It's been too long, and I'm hungry for a writing outlet again. Round three. :)
And I won't say too much today. I've lived a lot of life since the last post, and I'm still feeling my way back into triviality, rediscovering washing dishes and watching birds and making hot chocolate. I still don't think I can reach it for you yet, but I've something better today anyhow.
Joel introduced me to Matt Maher's Alive Again CD last weekend. I've heard the cover song on K-Love for a few months now, and enjoyed it -- but it's just a generic, catchy CCM personal-resurrection anthem, as the title so subtly implies. But Joel explained the theory of the whole CD, how it begins with a bright song to draw the listener in and gradually creeps into poignant, wince-inducing truth. And he was right. We listened to it on a road trip, and the point of theology this "CCM" reached, the hard things it dared to speak, took my breath away. Matt Maher must be a pastor.
And this particular song was near the end. Please note the departure from bland, self-help exorcism, the fact that the speaker's pain is not the whole world, the incredibly humble conclusion he reaches (humble in that he forgets himself entirely). It comes to a full circle, justifying and maturing the first, "I was blind and now I see -- happy day!" song. The music grows spiritually, with increasing knowledge and love of Christ, and it's breathtaking to listen to.
You Were on the Cross, Matt Maher
Lost, everything is lost
And everything I've loved before is gone
Alone like the coming of the frost
And a cold winter's chill in my stony heart
And where were You when all that I've hoped for?
Where You when all that I've dreamed?
Came crashing down in shambles around me
You were on the cross
Pain, could you take away the pain?
If I find someone to blame, would it make my life seem easier?
Alone, all my friends are asleep
And I can't find anyone to stay awake with me
Where were You when sin stole my innocence?
Where were You when I was ashamed?
Hiding in a life I wish I never made
You were on the cross, my God, my God, alone, alone
You were on the cross, You died for us, alone, alone
You were on the cross, victorious, alone, alone
You were there in all of my suffering
And You were there in doubt and in fear
I'm waiting on the dawn to reappear
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
post-English 302
I have been outed. My old-school, New England liberal writing professor asked for a showing of hands on who, in the class, was homeschooled, after reading an article on the local phenomenon. There are two of us, apparently, and we represent both ends of the spectrum: the tidy, early, verbose Latin scholar and the perpetually almost-late free-verse partier. Well, we aren't normal. On Thursday, we're assigned a poem on death. I want to make it something beautiful and terrible, something Sylvia Plath.
But I was also surprised in class - when he asked us two freaks if our parents didn't "believe" in evolution, like people don't believe in gravity - "Is the earth flat?" - half the other students started talking about how most schools teach it as a theory, and with other theories. He laughed at us, but the harassment was over - he didn't even defend the exaggerations, or claim a studied cultural disconnect, as he does when we have to explain references to Mario 64 in our work. I do wish I'd taken debate, though, sometimes...
Yes, I am skipping theatre class; I don't want to be present for today's assignment. I can take their language and innuendo; it only further cements everything I believe about the world. I bury my nose in the book, write excellent papers, and exult quietly when I find a fellow dissenter. But I will not stand in the middle of a black box stage and sing their songs, play their hand-organ, dance like a chained bear.
It is a day for Earl Grey tea, with the sky all fog and mold. The colors of the world are wet coals now, an infusion of cynicism and rusted loveliness. I shake an extra packet of sugar into my cold black bergamot and leave to run paperwork upstairs to the dean's office.
But I was also surprised in class - when he asked us two freaks if our parents didn't "believe" in evolution, like people don't believe in gravity - "Is the earth flat?" - half the other students started talking about how most schools teach it as a theory, and with other theories. He laughed at us, but the harassment was over - he didn't even defend the exaggerations, or claim a studied cultural disconnect, as he does when we have to explain references to Mario 64 in our work. I do wish I'd taken debate, though, sometimes...
Yes, I am skipping theatre class; I don't want to be present for today's assignment. I can take their language and innuendo; it only further cements everything I believe about the world. I bury my nose in the book, write excellent papers, and exult quietly when I find a fellow dissenter. But I will not stand in the middle of a black box stage and sing their songs, play their hand-organ, dance like a chained bear.
It is a day for Earl Grey tea, with the sky all fog and mold. The colors of the world are wet coals now, an infusion of cynicism and rusted loveliness. I shake an extra packet of sugar into my cold black bergamot and leave to run paperwork upstairs to the dean's office.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
tread softly...
Good evening, dear world...
