Listening to strong, self-reliant women, disconnected from the emotion of the past few weeks thanks to some mind-numbing anti-depressants. Seems like just another easy way out, but if it's what medical professionals suggest, I guess I'll trust them. For now, anyway. Life has been more of a battle lately than it should and the other areas of my life need attention. Patty Griffin sings my truth:
Ain't no talkin' to this man
Ain't no pretty other side
Ain't no way to understand the stupid words of pride
It would take an acrobat, and I already tried all that so
I'm gonna let him fly
Things can move at such a pace
The second hand just waved goodbye
You know the light has left his face
But you can't recall just where or why
So there was really nothing to it
I just went and cut right through it
I said I'm gonna let him fly
There's no mercy in a live wire
No rest at all in freedom
Of the choices we are given, it's no choice at all
The proof is in the fire
You touch before it moves away
But you must always know how long to stay and when to go
And there ain't no talkin to this man
He's been tryin' to tell me so
It took a while to understand the beauty of just letting go
Cause it would take an acrobat, I already tried all that
I'm gonna let him fly
I'm gonna let him fly
I'm gonna let him fly
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Taking a Day
I woke up this morning and called in sick. Should have done that long ago.
I keep trying to move beyond heartache, listening to bitter songs like Elliott Smith's "Just Somebody I Used to Know," but I can't convince myself that I don't still love or need him.
My therapist is absolutely correct when she says this feels like amputation.
She asked me if I felt any resentment and I had to say, "No, I wish I did. I only feel loss. I just miss him."
And the tears flowed.
And she was right when she said, "Your heart is still broken."
I keep trying to move beyond heartache, listening to bitter songs like Elliott Smith's "Just Somebody I Used to Know," but I can't convince myself that I don't still love or need him.
My therapist is absolutely correct when she says this feels like amputation.
She asked me if I felt any resentment and I had to say, "No, I wish I did. I only feel loss. I just miss him."
And the tears flowed.
And she was right when she said, "Your heart is still broken."
Monday, July 31, 2006
Hanging Her Dirty Linen Out to Dry
The moment he entered the Laundromat, the mood in the room altered drastically. Her face drew tight and her eyes filled with equal parts disrespect and fear. I kept expecting her to pick up the phone and call the police at any moment.
I had flown out to spend two weeks with James in Indiana, in a town called Jeffersonville on the banks of the Ohio River, across the shore from Louisville, Kentucky. James had told me he had dated people here who had ultimately told him that they could never introduce him to their parents because he was mixed (half-black, half-white). Since they were mostly high school relationships, part of me dismissed it as youthful ignorance. But I had to admit that sometimes I noticed people staring at us as if we were an anomaly that threatened them when we would walk around grocery stores or antique fairs with our arms linked or our hands entwined. When he helped me move my things across country, I had gotten pulled over for speeding in Texas and the officer asked me to go sit in his car where he drilled me about the nature of my relationship with James as his canine barked threateningly in the back before issuing me a ticket for going 15 miles over the speed limit.
We had dropped off my clothes at the Laundromat to be laundered on Easter Sunday. James had taken them in for me and paid ahead of time. As we drove away, he said he had noticed some resentment from the woman who took my clothes, as if she was upset that we had come on Easter Sunday; as if we were the reason she wasn’t able to be in church rather than at work. He said he had even apologized that she was stuck there and wished her a happy Easter. I could envision him doing it in the sweet and genuine way he had about him.
As it came time for me to pack to leave a few days later, we went to pick up my laundry. A new woman was there and when I asked her for my clothes, she went to get them and then told me how much I owed her.
“Oh, no. We already paid.”
“Well, I’m sorry, ma’am, but if you had, it would say that here on this receipt.”
“Hold on just a second.”
I walked out to the car to explain to James, trying to figure out what we should do and getting ready to pull the money out of my wallet to pay it again. But James would have none of it. Although he hadn’t said so initially, he had suspected that the resentment he had felt before had been partially racially-motivated and he was taking this as confirmation.
Her entire affect altered the moment James walked in the door behind me. When he began to confront her about this injustice, things turned ugly. As he asked the same questions I had asked before, her tone changed and she began threatening to call the police. I have never felt anything so tangibly dark before or since. She was not talking to him like a human being; she was treating him like a monster. I was baffled. Didn’t she realize to whom she was talking? No one could be more polite or less threatening. I could beat up James before he could even begin to think about harming a woman two times my size. And whatever happened to “The customer is always right?” As time went on, he unwillingly found himself giving her what she wanted, even insulting her intelligence by asking her if she could write when he asked her to write a contract agreeing to ask the woman who had served us before if she recalled us paying and promising to pay us back after making the proper inquiries. As she attacked him from her place of privilege, he did the only thing he could think of to defend himself: attacked her from his. And while that continues to haunt him to this day, I’m sure she only chuckled privately about how she was able to put him in his place.
In the short space of two weeks, I had become aware of multiple areas of privilege that I had been taking for granted. I realized that I have the privilege to go out in public holding hands with people, without worrying what they will think of me. I can ask questions of customer service representatives without them feeling threatened. I have even benefited from educational and career opportunities shut off to James in large part because of the color of his skin, making it much easier for me to swallow my pride and pay for my laundry two different times. As I asked him for permission to write about this experience, he even pointed out a detail that I had not had to concern myself with—he said that he would have grabbed my laundry and peeled out of the parking lot without paying if it had not been for the threatening-looking white man sitting in the window behind us. Because every time James has to muster the nerve to pursue justice for himself, he is forced to scope the place out to make sure it’s safe. And it wasn’t.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
All men are created equal.
All are granted unalienable rights.
And among them?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But with these rights come responsibility. Those with freedom must protect their rights from those who seek to expand their own power at the expense of equality and freedom. But above all, is the importance of loyalty. Times of trouble necessitate closeness. For surely we must all hang together or we will undoubtedly hang separately.
I had flown out to spend two weeks with James in Indiana, in a town called Jeffersonville on the banks of the Ohio River, across the shore from Louisville, Kentucky. James had told me he had dated people here who had ultimately told him that they could never introduce him to their parents because he was mixed (half-black, half-white). Since they were mostly high school relationships, part of me dismissed it as youthful ignorance. But I had to admit that sometimes I noticed people staring at us as if we were an anomaly that threatened them when we would walk around grocery stores or antique fairs with our arms linked or our hands entwined. When he helped me move my things across country, I had gotten pulled over for speeding in Texas and the officer asked me to go sit in his car where he drilled me about the nature of my relationship with James as his canine barked threateningly in the back before issuing me a ticket for going 15 miles over the speed limit.
