Here I am feeling broken again. It snuck up on me and then another heartbreak pushed me over the edge. Damn it. It's a pain that has to do with watching other people's lives change & improve and feeling like mine is stagnant, like somewhere I just fucked up and now I've got this stuck feeling. I'm sick of staying at home, sick of being disappointed and still single, just sick and tired of things.
There's been a depression around the edges for the past year. Exactly one year ago today, my Auntie Janice died. Around this time of night, too. Today I bought a white candle and I'm going to light it later, since I feel like I have do something. I know my parents are thinking about it, but not saying anything (the style of our family).
And there's just my kind of tendency toward melancholy, but desperate desire to be happy. And, you know, the old anxiety problem.
I've just wanted someone to make things better, fix my messy self, not even fix it necessarily, just tell me it's okay, just be there. So whenever a guy comes along, I think maybe he'll be the one to do that. And all of them, they're not there, they just disappear. They end up thinking I'm a crazy bitch, I'm overeager, I'm needy, I'm clingy. What the fuck. I'm sick of it!!!
I've learned a lot, I guess... Like how it's easier to find a guy to go home with than it is to find one who will return your phone calls. Greek letters = not a good sign, generally. Half-drunk/stoned kisses on sea cliffs don't mean as much as you think they did. If he likes you, he shouldn't forget about you. etc.
I've found a lot of short-term cures for this ... not exactly depressed, just stuck feeling. Including but not limited to: long drives, loud music, plans, shoe shopping, schoolwork, vodka...
But what's the permanent cure? How can I get better, how can I change?
Friday, November 7, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
all souls' day
Recovering from Halloween - I woke up in the afternoon to a cold, golden-grey All Souls' Day. The scent of firelight and rich smoke lingers on my clothes, a faint aftertaste of intoxication in my mouth.
We scrambled through the woods by flashlight-beams, arrived at a bonfire on the edge of the night. Someone dressed as a pirate stood over the blaze like the leader of a ritual, smashing an empty bottle of wine over the rocks. A bunch of people ran up and threw glowsticks into the clearing, which stuck in the ground, neon markers in the darkness. The ones that broke open spilled over the leaves and brambles and dirt, glowing specks of color looking like scattered stars. Above the fire and the trees, the deep Halloween-veil of the sky was the same as the ground, cold clear stars shining brighter than anywhere else.
We checked cellphone clocks to see if it was still Halloween, but midnight had passed. "It's November," I said, almost reverently, imagining that the space-between-worlds had already shrunk. "Don't worry," said H with saucer-eyes, "it's Samhain."
K was wearing tin-foil antennae and kept saying she was from Neptune, where it's colder even than Halloween night. E left the bonfire and stumbled over rocks and roots to get back to the house, and when she sobered up told us never to let her do that again - "I couldn't stop thinking about coyotes." R was wearing a feather boa as a scarf as he slowly sipped another beer, sitting on one of the bonfire-rocks and talking in an even, reassuring voice. The rest of them were haphazard, woodland boys and girls with specks of neon on their clothes, talking and mumbling, laughing as the flames leapt up.
Halloween night was an enchanted place, a strange one, unsettling at first but then beautiful. Webby darkness and the pinpoints of stars, sharp smells and leaves rustling, rustling.
We scrambled through the woods by flashlight-beams, arrived at a bonfire on the edge of the night. Someone dressed as a pirate stood over the blaze like the leader of a ritual, smashing an empty bottle of wine over the rocks. A bunch of people ran up and threw glowsticks into the clearing, which stuck in the ground, neon markers in the darkness. The ones that broke open spilled over the leaves and brambles and dirt, glowing specks of color looking like scattered stars. Above the fire and the trees, the deep Halloween-veil of the sky was the same as the ground, cold clear stars shining brighter than anywhere else.
We checked cellphone clocks to see if it was still Halloween, but midnight had passed. "It's November," I said, almost reverently, imagining that the space-between-worlds had already shrunk. "Don't worry," said H with saucer-eyes, "it's Samhain."
K was wearing tin-foil antennae and kept saying she was from Neptune, where it's colder even than Halloween night. E left the bonfire and stumbled over rocks and roots to get back to the house, and when she sobered up told us never to let her do that again - "I couldn't stop thinking about coyotes." R was wearing a feather boa as a scarf as he slowly sipped another beer, sitting on one of the bonfire-rocks and talking in an even, reassuring voice. The rest of them were haphazard, woodland boys and girls with specks of neon on their clothes, talking and mumbling, laughing as the flames leapt up.
Halloween night was an enchanted place, a strange one, unsettling at first but then beautiful. Webby darkness and the pinpoints of stars, sharp smells and leaves rustling, rustling.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
almost-birthday letter to the universe
Dear everything,
Today is my last day of being a teenager. Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be twenty! Such an even number, kind of a clean slate too. Twenty can be anything I want it to be, and I want it to be wonderful.
So thank you, universe, for my teenage years. They were haphazard and messy and beautiful and flyaway, laughter and yelling and each birthday adventure, friends and memories and travels and joys, loves and hurts and intoxications, enchantments and glories and everything else... Learning... There's too much to describe just here, but I've spilled it all over other papers. I think being a teenager is excellent in all its messiness.
Not that I will be put-together and all now that I am (almost) twenty. I look at twenty as a time for beginning to figure things out, for taking the glorious beautiful mess of the teenage years and making something amazing with it.
Thank you thank you thank you
Love,
Laura
Today is my last day of being a teenager. Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be twenty! Such an even number, kind of a clean slate too. Twenty can be anything I want it to be, and I want it to be wonderful.
So thank you, universe, for my teenage years. They were haphazard and messy and beautiful and flyaway, laughter and yelling and each birthday adventure, friends and memories and travels and joys, loves and hurts and intoxications, enchantments and glories and everything else... Learning... There's too much to describe just here, but I've spilled it all over other papers. I think being a teenager is excellent in all its messiness.
Not that I will be put-together and all now that I am (almost) twenty. I look at twenty as a time for beginning to figure things out, for taking the glorious beautiful mess of the teenage years and making something amazing with it.
Thank you thank you thank you
Love,
Laura
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
return to the abandoned theatre: 2
The park is filled with the light that comes between summer and autumn - spilled gold, fading in and out over the grass. In the shadows, thoughts of the October ghosts are waiting. And a friend and I are sitting on the grass eating the last of the season's strawberries.
"Do you remember the abandoned theatre?" he says.
"Sometimes... on days like today the memory seems distant," I say. I look around the sun-filled park, the leaves clinging to light, and can't sense a trace of the musty darkness that lingers in the corners of my mind.
"I've been remembering it lately," he says.
I think about midnight, and lonely times. Sometimes the memory sneaks up on me - I find it at the bottom of a glass, under a couch cushion, in the flicker of a television turning off. But most of all, it's in the boredom of stale summer and too many nights when I can't sleep. The sudden memory is like a presence, a ghost of my past self reaching out to me.
"I think I've been remembering it, too," I say. "Somehow, after everything, it's still there."
"Do you remember the abandoned theatre?" he says.
"Sometimes... on days like today the memory seems distant," I say. I look around the sun-filled park, the leaves clinging to light, and can't sense a trace of the musty darkness that lingers in the corners of my mind.
"I've been remembering it lately," he says.
I think about midnight, and lonely times. Sometimes the memory sneaks up on me - I find it at the bottom of a glass, under a couch cushion, in the flicker of a television turning off. But most of all, it's in the boredom of stale summer and too many nights when I can't sleep. The sudden memory is like a presence, a ghost of my past self reaching out to me.
"I think I've been remembering it, too," I say. "Somehow, after everything, it's still there."
Sunday, August 17, 2008
another conversation with the phoenix
I still (want to) believe that I can get back all the things I've lost. Faith, memories, times, eras, love, seasons, mulberries, train tickets, words, stories, epiphanies.
The card catalogue of the abandoned theatre, reproduced in miniature and sitting in my palm.
You are all you think you've lost, and found, and scattered, and unraveled. It's all more connected than you think.
Why do I still feel like a rickety assortment of memories, aches, joys and hopes, carelessly stitched together? It all keeps coming unraveled and I have to work fast to fix it before it's gone.
Don't know you by now, it's never gone.
Why can't I see it?
A simple change of shape. Metamorphosis.
I'm not comfortable with change.
Maybe change isn't comfortable with itself. That's why its shape keeps shifting.
That makes me feel even more anxious.
It shouldn't.
Why not?
Why so?
Aren't you supposed to be wise? Why are you asking me questions?
Why are we conversing in questions? What, do you think I'm Socrates or something? I'm a bird, for goodness' sake.
Well, you're a mythological creature.
Some would say. And some would say I'm a barn swallow. What do they say you are? Or more importantly, what do you think you are?
I have no idea. That's the problem.
Shh. There is no problem in that.
The card catalogue of the abandoned theatre, reproduced in miniature and sitting in my palm.
You are all you think you've lost, and found, and scattered, and unraveled. It's all more connected than you think.
Why do I still feel like a rickety assortment of memories, aches, joys and hopes, carelessly stitched together? It all keeps coming unraveled and I have to work fast to fix it before it's gone.
Don't know you by now, it's never gone.
Why can't I see it?
A simple change of shape. Metamorphosis.
I'm not comfortable with change.
Maybe change isn't comfortable with itself. That's why its shape keeps shifting.
That makes me feel even more anxious.
It shouldn't.
Why not?
Why so?
Aren't you supposed to be wise? Why are you asking me questions?
Why are we conversing in questions? What, do you think I'm Socrates or something? I'm a bird, for goodness' sake.
Well, you're a mythological creature.
Some would say. And some would say I'm a barn swallow. What do they say you are? Or more importantly, what do you think you are?
I have no idea. That's the problem.
Shh. There is no problem in that.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
it's ok not to answer
when I don't know I think about
how all of life is longing -
for the moment, for a time, for that time
love and joy and leaf-piles
gingerbread and bendy straws and Halloween,
and sadly staring through the window sometimes think
all the longing does not amount to anything, does it,
a constant search without an answer, a
dusty ray of light that ends not quite on the floor.
When I was small and not so small and would
walk downstairs and my
mom would be talking to my aunt on the phone,
socks & sunlightpatterns on the cool wood floor -
(She would tell me as a child,
it's okay don't cry, the holidays will come
each year, forever)
It's not about amounting though I feel
in the hope-for-autumn air through the window
The longing - for a season, a name, a lamp-post,
greatcoated gentlemen, or snow
and kisses, and something
I saw once in a dream
Chasing the notion,
heart-thrillingly
how all of life is longing -
for the moment, for a time, for that time
love and joy and leaf-piles
gingerbread and bendy straws and Halloween,
and sadly staring through the window sometimes think
all the longing does not amount to anything, does it,
a constant search without an answer, a
dusty ray of light that ends not quite on the floor.
When I was small and not so small and would
walk downstairs and my
mom would be talking to my aunt on the phone,
socks & sunlightpatterns on the cool wood floor -
(She would tell me as a child,
it's okay don't cry, the holidays will come
each year, forever)
It's not about amounting though I feel
in the hope-for-autumn air through the window
The longing - for a season, a name, a lamp-post,
greatcoated gentlemen, or snow
and kisses, and something
I saw once in a dream
Chasing the notion,
heart-thrillingly
academic worries
Less than one month until school starts again! Yay. I'm excited but also nervous... I'm going to be a junior in college. That is quite scary. I feel worried because it seems like I have not made the most of the first two years of college. I haven't done anything!
It's like this... In high school there were always a fair few students going on to the Ivy League each year, and it seemed to me at least that there was this kind of ever-present pressure to Succeed, which mostly meant getting into a good college. Everyone was stressed about gathering extracurricular activities, leadership positions, and perfect grades, to put on college applications. Every time a student received an acceptance letter from a famous college, the jealousy, worry, feelings of inadequacy, etc., would brew.
So, I did a lot of extracurricular activities that I didn't care about and actually quite disliked, just to make my applications look good. Teachers wanted me to go to a fancy college because I got good grades, was known for original ideas & creativity and whatnot. And I got accepted to the fancy liberal arts schools that I had dreamed about. But then I did the "unthinkable" - I went to my safety school. I turned down the semi-impressive names and enrolled in the huge state university. I did it mostly because of financial issues - I didn't want to graduate in debt with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, and I also didn't want to ask my parents to make huge sacrifices to send me to a fancy school. But the smaller, nagging reason why I made that choice was: I was just tired. I was so sick of the competition and the race to get ahead and Succeed.
I guess that's why, in the past two years of college, I haven't really done much. I've worked in my classes and gotten A's, won a prize in the department's writing contest, but other than that... eh. After high school I kind of just felt so worn-out that I didn't take on anything extra in college, anything interesting to put on a resume. I've just gone to school, written some things, studied, and worked a lot at my little job that has no relevance to anything academic.
Now the time's coming to start looking for internships, and I have a pathetic, boring resume! And I don't really know what to do now. I don't even know what activities and things are out there, and how one goes about participating in them. I'm afraid that a high GPA won't be enough and I am very worried that I am just too far behind.
It's like this... In high school there were always a fair few students going on to the Ivy League each year, and it seemed to me at least that there was this kind of ever-present pressure to Succeed, which mostly meant getting into a good college. Everyone was stressed about gathering extracurricular activities, leadership positions, and perfect grades, to put on college applications. Every time a student received an acceptance letter from a famous college, the jealousy, worry, feelings of inadequacy, etc., would brew.
So, I did a lot of extracurricular activities that I didn't care about and actually quite disliked, just to make my applications look good. Teachers wanted me to go to a fancy college because I got good grades, was known for original ideas & creativity and whatnot. And I got accepted to the fancy liberal arts schools that I had dreamed about. But then I did the "unthinkable" - I went to my safety school. I turned down the semi-impressive names and enrolled in the huge state university. I did it mostly because of financial issues - I didn't want to graduate in debt with tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, and I also didn't want to ask my parents to make huge sacrifices to send me to a fancy school. But the smaller, nagging reason why I made that choice was: I was just tired. I was so sick of the competition and the race to get ahead and Succeed.
I guess that's why, in the past two years of college, I haven't really done much. I've worked in my classes and gotten A's, won a prize in the department's writing contest, but other than that... eh. After high school I kind of just felt so worn-out that I didn't take on anything extra in college, anything interesting to put on a resume. I've just gone to school, written some things, studied, and worked a lot at my little job that has no relevance to anything academic.
Now the time's coming to start looking for internships, and I have a pathetic, boring resume! And I don't really know what to do now. I don't even know what activities and things are out there, and how one goes about participating in them. I'm afraid that a high GPA won't be enough and I am very worried that I am just too far behind.
Friday, August 8, 2008
rain rain
It's raining again and I looove it. I can't wait for autumn. Cold out all the time and redorangeyellow leaves and crisp air and wispy autumnly-blue sky and apple cider and sweaters and pumpkins and scarves and tights and boots... and SCHOOL. Yes. I can't wait to go back to school. I've always loved September. It seems like the real new year, much more than January or the springtime. September has my birthday, and back-to-school, and the start of my favorite season, so it is all about beginnings.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
waverly
It's not so long yet -
a bit more than fifty, sixty pages
three parts.
A trinity motif.
Religious undercurrents and scientific anxiety
Dreams, dreams, dreams.
Sandy air, stitched cushions, shortbread,
wispy-haired girls and ridgepole stories.
Eliza walks into the house,
sandy-footed tangle-haired
wanting something
she does not understand &
Her sister May is outside sweeping
the porch, for the sand
has blown
so far
this year
She spends a lot of time these days
looking at the pictures on the walls
and the sunlight on the sea -
She remembers a day,
remembers it in lemonyellow thought
although truth be told the light that day
was more like marigolds
Her heart beats a riot
She is home & so far from home
And she thinks of a place that she saw once
in a waking dream-
perched sandy-footed on the doorstep,
My whole heart longs for that place
a bit more than fifty, sixty pages
three parts.
A trinity motif.
Religious undercurrents and scientific anxiety
Dreams, dreams, dreams.
Sandy air, stitched cushions, shortbread,
wispy-haired girls and ridgepole stories.
Eliza walks into the house,
sandy-footed tangle-haired
wanting something
she does not understand &
Her sister May is outside sweeping
the porch, for the sand
has blown
so far
this year
She spends a lot of time these days
looking at the pictures on the walls
and the sunlight on the sea -
She remembers a day,
remembers it in lemonyellow thought
although truth be told the light that day
was more like marigolds
Her heart beats a riot
She is home & so far from home
And she thinks of a place that she saw once
in a waking dream-
perched sandy-footed on the doorstep,
My whole heart longs for that place
Sunday, August 3, 2008
traveling
Whenever I go away anywhere, I never get homesick. I never want to come home. Nikki, with whom I usually travel, does want to come home after a while. "I like to go places, have fun, but I also like to come home," she says. She talks about how she misses her boyfriend and her dogs. But me - when I go away to a place I love, I completely fall under the spell of the place. I'm captivated. The place has my heart, and leaving is like having to break off a new romance.
When I was in Québec, the thought of coming home seemed almost unbearable. I desperately didn't want to leave an astonishingly beautiful place and return to the old routine, the street I've lived on almost all my life, and the boredom of my job at home seemed too agonizing to think about. I dislike the predictability of being at home. Even though things can be difficult when away - a language barrier, not knowing your way around, etc. - I love that difficulty. I love the challenge of finding your way, literally and metaphorically, in a new place. For some reason, walking down the old cobblestone streets of Québec or sitting on the boardwalk overlooking the St. Lawrence River, I had a feeling of belonging more than I usually do at home.
