A friend just sent me this in an email, and it seemed especially appropriate after the last posting:
I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. -Joseph Campbell
What makes you feel alive?
I've been thinking about our personal narratives—the way each of us tells our own personal story to ourselves and to others. Two people walking paths that look similar can nonetheless see their journeys quite differently. Did I "drop out of high school" or did I "go to college early"?
Do you see yourself as the victim of circumstances? Or the beneficiary, or maybe the product? Or do you see yourself as the architect and builder of your life? Do you feel lucky or do you feel like you were dealt a bad hand of cards? Do you feel that you worked hard for what you've got? Do you feel guilty about what you have?
Do you trot out your blue collar credentials, your private school education, your activist past, or your international experience? Do you think of yourself as ordinary, a regular joe, one of the people? Or do you think of yourself as extraordinary, unconventional, apart from the masses? If you see yourself as middle class, do you think of that as a financial classification or a values classification?
What would be the most flattering thing a new acquaintance could say about you? What would be the most humiliating?
Along with these questions, I've been thinking about how we deal with our own evolving narrative. As we change (and we all do), we may be aware of those changes, embrace them, ignore them, feel slightly embarrassed by our past. I've noticed that some people seem able to completely shift their values without any reference to their past position, no apparent discomfort with holding an opinion opposite to what they once had.
I am one of those who feel a need to explain why my position has changed or at least to acknowledge that it has. For example, I can't mention my approbation for school uniforms without mentioning how horrified my younger self would have been by my taking that position. I suppose it's because I still like that young woman, I feel fond of her while still being quite happy to have outgrown her, or at least to have grown out of her.
Listen to the stories around you, the stories people tell about themselves. It's not about the plot, not about what happened, but about the characters, and particularly how they are situated in the world vis-a-vis other characters and vis-a-vis the circumstances of their lives. Keep listening.
Miniature horses like this one can be seen around town tied to the metal rings still embedded in the curbs from days of yore.
This is the memorial at the end of my street where a young woman was killed last summer. She was a passenger in a car and was shot by someone in another car. I don't know much more than that. She didn't live on the street. She was about 21, I think.It's not entirely clear that...Question to investigate: Is this language particular to the humanities and social sciences, or are these phrases and words familiar to those of you in other areas?
There's a sense in which...
...a way in which...
It becomes problematic...
...to essentialize...
...which effectively...
The lens through which...
problematize
dichotomy
contextualize
calque
mediated
notion
qua
meta- (metacognition, meta-analysis, meta-data)
-ness (on words that don't usually have it, eg., thirdness, back-and-forthness)
We had a brief but lovely visit with Steven last weekend. If anyone's looking for an excuse to go to Sweden, Steven and Ronald will be opening a B&B later this year and it's sure to be great! It's in the southwestern corner of Sweden, in a small village in the countryside, and not far from the beaches. (Yeah, we don't really think of going to Sweden for the beaches, but apparently the Norwegians do.)
ust a simple bowl with a small hillock in the middle (I'm sure skateboarders have different names for these things), all concrete. We watched two skaters take turns. Both were in their twenties, one long-haired and loose-limbed with a graceful but kind of goofy style. The other was short-haired, with a more assertive style. Each would take the space to try a move, and then stop and let the other have the space. I love the politeness of turn taking among skaters, and how it's just unspoken. Obviously you'd want to keep going, but you don't because you understand that you have to share. I am always mesmerized by watching skaters, but soon we moved on to the sculptures.
I just finished this quilt for my nephew's 2nd birthday this morning (the party is this afternoon). I've been working on it for awhile. I had a lot of fun picking out the fabrics (African animal themed) and figuring out how I wanted to put them together.
turned out more amateurish than the first. Anyway, you can sure tell it's handmade! I want a quilting mentor! Nevertheless, it was fun and I like the overall effect. I sure get a lot of satisfaction from making things. I should probably do it more often.
Alter Image
The idea of me
that you keep in an alcove
of your mind
bothers me.
I want to take her away
and carry her around,
whacking her carelessly
into tables, leaving her
for a time head down
in the toy chest; later,
buried feet to armpits
in the sandbox
in a rainstorm.
Then I think of that alcove
empty, two votives burning
(or, worse, not burning),
and I want to put me back—
the new me: chipped, ripped,
bruised, wet. Is there a place
for a creature like that
in your mind?
Would the revised me
be relegated to a dark
storage closet with other
damaged icons?
I imagine the idea of me,
no longer able to stand,
propped against an idea
of your mother,
once cherished, now tarnished
and gathering dust.
Who else is on those shelves?