I would have you know that I am procrastinating. I'm between health papers; I've been researching online resources for smoking prevention, and now I need to write a page on our guest lecturer from last week, but I very much want a rambling break. This particular guest speaker was hilarious, new to the department, very self-serious and aggressive with the apathetic classroom, almost a 25-year-old Carol Burnett in her mannerisms. It was wonderful, but I'm supposed to write something serious on it.
But instead I am not. I'm going to type out for you one of my poems, the third out of four submitted and my personal favorite. The first two I wrote were rather ambiguous, pretty but muddy, and the fourth one was an epic in length - two full pages of size eight font - and I threshed out the concept and wrote the first half while I was angry, but had to write the second half after I'd run the anger out, so it didn't turn out too coherently. But this one is nice, and I didn't get any reviews of "huh?" from my class. Tell me what you think!
By the way, the title is Latin. It means either authority or domain; both fit, so I used it. Yes, I was fishing vaguely when I came up with it.
Regnum
I have never danced.
Mothers ask me after I have coached
Their daughters' milky butterfly feet
Into a pair of pointe shoes,
Silvery-pink platforms, twins of a diamond rack,
Where one graceless step cracks an ankle.
Or little girls smile up at me stammeringly,
Hoping their new baby-brassy taps
Have been given to them by a prima donna,
A fairy godmother.
No, I stumble, I do waltz on the weekends,
But I spent my high school nights in Latin textbooks.
They gather themselves up from the bench,
Snatch the shoebox from my hands.
One smooths a "dance is life" shirt over her
Beautiful ribs. Smiles down at me.
I have never danced.
I would have you know that I am procrastinating. I'm between health papers; I've been researching online resources for smoking prevention, and now I need to write a page on our guest lecturer from last week, but I very much want a rambling break. This particular guest speaker was hilarious, new to the department, very self-serious and aggressive with the apathetic classroom, almost a 25-year-old Carol Burnett in her mannerisms. It was wonderful, but I'm supposed to write something serious on it.
But instead I am not. I'm going to type out for you one of my poems, the third out of four submitted and my personal favorite. The first two I wrote were rather ambiguous, pretty but muddy, and the fourth one was an epic in length - two full pages of size eight font - and I threshed out the concept and wrote the first half while I was angry, but had to write the second half after I'd run the anger out, so it didn't turn out too coherently. But this one is nice, and I didn't get any reviews of "huh?" from my class. Tell me what you think!
By the way, the title is Latin. It means either authority or domain; both fit, so I used it. Yes, I was fishing vaguely when I came up with it.
Regnum
I have never danced.
Mothers ask me after I have coached
Their daughters' milky butterfly feet
Into a pair of pointe shoes,
Silvery-pink platforms, twins of a diamond rack,
Where one graceless step cracks an ankle.
Or little girls smile up at me stammeringly,
Hoping their new baby-brassy taps
Have been given to them by a prima donna,
A fairy godmother.
No, I stumble, I do waltz on the weekends,
But I spent my high school nights in Latin textbooks.
They gather themselves up from the bench,
Snatch the shoebox from my hands.
One smooths a "dance is life" shirt over her
Beautiful ribs. Smiles down at me.
I have never danced.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
I've missed writing here...I may come back. I do not write as I used to, and the practice would be good for me.
I have been writing poetry lately, heaps of it, after being set rolling by my creative writing class, so bits of that may end up here. We'll see if I can make any of it ambiguous enough for internet publication.
...reading over my posts from nearly a year ago...that running away sounds lovely. I am so bewildered nowadays, what with the sifting out of the two things which, I admit to my shame, I trusted most.
But I cannot run to where I ended up last time. You have infiltrated and consumed everything, haven't you?
If anyone reads this, please do leave me a comment. I'd like to know just who is still around, who I am writing to.
I have been writing poetry lately, heaps of it, after being set rolling by my creative writing class, so bits of that may end up here. We'll see if I can make any of it ambiguous enough for internet publication.
...reading over my posts from nearly a year ago...that running away sounds lovely. I am so bewildered nowadays, what with the sifting out of the two things which, I admit to my shame, I trusted most.
But I cannot run to where I ended up last time. You have infiltrated and consumed everything, haven't you?
If anyone reads this, please do leave me a comment. I'd like to know just who is still around, who I am writing to.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
rambling, again
Just talking to talk, I suppose. :) I'll try to keep it low-key, I promise!
