Showing posts with label soul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soul. Show all posts

Thursday, June 24, 2021

The Witness of Change

 This is me, being 32.


This is me, holding a secret - or at least, a social media secret. 


See, this is me, being 36 weeks pregnant. A fact I kept off the Internet. At first non-intentionally, and then just because I could. Because I’d gone months without posting a staticky sonogram, or an artful shot of my gently swelling stomach, and why not keep it up?


Before I gave birth to Alex, the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also had a child. She never announced it, did no publicity, and chalked it up to not wanting to “perform pregnancy,” a phrase that lives rent-free inside my head. I did not want to perform pregnancy. I was already a vessel to my wonderful baby boy, I didn’t want to become only a vessel to the world at large as well.


And although the pregnancy was just over half of this past year, it still seemed interminable. I look back at pictures from the before times, and wonder if it was all a glorious dream. Was there ever a time I wasn’t miserably pregnant? Truly, honestly?


And yet, as 31 dawned, I wouldn't ever believe I’d be in this precise place when it set. Life was drastically different. I had absolutely zero plans of being pregnant. I would have broken down sobbing to know that I went back to teaching. And I would have guffawed in your face to think that Texas, of all the miserably backwards places,* would be the closest I’ve ever felt to home.


As I type, I’m staring at my beautiful baby boy, all wide eyes and solemn stares. I’m coming off my best educational year ever (yes, this COVID-soaked, hybrid-teaching chaos of a year), hyped about unit plans and even data collection, spurred on by a teaching partner so amazing I’m still pinching myself that she’s real. And I’m sitting in a house with year-round Halloween decorations and a room dedicated to instruments.


There were two songs on constant rotation this year. This kick-awesome RatM anthem was one, as I re-entered education and took my power back after a disastrous school placement. And then, once it dropped, I became obsessed with this incredibly smooth Anderson .Paak/Bruno Mars collaboration. I mean, watch each and every video. It's astounding.


I enjoy those as a representation of my life. I'm deeply satisfied right now. Yet, as with everything, there’s room for better.


32, I took that power back, but I'll still leave the door open for more.


31. 302928272625.


*and yes, I do still find it politically and infrastructurally backwards, thanks to mewling conservative sycophants of a governor/other state reps. Vote them out! But this is a beautiful place! But down with misguided libertarianism! Oh, the conflicting feelings! My emotions!



Wednesday, March 20, 2019

I wrote this at 11:40 PM, and went to work six hours later. I am old and now am tired.

The way to do something is doing it.

I once had a journalism professora famous, bloated wound of a man who harvested cliches and sprinkled them like fresh grown wisdomrelish in telling his classes that the cure for writer's block was writing.

Duh doy.

And yet, like all the best advice, it's the simplicity that makes the task so daunting. We (and yes, I'm dragging the general public into this) believe that there's got to be some other secret, a magic key that only reveals itself to the recipient at some opportune moment. There's a magical combination of words, or a ritual performed under the right moon, or even just the fallback of knowing the right person to make things true.

Some of those have a kernel of truth. After all, I do firmly believe you have to toss spilled salt over you shoulder. Rituals have weight.

But results come from action.

Last year, I lost weight and got healthier by exercising. At least thirty minutes a day, five days a week. No shakes, no programs, and I didn't count calories (though I know that's worked for others). I just did it. No exceptions. Not even at full capacity every day. The action mattered.

This applies to everything, absolutely everything, we want from life. Take any of my artistic ambitions. I don't know why it's taken me almost thirty years, much of which was spent editing the work of other writers, to realize that writers are people who write. I won't suddenly have more time. I won't suddenly have better ideas. I have to write. I have to put in the work.

Source

The past six months, I've written when my students write. I've given myself dialogue challenges. I've created characters. I've written fantasy and mystery and dystopia. Most are trash. Some are...intriguing. A few characters have stuck with me, and always the ones I discovered as I freely wrote.

I'm writing. And I can see a future, a misty-edged vision of morning pages and filled notebooks. I just need to do the work.

The cure is writing.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Black Days

I was raised a sheltered kid. I listened to a capella jamz (ugh) and showtunes. In high school I "rebelled" against that upbringing by listening to classic rock and only classic rock. If the band had a hit in the past twenty years, I wasn't interested. In college, I became immersed in the local band scene, and naturally grew into an indie rock chick, black-framed glasses and cardigans and all.