I also love how, in a new place, you can be anyone. Just from seeing you for the first time, no one knows where you are from, what language you speak, what you've done, who you know, or anything. Leaving home, I step into a new world of possibility where anything can happen.
Every time I travel I realize again a need to move away, to another city or even another country. I have this desire for adventure that can only be satisfied by going to new places, not just for vacation, but really making a life somewhere new.
Yes, if I moved far away, I would miss my friends at home very much. But I think the best friends will always be friends in spite of distance. And having friends far away means more places to visit. ^^
When I was in Québec, the thought of coming home seemed almost unbearable. I desperately didn't want to leave an astonishingly beautiful place and return to the old routine, the street I've lived on almost all my life, and the boredom of my job at home seemed too agonizing to think about. I dislike the predictability of being at home. Even though things can be difficult when away - a language barrier, not knowing your way around, etc. - I love that difficulty. I love the challenge of finding your way, literally and metaphorically, in a new place. For some reason, walking down the old cobblestone streets of Québec or sitting on the boardwalk overlooking the St. Lawrence River, I had a feeling of belonging more than I usually do at home.
I also love how, in a new place, you can be anyone. Just from seeing you for the first time, no one knows where you are from, what language you speak, what you've done, who you know, or anything. Leaving home, I step into a new world of possibility where anything can happen.
Every time I travel I realize again a need to move away, to another city or even another country. I have this desire for adventure that can only be satisfied by going to new places, not just for vacation, but really making a life somewhere new.
Yes, if I moved far away, I would miss my friends at home very much. But I think the best friends will always be friends in spite of distance. And having friends far away means more places to visit. ^^
Thursday, July 24, 2008
the afterglow
In the after-storm brightness
the hush of tires on a wet road &
rufflefeather birdcalls from the
wet green leaves,
grey light
in the sky and the puddles
(that hold telephone lines and
faraway lands)
When I don't know what to do, lately,
I do something else:
put on some music & make coffee, or chai,
pick up a book,
put on some heels,
look forward to things
or not think about things at all -
and most of the time I am glad
And autumn is coming closer,
I think I can already feel it-
in the thought of wet leaves on the sidewalk,
friendly ghosts may be shaking my hand
under lamp-posts, and
the music for the end-of-summer festival
is right now being written
Think about something good, now -
a lightening, a hand-holding,
and the world through the window-panes,
changing as it's always been.
If ever I am sad I think
that this was a misstep, nothing more -
a set of lines uncrossing themselves.
Save it,
the moment -
and it will always linger, softly,
warmly in the afterglow
the hush of tires on a wet road &
rufflefeather birdcalls from the
wet green leaves,
grey light
in the sky and the puddles
(that hold telephone lines and
faraway lands)
When I don't know what to do, lately,
I do something else:
put on some music & make coffee, or chai,
pick up a book,
put on some heels,
look forward to things
or not think about things at all -
and most of the time I am glad
And autumn is coming closer,
I think I can already feel it-
in the thought of wet leaves on the sidewalk,
friendly ghosts may be shaking my hand
under lamp-posts, and
the music for the end-of-summer festival
is right now being written
Think about something good, now -
a lightening, a hand-holding,
and the world through the window-panes,
changing as it's always been.
If ever I am sad I think
that this was a misstep, nothing more -
a set of lines uncrossing themselves.
Save it,
the moment -
and it will always linger, softly,
warmly in the afterglow
Friday, July 18, 2008
carnival
You+I must know
that I actually love this (mess)
this glory -
Last night running into the ocean in the darklight moonlight, salty jumping over waves & spray splashing, salt&seawater and the trail of glowing moonlight on the living moving ocean - laughter and sneaking up with seaweed
Sitting by the window playing Belle & Sebastian while my mom & 2nd cousin play cribbage in the dining room
The prospect of a movie and snacks later
Three books of e. e. cummings poetry & essays in the living room on loan from the library
Buying candy and going to the movies
You must know
That I still view the world as a carnival after everything, the battered broken time and the scary thoughts and the darkest things and disappointments-
even through the restlessness, the laziness, the feeling of not-going-anywhere and scared-of-moving-forward,
and yes the heartbreak mostly,
It's still a lightsoundfilled carnival with colors in the trees & sunlightpatterns and the road can still lead anywhere I know it,
there are still treasures & gold and salty seaweed nights
And the ferris wheel outside of the abandoned theatre can show you the sky,
you know
that I actually love this (mess)
this glory -
Last night running into the ocean in the darklight moonlight, salty jumping over waves & spray splashing, salt&seawater and the trail of glowing moonlight on the living moving ocean - laughter and sneaking up with seaweed
Sitting by the window playing Belle & Sebastian while my mom & 2nd cousin play cribbage in the dining room
The prospect of a movie and snacks later
Three books of e. e. cummings poetry & essays in the living room on loan from the library
Buying candy and going to the movies
You must know
That I still view the world as a carnival after everything, the battered broken time and the scary thoughts and the darkest things and disappointments-
even through the restlessness, the laziness, the feeling of not-going-anywhere and scared-of-moving-forward,
and yes the heartbreak mostly,
It's still a lightsoundfilled carnival with colors in the trees & sunlightpatterns and the road can still lead anywhere I know it,
there are still treasures & gold and salty seaweed nights
And the ferris wheel outside of the abandoned theatre can show you the sky,
you know
Monday, July 14, 2008
july: a loveletter
Dear July you never told me that I would be so
lonely
on your warmly sunshine days
& that the sunlight patterns would swirl
under my feet while I walked, but only
make me feel dizzy.
That Past-regrets & Worn-out Sorrows
would eat so many of my thoughts -
And of course, Worry about the Future,
and my state of being - what
boyfriendless? & invitationless
The weight of not leaving
But after all I have come so far
since January,
patching up the holes and cigarette burns,
nursing bad memories, then Quarantine.
I got a shock of life in
April,
halfasleep in lemonyellow light &
his kisses that tasted like beer&saltwater-
I have after all come so far since
April,
trudging trailing summerlight after me
disappointment stuck to my heart
wet grass stuck to my feet
Time
to announce
that I love you, day
lonely
on your warmly sunshine days
& that the sunlight patterns would swirl
under my feet while I walked, but only
make me feel dizzy.
That Past-regrets & Worn-out Sorrows
would eat so many of my thoughts -
And of course, Worry about the Future,
and my state of being - what
boyfriendless? & invitationless
The weight of not leaving
But after all I have come so far
since January,
patching up the holes and cigarette burns,
nursing bad memories, then Quarantine.
I got a shock of life in
April,
halfasleep in lemonyellow light &
his kisses that tasted like beer&saltwater-
I have after all come so far since
April,
trudging trailing summerlight after me
disappointment stuck to my heart
wet grass stuck to my feet
Time
to announce
that I love you, day
july
Dear July you never told me that I would be so
lonely
on your warmly sunshine days
& that the sunlight patterns would swirl
under my feet while I walked, but only
make me feel dizzy.
That Past-regrets & Worn-out Sorrows
would eat so many of my thoughts -
And of course, Worry about the Future,
and my state of being - what
boyfriendless? & invitationless
The weight of not leaving
lonely
on your warmly sunshine days
& that the sunlight patterns would swirl
under my feet while I walked, but only
make me feel dizzy.
That Past-regrets & Worn-out Sorrows
would eat so many of my thoughts -
And of course, Worry about the Future,
and my state of being - what
boyfriendless? & invitationless
The weight of not leaving
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
sparrow
Sparrow-
girl I have been thinking about you
again, as I often do in summer.
Thinking about you & how you broke all
our hearts, strung up on a
daisy chain,
erratically
skippingbeats
(You twirled on the
trampoline,
off cen-
ter swinging your
thin arms, and those
wide brown eyes blinking quick-
ly then you gave me
your coat & we
skippedstones)
You threw me off-ba-
lance then c-
caught
me
laughing.
The words, the poems.
The moon-
light over the pond &
the sun-
set over the bridge You
got me lost then
we played music quite loudly
But then You lost your-
self
So
Maybe
this is one of
those wounds
that never
fully heals
girl I have been thinking about you
again, as I often do in summer.
Thinking about you & how you broke all
our hearts, strung up on a
daisy chain,
erratically
skippingbeats
(You twirled on the
trampoline,
off cen-
ter swinging your
thin arms, and those
wide brown eyes blinking quick-
ly then you gave me
your coat & we
skippedstones)
You threw me off-ba-
lance then c-
caught
me
laughing.
The words, the poems.
The moon-
light over the pond &
the sun-
set over the bridge You
got me lost then
we played music quite loudly
But then You lost your-
self
So
Maybe
this is one of
those wounds
that never
fully heals
Monday, July 7, 2008
not a partier
Somewhere in the midst of the whole dating a frat boy / having my heart broken by a frat boy fiasco, I developed some inadequacy issues. I started to think: am I pathetic because I am not a party person? Am I wasting my College Experience? Will I forever be unable to relate to my peers? Am I a thoroughly lame human being? Will I turn into a boring spinster whose deepest sin is the theft of a library book?!
And so on. I tumbled out of the whole violent affair with my self-esteem even more battered than usual. Since the liaison's untimely derailment, I have gone back to feeling lost, bored and boring, stuck. And every Friday night that I stay in, which is, let's face it, 80% of Friday nights, I bombard myself with accusations of patheticness. This also happens when I hang out in bookstores, for example. Some stupid little imp snuck into my mind and started saying: "Hey, did you know that you are 19, not 50? Where's the party?!" And then I start feeling even more pathetic because there is no party that I am invited to.
But this is all POINTLESS and UNTRUE. I am not a party person. It's the truth! I don't like crowds, or very loud noises. My idea of a good party is, say, six close friends sitting round a fireplace drinking chai and talking about books. AND I'M OKAY WITH THAT.
Maybe I'll make it to a College Party someday, just to see what it's like so I can pass my final judgment. But, the fact that I don't spend my nights at houses with Greek letters on them where drunk college students scrawl highlighter over each other or whatever the hell they do - doesn't make me pathetic. I mean, honestly. Look at that sentence and its inherent logic. I really have to get back my dorky form of confidence.
And so on. I tumbled out of the whole violent affair with my self-esteem even more battered than usual. Since the liaison's untimely derailment, I have gone back to feeling lost, bored and boring, stuck. And every Friday night that I stay in, which is, let's face it, 80% of Friday nights, I bombard myself with accusations of patheticness. This also happens when I hang out in bookstores, for example. Some stupid little imp snuck into my mind and started saying: "Hey, did you know that you are 19, not 50? Where's the party?!" And then I start feeling even more pathetic because there is no party that I am invited to.
But this is all POINTLESS and UNTRUE. I am not a party person. It's the truth! I don't like crowds, or very loud noises. My idea of a good party is, say, six close friends sitting round a fireplace drinking chai and talking about books. AND I'M OKAY WITH THAT.
Maybe I'll make it to a College Party someday, just to see what it's like so I can pass my final judgment. But, the fact that I don't spend my nights at houses with Greek letters on them where drunk college students scrawl highlighter over each other or whatever the hell they do - doesn't make me pathetic. I mean, honestly. Look at that sentence and its inherent logic. I really have to get back my dorky form of confidence.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
on complicated relationships
Today I ran into
the mother of a former friend.
We exhanged pleasantries
while the younger sister glared at me -
Nothing's secret.
I thought about how the friendship fell apart -
no fight, no words, just a gradual
stumble and fade, when she stopped
talking to me.
Sometimes I still wish she knew
that back then was the time
when I broke up with my boyfriend and
my favorite aunt died and I was too tired
to explain how I couldn't talk to anyone.
And on the other side my ex has finally moved on -
there's another someone I don't talk to,
another relationship that unwound messily.
Sometimes I want to take what's in my head,
dump it out in front of people, and say:
"See, this is the mess
that I have to jump over
before I can fix what's wrong here,"
upon which
the offending party would nod
and say Bitch, you are selfish
and conceited,
but at least I would have made the effort.
the mother of a former friend.
We exhanged pleasantries
while the younger sister glared at me -
Nothing's secret.
I thought about how the friendship fell apart -
no fight, no words, just a gradual
stumble and fade, when she stopped
talking to me.
Sometimes I still wish she knew
that back then was the time
when I broke up with my boyfriend and
my favorite aunt died and I was too tired
to explain how I couldn't talk to anyone.
And on the other side my ex has finally moved on -
there's another someone I don't talk to,
another relationship that unwound messily.
Sometimes I want to take what's in my head,
dump it out in front of people, and say:
"See, this is the mess
that I have to jump over
before I can fix what's wrong here,"
upon which
the offending party would nod
and say Bitch, you are selfish
and conceited,
but at least I would have made the effort.
Monday, June 23, 2008
tired
Sometimes, I'm sick of it all.
Sitting scribbling about lost chances,
stupid boys who let me down,
and all that other bullshit.
Sometimes I'm even sick of line breaks.
I'm tired of frayed nerve endings in the mornings and how I can't seem to talk to anyone, and not knowing what to do, and sticky heat, and I'm tired of being tired, too. It's that purposeless tiredness: it's not because I'm busy and exhausted, it's because I'm lazy and carrying around the accumulated tiredness of being too bored to even go to sleep.
Reactionary:
My ex has found a new girlfriend and I don't even care, really (I mean I broke his heart and all). It's just that things feel like a contest and too often I feel like I'm losing. I can tally up three sparks of interest and two point five rejections in the past nine months. And he's telling her about that stupid girl who did a stupid girl thing because she was enough of a bitch to be confused about what she wanted.
Sitting scribbling about lost chances,
stupid boys who let me down,
and all that other bullshit.
Sometimes I'm even sick of line breaks.
I'm tired of frayed nerve endings in the mornings and how I can't seem to talk to anyone, and not knowing what to do, and sticky heat, and I'm tired of being tired, too. It's that purposeless tiredness: it's not because I'm busy and exhausted, it's because I'm lazy and carrying around the accumulated tiredness of being too bored to even go to sleep.
Reactionary:
My ex has found a new girlfriend and I don't even care, really (I mean I broke his heart and all). It's just that things feel like a contest and too often I feel like I'm losing. I can tally up three sparks of interest and two point five rejections in the past nine months. And he's telling her about that stupid girl who did a stupid girl thing because she was enough of a bitch to be confused about what she wanted.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
alphabet poem
From the writing conference crop. In one of the workshops, a suggestion was to write a poem in which each line starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Inexplicably, I started with H. The poem finishes the alphabet from H then loops back upon itself, so that the end (G) leads to the beginning (H). And I skipped X, Y, and Z because... I'm not good enough for X yet. ^^
How dare you not walk through that door any more
I'm sitting here in the same place
Just writing about what could have been. The
kinetic motion of the pen makes me feel less
lonely somehow. I tell the page, not you, one thing:
My stray thoughts still turn to you
no matter what you did to me.
Obsessively I cling to the fragile, delicate
past, drawing out my memory so that the
quick agents of time will never blur a single thought.
Rage and joy can be diluted so easily,
simmering in the back of my mind until the finer
thoughts evaporate, leaving tired essences and
undercooked notions.
Violence and vitriol are
what I feel for you,
along with a shameful dose of envy.
Break my heart and leave me with a longing for
catharsis that won't go away, even when it
descends down into the dull ache of something missing, disguised as
everything, basically.
Falling unexpectedly from your
grace and the springtime carnival - now I can only ask
How dare you not walk through that door any more
I'm sitting here in the same place
Just writing about what could have been. The
kinetic motion of the pen makes me feel less
lonely somehow. I tell the page, not you, one thing:
My stray thoughts still turn to you
no matter what you did to me.
Obsessively I cling to the fragile, delicate
past, drawing out my memory so that the
quick agents of time will never blur a single thought.
Rage and joy can be diluted so easily,
simmering in the back of my mind until the finer
thoughts evaporate, leaving tired essences and
undercooked notions.
Violence and vitriol are
what I feel for you,
along with a shameful dose of envy.
Break my heart and leave me with a longing for
catharsis that won't go away, even when it
descends down into the dull ache of something missing, disguised as
everything, basically.
Falling unexpectedly from your
grace and the springtime carnival - now I can only ask
the search
pain
searing, rising, tears
but it's good for me to feel
this is the root of it all:
my disappointment, my sense of loss & being lost
But part of me wants to hold onto the gaping, searing feeling
because it spurs me into action or a desire for action:
I want to do something with it,
and vividly I am in that place again
when it was April and I couldn't sit still,
not for a single moment,
jumpy and ecstatic with thoughts of him and even more
thoughts of a life that is new
not careworn.
Delicate webby summer sunlight
slanting in lines over green grass
takes me back so easily that I am thankful
while I am crying.
I don't think it's him that I really miss.
Well, maybe.
I miss being infatuated
and meeting new people
and I miss being kissed
so perfectly
If in April you have one perfect day,
one perfect hour,
what do you do in June?
searing, rising, tears
but it's good for me to feel
this is the root of it all:
my disappointment, my sense of loss & being lost
But part of me wants to hold onto the gaping, searing feeling
because it spurs me into action or a desire for action:
I want to do something with it,
and vividly I am in that place again
when it was April and I couldn't sit still,
not for a single moment,
jumpy and ecstatic with thoughts of him and even more
thoughts of a life that is new
not careworn.
Delicate webby summer sunlight
slanting in lines over green grass
takes me back so easily that I am thankful
while I am crying.
I don't think it's him that I really miss.
Well, maybe.
