And So My Mind Wanders

All those grueling years of high school Spanish come in handy sometimes.

"Si Tú Me Olvidas" - Pablo Neruda

-----------------

How nice it would be to grab a Blue Moon with some orange right now, sit back, and just listen to music until the glass is empty.  First time that the thought of drinking alone had any appeal to me.

Alas, I have to go to school.  Yay Saturday.

Oh my gosh, I'm so ready for Oysterfest in two weeks.

The Craft of a Little Boy's Dream

Months ago I came across a poem on Angela's Blogger profile:

The Craft
by Warsan Shire

the first line of a poem should usher you in,
a door half open,
a warm glow,
an empty seat.
the last line should punch you in the stomach.

sometimes love is like that too.

Neat, eh?  Well, I randomly came across another poem today that reminded me of the above.  Enjoy.

A Little Boy's Dream
by Katherine Mansfield

To and fro, to and fro
In my little boat I go
Sailing far across the sea
All alone, just little me.
And the sea is big and strong
And the journey very long.
To and fro, to and fro
In my little boat I go.

Sea and sky, sea and sky,
Quietly on the deck I lie,
Having just a little rest.
I have really done my best
In an awful pirate fight,
But we captured them all right.
Sea and sky, sea and sky,
Quietly on the deck I lie ---

Far away, far away
From my home and from my play,
On a journey without end
Only with the sea for friend
And the fishes in the sea.
But they swim away from me
Far away, far away
From my home and from my play.

Then he cried "O Mother dear."
And he woke and sat upright,
They were in the rocking chair,
Mother's arms around him---tight.

A different kind of "punch," huh?  I love it.  To me, it paints a mother's role so perfectly.

Birchmore Revelation

Just because I wanted exercise, I walked the Birchmore Trail for the first time two weekends ago.  It might be my favorite trail I have walked in Athens.  When you go across the road (I think it's Gran Allen Dr) and back into the woods, that's where the good stuff begins.  At one point you come to the top of a small ravine and you find yourself in sort of a big hall surrounded by big trees all over.  Sunlight streaming, birds chirping, trees rustling and swaying in the distance.  There I took in the forest and thought, "Man, I only have so much time to see and feel this beauty.  Life's too short to spend indoors."  Which is precisely how I finally decided for sure to go on a 2-night camping trip next weekend.  Fall is beautiful.  And short-lived.  Just like life.

I think I would have liked to be a Native American back in the day.  Like Pocahontas or Sacajawea.  Except I actually have never watched Pocahontas.  But I do know a good bit about Sacajawea because in fifth grade, I dressed up as Sacajawea and told people about myself for a big project.  Also, I really enjoyed reading Undaunted Courage in high school, and that book (being about the Lewis and Clark expedition) had a lot of Sacajawea stuff in it.  Or really, I would have liked to a Native American before we (outsiders) knew them.  Camp out all the time, revere nature, etc.

Forgive my writing, I'm really tired.  Just spent a very good time indoors at the Georgia Theatre watching the Punch Brothers perform.

Haiku

Thighs getting smaller
Muscles atrophy so fast
It is truly sad

Getting Situated

How foolish I was to think that a catching up of sleep over a weekend would be all I need to wind down from field school and be ready to jump into productivity.

It's been two and a half weeks, and I feel like every few days I discover something new I need to take care of, whether it be some stupid "housekeeping" thing or having to ease myself back into the mundane or to nurse my emotional state.  Today's discovery was that life back home did not stop for a month and a half while I was gone.  My life back home was paused, but everyone else's wasn't.  I noticed my un-awareness the first night I was back in Georgia -- I met a couple of new people and asked, "So, what are you guys doing this summer?" then realized what I should have asked was, "What have you guys been doing this summer?"  But even then I didn't know the full significance of that ignorance.  

Being back home after field school is surprisingly difficult.  Six weeks was long enough for me to have to seriously adjust myself back into the familiar environment, but short enough for me to feel like the whole world outside of field school was on pause, yet long enough for things to change back home.

So here I've been today, nursing my wounds, trying to stop procrastinating, and reading poetry to cheer myself up all at the same time.  A good find from this afternoon that, of course, reminds me of field school:

Falling Stars
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes -- do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

Ah... Some Rilke

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance—

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty."

"Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers."

... That made me perceive that we must evaluate people as complex beings we all are.  One should never set oneself up in negative judgment of others based on one or a few instances of tact- or thoughtlessness.  Neither should one idolize a man for his charisma or heroic deeds.

- Willi Dansgaard, pioneer of ice core paleoclimate analysis, speaking of his friend Per Scholander in his book Frozen Annals

I Couldn't Read Poetry

I think got one B in middle school.  Seventh grade language arts with Ms. Regent.  I had a high A in that class at first, diagramming the heck out of my sentences, having the most clear understanding of my subject and predicate and prepositional phrases...  Then at the end of the semester there was a huge test on poetry, and I got a 55 on it.  I still remember getting that test back and gaping in horror at this unheard-of test score.  I also remember agonizing over the poem that made absolutely no sense to me and caused me to leave the entire interpretation blank:

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

After two years in the U.S. my English was still just not good enough.  I could do homework but could not tell jokes.  I could dissect any sentence but could not fathom why green was gold, hue was being held, and dawn was going down.

"What happened?" asked Ms. Regent in her unforgettably shaky voice.  I said, "I just did not understand the poem at all."  When we went over the test, I was surprised at how everyone else had understood the poem fine.

It's a good poem.  Pessimistic, but good...

Save Your Sorry

one thing i don’t need
is any more apologies
i got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yrs
i don’t know what to do wit em
they dont open doors
or bring the sun back
they dont make me happy
or get a mornin paper

...

i am simply tired
of collectin
i didnt know
i was so important toyou
i’m gonna haveta throw some away
i cant get to the clothes in my closet
for alla the sorries
i’m gonna tack a sign to my door
leave a message by the phone
‘if you called
to say yr sorry
call somebody
else
i dont use em anymore'
i let sorry/ didnt meanta/ & how could i know about that
take a walk down a dark & musty street in brooklyn
i’m gonna do exactly what i want to
& i wont be sorry for none of it

- from "One Thing I Don't Need/Sorry" by Ntozake Shange

... which is impressively acted out by Janet Jackson in the spoken poetry movie For Colored Girls!

I Cry
by Tupac Shakur

Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
'Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Than to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes...
I Cry
and no one cares about why.

Wonderful Reads

To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

-- from "Auguries of Innocence," William Blake

The whole poem is moving.  I love Blake.  You know what else I love?!  This book:

Came across that bit of Blake in her interview with Dr. Oz.  Possibly my favorite book of all time... and I've only read three chapters so far.  The world needs more books like this (and more people like Krista Tippett)!

One

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                                            i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

- E. E. Cummings

The Prism and the Rainbow

Heard Jody Martin talk about his book today for Darwin Week.  It was excellent.  I don't remember the last time I heard such a good talk.  He was funny, clear, intelligent, humble, and most strikingly to me, confident.  In the beginning I shamefully cringed a little when he said something like the "majesty of God" in front of all these people from South Campus.  I was thinking, "Did he really just say that?  These atheists are probably laughing inside!"  (And I rightfully say "atheists"; there was a girl wearing a "UGA Atheists" shirt.)  But as the talk progressed and he proved himself to be a coherent, compelling, and witty intellectual, I was nothing but proud of all that he was doing on the podium.  To stand in front of what could be a room full of atheists and talk about God in a way that is true yet inoffensive to non-believers, and about science in a way that is true yet compelling to fundamentalists!

He had that authority over scientists because he is a well-respected scientist himself.  This is exactly the kind of thing I want to do.  Hopefully this unnecessary fight between science and religion will be a smaller issue when I'm older, but something in that direction.

I'll leave you with this wonderful quotation by William Bragg (of Bragg's law!), in reply to whether science and religion are opposed to one another:

Religion and science are opposed...but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed -- and between the two, one can grasp everything. 

(Hot danggg!!  You go Sir William!)

