Friday, March 25, 2011

Choice

I am a terrible blogger lately. This is partly because I am starting to see a shift coming. I'm working on a project for a TA/independent study position that will hopefully become a professional showcase and website that will host a new blog, my twitter feed, and hopefully examples of my work. It's sucking up energy that I'd normally feed over here. As it is, this blog might be retired soon as I make my switch.

What a precious archive, though. So far, I've blogged partly for others, mostly for myself. I chose a blog so that I could share. Now, as my understanding of digital literacy and new media communications/rhetoric is expanding, I feel that I need to change the nature of my output to reflect my growing sense that I am (or can be) a part of professional and academic discourse "out there" in the world. I think this blog was a stepping stone, though, an place for learning and reflection and I hope to carry that over as well.

It's been interesting to note the cyclical nature of my worries, my joys. Is this what it means to be a student, or is this what it means to be a human? Or both? Even though, come May, I won't be a "student" for a while, I know that the line between "school" and "life" is false and that I'll never stop learning. Although, getting that grant money I applied for would help a lot too.

It's taken me until now to realize that, in the face of my anxiety and worry over where I'll be and what I'll be doing in the coming months, I'm the only one who can give myself permission not to be worried or anxious. I have six weeks of college left. Six weeks. I want to be present for those last weeks, not stuck in anxiety over a future that will probably work itself out anyway. I don't think it's wrong to count on having a little serendipity mixed in with all the hard work and preparation for the future.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Change

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

March 1 selection from "A Year with Rilke" (Sonnets to Orpheus II, 12)

I love Rilke. Reading a snippet or poem of his every day has been an interesting exercise. I had a period last week when I forgot to read almost five days in a row. I was sick and busy, but I felt upset and slightly ashamed when I realized it. I've made a renewed effort over the past few days to make sure I read them on time. It's sometimes dull, because I'll go days without anything really speaking to me. Then, all of a sudden, I will read a poem and think, "I really, really needed to read that today."

That's what happened today. That's why I push myself to keep reading, day after day when it seems easier not to commit to something extra. I love it when Rilke describes change as a flame, that there is something burning and effervescent about change, even when it seems to be mere drudgery or supreme discomfort. "Every happiness is the child of separation/it did not think it could survive."
How often I need to be reminded of that.