camping

Every action takes at least five times as long outdoors as it would in the city or house full of modern conveniences: waking up, peeing, making coffee, getting a fire started, grabbing food from the cooler and prepping all the separate components, tending the fire (endless), cooking over the fire, getting food off the fire, etc, etc, strapping the boat the top of Kevin's parents' '97 minivan, applying bug spray, gathering supplies, baiting the tackle, etc, etc, each step finally coalescing into what sometimes feels like communion with nature. The glassy embers of the fire at night. The sun coming in sporadically above the lush tree canopy. The green lake resting quietly between teal-colored mountains but for singing frogs and the occasional pop! of a fish. There's no real sense of time, just our collective perception of daylight and rumbling of stomachs telling the approximate hour. Everything is wet, smoked, crusted, mildewed. And we drink beer (one of us first thing in the morning) in travel mugs while the smoke rolls through our hair and into our eyes and mouths, blinding each sense momentarily with a fierce sweetness. I've felt more comfortable than anticipated in this environment, although at times during the night I will wake up disoriented, swallowed by the darkness and stillness and strange animal creakings. Breakfast might be ready in an hour. We woke up probably two hours ago. 

Also, a poem I rather like today:

Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene'er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it to rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd'ning cherry.
Come when the year's first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter's drifting snows,
And you are welcome, welcome.

Invitation to Love, Paul Laurence Dunbar

scatterbrain

Does it matter? That we have nothing in common? Seems to me it matters because I need a man who knows how to respond. Still, I guess not because it doesn't matter what we are or what we do what we say where we go I just want to laugh and to feel someone against my skin. And feel important. Sorry. Sorry for saying things. But not really. It's important for me to say things and it's so ironic to want involved conversations when I so shied away from them before. Can't stop thinking about so many stupid stupid memories (and yet they are welcome, needed, fulfilling). Some days I really fucking hate my job; I can hardly drag myself the few miles into the office because I know I'm just going to be met with talking, listening, not caring, not responding, not feeling ALIVE. And then other days, like today, I'm just so damn busy I fool myself into thinking I've got important things to do and have achieved some weird kind of success. Like, people just can't get by without the work I do. Then I get home and realize that paper-pushing stuff doesn't matter and I'm being duped. First train home gotta get on it. I remember listening to this album in my last dorm room in Marietta when Josh and I were...where am I going? In circles? What goals do I have? Where can I go? Let's plan trip, let's go somewhere far away and fuck the money it will cost. Let's just keep being irresponsible girls who party. Let's be friends. Let's drink scotch. Everybody says that time heals everything oh in the end what of the wretched hollow? the endless in-between? are we just going to wait it out? I lie in my bed and let everything flood over me into an endless, nightmarish failure to meditate. What's it going to take?

i am titanium

I guess I shall/should write about yesterday, and treat it as some final recording of events. The day passed by rather un-dramatically, which I should be grateful for. I was doing okay until I sat in the sanctuary of Central Moravian with the feeling that I was definitely going to vomit. I took many, many deep breaths in an effort to steady myself, yet they hardly quelled my anxiety. Still, I made it through the service without crying or losing composure, although I very easily could have as I watched you bend slightly to receive your hood--Master of Divinity granted. poof. I went straight up to campus after the service, not wanting to linger and congratulate you with your family (and CENSORED CENSORED) so near. What right do I even have to do that? Did you look at me even once? I looked wonderful, by the way. I busied myself with the reception, setting food out, etc. Waiting. But again, there were too many people present, and when I saw CENSORED there, it was time to go.

I drove home to something loud and angry...MUSE maybe...sat on the couch, removed my wedge heels, and cried, releasing something deep and slow to rise, yet immediately accessible. I allowed myself this for a few minutes, then blew my nose, changed, and went to the grocery store. I'd like not to cry again over you, but I understand that I most likely will, especially if CENSORED CENSORED. Is that something I need or should yesterday be enough? I'm still hoping/wondering if you might say something and justify that it's an action we both need. Then it might be okay. I've so many regrets about our relationship, though, maybe it doesn't matter if there's one more tacked on at the end.

You know, nothing in my life will really change as a result of this, except that I will no longer see you. Something poisonous will removed from my life, in fact, and that is so very good.

Yesterday evening I went to Walnutport to keep Kyle company as he dog-sat; I lay on top of him while he stroked my skin and hair; I enjoyed him and the presence of those two large, loving dogs and felt so glad that he cares for me. I wonder how much he realizes that and if I should tell him.

 good riddance.

thank you

How perfect that I was reminded of Judith Butler today during a student presentation.

"I am not sure I know when mourning is successful, or when one has fully mourned another human being. I'm certain, though, that it does not mean that one has forgotten the person, or that something else comes along to take his or her place. I don't think it works that way. I think instead that one mourns when one accepts the fact that the loss one undergoes will be one that changes you, changes you possibly forever, and that mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation the full result of which you cannot know in advance."

