tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45165694075305354352024-03-14T00:23:45.413-04:00The Venetian's WifeSketches and MusingsIvyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.comBlogger182125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-38383530632383149812011-06-24T23:13:00.002-04:002011-06-24T23:17:45.603-04:00New blog!Hello, everyone. I've been absent lately. That's because I've been busy <a href="http://youngandcareerless.wordpress.com/">over here</a>. That's right, I've got a new blog. It's all about life, job hunting, building a "career" and what that means for Gen Y's like myself (i.e. those of who've grown up with the internet and are also trying to enter the workforce in a really terrible, awful recession).<br /><br />Does this mean I'll retire this blog? I'm not sure. Probably not. It might have to go on hiatus, though, while I put time and energy elsewhere. So, dear readers (however few) be patient, and read my new blog in the meantime!Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-1537568762193158202011-05-27T19:36:00.003-04:002011-05-27T19:40:48.957-04:00The smell of roast chickenLast week was difficult. Last week featured a fifteen minute crying jag, as I sat in the Food Lion parking lot. I was on the phone with my father wailing about how I would never, ever learn how to drive my car (a stick shift) and that my bank account was dwindling rapidly.<br /><br />This week has been better. My mother was right when she told me things would get better. I've got a few job interviews lined up. The car, while still terrifying, is not as challenging as before. My living room is suffused with a lovely, golden glow because the sun is shining right through the rain. The air is cool and the house smells of roasting chicken and potatoes. My fiance just pulled in. I even discovered that I can temporarily remove the obnoxious, highly sensitive smoke alarm to my bedroom so that it doesn't go off every time I try to cook something.<br /><br />Life is good.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-348440332840280052011-05-17T15:45:00.002-04:002011-05-17T16:27:25.061-04:00Free time?And so, graduation came and went. I am now settled into a new apartment (only for the summer alas - I've got to find something quick as my sublease ends in August). Having free time feels wrong ... almost sinful, after a senior year full of intense coursework and being an editor for the newspaper. Hopefully I'll find a job soon, because I'm nearing broke. I also intend to start researching grad school options. I suppose I also need to start planning my wedding at some point (gosh, that sounds weird).<br /><br />Although my sudden influx of free time feels disorienting, it also allows me to pursue things that I never had time for before. Right now, this means taking an online course through <a href="http://www.writers.com/">Writers.com</a> called "Intro to New Media." It starts on the 19th, and I'm very excited (thanks Guilford for the grant money to pay for it). This blog is getting dated and inadequate for my (hopefully more professional) needs, so I'm looking forward to investing some time in learning more about writing for new media by building up an online portfolio/blog. I'm also thinking that getting published would be helpful, since I'll need new things to post in my portfolio. College did not teach me how to freelance, however. Any tips on getting started would be welcome.<br /><br />Sometimes when I write down aspirations such as "get published" or "get proficient in new media and networking" or "get into an awesome grad program on writing for digital media" I wonder if I've got the right goals. On the one hand, I wonder if I'm aiming too high. On the other hand, I wonder if others would think I'm aiming too low and setting myself up for financial uncertainty and little success. But then I think to myself, well who cares? Things are changing pretty quickly and pretty radically these days: culturally, socially, and even personally (especially if you're in your 20's like I am). In the face of that, why not just pursue what you care about most? Adjustments can always be made, but compromising or giving up on something too early never got anyone anywhere.<br /><br />And then, when I am very anxious, I read Sugar. She reminds me that <a href="http://therumpus.net/2011/05/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-72-the-future-has-an-ancient-heart/">"the future has an ancient heart."</a>Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-77284042315835916022011-05-06T22:25:00.003-04:002011-05-06T22:59:18.604-04:00GraduationWell. This is my last night in my college room. My little shoebox in the on-campus apartments at Guilford College. The walls are bare. Almost everything is boxed up. I feel like I'm trying to cut myself off from my emotions, lest the floodgates open. I feel a deep sense of happiness, accomplishment (I'm graduating with high academic honors) and a real sense of relief. I'm ready to move on. And yet, I'm dogged by a feeling of sadness and nostalgia. I remember moving into my dorm for the first time. I was so nervous and excited. I really had no idea what was coming. I didn't know who I would meet, what I would learn, or whether or not I'd still be with my boyfriend come graduation. I didn't know I'd go to England, Italy, France and Germany. I didn't know I'd become an editor for the newspaper.