(no subject)
I am tingling all over, partly from star bucks ac and partly from magic. The more I look for it, the more I find it...magic surrounds me! Last weekend, Eric and I camped in Long Island and swam in the ocean--Sunday morning it was raining and storming, and we frolicked in massive ways, me without my contact lenses, scarcely able to perceive how tumultuous it all was. I think being blind makes me less afraid, somehow. I told Eric I feel like a mermaid, a sea sprite, that maybe I was in some other lifetime. Then, yesterday browsing in a Boston bookstore with my friend Angelica--she handed me a book called "A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids" saying she thought of me when she picked it up! How utterly propitious! Walking around Cambridge, we passed several mermaid statues adorning the outside of restaurants--how can I deny this playful kind of magic?!
Going to the national poetry slam tonight in Cambridge with Angelica. I was thinking today about how everything in my life has led me up to where I am today, prepared me for the culmination which is the present moment. And yet, this present moment is also leading me somewhere else. When I view my life that way, everything, no matter how simple or ordinary, seems like a fascinating adventure. I am, with ever fiber of my being, completely in love. With Eric. With my life. With writing. With the wonderful loving and supportive people that have helped me get to where I am today. The summer of last year seems eons away. Coming out of that relationship, I felt like my life was over--but it just goes to show how little we know about what is truly good for us, when mired in our own sea of emotions. Max, in so many ways, prepared me to meet Eric. My mistakes of that relationship are clear to me, and when they rear their heads in this one, I'm not as fooled as I once was. I also know what I really want in a partner, for the first time, truly and clearly. And it's not just a list of qualities. The way we are together can't even be articulated. All I can say is it feels absolutely wonderful to share such immense joy and exuberance with someone.
As I move into my first semester at The New School, I feel a surge of knowing confidence in my writing. Just BEING in the MFA fiction program is boosting my own morale, my knowledge that I CAN be a successful writer. Not simply because I want to earn a living doing this, but that I think I have something I need to SAY, not a political message, not protest, not some social rights issue--but I think my stories DO say something very important with humor and joy and imagination and magic. They're not fantasy, not sci-fi or magical realism. I don't want a label right now. Though I DO want to develop my own voice which I feel I have just found. :)
Ok, now back to my writing! I'm in a cafe in Boston, but I'll be heading back to NYC tomorrow--and Rami will be there, back from Florence! Yay! Also, my beautiful, handsome prince!
Oh--in light of my recent ecstatic posts, I think I should mention a quote from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, since it came into my mind just now:
"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
I think it's important to always remember this...it's also a very Buddhist concept: That all of this--joy and sorrow--are transient, human states. To experience them is important, but to see through the illusory nature of them. Nothing is permanent. I have been on both sides, as has everyone. I have been in relationships where I cry every night, and ones where I laugh all the time. I am enjoying so much my current one--which I believe may be my last one--and yet I have not forgotten this very old truth. :) Peace and love to all!
Going to the national poetry slam tonight in Cambridge with Angelica. I was thinking today about how everything in my life has led me up to where I am today, prepared me for the culmination which is the present moment. And yet, this present moment is also leading me somewhere else. When I view my life that way, everything, no matter how simple or ordinary, seems like a fascinating adventure. I am, with ever fiber of my being, completely in love. With Eric. With my life. With writing. With the wonderful loving and supportive people that have helped me get to where I am today. The summer of last year seems eons away. Coming out of that relationship, I felt like my life was over--but it just goes to show how little we know about what is truly good for us, when mired in our own sea of emotions. Max, in so many ways, prepared me to meet Eric. My mistakes of that relationship are clear to me, and when they rear their heads in this one, I'm not as fooled as I once was. I also know what I really want in a partner, for the first time, truly and clearly. And it's not just a list of qualities. The way we are together can't even be articulated. All I can say is it feels absolutely wonderful to share such immense joy and exuberance with someone.
As I move into my first semester at The New School, I feel a surge of knowing confidence in my writing. Just BEING in the MFA fiction program is boosting my own morale, my knowledge that I CAN be a successful writer. Not simply because I want to earn a living doing this, but that I think I have something I need to SAY, not a political message, not protest, not some social rights issue--but I think my stories DO say something very important with humor and joy and imagination and magic. They're not fantasy, not sci-fi or magical realism. I don't want a label right now. Though I DO want to develop my own voice which I feel I have just found. :)
Ok, now back to my writing! I'm in a cafe in Boston, but I'll be heading back to NYC tomorrow--and Rami will be there, back from Florence! Yay! Also, my beautiful, handsome prince!
Oh--in light of my recent ecstatic posts, I think I should mention a quote from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, since it came into my mind just now:
"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
I think it's important to always remember this...it's also a very Buddhist concept: That all of this--joy and sorrow--are transient, human states. To experience them is important, but to see through the illusory nature of them. Nothing is permanent. I have been on both sides, as has everyone. I have been in relationships where I cry every night, and ones where I laugh all the time. I am enjoying so much my current one--which I believe may be my last one--and yet I have not forgotten this very old truth. :) Peace and love to all!