i finished my master's degree.
now i have some time on my hands.
what to do, what to do?
my creative ideas know no bounds.
my physical motivation, however, knows many.
i like the saying above - 'my future will be happy and productive' - because i feel it encompasses the kind of waiting i always do when it comes to that which i want to either have or accomplish. waiting for the right day, the right feeling, the right idea, the right circumstance, the right economy, the right accomplice, the right guidance, the right moon phase.
it's an elaborate form of procrastination, i've concluded - meant to take the control (and thus the blame for total inaction) out of my hands. the waiting has become so much a part of my life that i now feel fairly certain i'll be waiting for the most favorable this-or-that until the day i die!
worse, i realize i have legitimately 'inherited' this propensity (and slothfulness, honestly) from my parents, both of whom had great potential and zero confidence, zero motivation, and zero will. two bright people who barely flickered in the dark of their small worlds. i'm their daughter! i'm barely flickering ...
i had hoped this realization and knowledge of the root of my enduring demotivation would somehow spur me to ... action. something!!! no. i'm just as wayward as i ever was. maybe worse, actually, now that i'm so sold on non-obligation. what's the kind of thing that gets a person like me going again?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
obligation
possibly the most untenable of all emotional conditions for me is the crush of obligation.
in some cases, i make my own bed, as it were: i invite and seek obligation, in return for some spiritual, intellectual, or monetary reward for the work. we all do this regularly, as fair exchange for our state as social beings. it's the sticky part of cooperative enterprise. that's cool.
but other times, i am writhing beneath obligation that came on like a whip crack, a hard, painful snap against my otherwise laconic reality. i hate obligation. i hate being reminded of it. i hate the expectation. the recompense. the horrible, angry, buzzing have-to - of all kinds of things and relationships and efforts.
tonight's been a bad reminder of that prison. and i still don't like his friends.
in some cases, i make my own bed, as it were: i invite and seek obligation, in return for some spiritual, intellectual, or monetary reward for the work. we all do this regularly, as fair exchange for our state as social beings. it's the sticky part of cooperative enterprise. that's cool.
but other times, i am writhing beneath obligation that came on like a whip crack, a hard, painful snap against my otherwise laconic reality. i hate obligation. i hate being reminded of it. i hate the expectation. the recompense. the horrible, angry, buzzing have-to - of all kinds of things and relationships and efforts.
tonight's been a bad reminder of that prison. and i still don't like his friends.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
february
what is it about winter?
that makes my motivation go
sad and frigid, against the landscape
of snow and branches
broken by the weight of ice -
the precious price of January.
i can't summon the work needed
to start and do the work i need to do.
i'm down. i'm tired, and you may notice
i can' t hold my end of the conversation.
i'm worthless in this bitter cold.
it could be the frozen shelf of ground
that isn't melting,
that should be melting.
it's a glacier all around - slick and shiny
enough to see the sky.
it could be the wind that swings
the gate open and shut, whistling,
like a lost traveler, an adventurer inured
to cold and ice and and snow.
i don't know. i may never know.
but i hope to think more on this
from Gulfside soon.
that makes my motivation go
sad and frigid, against the landscape
of snow and branches
broken by the weight of ice -
the precious price of January.
i can't summon the work needed
to start and do the work i need to do.
i'm down. i'm tired, and you may notice
i can' t hold my end of the conversation.
i'm worthless in this bitter cold.
it could be the frozen shelf of ground
that isn't melting,
that should be melting.
it's a glacier all around - slick and shiny
enough to see the sky.
it could be the wind that swings
the gate open and shut, whistling,
like a lost traveler, an adventurer inured
to cold and ice and and snow.
i don't know. i may never know.
but i hope to think more on this
from Gulfside soon.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
being and void
i've been feeling a little odd lately. i'm in what can only be called an existentialist funk, replete with a touch of nihilism. there are many cumulative reasons, starting with the day in my own childhood that i realized death was my fate - i still recall sobbing to my mother 'why? i didn't choose this!' she was horrified. understandably.
i was probably 9.
looking back, i suppose that's the sort of thing you'd never, ever, ever want to hear your child say - and in some ways, the guilt of bringing a child into the world, essentially condemning them to death, gave me great pause (like, for decades) whenever i even vaguely considered having children. which is why i didn't consider it much.
in truth, i now spend a lot of nap pre-sleep wondering how i'll explain this whole unfortunate existential mess to M when the time comes. i hope she is more accepting than i was and am. the whole death thing - still gets to me.
