Collegiate Ideals

de·ject·ed

2010-05-20T02:10:00.000-04:00

–adjective depressed in spirits; disheartened; low-spirited

Synonyms
downcast
miserable
glum
gloomy
droopy
downhearted

Post-Collegiate Wisdom,

2010-05-11T16:53:00.002-04:00

"Even for me, life had its gleams of sunshine."

"...it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it."

"I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth."

"He made me love him without looking at me."
-Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

"Its strange because sometimes, I read a book and I think I am the people in the book."

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

"I feel infinite."

"I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you exist. Or something like that."
-The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky)

I need to rename this blog.

2010-05-10T14:27:00.002-04:00

Because today is my second full day as a college graduate.

I no longer have the neon sign I always imagined hung over my head and declared to the world that I was a "student". I no longer have a to-do list that is dozens of items long.

Last night, as I was going to bed I tried to come up with an idea for what I could do today. I knew I was going to watch a lot of things on Hulu, but usually when that's my plan I feel a little bit of guilt for not writing that paper or not doing that research. Even on vacations, there was always something academic I should have been doing.

Not anymore.

I woke up and my father asked me if I was looking for a job today. I said no, because I can do that tomorrow. And its true, I don't have any more deadlines. At this point in my life, the only person who is going to be affected by my procrastination is me.

I feel a lot like a deflated balloon.

There's another image for you.

Soon to be Post Collegiate Thoughts,

2010-04-26T13:48:00.001-04:00

Its raining, and I'm probably heading home to my island after graduation. So, Billy speaks to me.

Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they tell me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here.

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

2010-04-14T12:16:00.001-04:00

You say goodbye.
I say hello.

Hello, hello.

My Viking Soul is Unsettled

2010-04-11T02:22:00.003-04:00

This morning, at 2:22 AM my first thought was that my feet were cold.
Then, I made a mental to do list for the next few weeks.
Then, I briefly considered how much easier my life would be if distances didn't need to be traveled.
Then, I thought about Norway.

I thought about how really Norway shouldn't mean to me what it does. I don't think it is literally possible to love the ocean because my ancestors did. I don't really believe that my lungs could want to breath Norwegian air or that my feet could know the feel of the roads in Farsund any better than the roads in Staten Island.

But somehow, tonight with morning creeping closer and closer I thought about Norway and I cried. Its been too many years since I have slept under a down comforter that smells like the sea. It is the first place I felt my comfort zone stretch, and now I want to go back to feel that way again.

2010-04-09T20:58:00.002-04:00

When I'm writing, sometimes images occur to me that make perfect sense but I realize don't seem all that logical. I am fond of saying, for instance, that in the last week of July I feel like a stretched out rubber band. I don't know why that comparison seems to illustrate everything I need to say. I really don't even know what its saying exactly, I just know that its true.

I like when I stumble upon images in songs that seem to resonate so truthfully with me. When I find them, I tend to wish I had written them. In Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut says that he wishes he had written Our Town. I haven't found the book I wish I had written yet, but I do wish I had written the words to this song.

Circle me,
and the needle moves gracefully,
back and forth.
If my heart was a compass you'd be north.
Risk it all,
cause I'll catch you if you fall.
Wherever you go,
if my heart was a house you'd be home.

2010-03-29T15:29:00.002-04:00

Its at this point in almost every semester that I begin to take notice of all the work I have left to do. The tasks I need to tackle and the papers I still need to write. The mountain of work seems daunting and unconquerable, especially teetering on the edge of a vacation.

What makes this even more bizarre is that its the last time I will do any of this. It is the last time I will feel the end of semester panic.

And this time, I will take some advice that my mother so lovingly passes on to me:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Its almost four, come on

2010-03-24T03:31:00.002-04:00

I hate not being able to sleep.

More than that, I hate feeling tired, but not being able to sleep.

I also hate knowing that the world (read: this campus) is not going to recognize that I had trouble sleeping and its going to march on. Relentless, with lots and lots of noise.

Tomorrow morning, after I forget to keep trying to fall asleep and jerk awake before chapel and hurry there in what will inevitably be wet weather, I will think, "I should have slept more last night". As if thinking that will somehow improve the little sleep I did receive.

I suppose its okay though,
because the reason I can't sleep is I just can't seem to stop thinking about how happy I've been lately.

The Simple Truths,

2010-03-15T00:34:00.002-04:00

After four years here, I am a glutton for laughter.
I expect the greater part of everyday to be spent in the company of excellent people.
Weekends like this one make me smile.
Yelling the loudest means you're right.

And the simplest and greatest truth-
I will never settle when it comes to friendship ever again.

On weather patterns and playgrounds,

2010-03-12T11:51:00.002-05:00

Today, it is fifty degrees and misting. Our windows are unlocked, as Kurt Vonnegut predicted they would be, and you can smell something that reminds you of spring in the air. Its not quite spring yet, but it will be soon. We are anxious and the trees are anxious to clothe themselves in an appropriate fashion and smile at the sun.

However, on days like today when it could be snowing but isn't, I think about Brooklyn. I grew up there, in the back alley behind our apartment, and in the winter I would run from one end of the alley to the other, dodging cars and thinking my small world was gigantic. My grandmother and I used to crouch down together in the minuscule garden plot in the spring and she would tell me that Tiger Lily's were her favorite (because they were named after her). In the summertime I would sit on the porch and watch the Chinese children run by in their backpacks, swinging my legs and drinking ginger ale, thinking about nothing (a skill I have since lost).

It was in this time, this junction between winter and spring that I always liked best. For some reason the smells of wet earth and shimmering sidewalks always reminds me of afternoons at the playground. I would wear a rain jacket and my grandmother would hold my hand as we walked the streets to get there. At the park I could go on my own, safe within the peeling black bars.

Brooklyn playgrounds, when I was a child, were better than anything I have ever seen or imagined. I remember towering slides which would turn molten temperatures under the sun, so hot that you flew off as soon as you got to the bottom. I remember swings able to go so high and so free that you could close your eyes and lose your place in the universe. I remember spinning things that my father would turn, and turn, and turn until I couldn't walk straight.

But more than anything I remember something I called, theTowers. They were nothing more than columns of wood, painted red and faded to a warm pink, stacked next to each other with no space in between. The columns started high in the middle and slowly got shorter and shorter as they went out, with the result looking like a pyramid. I could climb all the way to the top and my grandmother would yell my name followed by something in Norwegian.

I would close my eyes, stare at the sky without questions, and become the queen of the world.

These features have disappeared from playgrounds now, even the Brooklyn ones. I think something great has been lost, but I am not a child anymore.

I never dream of flying, but I wish I did.

2010-03-02T11:09:00.003-05:00

The bird girl saw the wings upon the jay
and thought that she would like to one day fly.
The colors of her wings would sure be grey
and never to the air were she to lie.
There is no other joy upon this earth
that she sought after with such a foolish heart
as when she thought of sky so near the hearth
and of the form she'd take, so sweet, such art.
So if you see this dreaming graceful girl
and if her eyes are lifted to the sky,
do see if wings out from her back uncurl
and flee from her to let her dreams abide.
Her feet were never meant to be kept down,
she finds no place in city, land, or town.

Another Pile of Wisdom,

2010-03-01T14:16:00.002-05:00

"There is no way an unassisted human brain, which is nothing more than a dog's breakfast, three and half pounds of blood soaked sponge, could have written 'Stardust' let alone Beethoven's Ninth Symphony."

"I feel and think as much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone."
-Timequake (Kurt Vonnegut)

"I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease."
-Note From Underground (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

"Life is so dear, dear heart. Live it with gallantry."

"So little time, dear, but what there is is sweet. I hope you are getting some sweetness in your busy life and that you feel at home in the world."

"Don't sink, boy. Fly. That's an old lady's advice. Fly."

"It takes a broken person to heal broken people."

"Life is a feast but we are only human, we're not tapeworms. The world is a paradise but there are mosquitoes."
-Pontoon (Garrison Keillor)

"They don't how, but they do know how to forget, and little by little they put aside the burning summer in their bodies and all they have is rage."

"I have shouted to God and the Virgin but they have not shouted back and I'm not interested in the still small voice. Surely a God can meet passion with passion?
She says he can.
Then he should."
-The Passion (Jeanette Winterson)

Once Upon a Time,

2010-02-17T12:03:00.002-05:00

The books in my life have been numerous and varied.

Days like these when I have important things to do and I will do anything to avoid them, I think about the books. The books that have come to me and then we have parted in teary goodbyes. Most of these books are piled in various places in my basement on the island. Some of them are on shelves, most of them are not. Some of them prefer the windowsill where they can soak up the sun and become yellowed with age. Some are in dark corners where they ponder their own existence.

