Every death is like the burning of a library.Alex Haley
Rip Ida
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Im awake.
I’m awake because, I’m always awake.
I’m writing because, I have to. As I have begun to realize this is something I must periodically do in my life, the less I think, the better. But then again, that is the problem with this thing. Its not a diary, It’s not journal, It’s not even a place for these entries really. Then…
What is this? Somewhere where I am supposed to be honest? Maybe that is what I am supposed to be. I find myself crunching down and editing and condensing my meanderings to fit whoever reads this thing, when maybe, I should just say whatever the hell I want. I have been making the efforts to be more vulnerable lately. So I will let this thing die, and become abandonded, that’s how I like it anyways, that’s how it began.
The truth is.
I’m so scared, I wish I weren’t but I am. And I’m lucky enough to be able to say it I guess. I want so badly, and Im not sure what or what for. All I know for certain is that I want shelly’s old piano and a room I can have to myself, and friends, and the freedom to create. I just don’t want to fail. I never have been very good with that whole transition thing. I suppose this is helping.
Maybe if I could just describe what I miss.
If I could just recall how your stature was just slightly above mine. If I could steal back all the ideas you stole from me, I wouldn’t. I don’t care, I’m weary in that way.
If I could muster up a memory of what it smelled like then maybe I would be happy.
Like…dust, lonely dust. Poor dust, poor poor dust. I’ll stir you up.
I’m seeking out kids because I wish to be more selfless this year. Or maybe it’s just that kids have always brought me joy, and now, I can have them for a year hands free. I hate to admit that.
If I could jus remember what it is that I desired last summer. Was it him? Maybe, I desired him the way I desired coffee on Monday mornings, and naps at two. Or I desired humanity, there is something about the summer that makes you so much more human that you normally are. Something about the winter that makes you less. Something about the fall that gives you hope for it, and the spring which renews that hope in you after the winter has ravaged it away from you. But aint that just life. Just when you think you have a handle on something, it dies, its gone, and suddenly comes back to surprise you just when youre on the brink of extinction yourself. That is humanity, and that is humane.
Yes, I take my humanity very seriously. This is all we have, this is all we are. Hallelujah. Take your thoughts and nurse them, take your feelings and let them intensify, cultivate them. Exploitation? No. honesty I think.
I would like to describe that moment when someone begins to sing and your eyes water and you have to look away. Because it’s so rare. Dear little one, you have made me spill my saline, stirred something in me, yum. I loveee that feeling, but you have to hide it, you have to run away, to secret it, because im afraid if it becomes more tactile, more real, more unspoken, it will cease to exist, I must preserve that awkward, very, very, very well. Perhaps I should not then, have written this.
I want to describe the feeling of gaining weight in my cheeks, and Naomi and who she is. And I want to describe how someone named clara might die in waco and how. Bizarre but reassuring.
cultivate your habits, habits are style.
It seems I live for nothing more than descriptions, and to find things suitable for them.
The hardwood floors and the vinyl that was my companion. The look of you and whatever came over me when we jumped in the lake and I saw your tattoos. Im afraid I’ll never have a summer this way again. Im afraid ill never be locked in a cemetery with anyone again until I’m a resident of it.
I should stop but I wont. I want to describe, and scribe, this place, this light, this tension, this noise. Everything, the feeling of it all, the immediate comfortability. The way my heart settled in when I first met that house, and the way it left unsettled. The cat pee, the club that you joined, the men that you’ve had, The woman you are. The friends you take, the trouble you keep, the foods you make, the life you lead.
The people around you.
As much as I believe in words, Its so hard to find an accurate group of them to describe you. I don’t really know that feeling, It’s not love, It’s not depth, It’s like….accuracy. Your look is so accurate and your presense is so inviting I’d rather just stick to the look of you for fear that my attempts to sew myself to your insides will unstitch quickly and tether. So let me grab my fabric glue, and quickly attach myself to your outsides and say, that I have never seen a pair of eyes so childish. They practically reached our and grabbed mine. Strangled the optic nerve and sucked iris bursts from them so that I was blinded. Maybe that is why yours are so amazing, they steal the life from everyone else’s. I don’’t really know what you are to me.
