Saturday 17 April 2010

about last night's question...

You asked me what I'm waiting for, and I said Mr. Right.

but that is a lie.
because I am not waiting and I am not looking and
I am not about stop not looking or waiting because
I'm busy.

It's just a phase, part of the choice that I made when it seemed the most obvious thing in the world to acknowledge what was in front of my face and follow it. I get growly and pull up grass and loll about at the trunk of a too young tree and then it bores me and I wander on into the future alone.
For now.

My mother says that life is what happens when you are waiting for life to happen.
I don't have that kind of time.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Things I might want you to know...

Today is April 13 of 2010. It is a Tuesday. The wind blows with strength and sunshine and I am sitting upstairs in my parents' home, in the office that used to be my bedroom. This is not as nostalgic as it may seem. But that is not the story for today.

I have just posted 4 other blogs. Two of them bear today's date. Two of them are dated earlier.

Lent of 2010 was an extremely change-filled time for me. It is barely over and already I understand how much more alive and involved I feel. I kept a couple of journals during that time, and enter their contents as I get the chance. I change the post options to reflect the date on which I wrote the entries, though I very deliberately did not make them public until after Easter. The tag is Lent.

I have also got myself all excited about a reading list that I started to create in December of 2008, and begin to have things to say about it and the books that I've read and other work that I find helps to construct a foundation and shape for this massive project. And you know, I knew it was huge. I knew it was, and did I realize it? Nope. As such, there are blogs about that. The tag is LRP.

I hope that as you read, you do follow links within this blog and around the internet. I have a great deal of fun linking to sites other than imdb, amazon and wiki-anything when I can, though I will when the other options are icky, slow-loading or questionable.

Constantly striving to change one's life bores me. Which means that life is in a constant state of flux and therefore I am never bored. It makes sense. In context.

Reading, 2.

How does art manifest itself in life?
How do those classes on the Humanities relate to anything lived in a life like mine: underemployed, un-ambitious, poverty level, un-consumer, un-insured, etc.
Where do those works of times past play into the world of writers of books that I can find and read, whether in my own library or the public library’s collection?
How important are they really?
And could a deliberate focus on non-fiction or a reading list comprised of an almost randomly selected group of titles be meaningful or have any connection whatsoever that would eventually lead it to be definable in some way?
*

I had and have another, much less esoteric motivation. Consistency and accomplishment have not been the defining themes of my life, though they have been the defining absences in many of my relationships (including interpersonal and scholarly). It is absolutely necessary for the success of my future self that I lose that attitude and gain something more like definition and direction. To that end, I saw this Grand Absurd Reading List as a way to delve into as many different areas of thought, time, space, geography, and style as I could without losing all potential coherence. As I write, it occurs to me that what I’ve ended up with has been a sort of Noah’s ark of cataloging. Which is a totally different story.

I’ve discovered many new ideas and ways of thinking. I’ve read books that have challenged my own self-imposed ignorance. I’ve read books that have annoyed me, and I am not done, which means that there are many more possibilities to be given life. I’ve begun to keep another list, one of movies, and another of books that I’ve read, not simply for The List.

I was keeping track of the music I listened to, and then that got to be too much, so I just keep track of it in my brain, which has a ton more room for holding onto information now that I’ve begun connecting loose bits with other loose bits and pulling ideas together, even loosely and absurdly. The patterns exist, even in books that seem totally unrelated or styles that have no rational connection whatsoever.

They are expressions of a living human, and they may just be enough.

I’ve put all of the titles that I could on my LibraryThing page.
Frida (scroll down until you see Salma Hayek) and Omkara are movies, and so excluded.

*Can you change your life without wealth, power, prestige or great beauty?

Reading, 1.