The characters in these books have left their pages and found spots in my head. They became friends and I loved them. Characters do not leave you, they just fill you up. They make you a bigger person.

Its days like these when I start to feel the weight of all the characters. When I try to let myself out but they all seem to stand in my way.

2010-02-14T03:33:00.000-05:00

Is it possible
for the world
to look this way
forever?

2010-01-27T11:36:00.002-05:00

A year, and some other undetermined length of time ago when I was living in a different part of the world, I woke up early. I woke up in the dark and got dressed in the dark and then I got on a train to another place I had never gone.

I drank hot coffee that left a singed spot on my tongue. I drifted in and out of sleep while some walls flashed by my windows. I ate yogurt out of a ceramic bowl and drank more coffee until my hands refused to sit still in my lap. Then, the sun rose.

The sun rose and I pulled out my camera and recorded France flashing by. I hunched my shoulders and tried to hide from the eyes of my fellow passengers, humbly self-conscious of stealing these images.

This morning I watched these videos again. France flashed my on my computer screen. Life is funny.

The Key to My Success,

2010-01-27T11:25:00.003-05:00

I realized, sometime last week or sometime in the middle of the night when most realizations come, that if anyone were to ask me, "How do I DO college" the advice I would give would not be what I would expect.

It would have nothing to do with study habits. It would have nothing to do with learning to live with someone. It would not apply to finding the library or sucking up to your professors. It would, in fact have nothing to do with anything exclusive to college.

It would be - find a way to get free coffee. Exploit that as often as possible.

2010-01-05T16:16:00.002-05:00

I miss sunshine.

If I wanted to run away right now, I would run away someplace where it never stops being summer. I would run until I hit the ocean. I would lay down in the sand and roll myself until I resembled a chicken cutlet.

This is my idea of paradise. This is my idea of retreat.

Right now I am going to go upstairs and I am going to lay in the dark and play music that reminds me of summertime. I am going to keep my eyes closed long enough that I can forget where I am and hopefully believe completely for a few seconds that I am in my sun soaked paradise.

Then, I will exhale. I will open my eyes. I will hopefully have satiated this desire.

2010-01-02T22:12:00.002-05:00

I'm a little bit worried.

This worry isn't like my always present worry. The worry that never leaves me. The worry that tells me each and every moment what could (and probably will) go wrong. That worry has a very specific flavor that I have had to recognize and understand isn't leaving.

This worry is something new. Its the more fleeting kind of worry specifically tied to an event or state of mind.

I'm worried because I have so much. When I look at my life I'm crippled by how thankful I am for everything I have. The repeated mantra of my prayers has been an unending stream of thanks. I'm worried because I feel like my life has reached a crossroads. The point right before the climax of the novel that says, "And then our heroine saw that she had all she ever wanted."

I'm worried because some part of me knows a narrator is saying in some dimension I cannot perceive, "Little did she know..."

Nerves,

2009-12-28T15:32:00.002-05:00

There's a peculiar sort of feeling I get in my stomach when I'm nervous about something and I drink too much coffee. Usually, when I'm nervous or bothered my instinct is to drink coffee because caffeine will surely calm my nerves, right?

But, it happens. I'll wake up and my feet don't feel attached to the ground, and then I drink cup after cup until I feel like acid is swirling around in my stomach and the idea of swallowing food makes me want to retch.

Because of the way I handle stress, this feeling will actually trigger to me that something is wrong, and I'll try to figure out what it is that's bothering me. Sometimes I figure it out. Sometimes I don't.

This time, I can't figure out whats bothering me, but I'm five cups deep and something certainly is.

2009-12-24T01:14:00.000-05:00

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With Peace on earth, good will to men."

There's a pretty big part of me

2009-12-20T23:13:00.002-05:00

that wants to clean out this whole thing are start over. Someone commented to me the other day that I only write about sad things. All of my stories have a dreary edge to them. Not a dark, gothic side to them. Just the themes they deal with: loneliness, abandonment, and fear tend to be inescapable.

I guess I didn't quite realize this. I think of myself in positive upbeat terms, and in fact project that kind of personality, in order to avoid the things that are bothering me. Which is probably why they come out in my creative outlets. My characters don't always make these things clear to me.

I'm not going to turn my back on any of it, but I am going to grab hold of a new happiness that I've achieved and try to wrestle with it a little bit. Let's see what happens.

The First Snow

2009-12-15T01:15:00.001-05:00

My twenty first year
was the first time the snow felt stale.
It seemed too soon,
though it was late in the season
on the seventh of December.
It fell on my shoulder and
dusted my hair.
I felt the still burning flame of summer
flicker and die in my chest.
The external light of Christmas
is a comfort, but dull
in comparison.

Friends Are Essential During Finals Week

2009-12-13T17:19:00.003-05:00

"It smells like Christmas and homework in here."
-Joel VanderWeele

"We don't KNOCK before we walk into their flat."
-Amy Buckingham

Whiskey Between Men

2009-12-13T17:14:00.002-05:00

He stood just outside the door in a jacket that smelled like 1974 and September. The house was an imposing shape, pale blue and stark against the sky. It was not his home, but now he needed to make it seem that way. He resented this fact.

He walked inside and the smile he tried to give his nephew was stiff from the salt dried on his cheeks. It matched the smiles of the Dresden dolls lined up along the fire place: cold, hard and empty. His old mind had been poetic once upon a time, but now he thought mostly in disheartening clichés.

There were no lights on in the living room and it was cold. The windows were open, and he shivered inside the old jacket. He saw Stephen’s huddled shape in black and white, surrounded by a kingdom of dirty dishes and half empty glasses. The sound of a muted laugh track made his stomach churn.

He knew that this pile of dishes mirrored the one in the guest room which he had currently taken over. He hoped the boy had neglected to notice them. They were scattered with bits of leftover toast and cold stained tea cups. He’d noticed that no matter how much he ate these days, he never became full.

He down and removed his shoes. The laces were worn and bent from being tied in the same way year after year. The leather was cracking in certain spots, and he felt out of place in this house and this room with a boy who would not speak.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, breaking the silence. But the people on the television laughed at him again. His nephew shuffled his feet underneath a crocheted blanket and said nothing while he removed the hat from his head, turning it over and over in his hands. He didn’t understand how this wall had sprung up between them.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say. He could think of a thousand sentences that he could utter, ranging from compassionate to furious. But for all he talked, he might as well speak to his reflection in the mirror.

Maggie would have known what to do.

He continued to stare at the circles that blossomed out from the center of the blanket on the boy’s lap. Even in the darkened room he could see the vibrant colors his sister had woven into the pattern one day when they were both younger. It was just one of the many inescapable things that Maggie had left behind.

Somewhere underneath the grief and loneliness that lay heavy in his ribcage was a guilt he was not ready to face. He wanted to go somewhere with cacophonous noises and bright colors. Somewhere he could beat down this guilt. But in this dm room his guilt was making louder and louder noises. He didn’t want to be here with this silent boy for company.

There was a desire under this grief but it was one he felt slightly ashamed of. Now, it inspired an idea. An idea that wasn’t the most honorable but he supposed that Maggie wouldn’t mind.

He turned and rushed out of the room and Stephen glanced up from the TV in the sudden flurry of action. All around, the house seemed to hold its breath. His feet pushed down onto the carpet with more purpose than any of his limbs had felt in the past two days. When he reached the kitchen he pulled two small glasses out of a side drawer and out of the cabinet over the sink came a cool bottle of whiskey.

He headed back toward the living room, trying to keep his feet from hastening ahead of him. He knew it would be important to approach his nephew carefully, like trying to sneak up on a wild animal. He stopped by the front door again, slipping his jacket from his shoulders and hanging it on a peg. He unwound a scarf from his neck and folded it carefully before placing it in the closet. He felt out of his own skin, in a shirt that was stiffly ironed. He unbuttoned one button to allow him to breath and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.

When he entered the living room again he noticed that Stephen was sitting more upright underneath the blanket. Their eyes met he saw all of the emotions his nephew had been trying to hide, but the strongest of all was anger.

“I thought people liked to be left alone after a tragedy,” Stephen asked with a grimace pulling his face into an ugly expression, “you’re going to get me drunk instead?”

It would be so easy, he thought, to give in. To remind this boy that he was grieving too. Anger would be easy. He could feel it in the shiver that ran through the room. It was charged, like the shakes in a volcano before it exploded. He could drop the glasses and the bottle, leap over the coffee table and punch him in the eye. But he can’t, because he remembers Maggie, and instead sits in the loveseat that has the uncomfortable springs that squeak when you move.

