That's actually not true. I had one poem I wrote 6 years ago published in a weekly magazine in Livingston, Mt. It still feels kind of cool, though. I just wish they had chosen one of my better pieces.
Follow this link and scroll down to see "Fishing Trip," my silly, small biography.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
At Various Peaces
I have always been someone with too many friends. Living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where I know no one save Drew's parents and my (and I use the term "my" loosely) time-share dog, that statement is no longer valid. When I was in high school I not only had Alice (who's been a fixture in my life since I was 7) but dozens of other friends spanning the pot-smoking drama freaks to the pot-smoking, mushroom-eating String Cheese Incident fans, to the over-exercising, lacrosse-playing, melodramatic, Prada purse-owning crowd; not to mention several love interests-turned gay guy friends.
In college, by either good fortune or some incredibly fortuitous twist of fate, I fell into a group of friends so awesome I couldn't possibly have asked for better. We ate, drank, smoked illicit cigarettes (or at least, I coerced several of you into smoking illicit cigarettes while my FCA contingent wasn't looking), took classes, argued, prayed, disavowed religion, questioned, cried, vacationed, tried on several different identities, and grew up together. Then most of us moved to DC and the fun, though necessarily changed by the real world, resumed. Even when I moved to Montana, after several unsuccessful attempts to meet friends, I found one who I hung out with several times a week until we both moved away. I've always felt like the people in my life and the opportunities to enjoy them exceeded the hours in a day, but here I sit, for the third straight day, alone in my apartment. (Incidentally, those who know that I HATE working out will be amused to know that my only break from studying has been doing horrible work-out videos in my living room.)
I've been thinking of all of this because of a look on a grocery store clerk's face this afternoon. After ringing up ONE steak, ONE potato, ONE crown of broccoli, one small, pathetic bunch of flowers, ONE box of brownie mix, and FOUR bottles of wine, the corners of her mouth turned up in an unmistakable smirk. I felt like explaining immediately, "Wait, it's not what it looks like! I have lots of friends! They just don't live here!" But instead, I looked away, pretended that she wasn't thinking that I must be an insane, cat-loving wine-o, and and loaded my reusable bags into my car only to go home, drink alone, and write on my blog. Jesus, who have I become? I used to double-book myself for social engagements so often that my friends thought I was the world's biggest flake.
Even when Drew was here, the anxiety over whether or not I would find people here with whom I clicked was edging near my consciousness. He popped open a beer in July before he left, and under the cap it said, "Be at Peace not in Pieces;" he handed it to me, saying "Hey, this is perfect for you." For the last few months that beer cap has sat on the ledge above my bathroom sink, greeting me every morning and evening when I brush my teeth. It's a mantra I've held for some time now, but didn't have Magic Hat #9 to put it into words for me. There was a time, when I was working as a Youth Minister, and when I was still sick with an eating disorder, that my life was in pieces and I wasn't sure how to fit myself together in a way that made sense: if beer has any cosmic significance at all, I assumed this fortune-beverage was given to me to highlight all the hard work I'd done to be "whole" over the last few years. Yet, since I've been staring at it, I've wondered what else is making me feel like I'm not at peace?
And today, thanks to said many-pierced, obnoxious, tattooed, 19-year-old, probable-red-neck, grocery store clerk, and her stark reminder of how alone I really am in Staunton at the present moment, I realized what makes me feel separated from myself is that I'm separated from the people that remind me who I am. I feel as though parts of me are spread equally between Montana, DC, Leesburg, Charlottesville, St. Louis, New York, Nashville, and Oregon (Caitlin, whatup). Perhaps it's a good thing to have small pieces of yourself spread out across the country. I can't apologize for investing deeply in relationships, and I obviously don't regret anything or anyone I've encountered in the last several years. It's an unfortunate reality that I find myself a little sad, and 2 glasses of red wine deep while writing to you all via a blog, but at least I know that you'll appreciate my jokes, wish we were drinking wine together (except Carrie who'd down a miller lite, or Noof who is STILL pregnant nearly a week after her due-date), and most of you would either empathize with my pathetic state, or want to smack that idiot girl at Martin's grocery store for me. Life could be much, much worse than what I've got going on. I just miss you all, and hope that you're all happy, and reading my blog (preferably also drinking) from wherever you are.
