Til now, I had never known love

This image is of the back of the stage at one end of the main room of The Antiquarium in Brownville, NE. Map cases. Art. Wood.

There are whole areas that smell vaguely of stained glass studio and a room with a typewriter from some time in the Dark Ages that my fingers twitched to touch, to use, to bring to life for them.

I did not buy anything. I took my father there on Sunday. He bought a 2 volume set of Plutarch's Lives. He told me that I had made an impression on my previous visit on the proprietor (a bare-foot and amiable Tom), who described me as self-affected (or -effected, I am not sure which). He continued to say that I knew what I wanted to do and didn't need anyone to help me. Wrapped in my tweed and scarf clutching scrap paper to my chest as a blanket, I believe the description is not unkind, but correct. My parents agree.

There is a kind of similarity about places and people who show love to each other through the medium of books. It is the spaces that I love: the specificity in a reading area; the smell of contemplation; the muffled sounds of trafficked floors and the deliberately random conversations. Everything you can see is alive in a place that loves the life of books and book-people. Every book is a conversation and when you open it at random or on purpose, the conversation invites response. It is the same with the people who care for collections of books.

There is a difference between a life that is spent living and one that is spent collecting. A room with a bunch of books is not the same as a room that is a library. I worked with books that were treated as objects, as commodity, and never could internalize it. Library is the world of books that makes sense to me. There is some kind of order, it doesn't even matter particularly what kind of order as long as order exists. Collections and sections exist, as to interactions between those collections and sections and their curators and their interactors. Intra-Library networks.

I love the smell of bookshelves. I love that I know someone who smells the differences in dust as chocolate or lemon custard. I love that I argue with someone about what exactly defines a library and that there is someone else whose definition matches mine exactly. I love that there is someone in this world whose life is like the one that I want to live.

That all paled the moment I walked fully into The Antiquarium. There is a soaring of spirit that happens with love. A kind of smile that is only partly on the lips, the rest of it living in lungs and spleen and leg muscles.  A challenge and contentment. The possibility of Life.

A beautiful thing about loving the spaces of books is the 's' at the end of the word. Plural. Unconfined. Possible.

I live in a town with a used book store like a used book store. It is jarring. I come from a city with two used book stores like libraries, the most comfortable and accommodating way stations for books and their likers and their lovers. A Novel Idea and Bluestem Books changed my way of thinking about bookshops entirely, and for the better. The Antiquarium showed me a way of my future.

It is good to fall in love again.

Big Crazy Idea (the two-th)

November: National Novel Writing Month, is just over a month away. Tonight and tomorrow and probably the next day as well will involve writing short stories based on photographs taken by one of my favorite photographer/Muses; they begin the reconnection with the stories of a larger/longer work (see below). Tonight and tomorrow, the next day and probably month will involve writing a long short story arc based on a little idea in my brain for my other Muse who will draw my voice in my absence.

I was thinking: wouldn't it be fun to write the 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo and then take the time to edit them together with the other 60,000 words I've already written of the same novel (really, I love this story. it is never going to not be in my brain. I hope.) and craft something like chapters? I do not mean that it will be fun to edit the thing, mind, I mean letters. I mean to send my writing out to people deliberately as shareable object, as art.

Now that I have quite the small stash of plantable and other sorts of gorgeous paper (paper that is not for the insides of journals, mind, but the outsides of insides that are meant to hold the ends of good decisions, or bad decisions well written), I have the means to create little books of small bits of fiction.

But what's the fun of just sending these things out into the world (of a very carefully chosen audience made entirely out of the people that I love (not a very small number, I know, but still))?

What I'm thinking is a reading. Something involving lots of tequila (for me and my ego) and friends and chapter indicators drawn out of a hat (or a mixing bowl)(or a frog) and chapters read aloud.

So.

Beginning November 22 and ending December 10 I will send chapters of my novelthing of fairytales-sort of through the US Postal Service to people whose addresses I have and who actually want to be involved in this. I do not care what state you are in - Skype is our friend. I do not care how long I have known you.

If you opt to get a chapter: 1) please be willing to share with other people, but only other people that you are going to be able to find later (readings don't work when there's nothing to read); 2) please be happy to read whatever chapter you have when it comes time to share.

I would like to wait until Spring to do something like a reading, though, as the plantable paper will need to be planted after the reading, and that is the kind of thing that spring is very good for.