Stephen’s eyes roamed everywhere but at him while he sat the glasses on the table between them. It would be easier if this could be reduced to a battle of words and fists. He tipped the whiskey into the shot glasses. He doubted this boy Irish temper would even recognize the gesture. He carefully aligned the top of the bottle and the rim of the shot glass, not trusting his shaking hands.

He raised them both, and held out one to his nephew. Stephen stared at them but said nothing. He made no move to take them. His hands, young and clenched, stayed on his lap.

“I think this will help,” he said, but he knew his tone was harsh and made his nephew flinch. It occurred to him that there was so much of his sister in these defiant actions. Stephen had always been so like Maggie, with his temper and the way he pretended the world did not exist, or at least that the world could not make him explain his actions.

“This is what adults do, boy,” he barked. “They honor the dead. They don’t hide from the world in front of their TV’s.”

There must have been something in his tone of voice, and he knew his sister would have shushed him and made him apologize if she had been here. But that was the point of all of this, that Maggie was not here, except in the whiskey that Stephen refused.

Another explosion happened somewhere behind his nephew’s eyes, and his hand shot out to take the glass from his uncle. A tiny amount splashed over the side and dropped to the carpet between them, leaving a stain that wouldn’t come out anytime in the remembered future.

“Now,” he instructed, “I want you to make a toast. A real toast, something your mother would be proud of.”

The way his shoulder’s dropped to told him the boy did not want to do this. There was fear under all his big words and angry eyes. But he waited. He studied his nephew’s hands and the way they gripped the glass. All of his fingers were bunched around the edges, and the skin of his knuckles was brown and unbroken. His own hands were pale and spotted by age, grasping his shot glass between fore finger and thumb. So many years divided them.

“To my mom, because she taught me that the world revolves,” Stephen paused as his voice was on the edge of breaking, “around love stories,”

He downed the brown liquid, and he lifted his shaking hand to do the same. His nephew tried to hide the grimace as he swallowed, but it was comical the way his eyes watered. He pretended to be preoccupied with filling the glasses for another round.

He lifted his glass high in the air and waited for Stephen to do the same.

“To Maggie,” he said, “for always leaving me with messes to clean up.”

Stephen laughed, and something between them splintered and shattered. The sound had been so unfamiliar in the past few days that it he almost felt embarrassed for his nephew. The rest of the toasts came more easily.

“To mom, for always leaving the stove on when she left the house.”

“To Maggie, for never learning how to decorate a living room.”

The looks between them became heavy with the whiskey as the shots past and the blanket slipped down to the floor from the couch. The drops of whiskey on the table became more and more numerous as his pours became less and less careful. Stephen had left the couch, and now sat on the floor with his limbs flung in every direction.

Eventually, he thought his nephew had consumed enough. His gaze was no longer present but he stared through the window to the changing leaves on the trees.

“This doesn’t hurt as much as it did before,” he whispered. He wondered what his nephew meant by ‘this’ but something in him filled in the blanks with words he did not know. His nephew’s voice was barely louder than the hum of the refrigerator in the next room and looked down at the boy beside him and thought about how much hope there was in that statement.

He didn’t know yet that the grief would wake him up in the middle of the night unexpectedly. He didn’t know that in ten years he would realize he could no longer remember the color of her eyes. He didn’t know that in some ways it would always hurt just as much as it did before.

But maybe he was talking about the whiskey. The burn did fade.

There was chasm between them that had never been crossed, and he doubted now was the best time to try. He wished that he could place a hand on his shoulder and offer a gesture of comfort.

“You’ll be okay,” he said, with his hand hovering somewhere between them and finally landing on his knee. It fell short of where it should be, just as he had.

Stephen didn’t answer, he just closed his eyes. There was understanding of what his nephew felt hidden somewhere in his chest, though he could never explain what it was.

“I know you didn’t go to the church either,” Stephen said.

No more words really needed to pass between them. He counted the seconds of silence, and thought about how each second carried them farther away from Maggie. He watched dust particles float in the light of the setting sun and each of the seemed to settle on Maggie.

“She deserved better than us,” one of them whispered. He couldn’t remember who it had been, but both of them knew it was true.

I wish I could forget all the details.

2009-12-07T01:12:00.003-05:00

Close to the surface of my memories of Christmas
is the memory of running to a doorway in thin stockings
while you came in from the cold
and I felt the moisture on your cheek from when you had shaved.

I wish I could forget the way your jacket settled around me,
as we bowed our head and ran for the car.
The smell of your soap and shampoo sticking to the collar,
and pulling me closer to you because it smells like home.

I wish I couldn't remember this as I walk now,
from a different house. To a different car,
with only my own arms hugging my torso.
Those memories make this moment not enough.

Followed by purposeful thoughts that declare - I miss you,
and I know you don't miss me.

Months of conflict have led to this:

2009-11-27T10:05:00.002-05:00

I am sensible enough now, or at least I think I'm sensible enough, to know that just because things are beautiful it doesn't mean they're eternal. And I know that things will not always be the same. I know that everyday we wake up and the world is a little bit shifted, a little bit new, and that one morning we wake up years and years later and realize things have been changing all this time and we never stopped to notice.

Forgetting that we couldn't have stopped if we had tried.

However,

I'm shaking out the optimist in me like an old tablecloth. Letting it settle with a comforting weight over the flaws and nicks and hide them from my view.

I will forget these things because it is the happier way to live. I want to believe in all of the things this season tries to make true. Like the holiness of blessings and the ever elusive myth of peace of earth and goodwill toward men.

Luke 5:14-16

2009-11-05T18:38:00.002-05:00

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand and its gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven."
-Luke 5:14-16

Boo,

2009-10-31T20:12:00.003-04:00

By next year, it will be five years since I have celebrated Halloween in a way which feels "real" to me. I will wear a costume which I will consider classic and I will walk on the carpet of leaves on my sidewalk. I will hold my brothers hand and I will buy candy two weeks in advance so I can get the good stuff. I will split and divide my spoils that night with boys and girls alike not really noticing which gender we are, because that's how it is when we're home. It never really matters.

Its somewhat reminiscent of fourth grade, before things started mattering and life got complicated. I like that I have people this is preserved with.

In my neighborhood everyone trick or treats and we see two to three hundred kids each year. Adults stand on their lawns all day long and spook and scare and then light candles in their window and reunite with their families.

When I was in third grade I dressed up as a cow girl. Hannah was a power ranger and we each had our own rooms. I laid in bed that night and thought about how likely it would be that a werewolf would eat me. Those fears were easier than the ones I have now.

I love Halloween.
I miss Halloween.

I wish I was home this time.

2009-10-29T09:29:00.003-04:00

I spent roughly three months in the third grade unable to sleep because I watched Jumanji (even though my mother told me not to). I used to set up an elaborate night light. I would take my Simba doll and put my desk lamp next to it and project a huge lion shadow on the wall. This lion was my form of protection but even then I couldn't shut my mind off.

Why? I don't know. Its the plight of the over imaginative child.

When I was fourteen, I stayed up for a week straight because I was convinced that the Al Qaeda was attacking RIGHT NOW and my family needed to move somewhere safe.

That was a particularly awful stage.

I've discovered something. There is always something to be afraid of at night. A lack of fear is probably the thing I covet most. When I inevitably fall asleep at night its because I lost focus for a minute and forgot to be scared. I'm always waiting for the one night when something will go wrong and I must be prepared.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, extra points if you can name that character.

Inspiration,

2009-10-29T09:15:00.001-04:00

She wants to write about God.
but not the friendly God character
that appears in the gleam
of so many smiling book covers.
She wants to find the God that makes
her heart change its beat as the
organ shakes the cathedral.

She wants to write about the God
she sees in the sharpness
of the horizon,
or in the hot shame in her sister’s eyes
as her secret is found out.
Not the God she feels around her
like the scent of laundry detergent.

What's to Come,

2009-10-29T09:08:00.002-04:00

As he continued on some

linear explanation of

fathers and courthouses

I couldn’t keep my mind

on his words.

Rather,

I travel farther

and farther

away like the

snowflakes falling outside

the window. I’ve lost the

desire, and I believe that if I

tear my eyes away

the flakes that

haven’t reached the ground

will be caught

eternally

in mid-air.