We had dropped off my clothes at the Laundromat to be laundered on Easter Sunday. James had taken them in for me and paid ahead of time. As we drove away, he said he had noticed some resentment from the woman who took my clothes, as if she was upset that we had come on Easter Sunday; as if we were the reason she wasn’t able to be in church rather than at work. He said he had even apologized that she was stuck there and wished her a happy Easter. I could envision him doing it in the sweet and genuine way he had about him.
As it came time for me to pack to leave a few days later, we went to pick up my laundry. A new woman was there and when I asked her for my clothes, she went to get them and then told me how much I owed her.
“Oh, no. We already paid.”
“Well, I’m sorry, ma’am, but if you had, it would say that here on this receipt.”
“Hold on just a second.”
I walked out to the car to explain to James, trying to figure out what we should do and getting ready to pull the money out of my wallet to pay it again. But James would have none of it. Although he hadn’t said so initially, he had suspected that the resentment he had felt before had been partially racially-motivated and he was taking this as confirmation.
Her entire affect altered the moment James walked in the door behind me. When he began to confront her about this injustice, things turned ugly. As he asked the same questions I had asked before, her tone changed and she began threatening to call the police. I have never felt anything so tangibly dark before or since. She was not talking to him like a human being; she was treating him like a monster. I was baffled. Didn’t she realize to whom she was talking? No one could be more polite or less threatening. I could beat up James before he could even begin to think about harming a woman two times my size. And whatever happened to “The customer is always right?” As time went on, he unwillingly found himself giving her what she wanted, even insulting her intelligence by asking her if she could write when he asked her to write a contract agreeing to ask the woman who had served us before if she recalled us paying and promising to pay us back after making the proper inquiries. As she attacked him from her place of privilege, he did the only thing he could think of to defend himself: attacked her from his. And while that continues to haunt him to this day, I’m sure she only chuckled privately about how she was able to put him in his place.
In the short space of two weeks, I had become aware of multiple areas of privilege that I had been taking for granted. I realized that I have the privilege to go out in public holding hands with people, without worrying what they will think of me. I can ask questions of customer service representatives without them feeling threatened. I have even benefited from educational and career opportunities shut off to James in large part because of the color of his skin, making it much easier for me to swallow my pride and pay for my laundry two different times. As I asked him for permission to write about this experience, he even pointed out a detail that I had not had to concern myself with—he said that he would have grabbed my laundry and peeled out of the parking lot without paying if it had not been for the threatening-looking white man sitting in the window behind us. Because every time James has to muster the nerve to pursue justice for himself, he is forced to scope the place out to make sure it’s safe. And it wasn’t.
We hold these truths to be self-evident.
All men are created equal.
All are granted unalienable rights.
And among them?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But with these rights come responsibility. Those with freedom must protect their rights from those who seek to expand their own power at the expense of equality and freedom. But above all, is the importance of loyalty. Times of trouble necessitate closeness. For surely we must all hang together or we will undoubtedly hang separately.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
A cute boy brings a new perspective of Murrieta...
As he noted, it still looks an awful lot like Agrestia from Weeds, but somehow he's also managed to capture some beauty. Sometimes I forget that looking at our world from a new perspective can really help us gain a greater appreciation for what we have. Call me ungrateful, but I still hate living here. Seattle, here I come.
Friday, March 17, 2006
iTunes Fortune-telling
Go to the music player of your choice and put it on shuffle. Ask the following questions and use the song titles as your answers. NO CHEATING!
How does the world see me?
Song: “Little Yellow Spider” Artist: Devendra Banhart
Comments: A song about the importance of all animals on the earth, and the limitations of only listening to one perspective. This cultural relativistic humanist (wow—a double -ist!) likes it!
Will I have a happy life?
Song: “Time and Time Again” Artist: The Counting Crows
Comments: I think the lyrics speak for themselves:
“I wanted the ocean to cover over me
I wanna sink slowly without getting wet
Maybe someday, I won’t be so lonely
And I’ll walk on water every chance I get
“Time and time again
Time and time again
Time and time again
I can’t please myself.”
What do my friends really think of me?
Song: “My Funny Valentine” Artist: Carly Simon
Comments: THIS makes me so happy; I have always said that this is one of my favorite love songs, about loving someone in all of their imperfections, even possibly BECAUSE of them sometimes. Definitely something that anyone who is willing to count me as their friend must do…
Do people secretly lust after me?
Song: “Walking After Midnight” Artist: Patsy Cline
Comments: Apparently I’M the one who does all the lusting. Figures…: “out walkin’, searchin’ for YOU.”
How can I make myself happy?
Song: “A Shift”
Artist: Richard Buckner Comments: I think that’s someone telling me I SHOULD move to Seattle. Or me just really wanting to do it and projecting that on to it…☺
What should I do with my life?
Song: “Look Up!” Artist: Mirah
Comments: None necessary; agreed.
Why should life be full of so much pain?
Song: “Please Please Please” Artist: Fiona Apple Comments: I knew my iPod was possessed…this is UNCANNY:
“Please please please
No more maladies
I'm so tired of crying
You'd think I was a siren
But me and everybody's on the sad same team
And you can hear our sad brain screaming.”
How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
Song: “Billy Liar” Artist: The Decemberists Comments: Hahahahaha; a story about a boy masterbating while watching a neighbor undressing. What the hell?
“Will you stay here,
for a while, dear,
‘Til the radio plays something familiar?”
Will I ever have children?
Song: “Thunderbolt” Artist: Patrick Park
Comments: May God strike me dead if I do…THAT’S how I choose to interpret this fortune…
Will I die happy?
Song: “All Over Now” Artist: Aimee Mann
Comments: I think this elegant break-up song works for describing a death:
“Oh you can write the play
And every word I say
But I don’t have to stay
To see the credits
’cause it’s all over now
Yes it’s all over now
And I’m free”
What is some good advice for me?
Song: “It’ll All Work Out” Artist: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Comments: A message to STOP STRESSING? Methinks so… “It’ll all work out eventually…”
What is happiness?
Song: “Mystery” Artist: Indigo Girls
Comments: Sounds about right…
What is my favourite fetish?
Song: “Vegan in Furs” Artist: Of Montreal
Comments: So, does that mean I love hypocrites?
How will I be remembered?
Song: “That’s the Way” Artist: Led Zeppelin
Comments: This is how I remember my brother, who passed away a few years ago, so I have to say I wouldn’t mind if this were to be how I was remembered, too.
How does the world see me?
Song: “Little Yellow Spider” Artist: Devendra Banhart
Comments: A song about the importance of all animals on the earth, and the limitations of only listening to one perspective. This cultural relativistic humanist (wow—a double -ist!) likes it!
