Serendipitous Weekend (August 10-12)

Part One: Friday August 10th.

Five of us decide we want to ditch the celadon tour plans and go one of the thousands of island of Korea, Jeju-do. We have the requisite complications in trying to find out bus and ferry schedules with our non-existent Korean... I took to drawing stick figures and lots of miming to explain to my host family where it was we wanted to go. I'd still speak to them in English, but broken English:"Bus time? Need help. Ferry. Ship. Ship schedule? Not certain. Maybe we go to Jeju-do? Ferry time [question mark, arrow to port name, etc.)"

Fan-fucking-tastic. Miming. It's not just for the French or circus freaks. Seriously, it works. If I come home and speak to you with a total lack of prepositions and articles, but extensive line drawings and hand gestures, please don't mind, it will go away soon enough. Anyway, back to the story.Two of our Korean co-teachers offer to give us rides to Mokpo, where we can catch the ferries, and one even sets us up with one of her elementary student's family-- who invites us to stay for free in their spare bedroom (on the floor, 5 to a room, but with a bathroom and no expectation as to when we come or go. not bad, really).

We are dropped off in this friendly stranger's house and we leave again almost immediately to pick up a few things at the local e-mart (e-mart-euh, as the natives say) and head out for dinner and drinks. At the e-mart (think walmart, meets costco, meets a weird mom & pop store (the girls working in various departments have matching uniforms, including leg warmers) we wanted to purchase a couple of ice cream bars; it was hot and they are tasty chocolate coconut milk things, but we were chastised by an older Korean woman working the frozen food section. She gave us a bag. We put our ice creams in the bag and began to walk away. We were chastised a second time. She took our bag away and put out ice creams back in the freezer. She pointed to the Korean sign. We had no idea what to do.

"We want three," we say, holding our fingers up and gesturing. She says" anio," and crosses her wrists to indicate no. We walk away not understanding why we are not being permitted to buy ice cream. We encounter a clan of Korean school girls in uniform. "Hello," they say, in unison. "Where are you from?" [giggles ensue.] We tell them and then enlist their help. Please help us buy ice cream. They lead us back to the cranky Korean lady. Eventually we learn that we can buy eleven ice cream bars, or we can't buy any. Silly. We buy cans of bubbly wine (ewww, but a novelty) and then leave to get pizza.

After pizza, we decide we really want ice cream. We buy eleven. We eat as many as we can and then Wim begins to distribute the remaining ice cream to random parentless children. He wasn't seeking them out; Korean children seem to wander around at all hours pretty much unattended. Even late. It wasn't creepy by Korean standards, but we laughed at him as though he were a creepy old man. What I haven't mentioned thus far is the rabbit hutch. Yes, a rabbit hutch. Just sitting outside the e-mart, randomly. Seven bunnies in their cages, apparently for customer entertainment. They looked hungry. They licked our fingers through the cages.

"I wish we could feed them. There's some old lettuce in the cage; they look fed, but they seem hungry." One of us said this, or something like it. I think either me or Fallon. We sat down on the bench and watched the rabbits and ate ice cream and laughed at Wim and the children. Then a man walked by with a huge bag of lettuce and he proceeds to drop it on the ground and walk away. We exchange glances. Bag of lettuce falls from sky. Sweet. Fallon and I rip into it and feed the bunnies. They love this about us and no one seems to have a problem with it, so we feed them some more. But the evening is young. We decide to go out for drinks. "

Next up: the sexy T girl bar, the fish and peanut bar, the random white people on the street and our walk home.

the love shack, baby

I'd really like to blog about the amazing weekend I had this past weekend on a small, remote, and incredibly beautiful island named Big-eum-do, but I'm going to have to save my stories of bunnies and ice cream and the bag of lettuce that fell from the sky; the ferries getting cancelled on account of the approaching typhoon and the private boat we had to charter to get off the island and that sort of thing. Instead, I am feeling compelled to blog about the love shack we are currently staying in...

There are vending machines on nearly every floor in which a person can procure the following: condoms, love lube, dildos, and fake vaginas (no joke! only 20,000 won-- get yours while supplies last!). Pretty sweet, yes? Also, there are two free channels of Korean porn (some of which is decidedly unsexy) that some televisions have been programmed to spontaneously turn on (no pun intended) in the middle of the night. Since there are no driers in most of Korea and laundry all is hung to air dry, it is very comforting to see the hotel bath towels (each the size of a standard bath mat or smaller) are hung on the hallway handrails to dry (consider again what's sold in the vending machines for a second). But best of all, was walking up to the seventh floor to deal with the laundry situation only to overhear a woman having sex... which would have been fine (most of us, since we aren't getting any ourselves, would be pleased that at least somebody is getting some) except that it sounded like she was having the shit beaten out of her and her screaming was punctuated with sobs. The hotel host was in the hallway too... You try miming "hey, is that normal Korean sex? is that a hooker putting on a show? seriously, should we be intervening and killing some abusive man? just curious."

So, as you might have surmised, we are in a no-tell motel type of deal. I'm not sure they rent the rooms by the hour, but I do know that I feel as if we are stuck in 1982 and I'm a little tired of it. What we overheard was certainly no husband and wife honeymooning; most likely it was a prostitute we heard screaming and I hope it was simply an act. But, given that women aren't treated as much more than chattel here anyway, you can imagine that a prostitute is probably treated like a dog here, and considering how I've seen those treated (not to mention that they are food items as well) it is easy to see why I am a bit disturbed. Also, for those of you who remember the West Hall incident not so long ago, I'm fucking tired of this sort of thing.

Anyway, my next blog post will be about the amazing, serendipitous, wonderful weekend I had. Until then, sleep well and know that I am avoiding three starches at each meal, flip flops that smell like, as Wim put it, a homeless person's sleeping bag (though he was referring to his, not mine, but all of us who went to Big-eum-do have shoes that qualify for this, um, ranking), and drying off with any hotel towels... wish me luck.

oh.my.god.

I've gained nearly six pounds in the three weeks I have been here!! I keep telling people that not ALL Americans want to eat every ten minutes, but no one listens and keeps right on pumping me full of food anyway. Yes, yes, I can not eat it; you try doing that when you risk offending the ancestors of everyone you come in contact with by refusing food. In any case, I've decided that three meals a day is too many, especially when there are three kinds of starch available (i.e. pushed) at most of them and especially when all food consumed falls within a 12-14 hour period. Yikes. Also, it seems Koreans have a particular fondness for addding sugar to everything, frying lots of otherwise fresh vegetables, and making things salty. I can't wait to come home to my own fridge.

AND did you know...

that typhoon is just a fancy word for hurricane? The odds are fairly good we will be hit by one (choose your designation) while I am here. I admit I am a little curious, but know better than to tempt the universe like that.

ten more things you really wanted to know

The same caveat applies to this posting as my last one:

1) Jackassery knows no cultural, political, or geographic bounds.

2) The swastika symbol is used with its original (peaceful) meaning in Korea; small villages with such symbols emblazoned on road signs are not Korean Nazis, but rather a peaceful enclave. Still, creepy to see.

3) Koreans suck the grape out of its skin and discard it, but eat the seeds.

4) Korean girls are not afraid to hit Korean boys and they are not afraid to hit back. Actually, there is a whole lot of hitting among children, even to the point of giving bloody noses. In his defense, she was a tough girl and she kicked first.

5) No one, not even our Korean co-teachers, can determine or agree on the ferry schedule between the mainland and the island of Jeju-do.

6) Eating two year old fermented, pickled cabbage will not actually kill me.

7) Still, I am perhaps never going to eat cabbage again, even raw, but especially not the aged kind.

8) Pink Martini songs are played in the background of Korean evening television dramas. So is Bobby McFerrin. Also, soap operas are pretty much the same everywhere. I don't have to know the language to understand what is going on. This makes it difficult to ignore when it's on in the background.

(9) Korean men, when they are good looking, are really, really good looking. There isn't really a lot of middle ground, it would seem. Totally hot, or really not. I didn't mean for that to rhyme. Shallow observation, I know, but there it is.

10) I take direction well. Eat. Shower. Leave. I know it's really just the limited English and the trouble with translation, but I like to think I have finally learned to do as I am told. That's a bunch of crap and I know it; I only do as I'm told when I want to (it's always been this way) but I'm pretending that for once, even in a relative stranger's house, I am the good daughter.

22 things i've learned in korea thus far...

Before I go any further, let me state for the record that what follows are my observations and my observations only; nothing should be taken as a sweeping generalization and while truthful, I'm sure not all of it can be taken for fact. Judge the veracity of my statements against your own intelligence and experience. Actually, that's a pretty good formula for judging the veracity of anyone's statements.



1) It is considered (somehow) disrespectful to wear a seat belt in a person's car.



2) I don't need to know the conversion of miles to kilometers to know that 150 kph is fast, especially on a slick, narrow, country road.



3) Mayonnaise is almost as ubiquitous as rice.



4) Foreigners can only withdrawal cash from international ATMs, making the won in my pocket pretty scarce, as I am in a reasonably rural province.



5) When asked if you like "soybean noodle soup" discard any visions of steamy broth-laden vegetable and noodle and then say "no thank you." Imagine the milky remains of a bowl of honey nut cheerios, you know, that last bowl when all the powdery cheerios falls into the bowl and makes the milk not only sweet, but grainy. Then add julienned strips of cucumber, a whole lotta fat noodles, and a single soybean.



