Peter Cunningham's Blog
June 9, 2013
Our Secret Threesome
Often, in the long reaches of the night, I hear the two women in my life breathing. My wife’s sweet rhythm tides her through these nocturnal passages; but my mistress is less predictable. One night, she sighs in long slicks of even temperament; but on another, she is restless, or even terrifying, in her dark outrage. These tempestuous nights are when we all get on best, when passion pounds in our ears and when our blood surges and foams to match the fury that we have chosen to sleep with.
On some days, our house that overlooks the Atlantic, is covered in the white froth of the sea. No passive way exists to live beside such a force of nature. You cannot ignore this ocean in the way that, say, you can come to terms with the constant hum of road traffic or the flight paths of aircraft to a nearby airport. The sea is a companion that changes constantly and her humours are part of our lives.
To us, the city, by comparison, seems so tame. The opposite might appear to be the case: a noisy conurbation of a million or more people with their multiple transports, digital energy and music should surely, on the face of it, score far higher on the pulse of sound and fury than a short stretch of coastline, incorporating a little bay. And yet, when we visit the city we often lie awake in the valley hours before the dawn and remark how empty the city feels, how dead compared to the ever restless sea.
My novel, The Sea And The Silence, reflects these contrasts. Iz, a young and hopeful heroine of twenty-three, is driven in an MG Midget by her new husband to the lighthouse that will be her new home. It is Ireland, 1945. From these cliffs, dog-fights involving RAF and German warplanes have up to recently been observed. Iz grows to embrace the sea as the more reliable of her companions, a companion she will grieve for when she is forced by unforeseen circumstances to move to the city. As her mysterious former life is gradually revealed, the stark irony of history is revealed. In later life, in the still vales of city silence, Iz yearns for her brief, tumultuous past, when passion and magnificent rebellion engulfed her.
The sea is always referred to as ‘she’, as if oceans and women have long been aligned. Our world, ruled by an unyielding patriarchy, is a difficult place for a woman to realise her true potential. She is beset by the conflict inherent in her nature: she must guarantee her part in the survival of the species; but she also feels compelled to answer the call of her own destiny. On the one hand, she is told to lean in, to compete and succeed; at the same instant, her biological clock may be signalling that it is time for her to brood. Tradition and millennia have come head-to-head with the need for individual expression. It is the feminine dilemma.
But equally unique is the sight of women erupting in full, unbridled outrage, of those unforgettable moments when they scour the landscape before them and take no prisoners as their furies raze the earth. Men, at such moments, no matter how powerful their patriarchy, can do no more than run and hide, for it is only then that we can see how the sea and the feminine are one.
© Peter Cunningham 2013
The Sea and the Silence
On some days, our house that overlooks the Atlantic, is covered in the white froth of the sea. No passive way exists to live beside such a force of nature. You cannot ignore this ocean in the way that, say, you can come to terms with the constant hum of road traffic or the flight paths of aircraft to a nearby airport. The sea is a companion that changes constantly and her humours are part of our lives.
To us, the city, by comparison, seems so tame. The opposite might appear to be the case: a noisy conurbation of a million or more people with their multiple transports, digital energy and music should surely, on the face of it, score far higher on the pulse of sound and fury than a short stretch of coastline, incorporating a little bay. And yet, when we visit the city we often lie awake in the valley hours before the dawn and remark how empty the city feels, how dead compared to the ever restless sea.
My novel, The Sea And The Silence, reflects these contrasts. Iz, a young and hopeful heroine of twenty-three, is driven in an MG Midget by her new husband to the lighthouse that will be her new home. It is Ireland, 1945. From these cliffs, dog-fights involving RAF and German warplanes have up to recently been observed. Iz grows to embrace the sea as the more reliable of her companions, a companion she will grieve for when she is forced by unforeseen circumstances to move to the city. As her mysterious former life is gradually revealed, the stark irony of history is revealed. In later life, in the still vales of city silence, Iz yearns for her brief, tumultuous past, when passion and magnificent rebellion engulfed her.
The sea is always referred to as ‘she’, as if oceans and women have long been aligned. Our world, ruled by an unyielding patriarchy, is a difficult place for a woman to realise her true potential. She is beset by the conflict inherent in her nature: she must guarantee her part in the survival of the species; but she also feels compelled to answer the call of her own destiny. On the one hand, she is told to lean in, to compete and succeed; at the same instant, her biological clock may be signalling that it is time for her to brood. Tradition and millennia have come head-to-head with the need for individual expression. It is the feminine dilemma.
But equally unique is the sight of women erupting in full, unbridled outrage, of those unforgettable moments when they scour the landscape before them and take no prisoners as their furies raze the earth. Men, at such moments, no matter how powerful their patriarchy, can do no more than run and hide, for it is only then that we can see how the sea and the feminine are one.
© Peter Cunningham 2013
The Sea and the Silence