I miss being infatuated
and meeting new people
and I miss being kissed
so perfectly
If in April you have one perfect day,
one perfect hour,
what do you do in June?
Monday, June 9, 2008
summer lethargy
I never really know what to do with summer. After about a month of no school, summer lethargy sets in, which is one of my most disliked feelings ever. It's feeling lazy and aimless, bored and boring, wondering how other people seem to find summer to be fun. I end up purposelessly browsing the internet, watching reruns on tv, rereading books for the ten thousandth time, contemplating the shortcomings of my wardrobe... etc. Finally I start longing for school to start again, so I can have classes to go to, things to do, not to mention opportunities to scope out cute guys and the feeling that there are possibilities all around and opportunities to learn things, create things, and have fun.
I should probably just get a second job. Right? Right? Gahh. Sometimes I wish that I could just step outside myself, survey the scene from outside, and detachedly force myself to do things, like a puppet. Because I am so indecisive. The idea of making a definite decision about something sends me into such a panic that I end up just not making any decisions and sitting around frozen. I stress myself out so much that eventually I just shut down, and then the lethargy sets in and I find myself doing NOTHING, again.
I should probably just get a second job. Right? Right? Gahh. Sometimes I wish that I could just step outside myself, survey the scene from outside, and detachedly force myself to do things, like a puppet. Because I am so indecisive. The idea of making a definite decision about something sends me into such a panic that I end up just not making any decisions and sitting around frozen. I stress myself out so much that eventually I just shut down, and then the lethargy sets in and I find myself doing NOTHING, again.
Friday, June 6, 2008
a realization
I've been thinking about him again. But not in a depressed way, more of an introspective way. Last night I started to get regretful about it again, standing at the top of the stairway, but then suddenly I had this moment where I realized that he is actually not good enough for me - you know, not just theoretically, but really and truly.
To me, bored and sometimes sad and thinking my life is dull, he seemed like he had everything. Forget paradise, he had that big grey frat house with the huge lawn and the trees in bloom. He could drink the nights away and spend his days sleeping on the beach. He had a rented house, five more years than me of being in the world, memories of Europe (well, blurred memories I bet, because of all the alcohol involved!). His life seemed charmed & carefree and I was jealous and wanted a way in.
Well, what he has isn't so great. It's nothing compared to what I want. So there you go. And I'm glad that I've actually realized this, felt it instead of just having to talk myself into believing that I deserve and will get much better than him and the life he has.
To me, bored and sometimes sad and thinking my life is dull, he seemed like he had everything. Forget paradise, he had that big grey frat house with the huge lawn and the trees in bloom. He could drink the nights away and spend his days sleeping on the beach. He had a rented house, five more years than me of being in the world, memories of Europe (well, blurred memories I bet, because of all the alcohol involved!). His life seemed charmed & carefree and I was jealous and wanted a way in.
Well, what he has isn't so great. It's nothing compared to what I want. So there you go. And I'm glad that I've actually realized this, felt it instead of just having to talk myself into believing that I deserve and will get much better than him and the life he has.
Monday, June 2, 2008
summer
The smell of summer will take you by surprise
- when you're standing by the kitchen window, making coffee
then suddenly you catch the light on the green leaves through the screen
and the breeze ruffles past...
It will remind you of:
summers spent reading fantasy novels by the window,
childhood & lemonade stands & rollerblade wheels over the blacktop
The sound of your best friend's laughter
and mulberry trees - always
It will make you want to speed to the ocean
spent saltwater hours there at the glorious edge of the world
where they are having a carnival.
As the sun climbs higher & light grows wider, and
the air is salt & breeze & chlorophyll with sundrenched
lemon-light that brings out all the colors
Today
- when you're standing by the kitchen window, making coffee
then suddenly you catch the light on the green leaves through the screen
and the breeze ruffles past...
It will remind you of:
summers spent reading fantasy novels by the window,
childhood & lemonade stands & rollerblade wheels over the blacktop
The sound of your best friend's laughter
and mulberry trees - always
It will make you want to speed to the ocean
spent saltwater hours there at the glorious edge of the world
where they are having a carnival.
As the sun climbs higher & light grows wider, and
the air is salt & breeze & chlorophyll with sundrenched
lemon-light that brings out all the colors
Today
Thursday, May 29, 2008
writing conference
I have decided to go to the URI Summer Writing Conference. Last year I went as a volunteer, which was cool but I didn't get to go to the workshops or anything. This year I decided to just spend the entry fee and do all that stuff. There are workshops on fiction, poetry, and nonfiction - I'm doing advanced fiction - panel discussions, readings, and other writerly stuff, run by the English professors and a lot of visiting writers. You should go too! The conference costs $55, and the pre-conference session (which includes more workshops) costs $100. I decided to do both, but the pre-conference session is optional. yay.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
don't know
Goal: Go on school England trip in 2009?
Need: At least $5000, probably more.
Uhh, shit. I don't see how. I have at least half of that now but it would empty out all my savings, checking account, everything... And there will probably be no parental assistance because 1) they don't actually have any money, 2) paradoxically, since I have almost a full scholarship they HATE paying for anything extra.
And, that's the summer before senior year, the year I'm planning to rent a house with my best friends, and THAT will cost a lot so I'll need to save for that. So spending all my money on England would not be wise... In addition to having to take the whole month of July off of work to go...
I'm not so good at working for things, honestly. It's lame but it's the truth. I don't have very much work ethic. I save a fair amount of money, but I also go off and buy Dior sunglasses (hey, they were from ebay & 1/4 the retail price! but it's Dior, so that's still a lot -_-) and 10,000 pairs of shoes and, er, a lot of coffee.
I've been freaking out lately about how I'm a junior in college and haven't done anything. This morning I was talking to my mom about how I didn't go to Wheaton. It was my first choice school and I got an acceptance letter and a half-tuition scholarship. But I turned it down so my parents wouldn't have to spend $20,000 a year and I wouldn't have to take out loans. If I had gone I would've had this research stipend whatsit that you're supposed to use to do some kind of project before junior year. I'd be doing that now... what would it be? Would I feel like I'm doing something, instead of how I feel now which is more like, I'm so, so bored all the time?
I thought about getting a new job or a second job this summer. But there's a problem which is: I need a LOT of time off in the next few months. My best friend's high school graduation, a week-long trip to Canada, a week-long trip to North Carolina to see my cousin who just had a baby, the three-day-long URI Summer Writing Conference... My current job is really good about time off because I've been there so long and my boss knows I'm not just blowing it off or anything. So it seems like I can't get a new job and say, "Hey, by the way, I kind of need half the summer off. Cool?"
In high school, I was on that track where you're supposed to go away for college, do fabulous things, come back and dazzle everyone with your achievements. And that is true of people I know who did go to those high-end schools. They're impressive. I'm still jealous and that sucks! My mom said to me, "You're not even 20, you have plenty of time to do awesome things." Which is true but I still feel like there is this huge part of my life that's missing, because I just don't know what to do to make things exciting!
Need: At least $5000, probably more.
Uhh, shit. I don't see how. I have at least half of that now but it would empty out all my savings, checking account, everything... And there will probably be no parental assistance because 1) they don't actually have any money, 2) paradoxically, since I have almost a full scholarship they HATE paying for anything extra.
And, that's the summer before senior year, the year I'm planning to rent a house with my best friends, and THAT will cost a lot so I'll need to save for that. So spending all my money on England would not be wise... In addition to having to take the whole month of July off of work to go...
I'm not so good at working for things, honestly. It's lame but it's the truth. I don't have very much work ethic. I save a fair amount of money, but I also go off and buy Dior sunglasses (hey, they were from ebay & 1/4 the retail price! but it's Dior, so that's still a lot -_-) and 10,000 pairs of shoes and, er, a lot of coffee.
I've been freaking out lately about how I'm a junior in college and haven't done anything. This morning I was talking to my mom about how I didn't go to Wheaton. It was my first choice school and I got an acceptance letter and a half-tuition scholarship. But I turned it down so my parents wouldn't have to spend $20,000 a year and I wouldn't have to take out loans. If I had gone I would've had this research stipend whatsit that you're supposed to use to do some kind of project before junior year. I'd be doing that now... what would it be? Would I feel like I'm doing something, instead of how I feel now which is more like, I'm so, so bored all the time?
I thought about getting a new job or a second job this summer. But there's a problem which is: I need a LOT of time off in the next few months. My best friend's high school graduation, a week-long trip to Canada, a week-long trip to North Carolina to see my cousin who just had a baby, the three-day-long URI Summer Writing Conference... My current job is really good about time off because I've been there so long and my boss knows I'm not just blowing it off or anything. So it seems like I can't get a new job and say, "Hey, by the way, I kind of need half the summer off. Cool?"
In high school, I was on that track where you're supposed to go away for college, do fabulous things, come back and dazzle everyone with your achievements. And that is true of people I know who did go to those high-end schools. They're impressive. I'm still jealous and that sucks! My mom said to me, "You're not even 20, you have plenty of time to do awesome things." Which is true but I still feel like there is this huge part of my life that's missing, because I just don't know what to do to make things exciting!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
clueless?
For a long time I've kind of been going around with the conviction that I'm just not that good at this whole "being a person" thing. Other people seem to have much more of a handle on how to be alive in the world and I feel like I don't have a clue. It doesn't help that I put measurements on things to try to gauge how well / poorly I'm doing, for instance:
I graduated high school two years ago and I still don't have my shit together, have no definite career ambitions and lack direction, oh no!
or,
I broke up with a boyfriend eight months ago and I'm still not in another relationship, oh no!, what is wrong with me?, etc.
or,
I've been living this life for approximately 19.67 years, and I'm still quite afraid of a lot of things and still don't know what all this means, oh no!
or,
I'm a junior in college (HOLY CRAP) and I still get nervous around new people, haven't participated in extracurricular activities, not to mention I don't even know what beer tastes like AND I still haven't been to Europe, OH NO!
Wellll, it is worthless to put such limits, measurements, timetables, etc.etc.etc. on things, because the truth is every experience is valuable and even if you are not where you are 'supposed' to be according to some Theoretical Life Plan... you can't plan these things. Go with the flow, learn from where you are, and whatnot. But that still doesn't stop me from panicking whenever I realize, HEY, I'm not where I thought I would be. But where is that, even?
I think I have to let go of a lot of the old expectations, ways of measuring success, and all that crap. There's a voice in my head that's part me at age seventeen, part my favorite teachers in high school, and part everyone who has ever hurt me or let me down, and that voice says: "I think you're failing. Come on, prove to me you're worth something. What've you got?" The voice also says silly things like, "You should've gone to Wheaton!" as though that would make me feel like a success.
If I actually look at where I am now it's not bad at all and some parts are actually quite wonderful. That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of room for improvement & new experiences though. I just have to stop beating myself up about where I'm Supposed To Be, and be where I am, moving toward where I want to be.
I graduated high school two years ago and I still don't have my shit together, have no definite career ambitions and lack direction, oh no!
or,
I broke up with a boyfriend eight months ago and I'm still not in another relationship, oh no!, what is wrong with me?, etc.
or,
I've been living this life for approximately 19.67 years, and I'm still quite afraid of a lot of things and still don't know what all this means, oh no!
or,
I'm a junior in college (HOLY CRAP) and I still get nervous around new people, haven't participated in extracurricular activities, not to mention I don't even know what beer tastes like AND I still haven't been to Europe, OH NO!
Wellll, it is worthless to put such limits, measurements, timetables, etc.etc.etc. on things, because the truth is every experience is valuable and even if you are not where you are 'supposed' to be according to some Theoretical Life Plan... you can't plan these things. Go with the flow, learn from where you are, and whatnot. But that still doesn't stop me from panicking whenever I realize, HEY, I'm not where I thought I would be. But where is that, even?
I think I have to let go of a lot of the old expectations, ways of measuring success, and all that crap. There's a voice in my head that's part me at age seventeen, part my favorite teachers in high school, and part everyone who has ever hurt me or let me down, and that voice says: "I think you're failing. Come on, prove to me you're worth something. What've you got?" The voice also says silly things like, "You should've gone to Wheaton!" as though that would make me feel like a success.
If I actually look at where I am now it's not bad at all and some parts are actually quite wonderful. That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of room for improvement & new experiences though. I just have to stop beating myself up about where I'm Supposed To Be, and be where I am, moving toward where I want to be.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
time travel
Sometimes I think: no more.
No more writing about the after-rain and the melancholy of beautiful days without you and how time passes and you leave.
No more thinking about the past and wishing I were there.
It's 11:49pm on May 19. Exactly two years ago I was somewhere between that legendary last dance of the senior prom and Maddie's living room falling asleep playing apples to apples. A lot of things from back then are broken, but not everything. And I healed from that. Or did I? Haven't I been a little bit lost ever since that glorious time ended?
You looked to me like a kind of renaissance in the form of a college guy who likes to have a good time. I don't have enough just plain good times. But the good times mean everything to me. However, not your good times.
I save dates on the calendar, pictures, fliers, ticket stubs, flowers. I remember when. I hold so tightly on to memories. I take the sound made by rustling taffeta and the blinding light of camera flashes and the pulse of music and put them all in a box. And running down white hallways and falling asleep with friends all around into another box. October and sidewalk magic and art-fair glances over the statuary goes into a newer one.
Seaside kisses and delirious spring aren't boxed up yet, they're lying around in plain view and I sit there staring at them.
A big part of my life is made up of my vivid memory. Recalling exactly how things looked and felt right then. I love it. It's almost like time travel except it really, really hurts when you can't actually ever go back.
I need something that will make me want the future more than the past.
No more writing about the after-rain and the melancholy of beautiful days without you and how time passes and you leave.
No more thinking about the past and wishing I were there.
It's 11:49pm on May 19. Exactly two years ago I was somewhere between that legendary last dance of the senior prom and Maddie's living room falling asleep playing apples to apples. A lot of things from back then are broken, but not everything. And I healed from that. Or did I? Haven't I been a little bit lost ever since that glorious time ended?
You looked to me like a kind of renaissance in the form of a college guy who likes to have a good time. I don't have enough just plain good times. But the good times mean everything to me. However, not your good times.
I save dates on the calendar, pictures, fliers, ticket stubs, flowers. I remember when. I hold so tightly on to memories. I take the sound made by rustling taffeta and the blinding light of camera flashes and the pulse of music and put them all in a box. And running down white hallways and falling asleep with friends all around into another box. October and sidewalk magic and art-fair glances over the statuary goes into a newer one.
Seaside kisses and delirious spring aren't boxed up yet, they're lying around in plain view and I sit there staring at them.
A big part of my life is made up of my vivid memory. Recalling exactly how things looked and felt right then. I love it. It's almost like time travel except it really, really hurts when you can't actually ever go back.
I need something that will make me want the future more than the past.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
memory
When I think that it's okay, I'm almost over you, I can cut ties and move on completely... right about then is when I remember. That day. That few-week oasis. Living in enchantment.
I think that you're a jerk. You broke my heart. You wouldn't even care. You're not right for me. You wouldn't be good for me, good to me. We're not into the same things. You party too much. You're an asshole. Wanted sex on the third date. Never apologized for anything.
Yes, all that is true. But the truth of that doesn't change the beauty of the time I spent with you. Because that sun-drenched day on the rocks by the sea, away from the world with only you - that will always be one of the best memories. One of the best days of my life. And that is what's heartbreaking about all this.
I panic at the thought of the memory fading with time. I want to keep it alive, put it somewhere safe where it will always stay as it is, bright, vivid, warm, sparkling. It's a place, a place that only existed for one glorious day. And now that I can't go back there, what do I do with the memory of that day? With the memory of you, who I barely knew?
I think that you're a jerk. You broke my heart. You wouldn't even care. You're not right for me. You wouldn't be good for me, good to me. We're not into the same things. You party too much. You're an asshole. Wanted sex on the third date. Never apologized for anything.
Yes, all that is true. But the truth of that doesn't change the beauty of the time I spent with you. Because that sun-drenched day on the rocks by the sea, away from the world with only you - that will always be one of the best memories. One of the best days of my life. And that is what's heartbreaking about all this.
I panic at the thought of the memory fading with time. I want to keep it alive, put it somewhere safe where it will always stay as it is, bright, vivid, warm, sparkling. It's a place, a place that only existed for one glorious day. And now that I can't go back there, what do I do with the memory of that day? With the memory of you, who I barely knew?
may 18th
Your graduation is on TV right now. If I didn't have to go to work, would I sit in rapt attention as the letters of last names move interminably toward yours? Would I watch you on the screen getting your diploma? I probably would. Through the A's, B's, I would read a book, pretending I didn't care, but around the E's I would look up from the book and try not to feel too pathetic about watching. Maybe you're not even there. I didn't ever know you well enough to find out if you were going.
Hanging over this, my view of the blue-robed figures on the TV screen, is that day sitting with you on the lawn at Lambda, asking if you were excited to be graduating. It was such a beautiful day. April 15. Only hours before we kissed by the sea. You, before leaving this place, still having schoolwork to do, still in classes, still interested in me.
I always view time as a place. That little bit of time I knew you, the last times you would be as you were, in college, sitting on that lawn. The time I spent with you is a place. I can't go back there, but I'm learning that that's okay. When you graduate, good luck.
Hanging over this, my view of the blue-robed figures on the TV screen, is that day sitting with you on the lawn at Lambda, asking if you were excited to be graduating. It was such a beautiful day. April 15. Only hours before we kissed by the sea. You, before leaving this place, still having schoolwork to do, still in classes, still interested in me.
