Why I'm not writing
I keep trying, and giving up. I’ve been exorcising demons for three days. I’m nowhere near done.
The background story—okay, both the old one and what happened two weeks ago—need telling. I can’t tell them yet. No one’s forbidding me; I just can’t get the words together.
Came home from a conversation with a friend. She was (and is) helping me confront this stuff. And I feel like I've been scraped by barnacles. Except it doesn't hurt the same way... or maybe it's more like having tons of tiny fish nibble me. It feels raw, but okay. I don't know. I've never been where I am right now.
My head is so full.
She told me a story that’s somewhere in the Narnia series (I don’t know which book; I read them over Christmas break five years ago). A boy gets too drawn in by some kind of treasure, and starts turning into a dragon. He asks Aslan to help him. Aslan takes a claw and starts peeling off the dragon skin. The boy says ouch, stop it, that hurts. Aslan answers, I know. It just does. I only know one way to do this.
I think I get it. I'm not used to feeling both scraped and safe. I need to put the words down, and feel it for awhile.
9 comments:
Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Love you.
What Margaret said.
I'm looking forward to the time we can visit again. I think we have some parallels worth holding up and comparing, and I want to hear more about your dragon skin.
Love you!
Love you both. And thanks for the book title.
Kat, I'd love to get together with you.
It is my favorite scene in my favorite book of all the books-- Eustace turns into a dragon from his greed - when Eustace tries to change- Aslan takes him to a pool of healing -Eustace tries to scrape off his dragon hide but he cannot do it alone - finally Aslan takes one terrible claw and pierces the skin almost to Eustace' heart -- then peels him like a new branch can be peeled of its bark. Scraped and safe - yes.
Actually --wasn't it a pool that turned common objects into gold --and Eustace had crawled in to a cave and found some of the enchanted gold and put on an arm cuff --and woke up a dragon. And he went down to the boat, and his companions didn't recognize him, tried to fight him... then realized who he was (Lucy I think) --and then they repaired the boat, and were making plans to leave and Eustace slunk back to the cave because he couldn't go with them (to the end of the world) --and Aslan met him there, and began to scrape the dragon scales from his body... until he was a boy again --and he was forever changed, and made it back to the boat just as they were putting off.... and they welcomed him home.
Right about the dragon's cave and gold. They did go to a pool (very baptismal) and Eustace tried to scrape off his own scales but it took the work of Aslan to finish the job and then Eustace jumped into the pool. I think I will go re-read that section. It is so powerful.
Here is the passage.
Thank you, both of you. Aslan threw him into the pool; it hurt for a second and then felt wonderful.
I need to read the whole book again, not just those two chapters. And maybe the series, while I'm thinking about all of this.
I was given the Narnia books by a friend while I was in college and a new-minted Episcopalian. Her mother was dieing of cancer and she told me that she had stopped believing in Jesus but believed in Aslan.
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