Wondering

We were coming home from the theater
At the end of a dark night,
Chattering and flirting,
Lugging the old Volkswagen
Under green maples along the driveway.

We sat on the trunk and stared at the darkness,
Lit by four thousand fireflies.
And we were speechless
Because the earth had finally
Stumped us in its sudden surprises.

We thought we could know all
We had not yet known
And were ready to attack
With our sharp wit, quick tongues
And scholarly minds but for once,
Amidst the flickering backdrop
Our eyes scarcely penetrated darkness
And we paused for a long time,
Silenced and
Unsure of what to wonder.

First Kiss

“I had a dream last night that we kissed.” Through the phone I could feel Harrison’s pulse stop for just a moment. We were thirteen. We had never kissed. We had managed a hug once when our parents were in the kitchen; it was soft and warm. It was a little uncomfortable. “More than a hug” was something we both yearned for. “What was it like?” he asked. I lied. “It was great.” I couldn’t tell him his lips had felt paper thin and slippery, and my hands kept falling from his waist. It finally happened one August afternoon when we had a brief moment to ourselves. We had talked about having our first “more than a hug” many times before on the phone. Sometimes I was brave enough to call it a kiss. But we never talked about it in person, or came close to making it happen. But this one August afternoon as we hugged, knowing we had only moments alone before my mother realized we were missing, I pulled back to say, “Can we try that ‘more than a hug’…?” “Okay…” Harrison’s lips found mine. It was soft but messy. His freckled lips didn’t know what to do against mine, unsure and slow. It was better than my dream, but I thought I would feel differently after my first kiss. I felt the same. Still, as we lowered our gazes and stumbled down the steps, I ran my tongue over my lips until they were chapped.

If you saw me today you’d probably be surprised by the shade of my hair and the smell on the back of my neck so new in so short a time. You’d probably be surprised that the sun that wakes me is no longer the sun that wakes you; and the deep clouds that draw me into the night: my own ghost, one you never knew. You’d probably be surprised by my barefeet in stilettos the dirt of your ground still  settled in the cracks of my toenails. If you saw me today, you’d probably be surprised that I still grin and swing onto my lap with laughter like you once knew, because I know that I have loved you.

A Farewell to Our Magical Friends

For second babyboomers-- you know, the bubble of babies from 1989 through 1992-- today marks a big day. It is, as some have said, the day our childhood ends. Today brings the conclusion of the hit Harry Potter movie franchise with the second of the two-part finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Theaters at midnight were bustling with young-twenty-somethings, there to celebrate Harry's final run-in with the dark Lord Voldemort. It has been four years since the final book was released in stores, selling more than 11 million copies in the first 24 hours.

Harry Potter began as a story. The buzz about Harry swarmed halls in elementary schools, as our eight and nine-year-old selves passed around the books and encouraged each other to read the exciting tale of an orphan boy who grew up hated by his only remaining family, only to learn that he is a wizard. In the coming years, we debated about the pronunciation of Hermione's name, and attempted to disarm our friends on the playground by shouting, "Expelliarmus!"

It quickly became much, much more than just an entertaining story, however. It was our common ground as we entered middle school; something to which everyone could relate. In those rocky years, as identities began to form and friendships began and failed, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were our rock. They were not just a trio, but friends to any early adolescent child lost in the waves of emotional upheaval. With the movie series, the actors became our friends-- both as actors and characters. Emma Watson was your friend, but so was Emma Watson as Hermione. They put faces to the characters we loved and admired. They were our peers, but also our models. And as they grew, we grew. Our relationships toward them changed. As times and tides changed, they remained steady and peripheral. They were still your friends, and you would be reminded of this by casual mentions of the actors in the news, or the next film's release.

As our age group went off to college, the relationship further evolved. When University of Michigan's 2009 hit YouTube production of a Very Potter Musical went viral, Harry took on a new dimension in our lives. The humor we then sought in our dearly beloved tales was our way of realizing that although it no longer served us to fantasize about being swept away to Hogwarts, Harry was still relevant as ever in our lives. He still mattered, and we still wanted a way to enjoy him with others of our generation. We were no longer interested in chasing each other with sticks as we shouted spells, so instead we could joke about lines such as Dumbledore's blunt, "What the HELL is a Hufflepuff?" and sing that we "gotta get back to Hogwarts, where everything is magicoooool."

