The sun moving north again

My current temp job will continue through early May. And then — I would like to leave this hemisphere by summer solstice.

Watchful of the shifting days

I've never had a desk in front of a window before. I do now, for the next eight weeks, and it's where I'm sitting now, looking out over the backyard. Some trees are still full-green, but the lawn has a good cover of dry fallen leaves. It makes me remember the storm that was supposed to be Hurricane Irene — my Boston friend's lawn littered afterwards as if with a sudden green autumn.

I'm back at college for my very last six credits. Anthropology of global Christianity, a German independent study on expatriate memoirs, and public speaking. It's a little lonely right now, but I'm glad to be here. Challah and microwave tea and waiting for my classes to start (tomorrow).

There is less bitter in my bittersweet this autumn. Less dread. I will be able to savor the interval that straddles late fall/early winter, a tremendously evocative time, but with the knowledge that I am free to depart to coastal California before the deep, teethy part of winter descends. It's a bit cheating, to want the moods of October and November and December without the expectation of the full length and dark of winter, without the prospect of digging in and waiting until the cold lifts of its own (grudgingly, gray-and-muddily). But the Chicago winters have taken enough from me; we can call it even.

I know it's traditionally polite and superficial to talk about the weather, but I would do it for the pleasure and interest of it. For all that modern houses and cars and supermarkets insulate us from what seasons and weather have meant to most of humanity for most of our history,  it's still impossible not to notice or be affected by them (we are still human animals). They anchor me in the present — through my senses, for better or worse/lighter or darker — even while my thoughts swim in and out of reflection and memories. And keep reminding me that time is more spiral than linear — directional, but cyclical, to paraphrase a Madeleine L'Engle character. Every autumn I am swinging back around past every other autumn I've had, close enough to reach out and graze them with my fingers.

Élan vital

The sudden appearance of sleet.
I am three miles from home,
on my bicycle,
wearing sandals:

To the empty falling streets
I clench my red red hands
and ring out
a most lusty doxology
bookended with my laughter and
the spin of
my wheels.

Guest Post: Cold

By my Chicago girl.

Step out and
lungs gasp but

throat closes tight at the no, no,

no! of the cold,

and for a moment I am breathless.

It slowly slides through all
my layers,
a solid sheet of pin-pricking––

You don't belong here, my
body moans,
and for a moment I understand
that despite my honey-dark hair,
my blue eyes, my fair skin meant to drink in
this thin northern sunlight,
far,
far,
far back,
my family lived in Africa.

And it's quite laughable,
really,
the endeavors of
down and
wool and
leather,


for all never quite make up
for my heritage.

Stars lie in piles

I was walking to the train station early on a Saturday morning. Rolling my suitcase behind me, bitterly cold, light fluffy snow falling. One of those days quiet enough for the snowflakes to make it all the way through the atmosphere and the miles of empty air completely intact. Dusted with stars, scarf prickling with stars.



And then I looked at the ground, and I saw that even the couple of inches of snow there were lying so softly on each other that you could still see the perfect, perfectly distinct stars, these unimaginably delicate piles of snow and air and their minute tangled points...


I took these last two with my 50mm lens about three inches from the snow, for an idea of size. You can view any of them big by clicking through and then clicking again.

Minutes in the blizzard

I like in
this wild snow
my body
the riotous feeling of
life pressed against death

and against
all sense how my legs
(fat,muscle bone andblood. health. strength)
carry me onward

the way I can unglove
my numb hand, press it
to my chest
under my coat and
feel it coming back to
life

Things that are making me happy [post-finals edition]

• late-night snow frolics with my neighbor when we were in need of study breaks

• also file under that category: episodes of Xena

• academic articles about things that I truly want to know more about

• financial support in blogging (see the update)

• new friendships and the opportunity to begin afresh

• MentorCONNECT podcasts

• hugs

• sleeping under the weight and warmth of many blankets

• The Secret of Kells and its soundtrack

• dancing in elevators

• keyboard shortcuts

• the word "numinous"

• facial masks while I typed my papers. to destress my skin and to keep my stressed hands off it!

Waking up to the first snow at school, earlier this month

Ohio, part three: burying ground

Part the last. The direct morning light was too bright for the film in my camera.

Speaking of film, I am about an hour from catching my train to my plane to California for Christmas break, and I have my flatbed scanner (the one that scans negatives) in my one piece of luggage, the carry-on...haha. I don't want to pay other people to scan my film for me when I have my own, and it's not like I can wait three weeks to see what my developed negatives are OF.

