Oh, the Mind that Wanders...

I made an exceptionally bitter cup of coffee this morning which I decided was still worth drinking in Western Civilization, where I was sitting and letting my thoughts drift. The grounds were stale, perhaps. It was cool this morning, but not too cool...sweater weather. Spring covers everything now. It smells different, looks different, feels different. It's awakening...inspiring. A few days ago, I took my finger to the top of a yellow-dusted trash can. "I write pollenear lines..." or something likewise. I've become determined to come up with a better use for "pollenear". I don't want to throw it around, though. It feels different from other words. I should look it up to see if it exists somewhere aside from my collection.

This sidewinds my mind to "Slaughterhouse Five". What takes me there is the thought that perhaps, even if no one has used a word yet, that the word still exists, has and always will exist (at some point in time, to be summonsed). Does it seem plausible for a word to pop into existence upon being spoken by the common man? It seems to me that perhaps they are already there, somewhere, waiting (some longer than others) to be spoken, not into existence (for only God speaks things truly into existence), but into action. [Pollinear for example, may have been waiting until March, 2010 to be sent into that active space between ear and mind, and mind and concept, ect., ect.] How it got into this place of hibernation, if you will, undoubtedly is an act of God. For He did speak everything into existence. The power of His WORD was great enough to create all others. That leaves me awestruck.

If you've read "Slaughterhouse Five", you will understand the correlation. If not, allow me to attempt an explanation. Billy, a veteran of WWII, believes himself to have been abducted by the a group of aliens, the Tralfamadorians, who place him in a zoo where he is observed and taught about the fourth dimension and the true nature of time. They claim that there is a long timeline, navigable forwards and backwards. This allows Billy to time travel. The Tralfamadorians tell him that any given moment exists...has existed...always will exist. I hope I've not given too much away or altered your desire to read the book.

Maybe you'd appreciate a list of vocab?


*ameliorate: [v.] to prove
*neophyte: [n.] a novice
*impecunious: [adj.] having little or no money
*defenstrate:[v.] to throw out of a window
*redolent: [adj.] having a pleasant odor

Something to Hold Onto

1. The Wailin' Jennys...


are a musical trio from midwestern Canada. Hannah Moody, Nicky Mehta, and Heather Masse work together to harmonize and produce songs that are soft and inviting, but strong enough to hold the listener's attention. The sound is folksy and real and the songs carry themes that reinforce the genre. Many of their songs ask questions and recollect loss and the nostalgia of happy times, but are not overwhelming and sentimental. They present the lyrics as factual deptictions of situations. In that, I mean that the situations, while not ideal are believable.

2. The BFG...


by Roald Dahl makes me feel like I'm back in fourth grade...in the best way. My friend, Charlie, has a wonderfully unique giant voice in which she reads aloud the adventures of the Big Friendly Giant and the little girl that he steals, Sophie. I love sitting back in the grass and hearing all about whizzpopping and frobscottle, the Fleshlumpeater, and dreamcatching. I can't wait to hear the conclusion of their adventures. Also, the illustrations by Quentin Blake, are, as always, fanciful, imaginative, and humorous.

3.The Philosopher's Pie...

from Mellow Mushroom is one of the best things that I have ever eaten, and certianly the best pizza that I've ever had. My roommate and I downed an entire 14 inch pizza in twenty minutes...maybe less. I never eat more than two pieces of pizza...it was that good. The crust was the perfect consistency between crunchy and soft, and was topped with mozarella, olives, steak, artichoke, feta, and portabella mushrooms. It was, as the BFG might say, scrumdiddlyumptious.


4. Slaughterhouse Five...


by Kurt Vonnegut, I finished reading yesterday. I appreciated Vonnegut's style throughout the entire novel, and while I felt perfectly content after reading the final sentence, which was perfectly fitting and conclusive, I found myself wishing that it wasn't over. I haven't felt this way about a book in a while, due mainly to the fact that I haven't been reading much lately. I was impressed in Vonnegut's ability to make me think, to draw parallels (it's very strong literarily), and to make me laugh and ponder the seriousness of his subject matter, all while making me feel as if I wasn't reading a book at all, but living it...or better yet, observing someone else live it.



5. Monty Python...

is sheer genius. That is all.




6. Painted Turtles...

are probably sunning themselves...and mating...and laying eggs in Tunica. This is very important, as I will be home next week, and will be able to enjoy the quite miniature versions of the adults which will be scampering by the multitudes across the asphalt and into the deep ditches on either side of the road. We may have a rescue service. Many undoubtedly will be flattened.

7. The Question...



that I was just posed is, "don't you want to finish the last forty-five minutes of The Life Aquatic?" followed by some German. No. Not particularly. Thank goodness it's missing. This may become and issue later, when I actually do...very badly.


8. Track and Field...


began for my brother today. As today is sunny and warm, I would have liked very much to have been able to watch his events. However, I am grateful to not be burning to a crisp.

9. The Reservoir...


is beautiful at night. I love the yellowed orange lights reflected on the water at the spillway. Also, trips to see this are made better by loud bellowings of The Knack, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and Marcy Playground.


