'In the end, we'll all become stories.'
So, if Sarah never even lived, what are we talking about here? This week's post and poem ask the question. Plus there's an invitation to a free workshop for you in here.
“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
— Richard Bach
Over plates of baked salmon, salad, and potatoes the other night, I was enthusiastically recounting something I’d recently read about Sarah to my husband.
I can’t remember exactly what I was reacting to, or what my point was. But I do remember my husband’s perplexed look.
It’s not that it’s unusual for me to discuss Sarah at the dinner table as other people might discuss the news of a dear friend or distant relative. But for some reason, perhaps the passion with which I was emphasizing my point, this time he stopped me:
“But Sarah never actually, lived, right?” he asked. “I mean, there’s no archeological evidence that she or Abraham were actual people, is there?”
Well, um, yeah, but …
My husband is a lawyer. He takes a clear-eyed look at the facts. I'm a poet and a dreamer. I can get lost in my imagination.
So let's pause and consider the facts:
There is no archeological historical record of Sarah’s life that I’m aware of.
There’s disagreement over where she was born, who her mother and father were, and which century she inhabited.
It’s quite possible, probable even, that she was never a flesh and blood and bone presence on this planet at all.
And for all we know she is nothing more than a formless legend who never set foot in a city or desert.
Granted, Sarah may be a mere amalgamation of myths from different regions and different times.
Or maybe there was once a minor priestess whose story evolved into a legend that evolved into a main character with a leading role in the creation story of the monotheism of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
But although she may well never have lived, her story breathes and grows and evolves as we do.
As Margaret Atwood has written,
“In the end, we’ll all become stories.”
And so, I conceded the point to my husband. “Sure,” I said. “Sarah may never have lived at all.”
On the other hand, she is surely alive within us.
In this week’s poem, “Writing Retreat,” I describe what it is like to be a poet who has, as her traveling companion, the ghost of a story.
“Writing Retreat,” ©️ Copyright Tzivia Gover, Third House Moon, LLC, all rights reserved.
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