Golden Oldie

Rita Dove: Golden Oldie

I made it home early, only to get 
stalled in the driveway-swaying 
at the wheel like a blind pianist caught in a tune 
meant for more than two hands playing. 
The words were easy, crooned 
by a young girl dying to feel alive, to discover 
a pain majestic enough 
to live by. I turned the air conditioning off, 
leaned back to float on a film of sweat, 
and listened to her sentiment: 
Baby, where did our love go? - a lament
I greedily took in 
without a clue who my lover
might be, or where to start looking.

Epiphanies for a Dream

...Cecila often dreamed of what it might be like to fly away, to taste the clouds. At night, she wet the pillow with the fantasies of young pioneers, drifting, gliding on familiar foreign surfaces.  Her mother, a woman who had long since put her dreams into storage bins, believed her daughter’s dreams to be a folly. At night, she would peek past her daughter's room only to shake her head in dismay, though jealous with admonition: “We’ll never fly,” her mother would whisper to herself then retire to her bedroom, carefully laying down her tired body beside her old-married, holding her breath with her mouth agape as not to wake him... 

Ramble Series: School Daze

Captain’s Log September 6, 2012:

One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever gotten was from Oprah: “When somebody shows you who they are, believe them”. It’s advice I’ve taken a while to plant firmly into application. But as is most of the advice I’ve received in my life, it’s sound.

Today was the first day of school. I felt nervous and anxious like I always do. I take this as a good sign. My professor tells us to call her Martha or Martha Nell, just nothing succeeding Ms. or Mrs. “Call me Mr. Smith,” she says and I laugh, “just not Ms. or Mrs.” She’s adamant.

Our discussion circulates the class syllabus, tangential anecdotes, and inquiry around what it means to read a text, with a sprinkle of politics, naturally. Bubbling energy in the air, she tells us many things. She tells us: her Rutgers background, countless hours beneath library lights at Amherst, and plugging into email back in nineteen ninety four; oh and of course her first writing gig with Trojan. Yes, she says, the condoms. She’s well rehearsed but still funny. I like her honesty. Martha is obsessed with Emily Dickinson. This confuses me. And still, I get it. I look at her obsession like my own obsession with the lives of Black women writers, particularly Toni Morrison. I love her character, her demeanor, her voice...I am just in love with the bitch.

Then, Martha tells us a secret. She says it doesn’t really matter what you study. She says,  “make sure,” her finger dangling toward us weakly as she peers over glasses barely gripping the edge of her nose.“That you study, what you love.  You must have a passion for the thing,” she leans back in her chair.

“Because then, those long hours, those tortuous nights aren’t so tortuous. Oh, but they’re tortuous alright,” she laughs to herself tightening her grip on her spectacles.

My stomach is warm with satisfaction.  Yay! I like my teacher. Now, I know how those scared ass sixth graders felt when they realized I was the coolest teacher they’d ever effin met.

They’re about ten of us and we scatter the gamut when it comes to assortment. There’s Steve, the retired psychiatrist well into his sixties looking into ways literature intersects the lives of the ill as therapy, a high school teacher sick of teaching students how to research and ready to explore on her own, a poet, a cancer survivor who nods in agreement with Steve’s area of interest, a teacher of business writing who hates literature but figures she’d dabble in it for once, a pre-k teacher, a recent college graduate, a second year PhD with an obsession for Moby Dick, another teacher sick of education classes, a quiet one I can’t really remember, and then me.

We sit in a mutilated semicircle, our choice of seat suggesting we don't want to be too close to each other...urinal rule.  I sit quietly engaged and observant. Butterflies of anticipation flutter in my stomach and efforts to silence them manifest as random scribbles of Martha's anecdotal lecture in my tiny red notebook.

This semester, we are asked to conduct a research project, to become an expert on a particular work. Our semester project is to choose any text and research it under the pretenses of our class focus and guiding questions. Throughout the course, she asks us to consider,  “What is it like to read this? What does it mean to read professionally?” and “Where is the text?”

 I've chosen Gwendolyn Brooks's A Street in Bronzeville because I love Chicago circa 1940s and 50s, I love the black migration, and I love Brooks for her perspective on both. Taking Martha's advice to let our passions lead us, I feel this is a good choice.

Ramble Series: Insane in the Brain

8/17/2012

Today's message:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result

    Albert Einstein

My workouts have become inherently woven into my daily undertakings. I don't feel satisfied unless I've broken a sweat, or done something for the good of my body. When I'm not working out, I find myself thinking of other ways to clear my mind, establishing routines that lend themselves to both personal pleasure and some level of productivity (the type a in me trying to break loose again).

And as I spend time leaning into these routines, allowing them to give me solace and a degree of resolve, I think of this einstein quote. Inevitably, habits become hardened, inflexible and unwilling to offer renewed outcomes. My online yoga instructor (don't be fooled, the extent of my yoga is watching her while I touch my toes, I'm writing this entry from my yoga position btw) points out the importance of reflecting on the habits we've chosen to wiggle into. Whether we are running to get that six pack or waiting patiently for someone to love us back, there comes a point when we must evaluate our methods. When do our routines veer off the course of patience and travel into the world of insanity? Exactly when do we change the methods we've established? Have most of us touched the skirts of insanity at some point? According to Einstein, I certainly have. . .

Ramble Series: Dearest Mommy

8/16/2012 
I've been thinking a great deal about motherhood, maternity, and childrearing. I've been mulling and rolling around the idea of what it means to be a mother.

As I twirl around these ideas, I've been cleaning the home, cooking meals, organizing laundry, and thinking pragmatically about what it means to satisfy a man. Gwendolyn Brooks says there's no time to do both: keep up a dream and satisfy the calls of womanhood. I find this unsettling. It must be the reason why we need strong female role models in our worlds, so we can literally see how this is done. It may seem I'm over complicating this...or over simplifying it.

I'm watching Africa Wild on the 3D network. There's a lot to be learned from the natural world. Wolves give birth secretly in underground dens. I'm guessing they do so because of the vulnerable nature giving birth inherently entails. Wolves are also extremely protective. A mother wolf will refuse anyone or anything proximity to her newly born cubs, yet ironically, she is also known to be cannibalistic with her newborns. This reminds me of Sethe, who is so fiercely protective that she kills her own baby, Beloved *say with slow creepy voice. There's something to be said of this particular maternal bond.

I used to tell myself that I wouldn't have children until I met my biological mother. The older I get, the more I procrastinate. There are too many unknowns. Or, maybe the unknown is too major.