Link du Jour

This almost made me cry just now. What a wonderful idea. http://www.zefrank.com/from52to48withlove. I guess 52% of us voted for Obama and 48 otherwise? Which opens up a whole new thing, namely, what is the point of the electoral college? It's complicated things so much, so why don't we just vote straightforwardly? Anyway, that's not the point. I like the site a lot. Enjoy

Now You See Me, Now You Don't

I've been thinking a lot lately about moving. Moving to a new apartment in Wilmington, moving to another town after graduation, moving closer to Seagrove for my last semester, the better to research it with, my dear. I've been thinking I've never moved to a place without a definite end in my mind: four years of college, three months of internship, three months of volunteering, just until the holidays are over, just until grad school, and now just until graduation. Because, as much as I like Wilmington, it's school for me. Many of the people I care about will be leaving when they're done here, which will leave me holding onto empty clothes and ghosts. Going back to Davidson feels like visiting the set of a beloved play or the soundstage where a favorite movie was filmed. The field where Field of Dreams was filmed is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iowa. That's how Wilmington might be for me one day, after everyone else filters out. That and the lack of publishing jobs, and the dreary romantic prospects, nudge me toward the thought that it'll soon enough be high time to go.

But really? I'm just so tired of starting over. I want to have the same friends, see the same friends, for ten years or twenty years, not notice each other's aging or changes because we're together so frequently. I want to paint some walls and knock out others. I want to forget what it feels like to be restless. I don't ever again want to be thinking toward a move. I don't ever want, as I get to know someone, to anticipate what it will be like to leave them. I don't want to introduce myself or prove that I'm cool or break the ice. I want to come home and not automatically turn on the TV, because there will be someone I can't wait to talk to, or something I can't wait to do.

But I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence, and laughing like a hyena at what I thought I wanted. I will, at some point, need new friends, get tired of my routine, and wish I could move anywhere, anywhere new. I will roll my eyes unnecessarily, and I will stomp around the house just because it feels different from walking. I will pray for wings or wheels. I will change the sheets obssessively. Because the woman with curly hair wishes it would just behave, and the woman with straight hair wishes it would do something interesting. Because when I am bound to move, I wish I could stay, and when I know I must stay, I will wish I could leave.

It has a lot to do with men. I mean I think it will be easier for me to stay in one place when I'm in love with someone there, and conversely, staying on the move is a natural step to take when I'm not and when it's important that I do find that place with the person in it.

It has a lot to do with this apartment. It's shoddily built from inferior materials, and the counter space is laughable, and there are spots on the floor that don't come out, and I never open my blinds because I'm on the first floor and don't want anyone looking in at eye level.

It has the most, I think, to do with being days away from twenty-five and still feeling like a teenager in many ways, but having to act like a grown-up for the world anyway. It's funny--while I have a sense of having missed the mark, it's not because of any expectations I personally had. I don't remember having had ideas of what I would be like or do at this age. In fact, the only indicator I have is a drawing from second grade or so, and according to that, I'm pretty much dead on. The printed instructions say, "Draw a picture of yourself at work in a job you would like to have when you are twenty-five years old." I have drawn myself in an artist's smock, with an easel, outside. The easel is a miniature version of the scene I stand in and says, "$10." Most of my art supplies languish in the dark these days, but I do have them, carry them around from move to move. And a writer is an artist. A nonfiction writer is the kind of artist I drew in that picture, one who takes down what she sees as closely as possible. Considering that particularity--I could have been selling an abstract piece or a portrait--and the hundreds of other jobs I could have chosen, we must say Second-Grade Rachel was not at all far off. Or maybe I'm the one who's not far off. The other childhood paper I currently have on my fridge, apparently from even earlier, has me at an easel whose contents you can't see, and says, "God wants me to be an artist." I keep them both up as reminders to maintain that certainty. God does want me to be artist. This is a job I would like to have when I am twenty-five years old. Maybe I should go back through the childhood files and see if they have anything about where I'm going to live.

Three Moments

There was a Santa at the shopping center yesterday where I graded papers. I stopped on the way to the bathroom to see what he was telling the kids, partly because I had just seen The Santaland Diaries and there was a lot of talk about the different kinds of Santas. This one was saying to the boy on his lap, "Do you have a backup plan? Because you might need one."

In church yesterday, a family was lighting the Advent candles and had their youngest boy read the prayer. It sounded quite clearly as if he said "Let us play" and "In Jesus' name we play."

