Who says no one reads poetry anymore?

I recently read an excellent poem by Galway Kinnell:

Wait

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

It turns out that time has, indeed, carried me forward. 

Next Monday will be four months since my dad died, and it feels like a minute and an eternity. I still miss him, but I've finally stopped crying all the time. Jesus and I are back on speaking terms, and nursing school is finally, mercifully over.

 I decided to transfer back here from http://andthenmydaddied.blogspot.com/. It was an important outlet for me during those first few months, but now it just feels heavy handed. My father's death will always be a part of me, but finally, thankfully, it isn't the center of my focus the way it was for those first few months.

Things are better and strange all at once. I miss him. I feel like I'm forgetting his voice, and how he smelled, and what he really looked like. We've gotten rid of most of his clothes, and none of his ice cream is left in the freezer. All of his medical supplies have been gone for months, but sometimes I still think I hear his oxygen machine puffing away during the night.

On the other hand, I feel a peace now that I have never known before. Dad was sick (and getting sicker) my whole life. I don't think I realized what a weight I was carrying around before. I thought that I was naturally snippy, cranky, judgmental, and mean. It turns out that I was just exhausted all the time.

There's a lot going on in my life over the next few months, mainly really awesome things. Tomorrow I fly out to San Francisco for a week to visit my best friend, Alex. After that my friend Annie and her 8-month old baby are coming to visit for a week so that I can nibble on all of his little toes. Then I have weddings in Michigan, Atlanta, and Williamsburg, which will all be OFF THE CHAIN. After that I plan on looking for a job and hopefully starting working right around the great high holy day: Halloween. 

Older Posts

You can read some of my older work at http://andthenmydaddied.blogspot.com/

I found this poem a few months ago and saved it as a draft, but forgot to publish it. a lot has changed in me over that time, but I still like it. In fact, I may like it even better now. "Before you were you... ah, safer and smoother and smaller was my heart."




"Before"
Mark Halliday

Before you were you,
before your bicycle appeared under the street-lamp,
before you met me at the airport in a corduroy jacket,

before you agreed to hold my five ballpoint pens
while I ran to play touch football,
before your wet hair nearly touched the piano keys

and in advance of how your raincoat was tightly cinched
when you asked about nonviolent anti-war activity
and before you said "Truffaut,"

before your voice supernaturally soft sang
"I aweary wait upon the shore,"
before you suddenly stroked my thigh in the old Volvo,

when you had not yet said "Marcus Aureliius at 11:15"
and before your white shirt on the train,
before Pachelbel and "My Creole Belle"

and before your lips were so cool under that street-lamp
and before Buddy Holly in Vermont on the sofa
and Yeats in the library lounge,

prior to your denim cutoffs on the porch,
prior to my notes and your notes
and before your name became a pulsing star,

before all this
ah safer and smoother and smaller was my heart.

2 Days Out

My father's funeral was two days ago, and today was my first day trying to get into what I think will be my new routine. I wore my Hulk outfit (purple shorts, Kelly green tank top) to try and help me cope, but I'm not sure how effective it was. I ended up reading a chapter for school (excellent), playing some Nintendo (uneventful),  pleasure reading/ watching TV/ surfing the internet (unavoidable), and eating approximately 20 funeral cookies (wicked gross/delicious).

The hard part of trying to plan a routine is that I have no idea how to go about it as my life has been centered around my dad for the last 5 years, acutely so for the last 2. When I wake up in the morning, I start planning when I'm going o go see him in the nursing home before I remember that he isn't there anymore. I hang around the house still, but why am i doing it now? There's no reason anymore? I could be anywhere in the world, but it's hard to make the leap so quickly after his death. I have crazy amounts of extra time on my hands now that classes are over and I'm not caring for dad anymore, but I have no idea what to do with that time.

I feel very lonely, and it's hard to manage it. I don't want to go out, but I get stir crazy when I stay in. I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to be with other people. My mom and I are tired of each other, but no one else really understands how we feel, so we just keep circling around to annoy each other.

I think time is going to fix all of this. I'll finish my coursework next week, and I have lots of things coming up that I'd already planned for the next month. I just wish I wasn't so cranky and weepy and tired.

Liar, Liar, Blog on Fire.

OK, so remember when I said I wasn't all that interested in Pinterest?

Um... I was wrong.

About two days ago I pinned this picture onto my board:

I like it, and I thought it was cute. Apparently so did everyone else, because within 2 hours 47 other people had added it to their boards too. A number of people also "liked" it, and 5 or so people started following my boards. My e-mail comes straight to my Droid, so I was blowing up with notifications.

Obviously, this makes me feel like a rock star. On the other hand, I accomplished absolutely nothing. I didn't make the original image. I didn't write the Harry Potter books. I'm just a dealer of internet commodities: I see the pictures of cats, or dresses, or whatever, and then I move them around.

I suppose the question is "How much value does being an internet taste maker have?" The internet has become deeply entwined with our daily living as our electronic selves and our live selves have merged into the same person. I'm on the internet at least a solid two hours a day, and my smart phone lets me carry the web anywhere I want to go. I've spent so much time looking into the abyss that I, like almost everyone else I know, have been consumed.

Surprisingly though, I'm not sure it's such a bad thing. It's nice to have social media sites like Pinterest and Facebook to filter recipes, articles, and events for me so that I can generally find whatever I want pretty quickly. I like to be able to see sites picked out by my friends, and to expand my knowledge of things I may not have come across on my own. I also like pictures of cats.

Lots and lots of cats.

I Can't Believe I Don't Love Pinterest.

I know, I'm shocked too. It seems like something I'd love, right?

I recently opened a Pinterest account because I'm a 27 year internet fiend, so why not? Quite a few of my friends are deeply in love with their Pinterest, and it felt like something that I would like. Fancy crafts! Wedding dresses! Pictures of trees!

I'm honestly surprised that it hasn't caught my interest in the way I thought it might. As much as I enjoy amassing pictures of cats and sparkly dresses (Lord knows that I do), the whole thing feels kind of sterile. I feel like the little boxes aren't large enough to have a conversation, and most of the posters I follow are strangers so I don't have that much to say to them anyways.

Having strangers repin a picture of Ariel that I repinned from another stranger's board just isn't all that fulfilling. Even though the site is ostensibly meant to spread ideas from one person to another, I don't feel like it's creating the sense of community that is at the heart of Facebook, Livejournal, or blogs.

I think the need for community is the reason that I'm so attached to the internet, even as it sometimes keeps me from building real community. Nursing school keeps me indoors an awful lot, and I relish being able to keep up with my old friends in a fast, convenient way. Facebooking isn't as intimate as a phone call, but it's certainly the easiest way to keep up with 600 people at once. I feel like Pinterest is based on the idea of creating communities with similar interests, but you aren't actually learning anything new about your follwers or connecting with them on any real level.

While I'm not planning on closing my Pinterest account (like I said, I do love pictures of cats), I don't see it becoming a big part of my internet life. My last week on Pinterest has actually encouraged me to try to spend more of my time making new things. I recently started doing little watercolors again, and I'm making an attempt to reestablish this blog. I realized recently that nursing school will be over in a few months, and that I don't want to finish May feeling like I've frittered away all of my creativity over the last few years into witty status updates. I don't have any big plans, but I'd like to spend more of my time reading interesting, edifying books or creating something new, even if it isn't that schmancy. It will do me good to be more open and more nurturing with myself. After all, I'm the only me I have.