6) Anything not human is treated decidedly less than humanely here. Little girls threaten dogs with umbrellas (and said dogs subsequently flinch) at church when they dare to consider stepping in out of the rain. They don't like people wearing shoes in their houses; you can imagine what filthy, filthy people that makes animal lovers like myself, who for instance, sleeps with two cats and would care little if I had a dog and it came inside.



7) Generally, the mosquitoes here don't really like me, but when they go in for a bite, they invariably chew on my ankles.



8) Stick figures, line drawings, and liberal gesticulation work wonders to get one's point across, especially when one's dictionary is hardly comprehensive and all shared language has been exhausted (about 12 seconds).



9) I really don't like plates of food that can look back at me.



10) Hanging squid out to dry, with clothespins, on the clothesline, right next to the towels, is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.



11) Looking like a westerner and smiling and saying "I don't speak Korean" is not enough to dissuade old ladies from speaking to you in it regardless.



12) A bow and a nod go a long way.



13) I am fluent in family.



14) Six hours of church won't actually kill me.



15) But, with few exceptions, the bible still pretty much manages to evoke at least a low-grade irritation. If I cared more, it would probably piss me off.



16) Thunder was named such for a damn good reason. Wow.



17) Postcards are almost as difficult to find as international ATMs.



18) Koreans can tell you every health property imaginable in your food (onions are good for lowering cholesterol, didn't you know) but there are trucks that drive around town letting off huge clouds of gas (imagine a dense fog that covers an entire block at a time, so thick you can't see through your windshield, and that takes a good 30 seconds to disperse) which are either anti-septic, or pesticides, to kills germs and bugs. "Same thing," they say, "makes it clean."



19) I'd almost forgotten how much I love the sound of frogs when I'm drifting off to sleep.



20) I did not, however, forget that I love the smell of rain.



21) I can't recall what it feels like to be hungry. I mean really hungry. I hope to be so as much as possible, once I leave my homestay family.



22) Koreans like ice cream. A lot.



Well, that will do for now, I suppose.

somewhere between meh and moo

Though I am surrounded by rice paddies, I noticed the smell of cow the first night I arrived at my host family's house, just outside of Haenam. I've yet to actually see these cows, but they are baying into the night and listening to them is somehow of comfort. In Korea cows don't moo, they meh, or something rather like that. Cats don't meow here either, the yeown. And where someone from the States might hear bird or crickets sing, in Korea they only hear crying. But there are the cows and, Korean or American, they are chatty and smelly and I can count on that.

cheese custody

This will be a brief post. My brain is melting. But I wanted to share with you the kinds of interactions I am having with my host family.

host daughter: taste?
me: yes, ne ne.
me: mashi soyo (it tastes delicious)
host family: more eat

These people seem to eat every two hours. Not just my host family, but all of Korea. Three meals a day and lots of snacking. And any excuse for a ice cream bar, which, with this heat, I understand.

I learned that the inside a cloud phenomenon is a result of monsoon season. That has ended, but the clouds linger longer. Soon they will blow away and the skies will be clearer. It will also get to be about ten degrees hotter, throughout August. I'm not sure how I feel about that, to tell you the truth. And I like heat.

On my first day here, my host family stopped by a grocery store in Haenam to have me choose some food items to eat. I didn't know what for exactly, so I chose things, randomly, that I like: cucumbers, bell peppers, tofu. I was feeling like I needed some vegetable matter. They picked up a purple cabbage for me. I selected some eggs. They chose three kinds of breads. They wanted me to get cheese. the only non-kraft singles style cheese I could find was the brie and the Camembert, so I chose those. Breakfast has turned up all these items. And a strawberry salad sauce. It has been interesting, but good. Today, the cheese appeared.

host daughter, pointing to her phrase book: Can you show me how to eat it?

me: well, it's not usually eaten at breakfast, but sure. You slice it, like this, then you put it on some bread and eat it. (the bread is toasted white bread)

host daughter: [takes cheese and reaches for the strawberry-fig jam]

me: try it first without the jam, then try it with the jam.

host daughter and brother: [blank expressions]

host daughter: [wraps bread around cheese and takes a bite. wears odd expression.]

host brother: [laughs]

host daughter: [turns to computer translator, looking for the word she wants.]

host daughter: It tastes anything. [takes a second bite]

host daughter: Very good!

host brother: rapid fire Korean I don't know how to translate, even if I knew what was actually said.

You get the idea. After breakfast, Sinae turns to the computer again. She is searching for a word. Finding it, she turns around and asks me: "Cheese custody?"

I determine that she wants to know how to keep the cheese.

me: you store the cheese in the refrigerator. when you want to eat it, take it out of the fridge and let it warm up a little.

sinae: [blank expression. looks to brother.]
namho (brother): [blank expression]

me: when you eat the cheese, not cold. when you keep the cheese, cold, in the fridge.

sinae: Ah!

Just thought I'd share...

driving the point home, and the country

I don't know where to begin with this post... I feel I am at two opposite extremes with what I would like to convey. Do I begin with the sauna and the humorous encounter between eight nude American women and several of their Korean compatriots, or do I venture straight to the part where I am sitting in my homestay family's house wondering whether I will be able to avoid attending church four times a week with them?

Well, I'll start with yesterday evening, I suppose. Several of us decided that we'd rather skip dinner (if necessary) so that we could go to the second floor of the hotel to enjoy the sauna. There are two hot pools (one regular and one very hot one) and two dry saunas (again, one normal and one awesomely hot) and a cold pool. To either side are showering nooks, where you squat down on a very short stool, soap up and rinse off, before heading for the pools. The pools are lovely, with sulfur water I think, and very relaxing. We ended up doing yoga inside the hottest sauna-- talk about hot yoga!-- and alternating between the hot and the cold. The cold pool seemed to have something mentholated in the water; it was something we each felt in our lips and our lungs, but it felt good.

Toward the end we were wanting to scrub down, but didn't have anything. Missy saw a woman with some sort of scrub on her face and tried to ask her about it. The woman proceeded to smear this creamy mask-like substance (cleanser?) onto Missy's cheeks. She then brought the tube over to the rest of us and pointed it at each of us, then back at herself, saying, "mine" as if to indicate she'd like us to get it back to her. The women were quite friendly, actually, and animated. Cross-cultural communication facilitated through naked bathing. Not a bad practice, when you think about it, and it was nice because there was no sense of shame about bodies in that room. Very different from what one experiences in a girls' locker room back in the States. But perhaps the highlight, and certainly the most humorous moment, came when we were examining a strange platform over which red lights hung from the ceiling.

Missy and I stood there debating whether or not to press the shiny red button... who knew what would happen? We hesitated quite a bit, until finally, an older Korean woman came over to show us how to use it. She pressed the button, the lights came on, and she gestured for us to get onto the platform, which we did. But the three of us (because Claire had joined us by then) didn't want to lie down, so we sort of crouched there. This was apparently silly business, because it didn't take long for another Korean woman to come over to show us how to do it correctly. She put three towels down on the platform and gestured to us to lie down, which we did. But she kept gesticulating, mostly emphasizing whatever it was she war trying to tell us. She looked at Tara, who was standing nearby, as if she could somehow translate the message, which seemed urgent. Blank exchanges circulated among us. We had no idea what the woman was trying to tell us.

This seemed to frustrate the woman a little. She was standing, hips tilted forward, crouching ever so slightly, while still upright. She was very dramatic, insistent in whatever it was she wanted us to know that we were not understanding. Finally, exasperated with is, she reached out her open hand and slapped herself, but not in the face; she slapped herself directly on the mound of her vagina. Hard. The sound reverberated through the platform chamber. Missy looked for a moment as though she were considering whether or not we were being asked to mimic this gesture. When we still had confused expressions, the woman again turned to Tara, dumbfounded as to why we could not understand and why Tara could not make things clear. Tara gave it her best guess, given the action that had just occurred. "I think she wants you to turn around to that you are facing the wall and not the room," she said. So we did. This appeased the woman; finally we had understood that our naughty bits should not be exposed to the room as such.

Of course, once we figured this out we couldn't stop laughing. Was there really no other gesture that would have sufficed? Did we really all just experience a grown naked woman slapping her vagina at us? Certainly this is an experience I will never have again. We lay there, Claire, Missy and I, on the towels, under the red light, giggling uncontrollably. After a while, we decided that we had no idea what the benefit was of being under those lights. We weren't any drier, and we weren't quite close enough to be warmed by them. So, apart from looking fabulously like the cover of a 60s album, we weren't sure what the point of that particular experience was, so we got up to rinse off and leave. You can imagine this made for quite an entertaining dinner experience right afterward, when we relayed the entire event in detail.

So, now, today, I have met with my homestay family: Mr. Jo, Mrs. Koh, and their daughter Sinae (Shin-ay) and they are all very nice, though each of us has our nose in a dictionary trying to communicate. My Korean is obviously terrible, and the daughter's English is minimal, while her parents' is non-existent. She plays the piano and the drums, and her father is learning to play the drums. They all seem very sweet and their house is in the countryside of Haenam. The surrounding area is rice paddy fields as far as the eye can see. And the attend church four times a week. I am curious how this will unfold over the next two weeks.

