friday "why" day

why am i so predictable?

why do i always have to go to the grocery store 10 times a week?

why do i always expect too much?

why is the new harry potter movie taking so long to get here?

why must there always be loss?

speaking of which:

why do the writers of "lost" time their seasons so far apart from each other?

note to self

apparently "interpretive dance" is NOT a skill to list on your cv or
in your teaching philosophy statement...please remember to extract
the offending material from both documents today.

FYI

seriously

poem for the week

One Art


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop

st augustine

i have been reading the works of st augustine for quite a while now
and there is no doubt in my mind
that his work on sign theory
is foundational to poststructuralism in general and
deconstruction in particular

but what strikes me as particularly interesting
is his theology as well
augustine is what we would call a founding "father" of
the church...not just the catholic church although in
the fourth century catholic was the only option
but his influence can be seen
woven into the protestant reformation as well

he influenced everyone from martin luther to john calvin
and their successors
baptism as a requirement for full inclusion into
christianity was established by him
as well as his involvement with the development
of the nicene creed and other germinal
church documents

he also refined the practice of hermeneutics
a practice that not only is used in theology
but also in secular contexts as well
from literary theory and cultural study
to feminist critique and queer epistemology

i, myself, have had a rocky relationship with
christianity
i have very little patience for literal interpretations
or heaven/hell, all/nothing binary thinking

but i do believe in a creator
i do believe that there is something
outside of our perceptions
maybe an energy
maybe a communal soul
maybe it's love
that draws us like magnets from this
plain of existence to another
and i certainly accept that
there is more than one "way" to conceptualize this
energy which is to say that
anyone who says christianity is the ONLY
way is, in my opinion, wrong
not only wrong but extremely short sighted

i have been watching and reading the debates
within the episcopal church in particular and the anglican
communion as a whole with some interest
not only because i am episcopal but i am
also queer

the issue at hand deals with ordinating
gay and lesbian bodies as bishops, priests, and deacons
homosexuality (a 19th century term) is being
debated using a text that is (at the youngest) over 2,000 years old
i have little patience for this
and quite frankly i have never seen such
unchristian behavior
or arguments against homosexuality
as i have witnessed in these debates
especially at the lambeth conference of bishops
in england that took place this past july

at first they invited an openly gay episcopal bishop,
+gene robinson, to participate in the conversation/debate
then they uninvited him because conservative bishops
threatened not to come
the irony of it all is that during the closed service
these bishops sang an hymn entitled "all are welcome to the table"
really?
the stupidity and obvious hypocrisy of it all astounds me

aside from the social construction of sexuality
and the misinterpretation that occurs when conservative
male bishops like jack iker who (i am embarrassed to admit)
was my priest and assisted in my confirmation almost twenty years ago
takes such unchristian stances while at the same time
claiming the love of a creator

i go back to st augustine at this point
as problematic as his fourth century views are
he at least recognized
that interpretation was, at best, faulty
that we could never, ever truly know the mind of
the creator because this creator is outside of language and therefore
incomprehensible
the best we can do is work with the language that we have
to approximate distance between ourselves and the spiritual

in his book _on christian doctrine_ and in _the city of god_
he discusses the role of scriptural interpretation at length
whether it involves complex work with dense passages
or straightforward texts where interpretation is fairly evident
there are two rules (and only two rules) that we
should pay attention to...two rules "uttered" by
jesus christ ("son" of "god" or a "prophet" or something else...you choose)

1) love god with all your heart, soul, and mind

2) love your neighbor(s) as yourself

according to augustine THESE are the two rules worth
paying close attention to
other interpretations whether simple or highly complex and abstract
are ancillary
and, in some cases, useless if in the end the love of the creator and
your neighbor are detoured

now my question to the anglican communion at large
and the episcopal church in particular is this
where is the love?

surrender and change

if i must learn anything thus far in my life it is this:
surrender to change and learn how to say goodbye

most of the time i don't like saying goodbye
to friends
to family
to "life" partners
because there's always a twinge of panicked desire to
make them stay
to keep them close to me
i am not perfect...i am difficult
i try to be honest
and i also try to accept other people's honesty
as hard as that can be sometimes

i disappoint others
i let them down
i am not who they want me to be for them
they ultimately are not what i desire
either
it hurts beyond belief
this letting go and saying goodbye but
if trust and safety are betrayed then
there is nothing else left to do but
to deeply sigh and get used to the change
or apologize for a double sided hurt
that is no one's fault and yet everyone is to blame.

i use language in an attempt to always further
my own liberation and sometimes this tactic backfires
sometimes it binds me further to
a life that i do not want or desire
a life of lack
or forced solitude
perhaps, even, exile

i have lost significant relationships this year
this has been the year of losing things
but it is also
a year of appreciation as well
of what i had
of smiling upon instances or times and memories
that have passed
that i can display as pictures with pewter frames
somewhere in the crevices of my mind

but i will also appreciate all that i have as well
to hold these things tightly
to say goodbye to those who need to move on
to appreciate the others who, for whatever reason,
choose to remain with me.