Writing reviews for my LibraryThing account has become a new sort of exercise for me. There is this struggle between how much I read and how much of that reading turns into something else, like a new link in my knowledge or a review or renewed vigor working toward a goal. It is difficult to know how to approach the desire and ability to read too much and temper it without abandoning it entirely. To that end, I have found that some requirements help. I concoct reading lists and goals and use them to gauge what I’m doing and how much of it I’m doing and then once I’ve pondered the goal I’ve reached, I make a new one that is modified and so on. It is in that relatively constant pendulum swing of thought and planning and action and result that I begin to find that my life looks like something that is more like what I believe a well-lived life is.

It is aware, involved, compassionate, decisive, disciplined, gentle, quiet, joyful and not without absurdity. I believe that moderation is a good touchstone, even when it is for itself. I believe that the best way to learn a thing is to do it, and there is no reason that a book cannot be as instructive as any other method of learning, provided that the learner take the time to give air to the words of his or her instructor as they cannot do it for themselves from within the pages of a closed or silently chewed over text.

As I considered the words I chose for my review of Journey to Portugal by Jose Saramago, it occurred to me that more than just a desire to travel to that country myself was kindled. Saramago is so infuriatingly specific with his words, particularly his terminology and architectural awareness that it almost drove me to despair. I read the book slowly, though, over a period of time that was longer in events that chronology.

The first time I read the book, I did not finish it. This had more to do with my health at the time than anything else.

By the time I got around to reading it again, I had a road map of Portugal from the 1980’s pinned to my wall and worked very hard to trace his route. My notes from the first part of that reading are just incredible, they are lists of place names and monuments and styles of architecture. I am deeply happy with them.

The third time I picked up the book, I finished it in a profound amazement.

My sense of distance from his specificity was countered very strongly by my sense of the richness of his experience and I began to ask some questions about my own experiences in the world.

Saturday 10 April 2010

Bridges

Last night there was the bridge over the river into Brownville in my dream. The river was tremendous and blue and lovely. It was more peaceful than terrifying, though there was a moment, as I drove onto the bridge that I was very afraid. The fear left, as I knew it had to, in order for me to get across. There was another bridge, sometime later, and it was incredible and long and as I drove across it, it became ever more steep so that I was driving almost straight up, and for a moment I was not sure I ought to be leaning forward as I was and then I reached the top of that one safely as well.

I wrote of bridges yesterday and still have many to cross. Perhaps the imagery will stick with me for a while. Perhaps I just read Ex Machina too recently and find that I am curious, I do not know.

Very simple yoga practice last night. I warmed up my spine and then meditated for a short while. Change is an invisible event, it must be approached sideways and gently and persistently and eventually you become aware that it has happened, but it is not for a very long time that it is possible to look back and see where and how it happened. Note: I do not include traumatic change, like physical injury or illness or falling in love or becoming a parent or theatre.

Today finds me unsettled and out of peace with much. Not cranky or disheartened, just not at my best or brightest. I will drink toddy and eat soda bread and approach the day gently, ever ready for a good warm hug if I need it. I think I will stay in instead of wandering about as I’ve been doing. I’ve an appointment this evening, and then I’ll probably head back home and be warm in my own space some more.

The wind is frightful and the sun is strong. I’ve to open the windows soon for the little ones, they are in need of a good long breath of fresh strong air.

Friday 9 April 2010

Day for Writing, Writing Day

Today is Writing Day. If I do the math I think I’ve got about 13 pages to write of script in order to catch up to where I’m supposed to be in order to avoid writing 83 pages in 2 days or so and still make it to the end of Script Frenzy with success.

I began a new yoga practice last night and I’m kind of excited about it, really. The work is essentially the same, but the movements make a certain degree more sense to me and feel gentler and more demanding. I do not see difficulty with this combination, as there is less strain put on my lower back in ways that cause it to hurt, but my leg muscles were shaking well before the end of practice. Shaking. It was a surprise. The focus required is not without difficulty and that seems right. The book belongs to the library and so will have to return to it, and I am hoping to gain enough knowledge and experience with the practice to be able to construct my own book of practices and to be able to remember what I’m doing when I do it. It is somewhat like knitting in the sense that the instructions are not going to make sense until you do them, whether you do them correctly or not – with exercise it is more important to move very slowly as mistakes are not generally as positive when it comes to manipulating your body as playing with yarn.