Will I have a happy life?
Song: “Time and Time Again” Artist: The Counting Crows
Comments: I think the lyrics speak for themselves:
“I wanted the ocean to cover over me
I wanna sink slowly without getting wet
Maybe someday, I won’t be so lonely
And I’ll walk on water every chance I get
“Time and time again
Time and time again
Time and time again
I can’t please myself.”
What do my friends really think of me?
Song: “My Funny Valentine” Artist: Carly Simon
Comments: THIS makes me so happy; I have always said that this is one of my favorite love songs, about loving someone in all of their imperfections, even possibly BECAUSE of them sometimes. Definitely something that anyone who is willing to count me as their friend must do…
Do people secretly lust after me?
Song: “Walking After Midnight” Artist: Patsy Cline
Comments: Apparently I’M the one who does all the lusting. Figures…: “out walkin’, searchin’ for YOU.”
How can I make myself happy?
Song: “A Shift”
Artist: Richard Buckner Comments: I think that’s someone telling me I SHOULD move to Seattle. Or me just really wanting to do it and projecting that on to it…☺
What should I do with my life?
Song: “Look Up!” Artist: Mirah
Comments: None necessary; agreed.
Why should life be full of so much pain?
Song: “Please Please Please” Artist: Fiona Apple Comments: I knew my iPod was possessed…this is UNCANNY:
“Please please please
No more maladies
I'm so tired of crying
You'd think I was a siren
But me and everybody's on the sad same team
And you can hear our sad brain screaming.”
How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
Song: “Billy Liar” Artist: The Decemberists Comments: Hahahahaha; a story about a boy masterbating while watching a neighbor undressing. What the hell?
“Will you stay here,
for a while, dear,
‘Til the radio plays something familiar?”
Will I ever have children?
Song: “Thunderbolt” Artist: Patrick Park
Comments: May God strike me dead if I do…THAT’S how I choose to interpret this fortune…
Will I die happy?
Song: “All Over Now” Artist: Aimee Mann
Comments: I think this elegant break-up song works for describing a death:
“Oh you can write the play
And every word I say
But I don’t have to stay
To see the credits
’cause it’s all over now
Yes it’s all over now
And I’m free”
What is some good advice for me?
Song: “It’ll All Work Out” Artist: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Comments: A message to STOP STRESSING? Methinks so… “It’ll all work out eventually…”
What is happiness?
Song: “Mystery” Artist: Indigo Girls
Comments: Sounds about right…
What is my favourite fetish?
Song: “Vegan in Furs” Artist: Of Montreal
Comments: So, does that mean I love hypocrites?
How will I be remembered?
Song: “That’s the Way” Artist: Led Zeppelin
Comments: This is how I remember my brother, who passed away a few years ago, so I have to say I wouldn’t mind if this were to be how I was remembered, too.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
The Indigo Girls create a space for i-Pods in the classroom
Husband
These poems are your rival.
They undress me.
They keep me up nights.
Turn my eyes to soft fruits
ripe and realized.
Husband
These poems are my best friend.
They listen to my monotony,
my unceasing repeating.
Against their patience I can never sin.
Husband
These poems are my passionate suitor.
They go down on one knee.
They beg me, “Marry me. Marry me.”
I find
I give them my hand.
Husband
This could be exciting: poems&me, you&me,
Menage a trois. Permanently,
Happily.
Husband
Is a woman poet permitted bigamy?
Husband
Answer me!
--Angela Jackson
“I don’t care if they’re not turned on; if I even see headphones, I’m confiscating those iPods.” I have a confession: one of the hardest things that I have had to learn to do as a teacher is refuse students when they ask if they can listen to their iPods when we’re writing essays. And I wasn’t fully committed to the confiscation of iPods until my own iPod was stolen out of my classroom, motivating my desire to protect students from the heartache (and financial strain when I soon after just had to replace it with the video iPod) that my over-attachment to that wonder gadget caused. As my iTunes crank through this computer, I know that music and rhythm can inspire the movement of my fingers across the keys on my keyboard more than silence can. Nothing underscores the beneficial effects of music to literary studies more than my experiences with “Language or the Kiss” by the Indigo Girls. When I discovered the lyrical artistry of the Indigo Girls’ lyrics while majoring in English, my commitment to language was solidified, particularly when I heard “Language or the Kiss.” I was attending Brigham Young University at the time and my dating experiences with men who were intimidated or turned off whenever I talked about anything too intellectual had made me start worrying that I was going to have to make a choice like that described in this song—between my desire to attain love and my love of English literature.
I bought the Indigo Girls’ live album after spending the semester studying Tennyson’s exploration of the conflict between commitments to love and community and commitments to art and self in my Victorian Lit. class. As I listened to the Indigo Girls develop this universal theme of the unresolved internal conflict that many artists face when they have to choose between love and fame in “Language or the Kiss,” I couldn’t help thinking of Tennyson’s girl who wove a tapestry and lived happily confined in a tower atop a town called Shallott until one day, one look in her mirror at a boy named Lancelot pimping his ride through the fields below compelled her to abandon the beauty of all of those years of work…and her life. It seems that the speaker of this song feels that pursuing love is tantamount to the Lady of Shallott’s suicide boat ride, which culminated in nothing more than a glance from Lance, who took a passing glance at her corpse and merely pronounced, “She has a lovely face.” Toward the beginning of the song, the speaker of the song explains, “Oh, the fear I've known—/ that I might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my own./ All I've sown was a song…” (9-12). She seems to think that if she pursues her career as a songwriter, she will always be lonely, only winning the affection of music fans, but never having time to develop close personal relationships outside of her fame. She may feel this way for many reasons: the life of a musician who must constantly travel as he/she tours may be too hard on a relationship (see references to being “alone in a hotel room tonight” in line 25), or it may just be that she wants to dedicate all of her time and attention to writing songs and she sees the time required to nurture love as distracting her from the focus she feels that it requires. The speaker concludes the song with this final verdict: “Unforgiving, the choice still is—the language or the kiss” (30-1). By ending with the words that give the song its title, the speaker makes it clear that the conflict remains unresolved for her, which could be interpreted positively or negatively: either she will always have to sacrifice one for the other (which is why it is “a calling that [says], ‘if joy, then pain’” (21-22)), or one day she will find someone who can love her and still allow her to dedicate herself to her art, because the song ends not with death, but with the persistence of the question and her hope that “the things that mean the most” (writing and art) won’t have to “mean the things I miss” (her desire for love).
