As I was reading Alice Walker (best known for her book The Color Purple) collection of essays entitled Anything We Love Can Be Saved, I thought her ideas only represented me on an abstract – perhaps metaphorical level. I can relate to her situation only in certain aspects, others I can’t even begin to understand. In my opinion, she is rather centred around a purpose and she definitely has a leit-motif (the Goddess, for example), but, as I said, I don’t fully understand her situation, so I won’t be judging her for some linguistic clichés (I know I have mine, and I’m pretty sure each individual, social/enthic group or country has plenty as well!).
In any case, from the whole book, I chose an essay that I think is still very much current, even after fourteen years. It’s about Christmas and its sometimes empty, sometimes ideologically charged stories. First, the subtitle is quite interesting and very much poetic: “seed catalogs like paper flowers”. (more…)