The days at Dancehaven are very good -- long, in the slowness, but very good. I have cleaned the store enough times, and am now on to the neighboring store, Get Wet, which should take me a while longer... *grins* we'll see. But it is lovely...such a world unto itself! I walk in the doors, and immediately I am the mistress of a pretty little realm of definite grace. Perhaps the Cookie spoiled my head -- it's so nice to have a store of one's own, free from the mall-walkers! I am thoroughly enjoying Dancehaven.
The schedule is so nice, too...I'll have Monday and Tuesdays off nearly every week, which is decisive luxury, and rarely have to come in before ten. That's a significant amount of sleep right there...I am beginning to lose my insomniac superpowers anyhow, so it's a very good thing.
-- I feel like I'm not writing coherently at all. Bother. It has been a long day...not bad at all; once again, people are quite nice to me, even if the shoes are expensive, as long as I'm patient with them and fetch the twelfth pair cheerfully. People just make me tired. And sitting up all night writing gives me energy. Isn't that silly?
Oooh, but this is pointless. I need to either decide upon a subject, or go and do something Productive.
I can't flesh it out now, I'm not coherent enough, but I have been turning a problem about in my head over the past week...when my brain is caught on writing, and I analyze everything grammatically, my first reaction to many things is to want to write on them. Oh, and there is so much needing it in this world, putrid, gangrenous stuff that makes me crackling and angry. I sit quiet and white for a moment, and then I throw the magazine down and fly out of the room, and I will snap inside unless I do something about it. I scream to write it out -- words are my sharpest weapon by far; I turn to them first -- to ignite a hundred thousand eyes and brains against it, for surely they must not know; why else has it not been ground out? I could, too, I could...but then here is the wall, and my question, and if anyone would like to help me with it, I'd be grateful...it's something I must learn.
But how -- how does one present, draw attention to, illuminate something so evil? -- there is nothing less than what would be too graphic. Journalism can get by with certain things, but fiction -- no. Much less in a form that christian contemporary culture, which is rich, and increased with goods, and has need of nothing, carefully laundering its white gloves in the tears of ages past, would condescend to read! And yet without making it a Peretti thriller... (Remind me again why they sell Frank Peretti at the Vineyard? Argh...but that is another rant. :)) I've read one book that was close, Rivers' Atonement Child, but that was an easier subject...not a closed one, by any means, but less messy...
And what do I know, anyhow? How could I assume to write about something my life has been so far removed from? Will I ever know? -- could I stomach it? Oh, God...
Why did I have to get stuck on the hardest thing, eh? Silly Katharine...I should've gotten angry at the clumsy capitalist oil liners who spill yucky stuff all over the poor little penguins and make them cold. Highlights would buy my dear little stories, and I could have many pairs of white gloves. Oh, yes...silly Katharine.
*sigh* It's a different sort of melancholy, tonight. I hope it's alright...
The days at Dancehaven are very good -- long, in the slowness, but very good. I have cleaned the store enough times, and am now on to the neighboring store, Get Wet, which should take me a while longer... *grins* we'll see. But it is lovely...such a world unto itself! I walk in the doors, and immediately I am the mistress of a pretty little realm of definite grace. Perhaps the Cookie spoiled my head -- it's so nice to have a store of one's own, free from the mall-walkers! I am thoroughly enjoying Dancehaven.
The schedule is so nice, too...I'll have Monday and Tuesdays off nearly every week, which is decisive luxury, and rarely have to come in before ten. That's a significant amount of sleep right there...I am beginning to lose my insomniac superpowers anyhow, so it's a very good thing.
-- I feel like I'm not writing coherently at all. Bother. It has been a long day...not bad at all; once again, people are quite nice to me, even if the shoes are expensive, as long as I'm patient with them and fetch the twelfth pair cheerfully. People just make me tired. And sitting up all night writing gives me energy. Isn't that silly?
Oooh, but this is pointless. I need to either decide upon a subject, or go and do something Productive.
I can't flesh it out now, I'm not coherent enough, but I have been turning a problem about in my head over the past week...when my brain is caught on writing, and I analyze everything grammatically, my first reaction to many things is to want to write on them. Oh, and there is so much needing it in this world, putrid, gangrenous stuff that makes me crackling and angry. I sit quiet and white for a moment, and then I throw the magazine down and fly out of the room, and I will snap inside unless I do something about it. I scream to write it out -- words are my sharpest weapon by far; I turn to them first -- to ignite a hundred thousand eyes and brains against it, for surely they must not know; why else has it not been ground out? I could, too, I could...but then here is the wall, and my question, and if anyone would like to help me with it, I'd be grateful...it's something I must learn.