I have told them I am agnostic and that half my family is catholic and episcopalian while the other half is atheist. I have not told them that the atheists tend to make more sense to me. But, I respect everyone's traditions and they seem good people, so I am keeping an open mind. I am hoping to use their church time to either write, or do yoga, things I feel a bit awkward doing around them. I am staying in their son's room, who is older that Sinae, but I don't know by how much; he doesn't appear to live at home any longer. I think dinner is almost ready, so I will be cutting this post short. Ad if this beast could be considered short. I hope you all are well. More to come later.

post from inside a cloud

Well, it only took three planes, four airports, and two bus rides to get here, but we've arrived and are staying in the Park Meudung Hotel in Gwanju (though, each city I've seen has an average of three different spellings, depending on the map, so don't take any of my spellings as fact) and have begun our orientation with the Jeollanamdo English Training Institute. It has become quite clear that our being here is actually a very big deal. We knew this, to a point, since our airfare was something like $1,500 a piece and there are 35 of us and the provincial government is picking up the tab. But, we had no idea how big a deal.

Yesterday, we met the Jeollanam-do Governor, a Mister Park Junior if I've got that correct, and there were news cameras and lots of photography. We have become the defacto ambassadors of Portland, Oregon and we are slowly discovering what exactly we are to do here. And, it's turning out, we are to be much more involved in the teaching than we were led to believe. We will be running one booth for the duration of our work at the Jeollanamdo English Camp, which means we will teach lessons on art, music, nature, science, math, etc. to elementary and middle school students every day. We think they have lessons planned and supplies, but we don't know for cerrtain yet. I know they thought we would have chosen which booth we would be working in, which we have not, because we didn't know. Obviously, the language barrier is presenting a bit of confusion, but they are taking this whole thing very seriously and are otherwise very organized, so I don't think it will be a problem. Besides, this will not be the first time I've had to do any sort of improvisational teaching. Still, wish me luck.

I've almost adjusted to the time change (16 hours ahead of home, so most of the time, I'm on a different day than most of you) and the weather is hot and sticky. We are literally walking around inside a cloud most of the time. Looking out at the sky, through the air out in front of me, it reminds me a bit of Ireland, in that the air is just different, thicker. You can see it and feel it in a way we don't usually. You can feel it as you inhale it through your nose. Looking out over the city at night, one might think it is a smoggy haze, but it's not. They are clouds. I'd seen paintings that give this sort of dreamlike impression, which I mistook for artistic license, but this is actually what the surrounding countryside looks like. We are almost always inside a cloud. Even when it is sunny. And, did I mention it is hot? It will get hotter in August. By about 10 degrees I think. I will be glistening and sticky for weeks yet.

Last night Abbye (one of the other girls here) and I were in the hotel gym looking at the back of the TV to see if I could plug B's iPod into it to do some yoga (thank you again for that B, I have already used it!) and then we caught sight of something interesting outside the window: a snack shack with moving chairlifts shooting out of the back. We decided to explore. Of course, not speaking much, or really any (hello and thank you are very limited in their use, but we've used them a lot) Korean, it took a while to figure out what the deal was. After much charades and broken questioning (imagine me waving my hands in a circular motion, then pointing up the mountain and making "look out at the view" motions, saying the Korean word for "where") we determinied that the chairlift took us up to the top of the mountain and back. Of course, we missed the part about us being able to get off at the top and look out at the view from up there, so we stayed on and came right back down. It was still an amazing view.

We traveled up through the trees, the sun had just set, and the higher we went, the more incredible the view of the city lights spread out behind us in the distance. A large bird flew out in front of us and the trees were alive with the singing of what I think are cicadas. So loud. The Koreans call this sound crying. Birds cry, crickets cry; they do not sing. South Korea is also a very philosophical sort of place. We had visited a garden earlier and were told to discard our pragmatic thinking and to use our imagination. They believe that to cultivate the mind is one of the highest and most important pursuits. We also happen to be in the province best known for it's cultural heritage, specifically for it's poetry and literature. I learned about sijo (short form poetry) and gasa (long form prose poetry and/or novels) at the Museum of Literature yesterday. So, as you might imagine, I am enjoying myself quite a bit. We find out what city we are going to today when we meet our Korean teacher/partners. We meet our host families this weekend and will stay with them for two weeks and two days before being transferred back to hotels in our respective cities. I am still hoping to make a weekend trip to Jeju-do, off the southwestern-most coast, near Haenam, which is said to be the Hawaii of Korea. I am also considering doing a temple-stay one weekend and living like and among Buddhist monks for a spell. It will surely all be interesting.

There is more, of course, and I'm still digesting it all. They call the vegetarians among us "the different ones" and assume that this means we eat fish. I am doing better than others in this regard, since I am no longer a strict vegetarian, but it has been interesting. I'm feeling sorry for the meat eaters, because apparently the rest of the world thinks Americans are extremely fond of beef, and so far they've been served it twice in one day, once as something resembling salisbury steak, and again as what we think may have been chicken fried steak. The meat eaters are wishing they'd get Korean food and not the Denny's special as the Koreans here have interpreted it. In any case, I am off to discover what we are having for breakfast today and then to begin our training.

Much love to you all.

twenty-one days

I will be on the other side of the planet in twenty-one days. Twenty-one days to complete the course I am teaching. Twenty-one days to figure out how to say a few necessary things to people I have little to no ability to communicate with. Twenty-one days before a 12 hour flight to Seoul, and then on to another city, and then another, with no idea where I am going or exactly what I'll be doing until I'm there.

What I know: it will involve teaching English to 9-13 year olds and I will live with a family I have never met in one of three cities (Damyang, Goksung, or Haenam). I am excited and nervous and doing lots of yoga in preparation for my time away. I will miss my kitties and my sister, who will be taking care of my kitties, and the beautiful Portland weather, and the five weeks of summer that I could be on a beach somewhere recreating the universe, or laughing uncontrollably, or maybe even kissing.

But, I'll have some good stories when I return, and a renewed sense of gratefulness and appreciation for what I love and am leaving behind. Plus, the tail end of monsoon season and lots of HOT humid weather to remember.

post in which the poet wonders

How is it that a whole school year has passed already? It seems not so very long ago I was freaking out about teaching composition and now I feel like an old pro. I'd also like to know where, oh where, have all the good apartments gone? Buster would very much like it if I could find him an outside to be a part of again. Minou, of course, doesn't really care so long as there is food available.

So, these are my challenges: lesson planning for a four week accelerated version of the class I taught in the fall; finding a fabulous apartment and moving myself and all my necessary stuff into it (I'm working so hard to get rid of the unnecessary stuff); a big publicity push at work; and planning for Korea.

The poet would now like a nap. For about a month. But will settle for unlimited massages and a few glasses of wine. And perhaps some fresh flowers from the farmers' market.

the fucked up truth

this is an act of public purging. if you don't want to think about a disturbing truth, please don't read any further.

yesterday, I was awoken from a dead sleep at 4:49 a.m. to the sound of a girl screaming, pleading for her attacker to stop anally raping her. I won't repeat her exact words, but suffice it to say that I heard each and every desperate word she cried out. I shouted out my window. I called campus security, who sent the police. I couldn't tell which room this was happening in. I couldn't make him stop. At one point the offending male shouted back at her, clearly irritated that she was messing up his game, saying, "I'm having some fucking fun!" Her anguished cries continued for at least two minutes. I learned that I was the ONLY person to call the incident in.

This fact, that so many fellow students, neighbors, ostensibly decent human beings, would sit back and passively let this happen is possibly what disturbs me most. No one knocked down her door. No one else even bothered to call the police. It has been twenty years since I was raped; it saddens me to no end that the world has changed so little since then. It pains me to know there was nothing I could to do stop it, to protect her, to help her clean up the mess. I did the only thing I could do, which was to report it and to give my statement, and that is only useful if she decides to report it, which most women do not. I can corroborate her story. I can try to put positive energy in the universe. I can choose to never let myself be a victim and to help others learn to own their power and to not foster victim mentality and the kind of toxic culture that permits things such as rape to be so commonplace. I am tired of having this in common with others.

As it turns out, this is the FIFTH rape in less than one month in the building behind mine. No action seems to be taking place to do something about it. Part of it (and I hate to play to sterotypes but here it is) is that this is a building largely populated with athletes. There are fights that break out in the parking lot, some quite vicious, every weekend. There are girls being raped, three in one night three weeks ago. This is athlete culture. This is our toxic American culture.

So, here is my request. Please tell the men in your life, the good, kind, respectful, thoughtful considerate quality human males in your life that they are recognized and appreciated for who and what they are. It does not go unnoticed. Ben-- this means you. Thank you so so much for talking me through yesterday morning. Christopher, this means you too. Heather will surely let you know. There are others: Frank, Riley, Rylan, Dave B., Andi, Dave W., Joshua, Wilson, Chris, Antoine, Jeff, Alan, Brian... There are fathers that are raising sons. There are others. You know who you are and I love you all. I admire your strength and your willingness to be both strong and gentle in equal measure. The world needs your compassion. Women like me, and my fabulous women friends, need to know you are in the world and are unafraid to be all that you are independent of what our culture seems to think 'being a man' is all about. Don't forget.

the black hole

Recently it has come to my attention that my left pupil is larger than my right; this is usually a sign of neurological trauma, ranging from a random cutting off of the blood supply due to a particularly nasty migraine to other, rather rare and disturbing things, like cancerous tumors pressing against the ocular nerve. I'd actually been noticing it myself, but thought that perhaps I'd been imagining things, especially because it is mostly noticeable in lower light when the pupils are more dilated anyway, but I didn't believe it to be real until someone else said to me, "hey, did you know that one of your pupils is larger than the other?"