In college, by either good fortune or some incredibly fortuitous twist of fate, I fell into a group of friends so awesome I couldn't possibly have asked for better. We ate, drank, smoked illicit cigarettes (or at least, I coerced several of you into smoking illicit cigarettes while my FCA contingent wasn't looking), took classes, argued, prayed, disavowed religion, questioned, cried, vacationed, tried on several different identities, and grew up together. Then most of us moved to DC and the fun, though necessarily changed by the real world, resumed. Even when I moved to Montana, after several unsuccessful attempts to meet friends, I found one who I hung out with several times a week until we both moved away. I've always felt like the people in my life and the opportunities to enjoy them exceeded the hours in a day, but here I sit, for the third straight day, alone in my apartment. (Incidentally, those who know that I HATE working out will be amused to know that my only break from studying has been doing horrible work-out videos in my living room.)
I've been thinking of all of this because of a look on a grocery store clerk's face this afternoon. After ringing up ONE steak, ONE potato, ONE crown of broccoli, one small, pathetic bunch of flowers, ONE box of brownie mix, and FOUR bottles of wine, the corners of her mouth turned up in an unmistakable smirk. I felt like explaining immediately, "Wait, it's not what it looks like! I have lots of friends! They just don't live here!" But instead, I looked away, pretended that she wasn't thinking that I must be an insane, cat-loving wine-o, and and loaded my reusable bags into my car only to go home, drink alone, and write on my blog. Jesus, who have I become? I used to double-book myself for social engagements so often that my friends thought I was the world's biggest flake.
Even when Drew was here, the anxiety over whether or not I would find people here with whom I clicked was edging near my consciousness. He popped open a beer in July before he left, and under the cap it said, "Be at Peace not in Pieces;" he handed it to me, saying "Hey, this is perfect for you." For the last few months that beer cap has sat on the ledge above my bathroom sink, greeting me every morning and evening when I brush my teeth. It's a mantra I've held for some time now, but didn't have Magic Hat #9 to put it into words for me. There was a time, when I was working as a Youth Minister, and when I was still sick with an eating disorder, that my life was in pieces and I wasn't sure how to fit myself together in a way that made sense: if beer has any cosmic significance at all, I assumed this fortune-beverage was given to me to highlight all the hard work I'd done to be "whole" over the last few years. Yet, since I've been staring at it, I've wondered what else is making me feel like I'm not at peace?
And today, thanks to said many-pierced, obnoxious, tattooed, 19-year-old, probable-red-neck, grocery store clerk, and her stark reminder of how alone I really am in Staunton at the present moment, I realized what makes me feel separated from myself is that I'm separated from the people that remind me who I am. I feel as though parts of me are spread equally between Montana, DC, Leesburg, Charlottesville, St. Louis, New York, Nashville, and Oregon (Caitlin, whatup). Perhaps it's a good thing to have small pieces of yourself spread out across the country. I can't apologize for investing deeply in relationships, and I obviously don't regret anything or anyone I've encountered in the last several years. It's an unfortunate reality that I find myself a little sad, and 2 glasses of red wine deep while writing to you all via a blog, but at least I know that you'll appreciate my jokes, wish we were drinking wine together (except Carrie who'd down a miller lite, or Noof who is STILL pregnant nearly a week after her due-date), and most of you would either empathize with my pathetic state, or want to smack that idiot girl at Martin's grocery store for me. Life could be much, much worse than what I've got going on. I just miss you all, and hope that you're all happy, and reading my blog (preferably also drinking) from wherever you are.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Travels with Donna, Part 1
For those of you whom I didn't email while I was traveling with my mother, here are parts one and two of our adventures a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy:
Part 1: Shuttle-Butt and the Giant Panties
It began on a shuttle bus in Philadelphia. Up until then, I had thought the trip was going remarkably well: almost eerily normal. As some of you will remember this time three years ago, our previous trips have not all started this way, but with just one bag apiece, no apparent sign of bee-keeping apparel or the flags of minor duchies, and a smooth flight from DCA to Philadelphia, the trip had a surprisingly un-Donna feel to it.
