My friend Tyler and I have similar tastes in decorations (and ways of viewing existence) and the only time he ever saw my room (bringing in a chair for me) was when it was a giant mess. While I'm often very messy, I'm also often very neat. It comes and goes in waves and cycles. This past semester/few months I've been uber duber neat. I thought I would document my last dorm-living experience (I don't plan on ever moving back into dormitories after May), and also show Tyler what I did with his stuff*. This is random and odd, but so is my life--so I suppose it works.
I keep a flask of dreams strapped tightly to my thigh.
It's cold at first, but speeds to the warmth of my blood.
I take it with me where I can't afford the price of dreams,
Where dreaming is socially unacceptable,
Or where they only sell a certain type of dream.
I share it with the hopeful.
I know that look when they walk through open doors,
End up at the wrong place, or at the right place,
And then realize it's not what they wanted.
I slip it in their hands as we lock eyes with complicity
No explanations, no questions asked
I watch them drink, watch dreaming take effect.
I watch their eyes sparkle and skin flush
The warmth runs through their veins,
their hearts beat hard.
I watch that moment, wait for it.
That one specific beat in time in which they clearly know
What they want, what it takes, what they have to do
My heart pounds for their dreams to happen
"Lets share dreams!" my eyes scream
"I'll walk the journey with you
We'll hold hands, I'll dream them too."
My flask is handed back to me
We hold it together, don't look away, don't let go.
These last two days have been so incredibly soul enriching. The conversations I've had have been stimulating, comforting, and rejuvenating. It's just been a very happy two days, despite being incredibly tired yesterday. I've had pretty bad insomnia, then Tuesday night I got 2.5 hours of sleep. Adding that previous nights of insufficient sleep made Wednesday seem hazy and potentially terrible. The beautiful conversations, both yesterday and today, completely made up for it.
And tonight when I got back from dumpster diving (no, we didn't find anything) I talked with a near-stranger and learned about social work for an extensive amount of time. Then Kelly, TD and I went back to my room and fingerpainted to a jazz record. It was lovely and silly--my two favorites. We wanted to take pictures, but all of our hands were ridiculously wet with paint. Kelly and I used our combined mad skill and arms to twist the doorknob open without using our fingers, and we all traipsed out into the hall in hopes of finding someone to take our picture. Luckily someone was walking out in the hall, and we asked them to pretty please take our picture. We took lots of goofy ones before washing the colors down the sink (well our Good Samaritan dorm-mate took the pictures).
They didn't save. My memory card had been stuck in the side of my computer the entire time. Normally I would say FAIL without thinking, but what's so fail about it? We had an amazing time that we can still remember, even if pictures would have enhanced that process. But lack of enhancement is not the same as negation.
Mr. Blake, relaying a story he heard once, grabbed a blank piece of paper and put a dot in the very center with a pen. He held it up for the rest of our Conflict and Peacemaking class to see. "What do you see?" he asked. Most people will look, zero in on the center of the paper and say "a dot." Yet the dot is only 2% of the page--the remaining 98% of the page is blank space. Similarly, it seems we're so prone to negate the positive with tunnel vision and concentration on the negative. And that seems like a silly, not-so-good-for-the-soul-or-society way to go about life. I want to stop living like that. Not just feel happy or positive, but intentionally see the happy and positive. That doesn't mean ignoring the fact that bad things exist, but seeing it as a part rather than the whole. Also deciding which (the good or the bad) is more important to spend time on and with.
So, dear happy events--I love you. How beautiful these last few days have been.
I would type things about these pictures, but I'm too tired. I lugged my camera around with me today (thanks to the camera case my mom got me) and pulled it out during lunch.
I bought this water bottle because it was BPA free. Unfortunately it's not totally leak free around the cap. Yes, I totally covered up the Union logo with a TOMS shoes stickers. I don't hate Union, but I do love TOMS.
If everyone gave hugs as lovely and exuberantly as Owen, the world would be a much happier place. Or at least a lot huggier. Can we make that a word?
I don't remember the following photo being taken, but I do remember that evening. It was last semester during the Peanut Gallery release party, and the student center was full of warm Union bodies. One of particular interest was my freaking awesome friend Tyler (sitting right next to me in the picture). He graduated this past December and moved back to the upper northwest. I miss him a lot :-( So heres to him. I hope sunshine floods his soul and the ground around him, warming it enough to sink naked toes into fresh grass. Seriously, what's better than that?
When I was a kid I would sometimes
Secretly call myself Andrew
Would tug at the crotch of my pants the way
Only pubescent boys do
Ran around pounding on my bare chest like tarzan
It’s not that I thought I’d grow up to be a man
I just never thought I’d grow up to be a woman either
From what I could tell neither of those categories
Seemed to fit me
But believe me, I knew from a very young age never to say
Hey dad, this adam and eve thing isn’t really working for me
I mean, what about all the people in between?