Lyrics of Tuesday evening

2009-10-27T20:38:00.004-04:00

Or the lyrics I hope will one day apply to my life:

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could
But somewhere in my youth and childhood
I must have done something good

The rain means something these days,

2009-10-09T18:20:00.002-04:00

All these blank and tranquil years,
Seems they've dried up all my tears.
And while she runs free and fast
Seems my wild days are past

It rains a lot in Houghton, but it doesn't rain enough. It doesn't rain nearly as much as the place the rain makes me think of. It makes me think of the first time Joel leaned back on the rear legs of the chair in my pink bedroom and watched the unexpected rain drops fall down the glass. It was our first afternoon there, and the sun had been shining just a minute before.

"Well," he said, "that's London."

An Ode to Whatever

2009-10-05T11:14:00.003-04:00

I think about days in funny ways
Like being alone, and not,
And reading books to fill the nooks
Too easily forgot.

To: He Who Does Not Know this is About Him

2009-10-05T11:10:00.002-04:00

This will probably never change.

An Autumnal Poem,

2009-09-29T12:40:00.002-04:00

When the leaves begin to fall,
sunlight tinkles into the room
and the shadows on the wall confuse me.

I can't help asking myself
if finally I will be able to capture
Peter Pan's shadow
and it isn't too late for me,
after all.

2009-09-29T11:13:00.002-04:00

There is nothing for me like summertime.

I don't know what the reasons are in that equation. I wish I could be the kind of person who likes all the seasons the same. Or even that my preference was so minuscule that it didn't really matter. But I have never been that kind of person, I have not been raised around those kinds of people, and I feel like my experiences are only going to get more extreme.

Autumn has come to Houghton and I'm trying my best to make it a good one. I wear scarves and sweaters and I drink spiced apple cider like its going off the market. But Autumn to be has a subtext that I cannot ignore or deny.

Autumn comes before winter. Winter is on its way.

And Autumn is so short in western New York. The chilled days we've been having lately remind me of late November on the Island. The leaves do not make a slow decent toward the ground. One day they are a cacophony of color, and the next they are on the ground and my flip flops are irrelevant.

Meanwhile, I'm growing out the damage done to my hair with chlorine and salt. My skin looks stretched and pale. I dream of sand and air that always smells like the ocean. I don't want to think about the sunflowers which are not now lying crumbled on the cement. Sunflowers I waited months for.

2009-09-10T11:43:00.000-04:00

Whatever homies.
I'ma just go to Hogwarts.

She's very eloquent

2009-09-06T15:32:00.001-04:00

Bluetigers83111 (3:31:34 PM): seriously

Bluetigers83111 (3:31:35 PM): like

Bluetigers83111 (3:31:36 PM): ugh

Blargh,

2009-09-03T14:25:00.002-04:00

Its so funny because I hate it. I hate this. I hate school in so many ways. Its not that I hate classes its that I don't like classes all the time. But when I'm honest I don't like people all the time either. I just hate that I rush here, and then I rush there, and then I have to SIT STILL for hours at a time either reading or writing or thinking.

And then later when I want to stop thinking I can't because my brain has been trained to think ALL THE TIME instead of just when I tell it to.

Then I reach a point where I decide I want to watch TV instead. Even though I know that the thinking is better for me then the TV watching. And I just want to sit there but the book in the next room that I'm supposed to read keeps yelling my name. Like, who cares.

That point? Was yesterday.
Long year.

Touche,

2009-09-01T10:52:00.003-04:00

"Patty Keene was stupid on purpose... the women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sense of comfort and safety needed all the friends they could get."
-Kurt Vonnegut

The Day is August 31,

2009-08-31T00:00:00.002-04:00

Summer is overlapping with what is always the "end of summer" in my head. The beginning of school. The beginning of taming my anxious and wandering desires for nine months to sit in classrooms and learn things I probably won't remember in a few years.

I so don't want tomorrow to come. But it seems it already has.

A mix of thoughts,

2009-08-08T15:39:00.003-04:00

I wrote about August last year. About crickets and cement stoops, and even if I never addressed it, how New York becomes another world during the summer.

This year August scares me, like everything lately. The sound of the crickets makes me anxious and makes the palms of my hands clammy. My mind is swimming with questions that I have no answers to and that scares me too.

For some reason summer feels unfamiliar. I laid in the sunlight with a book propped up on my knees and I imagined thick sweaters, wool socks, and stews so thick they stick to your ribs.

I don't want to move into flat 101 on August 25. I want to move into room 21 in Islington, London instead.

I know I am no one's protagonist. I hate that fact.

The only thing I can think of is how unfamiliar the end of college feels. Everyday it creeps closer and closer and without the bold faced title of "student" hanging over my head, how will I even know who I am?

A Midsummer Night's Poem

2009-07-27T04:36:00.004-04:00

Our skin was slowly turning apricot,
because it was never meant to be brown.
We let the colors swim before our eyes,
drinking white wine out of paper cups
and counting freckles until the world turned upside down.

Our heads ached because sleep eluded us in the night
taking a vacation from keeping us warm.
You shivered in the dark and I felt it in my bones.
I held your hand at midnight and you didn't refuse,
Placing kisses on my temples to ward off the pain.

We called each other Victorian names
drank tea on the cold sand
and laughed at the oceans roar.

2009-07-25T17:58:00.002-04:00

Its been three weeks since I last showered in non-bacteria infested water.

I was in a book store tonight,

2009-07-01T23:15:00.002-04:00

and one of my friends read off a cover a shocking statistic about friends who last more then ten years. We all laughed, and then another said, "Well, we've lasted seven years."

And then my mind crashed into a hypothetical wall and exploded.

Seven years. Is that really how long its been since I wandered into the huge block of cement called Tottenville High School? Seven Years since I wore Bebe shirts and listened to Good Charlotte. REALLY? When did I get old enough, hang on mature enough, to have seven year long friendships?

And then I went on to think, my new friends are already three years stale. That caught me off guard. Three years is sometimes an eternity. Three years can change your life. My "new friends" have stuck around for there abouts three years now.

I am not grown up enough to start being an adult.

Wisdom from last summer,

2009-06-30T17:47:00.002-04:00

Last year, between May and December I read a lot. I also made the decision to document some of the more moving passages I found. I want to put these here. One quote from each book I wrestled with.

"There is enough love in this world for everybody, if people will just look."
-Cat's Cradle

"But most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible but Jesus knew - KNEW - that we were carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddamn stupid and sentimental to look?"
-Franny and Zooey

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensation for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly as spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle against temptation, or a fatal over throw by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
-Brave New World

"You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed."
-The Little Prince

"...when the point is there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice at the right time can move the world."
-Ender's Game

"The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
-A Man Without a Country

"Jesus was a living baby once. He went barefoot like we do in the summer."
-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

"Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him."
-The Alchemist

"Its all like the ocean!" cried Dostoevsky. I say, its all like cellophane.
-Breakfast of Champions

It's true. Never a truer breath was ever breathed. "The Lord giveth," I say.
-As I Lay Dying

"Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore."
-Farenheit 451

"I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I know such people, and they need me like comets need tails."
-Looking for Alaska

"Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange unknown world, but our own."
-Anthem

"to the person in the bell jar, black and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream."
-The Bell Jard

"Its living up to being happy that's the difficult part."
-The Time Traveler's Wife

"You said I killed you - haunt me then! Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you! Oh God, it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
-Wuthering Heights (Oh Heathcliff...)

"Life is a gift horse, in my opinion."
-Nine Stories

And then from someone I have much to learn from, Stephen King, I have three wonderful quotes:

"I'd think, this isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going. Then I'd think, half the world has the same idea."

"Just remember... Dumbo didn't need the feather, the magic was in him."

"Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life."
-On Writing

And that's it. Seven months of acquired wisdom.

2009-06-29T14:37:00.004-04:00

I was sitting in our white washed pews yesterday and I thought about what we're saying when we talk about God. My hands were folded in my lap and I was staring at the eaves, not at my pastor's preaching face.

And I thought, loneliness.
Loneliness is what we're talking about when we talk about about God.
How all of us are lonely.

All I can think to say today

2009-06-24T16:43:00.003-04:00

My basement smells damp.

I generally have a certain fondness for my basement. It has orange walls and pictures of flowers hanging up. The furniture is all a wickedly dark wood and I like it. The windows, however, are raised so that I can see a tiny piece of my driveway, and through this window the rain tends to leak.

The rain will leak in on summer days like this one. It has been raining on my island for what feels like ages. The sky may not have any blue left in it, so full of gray it has been. Yesterday I sat on my bed and watched the rain just fall. It wasn't the kind of rain that frightened. It was just there and I knew that it was keeping me inside.