Let me know if you are In. I am not interested in conscripting participants into my activity. I believe in consenting adults only.

The Friday Love Blog

These make me happy. They really do. And also:

Singing out loud at the grocery store. It sounds better than normal, but different than in-the-shower better than normal. I wonder if it has to do with the part where, like dancing in the grocery store, it's not that you can't do it, it's that most people just don't. When Wil Wheaton is Boss of the World, I'm going to start a grocery store chorale. To go with the dancing.

Porridge Papers, the papermill and letterpress store of amazing and possibility. Where are also employed some of the most creative and wonderful people I've met yet. And that's saying something, because, really, I've met my friends! Anyway, they have a blog, they've been on TV, they've made plantable paper for someone in ENGLAND (which is not the same place as Nebraska) and have opened a second location in Brownville, NE (where there is a regionally famous flea market this weekend (hint hint)).
Also, they are sending me a sack so that I can buy a 5$ sack of scrap paper, even though that sale ended last Saturday. My heart goes awwww right here. Right at this moment where a business I support in my words and my heart makes it that much easier for me to support them with a few dollars. You need to friend them on Facebook and then spend lots of money on very big orders of sparkly scented seed-filled paper! Scented!

You know it's love when Freakangels makes you smile on a skip week.

I've been away for a while, but Hannelore and Faye win.

So do the Book Reviews at Unshelved. Yes, the comic is good, too. Of course the comic is good. My heart is a librarian. Sheesh.

Me and LibraryThing, we got a thing going on.
It's cool.

And thanks to AirTreks (those stinky travel people), I now have a new blog to read that reminds me to spend my time well, not just because I can. The Traveling Savage. I love this name. Love it.

Normally, Veronika von Volkova shares of photographs and images that speak more than a thousands of words (not always SFW). Today, she also shared teh cutest travel arrangements ever.

Next week, I will have a new thing to share with all you. But it will take a week to set up and all of that, so be patient, darlings.

And yes, more Big Crazy Ideas on the way.

Big Crazy Project Idea (the one-th)

K Street Power Plant in Lincoln, NE sits at the intersection of 9th and K. My grandfather worked there. My father has memories of visiting him and of the noise and the heat and the boilers that dwarfed houses and also of orange soda that he drank as a treat on those days in that hot place.

The building is filled with boxes of stuff that the city of Lincoln is saving against the time when it will need to know that Mr and Mrs OffTheirRocker decided to home school their children instead of committing blasphemy by allowing someone not God or themselves to do so in 1985. According to the 1998 Annual Report of the Library/Archives Division of the Nebraska State Historical Society, "This space will accommodate the acquisition and storage of state, county, and local government records, as well as security copies of government microfilm."

I have a better idea.

The K Street Power Plant Foundation, a community based privately run library and art space. The library's collection features mostly periodicals, classics, comics, graphic novels and webcomic based publications and collections.

The periodicals collection specifically and deliberately includes every issue of Foreign Affairs, History Today, Biblical Archaeology Review, any title in the classics, literature, urban studies, libraries, geosciences and titles collected from the offal of libraries whose collections are cut in the name of "better customer service." We, of course, encourage all private citizens and university departments to do the same; to house these collections and make them available as they can.

The Librarians have a soft spot for comics and comic artists and so have amassed a collection that appeals mostly to them. They have diverse tastes. Supporting individual artists is part of the function of strong communities, and in this world of the internet and globalization, community is no longer defined solely by physical proximity. Forum proximity does make a difference, and many of the artists whose work is on the walls, or has inspired the Steampunk themed interior design, particularly of the main reading room and its balconies are known to The Librarians personally or through one of a few very specifically chosen online fora.

The Librarians also believe that knowledge of the thought patterns of the past and present lend foundation to the thought patterns of the future. Work of Greek and Roman and Arabic and Byzantine and Mesopotamian and Indian and Chinese and Japanese and so on thinkers have been collected for perusal and nibbling and discussion. Seminal works in different genres have been collected in duplicate or triplicate where possible.

The Librarians do not feel that it is appropriate to expose curious minds to tripe and dreck and would therefore appreciate it if you would keep your suggestions that they include more vampire romance, girl mysteries and crackpot conspiracy histories to yourself. This is a private library. Membership can be revoked based on just how stupid The Librarian thinks you are that day. They are trained to maim. Be aware, and be thoughtful.