10. Cups...


is not as good as Sneaky Beans. But they are calling my name...as this is where Lauren is headed. Here's to compromise.

Draw the Line

"I talk to my students a lot about how poetry asks us to try seeing double-- that is, beyond literal. To see the molecular world (our bodies, the daily news, the earth, ect.) and to also see the powers that animate that world. I think I've spent my whole life seeing double--being fixed, mystified, and mesmerized by those powers."

-Sekou Sundiata in conversation with Ani Difranco

_______________________________________

Seeing in writing and seeing in art are the same. Writing requires the same diligent exploration and sacrificial giving that drawing does. What Sundiata is saying is right. Whether or not he is a Christian, he understands that there is an intrinsic value to the world around us, and seeing that world requires making the connection between molecular object and meaning...purpose. Art is about drawing connections. Art is about understanding those connections. It isn't about creating them. It's about discovering them. It's about having a response to them. I want to spend my whole life being fixed, mystified, and mesmerized by His power. And I want to make art and write about my repsonses to the connections that I make through that fixation, mysticism, and mesmerization.

We Went Upward Over the Mountain and Came Back Down Again...

...and when we got where we were going, we found that the other side was greener.

Feel It

Today, Mother taught the four-year-old
about the pinching mouths of insects. He spoke
with lips drawn in and then pursed out as if he
weren't mimicking the word, but the "mandibled"
insect itself--as if he were another bee, like the
one he held, buzzing through the bag. See
the "segments" she said to him who broke
the word into parts of its own. See. He bent

forward with the resonating queen. "Feel the wings."
Today, the four-year-old reminded Mother
of more important things.

We, Being Sisters, Sometimes Love Like This

We, being sisters, are sometimes at a loss
for words. She will sit solemnly, hunkered
in a wicker fit--a basket, she builds
around herself. I don't dare
disrupt her, but instead, drop
my dragnet through the thickened
air. It catches words that linger
there. We, being sisters, are sometimes
at a loss for recognition--each. She doesn't
see that we both weave to relieve ourselves
from everything but this silence
that we sometimes need.

On Simple Pleasures

1. Socks...
are absolutely one of the most comforting things in the world when it's gray...especially right from the dryer. Are not comfortable to sleep in. (When sleeping, bare feet are definitely the way to go.)
My socks are often mismatched, to my satisfaction. Also, they are the one thing that I am aching to learn to knit. Handmade socks. Yeah.

2. Moss...
is growing thickly beneath the lip of the sidewalk, with little hairlike spores! Moss and ferns are my favorite plants. Then artichokes...and asparagus. I like green.

3. Chill Bumps...
are such intriguing mechanisms for coping with the cold. Also, though beautiful in their own way, are not desired at the present. I would very much appreciate a warm day and sun on my arms...and nose.

4. The Untuned Piano...
in our dining room is disconcerting...unless you're banging on it just for the sake of a ruckus. Then, its wonderful. It was last purchased for $80. It can now be purchased for nothing by anyone who will just take it. Also, it is the desired piano for dueling piano's, as opposed to the one which is tuned, sitting less than ten feet away, in the foyer.

5. Spring Break...
should be permanent, or extended.

6. Boxwood...
is apparently a very appealing home to cottonpatch rabbits. I've run one out of one near my front porch, much to my distress (and it's I'm sure), twice since I've gotten home.

7. Folk Music...
is my favorite. Favorite, for sure.

8. "Thirteen"...
is how old my sister will be on Sunday. Also, the title of a wonderful Ben Kweller song.

9. Dizziness...
is a simple pleasure. Once, in a letter that my friend, Mark, sent me, he quoted me as having said to him, "The beauty there is in making oneself dizzy is too great for words." Therefore, I suppose I shouldn't try to explain.

10. Wood Stain...
smells divine. I'm sure I've lost a few brains cells from lingering a little too near it.

11. Where I am...
is right nice. Which, seeing as I have no idea where I will soon be, is interesting. Here's to contentment.

And the Moon Will be Just One

"We will walk out together, among ten thousand things."

-Galway Kinnell
(Little Sleep's Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight)

She Lays Her Eggs on the Ground...

"Walking, I recite the hard explosive names of birds: egret, killdeer, bittern, tern..."
-Robert Hass

Slow the Rain

Slow the rain.

Let it be collected in my hands to escape if it wishes. Let it sink through my fingers and trip down my arm. Let it drip off of my elbow. Let me feel it.

Let me see it on a window pane, where I can find my reflection [if upside down] somewhere within the sanctuary of each. I'm told that there is little to no sound underwater. Let me go there to think.

Blue skies are calling.Blue skies are coming. But, I love the rain most.

Shining, Fresh, and Uninspected

I feel as if I should be overwhelmed this week. I took the first of my four tests this morning. I have to complete two sculptures by the end of the semester, transform my drawing series into a body of work, while maintaining sketchbooking habits, compile a Creative Writing Portfolio and Journal, and keep up with academics. I have a vast quantity of books I'd like to read and adventures that I'd like to have. I need to catch up. I'm moving slowly and surely. For now, I'm alright, but I feel that at some point, it is all going to come together in a collision. Maybe it won't. I've always survived in the past.

