Pastoral ramblings (of the non-religious sort)
As I was driving myself home from the grocery store on a sunny Sunday afternoon, getting ready to make a rather delicious-sounding fruit salad for a luau-themed murder mystery party, I started waxing bucolic on how lovely the day was. Pastoral imagery immediately brings to mind poetry, since nature-based poems are dime-a-dozen and because Chaucer's Canterbury tales are wedged somewhere in my head.
(This really does have a non-poetry point, promise.)
And the pastoral poetry brought to mind this: one day in an English class, we were debating the uses of free verse vs. formed verse (poetry that follows a pattern like abab, cdcd etc. with either beats or rhymes). I argued that free verse allowed one to write whatever you liked, but my teacher made a curious defense for formed verse: when a framework of rules exists, it is often easier to write because your words must fit the form--not just any words will do and it forces you to bend the words to your will in a way that you usually don't see in free verse. My professor's argument was that rules give us freedom--by binding yourself, you define a bubble of "what is allowed and what is not" and take greater risks than when the sky's the limit.
I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Not the poetry, but the safe little bubble we've crafted that allows me to attain greater heights than those I would pursue without the bubble. Within my self-made bindings I have the freedom to fall back or pitch forward and in the end, either way is okay.
It's a little terrifying to see how easy it is to waste my time with this sort of thing. I've never wanted my life to be about chasing tail, and for a little bit it seemed that was all I was doing with my free time. Now that it's settled down a bit, I'm cooking again and planning lap swimming dates with myself and taking better care of things in general. Although I still have to cut back on the drinking. But! One thing at a time :p
Now I'm gonna go whack a pineapple to bits. Because I have a large pointy knife with sharp pointy teeth and, well, it's kinda fun to flail around with dangerous objects you could kill a man with. Those are the kind of love-thoughts I put in my cooking!
(This really does have a non-poetry point, promise.)
And the pastoral poetry brought to mind this: one day in an English class, we were debating the uses of free verse vs. formed verse (poetry that follows a pattern like abab, cdcd etc. with either beats or rhymes). I argued that free verse allowed one to write whatever you liked, but my teacher made a curious defense for formed verse: when a framework of rules exists, it is often easier to write because your words must fit the form--not just any words will do and it forces you to bend the words to your will in a way that you usually don't see in free verse. My professor's argument was that rules give us freedom--by binding yourself, you define a bubble of "what is allowed and what is not" and take greater risks than when the sky's the limit.
I've been thinking a lot about that lately. Not the poetry, but the safe little bubble we've crafted that allows me to attain greater heights than those I would pursue without the bubble. Within my self-made bindings I have the freedom to fall back or pitch forward and in the end, either way is okay.
It's a little terrifying to see how easy it is to waste my time with this sort of thing. I've never wanted my life to be about chasing tail, and for a little bit it seemed that was all I was doing with my free time. Now that it's settled down a bit, I'm cooking again and planning lap swimming dates with myself and taking better care of things in general. Although I still have to cut back on the drinking. But! One thing at a time :p
Now I'm gonna go whack a pineapple to bits. Because I have a large pointy knife with sharp pointy teeth and, well, it's kinda fun to flail around with dangerous objects you could kill a man with. Those are the kind of love-thoughts I put in my cooking!