But how -- how does one present, draw attention to, illuminate something so evil? -- there is nothing less than what would be too graphic. Journalism can get by with certain things, but fiction -- no. Much less in a form that christian contemporary culture, which is rich, and increased with goods, and has need of nothing, carefully laundering its white gloves in the tears of ages past, would condescend to read! And yet without making it a Peretti thriller... (Remind me again why they sell Frank Peretti at the Vineyard? Argh...but that is another rant. :)) I've read one book that was close, Rivers' Atonement Child, but that was an easier subject...not a closed one, by any means, but less messy...
And what do I know, anyhow? How could I assume to write about something my life has been so far removed from? Will I ever know? -- could I stomach it? Oh, God...
Why did I have to get stuck on the hardest thing, eh? Silly Katharine...I should've gotten angry at the clumsy capitalist oil liners who spill yucky stuff all over the poor little penguins and make them cold. Highlights would buy my dear little stories, and I could have many pairs of white gloves. Oh, yes...silly Katharine.
*sigh* It's a different sort of melancholy, tonight. I hope it's alright...
Sunday, February 22, 2009
muse-dust
I've been turning so many things around in my head over the past few days...we'll see how many of them I can remember.
Church made me intensely melancholy, this morning...things occurred to me that never quite have before, aspects of growing up and yet staying in town and next year and the years rolling afterward...I never before sat there and realized I will not be one of the new members on stage. I knew all this in the back of my head already, and gave it up long ago, but -- it never clicked quite like it did today.
And they are such dear people...Mrs. Schutte is all worried about my appointment on Tuesday, and offers advice with motherly, worried eyebrows. Mr. Moesner and I laugh over food service stories while I pat the barking, blond head of his three-year-old "puppy," Joseph. Eventually I abandon waiting for James, who promised to take me home early because the fever makes me wobbly -- he finally was able to carry off two-month-old Katie and now sits on the other side of the sanctuary, holding Katie and listening to her sister Eva prattle. The room is filled with noise, voices building and relaxing, baby laughter, murmured agreement. I am the only one alone, as I stand in the doorway, and that by choice. Such a happy family...I will miss them, I think.
We drive home, James and Joel and I, underneath pied clouds. The old station wagon, talking itself senile, muddles in and out of their shadows across the road. It's only three roads to take us all the way home. I've never been good with directions, but I know every foot of this bit of Evansville, counted the houses in the new subdivisions as they appeared and watched the farmers plow and seed their fields. The full moon is always low over the passenger's side on the way home at night, and when I was little I could talk myself into believing that it rode faster than we did. Today I ran much faster, faster than the clouds and the fields and all the city. Too fast. It's sinking in, I think.
I have been in such a rabid word-mood, lately...for nine months I haven't wanted to write, save what was necessary for school, and that grudgingly. But just in the last few weeks it's come back...I did get another volume of Fitzgerald at the library, but that was after the fit set in. *grins* (For the innocent souls whom the mad Katharine hasn't battered to pieces already, I am quite in awe of the way F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the English language. His story lines are not breathtaking, but his pen is more deft than any other I've met.) I suppose this would be an acceptable place to insert an apology to those who used to receive the bulk of my writing; without you, I barely have enough life to breathe on, much less throw to the winds. And chances are that I'll fall back into the languor after another few weeks, but for the moment -- oh, I do hope I can get everything down before then...
But not this afternoon. No, not this time...
Church made me intensely melancholy, this morning...things occurred to me that never quite have before, aspects of growing up and yet staying in town and next year and the years rolling afterward...I never before sat there and realized I will not be one of the new members on stage. I knew all this in the back of my head already, and gave it up long ago, but -- it never clicked quite like it did today.
And they are such dear people...Mrs. Schutte is all worried about my appointment on Tuesday, and offers advice with motherly, worried eyebrows. Mr. Moesner and I laugh over food service stories while I pat the barking, blond head of his three-year-old "puppy," Joseph. Eventually I abandon waiting for James, who promised to take me home early because the fever makes me wobbly -- he finally was able to carry off two-month-old Katie and now sits on the other side of the sanctuary, holding Katie and listening to her sister Eva prattle. The room is filled with noise, voices building and relaxing, baby laughter, murmured agreement. I am the only one alone, as I stand in the doorway, and that by choice. Such a happy family...I will miss them, I think.
