Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A Very Capote Christmas

Oh, nostalgia...this excerpt was once read to me by a master storyteller and has been etched into mind like a carving into stone. It is a memory that I will not only cherish forever, but seeps into most parts of my life and was a true literary inspiration throughout the past summer. This is my Christmas gift to all of my friends. I hope it can inspire you as it does me:

"My, how foolish I am!” my friend cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too late she has biscuits in the over. “You know what I’ve always thought?” She asks in a tone of discovery, and not smiling at me but at a point beyond. “I’ve always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window; pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shrine you don’t know it’s getting dark. And it’s been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I’ll wager it never happens. I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes that the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are” – her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over bone – “just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes."

Merry Christmas

Truman Capote - A Christmas Memory

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