I saw James Van Der Beek riding his bike at Wrightsville Beach the other night, right past the window while I ate dinner at a really great Mexican place. He even rode back in the other direction, allowing me to confirm that it was him.

The Portable Feast

I was reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast this afternoon and came across the following: "I had heard complaining all my life. I found I could go on writing and that it was no worse than other noises, certainly better than Ezra learning to play the bassoon."

Let's zoom in. "...certainly BETTER THAN EZRA learning to play the bassoon." Do you think this could be the origin of the band's name? I think it could. A quick Google shows us that there are myriad explanations for the name, none of which the band itself will confirm. Most involve another band or entity named Ezra, than which the band thought itself better. There is also a reference to another book with the phrase buried in it, Eliot's dedication of The Waste Land to (Ezra) Pound calling him "the better craftsman" in Italian, and I don't know what all else. I think I like not knowing.

Even better than that curiosity, I found in the Feast this little gem:
"They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure."

The book is a side of Hemingway I did not expect, having only read The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises, and those a very long time ago. I guess The Sun... gives us a glimpse at the Paris Hem, not so burdened with machismo, drinking wine and not always whiskey, wandering and hunkering down in cafes to write, but the Feast really fleshes him out. It's a supremely appealing vision. There's something so rewarding about reading someone's oeuvre rather than just one book. I'm finding that with Thurber as I hunt down (well, more like come across) everything he did. It's the same as having a friend and getting to know them better as you see them in different moods and contexts. Not such a rich experience if you don't bother to do that, if you let your idea of them stay static.

This is Just to Say,

with much delay, that the potters of Seagrove are the most gracious and precious people I've met in a long time. Not only do they do beautiful work, but they act like they know you already and welcome you and answer inane neophytes' questions with no iota of condescension, even though the questions I asked were the equivalent of asking a writer, "So, it's like, subject and then verb?" I cannot wait to go back and get even more information. I'm happy to report that both the Festival and the Celebration were successful. Do consider buying something from Chris Luther http://www.chrislutherpottery.com/, whose studio burned down last weekend in the midst of festivities, or donating to the Potters' Relief Fund to help him. Also, buy something from any of them. They're all awesome. More to come.

Haiku

For the next two weeks in poetry class, we are working on haiku and a related form, waka, or tanka (5-7-5-7-7). The length gives me the luxury of starting early so I can get the mediocre stuff out before turning in something dazzling. Here's some of the mediocre stuff that I actually like well, but don't find quite "poetic" enough to turn in. Then again, maybe I could just say I'm re-envisioning the haiku.

James Lee Burke is a
beautiful name. Let's say it
again: James Lee Burke.

What if you were the
first man to hear a heart?
Wouldn't you be afraid?

This one has a title: Terms I Forgot for Disconcertingly Long Periods of Time.
Bruschetta. Challenge.
Zodiac. Beside the point.
Posthumous. Candide.


They are really fun to make. It's the kind of thing one can do while waiting in line or something.

Some men fighting in, I think, the Civil War experienced a condition called soldier's heart. Then in World War I, the same condition was called shellshock, in WW II battle fatigue, and now it's post-traumatic stress disorder (or syndrome). What a shame that we're getting less poetic. On the other hand, someone with a good ear renamed dephlogisticated air and called it oxygen. So we're not going altogether downhill.

Everything

1. It seems antioxidants are nothing but vitamins A, C, and E. I feel a little gypped, like it should have been something more mysterious and involved.



2. Singing can treat stomach problems.



3. My editing project taught me a lot of cool Chinese words, and I love how one word in another language can mean a lot in ours. Reminds me of German. Here are just two I learned from editing: shenda- being cautious about greatness; shenshi- being aware of power.



4. I just made some peanut butter brownies from a Mollie Katzen recipe and now have the happy task of finding people to share them.



5. It's Writers' Week! Which means no class, and instead we get to go to seminars and movies and readings. They had the greatest documentary about Andre Dubus. He seemed misogynistic and self-centered and misguided, but I really like the guy and would like to have hung out with him. I'm totally ready to go out and get all his books and everything about him. Tonight is Dusty and Ace, AKA Philip and Clyde, the highlight of any Writers' Week. Can't wait.



6. I had to write a cinquain for Wednesday morning (a poem with 2 syllables in the first line, 4 in the second, 6, 8, 2). So I wrote this:

Barack

Obama is

our president. Not that

I expected anything else,

but wow.

It gave away that I waited until the last minute, but I think it was OK. It's hard to see anything as not OK for a while, because our president can speak without embarrassing us; he even makes me proud.