Thinking About Bygone Days

I wrote this tonight because I was thinking about something from the past.  Not with a longing for it to return, you understand, but just sort of taking it out and tumbling it around in my hand like an old photograph, a curiosity from years over and done with.  This is the product of that musing.  

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I knew from the first time I saw you that there was something, even before I knew who you were, what you were…. I came laughing into the makeshift dojo for the first time, wobbling on polished hardwood as I tried to slip off my shoes with wet feet, and you looked up.  I felt it like a physical blow, even as I saw you hesitate in midstrike before bringing the shinai across your opponent’s do. 

And I did the only thing I knew how to do, the thing I always do.  I ran like hell.  I put up a wall.  I ignored you as hard as I could.  I was distant and polite.  Nothing as beautiful as you could ever belong to me.  

Imagine my surprise when you ran also.  Not away in the opposite direction as I’d expected but in pursuit. 

And what a subtle creature you were with that chase.  You moved slow, stealthy, a big cat stalking something timid and easily startled.  And the next thing I knew, we were there in the moonlight and you were leaning in the window of that old Jeep telling me that you thought I was beautiful, too.

It all ended in ashes, in pain, in lies.  Maybe it had to.  Maybe nothing that starts out with something that strikes like a clean sharp blade can ever do anything but leave a bleeding body in its wake.  In those ashes, however, there will always be one or two moments that shine like diamonds, something left unconsumed.  There will always be you and me in the moonlight, both of us beautiful, if only for that one brief moment before the clouds appeared and everything was darkness again.

Solitary Wanderings

I went shopping today.  I needed to get out of the house.  I started with a thoroughly unsatisfactory trip to get some new clothing (as I find all trips to buy clothing to be, really) thanks to the shoddy attitudes of the people who "waited on me," a term I use with the greatest of ironies.  Only when they realized that despite my refugee appearance that I was actually going to be a fairly large sale did they act like I had suddenly become visible.  By that time, I was pulling the charge card out of my wallet and slapping it down on the counter, thinking, "Oh MAN, I wish you worked on commission...."  You see, believe it or not, I've done the whole retail-clothing salesperson song and dance before, lads and lasses.  That isn't how you do it.  Grrr.....  Excuse me for not dressing like the cover of Vogue on a Saturday to go to shops here in Podunk when it's raining.  Excuse me for interrupting your own personal shopping and/or conversations taking place across the store.  Yes.  My Bad.  Next time, I will be sure to take my business elsewhere so as not to disturb you.

Anyway.

After I took care of that little chore, I went to my favorite junktique.  By this time, it was raining fit to flood something, but it was pleasant on the metal roof of the giant building.  There were lots of people in the flea market, but it's so large that it still wasn't crowded.  I stayed for several hours just taking the time to be solitary and unhurried, looking at whatever caught my fancy.  It was nice.  I wasn't in a very sociable mood, so the background roar of the rain and the empty stalls filled with oddments and antiques were the perfect location for me today.

I managed to find several things I like, as I always do when I go there, including two new pieces of furniture, a stool for my classroom to replace the rickety one that has been cobbled together twice now and is on, quite literally, its last legs, and a small library table that I can store books under here at home.  I love them, but they're very hard to find.  This one has lovely decoration on it, so I was glad to find it.  I brought home the obligatory owl as well, and a box to keep some stationery in that's been refurbished in a brilliant purple paint.

I saw a couple of other things I would have liked to have had, but really, if I can't use it actively, I am trying not to bring it home now.  With the exception of the owls and the PEZ I collect, I don't really do that with other things.  That's how you wind up with a house full of junk and nowhere to put it.  Until I can get the back of the house cleaned out, which is already filled up with junk that is not even my own, I don't want to add to the problem myself.  Maybe this summer will be the summer I get back there and massively purge.  That's my plan, anyway. I want to go back there and reclaim those two rooms, lay hands on things, say, "Nobody uses this anymore," and ruthlessly kick that crap out of my house.  Now as to whether or not that actually happens....

In any case, today's trip was good.  Even getting the clothes was necessary if not all pleasant.  It was nice to be anonymous me (well, mostly.  I didn't see more than two people who knew me.) and have no one make any demands or need anything from me.  Sometimes I need to be totally alone in order to get myself pulled back together, to keep the world from rubbing me raw.  Today was restorative, and I feel much better for having taken the time, even in the outrageous rain, to do it.

