The Weight

I keep wanting to start things, but I'm afraid of finishing.
When you finish something, you want it to be good, to be right, to know perfection.

But that's too much Weight.

The Weight

For Thomas Walter, Stephen Thomas, and Thomas Stephen.

I laid down in my home town, feeling the weight of the dead,

fresh off the flying machine with altitude dropping in my head.

Here, brother, I made it, where’s Grandfather in his eternal bed?

He looked down, and shook his head, and Here was all he said.

Let your cross fall, Grandmother.

Let your burden fall free.

Let your cross fall, Grandmother, and

pass your lover’s timber box on to me.

I picked out dark sister, and I took her to the alley to hide,

then I saw how same and different we are, standing at her side.

I said Hey Sister, where’s your life going, there downtown?

She said, It’s something else—this town ain’t a place to stay around.

Lay your load down, Father.

Let your weight fall free.

Lay your load down, Father, and

pass your handle on to me.

Go hush great-grandchild, there’s nothing you’ll ever say;

It’s us asleep and waiting—to see the man on Judgment Day.

Well Thomas, my brother, our children, he’ll never see,

But I say, Burn our worries, brother, our stories will keep us company.

Let your pain fade, Thomas.

Let your name be free.

Let your pain fade, Thomas, and

pass your name right on to me.

Mister Grief came in shadow stalking, and settled on me, a fog.

He said, I will take your heart, blanket and warm you in my smog.

I told him, I’ll stay awhile, Darling, but I’ll leave you alone, man.

He said, You think you’ll leave, girl, but you’ll come back when can.

Take a load off, child.

Leave it there buried.

Take a load off, child, and

put it in the ground for me.

We held our unthorned roses, and all stood there in line.

Our ungloved hands, were shaking then, knowing it was time

To drop the petals and the bones, with the casket all as one.

We said goodnight, grand man, rest well from everyone.

Take a load off, Grandfather.

Let your spirit fly free.

Take a load off, Grandfather, and

You stay in heaven and keep a watch on me.

Mountain Breath

Miles out from the foothills at the end of a July light:

look up and west.

Peer beyond those ridges, to the verdant valleys

nestled between weighty hills.

Then, when the sun hangs low,

and the clouds grow heavy, spilling with wet pearls

You will see the earth reborn.

Breath goes climbing and life comes falling, in drops, sheets.

Watch it come graceful and smooth over all,

heaven and creation.

I stood east of the range, and

saw the great land go up,

crawling through golden, misted flame,

reaching into the lungs of God.

He spat life down on the hills.

I watched with the eye He gave me,

and I will tell you—with the rhythm of

the rain in my chest—this:

This is the way of the rain,

the Creator falling with the air.

Montage with And Today

I've started a couple different posts over the last few weeks, but haven't finished any of them.

So rather than starting another that I likely won't finish, I'm posting all the scraps together.

Snippets of my brain all weaved in patchwork and sad melody. La dee da.

First, listen to a sad song while you read through the first few posts. The song in the link, Manchester Orchestra's "Sleeper 1972" has been a backdrop for the last two months of my life. It's beautiful and heartbreaking.

3/27/11

On Silence

We had a moment at chapel last week when they had us all quiet down and pray in silence.

But I didn't think it felt the way it should... the creaking of bleachers and rustling of paper.

I think if we really heard silence, we'd be terrified.
We are caught in the noise of our lives.
Wadsworth hums outside my window.
My laptop purrs on my bed.

My breathing tenses and flows.

My roommate closes, opens doors.

My mind jumps on drums and thoughts and clatters.
Words dance over highways in our brains and if you concentrate, sometimes you can feel them between your ears: which synapses are firing, which cortex is acting.

And they pop and fly and fuse and all at once we get going in a dozen directions and suddenly the peace we were trying to find in the quiet is a race inside us--to find conclusions and to really feel the contentment we try to believe in.

But I don't believe it at all.

4/11/11

Yessing

I'm sad about some things, and it's making it hard to write. I fall into these cycles of pushing everybody away for little spurts of time, and I'm approaching one. And the rough thing is that there are people I don't want to leave me, to get past me.
I worry that I say all the same things over and over and that these rambling thoughts start to all sound repetitious and shallow.
I think I repeat myself---I say the same things and live the same patterns and make the same choices and give in to the same fears.
I think I'm unprepared for happiness--that I'm afraid of it. I freak out about the future so I'll feel like I'm preparing, but really, I'm circling.
Commitment makes me shudder. Saying yes to anything means saying no to everything else. So I worry so much about missing anything that I hardly let myself ever really experience anything.
And life is about to become a bit bigger. City and family and choices and saying no, so I can say yes. I've been afraid of yessing anything for a long time, and sure, there have been exceptions, but for the most part I've stopped at cliff edges and backed away with apologies and insecurities: I bailed on China, I can't choose what September should be, or where my life will feel at home. I want the future to fall into my lap, fully stocked with adventure and love.