Conveniently, in my work at the writing center, I have a weekly appointment with a man who is a cancer research specialist at OHSU and I thought I'd ask him whether I should be worried. Many minutes later, after he'd run through the litany of potential causes and thoroughly panicking me, he told me to go find a photograph of my eyes to see whether I could pinpoint when this change occurred, or if I'd had one larger pupil my whole life (a rare, but possible genetic condition). If it were something that had changed recently, there was a reason, and I'd need to get it looked at immediately.

So, I found a picture of myself taken when I was eighteen and, as it turns out, the left pupil was larger than the right even way back then. No one had ever noticed. Not my mother, not my boyfriends/lovers, not even me. My OHSU friend had said to me "It isn't possible that no one has ever looked into your eyes closely until this time?" (he's German) but truly, I guess not. Not really anyway. How could I have missed it all this time? Oh well, it would seem that I am in no danger of needing brain surgery any time soon, so that's a plus.

between the darkness and the light

I have not emerged from under the weight of all the work I have to complete before Thursday, but I am taking a moment to gasp for air. I've had a lot of things on my mind lately. I won't pretend to understand them all.

Earlier this week, I found myself thinking about love and cruelty. It's no secret that it is easiest to hurt those we love. But I wasn't thinking from this perspective. It was more about the dissolution of boundaries. About trust. I was thinking of the darkness we all carry within ourselves and how we can't truly be present with another in their pain, in their darkness, unless we have a firm grasp on our own. I was thinking of what it means to join someone there, to allow someone inside to see that part of ourselves and to trust them enough to be gentle. I was thinking that one would have to love me, truly love me, in order to be cruel with me. And that in the right hands, with complete trust, this pushing of the boundaries would not manifest in more pain, but would actually harness the power of that pain to liberate one from the darkness. Does that sound fucked up?

A dear friend once said to me that he thought anyone would have a hard time hanging on to me, because I really don't want to be caught. I asked B about this. Wouldn't I know, if I were to meet that proverbial "one" (letting go, for a moment, of all the crap associated with such a concept)? If I were to meet, face to face and heart to heart, the person I was meant to be with, would I not somehow just feel that and know? Don't people know such things? B's response was that yes, people know, but that I would not. I have, he said, too many doubts to be that certain of anything. This struck a chord with me. Am I so faithless? And, the truth is that, for the most part, yes. I believe in many things, in many people. I like to think I have faith in them and in myself. But the doubts creep in. They are poison. I have never had such blind and committed faith in anything and I slightly envy those that can. But how to rectify this? How to reconcile it with all the things I say I believe, and which I really do believe in?

I've had it in my head, I don't know from where, some saying I remember reading, or hearing about, that said, essentially, that when one meets their soul mate (again, casting aside all of the problems, misconceptions, and confusions associated with such terminology) they will not feel the chaos and giddiness that is typically related to new found love, but instead a profound sense of calm. I wonder then at my tendency to want to be swept off my feet, to swoon and gush and otherwise lose my mind? I am so eager to believe in those sensations, but rarely do those things work out. I have had good love, and very good partners with which to walk around in that love. I will not categorize my past relationships as failures because I am somehow still not in the place I thought I wanted to be. Every person whom I have loved or who has loved me has taught me something, usually lots of somethings, and generally quite important things. They have helped shaped me into who I am and give me the strength, daily, to push forward. I can only hope I have gifted them with something of myself and that this is a source of strength as well. I want to let go of the hurt, the misgivings, the confusion.

I want to be anchored.

I realize full well that such anchoring is largely my own responsibility. I cannot look for it in others, though often others provide exactly that. I need to seek out and discover what I lack, which makes me flail under duress, looking everywhere but right here, within me, to find some way of pulling me back down to earth, to keep me from drifting out to sea. I need to become my own anchor. I know this. And yet, there is still this dark space, on the edges of my being and right down in the middle. It is not necessarily negative, this space. There is power there; something which requires unlocking and mastery. It can drive the white light of all my other pursuits. And it waits, untapped, unharnessed. This place, it feels to me, has something to do with my need for anchoring. But I don't know how to access it. I don't know how to push past my own limitations, to dissolve my own boundaries, to love myself cruelly enough, passionately enough to access all corners of my own being and thus free myself from my own habits, ideas, and poor patterns that no longer serve me.

I wish to be uncategorizable. I wish to be worthy of one I deem worthy. I wish to unlock what I have inside, to become free, limitless. This is not to say that I wish to have no constraints, that I want to do what I want and damn everyone else. I simply wish for the limits I have to become conscious ones, the boundaries in place, chosen, not imposed from outside, and certainly not stemming from my own sickness, or weakness. I want to learn to trust completely. I want to be still, in that place of profound calm, without being pinned down or trapped in place. I want to finally and completely have faith.

a bit overwhelmed

Twenty-two essays and the accompanying twenty-two pages of required response, eleven grad student essays and the accompanying marginalia and full workshop write-ups, 28 poems to respond to each week, and all that I need to read and all I need to produce of my own work, comprise my workload in the next twenty days. This is what master classes are about and I asked for it. I like it. But I can't escape the chorus of "what did I get myself into?" that occupies my thoughts. I am tired all the time. And with that, I will sign off in order to practice Yoga for Fatigue. Appropriate.

sometimes it's you.

I'm not sure I know really what to do anymore with this blog. I seem to use it as a means of communicating with myself, working things through, processing verbally as I do, or at least linguistically anyway.

Syntax baby, yeah.

It's like an extension of my head. Sometimes, most of the time, I talk to myself. Sometimes I talk to strangers. Sometimes it's you.

In this particular sentence, it is Heather. Hi Heather. I hope you are well. I will call you later this week to see about an evening with the girls.

But usually, this is just a place where I write for the sake of writing something, anything, because that isn't always forthcoming in the areas of my life where it should be. But, is this a self-indulgent and pointless habit? Is it potentially destructive to more important and creative urges (as say, myspace, or computer games, or general internet surfing, or television can be)? Should I give it up? Should I refocus my energies elsewhere?

It wasn't even my idea to start this thing. It was B's idea. He thought I should have one and that I might benefit from the personal/public aspect. Like it was a dress rehearsal for something else. I don't know exactly, but he convinced me and here it is. Now what?

another benchmark moment

I've mentioned before, yes, that I enjoy the subtle pleasures that only MySpace can produce?

Here is another beauty:

Subject: hi

Body:

i like the strappy shoes pic, you have very pretty feet !

any chance of similar pics wth maybe a bit more leg ?

