Finally, I was able to read again today. It's like finally being able to breathe after a fit of coughing. I still feel like the pinata after the party, but at least I can read once more.
Time muddies, sweat and tears will ruffle these sheets, covered with seashells - fitting, to wallow in this briny fever? Corral these sheep into pens of sleep, so they might bounce out again. There is no thinking deep, deep thinking in this bathypelagic dream-scape.
I can see the angler fish, taunting me with lures, it burns behind the shutters even when I shut my eyes. And the fever, the phlegm, the fatigue and stomach aches, the nausea and dizziness, the crescendo of illness-tides rising with the night fill this shipwrecked shell with the ocean sounds of far and distant waves.
I feel like this week is a Simic story: a poem whose satirical description ends in a twist, a smirk, and the hint of sardonicism.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Fever dreams and other fever things
Whenever I try and sleep, I'm getting fever dreams. My mother and I watched Oz (the relatively recent movie), and I tried resting immediately following the movie and woke up every couple of minutes with frustrating dreams. There were a bunch of braziers ablaze around me, and circles of light rose around them like smoke rings.
For whatever reason, this meant that the evil witch would return, and realize the wizard's farce. I couldn't get the images out of my head, and I couldn't sleep. My fever raised from 101 to 103 in the past 24 hours, and I'm getting increasingly tired. After taking medicine (I haven't taken medicine in years), my fever dropped to a more reasonable 102, and my eyelids no longer felt like fire.
I need this sleep...
I'd hoped to drive back tomorrow, but it looks like I'm stuck here until I can sit upright long enough to drive home. It's strange, but I don't actually feel that terrible. My throat is only the barest bit scratchy, I can breathe mostly (low congestion, low lung tightness), no headache, no stomach ache. I have chills that make keeping warm (or cool) miserable, as I'm constantly sweating in and out of blankets and clothes, I have spaghetti limbs, I have an occasional wet cough, and when I stare at screens my eyes split (this is common when I'm sick or very tired because I'm half near-sighted, half normal-vision)
So I'm a bit miserable, but not in undue pain and, when I'm not sweating my way out of sheets and clothing, I'm relatively comfortable lying down with a mug of tea.
I just need to get better so I can go to California.
For whatever reason, this meant that the evil witch would return, and realize the wizard's farce. I couldn't get the images out of my head, and I couldn't sleep. My fever raised from 101 to 103 in the past 24 hours, and I'm getting increasingly tired. After taking medicine (I haven't taken medicine in years), my fever dropped to a more reasonable 102, and my eyelids no longer felt like fire.
I need this sleep...
I'd hoped to drive back tomorrow, but it looks like I'm stuck here until I can sit upright long enough to drive home. It's strange, but I don't actually feel that terrible. My throat is only the barest bit scratchy, I can breathe mostly (low congestion, low lung tightness), no headache, no stomach ache. I have chills that make keeping warm (or cool) miserable, as I'm constantly sweating in and out of blankets and clothes, I have spaghetti limbs, I have an occasional wet cough, and when I stare at screens my eyes split (this is common when I'm sick or very tired because I'm half near-sighted, half normal-vision)
So I'm a bit miserable, but not in undue pain and, when I'm not sweating my way out of sheets and clothing, I'm relatively comfortable lying down with a mug of tea.
I just need to get better so I can go to California.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Creation
There are writers and philosophers who say that nothing new is ever created, nothing new has been made since the beginning. And they are right, in a fashion, and wrong. But me? I believe nothing new is ever not created, and that creation happens constantly. If someone asked me to read Alice in Wonderland and write it from memory a year later, making it creative as possible, the end result might possess a bit of the plot and setting of the same story, but the flavor would differ.
I am not Lewis Carroll, and, try as I might, my writing (save what I may have memorized) will never contain the dreamy, chaotic, mythical, fae, fanciful swirl that his writing so easily assumes in a way that states, clearly, "I am Lewis Carroll". My writing will never do that because I am not, in fact, him.
