The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 8

by Beth Brower

Forgive yourself for having let yourself down, even while you were holding others up.

“Pati necesse est multa mortalibus mala,” said Hawkes. “Yes, well, I am certain what you’ve said is true, however, I remain unmoved.

Strange, considering it all now after a night’s sleep, that I’d had no premonition of what awaited. That seems to be the nature of life, however. Things that ought to come with warnings rarely do.

“I have experienced something I can’t quite understand.” Hawkes waited, then, “A state I’ve known.” “What do you do with it?” “I wait on the shore of the mystery to see what the tide will bring.”

For I woke this morning feeling more like fresh, wind-blown linen. Which is to say cheerful, light, and a little wrinkled.

I’ve no interest in your thoughts on the subject. My own are quite sufficient.”

I have taken my insignificance for granted. One’s anonymity is not a thing to give away.

I’ve never considered the cello as companion for dawn. One would think to pair it with falling evening, with deepest night. But the instrument did seem to understand the dream state just before waking.

“I’ve long developed a habit of not growing accustomed to people, Emma Lion, but I have found the last few days ill-fitting without you.”

That every day should leave some part Free for a sabbath of the heart.

Her freedom would always come at the cost of someone else’s liberty. Another way to say it: Fire steals away oxygen, and Maggie Devereux Revel is an unapologetic torch.

These long days out of doors feel like coming home to a place to which I’ve always held the key, but was told it should be put away. But, oh! There has been sovereignty of self in this place—of body, of spirit, of the intangible magic which sews the two together. To shout and run. To lie in tall grasses and watch the wind play the sunlight both true and

false. To feel the building threat of rain and watch it crash to earth from the tenuous safety beneath a tree rather than from behind a window. I am, I suppose, satiating a long drought. My childhood soul has been left too long abandoned.