<br />I cannot even begin to describe all the lessons (both academic and otherwise) that will be represented by that little piece of paper I'll be handed tomorrow. Guilford has been home to me. Guilford has shaped me. I think it's made me ready to make a new home, find a new calling. I may feel very green and unprepared for the "real world" still. On the other hand, I followed my gut when I chose to come here and I haven't been disappointed. Guilford has allowed me to honor my sense of passion and commitment ... a commitment to writing, creativity, excellence, hard work and meaningful relationships with others. For all its flaws (and issues that plague all institutions), I think I can safely say that Guilford has lived up to all it promised and more.<br />As for everyone who has supported me, I just can't thank you enough. Mom and Dad: thanks for everything, but most of all thank you for always, always telling me that I could be a writer and an English major if I wanted to. My favorite faculty (you know who you are): thank you for everything you taught me. David: thanks for just being you. My dear, dear friends: college would not have been the same without you.<br />I can only hope that whatever it is that led me here will continue to lead me on to equally wonderful things.<br />And that is that, ladies and gentlemen. I'm done with college.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-73463781893758484922011-05-03T23:24:00.002-04:002011-05-03T23:38:03.153-04:00EngagedWell. It's been an eventful few weeks. Finals are nearly over, graduation is impending (four days, now?) and my boyfriend of three years proposed last weekend. I said yes, naturally. He went to elaborate lengths to in order to propose (a trip to a winery, a picnic lunch, and a wine bottle floating down the creek were all involved). In the end, he ended up wading out up to his thighs in said creek to fish out the wine bottle (I was perplexed and wondering how we would drive home with his blue jeans soaking wet) just to give me the note that was inside the bottle. I finally caught up with what was happening, started weeping, and he pulled out a ring.<br />And that was that. It feels remarkably normal ... like the day you turn 13 and realize that you don't feel any different than you did yesterday. I take this as a good sign, finding this transition not be a real transition at all (rather, that the transition came already, and the engagement has come in recognition of it). All the same, it was a magical day. I feel so grateful to have a partner who treats me so well.<br />In other news, I remain jobless, but hopeful. I have a place to live for the summer. I've got grant money to do fun/instructive things with new media. I'm graduating from college with honors. I am going to see my family and celebrate soon. Packing is the only bane of my existence.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-58966605774547504652011-04-16T22:20:00.005-04:002011-04-17T00:27:59.270-04:00This too shall passA few weeks ago, one of my professors told me a story and I've been thinking about it ever since. He said there was an old fable in which a man was sentenced to die. The king set the condemned man what seemed to be an impossible task; the king said that if the condemned man could give him something that would make him happy when he was sad, and sad when he was happy, then he could go free. The man gave the king a ring engraved with the words "this too shall pass." The king realized that the man had met his challenge and set him free.<br /><br />This too shall pass. Those words suddenly seem to be a full, meaningful description of the way things are, rather than something I tell myself to feel better when things are rough. It does make me happy and sad, sometimes at the same time.<br /><br />Tonight was a lovely, shining moment that made me so happy and melancholy at the same time, only because I knew that nothing else would ever be quite like it. Those lovely, shining moments are rare, especially when most weeks feel like a long, emotional slog. Such has been my time with the student newspaper: long hours, blood, sweat and tears, mixed so much joy, and passion, and fulfillment. Tonight I had a chance to sit and reflect with my fellow graduating editors (along with our beloved advisor, of course) and it was priceless. We shared memories and the strengths we recognized in each other after so much time working together. One editor remarked that he had moments of panic when he thought that perhaps working The Guilfordian was as good as things are going to get, because how could we ever find another group of such talented, passionate and hardworking individuals? When would we ever find another group of people willing to sacrifice so much for no pay and little formal recognition?<br /><br />I don't know the answer to that, but we did share a sense of excitement and faith for the future of the student newspaper in the hands of its new editors. And after leaving, I can't help but feel and sense of faith and excitement for myself and all my fellow editors who are graduating along with me. I have no doubt that the strength and passion we've brought to this newspaper will carry us forward to wonderful things, even if it's not what we imagine now. Looking back on it, my work for The Guilfordian (and by extension, my work at college) and the relationships I've built have been genuinely transformational and I am grateful. I am grateful to have known these people, grateful that I will go on knowing them. I am grateful for everything they have taught me, and everything we have shared.<br /><br />It's appropriate that the same professor who told me that story is also the advisor for the newspaper.<br /><br />This too shall pass. But something will always be waiting ahead as well.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-20476415811713149792011-03-25T10:23:00.004-04:002011-03-25T10:42:55.537-04:00ChoiceI 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-13137441993950487592011-03-02T00:07:00.003-05:002011-03-02T00:18:17.041-05:00ChangeWant the change. Be inspired by the flame<br />where everything shines as it disappears.