It was as I was starting to relax and look forward ten days of greenery and vacation when we boarded a bus from terminal F to terminal A at the Philadelphia airport. Because we were the last on the bus, and because no one has manners enough to give up their seat to my poor, old mother, Donna and I stood in the center aisle as the vehicle lurched to its start. Well, one of us stood: Donna, having not been on public transportation of any kind since the 1960s, didn’t quite have her sea legs. She seemed surprised, if not baffled, by the fact that buses took turns. She seemed to forget that, having great inertia, her body was apt to sway from side to side with the motion of the bus. Each time she would take her hand off the rail, she would totter backwards, laugh, and assume the “oh no I’m going to pee in my pants” stance. As that event was surely a real possibility, I tried not to make eye contact with the men standing behind her, wanting neither to invite their curiosity nor allow them to remember my face should I have to appear in a line-up one day as an associate of the woman who either toppled them like bowling pins or ruined their Italian leather shoes. We made it to our gate after many reminders for her to keep her hands on the railing, and eventually boarded the plane.
The next 8 hours or so proceeded in relative normalcy, and I found myself relaxing into a false sense of calm: side mirrors were still in tact, we had enough energy to push on, and nothing embarrassing had been done in several hours. (I should note that, on the plane, I was the one who accidentally opened my salad dressing onto the kind man sitting next to me. I still insist that Don is the most like my mother, however, and should one need proof ask yourself what he’s doing at this very moment. I’d put all the tea in china down that he’s at her house watching Charlie Rose with both dogs at his feet, wiping something from the front of his polo shirt). We passed Loch Lomond, met two Newfoundlands who barked incessantly at Donna’s glittering gold jewelry, and went to Dunstaffnage Castle near Oban. Sitting at the end of Loch Lomond, Dunstaffnage has the advantage of both a beautiful and strategic location. A small marina sits near the entrance where contemporaries keep their boats and a three-mast schooner sits majestically upon brackish water. Taking this all in, I turned to mom to ask her a question to which she responded with a sonorous, guttural belch. Thank heaven no one was close enough to hear or see us, because the “oh no I’m going to pee in my pants” stance was quickly assumed. This is the mother I know and love, and I was glad to have her back.
That evening we stayed at Inverlochy Castle, a gorgeous hotel just north of Fort William built in the mid-nineteenth century as a private hunting palace and later turned into a hotel voted “Best Hotel in Europe” in 2006, complete with a Michelin-starred restaurant. The furnishings were exquisite, the grounds breath-taking, and the food ranked as one of the top three meals of my life. We ate breast of pigeon followed by goat-cheese encrusted lamb in port reduction, and enjoyed an entire meal where both of us managed to behave and keep ourselves clean. Our bedroom was spectacular, with a bathroom nearly doubling the size of the suite. It wasn’t until I retired for the evening and went to brush my teeth that the now-familiar scene took me by surprise. For some reason, Donna managed to pack lighter than I did this trip, and the question of “how” had been plaguing me since we left. Behind me in the mirror, however, I saw something hanging from the spigot in the shower. I said to myself, “A pillow case?” “A top sail?” No! It’s my mother’s underwear! Apparently to save room, she packed a limited number of under-things and has been rinsing and hanging them to dry at night, a fact I wasn’t quite prepared for when I went to pull them out of the shower thinking that a maid had left a large rag by mistake. Nothing will remind you faster that despite one’s idyllic surroundings, in a palace no less, that we are not in fact idyllic people, but only the Lefeves, traveling together. So far, so good: it's day three, we’re both still alive, and we’ve managed to have a lot of fun since we’ve been here. Part 2 is coming soon!
