Some Musings

Listening to writers, hearing their words and works, inspires me. More than that, seeing their personalities makes me want to be a writer. Makes me want to be like them, I suppose. Taylor Mali makes me think it wouldn't be half bad to be a teacher, watching Castle makes me actually want to do the legwork, because I see it in snatches and it intrigues me. I've always been easily impressionable. I can take on ideas and ideologies like coats, try them out, twirl around a few dozen times in them until they slip, or I find another one to put on. I don't think this is really a bad thing. I've always been a day dreamer, and I let my mind run away with the imaginings of what life could be like in these different facets. It is fun, and probably good exercise. But I always like best when I picture myself as that slightly rumpled, disheveled English major, drinking coffee late in the day and hunched over a laptop in the slanting sun of a late November afternoon, the cadence of my typing broken by long pauses when I stare almost cross-eyed into space as my mind whirls down a side track, running freely away from me down the well worn and newly parted paths of my imaginings. If I could paint a picture that was a wish for my future, it would be this.

Ispired by Talyor Mali

Sometimes I think I would rather be a poet,
Because poetry is easy.
Poems can be thought up quickly, spilled out in rhyme or meter that does not need to be digested or reconstructed
Poems can be spun from the top of your head and spoken with the ease
of infinity
Not like a story.
Because poems do not have to mean, they can simply feel or sound
Or sing
A poem can be about a drop of water or
The greatest fight of all mankind
Alike and it can move people and it is so much easier to play
With words
Than to play with plot and character.
But of course these times I forget what it is to be a poet,
I overlook what I know poems to be because for a moment I wish to only be a poet,
I do not wish to be saddled with pages and pages of type and script
And storylines.
Because a poem can come like this, because it can beat with the rhythm
Of your heart
And flow like blood through your veins.
Because a poem can stand as it is and weather the years of decay
Simply because it is a finely crafted piece of work.
A poem can be written for nothing, or for yourself,
And this is never true of a story.
A story, no matter how meticulously constructed or how
Ingeniously told can never be great without one thing
That no writer can supply it with,
That no amount of craft or lyrical inventiveness can sufficiently
Insure.
And that is the love of an audience.
A story is never told for the sake of the telling
And it is never written for the pleasure of the writing or the writer,
A story must be told for the listener because that is what stories are
Poems can be self expression but stories are the memories
Of a race, and to exist they must be loved.
True, a story can be classic without being loved,
But those are the stories that every English teacher teaches
And every English student reads the sparknotes on.
It is the joy of listening that can take a common story and make it an epic,
From the simplest tale of mice to the greatest fight of men
These words are told and retold and made into the subjects
Of High school projects and master’s
Thesises and Doctorate
Dissertations.
It is only on the days that I fear I will never achieve this mark of greatness
That I wish I was a poet.
Because I care little for the words I write for myself.
It is in the telling that I find solace and meaning, and though it may be the hardest part
It is that which makes my life have purpose.
So word by word I will spin a tale and drop it in your ear
by moonlight in the softest part of the year
and though I be no poet in craft or skill I will give you
all I am from the drops of this quill.

What happens to my head when I watch movies.

(This is kinda personal, but I guess we're all friends and family here, so what the hey, enjoy.)