Butler, Undoing Gender

analyze me

dreams:
I get an email from Zach littered with defensive questions and statements, prodding me about how I should have replied to "You look tired, is that a good thing?" [I don't know how much he inferred but sensed the uptick in my pulse] We are outdoors, in a wooded area where it is both winter and tropical; I encounter him and he's with Ross and some other friends, he tells me about a video I should watch; we begin watching it on a computer together after he directs me on how to fast-forward to the right scene; it's a video of him on a ski trip, like those few cheesy montage videos I watched with him many months ago; I only make it through what seems like a few seconds before I have to stop watching. He says, "I knew you weren't ready to talk."

transition to-->stadium filled with college students and a few friends [but can't remember who they are]-->"student 1" and "student 2" are there, too; some guy with dark hair and a baseball cap comes up and offers to buy me a drink, we weave down the stadium steps to the impromptu bar and he orders two shots of Jaegermeister; my shot is in a plastic cup that's not even half-full; we go back to our seats but at some point go down again for another shot of Jaeger.

transition to-->some store in a mall that looks/feels like a Hot Topic-->I'm talking to a guy who works there and resembles John?, a saxophone player from GCHS; he's telling me that Kyle was trying to hook up with some other girl and maybe start a fight; I try to shrug this off with, "He was drunk," while shaking a Star Wars-themed snow globe.

transition to-->transporting "student 1" and "student 2" around an airport from the stadium-->we are trying to find a place to eat dinner but they have already been everywhere I suggest; my family is with us at the airport; they are trying to catch a shuttle to "student 2"'s car, parked somewhere far away; they get on a shuttle but get confused and come right back; I am so frustrated and yell at them to get back on the shuttle; "student 3" arrives late and does exactly the same thing; my brother is running onto a moving shuttle and overshoots it; he has fallen into the street where cars pick up and gets run over; my last memory is him flattened in the road and wanting to run out to him and scream

-->I wake up.

slowing down

Tomorrow's May, another month put away, and I'm thinking about summer--the typically quiet, restless season of my adult life. The upcoming months transfigure clear and exciting, although also frightening and unknown. What if nothing really changes? There's something so final about summer and the potential for falling into familiar patterns lurks. Can I allow myself to live here and accept this alternate reality? A future in which there is no connection to the love I've lost? And what about the love(s) I might find? 

I'm full of these questions but less afraid of them; something must be a little right. Maybe it means I'm finally ready to...re-load/say goodbye/delete/move on/forgive/smile/release you & create myself. 

Also, tonight I begin reading The Lord of the Rings. Again. 

the exquisite pain

April is (as many of you educated readers may know) National Poetry Month. And tomorrow is Poem in Your Pocket Day, a nerd's holiday I appreciate and look to each year. Of course, I am a lover of words and poetry especially, to the point that I have tattooed poetry onto my flesh and carry it with me every day of the year. Poetry is a limitless salve, one I cannot live without. To that end: poetry+beer+classical music=Amanda's nirvana. I think if I ever get another tattoo, it must be a line/s of poetry; what could be more significant than melding words onto my body? I've decided a Sharon Olds poem will live in my pocket tomorrow, but it seems appropriate to share some other favorites in the spirit of poetry appreciation. There are simply too many to choose from. I would need a million pockets and a million hours to share them with the world.


POEM

Some days I feel that I exude a fine dust
like that attributed to Pylades in the famous
Chronica nera areopagitica when it was found

and it's because an excavationist has
reached the inner chamber of my heart
and rustled the paper bearing your name

I don't like that stranger sneezing over our love 


-Frank O' Hara



Variation on the word Sleep


I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head


and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear


I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief 
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where you body lies
beside me, and you enter 
it as easily as breathing in


I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment 
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary


-Margaret Atwood


Body and Soul

Where do you think the soul is?
Do you think it looks like a small paper bag,

the kind that contains one item--
candy bar, liquid soap, pint bottle?

Is it crumpled up behind the heart?
Is it folded neatly, wedged between the ribs,

is it wrapped around the balls, is it damp
like a cunt, has it been torn?

The body isn't a house.
If the body is the house,

is the soul up late in the kitchen, sleepless,
standing before the open refrigerator,

is it tired of TV,
sickened by its own thoughts?

The body has no thoughts.
The body soaks up love like a paper towel

and is still dry.
The body shoots up some drugs,

sweats and weeps--
Sometimes the body

gets so quiet
it can hear the soul,

scratching like something trapped
inside the walls

and trying frantically 
to get out.

-Kim Addonizio

both ways

Sometimes the song perpetually repeating on the radio actually says the thing.