One of those days

I'm having one of those days where I feel pulled in a zillion directions.  I hate this feeling.  What do I want, you ask?

1)  Sunlight.  Although it isn't sunny today, I am noticing the light.  I don't know if it is considered a wavelength?--but the strength of the light.  It isn't as weak as it is during the winter.  We're on the cusp of the spring thaw.  The sun is also coming up earlier.

2)  Moon.  Full.  Enough said.

3)  Outside.  I want to go for a walk but I have a million things to do that require my attention.  Also, it is muddy slush with ice patches on the road.  Still not the greatest walking conditions.

4)  Grading.  Ok.  Well I don't really feel pulled to do this except the deadline is tonight for grades and I should just suck it up and finish.  I suppose complaining takes more time than actually doing...

5)  Writing.  I just put together another piece of my puzzle yesterday and now I'm wanting to write but I won't until I get this stupid grading done.  I do enjoy death scenes.  Does that make me perverse?

6)  Reading.  I'm sucked into Patrick Rothfuss' book The Name of the Wind.  I am enjoying the voice and the structure of the story.


Moon Report:  100% of full.  Full moon.
Outside:  Soggy snow and mud.

Up during the wee earlies

Sometimes insomnia is worth it.  Last night my back yard was beautiful in the almost full moonlight.  The white blue of the snow and the blue black of creeping tree shadows were picture perfect.  If only I'd thought to actually take a picture!!!

This brings me to another resolution for the New Year:  to share.  I am not exactly an open book--even with my friends and family.  I don't think I have always been so closed, but I have noticed it getting worse as the years pass.  I hoard secrets about things that I feel are private or emotionally close to me.  So I am going to violate that habit in the worst way possible:  I am going to post an unpublished poem from my dissertation.

How to Take it Back


In the earliest morning light
she shuts off the car, steps out and the snow
she brushes back on the windshield readjusts itself.
Everything has accumulated overnight.  Frigid
air steals the bitter choke in her throat as it pulls away
from her, as she walks backward through the door.
Whole and without question the dead air swallows her,
shackles her in the heavy moments.  The rooms are filled
with coffee and shower soap, with dribbled words.
Silence spreads like unfurling leaves.


The pre-dawn darkness erodes the morning 
and again harsh streetlights filter through the bedroom window catching
the isolated curve of her icy hipbone.  She remains
uncovered, eyes open to his stiff and breakable
backbone, the uncrossable line.  His shoulder 
half hidden by a blanket, the murky and shadowed skin.
Orange light squares the walls.


He returns to her, faces her with steady eyes.
She rolls into the crook of his arm, cheek against ribcage,
feeling each contraction of his heart.  She pretends
to be awake and the stars have reappeared
as eyes of angels peeking between the arms of clouds.
These two begin to breathe as if it is their first breath in this life.
Calves and elbows and navels--this continuous loop of flesh
and madness.  Where they fasten together like hooks and eyes unfastens.
They uncreate the form of it all, bodies
awkward and angled and moving.
They rebuild themselves.


He is shadow and everywhere the same color,
the color of blue ghosts over his knees, earlobes, and fingers.
She is blind with yellow light from the street outside--
it might be snowing.


"Blue Under the Moon." Diss.  U of Idaho, 2001.

Since I'm feeling a bit poet-y today, here's the link to "Cold Watercolor" by Wyatt Prunty.  This is The Writer's Almanac poem for today (January 3, 2010).

Moon Report:  88% of full.  Waning gibbous.
Outside the Window:  Bright blue sunny.  Snow glare.  Cold.

A Road Map

Sometimes it is easier to find your way when you already know where you are going.  These questions are from Julia Cameron's book The Vein of Gold on pages 105-106.  I think they are useful when I need a reminder about what things move and motivate me.  Think of them as a useful compass...