Date a Girl Who Reads

 This is not mine.  I found it on Tumblr.  But I endorse every single word.  And yes, darlin', I am one....
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“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

—	Rosemary Urquico

A Justification for Chocolate Intake

"Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250" ~ Harper's Index

Awesome, this.  Think I'll go get some now.  I'd hate for my brain to run short on glucose, you know.....

Run Away

Too tired to post last night.  I stayed at school late working and talking to a teacher friend, went to have dinner with Mom and Dad, something that's all too rare these days, and then I just sort of became unconscious when I got home.  It slipped up on me stealthily, and the next thing I knew, it was midnight, there was one of those horrid "oldies" infomercials on the TV with music on it that I grew up with, and the cats were all piled up on me.  I hate that.  It makes me feel like I'm eighty.

Today is now Friday, and I'm itching to run away.  I don't know where to, but I just want to get out.  Probably, I will wind up going nowhere since the weather is supposed to be ickish.  Maybe my grand adventure will only be into the pages of a book or the back aisles of an antique mall.  I don't know.  I've just itchy feet and cramped wings.  Days like this,  moods like this, make me want to show up at the airport with some crap in a bag and my passport and just tell the people behind the desk, "Send me somewhere good.  You pick it."

Owls

I collect owls. As is the way of such collections, it started with just a few token items when our school went to small learning communities and I became a part of a group that took the owl for its symbol.  Then I'd see one here or there in an antique mall or online on Etsy that was clever, and I'd add it.  My mother added a few old pieces she'd had for years.  I bought one made from an old shovel from a craftsman at Chimneyville. The next thing I knew, the owls had grown to to dominate an entire large bookcase shelf.

Then people started giving me owls.  This year, my wonderful students have given me four.  A past student has brought one one.  A colleague brought me one she'd had around for a long time.  The owls keep flying in to be a part of the parliament gathering behind my desk.  (And I do just love the collective nouns for birds... Owl parliaments are the only parliaments I can support...) 

Of course, many of the things I have with owls are functional in some way.  I have a little planter on my desk that I use to hold post-its and index cards.  I also have a beautiful carved pin of cherry from an artist on Etsy.

Yesterday, that day that shall live in infamy, one of my AP students brought me a yellow and green metal owl wall plaque.  It has that wonderful, startled look to it that I enjoy so much about owls, and that great retro feel to it of things that come from the 60s and 70s.  It made me smile just to see it.  I hung it before 1st period started since I keep a hammer and nails in my filing cabinet along with all my other "Girl Scout" gear, and it looked out in puzzlement at the events of the day with me.  When the student gave it to me, she told me how she'd found it in an antique mall, and that it had a "twin."

Today, before school began, another of the students in that same sweet class showed up as I was standing at my duty post outside my door with a brown paper bag and handed it to me.  She'd gotten me the twin, identical in almost every way except the way it faces and the decoration on its belly.  I put it up, too, and the two of them watched the goings on today, much better all the way around.  Giving it to me was such a kind gesture.  The things my students do constantly humble me.

Whether I found them online, rescued them from a flea market, or got them as gifts given to me by someone else, what started as an afterthought has become something symbolic and encouraging.  Athena's owl, that traditional symbol for learning and wisdom, sits everywhere in my classroom.  Maybe some form of inspiration will shake off those wings somehow and do some good.  They do me good just by letting me know that somebody somewhere thought enough of me to care.  That is a powerful inspiration and magic all of its own.

Which Do I Deserve?

Today has been a study in contrasts.  I slept off the migraine from last night and got a good night's rest.  I took the time to put supper in the crockpot before I left the house so it would be ready when I got home, took the time to walk around to the back yard and cut more daffodils to take to my classroom to replace the faded ones I threw away yesterday. When I got to school, one of my wonderful AP students brought me a lovely green and yellow metal owl.  I put a nail in the window frame and hung it up. It makes me smile every time  I look at it.

Then the day changed.  Old enemies emerged: apathy, immaturity, out-and-out rudeness, my own physical weakness.  I had to take a Maxalt by 5th period. I fought the after-effects and the rest of it the remainder of the day.  Tuesday, the day that always, always finds some way to suck, had stealthily crept up behind me and struck.

