today is the greatest

So I haven't kept up with blogging like I'd hoped. I always think I'll use it as a sort of journal but my posts end up being few and far between. 

This week is my last spring break. It's weird to think back to spring break over the past three years. I remember where I was, who I was with, the music I listened to, and what I was doing. That's the best thing about holidays because without fail, I know exactly what I was doing a year ago and can see how far I've come (and how much farther I have to go). This year, I'm going to Chicago to visit my friend Lindsey. I'm excited to see and experience her life there, that I've heard about over the past four years. And when I get back, Dana and Seth will be visiting NY for a week! Yay! Seeing them always does my heart some good. 

Lately I've been collecting quotes. Here are two of my favorites:

"True beauty breaks your heart." -Dr. Kreeft

"Don't ruin love by wanting it too much." -Derrick Brown

So true and so good.

There's a design

I've recently had several conversations about post-graduation plans. Yes, we're all scared. Of not finding a job. Of not staying in New York. Of not finding out what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Of not being able to provide for ourselves financially. Of working a job we hate. Of not being able to handle the infamous "real world." 

My remedy is to turn off the lights, lie in my bed, and listen to Vito's Ordination Song by Sufjan Stevens on repeat. It's not the answer to all my post-graduate fears, but it's a start and a meditation of sorts. So if you feel like you're going nowhere fast, I suggest you try it. Stop. Listen. Repeat.

I always knew you/ in your mothers arms 
i have called your name/ i have an idea 
placed in your mind/ to be a better man 
ive made a crown for you/ put it in your room 
and when the bride groom comes 
there will be noise/ there will be glad 
and a perfect bed

and when you write a poem 
i know the words/ i know the sounds 
before you write it down 
when you wear your clothes 
i wear them too/ i wear your shoes 
and your jacket too

i always knew you/ in your mothers arms

i have called you son/ ive made amends

between father and son/ or if you havent one 

rest in my arms 
sleep in my bed 
there is a design 
to what i did and said

Oh and I'd give these songs a listen to as well.

Scandalabra

It's natural for people to share good news with their friends. It's even common for people to share good news with complete strangers. From, "Guess what? I got a new job!" to "Yes, I'm getting married!" We love gushing with effervescent enthusiasm that something good has happened to us. The stars have aligned, and for once, fate has bowed its head to me. 

Well, I currently don't have good news about my life (I don't have a new job or fiance, although I did meet Alexis Bledel and David Cross (lovingly known as Tobias on Arrested Development) which was pretty cool, but beside the point of this post) but I feel the same need to share good news about things I love and enjoy. Most notably, good books and good music. And this weekend, I was introduced to a new book (of poetry). 

Derrick C. Brown stole my heart from the moment I saw him (he's attractive). And then he stole my soul when he opened his mouth. He's unmercifully witty and honest. It's refreshing. His writing is penetrating. He manages to have you laughing one stanza and then grip your chest the next. Seeing him read his work made me wonder why poetry has never been done this way before. I've realized that a truly great poet, who can make you feel every emotion on the spectrum through a few words on a page, must have a thorough command over language. Language doesn't limit the poet's thoughts but are at his mercy. I wish I had that. As for now. I'll admire those who do. So even if poetry makes you cringe, give Derrick a try. You won't regret it. I'll even provide you with a sample or two.


Collide Escape

Whatever you dropped in the dark
can be recovered in the morning.

We will find the turquoise ring
that clutched the mud and grass
as I ripped your costly jeans,
down to your soft calves.

The night rain, beading upon your skinny spine.
If you were drunk, I didn't know.
You didn't say anything stupid.
Your tongue was blossoming,
pronouncing your kiss, cleanly.

I was glad your breath was hot enough
to melt the night resin off of me.
I read my hands down your simple gospel
and I no longer need 34th Street miracles.

Are you sure you want this mess?

I am a submarine
full of gasoline
and you're water proof matches.

I am suspended in the cinema of that moment
next to the house
collapsing in the dirt
where I needed you.

Fathom under fathoms,
that's how heavy I laid upon you.

What are you to me?

