have been writing too much theory.

I have always hidden behind certain things: my interesting hair, the wideness of my smile, the crisp edges of my prose. They are an easy identity, a convenient and thoughtless handle, the stuff cute bios are made of.

My flesh likes the easy answers, so these self-markers usually suffice, but every once in a while I look at them too hard and am weary. Another email this morning, from another professor, which wound somewhere along the lines of, "Outstanding evaluation paper! Would you mind if I posted it as an example for the class?" I was polite and grateful in my reply, but I wanted to attach a bulleted list of fallacies in said paper, the soft logic and brash leaps. Did you happen to notice the content, sir, ma'am?, or have my decisive statements claimed another victim? Is this a judgement of the arguments, or an acquiescence to the neat touch of irony at the end? Because I always smile, for everyone.

So much glitter, surface excellence. Sometimes, although the honest prospect is terrifying, I yearn for them to see beneath the nice front, to hear the ugly, hollow woosh and sigh that only human hearts - that I, in all my stratified selfishness - commit. Not because I have some desire to be known, or something else that assumes there are things worth knowing there, but because then I think I would feel less hypocritical, smell less like formaldehyde.

Apologies...in the post-summer funk, that awful, reverberating dullness that happens every year when I leave the tangible, fruitful, crazy-busy goodness of camp for a world of half academic hubris and half sloughing through waste for a piece of stamped paper. I nearly quit school every fall, to go pass out rice in Uganda or teach English in China or talk to students in Johannesburg, just do something that is measurable and good and not centered around myself. (Although doing things for that reason wouldn't actually be any less selfish, but...you understand. Argh.)

Also have been convicted of a few pervasive idols in my life over the past month or so, things that have been suspect for some time and I've just been ignoring. But I have confessed it now, said it all aloud, and just that acknowledgement is usually enough to keep me alert. Sometimes it is hard, especially waking up in the middle of the night, cold and terrified, to keep from turning to those thoughts - so easy! - and letting them lullaby me back to sleep. But then there are afternoons like this past one, riots of yellow lights and More on the radio and the sun behind opaque clouds, where He has painted love across the sky in every word I know. That reckless personalization - of the whole universe, and for me - breaks my heart every time. He is enough, so ridiculously enough, and everything else is threadbare next to His grace.

Just talking now, and I have other papers to write before midnight. Sorry to rant again.

To my friends who keep saying simple, wise things, thank you. I apologize for the mix of "oh, fine" and ridiculous theory-of-my-life I unleash on you every time we talk. You are much better than I will ever be able to say, and I am blessed to have you.

old lessons

Found this in my five-pound notebook from last semester - since it still sounds pretty good three months after the fact, :) I thought I'd put it up here.

This semester, I have learned...

how to write a literary paper. Really fast.

that violence is useful.

that you cite your own work when talking about yourself.

how to contextualize, destabilize, and analyze someone else's work.

that I am not really that good at Spanish.

that we are not nearly so advanced as we think, that there is still a great deal of ugliness and use in the world. That Roosevelt participated. That wars still rage.

that I am a pretty good writer of prose. That I could be published, even.

just how comfortable I am.

how good it feels two hours out of my comfort zone.

that there are still good people in the world, and they love me. And they want me to talk about myself.

that I desperately need my family.

that one can spend a fortune at Starbucks.

to love linguistics.

to love Moody.

to be content. Almost. :)

that pity is not equivalent to love, and rarely has any part in it.

that people will not hate you because you say no.

that everyone doesn't have to love you.

that I could do so much more.

hardly a prologue any longer

this is me getting carried away. there's a cycle of poems, a book, the rest of my life crammed into this poor thing. and it's probably entirely incoherent. but it makes me quite happy to have it all in one place. :D please do let me know if it made any sense (especially the third stanza!).

later - have redone the whole ending, and am much happier with it now. it's true now. :)
(except the title. i can't do titles.)

Coming and Going

I remember the first time I re-met you

As an adult; it had been three years

Or so. I had fallen in love, gotten engaged,

Since I last saw you, and you had fallen out of it

And lived with your dogs.

You hugged your daughter first, in the kitchen doorway,

And then your son-in-law, who was inwardly

Pleased that you had driven up without coercion.

The kids bounced off your knees, running circles, bubbling

"Papaw!" Later we sat on the couch

And you grilled me about this guy,

Brandished pictures of a new dog

On a newer cell phone that wouldn't text.

Somehow we started talking books, comparing Joyce episodes,

And we finished a sentence about being locked in a closet with King

Together and just laughed. Somehow

You are me, fifty years older and wary with

The lives scattered behind you - four daughters,

Three wives, each dropped in a different city.

You have a gentle forehead, you never meant

To hurt anyone, but your eyes are large

With cowardice. As are mine. I detect

The same reluctance to move in, settle down,

The same nameless dissatisfaction

With life in myself. You are atoning now,

And moving to Belize, which I will follow

When I am sixty as well, but I am terrified

That I will also break the people I love

In all sincerity. Surely you loved them all.

And yet our notion of love is not enough.

The guy we talked about that afternoon -

I loved him as fervently as I knew how, and likely

For longer than I should have,

But that wasn't gravity enough to hold

The universe from spinning into the night.

I am moving to Chicago next year,

As soon as I have sorted all this out,

And alone. Maybe I will get a Doberman.

Sometimes when I am speeding in the dark

It occurs to me that I am selfish,

Stubborn, proud, demanding of space.

I may have been unloveable

For a very long time.

It also occurs to me that I would be content

To drive on forever; my dreams

Are of places and concepts, not people.

