Failures of Feeling
I have an unfinished entry on Heidegger and our relationship to the earth which has been waiting its final paragraph for weeks, but bloglines drew my attention to this today and one sentence so struck me that it gets in first.
Jeanette Winterson has been one of my favorite writers for years. For anyone who isn’t familiar with her story, she was adopted and brought up by extreme fundamentalism pentecostal parents and left home at 16 with the knowledge that she was gay. She was never reconciled to her ultra extreme mother, who she only ever refers to as Mrs Winterson.
Her father died over Christmas and the article below reflects on that event movingly but for me one sentence struck me so strongly :
When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.
Nothing more to add – but do read the column.
And if fancy trying her her novels, try Lighthousekeeping or go further back to The Passion or Art & Lies.
I’m so greatly moved by that one particular sentence. Thanks so much for this offering. My background is in writing & publishing, but I’m currently studying equine assisted psychotherapy. I’m taking those words into my practice and I hope they create a sense of ease in those I serve. I know that most of my so-called mistakes find their source in thinking too much and not “hearting” enough. She’s amazing! And, you know I’m tracking down her books now! Thanks!
Hi, interest post. I’ll write you later about few questions!