Just finished watching Australia, and I am left with the longing to drive cattle. Cowboy movies do that to me, I guess. But more than that, I feel more than ever certain about my path, that vision I had of my future. A farm, some land, livestock to tend and a garden to mend. A house as big and warm as my heart, and someone I love inside, and children to make life hell and heaven all at once. I think I can accomplish this. I feel in my heart a peace, such a settling, when I think of it, like the pealing of a bell on high telling me that that is where I am headed, that I am supposed to be there whether I know it or not. Who will be by my side? Will I have anyone at all? It’s hard to think about, but I don’t think, in the end, it will matter much. If I find someone to marry, then I do. If I do not, I don’t. I’m sure that life will work itself out. I know I will have my children regardless, because that is simply a fact of my existence that I will let nothing take away from me. And if there is no husband or lover destined for me, there is still family that might be willing to take up the empty rooms, fill the silent spaces. For me, there will always be the wind and the stars, the quiet cedar trees and the whip o wills saying good night, good night, the hawk shrieking in the valley, the low hum of the house asleep, the shadows whispering, and the sun breaking slowly through the trees to say good morning. How many miles have I traveled, how far have I stretched myself just to know for certain what I am tied to? Did I come all the way here just to know that I want to go home? Or did I come here, to listen to this land, to learn what my heart truly wants? This land is a stranger to me, but when I listen it speaks. These mountains that rise so suddenly from the earth, the golden green rice whispering in patches of gathered sunlight, the trees so much older and wiser than any I have known. There is a confidence in this land, a stately attitude. It is not young, nor wild. It has been revered by the people here, and worshiped, and it is secure in its place. It is not my home, though. My home is rough and unruly and cuts your hand as soon as shakes it. But it warms to the touch and the heart, and here I realized what I could do there. I never thought about it before. I wanted to go home because it was home, but I didn’t know what I would do there other than, somehow, survive. Never did I think about what I could really do for that land, what it might do for me in return. It gave me a childhood, a family, and a place to stand. I will give it a future, a purpose, and the freedom to do as it chooses around me. Anyway, what more can you really give land but your love and respect? It wants to be cared for, just like anything else. Understood, worked with, and respected. I want nothing more than to do this for my home, and build a story to tell. A story I can tell my children, my grandchildren should I be lucky enough to have them. (If not, my friend’s grandchildren. I have no shame.) I want to build a story worthy of the telling.

Make Amends

So, I sort of skipped out for a month, didn't I? Terribly sorry about that. The thing is, soooo much stuff has happened, I don't even know where to begin. A lot of wonderful things, interesting and crazy and new, and new people who are utterly astounding. But I don't know if I can catch everyone up on all of that. If you want to facebook stalk me, you'll see a lot of what I've done in pictures at least. Let's see . . .

There was Kobe, and the beach. It was warm and sunny and the water on the sand was clear, the sound of French accents lingered in the air. Then there was the music festival in Takatsuki-shi. The jazz saxophone drifting over the hot air, the bluegrass catching me by surprise, that first sight of Mekka walking through the crowd, and all the events that streamed from that meeting. The concert, jumping and thrashing in a dark little club beneath a love hotel in Kyoto, in zombie makeup, something pounding through our veins that was more than blood. The smile of a girl whose smile could light up your eyes. The stories of South America, Mexico, teaching English, the cool morning breeze in Kyoto. The taste of hookah in Aki's bar, madarin orange lingering in my mouth, the smoke rolling off our lips like poetry. The memory of a blonde-haired fairy who once smiled at me through a haze so like this. Geoff suddenly appearing, the joy at seeing him. The Saturday adventures, finding a saxophone in Osaka, next week running off to Kyoto again to be zombie dancers, Geoff being utterly terrifying in his makeup, staying the night at Mekka's house, marveling at how this woman can live out a fairy tale, a story, a fantasy that's real.

And now, what is it now? November now, and I am wrapped in the cooling weather, the feel of winter gently sneaking around the corner. Snuggled in a coat and hiding my chin in a scarf, I revel in it. It makes me miss hot apple cider and nutmeg and a fireplace, but I know with an intensity that these things will be mine for the rest of my life, and one year without them won't mean so much, in the long run. Strains of music drift through my head and I want to learn them, to take my free time here and make it into something productive, something I've never done before, and I might try to learn a few new things . . .

And today, sipping hot coffee in my room (and amazing how the addition of a coffee pot makes me not dislike my room quite so much) the memory of seeing a friend's face and hearing her voice last night, a thick letter clutched in my hand ready to be mailed, and in my thoughts are my sisters, my mother, the smell of my house. The sweet November air tumbles gently in through my open window and makes my feet cold. I stuff my hat in my bag, wrap a scarf around my chin, and head out on my bike to smile into the breeze and laugh at the world, because somehow I am getting away with it, with being here, with living a dream, and don't let them know or they'll send me back! But for now I smile and the sky seems ridiculous in its blue and white and careless memories.