I wonder If I had the choice between being able to see the most beautiful thing in the world and going blind, or never seeing anything beautiful again, which I would choose. I don’t know why I asked that.
Im not an automaton at all, so come and get me.
I’m writing because, I have to. As I have begun to realize this is something I must periodically do in my life, the less I think, the better. But then again, that is the problem with this thing. Its not a diary, It’s not journal, It’s not even a place for these entries really. Then…
What is this? Somewhere where I am supposed to be honest? Maybe that is what I am supposed to be. I find myself crunching down and editing and condensing my meanderings to fit whoever reads this thing, when maybe, I should just say whatever the hell I want. I have been making the efforts to be more vulnerable lately. So I will let this thing die, and become abandonded, that’s how I like it anyways, that’s how it began.
The truth is.
I’m so scared, I wish I weren’t but I am. And I’m lucky enough to be able to say it I guess. I want so badly, and Im not sure what or what for. All I know for certain is that I want shelly’s old piano and a room I can have to myself, and friends, and the freedom to create. I just don’t want to fail. I never have been very good with that whole transition thing. I suppose this is helping.
Maybe if I could just describe what I miss.
If I could just recall how your stature was just slightly above mine. If I could steal back all the ideas you stole from me, I wouldn’t. I don’t care, I’m weary in that way.
If I could muster up a memory of what it smelled like then maybe I would be happy.
Like…dust, lonely dust. Poor dust, poor poor dust. I’ll stir you up.
I’m seeking out kids because I wish to be more selfless this year. Or maybe it’s just that kids have always brought me joy, and now, I can have them for a year hands free. I hate to admit that.
If I could jus remember what it is that I desired last summer. Was it him? Maybe, I desired him the way I desired coffee on Monday mornings, and naps at two. Or I desired humanity, there is something about the summer that makes you so much more human that you normally are. Something about the winter that makes you less. Something about the fall that gives you hope for it, and the spring which renews that hope in you after the winter has ravaged it away from you. But aint that just life. Just when you think you have a handle on something, it dies, its gone, and suddenly comes back to surprise you just when youre on the brink of extinction yourself. That is humanity, and that is humane.
Yes, I take my humanity very seriously. This is all we have, this is all we are. Hallelujah. Take your thoughts and nurse them, take your feelings and let them intensify, cultivate them. Exploitation? No. honesty I think.
I would like to describe that moment when someone begins to sing and your eyes water and you have to look away. Because it’s so rare. Dear little one, you have made me spill my saline, stirred something in me, yum. I loveee that feeling, but you have to hide it, you have to run away, to secret it, because im afraid if it becomes more tactile, more real, more unspoken, it will cease to exist, I must preserve that awkward, very, very, very well. Perhaps I should not then, have written this.
I want to describe the feeling of gaining weight in my cheeks, and Naomi and who she is. And I want to describe how someone named clara might die in waco and how. Bizarre but reassuring.
cultivate your habits, habits are style.
It seems I live for nothing more than descriptions, and to find things suitable for them.
The hardwood floors and the vinyl that was my companion. The look of you and whatever came over me when we jumped in the lake and I saw your tattoos. Im afraid I’ll never have a summer this way again. Im afraid ill never be locked in a cemetery with anyone again until I’m a resident of it.
I should stop but I wont. I want to describe, and scribe, this place, this light, this tension, this noise. Everything, the feeling of it all, the immediate comfortability. The way my heart settled in when I first met that house, and the way it left unsettled. The cat pee, the club that you joined, the men that you’ve had, The woman you are. The friends you take, the trouble you keep, the foods you make, the life you lead.
The people around you.
