Too Much in the Brain

Today I'm afraid I don't have much to give you except exposition. See, I've been feeling pensive, which I've actually been trying to resist. But my mind can't stop. And so it chugs along in spite of my basic desire for it not to. "I'm sorry," it says to me, "were you looking to sleep? To think clearly? What about all these other things?" And so it goes.

I've been thinking about people, relationships, relating, first impressions, self-criticism and honesty.

There are strong feelings of, "Do I belong here? Can I keep up?

Am I good enough?"

A little bit of everything

What makes us rare and beautiful?

There is a movie project that just ended called The Beauty Inside. Completely amazing to watch:

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I've been thinking a lot about people, about interaction. The sun was bright and warm once it got up in the sky, and I sat outside reading. I looked up and caught the eyes of someone I'd never met. We both smiled and he asked me how I was. It was a brief moment. A passing one.

Before that, as I was getting coffee from the Polar Perk, I was watching people as they walked, passing one another, some operating as if they were entirely alone. And I know some people feel that way as they tug on a bit of clothing, tuck a stray strand behind their ear. How self-conscious we all are.

How self-conscious I am! On October 5 I'll be doing a reading in front of my peers. I'm very nervous about this, for a few reasons. The first being that I lost a great deal of my writing in a coffee spilling incident that didn't leave enough of an impression to make me stop drinking coffee but has me obsessively saving everything I write. The second is that no one here, except for whatever committee accepted me, has ever seen anything I've written. I'm looking at it very critically now. Am I saying too much? Did I somehow put exposition into this poem? Is it good enough? Smooth Enough? Engaging? Fifteen minutes is too long to be in front of a crowd like this. And yet I read for nearly thirty minutes in a very similar situation without a problem. So what is my problem? I've never started getting so nervous so early before. Every time I think about it my heart panics a little more.

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I know I've been a little lacking with content control. I'm a little all over the place right now. I just wanted to say... I've been exercising. Regularly.

Okay, that's an over excited exaggeration. I've exercised two days in a row. Which I'm pretty sure has never happened ever, unless you count soccer and baseball practice as a kid. Which, frankly, doesn't count. Because I think I have about 100x more energy as an eight year old than I do now. But! I did do the elliptical thing today for 45 straight minutes and made it something like 3.7 miles. I felt pretty boss. Hopefully this makes up for all the drinking?... Ha.

(I'm not really alcoholic, guys. Jokes are fun.)

A Cabin Weekend Get Away: Shack up with your favorite MFA

I was supposed to be spending this weekend in a cabin, with other MFA's, writing and drinking and marry making. I was going to set off on Friday night with two other first year MFA's, Natalie and Kathryn. Except, we didn't quite make it to the cabin...

We left campus at about 5:10 pm and had to stop by Kathryn's cabin to grab her stuff. After everything was situated we hit up the gas station to top off the car and grab some wine. While we were there we also found, and purchased, 30 proof chocolate whip cream. It's delicious. More on that later though.

The drive to the hiking spot is 50 miles. We chatted, listened to music, and in general felt pretty optimistic about our trek. At the outset of our journey, still on the road, we stopped for a moose that ambled across the road, the stiff fur on his long legs catching the sun. Kathryn, our driver, joked about how dumb moose all looked, but I couldn't help but feel as if it was a majestic sight. We drove past rolling hills, trees, trailers, general stores, trees, and a very hokey diner with a stove pipe chimney releasing smoke and heat above the spindly trees. Our next left was the head of the trail that would lead us to the lower angel creek cabin. As we pulled in, a beautiful dog with a thick white and grey coat ran into the trees. It looked almost like a wolf.

There are three possible trails to take in order to get to the cabin. Of the three only two really make sense, and of those two, one looks much easier. One arched above the cabin, taking you north west, the other arched down a south west path, and the third took us west. According to the map we had, the trail west was the smartest option. It was the most direct path toward an evening spent by a fire, with wine and writing and good company. So we went west.