When the bell ran and I finished my bus duty, I came back to my room, called my Mom to check in.  She asked me, "So tell me again, why are you still there?"  I told her that I don't want to leave the seniors, that I don't want to leave the AP.  That I'm not so sure that it's not this way everywhere.  That there are still things, students, challenges, plans in the future that I'm looking forward to.

But I can't lie.  The sweet, no matter how sweet it is, is increasingly becoming unable to outweigh the other.  What am I supposed to do?  Which is the right thing to pick?  Why can't I decide?

I packed my things, locked my door, brought myself home.  I got to see my Dad for a minute or two, opened a package from amazon.com that contained my shipment of Ito En green tea.  I ate my supper, had a piece of pie.  I'm sitting on my couch surrounded by purring cats and an affection-greedy pit bull, and I'm going to reclaim those shattered shards of good that this day began with.  By God, if nothing else, I think I at least deserve that.

Buttermilk Pie, Neurology, and other Miscellanea

Thank God for Granny's Buttermilk Pie recipe.  I got the stuff to make it yesterday when I braved Wal-Mart, and after tweaking it, I have a new favorite dessert.  There is not one healthful thing in that pie.... It's the only thing I bake that actually uses real butter, but it was in every single way worthy of it. 

Right now, I have the beginnings of a RAGING migraine.  I can feel it cranking up to kick me in the head until I'm in a whimpering ball.  I am hoping the pie will somehow miraculously stave off the pain.  It's a combination of all the wonderful factors that always give me headaches....  The weather is doing stupid stuff, my body is doing stupid stuff, work is full of stupid stuff; combine it, and voila! a perfect storm.

All I have to say is that it had all better enjoy it.  I have an appointment to see a new neurologist, and I think I'm just going to tell him to open it up and take out the offending bits (ha).  In all reality, I'm as happy as a person can be about going to a doctor that I've got this appointment.  I haven't seen a specialist in far too long, and clearly my condition is changing.  I need piece of mind even if there is nothing that can actually be done for my poor aching brain.

There was more I wanted to say, more to tell you about the day, about a poetry contest and my entry therein, about pottery tonight, about all the little trivial nonsense you've come to expect from me, gentle reader, but right now, somebody is gleefully slamming me in the head with a sledgehammer.  I think it's Maxalt time, soon to be followed by falldown and cry time, to be followed by sweet and merciful unconsciousness if there is any justice in the world. 

The Watchmen

I just watched The Watchmen, and I feel like I need to see it about eight more times to get everything that went on in that movie.  That was an astonishingly complex film, and at 2:30, it was still too short to do everything they tried to do in it.  I know it's from a graphic novel, and I need to just get the graphic novel, I think.  The storyline was so layered and the characters all deep and rich.  The plot and the motivation behind were full.  It went places I both saw coming and at the same time, didn't really expect.  It was very good.  I think I'm going to let it tumble around in my head awhile and then I'll watch it again.  I'm definitely glad I saw it.

Ag Museum

I went to the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Museum today with the Nikon as a photo expedition.  I've been wanting to get out somewhere for awhile and shoot some, and this seemed like a good place to go.  I had planned to go last week, but the weather wasn't as good, and I never was able to get up my momentum, so I lost that opportunity.  Today, I was determined, and I was walking out of the house pretty early.

The weather today was absolutely delicious.  When we actually get spring here, it's a gorgeous thing.  All the plants that bloom here are starting to open tentatively, and that hazy green mist that is the breath of the season is hanging in the tops of the trees.  The drive over was mercifully free of psychopaths intent on running me off the road or proving their manliness, so I soaked up the sun and joy of being behind the wheel. 

When I got to the museum, it was early still and mostly empty, and I walked around the collection of old buildings outside shooting whatever caught my eye.  It has been years since I have been there, but the place still brings back memories of Saturday and summer trips with my Granny and Granddaddy.  They'd load my two cousins and me up and take us over for the day, taking us through the inside museum and the outside "small town" I was walking through telling us stories about the things we were seeing since all of it was actually things they knew from personal use.

I gravitated toward the church at the center of the town.  It was quiet and cool, still, despite the increasing foot traffic of parents and small children.  I sat down on a pew and stared up at the complex patterns of board and bat, of arch and beam, that had gone into the construction of that simple country house of worship at some point.  Its crowning glory is a stained glass window of lilies.  I shot it repeatedly, but, as is so often the case when I try to capture something, I never got a good angle on it.  There was a pendant light right in the way, and although I think I tried every angle except for standing on the little piano in the corner, I don't really like any of the pictures of it I took.

