This weekend, I will be heading out to visit a friend and contemplate life and art amid the cornfields of Eastern Pennsylvania. I look forward.
Then, I return for a few hours, and drive to Roanoke for a conference about "interactive notebooks," which I don't find to be particularly useful for my students.
Then, I'm squeezing in a week or so with the family.
I will try to send some postcards.
Meanwhile:
http://www.archipelago.org/vol10-12/khan.htm
Significant Person got a whole bunch of poems accepted. Read away.
I also promise to post the name of the "Greatest American Rock Band" according to a commercial I saw once no later than August 14, 2006. In the meantime, keep the lists coming.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Recap and Survey
Snapshot (with sound, motion):
The dehumidifier with its mild indigestion. Dog whining. The usual disarray of my life--empty used mugs and glasses, ripped-open envelopes, a pack of green apple sugarless gum (quite good). So good I actually decide to have some and, miraculously, throw the wrapper away. A photograph of Significant Person, smiling last summer in Powhatan, VA. A ticket stub from a movie he took me to see, also last summer. Scraps of paper with e-mail addresses. Receipts. Digital audio recorder. Paper clip. Lip balm (passionfruit). The detritus of bachlorettehood, loneliness, disorganization.
I've had a busy several days. Little Sister (AKA "Yavie"--the Elvish word for her real name [we were raised Nerd]) came to visit and see a Switchfoot concert with me last week. Yes, Switchfoot is a Christian rock band, and I'm not terribly Christian. Neither is Yavie. They are appealing to me for several reasons:
1. Great chord progressions (the music major in me loves a skillful key change)
2. Interesting and complex lyrics
3. They never mention Jesus per se
4. Significant Person introduced me to them, so they induce Nostalgia
Actually, I asked Significant Person to name the five greatest American rock bands (this used to be my standard ice breaker) shortly after we met, and Switchfoot was on his list. Then he played me "Only Hope," which was his favorite song back then. (Is it now?) I was hooked.
The concert, being held outdoors, was delayed for two hours by torrential downpours. Despite our umbrellas, Yavie and I were soaked, mostly likely because the wind was blowing horizontally. Finally, the rain let up, to a backdrop of rainbow.
Yes, it was a good concert (much better live than recorded, Switchfoot is). I loved watching the sea of soaked and muddy people--parents with their children propped on their shoulders, lovers pressed wetly in each other's arms. I felt the compression of loneliness in my chest, how much I wished that Significant Person would have been there with me, even though I'm not sure of his opinions about music in general these days.
But I had my adorable little sister. Who could feel real sorrow?
Although, granted, everything is tempered. The one thing that I can't stop thinking about is watching the news last week, and seeing a story where a solitary victim of a rocket explosion lay in a field, flattened, almost like a spot of oil. Not even human. A woman in a bomb shelter nearby kept trying to call her husband on her cell phone, but he wouldn't answer. Eventually, they could hear ringing from the field.
How do we negotiate our lives in the face of such violence and grief? We move. We have to.
And so Radar visited the veterinarian on Monday for his check-up, and then I had to rescue my Sister Friends from Syria (VA), where they had ended up as a result of a wrong turn in Shenandoah National Park. (Once, when Significant Person was in Syria, I drove to my Syria, as though five letters could cross the distance between us.)
Today I had a more or less complete physical, including blood work and nasty female examinations. I found it amazing that I could carry on a perfectly ordinary conversation with the doctor while wearing, essentially, a piece of paper. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to get my very own HPV vaccination.
None of this should suggest that my whirlwind of luscious sadness has passed, since it seems only to thicken. I could ask you the questions that I'm considering myself, but they seem so private (and it should be apparent that I don't find much to be private).
I would be really interested to see some lists of your opinions of the Five Greatest American Rock Bands, though. Only American. Forget the Beatles, the Stones.
Seriously. I'm waiting. I could use the distraction, couldn't you?
The dehumidifier with its mild indigestion. Dog whining. The usual disarray of my life--empty used mugs and glasses, ripped-open envelopes, a pack of green apple sugarless gum (quite good). So good I actually decide to have some and, miraculously, throw the wrapper away. A photograph of Significant Person, smiling last summer in Powhatan, VA. A ticket stub from a movie he took me to see, also last summer. Scraps of paper with e-mail addresses. Receipts. Digital audio recorder. Paper clip. Lip balm (passionfruit). The detritus of bachlorettehood, loneliness, disorganization.