In a song about an artist whose primary materials are words, this song provides an excellent specimen for literary study through its masterful use of language. Although she has been “made mute by the virtue of [the] decision” (7) described above, references to language as a motif are frequent in this song: laughter is like a language she can no longer speak after not using it for so long (6) and as she discusses her pressing desire to understand her future fate in the second verse, she chooses to describe her interest in astrology as a form of fortunetelling by writing, “I used to like that alone out on the driveway, trying to read the Greek upon the stars, the alphabet of feeling” (19-20). She references the Greek language primarily because so many constellations, including the Zodiac calendar, have Greek names (i.e. the Pleiades, Aries, Sagittarius, etc.). However, there is a clever pun in her use of “Greek”; for one who has chosen to repress her emotions of love in favor of a more logical commitment to her profession, the “alphabet of feeling” is, like laughter, a foreign language; it truly is Greek to her! As an old maid school teacher has retreated only further into her books for solace as the years have passed in her own lonely virginhood, I can definitely relate. In the third and final verse, she gives us a snapshot of her writing this song, which she calls “my studies with this paper and this pencil” that she is using to work “through the grammar of [her] fears” (26-27). Having chosen language over love, she is forced to use language as her coping mechanism. In other words, language is the source she elects in her quest for healing.
Having elected language over love, the song also makes use of strong and effective imagery to convey the depth of the speaker’s loneliness after having chosen language over love within the narrative of this song. The song opens with a clear image: a person is standing outside a house, looking in on a gathering of five people around a table with six settings, “and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen, laughter like the language [she] once spoke with ease” (3-6). Her description of the steam on the windows highlights the cold that she must feel outside of the warmth creating it inside, and she speaks about laughter as if it is a language that she has forgotten how to speak from not using it for so long, which also conveys her sadness. Since she is looking in from outside, almost like one who feels left out, we have to infer that she is the sixth guest that is missing, but since they had set a place for her, she must have been the one who chose not to attend. In the final verse of the song, she returns to the stars, which were earlier associated with feeling and the antithesis of language, but this time she is sitting “alone in a hotel room,” and when she “[squeezes] the sky out…not a star appears” (25-6). By pointing out the detail that she is alone in a hotel room, she makes it clear that she is touring with her band, which makes sense, since the alternative to love is dedication to her songwriting and touring requires constant road travel. She is looking to the sky for inspiration again, but since it was associated earlier with emotion, feeling, and relationships, she feels that she is not able to capture the stars, literally or figuratively. Perhaps she is starting to learn that to be a true star herself, she actually needs love to inspire her art?
I can only hope that the answer to that last question is “yes,” but as I sit here, still lonely and overwhelmed by the demands of my job as an English teacher and the unread books on my teeming bookshelves, I can’t help wondering…For now, I seem to have made the same choice as the writer of the song, but I still cling to the hope that someday I will find someone who can help me fuse both desires in one.
These poems are your rival.
They undress me.
They keep me up nights.
Turn my eyes to soft fruits
ripe and realized.
Husband
These poems are my best friend.
They listen to my monotony,
my unceasing repeating.
Against their patience I can never sin.
Husband
These poems are my passionate suitor.
They go down on one knee.
They beg me, “Marry me. Marry me.”
I find
I give them my hand.
Husband
This could be exciting: poems&me, you&me,
Menage a trois. Permanently,
Happily.
Husband
Is a woman poet permitted bigamy?
Husband
Answer me!
--Angela Jackson
“I don’t care if they’re not turned on; if I even see headphones, I’m confiscating those iPods.” I have a confession: one of the hardest things that I have had to learn to do as a teacher is refuse students when they ask if they can listen to their iPods when we’re writing essays. And I wasn’t fully committed to the confiscation of iPods until my own iPod was stolen out of my classroom, motivating my desire to protect students from the heartache (and financial strain when I soon after just had to replace it with the video iPod) that my over-attachment to that wonder gadget caused. As my iTunes crank through this computer, I know that music and rhythm can inspire the movement of my fingers across the keys on my keyboard more than silence can. Nothing underscores the beneficial effects of music to literary studies more than my experiences with “Language or the Kiss” by the Indigo Girls. When I discovered the lyrical artistry of the Indigo Girls’ lyrics while majoring in English, my commitment to language was solidified, particularly when I heard “Language or the Kiss.” I was attending Brigham Young University at the time and my dating experiences with men who were intimidated or turned off whenever I talked about anything too intellectual had made me start worrying that I was going to have to make a choice like that described in this song—between my desire to attain love and my love of English literature.
I bought the Indigo Girls’ live album after spending the semester studying Tennyson’s exploration of the conflict between commitments to love and community and commitments to art and self in my Victorian Lit. class. As I listened to the Indigo Girls develop this universal theme of the unresolved internal conflict that many artists face when they have to choose between love and fame in “Language or the Kiss,” I couldn’t help thinking of Tennyson’s girl who wove a tapestry and lived happily confined in a tower atop a town called Shallott until one day, one look in her mirror at a boy named Lancelot pimping his ride through the fields below compelled her to abandon the beauty of all of those years of work…and her life. It seems that the speaker of this song feels that pursuing love is tantamount to the Lady of Shallott’s suicide boat ride, which culminated in nothing more than a glance from Lance, who took a passing glance at her corpse and merely pronounced, “She has a lovely face.” Toward the beginning of the song, the speaker of the song explains, “Oh, the fear I've known—/ that I might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my own./ All I've sown was a song…” (9-12). She seems to think that if she pursues her career as a songwriter, she will always be lonely, only winning the affection of music fans, but never having time to develop close personal relationships outside of her fame. She may feel this way for many reasons: the life of a musician who must constantly travel as he/she tours may be too hard on a relationship (see references to being “alone in a hotel room tonight” in line 25), or it may just be that she wants to dedicate all of her time and attention to writing songs and she sees the time required to nurture love as distracting her from the focus she feels that it requires. The speaker concludes the song with this final verdict: “Unforgiving, the choice still is—the language or the kiss” (30-1). By ending with the words that give the song its title, the speaker makes it clear that the conflict remains unresolved for her, which could be interpreted positively or negatively: either she will always have to sacrifice one for the other (which is why it is “a calling that [says], ‘if joy, then pain’” (21-22)), or one day she will find someone who can love her and still allow her to dedicate herself to her art, because the song ends not with death, but with the persistence of the question and her hope that “the things that mean the most” (writing and art) won’t have to “mean the things I miss” (her desire for love).
