Birthday Eve.
I’m just making this up as I go, so I’m not going to pretend like it’s any good (in fact, it’s probably going to be exceedingly terrible).
Eternal excuse – youth
shrinks, only seen by “blind”.
“I am only understood by melody words,
chatter is tuneless.”
– so says the “useless”.
“Even as we learn to see
we should not forget to sing.”
Wild girl, crazy woman
what difference be?
Here’s the article that I wrote about WZLY back in September:
The Wellesley News now has a website! My article.
Woot!
Poetry.
Just some poems that I find particularly lovely, in their own way.
The Sunne Rising – John Donne
BUSIE old foole, unruly Sunne,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide 5
Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,
Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time. 10
Thy beames, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou thinke?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine, 15
Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee,
Whether both the’India’s of spice and Myne
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee.
Aske for those Kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay. 20
She’is all States, and all Princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes doe but play us; compar’d to this,
All honor’s mimique; All wealth alchimie.
Thou sunne art halfe as happy’as wee, 25
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
To warme the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare. 30
“I died for Beauty” – Emily Dickinson
I died for Beauty — but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room –
He questioned softly “Why I failed”?
“For Beauty”, I replied –
“And I — for Truth — Themself are One –
We Brethren, are”, He said –
And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night –
We talked between the Rooms –
Until the Moss had reached our lips –
And covered up — our names –
Boy Breaking Glass – Gwendolyn Brooks
Whose broken window is a cry of art
(success, that winks aware
as elegance, as a treasonable faith)
is raw: is sonic: is old-eyed première.
Our beautiful flaw and terrible ornament.
Our barbarous and metal little man.
“I shall create! If not a note, a hole.
If not an overture, a desecration.”
Full of pepper and light
and Salt and night and cargoes.
“Don’t go down the plank
if you see there’s no extension.
Each to his grief, each to
his loneliness and fidgety revenge.
Nobody knew where I was and now I am no longer there.”
The only sanity is a cup of tea.
The music is in minors.
Each one other
is having different weather.
“It was you, it was you who threw away my name!
And this is everything I have for me.”
Who has not Congress, lobster, love, luau,
the Regency Room, the Statue of Liberty,
runs. A sloppy amalgamation.
A mistake.
A cliff.
A hymn, a snare, and an exceeding sun.
The Vital Questions
If you don’t understand it, don’t worry. It’s an experiment with the “question words”.
I love writing in fragments…probably because I’m too cowardly to ever give the full picture.
How
Are you doing? I continue, but what
I see: disinterested distracted look why
Am I still talking? “Do you know where…?”
I hate it when
People do this to m– who?
This is not a sonnet.
(The first creative thing I’ve written in a while. It continues the theme of how practically everything creative that I write contains some sense of honest insanity…)
what is it that makes a perfectly
imperfect yet obsessively unrealisticly over
achieving young girl student person being decide
not to do so anymore? nothing is wrong at least
it shouldnt be and yet here we are with failing
grades and falling emotions and please dont pay
attention because it wont help my dears. i mean
to tell you that i dont know anything sometimes
actually most times and maybe im going through
a midlife crisis because that would make more sense
and maybe im quietly desperate even though i thought
i was better than that. i wish that i had more people that
i could embrace contentedly forever but the hugs always
end.
For once in my life
I have things to blog about, but no time to actually do it.
This is usually the exact opposite of my predicament: having nothing to blog about, but having way too much time to waste.
Three things that I want to blog about:
1. The fire in Santa Barbara and my oh so exciting stay at Westmont. I’m not sure if I should make this a narrative, or write it like I would to colleges (I’ve seriously thought about doing so. It’s an interesting experience, and really made me think about mortality and the large contrast between how we lived in that gym for twelve hours and how we would normally have lived. Or something like that).
2. A concert review of Claire Marie, who I was able to see at Mai’s Cafe on Saturday. Also, since I saw the act after her, I guess I can review her too. Except that I definitely liked Claire more, and not just because I know her.
3. Some sort of introspective looking at how I’m getting older (17 on Wednesday) and how I’m trying to improve my habits and way of living. But seriously, this is something that I’ve tried to fix since I realized it was a problem. (“This” being: my exercise habits, my eating habits, my sleeping habits, my study habits. Or, actually, the lack of all of them.) I don’t know, saying to myself “you’re seventeen now, act responsible” seems like it would be more effective than the usual, impersonal “It’s the New Year, act responsible”. And for all my friends, who are all older than me, please don’t burst my idealistic bubble by saying that being seventeen will not suddenly make me responsible. I do realize this, but it doesn’t need to be stated by anyone else but me, aha. (Well, I pretty much got that topic out of the way. I guess now I don’t have to blog about it again, heh.)
And although I never expected to write a blog about this, since it is a rather normal theme in my life, I think I should probably state that my current relationship with academia is: GAH, I HATE YOU.