kane

~~~~~

Seriously? I get a foot fetishist AND a random, ridiculous message from a stranger all in one! Does it even get any better than that? I mean, the husband cheating on his wife who sent me a message to ask if I was his mistress, who then later followed up with me, post-divorce I assume, to see if I wanted to be friends with him, well, that is pretty hard to beat. But this comes close.

post in which the poet asks...

for a glass of wine, a massage, and a nap. In that order.

okay universe...

Give me what you've got. I'm ready.

because I cannot drift away like that

I am imagining the world across two oceans joined. I am enjoying the many silences outside my windows. I am unable to sleep.

There is a part of me that is so tired, so road weary and dust blind, I hardly remember how I've gotten here. And another that remembers each step traveled, recovers them like sand dollars and mussel shells on the shore.

What to do with these thoughts? What am I but a collection, memory bones, rattling the darkness of my night mind?

I want to write, but feel too quiet. There is a story about deer and islands and bare grass, but it escapes me. I want to dream, but Dream is an elusive bugger, and not playing games with me tonight. I want to be done with what needs to be done already. I want it to be spring.

But why rush to the end? Why reach the heady conclusion? Why turn towards anything but this elemental shift taking place all around me? Why not be patient, be kind, pay attention damn it. And what if?

I have never been so discovered. I don't expect mountains to get up and move of their own accord now, but it's nice to imagine the heavens aligning, colliding world into world, like two oceans joined.

what if I told you...

I am willing to wait as long as it takes. I don't mind so much, this being alone, despite what my bathtub might tell you about it. That I wish I could right my wrongs and be better for it. What if I could take it all back, or move it all forward, what then? What if I told you I am sorry for the things I've done, or didn't do, the things I've yet to; would you believe me?

And what if I told you I despise my own tendency to keep people at arm's length, that I've been battling it for years, that I often run far and fast from the people I want closest to me. Or that I am not afraid of dying alone, but rather terrified of becoming bitter about it. Or that I've never meant to live my life slightly askance, all the while believing in a dream I know to be real but that I'm too afraid to touch. Would you find me there? Would you know?

Would you crush me with such knowledge, or hold my still beating heart in the quiet hollows of your open palms?

close enough to touch and still so far away

In 1996 I went to Europe. It was hectic. Six countries in five weeks, a vocal jazz tour, a relationship on its way out, a lot of first class experiences crammed into a really short time frame. If I had it to do over, I'd rather have the second class eurail pass and a backpack and let my wanderings lead me where they may.

Still, it was a good trip. I sang jazz in France (4 parts -- the vocal arrangement of Miles Davis's Freddie Freeloader; I sang Miles' part in his key, back when I was in practice and had that sort of range). I saw dame Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave on stage in London, I went to the river I was named after in Ireland, spent an afternoon walking the staircases in Montparnasse, visiting the Dali Museum, thinking up ways I could live for a year in Paris...

I remember one stretch, a four day break from the tour, where we left Germany to take a train to Italy. The train took us into Austria briefly and through the northern Italian Alps. I remember looking out the window of the train, these massive green mountains jutted up against the rolling hills beneath them. Austria close enough to touch, Italy just unfolding. I remember thinking it looked like a painting. A small house, more of a shack really, might appear here or there, dotting the landscape, but otherwise it was like an unoccupied dream. I remember wanting to throw myself off that train and wander these hillsides indefinitely.

I haven't made it back to those countries, though I hope to one day. There is so much of the world I haven't seen and so much that speaks to me. I have the urge to travel. I always do, and traveling only feeds the traveling bug. It quells it for a time as well, but it has been too long. I can feel it in my bones; I need to go somewhere.

there are such things as perfect moments...

Today, while having coffee with my friend Sarah, she complained that she was not only a hopeless romantic, but also merciless cynic. "How does that happen?" she asked me.

I've always known one could stumble upon pockets of happiness, whether in love or just a very good day, the trouble for me is that usually I simply continue stumbling. There has been love, there has been kindness, there have also been pains too innumerable to mention. There have definitely been moments that I will always be grateful for, people who have touched me, shaped me, made me hopeful. And, I have always wanted to believe that love was enough, that it truly could conquer anything.

When Sarah asked me this question, I immediately said, "It happens because everyday your romanticism is thwarted by the overwhelming presence of reality." I paused. "But that doesn't mean it's not possible."

I thought of all the hard lessons I have learned, the times when love wasn't enough, the failures, if one can call them that, to be faithful to the love that has been created. I thought of certain conversations I've had with my mother, where I described the kind of life and the kind of love I wanted. She would respond as the cynic. She would tell me that the reason Hollywood makes such good money from films about true love is because they are selling the myth--the dream-- that everyone wants to buy, but that doesn't really exist.

I love my mother, but I had to tell myself she was nuts. Despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, I have always held on to this dream of love. Real, imperfectly perfect, honest, bone-shattering, mountain-moving, everything-you-ever-wanted kind of love. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I've fucked up quite a few good relationships on account of this belief.

This past summer, during the crush of wedding season (which deserves an essay all to itself: the effect of one person's wedding on everyone else's relationships), I saw my lover, the groom's Best Man, walking down the aisle with the Maid of Honor. She was already married. She is a fine person, beautiful and kind. There was nothing remotely inappropriate unfolding, but, watching them, watching her smile up at him, I saw what he might look like if he were truly happy.

It was beautiful and it hurt. I think a part of me gave up on love right then. Looking at them, looking at the bride and groom and seeing what was so obviously between them, I knew that was not us. I really wanted it to be him. Truly, I did. He is a good man. He'd have been a good father. He is the first person I have ever been with that I actually wanted to remain friends with, after the end. But when I had thought about our future, this burgeoning desire to have a child, I did not ask myself whether this was a man I would love, who would love me until the end of time, but rather, once it all goes to crap (as it always had before, seemingly inevitably), is this a man I would want in my life forever?

I could answer yes, because he is really a fine human being. What more could a person ask for? But I saw how unable I was to make him truly happy. I knew he deserved that kind of happiness and I knew, deep down, that I couldn't give it to him. And I knew that I deserved to be that happy too. No matter what either of us might have wanted, we didn't seem able to do that for each other. There is more to this story. There is always more. I will always love him and he has taught me much about who I am and what I am capable of (both good and bad) and I will be grateful to him always, deeply grateful for all the moments we lived inside together, for a long time.

I have been jaded. I have been thwarted. I have been so down. And there I was this morning in the coffee shop telling Sarah that anything was possible. Despite everything, it seems, I have never stopped believing, no matter how tenuous my hope and how thin my belief. This dream of love... for it to be possible, it is vital that one never cease to believe in it. Right now, I feel in love with the whole universe and I want to shout at the top of my lungs to anyone who will hear me-- anything is possible. I know it now, in my bones. Even with all the hurt and sadness, this cynic in me has been put to rest. I have never been happier.

not quite spring

There's a phenomenon in Portland (well, actually, in a number of places, but it happens so often here that it bears mentioning) where the sun shines while it is raining. A bit further east and I've even looked up to watch snow fall from an otherwise blue sky. A friend of mine told me there is a saying people (which people, I know not) have for when this happens: the devil is beating his wife. I have no idea what that means, but I can't help thinking of it whenever I am walking through town in this sunshiny rain.

I've had a completely unproductive weekend. I've spent most of it rather antisocial, procrastinating by any means possible yet still managing to have accomplished close to nothing all weekend, save for doing my laundry and a handful of dishes, watching episodes of Smallville while drinking port, and slapping a bunch of green mud on my hair in order to make it more red. Meanwhile, the editing project I have sat on my desk, taunting me. I'm ready to spend time with it, but in a few minutes I'll need to rinse the horse-food-smelly concoction from my head and then I'll try to sleep off all the tea I've consumed so that I can do yoga in the morning. I hate when I get like this.

My impulses are in a 101 different directions, so I stay in, try to keep my head from spinning off my shoulders. If I go out in the world, I am confronted with memories and confusions and I feel ill-equipped to deal with it all just now. I haven't written anything I've been happy with in weeks. I haven't revised all the things I keep telling myself I need to revise. I haven't selected the poems I am planning to send out, nor for which publications I should like to risk ridicule (because, it seems, all bookish offices have a wall of shame I hope to never be slapped upon).

And yet, there were good things too. I made plans to get ridiculously dressed up to do nothing more than walk around, perhaps feeding birds, perhaps knitting, just so our small group will have an excuse to wear some of our more costume-y attire. I read something that made me stop everything else I had been doing to reread it on the spot. My neighbor made me coffee so that I wouldn't be forced to go to starbucks, since I was feeling too lazy to make the 15 minute walk to stumptown. One of my cats did a thing that I like, which is to begin to meow and, midway, get distracted by a yawn while the cat sounds are still resonating, and this always makes me laugh. A stranger made me smile. And the sun shone continuously while it rained and I walked around in it, getting wet, but only slightly.

because whatever neil wants, neil gets...

It's the least I can do for the man I'd marry if he'd only have me. Yes, I mean that. Neil makes me think, "Crispin who?" so what does that tell you? Anyway, at Mr. Gaiman's behest: Penn Jillette

have I gone slightly mad?

I have noticed I talk to myself more often, now that I live alone. Though I know that all people tend toward this behavior, I am astonished at how often I do it. I have been sitting at my desk balancing my checkbook and updating my budget spreadsheet, musing about myriad ways to pinch pennies in order to pay all of my regular bills, while still feeding myself and my cats, all the while deftly chipping away at my credit card debt. I have been sitting at my desk running through this laundry list --aloud-- and assuring myself that I will be able to accomplish this goal! Has living alone caused my grip on reality to loosen just a touch? Am I slowly going a little mad, or am I not alone in this?

boy is it ever wednesday!

That's right. It's not Saturday. Today is exactly one year to the day from my first blog post. What's that you say? I must be mistaken? No, no, no! Don't let yourself become confused by such things as "facts" as those have nothing to do with reality. Reality is all about perception, baby, and thus I begin this post to commemorate one year, both new and old.