My neighbor stood on his stoop with shorts on and a cigarette between his lips.

Thirteen dogs walked by in an hours time.

I don't know why its been raining so persistently, but I certainly wish it would stop.

Circa 2006:The Product of Notebook Searching

2009-06-17T17:17:00.003-04:00

The first time we broke up he was smoking a cigarette. I remember because he kept looking at its lighted end instead of into my eyes. He never said any words that would make it final, and that's probably why it never was. He said, I won't be calling you anymore. He said, I hope I didn't hurt you. He whispered a lot and I stared into the sky because it was setting and before I knew it he and the lighted end of his cigarette were walking away.

the second time we broke up I was the one who did it. I drove to his parent's house and it was all business from beginning to end. I smiled at the end and he frowned. I kept eye contact. He wasn't smoking because he hadn't smoked in months. I congratulated myself on my way back to my car that this time, someone had said the words that needed to be said. We can't do this anymore.

As I pulled away I waited for him to do something. Take even one single step toward the car. But he didn't. He didn't even wave. I turned my eyes to the rear view mirror.

He would smoke again that night.

I have a sunburn

2009-06-17T00:50:00.003-04:00

Its kind of funny actually.

Yesterday (the first nice day we've had) I dragged my chair outside next to the pool and proceeded to get lost in the music of my iPod while the sun warmed me. I was wearing a new bathing suit and and there was an ice cream truck driving circles around my house. A friend sat with me by the water and it was lovely. Later, I went inside, changed, and vanished for burritos with friends.

I didn't realize until I got home just home red my shoulders had gotten. And quite frankly, I didn't notice until this morning just how red my entire upper body was. I didn't realize until tonight just how much the sunburn stung when I tried to rub aloe on it.

But its okay. Its painful, but its okay. It means summer is here. It means my hair is slowly getting blonder. It means sand will soon be in between my toes.

Ah. Summer.

2009-06-16T17:20:00.002-04:00

There are often things I would like to say here that I struggle with for one reason or another. I often feel like the things I want to say are things I shouldn't. Or rather, they're things people wouldn't want to hear about. Or things that are better kept inside to ponder.

Because of this hesitancy, and my desire to remain safely away from any pity parties, I will say what I want to say like this.

I love long conversations. I love really thick socks. I love freshly washed hair. I love powdered donuts and the havoc they wreak on your fingertips. I love quirky handwriting and aged notebooks. I love the ocean and chlorine. I love the color tongues turn after eating cherry ice. I love laughing with somebody else.

Now what I want to say is that I want someone to love these things with.

Words for today,

2009-06-14T13:48:00.000-04:00

"Cause I built you a home in my heart
With rotten wood, it decayed from the start."

On the Blondes,

2009-06-11T00:21:00.003-04:00

A few days ago, I went to the mall with three of my friends. We wandered around and collected things we do not need. We are still young enough to have disposable income. We do not buy jeans in our mall because our legs are too long. We laughed.

One of my sister's friends saw us there on Monday or Tuesday. She watched us go from store to store apparently unaware of the flaws in our surroundings. Laughing at the more ridiculous clothes. Picking up things in interest, turning for other's opinions.

She called us, "The Hannah's".

A few years ago. My cousin and I went to see my sister's Christmas concert at school. We were standing at the snack table contemplating Auntie Ann's chocolate chips, when another of my sister's friends approached us with Hannah in tow.

"OH MY GOSH, THERE'S THREE OF YOU."

This is a reaction we receive most of the places we go. Store clerks want to know where we're from in Europe. Waitresses ask how our mother managed to raise us all. We forget sometimes how different we are on this island.

Our island is many things. We appreciate it for being so many things, and it has given us each other so we can't be too harsh. But we all grew up with jeans that didn't reach our ankles. We all asked our mothers to dye our hair brown. We all wanted to leave school early on Wednesdays to go to CCD.

But, we weren't what we thought we should be. We were all tall. All of us grew thick blond hair. All of us grew up in tiny protestant churches that taught us Scandanavia was in our blood. This was different on the island. And now, when we travel around in our pack, we are surprised when eyes follow us.

Advice,

2009-06-05T13:24:00.003-04:00

Don't worry about the future.
Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind,
The kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
-Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen

This morning I took a large piece of newspaper. I found the largest marker in the house and scribbled these words into its surface. Then I thought about hanging it on the ceiling above my bed, so it was the first thing I saw in the morning.

Then I folded that newspaper and put it away in my drawer.

I have a problem with worrying. I'm a nervous driver, I can't sleep in my basement without a nightlight, and my heart rate is accelerated more often than not while watching my younger siblings. Worrying is not something I struggle with, its a part of who I am.

Summer goal, number one. Stop this nonsense.

The real definition of home away from home,

2009-06-01T15:03:00.003-04:00

I was in sophomore year when I started loving Tuscarora like I loved a pair of old jeans or my worn out stuffed animals. There is a smell that hits you when you walk into the Hillside manor that always bombards me with memories. I came home from camp that year and could still smell Hillside on my blanket. My eyes welled up with tears. The day coming back from camp is hard because you are as far away from going back as you will ever be.

I was eighteen when I found my second home away from home. It was my white washed dorm room in Houghton. It was thr first time I could leave something in one place and it would be there when I returned. My DVD's remained unscratched and my clothes stayed folded. It was luxurious to a girl who had always shared a bedroom with two younger sisters. I loved it.

Neither of these two places compare to the location I am homesick for now.

I emerged from the underground for the first time and my first breaths of London air were a memory I didn't think I would hold onto. I know exactly what I was wearing, I remember dragging my 80 pound suitcase down Highbury Fields. London fit me like a glove from the start. And beneath the surface of the modern trendy city there were echos of the ghosts of London's past.

I didn't expect this. No one warned me. No one tells you that you will lie awake at night months after coming back thinking about the planters in front of the flats across the street. No one mentions that you will taste cadbury spread in the morning even as you try to forget. I didn't think my hands would still itch for a tea cup after dinner.

I didn't know London was breaking my heart. I didn't know I had the world within reach until it was gone. Now I feel tied down and lost. I feel far from home. I want to cry at times for no reason, and then I realize I'm crying for London. The city I'm too far from. The city, that though I didn't know it, stole my heart away from New York. If only for a little while.

On Highschool

2009-05-28T23:35:00.004-04:00

I don't always like to think about high school. High school was kind of strange, and I've definitely hit my stride in college. But there were times back then when I really loved my school. Thats not something I ever thought I would say, since I socialized with exactly .001% of the student body.

Today I went back to my high school. I really haven't gone back very much, and every time I do it feels more and more foreign to me. It was cold for May, and there was rain coming down. "Its like we're living in a cloud," my other half said. Nevertheless, we stayed and watched a game of lacrosse and smiled because we loved it. As we approached the sidelines the faces that recognized us were few and far between. Next year they will all be gone.

We stole keys. We snuck into an office we used to hide in while we cut classes. We climbed on a desk and looked around at the yellowing articles on the walls. Our names are painted on the ceiling. The articles telling about our victories are old and no longer exciting.

While we grin to each other, we are thinking, are we old and no longer exciting?

We used to be the shining stars of this office, and now we are nothing but a memory. Nothing but stories that get told on long bus rides. We used to have fun here, we met each other here. But here is no longer a place for us.

I've been struggling lately with what my place is. When I used to run up and down the lacrosse field I felt like I knew where I belonged. I haven't had that feeling for a long time, possibly since high school.

As we rolled up the sweatpants we were going to take, purple the color I suspect our blood still flows, our old coach smiled at us.
"You still have our pictures on the walls," I noted as we walked by him.
"You two are never coming down," he answered.

2009-05-24T13:36:00.003-04:00

Michael Scott taught me that sometimes today is about having today.

Moulin Rouge tried to teach me that the greatest thing you can learn is to love and be loved in return. To which I say, what Moulin Rouge, is it not enough just to love?

I don't know the answer to my own question unfortunately.

I don't like writing in riddles, but I need to say that today is about having today. Its about doing what I can right now. Its about filling the role that I'm in, not shoving my way into one I'm not invited to.

Its about being the friend because I need to be. Unfortunately.

I have been home one week and four days.

2009-05-20T12:00:00.003-04:00

Home.
I've spent a lot of time eating pizza. Sometimes more than once a day.
I've ingested a lot of sugary frozen water.
I have stayed up late.
I have woken up early and watched my brother.
I have tried to find a job.
I have talked on the phone.
I have driven around with my music too loud.
I bought a new pair of sunglasses.

