reality began to sink in today.

she’s leaving.  not on vacation or a three hour tour.  she’s actually packing up her things and moving to another state.

i wonder if she knows how much i will miss her.

i wonder if she knows how much i truly care about her and want her to succeed.

i wonder if this will break us.  i hope it doesn’t.

i haven’t really broached the subject with her, and, in some ways, i’m sorry for that.  it’s a self-preservation thing, really.  i like to be strong—even when i’m not.

i’ve mentioned it in passing—“how are the plans coming?” or “are you getting everything packed?”—asking, but not fully realizing what the responses mean.

my sister left me in high school.  she packed her things and moved away.  i missed her like crazy and saw her as much as i could.

my best friend left me in college.  he packed his things in boxes and left to begin a new life somewhere else.  i was heartbroken.

now she’s leaving.  this girl who gets me in some way that i’m not entirely sure i understand.  this girl who is so entirely different than me.  this girl who has literally grown up before my eyes in the seven years we’ve known one another.  this girl i am immensely proud to call my friend.

as she packs up the boxes that contain her material life, i hope she knows how much i care about her.  i hope she realizes that while she is reading, learning, and kicking-ass in a city far away, her presence will be missed.  that café brazil, beth marie’s, and booked up just won’t have the same kind of appeal without her.  that i’m so proud, yet profoundly sad.

sometimes i wish that we could pause time, rewind it a ways.  be those wide-eyed undergrads, confident of the futures that lay ahead for them.  rewind to cool beans--those smart-mouthed grad students having a drink after class at the college bar—bitching about some professor or arguing over who studies the better literature.  rewind to glen rose—all day spent exploring wild animals and dinosaurs.  rewind to sleepovers—playing games and watching movies all night, then crocheting all day.  rewind to archer city—exploring antique books while snow twirls in the cold winter breeze.  rewind to movie night—meeting each other for a drink, dinner, and a movie, not caring what we were seeing, but enjoying each others’ company.  i wish we could rewind. 

but we can’t.

all we can do is give in to time as it marches steadily past us.  give in to the changes that inevitably occur.  this is one of those changes.

she will go.  she will make new friends, new discoveries, have new local dives.

we will endure.  we will still see each other, still talk, still come together for pizza and glee night.

it won’t be the same.  it will be new.  there will be adjustment.  but we can endure.

we have to endure; for ours is a bond that few can fathom.  we don’t make sense to a whole lot of people, but we understand each other.  and that can be enough.

to erin:  i love you, am so very proud of you, will miss you like crazy, and promise to continue to work at this thing we call friendship.

my latest favorite.

while compiling a collection of poetry for my students, i ran across this little number by elizabeth alexander. you know, the woman who wrote this.

i love it. i think it's fantastic. so i'm sharing it with you.

“Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”

Elizabeth Alexander

Poetry, I tell my students,

is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves,

(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)

digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,

emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find

in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God

in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.

Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,

and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)

is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

unanticipated brilliance.

i wish i had something brilliant to say about the book i’m currently reading, but the truth is, my simple words cannot express how fascinatingly beautiful and terrifying this book is.

i’m reading cormac mccarthy’s the road.  i am not a fan of mccarthy.  after two run-ins with him in my undergraduate career—both of them exceedingly painful—i swore i would never pick up another one of his books.

my sister read the road a couple years ago and loved it.  she was so disturbed by it that she had to stop reading it at night.  my sister reads a lot—far more than i do.  “if a book could have that kind of effect on her, perhaps it could be worth my time,” i thought to myself after discussing it with her.

a lot of time passed and i grew bored with my favorite genre, narrative nonfiction.  so i picked up a cheap copy of the road.  i started reading and was horrified.  “this book is terrible!  this style—horrific!  there’s no sentence structure, no organization—where are the apostrophes—it feels like post-modernist stream of consciousness.  eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” were the thoughts streaming through my head after the first page, then the second.

but finally, after allowing myself to stop correcting grammar and doing all the things that english teachers tend to do, i came to the realization that this style, this form is quite lovely.  and quite effective.

