Notes on a Reading by Jeanette Winterson

                                                                                         (photo from the Guardian)

I saw Jeanette Winterson read from her memoir tonight. She was jet-lagged, witty, intense, and could answer a question like "Where do you get your ideas," with a three paragraph spoken essay that was cogent, entertaining, and meaningful.  Here is what I wrote in my little notebook as I listened to her speak. Much of the longer phrases are direct quotations, the individual words are all ones she used:

I was like a flare. Disaster. Phone booth.

  Copper--plate handwriting.  Loomed up. Uncarried

child.

  Shut yourself up in your grief.  Duffel-coat.

I was selling my story against hers--part fact, part fiction is what life is.

When you are a solitary child you find an imaginary friend. I thought

the measure of love was loss. Gap. Opening.

Version. Silence, burden, grave. Wait

until the dead were gone. Promise

  box. Words become clues. Both of us endlessly

ransacking

     the house.  The night bus. Coarseness

for my own sake.  Secrecy. Brilliance--unravel

     it. The words are there. How

do we make sure we are people worth knowing?  To say

that art is a luxury is to say that being human

   is a luxury. Begin

with a sentence and go on.