I always view time as a place. That little bit of time I knew you, the last times you would be as you were, in college, sitting on that lawn. The time I spent with you is a place. I can't go back there, but I'm learning that that's okay. When you graduate, good luck.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
written by the seawall
Three hours of sunlight left and I wasn't sure what to do with them. Nikki had to go home so I dropped her off and drove here to the sea. On the way over, the loneliness set in. Here at the beach on a warm day is supposed to be a place where you are happy, in love, with your friends, laughing in the sun and feeling like this day is forever. It's not quite warm but not too cold and where there are thin clouds white over the pale blue sky, the sea looks greyish. They are putting up a carnival and all the rides are standing still right now.
Why is it that I could only fully convince myself that I am alive when I was with you and your friends at sunset by the river, in the perfectly slanting light and the slow current of the clear water? Why do I only feel like things are right when I have been joyfully shocked like that out of my everyday routine? And how unfair is it to have to rely on other people to come and pull me out of my own life! Other people, who can let me down at any moment, like you did.
Driving by the rental houses in Bonnet, the liquor stores, the restaurants, I felt sad that there is this whole beach-town college life at my own school, and though I'm a student there just as much as anyone else, I don't see how to enter that world. Unless someone else like you comes along and pulls me into it, like you almost did, like you could've done if you'd wanted to.
Why is that world even so attractive? Why am I still scanning crowds for you? Maybe it's because that world, that happens in those little September-to-May rentals and in booze-soaked warm nights and with friends all around all the time - because that world seems to naive me like a place where no one thinks of sorrow, where there's no need for worry. I envy you and them the privilege of having, if only for 4 years, that carefree life, those shades of irresponsibility and immaturity that seem oh so responsible and mature.
Yes, I do envy you that. I've always known sorrow and worry. I can't remember ever being carefree for more than a little while. And no matter how much I seem like I want to hide away, I really want to be seen. I want to be out there in the world. I just don't know how.
There is a boy in a blue jacket standing two broken benches to the right of me. I wonder if his heart is broken or bruised too. If he wishes he could be carefree. I'll never know because he just walked away.
The cold isn't so bad when it's the middle of May by the sea. I felt cold like this when you walked me all the way down the beach. Cold in a way where you know you will be warm again because you are so happy now. But right now it's only the memory of happiness. It was exactly one month ago when I kissed you for the first time. And many other times before the last time, but all on one golden day.
How can I find a way to shake this, feeling like my life isn't going anywhere I want it to go? What can I do by myself to change all this?
Why is it that I could only fully convince myself that I am alive when I was with you and your friends at sunset by the river, in the perfectly slanting light and the slow current of the clear water? Why do I only feel like things are right when I have been joyfully shocked like that out of my everyday routine? And how unfair is it to have to rely on other people to come and pull me out of my own life! Other people, who can let me down at any moment, like you did.
Driving by the rental houses in Bonnet, the liquor stores, the restaurants, I felt sad that there is this whole beach-town college life at my own school, and though I'm a student there just as much as anyone else, I don't see how to enter that world. Unless someone else like you comes along and pulls me into it, like you almost did, like you could've done if you'd wanted to.
Why is that world even so attractive? Why am I still scanning crowds for you? Maybe it's because that world, that happens in those little September-to-May rentals and in booze-soaked warm nights and with friends all around all the time - because that world seems to naive me like a place where no one thinks of sorrow, where there's no need for worry. I envy you and them the privilege of having, if only for 4 years, that carefree life, those shades of irresponsibility and immaturity that seem oh so responsible and mature.
Yes, I do envy you that. I've always known sorrow and worry. I can't remember ever being carefree for more than a little while. And no matter how much I seem like I want to hide away, I really want to be seen. I want to be out there in the world. I just don't know how.
There is a boy in a blue jacket standing two broken benches to the right of me. I wonder if his heart is broken or bruised too. If he wishes he could be carefree. I'll never know because he just walked away.
The cold isn't so bad when it's the middle of May by the sea. I felt cold like this when you walked me all the way down the beach. Cold in a way where you know you will be warm again because you are so happy now. But right now it's only the memory of happiness. It was exactly one month ago when I kissed you for the first time. And many other times before the last time, but all on one golden day.
How can I find a way to shake this, feeling like my life isn't going anywhere I want it to go? What can I do by myself to change all this?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
scribbled in journal today
You were the first one in a while to make me feel desired, sought after, sexy, grown-up. I usually go through the world doe-eyed, always looking like I have no clue where I am going and like I'm afraid to ask for directions. When you wanted me, I walked around with confidence even when you weren't there. Everyone I passed, I wanted them to know that I had you and you had me.
You gave me my lost confidence back. Then you stopped calling and my assurance went away. Without you, I slunk through the world, not wanting to be seen, only wanting to catch a glimpse of you amongst the crowd and get some explanation that would allow me to stop feeling undesirable.
I've been desired before. I've been wanted then let down. I've been loved and I've broken hearts. I've desired or even loved some who have not returned the feeling. It's my history and I want to write it down because it's one of the most important things.
I said at first that having a boyfriend right now would be too much stress and worry. I am so good at lying to myself. The calling and the waiting, the coexisting ecstasy of anticipation and constant fear of disappointment, the wondering, the deliciously unbearable inability to think of anything else... I convinced myself and my friends that I didn't want that. Liar, liar. The truth is, it's what I live for. Every time it's absolute magic. Unlike anything. The best thing.
How could I tell the lie that I didn't want that? Because I still felt sad and tired back then, grey and worn-out. Not anymore. Your beautiful eyes looking at me gave me something back, something precious that I had lost or thrown away by accident. I have to thank you for that. Your desire dusted away all the dirt and cobwebs and now I am new.
Even though you broke my heart. Maybe a crack is what it needed, ecstasy then shatterglass, even though it hurts. Your desire may not be there now, but it once was there and, if only for a moment, it was all for me. I can always keep that. And I am not going to stay broken. I feel the healing starting now. I've been shocked by joy into waking up and cracked wide open.
You gave me my lost confidence back. Then you stopped calling and my assurance went away. Without you, I slunk through the world, not wanting to be seen, only wanting to catch a glimpse of you amongst the crowd and get some explanation that would allow me to stop feeling undesirable.
I've been desired before. I've been wanted then let down. I've been loved and I've broken hearts. I've desired or even loved some who have not returned the feeling. It's my history and I want to write it down because it's one of the most important things.
I said at first that having a boyfriend right now would be too much stress and worry. I am so good at lying to myself. The calling and the waiting, the coexisting ecstasy of anticipation and constant fear of disappointment, the wondering, the deliciously unbearable inability to think of anything else... I convinced myself and my friends that I didn't want that. Liar, liar. The truth is, it's what I live for. Every time it's absolute magic. Unlike anything. The best thing.
How could I tell the lie that I didn't want that? Because I still felt sad and tired back then, grey and worn-out. Not anymore. Your beautiful eyes looking at me gave me something back, something precious that I had lost or thrown away by accident. I have to thank you for that. Your desire dusted away all the dirt and cobwebs and now I am new.
Even though you broke my heart. Maybe a crack is what it needed, ecstasy then shatterglass, even though it hurts. Your desire may not be there now, but it once was there and, if only for a moment, it was all for me. I can always keep that. And I am not going to stay broken. I feel the healing starting now. I've been shocked by joy into waking up and cracked wide open.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
written today, sitting on the bench near independence
They're putting up the graduation stage today, in the after-rain brightness of this spring day, getting warmer. Green everywhere, lush, summer. This muggy summer smell of it-might-have-rained-this-morning-in-Eden. When I realized what the big black stage was for I felt a sharp pang of sadness that dulled as I walked under the trees across the quad. May 18th they will call your name and I don't even know if you're going to the ceremony, but that stage in the middle of lush green summer means that you are leaving and I won't see you around here.
Your car is parked at Lambda today. I'm thinking you will leave in infamy while I might slink away in heartbreak. Will you even remember me? Do I even have the distinction of being the last girl you kissed before you graduated? Maybe, maybe not, and I will probably never know...
Not even real closure. Just an absence. I guess it's only me who can control if I slink away. I said I didn't want to give you control, but I would have and wanted to actually give you everything. I'm not slinking away. I'm knowing your car is at Lambda and you are not calling me, and walking away from here through the lush green world, where the air smells wonderful and my heart is bruised but I feel the wet grass beneath my feet. It was you who ran away. I'm just leaving.
Your car is parked at Lambda today. I'm thinking you will leave in infamy while I might slink away in heartbreak. Will you even remember me? Do I even have the distinction of being the last girl you kissed before you graduated? Maybe, maybe not, and I will probably never know...
Not even real closure. Just an absence. I guess it's only me who can control if I slink away. I said I didn't want to give you control, but I would have and wanted to actually give you everything. I'm not slinking away. I'm knowing your car is at Lambda and you are not calling me, and walking away from here through the lush green world, where the air smells wonderful and my heart is bruised but I feel the wet grass beneath my feet. It was you who ran away. I'm just leaving.
Monday, May 5, 2008
confession
Today, walking up to Independence from the parking lot, I saw an obnoxiously yellow-colored Ford Focus parked next to the library. I knew it would be yours. I mean, it is a really dreadful color, the likes of which are not often witnessed. I walked by the car and glanced in the window for telltale signs. The stack of CDs in the space between the front seats and the splintered glass of the broken digital clock. Yes and yes.
I walked by, went to Independence, dropped off my paper, ran into some people I know. Walked back by the library, back by the car again. Down to the parking lot to my car. Then I walked back up to the library again. Walked in, Nikki called, walked out. Saw some guys playing volleyball on the quad and one of them was wearing a Lambda shirt. Scanned the crowd for you. Hung up the phone and walked back into the library.
I think it generally falls under the category of pathetic to methodically circumnavigate each of the four floors of that huge library, hoping to "run in" to a guy with whom I only went on four dates, but for whom I quickly and unexpectedly fell absolutely head-over-heels... in spite of his unsavory habits (heavy drinking? smoking weed while operating a moving vehicle?), not to mention his mostly terrible fashion sense (yellow and purple argyle?). Oh yeah, and the fact that without explanation or apology, he stopped calling and I haven't heard from him in more than a week?
Yeah, okay, he's a jerk. And I think it falls under the category of pathetic to still think that he is ridiculously adorable, to replay in my head every moment that I can remember of our four dates, to have arguments with myself like the following:
Me: He's an asshole! He hasn't returned your calls or bothered to invite you anywhere in weeks! With no explanation!
Me: But his favorite book is The Little Prince! I mean, honestly, he can't be that bad...
Me: Who cares? For all you know, he could've just said that to seem cute, so he could get into your pants. Which he kind of did. Until you had the sense to tell him to stop.
Me: But he's a lot older than me! Maybe that's just how he's used to doing things!
Me: Are you serious? He definitely is used to doing things, and by things I mean slutty girls. Isn't it suspicious that the frequency of his calls took a quick dive after you told him to slow down?
Me: That was just a coincidence! It was Greek Week!
Me: That reminds me, do you really want a guy who is that into partying? Isn't that not your thing?
Me: I don't know! Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, even fun? His friends were nice...
Me: I can't stand to listen to you anymore. Why are you all mopey and not even angry at him? I say, fuck him. No wait, don't fuck him, that's the point. Good decision not to fuck him.
Me: .... ?
Me: WHY AREN'T YOU ANGRY?
And so on and so forth.
Anyway, so I spent at least an hour creepily lurking amongst shelves upon shelves of musty books and tax records from before I was born, passing strange characters like that old guy starting at the framed yearbook pictures on the walls and muttering something about someone named Joan, and slinking surreptitiously by rows upon rows of study carrels. (And upon my slinking, the tenants of said study carrels looked up at the sound of approaching sandals, bleary-eyed, and I felt like I'd been caught committing a crime.) All four floors, for heaven's sake. All the while thinking, "What are you going to do if you see him?" and retorting with, "I have no fucking clue, but I'm going to keep looking anyway."
And I didn't see you. So I did a final circuit of floors four and three and then went back outside, circumnavigated the quad, peered at the volleyball players, then made my way back past the library. Your car was gone. Then I promptly ran into a close friend of yours, who was so nice to me that I wanted to call you and scream, "WHY CAN'T YOU BE AS NICE AS YOUR FRIENDS?!" or something equally ridiculous.
And, inexplicably, ridiculously, I am still hanging on hoping there is a reason why you haven't called other than the obvious, that you don't want to see me anymore. And I'm still wondering what I did wrong instead of writing you off as an asshole. Which is dumb, but it's the truth.
I walked by, went to Independence, dropped off my paper, ran into some people I know. Walked back by the library, back by the car again. Down to the parking lot to my car. Then I walked back up to the library again. Walked in, Nikki called, walked out. Saw some guys playing volleyball on the quad and one of them was wearing a Lambda shirt. Scanned the crowd for you. Hung up the phone and walked back into the library.
I think it generally falls under the category of pathetic to methodically circumnavigate each of the four floors of that huge library, hoping to "run in" to a guy with whom I only went on four dates, but for whom I quickly and unexpectedly fell absolutely head-over-heels... in spite of his unsavory habits (heavy drinking? smoking weed while operating a moving vehicle?), not to mention his mostly terrible fashion sense (yellow and purple argyle?). Oh yeah, and the fact that without explanation or apology, he stopped calling and I haven't heard from him in more than a week?
Yeah, okay, he's a jerk. And I think it falls under the category of pathetic to still think that he is ridiculously adorable, to replay in my head every moment that I can remember of our four dates, to have arguments with myself like the following:
Me: He's an asshole! He hasn't returned your calls or bothered to invite you anywhere in weeks! With no explanation!
Me: But his favorite book is The Little Prince! I mean, honestly, he can't be that bad...
Me: Who cares? For all you know, he could've just said that to seem cute, so he could get into your pants. Which he kind of did. Until you had the sense to tell him to stop.
Me: But he's a lot older than me! Maybe that's just how he's used to doing things!
Me: Are you serious? He definitely is used to doing things, and by things I mean slutty girls. Isn't it suspicious that the frequency of his calls took a quick dive after you told him to slow down?
Me: That was just a coincidence! It was Greek Week!
Me: That reminds me, do you really want a guy who is that into partying? Isn't that not your thing?
Me: I don't know! Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, even fun? His friends were nice...
Me: I can't stand to listen to you anymore. Why are you all mopey and not even angry at him? I say, fuck him. No wait, don't fuck him, that's the point. Good decision not to fuck him.
Me: .... ?
Me: WHY AREN'T YOU ANGRY?
And so on and so forth.
Anyway, so I spent at least an hour creepily lurking amongst shelves upon shelves of musty books and tax records from before I was born, passing strange characters like that old guy starting at the framed yearbook pictures on the walls and muttering something about someone named Joan, and slinking surreptitiously by rows upon rows of study carrels. (And upon my slinking, the tenants of said study carrels looked up at the sound of approaching sandals, bleary-eyed, and I felt like I'd been caught committing a crime.) All four floors, for heaven's sake. All the while thinking, "What are you going to do if you see him?" and retorting with, "I have no fucking clue, but I'm going to keep looking anyway."
And I didn't see you. So I did a final circuit of floors four and three and then went back outside, circumnavigated the quad, peered at the volleyball players, then made my way back past the library. Your car was gone. Then I promptly ran into a close friend of yours, who was so nice to me that I wanted to call you and scream, "WHY CAN'T YOU BE AS NICE AS YOUR FRIENDS?!" or something equally ridiculous.
And, inexplicably, ridiculously, I am still hanging on hoping there is a reason why you haven't called other than the obvious, that you don't want to see me anymore. And I'm still wondering what I did wrong instead of writing you off as an asshole. Which is dumb, but it's the truth.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
it's a long story
all of this will spill out
How I felt like my life was almost empty, except the spaces filled with nightmares and the feeling that winter would never end. The stagnant, dull feeling, empty of passion or desire.
How suddenly you just walked up to me and asked me something simple. If I wanted to go out with you that day, or another time. Soon it started...
The first hints of falling, the first glimmer of joy or even ecstasy. Sitting with you at the coffee shop, you in your red shirt and nice black jacket, walking by your side along the seawall, down the shore. With you and your friends by Narrow River at sunset, where the light was so perfect and for the first time in too long to measure, I felt like I belonged, here, in the world, alive.
You were so nice, asking questions about me. What CD is in my car right now? And you laughed at my crazy stories, like the thing about the Christmas trees and pranks from high school... You leaned back against my car and said, "I had a really good time. I'd like to do this again some time." I agreed. You waved goodbye as I drove away.
When you would call or text almost every day asking if I wanted to go do things. Now I am wishing I had found a way to say yes. The Explosions in the Sky show in Providence and going over your house late at night to watch a movie.
The second date at the beach with you, in the cold and fog. I was less timid because Nikki was there. We walked together down the beach again. Then standing close to you by the seawall and eventually you put your arm around me, which felt perfect. You started terribly singing random songs. We talked and laughed. Absurd things like the benefits of selective invisibility and what if there were the ghost of a pirate behind us, who long ago drowned in the knee-deep water below and to this day haunts Narragansett in his humiliation. We agreed that we were both crazy... you still had your arm around me...
One of the best days of my life. The glorious Tuesday when we left class and walking down the stairs, I said I didn't feel like going to my classes and asked if I could go to the beach with you. Outside, into the exuberant warm air, bright colors, green leaves and flowers. Sitting on the front lawn of Lambda, next to you, looking at the flowering trees across the street and the vibrant blue sky, then glancing in your direction. Making fun of a biker dressed in yellow and purple spandex and talking about your graduation.