After leaving the coolness of the church, I went to the General Store.  I had been thinking about a glass-bottle Coke since I had gotten in the car that morning.  Even though I don't really like Coke because it's so very, very sweet, an ice-cold glass-bottle Coke is something very special.  I used to love getting them in Japan and Thailand.  Here, they are very hard to find.  They, too, bring back memories, places I've been, times long gone.  Today, I enjoyed sitting on the porch in the breeze and drinking that fizzy beverage.  Even though it was a small one, I lingered over it.


The rest of the afternoon was pretty much a wash, but I got what I had wanted at the museum.  Even though the pictures are NOT some of my best by a long, long shot, I feel peaceful and calm just from going and taking them and from the walking with the memories that came from the location.  All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a day.

What We Have Here Is....

"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." ~ Robert McCloskey

Too Much TopGear, Perhaps

Yesterday, I was teaching Hamlet's To Be or Not to Be Soliloquy, and I compared this parody by Prince Charles

Well, frankly, the problem as I see it at this moment in time is whether I should just lie down under all this hassle and let them walk all over me, or whether I should just say OK, I get the message, and do myself in. I mean, let's face it, I'm in a no-win situation, and quite honestly, I'm so stuffed up to here with the whole stupid mess that I can tell you I've just got a good mind to take the easy way out. That's the bottom line. The only problem is, what happens if I find, when I've bumped myself off, there's some kind of... ah, you know, all that mystical stuff about when you die, you might find you're still - know what I mean?

to the original

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered. 

I'm rather afraid that after that, in discussion, when we were talking about the purpose of the Crown Prince using the cliche, euphemism, and so forth, I then proceeded to compare the first to a Volkswagen and the second to a Mercedes S-class.   I could feel the hot blood filling my cheeks.  The image of a little Beetle creeping along behind a string of prowling super cars had just filled my head.

Somewhere, Jeremy Clarkson is smiling.....

 

Tumblr Again

I've added the RSS Feed from my Tumblr, A Perpetual State of Wonder, to this blog.  Now you can get all your Wheaties in one quick one-stop shopping trip.  (Well, if you're exceptionally geekish, that is, or interested in books or Doctor Who or Star Wars or fountain pens or quotes or the Beatles or whatever else happens to be drifting through my Tumblr obsessions at the time....Caveat Emptor.  Don't say you weren't warned.)

Something You Should Always Remember....

"Humor is also a way of saying something serious." ~ T.S. Eliot

Musing

I should be grading.

Instead, I stopped a moment to check in on the electronic universe I'm addicted to fascinated with.  I think after the kind of day/week/month I've had lately, I can take five minutes, right?

I've got Sara Tavares playing in the background, and she always makes me ponder.  Her voice is just something beyond. I've blogged my fascination with her before.  You can search for the entry if you like.  If you haven't heard her, proceed to Grooveshark with all due speed and take a listen to Balance.  It's the one I've got spinning now (if things on iTunes can said to "spin"...my age is showing with my choice of verbs, I suspect). 

Anyway, this isn't what I'm musing over.  I was just looking at this odd mishmash of stuff I have here on the blog: fountain pens and pottery jesters; lunar insanity and crushing despair; road trips and tripping down stairs; flights of fantasy and random nightmares; and I wonder who in the world comes on these disjointed little rambles with me and why.

I know why I'm here.  I write this thing to clear the noise out of my head, to put all the broken pieces on the table and shuffle them around until a pattern appears.  It has always worked better for me; I've always been more faithful to this than to a paper-and-pen journal.  Of course, there are things I cannot say here, certain things I have to code or shield since I'm doing this little soft-shoe in front of a live studio audience....but maybe that's not a bad thing, either.  Maybe the presence of somebody in beyond the footlights keeps me more honest, more thoughtful about what's falling out of my keyboard than I might be otherwise.  Nobody likes to turn out a bad performance, after all, not in front of a paying crowd.....

The sea of essays calls to me.  My five minutes are up, and this particular little frolic has to come to an end.  I'm going to tuck up the corners of my curiosity, fold it neatly, and slide it back in the drawer until there's time for it again.  But as I pick up the pen and turn to the task at hand, I have to admit that on some level I'm still wondering.....

