Sometimes I feel like Kate Nash: 'sometimes when I'm at a busy train station somewhere big with noisy trains like Kings Cross I feel like putting down my bags and shouting out because I have something to say'
But most of the time my feelings just don't fit into words.
Lately I've been remembering how to be alone. It's hard to find solitude here, even living away from campus, and more difficult to settle into solitude when it comes.
But this past weekend, away from everyone, alone, finally, I found...what I had been missing. Not peace, or joy, or happiness exactly, but itself: a sense of deepness, right and good. It was that moment entirely free from the pressure to be anything but myself, to stop performing, do nothing but exist in my skin.
I found myself, wrapped myself in myself like a blanket. Borrowing from dear Annie: 'I slid into myself perfectly fitted, as a diver meets her reflection in a pool. Her fingertips enter the fingertips on the water, her wrists slide up her arms. The diver wraps herself in her reflection wholly, sealing it at the toes, and wears it as she climbs rising from the pool, and ever after."
I found the butterflies, a park with a creek too, wildflowers and clover. Time suspended, light suspended. All I could think of was how I could never work an 8-5 job in a cubicle because I would miss the sunlight too much, and Gus following the salmon down the river. Maybe I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife. Or a fisherman, or bee-keeper, or lighthouse-keeper's wife, any of those would work for me.
The Men's Chorale is singing Innisfree this semester, and every Monday and Wednesday around 3:45, I get chills. They don't sing it perfectly yet, but the words, the harmonies, their enthusiasm, the fact that Yeats wrote it while homesick for Ireland...it moves me, stirs a longing within me to go back to that place where the light is white and still, the green hills broken up by crumbling walls of stone, the sound of raindrops greets you every morning.
And maybe all I want is to sit by a lake for hours, watch the sun trail across the sky, drinking tea and eating bread and cheese, letting the water lick at my toes, knowing the right names for things: birds and fish, trees, all the sky's shades of blue.
But maybe that's not it at all. Maybe that's not what I want at all.
When I Am Among the Trees
Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."
2.20.2010
1.28.2010
11.01.2009
let me live my life in monochromaticisms
Besides the extra hour of sleep, daylight savings in the fall-time makes me bitter about the too-soon fading light. Tonight it is hardly 5:30 and my living room is in that in-between stage: too dark to see clearly, too light to turn on the lights. The colors drain, distilled into shape and shadow.
I can see a sunset reflection on the windows across the way. Right at 6--now 5--the reflected sun shines strong through the slats of our blinds, projecting a shadow show across our wall of half-frames and the little tree made of paper bag strips. The orchids, the daisies, the wildflowers, the rosemary plant, the colored glass jars leave a second layer of patterns on the wall, shifting by the moment.
And I am sitting here as I have sat all day long, curled up in a plaid blanket, too sick and weary to do much else but watch the sky, watch the light. It's been a long time since I've sat in one place, since I allowed myself the luxury of long-looking. Now the sky is gray-blue-purple, and Alexi Murdoch is playing softly in the background, and the only color left in this room is a faded orchid pink and a faded gerber daisy orange by the window.
This reminds me of:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
I'm waiting for the scene to change. I'm not sure where I stand in the progress of this play; maybe past the climax, tripping through the falling action, nearing the denouement. Or perhaps the action is rising still, moving forward towards the climax.
But maybe the five-part structure just doesn't fit. I am still unconvinced that my life progresses in a straight line. If anything, I have been caught in a circle of rising action, climax, falling action, and back again, never reaching resolution, never reaching the all-important denouement.
What I do know is this: the last two weeks were weeks of color, bright, clashing, exhausting flares of significance. Now to recover I will steep myself in gray-blue twilight, in the murky darkness of black cream tea, in the stillness of deep dark ocean lit by a full moon, all while tasting words of full-bodied poetry on my tongue.
Now I am waiting for the scene to change and wishing my denouement to come. I am waiting for the lights to come on again, and for the background to be suddenly different, to be taken suddenly from the snowy Swiss alps to a flat grassy meadow in the Midwest. I am waiting for the weariness to disperse, for the fear to be stilled, for the healing to be complete.
But then I remember that this life is, excuse me Donald Miller and forgive me Shakespeare, like jazz and does not resolve. And, in this season at least, peace and grace settle unnoticed through moments of grays and blues.
I can see a sunset reflection on the windows across the way. Right at 6--now 5--the reflected sun shines strong through the slats of our blinds, projecting a shadow show across our wall of half-frames and the little tree made of paper bag strips. The orchids, the daisies, the wildflowers, the rosemary plant, the colored glass jars leave a second layer of patterns on the wall, shifting by the moment.
And I am sitting here as I have sat all day long, curled up in a plaid blanket, too sick and weary to do much else but watch the sky, watch the light. It's been a long time since I've sat in one place, since I allowed myself the luxury of long-looking. Now the sky is gray-blue-purple, and Alexi Murdoch is playing softly in the background, and the only color left in this room is a faded orchid pink and a faded gerber daisy orange by the window.
This reminds me of:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
I'm waiting for the scene to change. I'm not sure where I stand in the progress of this play; maybe past the climax, tripping through the falling action, nearing the denouement. Or perhaps the action is rising still, moving forward towards the climax.
