Twenty-one-one's

I'm reading Surfacing right now, by Margaret Atwood. And I think one of the main reasons I like it so much is that nameless female narrator. I like how it's all in-her-head. And her madness is so intense. She becomes mad, but before that even she is intense, intense, intense. I like how she doesn't know what's normal. Looks to others to learn what it is, forgetting what she knows and following them. And then I like how it turns out that the others were wrong, later. And she has to figure things out for herself.

I can relate.

Really that's the large experience of growing up. We are little and silly, but generally good. Sometimes too we are very, very serious. I can remember being young and sitting at the adult's table, with my chin in my hands and listening very intently to everything that was said.

At that time I was a sponge, for stress especially. Things would strike my heart and paralyze my body, anything that I took to be of consequence. Everything was earthshattering. I didn't ask questions though. I would only watch and observe, incubate fears and try to figure out what normal was. In my head I was a nameless narrator.