4/17/11

Choosing, further thoughts on 'Yessing'

Life, at its barest, demands little of us. But the breathing and moving and living of every day requires that we make decisions. We have to choose.
There's a flooding phenomenon in my generation for a dislike of decision-making. I'm certainly guilty of this; I've told friends recently that choosing what to do after graduating from university is like marrying something. Picking one avenue to pursue, and leaving the rest to fall to the wind. And I'm not talking about leaving paths for other days; Frost covered that business, and it isn't what I'm addressing here.
Decision making. Choosing.
It takes saying no: prioritizing, and letting go of the other options.
So settling into some role, some thing for the next year of my life is commitment, but it isn't marriage. It isn't exclusive and picking an opportunity doesn't mean saying no to all others; in fact, chances are, one will lead to another.
But I worry. I get scared. Jobs, connections, relationships, everything. Terrified.
It takes responsibility and courage just to live, to function and sleep and commit to being ourselves and doing the best we can.
Then there's risk. We have to ask ourselves what we want, and we have to answer--stand to make a choice.
I'm asking myself--and ask yourself--'What do I want?'
And how big and how much and where? And how much am I willing to say no to, to get those things? What am I willing to sacrifice to be able to grasp the things that are yet out of my reach? And why, to all of these inquiries?
How do I answer, and what do I say to the questions I have to ask?
Do I want places or people or opportunities or experiences---or all of them?
What am I willing to risk?

5/8/11

In Chaos

Today's soundtrack. Aqualung: "Broken Bones"

Another sad sort of song. Sing sing sing.

Simultaneously graduating and grieving, I've found, makes for uncomfortable handshakes and repetition of all the same things: No, I'm not quite sure when I'm leaving; Oh I haven't quite figured out what comes next; Yeah, it was a great time at CCU; I've been friends with your son for years and he's one of my favorites here; She's a wonderful woman; Yes, I'll miss them.

I miss you. I already do.

The thing is, I miss everybody when they're not there. I cry when listen through Transatlanticism. And I miss Dr. Woodruff every time I write or read a poem. I miss the relationships I had with all my crazy friends from high school and the early days of college. I miss Uncle Rich when the Bears play and when it snows. I miss the dynamics that used to characterize my life because at some point along the way I started with this grieving and I haven't stopped.

And now I'm grieving all the moments I won't have with my grandfather in the future. My children will never meet him, and he won't see his grandchildren marry. The sons- and daughters-in-law won't understand who he was.

That was why I loved Salinger's Holden the first time I read Catcher.

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

I do; I do miss everybody all the time because I can't stop talking about the people in my life, and because I love hard. It's exhausting, wanting to be everywhere, to be everything to anyone who might need anything. And it's exhausting to fail.

I want to see heaven, and know what it's like, if my grandfather is sitting with his mother, catching up and playing cards. If Dr. Woodruff has been having lunch dates with T.S. Eliot or anybody like that up there.

I want more time. To finish, to smile, to breathe. I'm always in such a hurry, getting from one thing to the next and trying to do and solve and fix and save and salvage.

5/28/11

Saturdays: Plans

Plans fall apart on a Saturday night, so I finally post on my blog. [Clearly, this didn't actually happen.]
A lot has happened lately, and I thought that at the end of all of it, I'd sit back and feel some deep relief and profound change. An "I just grew up so much in the last two months I can't even believe it" kind of thing, you know?
But instead, yesterday, I was sitting at the pool with a friend and I thought to myself, I haven't really changed at all from last summer. I'm still lusting for the sun and burying myself in novels. I'm wishing I was younger and things felt easier, or that I could fast forward to a point in time where these things all begin to make sense.

I've been obsessing over plans for months now, yet I still don't feel like I've made much progress. I said a big "No" in a case that was incredibly difficult, and I've realized home isn't what it used to be, but it never is.

And today...