Maybe it's better if I leave
your idea of me
alone,
glowing softly in the candlelight
unaware of her own
impossibility, of her distance
from me.
After all, she isn't mine,
she's yours.
Someone asked me recently about my workspace, so here's a picture of it. My laptop is on an old desk that belonged to some family member in the past, while my keyboard sits on a rolling pine table that I made to fit under the desk. I intended to stain it so that it wouldn't stand out so much against the darker desk, but I haven't got around to it yet, as I want a non-toxic and non-smelly stain.
The Pedestal
It got where she was used
to the pedestal.
She couldn't even remember
when or how she was put there.
But then she decided
she didn't like it. She wanted
off.
So she took a deep breath
and leapt, kicking the plinth
as she went.
She heard it fall, and
shatter. That was when
she realized that she herself
had not fallen,
that she couldn't breathe,
that she was hanging
from the silk cord
she had always thought was
a scarf.
I finished (re)reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last night, so I thought I'd share a few choice quotes before putting it back on the shelf. [The emboldening is mine, the italics are Twain's.]
" 'You've put on considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say; can read and write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because he can't? I'll take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey? --who told you you could?
'...looky here -- you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what he is. You lemme catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None of the family couldn't, before they died. I can't; and here you're a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you hear? Say--lemme hear you read.' "
***
"'Is a cat a man, Huck?'
'No.'
'Well, den dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man? --er is a cow a cat?'
'No, she ain't either of them.'
'Well, den, she ain' got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?'
'Yes.'
'Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat!' "
***
"I ain't opposed to spending money on circuses, when there ain't no other way, but there ain't no use in wasting it on them."
Children's stories are full of late bloomers:
the ugly duckling, cinderella, sleeping beauty,
snow white, and various enchanted beasts & frogs
& bears who turn out to be handsome princes.
The message is clear:
don't despair, you may feel
out of place, ugly, unappreciated, thwarted by enemies
and jealous old people, but at just the right time
something magical will happen
and you will get what you deserve:
your rightful beauty, a place in the palace,
perfect love.
You go on about your life,
holding in the back of your mind the idea
that you will be a late bloomer,
And then you realize that the time for blooming
is past.
You show no hints of latent buds
curled tight and waiting for just enough
light and heat to unfurl and dazzle the world
with opulent petals and heavenly scent; no,
no signs of that.
But you're not dead or even dying,
no symptoms of underwatering or overwatering,
not weak or struggling for survival.
Rather, you are sturdy and strong, robust,
with the light green foliage of new growth
apparent at the tip of every limb.
You wonder, "Is my blossoming still
so far off? How many more branches and leaves
do I need before I burst
into bloom?"
It occurs to you that perhaps you are not
a flowering species at all,
but maybe an evergreen oak or pine.
What you offer the world is not
beauty or sweetness, but respite from the heat,
shelter from the storm, a haven for small creatures.
And then you're inspired by the image,
turning it into a thing of beauty: the lone pine,
silhouetted on the hill, a beacon, a signpost, a symbol
of continuity and endurance and wisdom.
Or maybe you are the one oak left downtown amidst the sky-
scrapers, near the corner of Broadway and Grand,
in front of Louisiana Chicken, which itself is looking a little
like an ugly duckling these days, dwarfed and outclassed
by the mighty glass and steel structures
that are going to (finally) revitalize downtown.
Yes, maybe that's you—
small and unnoticed, but holding your roots firm, reminding passersby
that this land once belonged to you, a reminder to others, too, of their own
true wild nature, a breath of green in the urban gray.
But, no, you're not that tree either. You know it.
You're too idiosyncratic to be symbolic.
An awful little thought skitters like a mouse across the floor
of your mind: "What if I was, in fact, an early bloomer?
What if my heyday is behind me? What if I've already
made all the impact I'm going to make?" You think of the poinsettia
put outside after Christmas.
You chase this notion out of sight behind the futon in your mind.
You're drawn back to the flowering plants.
What are you really waiting for?
The desire to bloom, the hope of being a late bloomer, is the wish
to confirm that you are not alone, that your life impinges upon others,
that it intersects, connects, affects, interrupts. You want to know
that you are not merely a drop of water sliding off other people's slickers.
You want to touch skin. You want to bloom
profusely & abundantly, or rarely and with great fanfare, like the titan arum lily
or the kurinji plant. You want to make an impression, to touch hearts.
You want to know that you'll be remembered, not so much
after you die, as after you leave the room, because there is that nagging
question of whether you really exist
in other people's minds.
