In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’brien
I read this book in university. I remember the young female professor, her enthusiasm was palpable. She loved literature and her passion was contagious. As we explored the book, I became fascinated by it, the narrative was intoxicating. I felt the woods, so many times I must have dreamt of walking through a fog, getting to the woods.
And now it came to me again, the fascination with the woman who disappears in the lake / woods, to never return. And when I thought of her now, with the decades lived since I first read the book, I wondered if the woman had simply once walked out of her home (an analogy for her life as a whole) and decided (preferred almost) not to return.
Her life had become perhaps something heavy, something she could not foresee as a child how it was to turn. Perhaps she was resilient and determined but there were simply not enough hours in the day to humanely and physically do everything that was expected of her. In the end perhaps it was all too much and she decided to walk out of that life and make a whole new one for herself.
The brave Leonora Carrington certainly did that over and over, first when she left her home to live in Paris, then when she moved to Mexico, later again when she left Mexico for the USA and lastly to return to Mexico.
She was a surrealist artist and a writer. I am looking forward to reading her stories and continuing to learn about her artworks and inspiring life. I just finished her biography, written by Joanna Moorhead, her cousin. They were reconnected when Leonora was an elderly woman and lived in Mexico, she had left England and her cousin had only heard of her from others, but always as someone who should not be named.
How many of us women will be remembered? And how many of us will only have our name whispered for daring to live freely and “wildly” as our true selves? How many of us women wish we could leave and not return? Not because we don’t love the people in our life, but rather because life has put too much on us and we don't seem to see a way out… Is there no better option for us?