle lilting towards my recapture, a mesmerance that numbs just as it nurtures.  

Questions burn, secrets flicker, writing watches

The minute I bought the book, I wanted to start writing in it, its blank pages waiting for words to arrive. I took out my favourite Lamy black pen, momentarily wondering why I hadn’t asked for one with a purple ink cartridge. ^[8]Ruth Ozeki, 2013, A Tale for the Time Being, p. 21. Ha! I laugh hard, who do you think you are? Never mind the colour, you are not royalty or Virginia Woolf! I sniff indignantly, my ballpoint pen has its use and use can be a way of being in touch with things. ^[9]Sara Ahmed, 2019, What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use, p. 21.

I stare into the paper mirror I am holding, and watch layers shed brown spots on pages once dressed in white.^[10]Elizabeth Mackinlay, 2022, Writing Feminist Autoethnography, p. 21. I observe the world for a moment on this edge of catastrophe, deliberately avoiding the flecks by focusing on the frock. ^[11]Hélène Cixous, 2011, Hemlock, p. 21. A burning question flickers in the frills, something about the weight of women’s work and the attention that goes into wardrobes. ^[12]Margaret Attwood, 2022, Burning Questions, p. 21. A secret, a secret, the under story situated inside; you are blue and sigh, a style sleuth no more or less. ^[13]Sylvia Plath, 1965, Ariel, p. 21. My writing watches, eyes closed knowing that no matter how radiant, or fierce, Elpis will arrive with a bunch of flowers. ^[14]Susan Cain, 2022, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, p. 21. Mrs Dalloway offered an arm full of sweet peas to settle a world that wavered but still, it burst into flames. My sugar and spice and all things nice mask began peeling off ^[15]Ruth Behar, 1996, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, p. 21. the page as a bomb tore open the side. Words became trapped in a birdcage weeping while the rest of my sentences were a bunch of pick-up-sticks suspended in mid-air. ^[16]Virginia Woolf, 1938, Three Guineas, p. 21. Sometimes it’s the little things that sting the most and I swore solemnly I shall buy my own flowers next time. 

Damned by love

Much later and farther away from this scene of turmoil and bloodshed, I sat in the shade down by the creek. ^[17]Mary Shelley, 1832, The Invisible Girl and Other Tales, p. 21. I held the book, the Lamy ballpoint pen, and my writing began to skip as it drew breath, steadily, with deliberation. ^[18]Virginia Woolf, 1954, A Writer’s Diary, p. 21. “Nicely done, nicely done,” quacked a duck downstream. “Skip it again, skip it again. Now turn and twist, jump and dance!” ^[19]E B White, 1952, Charlotte’s Web, p. 21; Forgive me for breaking my rule to only cite women but Charlotte is my hero-ine. I have been reading and re-reading her wisdom since I was a babe at school … Continue reading I wanted so badly to trust my feathered friend ^[20]Dorothy Allison, 1995, Two or Three things I Know for Sure, p. 21. her call rousing deep instincts, summoning wilder and stronger emotions. ^[21]Virginia Woolf, 1933, Flush: A Biography, p. 21. But in the end, it was to no avail; my heart had been eaten out long ago by damned love. ^[22]Dorothy Allison, 1995, Two or Three things I Know for Sure, p. 21. My writing turned, day followed night, night followed day, the procession of words so familiar, unvarying; I took them for granted. ^[23]Deborah Bird Rose, 2021, Shimmer: Flying Fox Exuberance in Worlds of Peril, p. 21.  But in any encounter with the world, I wonder, are we not bigger than ourselves if we allow writing to shimmer? ^[24]Hélène Cixous, 1994, Rootprints: Memory and Life Writing, p. 21.

The words were silent and still

I looked down at page 21; it’s crossed t’s, dotted i’s and curled y’s were growing old and so was I.  

I kept on writing this and that, that and this, lamenting again the black not purple ink bought for my pen.  

Then, strangely compelled, I looked down once more at my book, and gasped – an extraordinary change had come over it.  

“Page 21!” I cried. The words were silent and still. They had been alive, now they were dead. That was all. ^[25]Virginia Woolf, 1933, Flush: A Biography, p. 169; I know I have broken another rule of my own here and not cited a sentence from page 21, but it is the ending, and endings deserve a fitting sentence … Continue reading