In the third grade lynette lyons aksed me
Where all of my barbies were
I lied and told her I got in trouble
So my mom took them away
I didn’t dare say: barbie sucks, lynette!
And for that matter tommy, so does gi joe
I wanna grow into something none of us have ever seen before
And gender is just one of the ways
We’re boxed in and labeled before we’re ever able
To speak who we believe we are
Or who we dream we’ll become
Like drumbeats forever changing their rhythm
I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday
And tonight I will borrow only pieces of who I am today
To carry with me to tomorrow
No I’m not gay
No I’m not straight
And I’m sure as hell not bisexual damnit
I am whoever I am when I am it.
Loving whoever you are when the stars shine
And whoever you’ll be when the sun rises
Yes, I like girls
Yes, I like boys
Yes, I like boys who like boys
I like girls who wear toys and girls who don’t
Girls who don’t call themselves girls
Crew cuts or curls or that really bad hair phase in between
I like steam rising from the body of a one-night stand
I like holding hands for three months before kissing
I like wishing your body was Saturn
My body a thousand rings wrapped around you
You wanted to be a Buddhist nun once
Last night you held my cervix between your fingers
I thanked gods I don’t believe in for your changing
Tell me we’ll be naming our children beautiful and nothing else
Tell Barbie she can go now
Tell gi joe to put his gun down and find a boyfriend
Or a girlfriend
Or a girl/boyfriend
Fuck it, gi joe just needs a friend, y’all
I mean, he’s plastic
And not even the kind of plastic that bends
I want to bend in a thousand directions
Like the sun does
Like love does
Like time stopped
So the hands of the clock could hold each other
And we held each other like I held these words
For too many years on the tip of my tongue
I am my mother’s daughter
I am midnight’s sun
You can find me on the moon
Waxing and waning
My heart full of petals
Every single one begging
Love me, love me, love me
Whoever I am
Whoever I become
Do I stress you out
My sweater is on backwards and inside out
And you say how appropriate
I don't want to dissect everything today
I don't mean to pick you apart you see
But I can't help it
There I go jumping before the gunshot has gone off
Slap me with a splintered ruler
And it would knock me to the floor if I wasn't there already
If only I could hunt the hunter
Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to embed the following video. Check out Incisors by Jim Huscher. FUCKING AMAZING. I hope there's a way to access the whole piece once the voting is finished. This has become one of my absolute favorite poems <3
Edit: I just watched Red Light by William Evans. That one is amazing too.
Today was very, very grey. Overcast skies and drooping spirits at work resulted in a Sad Little Hannah after dinner. Then Kaity came to visit. I'm sure she didn't come specifically to cheer me up, but that's what she ended up doing. It's been a while since we've talked or really hung out, so her stopping by was lovely :-)
I took a silly facebook quiz titled What is Your Inner Self? It told me I was the Universal Person:
You are a perfect balance of everything. You've gone through a fair share of things and you are able to put yourself in other peoples shoes. You are caring and understanding. You are fun and warm to be around. You tend to help people. You know what it is like to be at an all time low and you know how to deal with things. You consider all of your friends to be good friends. You are kinda like the Goldilocks of personalities. The things you do are practical, but sensitive to whom it would affect. You are at ease with yourself, and have spent a good deal of time finding yourself, and now that you have, you've finally bloomed into something beautiful. Thanks for taking this quiz, I hope you enjoyed it.
I'm certainly not the balance of everything, but thanks for saying so Quiz Creator. Most of the result was generalities, and probably too nice, but the part I bolded made me very happy. The first two parts are very true, and I hope I'm blooming into something beautiful. I hope I always continue blooming and becoming, even on the day my body breaks down and returns to the earth.
Yesterday I went to see Alice in Wonderland. I loved it. 3D is so much freaking fun!
Since I didn't have a chance to take pictures yesterday (I need to figure out a good way to lug my camera around. A camera bag seems like the most obvious solution), I decided to still honor yesterday with a few photographs. As you can see, I kept my awesomepossom 3D glasses.
As I was looking at these glasses, I started wondering what other things we'll take for granted in the future. I'm guessing 3D won't be such a big deal anymore. I'm hoping other things, things with much more global impact, will be adopted as normative and routine as well.
So my hair has been driving me crazy lately. Tyler used to give me fun new haircuts pretty much each month during first semester, but he graduated. I haven't had a real haircut since November (I think). So naturally my hair is going all bonkers, which makes me go bonkers. I've been meaning to find a friend with clippers (I feel like going to a salon for such short hair is a waste). People have asked me if I'm going to grow it out, and I always respond that I would probably only grow it out to dread it.