This is a privately run library for several reasons. We felt that it would be prudent to allow the city to learn us as we learned them, that would be slowly. That relationship ought to be kept as positive as possible, therefore we felt that it was better for us, situated as we are in a very tense little city, to place limits on who could interact with our collections. We decided that anyone over the age of 16 could become a member without parental consent, thereby reflecting the policy of the public library system. Given the more, eh, naked or violent or heretical or downright ridiculous nature of some of the material in this collection, we realized that we were not suffering by imposing limitations. Sometime avoidance works. We call it deflection.


We also chose to manage this privately because of our need for control. We wanted control over everything that came into this building. We wanted to choose it all individually and with purpose. We wanted to be the only ones dictating where the radiant heating would be, how many solar panels we expected, where the glass forge and the kiln would go downstairs, how much gallery space, how much studio space and how comfortable the upstairs apartments would be. We wanted to make sure that the designs for the leaded glass windows that face 9th Street would be left to their creator to design and to us and our friends to build and install. In short, we wanted to be The Queen.

It is written into our mission statement and our bylaws that this Foundation has as one of its long term goals integration with the Lincoln City Libraries. Twenty years seems a good time to determine what role the Power Plant will play in this community and how well-funded it will manage to make itself.

******
The windows facing 9th street all leaded in a design created by a local artist and crazily talented person (already chosen).

The main reading room with a second floor walkway around the outer perimeter, heated by radiant heat and active solar, cunningly designed to keep the sunlight off of the collections and the artwork. The floor warmed with rugs and computer stations for webcomic viewing and research and creating. The old boilers in pieces holding us all in to a huge open space. The desk attended by two qualified librarians and a volunteer or intern. Always with the power to revoke privileges for the day or for the ever.

Apartments (two) at the top of the building to be used by artists in residence, rent as work - 20 hours a week in the library or in a gallery, doing outreach, organizing something that we just don't feel like doing, planting the rooftop garden, teaching a child to draw, that kind of thing.

Studios for rent at reasonable rates to those who make it past us (the jury) and our peer group of advisors (who also know stuff).

Gallery space and small show space for theater, music, 2D and 3D art.

Collaborate with other galleries and venues during Lincoln-wide music and arts events. Collaborate with the university to provide alternate and creative spaces for conference presentations and events. Invite local organizations to hold fundraisers in the space on a sliding scale. (They provide the catering and the decorating and the tables and chairs, we just do space. Unless we like them and they are active and nice people and not likely to show up and piss us off. (We are sensitive to this.))
******

No idea how much it would cost. Never did get my hands on the blueprints. Don't even have a reasonably good picture of the place to shove in people's faces when I get all tangential and have to prove how brilliant and community minded I really am. Really. I am.

The city entertained bids to turn the building into condos about 8 or 9 years ago. Well, Mayor Seng acted like she was entertaining those bids. She denied them just before it was point of no return. The money would have to be physical and present and the proposal damn tight.

Patience and practice and faith.

It is still The K Street Power Plant. We power the creative.

Allow me to state my reasons ...

My quest for graduate schools is, yet again, proving to be a challenge. Preservation and Conservation of Texts falls into the same category as Archives Management, and every program wants to make me a leader in the field of records management.

I do not want to be a leader. I have never wanted to be a leader. It's work and it involves administrative stuff. No. Really. But thanks for the opportunity.

I missed a phone interview yesterday with a woman who may just have every qualification that I want to have (including the part about working to restore and repair library bits). There is frustration, and there is time.

It is no longer a story of discovering my life's goals and interests. It is story of what skills need to be developed, what experiences gained, what understanding and resources discovered in order to achieve those goals and live a life that is involved and communicative and active and creative.

Libraries exist in several planes: the physical collection of materials - of books and artwork and photographs and maps and directories; the physical catalog of information that is stored and accessible in that physical collection - Librarians and card catalogs; the aether based collection of materials - digitized works of literature, reference works and artworks; and the aether based catalog of information; and the physical and aether presences of the library itself - the places where people go, the destination.

All of these presences and functions relate to the function of Library in community as a resource to meet immediate needs (entertainment, job seeking, completion of assignments, paying bills) and as it meets longer term community needs, needs that relate to the definition of a community, to its legitimacy in the larger world, to the survival of a community in times of need and emergency whether it such an emergency is caused by nature or humanity.