I do not remember dreams from last night. Boris woke me up at 4. He does this now. I am not entirely certain how to approach it. Do I scold him? (more) or do I appreciate that he’s my alarm clock and get up and begin my day? I’m beginning to suspect that the latter option is the one that will yield the more interesting results, especially as I already know what happens when I get tetchy with him and it is not really good. I find that I am more easily irritated lately, and while it will pass, there is still the question of how to control it and not to respond quite so strongly to events which would do better with a calm voice and love. There’s a practice for that. Woot.

Yesterday I listened to lectures on Anglo-Saxon history, specifically as a discussion of the fullness of the world of the Anglo-Saxons from the 500’s thru the 1000’s, so that’s 6th to 11th centuries. The lecturer is tremendous and emotionally involved and informed and willing to share and that is so much the reason that I enjoy these lectures – I do not have to compete with apathy in order to learn. It is such a barrier to engagement. The repetition of names like the Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great and Alfred the Great and the Cotton manuscripts – it is good to hear them again and again. It is good to learn of times and places in ways that add detail and more foundation to my understanding – (in the urban landscape of my thinking self, there are neighborhoods and bookstores and coffee shops and museums, but no libraries because it is the nature of my thinking self to be a library, willing to share and happy to organize and ready to throw a curse on anyone who mars or steals from the collection) there is no appropriate image that I know of (based on my own ignorance, not on its actual unavailability) to describe the dimensional world that holds detail and color and smell and someday will hold touch and taste as well, that moves through time in a way that is not linear and is not even specific to one person, but follows itself with ideas and words and spices and patterns of movements.

This small life that I am allowed to live is rich in heartbeats and creations and difficulties and community. Continued learning and passion for one subject after another brings it more and more life and responsibility.

Non-violence is a thing with which I struggle of late. To be perfectly honest (aside: how much do I love that a synonym for ‘honest’ is ‘frank’ like the firenj Crusaders who gave their nickname to the French), I have struggled with it for many years. It is very easy to see that violence destroys and begets itself and does not ever do anything but these things. It is not easy at all to behave non-violently. Even my language and jokes tend to be violent, emotionally, pridefully and physically at times. It is part of who I’ve become and that’s something that is more than a little bit challenging to overcome. Particularly as I have the desire, based on purely practical considerations, to learn all manner of self-defense as I will travel and I will live by myself and I’ve no need to ever again have to heal from not simply the act of violence but the horrible culpability that lingers believing that there must have been something that I could have done. There is no amount of gentleness too great in the approach to someone thus wounded.

And this concerns me, and very likely will concern me for the rest of my life. There are changes that I can make to my speaking and attitudes, and there are shifts in observation and in approaches to difficulties and challenges and obstacles and also demanding felines. He is curled up on the bed, watching me through sleepy eyes. His sister is in a window sill, watching the world with the sun on her fur, and now it is time for me to write about dreams and barbeques and other fragile thresholds of interaction…

Thursday 8 April 2010

On the outside

The day is brilliant and clear and I carry with me many books filled with information and advice and science and poetry and it is good.

The difficulty with unemployment (for now the only one) is mostly one of filling up my time in meaningful and positive ways. I am very focused on that combination of requirements of late. Not sure where they came from, but they are specific and I approve. I've accomplished nearly all of my goals for the day. There is one more bit of financial responsibility that I need to commit and then I will go and find another book and head home in the sunshine and happy to the land of face-buried felines and a new yoga routine. It is unnerving to think of starting new moves and different breathing and I think I'll do just fine.

I have not practiced for two days. It is not okay.

