Poetry for the Day

From the Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke (Tran. Barrows & Macy).

No one lives his life.

Disguised since childhood,
haphazardly assembled
from voices and fears and little pleasures,
we come of age as masks.

Our true face never speaks.

Somewhere there must be storehouses
where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armor or old carriages
or clothes hanging limply on the walls.

Maybe all paths lead there,
to the repository of unlived things.

--II, 11 (partial)

Alas, the Flame

Proverb

A flame is always a double-edged sword.

Example

When putting out the ember of multiple candles by pinching the wicks between two damp fingers,  the first candle may leave soot on one's forefinger and thumb, encouraging the use of an alternate, clean finger for subsequent candles. However, the structure of the human hand is such that the thumb is uniquely necessary to the motion of pinching. These facts being what they are, an uncompromising individual who does not wish to imbibe soot may consider it viable to dampen only the clean middle finger while reusing the sooty (dry) thumb. Unfortunately, embers are not single-edged; both sides of the wick are equally capable of burning human skin.

Consequences

Although the burning glow of the wick may be extinguished, the unlucky thumb will continue to register protest until it is placed in contact with an ice cube.

Lesson learned, proverb. Lesson learned.

Wrinkles and Laugh Lines

It's hard to believe that it has been a full year since I graduated with my master's degree. Looking back at my recent posts this weekend, I've realized that I write far fewer funny entries than I did in the early stages of this blog, or even last year. 

If you started reading when I was regularly turning out poetic commentaries on my filmmaker-nemesis, writing New Year's UN-resolutions, raving about the misbehavior of my computer Marvin, developing software to increase grad student productivity, anthropomorphizing my thesis, rapping about my thesis defense, or pondering alternative careers for grad students, you might find this version of Jen's Write Side a little more "Debbie Downer" than you expected.

I tell myself that one reason is the dearth of readily-available comic material: I'm not in grad school surrounded by sleep-deprived twenty-somethings, my computer functions relatively well (knock on wood), and I'm not writing a 150-page document about obscure topics from the 1500s.

Then again, if I were looking for those moments, I suspect I would still find plenty of them. David Lynch had one thing right at least: life is full of absurdity.  When I encounter it, instead of taking the time to write about it, which involves some analytical processing as well as the rhetorical canons of invention and arrangement, I take the easier alternative and post a brief comment on Facebook or Twitter. The problem, then, is not lack of content; it is lack of motivation on the writer's end.

As I continue to transition away from my longstanding linear track to a Ph.D. and into a scatter plot of lives unled that may or may not produce a valid regression line (Andrew Miller and statistics: what a combination!), I think the truth is that I'm not wearing my quirky writer glasses all that often. They don't fit as well as they did before. They need new frames, and the lenses have gotten scratched a few times. 

I like to think I'll get new ones eventually.

By re-posting some of my favorite comedic entries (I know, the subliminal message encouraging you to read those posts is thinly veiled at best), I'm trying to remind myself that I can do funny---have done it in the past and will do it again in the future. 

My hope, if I may be corny for a moment, is that the ornery wrinkles that have sprung up around my eyes this year will eventually be overwritten by laugh lines, whether that happens this coming year, or the following year, or the year after that. I don't think that's too much to wish for.

Happy Anniversary, graduate friends. See you in the funny papers.

Telling Stories About My Story

It's kind of meta. 

Today, I finished reading an excellent book: The Queen of Palmyra (2010), by Minrose Gwin. Besides being a professor of English literature (check!) in my home state (check!), Gwin documents the research behind her novel in a solid bibliography that testifies to her dedication to truth-seeking stories.

The cover blurb says, "Here it is, the most powerful and lyrical novel about race, racism, and denial in the American South since To Kill a Mockingbird." The cover of the 2009 novel The Help makes a similar claim: "This could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird." I read The Help earlier this year and was disappointed by it (read a review here), but placing the two books in conversation made me appreciate Gwin's novel all the more.

Summer school course I will teach someday---a literature elective course that reads only three novels: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Help, and The Queen of Palmyra, using them to open a dialogue about narrative authority, the Bildungsroman, and the role of memory, writing, and accumulating /retelling /revising stories in making sense of race relations in the twentieth-century South. I would love to take that course, if it existed, just for the discussions---especially if I could drag some of my M.A. classmates in with me.

Unfortunately, as I thought about these ideas and began impulsively to underline passages that link the three novels together, I started to feel sad all over again about my decision not to begin graduate school this fall. This is the excitement and enthusiasm that was missing when I made my decision. This is the part of literary studies that I love and already miss. This is the sense of purpose that I wish I could maintain and channel into my daily routine.

I would be oversimplifying the matter if I ignored the weariness and anxiety that often accompany my teaching or tutoring. At the same time, being a literary scholar is still very much a part of my identity. For now, at least in a formal context, I've set that part of me aside. 

Sometimes, like tonight, I feel its absence pretty keenly.

Maurice Sendak---Children, Eh

This guy.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

(Watch part two of the interview.)

The Limits of Your Longing

This poem: "Go to the Limits of Your Longing" (Rilke).  Beautiful.  I need to read more poetry.

I Lied About the Vertigo

Road trips abound in opportunities to contemplate identity. 

The right music helps: Antje Duvekot's "Vertigo", John Gorka's "Broken Place," and Sarah Jarosz's "Edge of a Dream."

