It's t - 2 weeks before I take off for Northern Ireland, and I am sitting in my twin bed in California, trying to crochet a scarf while under the influence of alcohol.
My friends' recent blogs convinced me that I should probably give up the fictional Joycean act and have a "real" blog for once--"real" meaning a blog in which I confess where I am, what I am doing, what color hair I have. I considered starting over, the way I thought I was by moving to Belfast, but a recent conversation with a high school friend about habits has convinced me to give this blog a second go, changing the tone and style this time around.
For once, I will accept the advice of nearly every male college writing professor I've had in the last 4 years--I am going to try to stop hiding behind the facades I create so well. (The men always manage to say it with the gruff, soul-smacking way.)
I've hidden behind the mask of one Maura Barnacle for the past few years, proposing theses, asking questions, making jokes with layers of half-truths and truths. Having recently graduated from college, I felt the need to start anew, thinking that all decisions that I made this summer would somehow set me on one path, without room for change. This mentality nearly drove me to a new blog that helped ease my transition into this new world. But in the same way that a few close friends of mine, those ones with the quiet intensity, have slowly convinced me of the error of my thinking, I have recently accepted that post-grad me is merely a continuation of all the previous mes. Thus, I am going to accept these past blitherings as rough drafts of my present writing self.
And right now, that self is thinking about habits, and the first habit might be trying to write more about the concrete world around her, whatever that world may be, whether or not she wants to be there. I'm working at it, so forgive me the transitional moments.
Tonight, I frequented the local haunt in town. Fortunately, doing so is not a habit of mine, but the friend whom I met--a friend from high school, and in some ways, a good writing friend now--casually mentioned how she was trying to break certain emotional habits. Having spent the last year breaking a few habits--smoking, falling back on certain men, hiding behind sarcasm, busting balls not for feminism but to protect myself--I took her casual comment to heart. Faced with the paradoxical enormity and smallness of this next year, I've become convinced that the only way to wade through it is to change my habits.
For example, I have committed myself not only to running as much as possible, but I have also reintroduced flossing into my life. Mundane change, no? Well, perhaps. If I were yet Wallace Stegner I could convinced you that the slowness with which I tug plaque from my teeth is akin to the way in which I tug truths from a lover, but I'm not quite at his writing level yet.
The morning after I arrived back in Novato, I had to go to the dentist for a routine cleaning. Since I was neither hungover nor jetlagged (a first for dental visits in the past few years), I expected an easy, encouraging cleaning that would only renew my newfound tan, fresh-faced beauty. Alas, I instead got a mouthful of blood from the intensity with which the military-wife-turned-dental-assistant went at my teeth and gums. She told me that 60% of germs are taken care of through brushing...but that leaves 40%....and given that I'm known to have a dirty mouth, I figure it might be more 70 / 30....now....I may be a recent graduate with dual degrees in English Literature & Philosophy, but I took enough AP Calc to realize that I needed to start flossing.
So...flossing down. Wearing hair curly pretty much there. Running....fairly good. Now if only I could stop biting my nails, drinking so much whiskey, and hiding in dark corners at social events. Habits--those slowly developed actions that come to dictate a mental state. Habits--perhaps the only things I can change, slowly, right now.
In order to incorporate my previous writing selves into something more cohesive, I have decided to tack on a previous blog I wrote. This other blog was more a place to think about social issues, to write like the journalist I am trained to be. So from here on out, this blog will be more confessional, perhaps more creative, and the other will be more necessary updates on my life abroad in Belfast next year.
Maybe if I force together these two blogs--evidence of my past selves, and perhaps indicators of future selves--I can develop the "right" writing habit. Everything about my now more sober state tells me to start fresh! Have a new blog! But I think I am going to go against that habit of mine--the habit of escaping, "starting over." (See: http://echolt.wordpress.com/about/
Instead, I am going to leave you with the song I have been replaying while teaching myself to crochet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBzA76QGgz8&feature=av2e
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sinne
The Irish word for the collective we, "sinne," invokes a sense of communal strength. Unlike the pronoun for us, the emphatic naming of "the we who are" brings unity where there might not be any. It also invokes the smell, feel, and dim light of a favorite Cork haunt for Maura and The Other, a place too tiny and easy to be in to make us want to ever leave.
Maura is currently sitting in her tree house while baby-beer-Borscht tries to keep up with the flow of the whiskey and The Other celebrates in a state so far from the ocean I doubt its existence. One step away from collecting the dole, Maura is very accustomed to this sort of solitude these days.
Narcissus somewhat recently mused in a somewhat Coleridgian manner about what happens when one is confronted with the unexpected. Narcissus advised us to try on that hat, our metaphorical Other, that presents itself in the corner of the room. Maybe it's a hat that's sat in the corner of the room our entire lives, a constant comfort that we can't quite manage to put away for awhile. Maybe it's one that we struggle with--we can't decide if it fits or if we're too stubbornly forcing it one way, only to see that it really bends another, and maybe, for the best. Or maybe it's just sitting there, quietly watching us, letting us be, letting us prepare for the real confrontation that comes from being with the Other.