My personal goal is to become a person who is a trained academic librarian, and a trained bookbinder and a trained restorer and repairer of books and other texts. Librarians provide support to communities in chaos, and yet there are few who provide support to them.

Time spent behind the front desks at various government supported institutions, universities and libraries, taught me that people have the most incredibly varied sets of questions. I have witnessed the difference between a question that can be only partially answered by the person behind the desk, and one that can be fully answered. That difference usually lies in the training and abilities of the person behind the desk. Administrative encouragement also plays a large role.

I do not believe that I would have learned to be as brave and persistent in following up on questions were it not for my supervisor at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln who believed that every person who called, even the people who called by mistake, had valid questions and those questions ought to be answered if we could. If we could not, we had the responsibility to get that person as close to an answer as possible. It was a tremendous lesson in public service. It meant that I interacted with people for longer as I learned what they were asking, what I could do to help them. It meant that I began to see conversations as more than small talk. I learned to understand the nature of questions.

At the Bennett Martin Branch of the Lincoln City Library, I witnessed the power of parsing questions into easily (or at least directly) answerable segments. That was the place that taught me about the power of loving your job. I have never worked in an environment that was so administratively negative or micromanagerial in my life. I have never seen such talented and dedicated and competent people so disregarded and marginalized. I had never been witness to the destruction of departments and collections and careers.

And yet, I loved my job. I was happy there. The three years that I worked as a shelver, and the 12 or so months that I was employed as a temporary Library Assistant II changed my life. I respected and enjoyed my co-workers. That was the place that showed me the person I want to be. I realized that I would not be able to be that person, with that set of skills, without further training and that would only be found in graduate school.

A short stint in the Binding Department of UNL's Love Library, a history of making leaded glass windows, jobs making pizza and sandwiches, work dissecting thistle heads and working on thistle crew, reading the Ink Trilogy by Cornelia Funke and the One Book, One Lincoln selection from 2009, The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, as well as a life long love and pursuit of ceramics and knitting and crochet and cooking: these are my inspiration and motivation to learn bookbinding and book preservation. A sense of the world as my home, and my place in it as requiring community involvement leads me to seek out an academic foundation in the history of libraries and their destruction and restoration and repair. It also leads me to build a history of volunteerism and to pursue a career in being present where libraries are damaged by human and natural causes. To be an aid to recovery and survival with two competent hands, a good sense of humor, and an even better sense of the place of library in the world and in human history.

Oh, baby, it has been awhile...

On Twitter it's called Follow Friday #FF.
I used to do this because it seemed the best use of my time on Friday afternoons when I was bored and not doing work at work. I miss it.

This is a list of things that make me smile or captivated:

Freakangels
I read at Whitechapel that this will end after the 6th volume. We are now about half way through volume 5. Yes, they are and will continue to be available as trades, but there is something lovely and immediate and taunting about waiting for Friday morning and the potential for a Skip Week or a flashback or even more gut-squirmingly gorgeous images and dialogue.

Everyone is reading Unshelved, right?
RIGHT?
Right.

I reconnected with my GoogleReader this week. It was nice, getting rid of all the old, unread and unnecessary old stuff and really focusing on the present, with the knowledge that the temptation of understanding will win out over any qualms I have about hours spent reading archives. Public art holds a place in my heart that was happy to be rediscovered.

Beauty from and thru Wooster Collective...

... Tape Art in Slovenia
... Stinkfish (compelling and entrancing and I don't care if I can never read the language on the page, it is beyond words)

And then, then there is fora.tv.
I've actually bothered to do the whole having-an-account thing. The profile does a thing which made the commitment worthwhile: it tells me what I have watched and what I'd like to watch (I tell it that part (it is not mind-readerly (ew))). Programs are tracked in ways that are not limited to tags, which is refreshing. The Long Now Foundation hosts many lectures, about 61 of them are available for viewing through fora.tv at no cost (there is a paid-for-it account that allows greater access to the videos on the website, but I'm having a blast without it. Truly.). No cost for an hour of lecture? Yes. Yes much.

Lord Martin Rees speaking about the cosmos is easily my favorite. Astrophysicists ask incredible questions and find intriguing ways to answer them.

Wade Davis speaking of the importance of cultural diversity and its maintenance is a program that I will be happy to watch again and again. His delivery belies a life spent around campfires and in tents and close places where people speak many words without interruption and think carefully before doing so. It is worth noting that this talk is preceded by a shortlong film that is breathtaking.