But maybe the five-part structure just doesn't fit. I am still unconvinced that my life progresses in a straight line. If anything, I have been caught in a circle of rising action, climax, falling action, and back again, never reaching resolution, never reaching the all-important denouement.
What I do know is this: the last two weeks were weeks of color, bright, clashing, exhausting flares of significance. Now to recover I will steep myself in gray-blue twilight, in the murky darkness of black cream tea, in the stillness of deep dark ocean lit by a full moon, all while tasting words of full-bodied poetry on my tongue.
Now I am waiting for the scene to change and wishing my denouement to come. I am waiting for the lights to come on again, and for the background to be suddenly different, to be taken suddenly from the snowy Swiss alps to a flat grassy meadow in the Midwest. I am waiting for the weariness to disperse, for the fear to be stilled, for the healing to be complete.
But then I remember that this life is, excuse me Donald Miller and forgive me Shakespeare, like jazz and does not resolve. And, in this season at least, peace and grace settle unnoticed through moments of grays and blues.
10.24.2009
on loss
So many questions this past week.
No we are not the exception. Somehow we have lived so much of life untouched; suddenly, now it all hits.
What I know now: nothing is constant. Pillars in life have shifted.
The seasons have turned. With the coming of the cold comes ripeness; then, too quickly, death, ruin, spoil. The fruit falls and trees unleave themselves. The wind blows through you as if you were not there. The cold heralds weariness yet sleeplessness, brings a deepness forgotten in the heat of summer.
Loss hovers like the morning fog: you wait all day for it to burn off. In places, sunlight, filtered, works its way through the oppressive mass. Here and there, hopeful attempts at creating relationship trickle through. Lately, I have been cynical; who knows if they will last?
There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
What happens when you can’t decide whether it’s time to weep or laugh, to mourn or dance? What happens when it is time to rejoice but only tears come?
We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract, either; we are discussing my life and my death…Now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness.
My mind cannot wrap itself around void. The concept is too large for me: to think that a person who is here one moment can be taken away the next. Something that reeks of unreality is now the sole new reality. What has been lost can never be regained entire, only renewed, transformed into something similar but never exactly the same.
What next? Are we in exile, left to wander the wilderness with no land to call our own?
How meaningless the words that fall from my mouth. How weary my feet as they carry me from place to place, my fingers as, again and again, they cover familiar black and white territory. How silly the inner workings of my mind.
The seasons shift from brokenness to healing to brokenness to healing, a little deeper, a little more honestly each time.
Loss rushes in and washes out, making the rough edges smooth.
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
dona nobis pacem
No we are not the exception. Somehow we have lived so much of life untouched; suddenly, now it all hits.
What I know now: nothing is constant. Pillars in life have shifted.
The seasons have turned. With the coming of the cold comes ripeness; then, too quickly, death, ruin, spoil. The fruit falls and trees unleave themselves. The wind blows through you as if you were not there. The cold heralds weariness yet sleeplessness, brings a deepness forgotten in the heat of summer.
Loss hovers like the morning fog: you wait all day for it to burn off. In places, sunlight, filtered, works its way through the oppressive mass. Here and there, hopeful attempts at creating relationship trickle through. Lately, I have been cynical; who knows if they will last?
There is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
What happens when you can’t decide whether it’s time to weep or laugh, to mourn or dance? What happens when it is time to rejoice but only tears come?
We are discussing life and death, and not in the abstract, either; we are discussing my life and my death…Now is a time for simplicity. Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness.
My mind cannot wrap itself around void. The concept is too large for me: to think that a person who is here one moment can be taken away the next. Something that reeks of unreality is now the sole new reality. What has been lost can never be regained entire, only renewed, transformed into something similar but never exactly the same.
What next? Are we in exile, left to wander the wilderness with no land to call our own?
How meaningless the words that fall from my mouth. How weary my feet as they carry me from place to place, my fingers as, again and again, they cover familiar black and white territory. How silly the inner workings of my mind.
The seasons shift from brokenness to healing to brokenness to healing, a little deeper, a little more honestly each time.
Loss rushes in and washes out, making the rough edges smooth.
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
dona nobis pacem
10.22.2009
10.20.2009
nothing out of the ordinary really
little pattern in my life these days
the days surprise me by the end
when I look back
so much unreality these days
[I'm thinking of jail time, engagements, babies]
where is my promised land?
how many more years of wishing, of wilderness wandering?
the seasons of brokenness then healing then brokenness then healing then brokenness
where is the moving forward?
after the revelation, always this pulling back, always the hiddenness again
maybe I should graduate early and just get all this over with.
[who knows if the moon's a balloon?]
so much unreality these days
the days surprise me by the end
when I look back
so much unreality these days
[I'm thinking of jail time, engagements, babies]
where is my promised land?
how many more years of wishing, of wilderness wandering?
the seasons of brokenness then healing then brokenness then healing then brokenness
where is the moving forward?
after the revelation, always this pulling back, always the hiddenness again
maybe I should graduate early and just get all this over with.
[who knows if the moon's a balloon?]
so much unreality these days
for the time being
on the one hand there is so much to say.
on the other hand there is nothing:
only life to be lived which pulls either way.
on the other hand there is nothing:
only life to be lived which pulls either way.
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