So, if memory serves, my first post had something to do with not believing in New Year's resolutions, and well, a year (or a lifetime) later I still firmly do not believe in resolutions. Having said that, I have plans. Do any of my plans consist of blogging more consistently? Probably not. But there will be more yoga. And fewer unreasonably drunk evenings. And I plan to actually start submitting my writing for publication... I plan to start with something like the New Yorker, so that I can't bother to feel badly about my first rejection letter. I've learned (from reading quite a lot of submissions myself) that there is simply no reason I remain unpublished except that I have never submitted anything to become published.

So, 2007 will involve submission. Er. Yes. It will also include an effort to be more aware and to let go of what is unnecessary, beginning with miscellany and various other kinds of crap I am surrounded by but do not need, then moving into the metaphorical and spiritual. Or, at least, I think that's how it will go. That's the plan anyway. I'm choosing to look upon myself and others with more kindness and less judgment and to look up more, on clear nights especially. I may even begin to snap photos for the cloud catalog I dreamed up years ago and never followed through on.

I plan to knit more than I cry. I plan to make more art and new friends and more calls and visits to old friends and once good ideas. I plan to have less to do with those things that don't make my heart sing. And, with any luck, perhaps I will begin to sing more often, out in the world again, and not in the privacy of my bathtub (since I no longer have a car). Which reminds me, I also plan to retrieve the fabulous beach stick from the back of my old car before said car goes to car heaven. I don't know what I plan to do with the stick, but I dragged it off a beach in California and brought it all the way to Oregon and it lives in my old car that I don't even own anymore, but its keeper promised to take good care of the stick. And he's a good one, that keeper.

I plan not to continue with this nonsense any longer... for tonight anyway. Happy January 3rd by way of Saturday!

this doesn't actually complete my life, but...

I can't emphasize strongly enough how much I LOVE THIS MAN!



If only he'd have let me smell his hair, or massage his sore elbow, or have 10,000 of his babies (not truly... make the effort as often as that, but only one, if any, would do). Sigh. I'm into a multi-decade crush. Crispin Hellion Glover: He's my density!

How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?

I'm sitting here listening to Lennon's Imagine and suffering that bizarre (slightly self-absorbed?) phenomenon of the post break-up, post-traumatic experience world where song lyrics seem to speak to you from out of the past. How indeed, John?

Lately, there are moments it seems like I can hardly breathe, followed by other moments in which I am overwhelmed by all the simple joy and beauty in the world. Actually, they feel very much alike, these moments. You know the moment before you break down into tears, where everything rises up through your chest, your throat narrows, your eyes begin to sting, and your ability to think of the appropriate word escapes you and you know it's coming--that you are about to push over that edge and will not return soon? I live there, in the moment before the moment it actually happens.

So often I've too many things to do, read, think about, be present for that I've no choice but to push through; I find it a little exhilarating and also exhausting and I wonder when the equilibrium will return. Nearly done with the first of six terms in grad school I find I'm curious whether I've learned a damn thing of real importance over the course of my college career. Sure, I'm writing (though, notably, still not submitting anything for publication) and I've met some quality people recently. I love my students. B and I are trying hard to remain/become friends after the "divorce" and apparently I haven't lost absolutely every friend made in that time period. When I take stock of my life, I have a lot of things going for me and a lot to feel good about.

So, why am I sitting here (now listening to Dylan's Blood on the Tracks) on a Friday night, wondering if I should call the new adorable couple I've befriended through school, or whether I should get drunk with one of my single girlfriends, or if I should stay home (perhaps getting drunk by myself) just so that I have something to keep me from feeling so fucking sad all the time? It's not that dire... The adorable couple are possibly the sweetest, most genuine people I've met in a long time; the girlfriends are good girlfriends; the bathtub and a bottle of wine are really that enticing. For serious.

I'm only self-medicating to a small degree and I've lost a lot recently, so that's saying quite a bit. It's just that it all happened at once: a once-good relationship went south, topped of with a generous dose of my own thoughtless ineptitude to truly fuck it all up; the cosmic bitchslap I wasn't prepared for (and though I've been talking about it much in my personal life, I'm not prepared to spell it out here either). Add the pressures of full time grad school, graduate assistant teaching responsibilities, a part time job and my fumbling efforts to remember what being a singleton feels like (replete with brief affair with a beautiful young grad student that I actually wanted to be friends with to complicate my work and personal life) and I'm lucky my head hasn't exploded.

And as I look at this, all I can think is, jeezus Shannon, shut the hell up. Stop dwelling on yourself. Go outside and do something with your fucking time and energy. But I've lost my umbrella and it's raining and I wish I had someone to splash in puddles with that could just make me laugh. And laugh. And forget. Just for a while.

just damned...

damned if you do. damned if you don't. seriously.

this october sun

It's not easy to walk through the world with an open heart. Every day presents a challenge, a reason to put up a wall, or to tear one down. On a bad day, I try to take comfort in the tears. It's okay that they creep up on you in the bathtub, take away your song, and show you to be as naked as you are. They are a reminder that we are still alive, still feeling. Energy flows in and back out again.

Buster has been mewling and knocking things over for nearly five hours. His cry is as constant as this October sun. He grows, along with his his neurosis, slightly more hairless by the week. He wants to eat. He wants to chase the crows outside the window. He wants attention. He wants to be put down now, thank you. He doesn't truly know what he wants. Meanwhile, Minou sits passively, watching the world unfold as it is, with her Buddha belly heart.

My challenge is to grow like this: more still, more fearless. I wish to take it all in, let my spirit intertwine with the atoms of the earth, breathe in, breathe out. I don't need to hold on to anything. This is not to say I won't mewl and cry on occasion. These acts too, remind us we are alive, but they keep us pinned to a particular, when what we deserve is to be free. If each of us were truly free, it wouldn't be so complicated to bump souls with each other. It wouldn't hurt so much to let go. There would be no need for such things. Everything would simply be and that would be enough.

Enough. What does that word truly mean? Did I love him enough? How can such things be measured? I loved you and for a time, I hope, I loved you well. Before that, we loved others, and perhaps in the future, we will love again. Should it be enough to love and be loved at all? Shouldn't we appreciate all the bright October mornings and all the afternoons of rain; the long lazy summers, the times of grief and longing, the act of two bodies coming together to make love? Should not these things sustain us in the times we feel alone in the world?

We are not alone. There, the sun and the moon. Today, the crows. Yesterday, a smile from a stranger, a kind word from a friend. There has been love and will always be love. The world has its horrors, yes, and also the blind assurance of beauty. There is much to be grateful for, to weep for, to rise up and laugh about. It is enough.

random exclamation of JOY!

I don't know what the downsides are to tossing a bunch of batteries around and, frankly, I don't want to think about it. If only this idea could get pushed one step further-- something sustainable, non-toxic, solar? Anyway, check THIS out!

file this under random weirdness

Oh, the subtle joys of myspace... today I received three messages, as follows:

"I know this will seem very strange, but I am wondering if you know someone by the name of J___" (name edited to protect the girl who sent this)

"If you do know J_____ and are romantic with him I would recommend that you call me first before speaking to him."

"I didn't mean that you should contact me before him in a threatening way. That is your choice completely. I would only advise from past experience that if you are involved with him that you may have as many questions as I do. Perhaps not, perhaps you think I'm some crazy chic babbling nonsense about some man you don't know.

I hope more than anything that is the case. If not, please contact me. If it is more comfortable for you to call me, I can give you my cell phone # if any of this is relevant. I apologize if you have no idea what this is about.

Sincerely,
C______"


Well, suffice it to say that I had no idea what she was talking about. So my response was this:

"I've known J______s before, but none with that spelling and certainly I am not currently involved with any now. Hope that all is well with you though-- sounds like there may be an awkward or strained situation. Good luck!"

To which she very kindly replied:

"I'm very relieved that it sounds like you have no clue what I am talking about. I am going through a very difficult time with my husband that is making me obviously paranoid. I'm sorry to bother you. You do seem like a cool person. Thank you for the response, you could have told me to go straight to hell and you were very kind.
Good luck to you as well."

What an odd day. I hope she fixes what's wrong with dear old J___, or takes it as her cue to walk. Either way, I feel for the woman and was glad to give her at least a moment of relief.

I'm exhausted.

Who knew that teaching was so much work? (okay, okay, that's obvious, but jeez) I made it through my first week of classes. I didn't trip, vomit, accidentally bare a breast, fumble my language so badly it resulted in a wildly inappropriate double entendre, nor, does it seem, did I bore or frighten my students. But, on the downside of things, I haven't eaten since yesterday, I'm running on four hours sleep, and I have no idea how I'm going to squeeze my studies into all the lesson/unit planning I need to do (read: how the hell did I get myself into this and will I be able to get through it)? I wonder, at the end of these two years, will I still have earned that fancy distinction of getting to wear a bright yellow rope around my neck?

finally...

I've begun the work of adding recommendations for books (and probably music, art, and other interesting things as they occur to me or I discover them) over at my other blog: Almost Better Than Honey. I'm not at all sure what I'll do with it really, or whether I'll even have the time, given that the new school term begins in two weeks and my time between now and then is filled with workshops. Not to mention I was tapped for teaching duty, so yours truly will be expected to stand in front of a classroom full of 25 students and act like I actually have the authority to be there. Which I will, but I'll surely feel like an impostor! In any case, wish me luck. I'm sure I'll need it.

overheard in the wine aisle

To set the scene:

An elderly woman stands directly behind me, browsing the deli selections while I browse the wine section with B. A rather homeless looking man walks in and breezes between us.

"Good to see you grandma," he says, continuing past.

"Excuse me? Who are you speaking to?" she says.

"I just said 'good to see ya'"

"I am not your grandmother," she huffs.

"I was just saying hello."

"What? I can't hear you. I'm deaf." And with that the elderly woman turns heel and walks away.

This was the most awesome exchange ever. B and I stood still for the duration, afraid to move or speak and thus break the spell. We had a good laugh about it afterward, but damn if I don't want to be that spunky when I'm her age!

rearrange and see it through