A still November day

The air felt pleasingly moist, and I saw no one else.

How I spent my Halloween

So in love with...all this doing. The fulfillment of the waiting between the picture and the negatives returning to my mailbox. It's going to make my heart burst. I need more black and white, I need more of this fast film. More dreaming walks all the winter long, with my thoughts in my feet and my viewfinder. Everywhere.

Plastic sun

From a disposable camera. I peeled the paper off the outside, you know, that had the instructions on it, and inside were more instructions with a different brand-name on it. Hmm. The lens had a much wider angle than I expected. It was nice to have such a small camera, with absolutely no settings to fiddle with before a shot. I've got two more of them, and I haven't decided if I'll use them myself or try this idea I had, of giving them to two friends and asking them to pass them on after they take one or two pictures, and so on, and sticking a label on them with my campus mailbox number, saying, return it to here when the roll is finished, and I would get it developed and see what all these strangers had seen.

Repost, a beloved autumn poem

Today after class I went walking through this windstorm; when I stood still I could feel the sun warming the back of my legs and when I looked up I could see leaves sailing straight through the air, thirty feet above my head, because they would get whipped off their branches and never get a chance to set down. I had one of those strange pause moments, a moment of arrested glance across the street and you see a scene holding its breath for you, a linger of one second and some strange electricity in the holding-still and the indiscernible pause between picking your own foot up and putting it back down in front of you (do you know what I mean?), and it made me remember this poem.

Autumn
Not working, not breathing,
the beehive sweetens and dies.
The autumn deepens, the soul
ripens and grows round;

drawn into the turning color of fruit,
cast out of the idle blossoms.
Work is long and dull in autumn,
the word is heavy.

More and more heavily, day by day,
nature weighs down the mind.
A laziness like wisdom
overshadows the mouth with silence.

Even a child, riding along,
cycling into the white shafts of light,
suddenly will look up
with a pale, clear sadness.

-Bella Akhmadulina

Among things that are passing away

from this weekend's collect: "and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure."

it caught in my mind because I am already noticing the turn towards autumn. as beautiful as fall is and as winter can be (until about February 1st...hah), it always saddens me a little to watch the days shortening, the light lengthening, the trees baring. very poignant, is autumn, in that "tears for passing things.../things mortal touch the mind" kind of way, or: "leaves, like the things of man, you/with your fresh thoughts care for, can you?"

you know what I mean?

so, here is the tail end of the summer pictures.



still working on staying aware of the depth of field thing...heh.



wanted to see what would turn out if I held the Holga wide lens over the normal lens on my Zenit.



Handmade bread and fresh summer fruit and hands and sunlight: this one makes me happy.







note the little handprints in the dust on the seat.

This was not recent

Starting in February, there were these nights when I couldn't sleep because I got mad depressed as soon as the lights were off and I was alone with my thoughts. The first time it was because I had had too much espresso too late, so I just sat there heaving sobs until my roomie woke up. She was the best. She would distract me, tell stories or read aloud or pull me out to walk to the neighboring elementary school's playground. Or not distract me. Whichever helped. We came back at four in the morning and burned incense and boiled water for tea to spell away the demons. By then I'd be tired enough to fall asleep, tired enough that I'd almost fall asleep on the floor while my tea steeped. It was some kind of rose flavor, stolen from our cafeteria, which I later found out was artificially flavored. Raspberry rose. Anyways that was kind of a shame. And the next day we'd both be dead on our feet, sleep as soon as we got out of class, as much as we could afford before starting homework, and wait until we had to do it all again. Night depression is the worst thing I've ever been through and I'm grateful I didn't deal with it often after that semester. She was the best, though.

How it rained

I remember Germany / how it rained. We emailed about sunflowers.

It rained / we made rice pudding for lunch, Milchreis, and ate it hot, pouring cherries in their syrup onto it to keep from burning our tongues.

Days of heat and stifling humidity, one after the other until nothing could bear it any longer. I rolled up my shirt to let my sweating stomach breathe in the free bicycle breeze. Just coming back from a walking errand you would climb in the shower first thing. So it would build up and build up, cold chamomile with three meals a day, and then the sky would crack open and bring downpour, bring us running upstairs to shut the windows and out onto the terrace to rescue the cushions, bring us relief from the Schnaken and the weight of every particle of water between us and that sky.