In your car driving to the ocean, me in the passenger seat and a friend of yours in the back. I tried to think of things to say and found it surprisingly not as difficult as usual. You kept switching CDs and the only one I remember is Ziggy Stardust, after which you said, "Thank you, David Bowie." You asked if I had ever read The Phantom Tollbooth and said it would be fun to be a children's book author.
At Bass Rock, two rich people's dogs started to follow us as we clambered over the rocks. We went down to a secluded place. Leaning against a rock by the sea, you next to me and Steve sitting on the next rock over, sipping beers and passing a one-hitter between the two of you. Me? No thanks.
Then the quiet when you laid down on another rock, looked up at me and said, "I can't believe you're not even facing the ocean," when I smiled and climbed down next to you. It was a bit of an awkward position so you said, "Is that completely uncomfortable?" "Yeah, kind of completely uncomfortable." We laughed about how I, wearing a skirt, was dressed inappropriately for rock climbing. Steve got up & disappeared over the rocks.
You put your arm around me and I laid my head on your chest. Eyes half-closed, your hand stroking my waist, my hand holding onto your half-unzipped sweatshirt. The sunlight everywhere, warming every part of me, and the soft sound of the sea. When I opened my eyes I would see your chest, your hand, a can of beer and the bright blue ocean. As I laid there with you, time slowed and stopped and the moment was eternal. We didn't say anything. We might already have been there for hours when you lifted your head, looked at me, smiled and kissed me softly.
It felt like being under a spell, completely enchanted. An entirely private place, only us, on the rocks by the sea. Speaking or sudden movements might have broken the spell. I felt completely relaxed and completely elated at the same time. One of the most amazing things I have ever felt.
I don't know how long we laid like that, but eventually we moved. Your foot was asleep, I moved and knocked over the beer can accidentally, then we got up and started walking over the rocks. You gave me your hand when it was difficult to climb higher. We came to another place and stood looking out to sea. I couldn't stop smiling when I looked at you and you said, "What?" Then giddily I could only say, "I like you." Then we sat down on the rock.
Sweet saltwater kisses and deep kisses, your hands, me at ease but nervous at the same time, trusting you but wondering if I really should... but all the while, still under that delicious enchantment... Until I broke away, sat looking toward the sea, then laid down beside you and said to slow down. My head on your chest, my hand on yours.
When we got up soon after that, was it really because we both said we were getting cold? Because you broke the spell by seeing what time it was? Or, because you realized you weren't going to get any?
We climbed across the rocks, found Steve, you went on an expedition to retrieve the rest of the beer, then we went back to the car and left. You made me nervous, smoking while you were driving. I made myself nervous thinking about what had happened, thinking about what you were thinking and how it didn't seem like you were thinking about it at all.
After we dropped off Steve at Lambda, when you drove me down to my car, I leaned across and kissed you quickly. I think I imagined that you looked the tiniest bit surprised. "Give me a call." Then the sudden moment of panic before I opened the door, when I asked, "You know when I said that I think we should slow down? That's not going to be a problem or anything - is it?" And you, looking carefree, saying "No, no I guess not," and I said I wanted to see you again. "So," you said, "give me a call."
"Yeah, it's my last Greek Week, and it's the only time I really care that I joined a fraternity, and..."
Greek Week, when I presume you didn't call back because you were drunk and stoned. In class Tuesday when you sat next to me and talked like normal. The Earth Day festival on the quad, when you texted me to see if I was going, the relief of being with you again. You were wearing plaid with argyle and I even thought that was cute. The biggest lamb was named Ursula and you debated whether to spend $50 on a Grateful Dead wall-hanging and we walked across the quad talking about your final film project. By the rock wall, watching the little kids walk away disappointed. Give me a call.
Last class Thursday, you were too busy to do anything, but, you said, "Another time. Give me a call." I did. Nothing back. A single drunken text message you probably didn't even know you were sending me about what you were doing that day. (Getting wasted before your last college class. Just lovely.)
Where are you? What are you doing?
At Lambda, drinking. In the kitchen at your job. Making a film. Writing your papers. At your house. At your apartment.
Why don't you call me?
What happened to how you were on the first dates, so sweet and kind and interesting, singing random songs and talking about absurd things with me?
I don't want to feel broken again... and I don't want winter to come back now...
Under the spell, everything was blooming, delirious warmth and the blue of the sky so deep and bright, drunk on spring air and thoughts of you. Waking up with the sunrise every day, half-asleep dreams about you and when I would get to see you again. Everything new, promising.
Why did you let me down?
How I felt like my life was almost empty, except the spaces filled with nightmares and the feeling that winter would never end. The stagnant, dull feeling, empty of passion or desire.
How suddenly you just walked up to me and asked me something simple. If I wanted to go out with you that day, or another time. Soon it started...
The first hints of falling, the first glimmer of joy or even ecstasy. Sitting with you at the coffee shop, you in your red shirt and nice black jacket, walking by your side along the seawall, down the shore. With you and your friends by Narrow River at sunset, where the light was so perfect and for the first time in too long to measure, I felt like I belonged, here, in the world, alive.
You were so nice, asking questions about me. What CD is in my car right now? And you laughed at my crazy stories, like the thing about the Christmas trees and pranks from high school... You leaned back against my car and said, "I had a really good time. I'd like to do this again some time." I agreed. You waved goodbye as I drove away.
When you would call or text almost every day asking if I wanted to go do things. Now I am wishing I had found a way to say yes. The Explosions in the Sky show in Providence and going over your house late at night to watch a movie.
The second date at the beach with you, in the cold and fog. I was less timid because Nikki was there. We walked together down the beach again. Then standing close to you by the seawall and eventually you put your arm around me, which felt perfect. You started terribly singing random songs. We talked and laughed. Absurd things like the benefits of selective invisibility and what if there were the ghost of a pirate behind us, who long ago drowned in the knee-deep water below and to this day haunts Narragansett in his humiliation. We agreed that we were both crazy... you still had your arm around me...
One of the best days of my life. The glorious Tuesday when we left class and walking down the stairs, I said I didn't feel like going to my classes and asked if I could go to the beach with you. Outside, into the exuberant warm air, bright colors, green leaves and flowers. Sitting on the front lawn of Lambda, next to you, looking at the flowering trees across the street and the vibrant blue sky, then glancing in your direction. Making fun of a biker dressed in yellow and purple spandex and talking about your graduation.
In your car driving to the ocean, me in the passenger seat and a friend of yours in the back. I tried to think of things to say and found it surprisingly not as difficult as usual. You kept switching CDs and the only one I remember is Ziggy Stardust, after which you said, "Thank you, David Bowie." You asked if I had ever read The Phantom Tollbooth and said it would be fun to be a children's book author.
At Bass Rock, two rich people's dogs started to follow us as we clambered over the rocks. We went down to a secluded place. Leaning against a rock by the sea, you next to me and Steve sitting on the next rock over, sipping beers and passing a one-hitter between the two of you. Me? No thanks.
Then the quiet when you laid down on another rock, looked up at me and said, "I can't believe you're not even facing the ocean," when I smiled and climbed down next to you. It was a bit of an awkward position so you said, "Is that completely uncomfortable?" "Yeah, kind of completely uncomfortable." We laughed about how I, wearing a skirt, was dressed inappropriately for rock climbing. Steve got up & disappeared over the rocks.
You put your arm around me and I laid my head on your chest. Eyes half-closed, your hand stroking my waist, my hand holding onto your half-unzipped sweatshirt. The sunlight everywhere, warming every part of me, and the soft sound of the sea. When I opened my eyes I would see your chest, your hand, a can of beer and the bright blue ocean. As I laid there with you, time slowed and stopped and the moment was eternal. We didn't say anything. We might already have been there for hours when you lifted your head, looked at me, smiled and kissed me softly.
It felt like being under a spell, completely enchanted. An entirely private place, only us, on the rocks by the sea. Speaking or sudden movements might have broken the spell. I felt completely relaxed and completely elated at the same time. One of the most amazing things I have ever felt.
I don't know how long we laid like that, but eventually we moved. Your foot was asleep, I moved and knocked over the beer can accidentally, then we got up and started walking over the rocks. You gave me your hand when it was difficult to climb higher. We came to another place and stood looking out to sea. I couldn't stop smiling when I looked at you and you said, "What?" Then giddily I could only say, "I like you." Then we sat down on the rock.
Sweet saltwater kisses and deep kisses, your hands, me at ease but nervous at the same time, trusting you but wondering if I really should... but all the while, still under that delicious enchantment... Until I broke away, sat looking toward the sea, then laid down beside you and said to slow down. My head on your chest, my hand on yours.
When we got up soon after that, was it really because we both said we were getting cold? Because you broke the spell by seeing what time it was? Or, because you realized you weren't going to get any?
We climbed across the rocks, found Steve, you went on an expedition to retrieve the rest of the beer, then we went back to the car and left. You made me nervous, smoking while you were driving. I made myself nervous thinking about what had happened, thinking about what you were thinking and how it didn't seem like you were thinking about it at all.
After we dropped off Steve at Lambda, when you drove me down to my car, I leaned across and kissed you quickly. I think I imagined that you looked the tiniest bit surprised. "Give me a call." Then the sudden moment of panic before I opened the door, when I asked, "You know when I said that I think we should slow down? That's not going to be a problem or anything - is it?" And you, looking carefree, saying "No, no I guess not," and I said I wanted to see you again. "So," you said, "give me a call."
"Yeah, it's my last Greek Week, and it's the only time I really care that I joined a fraternity, and..."
Greek Week, when I presume you didn't call back because you were drunk and stoned. In class Tuesday when you sat next to me and talked like normal. The Earth Day festival on the quad, when you texted me to see if I was going, the relief of being with you again. You were wearing plaid with argyle and I even thought that was cute. The biggest lamb was named Ursula and you debated whether to spend $50 on a Grateful Dead wall-hanging and we walked across the quad talking about your final film project. By the rock wall, watching the little kids walk away disappointed. Give me a call.
Last class Thursday, you were too busy to do anything, but, you said, "Another time. Give me a call." I did. Nothing back. A single drunken text message you probably didn't even know you were sending me about what you were doing that day. (Getting wasted before your last college class. Just lovely.)
Where are you? What are you doing?
At Lambda, drinking. In the kitchen at your job. Making a film. Writing your papers. At your house. At your apartment.
Why don't you call me?
What happened to how you were on the first dates, so sweet and kind and interesting, singing random songs and talking about absurd things with me?
I don't want to feel broken again... and I don't want winter to come back now...
Under the spell, everything was blooming, delirious warmth and the blue of the sky so deep and bright, drunk on spring air and thoughts of you. Waking up with the sunrise every day, half-asleep dreams about you and when I would get to see you again. Everything new, promising.
Why did you let me down?
Thursday, May 1, 2008
a lack of phonecalls, the lambda drive-by, and the art of double-entendre
what's this
sitting alone at home, what am I doing, writing a poem?
while you
are in that big grey house hey pour me another one will you
and I
wanted it wanted you, everyone knows I still do
You live
in that place where there is no sorrow and where
the sun
is warm and bright and no more shadows, where
the air
itself is so intoxicating, becoming more lightheaded with
each kiss
That is what I want I swear it's what I want
That world, spinning summer ecstasy
a place where the light is perfect at sunset
over the clear river-water, and then
you smile at me and
time stops
just
like
that
Give me
something anything I would have given you half of everything
Let me
touch your hand your wrist with the tattoo of
those
damn
Greek
letters
Open the door
even just a sliver and I
don't know what I'll do
like kiss you
scream, fuck you
funny, you know the problem is
just how much
I wanted to
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
desire
I want to see you again, kiss you again, lay in your arms again, talk to you again.
I want... I want the sunny front steps of that big grey house to feel familiar. I want you to care. I want to spend countless summer days at the beach with you. Or anywhere. I want to see your new apartment. I want to know you well. I want to hang out with your friends. I want to see the movies you make.
I want this summer to be dizzyingly happy, an explosion of bright colors, and I want you to be the reason. I want to wake up to sunlight and happy half-asleep thoughts of you, fall asleep to ecstatic memories of seeing you last, and electric anticipation of seeing you again. I want to be sure that I will see you again. I want the days to be filled with the knowledge that you want to see me too.
Before I met you, I lived in a dark cold place. I want never to go back there.
But more than that, I just want you.
I want... I want the sunny front steps of that big grey house to feel familiar. I want you to care. I want to spend countless summer days at the beach with you. Or anywhere. I want to see your new apartment. I want to know you well. I want to hang out with your friends. I want to see the movies you make.
I want this summer to be dizzyingly happy, an explosion of bright colors, and I want you to be the reason. I want to wake up to sunlight and happy half-asleep thoughts of you, fall asleep to ecstatic memories of seeing you last, and electric anticipation of seeing you again. I want to be sure that I will see you again. I want the days to be filled with the knowledge that you want to see me too.
Before I met you, I lived in a dark cold place. I want never to go back there.
But more than that, I just want you.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
want
I don't particularly want to write
or do anything other than
see you
Perfect
sunlight
a kiss with the faint aftertaste
of alcohol and electricity
Your eyes
looking
at
me
Should I have?
Will I
get
more
chances?
This is, you are what I want
So
call me back damn it
or do anything other than
see you
Perfect
sunlight
a kiss with the faint aftertaste
of alcohol and electricity
Your eyes
looking
at
me
Should I have?
Will I
get
more
chances?
This is, you are what I want
So
call me back damn it
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
i'm happy.
one of the most perfect moments of my life:
lying there on the rocks
warm air ocean sound & drowsily opening my eyes
to you. and the bright blue sea -
my skin touched by sunlight & your hands, well
Wednesday morning everything reminds me of you
the warmth & the deep blue giddy sky
riots of leaves and flowers & the flick of a lighter
David Bowie & the Greek alphabet
Please
can't wait to see you again
falling-flying dizzily into this warm spring
drunk
on
saltwater
kisses
lying there on the rocks
warm air ocean sound & drowsily opening my eyes
to you. and the bright blue sea -
my skin touched by sunlight & your hands, well
Wednesday morning everything reminds me of you
the warmth & the deep blue giddy sky
riots of leaves and flowers & the flick of a lighter
David Bowie & the Greek alphabet
Please
can't wait to see you again
falling-flying dizzily into this warm spring
drunk
on
saltwater
kisses
Sunday, April 13, 2008
that riotous season
my heart beats in a birdcage
feather-swift
wrought-iron pulses that
are beginning to quicken.
I'm shivering on the seawall
thinking, take my hand don't take my hand
if you wrap your arm around me I am not so cold
I don't say anything but why pray tell am I thinking
that it would be not at all quite so bad
to spend several days in this position?
I'm laughing like there is nothing to lose
soon there will be a riot of color,
color and chlorophyll, spinning
petals in the heady air.
I feel it coming
in this sudden space of warmth -
the rolling of the sea,
sweaters and sandals heralding
the haze and fog and the dawn of another summer.
I am telling you a story
don't trap me don't let me
feel small again.
But now I realize
once I sat here and was frightened of the sea,
felt vulnerable, out of control.
Now I feel quite so much better I think
it may be time to take a jump
We think we have seen the ghost of a pirate
who is humiliated that he drowned in knee-deep water
I think it may be time to go slowly into that riotous season
that I feel jumping up to meet my touch.
feather-swift
wrought-iron pulses that
are beginning to quicken.
I'm shivering on the seawall
thinking, take my hand don't take my hand
if you wrap your arm around me I am not so cold
I don't say anything but why pray tell am I thinking
that it would be not at all quite so bad
to spend several days in this position?
I'm laughing like there is nothing to lose
soon there will be a riot of color,
color and chlorophyll, spinning
petals in the heady air.
I feel it coming
in this sudden space of warmth -
the rolling of the sea,
sweaters and sandals heralding
the haze and fog and the dawn of another summer.
I am telling you a story
don't trap me don't let me
feel small again.
But now I realize
once I sat here and was frightened of the sea,
felt vulnerable, out of control.
Now I feel quite so much better I think
it may be time to take a jump
We think we have seen the ghost of a pirate
who is humiliated that he drowned in knee-deep water
I think it may be time to go slowly into that riotous season
that I feel jumping up to meet my touch.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
guenevere
this morning's lute-strings
ladled music into my soul
Lancelot, it was you
who made me wish so long ago
that all mornings could be musical.
Well look, now I found one without you
and without him.
I lingered in a pocket of the world
where time flowed from my fingertips,
following each delicate cadence
of bird-song in the linden trees.
For once, my love was free to give,
so I gave it to the sky -
but then the treetops rained it back down to me,
and the winnowing wind, he whispered,
"Give it to your knight, my love."
So here I am,
on the edge of thought and time,
the sword of the sunrise -
I have considered your request.
You are wrong
about time leaving me behind,
but how true it is
that the throne is meaningless.
Maybe all that I will do
is give a message to the birds,
and if they chance to find you -
If I chance to find you -
through the message of a thousand wingbeats
and fierce claws that block out the sun -
my dear, you will know me by
the steady darkening of the sky.
ladled music into my soul
Lancelot, it was you
who made me wish so long ago
that all mornings could be musical.
Well look, now I found one without you
and without him.
I lingered in a pocket of the world
where time flowed from my fingertips,
following each delicate cadence
of bird-song in the linden trees.
For once, my love was free to give,
so I gave it to the sky -
but then the treetops rained it back down to me,
and the winnowing wind, he whispered,
"Give it to your knight, my love."