The New Old Pen

Saturday, while I was out looking for something to take a picture of, I went to an antique mall I like to poke around in sometimes.  I found a book about Faulkner I've never seen before, enjoyed looking at all the fascinating things, but I was getting ready to leave since I really didn't have much money.  I idly asked the guy behind the counter if they had any fountain pens, rather expecting the answer to be no.

To my surprise, he led me over to a case with a tray of restored pens of various brands, took them out, and left me to look them over while he waited on other customers.  Many of them were unremarkable, plain black resin in various states of repair, nothing striking or memorable.  In the end compartment of the fabric-lined tray, however, shining like a little jewel was a garnet-colored 1940s Chatham with a tag that said it had been restored. 

The color and the unusual basket-weave pattern of the resin caught my attention.  It is a piston-fill, and I don't have any of those, so I was reluctant to get something I would have to fill from the bottle, but the more I looked at it and handled it, the more it felt like something that was a part of me.  I finally decided to buy it.

Today, I inked it for the first time, remembering that it was in my purse and that my Levenger ink was in my school desk.  It writes divinely; the 60-year-old-nib is better than any other that I have.  The color continues to enchant, even more lovely in the light of day than it was in the dimness of the shop.  It pleases me tremendously to have this beautiful old object brought to life in my hands and working at its appointed task once more. 

Another Short Piece of Fiction

Another writing exercise, more's the pity.

____________

You somehow conjured yourself into a random dream the night the blood moon filled the sky, pulling back the shower curtain to climb inside the spray with me.  All things changed.  I could not breathe.  There was too much to see, too much to feel to waste time with such trivial matters as breathing -- the water running in tiny sacred rivers down your shoulders, tributaries branching across the plains of your chest, that nameless something in your eyes as they seek mine.  And then your hand slid through my hair, pulling me against you, erasing the unnecessary and unbearable space between us.  For a moment that hung like a falling star, your mouth remained apart from mine.  Hunger bared its teeth, sharpened its claws.   My trembling fingers slid up to your cheek, over your bottom lip, and with water running like tears down our faces, finally, a kiss….

Stress Is...

It's that hand in the strings of my soul, winding them casually around careless fingers, idle play that tightens and frays all the cords inside.

It's a four-year-old turned loose on a precise old instrument in a quiet room, pounding away with fists and abandoned glee as the tuning slowly disappears.

It's the feather-light caress of a breeze caused by the whisper-soft touch of paper against paper in a pile high as an elephant's knee and rising like a tide of three-hole-punched-white-and-blue-lined waves coming again and again, endless as any ocean.

It's looking at a calendar with filled with missed deadlines, with other people's urgencies, pencil in hand, trying to make space for what used to be me, what used to be important, and realizing that there is not one millimeter left in which that which was once mine can be wedged in.

It's the precise and deliberate cleaning tool, a subtle knife that trails with loving and careful strokes down me, pairing me away to the essentials, and then rasps those away, too.  I give it life, purpose.  I am its maker, its art.

It's walking across the thin-ice, running-cracked-glass arena floor upon which I perform daily and both praying that I don't slip and somehow desiring that today be the day that it all shatters out from under me and lets me just finally feel the relief of falling free at last, devil-take-the-hindmost and every-man-for-himself.

It's watching with fascination as the machinery is wound and wound and wound, unable for no reason that is understandable to stop turning the key despite knowing what will happen, and still marveling at the musical sound it all makes as gears jam, springs reach their final point of tension, and the unsteady and relentless ticking is finally stilled.

Made with My Own Hands

He's not fired yet, but here is my Jester.  You may have noticed that he is now my new blog icon.  It just felt appropriate.  This is a detail shot taken with Instagram (one of my very favorite iPhone apps; if you don't have it, you should get it) before he was put in the kiln for bisque firing. 

I still haven't decided on a color scheme, but I leaning toward either something very neutral with a brown/bronze hat and black mask for him or a red hat and parti-colored body as an alternative.  I think he'll look good either way, but I don't know which will be better.

Making him has been great fun, so I can't wait to finish him up completely.  When he's totally done, I'll put up another image.  I hope you can suffer through this pride of craft and indulge me in it just a bit longer.