The Worst Feeling

Getting in an argument with my dad, no matter how trifling the subject, is the worst feeling in the world for me.  I argue, I make him upset, and even though I'm frustrated as well, I feel more of guilt.  It's hard to explain this feeling.  It's this horrible feeling, first identified as annoyance, frustration, and it wells up in my chest, travels up my throat and into my head where I hold it like a concentrated mass of bad, bad feeling until it has no option but to be released in the form of drops of tears... where I realize that it wasn't frustration but sorrow and guilt.  And then something in me says, "How could you make him upset?  How could you add to his troubles at all?  How can you be so inconsiderate for someone who dedicates his life to you?  How can you receive so much undeserved favor and sacrifice only to offer so much trouble?  You don't thank him, obey him, or work for his happiness nearly enough."  And afterwards I feel an intense motivation to change, improve myself, apologize, do extra things, etc.

But... but... I don't feel this intense, personal feeling with God these days.  Why?  If only I felt this passionate toward Him instead of / in addition to my dad.  I know that parents were given children in order to understand God's love toward us, and vice versa.  But I don't feel it.  I'm dry, and I'm distant.  I have trouble seeing God hurt or upset like I see my dad.  I know that He sacrificed His one and only son, but since He is He, can He not have more sons if He wished?  What is sacrifice to Him, if He is the almighty?  Agh.  I want to escape and pray somewhere.  I had so much opportunity during the break..... the worst timing.

The Divine Image
by William Blake

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk, or jew;
Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

=) =)

Hallelujah for each wonderful person I meet... and so many, too!

God's Grandeur
by Gerard Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

To be humble.  "All I know is that I know nothing"... who is the one who said that?  Ah, Socrates.  I know so so little... I am so so small... yet I can do great things.  Like David.  But I know so little.  I know... next to nothing.  All I know is that God is with us.

What Time Does to Ya

Did I ever mention how much I suck at cleaning?
Minutes after I start looking through piles of stuff I haven't touched in a while, I literally just sit down and look through all those things that remind me of old times.  And I'm just there flipping through copy paper and programs and advertisements and notepads and graduation cards.  I take forever cleaning.

I Cry
by Tupac Shakur

Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
'Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Than to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes...
I Cry
and no one cares about why.

I read this during the summer and thought, "Can you say depressing.  Okay, next..."
I totally feel it now.  I'm not saying I feel like Crying (haha) all the time or anything, but wow.  I understand.

"St. Patrick's Day"
That song's a lie.

"Araby" - James Joyce
The truth.

Delicious.

To -------

by Percy B. Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

_________

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

- from "To a Skylark" by Shelley

Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending

Some Wordsworth

... And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, -- both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

- from "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"

I love everything we learn in Brit lit, I really do... but... =(

I need to write my paper. Wah.

Today

East Cobb is just as I left it in summer. Green trees on our street, the starry blue sky, the night bugs...

I feel like I'm back on summer vacation.

Except I'm not, and everybody's gone.

The gig today was so nice. I had more fun today than I've had in (what feels like) weeks. For the first time in a while, I really really really enjoyed playing my violin. There was a very important purpose in me playing the violin, and I've never appreciated Bach or Fragments or the Tango before. It's weird to try to replace Christine and Angela's presence with Catherine and Sapphire's, but it was a great first gig. I do miss our old quartet. I also had so much fun listening to music with old friends in James' car. You know why I had so much fun? Because I knew that people approved and appreciated me for who I am. I need to get over my insecurity and just be myself around new people as well.

Anyway, easiest wedding gig ever. No bridesmaids, groomsmen, etc. It was a bit bizarre, but I ain't complaining. I do love weddings. No one really cares about how shitty we sound at points or what technical difficulties arise; nothing takes away the flush in the bride's face or the grin on the groom's. As the two face each other no one thinks about what hardships might lie ahead for them, or at least I don't, but think about how perfect the weather is, how pretty the place looks, and how cute and happy the couple is. It's all in the moment. I guess as a mere bystander I'm extremely blindfolded, but well, how else would I think? At every wedding gig, I'm so honored and glad to be a part of something so meaningful to someone.

Everything read out loud at weddings is plain cheesy and cliche. At today's wedding, the guy read out loud two poems. I think he couldn't think of anything meaningful to say and looked up some random poetry to make the ceremony last longer than three minutes. The first one was really long and I don't remember it. But the second one I kind of liked.

Love's Philosophy

by Percy B. Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of Heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single,

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle --

Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high Heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea --

What are all these kissings worth

If thou kiss not me?