the road is a bleak novel.  i’m half way through and am consistently dumbfounded by how things can move from bad to worse just when you can’t fathom what worse could be.  i don’t know what kind of life experiences mr. mccarthy had that led him to this kind of bleak imagining, but i’m glad he had them.

mccarthy’s style is unique.  there are no chapters or parts.  there are only vignettes which serve to disorient the reader in regard to time.  the personas in the novel have no measurable way to account for the passing of time—why should the reader?

once the reader is properly knocked off-center by the lack of organization, mccarthy’s style really picks up.  the novel centers around two characters: a father and his young son in a post-apocalyptic world.  these two characters are the only people in the novel for some time.  the reader feels this through mccarthy’s style—his word choice, pacing, imagery.  you may be reading the book in a room filled with people, but you are alone on the road with ash raining down on you from above, traveling alongside these two pathetic figures.  you are isolated from everything and everyone.  you are cold, wet, and hungry.  you are on the road.

i think the most striking part of the novel for me has been the incredible way in which i respond to the novel physiologically.  when the protagonist encounters another human—any human—my heart races, anticipating an encounter filled with variables.  it is in these moments of uncertainty and fear when mccarthy’s style really shines.  suddenly his phrasing becomes shorter, his words more aggressive in tone, the whole beat of the novel picks up.  as soon as the encounter is over, the prose returns to normal.  this shift in style creates a real momentum—just like suspenseful music does in a movie.  simply phenomenal.

all in all, i think i may have misjudged mr. mccarthy.  turns out, he is an amazing writer—i would argue that his ability to paint a picture in the mind of the reader rivals that of garcia marquez (which coming from me is an enormous compliment).  i think i love the road for all of its loneliness, isolation, desperation, and fear.

yes, i love it.  though i do long for an apostrophe now and then.

p.s. harold bloom can still suck it.  

milestones.

belle, my wonderfully fantastic car, and i have reached a major milestone in our relationship:  100,000 miles.  

so today's post is in honor of her.  

dearest belle,

don't tell any of the other cars i've driven in my life, but you're my absolute favorite.  cheers, old girl!  here's to you and the many miles you've carried me over.  just think of all the adventures we've shared.  here's to hoping that you will stay in good health and continue to carry me over 100,000 more.  

with love, 

duessa

empty.

that's the perfect word to describe this feeling of desolation.  i feel empty.  overwhelmed, and under.  hollow, yet full.  lonely, but surrounded.

summer often does this to me.  the oppressive heat that so many find freeing--an excuse to skip a day's work to allow the sun to drench their bodies to the core--leaves me feeling like an empty, broken shell.

many find sadness in the dead of winter, when there is no green in sight, no lush landscape full of adventure if someone, anyone, would just seek it out.  i'm the opposite.  winter is my friend; summer, my nemesis. 

summer and its burning rays leave me wasted, suffocating while breathing stifling air.  my lungs burn at the heat of it all.  i am alone in a crowd of people, all of them enjoying the warm breeze as it brushes past ever so lightly.  all of them, but me. 

i long for the days when the cool breeze returns, sending the slightest chill down my spine, causing me to reach for a light sweater. 

until then, i remain empty.

wow. just wow.

scissors are expensive. 

this is the epiphany i had today while standing in an aisle at hancock fabrics.  somewhere in the construction this past week, my favorite fabric scissors have gone MIA.  this makes me very sad.  so after looking for them extensively and mourning for them a little, the decision was made to suck it up and buy a new pair.

while i was purchasing a standard pair of extra-sharp scissors (not so expensive), i decided to pick up a specialty pair designed for quilting (since i'm getting into it).  i meandered around the corner to the specialty scissors and guffawed at the prices: $25.99, $36.99, $57.99.

i mean seriously--who pays $58 for a pair of scissors?!  that's just crazy.  

i settled for a $20 pair.  

and they rock.  they have already paid for themselves in the effort they saved me earlier this afternoon while working on a rag quilt.

but really, why are scissors so costly?  they're just scissors.

...

i'm finally home.

i'm exhausted.

and i'm immensely thankful to my best friend for putting up with my crankiness and offering up a safe, quiet, and comfortable home for my hoodlums and me this past week.

~duessa, out.