Another by Neruda - Sonnet XVII

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries   

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,   

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose   

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,   

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,   

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,   

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
Translated by Mark Eisner

Neruda- "Clenched Soul"

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.

Translated by W.S. Merwin

There is so much beauty here that it actually causes a lovely little pain inside.  

Signs

I went out with my camera yesterday to try to take some pictures.  I couldn't find anywhere to turn my lens.  I drove all over four towns, and I took only four pictures. 

The driving of course was the important part.  Driving clears my head sometimes.  I drove and thought, drove and prayed, looking for a sign about what comes next.  I found myself lost in backstreets that led to unexpected but auspicious places.  I pulled up in parking lots and sat, looked at buildings.

I was looking for a sign.  Well, I guess literally and figuratively, something to photograph and something to guide me, both.  On my way out of one of the towns, I think I saw it.

When I got home, I sent an email to someone I have known for a long time.  I'll see what happens next.  Regardless of the outcome, a curious sense of lightness has come over me.

Optimized for the Mobile World

If you're on a mobile device and everything is suddenly stripped down and you're thinking, What the...yeah, you're in the right place.  Blogger now allows me to optimize this for mobile viewers.  Now you can view my sage ramblings on your iBerries with greater ease.  Or, if you like squinting at the dangerous sheep, you can click at the bottom and look at the regular web view instead....Everybody else, carry on.

Sign, Please

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later." ~ Mitch Hedberg

I have to make a decision about something.  I need a sign, something that will help me know that I'm choosing the right thing.  I wish making choices was easier.  I wish I were wiser, that I had more knowledge or sense, more courage or brains or whatever it is that I apparently am lacking....

Wouldn't it be great it life just came with a map or a manual?  I would settle for a "preview of coming attractions" at this moment.  I'm so scared of running away from something I'm supposed to stay with for the wrong reason.  Ridiculously, I'm also afraid that I'm stubbornly clinging to something I should let go of for reasons that are not sound, either.

So what's the answer?  I wish I knew.  Oh, how profoundly I wish that I knew.....

Run Like Hell

(with apologies to Floyd, the lyrics of whose song have almost nothing to do with this post)

If I could have contrived a way for the marble floors to have opened up and swallowed me, I would have made it happen today.  It started well; I like Thursdays.  I had danish for breakfast.  I had Diet Mountain Dew back in my pantry and fridge.  I was cheerful.  I was listening to the Beatles' blue album.  I got to talk to a friend who, although she's in the same building, I rarely see.

Then it went right straight to hell.

Less and less am I able to put all the pieces back together.  More and more do I believe the bad things.  There's a line in some movie (I have the horrible feeling I'm about to quote Pretty Woman, but I'm not quite sure...) that says something about how people can tell you something good but the bad things are easier to believe.  That's where I am lately.  The bad things keep coming, and even though I'm trying not to gripe and whine (believe it or not, I really am), they keep knocking me to my knees.  It's getting harder and harder to get up.

Today, I didn't even want to.  Staying down seemed both right and good.  If down is where they want me so badly, maybe down is where I am supposed to be. After all, if I get up to fight again, I'm just going to get hit again.  What's the point of that?  It hurts and the effort involved in dragging my bleeding self back to my unsteady feet isn't going to be appreciated by anybody but myself....

When it was over, I sat very still for awhile, just thinking.  A friend came in and we talked.  I gathered my things, and we left, she to her home, I to mine.  I just ran away.  Despite the mountains of things I needed to accomplish, I couldn't do another thing, soul-sick as I am right now.  I'm going to watch a movie, see if there's anything edible in the kitchen, and look for joy in the small things that surround me.  I do know I do have to get myself back up again.  I just don't know how I'm going to do it.

Jester

I'm building probably the best piece I've ever done in pottery right now.  I finished up the handbuild tonight; he is now drying.  Next week, I'll see if I can clean the greenware piece without doing damage.  I'll take a picture when I get it cleaned before it goes into the kiln.  I can't help but be proud of it.  It's worlds away from the little cat I have here on the shelf of my living room, yet they are related. 

I love hand building more every time I sit down to do it.  It is so satisfying to see the whimsies of my mind come to life by the effort of my hands. 

Now We Are 35

Maybe that quote doesn't really work when you're not 10 anymore....

I woke up feeling so cheerful and happy.  I don't know if it's just because it's my birthday or if it's something else altogether.  Whatever it is, I hope it lasts. 

