{"id":2623,"date":"2025-02-07T12:39:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T17:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2623"},"modified":"2025-02-07T12:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T17:39:42","slug":"the-statue-of-limitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2025\/02\/07\/the-statue-of-limitations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Statue of Limitations"},"content":{"rendered":"

“She stroked my hair. \u2018I want you to come to me without a past. Those lines you\u2019ve learned, forget them. Forget that you\u2019ve been here before in other bedrooms in other places. Come to me new. Never say you love me until that day when you have proved it.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018How shall I prove it?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018I can\u2019t tell you what to do.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The maze. Find your own way through and you shall win your heart’s desire. Fail and you will wander for ever in these unforgiving walls. Is that the test? (54).”<\/span><\/p>\n

Louise wants the narrator to be something that they are not\u2013\u2013a non-self, a blank journal, a space for a narrative that she and the narrator can write together. She wants to grow a new relationship on a bed of dust from her marriage, which is written and read and dead. She asks the narrator to be a part of her new story, but the narrator is unsure if they should begin again\u2013\u2013if they should abandon their lone journey through the maze and let Louise guide them through it instead, adding to the palimpsest of their body instead of erasing it. The narrator has done this many times before, abandoning themself again and again for another love. Louise knows this, and wants the narrator to \u201ccome to her new,\u201d despite knowing that she can\u2019t tell the narrator \u201cwhat to do\u201d\u2013\u2013the narrator can\u2019t even tell themself what to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Written on the body, palimpsest-like, is everything we have ever been, everything we have ever been told we are, and underneath all of that\u2013\u2013maybe\u2013\u2013is what we will be. If you erase all of the writing on the skin, maybe there is blank space for a new narrative. But is erasure possible? This is what I imagine is going through the narrator’s mind. This is why they keep letting love guide them\u2013\u2013out of fear that erasure isn\u2019t possible.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The maze. It promises everything to the traveler who makes it through on their own. But if you make it through the maze by yourself, what else could you possibly want? Making it through the maze, erasing the palimpsest of their lovers, would be detrimental to our narrator, who knows nothing else than other people, and their relationship to other people. I think if the narrator made it through the maze, they would realize it is not Louise that their heart desires, it is not Louise or Crazy Frank or Bathsheba, but themself. And who is that? I don\u2019t know, neither do you, and neither do they.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The maze. It promises nothing to the traveler who wanders its walls forever. And how does the traveler find themselves in such a situation? Maybe because they aren\u2019t traveling alone. They are too busy wondering about their partner’s mindscape to notice their own walls closing in. I think the narrator finds Louise where Louise finds herself. Free, past the walls of the maze. Independent, irrevocable, and icy, like a statue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Louise cannot say, \u201cLeave me now and meet me on the other side of these walls.\u201d She says \u201cI can\u2019t tell you want to do,\u201d because the narrator must find their own way through\u2014they cannot follow Louise, like they followed all of their past lovers, getting lost in the maze while keeping their eyes fixed on the statue, the lover, at the exit. Walking in circles, thinking they are getting closer, maybe the narrator must close their eyes and trust their intuition instead. It’s not like they\u2019ll find themselves more lost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“She stroked my hair. \u2018I want you to come to me without a past. Those lines you\u2019ve learned, forget them. Forget that you\u2019ve been here before in other bedrooms in other places. Come to me new. Never say you love me until that day when you have proved it.\u2019 \u2018How shall I prove it?\u2019 \u2018I … Continue reading The Statue of Limitations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5597,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-class-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}