“Like a moth at the flame of so many inaccessible lanterns. … … .. “
“Let us . . . tenderly . . reverence . . . spoil . . .treasure. . . . . a pencil.”
-V. Woolf
Crazy statements? Ideas missed in time passed? Concepts created under the influence of
narcotics?
Or
Words with more than one meaning? Deeper pictures painted beneath the surface?
Metaphors?
Miss. Woolf tells a story of her journey to purchase a “pencil” or does she?
If you read what is not printed on the page, but written just as clearly, you will see more.
Pictures of life
yours
mine
ours!
How many times do we have to come up with some small, almost insignificant reason, in
this case a “pencil”, to do a much larger thing, such as get out of the house? I know I
have and if you are honest, I think you would answer the same.
Do you have the ability? The gift? The warmth?
Of recall?
To walk through life and see more around you than others can? To feel again, what
everyone else has forgotten? The richness of it is rewarding, is it not? Miss. Woolf takes
us on a journey through hers, as we meet melancholy Englishmen, elderly shopkeepers, bowls & knickknacks, as well as lost love! Did you see it?

Should you touch it?
Could you feel it?
We are given vivid sketches of England in the winter, as well as the summer, as we travel
with her. I could al most taste the air around me, as if it was alive with life. I found
myself in ore than one place at the same time. I started to ask myself, the same as she “
here or there? True self . . . . this or thatrare we . . ourselves?” as well as, am I whole?
And then
They
Are gone!
As our remind us of what has happened, can we not stop learning?
Can we keep growing?
Can we move forward with life?
The memories ebb and flow, come and go the same as the river Themes. Can we feel
once again what we did then? But are we retaining what they are there for? To show
what we have learned, to change what we do, to enrich and balance our lives. I hope if
not, that reading this “haunting” that it frightens you further down the road of life, as it
did me.