There is a saying which creates tension in a story pretty easily. It's a go to phrase. You've all heard it, "Little did we know." And so, little did we know, the trail west is best used in winter time. It starts out innocently enough. Very clearly marked, colors tied in the trees, little metal signs with stick-figures of skiers and snow-mobilers. And most misleadingly, a yellow sign with an arrow pointed the direction we were headed, "Cabin." We were excited, joking about how easy the trail was and how it would take us no time. Three miles? Ha!

The first signs that things were not as they seemed came in the form of puddles in the dips on the path. I attributed the water to the recent rain we've been having. However, as we continued to trek into the valley where the lower angel creek cabin lay, dirt gave way to moss and tussocks. There weren't many good places to step and our shoes were soon water logged. The first moment that anyone began to seriously worry was when Kathryn, attempting to power through a particularly watery section, got sucked into the muddy water up to her knee. She had already rolled her ankle a little and wanted to avoid the uneven, watery ground as much as possible. Once she got stuck in the ground, there was a moment when I think everyone thought to themselves, "Is this really happening?" It certainly went through my mind.

Natalie set down her backpack on the driest spot she could find and attempted to pull Kathryn out, but there wasn't much solid ground to get a good footing on and I feared they would both go down. Kathryn sighed and said, "Oh, is this how it ends?" While it may not have been the end we were all worried that she was going to have to even out her weight by sitting or leaning forward into more water. Having wet pants and shoes was bad enough.

Luckily (however lucky getting stuck in a bog can be) she sank down right next to a tree, a young pine. With the help of a little leverage and going at it from a different angle she was able to pull herself out. And so we continued on, deeper into the valley. This point was probably Kathryn's lowest, but as the trail became less and less clear, Natalie was finding her own low lasting a little too long. At one point, because the footing was so bad, she actually did fall.

We followed a path that continued to get overgrown, the orange markers far and few between, until finally we saw one in the distance. The hope was that this one would set us on a clear path again. We had to be close to the cabin. We'd been walking for almost two hours and were losing daylight rapidly. I forged over the tussocky land as quickly as possible in an attempt to find a trail. I kept stopping and looking for clearer markers, but there were none. When I reached that orange tie in the tree there weren't even moose tracks to indicate that any living thing had gone that way recently. At this point, with the sun resting on the shoulders of the hills, we decided to turn back.

Walking back was almost a relief, although I had wanted to get to the cabin. We planned to go to Natalie's apartment and stay the night. We talked as much as possible to ignore the dying light and deter any moose in the area. There were fresh tracks on the trails we had used to get so efficiently lost. There were plenty of things to mark the way we had come, the first large patch of water, the leaning tree that I'd almost been hit in the head with, the five gallons of water just sitting on the side of the trail, and the signs which had instilled such a false sense of security in us. We talked about when someone might start to come and find us, what we would do if we couldn't get out, how the area reminded us of different, bleak literary narratives (the marshes and moors of LOTR and Wuthering Heights). Natalie drove us home barefoot and I sat in the back with my feet in a plastic bag. We decided to name Kathryn's car Ande: A Near Death Experience.

We made it to Natalie's apartment and joked about exaggerating the story, about adding a real wolf, Kathryn getting stuck up to her chest, a group of moose chasing us down. Honestly, there isn't much to exaggerate without feeling exhausted anyway. Our pants and socks were so full of boggy mud-water that Natalie put them through the wash twice. We had a mini-picnic on the living room floor with all the food we were going to eat in the cabin, each of us drinking our own bottle of wine. We even had the alcoholic whip cream, not on smores but on pudding snack packs. It was delicious.

We stayed up until almost three in the morning, slept until noon, and had a delicious and large meal at a little place called the Cookie Jar at around 2 pm. Although we didn't have a writer's get away we managed to have a good time. And to not die, which we all found to be the highlight of the hike.

The speech wall from the other day was still standing this morning. It's morphed again, quite considerably. There was a can of pbr, which was painted over again, and a curved staff with music trailing over it. Most of the words are obscured entirely. It's been changed since this photo I took of it this afternoon, though I think all the spray cans are gone now. It still mostly looks like a disaster, in my opinion.