My creation may not actually construct any new matter, or invent any motifs that have never before been introduced, but that does not mean its arabesque of imagery, flavor, and artistic aroma are not, in a fashion, unique. There is an old joke regarding creation and God.
A man says to God: man has ascended, and can create just as God can. See all of our cities and how we've molded metal to our will, and how we've set the world beneath our feet and at our fingertips?
The man and God proceed to set up a contest of creation, where they will each try and grow crops and bring a plant to fruition. God starts, and grows an apple tree instantly, and takes an apple, sitting back to watch the man. The man smiles and stoops to the earth with a seed in hand, and starts digging a hole, until God leans forward and says, "no, no, no, no. You have to use your own dirt."
In this fashion, the philosophers and artists are correct, but I think that creation itself is a major portion of imago dei. What do we know about God in Genesis 1, when we are created in his image, save that God loves what is good, and creates? So writers, artists of every design, may not create new matter, new dirt and plants, but we can still plant and harvest and create, utilizing those tools we have been given. One of my favorite Neil Gaiman talks was his "Make Good Art" speech, in which he tells an audience of students to tackle the world and create something that only they can create, not because they are better than everyone else, but because each person has that potential.
Gaiman also said: "There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."
I really appreciate that sentiment.
What, on that first morn, did Eve say?
fashioned from that which captures
the heart, those ivory tusks that shut
man's dreams away in careful prison
know they, then, the secret trail back in?
--1-
is it only words crawling
up and down my spine?
you may surrender only so many ribs
before there's nothing left to give
--2.5--
i'm a glass dove
here's my broken cage around a weeping heart
fragile as feathers of rain in this hurricane
whose violent winds, shush, shush -
//--1--
what words did she say?
I am not Lewis Carroll, and, try as I might, my writing (save what I may have memorized) will never contain the dreamy, chaotic, mythical, fae, fanciful swirl that his writing so easily assumes in a way that states, clearly, "I am Lewis Carroll". My writing will never do that because I am not, in fact, him.
My creation may not actually construct any new matter, or invent any motifs that have never before been introduced, but that does not mean its arabesque of imagery, flavor, and artistic aroma are not, in a fashion, unique. There is an old joke regarding creation and God.
A man says to God: man has ascended, and can create just as God can. See all of our cities and how we've molded metal to our will, and how we've set the world beneath our feet and at our fingertips?
The man and God proceed to set up a contest of creation, where they will each try and grow crops and bring a plant to fruition. God starts, and grows an apple tree instantly, and takes an apple, sitting back to watch the man. The man smiles and stoops to the earth with a seed in hand, and starts digging a hole, until God leans forward and says, "no, no, no, no. You have to use your own dirt."
In this fashion, the philosophers and artists are correct, but I think that creation itself is a major portion of imago dei. What do we know about God in Genesis 1, when we are created in his image, save that God loves what is good, and creates? So writers, artists of every design, may not create new matter, new dirt and plants, but we can still plant and harvest and create, utilizing those tools we have been given. One of my favorite Neil Gaiman talks was his "Make Good Art" speech, in which he tells an audience of students to tackle the world and create something that only they can create, not because they are better than everyone else, but because each person has that potential.
Gaiman also said: "There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."
I really appreciate that sentiment.
What, on that first morn, did Eve say?
fashioned from that which captures
the heart, those ivory tusks that shut
man's dreams away in careful prison
know they, then, the secret trail back in?
--1-
is it only words crawling
up and down my spine?
you may surrender only so many ribs
before there's nothing left to give
--2.5--
i'm a glass dove
here's my broken cage around a weeping heart
fragile as feathers of rain in this hurricane
whose violent winds, shush, shush -
//--1--
what words did she say?
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Christmas Eve
I'd rather be sick at my parent's house than anywhere else, though the timing is certainly inconvenient.
My parent's backyard (what you can see if it - I'm no photographer, apologies) was beautiful in the sun rising over the hills this morning. When the sun finally crested the rolling waves of earth and pierced through the trees, it gleamed through the mercurial fog like an alchemical magic, golden strands of sunlight streaming down like heavenly tinsel.