In one form or another, The Other, Narcissus and Maura are all again facing the unexpected. Shocking, I know, since we so commonly stay in one place, with the same people, the exact same goals and the exact same desires. Unchanging we are. Fortunately, there is as much propensity for change in this trio as there is in the Irish weather. This tendency, or rather, necessity, to change allows for perpetually renewing relationships.
The other day, The Norse and The Other advised that Maura "roll with the punches" in order to deal with her unexpected situation. Roll with the punches. See what comes, come what may. Is this near Buddhist acceptance, wise in its openness? Or just aimless wandering? Or the stubborn inability to make a decision with real consequences? Regardless of Maura's motive for refusing to roll with the punches, she's trying. Maybe going with what is presented can be proactive. Maybe it's all we've ever been doing, but now it looks weaker, less courageous.
It seems that one might need, say, an army jeep to get up the courage to drive out to the boonies and tell someone how they feel, but maybe it's not a huge risk, as we've always thought. Maybe it's a punch. We're given it, and we see what we can do with it. It seems one might need balls of steel to accept someone back in their life when they've wronged us before, but seem to be changing. But maybe it's not so courageous. Maybe it's being weak, being open, rolling with it. And maybe it is more courageous to stay quiet with that Other, watching from the corner, waiting, estimating the risk worth taking. But maybe Maura just needs to accept that moments of weakness are perhaps the only learning opportunities.
The holy trinity has been a trio, a we, a safe haven from the sharper "real" world of shadows and strings. The strings among us are loosening, and we've no more than the collective naming, the "sinne" to claim community. But maybe in letting those strings loosen, those spaces between us open up, we can allow for some weakness, for those moments when our gut tells us to do the thing we think we shouldn't. What an interesting life one would have if they perpetually did what they thought they shouldn't.
Maura is currently sitting in her tree house while baby-beer-Borscht tries to keep up with the flow of the whiskey and The Other celebrates in a state so far from the ocean I doubt its existence. One step away from collecting the dole, Maura is very accustomed to this sort of solitude these days.
Narcissus somewhat recently mused in a somewhat Coleridgian manner about what happens when one is confronted with the unexpected. Narcissus advised us to try on that hat, our metaphorical Other, that presents itself in the corner of the room. Maybe it's a hat that's sat in the corner of the room our entire lives, a constant comfort that we can't quite manage to put away for awhile. Maybe it's one that we struggle with--we can't decide if it fits or if we're too stubbornly forcing it one way, only to see that it really bends another, and maybe, for the best. Or maybe it's just sitting there, quietly watching us, letting us be, letting us prepare for the real confrontation that comes from being with the Other.
In one form or another, The Other, Narcissus and Maura are all again facing the unexpected. Shocking, I know, since we so commonly stay in one place, with the same people, the exact same goals and the exact same desires. Unchanging we are. Fortunately, there is as much propensity for change in this trio as there is in the Irish weather. This tendency, or rather, necessity, to change allows for perpetually renewing relationships.
The other day, The Norse and The Other advised that Maura "roll with the punches" in order to deal with her unexpected situation. Roll with the punches. See what comes, come what may. Is this near Buddhist acceptance, wise in its openness? Or just aimless wandering? Or the stubborn inability to make a decision with real consequences? Regardless of Maura's motive for refusing to roll with the punches, she's trying. Maybe going with what is presented can be proactive. Maybe it's all we've ever been doing, but now it looks weaker, less courageous.
It seems that one might need, say, an army jeep to get up the courage to drive out to the boonies and tell someone how they feel, but maybe it's not a huge risk, as we've always thought. Maybe it's a punch. We're given it, and we see what we can do with it. It seems one might need balls of steel to accept someone back in their life when they've wronged us before, but seem to be changing. But maybe it's not so courageous. Maybe it's being weak, being open, rolling with it. And maybe it is more courageous to stay quiet with that Other, watching from the corner, waiting, estimating the risk worth taking. But maybe Maura just needs to accept that moments of weakness are perhaps the only learning opportunities.
The holy trinity has been a trio, a we, a safe haven from the sharper "real" world of shadows and strings. The strings among us are loosening, and we've no more than the collective naming, the "sinne" to claim community. But maybe in letting those strings loosen, those spaces between us open up, we can allow for some weakness, for those moments when our gut tells us to do the thing we think we shouldn't. What an interesting life one would have if they perpetually did what they thought they shouldn't.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Stillness
"He said to me once that most of the time people use the word love as just another way to show off they're hungry." --Colum McCann
If Maura is lucky, she could, within the next six months, be off to the North, to finally embark on the journey she has needed for some time now. If there was a train that left tonight, she might board it. And yet, the image of this room comes back to her. In this room, there were ordinary things, daily things, daily pressures and sadnesses and hurts. And a tree, encasing them from the rain, snow, sun, letting their stillness last. Sitting at the top of the city now, hearing her own breathing, loud and sharp, Maura wants the ordinary, is entrenched in the ordinary and yet isn't seeing it.
Mary Black says she doesn't want to fall in love again, he's living in a glass jar. Maura is wondering what it would be like to look from inside a glass jar.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
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