Next on my list of programs to watch is Fun Inc,: Games as the Business of the 21st Century because duh!

The world is a beautiful place.
Enjoy it.

Cloudy with drizzle and courage

I am wearing my bathrobe today. All day. Until I go to work. Or for a walk through the town to be braver about the weather than I am right now. Now I am safe and indoors with a lovely view of things from the distance of my father's desk.

My desk no longer offers such safety - it is covered with a letter half-created and three more to write today. I cannot say that they will be wonderful these letters, but I do not believe that they will suffer for it - rhythms are most often reached through repetition. It is the repetition's crash that I find difficult.

Any writer or artist will tell you this: the act of doing is indescribable. The act of having done is freefall and reaction. It sucks. The only way that I have ever found to keep some of that under control is to limit the amount of time I spend doing the words into some kind of order thing, or to limit the words, or to make certain that what is written is meaningless and disconnected. But these are all false and they do not work.

It is an act of bravery that will get me off my ass here and back on my ass in there, typewriter to hand, words in no pre-determined order put down on paper to be sent to unsuspecting friends and acquaintances. They are all of good humor. I hope.

I am reading The Geography of Strabo (in translation, of course) and am struck by something that is so terribly human and yet so terribly limiting. Strabo spends a good amount of time criticizing the words and works of others. There are various and valid reasons for this: to establish the correctness of the sources he uses; to define what are the limits of geography in terms of geometry, astronomy and physics; to define a vocabulary and expectation of word use; and to be kind of a jackass at people who he thinks are just wrong, and blind and make dangerous assumptions (cough cough).

At one point, he discusses a map that was drawn and became very popular and well read and he complains, rightly, that even though the map does not represent what is known of the known world at the time (even when it was drawn), and that many scholars and scientists recognized the problems with the map, it was not redrawn and the mistakes must be explained over and again because people used it, they believed it. It was written. If, as someone recently said to me, if we acknowledge that every writer is a product of time and place, then how much can I imagine it would take not only to publicize a map, to defend it and distribute it, but what would it take to do more than point and scoff at its mistakes. To make an argument of a conversation, to willingly engage with another person's intellect, ability and experience in order to alter a thing which has been made almost concrete; these are acts of confidence and openness that always astonish me.

It is one thing to blather on a will. I do that all the time. Even in my brain, when I'm not talking to anyone or writing anything, there is blather. Really. It doesn't ever actually stop. But rarely is it well-thought out and even more rarely am I prepared to brook dissent and argument. (Granted, most of the arguments that have been leveled at me are of a personal nature and do not much more than convince me that most people are not as willing to see things from different perspectives as I generally find desirable (really).(in other words, we don't hang out.))

Most of my relationships involve a certain degree of distance. Usually that distance is intellectual or emotional. Now that it is physical and not likely to become less as time goes on, but more, I find that there is a need for courage.

The sky glows light gray in front of the afternoon sun. I've boxes to move yet and letters to ponder. This evening I will take a long way to work.

A difficulty, considered...

I am going to India.
The money is paid, the tickets are bought.
One of my best friends is getting married Hindu-style to one of the best men I know, and my parents made sure that I can be there.

So, that's awesome, right?

I just got a job - it pays minimum wage, it involves standing and stuffing inserts into papers for 3 hours one night a week and not more than 12 hours another night.
It is work. It is a paycheck. It is a start.

Last night was the first shift I'd worked since I learned I'm going to India this winter, so I took a moment and told my boss that I will be gone from work for probably 3 weeks over Christmas.

Her response was "Well, I guess I'll have to let you go," which I interpreted as she'd have to fire me and hire someone else for the season (a thing which I kind of feel is not entirely unreasonable) and then, "I usually like to only have one person gone at a time, and I think someone else is going to be gone, but since you're going to India, I guess I'll have to let you."

A) I will quit if it comes down to that.
B) "Let" me go? Are you sure about that?

and then this happened in my brain:

Minimum wage work tends to be the most physically demanding, both in terms of the kind of work that is done and the lack of flexibility there is in doing it. The people who do what I think of as necessary grunt work are treated as replaceable and yet are reminded of their responsibility to show up and work hard and to not expect any of kind respect or meaningful acknowledgment. I have worked many of these jobs, and am forever astonished at the callous ways in which my co-workers and myself have been treated, especially as the timeliness and correctness of the work we did was always somehow crucial to the future lives of other people. They needed us and yet we were inferior and dismissed.