Which is all to sayI didn't know the music of my youth. I'm pretty sure grunge was banned in Davis County. Apparently a few counties over accidentally booked Rage Against the Machine once, and that is still the terrifying stuff of local legend.

Chris Cornell first consciously entered my brain when I was 20. I sat on a couch in Provo with two boys that I loved, loved at different times and the same time.* We watched skate videos and "Like a Stone."



I was not a rocker at that timethe hardest music I listened to was The White Stripesbut I was immediately drawn in by Cornell's voice. I'd later learn to appreciate Morello's guitar skills, but the sheer melancholy of Cornell's singing floored me. I watched that video and saw and heard true despair. I didn't know a voice could rock while carrying that level of sincere emotion.

A few months later, I made a new friend. The first time we hung out we had a massive music swap, where I foisted Andrew Bird and Rilo Kiley on his iTunes. In turn, he filled a USB with all the 90s music I missed. He gave me entire catalogs of Audioslave and Temple of the Dog and Soundgarden. He told me to listen to Superunknown, that it was an album everybody should experience.** When I got home that night I turned it on. My bud Ashley came in and said, and I quote, "This is not Cat music."

No. It wasn't. But even I couldn't resist blasting "4th of July" at full capacity, because that song was magic.



That new friend who gave me Soundgarden? His name was Taylor McCarrey. I soon saw the beauty in his childhood music, fully embracing those 90s guitars. When we were still dating, we moved to Seattle. He was depressed. I was frustrated. We both experienced some extreme growing pains that summer. We visited Volunteer Park, and I felt a kinship with the "Black Hole Sun."



I'd never put Chris Cornell or any of his projects in my top lists when it comes to music, but I can't deny that he has had an indelible effect on my life. My sorrow at his passing blindsided me. His voice was there during the most pivotal times. Its raw emotion still haunts me. There's something warm and unnerving about the edge, that soft blanket lined with sandpaper. I can't shake it, and I wouldn't want to.



*It was as dramatic and painful and beautiful as it sounds.

**He also said the same about Stone Temple Pilot's Purple and Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age. What can I say, my husband is a wise man.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Quarter of a Century Man*

I am, I am.


This is me, being 25.

At 25, I woke up early.  At 6:30 AM, when I was technically still 24, with only a few precious minutes before entering the 25th anniversary of my time here on earth.  Sun squirmed its way between a gap in the window and the Batman blanket I've been using as a heavy duty curtain, touching my face with the illusion of a warm day.  For a moment I was still, nestled in bed and squinting at a mix of sky and branches and houses.

At 25, I decided to treat myself to a bagel for breakfast.  Apparently, food is just as important to me as when I was 24, or 16, or 5.  Indeed, the desire and appreciation for food runs much of my daily life.  At 25, there is rarely a moment when I don't have a niggling yen for one (or both) of two things: guacamole, with the rich avocado punctuated with sharp garlic and juicy ripe tomatoes; or the Lucknow Special from Pronti Bistro.  Chunks of lamb with mushroom and feta, slathered in tamarind and mint yogurt sauce, gently couched in warm flatbread.  It's the type of meal that makes the entire world OK, opening windows of peace and harmony and happiness (only to prompt feelings of crushing loss when it is eaten and gone).

At 25, I carefully selected the first song of my new year.  I was torn between old favorites, songs that dominated this past year, or something peppy and delightful.  I ended up with "The Wind" by Cat Stevens.  A perfect choice.



At 25, I'm coming out of a season of penetrating sadness.  But the weather is slowly warming, and is nursing my heart along with it.  One thing people don't tell you when you finally chase your dreams is that the chasing action does not instantaneously eradicate all the fears and insecurities that kept you from the dream in the first place.  Oh, it can assuage them for a bit.  For a time, your confidence will be boosted by the pure adrenaline rush of finally doing it.  And then the novelty wears off and you are left with a dream that has become mundane reality, but with an added pressure layer of hopes and expectations crusting the top of it.  And wrestling with a dream made actual can leave you staring at the void, feet dangling off the edge of the cliff as you grasp for a trail.  For somewhere safe and sure to place your footfalls.  And sometimes, you'll have to off-road it for a while, forging your own path until a trail is made.  And it's difficult.  But somehow it can be done.  Or so I repeat to myself in the malaise-worthy mornings and headache-inducing nights.