but with the help of ernst breisach, i've recently been working through the various iterations of existentialist thought - the friend who loaned me the book thinks i'm nuts for believing (and/or trying to truly understand) a word of it, my own husband thinks it's laughable and sort of representative of some imbalance of my psyche, and i've been frankly too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone else for fear of how they'd respond.
but it's been good for me, in that i have some clear avenues of thought to now obsess over, instead of the random thoughts about existence that have plagued me since age 9 - many are thoughts i've long held inherently but had never really seen developed as well as this book does [Introduction to Modern Existentialism]. (note: didn't i take philosophy in college? a lot? they taught the wrong things. no college professor i had - except Carson - ever felt like discussing being and void. so i feel like i'm just catching up! ... just in time for my 36th birthday ... )
along with trying hard to wrap my head around these ideas and interpretations of my existence and its possible meaning, i'm hard at work on my resolutions/goals for 2009. it's an interesting context in which to plan for improvement and growth. because to even articulate any resolution means i have hope, which means i am not as nihilistic as i fear. so that's good? sure it is.
i was probably 9.
looking back, i suppose that's the sort of thing you'd never, ever, ever want to hear your child say - and in some ways, the guilt of bringing a child into the world, essentially condemning them to death, gave me great pause (like, for decades) whenever i even vaguely considered having children. which is why i didn't consider it much.
in truth, i now spend a lot of nap pre-sleep wondering how i'll explain this whole unfortunate existential mess to M when the time comes. i hope she is more accepting than i was and am. the whole death thing - still gets to me.
but with the help of ernst breisach, i've recently been working through the various iterations of existentialist thought - the friend who loaned me the book thinks i'm nuts for believing (and/or trying to truly understand) a word of it, my own husband thinks it's laughable and sort of representative of some imbalance of my psyche, and i've been frankly too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone else for fear of how they'd respond.
but it's been good for me, in that i have some clear avenues of thought to now obsess over, instead of the random thoughts about existence that have plagued me since age 9 - many are thoughts i've long held inherently but had never really seen developed as well as this book does [Introduction to Modern Existentialism]. (note: didn't i take philosophy in college? a lot? they taught the wrong things. no college professor i had - except Carson - ever felt like discussing being and void. so i feel like i'm just catching up! ... just in time for my 36th birthday ... )
along with trying hard to wrap my head around these ideas and interpretations of my existence and its possible meaning, i'm hard at work on my resolutions/goals for 2009. it's an interesting context in which to plan for improvement and growth. because to even articulate any resolution means i have hope, which means i am not as nihilistic as i fear. so that's good? sure it is.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
to become
becoming a mother has been, for me, an intense metamorphosis of being. i am certain i am not alone in this. but perhaps unlike others, i had never before given real thought to the idea of creating life, raising a small human, and loving so wholly until my uterus demanded it should be so.
i have become a mother, and m is truly my purpose. she is my pearl, and my love. i pour into her all that i feel, all that i know. i give her all i can summon to please and comfort and nurture and adore her, and, in so doing, i have little left at all! for all that, it is a conundrum to me that i am now discovering valuable pieces of myself because i have given so much away to m - the loss has revealed parts i always feared i'd miss, and revealed that in their loss there is much i've gained instead.
to become a mother, i have given up many faces, desires, wants, and illusions i once had for myself and my ego - these have been replaced with the consuming love i have for m. to become a mother, my already stark feelings of wrong and right have sharpened, because to help create the world in which i wish my daughter to live, fools cannot be suffered.
i'm now unbearably aware that with only a small slip, the space between all people can be as easily filled by the marks and matters of personal grievances, personal pain, personality, personal perception - care or crassness, vanity or compassion, disrespect or adoration.
it is perhaps more common, more mundane, though, that this space is filled only with increasing silence: it is true that the less we say to others, the less we find to say. sometimes the silence roars and roars - and there is still nothing, beyond the sound of it, to say. but there is no honesty in this silence. and without honesty, there can be no self. and without self, there can be no selfless love.
or we drift away and drown far apart in misunderstanding, indifference - indifferent to self, to love, to thought, to passion, to honesty, to conviction, to mystery, to beauty, to rage, to desolation, to the silence itself - this is the saddest fate, and one i don't wish for anyone. so i share with m and give to her everything and all that i can give her from myself. i know now who i am, because of her.
i have become a mother, and m is truly my purpose. she is my pearl, and my love. i pour into her all that i feel, all that i know. i give her all i can summon to please and comfort and nurture and adore her, and, in so doing, i have little left at all! for all that, it is a conundrum to me that i am now discovering valuable pieces of myself because i have given so much away to m - the loss has revealed parts i always feared i'd miss, and revealed that in their loss there is much i've gained instead.