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This afternoon I walked out to Museum North. There is a lookout spot where, on clear days, you can see Denali (120 miles away). Today, however, it was raining. Which is not to say that the view was ruined. The trees stood bright yellow against the rainy clouds. After I had looked into clumps of bight yellow and dark green for so long it was nice to see tree tops, and leaves, pushed by wind and rain. It's as if, after a month of not having glasses, I am getting them for the first time all over again. Everything is crisp and clear, and I'm amazed that people can see like this without assistance. I'm almost jealous of them. Except then I feel like perhaps I can appreciate it more.

As I continued walking I noticed people on the path opposite me keeping close to one side. In a bizarre effort to clear the grass by the road a man stood with a leaf blower, blowing wet clumps of leaves from the grass onto the sidewalk. I didn't know what he intended to do once all the leaves were on the sidewalk, but I hoped for his sake that it didn't involve raking them all up. I thought the spots of yellow and gold were pretty against the grass, but someone from the university clearly didn't agree. He kept having to get off the road, onto the grass, as cars passed him. It felt ritualistic, as if he had done this many times before. I wondered how he felt, continually interrupted, stepping up and down, moving about a foot at a time down the side of the hill, stepping up and down again.

There is a spot, as you walk to the museum, that smells like something has died just inside the tree line. I'm reminded of how close we are to nature here. Reminded of the story of a man getting trampled by a moose that some kids had been antagonizing with snowballs, just outside of one the science buildings. I hear rustling in the trees and know that the most dangerous creatures are the ones afraid. Unfortunately, I am not afraid.

The museum itself is a wonderful place, and doesn't smell like dead things at all. I plan on going there quite a few more times before the end of the semester. There is a lot of history and art to be seen, and though the collection is relatively small it is beautiful. This is, by far, one of my most favorite pieces:

Along with this petrified heart of a tree:

It's nice to be in this place, and though much of the art and writing is inspired by Alaska, I can't decide if that's a bad thing or not. So much of it focuses on the phenomenon that is living in the far north. It could be repetitious except that it's so impacting. For now. Perhaps that feeling will change. I can't help but feel as though it is marvelous still. The dark and light, the flush and drain of life. The stirring of minds as they collect here. The interior, as it's called. Some days I can't help but feel it's the interior of a very different kind of earth.

Suddenly

I'm feeling sort of at a loss, all of a sudden. Direction is a hard thing to hold on to. Often times I still walk without looking up, without looking into people's faces. When I do, they smile. Going into a building the other day I looked up to thank the guy holding the door. He didn't say you're welcome. He asked for my name.

Graffiti, Disjointed

Today there is a garish piece of plywood propped up on some 2x4's. I am sure the plywood was not garish when it was placed there, but the wall stands for some kind of representation of free speech and there are cans of spray paint collected around the bottom of the display. As I walk past someone is writing "#Starvat" in white, the only color that will show up against the back drop of words written on top of one another. I assume he means to advertise Starvation Gulch, an event held in Fairbanks at the end of September, where large fires burn before the dark sets in. We lose daylight at an exponential rate. Now it's minutes, soon it will be by half an hour, until we hit the solstice, when the sun will barely lift off the horizon.

The plywood references local and pop culture. Beneath the layers there was the batman logo in white, a choice I found inexplicable. In black, toward the bottom, were the words Bad Wolf. Now it's hard to make a single message out. Mutation arises, "This Li(fe)" is cut off diagonally by a sequence of three hearts. In black, surrounded by a border that did not protect it's message, are words about expectations. I can't help but feel that this project had so much more potential. Now, when I look at it, I wonder at what free speech means when it comes to making messages stand out. If anyone can come along and spray their words on top of others (marking their territory, almost) then how are we to be heard? Repetition? Copy Rights? This board is proof that it doesn't matter. The only thing now would be for it to rain, though I know it wouldn't have any effect on the dry paint. Part of me wishes that it could though. It would speak a better message, one about how ephemeral we are, how fleeting.

The other day I saw a message in marker on some kind of power box:
"Remember
Life is Short."

Beneath it was written, in a different hand:
"but Living
is the longest thing
you'll ever do"

Both of these things are true and at odds with one another.

This weekend...

It's interesting how many little things your body is capable of that you take for granted. Today I became very grateful for my body's little abilities.