In a song about an artist whose primary materials are words, this song provides an excellent specimen for literary study through its masterful use of language. Although she has been “made mute by the virtue of [the] decision” (7) described above, references to language as a motif are frequent in this song: laughter is like a language she can no longer speak after not using it for so long (6) and as she discusses her pressing desire to understand her future fate in the second verse, she chooses to describe her interest in astrology as a form of fortunetelling by writing, “I used to like that alone out on the driveway, trying to read the Greek upon the stars, the alphabet of feeling” (19-20). She references the Greek language primarily because so many constellations, including the Zodiac calendar, have Greek names (i.e. the Pleiades, Aries, Sagittarius, etc.). However, there is a clever pun in her use of “Greek”; for one who has chosen to repress her emotions of love in favor of a more logical commitment to her profession, the “alphabet of feeling” is, like laughter, a foreign language; it truly is Greek to her! As an old maid school teacher has retreated only further into her books for solace as the years have passed in her own lonely virginhood, I can definitely relate. In the third and final verse, she gives us a snapshot of her writing this song, which she calls “my studies with this paper and this pencil” that she is using to work “through the grammar of [her] fears” (26-27). Having chosen language over love, she is forced to use language as her coping mechanism. In other words, language is the source she elects in her quest for healing.
Having elected language over love, the song also makes use of strong and effective imagery to convey the depth of the speaker’s loneliness after having chosen language over love within the narrative of this song. The song opens with a clear image: a person is standing outside a house, looking in on a gathering of five people around a table with six settings, “and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen, laughter like the language [she] once spoke with ease” (3-6). Her description of the steam on the windows highlights the cold that she must feel outside of the warmth creating it inside, and she speaks about laughter as if it is a language that she has forgotten how to speak from not using it for so long, which also conveys her sadness. Since she is looking in from outside, almost like one who feels left out, we have to infer that she is the sixth guest that is missing, but since they had set a place for her, she must have been the one who chose not to attend. In the final verse of the song, she returns to the stars, which were earlier associated with feeling and the antithesis of language, but this time she is sitting “alone in a hotel room,” and when she “[squeezes] the sky out…not a star appears” (25-6). By pointing out the detail that she is alone in a hotel room, she makes it clear that she is touring with her band, which makes sense, since the alternative to love is dedication to her songwriting and touring requires constant road travel. She is looking to the sky for inspiration again, but since it was associated earlier with emotion, feeling, and relationships, she feels that she is not able to capture the stars, literally or figuratively. Perhaps she is starting to learn that to be a true star herself, she actually needs love to inspire her art?
I can only hope that the answer to that last question is “yes,” but as I sit here, still lonely and overwhelmed by the demands of my job as an English teacher and the unread books on my teeming bookshelves, I can’t help wondering…For now, I seem to have made the same choice as the writer of the song, but I still cling to the hope that someday I will find someone who can help me fuse both desires in one.
Me? True Blue?!
I haven't considered that concept since I renounced my once overzealous ties to BYU, where I dreamed of going, dedicating far too much energy to that dream, until I was confronted with its disappointing reality. But I don't mean it in the Cougar sense this time...My mom has gotten caught up in this color psychological survey book that designates personalities as blue, white, red, or yellow and she asked me to take it. Makes sense, but of course I can't help getting annoyed at her current obsession with it, as it reminds me far too much of a certain ex's obsession with another personality test like it, the name of which I can't really even remember now. Yes, I can see how people can be classified as this or that, but I hate it when people focus on it as all-defining, justifying their behavior or letting their major life decisions hinge on something like that. Call me idealistic, but I'd like to believe that we have a little more power over our lives...
Anyway, I don't mind most of the characteristics of the blue personality type--creative, self-doubting, sensitive to others, tolerant, motivated and hard-working, etc. But I'd like to believe that I'm NOT judgmental or unforgiving, which also seem to be traits of the blue. Just a case in point for how I'm not going to let a category rule or justify that kind of behavior, though.
So, this past week has been a doozy. My principal told me she'd do anything to secure me a position at this high school, but the thought of staying here only disappointed me, which was expected but also a little frustrating, since no other viable options have presented themselves as yet. I have an interview at an all girls' private school in L.A. on Tuesday and another at another L.A. school the week after and I'm still waiting on news from U Washington and Portland State, where I'd love to go get my MAT so that I could be in line to live and teach in either Portland or Seattle rather than living the rest of my days in the hometown to which I swore I'd never return. Anyway, since she told me the "good" news, I seem to be on self-sabotage mode in the classroom, convinced to misread anything my students do as another reason not to stay, which is unfair to them and hard on me. I haven't been sleeping, either, so my emotions have been near the surface. Plus, I started a three-course term at Chapman this term rather than the usual two-course option, so I'm just weighted down with way too much.
But the rational side of me knows that my other "options" really aren't good ones, even if they are presented as full options. If I stayed here, I'd be paid much more and could live with the parents one more year to pay off all the debt I've accrued this year so I can get back on my feet and even put some money down on a piece of property of my own. Speaking of debt...my Gilbert the Golf broke down again this week and this time cost me $900 on top of the $300 two weeks ago. All of this, the three-course tuition, and a trip to San Francisco on last month's meager one-week worth's of pay (only worked one week in December-January because of winter break). That means my credit cards originally designed only to be used to purchase my computer received hard hits.
I know that this sad truth that I'll be in the same place next year is truth nonetheless, as my decision to admit to Dan Frank that I might not be able to do Boston this summer after all proved. What is that? Only the ONLY good thing to happen to me this year--I got hired to teach at an academic camp at a beautiful boarding school in a city outside of Boston this summer. It would have been free rent and a nice healthy stipend (more than I'll make staying around here), but it would mean I wouldn't be here for new teacher training or the first day of school since my school has a nasty early August start date. I'm terribly sad, though, because I think Dan would have been the world's greatest boss. During the course of my interview, he told me that he really wanted me to teach some units from my music class, after which he asked me "the most important interview question of all--what are you listening to now?" When I mentioned Ryan Adams, he actually asked me if it was true that Ryan is dating Diana Ross's step-daughter (no, not anymore--he dated Leona Naess (another current fave) a few years ago), but the fact that Ryan Adams' personal dating life came up in a job interview was the clearest sign from God to me that I HAD to take this job. Part of me still feels that it is destined, so I told him the truth about the possibility of me not being able to come, but I'm hoping that he'll wait with me for a while before he tells me he has to look for someone to replace me. I sent the e-mail last night and immediately entered full-blues-mode, but I haven't heard from him yet and I am delusionally reading that as a decision on his part to give me some time (truth? probably just not checking his work e-mail over the weekend...).