<br />The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much<br />as the curve of the body as it turns away.<br /><br />What locks itself in sameness has congealed.<br />Is it safer to be gray and numb?<br />What turns hard becomes rigid<br />and is easily shattered.<br /><br />Pour yourself like a fountain.<br />Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking<br />finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.<br /><br />Every happiness is the child of separation<br />it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,<br />dares you to become the wind.<br /><br />March 1 selection from "A Year with Rilke" (<span style="font-style: italic;">Sonnets to Orpheus II, 12</span>)<br /><br />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."<br /><br />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."<br />How often I need to be reminded of that.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-90206746254300889302011-02-24T23:53:00.003-05:002011-02-25T00:05:29.687-05:00Words and more words<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3210425/Three_Years_of_Blog_Posts" title="Wordle: Three Years of Blog Posts"><img src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/3210425/Three_Years_of_Blog_Posts" alt="Wordle: Three Years of Blog Posts" style="padding: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221);" /></a><br /><br />A "word cloud" drawn from the four or so years of my blog (created via <a href="http://www.wordle.net/">Wordle</a>). Curious and revealing, isn't it?Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-71125388332315277572011-02-15T11:25:00.003-05:002011-02-15T11:29:16.821-05:00The Useless Days<blockquote>The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.<br /><br />-Sugar</blockquote>From <a href="http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/">"Dear Sugar, The Rumpus Advice Column #64: Tiny Beautiful Things."</a><br /><blockquote></blockquote>Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-70792480104977844322011-02-10T23:25:00.009-05:002011-02-11T00:26:03.843-05:00AwarenessAwareness. I always considered it to be a cognitive skill, a kind of mental discipline that was often beyond me. It some ways, it felt easier to be harried, stressed, and under pressure even though those feelings are so negative. This semester I've been feeling an intense amount of pressure in my academic and personal life ... as if this semester were some kind of medieval torture device, and someone was maliciously tightening the screws day by day. I feel worst when I feel out of control. This has been a pattern that's gone on long enough, though. Many conversations, readings and experience are beginning to shift my perception of my own stress. First of all, feeling "out of control" assumes that there actually exists some level of control that I could gain over my life and what happens next. Really, I'll never know or control that. Now, that's a tough one and I still don't quite believe it on a gut level but I hope to get there eventually.<br /><br />Recently, I've begun to think that there are important decisions that can impact my day-to-day perceptions. What started me off was a comment from a respected professor, who pointed out that I will always be busy, and that there will always be multiple demands on my time. It made me think that I need to take make decisions right now that will make me feel more sane, rather than assuming my life will become less hectic at some point in the future ... since then, I've stumbled across <a href="http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/opening-to-our-lives/">this interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn</a>. It's changed my ideas about awareness and mindfulness. Zinn, a scientist and zen student who has studied mediation and its clinical and practical applications, speaks to the essential difference between awareness and "thinking." Thinking, he says, is a source of great creativity but it can also be destructive. Awareness or mindfulness is entirely different. It is not a cognitive exercise so much as a willingness to let of thinking and to settle into your body and the present moment instead. The ability to truly focus our attention on the present is a skill humans are not taught to cultivate. Zinn argues that cultivating great awareness does not only reduce feelings of stress and illness, it allows us <span style="font-style: italic;">to live life as if every moment really does matter.</span><br /><br />What a radical concept. I spend so much time, these past few weeks especially, worrying and yearning for the future. I'm starting to wonder if I have more control over my sense of dissatisfaction than I thought. This concept of awareness runs much deeper than that, though. I think there is more at stake. I wonder if a greater sense of awareness might also lead to a greater sense of compassion and flexibility. Awareness in communication seems crucial to me, that ability to be present with another person, acting as if each moment is worth paying attention to. What would happen if I tried to do that more?<br /><br />Yoga gives me a greater sense of mindfulness, of simply being in my body. It's difficult to maintain in an academic environment where thinking is valued so highly. But it seems to me that a balance between the two would allow for greater creativity of thought and a deeper sense of engagement.<br /><br />So, this is a really tall order. This is tough work. Just trying to be more mindful at least part of the time helps though, rather than thinking "if I could just graduate" or "if I could just go back to Europe." It's better than just giving up and letting myself slip back into that sense of pressure and self-preoccupation. That's no way to live.