Bodily Harm - Margaret Atwood

 First of all, I love Atwood. Second of all reading Bodily Harm along side a lot of things that I've thought of and processed lately have been good for me. A year ago, around this time, I travelled with my kids and saw the place I had written a story about, namely my first fictional book in English. I thought that I was done, a year ago. I was in fact confident that the story was complete, and it was, except not in it's written form. Besides I decided to change it a lot, shake it up and write again, good decision. 

When I think back to the time when it dawned on me that I am destined to write, to become an author of the many stories that flow through me it was partly at the inspiration of a letter that arrived from Canada. I had written to Atwood and she had replied me by mail, a real letter. I wrote her in autumn of 2021, so it took one year for the response to arrive. In my work i also deal with postage to far away places like Canada and hence it didn't surprise me that her response took so long to reach me.  What surprised me was that she responded to my somewhat rude questions and thoughts. Her graceful reply is now framed before me, she inspired me to write, something I've been aspiring to do and formerly did through my childhood, adolescence and years into my thirties. I began writing the first book (that will remain unnamed here) so last February 2023 I went to the sight to look around where the story was situated that is, and I then returned. I longed to feel that finality of it, to know that it is all done. 

Then I wrote another novel and then a short novel in Swedish. Being honest, I was then dismayed and felt for a while that this won't amount to anything, all the while I had started to read Bodily Harm (in a Finnish translation, Lievää Vakavampi, 1982 Lennart Sane Agency) what is it with Vasa, and the many books printed and published here? What is it with my forefather the first book salesman in Osthrobothnia, I'm thrilled! 

I then realized that one, rejection is part of the deal, and two, I am how I am for a reason. My life experiences as a women, as a mother, as a former wife, as a human being, as a daughter, as a girl, these are all a part of my gift. I want to give and create through the person I've become because of the things I've been privileged to experience. Life has provided lessons and I took them. It's all been beautiful. 

I listened to a You Tuber who did a video called Monday's with Margaret, I wanted to learn what others had thought about Bodily Harm. She said that Atwood often describes a woman's feeling of being without a body, a type of detachment so universal among women due to "the systemic devaluation of women in most patriarchal societies. Rooted in colonialization that have come to dominate much of the world, and the dysfunctional balance in the world as a result" That quote is from Discovering the inner mother by Bethany Webster, smart woman. 

Yes, I've been reading up on the Mother wound and was surprised that it can also affect men. It's not just embittered daughters and their mothers. Atwood, by the way, had a very warm and good relationship to her own mother, but she spins this yarn a lot, the frustrated daughter and the uncompassionate unable mother. It's interesting because it is so universal. 

In many ways I've found healing from the reverence that the Orthodox hold for Mother of God, Mary and I believe herein is a piece of the puzzle that the westerners are sorely missing, hence the merciless protestant hence the twisted ideals of patriarchal west. I dare to say that patriarchal East and the origins of Jesus when he was born a man was unlike the structures of the western world. It's not that the Biblical structures oppress women, it's the western white protestant mind reading into it, says I, a former protestant. 

Bethany Webster describes in her book how the Mother wound exits on four levels. First in the personal internalized limitations and patterns that originates from the early dynamics with out mothers, and how we see ourselves and our potential. Secondly on the systematic devaluation structural level that i quoted above then on the spiritual level, feeling disconnected and alienated from a higher power and life itself and finally on a global environmental level, the harm caused to the earth. Might sound hippie to you, but I'm buying it. I didn't have time to listen through Beverly's book before my free trial subscription on Nextory runs out but as I'm finishing my -82 copy of Lievää vakavampi or Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood it felt relevant to share. 

I wrote Atwood again, and apologized for my former rudeness and ways, I was very judgmental in some aspects and it may be that I'm crippled that condition for the rest of my life, judgementalism that is, but I hope at best I'll be in remission into humility and retain a certain healthy criticism about the events happening around me, and about the society and world in general. I don't know if it's safe to give a very recent political example, I better not, since we are way past 1984. 

It's valentines day, over here, we call it friends day. A bit more neutral like that, and singles like me can feel a bit less alone knowing that I have a hand full of a few very good friends. I thought about Jane Austen's quote "In the end the right man will find you" sounds like something a compassionate mother would say, then I thought on it, Margaret gained her beloved Graem and it seems that every good writer who's supposed to find a love in their life founds one at last but then i shudder and think of Hardy, or Austen or the siters Brontë and I remember that life is not a movie. Real life is better than fiction non the less. 

Happy val's day to all my imaginary readers.