Anyway, I clearly still have no idea WHAT the hell I'll be doing next year...Ah--I never thought I'd be plagued with the indecision bug, but I'm going to blame it on George W. How does THAT work? Well, I sit around criticizing America's love affair with his "decisive" nature, so it's only right that I surrender mine so as to avoid charges of hypocrisy. Besides, my old decisive nature led me on a stubbon, unwavering path to BYU, so I'd say history has taught me the error of that attitude via BOTH sources: current events and past personal experience...
Anyway, I don't mind most of the characteristics of the blue personality type--creative, self-doubting, sensitive to others, tolerant, motivated and hard-working, etc. But I'd like to believe that I'm NOT judgmental or unforgiving, which also seem to be traits of the blue. Just a case in point for how I'm not going to let a category rule or justify that kind of behavior, though.
So, this past week has been a doozy. My principal told me she'd do anything to secure me a position at this high school, but the thought of staying here only disappointed me, which was expected but also a little frustrating, since no other viable options have presented themselves as yet. I have an interview at an all girls' private school in L.A. on Tuesday and another at another L.A. school the week after and I'm still waiting on news from U Washington and Portland State, where I'd love to go get my MAT so that I could be in line to live and teach in either Portland or Seattle rather than living the rest of my days in the hometown to which I swore I'd never return. Anyway, since she told me the "good" news, I seem to be on self-sabotage mode in the classroom, convinced to misread anything my students do as another reason not to stay, which is unfair to them and hard on me. I haven't been sleeping, either, so my emotions have been near the surface. Plus, I started a three-course term at Chapman this term rather than the usual two-course option, so I'm just weighted down with way too much.
But the rational side of me knows that my other "options" really aren't good ones, even if they are presented as full options. If I stayed here, I'd be paid much more and could live with the parents one more year to pay off all the debt I've accrued this year so I can get back on my feet and even put some money down on a piece of property of my own. Speaking of debt...my Gilbert the Golf broke down again this week and this time cost me $900 on top of the $300 two weeks ago. All of this, the three-course tuition, and a trip to San Francisco on last month's meager one-week worth's of pay (only worked one week in December-January because of winter break). That means my credit cards originally designed only to be used to purchase my computer received hard hits.
I know that this sad truth that I'll be in the same place next year is truth nonetheless, as my decision to admit to Dan Frank that I might not be able to do Boston this summer after all proved. What is that? Only the ONLY good thing to happen to me this year--I got hired to teach at an academic camp at a beautiful boarding school in a city outside of Boston this summer. It would have been free rent and a nice healthy stipend (more than I'll make staying around here), but it would mean I wouldn't be here for new teacher training or the first day of school since my school has a nasty early August start date. I'm terribly sad, though, because I think Dan would have been the world's greatest boss. During the course of my interview, he told me that he really wanted me to teach some units from my music class, after which he asked me "the most important interview question of all--what are you listening to now?" When I mentioned Ryan Adams, he actually asked me if it was true that Ryan is dating Diana Ross's step-daughter (no, not anymore--he dated Leona Naess (another current fave) a few years ago), but the fact that Ryan Adams' personal dating life came up in a job interview was the clearest sign from God to me that I HAD to take this job. Part of me still feels that it is destined, so I told him the truth about the possibility of me not being able to come, but I'm hoping that he'll wait with me for a while before he tells me he has to look for someone to replace me. I sent the e-mail last night and immediately entered full-blues-mode, but I haven't heard from him yet and I am delusionally reading that as a decision on his part to give me some time (truth? probably just not checking his work e-mail over the weekend...).
Anyway, I clearly still have no idea WHAT the hell I'll be doing next year...Ah--I never thought I'd be plagued with the indecision bug, but I'm going to blame it on George W. How does THAT work? Well, I sit around criticizing America's love affair with his "decisive" nature, so it's only right that I surrender mine so as to avoid charges of hypocrisy. Besides, my old decisive nature led me on a stubbon, unwavering path to BYU, so I'd say history has taught me the error of that attitude via BOTH sources: current events and past personal experience...
The Indigo Girls Create a Space for iPods in the Classroom
Husband
These poems are your rival.
They undress me.
They keep me up nights.
Turn my eyes to soft fruits
ripe and realized.
Husband
These poems are my best friend.
They listen to my monotony,
my unceasing repeating.
Against their patience I can never sin.
Husband
These poems are my passionate suitor.
They go down on one knee.
They beg me, “Marry me. Marry me.”
I find
I give them my hand.
Husband
This could be exciting: poems&me, you&me,
Menage a trois. Permanently,
Happily.
Husband
Is a woman poet permitted bigamy?
Husband
Answer me!
--Angela Jackson
“I don’t care if they’re not turned on; if I even see headphones, I’m confiscating those iPods.” I have a confession: one of the hardest things that I have had to learn to do as a teacher is refuse students when they ask if they can listen to their iPods when we’re writing essays. In fact, I wasn’t fully committed to the confiscation of iPods until my own iPod was stolen out of my classroom, motivating my desire to protect students from the heartache (and financial strain when I soon after just had to replace it with the video iPod) that my over-attachment to that wonder gadget caused. As my iTunes crank through this computer, I know that music and rhythm can inspire the movement of my fingers across the keys on my keyboard more than silence can. Nothing underscores the beneficial effects of music to literary studies more than my experiences with “Language or the Kiss” by the Indigo Girls. When I discovered the lyrical artistry of the Indigo Girls’ lyrics while majoring in English, my commitment to language was solidified, particularly when I heard “Language or the Kiss.” I was attending Brigham Young University at the time and my dating experiences with men who were intimidated or turned off whenever I talked about anything too intellectual had made me start worrying that I was going to have to make a choice like that described in this song—between my desire to attain love and my love of English literature.
I bought the Indigo Girls’ live album after spending the semester studying Tennyson’s exploration of the conflict between commitments to love and community and commitments to art and self in my Victorian Lit. class. As I listened to the Indigo Girls develop this universal theme of the unresolved internal conflict that many artists face when they have to choose between love and fame in “Language or the Kiss,” I couldn’t help thinking of Tennyson’s girl who wove a tapestry and lived happily confined in a tower atop a town called Shallott until one day, one look in her mirror at a boy named Lancelot pimping his ride through the fields below compelled her to abandon the beauty of all of those years of work…and her life. It seems that the speaker of this song feels that pursuing love is tantamount to the Lady of Shallott’s suicide boat ride, which culminated in nothing more than a glance from Lance, who took a passing glance at her corpse and merely pronounced, “She has a lovely face.” Toward the beginning of the song, the speaker of the song explains, “Oh, the fear I've known—/ that I might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my own./ All I've sown was a song…” (9-12). She seems to think that if she pursues her career as a songwriter, she will always be lonely, only winning the affection of music fans, but never having time to develop close personal relationships outside of her fame. She may feel this way for many reasons: the life of a musician who must constantly travel as he/she tours may be too hard on a relationship (see references to being “alone in a hotel room tonight” in line 25), or it may just be that she wants to dedicate all of her time and attention to writing songs and she sees the time required to nurture love as distracting her from the focus she feels that it requires. The speaker concludes the song with this final verdict: “Unforgiving, the choice still is—the language or the kiss” (30-1). By ending with the words that give the song its title, the speaker makes it clear that the conflict remains unresolved for her, which could be interpreted positively or negatively: either she will always have to sacrifice one for the other (which is why it is “a calling that [says], ‘if joy, then pain’” (21-22)), or one day she will find someone who can love her and still allow her to dedicate herself to her art, because the song ends not with death, but with the persistence of the question and her hope that “the things that mean the most” (writing and art) won’t have to “mean the things I miss” (her desire for love).