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Postscript: strangely enough (or not strangely at all) Zinn also has some potential <a href="http://blog.onbeing.org/post/96473837/exploring-jon-kabat-zinns-quaker-connections">Quaker influences</a>. I love finding these connections.</span>Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-11519648998268706492011-01-28T10:26:00.003-05:002011-01-28T11:02:36.698-05:00The Solitude We Are"To speak again of solitude, it becomes ever clearer that in truth there is nothing we can choose or avoid. We are solitary. We can delude ourselves and act as if this were not so. That is all we can do. How much better to realize it from the start that is what we are, and to proceed from there. It can, of course, make us dizzy, for everything our eyes rest upon will be taken from us, no longer is anything near, and what is far is endlessly far."<br />- Rilke (Jan 27 selection from "A Year with Rilke")<br /><br />I miss Italy. I was there for ten days last spring after deciding that I would fly from London to Pisa all by myself, so that I could get on a bus to Siena to visit a young woman who is probably my oldest friend. It was, at times, very unsettling and nerve wracking to travel to a country on your own without speaking a lick of Italian. But I miss the long hours when I would wander around the city alone, poking down side streets, stumbling upon gardens, wandering into churches ... my friend was preoccupied with classes most afternoons, so I would go for hours without speaking to anyone (aside from feeble attempts to buy gelato in Italian). I've never gone that long in silence. I would sit in the Piazza del Campo when I was tired and I would sketch and people watch. I don't think I've ever written so profusely in my life. When I was alone I turned to my journal. My solitude felt intense and overwhelming and deeply uncomfortable, but perhaps that was the value of it. I wrote pages upon pages every day, in the afternoon in the piazza and at night before I went to bed. The came Florence; I spent an entire afternoon alone in the Uffizi gallery and a full half hour in the Botticelli room. I climbed to the top of Brunelleschi's dome. I practically meditated over the glory of my meals. The funny thing is that I both hated and loved the days spent alone ... in some moments I wanted any way out, anyone to talk to, just so that I wouldn't have to feel so alone. Other moments, I savored the feeling.<br /><br />I don't quite recall the point of all this, except to remind myself that it happened, to let out that longing for anywhere-but-here and a longing to be in a place where I was always present. Perhaps I feel this way because this week I've not had a minute to myself. I always wonder if, by searching for something beyond the daily grind, I am romanticizing silence, solitude, God, whatever. Maybe I'm inventing what I'm searching for.<br /><br />On the other hand, does it matter? Is it okay to just buy into something if it makes you feel more sane, and more compassionate?Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-17745153239831605322011-01-08T10:17:00.002-05:002011-01-08T10:28:08.857-05:00ImpatienceAh. Once again, the first week of January is marked by impatience. Impatience to be away, to be back at school, to be done with the break. However, I've also enjoyed my time at home quite a bit during this break - much more so than last winter. I am learning to settle into what I'm doing a bit better. Of course, a year ago I was impatient to leave for England. Now, I think wistfully back to those magical months abroad. I think, though, that my deep impatience this year is for the rest of my life to start. That sounds dramatic ... more so than I intended. I merely mean that I am impatient for a change of pace. I'm researching grad schools still, but a year off to work is what I want right now. I want to give all these transitions the time they need. I am ready for new challenges, despite their sometimes harsh reality. I can't stay an undergrad forever and I don't want to. I also don't want to go right to grad school because it would feel as if I decided to go just because I was scared and wanted to prolong the structure that's defined my life for so many years. I want to go to grad school because I really, really want it. And after a year or so of work, I don't doubt that I'll be more than ready to dive back into school (I'll always love it, really). I guess what I'm looking for is a sense of balance and a sense that everything will happen on its own time. In which case, I suppose I should train myself for more patience ...<br />And so, I'm enjoying my last day at home. I get to be the overprotective older sister for the day, hopefully with some measure of coolness mixed in. Then, I'm off to start my last semester at Guilford! Whew.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-57897058501128564812011-01-01T19:42:00.006-05:002011-01-01T20:36:00.426-05:00I BeginGenerally I write a post just before the new year. This year, I've chosen (well, waited) to post after the beginning of the new year. This is partially because I was busy tying up some loose ends, (although in reality nothing is ever that final) by having some tough but fruitful discussions that needed to take place. However, it all works out because this year I'd like to focus on beginnings, however arbitrary they may be, rather than endings. Honestly, there's not much that just ends with the turning of the year anyway. Yes, 2010 was a full year with many challenges and unexpected joys (five months abroad remains a highlight) but isn't every year full of both? Our cares and pleasures stay with us no matter what the date.