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“From fragments of sentences that fell from his lips, I understood him to be claiming that he’d been on his way to his true and noble destination when he was sidetracked by women. He himself, he asserted, would have been contented with an unadorned life, a roof over his head to shelter him from weather, a cot to sleep on, a stove to keep him warm when cold winds blew, and upon which he could prepare spartan meals.
All men aspire toward the mountain peaks, but women drive them down into valleys of domesticity where they are ambushed by family life and other degrading and petty tyrannies.”
Paula Fox / Borrowed Finery, a memoir.
I imagine you,
on your tedious journeys
think only of this doorway,
this chair and this fire,
and that; so focused
you are able to find your way home.
Every time.
©Cindy Taylor 2008
WHICH PIECE HAS MORE TRUTH?
3 Comments
I like the 2nd approach myself. By I have always been a bit of a homebody I guess.
This is beautifully written!
In my life, being at home doing the tedious things inspires the both me and the muso, it seems that we find some kind of beauty in the simple things, the things that make our life very domesticated. Maybe it is because we have worked so hard together to get these things…
I think a lot of men would opt for the sentiments expressed in the Fox passage: "men aspire toward the mountain peaks, but women drive them down into valleys of domesticity where they are ambushed by family life".
But, that would mostly be for show around the braai or in the pub with the mates. In truth, most of us on our "tedious journeys, think only of this doorway, this chair and this fire". Like Anna says, most of us have worked darn hard for the things we have, and the comforts of home, the love of a good woman and the importance of family may make us seem domesticated, emasculated even, but they are what we truly want.