Signing out from Scotland,
Ann
Part 1: Shuttle-Butt and the Giant Panties
It began on a shuttle bus in Philadelphia. Up until then, I had thought the trip was going remarkably well: almost eerily normal. As some of you will remember this time three years ago, our previous trips have not all started this way, but with just one bag apiece, no apparent sign of bee-keeping apparel or the flags of minor duchies, and a smooth flight from DCA to Philadelphia, the trip had a surprisingly un-Donna feel to it.
It was as I was starting to relax and look forward ten days of greenery and vacation when we boarded a bus from terminal F to terminal A at the Philadelphia airport. Because we were the last on the bus, and because no one has manners enough to give up their seat to my poor, old mother, Donna and I stood in the center aisle as the vehicle lurched to its start. Well, one of us stood: Donna, having not been on public transportation of any kind since the 1960s, didn’t quite have her sea legs. She seemed surprised, if not baffled, by the fact that buses took turns. She seemed to forget that, having great inertia, her body was apt to sway from side to side with the motion of the bus. Each time she would take her hand off the rail, she would totter backwards, laugh, and assume the “oh no I’m going to pee in my pants” stance. As that event was surely a real possibility, I tried not to make eye contact with the men standing behind her, wanting neither to invite their curiosity nor allow them to remember my face should I have to appear in a line-up one day as an associate of the woman who either toppled them like bowling pins or ruined their Italian leather shoes. We made it to our gate after many reminders for her to keep her hands on the railing, and eventually boarded the plane.
The next 8 hours or so proceeded in relative normalcy, and I found myself relaxing into a false sense of calm: side mirrors were still in tact, we had enough energy to push on, and nothing embarrassing had been done in several hours. (I should note that, on the plane, I was the one who accidentally opened my salad dressing onto the kind man sitting next to me. I still insist that Don is the most like my mother, however, and should one need proof ask yourself what he’s doing at this very moment. I’d put all the tea in china down that he’s at her house watching Charlie Rose with both dogs at his feet, wiping something from the front of his polo shirt). We passed Loch Lomond, met two Newfoundlands who barked incessantly at Donna’s glittering gold jewelry, and went to Dunstaffnage Castle near Oban. Sitting at the end of Loch Lomond, Dunstaffnage has the advantage of both a beautiful and strategic location. A small marina sits near the entrance where contemporaries keep their boats and a three-mast schooner sits majestically upon brackish water. Taking this all in, I turned to mom to ask her a question to which she responded with a sonorous, guttural belch. Thank heaven no one was close enough to hear or see us, because the “oh no I’m going to pee in my pants” stance was quickly assumed. This is the mother I know and love, and I was glad to have her back.
That evening we stayed at Inverlochy Castle, a gorgeous hotel just north of Fort William built in the mid-nineteenth century as a private hunting palace and later turned into a hotel voted “Best Hotel in Europe” in 2006, complete with a Michelin-starred restaurant. The furnishings were exquisite, the grounds breath-taking, and the food ranked as one of the top three meals of my life. We ate breast of pigeon followed by goat-cheese encrusted lamb in port reduction, and enjoyed an entire meal where both of us managed to behave and keep ourselves clean. Our bedroom was spectacular, with a bathroom nearly doubling the size of the suite. It wasn’t until I retired for the evening and went to brush my teeth that the now-familiar scene took me by surprise. For some reason, Donna managed to pack lighter than I did this trip, and the question of “how” had been plaguing me since we left. Behind me in the mirror, however, I saw something hanging from the spigot in the shower. I said to myself, “A pillow case?” “A top sail?” No! It’s my mother’s underwear! Apparently to save room, she packed a limited number of under-things and has been rinsing and hanging them to dry at night, a fact I wasn’t quite prepared for when I went to pull them out of the shower thinking that a maid had left a large rag by mistake. Nothing will remind you faster that despite one’s idyllic surroundings, in a palace no less, that we are not in fact idyllic people, but only the Lefeves, traveling together. So far, so good: it's day three, we’re both still alive, and we’ve managed to have a lot of fun since we’ve been here. Part 2 is coming soon!