We drive home, James and Joel and I, underneath pied clouds. The old station wagon, talking itself senile, muddles in and out of their shadows across the road. It's only three roads to take us all the way home. I've never been good with directions, but I know every foot of this bit of Evansville, counted the houses in the new subdivisions as they appeared and watched the farmers plow and seed their fields. The full moon is always low over the passenger's side on the way home at night, and when I was little I could talk myself into believing that it rode faster than we did. Today I ran much faster, faster than the clouds and the fields and all the city. Too fast. It's sinking in, I think.
I have been in such a rabid word-mood, lately...for nine months I haven't wanted to write, save what was necessary for school, and that grudgingly. But just in the last few weeks it's come back...I did get another volume of Fitzgerald at the library, but that was after the fit set in. *grins* (For the innocent souls whom the mad Katharine hasn't battered to pieces already, I am quite in awe of the way F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the English language. His story lines are not breathtaking, but his pen is more deft than any other I've met.) I suppose this would be an acceptable place to insert an apology to those who used to receive the bulk of my writing; without you, I barely have enough life to breathe on, much less throw to the winds. And chances are that I'll fall back into the languor after another few weeks, but for the moment -- oh, I do hope I can get everything down before then...
But not this afternoon. No, not this time...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday, twice
Why does no ever call and tell me these things? The house is dark, Joel is on the computer, and the kids are playing happily, noisily. I passed Mamacita on the road in.
...I hate not being here.
They're old. I know it isn't just me; so many things are, but the photographs will back me up on this one: my grandparents were young ten years ago, even five years ago, and Grandma wore her hair piled high and curly and Papaw did all their yard work and everyone else's and tinkered with the pontoon. He never finished it. But now Grandma doesn't dye her hair as often; it isn't nearly as red, but dark, rusty-dark, like a horse after a summer in the sun. And they look so tired, all the time. It isn't the new cynicism I've found this past year -- they are old.
And Papaw is in the ICU tonight, reasons undetermined or unexplainable over the hospital phone. I come home from a first day at Dancehaven - it's a lovely place, and Abby was a darling, but first weeks are always awkward and I'm not quite as rested up as I thought I was - and sit down on the couch and try to fall asleep. The phone rings. "St. Mary's," the caller ID claims; I have an appointment there on Thursday, and they always call for one last confirmation a day or two ahead, so I answer. "Katharine?" Yes, the voice is hushed to the proper degree for an office. Glad I was able to work the schedule out with Julie this morning, and don't have to cancel. "This is her." "It's Aunt Susan..." - oh - "is your mom there?" "No...I don't know where she is...what's up?" "And Gary isn't home yet?" "No..." Two beats. "What happened?" "Oh..." No one told you. Her voice gets even gentler. "Well, hon..."
No one really knows what's happening; it's all random and strange, and the doctors have been running tests since noon only to realize that they don't know. Papaw should have gone in yesterday, but they couldn't get him out of the house. But no news can be bad news, and they want to put him in the intensive care unit. Aunt Susan carefully explains that it isn't intensive intensive care; he won't necessarily be hooked up to every machine they have, they just want to keep a close eye on him. About five beats. "Katharine...are you alright?" "Oh...yes...yes. I'll try Mom's cell phone and let her know, okay?" "Alright..."
...I hate not knowing, being denied even that little semblance of control, unable to even turn the information about in one's hands and nod gravely and say that indeed, things will be best this way, and we just need to keep a stiff upper lip. I can't say it's alright, I'm okay with it, when I don't know what I'm handling.
Bad Katharine.
Bad Katharine...
Edit, 11:23 p.m.
Yes, bad Katharine. I have a letter to be writing, but I'm much too muddled and gray to be writing letters (poor blog!) but I must stay down here 'til Momma and Daddy get home from the hospital, which will be after 1, and I can't sleep on the couch...maybe I could. Bethy and I fell asleep on the couch last week, watching the fireplace with my head on her shoulder. But, again, I'm much too muddled and gray to drop off like that. Ugh, I say...
...blogging again is nice. Smack me if I begin to enjoy it too much and make it a stream-of-consciousness complaint. That's very easy to do, you know...
I've been beating my head into Psalm 78 all day...isn't verse 25 terrible? "the bread of the mighty"? And am I not that, though? - take just Ephesians 1 as the short list of everything I have in Christ, not angels' food but the mysteries they long to look into! - and here I am complaining about the cold, and the tired, and only getting to sit in the back of the room and watch. Oh, God, I know I have all that stuff, but I want human things! aren't we allowed to want human things?