In a song about an artist whose primary materials are words, this song provides an excellent specimen for literary study through its masterful use of language. Although she has been “made mute by the virtue of [the] decision” (7) described above, references to language as a motif are frequent in this song: laughter is like a language she can no longer speak after not using it for so long (6) and as she discusses her pressing desire to understand her future fate in the second verse, she chooses to describe her interest in astrology as a form of fortunetelling by writing, “I used to like that alone out on the driveway, trying to read the Greek upon the stars, the alphabet of feeling” (19-20). She references the Greek language primarily because so many constellations, including the Zodiac calendar, have Greek names (i.e. the Pleiades, Aries, Sagittarius, etc.). However, there is a clever pun in her use of “Greek”; for one who has chosen to repress her emotions of love in favor of a more logical commitment to her profession, the “alphabet of feeling” is, like laughter, a foreign language; it truly is Greek to her! As an old maid school teacher has retreated only further into her books for solace as the years have passed in her own lonely virginhood, I can definitely relate. In the third and final verse, she gives us a snapshot of her writing this song, which she calls “my studies with this paper and this pencil” that she is using to work “through the grammar of [her] fears” (26-27). Having chosen language over love, she is forced to use language as her coping mechanism. In other words, language is the source she elects in her quest for healing.
Having elected language over love, the song also makes use of strong and effective imagery to convey the depth of the speaker’s loneliness after having chosen language over love within the narrative of this song. The song opens with a clear image: a person is standing outside a house, looking in on a gathering of five people around a table with six settings, “and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen, laughter like the language [she] once spoke with ease” (3-6). Her description of the steam on the windows highlights the cold that she must feel outside of the warmth creating it inside, and she speaks about laughter as if it is a language that she has forgotten how to speak from not using it for so long, which also conveys her sadness. Since she is looking in from outside, almost like one who feels left out, we have to infer that she is the sixth guest that is missing, but since they had set a place for her, she must have been the one who chose not to attend. In the final verse of the song, she returns to the stars, which were earlier associated with feeling and the antithesis of language, but this time she is sitting “alone in a hotel room,” and when she “[squeezes] the sky out…not a star appears” (25-6). By pointing out the detail that she is alone in a hotel room, she makes it clear that she is touring with her band, which makes sense, since the alternative to love is dedication to her songwriting and touring requires constant road travel. She is looking to the sky for inspiration again, but since it was associated earlier with emotion, feeling, and relationships, she feels that she is not able to capture the stars, literally or figuratively. Perhaps she is starting to learn that to be a true star herself, she actually needs love to inspire her art?
I can only hope that the answer to that last question is “yes,” but as I sit here, still lonely and overwhelmed by the demands of my job as an English teacher and the unread books on my teeming bookshelves, I can’t help wondering…For now, I seem to have made the same choice as the writer of the song, but I still cling to the hope that someday I will find someone who can help me fuse both desires in one.
These poems are your rival.
They undress me.
They keep me up nights.
Turn my eyes to soft fruits
ripe and realized.
Husband
These poems are my best friend.
They listen to my monotony,
my unceasing repeating.
Against their patience I can never sin.
Husband
These poems are my passionate suitor.
They go down on one knee.
They beg me, “Marry me. Marry me.”
I find
I give them my hand.
Husband
This could be exciting: poems&me, you&me,
Menage a trois. Permanently,
Happily.
Husband
Is a woman poet permitted bigamy?
Husband
Answer me!
--Angela Jackson
“I don’t care if they’re not turned on; if I even see headphones, I’m confiscating those iPods.” I have a confession: one of the hardest things that I have had to learn to do as a teacher is refuse students when they ask if they can listen to their iPods when we’re writing essays. In fact, I wasn’t fully committed to the confiscation of iPods until my own iPod was stolen out of my classroom, motivating my desire to protect students from the heartache (and financial strain when I soon after just had to replace it with the video iPod) that my over-attachment to that wonder gadget caused. As my iTunes crank through this computer, I know that music and rhythm can inspire the movement of my fingers across the keys on my keyboard more than silence can. Nothing underscores the beneficial effects of music to literary studies more than my experiences with “Language or the Kiss” by the Indigo Girls. When I discovered the lyrical artistry of the Indigo Girls’ lyrics while majoring in English, my commitment to language was solidified, particularly when I heard “Language or the Kiss.” I was attending Brigham Young University at the time and my dating experiences with men who were intimidated or turned off whenever I talked about anything too intellectual had made me start worrying that I was going to have to make a choice like that described in this song—between my desire to attain love and my love of English literature.
I bought the Indigo Girls’ live album after spending the semester studying Tennyson’s exploration of the conflict between commitments to love and community and commitments to art and self in my Victorian Lit. class. As I listened to the Indigo Girls develop this universal theme of the unresolved internal conflict that many artists face when they have to choose between love and fame in “Language or the Kiss,” I couldn’t help thinking of Tennyson’s girl who wove a tapestry and lived happily confined in a tower atop a town called Shallott until one day, one look in her mirror at a boy named Lancelot pimping his ride through the fields below compelled her to abandon the beauty of all of those years of work…and her life. It seems that the speaker of this song feels that pursuing love is tantamount to the Lady of Shallott’s suicide boat ride, which culminated in nothing more than a glance from Lance, who took a passing glance at her corpse and merely pronounced, “She has a lovely face.” Toward the beginning of the song, the speaker of the song explains, “Oh, the fear I've known—/ that I might reap the praise of strangers and end up on my own./ All I've sown was a song…” (9-12). She seems to think that if she pursues her career as a songwriter, she will always be lonely, only winning the affection of music fans, but never having time to develop close personal relationships outside of her fame. She may feel this way for many reasons: the life of a musician who must constantly travel as he/she tours may be too hard on a relationship (see references to being “alone in a hotel room tonight” in line 25), or it may just be that she wants to dedicate all of her time and attention to writing songs and she sees the time required to nurture love as distracting her from the focus she feels that it requires. The speaker concludes the song with this final verdict: “Unforgiving, the choice still is—the language or the kiss” (30-1). By ending with the words that give the song its title, the speaker makes it clear that the conflict remains unresolved for her, which could be interpreted positively or negatively: either she will always have to sacrifice one for the other (which is why it is “a calling that [says], ‘if joy, then pain’” (21-22)), or one day she will find someone who can love her and still allow her to dedicate herself to her art, because the song ends not with death, but with the persistence of the question and her hope that “the things that mean the most” (writing and art) won’t have to “mean the things I miss” (her desire for love).
