Circe

by Madeline Miller

“Nothing is empty void, while air is what fills all else. It is breath and life and spirit, the words we speak.”

That is one thing gods and mortals share. When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world.

Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me.

But I was not the same as I had been. I owed him nothing. He would have of me only what I wanted to give.

But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.

His laugh had been bright as morning sun.

None of it made a difference. I was alone and a woman, that was all that mattered.

Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Death’s Brother is the name that poets give to sleep. For most men those dark hours are a reminder of the stillness that waits at the end of days.

I touched the thought like a bruise, testing its ache. When he was gone, would I be like Achilles, wailing over his lost lover Patroclus? I tried to picture myself running up and down the beaches, tearing at my hair, cradling some scrap of old tunic he had left behind. Crying out for the loss of half my soul. I could not see it.

I was used to unhappiness, formless and opaque, stretching out to every horizon. But this had shores, depths, a purpose and a shape. There was hope in it, for it would end, and bring me my child.

“The truth is, I think he would have preferred me as a traitor. At least then I would have been a son he could understand.”

But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults.

I would say, some people are like constellations that only touch the earth for a season.

“You have always been the worst of my children,” he said. “Be sure you do not dishonor me.” “I have a better idea. I will do as I please, and when you count your children, leave me out.”

With every step I felt lighter. An emotion was swelling in my throat. It took me a moment to recognize what it was. I had been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that was only a shape I had been poured into. I did not have to keep it.

He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.