- No.
I know all of these things in the back of my head, that it is sun vs. fireworks and He is Everything and I won't want anything else if I only let Him come rushing in...but I'm not so good at the waking up in the morning and narrowing my vision with said principles, or lying down at night and mollifying the cold with macroscopic truths. I frustrate myself, that way...I can wrap my head around anything, but to live it, well! - that's a new head game entirely. Some days I suspect everyone else is like that, too, but at 11:23 at night I feel like an anomaly of big head and little feet.
Hehe...there I go again...remind me why I'm writing this? if it's something I couldn't manage to say? Ugh...
...bad Katharine.
...I hate not being here.
They're old. I know it isn't just me; so many things are, but the photographs will back me up on this one: my grandparents were young ten years ago, even five years ago, and Grandma wore her hair piled high and curly and Papaw did all their yard work and everyone else's and tinkered with the pontoon. He never finished it. But now Grandma doesn't dye her hair as often; it isn't nearly as red, but dark, rusty-dark, like a horse after a summer in the sun. And they look so tired, all the time. It isn't the new cynicism I've found this past year -- they are old.
And Papaw is in the ICU tonight, reasons undetermined or unexplainable over the hospital phone. I come home from a first day at Dancehaven - it's a lovely place, and Abby was a darling, but first weeks are always awkward and I'm not quite as rested up as I thought I was - and sit down on the couch and try to fall asleep. The phone rings. "St. Mary's," the caller ID claims; I have an appointment there on Thursday, and they always call for one last confirmation a day or two ahead, so I answer. "Katharine?" Yes, the voice is hushed to the proper degree for an office. Glad I was able to work the schedule out with Julie this morning, and don't have to cancel. "This is her." "It's Aunt Susan..." - oh - "is your mom there?" "No...I don't know where she is...what's up?" "And Gary isn't home yet?" "No..." Two beats. "What happened?" "Oh..." No one told you. Her voice gets even gentler. "Well, hon..."
No one really knows what's happening; it's all random and strange, and the doctors have been running tests since noon only to realize that they don't know. Papaw should have gone in yesterday, but they couldn't get him out of the house. But no news can be bad news, and they want to put him in the intensive care unit. Aunt Susan carefully explains that it isn't intensive intensive care; he won't necessarily be hooked up to every machine they have, they just want to keep a close eye on him. About five beats. "Katharine...are you alright?" "Oh...yes...yes. I'll try Mom's cell phone and let her know, okay?" "Alright..."
...I hate not knowing, being denied even that little semblance of control, unable to even turn the information about in one's hands and nod gravely and say that indeed, things will be best this way, and we just need to keep a stiff upper lip. I can't say it's alright, I'm okay with it, when I don't know what I'm handling.
Bad Katharine.
Bad Katharine...
Edit, 11:23 p.m.
Yes, bad Katharine. I have a letter to be writing, but I'm much too muddled and gray to be writing letters (poor blog!) but I must stay down here 'til Momma and Daddy get home from the hospital, which will be after 1, and I can't sleep on the couch...maybe I could. Bethy and I fell asleep on the couch last week, watching the fireplace with my head on her shoulder. But, again, I'm much too muddled and gray to drop off like that. Ugh, I say...
...blogging again is nice. Smack me if I begin to enjoy it too much and make it a stream-of-consciousness complaint. That's very easy to do, you know...
I've been beating my head into Psalm 78 all day...isn't verse 25 terrible? "the bread of the mighty"? And am I not that, though? - take just Ephesians 1 as the short list of everything I have in Christ, not angels' food but the mysteries they long to look into! - and here I am complaining about the cold, and the tired, and only getting to sit in the back of the room and watch. Oh, God, I know I have all that stuff, but I want human things! aren't we allowed to want human things?
- No.
I know all of these things in the back of my head, that it is sun vs. fireworks and He is Everything and I won't want anything else if I only let Him come rushing in...but I'm not so good at the waking up in the morning and narrowing my vision with said principles, or lying down at night and mollifying the cold with macroscopic truths. I frustrate myself, that way...I can wrap my head around anything, but to live it, well! - that's a new head game entirely. Some days I suspect everyone else is like that, too, but at 11:23 at night I feel like an anomaly of big head and little feet.
Hehe...there I go again...remind me why I'm writing this? if it's something I couldn't manage to say? Ugh...
...bad Katharine.
Friday, February 13, 2009
pathetic...sorry...
Ugh.