Soon I'm going to start posting a picture a day of something that makes me smile in a separate picture blog. I came up with the idea yesterday, and promised Todd I would send him a picture of something that made me happy. He sent me a picture (which made me want to chant go KU! or something like that), but I didn't live up to my end of the bargain. I planned to send two pictures today to make up for it, but ended up taking more than that. I was coming back from lunch in the caf, and couldn't help but play outside. In an hour, I'm going down to the Haymarket for a field trip with my Conflict and Peacemaking class. I have a feeling more pictures will be taken :-)
This is Kelly. She's a beautiful soul, fantastic friend, talented co-worker and editor of Campus Conversations. I caught her as she was making the rounds around campus to distribute CC.
The sight of a someone lying, perfectly warm,
in a hammock three feet from melting snow
made me happy. I felt like a creeper, but
decided to walk up
and ask if I could
take some pictures.
Luckily it turned out to be my friend Jordan, so it wasn't too weird.
Campus in spring, I hope this isn't just a tease. I want the rest of the snow to disappear so I can start taking naps on (non-muddy) flourishing grass.
This bicycle drowning in snow doesn't make me smile. Knowing spring will melt away its icy prison soon does :-) Plus, it looks like a rad old bike.
"That's What Makes Them Pirates!" advertising. My favorite is the pi and rate signs drawn on a different sidewalk.
I found this excerpt about an article dealing with the interactions of the right and left side of the brain on The Buddhist Blog:
Enlightenment has been described in many ways, but what is common to most descriptions of enlightenment is a change in the sense of ‘self,’ and a sensation of a release from suffering. An enlightened person is said to no longer identify with herself as the individual she once was. She is also said to no longer experience negative thoughts.
Our feeling part of our Self is located in the limbic system, in this case the amygdala. In most people, the left side feels pleasure or positive emotions, and the right side experiences negative emotions. In each case, the right (positive) and left (negative) components are synaptically ‘wired’ to each other. Thoughts and emotions are communicated back and forth between both sides of the the brain along the synapses. Now here is where meditation impacts these processes. Most meditative practices involve techniques to de-emphasize, defuse or reduce negative thoughts. Over the long term, what this means in the brain is that the transmission of electrical impulses into both the right side (negative) of both the amygdala and hippocampus is reduced. Fewer negative feelings and thoughts, less activity along those pathways.
Published studies support the idea that long term meditation works by ‘starving’ the brain of negative emotions and expectations. So meditation not only trains us not to respond as intensely and frequently to negative thoughts and emotions, it also causes an ‘atrophying’ of our brain’s ability to process those thoughts and emotions. But the caveat here, is that it takes a lot of consistent practice over the long term.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
One morning I'll wake up and you'll be beside me:
snoring, hair a mess, sprawled on my side of the bed, hogging the covers.
I'll rub my eyes and glance at the clock...
then realize it's the weekend
and neither of us has anywhere to be.
Pulling back some blankets
I'll wrap my arm around your chest,
interlace my leg with yours,
and sleep for another hour.
Finally getting up, I'll look out the window
and watch raindrops slipping down the glass
as I turn on the coffeemaker
and pull two black mugs from the dishwasher.
More cream in yours, more sugar in mine
(though walking back to wake you
I'll forget which is which).
Selfishly I'll gently shake you out of sleep,
you'll squint your eyes at me
and curl up with your head in my lap.
The coffee will get cold
but we'll be plenty warm without it.
This sunrise must be why some people
sacrifice late-night fast food runs
and midnight sitcom reruns.
This refreshing feeling that makes you feel
like you can take on the world in a breath.
Knowing you're more responsible than mother nature
who is slowly rubbing her eyes and rolling her colors out of bed.
But I also know why some people
don't think about sleep until all the others are awakening.
It's their time to rule the world. No interruptions.
They'll call it "studying," "cramming," "term-paper bullshitting"
when really they're in a room with their best friend
laughing uncontrollably, stuffing themselves with caffeine and junk food,
taking pictures with a webcam.
So it doesn't matter if at 4 a.m.
you're waking up or going to sleep.
Either you were just infinitely powerful
or are about to be.
I guess it's time for my yearly spring semester emotional break down. Maybe I haven't broken down like this in years past, but I remember how hard each spring semester is for me. This semester has been really difficult.
Breaking up with Chelsi, reordering my personal life, getting lonely and re-learning to appreciate solitude, trying to figure out my entire future by planning next school year, struggling in classes, struggling at work, fighting growing negative thoughts about my body and shape, living in a homophobic environment, wading through classes completely filled with assumptions and expectations that clash with my religious beliefs, quitting smoking, learning how humanity inflicts harsh cruelty on itself and others, hurting for those whose souls are ravished because they weren't born white, straight, male, upper class, able-bodied, whatever. There's more that makes me want to break down and cry (like I just finished doing). There's also a lot of beauty in the world. I just am having a hard time thinking of it right now.