At 25, I'm hopeful.  Hopeful that the best is still ahead.  That there's a bright, comfortable future in front of me, full of books and armchairs and sunlight.  The meals will be catered and the television will always be set to the best channels (what CBS? No such thing).  There will be rooms and people and a home full of light.  There will be deeply satisfying work, and even more deeply satisfying love.  This is the richness I see for myself, and as for 25?  It's just the beginning.

*That phrase always makes me think of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  Specifically, the scene before this song.  I tried to find the actual point where Mr. Twimble discusses his 25-year status in the company, but alas it is not to be.  Yes, we have a grand overarching technological network that spies on us and has billions of cat videos, but it can't be bothered to include a thirty second clip of a Pulitzer prize-winning production.  This is the world we live in.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

More Weight

I can never again make fun of Taylor for crying at the end of Apollo 13.  Not after I just spent the past two hours sobbing at this movie:



Man alive.  It was roughly two years ago that I finally decided I was allowed to have emotions, and I knew that it would be a strange, difficult road, but I never expected this.  I never thought that I would become the type of person who cries during movies.  And I don't even have any hormonal excuses!  Just pure, unadulterated connection with a beautiful work of art.

I read The Crucible as a junior in high school.  I had loved books before, but nothing had struck me to the core like Arthur Miller's words.  They kept me awake at night, pondering over implication.  The Salem Witch Trials, a topic I thought I had pretty well covered with my extensive Ann Rinaldi readings as a child, suddenly became a new experience, rife with the meaning of dignity and justice.  That started me on my love of American writers, led me to reading more postmodern works.  The Crucible defined my adult reading palate.   It sharpened my sense of talented writing.  And watching the movie again tonight, for the first time since high school, I was struck again.

Words are powerful.  They carry weight.  And the way we use them shapes us.

I know.  Super deep.  But let's face it, I abandoned all pride the moment I started choking up while watching justice die as girls screamed about Goody Good with the Devil.  Ah well.  At least I'm not crying at chick flicks.  There's mercy yet.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Quote Dumps and Philosophies

A while back, I read Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck.  I really, truly loved that book.  You know the feeling when you read a book, and you can tell that it's changing you?  Where you read it, and every page tingles because you're connecting with the text in a lasting, meaningful way?  That's what happened.  Reading it was an experience in personal philosophy making.  A tangible, recognizable extension of personal canon.  Within the first ten pages, I knew that I had found a favorite book, one that immediately joined such elite tomes as Dracula, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Fugitive Pieces in my All Time Favorite Books Ever List.

When I read it, I was borrowing a friend's copy, and it drove me crazy that I couldn't underline my favorite passages.  Yes, I am one of those people who "desecrates" their books.  Here's how I see it: in Judaism, the Rabbinical studies of the Torah are considered so sacred and beautiful that they take on new life as part of the Talmud, a book that is studied and revered on the same level of scripture by certain sects.  Now, I'm not saying that my comments and interactions with the written word are that enlightened.  But I like the idea that books take on new layers and dimensions as they accumulate discussion.*  Reading a used copy of a book, one that has previous markings, always makes me pay attention to lines I might have skimmed over.  Even if the only interaction is a long-forgotten inscription in the front cover, the fact that this was an ancient gift colors my reading, makes me look at it in a way where I try to see the value that made that book so important to someone that they would share it with another.  So yes, I write in my books.  It helps me remember why they are important to me, and lets me make similar connections with others.

Sorry.  Tangent over.  Anyway, I couldn't mark up that copy, so I was left to frantically type the quotes I loved in my phone (naturally, it was the only thing I could count to always have on hand, as I sometimes didn't have a notebook near me when I was reading).  I didn't want to lose those quotes when I finally bought the book, so I'm putting them here as a method of safe-keeping.  And so that perhaps someone else will read this under-rated treasure, and it will spread to the masses!  Revolution!  Or, at least, I'll have someone else to geek out with me.

So, without further ado, some of my favorite Steinbeck moments:

"I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found."

"How myth wipes out fact. ... I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger."

"A man with nothing to say has no words.  Can it's reverse be true-- a man who has no one to say anything to has no words as he has no need for words?"

"The American tendency in travel.  One goes, not so much to see but to tell afterward."

"What I found was closely intermeshed with how I felt at the moment."