Signing out from Scotland,
Ann
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Tradition
There's an 18th century Scottish tradition that after a woman's wedding wedding day, the new bride would immediately begin embroidering her death shroud in which she would be buried years in the future.
It doesn't take much imagination to anticipate the social commentary on that tradition. Once you're married you can start the business of dying. Instead of expanding further, I think it's much more interesting to anticipate how each of my college friends are responding to this idea. I've also realized that my friends enjoy blogs with self-referential content and multiple shout outs. So, here goes:
Ruthie is laughing her muppet laugh at the idea that marriage and death are the only two options for women c. 1730. Mostly, she looooooves to laaauuuuuugh!
Alice is wondering how I know odd facts like this and is feeling slightly as though marriage and death are similar phenomena.
Carrie is throwing up in the back of her throat, for both personal and cultural reasons.
Katie is probably questioning the content of my blog in general.
Nefret is probably gave her concerned face on behalf of Scottish women, and is now giggling. She's also thinking "could I knit a death shroud in 3 movies or less?"
The Jewel is wondering where one fits in a baby farm between marriage and death.
Jayme is probably wondering if she'll need to add in special hooks into her death shroud to cover her ample bosom like she did with button down shirts in college. (Actually she's thinking impatient thoughts about her boyfriend who she loves very much, but I thought it was impolite to mention those)
It doesn't take much imagination to anticipate the social commentary on that tradition. Once you're married you can start the business of dying. Instead of expanding further, I think it's much more interesting to anticipate how each of my college friends are responding to this idea. I've also realized that my friends enjoy blogs with self-referential content and multiple shout outs. So, here goes:
Ruthie is laughing her muppet laugh at the idea that marriage and death are the only two options for women c. 1730. Mostly, she looooooves to laaauuuuuugh!
Alice is wondering how I know odd facts like this and is feeling slightly as though marriage and death are similar phenomena.
Carrie is throwing up in the back of her throat, for both personal and cultural reasons.
Katie is probably questioning the content of my blog in general.
Nefret is probably gave her concerned face on behalf of Scottish women, and is now giggling. She's also thinking "could I knit a death shroud in 3 movies or less?"
The Jewel is wondering where one fits in a baby farm between marriage and death.
Jayme is probably wondering if she'll need to add in special hooks into her death shroud to cover her ample bosom like she did with button down shirts in college. (Actually she's thinking impatient thoughts about her boyfriend who she loves very much, but I thought it was impolite to mention those)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
In Veritate Victoria
In 1492 Columbus did not sail the ocean blue. At least, that is, not according to a group called the International Flat Earth Society. Consisting of 3,500 members who live all around our allegedly disc-shaped planet, the Flat Earth Society exists to "promote and initiate discussion of Flat Earth Theory and provide a venue for free thinking and debate." That's right, there's actually a group of individuals whose personal mission it is to convince other people that the Earth is flat and that we've all been duped into thinking it's round. May I invite you to sip on kool-aid cocktail? You're in for a real ride.
In a small town on Lake Michigan in the mid 1800s, a Christian fundamentalist decided that the only correct interpretation of certain passages of the Bible made it impossible to believe the Earth is round. An ugly step-child of the Second Great Awakening, what started as an apostolic church became a society whose contemporary members no longer know which passages of scripture were in question, but who faithfully promote the society's major tenants nonetheless. Their website is so serious that it seemed possible it's merely satire, but with extensive descriptions of perspective, physics, high altitude photographs, and one highly questionable definition of modern scientific theory, I'm forced to take them seriously (insofar as I know they're seriously insane). What intrigues me about the group is how seriously it takes itself and the extent to which it stubbornly refuses to believe anything that the last 500 years of science has taught us. There's poetry in their story, and wisdom to be found in their utterly nut-job beliefs.