I remember only bits from one dream of last night and it was jarring. There were threads. Actual threads, one white, one orange (saffron?). I woke and struggled with something that has become a non-entity of late: despair. It is hardly unnatural or never to be expected, especially as so much changes between last week and the middle of August, and next fall and spring and the August that follows and every semester again and there really is no end to the movements of living. My heart has been very still of late, settling down past floodwater lines that I've never noticed before and telling me stories that have never had a voice. So to experience the fringes of pointless sadness was something not to be ignored, though also not to be embraced.

In my half-sleep the notion that this life is no longer on a conveyor belt, that the path it follows is walked and strolled and jogged and still and not inevitable or doomed, found words and they pleased me. I am not all for ego-strong free will, and I am not not not about to give it up to predestination. Life happens. And we/I decide what to do about it. It's very much a balance, a conversation, where pride and bravado and violence can seem to have more strength than sweetness and silence and the gentleness of a held hand.

In my vain attempts to prevent noticing the 'waiting' I have lectures to hear, books to read and projects to finish or start knitting and beading and crocheting and gluing and cleaning. I have about a week before anything exciting really happens again.

It is good to find my way here.

Friday 2 April 2010

Quarter year & Lenten check-in

Today is April 2, 2010. The year is one quarter gone, and I’ve decided that it’s time to check in and see how things are. It seems a bit unnecessary, but at the same time, it is a year of many changes and I’d like to stop for a moment and consider.

Lent is over in two days. I’ve kept most of my Lenten fasts very well. Very well indeed. It is not pride that inspires this statement, rather a general belief that it was good timing for my life to change all of the things that have been changed in the last 45 days.

The closer I get to Easter, the less inclined I am to believe that a completely ascetic life is a good idea for me. Balance is a much stranger beast in this modern life, and it is right that it should share this path.

I have not read a book for 5 days. It is terrible. This is the worst part of this experience; easily the most difficult and the most isolating.

This separation from books is like being away from my own heartbeat. Admittedly, there are also other reasons for this besides the creativity trigger, which would be enough in and of itself, as I am in the position of having to fill many hours of my day without the outlet and ease of picking up a book on some subject or another.

It is difficult for me to balance the desire to read with the overflow of information and potential for knowledge that is sparked. I do not write papers or reviews as I think would be sensible for the amount of reading that I do. There is a disconnect between what I keep in my brain and what I share of it.

Now that I’ve complained about the reading briefly, let's look at the rest:

1} Lenten fast on drinking. It was a very good decision on my part to quit doing this at home, especially as it was taking up a great deal of time and money and I did not feel very good in the mornings. I have drunk on days not Thursday, though I’ve not had more than one beer on those occasions. I have gotten good and tipsy with the girls on a Thursday evening, and it’s been good fun. Probably because there was food involved and good company and the evenings ended relatively early, and I took advantage of the fact to drink water on my return home and sleep well. I look forward to continuing this habit, to be honest. I enjoy a drink or two, and it will be nice to able to actually enjoy them rather than just drink.

2} Lenten fast on smoking. Also a good decision and one that’s been relatively easy so far. As I come closer to Easter and the weather improves, it gets more and more difficult to not want a cigarette, though the financial benefits from not smoking far outweigh the desire to sit outside on the porch and just smoke my way through the day. I expect that it is a habit I will not pick up again in earnest at least until I begin graduate school. I do not know which of the decisions I’ve made has had any impact on my health specifically, though I’m sure that they have all helped at least a little bit. I certainly feel better. And I’ve gotten through the part where I feel cranky about it.

3} The DVD and the TV and the VCR are in the closet. I miss them. I’ve listened to lectures, so do not feel the absence as acutely as if I had also quit reading for Lent (can you imagine the stress and strain? Don’t even try. It would have been terrible.). I do miss the stories and the commentaries and all that, but there is also something nice about not having the screen anywhere visible.