It's Christmas (soon), ladies and gentlemen, thought not a white one, I'm afraid. Merry Christmas.
I had nightmares about art history last night, and could not sleep more than twenty minutes at a time. I woke up sweating and exhausted every twenty minutes or so until morning, whereupon I surrendered and walked outside. Rarely do I experience a surrealism when ambling down city, or small-town, streets, yet here, cupped like a dove in the palms of the mountains, the clouds crashed and made frothy the waves of the earth. Here, the earth and sky battled, and the mists lingered long before, bruised and beaten, they lifted with despair. In summer, the maple's splindly arms don't seem so defeated, condemned to bear ice and lichen until spring resurrects them again.
As I walk through the forest, hearing the distant trickling of water hidden in the shroud transports me into the fae, and every shifting form, then, might be faun or unicorn, fairy or pixie, sliding between the silvery branches with slippery grace.
When I see such a world, it captures me. Does grace redeem these trees, flowers, hills and mountains, doe and falcon, as surely as for me? I inhale beauty, and it is very good indeed. It is, I think, more than truth.
------
I won super-giant boggle tonight, against the family. I remember as a little child, the parents always allowed me to use two letter words in the original boggle, and I still lost. My parents are quite talented when words come into play. But I managed to eke out victories in quiddler yesterday (up and down) and boggle today, which might be nothing but a miracle (though I think I won boggle by 30 points - so maybe I was on fire).
I'm glad I'm not a child, anymore, for the simple fact that I'll be getting sleep tonight. Santa, keep it down. If you deliver gifts, remember that not even the mice are stirring, please and thank you. I didn't sleep well last night, and I need to get better before a wedding this weekend, a drive back to oregon, and a visit to A and S in california.
Merry Christmas eve, everyone. I pray everyone has safe travels and a relaxing, peaceful time holding friends, family, and Christ close to heart.
It's Christmas (soon), ladies and gentlemen, thought not a white one, I'm afraid. Merry Christmas.
I had nightmares about art history last night, and could not sleep more than twenty minutes at a time. I woke up sweating and exhausted every twenty minutes or so until morning, whereupon I surrendered and walked outside. Rarely do I experience a surrealism when ambling down city, or small-town, streets, yet here, cupped like a dove in the palms of the mountains, the clouds crashed and made frothy the waves of the earth. Here, the earth and sky battled, and the mists lingered long before, bruised and beaten, they lifted with despair. In summer, the maple's splindly arms don't seem so defeated, condemned to bear ice and lichen until spring resurrects them again.
As I walk through the forest, hearing the distant trickling of water hidden in the shroud transports me into the fae, and every shifting form, then, might be faun or unicorn, fairy or pixie, sliding between the silvery branches with slippery grace.
When I see such a world, it captures me. Does grace redeem these trees, flowers, hills and mountains, doe and falcon, as surely as for me? I inhale beauty, and it is very good indeed. It is, I think, more than truth.
------
I won super-giant boggle tonight, against the family. I remember as a little child, the parents always allowed me to use two letter words in the original boggle, and I still lost. My parents are quite talented when words come into play. But I managed to eke out victories in quiddler yesterday (up and down) and boggle today, which might be nothing but a miracle (though I think I won boggle by 30 points - so maybe I was on fire).
I'm glad I'm not a child, anymore, for the simple fact that I'll be getting sleep tonight. Santa, keep it down. If you deliver gifts, remember that not even the mice are stirring, please and thank you. I didn't sleep well last night, and I need to get better before a wedding this weekend, a drive back to oregon, and a visit to A and S in california.
Merry Christmas eve, everyone. I pray everyone has safe travels and a relaxing, peaceful time holding friends, family, and Christ close to heart.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Empty Pages
When you've sat and stared at an empty journal - or past, really - or an empty screen for long enough, you realize you are too tired for writing.
Hello, empty page, what say you?
...
Ah yes, that's kinda the point, isn't it?
...