As much as I believe in words, Its so hard to find an accurate group of them to describe you. I don’t really know that feeling, It’s not love, It’s not depth, It’s like….accuracy. Your look is so accurate and your presense is so inviting I’d rather just stick to the look of you for fear that my attempts to sew myself to your insides will unstitch quickly and tether. So let me grab my fabric glue, and quickly attach myself to your outsides and say, that I have never seen a pair of eyes so childish. They practically reached our and grabbed mine. Strangled the optic nerve and sucked iris bursts from them so that I was blinded. Maybe that is why yours are so amazing, they steal the life from everyone else’s. I don’’t really know what you are to me.
I wonder If I had the choice between being able to see the most beautiful thing in the world and going blind, or never seeing anything beautiful again, which I would choose. I don’t know why I asked that.
Im not an automaton at all, so come and get me.
I am not an automaton at all.
You don't know that you inspire me. You don't know how you do. You don't know I feel i have to live up to you, you don't know that. You don't know how good you are, you don't know how good you are at all. You know how much I wish i had it like you, but you don't know that, do you.
I love language, and I love communication. I love it because it defines us, because it relates so deeply to everyone and is so personal to a life, and I love to use it. It feels good to say for no reason at all. In Spanish, I love the word “langosta” which means lobster, in Italian, “sbagliato” (zbal-YAH-toh) which means mistake. That it is not though, it is perfect. Beginning with a hissing sound at the base and rounding into an “ahhhhh” at the back of the throat where it should almost become a gulp sound at the silent “g” but doesn’t, And just when you think the word has given everything it can give you for one syllable, it quickly counteracts itself and assaults you with a quick and assertive “yah-toh!” warranting a head nod. I love that word because it means how it feels. Like a mistake often is, innocent and unsure at first and then out of nowhere comes back to bite you, leaving you bitter but better.
I think it is beautiful that we are each given the same instrument and out of necessity and tradition we have found infinite ways in which to use it. Some of us click, some purse our lips, or roll the tongue. There are a myriad ways to use what we have to communicate, and they are all intertwined with our social and cultural conditions. It’s as if everyone has been given the same problem to solve, and the manifestations that have risen from it are so vast and personal that it is overwhelming.
Languages and the study of them inspire me. I think they are as structurally sound and efficient as a steel-beamed building, yet as weathered and culturally seasoned as a cottage overgrown with kudzu. As diverse and transformative as a ball of silly putty and yet definitive and characteristic with the ability to communicate nuance in only the way art and touch can rival.
You don't know that you inspire me. You don't know how you do. You don't know I feel i have to live up to you, you don't know that. You don't know how good you are, you don't know how good you are at all. You know how much I wish i had it like you, but you don't know that, do you.
I love language, and I love communication. I love it because it defines us, because it relates so deeply to everyone and is so personal to a life, and I love to use it. It feels good to say for no reason at all. In Spanish, I love the word “langosta” which means lobster, in Italian, “sbagliato” (zbal-YAH-toh) which means mistake. That it is not though, it is perfect. Beginning with a hissing sound at the base and rounding into an “ahhhhh” at the back of the throat where it should almost become a gulp sound at the silent “g” but doesn’t, And just when you think the word has given everything it can give you for one syllable, it quickly counteracts itself and assaults you with a quick and assertive “yah-toh!” warranting a head nod. I love that word because it means how it feels. Like a mistake often is, innocent and unsure at first and then out of nowhere comes back to bite you, leaving you bitter but better.
I think it is beautiful that we are each given the same instrument and out of necessity and tradition we have found infinite ways in which to use it. Some of us click, some purse our lips, or roll the tongue. There are a myriad ways to use what we have to communicate, and they are all intertwined with our social and cultural conditions. It’s as if everyone has been given the same problem to solve, and the manifestations that have risen from it are so vast and personal that it is overwhelming.
