Recently I've had two very similar dreams. They were both about my dad, but he was dead. I was addressing him as though he was visiting for a brief time, but as though he had missed a lot.
In the first dream, I took him driving with me. I told him (and this is absolutely true) that I think a lot about all of the things he will never get to see me do, and one of the bigger things was that he will never have to deal with the pride/terror involved in teaching a teenage daughter how to drive. So I took him for a drive
(nevermind that in the dream I was a TERRIBLE driver, like, seriously, I almost took out someone in a toll booth).
The next dream was a tour of Brandeis. I showed him all my places, all the things that I do. Then we were laying down and I put my head on his chest (as I did so often as a baby and a child). I was about to tell him about Robbie, but we were interrupted by something inconsequential that involved a debate between the theatre clubs and BTV (no doubt my subconscious warring about whether I want to be a cliquey stage actor or a friendly film actor).
I woke up thinking..."Damn I wish that was real."
Well, why wasn't it? Just because it took place within the realm of my dreams, does that mean that it's fake? That out there, in some realm of existence, some ethereal form of my father isn't interested in my life, in what I do, where I go, who I am becoming?Is it truly just an image my subconscious dredged up to humor my wandering thoughts and reminiscences?
Or have I, in some sense, been visited by my father twice this week?
Now that I think of it, I have had dreams of my father before. Dreams where he is dead, but I question the legitimacy of his presence. In past dreams, I have been hung up on the fact that everyone thought he was dead, so how could he be before me? I think my acceptance of the current situation in these most recent dreams shows a kind of maturation. I have finally accepted the fact that my father is dead, never coming back.
But still watching over me. Do the dead ever truly leave us?
My father in life would never have left me to live without him for 7 years. Even during his most prolonged absences, there were cards. I think these are his cards. His way of telling me that, although he is not here to hug me, to tell me that he loves me and my brother more than anything else in the world, that he is still here.
Daddy, I love you. And I will miss you forever, but I can get used to these dreams if it means you are still with me.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Anyone but You
So World, Mother, and whoever else happens to be reading, this is an example of what I write when I have no intention of sharing. But apparently I need to OPEN UP more. So, here it is.
You say you're sorry,
You know you've been a bad friend
It kills me, but I say okay, it's fine
If it was
Anyone but you,
I would have given up long ago.
I know this is how you work,
That it's NOT just me you treat this way,
It's everyone.
And if it was
Anyone but you
I wouldn't care half so much
Because that's just how some people are
But it isn't
Anyone but you
It's You.
You who I care so very much about
In a way that has not for many years been reciprocated
You who haunt my dreams,
Asleep and awake,
I never see
Anyone but you
Anyone but you
Could not hurt me so badly
Time and time again.
But you can.
You have that power.
I handed it to you
And I never took it back.
I wonder now
As I think of your eyes
Your smile
Your self
If I will ever be able to see
Anyone but you.
**It doesn't have a resolution. Because that's the way that works. Make of it what you will.
You say you're sorry,
You know you've been a bad friend
It kills me, but I say okay, it's fine
If it was
Anyone but you,
I would have given up long ago.
I know this is how you work,
That it's NOT just me you treat this way,
It's everyone.
And if it was
Anyone but you
I wouldn't care half so much
Because that's just how some people are
But it isn't
Anyone but you
It's You.
You who I care so very much about
In a way that has not for many years been reciprocated
You who haunt my dreams,
Asleep and awake,
I never see
Anyone but you
Anyone but you
Could not hurt me so badly
Time and time again.
But you can.
You have that power.
I handed it to you
And I never took it back.
I wonder now
As I think of your eyes
Your smile
Your self
If I will ever be able to see
Anyone but you.
**It doesn't have a resolution. Because that's the way that works. Make of it what you will.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How do You Know?
Your whole body is shaking.
Every muscle in your entire body is quivering.
Your legs threaten to stop their ever present support of you,
Your fingers are beyond your conscious control,
Even your voice, your tool, your skill,
Has been given over to a much quieter, more tremulous, weaker version of itself
Than the one you rehearsed with.
Yes, everything shakes.
You stand there, on your miniature stage in front of the smallest, yet somehow most consequential audience you have ever before faced,
And you begin to speak the lines you have carefully prepared.
They rush out,
Sounding nothing like anything you've said before,
Nothing like the strong, confident-sounding monologue you spent hours working over.
Your breath continues to catch in the strangest ways as your muscles still refuse your command.
You finish speaking,
Your last syllable petering off into silence.
Your face muscles relax, move downward.
Downward?
This means they were up once.
Up, smiling, even during the prose that should have brought tears...
But it did.
