If Only!

"Why do we love our writing teachers so much? Why, years later, do we think of them with such gratitude? I think it’s because they come along when we need them most, when we are young and vulnerable and are tentatively approaching this craft that our culture doesn’t have much respect for, but which we are beginning to love. They have so much power. They could mock us, disregard us, use us to prop themselves up. But our teachers, if they are good, instead do something almost holy, which we never forget: they take us seriously. They accept us as new members of the guild. They tolerate the under-wonderful stories we write, the dopy things we say, our shaky-legged aesthetic theories, our posturing, because they have been there themselves."

-George Saunders, "My Writing Education: A Timeline"

This is officially my reminder to myself right now, the same one that he gets from a mentor: don't lose the magic that got you into this program in the first place!

whuuu...

Feeling the Lurve Today

"Lone Standing Tuft"

Studying mental health, remembered how much I love this movie.  Feeling like I'm underneath the weight of my emotions and am observing them and their effects rather than feeling them properly.  I know it's a matter of being overly busy and a bit stressed (school, work, being unexpectedly out of town last weekend now this upcoming for my dad) but it's unnerving.  It comes in waves and sometimes I wish I had a big wooden head to crawl into and just hang out for a while. I have a day off tmrw and will prob bike/go to yoga in addition to life/work things so I'm not worried, just having a hard time "defying the foot" today.

Because I Can.

"Now we're like, 'Let's just go to Hooters and then play the show"

Put your hands up if you know you're gonna lose.

Might...

...be changing the name of the blog to DOWNERBLOG.  Or UPPERBLOG.  Not sure.



Most of us have had that moment around minute 1:20, right?

My mama said something really telling and touching and sad to me today.  And it was in a text, which made the weight of it feel even more incongruous to the situation, but she said "Go out tonight, look pretty and have fun somewhere nice - that has been my gift to you after all".  And I sat there and looked at it and thought: "Really?  That's all you think?" And I realize that that is true - my mom has gorgeous skin and a real smile and is quite beautiful in a way that I hope I can be someday too - but I would think of other ways - her strength, her loyalty, her warmth - of being what she has passed on to me.  If I am lucky enough to have a daughter someday I'd like to think that my gifts to her would be those type of things, plus a love of food, and a love of the little details in life, and hopefully of music and the mind.  But my mom was having a very hard day and I think she was feeling a little wistful too, underneath her anger, so I wont hold it against her or be too judgey, but still.

Yesterday this song came on after a meeting where tensions ran high, and where we addressed big stuff like the existing hierarchy of power and unfair treatment of students.  The lyrics don't match up with how I was feeling, but the minor, slow melody touched something in me that I was hardly aware of beforehand. In the evening we had our family health class on abuse (child, vulnerable adult, elderly, sexual) and it brought up a lot of emotions for me in a diffuse way.  I knew the class was coming, and had actually gotten pretty upset in the car on the way there at 10am that morning.  I was remembering a caller I had talked to when I volunteered on the sexual abuse crisis line, who had called on the anniversary of her rape some 30 years before.  She couldn't sleep so we talked about ways to relax, and I told her it wasn't her fault over and over again. She still felt guilty about having had too many drinks at some airport bar, and no matter what I said, I knew she couldn't quite hear me when I said that it was the fault of those men, and that no one deserves to be raped no matter how drunk they are, or what they wear, or where they happen to be in that moment.  It was a hard call, and a hard day, and a hard class to be in - and there shouldn't be these weird power struggles in any form, but there are. Sigh.

POWERING THROUGH

kind of a weird performance, but i don't fault 'em - i can only imagine i'd be like this on stage: semi-awkward, overly-earnest, etc...  his voice though!