I'm sitting in my new apartment listening to the whir of the fan beside me. I haven't yet switched on my music, but am taking a moment to feel the stillness and to have a drink of water. This is where I'll spend (most likely) the next two years, while attending grad school. I'd like to think it will grow on me, become a place of respite and serenity, but right now all it feels is quiet and somewhat empty. Oh, it looks homey enough, but that's just window dressing. I know better. I know what's missing. At the very least I hope the quiet and the empty will turn to the fecund and will help me get focused, centered, and to become more productive. There is plenty of space for yoga, that's for certain. And I purposely did not get cable (plus, the television gets absolutely no reception here-- though, thankfully, the cell phone does) so I hope I will not permit myself to become too absorbed in the pointless or overly distracting. There is work to be done and this is the place I must do it.

I admit I am rather envious of the new apartment that B has moved into. Actually, I'm not at all envious of the apartment, but the neighborhood. It is quirky and artsy and cute on the one hand, and a little old and run down in sections on the other, so it feels like a real neighborhood with actual people. There's a lady down the street that looks so old you are impressed she stands upright and there's a smattering of giant sunflowers with sloping spines and drooping heads. The landlord and his daughter are learning to speak Spanish and Chinese, and there are people of all colors there, which, given that Oregon is perhaps the whitest state in the union, I find comforting. It's something I miss about the SF Bay Area. I liked the old neighborhood I was living in-- there was plenty to do all within walking distance, but I like his new neighborhood. It feels as though there is a community actively cultivating something there, not a pre-planned community like you might find in NW Portland. Anyway, I think he'll like it there, too, and that makes me happy. His neighbor is also a classmate-on-the-way-to-becoming-a-friend-of-mine and she's really cool and interesting, so that's good too. It's important to have good people in close proximity, even if all you do is say hello from across the courtyard. It's an energy thing, I guess.

So, I'm off to Buster-proof the apartment (Minou has never been a problem in this regard, too uncoordinated?), beginning with the bookshelves, which will also house some sculpture and pottery. I have no clean dishes, though everything is currently in their respective cabinets (I needed to know where things were going to fit, before I could be bothered to wash off the packing newsprint). I have art to hang, if it's not too late to be hammering and drilling, and myriad other things to organize, straighten, or find homes for. I haven't yet brought myself to make tea here. It is one of the many things I enjoyed with B and it will take time to readjust to the solo version again. The cats are out at the old place, enjoying one of their last nights of freedom, before their only access to the outside is the view from any number of windows. I feel terribly guilty about this. I've never had indoor only cats... I did manage to put the cat hammock in the window of what I hope will become my art nook. That is meant to make the cats feel welcome and, strangely, to encourage me to actually make some art in that area of the apartment.

So, this is home, as much as anything can feel like home these days. It's where all of my things are, though everything has been rearranged. I suppose I'd better get used to it. On a completely unrelated note, I am pleased to link to another friend's new blog: Tricia in Ethiopia, also listed at right. She hasn't written anything yet, but will be spending the next year in Ethiopia teaching children. She mentioned she was thinking about keeping a blog, to give friends and family information and updates about her life there and what she was experiencing, as it occurred. I encouraged her to do so (as I'm sure did others) and told her I would check it often and link to it from mine. So, hopefully we'll all get to see what is going on from her vantage point on the continent of Africa. It's not like you'll hear much about it on the news. Hell, we're at war and all anyone seems to report on is Jon freaking Benet. Ugh. My personal motto may have to become "Expatriate in 2008" depending on how the next year or so unfolds. I wish you all well. Go outside and do something beautiful.

explanations and apologies

It hasn't quite been two months since my last post (though that mark is fast approaching), but it has come to my attention that there are people who do read this and are annoyed that I haven't posted in so long. My apologies in particular to Heather. This one's for you.

Since I last wrote, a lot has changed. I have a new apartment (almost fully moved in--advanced thanks to Chris); there has been a parting of ways, which is painful, bittersweet, and hard to tell from here whether it's entirely the right choice; I'm about to embark on a new program in school, though it is a familar topic of study; my grandmother is out of the hospital, but saddled with bills and, apparently, a new round of antibiotics to try to take care of the original problem; and my cats are due to turn on me, just as soon as they realize that "outside" is a concept they won't know for at least the next two years and that I am their new prison warden. Lots of tiny new beginnings to contemplate and losses to grieve. I am brimming with ideas, mostly for new art pieces, but a bit worried that all I have are ideas. I need action. Concrete motion I can apply to these ideas. In short, I need to get out of my head. Not so easy, considering I feel like I want to crawl under a rock and stay there for a while. (What do you think I've been doing since my last post?)

Strangely, in a town where good weather is so short-lived and rain falls 9 months out of the year and I am a California weather girl at heart, I am looking forward to winter. I hesitate to say fall, since fall is such a short blip in Portland. Oooh, it's chilly, look at the leaves... turning to muck in the rain addled street. Then, winter. But, winter is a good time to crawl inside onself, shed the old, clear out room for the new. It's a time of internalizing what is to come next-- a period of gestation, if you will --and a time to comfort with blankets,wine, fire, soup, and, of course, baked goods. Winter will begin early for me. It is more of a state of mind. I am losing the fireplace, but I will have candles and the rest of that list. If I can manage to fill my time with good work and good people, I will eventually emerge from, maybe not a chrysalis, but from someplace dark and deep and, right now, necessary.

from laughing comes crying

I've had a roller coaster of a weekend... All I can think is that life is a grand and precarious thing, full of tenderness and fury, and that it is short and we should snatch at those opportunities for happiness that come our way, because tomorrow might never happen.

My cousin and dear friend got married on Saturday, to a wonderful guy I am pleased to welcome into the fold. There was so much love, between them and pouring out of everyone else in support. Truly, it was beautiful to watch and I am grateful I was in the wedding party and could experience it all up close. During the reception, she received a call that a girlfriend had just delivered her baby, another close friend of hers learned only the day before that his father-in-law had passed, and two guests, including our grandmother, ended up in the hospital after the reception. Actually, Grammy Ruth is still in the hospital, her 88 year old body under close observation. Definitely the whole cycle of life has been accounted for in the last few days. And it's strange. It's been a love fest, all of us bursting into tears, of happiness, concern, sheer exhaustion. "My heart is open," my cousin keeps saying, "and it's full." I feel similarly.

My heart is open, and the fullness varies from hour to hour, sometimes feeling more or less, but I'm starting to think perhaps all of this emotion has welled up from a profound sense of abundance, even in places I might have been looking for lack. Everything is on the surface right now, my head reeling, so much to think and feel and still so tired from all the activities, and a certain amount of drama, over recent days. I'm feeling that it is important to recognize the good in one's life, the people and the attendant moments, and to hold on to them, but not too tightly. To welcome joy in and to not be afraid of sorrow or a sense of being overwhelmed, but to walk forward into it, head on and to experience what it can offer. I feel a strange sense of calm, despite the click and whir of my wheels spinning.

However, what I feel most pressing at this moment is to become horizontal for a time, before I sit and reflect on the amazing Damien Rice show I saw tonight from the side of the stage at the Paul Masson Mountain Winery in Saratoga, before I write any more, and certainly, before I go back to the hospital in the morning, so... I've seen a lot of tears of late and cried a good number of them myself and therefore I will leave you with the words of Max Ehrmann: "with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world." Life is short, but love is in abundance. Go forth and offer it.

this is me procrastinating.

Okay, so I have two Spanish finals in two days, three stories I need to critique, and handful of poets whose most recent poems await my opinion, and a half dozen revisions I need/would like to make to my own work, but what am I doing? Procrastinating, pure and simple.

I can't decide whether I always get this way when the weather turns warm, or if I am in fact suffering from some sort of "senioritis" even though I've been a senior, technically speaking, for the past few years. All I seem to want to do lately is to sit in the sunshine, work in my garden, listen to music cranked up really loud, wander around with no specific end in mind... If I had any money, I'd be planning a roadtrip. As it is, I will be spending half of June in California, but there will be no trippin' of any kind. I will be a bridesmaid in a sexy-are-we-allowed-to-wear-such-cute-dresses-in-a-church? kind of get up for my cousin's wedding. I will get to see a handful of old friends that I haven't seen in several, and in many instances ten, years. Perhaps most importantly, I will be able to hang out with my two fabulous sisters, whom I've not seen in a year.

But, I am restless. I need to find some kind of temp work immediately upon my return, or paying rent this summer will be a rather dodgy affair. I need to be sure that the graduate classes I've just enrolled in are what I want to take next fall. I need to get organized and start submitting some of my work for publication. Never hurts to get a jump on those rejection letters. If I decide to submit any fiction pieces, I'll surely have to send them to a certain charming associate editor over at Tin House, who I've recently learned thinks I am interesting and smart. (Of course, he hasn't actually read anything I've written, so we'll see how long that impression lasts...)

All in all though, life is good. My undergraduate degree will finally be complete in a matter of days. I'm sure to forget most of the Spanish I've learned over the past two years upon graduating, but that will give me an excuse to start plotting my next Latin American adventure so that I can brush up. I am already nervous about what I'll be doing and what will be expected of me in my capacity as a graduate assistant in the writing program next year, but I'm sure the nerves will subside, or at least transmute into excitement and fun. In another month or two I will have more cucumbers, crookneck, and tomatoes than I could possibly eat, and a whole summer (impoverished though I will be) to reflect upon all the many amazing things, people, and possibilites open to me and all the fine friends and memories I've made along the way. I've definitely had it worse.

conversing with the elders

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Barry Lopez speak, both in the Smith Ballroom at PSU, and in conversation at the reception in the Simon Benson House afterward. As always, he impressed me with his gift for articulation, his courage, and his generosity of spirit, as I'm sure he does to all he encounters. He said that to figure out who you are, in the world, and what that means to you, and to learn what it is you have to say, and how to say it fearlessly and honestly is more important than trying to figure out who you are as a writer. He said there are many that can craft something that is technically perfect, and one can marvel at the technique, but ultimately you are left with the sense that it has been written by nobody; it is something unremarkable, and in fact will be forgotten within hours.