You wipe the tears from your face, left over from the character in whose shoes you spent the last few moments.
Tears.
Yet..a lifted, smiling face.
Smiling, though you shook.
Smiling, though you cried.
Smiling, though you feared this judge worse than any before.
Smiling.
That's how you know you belong up there.
On that stage, facing that director at that audition,
The director who will tell you in a few fleeting words whether or not you are good enough.
And your face pulls itself into a smile, without you even realizing it.
A smile that blends perfectly to look like tears, anger, or ecstasy.
No matter what role you become,
What emotion plays across your soul,
You smile.
That's how you know.
Every muscle in your entire body is quivering.
Your legs threaten to stop their ever present support of you,
Your fingers are beyond your conscious control,
Even your voice, your tool, your skill,
Has been given over to a much quieter, more tremulous, weaker version of itself
Than the one you rehearsed with.
Yes, everything shakes.
You stand there, on your miniature stage in front of the smallest, yet somehow most consequential audience you have ever before faced,
And you begin to speak the lines you have carefully prepared.
They rush out,
Sounding nothing like anything you've said before,
Nothing like the strong, confident-sounding monologue you spent hours working over.
Your breath continues to catch in the strangest ways as your muscles still refuse your command.
You finish speaking,
Your last syllable petering off into silence.
Your face muscles relax, move downward.
Downward?
This means they were up once.
Up, smiling, even during the prose that should have brought tears...
But it did.
You wipe the tears from your face, left over from the character in whose shoes you spent the last few moments.
Tears.
Yet..a lifted, smiling face.
Smiling, though you shook.
Smiling, though you cried.
Smiling, though you feared this judge worse than any before.
Smiling.
That's how you know you belong up there.
On that stage, facing that director at that audition,
The director who will tell you in a few fleeting words whether or not you are good enough.
And your face pulls itself into a smile, without you even realizing it.
A smile that blends perfectly to look like tears, anger, or ecstasy.
No matter what role you become,
What emotion plays across your soul,
You smile.
That's how you know.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Castle!
So, through a terribly overwhelming process known as the Housing Lottery, I was assigned a living space for next year. I'll take a second to outline the Lottery for your viewing pleasure.
Mid-February I recieved an e-mail telling me that my number was 425. This basically translates to...well...no one really knows. Not even the Dept. of Community Living can tell you. It's a fair number. I mean, the numbers went down to like 1000 something. The housing areas for sophomores are thus (in order of desirability): The Village (AC, and they clean your bathroom for you), Rosenthal (suite style living, close to lots of things, but you have to clean your own bathroom-traditionally party living), East (at the bottom of a large hill, doubles or singles, no suites-but traditionally more social than), The Castle (a Hogwarts-esque building that is supposed to be super anti-social but really, who cares. IT'S. A. FREAKING. CASTLE.), a single in North or Massell( freshman quads. yes, living with freshman as a sophomore. Not. Fun.), or, like, a trash can on the Great Lawn.
So with my number I was also assigned a housing appointment time. My appointment was sheer hell. I literally sat in a room full of nervous people for 3 hours. Everyone was nervous because we were all watching the projector screen which displayed the list of rooms still available. By the time we got to the 400s, people were sweating. Rosie and the Village were closed completely, East was rapidly closing. Things got super tense.
But then...sigh. It was over. The end of the world was averted as people were finally assigned their rooms, mostly the ones they originally wanted. It just all seemed to work out okay.
And I got my Castle room. SCORE!!!! I'm going to be at freaking Hogwarts next year. Suck on that. Yeah!!!! It's lovely. Google image search the Brandeis Castle. She's a beaut.
Mid-February I recieved an e-mail telling me that my number was 425. This basically translates to...well...no one really knows. Not even the Dept. of Community Living can tell you. It's a fair number. I mean, the numbers went down to like 1000 something. The housing areas for sophomores are thus (in order of desirability): The Village (AC, and they clean your bathroom for you), Rosenthal (suite style living, close to lots of things, but you have to clean your own bathroom-traditionally party living), East (at the bottom of a large hill, doubles or singles, no suites-but traditionally more social than), The Castle (a Hogwarts-esque building that is supposed to be super anti-social but really, who cares. IT'S. A. FREAKING. CASTLE.), a single in North or Massell( freshman quads. yes, living with freshman as a sophomore. Not. Fun.), or, like, a trash can on the Great Lawn.
So with my number I was also assigned a housing appointment time. My appointment was sheer hell. I literally sat in a room full of nervous people for 3 hours. Everyone was nervous because we were all watching the projector screen which displayed the list of rooms still available. By the time we got to the 400s, people were sweating. Rosie and the Village were closed completely, East was rapidly closing. Things got super tense.