In an effort to shame myself into writing more, I'm going to post--gasp--incomplete work. Here is a poem I began last year but still can't quite figure out what I want it to be, or what it needs to be. There's a cracked green hose that needs in, I think. Perhaps in the posting of it, or in your comments, I will find the poem's true shape.
My Neighbor
brown camellia blossoms lie scattered
on the ancient Sparkl-Wite gravel.
One flower, still pink, has fallen
in a stainless steel water dish
abandoned by a long-gone dog.
I imagine another version:
crisp bleached linen, silver antique bowl, floating flowers
A few camellias, both pink and brown, cling to their positions
among the green leaves of the bush.
In the driveway, behind the locked chainlink gate,
a Jaguar, gleaming.
The curtains at the window never move.
Today was one of those days when everyone's beautiful. As I rode my bike up to campus, all the people I passed seemed translucent: their fragility and strength, their hopes and fears all visibly shimmering and quivering inside them, announcing their individual humanity.
[This is where the chorus breaks into a round of "We are stardust, we are golden, and we have got to get ourselves back to the garden."]
Sometimes when I ride through
But today I had no such thoughts. I was able to admire the houses without coveting them or disdaining them. I saw ceanothus in bloom. I saw wisteria in bloom. I saw orange poppies in green grass. I saw the people with their imperfections and their longing. I smiled at them and some of them smiled back. Even people in cars smiled at me, and today none of them tried to kill me through their usual inattentiveness and thoughtlessness.
A lively discussion in my seminar reminded me of how much I like a lively discussion and that school really is a place I feel comfortable and free to be myself. The next question is whether I can get that same feeling any place else or in any way besides being a student. Imagine how the world would be different if everyone got to do whatever it is that makes them feel alive and valuable and stimulated every day. A world full of happy, curious, engaged people.
[Now for a chorus of "Shiny happy people holding hands/Shiny happy people laughing" with the understanding that it is not to be heard ironically, no matter the intentions of r.e.m., or maybe what we want here is "It's the end of the world (as we know it) and I feel fine"? Hmmm. I think the soundtrack needs tweaking.]
I am feeling hopeful and grateful, so all my chemicals and hormones must be flowing in the optimal amounts, or maybe the stars are aligned correctly. I'm looking forward to going to Australia this summer and to starting a new job in the fall (though I don't know what it will be), but right now I'm going to concentrate on right now.
[chorus: "The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine"]
I didn't get into graduate school. I already suspected that I wasn't accepted and thought that I was fine with it, so I was surprised to find myself feeling quite bad about it. Before receiving the letter, I had already decided that I need to figure out what I'm doing next year in case I don't get into grad school so I was prepared to have a different plan, but I think what I wasn't prepared for was the realization that "not getting into grad school" means being rejected.
It's funny what a powerful effect rejection has on some of us. In a long-ago conversation about risk-taking, I realized that we do not all evaluate risks the same. Certain types of risks I am not willing to take—while other choices I make do not seem at all risky to me but would to others. The risk of being rejected is one I avoid as much as possible, and as a result I am slow to truly make friends and always anguish over job applications. I knew from the beginning that applying to grad school involved the risk of rejection, but I think I had forgotten what it feels like.
Applying to grad school was a horrendous process for me. I wrote and re-wrote my application essays many times, and I'm not talking about merely revising them—I scrapped essays on their third or fourth draft to begin completely again from scratch more than once. I hated writing those essays because I hated knowing that I was going to be judged by them. It is different even from writing something which you hope to have published because in that case it is the writing rather than the writer that is really being rejected. Of course, it is difficult not to take that kind of rejection to heart as well, since the writing does have an intimate connection to the writer (one of the reasons I rarely submit anything for consideration for publication), but in this case it truly is me that has been rejected!
It's a terrible little letter that begins with the dreaded "I regret to inform you..." and ends with "I am sorry that we do not have a place for you and hope that you will be able to make other arrangements to achieve your academic goals."
So now, rather than feeling a weight off my shoulders (well, no more wondering, at least I know for sure), I feel more hesitant about the alternative-to-grad-school plans I was beginning to make, feel once again the burden of the question "What am I doing with my life?" and am thrown right back into existential despair.
And, as if in direct defiance of my mood, completely ignoring the lump in my throat and the tear in my eye, it is lovely lovely lovely lovely springtime outside. The oxalis, the bane of bay area gardeners, is cheekily busting out all over, its bunches of yellow flowers pushing through chainlink fences, covering vacant lots and making great in-roads in many lawns. The fruit trees are scattering their flower petals all over the ground like confetti, and the tiny little birds with the black hoods have returned to the trees outside our windows.
Posts
All Comments