In rereading all these posts and pasting them together, I think the main reason I've had such trouble finishing them is that they're all just about me and getting inside my head. That's not what I set out to do here. It is not what I want.

The problem then, as a result, is that I don't know what I do want. Always the problem, really.

Relationships? I'm utterly lost these days. The major shut out I predicted in the scrap of "Yessing" absolutely came true. (That said, if I haven't responded to Facebook messages or texts or phone calls, I'll call this my reason; apologies.)

One thing I know: I want to get back to bigger things, the bigger things at work. The abstract and undefined.

So I'll try to do that more in the coming posts while I'm sorting things out here and getting my head back on straight. It seems that I'm finally managing that after a couple months of being pretty scattered.

I said goodbyes and found some peace... now just to find a place to live.

I appreciate your patience, and as always, thank you for reading.

Earthquakes

I think my generation is going to feel an earthquake this week.

Osama bin Laden is dead. I've known for just about an hour now, as I sit in my room, at 10:45 PM in Denver on May 1, 2011. Sixty-six years after Hitler's death was announced. What did Hitler's death do for the families of his victims? Was there rejoicing, or quiet closure? (I wasn't there, and I don't know, so maybe I shouldn't use that parallel.)

I'm already thinking about the conspiracy lines people are drawing. Like the coincidences of life are scripted by the Victorians.

I'm speechless and happy and angry all at once. People are celebrating the death of a man.

I am rejoicing too, but not at death. I am thankful for closure that is settling over some of the survivors of 9/11. I am hopeful for the return of American troops.

And I am fearful.

Tomorrow, Sarah Palin is coming to speak at CCU for the Tribute To The Troops. Does a man's death diffuse the anger of potential protesters? Alright, good.

But what about the response now? The whole world is seeing America rejoice in the death of a man and I am attached to the news just the same as I was on the second Tuesday of September when I was in seventh grade.

I can't stop.

My generation is going to be shaking, because some of us are shouting USA, because we believe we've met a goal, we've made a safer world, we've showed evil what's what.

But I am aware the hiss of evil, and its sting, and I do not rejoice at suffering.

I am weary of men.

I trust my God, and I rest in knowing that plans are in hands bigger than the universe itself.

But I can't say that the world will smile at the show we've made of America tonight.

How will individuals who have never been to America see the rallies of my peers outside the White House and at Ground Zero? Thousands of people cheering. Will the world understand that this is our response to nearly ten years of agony?

Will they know that our cheers--some of us--are for the peace we hope to see?

Reports say that Pakistani officials were unaware that bin Laden was within their borders. How will Americans respond? Floating levels of approval for Obama now like Bush had based on war "success" and casualties? Will tension with Pakistan rise?

I have anxieties indeed.

My generation, all of us, saw tragedy when we were children. We saw steel giants collapse and we were impressionable and our lives were changed, impacted more than we can even understand.

And now, what? I don't think the death of bin Laden should be a platform for jubilant celebration. Obviously, others in my generation disagree. A college student at Ground Zero said on MSNBC: "I feel great right now. We need to party right now. He's dead."

I think this is only a single battle, not the weight to tip the scale toward a "win" in war.

My generation will feel the quake. Because we are young and we are strong and a man hurt the country we were born in and we got voices--politically, philosophically, socially.

This man had a huge impression on us, and he is dead. That doesn't make the impression go away. His actions affected my life. His death... his death means almost nothing to me as an individual.

I am not rejoicing in his death.

My peers, the masses of them: they are drunk on the air of his demise.

I feel the tremors.

Notes.

Hi all,

Glad you're stopping by again. I don't have much to say tonight, but I wanted to check in since it's been over a week since my last post. I spent a few days out of town and have had a bit of a whirlwind life this month so I've gotten a bit behind from where I want to be.

One thing I've been meaning to do though, is to write this quick message. Over the course of the next couple weeks, I'm going to be pulling already-posted poems off the blog. At this point, I'm not overly concerned about material being plagiarized/stolen, but it may be an issue in the future, and further, I'm getting ready to send material out over the summer in hopes of getting published.

So, I'll be starting with the oldest poems and taking down poems from each month at the end of the week... meaning I'll take the January poems off on Saturday, and the February ones off the week after that.

I wanted to let you know so you'd all have a chance to look through them if you had any desire to do so. I'll make poems available to individuals by email after they've been removed if you request them.

Now, that business is all out of the way. I've been writing some pieces about perception and childhood and my grandfather, so you can expect to see some selections from those in the coming weeks. And I had a zombie dream last night that I want to write about here, so we'll see how that goes.

