An Ode to Words
By Sara Striefel:
Today, at yet another social function that did not feed my soul, at a museum that was closed (CLOSED!) except for the conference hall, books found me. I’d just finished crouching beside an overgrown cottonwood tree pouring liquid from a bottle into a can of juice. Déjà vu on vacation. My sinew remembered a time when the bottle held liquid that did more than sparkle, it burned. In the conference room, ten dozen strangers mingled in the pretense of an Aspen evening.
Across from the event, tucked behind a staircase, I found the library. Reading could be the excuse. “Look at these fascinating art books!” I would say should I be discovered hiding. And I would mean it.
I have to tell you the truth now: there were a lot (like a lot) of years where I didn’t so much as open a book. Alcohol does a remarkable job of swallowing our friends.
But words have a way. I dried out, and they seeped in. I began to write for the simple reason that it had become too hard not to. My mother died, and words became a flood pushing at the backs of my teeth, pulsing, hungry, uncontainable. Once spoken, either in ink or air, they grew wings, sought companionship.
They are braver than I am, the written words. They saved me. Not like a martyr-on-a-cross kind of saved—like a man bathing the feet of his mother saved. Like an alcoholic in a plastic folding chair saved. Like a stay of execution.
Standing in a library, I am replenished. Surrounded by all the others who have wanted nothing more than to live a life of manipulated language. Conference Room C is somewhere in the distance, on the edges of this holy place. I swing my legs over an armchair that smells like disinfectant and the earthy aroma of paper decomposing. I am full. Overflowing.
I will tell you a secret, said The Mad Hatter to Alice, "You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head . . . But all the best people are." After an hour, my husband comes to find me. He takes my hand and leads me back to Conference Room C, now empty. He walks me to the dance floor and spins me into the remainder of a Billy Holiday song.
This world still needs me.
I know the words will find me again when the time is right, they always do. And I will breathe life into the blank pages that beg for attention. I will make the library my best friend. I will do it instead of ruminating. I will do it instead of making a home in my bed. I will do it instead of yelling, or fighting, or jumping ship in despair. Instead of taking a drink.
I will let the words find me and maybe, if I’m lucky, they can still save me.
Sara Striefel currently works as a registered nurse in Western Colorado. She is also a poet and non-fiction writer with a master’s degree in English and Creative Writing. Her work has been published in literary journals such as Alice the Mag and Grapevine. In addition, she has been featured in online publications, including Sweatpants and Coffee, Down in the Dirt Magazine, and Autumn Sky Poetry. She is a regular contributing author for the Open to Hope Foundation. Read more at https://sarastriefel.substack.com/
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