I should feel overwhelmed, but today I just feel happy. I feel like Tom Hamilton from East of Eden. Our worlds are both "shining and fresh and as unispected as Eden on the sixth day". It's the perfect temperature outside for life. It's the perfect temperature for living.

I'm anticipating Spring Break with open arms. I want to tap my hands on the steering wheel all the way home. I want to hug my family. I want to sit and drink coffee with my grandfather. I want to gather up all the children that I babysit and play neighborhood games with them. I want to have a picnic with my mom beside the Mis'sip. I want to wake up early and have adventures with my dog. I want to watch a movie with James and climb on the church roof with Mark like we've planned to. I want to lie in the grass in my yard and watch the stars do nothing...maybe shoot by. I want to wake up one morning, pack an assortment of "necessities" and go out, alone, into the world that I miss. I do NOT want to waste one minute.

Remember: (me as a time of day)(everything you can).

Horray, random commentary:

1. Donald Hubele...
is an English professor who has singlehandedly mastered the art of facetiousness. Posing questions as brilliant as "Why are mermaids so seductive? The bottom half of them looks like a carp.", Hubele has a way with words and of questioning the world around him. I once drew him, starting from a mole on his face, which I believe is my favorite of his noticeable physical characteristics, except for perhaps his mustache. His entire basement is filled with books and tools, (the essentials), and he blames the little mishaps of life on the supposed alcoholism of whoever happens to be close at hand.

2. My Contacts...
Are exceptionally dry. I feel as if they are affixed to my irises.

3. Mint Green...
is the color of my chipping nail polish. Also, it reminds me of hospital chair pleather.

4. Two...
the number of cups of coffee I've had this week. I could go for a Cappucchino, dry.

5. Boris...
is the fictional boy that I created with the Berry kids. His grandfather is a Russian onion farmer. Boris has a very disproportionate head and a hairy mole. I want to write a children's story about him.

6. To West Texas...
and "Remember me as a Time of Day" by Explosions in the Sky, along with "Theme", "Phone Call", and "Elephant Parade" from the soundtrack to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, are my favorite songs to turn on while I'm taking a walk. Incidentally, Eternal Sunshine has only further convinced me of the beauty of color and of life and of laughter...of sharing those, and of not forgetting anything that you can help remembering.

I'm exceptionally exhausted. My quilt and sheets smell of fresh laundry. Away I go, to sink deep within them and to dream ...and hopefully, in the morning, I can add them to my list of things remembered...

The Things I mooch off of Chris Brown...

Tonight, in my nightclass, when I should have been listening, I was actually reading Calvin Seerveld's "A Christian Critique of Art and Literature". I was blown away by the short section, "Art is Worship", which I am sad to say is all I was able to get through before dismissal. Seeing as I couldn't take it with me, I quickly scrawled an excerpt into my journal so that I could share it here in a timely fashion...


"...In the quiet of our hearts, we people here need to decide that a reformingly dedicated Christian artistic and literary activity is necessary because art and literature, whatever else they may be...and it does function in all spheres of human life, art is worship. Art is symbolically significant epression of what lies in a man's heart, with what vision he views the world, how he adores whom. Art telltales in whose service a man stands because art itself is always a consecrated offering, a disconcertingly undogmatic yet terribly moving attempt to bring honor and glory and power to something. This is my argument to you Christians: given the contemporary situation of clenched dispair and practical madness, unless you would be a pietist or synthetic Christian, in the spirit of childlike obedience to our Lord who has adoped us as His, encouraged by an unfolding and unifying Christian philosophy, how can you live openly in the world, God's cosmonomic theatre of wonder, while the (common) graciously preserved unbelievers revel color, a deafening sound raised in praise to themselves and their false gods, how can you live here openly and be silent? Are you satisfied with bedlam for God? Where is our concert of freshly composed holy stringent music? Our jubilant dance of praise to the Lord? What penetrating drama have our hands made? Why do we not break into a new song, not only ones from our slender archives? This is needed to show our God we love Him here too, passionately. We must not make a joyful noise just not to hear the other (although it is blessed not to have to stand around with sinners or sit down with mocking, scoffing company--(Psalm 1); but we must make all manner of art because we do hear the tales told by these idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That men of darkened understanding can make merry under God's nose and curse him with desperately, damnably forceful art should hurt you. God is not dead. Christ lives! Man is not absurd. He glories in the image of God. The world is not a curse, it is a good creation, struggling under sin toward final deliverance! And only different art, not censorship, will take this antithesis earnestly and meet it. "

Wow. Btdubs. This was written in 1963.

Celebrated Jumping Frog

"He's good enough for one thing, I should judge -- he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."


He’s there, great bulk that leapt
from the water-log, sidled stiffly
in a body of brown-tipped cattails,
a collection of claves, playing with the wind.
He, great green and gold-leafed god
of the pond, sings a song,
Barry White of the night, and calls
mocking from the brown backwater,
skirting along the depths of the delta’s
slick safe-haven. Waiting to rise
with coined eyes and watch
me watch him off.