Consider this illustration: a depiction of the Earth as the Society sees it, you'll notice the North Pole at the center of a ring of continents, with an "Ice Wall" around the perimeter. They claim that the reason ships never fall off the earth, as was assumed by the ancients, is because the pull of the North Pole and magnetic north necessitates that all directions are circular around a central axis. Thus, if one is sailing east, one will always sail in a circle around a fixed point. In my continual struggle to figure out how to be a grown-up, this got me thinking on two levels. Aren't we all sailing around a fixed point? And aren't we all a member of our own one-man society that occasionally rejects rational explanations in favor of holding on tightly to some desirable belief?To be even more melodramatic (bear with me), the metaphor continues: the world according to the above paradigm rotates around and is hemmed in by ice where nothing grows, nothing changes, nothing moves. The society's own illustration is a microcosm of the way they view the world and rational, scientific thought: remain in the past, stay safe behind a 50 meter wall of ice that protects us from what's outside, stay fixed as ice in an anonymous ocean.
If I've learned anything over the last three years since I graduated/died, it's that I have a definite defensive shield, a picture of the world that looks much like this one, a metaphorical wall of immovable matter protecting me from anything new or unfamiliar. The icy axis I seem to rotate around is the belief that I'll inevitably end up like my parents, and that I should pull away from love before it has a chance to trap me. Nearly every decision I've made throughout my life speaks to this "truth" I've held onto. I was a huge flirt who wanted attention from men, but who never committed to a relationship. When I finally started a relationship, I'd always find a reason to get out of it. Now that I'm 25 and have found someone worth having, it makes me nervous to the point of incapacity because even his sweet blue eyes remind me that my father had his own frigid, immovable quality.
But I have to make a choice. I have to keep making a choice about the kind of person I want to be. I can be afraid forever and I can, like the Flat Earth Society, go on ranting into the night with circular logic and photoshopped visions of truth. Or, I can keep choosing to hope for a three dimensional picture of reality, one that includes love and hard work and sacrifice for the sake of staying together happily. I don't know how to do that, and I'm terrified.
What are you keeping out or sailing around? Despite their insanity, the society's motto rings true, "In Veritate Victoria," in truth there is victory. We get to decide what will be true for us, how many dimensions we want to inhabit, and what victory we're brave enough to achieve.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Hanson: Some Things Never Change
This morning while putting together another camp brochure for FOCUS I was listening to an episode of This American Life, appropriately titled, "Stories from Camp." The program talks about the emotional component of an all-girls summer camp, about how during "color wars" girls aged eight through fifteen actually scream, cry, sing, and shout to such an extent that one little girl physically couldn't handle all the emotion. The eight year old had to stand away, watching her team as she trembled and wept despite the fact that her team won. It was just too much.
The best part about the program, apart from its insights into the hysteria of young people in contrived, semi-wilderness experiences, was that it ended with the song "Mmm Bop." Apparently it had been produced in 1997 and was only recently replayed. The melodious strains of Taylor Hanson's pre-pubescent voice washed over me and bore me on its waves to my twelve-year-old self when my own emotions were quite as volatile and hysterical as the girls on the radio.
I once had a dream about Taylor Hanson- I remember it vividly- in which we were playing together on my street, riding bikes and sitting on the gazeebo. I remember the acute, physical reaction I had to his "presence" in my life. My dream-self thought "He loves me, he came all the way here. Me, out of every girl in America." As if my love for him were strong enough to summon him, he came, and I was fulfilled. I woke up the next morning understanding that the sensation was just a fantasy, but having no less strong a reaction. I had a crush, and it was a force to be reckoned with. Even though I had complete rational understanding that such a relationship was impossible, I continued to love him from afar. At least until Penny and Me came out as a single, and I lost interest.