I've had a busy several days. Little Sister (AKA "Yavie"--the Elvish word for her real name [we were raised Nerd]) came to visit and see a Switchfoot concert with me last week. Yes, Switchfoot is a Christian rock band, and I'm not terribly Christian. Neither is Yavie. They are appealing to me for several reasons:
1. Great chord progressions (the music major in me loves a skillful key change)
2. Interesting and complex lyrics
3. They never mention Jesus per se
4. Significant Person introduced me to them, so they induce Nostalgia
Actually, I asked Significant Person to name the five greatest American rock bands (this used to be my standard ice breaker) shortly after we met, and Switchfoot was on his list. Then he played me "Only Hope," which was his favorite song back then. (Is it now?) I was hooked.
The concert, being held outdoors, was delayed for two hours by torrential downpours. Despite our umbrellas, Yavie and I were soaked, mostly likely because the wind was blowing horizontally. Finally, the rain let up, to a backdrop of rainbow.
Yes, it was a good concert (much better live than recorded, Switchfoot is). I loved watching the sea of soaked and muddy people--parents with their children propped on their shoulders, lovers pressed wetly in each other's arms. I felt the compression of loneliness in my chest, how much I wished that Significant Person would have been there with me, even though I'm not sure of his opinions about music in general these days.
But I had my adorable little sister. Who could feel real sorrow?
Although, granted, everything is tempered. The one thing that I can't stop thinking about is watching the news last week, and seeing a story where a solitary victim of a rocket explosion lay in a field, flattened, almost like a spot of oil. Not even human. A woman in a bomb shelter nearby kept trying to call her husband on her cell phone, but he wouldn't answer. Eventually, they could hear ringing from the field.
How do we negotiate our lives in the face of such violence and grief? We move. We have to.
And so Radar visited the veterinarian on Monday for his check-up, and then I had to rescue my Sister Friends from Syria (VA), where they had ended up as a result of a wrong turn in Shenandoah National Park. (Once, when Significant Person was in Syria, I drove to my Syria, as though five letters could cross the distance between us.)
Today I had a more or less complete physical, including blood work and nasty female examinations. I found it amazing that I could carry on a perfectly ordinary conversation with the doctor while wearing, essentially, a piece of paper. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to get my very own HPV vaccination.
None of this should suggest that my whirlwind of luscious sadness has passed, since it seems only to thicken. I could ask you the questions that I'm considering myself, but they seem so private (and it should be apparent that I don't find much to be private).
I would be really interested to see some lists of your opinions of the Five Greatest American Rock Bands, though. Only American. Forget the Beatles, the Stones.
Seriously. I'm waiting. I could use the distraction, couldn't you?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
I Know What I Know
Part I. Reunions
Last weekend, I drove myself home for my tenth high school reunion. (Yes, writing that makes me feel alarmingly old.) I hadn't been home to see my parents since school let out, and it seemed as good an excuse as any to head back to Pennsylvania.
Amazingly, for most of my former classmates, life has been kind. The class troublemakers became productive citizens. The class conservatives turned into hoochie mommas. The teen mothers found happiness, jobs. Almost everyone gained a ton of weight.
And me? The verdict on my change was that I was somehow bolder and more relaxed than I used to be. At least, until one of my old friends said I was always that way, but no one ever really talked to me.
Everyone wanted me to go out to the bar with them afterwards, and I think when I went home to check on my dog, I had intended to go. But then the Sadness crept over me, and I stayed home, watching Canadian television, alone in my parents' house while they were at a party of their own.
Part II. The Sadness
The Sadness is what the Sadness is. I could give you its full genealogy, track it back to its parentage, its birth. I could show you its footprints in the Virginian earth, and where my own steps have followed it. But I won't, not until it tells me its last secret, the one hidden in the darkest recess of its throat.
What I know about it is that it will lead me to the place where I am past it. I can see its vanishing point from here. Only I don't know if I have the strength to walk there.
Part III. Summer School
Otherwise, I'm teaching summer school. I have children from the middle school where I don't work. They are beautiful children, who seem to want to learn. The days fly past. Before long, I'll be back, slogging through my job, waking up every day before the sun. You can see how much I'm looking forward to it.