I recognize that a degree in higher education and/or specialized training and skill development get rewarded. I intend to go to graduate school and to develop specialized skills so that I can be rewarded. It is not unfamiliar to me, nor is it to me unfair. I do not intend to ever be at a job where I am not working. I do not intend to pursue a career in something that allows me to ignore it for hours a day or days a month or months a year while still insuring me an unbalanced allotment of power. I intend to work with people whose skills are not necessarily the same as mine, but are respected by me and by each other.

So here is the observation: The people who are not paid enough to provide themselves with adequate (much less desirable) medical treatment are the ones who are also not offered benefits as opposed to the people who can afford to pay for private doctors and full-coverage insurance without having to go through an employer. The people who cannot afford to not work for a few days (much less to travel (more on that later)) are not even offered vacation days. This is an imbalance that seems more than unfair, it seems unspoken. There is nothing that makes me less of a human being than someone who makes 4 times what I do in one day. And yet there is this expectation of disregard and distrust and its resultant anger and despair.

My experience of people is that while we speak words that seem to express our general sentiment that we are all created equal, we all do live lives that continue to reinforce the idea that some of us are more equal than others, and that there is somehow a moral component attached to a paycheck. Better people deserve more nice things to themselves. Those of us who have accepted generous gifts offered by people in our lives are not as good as the people who have provided these things for themselves. (Having said that: it is humbling to accept such gifts, and my gratitude knows no bounds. Travel is the thing that I do when I am the most myself, and nothing can express how happy I am whenever I get to pursue it.)

I would be self-sustaining. I would thrive and in some ways profit. I do not doubt that I've gotten my life into a position where it has to become creative and active and all the things that it needs to be in order to be more than it was 5 months ago. That was sort of the point.

None of this makes me a better person. I would not give up the physical act of work just because it seems that the society in which I live ascribes a certain level of negativity to it.

Much of the frustration in my life over the last several years has been an inability to express discontent in any way that does not seem irrational or self-indulgent or illogical. I am in no way free from my own politics, but that does not mean that I am shackled to a position or perspective. I have no idea what I will do with this slightly less shrieky approach to inhumanity in the world, but I like the idea that I can listen more easily.

Closets and hidden hypocrisy

Categorical statements and I have a long and occasionally problematic relationship. They tend to make a liar out of me. I resent them fully and yet have not figured out how to get them out of my life.

I found four pairs of high heels today as I was organizing the closet in my office. It was an immediate thought that I would need to issue some kind of retraction to a statement I made in my last blog entry lest I be called out.

Defensive, much? Bitter, many? I can't think of a non-platonic relationship that I've had where we both were not almost perpetually under an ill-fitting microscope. It is a response that I've earned, this anger and bitter.

But it is dull. And it gets nothing done. And it takes up space in the closet.

Friendships take so much time to build that there is no way to go forward without putting a label to something like an inconsistency and moving on. When you can see nothing but those labels, look elsewhere, and don't be too discouraged if someone else does the same. It is not possible to be everyone's beloved.

It is, however, possible to be beloved of your own closet. Which means that the denim capris that make me look like a model in Women's Edition will have to go. As well as the >shorts< ooo, those are not okay.

Not gonna wear it, don't keep it around, right? Not gonna love it, why worry whether you like it or not? Space is at a premium in this world. No need to take up too much.

Although, I do have this brilliant idea for keeping the broken down boxes from getting ew-y and filled with insecty things and too much gross: I will stand them up on their folded ends, supported between shelves or posts or filled boxes, and I will wrap them in a tarp, to keep whatever it is that might just move into the dry and warm attic from making a home in the things that will hold the guts of my home when it comes time to figure out just what that means. Again.

I interact with the stuff of my life, these nerve-endings in shoes and empty boxes cringe every moment, my fingers shake with the case cutter in them, ready to slice open something else, some other internal organ holding only it knows what. Every box could be marked Pandora and it would be less of a Greek Drama. My days begin in a line of fire over the trees out of my window and end in a pool of blood from my own caustic roaming. I wish every day for the this to be done. For something to settle into itself and become the thing called 'How I live'. And yet, much is in the wrong place, much is in no place yet, there are still unopened boxes that much be faced. The ones called "Storage" are for the next life, the next home. I forget how tiring it is to do this. I forget to wash my hands and rub my feet. I forget to always be gentle. I forget to require clarity.

