head thrown back, throat to the stars

Erika
Erika
Jul 28, 2017 · 5 min read

I was drunk on the beauty of summer en vacances. The sea made gentle sweeps and sways, and prickly heat beamed down from the skies. Rosé flowed freely, saltwater dripped from tête to pieds, and barbaric laughter shook the grounds. On these days bygone, we lounged atop rounded stones, with nothing before us but a silky sea of blue. We delivered our bodies to the sun gods, allowed the water to blanket us in cool; we drank, ate, sang wildly and danced. We revelled in our sweat. We were a group of five raving ones, head thrown back, throat to the stars.

‘Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars.’

It was a line in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, a line which I read and read again, growing evermore obsessed with the brevity in how it expressed a desirous existence. Head thrown back. A spell, carving out this urgent need to live carefree, so natural and easy. Throat to the stars. So vulnerable to the heavens.

Though I read this book sometime ago, new meaning coursed beneath the main action. Desperate to cling onto these passages, I folded and unfolded pages, drew scratches and arrows. Held with damp hands. Spilled drops of beer. Ah the emblems of vacation.

‘Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.’

In the shallow of the shore, I floated on my back, head partially submerged in the salty waves. A toe grazed the pebbles lining the seabed, fingers twirled the silky water. My hearing was subdued by a quiet that can only exist without the breath of air.

I swam further still, the seabed disappearing beyond reach. Out to the buoy, with imagined dark shadows gliding beneath me, following me further and further away from anything solid and defined. Then, I swam back towards the relaxed, lazy noises of the beach, fighting against the waves’ desire to steer me towards strangers. Then, back to the buoy. And back again. And back.

After some time, I returned to floating on my back, in awe at having triumphed over the distance and its shadowy sea-monsters. I could see the moon aglow in the cloudless sky. And more and more blues, be it sea, heaven or the horizon. The blues—the azures—carried me, rocked me, cradled me. I felt so alive, so purposely built for this teensy-weensy, minuscule corner in this wild universe. It was terrifying and perfectly ok all the same.

On land, it was the chatter of accents that had me mesmerised. Northern tongues of Chester and Newcastle rose with the tides of Irish, and London with mild occasions of Aussie twang. The outlier voices were native: slick and fast sentences, when translated to us, became buttery stammers. There were lengthened consonants, pauses to redden the cheeks, and questions to punctuate the end of each thought, always placing the ball in our court. France, amiright? One of our summer coven, devoured a young lamb of the region. It was a sacrificial tale of lure, conquer and offer. A ritual prepared through a combination of frenzy, dancing and intoxication. We were the Maenads.

Hecate and Her Books

reading and reviewing, on a whim

Erika

Written by

Erika

Messy words, messy hair @ selfiesentences.tumblr.com

Hecate and Her Books

reading and reviewing, on a whim

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