Blossom's Blog

My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.
Pat Conroy Prince of Tides
My wound is geography… I had copied this opening line after reading Conroy’s book years ago. I had carried it in my purse for a long while, comforted somehow that someone had identified the cause of my pain. Consequently, when I read this week’s assignment I immediately thought of this line. But although I struggled for hours (more than I care to admit), I could not follow Conroy’s pros without sounding overly dramatic and clumsy. As I analyzed the sentence, I realized that part of the problem was that technically it did not work. It did not fit the pattern of sentences using a “to be” verb; that is, the predicate is neither a subject complement (the wound is infected…) nor is it adverbial (the wound is in his leg…). My struggle over stepping into Conroy’s word-prints, however, was not simply a technical one. I could not wax lyrical about “my wound is geography” because I realized that my pain had stemmed not from being landlocked thousands of miles from family—not a trace of salt in the air—but from being trapped in an unhappy marriage with two small children. That I was far from home only added salt to the wound. Ironically, the second part of Conroy’s opening line proved to be prophetic. The fact that I had traveled and lived in many places strengthened my ties with my family in England, and ultimately gave me the courage to make the necessary changes in my life.