A Grasp on Reality

My Window

Through my widow there is a garden. It’s full of bluebells, pansies, tulips and roses. A gentle cool breeze blows a sweet fragrance through my window as the flowers gently sway.  I feel calm.

Through my window there is an ocean.  The waves crash onto the shore and the salt water splashes onto my face.  I can hear the sound of gulls in search of some food.  I feel relaxed.

Through my window there is an ancient sycamore.  When I feel like getting away, I climb high onto its strong branches.  I sit and think about life.  I feel frustrated.

Through my window there is darkness.  Grey clouds fill the sky and rains pours down.  I feel sad.

Through my window is a maze.  Which way to go, which way to turn? I feel lost.

Through my window there is you.  Always waiting to catch me when I fall. Always there when I need you most.  I feel happy and in love.

This is a poem I wrote a few semesters back in a creative writing class. I wanted to express my feelings in a visual way. It was a fun way to express myself, but I know these things aren’t physically real to me when I am in these moods. What if someday they were? Suddenly when I was sad I would see storms and lightning, feel the rain on my skin and actually hear thunder! Reality would be skewed. What is physical and what is a creation of my own mind would be jumbled together. I would struggle within myself to find my own sanity.

Some famous people who struggled with their own demons are the novelist Virginia Woolf, poet Sylvia Plath, painter Vincent Van Goh, singer Jim Morrison and singer Jimi Hendrex. Each one of these people died by their own hands and at a young age. Virginia Woolf took her life by drowning herself. Instead of facing her breakdown, she chose to end her life.  Before her death she left a note for her husband. “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.”

What makes these artists so different is that their pain and suffering shine through and project themselves upon their work. Sylvia Plath wrote a few poems which gave the reader an insight into her metal dysfunction. “The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby”. Each of these celebrities struggled with depression and some with drug and alcohol abuse. Using drugs and alcohol to escape the reality in which they lived, they chose this alternative route, which in turn helped to cause their deaths. Others couldn’t live with their mental illnesses that fed on their sanity, and so ended their lives. Being creatively beautiful ended in self-drestruction for these short lived people.

Elizabeth, the main character in A Question of Power by Bessie Head, struggles with her metal illness in the same way. Each night Elizabeth is bombarded by visions. Elizabeth feels these visions want to destroy her. Elizabeth is constantly stuck with thunderbolts from Medusa. “It wasn’t Elizabeth’s body she was thrusting into extinction, it was the soul; the bold were aimed at her soul” (87). While Elizabeth’s mind was tormented “dragged through hell” (35), she had to try and grasp onto reality for the sake of her son. This is when she met Kenosi. Kenosi came to help Elizabeth around the house and with her son, but for Elizabeth, she was so much more. “Elizabeth clung to the woman” “Kenosi woman’s sudden appearance as one of the miracles or accidents that saved her life” (89).

Elizabeth is struggling between reality and her visions. On the surface, Medusa’s intentions seem to only want to hurt Elizabeth. She is another side of the “good” Sello. She constantly brings pain upon Elizabeth physically and mentally but belittling her. With the evil side comes the good side of Sello. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s experience with the Medusa, Elizabeth awakes to dead bodies being cast into a pit until the pit is completely full. Wondering what the bodies mean Sello says “it was alive, that body of deep evil from so long ago. I destroyed it all” (98). Sello helped to destroy the evil within Elizabeth. “And he hasn’t only the record of darkness behind him. He created light as well” (98). Elizabeth had been struggling with both the forces of evil and the forces of good. To understand the good things in life, sometimes you must first go through the worst. This is what Elizabeth has learned thus far.

Half way through this novel I can’t help but get swept away. The things Elizabeth goes through, the torment really gets to me. I can compare it to a rollercoaster ride. Uphill, downhill, through tunnels, around curves. It is a very hard to understand book, but you can feel  Elizabeth’s pain throughout the story.