Part IV. Blackberry Jam
The beautiful thing about my Sadness is how it lifts me into joys that I have to find for myself. The sound of a vulture launching from a tree branch is like an arrow shot from a bow. There a tiny purple flowers growing in my compost pile. Tadpoles are growing feet in a puddle down the street from me. I rearranged an entire room of my apartment, cleaned it with a precision that even my OCD former roommate might approve of.
I've come to love the simplest of domestic tasks, especially the ones that I doubt I can perform for myself.
If you want to make blackberry jam, you can put on your old jacket and jeans, socks and shoes, and walk through the rain-damp grass. Pick for two hours for the ten cups of berries you'll need, get a dozen light scrapes on the back of your right hand--one across the wrist. Buy the jars, the sugar (organic, since the berries are), the pectin. Crush the berries, strain the juice--dark violet, almost red. Stand over the hot stove in the already stifling air, until the five tiny jars are finally full, finally sealed, on your counter.
The several thorns in your skin will fester and make their way out again.
When you go outside, the air will be filled with light and a breeze will blow over your face, clean and sincere as a promise that you will be alright, even if it isn't today. With each breath of wind, you feel hope, the sweet, forward movement of your life.
Last weekend, I drove myself home for my tenth high school reunion. (Yes, writing that makes me feel alarmingly old.) I hadn't been home to see my parents since school let out, and it seemed as good an excuse as any to head back to Pennsylvania.
Amazingly, for most of my former classmates, life has been kind. The class troublemakers became productive citizens. The class conservatives turned into hoochie mommas. The teen mothers found happiness, jobs. Almost everyone gained a ton of weight.
And me? The verdict on my change was that I was somehow bolder and more relaxed than I used to be. At least, until one of my old friends said I was always that way, but no one ever really talked to me.
Everyone wanted me to go out to the bar with them afterwards, and I think when I went home to check on my dog, I had intended to go. But then the Sadness crept over me, and I stayed home, watching Canadian television, alone in my parents' house while they were at a party of their own.
Part II. The Sadness
The Sadness is what the Sadness is. I could give you its full genealogy, track it back to its parentage, its birth. I could show you its footprints in the Virginian earth, and where my own steps have followed it. But I won't, not until it tells me its last secret, the one hidden in the darkest recess of its throat.
What I know about it is that it will lead me to the place where I am past it. I can see its vanishing point from here. Only I don't know if I have the strength to walk there.
Part III. Summer School
Otherwise, I'm teaching summer school. I have children from the middle school where I don't work. They are beautiful children, who seem to want to learn. The days fly past. Before long, I'll be back, slogging through my job, waking up every day before the sun. You can see how much I'm looking forward to it.
Part IV. Blackberry Jam
The beautiful thing about my Sadness is how it lifts me into joys that I have to find for myself. The sound of a vulture launching from a tree branch is like an arrow shot from a bow. There a tiny purple flowers growing in my compost pile. Tadpoles are growing feet in a puddle down the street from me. I rearranged an entire room of my apartment, cleaned it with a precision that even my OCD former roommate might approve of.
I've come to love the simplest of domestic tasks, especially the ones that I doubt I can perform for myself.
If you want to make blackberry jam, you can put on your old jacket and jeans, socks and shoes, and walk through the rain-damp grass. Pick for two hours for the ten cups of berries you'll need, get a dozen light scrapes on the back of your right hand--one across the wrist. Buy the jars, the sugar (organic, since the berries are), the pectin. Crush the berries, strain the juice--dark violet, almost red. Stand over the hot stove in the already stifling air, until the five tiny jars are finally full, finally sealed, on your counter.
The several thorns in your skin will fester and make their way out again.
When you go outside, the air will be filled with light and a breeze will blow over your face, clean and sincere as a promise that you will be alright, even if it isn't today. With each breath of wind, you feel hope, the sweet, forward movement of your life.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Chocolate Milk
It's been a typical Sunday. Wake up. Walk the dog. Watch Meet the Press. (This is usually for the purpose of watching Tim Russert calling out politicians on their hypocrisies. Tim wasn't on today. Andrea Mitchell was a good substitute, but it wasn't the same. I deeply adore Tim, and I may be the only woman in America who feels that way. Chime in on your Tim fetish, if you have one.)
I had lunch with my friends who are sisters (this is a deviation from normal routine). I bought a newspaper. Went to the gym. Did my now standard daily hour of cardio, lifted weights. Watched the fat on my thighs, mocking me, refusing to budge.