That's what I say -- ugh.
Isn't it just the most frustrating? I hate having no control, waking up and sitting up and falling back again. Being wanted in three directions (needed, debatable, but still wanted -- they're lovely people) and sick in four, left to give only a running fling of effort to each. I would belong, but I have to belong to so many other things too. Oh, for this summer, when I had just one good thing to drain my life into, kill myself over -- I don't mind that at all, when something is actually accomplished by it. Just this bothers me, the multitude of things half-done.
I don't like being sick. And I don't like being a girl, to wake up crying because my subconscious registered the alarm clock and knows I'm going to make it get up now, even though it can't. I should think it much easier to be grouchy when tired than weepy. And I really don't like beginning to die slowly every month, getting weaker and whiter until suddenly the powers that be decide I may live for another few weeks, and I am whole for a little while longer. I really don't understand that. Bethy and I have decided that girls are completely illogical creatures, and ought to be locked away. That might be nice, actually. Ugh, I say.
Thankfully, I only run a fever like this once a year or so. Thankfully, because it always lasts for two weeks and I lose about fifteen pounds.
-- oh! college monies!! I just need to find a method for that, and then I can write a book and sell lots of copies to the diet-crazed American public. It's all-natural, guaranteed, and ever so easy -- will power is only required to force yourself to eat, and friends and family members are good at that. No obsessive psychological complexes or cultural manias necessary. Just one pain pill a day...
I'm sorry. I complain. It has been a lovely week, really it has -- I just long to be all here...
I can't live like this, not with the madness we plan. Oh, God, I'm so tired...I do want to run, You know I do, but You also know that I can't...but won't You drag me along behind You anyways? Don't untie the cords, please...I don't care if it hurts, whether I am a callus or a bruise, as Daddy says; I don't even care if I die -- it's the only way, God, and oh, how I want to get somewhere...
That's what I say -- ugh.
Isn't it just the most frustrating? I hate having no control, waking up and sitting up and falling back again. Being wanted in three directions (needed, debatable, but still wanted -- they're lovely people) and sick in four, left to give only a running fling of effort to each. I would belong, but I have to belong to so many other things too. Oh, for this summer, when I had just one good thing to drain my life into, kill myself over -- I don't mind that at all, when something is actually accomplished by it. Just this bothers me, the multitude of things half-done.
I don't like being sick. And I don't like being a girl, to wake up crying because my subconscious registered the alarm clock and knows I'm going to make it get up now, even though it can't. I should think it much easier to be grouchy when tired than weepy. And I really don't like beginning to die slowly every month, getting weaker and whiter until suddenly the powers that be decide I may live for another few weeks, and I am whole for a little while longer. I really don't understand that. Bethy and I have decided that girls are completely illogical creatures, and ought to be locked away. That might be nice, actually. Ugh, I say.
Thankfully, I only run a fever like this once a year or so. Thankfully, because it always lasts for two weeks and I lose about fifteen pounds.
-- oh! college monies!! I just need to find a method for that, and then I can write a book and sell lots of copies to the diet-crazed American public. It's all-natural, guaranteed, and ever so easy -- will power is only required to force yourself to eat, and friends and family members are good at that. No obsessive psychological complexes or cultural manias necessary. Just one pain pill a day...
I'm sorry. I complain. It has been a lovely week, really it has -- I just long to be all here...
I can't live like this, not with the madness we plan. Oh, God, I'm so tired...I do want to run, You know I do, but You also know that I can't...but won't You drag me along behind You anyways? Don't untie the cords, please...I don't care if it hurts, whether I am a callus or a bruise, as Daddy says; I don't even care if I die -- it's the only way, God, and oh, how I want to get somewhere...
Monday, January 26, 2009
1/26/09
The lady comes to the gate dressed in lavender and leather
Looking North to the sea she finds the weather fine
She hears the steeple bells ringing through the orchard
All the way from town
She watches seagulls fly
Silver on the ocean stitching through the waves
The edges of the sky
Many people wander up the hills
From all around you
Making up your memories and thinking they have found you
They cover you with veils of wonder as if you were a bride
Young men holding violets are curious to know if you have cried
And tell you why
And ask you why
Any way you answer
Lace around the collars of the blouses of the ladies
Flowers from a Spanish friend of the family
The embroid'ry of your life holds you in
And keeps you out but you survive
Imprisoned in your bones
Behind the isinglass windows of your eyes
And in the night the iron wheels rolling through the rain
Down the hills through the long grass to the sea
And in the dark the hard bells ringing with pain
Come away alone
Even now by the gate with you long hair blowing
And the colors of the day that lie along your arms
You must barter your life to make sure you are living
And the crowd that has come
You give them the colors
And the bells and wind and the dream
Will there never be a prince who rides along the sea and the mountains
Scattering the sand and foam into amethyst fountains
Riding up the hills from the beach in the long summer grass
Holding the sun in his hands and shattering the isinglass?
