appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2017

Emma Winsor Wood
0:00
 
 

Persuasion

I’d like to be a minimalist, but I’m not

is another prophecy I fulfill

by creating it. When my husband and I first met

(I’m one of those who mentions her lovers too much

is another), we debated the existence of the self: I believed, he

disagreed. So I related to him what my parents had related to me whenever reminded of my lust for accuracy:

When Emma was a child, we worried she’d never speak.

Then, one day, age 3, reading a book with the babysitter—

Look at this little bear’s feet, the sitter said, pointing to the picture.

Those aren’t feet, Emma snapped. Those are paws.

See? (I said to C.) That’s me.

Ancient Greeks occasionally used the base of a ruined column as an anchor when they had nothing else

to moor the boat, he replied, unfazed.

I: Yes, precisely—the base of a column.

And he: A ruined column.

[...] 1

 

1 The silence on this subject lasted a few weeks but ended before the wedding, one clean February day, when I turned to him and said: Maybe there is no self, but also maybe, for me, there is.