to become a mother, i have given up many faces, desires, wants, and illusions i once had for myself and my ego - these have been replaced with the consuming love i have for m. to become a mother, my already stark feelings of wrong and right have sharpened, because to help create the world in which i wish my daughter to live, fools cannot be suffered.
i'm now unbearably aware that with only a small slip, the space between all people can be as easily filled by the marks and matters of personal grievances, personal pain, personality, personal perception - care or crassness, vanity or compassion, disrespect or adoration.
it is perhaps more common, more mundane, though, that this space is filled only with increasing silence: it is true that the less we say to others, the less we find to say. sometimes the silence roars and roars - and there is still nothing, beyond the sound of it, to say. but there is no honesty in this silence. and without honesty, there can be no self. and without self, there can be no selfless love.
or we drift away and drown far apart in misunderstanding, indifference - indifferent to self, to love, to thought, to passion, to honesty, to conviction, to mystery, to beauty, to rage, to desolation, to the silence itself - this is the saddest fate, and one i don't wish for anyone. so i share with m and give to her everything and all that i can give her from myself. i know now who i am, because of her.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
pictures of memories
my mom famously said once how, if we didn't make pictures of an event or moment, then all we would have are our memories - and i quote, "...that will die with us!" now, my mom is known around these parts for a certain unmitigated hyperbole concerning most things. i learned some of this from her, i admit it. but i thought this declaration about memories was just too over the top and too morbid, even for her. i laughed and laughed about it. then rolled my eyes. then laughed again. i've been laughing for years about it.
then i found myself at a stoplight the other day, in hot july, watching a young blond man, dressed all in black, walking determinedly down the street - a very like image of my current husband, as he looked 20 years ago now, walking down this very street, during the hot summer when we first dated. such a flood of melancholy caught me, as i leaned forward and squinted my eyes, trying to erase the details of the current scene so i could visually, concretely re-experience the memory and long-lost image of a boy i so madly loved walking down a city street in mid-summer. it was as though my memory had been made separate and real for just a moment - real enough again to see it not only in my mind's eye, where i often revisit it, but in flesh and blood, the real pavement releasing real heat, a real person - alike enough for the vision - enacting a real scene from a memory that only i can see in just its way within my mind.
suddenly, at that stoplight, watching this, i knew exactly what my mother meant. what a sadness, to not be able to show my husband this beautiful image i save of him in my mind and heart. my memories can only be mine alone ... and yes, what loss to have these die with us.
it was sobering and made me feel a sense of longing for others' beautiful and horrible and awesome and individual perceptions and images and visions i will never see or know because of the nature of the human mind and memory. closed, internal, separate. it made me feel very much alone to think of it this way in that moment. i want to keep these images. share them. gift them to their subjects or my child. a way to transcribe thoughts and brain waves - the electrical patterns of memory - into actual media we might share and understand. not art - not writing, not picture-making - but true transcriptions of memory, an exact recording of our thoughts' form. it's the stuff of science fiction, i suppose, wishing for these pictures of memories.
then i found myself at a stoplight the other day, in hot july, watching a young blond man, dressed all in black, walking determinedly down the street - a very like image of my current husband, as he looked 20 years ago now, walking down this very street, during the hot summer when we first dated. such a flood of melancholy caught me, as i leaned forward and squinted my eyes, trying to erase the details of the current scene so i could visually, concretely re-experience the memory and long-lost image of a boy i so madly loved walking down a city street in mid-summer. it was as though my memory had been made separate and real for just a moment - real enough again to see it not only in my mind's eye, where i often revisit it, but in flesh and blood, the real pavement releasing real heat, a real person - alike enough for the vision - enacting a real scene from a memory that only i can see in just its way within my mind.
suddenly, at that stoplight, watching this, i knew exactly what my mother meant. what a sadness, to not be able to show my husband this beautiful image i save of him in my mind and heart. my memories can only be mine alone ... and yes, what loss to have these die with us.
it was sobering and made me feel a sense of longing for others' beautiful and horrible and awesome and individual perceptions and images and visions i will never see or know because of the nature of the human mind and memory. closed, internal, separate. it made me feel very much alone to think of it this way in that moment. i want to keep these images. share them. gift them to their subjects or my child. a way to transcribe thoughts and brain waves - the electrical patterns of memory - into actual media we might share and understand. not art - not writing, not picture-making - but true transcriptions of memory, an exact recording of our thoughts' form. it's the stuff of science fiction, i suppose, wishing for these pictures of memories.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)