The Creator's Mid-wife
The unwritten words were encrypted in the claws of her hands. The unwritten words were stored in the pendulous rolls of fat that hung upon her body and choked her vital organs, the unwritten words, those streams and rivers of unwritten words stored on the inside and struggling to find expression. There were stories written in her heart and in her veins and in her arteries. Her body was like a child's experiment with a sweet potato vine. If she drank ink and were dissected, surely the coroner would find great works of literature inscribed in the tubules of her kidneys or her liver or pancreas.
Each day, each hour, each minute, each second she spent yearning like Tantalus for that which seemed out of reach, when the fullness she craved was well within her grasp. She carried it inside of her. The healing balm for her festering wounds was available, on tap at any time. The answer to her dietary needs was only a pad of paper and a pen away. The unwritten words were ready to take over, despite her concerns and imagined fears, and willy-nilly, the word would have its way or its weigh. The words struggled to manifest themselves. If she denied them much longer, she would wind up fatter than a side-show freak.
But, it was so hard to sit down with that blank pad of paper. She wished she could simply shake her pen filled with lemon juice ink upon the paper. She would then expose the paper to heat and , voila, a story would be revealed, all those lovely patterned words upon the page. Stories.
The stories nagged at her. The stories were tyrants like children at bedtime, demanding to be told. They crowded around her in her dreams. "Tell my story. Tell my story," the words whispered at first. Now they clamored and they shouted. "Write us down. WRITE US DOWN!" They sent her crude messages like victims of a plane wreck, spelling out S.O.S. in the snow in black coal, but no, she couldn't see them, hear them, smell them, taste them, or acknowledge them, the stories in her. They were in the bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood, veins of her body, nerves of her neural net demanding expression and denied.
The denial of her creativity has given her a strange shape, that of the Venus of Wollendorf, her fecundity held forever in stasis. Oh, sculptor from the year 20,000, I share your vision. But picture yourself here in America on the threshold of the twenty-first century as Mr. and Mrs. Wollendorf waddle down the avenue, not just a couple of quintessential Wollendorfs, the streets are full of them , fecundity denied and put on a diet of fat.
Let me introduce you to an artist with fat larded on his body like paint hurriedly applied with a pallet knife. Dutifully he spreads the fat upon the canvas of his flesh with the carving knife and the butter knife. Over here, yes in that clump, you see the image of a mother and child. In these rolls of flesh on the thigh, a seascape. Here on his back, see the verdant valley and the mountain ridge.
"Pick up your pencil and draw our lives, draw our natures," the unborn children cry out to their father for expression. Snip, snip. The modern man denies his paternity with a vasectomy. Suck,suck. The modern woman denies her maternity with abortion. The unborn cry out for expression. "We have given up our lives to give you more time for creativity, but where then do we find our stories painted or written. We have given up our lives for you. We yearn to be expressed. Get up. Get out of bed you lousy rotten lazy artist and paint us. Put down your fork and pick up your pencil you lazy writer all drugged out on pork chops and write us. We are your children. You keep us in limbo at your peril. Express us, not in the fat of your bodies, but in the passion locked up in your bodies, brains, and soul. Even if the world does not love us, we will love you, your perfect or imperfect creations.Form us with love, care, kindness, and compassion and together we will work the will of God.
And so she climbed out of bed, put on her magicians's robe, drank her potion and waved her magic wand, until, abracadabra, presto change-o, in an eyeblink, the fat on her body was transmogrified into a big book of beautiful stories. "Thank you, mother," cried out the book.
And the fat man lumbered out of bed, put on his magician's robe, drank his potion, wielded his wand until, abracadabra, the song inside bubbled and boiled and the very wind and waves found their way onto canvas, and when the fury of the storm passed, there upon the canvas was revealed, the sacred act of creation that had made this offspring so splendid. It's eyes spoke eloquently, "Thank you, father."
And from the heavens above, a voice called out,"Jeez! It took you long enough!"