So here I am,
on the edge of thought and time,
the sword of the sunrise -
I have considered your request.
You are wrong
about time leaving me behind,
but how true it is
that the throne is meaningless.
Maybe all that I will do
is give a message to the birds,
and if they chance to find you -
If I chance to find you -
through the message of a thousand wingbeats
and fierce claws that block out the sun -
my dear, you will know me by
the steady darkening of the sky.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
languid
I know that
my stage is shoddy
floorboards rotting
yellow feathers dripping from the curtains
dreams caught in the eaves
Turn around!
but Dieu the costumes they are magnifique!
Ashamed that
my eyes are hollow of late
Take my pose away
I want to
write about preachers again,
and Sunday-morning sunlight caught up in the curtains,
Spirits in green leaves,
and sitting in a carriage waiting
over cobblestones past lamp-posts
- for the prince to come?
Thought love would be like
catching snowflakes in warm lamplight
turning a corner and suddenly the colors shift
speaking perfect French without knowing how
and all the question marks,
oh all the question marks
would turn quick into
exclamation points!
shamed I'm scarred of late
"She doesn't trust anyone,
you know."
Whisper winter fingers in my mind
They tell me -
they tell me
nothing
only
lonely
weary thoughts that turn languidly around.
I know that
my age is young and
Am I only practicing?
No ma'am
I think that
I am floundering
I thought I had escaped this theatre
its dust still clings to all my clothes
but darling they are so magnificent
my stage is shoddy
floorboards rotting
yellow feathers dripping from the curtains
dreams caught in the eaves
Turn around!
but Dieu the costumes they are magnifique!
Ashamed that
my eyes are hollow of late
Take my pose away
I want to
write about preachers again,
and Sunday-morning sunlight caught up in the curtains,
Spirits in green leaves,
and sitting in a carriage waiting
over cobblestones past lamp-posts
- for the prince to come?
Thought love would be like
catching snowflakes in warm lamplight
turning a corner and suddenly the colors shift
speaking perfect French without knowing how
and all the question marks,
oh all the question marks
would turn quick into
exclamation points!
shamed I'm scarred of late
"She doesn't trust anyone,
you know."
Whisper winter fingers in my mind
They tell me -
they tell me
nothing
only
lonely
weary thoughts that turn languidly around.
I know that
my age is young and
Am I only practicing?
No ma'am
I think that
I am floundering
I thought I had escaped this theatre
its dust still clings to all my clothes
but darling they are so magnificent
Saturday, April 5, 2008
private
I spend a lot of time only in my own head. I don't trust anyone I don't know. I don't trust many people... My family, my best friends whom I've known for fifteen years, select good friends from high school - that's basically it. Well, if someone new comes with an extremely good recommendation from one of my friends, then I'll trust them. And also, rarely, when someone new surprises me by being amazing. This may be just a friend of a friend, someone whom I almost immediately know is a great person whom I would like to be friends with.
I'm kind of shocked whenever someone I don't know shows interest in me. Me, the standoffish, suspicious ice-queen type? Do they know what they could be getting into?
I usually view people I don't know as a different species. Or, rather, they are regular humans and I am a different species, and so we won't understand each other.
Mostly I live inside a private world. Like a house. When someone suddenly shows up and knocks on the door, I am afraid that they will disrupt everything: spill beer on the nice carpets, borrow a favorite book and lose it, break precious heirlooms, snoop into the most secret corners.
In my imaginings I am an adventurer, a brightcolored free spirit who travels the world and tells enchanting stories. In daily life, I'm an introverted girl who longs for something new and exciting to happen to her, but still worries that new things will irreversibly damage the old. And I value the old things like treasures.
I know that getting to know me is difficult. Impossible for some. Because I don't freely share that much. I may choose to share an image, a shade, a facet. I suppose we all think we are ridiculously complicated and that no one understands us... but that's not really what I mean.
Just that I don't easily let anyone in to my world. You have to pass a sort of subconscious test. Most of my friends passed it without thinking in golden childhood. Others passed it in a similarly easy way in high school. But now I hold back more. You can't burst into my world and think that I will easily be swept outside of it. You have to show me that it will be worth it... then I might allow myself to be surprised.
But you never know.
I'm kind of shocked whenever someone I don't know shows interest in me. Me, the standoffish, suspicious ice-queen type? Do they know what they could be getting into?
I usually view people I don't know as a different species. Or, rather, they are regular humans and I am a different species, and so we won't understand each other.
Mostly I live inside a private world. Like a house. When someone suddenly shows up and knocks on the door, I am afraid that they will disrupt everything: spill beer on the nice carpets, borrow a favorite book and lose it, break precious heirlooms, snoop into the most secret corners.
In my imaginings I am an adventurer, a brightcolored free spirit who travels the world and tells enchanting stories. In daily life, I'm an introverted girl who longs for something new and exciting to happen to her, but still worries that new things will irreversibly damage the old. And I value the old things like treasures.
I know that getting to know me is difficult. Impossible for some. Because I don't freely share that much. I may choose to share an image, a shade, a facet. I suppose we all think we are ridiculously complicated and that no one understands us... but that's not really what I mean.
Just that I don't easily let anyone in to my world. You have to pass a sort of subconscious test. Most of my friends passed it without thinking in golden childhood. Others passed it in a similarly easy way in high school. But now I hold back more. You can't burst into my world and think that I will easily be swept outside of it. You have to show me that it will be worth it... then I might allow myself to be surprised.
But you never know.
Friday, April 4, 2008
a reprise of sir lancelot's reprise
Now longer, with more backstory & metaphor, and in stricter trochaic quadrameter (most of the time).
What say you now, fair Guenevere –
Does the memory of youth now lay
golden over your sweet slumber?
Or are you, like me, tormented
by ghastly dreams of bygone years,
chasing after each grey twilight?
Well do I recall those doomed days,
when we shivered with desire
in our small forbidden world.
Wretched wraiths of restless longing,
we pilfered sight-lines and soft words.
In the sun-drenched summer daylight,
we blazed briefly before night’s swift
talons tore the secrets from our souls
and wing-beats bore them to the king.
He reclaimed all our stolen glances,
melted away our borrowed time.
Guilt and starving sorrow dragged us
down the gauntlet of our sins,
and scarred we stumbled blindly
back into honor's waiting arms.
My lady! The years have been cruel,
but you, my dear, are crueler still.
Through hell I rode – you let me go
into exile, to save our names.
I would have rather whispered soft
traitor’s words to you for all my life.
And the cruelest thing of all is this:
shattered, torn, bruised and winter-cold,
my weary heart still turns to you.
Do you now long for freedom
as you did when your crown was new?
In agony I think of you
seated upon your crumbling throne,
fading into the quiet grief
that haunts those by whom time has passed.
My queen, I will not let it be.
When the raven sings at dawn and the
castle walls fall down – follow me.
All glory’s gone and gashed. Why then
be harnessed? Come with me
on a stolen ride through hellfire,
for we’re lonely slaves of longing
and hollow withered hope.
What say you now, fair Guenevere –
Does the memory of youth now lay
golden over your sweet slumber?
Or are you, like me, tormented
by ghastly dreams of bygone years,
chasing after each grey twilight?
Well do I recall those doomed days,
when we shivered with desire
in our small forbidden world.
Wretched wraiths of restless longing,
we pilfered sight-lines and soft words.
In the sun-drenched summer daylight,
we blazed briefly before night’s swift
talons tore the secrets from our souls
and wing-beats bore them to the king.
He reclaimed all our stolen glances,
melted away our borrowed time.
Guilt and starving sorrow dragged us
down the gauntlet of our sins,
and scarred we stumbled blindly
back into honor's waiting arms.
My lady! The years have been cruel,
but you, my dear, are crueler still.
Through hell I rode – you let me go
into exile, to save our names.
I would have rather whispered soft
traitor’s words to you for all my life.
And the cruelest thing of all is this:
shattered, torn, bruised and winter-cold,
my weary heart still turns to you.
Do you now long for freedom
as you did when your crown was new?
In agony I think of you
seated upon your crumbling throne,
fading into the quiet grief
that haunts those by whom time has passed.
My queen, I will not let it be.
When the raven sings at dawn and the
castle walls fall down – follow me.
All glory’s gone and gashed. Why then
be harnessed? Come with me
on a stolen ride through hellfire,
for we’re lonely slaves of longing
and hollow withered hope.
Monday, March 31, 2008
unexpected joy
Today I was caught quite unexpectedly by joy. It was somehow like the feeling of stumbling home after a big event, like a dance, so happily tired in wobbly heels and smudged make-up. Like having someone to thrillingly think about while replaying a life-changing day. And it happened even though I don't have someone like that, and even though all I did today was go to school and work and come home and read. But nevertheless, all of a sudden I felt alive again, instead of shriveled and shivering.
All wrapped up in the feeling was the belief that I will have wonderfully life-changing days again, that there will be magic and there will be joy. The moment was like a surprise gift - the kind you get when it's six months till your birthday and longer still till Christmas and the days all smudge into each other, but one morning you wake up to dream-light turning into sunlight, and a package in the mail. And unexpectedly you stumble into a space where the world is once again new.
I think that I am stumbling off of the battlefield. I am finally leaving the abandoned theatre, the nightmare cartography, the weary-eyed winter. Hello.
All wrapped up in the feeling was the belief that I will have wonderfully life-changing days again, that there will be magic and there will be joy. The moment was like a surprise gift - the kind you get when it's six months till your birthday and longer still till Christmas and the days all smudge into each other, but one morning you wake up to dream-light turning into sunlight, and a package in the mail. And unexpectedly you stumble into a space where the world is once again new.
I think that I am stumbling off of the battlefield. I am finally leaving the abandoned theatre, the nightmare cartography, the weary-eyed winter. Hello.
Friday, March 28, 2008
educational purposes
Classes next fall! I register on Monday. Methinks:
ENG 469 The Modern Novel (for 20th century requirement)
Tuesday & Thursday 9:30 - 10:45
ENG 305 Advanced Creative Writing (woot!): Literary Nonfiction
Tuesday & Thursday 11 - 12:15
ENG 205A Poetry Writing (OF COURSE)!
Tuesday & Thursday 12:30 - 1:45
WRT 201 Writing Argumentative Texts (for writing minor)
MWF 12 - 12:50
WRT 235 Writing in Electronic Environments (for writing minor)
Online
ENG 469 The Modern Novel (for 20th century requirement)
Tuesday & Thursday 9:30 - 10:45
ENG 305 Advanced Creative Writing (woot!): Literary Nonfiction
Tuesday & Thursday 11 - 12:15
ENG 205A Poetry Writing (OF COURSE)!
Tuesday & Thursday 12:30 - 1:45
WRT 201 Writing Argumentative Texts (for writing minor)
MWF 12 - 12:50
WRT 235 Writing in Electronic Environments (for writing minor)
Online
inspiration
Hello hello I feel
like I am getting inspiration back.
It's the characters and sounds, word-patterns and snippets of music, colors and images that float through my head and light everything up.
Lately:
Sir Lancelot gallops by - hello!
I remember Walden, dancing summer light upon the emerald current in the cove, the air thick with the feeling of chlorophyll; my heart in a jewelry box at the bottom of the pond. Feeling that I have been here before.
Walking around with the feeling of poems is much better than walking alone
It happens in other ways too. It's listening to a Patrick Wolf album or reading an E. E. Cummings poem without feeling jealous or thinking "I will never be able to make something this beautiful." Instead, feeling enchanted and thinking simply "this is beautiful." & I want to create something beautiful.
hello hope
like I am getting inspiration back.
It's the characters and sounds, word-patterns and snippets of music, colors and images that float through my head and light everything up.
Lately:
Sir Lancelot gallops by - hello!
I remember Walden, dancing summer light upon the emerald current in the cove, the air thick with the feeling of chlorophyll; my heart in a jewelry box at the bottom of the pond. Feeling that I have been here before.
Walking around with the feeling of poems is much better than walking alone
It happens in other ways too. It's listening to a Patrick Wolf album or reading an E. E. Cummings poem without feeling jealous or thinking "I will never be able to make something this beautiful." Instead, feeling enchanted and thinking simply "this is beautiful." & I want to create something beautiful.
hello hope
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
sir lancelot's reprise II
I wrote this based on this old poem, Sir Lancelot's Reprise. He's my favorite knight because of his reputed mistake of falling in love with the queen. I think that this will be reworked yet again.
What say you now, fair Guenevere -
Has all of our beauty faded?
I still see your face; I have tracked
the time, your longing, the king's steps.
In youth, the brightest sun shone down
upon many stolen glances.
Sweet maiden, I wore your favor.
My dear, my cruel lady - you witch -
To this very day you haunt me.
Our joys are all tattered and torn,
dreams all gone in raven-song.
Now in hell my crass heart can watch
The years all spinning by, broken.
One twilight in the far-gone past,
I spurred my horse and rode away
to save my honor and my name.
Now I would sacrifice it all,
my shield and his crown, our thorns.
What say you now to me, old crone?
You sit upon your throne and still
drink mellow draughts in meagre halls -
for all glory's gone and gashed. Why then
be harnessed? Come with me
on a stolen ride through hellfire,
for we're lonely slaves of longing
and hollow withered hope.
What say you now, fair Guenevere -
Has all of our beauty faded?
I still see your face; I have tracked
the time, your longing, the king's steps.
In youth, the brightest sun shone down
upon many stolen glances.
Sweet maiden, I wore your favor.
My dear, my cruel lady - you witch -
To this very day you haunt me.
Our joys are all tattered and torn,
dreams all gone in raven-song.
Now in hell my crass heart can watch
The years all spinning by, broken.
One twilight in the far-gone past,
I spurred my horse and rode away
to save my honor and my name.
Now I would sacrifice it all,
my shield and his crown, our thorns.
What say you now to me, old crone?
You sit upon your throne and still
drink mellow draughts in meagre halls -
for all glory's gone and gashed. Why then
be harnessed? Come with me
on a stolen ride through hellfire,
for we're lonely slaves of longing
and hollow withered hope.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
conversation with the phoenix
I saw the phoenix in the garden today. Her nest is in the place where the shadows of winter swirl with the sun-patterns of spring, and she was sitting there preening her feathers when I arrived. I tried to be quiet, but I stepped on a branch. She looked at me and winked.
I expected her to fly away, like she usually does when I come too close. But she stayed. Then she spoke.
"Why don't you sit down?" she said.
I sat on a nearby stump. The phoenix stared at me.
"What's the matter with you?" she said.
"Uh..."
"No, really."
"I guess just the usual. Sorrow and fear, you know," I said.
"Sorrow is just a lonely person," said the phoenix. "Fear is a small child dressed in heavy grown-up's clothes. That's what you need to know."
"Er... thanks. But what do I do?" I said.
"Oh, for goodness' sake!" exclaimed the phoenix. "You're still asking that question? Have you not opened your eyes today?"
And then she sent the shadows off to play.
I expected her to fly away, like she usually does when I come too close. But she stayed. Then she spoke.
"Why don't you sit down?" she said.
I sat on a nearby stump. The phoenix stared at me.
"What's the matter with you?" she said.
"Uh..."
"No, really."
"I guess just the usual. Sorrow and fear, you know," I said.
"Sorrow is just a lonely person," said the phoenix. "Fear is a small child dressed in heavy grown-up's clothes. That's what you need to know."
"Er... thanks. But what do I do?" I said.
"Oh, for goodness' sake!" exclaimed the phoenix. "You're still asking that question? Have you not opened your eyes today?"
And then she sent the shadows off to play.
Friday, March 21, 2008
march winds
Good Friday: the wild wind batters the door. The last leaves of winter scatter down the sidewalk. They remind me of October sidewalk magic, that autumn sunset and that boy's smile that held the whole world. This winter has been long and ghost-filled, sorrow and laughter and the snow mountain in the front yard. Unexpected inspiration found in cupboards while rattling around this house. In November, speeding to Providence in Tara's broken car. Writing stories at 2AM by the light of the Christmas tree. The dark nights of depression and fear. Times when the sun took me by surprise. Winter break mornings alone in the house, doing laundry while listening to Patrick Wolf. Going back to school, back to sidewalks and cold wind, stockings and boots and the return of friendship.
This winter has been an age, a time, a book. These strong winds turn and tear the pages, smudge the latest scribblings, until I slam the cover and lock it shut. I am not sure what to do with summer. Spring always takes me by surprise. There are two days until Easter trees, pastel ribbons on fenceposts, and the memory of wide-brimmed flowery hats. There's talk of resurrection. It's the day after the equinox and I feel something starting.
This winter has been an age, a time, a book. These strong winds turn and tear the pages, smudge the latest scribblings, until I slam the cover and lock it shut. I am not sure what to do with summer. Spring always takes me by surprise. There are two days until Easter trees, pastel ribbons on fenceposts, and the memory of wide-brimmed flowery hats. There's talk of resurrection. It's the day after the equinox and I feel something starting.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
north carolina
Time to Blog!
I went to North Carolina and it was most lovely. My favorite cousin Jen lives there with her husband Dan. Jen is eleven years older than me and, in my odd family, that makes her the relative closest in age to me. Sooo we've always been good friends. It also helps that she is one of the coolest people in the world. Dan is also awesome. Jen is a professional artist and Dan is a graphic designer. We all have similar tastes in music & art & writing & quirky weird things.
Jen & Dan are going to have a baby in about a month and so the reason we went to NC was for Jen's baby shower. It was not like usual boring baby showers. Jen's friends who came to the shower are also very cool - they all do something interesting & creative for a living and are fun to be around. Yay. We also saw Jen & Dan's new house, which is tiny and cute and every room is painted a bright color.