I am happy. Happy is the word I would like to use to describe this emotion.
The problem is, I am also anxious.
Anxious for what I really couldn't say.

I am almost too happy. This happy feels temporary.
And now, I am going to make a silly allusion. An allusion to a blockbuster film that many of my friends have not seen.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Peter says to Rachel that it is good they were hurt so badly.
Now, they have nothing left to fear.
They have already experienced the worst.

I have not experienced the worst. I have much left to fear.
I don't know why, but these are the thoughts in my head as the sun warms my island.
These are the thoughts I choose to ponder while clocks tick everywhere.

How am I ever going to return to school in the fall?

What is the likelihood,

2009-05-16T01:32:00.000-04:00

that two girls, both around the same height and of the same hair color pursuasion...

would both leave their houses, without talking about it, in jeans, a white T-shirt, and a sweater vest...

on the same night...

with their hair the same way...

and then proceed to island romp?

2009-05-10T20:18:00.000-04:00

Cousin- MOM, can you take a picture of me and my favorite cousin?
Aunt- You two will never get married, because no one will ever love you as much as each other.

This morning,

2009-05-09T00:29:00.003-04:00

(was it really only this morning)
I woke up too early. My things were already packed away in the car.
I rolled over and into clothes.
I hugged a lot of people goodbye.

I hugged people goodbye that I may never see again. People who have played a major role in shaping me and my life the past three years.
They don't warn you about that when you apply to college. That eventually college has to end. That nobody stays in college for the rest of their lives.

Even though this wasn't the end for me, it was for so many people. Tomorrow morning they will put on caps and gowns and do the graduation thing. They will remember everything about their four years at our rural institution fondly.

They never tell you not to make friends with the class above you. When they leave, you might not have many friends left.

2009-05-04T16:07:00.002-04:00

Today was interesting. I put on orange sneakers and walked up to campus. I sat in a class where I clearly don't understand anything, but handed in the final paper anyway. I filled a mailbox with Cheez-its and was then completely unsuccessful at covering it up.

I tossed a Frisbee and then caught a glimpse of a running dear between the trees. Things are weird.

There is a bike behind some of the townhouses. As far as I know, its been there since before the snow came. Everywhere on this campus there is life springing into action, and for the most part it is causing my throat to itch and my head to ache. I do know that I would like to take pictures of that bike though.

Summer's coming. I know it because my bones don't protest as much to stirring and climbing out of bed in the morning. I want to smell like chlorine again. I want to roll myself in sand like a chicken cutlet. I want to be with my blondes. I know that sounds cliche, but its what I want. I want to relax into being a kid for a few months and let my parents feed me. I want to drive the family car to work everyday. I want to have sleep-overs and watch my brother.

I want someone to explain the world to me through rules and be looking out for my well-being. I am seriously not grown up enough to start pondering adulthood.

A Poem for Sarah,

2009-04-29T15:57:00.001-04:00

We climb from the waves,
brown and stiff
never brushing our hair
and calling ourselves warriors
conquerors of seas.
We snicker to ourselves
about the heritage we have discovered
of Atlantian blood.

Some question the value of salt water
we know its good for the soul.
It creeps into bones
through our developing wrinkles.
Laying out sweet and satisfied,
Drying like prunes.
Drying like sand.
Drying like towels.

We are the wild hair and wicked eyes
of the beach
and for each other.

We are the whip of the moment.
The snap,
crackle,
pop.
We think about scavenging for sustenance.
But for now the sun is too wonderful,
and we are too blessed.

You and I,

2009-04-27T16:13:00.004-04:00

Don't you worry there my honey
We might not have any money
But we've got our love to pay the bills

Maybe I think you're cute and funny
Maybe I want to do what bunnies do with you
If you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parent's homes
In the south of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
And teach them how to dance

Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
Making everybody look like ants
Way up there, you and I, you and I

Well you might be a bit confused
And you might be a little bit bruised
But baby how we spoon like no one else

So I will help you read those books
If you will soothe my weary looks
And we can put the lonesome on the shelf

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parent's homes
In the south of France
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
And teach them how to dance

Let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
Making everybody look like ants
Way up there, you and I, you and I

This is my first summer song. I hope listening to it on repeat can bring a bit of its magic into my life.

May 6, come quickly,

2009-04-27T10:21:00.004-04:00

Its a funny sort of feeling to have friends across the world.

All week I've gotten text messages painting pictures for me of sipping rum and cokes while looking over the beaches of Zanzibar. Zanzibar isn't like Paris or London in the way that I might see them someday. Zanzibar will probably stay as an experience only they had. It will be a spot I don't ever know. Like some places in London might be just for me.

But now I'm no longer waiting. I'm anticipating. They're coming home. And I missed them.

We've been traveling for a long time. I say we because even the experience of being at school without them has been new and exciting. We will continue to travel, but it will never be as concentrated again.

They had internet a few days ago, and ran through the rain to get to computers and spoke to me while I sat up in bed at three AM, typing quietly so as not to wake my room mate. But I didn't email them days in advance like I sometimes did. This is because everyday they get closer. Everyday the distances between us is shrinking. Traveling to Toronto to fetch them is an event not far on my planner.

Africa, I'm putting you on notice. Send my friends back in one piece.

Lessons,

2009-04-20T12:55:00.003-04:00

Sometimes, when I'm just standing in an open space, my thoughts don't really have anything to bounce against and they get far to wide and wandering. And then something occurs to me.

I realized something. "Baby Christians" tend to expect a lot of pats on the back. And sometimes I think God gives it to them. I also don't think this is a bad thing.

However, as we get older God gives us a bit more rein. And sometimes when we say, "I am willing to wait" it actually means we're going to wait. It doesn't mean God is going to be so proud of you for saying it, that you will get whatever it was you wanted immediately.

And sometimes the waiting could take a very long time. I'm in the process of waiting right now. I feel like some days I send up really optimistic little prayers to God to show him just how okay I am with it. But its one of those, "Look at me, God. Not only am I tortured over this, I'M SMILING AT THE SAME TIME! Hey, maybe my present is around the corner," prayers.

That's not what God wants. I think something what would make Him happier is for us to be unhappily waiting as long as we were honest with him about how it made us feel. But then again, I can't say for sure. I do know that even being unhappily waiting, God hasn't caved and given in. But maybe that's the whole point.

2009-04-16T19:39:00.000-04:00

Springtime, which isn't quite here yet

2009-04-15T21:39:00.002-04:00

There is a moment in Tess of the D'Urbervilles where Tess is falling in love with Angel. They work together on a dairy farm and everyone knows that someone must be falling in love because the cream keeps curdling (or something like that). But still, someones heart was changing and nature refused to behave the way it was supposed to.

April 15 is a day that in my mind says spring. March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but April is definitely supposed to be spring. And yet here I am, in Houghton, cold. On April 6 we had snow. On April 13 it was raining and a chilly forty degrees. Even today, it peak at a high 45 and people started putting on shorts. Spring has yet to come to Houghton, and my bones are telling me that it should be here already.

But there aren't any green leaves on the trees and there isn't any fresh grass on the ground. Nature seems strangely unwilling to burst into action this year. Why? Could it be something like that event in Tess of the D'Urbervilles? Could there be someone who is unwilling to accept something that their heart is telling them? Could that person be me?

Realization,

2009-04-12T01:35:00.002-04:00

Lately, I've been going through a period of funny little realizations.

One is that I was raised in church basements and fed generic brand cookies and orange colored drink. I love this part of my child hood in a way I'm thankful for and scared of losing.

Two is that I have read so many books about love. Books about boys and girls and the mistakes they make and the way they hurt each other. I've also realized that one way or another I have learned to keep myself from getting hurt - by never taking a chance.

Three is that you can never predict peoples behavior.

And four is the most important. I realized that I will be home again this summer. So island, buckle down and get ready.

More conversations that make me smile,

2009-04-07T18:57:00.002-04:00

Chocltkiss1988 (6:27:56 PM): So, ah, what are we doing this weekend?

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:05 PM): dancing

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:07 PM): picnic

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:08 PM): strand

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:12 PM): making fun of people

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:13 PM): being awesome

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:43 PM): all of the above.

GASP ITS GLESS (6:28:48 PM): HOWS THAT FOR AN ANSWER
Chocltkiss1988 (6:32:32 PM): Why can't I come home now

GASP ITS GLESS (6:32:55 PM): because the stars have no yet aligned to allow our auras to be back in tune with one another.