It was the release of the final movie-- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II-- that I would say took our generation by surprise. While much anticipated, I feel it's safe to say we did not expect the emotional reaction felt by many of us in saying goodbye to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and all of their supporters-- not to mention the world of Hogwarts. It was not simply the last movie, but the end of an era. It marked the end of midnight releases; there would be no more waiting up in line at the bookstore for the next book, no more midnight premieres of the movies. We would no longer gather with our friends and hundreds of our peers who had been there with us through the long haul. It was time to say goodbye not just to our favorite characters and actors, but to our best friends.

I was surprised at the midnight showing by how few people dressed up. Sure, there were a few die-hard fans-- most of whom were part of a younger crowd of Harry fans-- who went all out with hats, red and yellow ties, round glasses, and wands, but the resounding tone of the audience was one of reverence. Walking out of the final film, there was a solemn hush beneath the chatter that followed. It was a nod to the series that had been, and will always be, the icon of our generation.

Alongside Harry, Ron, and Hermione, we had taken on evil; the evil of Voldemort, the evil of navigating our middle school and high school years, and we combated our fears side-by-side with these characters. We had found the meaning of friendship, the importance of bravery, and the valiance in trust. J.K. Rowling inspired this brilliant story, but our generation created what it really was: an epoch.

And as we move forward, "let us step out into the night, and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."

Axis of rotation

The earth is spinning in my head
only it is not the earth and
it need not spin.

I rest, breathing:
I move empty limbs,
count the steam of my breath

I watch as flowers fade
and birds flap their feathers
knowing my head
is not the earth
and will be still
quiet
if I watch
my breath and watch
wind that can only be seen
in the fall of my chest
and thrash of the flags
of our forefathers and
their forefathers same;

And I think maybe when I move my mind
to the spin of the earth
I will not mind it such.

The sky is stale

The sky is stale, a boy said of the clouds.
We looked over the edge of sea.

But I can still see her white breath.
Look.

I had not seen blue clouds before.
Neither had the sea
who returned to the sky her blueness and her breath
in crests and pulses and I wondered of the time
I flew over the sea and could not see its movement,
only the coarse cobalt fiber it showed back to the sky and me.

The sky is musing, an old man said of the clouds.
We saw the clouds tumble over the edge of sea
out and in; breathing
in and out
onto the sea and into us.

But instant sense is not sense at all.
See?

Oh dear Miss Cardinal

Oh dear Miss Cardinal,
I so often miss your merit,
in flight with your suitor
red and regal
but I see it now in your feathers
all a-ruffle on the dirt floor,
a heap of rusty brown and russet,
bequeathed to the approaching brown-
pink panting tongue and
wet coal sniffing;

When I sit on the couch in sleep
and a brown-pink tongue
and wet coal sniffing
moisten my face I scream
“NO Toby NO”
but you rest in perfect harmony,
resigned to your fate,
your orange beak crunching
between gnashing teeth
and your feathers
arrayed so pleasantly and I say
“Oh dear Miss Cardinal,
I never knew you were so pretty.”

Pulling a Britt Paul with the lyrics =)

So I asked a friend about it on a bad day
Her husband had just left her
She sat down on a chair he'd left behind, she said
"What is love? Where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."

-- from "Iowa" by Dar Williams

If you're reading this, chances are pretty good you know how I get when I find a song that really truly resonates within me. I listen to it several hundred times, write out the lyrics if they're special enough, read them, listen to every version of the song, sing it, try to play it (usually failing miserably at this), and even take moments of meditation to it if it gets to that.

For some reason, this song "Iowa" has been resonating with me for the last couple days. This line specifically-- though there are other lines I want to say more-- sends a shiver down and up my spine every time I hear it and I can't explain why. It doesn't seem particularly profound, except for the fact that Dar's watery voice singing these words paints a lovely somber image in my mind.

But in the midst of this week's despair and hopelessness, it brought me back to remember why I'm doing what I'm doing.

I don't know if everyone has these moments, but when a work of poetry, writing, music, film, etc. touches me so deeply, I just fall apart. I shed something. I am stripped of everything I thought I was, and I disappear into its art. Sometimes these moments are explainable-- Walt Whitman has many spiritual teachings in his poetry-- but sometimes, like with this song "Iowa," I don't know why I'm so moved. Yet I discover that moment of reconnection in these works, and this is what brought me to be an English major when I was so set on health. And you know what I'm realizing as I write this? This spiritual connection I find in certain works of art is part of healing.