How many stitches, how many times must the needle enter and exit before the quilt is made? Every shudder sets the thread painfully free - what freedom is that? Blind, bereft of beauty, a thread without an eye. Love is not the luffing sail, but tacking into the wind. Oh, and it's such a wind that drives dreams through the sky above the clouds of sea, into a world where setting and rising sun meet.
...
Well?
...
Almost Christmas eve, and the rain hammers the walls and windows without relief, a lullaby that settles the house into a Christmas silence, where not even the rodents dare disturb the Christ child's sleep.
...
Good night to you, too. Isn't it all just doodles, anyway? Why this congestion of thought that stumbles forward like a sinus headache, and none of it parseable into coherent thoughts I may ink. Good night, deer, nibbling at frozen grass near the trees. I hope I enjoy this as much as you.
I think I'm going to suffer being sick at Christmas.
The sky was bruise black, today, an eeyore hide of sky, not the jaundiced bruise of impending tornado. And the rains dutifully came, washing our sighs away, and breathing new scents of pine into the mountain air. Does the night smell of lightning to you? I can see it in the doe's eyes.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
It's good to be home for Christmas
1. Mother asked father what he was watching on television while my father played solitaire in the living room, and he replied: "Thor", whereupon mother acquired a rather dazed look, and said, "Thor? How do you spell that?" "T-H-O-R." "What's that," mother asked. "A movie about Thor, the norse god of thunder and lightning." "Huh." (mother has definitely seen both Thor and the Avengers)
2. Quiddler victory. I think it's a spiritual gift. Unless against Matthew.. I think his spiritual gifting is stronger.
3. Art history study under the warmest of blankets
4. World's End in front of the fire at Matthew's
5. Snow
6. Staring through the bony trees that look like the rib cages of colossal beasts, layered with lichen and moss over every available surface, pointing to north on every facet, and into the mountains and the hills, splattered with powdered-sugar snow.
7. Thick mists swallowing the low-land marshes at the base of the hill and snaking with the creek through the tall brush covered with hoarfrost so even the spiderwebs are crystallized and beautifully articulated in white
8. Quietude and rain.
9. Books: V for Vendetta, The Story of Art, ee cummings Selected Poetry, Carl Sandburg Complete Poetry, Simic The Voice at 3:00 AM
10. Chips and salsa everywhere (mother actually procured a great assortment of my favorite foods. I think she bought enough so that if I ate only chips and salsa, or only anything, she'd probably have enough of that one thing. Home is a sort of happy-trap)
11. Journaling
12. Being completely in the country, and driving along country roads. There is something about driving along country roads that empties me of pain and fills me with joy. I don't even need to know I have pains to be uplifted. It's like not knowing what a burden gravity is until you can fly.
13. The family. They are the best.
14. Cookies (I don't even eat many cookies - read #10. But knowing that they are there increases the level of Christmas by a far sum)
15. Tree, candles, tea, fireplace, wreath, lights, music, snow - it's a Christmas wonderland
I love visiting my family, though I begin missing my friends the instant I leave them. The tranquility at home, however, is unmatched.
Frost the leaves and they are diamonds,
spider's webs are stained glass prisms
trapping winter wishes
in grasses beside the road
hart and hind leave hearts behind
crossing frozen streams that hide
among the hoarfrost patches
that linger beside the road
broad the fog's grey-gloved hand
that cossets now the argent land
whose silver hair and flaxen plains
are dormant now,
sleeping, beside the road
though the aspens shiver,
the pines share not their coat
the maples, naked, ice-chimes bear
the firs are clothed,
yet ice grows in their hair -
does the wind sing eerily
when birds and bees have disappeared?
whispering beside the road
---
The moose was here,
his musk is heavy in the mists
that shrouded his steps -
can you mask such magnificence?
his cleft toes clench
the earth so gently
he brushes past
the spider-webbed grass
reverently
how can one
walk so lightly
who bears a weight so heavy
I ponder this
as his footsteps carry me
deeper into the mists
2. Quiddler victory. I think it's a spiritual gift. Unless against Matthew.. I think his spiritual gifting is stronger.
3. Art history study under the warmest of blankets
4. World's End in front of the fire at Matthew's
5. Snow
6. Staring through the bony trees that look like the rib cages of colossal beasts, layered with lichen and moss over every available surface, pointing to north on every facet, and into the mountains and the hills, splattered with powdered-sugar snow.