'Twas very fun! And most excellent to go somewhere that required an airplane. I love being in different places, staying in someone else's house, noticing how things and people are different in other places... and whatnot. And 'twas very great to see Jen & Dan. I wish I could see them all the time. Indeed I hope that, in the future, I will be able to gallivant across the country & the world visiting all my friends who will doubtlessly be living in various interesting places.
I went to North Carolina and it was most lovely. My favorite cousin Jen lives there with her husband Dan. Jen is eleven years older than me and, in my odd family, that makes her the relative closest in age to me. Sooo we've always been good friends. It also helps that she is one of the coolest people in the world. Dan is also awesome. Jen is a professional artist and Dan is a graphic designer. We all have similar tastes in music & art & writing & quirky weird things.
Jen & Dan are going to have a baby in about a month and so the reason we went to NC was for Jen's baby shower. It was not like usual boring baby showers. Jen's friends who came to the shower are also very cool - they all do something interesting & creative for a living and are fun to be around. Yay. We also saw Jen & Dan's new house, which is tiny and cute and every room is painted a bright color.
'Twas very fun! And most excellent to go somewhere that required an airplane. I love being in different places, staying in someone else's house, noticing how things and people are different in other places... and whatnot. And 'twas very great to see Jen & Dan. I wish I could see them all the time. Indeed I hope that, in the future, I will be able to gallivant across the country & the world visiting all my friends who will doubtlessly be living in various interesting places.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
poem democracy!
Please vote for your favorite poems so I can decide which ones to enter in the Poetry Contest. I can submit up to 5 pages of poems, which equals roughly two long poems & one short poem, or, er, a bunch of short poems. ^-^ Many thanks!
Here are the contenders:
the salvage yard
november 1
the phoenix
the lamp-post
lemon-light
plan B
sir lancelot's reprise
canned indifferents
And I suppose if you remember any other poems that you think are better then you may write them in on the ballot. ^-^
Oh dear, no offense to my poems who are not on the list... I can only choose so many you see... 'tis so difficult.
Here are the contenders:
the salvage yard
november 1
the phoenix
the lamp-post
lemon-light
plan B
sir lancelot's reprise
canned indifferents
And I suppose if you remember any other poems that you think are better then you may write them in on the ballot. ^-^
Oh dear, no offense to my poems who are not on the list... I can only choose so many you see... 'tis so difficult.
the salvage yard (written last autumn)
I am
Split ends
Frayed thread
Torn rope
The dust of a Halloween bonfire
The pool of wax when a candle’s burnt out
The worn-out paper when the pencil-marks have been erased.
And in my
Patchwork pocket-holes
I keep:
one old burnished copper penny (1942)
one bent bobby pin – picked many a lock, sir, yes, sir
one small key to nothing or a secret bramble-garden
two smudged, torn scraps of paper
No sir you don’t have to read them I will tell you hold on I will tell you
Here let me one moment let me unfold them
One says “never mind”
And the other “seek and find”
I live in a salvage yard
with stray dogs who chew on stray bones.
I dine on top of sea-chests with the attic ghosts.
The wild wind is chill here –
It cries over the landscape of discarded things
stirring all the lost dreams, lost lies and lost lives.
And I chase the wind and pick them up
as it unravels my sleeves and tangles my dirty hair.
The only rule in the salvage yard is this:
if you wish to leave your shoes, you can only leave one of a pair.
It’s sad that it has to be that way
but no one has ever found two of the same shoe
(it might go to his head you see, sir, sir)
I write down dreams with fading-ink pens
- one night I fell down the rain-gutter
- one night I lost my black glove
- one night I found one small broken star in a rusty garbage can.
I miscount the days on a broken watch.
I’ve been counting them wrong for years
so that now there are no years
and I have been here forever.
And
When I fall down in the river mud, I am cousin to
the cigarette butts in the gutter, how they’re
burning out with final tired sparks of fire.
But when I stand up on the riverside
with the flat tires and hubcaps and broken bottles -
I usually find something worth keeping
and it’s always broken
bent
scattered
bruised
and half-lost,
But I tie it to the frayed end
of a thread unraveling from my coat sleeve
and hope it will not fall off on the way home
Split ends
Frayed thread
Torn rope
The dust of a Halloween bonfire
The pool of wax when a candle’s burnt out
The worn-out paper when the pencil-marks have been erased.
And in my
Patchwork pocket-holes
I keep:
one old burnished copper penny (1942)
one bent bobby pin – picked many a lock, sir, yes, sir
one small key to nothing or a secret bramble-garden
two smudged, torn scraps of paper
No sir you don’t have to read them I will tell you hold on I will tell you
Here let me one moment let me unfold them
One says “never mind”
And the other “seek and find”
I live in a salvage yard
with stray dogs who chew on stray bones.
I dine on top of sea-chests with the attic ghosts.
The wild wind is chill here –
It cries over the landscape of discarded things
stirring all the lost dreams, lost lies and lost lives.
And I chase the wind and pick them up
as it unravels my sleeves and tangles my dirty hair.
The only rule in the salvage yard is this:
if you wish to leave your shoes, you can only leave one of a pair.
It’s sad that it has to be that way
but no one has ever found two of the same shoe
(it might go to his head you see, sir, sir)
I write down dreams with fading-ink pens
- one night I fell down the rain-gutter
- one night I lost my black glove
- one night I found one small broken star in a rusty garbage can.
I miscount the days on a broken watch.
I’ve been counting them wrong for years
so that now there are no years
and I have been here forever.
And
When I fall down in the river mud, I am cousin to
the cigarette butts in the gutter, how they’re
burning out with final tired sparks of fire.
But when I stand up on the riverside
with the flat tires and hubcaps and broken bottles -
I usually find something worth keeping
and it’s always broken
bent
scattered
bruised
and half-lost,
But I tie it to the frayed end
of a thread unraveling from my coat sleeve
and hope it will not fall off on the way home
november 1 (written last autumn)
The fabric of the world is stretched and frayed
like coats from thrift store stockrooms.
Cobwebs of cloud hang over the sun
and my attic is empty, but won’t be for long.
Tired eyes are blinking today, roving through the air,
over rooftops and down alleyways.
Weary lines of sight linger
in the garbage cans and crevasses in stone walls,
in the space between the shingles,
in the place between two leaves
rustling in the autumn wind.
Last night, I saw them –
in the cemetery,
in the woods,
on the roadside.
I saw their pale limbs
and heard the sound of phantom heartbeats,
their arms wrapped around solid living people
and their songs joined with quiet living voices.
Right after sunset,
they grabbed each other’s hands and started running
through the young night and the moonlight and the spicy smell of smoke.
They all felt alive, the living and the living-for-tonight.
They rode on broken carousels and spun their broken carriage wheels;
They tamed horses made only of bone.
When they found a dead fish on the beach, they threw it into the sea –
it stirred and flapped its flippers, took one dive and disappeared.
The whole time their hands were joined
and their feet were dancing,
their eyes beholding,
their warm blood flowing,
flying and falling deep through the dark.
The chance seems always to end too soon, for them.
I saw it, the midnight embrace,
on the shore,
on the gravestones,
on the tailpipes of morning.
I saw them hold so tightly that
they almost dissolved into each other.
I saw the fish skeleton wash up on the beach.
I saw them cry.
Always was that heartbeat sound,
rushing in with the wind
and the ticking of a clock
in somebody’s unraveling pocket.
I softly heard the last whispers of the year,
The pale limbs growing paler by the moment, entreating
The heartbeat-holding ones to live the year out,
to live and cry and laugh and scream and wait.
I saw the last embrace
As the pale ones started to fade
And midnight swooped in on the wings of a swallow
with a golden pocketwatch grasped in its beak,
the minute hand broken
(that was a triumph).
And then nobody slept,
and the dawn came in fog and in cinder.
Now everybody’s eyes are tired;
Now everybody’s ears are ringing;
Now everybody’s hearts are beating –
But I can’t hear them when it’s light out.
I hear the saints are rising, and
I know the pale ones are waiting.
I know the living are ghosts today.
like coats from thrift store stockrooms.
Cobwebs of cloud hang over the sun
and my attic is empty, but won’t be for long.
Tired eyes are blinking today, roving through the air,
over rooftops and down alleyways.
Weary lines of sight linger
in the garbage cans and crevasses in stone walls,
in the space between the shingles,
in the place between two leaves
rustling in the autumn wind.
Last night, I saw them –
in the cemetery,
in the woods,
on the roadside.
I saw their pale limbs
and heard the sound of phantom heartbeats,
their arms wrapped around solid living people
and their songs joined with quiet living voices.
Right after sunset,
they grabbed each other’s hands and started running
through the young night and the moonlight and the spicy smell of smoke.
They all felt alive, the living and the living-for-tonight.
They rode on broken carousels and spun their broken carriage wheels;
They tamed horses made only of bone.
When they found a dead fish on the beach, they threw it into the sea –
it stirred and flapped its flippers, took one dive and disappeared.
The whole time their hands were joined
and their feet were dancing,
their eyes beholding,
their warm blood flowing,
flying and falling deep through the dark.
The chance seems always to end too soon, for them.
I saw it, the midnight embrace,
on the shore,
on the gravestones,
on the tailpipes of morning.
I saw them hold so tightly that
they almost dissolved into each other.
I saw the fish skeleton wash up on the beach.
I saw them cry.
Always was that heartbeat sound,
rushing in with the wind
and the ticking of a clock
in somebody’s unraveling pocket.
I softly heard the last whispers of the year,
The pale limbs growing paler by the moment, entreating
The heartbeat-holding ones to live the year out,
to live and cry and laugh and scream and wait.
I saw the last embrace
As the pale ones started to fade
And midnight swooped in on the wings of a swallow
with a golden pocketwatch grasped in its beak,
the minute hand broken
(that was a triumph).
And then nobody slept,
and the dawn came in fog and in cinder.
Now everybody’s eyes are tired;
Now everybody’s ears are ringing;
Now everybody’s hearts are beating –
But I can’t hear them when it’s light out.
I hear the saints are rising, and
I know the pale ones are waiting.
I know the living are ghosts today.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
weather report
In the weeks before spring, on the edge between two seasons, days are like miniature years, weather changing and clouds shifting, rain and sun... Earlier, the sky was dark grey and the light was flat, and every color stood out sharply against the darkness. The red buds on tree-branches against that slate-grey made the season look like a second autumn. The darkness built and the shadows all spread out and were absorbed by the tree-trunks, and then came the stillness, and then the moment: the grey deepened one more shade and then gave out; the rain poured down. It started sleeting and miniature balls of ice got caught in the grass. And then the clouds all parted and drifted in and out of sight. Now it is bright outside; sunlight spills onto the street and licks the cold green leaves. In this time between seasons, it usually looks warm out the windows, but I know that it is not. But still the wind is starting to feel different.
Monday, March 10, 2008
happy
I have been making a concerted effort to be happy. And it's working! woot. A few weeks ago, I realized that I had been letting depression build in the back of my mind for months, until finally it suddenly tried to take over and things were pretty bad a lot of the time. I wanted to stop it. So I decided to remain alert and recognize the symptoms of depression when they are setting in, and stop them before they can spiral out of control. This method is working quite well. Whenever a depressing thought or ominous feeling comes up, I look at it sharply and say, "I know you & I've seen you before. You will not control my life! Go away." And then the depression mostly runs away.
Other things that have been keeping the happiness up:
- Signs of spring
- Optimistic thinking
- Friends and family
- Adventure to the ocean & anticipating many more in the summertime
- Tuesdays and Thursdays
- New shoes
- Being inspired by people I admire
- Trying to stop my doom & gloom attitude toward the future and embrace possibility instead
- Lovely music
- Writing Contests
In other random news, a show of dorkiness: today happens to be the birthday of everyone's favorite werewolf (or at least, Sirius Black's and my own favorite werewolf). I think that if one tried hard enough, he could probably find a holiday for every day of the year. Perhaps I will make that a personal goal. And bake cupcakes all the time to celebrate.
Other things that have been keeping the happiness up:
- Signs of spring
- Optimistic thinking
- Friends and family
- Adventure to the ocean & anticipating many more in the summertime
- Tuesdays and Thursdays
- New shoes
- Being inspired by people I admire
- Trying to stop my doom & gloom attitude toward the future and embrace possibility instead
- Lovely music
- Writing Contests
In other random news, a show of dorkiness: today happens to be the birthday of everyone's favorite werewolf (or at least, Sirius Black's and my own favorite werewolf). I think that if one tried hard enough, he could probably find a holiday for every day of the year. Perhaps I will make that a personal goal. And bake cupcakes all the time to celebrate.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
school & contests
I'm skipping school today. Woo! An excellent decision. I have a paper due in English 202 tomorrow that is worth 25% of my grade (eww), and if I hadn't skipped school, I would have had to write all of it starting at 10:00 tonight because I get out of work at 9.
In other news I have decided to enter three out of the four writing contests at URI this month (information). I'm entering the short story contest, poetry contest, and nonfiction contest (with a memoir). Definitely skipping the critical essay contest (blech! those are no fun). I have picked the short story I'm going to enter and the memoir, but remain undecided on which poems. I can submit up to 5 pages of poetry, so that could be around two long poems or a bunch of short poems or or or I don't know. Anyway. Yay! I'm already starting to get nervous about it, but oh well, I could use some nervousness about something that actually matters, instead of the usual senseless panic (along the lines of "Oh no, what if I get attacked by ravenous wolves today?").
In other news I have decided to enter three out of the four writing contests at URI this month (information). I'm entering the short story contest, poetry contest, and nonfiction contest (with a memoir). Definitely skipping the critical essay contest (blech! those are no fun). I have picked the short story I'm going to enter and the memoir, but remain undecided on which poems. I can submit up to 5 pages of poetry, so that could be around two long poems or a bunch of short poems or or or I don't know. Anyway. Yay! I'm already starting to get nervous about it, but oh well, I could use some nervousness about something that actually matters, instead of the usual senseless panic (along the lines of "Oh no, what if I get attacked by ravenous wolves today?").
Sunday, March 2, 2008
the phoenix
The phoenix and I -
we've been missing each other for months.
She flies in circles around me;
I chase her many-plumed tail.
I cry and she faintly sings,
perched among the treetops.
I know that she is afraid -
I see her feathers molting,
her color fading,
her song growing ever more quiet.
No one knows this:
For a phoenix, rebirth is scary.
The descent into ashes
withers the songs and causes
cold tears to fall down
upon bright red feathers.
The brittle lines of winter trees
form the cage for her months of mourning.
I stand on the ground and watch her,
whispering what words of comfort I know.
Sometimes she looks down at me,
And behind the fear I see wisdom
in her beautiful fiery eyes.
I know the day has come
when I hear no singing out my window,
no rush of feathers to greet the day.
I go out into the cold grey world
and find heartbreak:
a pile of ashes in a forlorn bird's nest.
She was so beautiful,
the phoenix.
Last spring her songs were full of joy -
then they turned swift into a lament.
Now she is ash,
quiet and cold,
all beauty gone,
all fire put out.
For a while, I rattle around this house;
I hide under cushions and in cracks.
I can't bear the silence,
so I put on some music,
but it only makes me remember.
The etchings in the grey sky - tree-branches
tell a story that I cannot decode.
When the wind gathers the ashes
and storms tear apart the nest,
I think that she will never come back.
I can't bear the silence,
so after a while I start to sing.
Drifting through these wide rooms,
my feet padding over cold floorboards,
I let my voice escape my mouth,
words flowing senselessly.
While making tea, reading the newspaper -
doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom -
baking a cake, watering the houseplants -
I sing to fill the empty spaces
in a time of winter-white and ashen grey.
My song grows;
my voice strengthens.
A melody emerges,
and a storyline takes shape.
I sing until the days become distinct
and sunlight patterns emerge upon the floor.
I sing until I lose my voice.
One morning in March, I get out of bed, have breakfast,
and realize that I am hoarse
and cannot even speak.
Then I glance out the window
and see a bright flash of red.
I dash out onto the porch
and suddenly song fills my world -
rapture and victory,
joy and memory -
the sound a child makes when he is done crying,
the sensation of tears falling down to the ground,
the vision of cherryblossom sunsets,
and autumn trees subsiding.
Most of all,
the clarity of the morning
after the rain-washed night.
There can be no mistake -
this is the phoenix-song.
As she boldly flies past me,
all fire and light,
she winks and preens her orange-red feathers,
and sings up to the sky.
we've been missing each other for months.
She flies in circles around me;
I chase her many-plumed tail.
I cry and she faintly sings,
perched among the treetops.
I know that she is afraid -
I see her feathers molting,
her color fading,
her song growing ever more quiet.
No one knows this:
For a phoenix, rebirth is scary.
The descent into ashes
withers the songs and causes
cold tears to fall down
upon bright red feathers.
The brittle lines of winter trees
form the cage for her months of mourning.
I stand on the ground and watch her,
whispering what words of comfort I know.
Sometimes she looks down at me,
And behind the fear I see wisdom
in her beautiful fiery eyes.
I know the day has come
when I hear no singing out my window,
no rush of feathers to greet the day.
I go out into the cold grey world
and find heartbreak:
a pile of ashes in a forlorn bird's nest.
She was so beautiful,
the phoenix.
Last spring her songs were full of joy -
then they turned swift into a lament.
Now she is ash,
quiet and cold,
all beauty gone,
all fire put out.