So on a day when I am disheartened (or pulled apart at the seams more like it) over a bad grade on a paper I truly thought I had nailed, it was lovely Dar Williams who reconnected me with my purpose. Behind these words I found the message, "Get up. Get back at it."

A nice passage

"But she feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton's face, as if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced; how little of the margin that remained was capable any longer of stretching, of absorbing, as in the youthful years, the colours, the salts, tones of existence, so that she filled the room she entered, and felt often as she stood hesitating one moment on the threshold of her drawing-room, an exquisite suspense, such as might stay a diver before plunging while the sea darkens and brightens beneath him, and the waves which threaten to break, but only gently split their surface, roll and conceal and encrust as they just turn over the weeds with pearl."

--Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, p. 30

The Liberation of Yoga

In conversation tonight, I had an epiphany. I've been taking huge strides in my yoga practice lately, and it occurred to me recently how funny it is that some of the yoga poses are so neat looking, yet yoga has nothing to do with how "cool" something looks. Asanas have much deeper meaning to true yogis than simply getting in shape and doing cool things with your body. I hadn't even thought until recently how great some of the things I can do appear, yet I'm so detached from it. I think it's a beautiful art, but the practice goes so deep.

So my epiphany was that when we do yoga, we're primarily stretching our spiritual body. Through intentional movements, meditation, and connection to the earth, we are allowing our spiritual body to become strong, controlled, and flexible. That then moves into the mental body, which makes our thoughts so as well. Once our yoga has penetrated the mental body, it goes into our emotional body and does the same. And finally, it moves into our physical body. The physical body, as well, becomes strong, controlled, and flexible, allowing us to move forward in our practice on all levels. Having penetrated all layers of our being, we are freed of prior limitations, habits, and of who we once were. We can move on into being our new selves, our best selves. In every part of the self, we are liberated through yoga.

Great lyrics to a great song I recently heard by Lissie

This Much I Know

by Lissie

The night has to come

This much I know

As the light fades out

The wind begins to blow

And I am alone and will forever be

Just me, just me, just me

The silence full of everything

The silence full of truth

Life is happening

Oh oh age and youth

If I could love you my way

Then that's all I can do

And I do, and I do, I do

The past is behind me

The future don't exist

The night is inside of me

And I must live with it

And there's a longing inside me

Big as the ocean

'Bout to carry me away

And wash me over clean

And I see it in my dreams

And I know that it's coming

But when, oh when, oh when

'Cause the past is behind me

The future don't exist

The night is inside of me

And I must live with it

And don't you think I know by now

Everything I'm supposed to do

When all the wisdom is up and down

I open up and let it though

'Cause the past is behind me

The future don't exist

The night is inside of me

And I must live with it

The light has to come

This much I know

As the city wakes up

The sky begins to glow

And still I am alone

But I'm never lonely

'Cause it's me, just me, just me

And the past is behind me

The future don't exist

The light is inside of me

And I must live with it

Oh and I must live with it

Oh now and I must live with it

THIS NEEDS A TITLE YO! (ideas?)

Sarah ate the couch. She didn’t know why but she couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. She began by biting the leather arm and ripping to the other end. Once the leather was gone she didn’t think twice before digging into the dry yellow foam, didn’t wince as it resisted the force of her swallow. Her husband came home as she moved on to the springs.

“Why Sarah!” he cried as the metal crunched. “If I’d known you hated that couch I would have joined you long ago!”

So Sarah and her husband gnawed ravenously at the wooden boards. “Well I can’t have a house without a couch,” said Sarah after she'd finished off the last of the metal feet, and so they ate the house.

Why I'm Glad to Return to the World of Apple Via the MacBook Air

• It's small.
• It's portable because it has a flash drive instead of a hard drive.
• It looks trendy.
• I have all kinds of cool apps like PhotoBooth and Garage Band.
• It makes me cool.
• It's as thin as an iPad but has a keyboard and is much more functional.
• I actually have Internet at school now and don't have to go through Windows Update failures.
• The second I opened iTunes on my brand new computer, it told me it was out of date. Ahhh, home again to Mac.

Alarm clocks

I've come to realize that on the days I don't set an alarm I wake up earlier than on the days I set it. I've also come to realize that this is not a coincidence.