You are more than on my side,
You are the weapon on my side.
Safety off.

Rest under the shadow of my gut.
Unsentimental kissing.
A gushing reveille for strangers becoming victorious.

Walk through the valley of the 5 o'clock shadow.

Pyrokinetic honeysuckle, let's boycott the hocus pocus
and get straight to the secret . . . .
Are you the one snarling in the family photo?
Are you the one crackling voltage in the yearbook?
Then you are the pearl I steal.

Your eyes, a kaleidoscope of collide and escape.

Navigate to me by the map of fallen stars.

Love rises back to you
like an escalator fragrance.

All my devotion, compelled by an ocean

The holidays are over. I always love being home, seeing family and friends, but feel slightly displaced. Which is odd considering I've lived in the same house my entire life. Things have changed on Misty Court though. Besides my mom entirely redecorating the house, Missy is getting married. Kat is getting married. Katie might be moving to Dallas. At least my room still looks exactly the same, just collecting dust.

My mom always tells me, "the only thing certain in life is change." It's easy to say, but hard to accept. People are constantly in motion. Human beings aren't stagnant. We make choices, have desires, needs, ambitions, and goals that keep us working toward something better. 

As for me, I'm moving toward my career and being independent. I will be a college graduate this spring and cut off financially from my parents. And, as Katie Walker pointed out, I'm lucky to have a job lined up considering unemployment rates are at an all time high. I'll spend the summer in Quogue, West Hampton, be a full time nanny, and figure out where the hell I want to go to graduate school. But in order to get there, I have to survive my last semester at Kings. 12 hours of class. 8 hours as an intern. 20 hours of work. Every week. I won't have a social life unfortunately, but we all have to make sacrifices in order to get what we want. I'll be forced to appreciate quality time with good friends. I'm fairly certain I could live anywhere in the world as long as I have good friends to experience life and empathize with me.  

So we'll work until the night is quite

what once all our dreams were like;

doing all the housework,

returning all the schoolbooks, for good

Let's go on pretending that the light is never ending

we still have the summers

to be good to one another, yay hey

-All the Years by Beach House

The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breath

WILD air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed	5
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;	10
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,	15
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,	20
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet	25
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,	30
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round	35
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense	40
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.	45
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,	50
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:	55
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,	60
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,	65
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one	70
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand	75
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not	80
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.	85
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,	90
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake	95
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,	100
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are	105
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him	110
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;	115
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;	120
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,	125
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Camping in the Rockies

After four days in the mountains
we have lived most of the world's
history-it's passionate storms,
its silences of fog, the exuberant valleys
and ruinous cliffs, and above
the timberline its tundra of small,
pink flowers shivering on short wires,
that remind me of me, quivering
in the kiss of your breath.

Our uncertainty reveals itself
the way a mountain campanula
half-opens its purple mouth-waxy,
mysterious, tracked by a black thread
of ants. If I could be as sure about us
as the politicians seem to be about campaign
promises...The truth is, the future lies
in ambush; more waits to happen

like the surprise thunder
when Glacier Lake, blue as a peacock
feather, carrying God's gold solar eye,
turns black with wind.

-Luci Shaw

Overwhelming

I somehow manage to block from my memory the unbearable stress and insane hilarity that ensue once final exams are around the corner. Nonetheless, I am experiencing it right now and in full force. So for those of you who may have forgotten because you've either graduated or have taken a sabbatical from educational endeavours, it's overwhelming to say the least. But such is life, right? Right.

But on the bright side, it's Thanksgiving tomorrow. I've already consumed two Thanksgiving dinners. And have two more to go which I am sure will be just as delectable.

Naturally, I am forced to think about what I am thankful for this year. If I were in Conway or Batesville, Arkansas with my extended family, my mom would insist on going around the table and sharing. So I feel compelled to tell you a few thanksgiving things:

1. I have an internship next semester at the Geneva School of Manhattan as the 2nd grade teacher assistant.
2. I am graduating May 8th!
3. Staying close to friends who are far away.
4. Staying close to friends who are close.

Lastly, here's some holiday spirit for you to savor and enjoy.