GASP ITS GLESS (6:33:00 PM): the universe needs to be ready for us!
Chocltkiss1988 (6:33:31 PM): I forgot to tell you this really great grandma quote from the other day

Chocltkiss1988 (6:33:38 PM): I called her because I was homesick and whatever

Chocltkiss1988 (6:34:17 PM): And she said, I swear to God, "Well, the fact that you and Sarah love each other so much is just PROOF of how fabulous my grand-daughters are."

GASP ITS GLESS (6:34:23 PM): AHHHH

GASP ITS GLESS (6:34:25 PM): WE ARE SO CUTE

Chocltkiss1988 (6:34:29 PM): HOW DO THOSE TWO THINGS CONNECT GRANDMA

Planning ahead,

2009-04-06T23:01:00.001-04:00

Chocltkiss1988 (11:00:29 PM): This is how I see my summer going

Chocltkiss1988 (11:00:30 PM): Blondes

Chocltkiss1988 (11:00:32 PM): Beaches

Chocltkiss1988 (11:00:36 PM): And Tuscarora

Bluetigers83111 (11:01:13 PM): which is always the perfect summer

Bluetigers83111 (11:01:15 PM): and a little of

Bluetigers83111 (11:01:17 PM): Manhattan

Bluetigers83111 (11:01:20 PM): and we're good

2009-04-05T13:32:00.002-04:00

I didn't enjoy being told stories as a child. I liked watching them and I liked reading them but my interest began and ended there. The only time I can remember asking for a story was inquiring about other people's love stories.

My mother and father had a magnificent story. He rescued her from going to a school dance alone. She was his little sister's best friend. She's been afraid it would be awkward, but then it wasn't.

My aunt came home from school one Easter and declared to her mother that she's met the man she was going to marry. "What's his name?" my grandmother asked. "I don't know his last name," she answered, "but it doesn't matter. I'm marrying him." and she did.

Three Virtues Before Bedtime,

2009-04-01T23:51:00.002-04:00

I want to memorize this,

2009-03-27T13:15:00.002-04:00

and never forget that this is what summer sings to me from the future:

Oh well I look at you and say
It's the happiest that I've ever been
And I'll say I no longer feel I have to be James Dean
And she'll say
Yeah well I feel all pretty happy too
And I'm always pretty happy when I'm just kicking back with you

And it'll be
Love love love
All through our bodies
And love love love
All through our minds
And it be Love love love
All over her face
And Love love love
All over mine

2009-03-21T20:45:00.003-04:00

Tyler Durden, out-raged, said that his generation was lied to. They were told they would all grow up to be rock stars and millionaires. They were pissed off.

That is not the lie I was told to believe. I was told to believe in happily-ever-after. I am not pissed off. I am disappointed.

I found something I like about winter today,

2009-03-15T22:38:00.003-04:00

I was riding in the back seat of a car and we didn't have any music. I was able to slump down and rest my forehead against the glass as we crested and descended hill after hill on our way home tonight. The glass was cold and it made me think of how long it will take for me to forget the way winter feels in your bones. I want it to melt away and I want to feel warm again.

But I was watching the sun set as the horizon morphed and changed. There was the strange grey film that always appears at night here. The lines on the road seemed to glow in the dark, and I could see the trees a few miles away. They were black and spindly against the reds and yellows of the sky which shocked me with its intensity. I could see them standing tall and firm reaching for the sky.

Suddenly in that moment I had the feeling I always have at camp. Or the feeling I had in London. The feeling that I would always like to stay here. Being here in western New York with the sun setting and the weather being surprisingly warm. With the trees reminding me that I should always be trying to be a little closer to God. I wouldn't have seen those trees if there had been leaves on them.

That is my post about winter.

2009-03-13T02:23:00.001-04:00

I'm okay with waiting it out.

Also side note on how I am building up faith in myself as capable of functioning on my own.

2009-03-08T22:35:00.002-04:00

Some days I cook for myself. NO SERIOUSLY.

There's about five things I can make and at least three of them involve eggs as the sole ingredient. So when I decide its too cold/wet/dark to walk up to campus for dinner I'm usually all about Chef Boyardee. Because its rarely any good but at least when I'm eating it I know why it's not very good. It's because its Chef Boyardee. Not because I screwed up a recipe.

But today, you know with the rain and everything, I looked at that can of Chef Boyardee and I was like, no. This shan't go on. I am hungry, and it is not for you.

So I decided I was going to cook for myself. And it was easy, it was cous cous. But you know what, I was sprinkling olive oil like I'd been doing it for YEARS. And then I was like, you know what would be good in this? BASIL. So I threw some basil in there.

(Oh, but I didn't buy that basil. I'm not that gourmet.)

And then all my housemates when to the gym and I had the whole house to myself. So I stretched out like some kind of feline women and felt so good about my home made dinner that I washed my dishes. By hand, like a person who has never owned a dishwasher.

And then I patted myself on the back and was like, "Congratualtions, you conquered winter."

Rain,

2009-03-08T19:01:00.003-04:00

It's a Sunday and its raining. It's raining because today it is not cold enough to snow. Because it is raining and not cold enough to snow the bravest blades of grass have decided to take a leap of faith. They are poking their heads above ground. And we know that in a few more days the sun will drift farther away and more snow will come, but those blades of grass will die with honor.

We sit inside and allow ourselves to be illuminated by the television screen. We drink black coffee. We fill pages with things we are told are important. We will not remember them in a few months when the sunlight bleaches our memories of this winter.

Then she decided to stop dwelling on whether or not his feet knew they had almost touched hers under the table.

2009-03-08T01:26:00.005-05:00

It's just one of those simple sad facts of life. That you can study the angles of bodies that people who adore each other will frequent, and yet nothing can ever be known for sure.

Especially not things concerned the emotions "like" and "dislike". Because we as people are too fickle to understand what we want, and too idealistic to see ourselves as fickle.

Plus there is the fact that you will almost always be the exception to any rule you decide to subscribe to.

Thought - this here record of mine has been in existence now for about a year. More or less.
More or less I'm dealing with the same crap now as I was then.
Primarily because I hold onto things. I don't give up on hopeless situations.
I am still, tragically, a "fixer".
I cannot walk away from a problem if I feel that I can do something to change it.

But there is so little growth in that. Lately a friend of mine has called me a sunflower because I pause on the path between buildings and stare as close to the sun as I can. Because its warm and bright which are two adjectives no one would use to describe western New York in the winter.

I need to start letting go. I need to start accepting the things I cannot change, but mostly I need to understand that the fact that some things don't change doesn't mean I did something wrong. It just means that's the way its supposed to be.

I need to starts accepting and then taking a breath and staring into the sun.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday I made THIS,

2009-03-06T12:08:00.002-05:00

Friday morning,

2009-03-06T12:05:00.003-05:00

The state of my head today is distressed.

I've woken up each day this week with a sharp and unrelenting headache directly behind my eyes. My mountain of work keeps growing and it takes more and more effort to get myself out of bed to sit and WRITE or READ or STUDY.

This week is the week that separates the STUDENTS from the PUPILS or something equally inspiring. Its kind of disappointing that I can feel guilty about pausing for a half hour to watch my favorite TV show or celebrate a birthday.

And this head ache just won't go away.

Truthiness

2009-02-25T13:53:00.001-05:00

The Song in my Head, on repeat,

2009-02-24T23:49:00.002-05:00

I go to the rock of my salvation
I go to the stone that the builders rejected
I go to the mountain and the mountain stands for me
When all the earth is sinking sand
On Christ's solid rock I stand
When I need a shelter, when I need a friend
I go to the rock

Thoughts I Might Regret Posting,

2009-02-23T22:15:00.002-05:00

My sister just sent me a message that said - "Your denial of true love disgusts me."

My sister, MY sister, my SISTER who for as long as I can remember has scoffed behind her hands at all of my imaginative fantasies and hopes for the future.

Its not as if I'm not reminded of it everywhere. All of it, the big huge EVERYTHING I try not to think about and try to ignore because its better for me. Healthier for me. Its good that I can find this safe ground of 'healthy' when I tend to get myself hurt. But am I finding the wrong place to finally set down my tent even if it may be the safer area?

Movies. Books. Television shows. Harry and Sally. Mia and Michael. Ross and Rachel.

Holy crap.

Its been a very long Monday,

2009-02-23T17:37:00.002-05:00

I am feeling so restless. It's probably because I don't have any strong ties right now. Or maybe its because I have been so 'wanderful' over the past year and I can't exactly climax back to the way life once was.

The island has been interesting. As always I am shocked by how much I actually love being here. But it hasn't been as deep and tingly as it usually is. The island has been like an old shirt I missed while I was at school. I love so many things like the fact that "the island" sounds so wonderful on my tongue.

