In search of mind chunks.
(Not posted on April 8th)
I'm a few days early for the annual review. Forgive me - I have time and a good atmosphere. Thanks, Bob Boilen.
Things happen are happening do it all the time. And there's so much I don't do and see and know.
I like these states of duality, in which I can think "I've lost part of myself in college....let's talk about it, please" and then laugh out loud. Neither is false or forced, the truth is just somewhere in the middle. Songs of Innocence. Songs of Experience. This is what keeps me from producing anything substantial, by the way. All those quiet voices supporting this one: it's impossible to trap that shifting center between self-pity and egocide. That's true. And I'm hesitant to put forth creative work that's not from that place.
I'm watching a youtube video of Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros right now. Just heard about them, pretty cool. They seem like the kind of band that has a really great time together...picture wool socks and tambourines; watching cartoons while sipping whiskey. There's this desire of leaving your life for the one they've created because it's whole and vibrant and unfamiliar. Antiquated and removed. But they have friends on myspace. They went to high school and wanted to do...all those things. I'm sure they have cousins that call them with ridiculous threats and a terrible misunderstanding of their experience in the world -- the implications of which she'll be feeling for the rest of her life. Or maybe that's me. That's me. And what do we do with the people whose pain we don't understand? I'm accustomed to ignoring them.
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(April 12)
Now I'm on time. And I'm all of a sudden not in the melancholy mood that's been pulling me down for days. I wonder what triggers that sea-change. Two minutes pass and I'm no longer a quiet clomping rain cloud. Maybe it's BDyl. Maybe it's drinking lemonade out of a mason jar. Maybe it's the broken harmonica Dad stole from Edie for my birthday (which is one part sweet, one part weird, and so typical). Maybe it's a lot of things, right? Maybe we only have brief moments of clarity and happiness...when our lives are the vibrant red of jumping bodies or the soft wispy yellow of all these spring daffodils. Like when reading a poem and your comprehension suddenly fills in the empty space between words. Maybe there's necessity to being reminded.
Today I read a poem my grandmother made to celebrate the holiday; she called it Easter 2009. Not her best. But i also suspect her senility is affecting her craft. But then I found one called Ashes or something. It followed her musings while sweeping the ashes from a previous night's fire. She spoke about the transcience of matter and the relationship between a fast, passionate (firey) existence and a sustained one. And a brown spider something "lively lump" crawled toward her and she "thought not of resurrection, but of survival." of something somethings, of another line I can't remember, of poets who cannot let their poems escape. So interesting. And such a good easter poem, right? But she didn't show it to anyone. She wrote Easter 2009, which unflatteringly juxtaposes her with WB Yeats and his "Easter 1916" a poem that chronicles heroes of Irish history during the rebellion against Britain. Like..really? I guess sometimes it's just easier to showcase our weaknesses - we are so familiar with them.
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So - it's my birthday tomorrow. It is your birthday.
I need to call my mom. She thinks I'm mad at her because she didn't do anything for my birthday. And I'm so not. I crawled in bed with her last night and I wanted to talk about things that have been happening in my life and just couldn't because I felt like there was something weird in her voice and I couldn't bring myself to complain about anything. I said "I feel out of it" and she asked why. I just shook my head and paused. I can't even remember what I said...something about not having enough of a personality, which...though not said in complete seriousness...should have gotten a larger rise than it did. But I think she wasn't engaging because she was afraid to. And I let her stay weird about it. And I think that's actually a larger and more complex issue of our lives. We don't engage weirdness. We just assume. Bad form.
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So It's my birthday tomorrow! And that's kind of all I wanted to say. It's my birthday and this is what I do and we'll just see about the rest.
I'm a few days early for the annual review. Forgive me - I have time and a good atmosphere. Thanks, Bob Boilen.
Things happen are happening do it all the time. And there's so much I don't do and see and know.
I like these states of duality, in which I can think "I've lost part of myself in college....let's talk about it, please" and then laugh out loud. Neither is false or forced, the truth is just somewhere in the middle. Songs of Innocence. Songs of Experience. This is what keeps me from producing anything substantial, by the way. All those quiet voices supporting this one: it's impossible to trap that shifting center between self-pity and egocide. That's true. And I'm hesitant to put forth creative work that's not from that place.
I'm watching a youtube video of Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros right now. Just heard about them, pretty cool. They seem like the kind of band that has a really great time together...picture wool socks and tambourines; watching cartoons while sipping whiskey. There's this desire of leaving your life for the one they've created because it's whole and vibrant and unfamiliar. Antiquated and removed. But they have friends on myspace. They went to high school and wanted to do...all those things. I'm sure they have cousins that call them with ridiculous threats and a terrible misunderstanding of their experience in the world -- the implications of which she'll be feeling for the rest of her life. Or maybe that's me. That's me. And what do we do with the people whose pain we don't understand? I'm accustomed to ignoring them.
---------------------------------------------------------------
(April 12)
Now I'm on time. And I'm all of a sudden not in the melancholy mood that's been pulling me down for days. I wonder what triggers that sea-change. Two minutes pass and I'm no longer a quiet clomping rain cloud. Maybe it's BDyl. Maybe it's drinking lemonade out of a mason jar. Maybe it's the broken harmonica Dad stole from Edie for my birthday (which is one part sweet, one part weird, and so typical). Maybe it's a lot of things, right? Maybe we only have brief moments of clarity and happiness...when our lives are the vibrant red of jumping bodies or the soft wispy yellow of all these spring daffodils. Like when reading a poem and your comprehension suddenly fills in the empty space between words. Maybe there's necessity to being reminded.
Today I read a poem my grandmother made to celebrate the holiday; she called it Easter 2009. Not her best. But i also suspect her senility is affecting her craft. But then I found one called Ashes or something. It followed her musings while sweeping the ashes from a previous night's fire. She spoke about the transcience of matter and the relationship between a fast, passionate (firey) existence and a sustained one. And a brown spider something "lively lump" crawled toward her and she "thought not of resurrection, but of survival." of something somethings, of another line I can't remember, of poets who cannot let their poems escape. So interesting. And such a good easter poem, right? But she didn't show it to anyone. She wrote Easter 2009, which unflatteringly juxtaposes her with WB Yeats and his "Easter 1916" a poem that chronicles heroes of Irish history during the rebellion against Britain. Like..really? I guess sometimes it's just easier to showcase our weaknesses - we are so familiar with them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
So - it's my birthday tomorrow. It is your birthday.
I need to call my mom. She thinks I'm mad at her because she didn't do anything for my birthday. And I'm so not. I crawled in bed with her last night and I wanted to talk about things that have been happening in my life and just couldn't because I felt like there was something weird in her voice and I couldn't bring myself to complain about anything. I said "I feel out of it" and she asked why. I just shook my head and paused. I can't even remember what I said...something about not having enough of a personality, which...though not said in complete seriousness...should have gotten a larger rise than it did. But I think she wasn't engaging because she was afraid to. And I let her stay weird about it. And I think that's actually a larger and more complex issue of our lives. We don't engage weirdness. We just assume. Bad form.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
So It's my birthday tomorrow! And that's kind of all I wanted to say. It's my birthday and this is what I do and we'll just see about the rest.