twosmallmonsters

Some of you have asked about my Rilke quote and what it means to have it here online. I will share with you why I have been studying it between Neuro chapters. Excerpt from my writing as of March. . .

Dad and Elizabeth are attracted to a local hot dog stand that is an obvious tourist target. I am attracted to the used bookstore located next to a bakery. The outside of the shop is lined with free standing old doors and a large red, velvet love seat. Literature quotes and beautiful tiny paintings of horticulture cover each door. Now that is what I call romantic. I read a quote before entering.

"Here there is nothing that does not see you.

You must change your life."-Rilke, Archaic Torso of Apollo

I am slightly haunted by the quote. Is it a challenge? Is it encouragement? Do I really have to change my life? I think of my mother toiling near the overstuffed bookshops in Harvard Square and I wonder if she was suddenly confronted by Rilke. Did she sit down and have coffee with Rilke, asking herself if changing her life meant recalculating her role as wife, mother, daughter, educator, and cat lover? Would she in fact return from Boston with a dog and a sudden single life that excluded all that she made and grew in a suburban town that was never her New York City? Typically when so many questions bombard my cortex, it shuts itself down before panic can occur. I allow my periphery to dominate my body and I move into the bookstore with only my sensory system in tact.