This Modern Writer: The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Through the Pudenda by Shannon Connor Winward

Funny thing about my brain.

I have to think of things in order. A – B – C.

(except when I skip around, but)

A. I had a teacher once – Honors Chemistry – who gave extra credit for homework problems completed in random order.

I still did mine in their proper sequence: 1 – 2 – 3. I think he would’ve failed me just for that, but he had a thing against flunking honors students. Lucky me.

(why didn’t you just do the problems in order and then swap them around before turning them in? I don’t know. Shut up.)

Why am I telling you this?

B. In June I stopped working on my novel after writing myself into a corner. I had my character sitting in on a faculty meeting to review some slides. What was on the slides was not important -or so I thought. It was just a device to move the plot along. So I here I let my right-brain cast the images like a slide show in my brain, and I got:

Sheela-na-gig.

You know. Those dirty little carvings built into medieval Irish churches. Skinny hags spread-eagle with their *ahem* pudenda gaping for all to see.

Now I have exhibitionist Christian art written into a story about a psychic and a stalker.

(Did you hear that? That was the sound of my creative wheels grinding to a halt.)

So I went to the library and start digging. Now I know more about Sheela’s than… well, more than I knew in April.

For Instance, did you know that many early theorists linked the phenomenon of the Sheela-na-gigs to the Romanesque period in continental Europe? There are some similarities.

(Some meaning, well, vaginas.)

But, really, the images are quite distinct. In France and such you have really busy scenes full of people in all kinds of acrobatic positions, usually writhing as they burn for eternity in the flames of hell.

The Sheelas, on the other hand, are singular images and are nearly always depicted in reclining form with no “thou shalt not” connotation whatsoever. Folk evidence even suggests that the Sheela’s were considered benevolent talismans within their respective communities.

Huh. I didn’t know either. I feel smarter.

Haven’t done anything with the story yet, though. Except write lots of notes containing the word pudenda

C. I dropped my library books off yesterday. I felt lighter walking back to my car, and a sense of accomplishment for having compiled all this new fascinating new knowledge, even if the purpose of the pursuit is still beyond me.

Has led only to more questions, honestly.

So I finally allowed myself to read the first few pages of The Time Traveler’s Wife. It was a sort of treat for myself after all this studying.  Made me nostalgic for “Quantum Leap.”

I had the biggest crush on Scott Bakula, especially in the episode when he sings John Lennon’s “Imagine” to his kid sister. That was just killer.

Why am I telling you this?

I have no idea.

I thought I was headed somewhere. Apparently I miscalculated.

(So there were other reasons I almost failed Honors Chem. Shut up.)

The Time Traveler’s Wife…. I haven’t read past the Prologue, though. I’m too distracted. Keep thinking about those Sheela’s. The vulva is a portal, they say.

(Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here)

I’m sure the fate of my heroine lies somewhere through that dark symbolism. I just have to shut off my left brain for awhile and let my mind slide a bit to find out what she is trying to tell me.

Or maybe it’s my fate in question here.  Dunno.

In the meantime, I made a spice cake today. Smothered with cream cheese icing. Washed it down with the last of the Blueberry Coffee from our honeymoon in Maine (spiked with amaretto).

Have I lost you yet? Yeah, me too.

Besides which I can’t seem to settle on a format for this essay. I’m so confused.

I believe it’s the combination of caffeine and booze. Never was good with mixing uppers and downers. Sends me all topsy-turvey.

Did I ever tell you about this teacher I had once?

Shannon Connor Winward is a poet and author of fiction for children and adults. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as: Flash Fiction Online, Pedestal Magazine, Vestal Review, Basement Stories, Witches & Pagans Magazine, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and Dreamstreets.