For a while, I rattle around this house;
I hide under cushions and in cracks.
I can't bear the silence,
so I put on some music,
but it only makes me remember.
The etchings in the grey sky - tree-branches
tell a story that I cannot decode.
When the wind gathers the ashes
and storms tear apart the nest,
I think that she will never come back.
I can't bear the silence,
so after a while I start to sing.
Drifting through these wide rooms,
my feet padding over cold floorboards,
I let my voice escape my mouth,
words flowing senselessly.
While making tea, reading the newspaper -
doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom -
baking a cake, watering the houseplants -
I sing to fill the empty spaces
in a time of winter-white and ashen grey.
My song grows;
my voice strengthens.
A melody emerges,
and a storyline takes shape.
I sing until the days become distinct
and sunlight patterns emerge upon the floor.
I sing until I lose my voice.
One morning in March, I get out of bed, have breakfast,
and realize that I am hoarse
and cannot even speak.
Then I glance out the window
and see a bright flash of red.
I dash out onto the porch
and suddenly song fills my world -
rapture and victory,
joy and memory -
the sound a child makes when he is done crying,
the sensation of tears falling down to the ground,
the vision of cherryblossom sunsets,
and autumn trees subsiding.
Most of all,
the clarity of the morning
after the rain-washed night.
There can be no mistake -
this is the phoenix-song.
As she boldly flies past me,
all fire and light,
she winks and preens her orange-red feathers,
and sings up to the sky.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
childhood
When I was little, down the street from my school there was a synagogue. It was set back from the road and had stairs and a pathway and more stairs leading up to it. In spring, the cherryblossom trees in front blossomed into beautiful pink flowers. I thought that I would like to get married there someday.
I remember winters of snow and ice-skating on frozen puddles, chasing each other with icicles. I remember February. When Alyssa and I stood by the snowy flowerbeds and she said, "Pretty soon, this will all be slush." Maybe she meant that spring would come soon, but I always thought this statement was sad.
At recess (glorious recess) we all played monster games in the parking lot. All the girls, that is, except for one girl who played with the boys and one boy who played with the girls. We played Vampire or Medusa or Blob or Creature of the Black Lagoon or even Vampire Tag. And my classmates really did turn into vampires, walking across the blacktop, and I really was scared, but in that thrilling Halloween night way.
I remember the green-paneled carpet closet psychiatrist's office.
There were glorious rainstorms, when we would all run outside and dash down the sidewalk to the blacktop, where we would twirl around and make up rain dances, laughing!
There was always, always the sound of rollerblades over the pavement, or baseball cards clothespinned to bike wheels. And the magic excitement of the nighttime, when Ryan and Nikki and I on sleepovers would play Alien, the mothership landing on the playhouse roof, the aliens lurking around the corner, just in the side yard. Chasing flashlight beams down the sidewalk.
I remember walking outside to the wide cold-star expanse of the front yard and seeing my mother crying.
I remember Catholic school. Religion classes all the time and crayon portraits of Jesus. Ash Wednesday services in the single crowded hallway of my elementary school, with Deacon Larry who was funny and told the story about his wife and the birthday card. I was the only non-Catholic kid and every Ash Wednesday, teachers would ask me why I had washed my ashes off, and I would have to explain that I couldn't get ashes. Second grade held the all-important ritual of First Communion. I held the doors while the kids practiced. But Mrs. Carnevale did let me make a special First Communion Book like everyone else. It was covered in fabric with musical notes on it. The day all my friends took their First Communion, I wore what I thought was the most beautiful jean skirt in the world to church. Kadie got over four hundred dollars from her relatives for First Communion and I was poisonously jealous of her Catholicism. Then she and Holly and I played Creature of the Black Lagoon in the back yard.
In fourth grade, the ritual of Changing Classes began. Up until then, we had stayed in the same classroom every day, but with the apparent academic rigor of fourth grade came the need to go to a different room for each class. We all thought we had to carry every book we owned with us all the time, and the time between bells was a circus of scraggly fourth-graders dropping all their books in the hallway.
I remember when I changed schools and all the kids thought I was either crazy or special-ed.
In Nikki's kitchen there was an enormous fishtank. It took up half a wall. They were Uncle Jimmy's fish. After he passed away, Nikki's mom kept them. Those fish were kind of regarded as demigods.
"Man, you know what? I read this thing in the newspaper about a baby who weighed like one pound. Not even. He was the size of a slice of bread. No, dude, he was the size of a bagel."
To my first birthday party - Ryan's birthday - I wore a beruffled and belaced white dress. All the other kids had jeans and t-shirts.
Nikki and I used to play Zamboni in the driveway. We would slide down on skateboards. I didn't know what a Zamboni was, so I assumed it was some kind of obscure African tribe, and we were imitating their rituals.
When my dad's father died, he stood in the dining room and said, "I guess this means I'm an orphan now." I was jumping on the couch and I said, "No, you're not, you have us!"
The Mulberry Tree was everything. Sanctuary, adventure. A rocket ship. A pirate ship. Ryan and Nikki and I climbed up into it - we each had our own branches that were especially ours - and spent hours there, days, maybe weeks. We had huge binders of looseleaf paper that we drew in. Ryan and I drew mean cartoons of Nikki because she was younger. One time, Ryan pushed Nikki out of the tree and she still has the scar. Those branches were so perfectly shaped. Like the tree wanted us kids to climb it, to live in it, to grow with it. Sometimes we jumped the fence into Jim's yard, with the tetherball and the good apples.
I used to carry a tape recorder around with me and sing into it. One time, Justine stole it and ran down the street broadcasting my performance to all the neighborhood kids. I hated her for months, but then we got to be friends.
There was a cataulpa tree in my front yard and every spring beautiful white blossoms drifted down all over our yard, the sidewalk, the street. There were two huge bushes too. Ryan and Nikki and I would sit under them with a bag of popcorn and a notebook, planning spy missions.
All of these things are so beautiful that it hurts and makes me happy at the same time. I wish I had a projector that I could stick all my memories into, so I could watch them like a movie. But what I have are words, which will have to be good enough.
The other day I stepped out on my front stairs and realized I was ready for spring.
I remember winters of snow and ice-skating on frozen puddles, chasing each other with icicles. I remember February. When Alyssa and I stood by the snowy flowerbeds and she said, "Pretty soon, this will all be slush." Maybe she meant that spring would come soon, but I always thought this statement was sad.
At recess (glorious recess) we all played monster games in the parking lot. All the girls, that is, except for one girl who played with the boys and one boy who played with the girls. We played Vampire or Medusa or Blob or Creature of the Black Lagoon or even Vampire Tag. And my classmates really did turn into vampires, walking across the blacktop, and I really was scared, but in that thrilling Halloween night way.
I remember the green-paneled carpet closet psychiatrist's office.
There were glorious rainstorms, when we would all run outside and dash down the sidewalk to the blacktop, where we would twirl around and make up rain dances, laughing!
There was always, always the sound of rollerblades over the pavement, or baseball cards clothespinned to bike wheels. And the magic excitement of the nighttime, when Ryan and Nikki and I on sleepovers would play Alien, the mothership landing on the playhouse roof, the aliens lurking around the corner, just in the side yard. Chasing flashlight beams down the sidewalk.
I remember walking outside to the wide cold-star expanse of the front yard and seeing my mother crying.
I remember Catholic school. Religion classes all the time and crayon portraits of Jesus. Ash Wednesday services in the single crowded hallway of my elementary school, with Deacon Larry who was funny and told the story about his wife and the birthday card. I was the only non-Catholic kid and every Ash Wednesday, teachers would ask me why I had washed my ashes off, and I would have to explain that I couldn't get ashes. Second grade held the all-important ritual of First Communion. I held the doors while the kids practiced. But Mrs. Carnevale did let me make a special First Communion Book like everyone else. It was covered in fabric with musical notes on it. The day all my friends took their First Communion, I wore what I thought was the most beautiful jean skirt in the world to church. Kadie got over four hundred dollars from her relatives for First Communion and I was poisonously jealous of her Catholicism. Then she and Holly and I played Creature of the Black Lagoon in the back yard.
In fourth grade, the ritual of Changing Classes began. Up until then, we had stayed in the same classroom every day, but with the apparent academic rigor of fourth grade came the need to go to a different room for each class. We all thought we had to carry every book we owned with us all the time, and the time between bells was a circus of scraggly fourth-graders dropping all their books in the hallway.
I remember when I changed schools and all the kids thought I was either crazy or special-ed.
In Nikki's kitchen there was an enormous fishtank. It took up half a wall. They were Uncle Jimmy's fish. After he passed away, Nikki's mom kept them. Those fish were kind of regarded as demigods.
"Man, you know what? I read this thing in the newspaper about a baby who weighed like one pound. Not even. He was the size of a slice of bread. No, dude, he was the size of a bagel."
To my first birthday party - Ryan's birthday - I wore a beruffled and belaced white dress. All the other kids had jeans and t-shirts.
Nikki and I used to play Zamboni in the driveway. We would slide down on skateboards. I didn't know what a Zamboni was, so I assumed it was some kind of obscure African tribe, and we were imitating their rituals.
When my dad's father died, he stood in the dining room and said, "I guess this means I'm an orphan now." I was jumping on the couch and I said, "No, you're not, you have us!"
The Mulberry Tree was everything. Sanctuary, adventure. A rocket ship. A pirate ship. Ryan and Nikki and I climbed up into it - we each had our own branches that were especially ours - and spent hours there, days, maybe weeks. We had huge binders of looseleaf paper that we drew in. Ryan and I drew mean cartoons of Nikki because she was younger. One time, Ryan pushed Nikki out of the tree and she still has the scar. Those branches were so perfectly shaped. Like the tree wanted us kids to climb it, to live in it, to grow with it. Sometimes we jumped the fence into Jim's yard, with the tetherball and the good apples.
I used to carry a tape recorder around with me and sing into it. One time, Justine stole it and ran down the street broadcasting my performance to all the neighborhood kids. I hated her for months, but then we got to be friends.
There was a cataulpa tree in my front yard and every spring beautiful white blossoms drifted down all over our yard, the sidewalk, the street. There were two huge bushes too. Ryan and Nikki and I would sit under them with a bag of popcorn and a notebook, planning spy missions.
All of these things are so beautiful that it hurts and makes me happy at the same time. I wish I had a projector that I could stick all my memories into, so I could watch them like a movie. But what I have are words, which will have to be good enough.
The other day I stepped out on my front stairs and realized I was ready for spring.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
lock and key
I met a girl
loves winter
I met a boy
stays away
I met a fairy yesterday
but today I lost the key
I followed the river
downstream
I followed the sea
The arch of the sky
called me
but then I put down the phone
I buried the treasure
for her
I unlocked the blue door
And took down my coat
(for him)
Then I forgot the point
I tramped through the snow
today
He looked over his shoulder and said,
"This way!"
I tumbled downstream
I can't believe I lost the key
I saw a bird
one morning
Flying across
the field
And in its beak
was a gold key.
I lost my heart
that day.
I found it months later -
It was in a small box
at the bottom of the pond.
And when the ice melted,
and the sun hit just right,
I dove down and got it,
put it soft in my pocket,
and followed the flight of the birds.
loves winter
I met a boy
stays away
I met a fairy yesterday
but today I lost the key
I followed the river
downstream
I followed the sea
The arch of the sky
called me
but then I put down the phone
I buried the treasure
for her
I unlocked the blue door
And took down my coat
(for him)
Then I forgot the point
I tramped through the snow
today
He looked over his shoulder and said,
"This way!"
I tumbled downstream
I can't believe I lost the key
I saw a bird
one morning
Flying across
the field
And in its beak
was a gold key.
I lost my heart
that day.
I found it months later -
It was in a small box
at the bottom of the pond.
And when the ice melted,
and the sun hit just right,
I dove down and got it,
put it soft in my pocket,
and followed the flight of the birds.
Monday, February 25, 2008
happier
Often, after nights of pretty bad depression, I have days that are happy and light and full of possibility. Especially when I spend the night writing about the depression. It's a form of exorcism. Then the next day is made of clean air and easy sunlight.
Right now I am sitting in the dining room at my friend Nikki's house. I'm living here this week (from Saturday to Wednesday) with Nikki and her brother (whom no one really sees because he hides out in the basement) because her parents are in Maine. I've done this a few times before and it's incredibly fun. Nikki is still at school and the elusive brother is (guess what!) camping out in the basement, so right now I basically have the house to myself.
I just called my mom and the package of clothes I ordered should be arriving at my house today. It includes my new combat boots and a (faux) leather jacket. Woo!
This morning I spent LOTR class in a state of partial dismay, staring at his back, wishing that a miraculous inspiration would cause him to turn around and ask me out for coffee out of nowhere. But it didn't happen. I was sad. Then I went to the library and drank a big cup of coffee and read a good book and felt better, went to French class, then walked to my car, the long walk in the winter's-end sunlight gently glinting off the snow.
And now I feel quite all right for no definite reason - perhaps it's the universe being gentle with me today, or me being gentle with the universe. Whatever it is, I'm thankful for it.
Right now I am sitting in the dining room at my friend Nikki's house. I'm living here this week (from Saturday to Wednesday) with Nikki and her brother (whom no one really sees because he hides out in the basement) because her parents are in Maine. I've done this a few times before and it's incredibly fun. Nikki is still at school and the elusive brother is (guess what!) camping out in the basement, so right now I basically have the house to myself.
I just called my mom and the package of clothes I ordered should be arriving at my house today. It includes my new combat boots and a (faux) leather jacket. Woo!
This morning I spent LOTR class in a state of partial dismay, staring at his back, wishing that a miraculous inspiration would cause him to turn around and ask me out for coffee out of nowhere. But it didn't happen. I was sad. Then I went to the library and drank a big cup of coffee and read a good book and felt better, went to French class, then walked to my car, the long walk in the winter's-end sunlight gently glinting off the snow.
And now I feel quite all right for no definite reason - perhaps it's the universe being gentle with me today, or me being gentle with the universe. Whatever it is, I'm thankful for it.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
the derailment
This might sound melodramatic, but I feel like, after & since high school, I've gone through a derailment. Am still going through it. The last year & especially last months of high school were amazing, wonderful, possibilities everywhere, on and on and on. And then it ended. I fell into a romantic relationship that was not the one I wanted, and a university that was not the one I had anticipated. There were many times when I did not recognize my own life and was actually quite shocked to see what it looked like.
Now, one thing I can say for myself is that I am not one for regrets most of the time. The only things I regret are things I maybe should have done, and didn't do. But things that I have done, I do not regret because I learn from my mistakes. So, I don't regret the decisions I made that caused my life to be unrecognizable. But it's been a hell of a challenge fixing the derailment.
I have felt mostly lost these past months. It's been really, really difficult to find a sense of purpose, dreams or ambitions. I'm at school but have no clear goal or reason for being there, other than it's just what you do when you get out of high school. I have at best a lukewarm attitude toward my major. I feel like I'm in a period of creative barrenness. And I am terrified of the future.
For a while there has been this tight, at times almost suffocating panic in my chest, and lately it's been harder than usual to shake it off or calm it down. When I think about the future I get even more panicky. What am I going to do? There are so many things I want to do. Travel the world, see things, learn things, find things, create things. But how, how, how am I going to be able to do this and still have a place to live and health insurance and food and other important things??? I don't want to sacrifice myself and waste my life in a boring, meaningless job.
When I think of the things that used to give me hope and drive... that I can find a way to make it work by going after what I want enough, working hard enough, being confident or outgoing enough... The panic remains. I feel too tired and burnt out to put forth a huge effort. I feel anything but confident. I feel like I've been broken into pieces and carelessly stitched back together and I've still got threads coming undone and buttons falling off.
Gods how I want to shake off this depression. It keeps coming back. I hate it! It's not just a recent thing - it's been on and off mostly my whole life, and it sucks! It drains everything, makes everything look dull and grey, makes me feel like it all isn't worth anything. I need to find a way to fight it.
Now, one thing I can say for myself is that I am not one for regrets most of the time. The only things I regret are things I maybe should have done, and didn't do. But things that I have done, I do not regret because I learn from my mistakes. So, I don't regret the decisions I made that caused my life to be unrecognizable. But it's been a hell of a challenge fixing the derailment.
I have felt mostly lost these past months. It's been really, really difficult to find a sense of purpose, dreams or ambitions. I'm at school but have no clear goal or reason for being there, other than it's just what you do when you get out of high school. I have at best a lukewarm attitude toward my major. I feel like I'm in a period of creative barrenness. And I am terrified of the future.
For a while there has been this tight, at times almost suffocating panic in my chest, and lately it's been harder than usual to shake it off or calm it down. When I think about the future I get even more panicky. What am I going to do? There are so many things I want to do. Travel the world, see things, learn things, find things, create things. But how, how, how am I going to be able to do this and still have a place to live and health insurance and food and other important things??? I don't want to sacrifice myself and waste my life in a boring, meaningless job.
When I think of the things that used to give me hope and drive... that I can find a way to make it work by going after what I want enough, working hard enough, being confident or outgoing enough... The panic remains. I feel too tired and burnt out to put forth a huge effort. I feel anything but confident. I feel like I've been broken into pieces and carelessly stitched back together and I've still got threads coming undone and buttons falling off.
Gods how I want to shake off this depression. It keeps coming back. I hate it! It's not just a recent thing - it's been on and off mostly my whole life, and it sucks! It drains everything, makes everything look dull and grey, makes me feel like it all isn't worth anything. I need to find a way to fight it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)