Lie beside me. Let me see the division of your pores. Let me see the web of scars made by your family's claws and you their furniture. Let me see the wounds that they denied. The battle ground of family life that has been your body. Let me see the bruised red lines that signal their encampment. Let me see the routed place where they are gone. Lie beside me and let the seeing be healing. No need to hide. No need for either darkness or light. Let me see you as you are.
Jeanette WintersonThe baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story โ of course that is how we all live, itโs the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. Itโs like reading a book with the first few pages missing. Itโs like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you โ and it canโt, and it shouldnโt, because something is missing.
Jeanette WintersonIn the antiseptic world we try to purge ourselves of difficult things. Don't dwell on it, switch off the light and go home. But this is home. I have to be a home to myself. I am the place I come back to and I can't keep hiding difficult things in trunks. Soon the house will be full of trunks and I perched on top of them with the phone saying, "Yes, I'm fine, of course, I'm fine, everything's fine." The trunks shudder.
Jeanette Winterson