cut out all the ropes and let me fall

Sometimes, I am not sure I can put one foot in front of the next. Sometimes, I think that I should stop letting words come out of my mouth. Sometimes, I do not trust any part of my person.

If sometime is now, how am I to step out into the day and all that it brings?

time and all you gave

There is nothing quite like a paper to help one procrastinate. I suddenly think of brilliant ways to change my facebook profile, or remember the people I was supposed to call two weeks ago. Duties that don't usually bother me suddenly prick my conscience. Our dishes are clean, I've held myself back from changing my profile picture three times, and I actually wrote my professor after all this time. Oh, the irony. 

With that said, I am actually enjoying this paper. I think the problem is that it's not due until tomorrow at midnight, so I feel like I have plenty of time. However, if I want to do fun things like go to CPO dinner and the play tomorrow night, I need to get this thing done today. Yet another irony- I will work harder to be able to spend time with friends than I will to simply get a good grade. 

I am afraid I am a very bad student. 

What might have been lost...

"This is not the sound of a new man or crispy realization."

Isn't that phrase delicious? "crispy realization." Good job, Justin Vernon. I wish I had winters like yours.

...

I find myself, once again, unsettled by art. There is something about entering into another world through theatre or movies or books or music that leaves you with a deep emptiness. There's that sense of losing something unreal when you exit the fabricated world. The wonder of what you would be were the illusion you saw through art your actuality. You are confronted with an alternate reality, and whether it be close or ever so distant from yours, it shakes you. It takes from you even as it gives.

Right now, if I were asked to define Art, I would say it was the gift of the Other that enters into and in some way shakes your everyday life. 

One for sorrow/ Two for joy

I am memorizing a poem for my Auden class right now that is simply wonderful.

...

Beloved, we are always in the wrong, 

Handling so clumsily our stupid lives,

Suffering too little or too long,

Too careful even in our selfish loves: 

The decorative manias we obey

Die in grimaces round us every day,

Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice

Which utters an absurd command: Rejoice. 

Rejoice. What talent for the makeshift thought

A living corpus out of odds and ends? 

What pedagogic patience taught

Pre-occupied and savage elements 

To dance into a segregated charm?

Who showed the whirlwind how to be an arm,

And gardened from the wilderness of space

The sensual properties of one dear face? 

...

(tohu-bohu is evidently the Hebrew for "formless and void")

These are but two stanzas from Auden's "In Sickness and in Health." I love that notion of "gardening from the wilderness of space"- it evokes such wonderful images.  This is such a lovely way to think about creation. 

Also, there is something strangely comforting about thinking that God has spoken the command for joy into the "tohu bohu" of our lives. 

That's when I spoke a word/ to have them trace your face for me in pollen...

It is an intriguing feeling to know that I am writing into a sort of nothingness. There is no guarantee that anyone will read what I write, and yet I am still sending it out into the void, presumably hoping someone will find it. 

 "how should I presume?"

 Is it not a presumption to write about oneself and sent it out into the world, hoping it will be found and cherished- or at least appreciated? 

"Do I dare disturb the universe?"

Of course, it says something that I posted this site on my facebook page. I know people rarely bother to follow those links in the "about me" section to their destinations. And yet, perhaps someone will be curious, and end up here. Who knows.

A Brightness Unobscured

When I was in high school, I used to be terrified of being mediocre. I embraced this quote- "We must have richness of soul"- as embodying my desire to not sink into a flat, monochrome existence. "Richness of soul"- does that not sound like a desirable trait? It seems to imply lush colors and bright eyes and imagination. Suddenly, when I savor the way a word fits into a poem or the luxurious interplay of flavors in a good meal, it has a different meaning. It all plays into the search for an abundant soul.