7. Thick mists swallowing the low-land marshes at the base of the hill and snaking with the creek through the tall brush covered with hoarfrost so even the spiderwebs are crystallized and beautifully articulated in white
8. Quietude and rain.
9. Books: V for Vendetta, The Story of Art, ee cummings Selected Poetry, Carl Sandburg Complete Poetry, Simic The Voice at 3:00 AM
10. Chips and salsa everywhere (mother actually procured a great assortment of my favorite foods. I think she bought enough so that if I ate only chips and salsa, or only anything, she'd probably have enough of that one thing. Home is a sort of happy-trap)
11. Journaling
12. Being completely in the country, and driving along country roads. There is something about driving along country roads that empties me of pain and fills me with joy. I don't even need to know I have pains to be uplifted. It's like not knowing what a burden gravity is until you can fly.
13. The family. They are the best.
14. Cookies (I don't even eat many cookies - read #10. But knowing that they are there increases the level of Christmas by a far sum)
15. Tree, candles, tea, fireplace, wreath, lights, music, snow - it's a Christmas wonderland
I love visiting my family, though I begin missing my friends the instant I leave them. The tranquility at home, however, is unmatched.
Frost the leaves and they are diamonds,
spider's webs are stained glass prisms
trapping winter wishes
in grasses beside the road
hart and hind leave hearts behind
crossing frozen streams that hide
among the hoarfrost patches
that linger beside the road
broad the fog's grey-gloved hand
that cossets now the argent land
whose silver hair and flaxen plains
are dormant now,
sleeping, beside the road
though the aspens shiver,
the pines share not their coat
the maples, naked, ice-chimes bear
the firs are clothed,
yet ice grows in their hair -
does the wind sing eerily
when birds and bees have disappeared?
whispering beside the road
---
The moose was here,
his musk is heavy in the mists
that shrouded his steps -
can you mask such magnificence?
his cleft toes clench
the earth so gently
he brushes past
the spider-webbed grass
reverently
how can one
walk so lightly
who bears a weight so heavy
I ponder this
as his footsteps carry me
deeper into the mists
Friday, December 20, 2013
Journeys
The police were out in force tonight, though whoever was speeding tonight probably deserved a "reckless driving" notation as well. The clouds were so heavy they fell until they hovered over the road, perpetuating a mist that soaked the roads and car windshields not in heavy droplets, but foggy condensation, like poorly insulated windows in the morning. I was told to watch out for invisible pockets of ice, but I didn't see any, though I was excited to find snow once I reached the hills ascending towards my family's house.
Snow. Maybe I'll get a white Christmas after all.
My week is looking to be more hectic than I originally suspected, being that Christmas is on a Wednesday this year. Strangely enough, that makes things incredibly complicated with work scheduling and figuring out travel times. But it's good to be home, with the hillside outside slumped like shoulders under a thin comforter of snow, and the trees are carrying their own white paint on their green brushes. Merry Christmas, everyone, and safe travels.
*reminders to self -
1. scales, buildings, nature, skein
2. judgment, beyond reproach (murderer, once murderer, raskolnikov)
3. galatians
4. that sickness unto dying
Snow. Maybe I'll get a white Christmas after all.
My week is looking to be more hectic than I originally suspected, being that Christmas is on a Wednesday this year. Strangely enough, that makes things incredibly complicated with work scheduling and figuring out travel times. But it's good to be home, with the hillside outside slumped like shoulders under a thin comforter of snow, and the trees are carrying their own white paint on their green brushes. Merry Christmas, everyone, and safe travels.
*reminders to self -
1. scales, buildings, nature, skein
2. judgment, beyond reproach (murderer, once murderer, raskolnikov)
3. galatians
4. that sickness unto dying
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)