Here again I am your granddaughter:

If all the rest of the world,

Beating against the bars as it does for love,

Still struggles to keep it, why should we,

Who have pragmatically ceased to seek it,

Be the ones to own it at all? Are we

Defective? Suspect, unable to maintain

Another person? Is it written across my forehead

That I will never need them so much as they need me?

But we are different, you and I; I am also a child of

Your wife, who was last in a long line

Of Weaver women, keen, tenacious,

Griffin matriarchs, dichotomies of

Diaphanous wings and harsh tongues.

I have seen my own parents recoil

And consciously eschew your legacies.

And I do love -

Many, and very well, even the dangerous

Who doubt sincerity universally.

I have misloved, but never unloved,

And never in fear.

And I would like to think

There is redemption for us both; you were

Striking out at the world, as hard and fast as you could.

That was a haymaker in a glass town

Fogged with the breath of your mother

Who never told you she had cancer.

I can nearly understand the rebellion, then the fear -

An affair, a pregnancy, and finally

Stripping the bank account of your little girls.

I can fathom the how.

But I have passed through my own waters -

I looked that boy in the face when he said

He had not loved me for some time,

And I swallowed it and spit it out and

I still love people. He even says

Every once in a while

That he misses me, and I do not break

Anything. I can still see

Sparrows clinging to fence tops like dust,

Glimpse the great portentous fact of the world that is love,

That from which you have been running so long.

I have seen it, Papaw. It sits in the corner of a coffee shop,

Sings between the stars, far outside you and me

And the shards of other souls we mince around.

It will come to you when you stop swinging.

Love will come.

dear Smorgasbord Studios,

it's been a long time.

I have missed you. Really, I have. The stress of lines, the energy of stage lights, the jokes. Makin' Eggs. Even the pancake.

And I have missed your people. Not everyone, all the time, but at least once. All of them at least once. Their faces, their moods.

I am jealous for the new people you have acquired. And the old ones who have mellowed since I was last there. I realize this year would've been easier than any in the past, and perhaps I could have handled it again.

But you understand, don't you?, why I cannot come back. I am old, and older every day, and I see too much now. No matter how endearing, or careful, or mature you become, I cannot look you in the face without my chest tightening. I have forgiven you, and re-forgive you every time I see you, quite gladly, but I do not love you any longer. You are not mine any longer, and you must stop asking. Please, stop asking.

In fifty years, when I am a little old bird-woman, I will still be hunting up good theatre and sitting in the front row, trembling with emotion along with the actors when they don't quite get it. And this will be entirely your fault. Thank you, Smorgasbord, for that much. It was lovely, and Our Town was a very lovely goodbye, and I think it is time.

Goodbye.

happy Monday!

No time to write - none at all - so here is a mid-week treat for you.

Hi, Becca. :)

i think this is what our lives look like - the whole world is stifled with ugliness, but love is always just around the corner.

this makes me giggle.

Camp is beautiful. Will write when there's time, I promise.

one prologue

to the indefinite love poem. This is what I was talking about, and in a stage I am not entirely happy with, but it's presentable and I really just want to throw it out there...getting a little giddy. It *has* been a long time since I wrote.

This is complete, as a piece, but it's not the whole story. Will work on that.

a prologue, of sorts

I remember the first time I re-met you

As an adult; it had been three years

Or so. I had fallen in love, gotten engaged,

Since I last saw you, and you had fallen out of it

And lived with your dogs.

You hugged your daughter first, in the kitchen doorway,

And then your son-in-law, who was inwardly

Pleased that you had driven up on your own.

The kids bounced off your knees, running circles, bubbling

"Papaw!" Later we sat on the couch

And you grilled me about this guy,

Brandished pictures of a new dog

On a newer cell phone that wouldn't text.

Somehow we started talking books, comparing Joyce episodes,

And we finished a sentence about being locked in a closet with King

Together and just laughed. Somehow

You are me, forty years older and wary with

The lives scattered behind you - four daughters,

Four wives, each dropped in a different city.

You have a gentle forehead, you never meant

To hurt anyone, but your eyes are large

With cowardice. As are mine. I detect

The same reluctance to move in, settle down,

The same nameless dissatisfaction

With life in myself. You are atoning now,

And moving to Belize, which I will do

When I am sixty as well, but I am terrified

That I will do the same to people I love

In all sincerity. Surely you loved them all.

indefinite love poem

Finally, writing new material! Finished something and been happy with it for the first time in...a very long time. :)

This was composed at two o'clock this morning, after writing something else about families past that made me desperate enough to write an indefinite love poem (which is not directed to anyone, I promise, just a reaction). That needs severe editing, but it may crop up some time too. As I said, I'm just thrilled to be writing again.

indefinite love poem

I have been thinking, love, and come

To a conclusion: now I know

Why people ink their skin indelibly.

They are writing, with words inescapable,

What they most fear to forget:

Names and dates, their rebellion, freedom songs,

Reassurance of their own selves, now unquestionable,

Fixed to age away on their arms.

And sometimes I am afraid, too,

That I may forget

You, your name; my family forgets.

I watched my great-grandmother believe

She was sixteen, working in a sweatshop,

And she would beg my father to let her leave

And go back to Chicago after she finished this quilt.

She did not know her daughter's name. And I,

Who have not named you, but only watched

And loved you as I have watched the stars,

Will some day forget how you are called. I cannot

Remember Orion's track from night to night.

I cannot set you

On my arm, for you are a stranger,

But I have placed you here now. Perhaps,

In fifty years, when I recall your face

As it is this morning, I will remember

I have loved you. I have loved you.