I kept one pair of the high heels. I wore them in a wedding 5 years ago. If I never wear them again, I don't really care. They are a part of my past that I love.

Walking home

It is curious to me that as I've gotten older, people have become more and more concerned with how much I walk and when and more and more apt to offer me rides, even when I can see no reason for it.

As a child, I walked home from school almost every day. I know: uphill both ways in snow with no shoes and 100 pounds of books. While there was a slight rise leaving the school, I fully admit that it was downhill the whole way, I mostly forgot my books and my parents were very vigilant about my footwear. Although I was not always good about wearing long pants or tights. It was about a mile and a half, and since I walked at the pace of a stoned snail stuck in molasses, it took about an hour every day.

And No One Protested. No One. No one said "Call me when you get there." No one gave me that raised eyebrow look of despair at my act of self-transportation. No One.

When I was 17 and lived in Great Barrington and worked at the pizza joint, I walked about 3/4 of a mile to and from work. Going to work was nice, coming home was terrifying. There were no street lights, the road was almost always completely deserted and there was a cemetery that I had to pass. Also, it was winter in the Berkshires, I was miserable and cold and jumpy for the entire 7 months I lived there. It was so dark. I had never known that kind of dark in a residential area in my life. Ever. I learned a lot about being aware of my surroundings there. How to judge the distance from one house to another; how to know where my feet would fall on sidewalk or street no matter how much snow, things that I'd never processed before, but had known from experience.

In Wichita in my early 20's, I walked. And again, while occasionally friends would loan me their cars, parking was a pain in the ass and I was terrible about filling the gas tank. I preferred to walk. Everywhere. And No One required me to justify it. Or make the I got home safely call. I never got the half-eyebrow.

I write a lot about walking. It is my rhythm, it is how I see the world, it is my preferred method of transportation. I dream of walking tours and vacations that are pilgrimages and Hadrian's Wall and boots and light packs and no cameras and notebooks, because that's how I love the world the best. On the ground. Between my feet and their motion, in the sounds of the street level debris and the relative non-existence of passers-by.

So, I am here now, closer to 40 than my folks want to admit. In this very small town. I got a part-time job. I walk to it. It's about 8 blocks. Not 8 Chicago blocks, mind, these are short. And EveryOne is Concerned. Ev-e-Ry-One. All Of Them. Even the People Who Raised Me.

The walk is nice and sort of surreal. I cross the town square, go to the other side of town, if you will. There are street lights every four feet and wide sidewalks with easy to see cracks and gullys for safer navigation. I can stare in the empty storefronts and add something a little bit odd, a little bit not quite right to this deeply sensible little village. The stoplights tell me when to go and when to not go. I ignore them.

It is not over-confidence, it is simply that I will not have my life circumscribed based on someone else's ideas of propriety and routine. Safety is a thing that gets in my way more than it allows me live freely. High heels do not exist in my wardrobe. I know how to carry my keys for maximum blood-letting and also, I talk to myself at moments, just to maintain distance between me and, oh, everyone else.

Being a pedestrian is no longer about just getting somewhere unnoticed. I am aware of everything that goes on around me, from insects to pennies on the ground to just how many things besides driving the person at the green light is doing. I see the town, the city, the trees, the view.

I get home safely.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

Lent sort-of halfway point

It is long since I sat down with a keyboard under my fingers and typed to write this way. I spent much time with the manual typewriter November, but had no laptop, no personal computer and so could not have this moment. I am uncertain about it, to be perfectly honest with you.

It is more quick than I would like, but that probably reflects more on the amount of time I would like to take on my writing than it does on the technology itself. Self-control is what is required.

I began Lent with some aim of exercising self-control for 40 days. I do not know how well I succeed thus far. It is halfway gone once tonight is done. I do not know that the next 20 days will be any easier than the preceding, though I’ve been so jazzed about the cooking and the reading and the time that I’ve spent in my home doing more than staring at walls, and getting something like healthy (although that was never really the goal), and I’ve had more focus. Focus is the constant struggle. I would rather look at life as something less confrontational than ‘struggle’ and generally I do, I would not mislead myself simply because the words flow more easily from fingertips on a keyboard than they do from a pen onto paper.