Before I mislead you any further, let me jut say that this is not, in any way, an inspiring story, unless it inspires you to never do what I have done. However, because I know people need to learn from their own experience, I doubt it will even do that much.

When I woke up this morning there were many things I was not capable of accomplishing once the hangover really set in. First though, I had to clean my vomit off of the window sill and several of my roommates things on that window sill. To be clear, there is no reason I should have even been over by the window. There's even less of a reason for me to have been throwing up by that window. Or on it. Once I finished cleaning, the self-loathing really set in.

Let's back up a little further. I don't remember doing the vomiting. When I woke up I was not wearing a shirt but I was still in the jeans from last night. It's always interesting for me to take stock of what I'm wearing when I don't remember ever getting into bed. My roommate was not in her bed. She was presumably taking stock of the things I had ruined, including a box of tea. I put a shirt on and was sitting up, taking stock of exactly how much pain I was soon going to be in. She came into the room and said, "You do know you threw up all over my stuff." It took me quite a while to register this, and then to be able to understand the enormity of the situation.

The evening before was not without its fun, to be sure, but, as I am sure so many of you know, drinking tends to lead to drinking more. And then trying to climb on the roof. And then being pulled off of the roof by two guys to make sure you don't kill yourself.

(Pictured here: Damages by roof)

                                                                   
So let's get back to where we started, which is how great your body normally is when you haven't filled it full of poison and then run into everything. You can move! Without pain or dizziness. You can lie down. And tilt your head. You can probably even turn in a full circle. You're capable of eating things. Of saying the word food without feeling like throwing up. You can drink water without throwing up. In fact, regularly, your body accepts and holds all the food you try to shove into it. This was very severely not the case for me. In between crying and throwing up I spent a good deal of the day sitting on our very small, very dusty bathroom floor. I had managed about six bites of an english muffin, which was six bites too many in my body's opinion. And if you ever want to argue with your esophagus about when it should be letting food out, let me just say you will always lose.

Some Stats from this learning experience:
Attempts to climb on roof: 2
Bottles of vodka consumed (by just me): 1
Number of beer pong games played: 4 (maybe?)
Probable blood alcohol content: 10
Number of times I threw up: 11
Times I remember throwing up: 9
Number of vows to never go to cabin in the woods parties: probably 1,000,000

I had a victorious dinner of peanut butter snack crackers and watered down apple juice. I haven't thrown up in several hours and I hope that trend continues, for a very long time. Because there's almost no worse a way to spend a sunday afternoon than your body's revenge dry-heaves.

Right now it's about ten o'clock and I'm not feeling totally normal yet. Loads better? Yes. Like I could go for sandwich? Not so much (though I did just manage to eat the other half of that english muffin). My roommates occassionally pass by the sliding door that leads into one of the shared bedrooms and peer in, as if they're wondering, "Is she still alive?" What I am most worried about is the damage I have done, and the possibility that I have really upset the roommate who's things I so generously adorned with the contents of my stomach. She says it's fine and that she can tell I am truly sorry, but I'm going to buy her some tea and leave a little extra money. It's possible that my own shame leads me to fearing that it's worse than it really is, because this is the first time I have ever done something like this. And I know what you skeptics may think, but it's going to be a while before I even touch another drink.

And I'm positive lime vodka has been ruined for me forever.

Two unrelated things

"Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today."

Cloud Atlas is becoming a movie. It looks like it's becoming an insanely awesome movie. I must watch it. 

Today I had one of my classes, Teaching College Composition. It's a great atmosphere, very energetic and open. A place where we can discuss, easily, the issues of gender, sex, sexuality, race, and other tensions in the classroom. Afterward we all went to the pub and our prof. joined us for a drink. Such a strange thing to think of, let alone happen! But I admit to some happiness that she joined us because she singled me out and said she really enjoyed my response for one of our case studies. She thought I had understood the subject really well. It's a class that I hope will help me attain a TA for next year, and so to have that first bit of praise and motivation is really nice. 