I've had birthday greetings coming in via text and FaceBook since just before midnight last night.  It's meant so much to me that people have taken the time to drop me a note.  Some of my former students have said very sweet things, better really than any gift.  It's nice to know they remember me, that what I gave them is still something they value.

Today itself was a wonderful day.  I slept late, had lunch at Olive Garden with my parents (eggplant Parmesan...yay,yay,yay), and then my Mom and I went junkin'.  I found a beautiful wooden box for my handkerchiefs and a couple of other things as well.  Mom took a picture of me in a silly hat at the antique mall. It has been a thoroughly peaceful day. 

Tomorrow will be a return to "the real world."  I'm going to fight to hold on to this feeling though.  Maybe it's finally mine for keeps.

The Birthday Indulgences, 2011 Edition

In a few hours, I will be 35.  God.  How did that happen?

I'm sort of excited about this birthday.  It's weird.  Usually I get in a grim black funk about them or have a moment of introspection and move on, but for this one, I kind of want to go to a place that does the whole sombrero on the head thing and make them sing to me.  It's odd.

Thirty-five.  Half my life, realistically.  I should be in a navel-gazing cloud of despair over all I haven't done, over where I am now, blah-blah-blah, but instead, for no good reason, I'm sort of giggling and amused.  In four hours, I will quite officially "no longer be young," if ever I was.

Since I instituted the "Week of Senseless Indulgences" a few years ago to fend off birthday blues, I have carefully plotted and planned to make sure I have neat things near my birthday.  This year, I think I outdid myself. Of course, I have my earrings which were my big gift to myself this year, but I also went to the Eudora Welty conference Friday, something I always enjoy, and that intellectual stimulation made me feel like a person with a brain again instead of a dead teacher minion.

After the conference, I went to Target and just wandered up and down the aisles, on nobody's timetable but my own.  I bought myself my favorite type of pencil, the gravity-feed Dr. Grip (if you don't have one, you need one and can get one or at least take a look at the specs on one by clicking on the helpful Amazon box at the left....they're a little hard to find....), and a Beatles t-shirt.  I got a new scented candle for my classroom.  Little things.  Little things.

I finally remembered to return two movies to NetFlix that I've had forever, and I took the time to watch two more that I've wanted to see for a long time.  It's been nice to have something not a rerun to watch in the evenings.  

Today, I went back to Jackson to see my best friend for the first time since school started.  We went to MugShots and had big, unhealthy burgers laden with blue cheese.  We roamed around Pier1 and the Craftsmen's Guild Center.  It was a good day.  More little things.

Tomorrow, on the actual day, I think Mom and Dad are going to take me out to eat, and we'll get to spend time together.  Mom said something about going junkin', and there's a show at the Riley Center I might try to pick up a ticket for if I feel like it and there are any left.

Little things.  Little things.

Maybe I shouldn't keep all these little things bottled up for just this time in February. Maybe I should focus on trying to have every week, every month be filled with Senseless Indulgences.  Life would certainly be a lot more pleasant if I did....  Something to think about as I start the second half of my life, perhaps.

Snow

We may or may not have snow tonight.  Some flakes are falling now, but after all the recent cries of Wolf, I am something of a skeptic.  I will believe in the whiteness when I see the whiteness. 

It would be nice to have.  We haven't had snow in a long time, not a real snowfall.  I'd love to get out and take snow pictures now that I have a good camera.  The last pictures I took were just with my iPhone.
 
I miss the snow from Indiana.  I have crazy memories of a huge mass of graduate students, a bunch of cheap sleds bought at KMart, and a big snowy hill....  Of course, I also have not-so-happy memories of creeping across campus trying not to be the obligatory student-on-his/her-backside on the ice-slicked sidewalks since no salt could be used on IU's campus...  It wasn't funny to see somebody's legs go flying out from under them after you had it happen to you once.

As I listen to the icy drops click against the window, I wonder what my world will look like tomorrow.  I wonder if I'll have to go to work.  I guess all the mysteries will be revealed soon enough.

Heard on the Radio

"Jesus loves you, so I'm gonna, too.  Here's a CD."  ~ DJ on Air1 in reference to the idea that this Valentine's Day we should attempt to focus on loving those around us who get on our nerves or who are generally "unloveable" and find real ways to show it. 

It made me smile.  Then it made me think.