Day and night and day again and people come and go away forever
While the shining summer sea dances in the glass of your mirror
While you search the waves for love and your visions for a sign
The knot of tears around your throat is crystallizing into your design
And in the night the iron wheels rolling through the rain
Down the hills through the long grass to the sea
And in the dark the hard bells ringing with pain
Come away alone
Come away alone...with me.
Albatross, Judy Collins
Wrenching its way towards, longing for --
Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.
Hurrahing in Harvest, Gerald Manley Hopkins
I have so many things to find today, to sort today, to invent and wrench out and wait upon -- and I don't know; I've never known and I never shall. I bury my face in my hands and think for as long as I can stand, and eventually I reach a point where I just have to guess and run with it.
That's all.
Oh, but I'm so tired...tired of standing up and being cold and having eyes that look like this. How does one say, "alone...with me," and who would ever answer?
I'm sorry...I am trying to make my head more malleable, to wrap it around the wills of those stronger than I -- but it's been too long in this one place; last time the changes were rapid-fire and I never settled on one, so it wasn't too hard. But I can't get my head around it this time, rewrite everything I ever wanted like it's only inscribed in blue dry-erase marker. I'm trying, and I will come to it -- for it does fit, and it will be good, and I understand it all intellectually. I just have to run away first -- I'll come back, I promise. Somehow. I have always been able to talk myself into things. It just takes longer now.
Oh, love, I'm sorry...I will reach it, for you, I will...
Looking North to the sea she finds the weather fine
She hears the steeple bells ringing through the orchard
All the way from town
She watches seagulls fly
Silver on the ocean stitching through the waves
The edges of the sky
Many people wander up the hills
From all around you
Making up your memories and thinking they have found you
They cover you with veils of wonder as if you were a bride
Young men holding violets are curious to know if you have cried
And tell you why
And ask you why
Any way you answer
Lace around the collars of the blouses of the ladies
Flowers from a Spanish friend of the family
The embroid'ry of your life holds you in
And keeps you out but you survive
Imprisoned in your bones
Behind the isinglass windows of your eyes
And in the night the iron wheels rolling through the rain
Down the hills through the long grass to the sea
And in the dark the hard bells ringing with pain
Come away alone
Even now by the gate with you long hair blowing
And the colors of the day that lie along your arms
You must barter your life to make sure you are living
And the crowd that has come
You give them the colors
And the bells and wind and the dream
Will there never be a prince who rides along the sea and the mountains
Scattering the sand and foam into amethyst fountains
Riding up the hills from the beach in the long summer grass
Holding the sun in his hands and shattering the isinglass?
Day and night and day again and people come and go away forever
While the shining summer sea dances in the glass of your mirror
While you search the waves for love and your visions for a sign
The knot of tears around your throat is crystallizing into your design
And in the night the iron wheels rolling through the rain
Down the hills through the long grass to the sea
And in the dark the hard bells ringing with pain
Come away alone
Come away alone...with me.
Albatross, Judy Collins
Wrenching its way towards, longing for --
Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.
Hurrahing in Harvest, Gerald Manley Hopkins
I have so many things to find today, to sort today, to invent and wrench out and wait upon -- and I don't know; I've never known and I never shall. I bury my face in my hands and think for as long as I can stand, and eventually I reach a point where I just have to guess and run with it.
That's all.
Oh, but I'm so tired...tired of standing up and being cold and having eyes that look like this. How does one say, "alone...with me," and who would ever answer?
I'm sorry...I am trying to make my head more malleable, to wrap it around the wills of those stronger than I -- but it's been too long in this one place; last time the changes were rapid-fire and I never settled on one, so it wasn't too hard. But I can't get my head around it this time, rewrite everything I ever wanted like it's only inscribed in blue dry-erase marker. I'm trying, and I will come to it -- for it does fit, and it will be good, and I understand it all intellectually. I just have to run away first -- I'll come back, I promise. Somehow. I have always been able to talk myself into things. It just takes longer now.
Oh, love, I'm sorry...I will reach it, for you, I will...
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