i surrender to this change
to this pruning
because i am growing
at the very instant that i am feeling
diminished

note to self

don't break your arm patting yourself
on the back because one of your
frustrated "straight" white male students
got up and left in the middle
of class yesterday...

but you can take five minutes to smile
and know that you are at least
doing SOMETHING right.

images, song, and lyrics

wise up
aimee mann

It’s not what you thought
When you first began it
You got what you want
Now you can hardly stand it though
By now you know it's not
Going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up

You’re sure there’s a cure
And you have finally found it
You think one drink
Will shrink you ‘til
You’re underground and living down
But it’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up

Prepare a list of what you need
Before you sign away the deed
'Cause it's not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up

No it’s not going to stop
‘Til you wise up
No it’s not going to stop

So just give up

poem and image

“We Don't Know How To Say Goodbye”
Anna Akhmatova

We don't know how to say goodbye,
We wander on, shoulder to shoulder
Already the sun is going down
You're moody, and I am your shadow.
Let's step inside a church, hear prayers, masses for the dead
Why are we so different from the rest?
Outside in the graveyard we sit on a frozen branch.

That stick in your hand is tracing
Mansions in the snow in which we will always be together.

poem for today

“For a second time there was no sign. Again no bridegroom
and the priest in the house. She could not remember any other sorrow
because this grief wiped them all away. Oh, no, there’s nothing more
cruel than this—I’ll never forgive it. She stretched herself with a deep
breath and blew out the light.”

Katherine Anne Porter, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”

pruning time

my arms are strong
my eyes see clearly
from dark brown knots

sculpted by time
and patience

my heart is somewhere
beating deep below
my barky surface

forcing a circulation
of life through my veins

but it’s all very confusing
when the time comes
to prune

to lob off a limb there
shave clean a branch here

to listen to the cracking
of my bones
worn tough by wind
and rain
to watch them break and fall

i’m on my knees
as if in prayer

looking up at familiar faces with
arms unfolded like a letter as if stretching
the muscles awake after a long night of sleeping
falling with force and gravity
making deep cuts
with every swipe

and i cry
while this same heart keeps
pumping
keeping me alive even
as i lose parts

for these parts have their
ways now
their own names

while i still

become smaller
by forced lack
and fragmentation

but my heart still beats
as it has
always done

pushing life through
my veins
repairing the damage
with new growth
because in the certain stillness
that always returns
after the violence
has retreated

i can hear the quietness
of repair
within deep sighs
and extended embraces

oaw
09/18/08

2008: the year of lost things...

People who are lonely, people left alone, sit talking nonsense to the air, imagining...beautiful systems dying, old fixed orders falling apart...

People are like planets, you need a thick skin.

I have to go now, get back, something just...fell apart. Oh God, I feel so sad.

--Harper in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches

FYI

image and poem for the week....

A Grave
by Marianne Moore


Man looking into the sea,
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have to
yourself,
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing,
but you cannot stand in the middle of this;
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.
The firs stand in a procession, each with an emerald turkey-foot at the
top,
reserved as their contours, saying nothing;
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
There are others besides you who have worn that look--
whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer investigate
them
for their bones have not lasted:
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating a grave,
and row quickly away--the blades of the oars
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such
thing as death.
The wrinkles progress among themselves in a phalanx--beautiful under
networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as hereto-
fore--
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion beneath
them;
and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bellbuoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped
things are bound to sink--
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor
consciousness.





From The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore.

it's easy to miss something that you're not looking for...

on spirituality or its lack

perhaps i feel compelled to write this because i have been reading the works of st augustine all summer or perhaps it is because my significant other is contemplating the episcopal priesthood. among other things, perhaps it is all just arbitrary or maybe not. maybe this is a combination of things…i am trying to finish a phd program…i am trying to keep my patience…i am trying to deal with the expectations of others…i am trying to keep my feelings safe…i am trying not be angry, disappointed, or hurt. i am also negotiating my 40s…something that no one seems to understand (or they just can’t understand). i am one half of an orphan and i can not help but worry or fret over the day i will become complete in my orphan-ness. i have just completed the last half of my life (assuming, of course that i make it to my 75th year) and i stand here looking across a chasm. this is not where i would have thought my life would be or become. trying to create something new or something else…can i really call my life after grad school a career? i will not be “professional” about this. furthermore i cannot anticipate the needs of others in relation to my own journey in this life. it has been and will continue to be a struggle between keeping myself “here” or turning inward. this is, i think, a spiritual crisis (not one of a particularly “christian” type but definitely related). i thought that when i started writing this post i would narrate my coming to terms with a spirituality that intersects with my relationship to my s.o. who is very spiritual. rather, these words have turned into something else…or maybe not…maybe this is what it is…a spiritual crisis…nothing more…nothing less and what i am going through other people have gone through for a millennia. nothing special…nothing here to really see…just a whole lot of emptiness and disappointment, self pity, and betrayal. but i just can’t fix it and i just can’t ‘get on that’ because if i did i would be doing it for something other than myself. the inside voice is calling me back while the outside voice is chiding me to keep going. it’s all very confusing and frustrating. and the words of others won’t help because it boils down to my own complicity and “what i want” which is probably nothing and i certainly don’t wish to be reminded that this is all my own fault because i really detest being reminded of the obvious. and besides, whenever i am reminded it’s just to solidify an other voice’s distancing of what is most obviously my own mess. i think i will re-read katherine anne porter’s “the jilting of granny weatherall” or maybe i will clean my room.

