Recently on an impulse I bought a black t-shirt with this slogan printed boldly on it in white, the letters large enough to be read at some distance, although so far no one has commented on them.
Since I never wear t-shirts with slogans, I’ve been wondering why I chose this one and to what degree it expresses, simply, a vain boast, or wishful thinking. Because wild hearts—if there are such thing—would seem to be somewhat fragile, since the world is not particularly kind to wild creatures of any species, or protective of their vulnerability.
And, anyway, do I claim to have a wild heart?
Well, not really. I see my heart as like a wild bunny closed up in a wire cage, perhaps capable of some leaps and hops out in the woods, but necessarily confined. And, if my cage was opened, would I dare to leap out? Caged animals usually cling to the safety of their confinement.
And if this wild bunny heart of mine, which I picture as being particolored with very long ears, did make her escape, the wolf would soon be after her, the hungry wolf of expectations and obligations, to my work, to my dear ones, to my large family—and bunny might end up torn into small pieces.
Yet the slogan for all its boastfulness brings to mind Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese,” with its inspiring and terrifying first line: “You do not have to be good…”
David Whyte, the poet, on one of his CD’s, recalls reading that poem in Boston and being mobbed afterwards by people with a trace of the Puritan still in them who wanted to know where they could get the poem, at once…
I think my wild bunny wildness—which clearly is not very wild at all, and is vulnerable to all sorts of harm, outside her cage—does represent something so important for women: the attempt, at least, to imagine freedom. If we believe the contemporary teaching that we create our own reality (and I only believe it from time to time), then if we can imagine freedom, it may begin to exist.
Our cages, after all, are almost entirely self-constructed. Each wire represents a restriction we feel is necessary if we are going to be loved…
Maybe someone, reading this, will feel called to buy and wear this t-shirt with perhaps more assurance than, at the moment, I possess. I can tell you where to get it…
The refrain of a country song I’ve yet to finish writing:
The rain’s comin’ down & my car won’t start,
And you broke another piece of my heart
How many times can you break it in two
Before there’s no heart left to love you”