In a song about an artist whose primary materials are words, this song provides an excellent specimen for literary study through its masterful use of language. Although she has been “made mute by the virtue of [the] decision” (7) described above, references to language as a motif are frequent in this song: laughter is like a language she can no longer speak after not using it for so long (6) and as she discusses her pressing desire to understand her future fate in the second verse, she chooses to describe her interest in astrology as a form of fortunetelling by writing, “I used to like that alone out on the driveway, trying to read the Greek upon the stars, the alphabet of feeling” (19-20). She references the Greek language primarily because so many constellations, including the Zodiac calendar, have Greek names (i.e. the Pleiades, Aries, Sagittarius, etc.). However, there is a clever pun in her use of “Greek”; for one who has chosen to repress her emotions of love in favor of a more logical commitment to her profession, the “alphabet of feeling” is, like laughter, a foreign language; it truly is Greek to her! As an old maid school teacher has retreated only further into her books for solace as the years have passed in her own lonely virginhood, I can definitely relate. In the third and final verse, she gives us a snapshot of her writing this song, which she calls “my studies with this paper and this pencil” that she is using to work “through the grammar of [her] fears” (26-27). Having chosen language over love, she is forced to use language as her coping mechanism. In other words, language is the source she elects in her quest for healing.
Having elected language over love, the song also makes use of strong and effective imagery to convey the depth of the speaker’s loneliness after having chosen language over love within the narrative of this song. The song opens with a clear image: a person is standing outside a house, looking in on a gathering of five people around a table with six settings, “and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen, laughter like the language [she] once spoke with ease” (3-6). Her description of the steam on the windows highlights the cold that she must feel outside of the warmth creating it inside, and she speaks about laughter as if it is a language that she has forgotten how to speak from not using it for so long, which also conveys her sadness. Since she is looking in from outside, almost like one who feels left out, we have to infer that she is the sixth guest that is missing, but since they had set a place for her, she must have been the one who chose not to attend. In the final verse of the song, she returns to the stars, which were earlier associated with feeling and the antithesis of language, but this time she is sitting “alone in a hotel room,” and when she “[squeezes] the sky out…not a star appears” (25-6). By pointing out the detail that she is alone in a hotel room, she makes it clear that she is touring with her band, which makes sense, since the alternative to love is dedication to her songwriting and touring requires constant road travel. She is looking to the sky for inspiration again, but since it was associated earlier with emotion, feeling, and relationships, she feels that she is not able to capture the stars, literally or figuratively. Perhaps she is starting to learn that to be a true star herself, she actually needs love to inspire her art?
I can only hope that the answer to that last question is “yes,” but as I sit here, still lonely and overwhelmed by the demands of my job as an English teacher and the unread books on my teeming bookshelves, I can’t help wondering…For now, I seem to have made the same choice as the writer of the song, but I still cling to the hope that someday I will find someone who can help me fuse both desires in one.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
A Letter to my Mother
Dear Mom,
Today I packed your dreams for me up in boxes and put them away. Almost literally. Not that this didn't start happening this past summer, when I had to move home because I didn't have a job, at the age of 26. So much for all of that money spent on all of that education...
But today, as I de-dolled and de-dished my room, I realized that in a certain sense, it was unintentionally symbolic. Trying to distract myself from the embarrassment of not acting myself with a stranger a few nights ago, I decided it was time to figure out how to get my books out of the garage, where I've been worrying about them for the past few years, and into my room. Since they have always been my outlet for lack of love and dealing with the angst of living in this town, I decided I better get back in touch with them to prevent future idiocy from occurring.
To make room for them, I first had to pack away the dolls that you had filling up a box under my bed and taking up the top shelf in my bedroom, placed there in hopes of one day needing them to give to my nonexistent future daughters. Then I turned to moving out the dishes that were still unopened--dishes you bought me for Christmas the year you and Dad thought Charles was going to propose to me. They were an early wedding gift that you wouldn't send to me when I did have a place of my own on the east coast.
I'm sorry I'm not everything you had hoped. It was disappointing to me at first, too. But you know what? I think I'm a better person than who you and I once hoped I'd be. Maybe less happy, but more whole. I hope you understand that on some level, though I know you ache for healthy grandbabies. I watch your eyes light up and hear your voice reach new tones that I had forgotten you even had everytime you get to hold a baby and I know that if any woman was designed to be a grandmother, you were.
Today I packed your dreams for me up in boxes and put them away. Almost literally. Not that this didn't start happening this past summer, when I had to move home because I didn't have a job, at the age of 26. So much for all of that money spent on all of that education...
But today, as I de-dolled and de-dished my room, I realized that in a certain sense, it was unintentionally symbolic. Trying to distract myself from the embarrassment of not acting myself with a stranger a few nights ago, I decided it was time to figure out how to get my books out of the garage, where I've been worrying about them for the past few years, and into my room. Since they have always been my outlet for lack of love and dealing with the angst of living in this town, I decided I better get back in touch with them to prevent future idiocy from occurring.
To make room for them, I first had to pack away the dolls that you had filling up a box under my bed and taking up the top shelf in my bedroom, placed there in hopes of one day needing them to give to my nonexistent future daughters. Then I turned to moving out the dishes that were still unopened--dishes you bought me for Christmas the year you and Dad thought Charles was going to propose to me. They were an early wedding gift that you wouldn't send to me when I did have a place of my own on the east coast.
I'm sorry I'm not everything you had hoped. It was disappointing to me at first, too. But you know what? I think I'm a better person than who you and I once hoped I'd be. Maybe less happy, but more whole. I hope you understand that on some level, though I know you ache for healthy grandbabies. I watch your eyes light up and hear your voice reach new tones that I had forgotten you even had everytime you get to hold a baby and I know that if any woman was designed to be a grandmother, you were.
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