My emotional life was no less volcanic in other aspects of my existence. As a tween I hated everything my mother said, I despised the horrible jokes my father made, and thought my sixth grade History teacher should be drawn and quartered. I was serious in all of these feelings, and reacted to each party accordingly. I recount all of this now because as a twenty-five year old woman, I'm not sure anything has changed. I dress better, I don't have braces, and I know not to profess my love to every male I see on the street, but by and large I am the same person I've always been.
Julie Snyder, on This American Life, makes the point that girls at the aforementioned camp can revel in the emotional pandemonium because camp has a different set of expectations for behavior and conduct than does the outside world. She argues that girls are not only permitted to scream, cry, shout, sing, laugh, dance, etc., but encouraged, whereas normal society expects them to grow up and become something else with each passing year. We all knew "that girl" who went to some summer camp year after year, well into her college days, and who talked of nothing else. I've always suspected that the draw of camps like these rested in the latent lesbianism of its participants. But perhaps the appeal is in this all together foreign set of expectations? Perhaps girls need a canvass for an emotional palate whose colors continually paint pictures that are explosive and unpredictable. But what about women who are upwardly mobile, self-aware, and in their 20s?
The conclusion I'm coming to isn't earth shattering: we need some kind of community in which to express ourselves. The problem is that it's easier when you're thirteen. You ask your parents to send you to camp and you go. You join a youth group and sing emotionally about Jesus. You end up in Drama Club. You become an inwardly focused, self-obsessed nitwit who makes other peoples lives miserable: the point is that there are options for teenagers. Women in their 20s have friends from college, partners, trashy romance novels, and blogs. Assuming one isn't the type to go to a Yoga retreat or a self-help seminar, there are few opportunities to be emotionally authentic where you don't feel like you're going to wear someone else out. I say "authentic" here because what I would like to do even more than analyze my feelings is to just to experience my feelings: scream, cry, dance, shout, mourn the loss of my youth, complain, and be a child. Maybe people have children so they can go through life's experiences again vicariously through their offspring. The idea isn't half bad.
I wish there were a camp for adults where I could shoot bows and arrows and write letters to my parents. I wish I could make a leather key chain with my initials on it. I wish a lot of things, but it's not cute to be idealistic as an adult the way it was when we threw pennies from our mother's change purse into a fountain. That is sad and it's also real, and I don't have any sort of solution that makes me less whiny and more insightful.
My real question is this: can you believe that Hanson went from this:
To this:
Did they know how prophetic their words were when they said "Can you tell me? You say you can but you don't know. Can you tell me which flower's going to grow?" Did they have some sort of self-actualizing secret?
The best part about the program, apart from its insights into the hysteria of young people in contrived, semi-wilderness experiences, was that it ended with the song "Mmm Bop." Apparently it had been produced in 1997 and was only recently replayed. The melodious strains of Taylor Hanson's pre-pubescent voice washed over me and bore me on its waves to my twelve-year-old self when my own emotions were quite as volatile and hysterical as the girls on the radio.
I once had a dream about Taylor Hanson- I remember it vividly- in which we were playing together on my street, riding bikes and sitting on the gazeebo. I remember the acute, physical reaction I had to his "presence" in my life. My dream-self thought "He loves me, he came all the way here. Me, out of every girl in America." As if my love for him were strong enough to summon him, he came, and I was fulfilled. I woke up the next morning understanding that the sensation was just a fantasy, but having no less strong a reaction. I had a crush, and it was a force to be reckoned with. Even though I had complete rational understanding that such a relationship was impossible, I continued to love him from afar. At least until Penny and Me came out as a single, and I lost interest.
My emotional life was no less volcanic in other aspects of my existence. As a tween I hated everything my mother said, I despised the horrible jokes my father made, and thought my sixth grade History teacher should be drawn and quartered. I was serious in all of these feelings, and reacted to each party accordingly. I recount all of this now because as a twenty-five year old woman, I'm not sure anything has changed. I dress better, I don't have braces, and I know not to profess my love to every male I see on the street, but by and large I am the same person I've always been.