But then...sigh. It was over. The end of the world was averted as people were finally assigned their rooms, mostly the ones they originally wanted. It just all seemed to work out okay.
And I got my Castle room. SCORE!!!! I'm going to be at freaking Hogwarts next year. Suck on that. Yeah!!!! It's lovely. Google image search the Brandeis Castle. She's a beaut.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Academia, Genocide, and Other Things
"So it wasn't just that things interested him because he didn't know from boring-it was the connection his brain made, connections he couldn't help but seek out."
~An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green
(I wanted to make that quote the title, but it wouldn't fit.)
Anyway, I first want to say that I just love how sometimes, my brain makes these lightning fast realizations that completely and totally fascinate me. It's what I love about college. In high school, I think my brain only got me really super excited like once or twice a year. In college, if I do all my reading and homework, it can happen several times a week.
Like now, for instance. I have a paper due in my Human Rights class in about a week and I am EXCEEDINGLY behind on my reading, so I'm catching up so as to write a good paper. I just picked up "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide" by Samantha Power.
It's quite a read. And I'm only on like page 20. So far, Power has talked about the Turkish slaughter of Armenians and the international reaction to it. This was back in 1921, before genocide was even a word.
So my paper topic is thus: If you could advise the Clinton Administration on the situation in Rwanda a few years ago, what would you tell them? Go into Rwanda, damn the consequences, save the lives? Or stay out. Play it safe.
I had no idea how to answer (and I still don't) but upon reading Power's book, I realized that my entire question was wrong. I was looking at it like the choices were either
1. Enter Rwanda with force because it's the right thing to do to save the lives that we were no doubt capable of saving
OR
2. Stay out (and here's the important part) BECAUSE IF WE ENTER WE WILL BE DRAINING AMERICAN RESOURCES AND POTENTIALLY INVOLVING OURSELVES IN A WORLD CRISIS THAT IS NOT OUR OWN(I was thinking along the lines of another Viet Nam, or Iraq [although Clinton admittedly would not have known about Iraq yet].)
The problem with that, as Power points out, is that when looking at genocide (a word coined to describe the WWII Holocaust) the arguments should not be so self centered. It doesn't matter what AMERICA wins or loses. Intervene to save lives, or, and here is it, stay out TO UPHOLD INTERNATIONAL LAWS that protect sovereignty within a nation's own borders.
That maintaining sovereignty seems like it would be easy to brush away if what the nation in question was doing was perceived as wrong. But (and this ties into my anthropology class, which I totally dig), who are we to define what is WRONG? Americans as a group tend to see cultural phenomena purely from within American context. In order to correctly assess a situation, it has to be looked at from WITHIN the society being questioned.
This is not to say that genocide is ever acceptable, it simply needs to be understood in contextual terms before any extreme action is taken.
Okay...my mind is still firing so I'm going to go read more before I fall asleep. If you want to borrow the book, I will bring it back with me for the summer. Not quite summer reading, but once I'm done with this semester, I won't need it for a class text anymore.
Love to all!
~An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green
(I wanted to make that quote the title, but it wouldn't fit.)
Anyway, I first want to say that I just love how sometimes, my brain makes these lightning fast realizations that completely and totally fascinate me. It's what I love about college. In high school, I think my brain only got me really super excited like once or twice a year. In college, if I do all my reading and homework, it can happen several times a week.
Like now, for instance. I have a paper due in my Human Rights class in about a week and I am EXCEEDINGLY behind on my reading, so I'm catching up so as to write a good paper. I just picked up "A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide" by Samantha Power.
It's quite a read. And I'm only on like page 20. So far, Power has talked about the Turkish slaughter of Armenians and the international reaction to it. This was back in 1921, before genocide was even a word.
So my paper topic is thus: If you could advise the Clinton Administration on the situation in Rwanda a few years ago, what would you tell them? Go into Rwanda, damn the consequences, save the lives? Or stay out. Play it safe.
I had no idea how to answer (and I still don't) but upon reading Power's book, I realized that my entire question was wrong. I was looking at it like the choices were either
1. Enter Rwanda with force because it's the right thing to do to save the lives that we were no doubt capable of saving
OR
2. Stay out (and here's the important part) BECAUSE IF WE ENTER WE WILL BE DRAINING AMERICAN RESOURCES AND POTENTIALLY INVOLVING OURSELVES IN A WORLD CRISIS THAT IS NOT OUR OWN(I was thinking along the lines of another Viet Nam, or Iraq [although Clinton admittedly would not have known about Iraq yet].)