<br /><br />I have decided that I am very much opposed to making lists. At least for myself, anyway. I am an obsessive list maker when it comes to my daily tasks, it is true. New year's lists are seductive in their promise of a shiny new routine, a new improved you ... in my experience the over ambitious list always leads to failure because we aim to remake ourselves when we shouldn't feel the need to. At any rate, I've admitted to myself that I cannot follow through on ambitious lists of new year's resolutions and I've decided to save myself the disappointment. This is similar to my realization that I simply need to take a yoga class (one in which I am expected to show up in front of others) in order to set up a regular exercise regime. So, regular yoga is not on a list because I have already built it into my schedule for next semester.<br /><br />In a similar vein, my approach to lists of books to be read also informs my feelings on new year's lists as well. I generally reject reading lists in favor of the spontaneous find, and whatever whim may take me when doing leisure reading. This winter break I had expected to read "T.S. Spivet." However, I've found myself engrossed in needlework and reading "How to Eat' by Nigella Lawson. It may seem odd to sit a read through a cookbook as if it were an engrossing novel, but Nigella is unique. Her cookbook is largely narrative based, the story of her cooking process and her intense, sensual love of eating and therefore cooking. It's inspirational because I can't stop thinking about how I will shop and cook differently this semester - for example, it's high time that I roasted a chicken on my own. I like to give myself the freedom to indulge in unexpected reading finds, and I feel the same way about the new year. I like to leave lots of room for the unexpected.<br /><br />A little structure is always a good thing, though. A few simple things to keep you centered never hurts. This is why my one commitment of the new year is to read "A Year with Rilke" translated and edited by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows. I've given in wholeheartedly to Rilke and I hope that he will inspire more blogging this coming year. But mostly these daily readings will me for me and for me alone as I navigate 2011. What with graduation and the many decisions that come with that turning point, I'm sure I'll need it.<br /><br />However, this is only one thing and therefore does not count as a list in my eyes. And thus, I welcome the new year. I'll let Rilke have the last (or first) word:<br /><br />"I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past – then I choose to begin at this very second. Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives."<br /><br />-- Rilke (early journals), entry one from "A Year with Rilke."Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-35706894539550832272010-12-24T12:23:00.004-05:002010-12-24T17:05:16.711-05:00Christmas CaresI like the winter time. It is nice to see nature settling down into itself, to see the still crispness of it. It's a little calming during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. I spent some time re-reading my posts from this time last year ... I was preparing for London, chafing at being home, worrying about making my relationship a long distance one. The cares and toils of this December are different, certainly, but they are there. I've stopped expecting Christmas to be carefree. We make what we can of it. I am grateful that my family makes the deliberate choice to stay home every year, to relax rather than building up pressures and expectations for how things should be. I am looking forward to some quiet time at home (so different from last year).<br /><br />Some things are the same, although the stakes feel higher. Last year I wrote about the opportunity unfolding in front of me - how anxiety and excitement are so intertwined. I feel that ever the more this year, with graduation quickly approaching. I still worry about my relationship sometimes ... after almost three years things get increasingly complicated. Passing the holiday apart in separate states doesn't help and it's making my Christmas feel quite blue compared to last year.<br /><br />I think, I hope, that this year I have more clarity at least. A vision of what I want out the next few years, out of my life, is beginning to form tentatively in my mind. I've just finished up the most intellectually and emotionally challenging semester yet and I made it. Not only am I still standing, I owned it. I am starting to feel a real sense of ownership over my abilities and my passions. I am more willing to stand up and defend my decisions, to defend my needs, to defend my views. That's got to count for something, right?<br /><br />And so, the stakes do not feel so overwhelmingly high because I know that one way or another I will do all right. I have a lot of time ahead of me. At least this winter break is giving me time to settle and reflect, and I am grateful for that and for my family (and friends) near and far. I am also grateful for the time to do needlework and to finally read "The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet."<br /><br />Merry Christmas.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-52293200773510572302010-12-11T12:06:00.003-05:002010-12-11T12:14:10.145-05:00Some of the most overwhelming and astonishing experiences come after weeks of frustration and pain. At least, that's what happened during my English capstone presentation. The culminating presentation of my English major, of my undergrad degree, and it just took on a momentum of its own. I was so nervous before it started, but once we got underway I knew we were in the zone. It was big, it was important, and it was meaningful. I got chills during the conclusion.