We're in our last two days of classes, and have finals next week, so it might be another week before I get to posting, but you'll hear about it when I do. Thanks for checking in, everybody. Have a good week! And as always, thanks for reading.

-E

I Was Climbing In The Rain (Brand New Poem!)

When the kettle came off the stove
with a whistle and the smell of forgotten toast
I cursed the coils for trapping food beneath themselves.
Such greed displayed in the morsel hoarded there.
I thought it selfish.
And the steam
when I emptied the steel out into my glass mug
crawled up the air and I felt it on my cheek
because it was a quiet love letter
from some man some place.
I closed my eyes and felt its warmth to my shoulders and down
so I breathed and grabbed my keys.

It was raining and I thought it ought to be snow—
quiet and cold—just the same with the
sliding of tires on the hill and the way my eyes felt.
But my cheeks were still warm from the steam and
the color stayed until I opened my empty mailbox
and remembered my eye-open dreams
where letters are for novels and
tea waited, steeping for me.

I smiled at the sadness of reality
that I, with words like these, might
not know an address for their envelope.
So in the buzzing yellow and the icy drops
I laughed like tobacco at the thought of you,
and how you had let me become a drug
that you could swirl in your fingers and exhale
in any weather.
Smoke to climb the same air, to break under falling love.

How Important is the Who?

I've started five or so posts in the last week, and haven't finished any.

I've started a lot of things, and only finished some.

There's an incompleteness, a sublimity. Something to do with Spring not being quite here yet, with Summer feeling so far, with so much left to do.

And life is changing all the time but some days we feel it more than others, and right now I feel it everywhere and deeply.

I've been particularly afraid of things lately: death, love, the future, uncalculated change.

All of these play into who I am, aside from what is happening to me.

Someone pointed out to me recently that these words, these thoughts--they're coming from some place far inside my head. I think that got to me a little bit.

I'm thinking about how many things I can say before I run out of anything I can even put into words, because we do run out and quiet down and fall apart.

Why do we listen? Why do we ask questions? Why do we give up moments for some people, things, places, experiences---and not others? Is that who we are, or just what we do?

I don't mean that in an apathetic why do anything at all kind of way, but as a serious series of questions: how do we decide what to spend parts of our lives on? What is our currency, and are we responsible in our spending?

My time is undoubtedly the commodity I trade with most. It is the most valuable thing I share without great restriction, and I think I do so generously. I love giving my time to people. I much less like spending it on tasks: cleaning, driving, working, studying. Writing and reading are exceptions.

I wonder if that's pretty average, if most people find that time is the best way to show a person love, or at the very least, concern.

I don't much like talking on the phone, and I like texting even less. But spending a few minutes with a friend, even just in passing on campus or at work--that I love.

So I'm spending time with these words to let you into some far space in my mind and I'm not quite sure how to feel about the lack of time spent with you. Do you feel like you've spent time with me? Like you know me any better for having giving moments of your day here---for the sacrifice of time you're giving?

Because I want these things to be worth your time, to be worth the trip into my head without my knowing who you are when you enter.

I read Virginia Woolf for class last week. In her piece titled "A Sketch of the Past," she makes a comment that strikes me:
"Here I come to one of the memoir writer's difficulties--one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being... I do not know how far I differ from other people. That is another memoir writer's difficulty. Yet to describe oneself truly one much have some standard of comparison."

Woolf was writing about memories, and I do a bit of that, but hardly.

But it makes me wonder. How important is the who of the what that happened, if it's only me. And here I am, saying what's happening. And nothing of who I am. I think the who is irrelevant, but I also think I may be wrong.

I think I'm too far into my thoughts, and wrapped in myself tonight. I think I've asked plenty of questions and that I need to answer to myself.

There's something in the way, I feel, of connecting to people in these words. I believe I am capable. I am unsure of any success I may have had of late.

I am not a memoir writer; this I know.
I started with intentions, well-defined.

Those goals might be changing.

How important is the what here when the who is staying the same?

Are you here for the words, or are you here because they're mine?

And you. Do you wear your hair the way you do because it's easy, or looks nice--because it's you? Or is it you because it's cool? Hairstyles don't define who you are.

Nor do fads or clothes or accessories.

Are you letting anybody in your head? Or just trying to get them to turn theirs in your direction?

How important is who you are? How important is what you do?