The problem with that, as Power points out, is that when looking at genocide (a word coined to describe the WWII Holocaust) the arguments should not be so self centered. It doesn't matter what AMERICA wins or loses. Intervene to save lives, or, and here is it, stay out TO UPHOLD INTERNATIONAL LAWS that protect sovereignty within a nation's own borders.
That maintaining sovereignty seems like it would be easy to brush away if what the nation in question was doing was perceived as wrong. But (and this ties into my anthropology class, which I totally dig), who are we to define what is WRONG? Americans as a group tend to see cultural phenomena purely from within American context. In order to correctly assess a situation, it has to be looked at from WITHIN the society being questioned.
This is not to say that genocide is ever acceptable, it simply needs to be understood in contextual terms before any extreme action is taken.
Okay...my mind is still firing so I'm going to go read more before I fall asleep. If you want to borrow the book, I will bring it back with me for the summer. Not quite summer reading, but once I'm done with this semester, I won't need it for a class text anymore.
Love to all!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sometimes, Writing Happens.
I have no idea where this came from. I started out just wanting to jot down a line or two about the ice. Here's what THAT turned into.
Ice makes the asphalt glitter
It's so beautiful that for a moment
I forget the treachery of treading upon such a glamorous surface. My boot slides, refusing to grant me the traction I need to remain upright. I fall.
Fall.
Fall.
I open my eyes.
There you stand.
You hold out a hand
Which I take, gladly.
You help me to my feet,
Turning the world back up the right way for me. I tilt my head so that I may look into your eyes.
You smile.
I smile.
We walk away from the scene of my
Fall.
Your hand in mine
That you may hold me up
And help to balance my world.
Ice makes the asphalt glitter
It's so beautiful that for a moment
I forget the treachery of treading upon such a glamorous surface. My boot slides, refusing to grant me the traction I need to remain upright. I fall.
Fall.
Fall.
I open my eyes.
There you stand.
You hold out a hand
Which I take, gladly.
You help me to my feet,
Turning the world back up the right way for me. I tilt my head so that I may look into your eyes.
You smile.
I smile.
We walk away from the scene of my
Fall.
Your hand in mine
That you may hold me up
And help to balance my world.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Winterrrr
I'm sure most of the few readers I ever had have completely lost patience with waiting around for me to post. I know, I'm bad at regularity. But...isn't it fun when I DO write something? Worth checking anyway? No?
...
Well fine. :P Don't read this. I don't care. (I do.)
I landed in Boston Logan at like 1 a.m. this morning and took a cab to Brandeis where I promptly fell into bed. I didn't fall asleep until probably close to 5, but that's my fault. I do this thing called thinking, and it sometimes keeps me awake.
ANYWAY.
I woke up this morning, had a perfectly nice and polite conversation with my roommates, then Ilana pulled up the shade.
And it was snowing.
And I was excited.
Because I love snow.
Enough with the fragments.
So, I went through all my morning routines with the tooth brushing and the getting dressed and such like, then I got ready to walk to my first class...IN THE SNOW. I was really excited as I put on my boots, and scarf, and coat. I kept smiling all the way to my class, simply because I have a monumental love of solid-ish sky-water.
Class.
End of class.
I decided to walk over to get my mail. Did so, then had to walk back to Renfield.
By this point I has wet socks and my hair was curling really weirdly. Eh.
About halfway to my second class, I was done with snow. The end. Am I really going to be buried in this slushy mess until MAY?! I don't know how okay that is. My socks may never dry properly...oh well. That's the price I pay.
See you in the spring...
...
Well fine. :P Don't read this. I don't care. (I do.)
I landed in Boston Logan at like 1 a.m. this morning and took a cab to Brandeis where I promptly fell into bed. I didn't fall asleep until probably close to 5, but that's my fault. I do this thing called thinking, and it sometimes keeps me awake.
ANYWAY.
I woke up this morning, had a perfectly nice and polite conversation with my roommates, then Ilana pulled up the shade.
And it was snowing.
And I was excited.
Because I love snow.
Enough with the fragments.
So, I went through all my morning routines with the tooth brushing and the getting dressed and such like, then I got ready to walk to my first class...IN THE SNOW. I was really excited as I put on my boots, and scarf, and coat. I kept smiling all the way to my class, simply because I have a monumental love of solid-ish sky-water.
Class.
End of class.
I decided to walk over to get my mail. Did so, then had to walk back to Renfield.
By this point I has wet socks and my hair was curling really weirdly. Eh.
About halfway to my second class, I was done with snow. The end. Am I really going to be buried in this slushy mess until MAY?! I don't know how okay that is. My socks may never dry properly...oh well. That's the price I pay.
See you in the spring...
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