"oh the view from this height
high above the ferriswheel lights
might cause me to sway
but i am teaching myself to be brave"

"That beautiful broken place

you could not outshine your twilight

your demons were not outpaced"

"Smiling face, that no one really knows
Singin' bout the passion in my soul
Playin' it safe, move in time with the beat
Take a chance, learn a new dance"

If that isn't enough, you can contemplate the unlikely coincidence of traveling for two out of six hours while neatly closeted on a two-lane road behind one or more dump trucks. The view doesn't change much behind one of these guys. Seeing what lies ahead is all but impossible, and instead of glorying in the mountain scenery, you find yourself fixating on the grimy brown shade of the truck's back panel and wishing that it would move faster. 

Road trips also reveal unmistakeable truths about your shifting identity.*

A simple license plate is enough to strip you of Bible Belt citizenship and reaffirm your status as a penniless student. Like a red-green color blindness test, the way you interpret cryptic vanity plates produces a more accurate representation of your psyche than does a Meyers-Briggs typology. Eight characters: 4EVRAMEN. The Bible Belt citizen reads, "Forever Amen!" and gives a pious nod. The penniless student sees the word "Ramen" and ignores the rest, suddenly seized with an intense craving for that 33-cent delicacy.**

There is no limit to the powers of self-discovery unleashed by acceleration. Lighting out for the territories is sounding better every day...

*Even if you drive an automatic. :)

**On second thought, the Jesus fish, family-sized van, and location near Lynchburg, VA ought to have been a giveaway.  Just saying. Ramen. You cannot escape its magnetism.

Out of Rhythm

Every small town has its flavor, points of interest, rhythm of life. Even a corner gas station, linked to a major national chain, evinces this fact. Whether it's the two-for-three dollars sale on two-liter cokes, the individually plastic-wrapped chocolate bars on discount at the counter, or the few endlessly hamster-wheeling hot dogs at the grill station, they all keep pace with some inaudible metronome. 

Two sisters in the ladies' room follow suit: wearing bright-colored shirts, high-waisted shorts, and straight hair in rumpled ponytails, drawling in accents with a surplus of "a" "o" and "w" sounds, they demonstrate the resourcefulness of an older sister who can instruct her junior in a calm tone martyred by repetition to crawl under the locked bathroom door (watch, I'll show you), remind her that she's NOT too big to fit beneath (scrunch up your knees), and then demand that she wash her hands WITH SOAP (but only two pumps, silly).

They belong here, alongside the cashier with teased hair and bright pink lipstick who is giving out free smiles to a tattooed regular, in a way that I, with my peripatetic after-work ways, never could. And, what's more, they all know it. No wonder the elderly man standing in his carport across the street stares at me, arms crossed over his plaid shirt, as I slowly turn back onto the main road.

The winding country roads and their small-town synapses are full of memories and untold stories. None of them, however, answer the question most prominent on my mind: if not here, then where? If not this, now, then what? when?

After much hesitation, doubt, and over-thinking, I decided not to accept my one offer of admission to a PhD program. As I keep telling myself, "not now" does not mean "never." I know I made the right decision. But, having said that, I will admit I'm left feeling a little lost. A little weary. A lot uncertain. Making a decision without a backup plan is scary. Closing the one open door that stands between you and the future is frankly terrifying.

So please don't ask me what comes next. I know that's a logical question. Believe me, I've thought about it. I still don't have an answer. Respectfully, I suggest that you pose the question to Ask.com instead.

Or, if you must ask, please be prepared to join me when I light out for the territories. I'll bring the two-liter cokes.

New Spices, New Beginnings

Tropical Blast Chicken (serves 2)

Start with approximately 1/2 lb of chicken thighs, thawed and cleaned, with excess fat trimmed.

Marinade
1 tsp fresh grated gingerroot
1 clove fresh garlic, minced
1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
A dash of fresh ground black pepper

Whisk together the marinade and pour over the chicken in a large plastic bag. Marinade for 45 min. to 1 hour, turning occasionally.

Sauce
2 tsp fresh grated gingerroot
1 large clove fresh garlic, minced
2 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
1 tbsp brown sugar
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 cup raw pecans, roughly chopped.

Whisk the sauce ingredients together and set aside. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Peel two large sweet potatoes and cut them into cubes. Arrange the potatoes in a shallow glass baking dish, and place the chicken in the middle. Coat with the sauce. (Add more oil if needed to baste all of the potatoes.) Bake for 35 minutes, until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle.

Remove pan from the oven and cut the chicken into large pieces. Toss with the sweet potatoes and return dish to the oven. Bake for 25 minutes longer, or until the sweet potatoes are soft and the entire dish is beginning to brown. Serve with steamed sugar snap peas, brown rice, and an acidic white wine such as Sauvignon Blanc.

Enjoy!

Verdict: I love the flavors in the sauce, but to bump it up a notch, I might add pineapple chunks for the last 20 minutes of roasting. This could also be a vegetarian dish; it would be equally delicious without the chicken.

Life, Easter, and the Music

It may not be the most traditional Easter music (no sunrise service or long rows of brass this year), but I love the rhythm and emotion of this song.

It may not be my most traditional Easter morning either, but still...new life keeps catching me by surprise.