What do you mean, Thesaurus?

My partner(s) in this somewhat literary endeavor are amazing people, and I feel blessed to be able to share the same bit of cyberspace with them. However, now that I (in the sense that this individual, like Whitman, contains multitudes) am “here” I might as well begin to move us from monologue to dialogue, at least of sorts.

The “Definer” is thinking about sunsets, which parallels my own vexing thoughts about age. You see, dear reader, I have been taking stock of my development. Thus, the question of academic satisfaction has crept up once again, and I have filtered my disillusionment through the sieve of my age. Hence, I turn to that bard of the bitter bucolic, Ryan Adams and his song “Anybody Wanna Take Me Home”:

So, I am in the twilight of my youth

Not that I'm going to remember

And have you seen the moon tonight

Is it full?

Still burning its embers.

For me, Adams deftly explores that liminal period between the blush of youth and the clarity that can accompany growing older in a manner reminiscent of the Romantics. Adams’s metaphor encapsulates the best of adulthood: the realization that the ablation of innocence has a beauty and sweetness to it, which gives rise to humor, pathos, and reflection.

This leads me to some of Sylvia Plath’s work. In particular I am drawing a connection to Plath’s ability to realize the horror and beauty of daily living, which is often marked in the physical world around us. Take these two selections from Plath’s writing about flowers as an example:

Poppies in October

“O my God, what am I

That these late mouths should cry open

In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.”

Poppies in July

“And it exhausts me to watch you

Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.

Little bloody skirts!”

This process of redefining the beautiful as painful, the painful as beautiful might explain why I have chosen the moniker of “Thesaurus.” And if one disagrees, at least this might stand as a nice counterpoint to the “Definer.”

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