Languages and the study of them inspire me. I think they are as structurally sound and efficient as a steel-beamed building, yet as weathered and culturally seasoned as a cottage overgrown with kudzu. As diverse and transformative as a ball of silly putty and yet definitive and characteristic with the ability to communicate nuance in only the way art and touch can rival.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
I've been here before. Only i wasn't as aware of it. My feet used to take the same route when they were half the size they are now. I remember the road, but I've gotten so old, I cant be sure that the road remembers me.
People often comment on how i run too much. Which im sure is true because ive worn out my hip and both feet doing it and so ive forced myself to slow down. But what many of my friends dont know is that running is not just a way to stay healthy, It's also very spiritual for me. Because, becauase it's steady and quiet and repeating, like a meditation, and hard. My Ipod broke which is probably the best thing that has happened to me lately. Dont get me wrong i love my deary departed Ipod, but it has forced me to run in silence, It is so nice. I can hear my breathing and sense my weight shifting from left right under neath me, like the road is a scale. I remember thinking it was so far from the pool to my block when i was little. My sister and I used to walk together in the summer, and one day i threw a fit in front of all her highschool friends becuase i was so overwhelmed at how far it was i started crying and sat down. I would give my eight year old self a good talking to now. I hope, I will make certian, that i will never again sit down and cry because something looks too overwhelming. I may cry, I may sit, but only with intention of stopping and getting back up.
Did you know mushrooms gro in circles? Well at least, I assume they do, either that or andy goldsworthy has been chillin on my block if ya know what i mean. I was running today and...yeesh, that preface, It seems anytime Im talking about anythign these days it preface it with "I was running and..." Its become a fixture, like.."e tu brute?" or "and then i foudn five dollars.." anyways
I was running and....I saw a magnolia bud, which is unusual for this time of year but i picked, yeah, i did it, sue me. I ran with it in the rain cradled like an infant. It must have looked strange. Everything here is so lush right now. It has been raining for a week and half straight. Metro atlanta is flooding, its crazy. Luckily I'm on high ground naturally. Anyways the rents are in florida soaking up the sunshine and Im here worrying, worrying but not sitting. And although this is one of the most unstable times in my life, It is also the most peaceful. In fact, I think this is the most peaceful i can ever remember feeling, and yet, here I am longing to get out.
All of the southern in me is surfacing suddenly. God, something about the smell of that magnolia in my room. It makes me miss I mom and I dad. It is the most wonderful smell. The smells of home are what i miss the most. And the sound of the storm drains righ now outside the shutters. And that other smell that i cant put my finger on that is so assaultingly associated with fall. Its like the smell of outdoors, or crisp, sort of like bacon but not unlike soil or campfire. Its very hard to describe, I just know it when i sniff it, and is strong associated with my memory and identity here, as is teh magnolia. If I dad were here, he would say somehting like "what's its name? how about maggie!" "maggie idad?" "yeah, maggie nolia"
he always did have a great sense of humor.
I suppose i should apologize for being inchoherent but Im not going to.
People often comment on how i run too much. Which im sure is true because ive worn out my hip and both feet doing it and so ive forced myself to slow down. But what many of my friends dont know is that running is not just a way to stay healthy, It's also very spiritual for me. Because, becauase it's steady and quiet and repeating, like a meditation, and hard. My Ipod broke which is probably the best thing that has happened to me lately. Dont get me wrong i love my deary departed Ipod, but it has forced me to run in silence, It is so nice. I can hear my breathing and sense my weight shifting from left right under neath me, like the road is a scale. I remember thinking it was so far from the pool to my block when i was little. My sister and I used to walk together in the summer, and one day i threw a fit in front of all her highschool friends becuase i was so overwhelmed at how far it was i started crying and sat down. I would give my eight year old self a good talking to now. I hope, I will make certian, that i will never again sit down and cry because something looks too overwhelming. I may cry, I may sit, but only with intention of stopping and getting back up.