Left-handed writing has become less difficult since I began doing it every day, but it is still not as polished as my right hand. I have thought of many things in conjunction with the books I read and lectures I hear. I think of knights and valor and honor and the feudal system and how entrenched behaviors can really be. We do not even question them or seek to change them, it is not the nature of humans to notice that they can adapt to their own notions of life. We spend much energy in our lives, especially now that many of us have figured out the self-control of living, teaching and telling and showing and generally doing just that: adapting to our lives as we would have them and then living the life as it has molded itself around our living. Self-actualization was not the call word of the Crusades.

There are practical decisions that must be made. They are about learning languages: Hindi, Latin, Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Old English, Middle English, Icelandic, Norman French, etc.

There are also practical decisions about money spending to be made: as in, the date is sent for wedding in Calcutta (not mine): December 21st, 2010. And I have no idea how much money I will need or how I will make or save that money. It is heartbreaking to me that I may not be able to go. I will live through the heartbreak, but that doesn’t change its reality in the least. I was hoping to get a chance to be hired as an LAII at the library. Six months of employment would be enough to allow me to save a good amount of money and spend some time wandering about the world before going to graduate school. Of course, that depends on getting into graduate school.

A thing which I’ve begun working on: I’ve finished the first draft of my Statement of Purpose. It is not bad, and I think that there are some good sentences worth keeping and perhaps expanding into something else, but it needs to be focused and determined and stellar – I will not send in a an application that does not rise to my highest standards. I have a lot of explaining to do, and I intend to do it and give myself the best possible chance to learn more of my trade. I am thinking that it will make sense to get more than one degree, so that I can do interpretive work as well as physical work. That is a bit idealistic, but it is a notion that finds much favor with me.

The last several days have been so full of moments of déjà vu that I hardly know when I am awake or asleep. My dreams flee from my in the morning, giggling as nymphs at the tidbits they have left me, tidbits which I find it more and more difficult to remember to pick up. I do remember that last night I dreamt of meeting Danielle in France, at an intensive language course/school. The scene was so real to me that I began to question my waking history and wonder if I really had experienced such a school and if our personal history was really that connected and perhaps we’d just forgotten and needed the dream to remember it. There was another dream that left me with much the same story not too long ago. Questions that it raised stayed with me for some time. I enjoyed them: were the girls dreaming their future as friends? If so, how did the phone numbers that they all remembered still work?

Lent Day 5

Careful and deliberate breathing.

It feels almost unjust to record these days and responses, however it is not, and keeps me writing, which is also part of the bigger goal: the specifically defined life. I have not taken time for such quiet and focused contemplation in too long to think about.

I have read today of the Sybils and of Hypatia. I have considered cataloging and the ordering of the mind in its cycles and distractions. I have wondered of the wisdom of recipe-less cauliflower and cheese soup. That may have to wait. I am not so certain of cooking yet and still must wash many dishes.

I found myself staring at the radiator in the kitchen, sparking with the possibilities of its inner life.

The bathroom floor & the sink are cleaned as are the desk and one of the bookshelves. I feel a bit like the kid in the picture book I had as a child who only washed one part of himself a day and at the end of the week was still half dirty!

It is not entirely surprising that I've begun to sweep more now that I spend much more time than before in close contact with the floor. I see the crud and smell the air. it is a completely different perspective.

Four of the clutter-keepers I made have been emptied. One of them is on the ironing pad - pinned (bottom & lid) to finally take some kind of shape that is well-defined. I had fun making those bowls.

It is noted that there are still many sore spots in the re-establishing of certain habits. I am uncertain what to call my responses to them. I am not apathetic, nor am I inclined to anger or re-created hurt (that is to say: there is old hurt & the recognition of its source, but without addition) from whining or a sense of unfairness. There is some lingering dismissiveness (as, for example, my predilection for some kind of ceremony of tea) which I feel is as harmful as any other lingering resentment. It is acknowledged and I cannot be honest and say that any more is required. The soreness will pass away, as the soreness of muscles kept working toward the goal of greater strength and flexibility. The pain exists. It is no meaningful distraction. It is more than I thought it was, which makes sense: if I did not know how tense and inflexible my body had become, how could I guess at the same stagnation in my ego and my heart.

I stretch my reason and my emotions must needs reach out. It is good to be gentle. It is good to clean one floor and let the rest be there on a different day.