The unwritten words were encrypted in the claws of her hands. The unwritten words were stored in the pendulous rolls of fat that hung upon her body and choked her vital organs, the unwritten words, those streams and rivers of unwritten words stored on the inside and struggling to find expression. There were stories written in her heart and in her veins and in her arteries. Her body was like a child's experiment with a sweet potato vine. If she drank ink and were dissected, surely the coroner would find great works of literature inscribed in the tubules of her kidneys or her liver or pancreas.
Each day, each hour, each minute, each second she spent yearning like Tantalus for that which seemed out of reach, when the fullness she craved was well within her grasp. She carried it inside of her. The healing balm for her festering wounds was available, on tap at any time. The answer to her dietary needs was only a pad of paper and a pen away. The unwritten words were ready to take over, despite her concerns and imagined fears, and willy-nilly, the word would have its way or its weigh. The words struggled to manifest themselves. If she denied them much longer, she would wind up fatter than a side-show freak.
But, it was so hard to sit down with that blank pad of paper. She wished she could simply shake her pen filled with lemon juice ink upon the paper. She would then expose the paper to heat and , voila, a story would be revealed, all those lovely patterned words upon the page. Stories.
The stories nagged at her. The stories were tyrants like children at bedtime, demanding to be told. They crowded around her in her dreams. "Tell my story. Tell my story," the words whispered at first. Now they clamored and they shouted. "Write us down. WRITE US DOWN!" They sent her crude messages like victims of a plane wreck, spelling out S.O.S. in the snow in black coal, but no, she couldn't see them, hear them, smell them, taste them, or acknowledge them, the stories in her. They were in the bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood, veins of her body, nerves of her neural net demanding expression and denied.
The denial of her creativity has given her a strange shape, that of the Venus of Wollendorf, her fecundity held forever in stasis. Oh, sculptor from the year 20,000, I share your vision. But picture yourself here in America on the threshold of the twenty-first century as Mr. and Mrs. Wollendorf waddle down the avenue, not just a couple of quintessential Wollendorfs, the streets are full of them , fecundity denied and put on a diet of fat.
Let me introduce you to an artist with fat larded on his body like paint hurriedly applied with a pallet knife. Dutifully he spreads the fat upon the canvas of his flesh with the carving knife and the butter knife. Over here, yes in that clump, you see the image of a mother and child. In these rolls of flesh on the thigh, a seascape. Here on his back, see the verdant valley and the mountain ridge.
"Pick up your pencil and draw our lives, draw our natures," the unborn children cry out to their father for expression. Snip, snip. The modern man denies his paternity with a vasectomy. Suck,suck. The modern woman denies her maternity with abortion. The unborn cry out for expression. "We have given up our lives to give you more time for creativity, but where then do we find our stories painted or written. We have given up our lives for you. We yearn to be expressed. Get up. Get out of bed you lousy rotten lazy artist and paint us. Put down your fork and pick up your pencil you lazy writer all drugged out on pork chops and write us. We are your children. You keep us in limbo at your peril. Express us, not in the fat of your bodies, but in the passion locked up in your bodies, brains, and soul. Even if the world does not love us, we will love you, your perfect or imperfect creations.Form us with love, care, kindness, and compassion and together we will work the will of God.
And so she climbed out of bed, put on her magicians's robe, drank her potion and waved her magic wand, until, abracadabra, presto change-o, in an eyeblink, the fat on her body was transmogrified into a big book of beautiful stories. "Thank you, mother," cried out the book.
And the fat man lumbered out of bed, put on his magician's robe, drank his potion, wielded his wand until, abracadabra, the song inside bubbled and boiled and the very wind and waves found their way onto canvas, and when the fury of the storm passed, there upon the canvas was revealed, the sacred act of creation that had made this offspring so splendid. It's eyes spoke eloquently, "Thank you, father."
And from the heavens above, a voice called out,"Jeez! It took you long enough!"