Later, maybe the storm is over. Maybe there are still raindrops on my window up there in the sloping roof, or maybe I go to bed with the sound of sky still every now and again like God's ripping fabric, still the falling water, and Mona calls to me Erschreck dich nicht meaning in the night when the thunder wakes you, don't frighten yourself — don't be frightened — and then to her own bed, then all of us in darkness.

Springcome

Back in Illinois after a brief but wonderful stay in the deep South with my blogger friend and pen pal PinkAppleCore. I'm very very broke (but in an okay way), finishing up a choreography project for my dance class, hoping to overnight myself this weekend to DC with a group from my college to join the march for immigration reform.

The snow is completely gone, and I haven't worn my coat since I got back. Days are as stressful as ever, but full of delight. The following poem, from a beautiful anthology of modern Chinese poetry that I'm reading right now, seems fitting. Soak it in.


Let the Wind Recite

1
If I could write you
A poem of summer, when reeds
Spread vigorously, when sunshine
Swirls around your waist and
Surges toward your feet
Standing asunder, when a new drum
Cracks in the heat; if I,

Rocking gently in a skiff
Immersed to the twelfth notch,
Could write you a poem of autumn,
When sorrow crouches on the riverbed
Like a golden dragon, letting torrents and rapids
Rush and splash and swirl upward
From wounded eyes; if I could write you

A poem of winter
To finally bear witness to the ice and snow,
The shrunken lake,
The midnight caller
Who interrupts a hurried dream,
In which you are taken to a distant province,
Given a lantern, and told to
Sit quietly and wait,
No tears allowed;

2
If they would not allow you
To mourn for spring
Or allow you to knit,
If they said,
Sit down quietly
And wait --
A thousand years later,
After spring
Summer would still be
Your name—They would bring you
Back, take away
Your ring
And your clothes,
Cut your hair short,
And abandon you
By the edge of the persevering lake—
Then you would belong to me at last.

You would belong to me at last.
I would bathe you
And give you a little wine,
A few mint candies,
And some new clothes.
Your hair would
Grow again, back to the way it was
Before. Summer would still be your name.

3
Then I would write you
A poem of spring, when everything
Begins anew.
So young and shy,
You would glimpse a reflection of the mature you. I would let you shed tears freely;
I would design new clothe and make a candle for your wedding night.

Then you would let me write
A poem of spring on your bosom
In the rhythm of a heartbeat, the melody of blood,
With the image of the breasts and the metaphor of a birthmark;
I would lay you on the warm surface of the lake
And let the wind recite.


- Yang Mu
trans. Michelle Yeh

I was talking about snowflakes

The focus is not so good, but you can still see it okay.

Reckon

Lately now that the only constant for me is sleepiness
(pressing desire to stop walking around in time)
(in the lights so bright I had to hide my head, I confessed to my old roommate, When you would cry, I sleep)

I could ask you not just at five-thirty in the morning
Why are you awake?
But also at noon, at five-thirty in the evening
Why are you awake?

"It smells like snow," I will say.

For today's Poetry Friday, I present an excerpt from a longer Franz Wright poem. The poem is called "East Boston, 1996."

You already know I'm a Franz Wright junkie, so I don't have to tell you that I love these words. The last five lines of this section in particular linger in my mind in the most powerful way — I find myself thinking, Unendurable, unendurable at strange times.

The smell of snow is a bit of a motif throughout the book of poems that this one is from, God's Silence. I take my cue from this poem, the first in the book, and interpret it as a sign of hope — hope that one can change and begin over again.


Night Walk


The all-night convenience store's empty
and no one is behind the counter.
You open and shut the glass door a few times
causing the bell to go off,
but no one appears. You only came
to buy a pack of cigarettes, maybe
a copy of yesterday's newspaper—
finally you take one and leave
thirty-five cents in its place.
It is freezing, but it is a good thing
to step outside again:
you can feel less alone in the night,
with lights on here and there
between the dark buildings and trees.
Your own among them, somewhere.
There must be thousands of people
in this city who are dying
to welcome you into their small bolted rooms,
to sit you down and tell you
what has happened to their lives.
And the night smells like snow.
Walking home, for a moment
you almost believe you could start again.
And an intense love rushes to your heart,
and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable.

– Franz Wright

Poetry Friday round-up at Check It Out