Its been a comfort because lately the future has been this huge oppressive enemy that marches on without any sense of compassion. But the island is always here, and the island will always be home. Its been good that no one is around to keep me company. Because one day, as we all follow the different paths we have, there may not be anyone around to keep me company.

A friend of mine said recently that it is a distinctly beautiful luxury to drive around in your own car and listen to your own music and be completely indulgently yourself.

The island will always allow me to do this. I don't need anyone in my car with me to do this. On the streets that I know. Plus, summer will always be coming, and with summer comes the heavy air that your air conditioner whines to cool and the crickets that sing to our souls in August.

I'm not even saying that the island is where my path will eventually take me, in fact I'd place bets that it won't. But my path can always intersect it, and it will always carry with it that which I can't find anywhere else.

I guess the point is, I didn't find comfort for my future in my present like I thought I would. I found it in my past.

The Love I do Have,

2009-02-15T15:24:00.003-05:00

I can try to forget

how you once fit into my elbow. Falling

forward

until you’re caught.

It's good that you exist , because

you’re mess is constantly

under my feet, you ride your

bicycle in my sleep, forever

growing with ankles exposed,

and bearing some dirt on the

tip of your nose.

(Yeah, I wrote that.)

February the Fourteenth,

2009-02-15T15:17:00.002-05:00

I know that the idea for this day is to remember all of the love you do have.

I don't like that all it really does is remind us of all the love we don't. I told a friend yesterday that "Jesus is my boyfriend" theology is the most effective way to reach adolescent girls because romantic love is the most important gap in their lives, and I was horrified to realize its true. (This is a mark of how half the time I say things I really do mean and don't even realize.)

Because the facts are these - I love that I wear sweatpants until 4 o'clock every Saturday. I love that sometimes I would rather sit in my room listening to music and reading books then spending time with other people. I love that I can laugh at my own jokes. I love that I love so many people. I love that Sundays are important to me. I love that my best friend is four years old.

I love these things. Its taken me 21 years to do. I shouldn't mourn the fact that no one else loves those things as much as I think they should.

And that's why I don't like Valentine's Day.

Poem,

2009-01-29T01:16:00.002-05:00

Gram said to me, "If you let it
sin will carry you away
like the river when its high."

One Thursday, while the old woman
thought I saw cartoons behind my eyelids
I took off my socks
climbed down my rocks
stood up to my shorts

I stood, and fought the pull

Gram was wise enough to fear
the bend in the river
and the loss of balance.
But if she can't tell me where I'll land,
I can't take her advice.

Hm,

2009-01-29T01:13:00.002-05:00

I never imagined myself to be someone to over react in this way. But if I'm honest I never imagined I would be at all like I am. I imagined I would have some sort of plan at least. I imagined I would age gracefully and with witticisms galore!

Edna St. Vincent Millay seems to always find me at midnight with her wisdom,

2009-01-20T00:31:00.000-05:00

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

They are the wild hair and wicked eyes in each other's lives.

2009-01-08T22:19:00.003-05:00

I don't want to leave again

2009-01-08T20:51:00.003-05:00

I thought I would be used to these feelings by now.

But it really is true. There is a balance for everything in life. As the good in your life grows, so does the bad. Not necessarily in a "I smiled, and so I stubbed my toe" kind of fashion. Its much more subtle and elegant than that. Its one of the things that I have learned and awed over. A fact so delicate that I am afraid even looking too closely will shatter it to bits.

When I am here, I can breathe. I can look around me and I can love. I can feel unknown echoes sing every time I step out of my house.

But as I have learned those things, and realized how much I can love about here I am being increasingly terrified of losing it. I'm terrified other people don't know how to value it and they will toss it aside. Let it become a part of their past and not dedicate it to their future. I am terrified of people leaving.

I am not like people who say they have faith in the future. How can I?

My present is bright. My present is full of everything I ever wanted, minus one major exception.

LIES,

2009-01-07T14:26:00.002-05:00

Or, Notes from an Old Roommate to a New Roommate,

So Kat, this is one of the few reasons you will absolutely love living with Lindsay, you know her excellent music choices. I'm going to enlighten you on a few of the other things you need to know before the semester starts.

1. Say goodbye to your money, because you are now going to expected to buy her anything she might need. Now this includes coffee at all times of the day and food, mostly late at night.
2. You have to pick out what she's going to wear. Don't really concern yourself over what you pick, because she'll just wind up wearing something else, but be aware she is going to yell at you that THIS IS A BIG DEAL.
3. Going to bed is a big routine. Make sure she doesn't lose any of her pillows and for the love of God DON'T TOUCH HER BUNNY.
4. The last week of the semester is going to be difficult, seeing as she will have to do all of her papers from the semester. Don't expect to get any sleep.
5. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET HER HUG YOU ON THE STAIRS. It will inevitably lead to a broken nose.
6. On a related note, she needs help doing her laundry. You'll have to go with her and stand there and entertain her on the long trip to the laundry room and back.

Now there are many more things you will learn. But basically, just keep her fed and leave her bunny alone and you will probably survive the semester. And really, good luck with her. If you have any problems, just email me and I'll fix it for you.

I return this evening,

2009-01-04T22:50:00.003-05:00

I drank sangria with my aunt and laughed about leering adults. I watched an old movie with a family member who is also a best friend. I laughed, and somehow unleashed a dam and let the crap flow through my head and out my mouth.

I came home, I tied my hair up, and I came down stairs. In the far corner of my room I found a surprise. Not a bad surprise and not a good surprise. Just something there in my room that hadn't been there before. I found a new lamp, poised and ready to be lit. It's stance said to me, "Hello madam, shall I ignite and wait for you to come hither with your latest literary endeavor? I can do wonderful things from that angle."

It somehow brightened the orange of my walls.
It made my mess seem less messy and more charming.

I like this lamp.

What to work on?

2009-01-02T14:11:00.002-05:00

Stephen King told me that he likes to write about childhood and the healing power of the human imagination. I like this about Stephen King. I like that he was able to write multiple respectful articles about the Harry Potter books because he valued them for what they were. He didn't glorify them for being outstanding works of literature first, he glorified them for reminding people what it is they open new books for. The everlasting hope for the next great story.

The way Stephen King likes to write about imagination is the way I like to write about certain things as well. I like to write about summer, for instance. I like capture moments in the sun. I suppose there are certain winter scenes I like to capture as well. I like writing about Christmas trees, and I like writing about snow falls. But for me the magic ends once the snow is on the ground. Once everything is entombed I lose interest. I suppose its because then all I can do is think about the summer that is still so far away.

I like the slow pace that summer holds, but I dislike the same thing about winter. In the moments we pause in winter I feel we are empty. We are empty and searching to be filled up, but we're not sure anything could ever provide us with what we need. In summer we don't know if we will ever move forward and we are okay with that. In winter we don't know if we will ever move forward and we despair.

Because of these feelings I do things to provide joy in my life during the winter. I drove in a car with the top down in thirteen degree weather. I thought, "this is fun." I ran around a house in fourteen inches of snow in my bare feet on New Years Eve. I thought, "this is fun." If I can string together enough fun moments in winter, perhaps one day I will write about winter in the same way I write about summer. Perhaps the scenes which take place in hats and scarves will carry more magic than one ever finds in scenes of loneliness and yearning. These scenes always lead up to joyful meetings and overwhelming revelations, but those are always highlighted by sunlight.

I want to work on this in the months ahead.

"Resolutions"

2009-01-02T01:14:00.002-05:00

The most sure fire way for me to guarantee I won't do something is to make it mandatory, which is why I don't like New Years Resolutions. Its impossible to say you want to lose weight, when your house is full of Christmas snacks. Its impossible to say you want to do well in school when school is still eleven days away.

I can say this - From here on out I want to wake up every morning and think about what I have to be thankful for. (Though I complain, I have more to be thankful for then grouch about).

Last night, I sat in the snow on a hill in New Hampshire. I stepped out onto a lake and believed for a few seconds that it would crack beneath my feet. I flew in the dark towards a snow bank and closed my eyes and let the impact come.

I can say this - I want to be willing to say, I will try that.

Boxing Day Party

2008-12-27T10:47:00.002-05:00

I really enjoy having secret movies. Memories to recall and favorite foods. I enjoy unanimous hatred of luaus, but only because our luaus have been so good in the past.

Even though they make me think, I like questions like, "Why are you studying that?" because when I'm honest I have no idea. Who would have thought when I was who I was?

More than anything, I like exclamations of, "HOW THE HELL DID I DO THAT?"

Home can be so good.