Friday, August 19, 2016

Deerskin

Deerskin by Robin McKinley.  I have had this book for years and have read it a  number of times.  It is a book to turn to when I feel hurt and betrayed and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry.  It is a journey through  hurt, to  healing, and then to reclaiming your power.

I did not feel quite so desperate when I read it this time, but still, it resonated with me.  That sense of detachment.  And then the end.  Moonwoman told her, "Ash is looking forward to running through meadows again, can you  not give yourself leave to run through meadows too?"

Lissar said, "I am hurt...in ways you cannot see, and that I cannot explain, even to myself, but only know that they are are, and a part of me, as much as my hands and eyes and breath are a part of me."

Ossin replied, "I accept that you bear them, and will always bear them, as-- as Ash bears hers."

And they speak in unspoken words that they both hear, and Ossin says in this way, "I have seen the scars you carry, and I love you.  If you and Ash cannot run quite so far as you used because of old wounds, then we will run less far together."

"And she promised herself and Ossin, and Ash and the puppie, that she would try to stay there, for as long as the length of their lives; that she would put her strength now and hereafter toward staying and not fleeing."

It's a book that speaks to the heart.  My heart yearns to be loved that way, and yearns for the love in my heart to be accepted by another.

She says, "I had forgotten that I have thought of you every hour since the night of the ball; I had convinced myself that I had thought of you only every day."

I do. I think of someone all the time.  But he will not come for me the way Ossin came for Lissar.  I spend my life alone.