water = peace

more dreams, during the night, of the lake. they always bring me peace.

obligatory new year's post

here’s my obligatory reflecting-upon-new year’s blog post. i have some friends who have made various comments on facebook about asking 2011 to be better than 2010, and i laugh…but then i think, why should it be better or worse? every year, like every day—really, every moment—is laden with both good and bad, sometimes in equal measures, sometimes not. i really had some hellish moments this year, but maybe they have served to make me who i am today. if i asked to have them undone, or to not experience them this next year, what would that mean? would they haunt me into the next next year, cropping up in some other form? or if they didn’t, would my mind and my heart become fixed and sluggish, unable to problem-solve with the same confidence? bad times in your life are crap, to be sure, but they teach you how strong you are… even when you feel weakest.

so it makes me nervous to ask for anything in my life to be “better” than what it is…as if asking to never be challenged again. i would ask rather for the courage to face whatever may happen to me, and the grace to appreciate what i have in my life, and to give myself the space i need to be happy in.

but if i have to have one realistic, tangible new years’ wish, it is: please, please let me find a good job for this fall so i don’t have to move in with either of my parents, or i can unhesitatingly say that i will go crazy.

my ukulele: the new love affair

so basically my brain proper has been shut off this entire break, and my entire focus has been on playing my new ukulele! that link isn't to my exact starter kit, although it's close; i think the electronic tuner is the only difference–mine is a simple pitch pipe, but it does the job. i've had my uke 3 days now and all i want to do is sit around and strum it.

i would like, of course, to learn how to approach a fractional level of the proficiency of people like jake shimabukuro, who i've only just learned about but was blown away by his incredibly beautiful performance. those who know him of course will laugh because it's much like my only just discovering luciano pavorotti now…but whatever. i'm learning. and appreciating.

so far i've been practicing chords, strumming techniques, reading about the history of the ukulele, and playing with moderate success "dream a little dream of me," "somewhere over the rainbow," "suspicious minds" and most fun so far, "the ballad of gilligan's island" (yes, this is the real title of the theme song). i've also ordered a book of beatles' uke tunes from amazon, so that should arrive by the time i get back to pittsburgh.

done!

the first half of my graduate program is done and all i have to think about now are visiting friends and family in pittsburgh, and doing the things around pittsburgh i never got to do, like going to phipp's conservatory, the carnegie museums, walking around downtown, and doing whatever else may come into my head. also, at some point, i must drive the cats back to brewster. that will not be fun.

it is SO nice to be free for the next couple of weeks, but it also makes me a bit sad…i can't believe i'm already halfway through my program, and then in a few short months, i'll be done completely. oh well. there's no sense in wishing for things to last longer than their proper time–i suspect that if i were in school longer, i would find some reason to complain about it. happiness is enjoying where and what you are, in the present. but that is a hard lesson, for many parts of life. not just career.

this year i am thankful for having so much good luck in my life. i have a good place to be, and i will just have to believe that the next place i'll be, will procure its own means of happiness.

dreams beyond reach

sometimes my dreams are so intriguing that i am amazed and perplexed at the source of the creative powers of the mind that are impossible to tap into during waking hours.

how frustrating that during the day, i can only recall at best the shadow memories of what was.

the mountain, and my little boat

the other night i dreamed that i was in a boat. i almost feel that i've had this dream before, but i'm not sure. there is something about the environment of feeling and setting that is so familiar.

the setting is mt. riga, but it's both familiar and new from the mountain that i know. there are new paths in the woods, new streams, trickling between grassy banks, which feed into the lake. i know this is a dream-conglomeration of the mt. riga of my mind, but these visions are so real that i sometimes think that i'll come across them one day on the mountain–there all along, but previously hidden from sight. these are good places, magical places, full of sunlight and content.

my boat isn't much to look at; in fact, it's little more than the size of a one-person raft. but it's a sweet, sturdy little row boat with one short paddle, and when i see it waiting for me in the shallows of the lake, i feel proud to call it mine.

part of me, i must admit, is a bit dubious about paddling around in this thing without sinking, but i'm also so pleased to be able to hop in and paddle myself about the lake. and it's so convenient, really, to have it so small–it's light enough to fit down those narrow streams, and i can easily pick it up and take it with me, so that i can virtually go anywhere.

at some point in the dream, i even take it out onto the great ocean, but there i am slightly less sure about being out there on something so tiny, so i'm not out there for long–or perhaps that was the part of the dream where i woke up.

maybe i was remembering the little toy boat from the film ponyo, that gave the two children such freedom to roam. or maybe i am remembering the dream that i had of being on a ship, in control of my own destiny.

or maybe i am remembering the journey that reepicheep took to the End of the World, the Utter East:

"they helped him lower his little coracle. then he took off his sword ("i shall need it no more," he said) and flung it far away across the lilied sea. where it fell it stood upright with the hilt above the surface. then he bad them good-bye, trying to be sad for their sakes; but he was quivering with happiness… then hastily he got into his coracle and took his paddle, and the current caught it and away he went, very black against the lilies. but no lilies grew on the wave; it was a smooth green slope. the coracle went more and more quickly, and beautifully it rushed up the wave's side. for one split second they saw its shape and reepicheep's at the very top. then it vanished…"

yet these places on the mountain are curious too–what are they? what part of my mind are they, that i continuously come back to them?

happy halloween!

i am feeling surprisingly full of health and energy despite the fact that i went to bed at 5:00am this morning after partying for six hours, and then walking 1.6 miles home. i know this sounds lame, but i think the secret so far has been lots of cups of tea, and lots of sleep. so yes, i went to bed at 5:00am, but i slept today until 1:30pm.

which, ok, partially explains why i'm up writing this blog post at 12:39am when i should be a-bed, but i'll get to that in a minute. i went to a party at caitlin's house for all of the english masters students, and danced the night away to "thriller," "in the navy," "monster mash," and other favorites, with great zest, but by about 2:00am i was ready to sleep. so how did i end up leaving at about 4:00am instead?

one thing was that i became trapped up in caitlin's bedroom talking with a man who was–no, not trying to rape me–demanding to know why i had never read anything by vonnegut. and he wasn't even one of the masters students.

the other thing was that i was waiting for my friends to be ready to leave because we were all walking home together. rachael was quite ready to go when i was–we were both exhausted. but brittany is our MA event coordinator, so she had to stick around and clean up.

and michael…michael was just drunk, and having a great time, and there was no pulling him away from the fun. we tried several times, in fact, to get him to the front door, but somehow he would sneak away and you'd find him back in the kitchen looking for another beer, or at the food table stuffing pretzels in his mouth, which was actually quite comical.

so that left brittany and i to try and get michael out the door, and not appear drunk so that if anyone should approach us, it looked like we had a competent, sober man of considerable strength at our disposal. yeah, right.

it was then that brittany announced that our walk home was about 1.6 miles. beautiful. we started out into the biting night (or morning?) air, with michael lurching behind us making rude commentary. by the time we gained south negley ave., he was murmuring something about the children he was going to bear, or something, while brittany and i mostly ignored him.

then we had to stagger up the quarter-mile, forty-five degree angle incline of south negley ave. at least at this point the walk had started to make me slightly warmer. michael helped by stealing a joe sestak sign and dragging it behind him on the sidewalk.

by the time we got close to my apartment building, the story now was that michael wanted to bear his own children so that they would only have his own genes (?). i was so glad to pass him off to brittany's responsibility.

when i got home i made myself a cup of hot tea, put a hot water bottle under the blankets, and fell grately into bed…at approximately 4:48am.