Did you know mushrooms gro in circles? Well at least, I assume they do, either that or andy goldsworthy has been chillin on my block if ya know what i mean. I was running today and...yeesh, that preface, It seems anytime Im talking about anythign these days it preface it with "I was running and..." Its become a fixture, like.."e tu brute?" or "and then i foudn five dollars.." anyways
I was running and....I saw a magnolia bud, which is unusual for this time of year but i picked, yeah, i did it, sue me. I ran with it in the rain cradled like an infant. It must have looked strange. Everything here is so lush right now. It has been raining for a week and half straight. Metro atlanta is flooding, its crazy. Luckily I'm on high ground naturally. Anyways the rents are in florida soaking up the sunshine and Im here worrying, worrying but not sitting. And although this is one of the most unstable times in my life, It is also the most peaceful. In fact, I think this is the most peaceful i can ever remember feeling, and yet, here I am longing to get out.
All of the southern in me is surfacing suddenly. God, something about the smell of that magnolia in my room. It makes me miss I mom and I dad. It is the most wonderful smell. The smells of home are what i miss the most. And the sound of the storm drains righ now outside the shutters. And that other smell that i cant put my finger on that is so assaultingly associated with fall. Its like the smell of outdoors, or crisp, sort of like bacon but not unlike soil or campfire. Its very hard to describe, I just know it when i sniff it, and is strong associated with my memory and identity here, as is teh magnolia. If I dad were here, he would say somehting like "what's its name? how about maggie!" "maggie idad?" "yeah, maggie nolia"
he always did have a great sense of humor.
I suppose i should apologize for being inchoherent but Im not going to.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
cheeeeesse
i know its cheesy, but seriously, some of the most universal and honest lyrics ive ever heard are the verve's bittersweet symphony. Either than or the beatles, in my life.
Its a bittersweet symphony this life, try to make a ends meet youre a slave to money then you die. Ill take you down the only road ive ever been down, you know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah.
There are places i'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends i still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life i've loved them all.
Its a bittersweet symphony this life, try to make a ends meet youre a slave to money then you die. Ill take you down the only road ive ever been down, you know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah.
There are places i'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends i still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life i've loved them all.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
i cannot sleep to save my life. Three cups of coffee today im pretty sure my now regular several cups of coffee and day now are the cause of my lack of sleep. On the other hand im sleeping lighter and therefore remembering my dreams. The one tonight was particularly good. You know those dreams you dont wanna wake up from ahhh this was one of those, it was awesome. I need that dream again. Today, i learned about rebracketing, it was awesome.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Gambling.
I forgot how cold it gets here.
I forgot how soaked everything gets.
I forgot how beautiful the rain is when the fogs sets in over the lights.
I forgot how much i liked it, and how much i love wearing pea coats and boots.
And I even almost forgot how that first hint of fall smells when it creeps up close to the end of september.
That sun hypnotized me for a while.
What a gamble my whole life is right now :)
nervous/excited
jess
I forgot how soaked everything gets.
I forgot how beautiful the rain is when the fogs sets in over the lights.
I forgot how much i liked it, and how much i love wearing pea coats and boots.
And I even almost forgot how that first hint of fall smells when it creeps up close to the end of september.
That sun hypnotized me for a while.
What a gamble my whole life is right now :)
nervous/excited
jess
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
man, for someone who doesnt have anything to do i sure have been busy.
application/job search is in full swing and going pretty well, but i wont say too much cuz i dont wanna jinx it.
My cousins are moving to florence in about a week so im going to try to visit a bit...pending pulling a few strings.
Ive been to two weddings in the last week, one italian style, one cuban. both rockin.
visited sam in milli for a couple days and will likely return next week for a lil'.
crossing fingers, counting blessings, trying to run like crazy.
nervous,
jess
application/job search is in full swing and going pretty well, but i wont say too much cuz i dont wanna jinx it.
My cousins are moving to florence in about a week so im going to try to visit a bit...pending pulling a few strings.
Ive been to two weddings in the last week, one italian style, one cuban. both rockin.
visited sam in milli for a couple days and will likely return next week for a lil'.
crossing fingers, counting blessings, trying to run like crazy.
nervous,
jess
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