1.  Name five favorite films.
2.  Name your favorite childhood book.
3.  Name three characters you loved.
4.  Name three characters you would love to play.
5.  Name three topics you think about.
6.  Name three topics you read about.
7.  What was your childhood book about?
8.  What are your movies about?
9.  Do your movies and books have anything in common?
10.  Do your characters, your reading, and your thinking connect up somehow with your movies and your childhood book?


Other helpful sites
The Happiness Project Toolbox
Authentic Happiness
The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch


Moon Report:  95% of full.  Waning gibbous.
Outside the Window:  Cold.  Partly cloudy complete with muted snow glare.

Confession

This is not about confession as in "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...", but the kind of writing that allows for the expression of emotions--even the ones we keep hidden from just about everyone (including ourselves).

I am perpetually fascinated by the masks people wear. Some people are distant. Some people are smart. Some people are slackers or lovers or garbage collectors. Most of us wear masks even when in the arms of the most intimate company.

We do our best to "keep up appearances"--to maintain our facade through the daily routine. But sometimes we crack. Sometimes the mask slips and we are on full display in our rage and fear and sadness and hope and love. We can be glorious. Even if only for a moment.

Occasionally, we allow these slips to be channeled into a written format. It can be as horrific as a slap in the face. It can be easy and small. But it makes us real. It gives us shape--even long after we are gone.


Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
PostSecret
The Secret Postcards
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists


Dear XYZ--

We've lived separated lives over years, centuries, eons...who can tell? In the too short moment crossing I...(insert phrase of your choice here). Did you know you still live under my skin? I never imagined this would be so wrenching.

Words take too long.

Moon Report: 80% of full. Waning gibbous.

quick note

Moon Report: 90% full. waxing gibbous.

I love the astro-sciences. There are always cool things to discover that do well to remind us that we are just dots on the epic scale of the cosmos. Like the article I found today about stars.

There are three rules for writing the novel.

Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

--W. Somerset Maugham

My writing 1000 words per day is still ongoing. Not always am I faithful (even as a new resolution), but I do write more now than I have done in a long, long time. I like it.

Lazy Friday...

Moon Report: 33% of full. waxing crescent.

I know that the language of my passion

and the language of my art are not the same thing.

--Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

So, again I am back to writing. Not writing as blog, but writing as actual pen on paper writing. I forgot how much I loved it. I forgot how much I love the story, the characters. It has been a homecoming--scratching pen on paper and inky fingers with doodles for figuring out how things work.

It's nearing three and I have yet to eat lunch (or breakfast for that matter). My tummy is rumbling. However, I think I am going to pack it down to the local grocery store where they have an enormous salad bar. Something green and leafy is what my body is screaming for. I think I've overdone it with all the squash I've eaten lately. The green beans I had yesterday just didn't cut the craving. Every once in a while I just need a gigantor salad filled with spinach and endive and garbanzos and peppers and carrots and celery and sunflower seeds and mandarin oranges and cottage cheese. Yum. [I'll be able to get most of this out of my own garden this summer!]

*****

Although I'd heard of it before, I stumbled on to this site a few days ago and joined: Ravelry. This is a knitting/crochet community where you get to see what patterns people have developed on their own or the projects they created with found/purchased patterns. Believe me, there is TONS of inspiration and lots of cool people to meet! It does take them a few days to add people so join the queue. I think they add a set number of people at a time as to not crash their system.

Ok, so my sweater has been postponed for a bit. I found a toe-up sock tutorial on WetCanvas! by BeeBlueFern. This is a great lesson and I'm half done with my first sock...meaning I'm about at the heel. We'll see how we get on... [Sorry about slipping into a first person plural. I may have had a Queen Elizabeth I moment.]

I've been trying to work my sweater in moss stitch, but it isn't looking right. I think I am pulling my thread too tight and it isn't leaving the "seed" visible. Although better than my first attempts at a granny square (which, by the way, looked like it was chewed by weasels), it still leaves much to be desired. I'll see if loosening my stitches will ease the problem. Or maybe it will come back after being blocked? I don't know...