Anyway. This blog is finished. Good day.
Peace.
So. I wrote this poem and even though most of you have already read it, I figured: what the heck, might as well post it.
Peace
Wandering through the evergreens, looking for a white flash – of inspiration, perhaps?
Although the trees choose not to speak, their calm is not what I need.
I could rest on their broad backs for days and not feel stable enough to stand.
No, my search must be fulfilled through another means, one that is fleeting.
I hear the call, and realize I am close.
I look towards the partially hidden sky, its soft skin revealed through the fan of branches.
Beautiful, but the clouds cannot coo so delicately.
And then, wonderful eyesight! I see her perfectly perched on a low branch.
Within reach, I creep forward, but wait.
Would she survive if I managed to catch her, to cage her?
Or would she flee me through death, unused to being a captive?
Yet my pondering is unneeded, for the dear dove has decided to ascend,
A distant vapor which few have caught and less have kept.
Swings.
As I’ve told many of my friends, I wish I could spend the rest of my life on a swing in the middle of a park.
I would watch the children chasing on the playground, the lonely old ladies walking their poodles, the couples strolling to nowhere in particular. I would constantly feel the rush of the wind as it tickles my exposed toes, brushes against my grinning face, and weaves through my tangled hair. I would sing to the abrasive, squeaking rhythm of the rusty metal as it strains against my oh so enormous weight. I would go high, so high that I am airborne for the slightest of seconds and every descent is a shock to my system as I hit the swing once again. I would contemplate jumping off every so often, but then would realize that there is nothing out in the world that I really desire more than to live as an observer, a neutral body in our conflict-based world. I wouldn’t need food, wouldn’t need sleep. All I would run on is the air, the trees, the night, the clouds. My thoughts.
I would forever be young, in idealistic spirit and vigorous physicalilty. In fact, I wouldn’t mind being younger in spirit than I am now, since I am only a common example of our generation’s premature apathy and world-weariness. Forget Peter Pan and his adventures, my eternal youth would be perfectly content with quiet introspection and innocence.
Yes, this is all escapism nonsense. But it is where I thrive.
“Oh I am a dreamer, but I’ll deny it ’til the day I die.” – Brooke Waggoner
Woot for stream of consciousness!
Yeah. Basically, instead of writing up the oh so fascinating results of my psychology interviews, I ended up writing a random blurb for myself. Not much, sadly, but something. And I find this to be somewhat positive, since I haven’t been able to write anything creative for a while, which made me sad until now. Anyway, here’s what I came up with in five minutes:
Silence
There was always a buzz, a certain murmur in the back of my mind that never went away. My thoughts whispered to themselves, chuckling like the insane in an asylum. Was I my own asylum? My skull must have been the padded white walls, constantly pushing in towards its claustrophobic prisoners. My thoughts must have thrown themselves madly against their cushioned prison in an effort to get out. But their attempts were futile, and they all ended up the same: huddled in brightly lit corner, trying to make sense out of anything. And now?Silence.
Really? Have the crickets in my brain stopped chirping? Have the spiders stopped weaving? Have the cockroaches stopped scattering? Am I hollow? Am I real? Am I worth anything? Or am I simply huddled in my own mental corner, waiting for someone to pick me up?
I’m mildly happy with it, considering that I did it in such a short amount of time. I might revise/expand it if I ever get time, but I highly doubt that will happen. One question though. Why is it that my “better” creative writing has to do with being insane?
The worst part is that it’s almost true. But really, the mental health of any writer should be questioned. If being mentally askew means that I become a better writer, than I embrace my insanity wholeheartedly.
Oh, the fragilities of infant innocence.
I work at the child care at my church, usually with the toddlers. I have always thought of myself as a “toddler person” as apposed to a “baby person”. It’s like cats vs. dogs. Lately, however, due to lack of helpers we have been combining the two. That is how I ended up with a slumbering six-day-old infant in my arms.
A few weeks ago, I had to hold a three month old baby boy. I was incredibly nervous; I thought I was going to drop/break/destroy him in some clumsy and terribly tragic fashion. Despite the fact that Seasun was so much younger than even that infant, I felt completely in control from the beginning. A maternal spirit devoured and consumed any faults of mine, and my arms held strong for the whole service. It was fascinating simply watching her tiny face, and hearing her short and whispery breaths. My own breaths changed: as a musician, one learns to breathe from one’s diaphragm, and not from one’s shoulders; while I held little Seasun, I breathed as shallowly and slowly as possible, as to not disturb her.
There is also something to be said about a newborn’s scent. It is almost impossible to describe, but they do have a certain fragrance – maybe one of innocent helplessness. I would not be surprised at all if this scent has a role in our primitive instinct to protect the young.
So breakable. So beautiful.
