Thoughts from Spring Break.

The view is Escondido or, more specifically, the "backyard" of the Veldkamps' house. Vineyard, pool, hot tub, mountains, palm trees, sun, breeze, birds and so forth. Birds of paradise is right; they're everywhere. We will pack up and head back east tomorrow morning, amidst a flutter of arguments, protests and bickering on who will sit where, and in which car. I've been told the snow has all but melted back in Sioux Center--a town I've come to love and defend--and even that recent dusting (that, reportedly, hasn't stuck to the ground) is of no significance. Leaving California's steadily bronzing sun will be unpleasant, but there is no journey or location without the varying levels of individual context.

For example, in reading through Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey into Night, one suggestion is that being in love is not the same as being happy. The state, or condition, of one should not imply the other... though having both is assumed in how we've grown... in how I've grown to understand it... thus far.

This theme casts a light upon everyone I see. It's enough to occupy my mind though, in many ways and for many reasons, I wish it weren't.

My heart swelled with emotion during various individual images and words of the Academy Awards tonight. Now, I'm listening to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. Would you like to fight about it?

I dreamt that I had a snowball fight with Dave and Jeri Schelhaas as we were leaving a dinner party.

I dreamt that Bailey, Val and I were in an expensive room, dressed to the nines as they used to say. Caviar on the table. I've never had caviar, and Bailey and I indulged until we saw Val wasn't eating, her mouth set to a stern pout and her arms crossed against her gown. Our gentle pleading escalated to anger and throwing china. The crystal chandelier shattered and blood spilled.

It's been ten days since I actualized a desire for a change in course. As a result, I've been approaching moments (mine or otherwise) through the question of ability. Much of this is a result of analyzing Naturalism in Dengler's American Lit. (Kate Chopin, Henry James, Edith Wharton), no doubt. The outcome of my prideful dissatisfaction and, you could say, shaking my fist at the heavens--what am I capable of? At the least, and dastardly ambitious at the same time, I'll learn to accept my insufficiencies and keep from making excuses. The short of it could be... I am in control of very little; the fault is mine. The emphasis is on the latter, I assure you. This is unacceptable still (and more terrible than confusing), but this is a crude translation of my restless constitution. I wonder what I'll say in a year, when I pull this page up and read it over again.

If you're reading this, I'm sure you come to these words armed and braced to encounter a level of unbridled melodrama. If I may continue perpetuating this tone, if I may be so asinine and ridiculous:

There are a few times every year that I desire to introduce a turning point in my life. This desire is often large, and sometimes quiet like a whispered affirmation about a time of deliberation. And who can tell what prompts them? An image of snow, building up softly and pervasively across the fields, even blocking out the sun and one hopes that it comes to such a degree that not only would roads, work places and schools concede to its quiet tenacity, but electricity and heat as well. Those living in the Midwest have a few stories of such times, I'm sure, when the snow/ice/freezing rain/hail was so bad that year and we just didn't bother trying to do anything outside of our doors -- physically or digitally -- for a few days, until it passed through and we could assess the damage. Thank God for the wood-burning fireplace and all that. My story involves being blessed with that fireplace (as well as lots of peanut butter and beef jerky and the brothers returning home with a month of groceries just after the electricity went out.) I want that debilitation again, to shock the hourly/daily/weekly regressions of academia and established community and humble us to the point where, instead of working around nature, we are stilled to bear it.

And yesterday, the stories, notes, essays, pens, pencils and emails sat quietly in my bag and read through the pages of food blogs, the Momofuku cookbook, organized a series of spices next to a bowl of salt, quartered and cleaned a turkey, seasoned it and let it refrigerate for a few hours to let the juices draw toward the surface. I spent the day anticipating and preparing for a meal, excited in the overwhelming volume of food that a whole turkey brings and how will my roommates be fed? I spent the day preparing, consuming and reveling in that meal and the quiet slurping it brought. Oddly, this was one of the few suggestions for post-grad endeavors, offered in partial jest, that my parents were legitimately excited about.

Compilation

He: You can't trust a thing girls say because it's all conditional; there's no way to tell what they mean to say, or even what they want to say.

She: You don't need to know.
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Alice Haskett -- Alice Varick -- Alice Waythorn -- she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.
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She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as a victim.
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But the young man was conscious at the same moment that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the little American flirt should be "talked about" by low-minded menials.
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It struck him, with a curious pang, that she was very happy in being with him, so happy that she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the trivial incidents of her day.
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He kept looking at her; she seemed not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing; Daisy chattered about the beauty of the place.
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Then he asked her if she would not be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that she liked standing up and walking about; but she presently sat down.
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In class, we spoke about the value in that response for our creative actions and how in presenting something, we're attempting to make others experience at least a glimpse of something so powerful and intangible. By placing an object on display, we're grabbing passers-by and saying, Look at this!
David Sedaris wrote about how he would type up passages from his favorite authors on his typewriter before he left town on the off-chance that, should someone break in, they might read it and mistakenly assume that he was the one who wrote it.
There's a short story called The King of Sentences where a couple find unbridled stimulating passion in beautiful sentences -- even when taken out of context. The cadence and meticulous construction enthrall the ear that cares to listen.