It was interesting though because I am really getting to know some of the other MA/MFA's for the first time. It is a very strange environment to be sure, because I feel as though everyone is sizing everyone else up, myself included. I think I surprised one guy in particular when we began to discuss art and my enjoyment of block printing because it's a very good medium for joining language and visual art together. He already has an MFA in painting, so hearing his take was very interesting. But it occurred to me that I really was surprising him. It's strange because I felt so well-liked in the 'burg that I suddenly feel that pressure again to gain respect from my peers. I think that pressure doesn't stop from here on out (a forever kind of thing), but I hope to gain a few more friends before long. I think in a way I may also be judging this MFA Painter, putting him into a category that he may still defy. And I realize I've been doing this more to the potential writers I've met than to anyone else. 

If girls are harder on girls, writers are hardest on other writers.

Which is scary when you realize it can come back to you.

Tender and Gentle

"Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love." -Zooey Deschanel

This is a quote that has recently taken a hold of me. I feel like I really built a wall around myself, and for a long time I didn't even know it. I was stuck within myself. Here's a recent entry of thought I had on being gentle:

My whole life there has been harshness and now here I can have a stranger lay her head on my lap, and stroke her hair, do this incredibly gentle, vulnerable thing for this person. And she’s content, and will sleep, head on my lap. I can have this kind of connection, and brush fingers with a boy who’s growing into his own surety. This is an experience I think everyone should have. Because in a way you also learn to be gentle with yourself, and you just have to take things slowly. I know this is not revolutionary. But the revelation itself is what I feel so vital. No one telling you can ever teach you how to feel this. This is the same for running, swimming, painting, building, blowing smoke rings, writing a poem.

The experiences in these last two weeks of meeting so many new people, the vulnerability of going somewhere new, again, having to present yourself. You learn things about yourself that I'm sure you couldn't ever do by being stagnant, by not offering the first hello, by not putting yourself out there. I was so painfully withdrawn that now I almost feel as if I don't stop. Everyone's been saying these things about me that I wouldn't have believed, even a year ago. "You're so outgoing. I wish I could talk to people like you. You can say hi to anybody."

But, anybody  can say hit to anybody. It's such a hard thing to do at first that after you start you can hardly recall how much courage you needed to begin. I've been reading pride and prejudice for a class and it's true what Mrs. Bennet says to her daughters, "At our time of life, it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance everyday." What dear, funny Mrs. Bennet may not realize is that for many people being faced with new acquaintance everyday is down right scary. Except when it starts to get fun, and enjoyable, and you realize, (if you're an idealist and an optimist and whatever else) like me, that it begins to be beautiful.

I've made friends from every continent except Antarctica (I'm coming for you, penguins! (It's summer down there soon!)). I'm becoming fast friends with a PhD engineering student from the UK who wants to involve creating social progress in his degree. A girl from Zambia who's opposing optimism and string of bad days is at once baffling and endearing. The sweetest Japanese girl who believed that New Yorkers kept their fingers warm by sticking them in their nose. A duo from the Netherlands and France who each drank their own bottle of wine during a get together (and both so small). A girl from the UK that introduced me to some British culture and made sure I got back home safely. A Korean-American who feels mostly American, but who defers to anyone in an instant. So many interesting, charming people that it would take me too long to describe them all. And I still have so much time to get to know them.


I realize that these last posts have been brimming with joy and a possibly painful amount of cheer, but I just feel so much love right now, and I'm so happy. I want to be able to look back on this when the sun just barely lifts her face from the horizon, knowing that so much can happen that's lovely in the world.

Thinking About Writing

I've been thinking that I'm going to have to produce a full portfolio sometime in the future, some kind of group of poems that can lead to a chap book, and perhaps publication. Here are some things that I've been finding are unintentionally poetic:

"Enlightening experiences with new/old friends. Loveliness sets in."

This is a facebook status by a friend that I've never met in real life. I've been considering the unintentional poetic, how things connect us in ways we couldn't have seen before, or in ways that people may not notice. The way two people who've never met clearly have similar tastes colors, whole groups of people move in packs of colors that they never even see. The ignored slant of a tree, the brush of common ideals and overlapping theory, a lunch between a rhetorician, a poet, and an engineer. Where else do these things happen? I've decided they are all, "Enlightening experiences with new/old friends. Loveliness sets in."


