The Tennyson poem, The Lady of Shalott , has always tugged at my soul . I encountered it while in school, and, at about the same time, I heard Loreena McKinnet’s musical rendition of the poem. The song haunted me, and the The Lady frequently well s up in my imagination , unbidden. Her story is one of tragedy and triumph. She lives comfortably in a tower overlooking Camelot with but one restriction. She is cursed that if she ever looks directly upon Camelot, she will die. While t he curse stops her from traveling there, she can still indirectly watch the city. She sets a mirror against the wall opposite her tower window, so she can sit before it and look at the reflection of the magnificent bustling city. She fills the room with tapestries, woven with the images she spies through the mirror. Surrounded by images from a life that she is barred from, she eventually decides to risk the curse for a chance to live her life rather than watch ing others live theirs. This is her moment of v...
For the last decade I feel like I have been slowly waking up from a dream. The world is far different than I had imagined, and my experience of it was so far from normal. I still don't think I'm anywhere near normal, but at least things feel clearer.