When I was in high school, my family moved from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Sioux Center, Iowa. My two older brothers, Paul and David, had already begun their college years then -- something I envied -- and, after making that first-of-several twelve-hour drives with us, they returned home to the winding roads and rapidly-developing properties that I hope to always remember, and fear that, very quickly, I will have to. I went back (not home) to visit in the fall, during the first break we had and stayed at Paul's apartment. David was away at Michigan State, but managed to come back for the weekend as he would often do. I was sixteen years old. I made myself very aware of this as I lay in a sleeping bag on the floor next to Paul's bed, trying to still my nerves from the conscious reality of my life, "Iowa... are you kidding?" It will be beneficial for you to know that I was born in Grand Rapids and haven't lived anywhere else before the move, and also that, yes, I realize how dramatic I was being and, of course, I am very embarrassed to even be telling this story. Sixteen years old -- what can I say? I lay awake in the middle of the night and asked my older brother of twenty-one years (my current age) if life got any easier. The panic he must have felt, no? I remember his hesitating before trying the words out loud, "Not really... no. But it sometimes helps to realize how it gets harder, and you get better at that." I don't know that I found comfort in it at the time; I still haven't decided, I guess. Neither can I say what I wish I would have heard instead, but I have become used to that inability to sleep for fear, anxiety and an overwhelming volume for thoughts of the like. Every night requires a solid and deliberate time of processing down from the day and I've found that the most effective avenue of doing so is in reading a piece of fiction, watching a movie or talking to someone about their day. Perhaps there's an element of escapism in this; I remain unapologetic if there is. I am hesitant, however, if I begin to use others and what they offer up of themselves for my own benefit of alleviation. What they offer up, and what "works best" is conflict (like in every short story or film) and it's clear that a part of my inclination to listen is in consuming that very real sense of struggle. I become invested in it then; it enthralls me and, somehow because of it, I can rest.

It's later in the afternoon on Thursday. The sun has been out today, and the wind isn't swirling so all the cold is blamed on just that -- the cold. At the table next to mine in the Bean, a Rook lesson is taking place. Three girls play a demonstration round. Two students listen attentively to one as she explains different strategies and understandings. Perhaps this will be put to good use in their next planned social event. Young American girls, no? Behind them, a professor and student sit with coffee and a legal pad. They laugh often. Steve Buscemi lies with his coat still on. A younger crowd enters warily and is greeted by the barista, ordering drinks to go. Sticking yellow notes into her book, a student of Marie Antoinette solidifies her productivity. On the table sits the Norton Anthology of American Literature, a worn copy of Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent and a partially completed list of activities from the summer that I rescued just a few minutes ago, from the wrinkled recesses of my bag. Chase bats. Drink beer with Dad. Recite poetry. Eat cherries, spit pits, attempt to plant. Eat waffles with Carmela. Eat something with leeks in it. Play with dog. Outside the window, the light declines as the casual noises erupts and falters from our wandering thoughts.


"And instead of feeling miserable, you'd be jolly. So jolly," she repeated and smiled, for all the puzzled anxiety in her eyes, with what was meant to be an inviting and voluptuous cajolery.
He looked at her in silence, his face unresponsive and very grave -- looked at her intently. After a few seconds Lenina's eyes flinched away; she uttered a nervous little laugh, tried to think of something to say and couldn't. The silence prolonged itself.

-Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Harper Perennial. 2006.

My being is a finite, frail, temporal, conditional and vulnerable one. A state of susceptibility would wisely, and humbly, prelude that selfishly cathartic act of creation. Indulge, then. Why don't you? Not only is our collective prerogative disposed to suffering, there is also neglect and apathy. If only for sanity's sake, for a fleeting time of peace (as if there is a need to define the specific motive), indulge in manipulations, contortions and abstractions; laugh at the thought of accurate documentation. Why bother? Why bother to repeat the song of the sparrow back to the sparrow? Not only has the sparrow perfected what it was created to do, there is no shortage of song in its seemingly similarly finite entity.

I wonder of the correlation between how 'good' we consider something to be -- whether, and how much, we love something -- and to what degree said object, idea, piece or person affects us. These are sprawling questions, I know, but it's difficult for a novel to be written if the protagonist is forgettable. David Foster Wallace wrote that every piece of fiction is a lie. I agree and, more significantly, am intrigued with his claim. Aren't we enthralled anyway? Don't we find ourselves captivated in the realm of what could fairly be described as make-believe? The ideas and characters that linger with us -- isn't that what beauty is, even if terrifying and challenging?

While I was walking around this morning, a car pulled up right next to me. An old man was driving and wasted no time or pleasantries. "Direct me to the gymnasium." If it were a less beautiful morning, if I had less sleep in my bones, if he looked anything less like Walter Kronkite, I would have been a total jerk to him. "Direct me to the gymnasium," as if I were dressed in some shiny, rented vest and sharing weed with some talentless actor-hopeful outside while the rich and famous eat some overpriced, glitzy cuts of beef inside. If only he had known, of course, that I am a very big deal around these parts. The man smiled at me without smiling at me, before nodding imperceptibly and making his way with conviction. The next party I met, young pedestrians stood and hesitated before addressing me. I had my back to them, trying to focus on the top of a tree set upon a brilliant blue sky when I heard a mouse ask, "Um. Excuse me, sir?" I turned around to a frightened girl and two cowardly guys behind her. They all looked to be my age. "Sir," -- my goodness. The next was in the park, enjoying the hush of Iowa blanketed in January and allowing the sun to warm my face for a moment when a curly black dog came sniffing furiously. Her owner, a friend and a member of my parents' church (Faith CRC) came up with a smile and a camera of her own. She knew of me, had heard of me -- something about Dordt and so forth -- and I, her. The odd comfort was that, in our supposed familiarity but actual state of strangers, I found a calm security in her questions concerning all those big things: senior year, post-grad ambitions, Kenya. What we discussed wasn't advice as much as tangential themes and anecdotes. And after, she took a glove off so we could shake and I found myself placing my left hand over my right arm in doing so. She smirked in noticing this. I think I shrugged a little, apologizing.