The other day I was in the post office and the girl next to me was getting upset. She was the kind of person that I might have judged immediately had I been even two years younger. She was a bit over weight, wearing ill-fitting, goth style clothes with plastic, polka-dotted bows in her black pigtails. Her glasses slid down the make-up on her nose as she frantically counted the change in her wallet. She needed seven dollars cash to post something over-night. It had to be shipped that day and by the time she could return to the post office, after she came back from work, which she was rapidly becoming late to, the office would be closed. She only had four dollars on her. When I gave her the three dollars she had no idea how to respond. At best I would have spent it on snacks, or vending machine coffee. I could see that she wanted to refuse the money and accept it at the same time. It produced an amusing reaction from her. She simply slid the bills over to her side of the counter, gave me a slide-long glance, as if at any moment I'd snatch the money back from her, and said, "I think this makes seven." The lady behind the counter looked at me, as if she too thought at any moment I might snatch the money back. I nodded, indicating that I was quite positive I didn't need three dollars. When they finished their transaction the girl turned completely around without giving me a second look and marched out of the post office looking as if she were the busiest person alive. The post lady looked at me and very dryly said, "Well, that was unexpected." I wasn't sure if I agreed with her or not.

I had clearly put the other girl on the spot and I'm not sure she was used to receiving random acts of kindness. I knew exactly how she might be feeling at the moment. She was too proud to admit she needed the help. She certainly didn't want it, but knew somewhere within her that it was her only option, one she couldn't have reached without the assistance of someone who could very well be looking down on her.

I'm not sure exactly what I find lovely about this experience, except to say that everyone knows the feelings of pride, and those moments when it's force is tested. It was certainly, at the very least, enlightening.


I hope to convince myself and others that we are all poetically bound. There is something so wonderful about the thought for me that I'm almost already convinced that it must be true. Another facebook status, for example, has this within it, "they have rained through this kingdom." That's definitely a typo in context, but let's look at it for what it says. I love the image it produces for me, traveling with rain through the kingdom. It may not be the best stuff but there's something wonderful living just underneath of that idea, of that thought. This is the way I think the whole world must be, even at its worst.

Restarting

I used this blog initially as a tool for class. I blogged when it was required of me, and sometimes not even then. Once, in an act of self-deprecation, I deleted all of the posts that had been on here. Now I feel a little sad about that. Which is why I am restarting. I'm living in Alaska right now after a few upheavals in my personal life. I'm not going to go into that unless it becomes related to what is happening here and now in a way that I view is relevant, because I am going to attempt some content control here (hopefully David Sedaris style). In fact, this blog is about my life as it unfolds now:

Today I realized that being in Alaska has caused me to reconsider many things, one of them being the strangeness of the world. I realized that if I tried to stop and think of all the enormous oddities I would never start up again. These thoughts really started when I flew for the first time. It was an experience I can't say I'll ever forget. To me the idea of a giant metal tube attached to two big metal triangles and a hell of a lot of jet fuel should not culminate in being lifted from the earth. And yet with a little extra push, hollow metal spaces do as well in the air as they do in the sea. What I found most strange was the commonplaceness of it all, the easy way the other passengers pulled down the plastic shades on their windows, leaned their heads back, and ignored the roar of the engine and the pull of gravity as it resisted our crazy burst into the air. I watched out the window as the airport I had found so large shrank down, a carpet square on the surface of the earth. I found that everything was this way. A river seemed no larger than a spilled cup of water, the houses were carefully laid, glass mosaic tiles. The feeling of these things combined with my constant dreams of flying nearly brought me to tears. I held back. Because this smallness was such a microscopic portion of the whole.

I suddenly realized why I had not become an astronaut. Seeing the earth fade out as others have done would surely be too much for me to handle.

But being in Alaska is strange in its own ways. The thought of the encroaching dark, the cold, the cold being so intense that it couldn't snow and ice sculptures wouldn't melt for months. The bigness of this place against the idea that the world is so small; the horizons and clouds which seem endless. None of these are new ideas, and yet for the first time they feel as if they are new.

Perhaps I am the one becoming new.