Razor's Edge

"At different stages in our lives, the signs of love may vary: dependence, attraction, contentment, worry, loyalty, grief, but at heart the source is always the same. Human beings have the rare capacity to connect with each other, against all odds."

This quote is from Michael Dorris, an author best known for "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water" and " The Broken Cord." Of course, you must pay no attention to the fact that he committed suicide.

It is a curious thing to me that good writers and poets are so often victims of mental illness and depression. They end up taking their own lives when their passion runs cold. It seems that sanity dances the razor's edge wherever one finds a burning source of brilliance.

I have been reading a biography of Anne Sexton. (I recently reread some of her poetry in Transformations and her life in letters which was a book of her correspondence published after her she took her own life.)

She had many writing relationships--male and female. Words and the exchange of words were her saving grace for years. She was self-taught for the most part, but won a Radcliffe scholarship for women re-entering the workplace/literary world after being mothers/housewives. Her favorite mode of operation was to apprentice herself to someone until she learned everything they knew. She loved the messy work of words and spent hours debating with friends and colleagues over the exact placement of a phrase. She went far before she finally crashed and burned.

She said it best in "Her Kind."

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.