Julie Snyder, on This American Life, makes the point that girls at the aforementioned camp can revel in the emotional pandemonium because camp has a different set of expectations for behavior and conduct than does the outside world. She argues that girls are not only permitted to scream, cry, shout, sing, laugh, dance, etc., but encouraged, whereas normal society expects them to grow up and become something else with each passing year. We all knew "that girl" who went to some summer camp year after year, well into her college days, and who talked of nothing else. I've always suspected that the draw of camps like these rested in the latent lesbianism of its participants. But perhaps the appeal is in this all together foreign set of expectations? Perhaps girls need a canvass for an emotional palate whose colors continually paint pictures that are explosive and unpredictable. But what about women who are upwardly mobile, self-aware, and in their 20s?
The conclusion I'm coming to isn't earth shattering: we need some kind of community in which to express ourselves. The problem is that it's easier when you're thirteen. You ask your parents to send you to camp and you go. You join a youth group and sing emotionally about Jesus. You end up in Drama Club. You become an inwardly focused, self-obsessed nitwit who makes other peoples lives miserable: the point is that there are options for teenagers. Women in their 20s have friends from college, partners, trashy romance novels, and blogs. Assuming one isn't the type to go to a Yoga retreat or a self-help seminar, there are few opportunities to be emotionally authentic where you don't feel like you're going to wear someone else out. I say "authentic" here because what I would like to do even more than analyze my feelings is to just to experience my feelings: scream, cry, dance, shout, mourn the loss of my youth, complain, and be a child. Maybe people have children so they can go through life's experiences again vicariously through their offspring. The idea isn't half bad.
I wish there were a camp for adults where I could shoot bows and arrows and write letters to my parents. I wish I could make a leather key chain with my initials on it. I wish a lot of things, but it's not cute to be idealistic as an adult the way it was when we threw pennies from our mother's change purse into a fountain. That is sad and it's also real, and I don't have any sort of solution that makes me less whiny and more insightful.
My real question is this: can you believe that Hanson went from this:
To this:
Did they know how prophetic their words were when they said "Can you tell me? You say you can but you don't know. Can you tell me which flower's going to grow?" Did they have some sort of self-actualizing secret?
Monday, December 7, 2009
Welcome, reader of blogs.
Entropy
Sipping coffee at a diner
in this mountain town,
between hash browns and biscuits,
the heavy nicotine perfume
on a waitress’ skin
causes me to look away from her
hand holding a carafe to the window
where the frosted world
looks the way it did before
it was too warm even for
swimming in a given June.
Millennia ago,
the sun ignited blackness
and the tips of waiting plants
that begot of themselves
the coffee bean and fossil fuel
that slides down my throat
in a rush of hot energy
scientists suggest we will never
recapture, but will instead dissipate
quietly into an ever expanding universe,
growing more disordered
the farther it travels
from my cup.
And it’s true that time
is only the intervals it takes
a thing to deteriorate,
so when I kiss a man
I wonder what is the terminal velocity
of affection.
And will chaos, for one brief instant,
brace itself against trust and let us rest
a while in the company of each others breath?
Sipping coffee at a diner
in this mountain town,
between hash browns and biscuits,
the heavy nicotine perfume
on a waitress’ skin
causes me to look away from her
hand holding a carafe to the window
where the frosted world
looks the way it did before
it was too warm even for
swimming in a given June.
Millennia ago,
the sun ignited blackness
and the tips of waiting plants
that begot of themselves
the coffee bean and fossil fuel
that slides down my throat
in a rush of hot energy
scientists suggest we will never
recapture, but will instead dissipate
quietly into an ever expanding universe,
growing more disordered
the farther it travels
from my cup.
And it’s true that time
is only the intervals it takes
a thing to deteriorate,
so when I kiss a man
I wonder what is the terminal velocity
of affection.
And will chaos, for one brief instant,
brace itself against trust and let us rest
a while in the company of each others breath?
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