poem for today

“One day walking in Argyll with my husband we encountered a wishing tree which surprised us a great deal because I didn’t know there were any in Scotland. I mean a tree people have bashed coins into for a wish or desire—I knew they existed in Ireland but had never seen one in Scotland.”

The Wishing Tree
by Kathleen Jamie


I stand neither in the wilderness
nor fairyland

but in the fold
of a green hill

the tilt from one parish
into another.

To look at me
through a smirr of rain

is to taste the iron
in your own blood

because I hoard
the common currency

of longing: each wish
each secret visitation.

My limbs lift, scabbed
with greenish coins

I draw into my slow wood
fleur-de-lys, the enthroned Brittania*.

Behind me, the land
reaches toward the Atlantic.

And though I’m poisoned
choking on the small change

of human hope,
daily beaten into me

look: I am still alive—
in fact, in bud.

*This is not a misspelling of Britannia…This is an older version of the word originally assigned to Britain by the Romans. oaw.

proposal and its lack

i have to write a dissertation proposal

how do i fill up this space?

or, better yet, how do i start to narrate a place
for myself.

this liminal threshold
this in-between-ness is quite stultifying

not that i have a writer's block or that i am unable to write...
because i can

i feel like an intellectual fraud
i notice my peers writing and moving toward something and that
their ideas are fresh
innovative

i'm stuck...not that i am without my ideas
but that my ideas really suck
and that my writing really
is a convoluted mess
and that this unfortunate circumstance
is quite lonely

writing is lonely business

and the more i try to fill up
this lack with a narrative
i create more lack
i try to grasp at any kind of border
to solidify or at least close up
the "place" i am trying to create
but the borders are outside of my reach

like some kind of mirage on a hot road
i see it from afar but the closer i get
to it the more it fades
and is gone
leaving me more room
to write with words that, to me,
lack any kind of substance

the things that come out of my mouth...

i have had one of those days wherein i feel like
i'm doing a lot
but at the same time and upon further reflection it doesn't seem
like i accomplished anything...kind of like doing research for
my dissertation proposal.

i ran a mucho amount of errands today
thank goddess for dunkin donuts coffee to keep me
half way alert

i'm not going to recount my entire movements
because, quite frankly, i would fall asleep while
writing this post. much like reading
early american literature (especially the criticism not so much the actual writers.
the exception to this would probably be
cotton mather and noah webster...these two definitely cure insomnia.)

don't even get me started on the oxford comma...but i digress

i found myself in petco today buying kitty litter.
i have to buy a brand called "ever clean"
it's the only brand that works with max's diabetes.
it's supper absorbent and it stays clean.
of course it's also the most expensive.
of course.

in any event, i buy two boxes at a time and i usually like to buy
the same "type". this means that i like the "lavender" ever clean the best.
now petco has a nasty habit of not getting enough of this kitty litter in stock
so i usually have to mix and match various types of litter.
today i had to settle on lavender and the unscented kind.

i was annoyed but whatever...i wouldn't recognize my life
if it were not absurdly complicated with inconveniences on every level.

to continue, i have my two heavy boxes in hand and i go up to the
cashier. i place the boxes next to each other and the cashier
scans one box and looks up at me and says
"is the second box the same?" meaning, i think,
that she wanted to scan once and hit a register key twice.
i can appreciate economy.
so i respond by saying
"yes they're the same brand but different flavors."
i stopped and thought about what
i said and i must admit that i think that i threw up in my mouth
a little bit.
i looked at the cashier and she was looking at me with her head cocked to the side.
i just said, "oh, you know what i mean..."
she said "yes" and proceeded
to finish up with the transaction.

if i were on my toes i should have added that
the lavender kitty litter is delicious when used
as a light seasoning in salad, pizza, [notice the use of the oxford comma]
and/or spaghetti sauce. but i think that i have said enough for one day.