But the imperfect voice of someone struggling to make sense of the world, to articulate what it is that wells up inside of them, will always be engaging and memorable. I can't even begin to recapitulate the myriad ways in which his words are a gift to me, and to all of humanity. He makes me near wordless with appreciation and flush with excitment. He does not turn his eye away from what is desperate, but turns towards it, confronts it head on. No matter how desperate the world is, no matter how griefstricken he might be, his unflagging sense of hope always rises to the surface. He is a breathtaking writer, both in his use of language and in the strength of his convictions, his sense of reverence-- but more than that, he is an astonishingly wonderful human being. I consider myself lucky to have been blessed with the opportunity to hear him read, and speak, and most fortunately, to talk with him, on several occasions over the last several years. He is 100% present and authentic and kind. And, as I told him to his face last night, if I can manage to be half the human being I envision him to be I will have accomplished quite a lot.

Lastly, I'll share with you something he shared, which is the definition of the word for "storyteller" in one of the Inuit languages: the person who creates the atmosphere in which wisdom can reveal itself. I'm paraphrasing, as the direct quote is somewhere in my friend Dave's journal, but you get the idea. He also said that one gets to be the storyteller so long as the stories that you tell help. If they stop helping, one is no longer the storyteller, even if still professing to be.

on speaking up, out, often...

A wise man once said to me, "I figure the more I speak my mind, the more people will deal with it." This seemed like good sense and I vowed to try to live by such a philosophy. So often, we bite our tongues, sidestepping what we really mean, opt to say the kind thing and not the honest thing. Now, I am in no way advocating brutal honesty to the point of cruelty, as that serves no productive end. I'm all for kindness, in fact am grateful that it exists and I've been lucky enough to have known people who possessed such kindness and chose to bestow it upon me. I only hope it was also honest.

And what do I mean by honesty? The simple dictionary definition is: 1) The quality or condition of being honest; integrity and 2) Truthfulness; sincerity. In short, it is about saying what you mean and meaning what you say. As a writer, this is something I think about often. How to say what I mean, precisely, without flinching. It's not easy, as the truth is not always that interesting, at least not to anyone who's not specifically me. I've learned that just because something happened in a particular way is no reason to write about it. I applaud those writers that make real life read like a novel. It's a talent, but I am more partial to those that draw from the real to explore the imagined. With this method, one can make things turn out as they should have, or might have, or never would, with no obligation to be faithul to the facts.

I think that Neil Gaiman probably sums it up best in "A Writer's Prayer," the text of which I'll include below. If, in fact, it turns out that I'm not meant to become so talented and intriguing as Neil, I can still learn from the man. So here it is:

A Writer's Prayer

Oh Lord, let me not be one of those who writes too much;
who spreads himself too thinly with his words,
diluting all the things he has to say,
like butter spread too thinly over toast,
or watered milk in some worn-out hotel;
but let me write the things I have to say,
and then be silent, 'til I need to speak.

Oh Lord, let me not be one of those who writes too little;
a decade-man between each tale, or more,
where every word accrues significance
and dread replaces joy upon the page.
Perfectionists like chasing the horizon;
You kept perfection, gave the rest to us,
so let me earn the wisdom to move on.

But over and above those two mad spectres of parsimony and profligacy,
Lord, let me be brave, and let me, while I craft my tales, be wise:
let me say true things in a voice that is true,
and, with the truth in mind, let me write lies.

so i've been lax...so what?

I haven't updated in quite a while. It's hard to stay focused on this thing when I am focusing on other (shall we say, more important?) areas of my life. I'm busy... busy writing, and working, and applying for scholarships, and catching up with old friends, and I even (finally) learned who my artist was for the poet/art exchange from a last term. His name is Michael Endo and you can see his art on here. I don't have much else to say at the moment. I was given an interesting assignment, personalized for me by my poetry professor:

"Shannon, your exercise is couched as metaphor. I’m calling it Compost. Begin by assembling particular things you like – images, personal symbols, etc. Perhaps together they constitute a narrative about something hard for you to write. Then have the poem decay/disintegrate into compost, so rich it could support a garden."

So I have that to look forward to and work on. Until later, may you rest well and dream of large women.

it's official

I don't think I will continue updating with poems from the artist exchange project... I was more interested in the process and the exchange, but trying to maintain a blog about it just wasn't as fulfilling. So, it's settled. The project is complete. I meet my artist for the first time tonight, then dash off to the Aladdin to see Willy Porter, who always delivers a fresh and amazing show. Now, I have a writing exercise to complete (does this qualify as procrastinating?) and some earth to turn, seeds to plant, and some rigging to make up in order to keep the birds and the neighbor's free-range bunny out of the garden. But first, more coffee...

today on the streetcar...

"Do you enjoy sodomizing yourself?" a booming male radio announcer-type voice asks.

WTF? What kind of annouce... wait.. who the...what is going on here? Well, for anyone who's ever thought to themselves, "who says that kind of thing?" I now have a face to go with the proverbial "crazy guy" on public transit. But, he was not smelly or even apparently crazy (unless, of course, you count saying totally whacked out things to strangers as crazy talk). By all appearances, he seemed perfectly normal, lazing against the window, occasionally looking around, but politely keeping to himself.

Then, a number of people step off the car and one woman gets on and takes a seat opposite him. She has dark hair and eyes, wears a tan coat with faux fur trim on the hood. She passively looks out the window. Did she look unusual? Not at all, Portland born and bred if I had to guess.

The man sits up, slowly leans over to her, and says, quite loudly, "Do you enjoy sodomizing yourself?"

How is a person supposed to respond to that? She immediately looks away from him and out the window, silent. I must have had a shocked, who-the-hell-are-you sort of expression on my face, because then sets his sights on me. He sort of half gestures and, for a moment, looks as though he's going to explain what he's just said, justify it somehow, but says nothing. Instead, he starts walking toward me.

"That's probably the kind of question you should keep to yourself," I say.

He takes his position at the exit door next to mine and continues to look at me. "Are you going to incur all that yourself?" he asks me.

It sounds like an important question. Only, I don't know what that even means. I step off the streetcar, thinking, Try not to get struck by lighting! and watch the little crazy man staring at me incredulously through the glass doors as the streetcar pulls away.

catching up with... everything.

I'm just reaching a point where I think I might be able to catch my breath. I've one more poem and painting to post, as well as a final poem. I have mixed feelings about the project, as my artist more or less abandoned the process the past few weeks. I can't take it personally, since we don't know each other, but I hope (no, I don't really hope this) that something awful happened and that is why they flaked out. I suppose my irritation will have waned by the time I get to meet them and we can talk about what did work and what was useful. More on that later.

Apart from that, I am gearing up for my last term as an undergrad. I'm being graduated summa cum laude in June and I've just received notice that I've been accepted into the MA - Poetry program. Additionally, I'm being given the Department's only graduate assistantship position for poetry, so my tuition is covered (plus a stipend), and that's cause for celebration. I've also begun an internship (unpaid, sigh) at a great little literary press called
Hawthorne Books, so I've been very, very busy. Still, spring is in full swing and I've planted flowers and vegetable and am looking forward to some quality porch-sitting time, as soon as the weather finally cooperates and gets warm. Next on the agenda (after graduation) is a trip back home to be a bridesmaid for my lovely cousin Candace. And probably looking for part time summer work. I don't know though. I feel more compelled to live out of my car for a few weeks and to drive down the coast, writing, and maybe making art. A good road trip would certainly provide some much needed inspiration and there's nothing like sleeping on the beach to help with that.

It's strange. I am accomplishing quite a lot, good things are happening, but I can't help but feel almost as though it's happening to someone else. Part of me just wants to drop out, live in the tropics, improve my Spanish skills, teach English, trade paintings, cook, love, live simply... Here there is school and loan debt and my future to think about. I am 32 but still respond to such things like an 18 year old. I don't want to work at a soul sucking job I care nothing about, and that, I'm afraid, is more likely than landing a gig doing what I damn well feel with language and paint and bits of sparkly things or rock and what not. There isn't a job opening for me to get paid to be me and what I do best isn't lucrative or dependable. If I fail as a poet, I can fall back on my art, and failing that, what? Sing jazz again? I'm tired of being poor and if I could actually sell out without that being a problem for me, I probably would. But I can't. It doesn't work that way for me. So instead I have to suck it up, get to like being poor, and do something interesting. If you see me on the street, pass me a smile. I'll always be grateful for one of those.

the fifth exchange

Another poem, another painting, another opportunity to wonder whether and how this artist and I frustrate and/or understand each other...

exchange number four

I have been so busy the past few weeks I haven't had time to post anything...so, here is exchange number four, sans the text as a separate entry. Click on the picture and it will be easier to read. I've two more since this one to post, but have been completely wrapped up in school and my new internship at Hawthorne Books. I'll post more soon.

I couldn't resist.

Sitting here, contemplating the shallow vapid core of modern society, while acknowledging that, yes, it is still a beautiful world, I came across this quote from Andrea Dworkin's book, The New Womans Broken Heart:

"I have no patience with the untorn, anyone who hasn't weathered rough weather, fallen apart, been ripped to pieces, put herself back together, big stitches, jagged cuts, nothing nice. Then something shines out. But these ones all shined up on the outside, the ass wigglers, I'll be honest, I don't like them. Not at all."

because some days are harder than others

Here is a photo I took in Cahuita, Costa Rica this past July. I needed the reminder.

exchange numero tres

This is exchange number three... I've saved my poem with the picture, as a jpeg, so that the formatting is visible; the use of space is actually integral to the poem. However, it may be difficult to read, so the text of the poem is included below (enjoy! though it lacks the impact of the original), but lacks the formatting:

Brutal, this
precariousness
of life always
dancing on edge.

There are two ways out
and they are not a door, but
a window.

Rent limbs feeding
young, and whether one hawk

or fifty
dark scavengers

war or dreaming
with flagrant violence
or, as some go, peacefully

wounded earth
will one day heal.

The ecology of death
still bears
the shape of ancients.

A murdered boy
will bury his mother
for the crime of speaking

and yet
slender blades
will burst from sand
green and fresh

time will run
backwards

no one suffers
the indignity
of worms and maggots
doing what they know

like this

flesh and bone
a bone feast, offering

alms for the birds.