And when I came home, what I wanted, more than anything else, was a glass of chocolate milk.
The last time I had chocolate milk, I had shown up on my friend's doorstep, bawling, because the night before, I'd told my boyfriend (ring nestled in his pocket) that I didn't want to marry him. You wouldn't necessarily think that turning someone else down would hurt, but it did. Terribly. I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to do but talk to my friend, so I'd called him in the morning, afraid I wouldn't catch him before he left town.
I had reasons for not wanting to get married. The longer my relationship lasted, the more I felt it was compressing me, turning me into someone smaller. Someone I didn't recognize. My ex-boyfriend (a great friend now, someone I respect) and I had little in common. He had expectations for who I should be, how I should behave, that I knew I couldn't live up to.
That, and it was obvious to just about everyone that it was my friend that my inner heart yearned for.
My friend held me in the doorway to his apartment building, didn't complain about the snot and tears on the front of his shirt. He took me inside, made me a glass of chocolate milk, and held my hand while I cried.
And that's the fairy tale ending: the girl leaves the boyfriend, waits, waits, waits, and somehow, her friend finally sees what everyone else sees. I wish everyone could have that moment, when you practically expect to see cameras and boom mikes there to catch the finale, so unexpected it could not be real.
But a moment is only a moment. I know that I rarely discuss love any more. What could I say about it? I really wish that I did have it all figured out (sorry, Richard).
Some days are better than others. Some days are awful. Mostly, there's nothing to say. In the past year, I've spent approximately twelve days with him. And this is what I did not expect: there are still expectations, compromises. And I believe that some expectations should exist--that we should be kind, loving, compassionate, patient, understanding, that we should clean up our own messes, that we should listen to each other. Still, what do you do when someone else's expectations for you are not the ones that you have for yourself?
Maybe it's not a typical Sunday. I'm here, in humid Virginia, thinking about a man very far away whom I love and desire. Probably I'll take Radar down to the stream and scout for turtles, log a few more pages in my alleged novel, and wait for enlightenment to come. I already drank the last of the milk.
I had lunch with my friends who are sisters (this is a deviation from normal routine). I bought a newspaper. Went to the gym. Did my now standard daily hour of cardio, lifted weights. Watched the fat on my thighs, mocking me, refusing to budge.
And when I came home, what I wanted, more than anything else, was a glass of chocolate milk.
The last time I had chocolate milk, I had shown up on my friend's doorstep, bawling, because the night before, I'd told my boyfriend (ring nestled in his pocket) that I didn't want to marry him. You wouldn't necessarily think that turning someone else down would hurt, but it did. Terribly. I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to do but talk to my friend, so I'd called him in the morning, afraid I wouldn't catch him before he left town.
I had reasons for not wanting to get married. The longer my relationship lasted, the more I felt it was compressing me, turning me into someone smaller. Someone I didn't recognize. My ex-boyfriend (a great friend now, someone I respect) and I had little in common. He had expectations for who I should be, how I should behave, that I knew I couldn't live up to.
That, and it was obvious to just about everyone that it was my friend that my inner heart yearned for.
My friend held me in the doorway to his apartment building, didn't complain about the snot and tears on the front of his shirt. He took me inside, made me a glass of chocolate milk, and held my hand while I cried.
And that's the fairy tale ending: the girl leaves the boyfriend, waits, waits, waits, and somehow, her friend finally sees what everyone else sees. I wish everyone could have that moment, when you practically expect to see cameras and boom mikes there to catch the finale, so unexpected it could not be real.
But a moment is only a moment. I know that I rarely discuss love any more. What could I say about it? I really wish that I did have it all figured out (sorry, Richard).
Some days are better than others. Some days are awful. Mostly, there's nothing to say. In the past year, I've spent approximately twelve days with him. And this is what I did not expect: there are still expectations, compromises. And I believe that some expectations should exist--that we should be kind, loving, compassionate, patient, understanding, that we should clean up our own messes, that we should listen to each other. Still, what do you do when someone else's expectations for you are not the ones that you have for yourself?
Maybe it's not a typical Sunday. I'm here, in humid Virginia, thinking about a man very far away whom I love and desire. Probably I'll take Radar down to the stream and scout for turtles, log a few more pages in my alleged novel, and wait for enlightenment to come. I already drank the last of the milk.
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