"But to get to be people they must fight those who aren't satisfied to be people."

"This used to be a nation of giants.  Where have they gone?  You can't defend a nation with a board of directors.  That takes men."

"In those days there was no world beyond the mountains."

"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike."

*If you want to learn more about these theories, I highly recommend The Talmud and the Internet by Jonathan Rosen.  It completely changed my relationship with text, and strengthened my respect for Judaism.

Friday, February 29, 2008

"Poets aren't quite like other people..."


Today BYU managed to get former Poet Laureate (and one of my favorite modern day poets. The other top one is Taylor Mali, but he is not the topic of this post, now is he?) Billy Collins to come and read poetry. I can die happy.

It was spectacular to sit in an auditorium, not too far back, and listen to a man whose works have been on AP tests. Think about that for a while. What was wonderful was the atmosphere in the room. As he spoke, I could feel myself (along with the hundred or so other people there) falling for his laid-back charm, being mesmerized by this unassuming man in a blue sweater.

When he stood up, he got straight to the point: poetry. He read and explained things he wrote in a soft voice. Thanks to a cold he apologized for, it was a little nasally but no less enthralling. True, at times it reminded me of Ben Stein's monotone, but the closer I listened the more I began to appreciate the subtleties of his recital. This droll little man with the droopy eyes was a mass of gentle humor. As he got further along the program, I saw his spirit. Here was a man who lived his life in a constant state of bored amusement. That sounds like a paradox, but that's what it was. You could tell he spent his life looking outwards, looking out his window as his poem "Monday" implies, but not judging what he saw. He liked the world, he wrote about it, and it brought him joy.

What was really beautiful was observing what happened when his "poem" voice, the voice that added a gentle emphasis and halting rhythm to his words, extended to his everyday voice, the one he used to talk about where the inspiration for such and such came from. When that happened, the most idle of comments became poetry, and so beautiful that you would have given anything at that moment to see life as he saw it.

After he had closed with the recitation of "On Turning Ten", preceded by the statement "If you are majoring in English, you are majoring in Death. So death is our thing" (poking fun of the abundance of mortality poems in the literary canon), I ran to get him to sign his newest book for me. I waited in a line that was more like a crowded corral, but it was worth it just to have something I can hold to remember the way I felt, sitting in an uncomfortable seat and wanting to be able to write like that when I grow up.

Anyway, here is a sample of his poetry, and one of my favorites, though it is really too hard to choose. It's the title poem from his latest book, The Trouble With Poetry.

The Trouble With Poetry

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along the beach one night-
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky-

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti-
to be perfectly honest for a moment-

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
i carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.




Thursday, February 21, 2008

I have no response to that.

Joe vs. the Volcano: A Timeless Classic, Which, Much Like Transformers, Has More Than Meets the Eye


I watched this amazing Hanks-Ryan vehicle last week, and it blows me away every time. If you haven't seen it ... go now. Fast. Run to watch this highly underrated cinematic masterpiece. Yes I went there. Masterpiece.

Here's the thing. Not only is it wickedly funny, (Tom Hanks playing a depressed hypochondriac on a fatal mission. Meg Ryan playing three equally hilarious and diverse roles. Can you get any better? Come on.) but it really is thought-provoking.

A main theme of this work is the state of the soul, and in conjunction, the course your life takes due to the well-being of your soul. Wow, that sounded intelligent. Go me. But moving on.

The references to the soul start from the beginning, veiled as they might be. Joe, miserable and stuck in a dead end job, breaks his shoe walking in the oppressive building that houses his cave-like workspace. When asked what happened, he replies "I'm losing my sole". Sole!! Soul!! Get it? Genius. Later on, in a rant to his boss, he is "too afraid to live my life, so I sold it to you for THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS A WEEK!". Meg Ryan's third character, Patricia, has been bought out by her father and is soul sick. The chief of Waponi-Wu (Little Island with Big Volcano), carries around what is not a teddy bear, but his soul, and Joe tells him he "better not lose it".

That should give you just a taste of the deeper meaning one can find in this movie. I could go on, but then I'd get all preachy and make lists and give away the plot and no one wants any of those things to happen, am I right? But it just made me think about what I am doing with my life and what condition my soul is in. I love movies like that. Things that entertain and enrich at the same time. That kind of stuff is golden, baby. Pure gold.