4} I gave up not doing Yoga every day. And I’ve kept to that very well. I’ve entirely skipped 4 days, I think. There have been days recently that I’ve practiced yoga, just not the routine for that day specifically. Yesterday I practiced yoga twice and harbor desires of developing a morning routine geared toward the stretching of my legs and loosening of my hips and shoulders.

5} No meat but for Thursdays. I love this. I love it so much. I’ve got meat in the freezer and will add more to it today after I go shopping for the chicken for my Easter feast, which is a necessary part of the ritual, I now understand, but I’ve no real craving for it. I prefer rice and eggs and something with beans in it for dinner. It sits easily in my gut, I feel good and the leftovers are so nice. I feel like a weekly sort of treat is not a bad thing, nor is it bad to eat meat out at restaurants, but there is so much more in the world and this prohibition did exactly what I wanted it to do (and perhaps more): it convinced me to look around for different options and to consider different spices and ways of approaching my food habits. I truly do feel better. It is noticeable.

6} Work every scheduled shift. Yes. That worked. It worked really crazy well. I am thinking of ways to get myself to hold to that for the rest of my life. There were days that were difficult to get up and go, and it didn’t matter. I did it and I’m glad that I did. Now, I also quit my job when it became clear to me that it was going nowhere and was going to become unmanageable and there was no protection or respect available from the management. I have been unemployed for almost two days and I’m almost stir crazy for lack of work to do outside of the house. I’ve gone walking around town and around my parents’ house.

7} Coffee and chocolate are totally allowed. All blessings to the coffee bean pickers and the cacao bean pickers. All blessings to the people who process them and package them and get them here. All blessings to the people who introduced these amazing and wonderful beans to the world outside of their own purview. They are beautiful things and ought to be held in high esteem and respected more than they are in the world. I do not believe in being lazy about my coffee or my chocolate any more. Never again will I take it for granted. Never pretend that it doesn’t matter how good or how well made. Without these to bring me pleasure, I might well have forgotten about those senses entirely and without the ability to be pleased, I cannot see how joy has any meaning whatsoever.

8} Script Frenzy. I wrote 5 pages on my first day. I will write more today. I have until April 30 to write all 100 pages. I have no illusions about the mixed media nature of these script pages. It is deliberate and I rejoice in the collage.

Other observations and Behavioral changes: I have begun to pray. I have begun to meditate. Yoga practice is a time of day for focus and concentration and it is more and more challenging and encompassing. I do not begin to pretend that I have any idea ‘how’ to pray or ‘how’ to meditate. They are actions that I begin to take. I work to practice them with the same level of focus as I use for yoga, and I work to increase that level daily, in my everyday actions and responses and behaviors. I have begun to find myself experiencing levels of joy that are mystical to me as yet. I walk down a known street in this known city and the sounds are the sounds of prayer and life and there is nothing that is not beautiful in it. I am everywhere and anywhere and all of it rejoices.

I begin, slowly, very gently, to push my feelings to the surface, to share them with the people that I love. It is new to me and I find that I am nervous about it. Physical intimacy is much easier than emotional intimacy. But I do not have that option. And it is good that I do not, for these are relationships that are defined very specifically and they do not involve physical intimacy. I cry very easily and wonder at it, but have decided that it is not time to address the issue as yet.

I have kept two journals through this Lenten season. I am curious to read what they say starting Monday. I have begun to consider the definition of what is ‘real’ and how I interact with my dreaming life.

My contemplations on the nature of emotions in my life have not yet found words, though they are ever present in my days. They are positive and productive and I am pleased to continue them. I feel that I will start to see their results in my writing soon enough.

I have begun to save money and see that it is good and I am pleased with the results and would very much like to persist in this. Life is full and rich right now, and that is without great expense although it is by no means at the expense of good food or friendship or entertainment or society. I am pleased and gratified and feel that there are many things to say on the subject, especially as there are so many people who would love to change their lives and only see examples in people who have a lot of money, because they see that only money solves everything.