spinster

Spinster

Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious april walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds' irregular babel
And the leaves' litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air,
His gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower;
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.

How she longed for winter then! --
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock; each sentiment within border,
And heart's frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.

But here -- a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into vulgar motley --
A treason not to be borne; let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, either.

- Sylvia Plath 

This poem by the lovely and tragic Sylvia is one of my new favorites. As some of you know, I'm officially and indefinitely single for the first time in a long time. I was with the same guy on-and-off (overwhelmingly on) for nearly six years. But hey - I taught myself to knit. I taught myself to make pitch-perfect Cajun maque choux. I taught myself to get by on roughly four hours of sleep a night. Now I'm teaching myself the art of solitude.

I like knowing that I can live or work wherever I may choose. I like not having to explain myself or check in with anyone. I like going on a date and not having a care in the world about where it may "be going." I like coming home to a quiet, empty house. Maybe I'm a spinster in the making?

There are worse things.