<br /><br />Whew. Anyway, now that it's all over I feel that I should be done. But I have two final exams and a paper to write yet. Urg. So, I'm off to work on that.<br /><br />Just wanted to give a last nod to my intellectual and emotional euphoria.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-6174452275046239242010-11-24T00:26:00.003-05:002010-11-24T00:53:01.890-05:00We move in infinite space*<p>"It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our blood. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens."<br /></p><br />-Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />Why this man speaks to me I'll never know, but in every moment of deepest fatigue and despair he strikes right at the heart of the matter with a passage or a poem. I am thankful for this man who lived and died years before I was even born, even before my parents were born. Sometimes I felt that I quoted him too much, but this blog is a testament to his enduring influence, ever since I first received a copy of "Letters to a Young Poet" when I was 16.<br /><br />Tonight he reminds me of the need for patience, even when patience is wearing thin. I feel so done in, so exhausted, so helpless to prevent conflict that I just want to check out sometimes. Rilke reminds me that you simply cannot snap your fingers and expect change. Change is difficult and painful, but we must, must hold to what is difficult. I am learning to be attentive, learning to sit with sadness, during those times in which we "stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing." Sometimes I wish that I could go back, revert to a time of not knowing what I know, not feeling what I've felt. I know that this is impossible because perhaps a new future is being transformed within me, waiting to move out of me someday.<br /><br />*"The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space. How could it not be difficult for us?" RMRIvyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-68233490723915091142010-11-17T00:20:00.003-05:002010-11-17T00:33:47.294-05:00Taken for GrantedIn my last post I wrote about anxiety coming in waves ... whoo boy, that hasn't changed. It feels even more extreme this week. I go from feeling calm and okay to completely freaked out. I have no time, or not enough time. This week has already been trying already. I still have an eight page paper, a presentation, and a photo shoot to complete over the weekend. Oh, and editing and the GRE on Saturday. It's also a significant weekend for a friend, and I can't just check out on that either. And then there is the significant other who needs time too.<br /><br />I can't sleep at night. I want to be done with all this, done with the pain and anxiety. I want to feel reassured and confident. I also want to become a hermit, to ignore everything for just as long as it takes to get these assignments done. But the idea of isolating myself entirely is upsetting in its own way too. I told myself this semester would be different. One good thing I can say is that I've become much, much better at still functioning even when I'm freaked out and unsettled and anxious (about school, about relationships, or anything else).<br /><br />I can't help but feel that every aspect of my life that I've taken for granted over the past few years is getting shaken up and moved around, and I keep banging my knees into the furniture because it's not where it was, and I still don't know where everything is going to land in the end. I mean, I think I know what I want. I think I can get there. But the in-between is so very difficult.<br /><br />Perhaps this is just what happens during transition times like these. Things change. Things surface. Things become uncertain. There is at least a little grain of excitement there.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-19734386539510646292010-11-10T23:03:00.001-05:002010-11-11T18:13:04.353-05:00Letting GoI've been reading the poem by Rilke that I posted recently almost everyday. I need the reminder, because the anxiety comes in waves. Right now I'm most concerned about my project for my senior seminar. It's crazy and unorthodox and unsettling. There are no rules, and yet there are. I don't know. My prof keeps telling us to have fun, to play, take risks ... let go, she says. Yet there are standards, rules to play by. It's anxiety inducing because there is no way to hold both things in your head at once, yet we are being asked to do just that.<br />If you're confused, then so am I.<br />I'm so burned out. I've had a headache for the past three days and I keep feeling shooting pains in my chest whenever I think about that project or even just getting through the next five weeks. These are familiar sensations, but generally I don't feel quite this burned out until after Thanksgiving. It's concerning me because I also don't when I'll get the chance to recuperate.<br />On the upside, I just got a free ticket to see Bill Clinton speak. Yes, the ex-president himself is coming to my college. I also had an uplifting meeting with my adviser today - I have a very good feeling about spring classes. At the beginning of the year, I figured I'd be sad at the thought of my last undergrad registration process. Now, I'm just ready for what's next (whatever that may be). I'm getting tired of the undergrad lifestyle. Which is another upside. I'm realizing that I shouldn't let fear drive my decision making process about what to do or where to go next. That's automatically limiting yourself from the get-go, isn't it?Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-8211425262374903002010-10-25T15:13:00.002-04:002010-10-25T15:19:20.698-04:00<p>Desire change. Be enthusiastic for that flame<br /> in which a thing escapes your grasp<br /> while it makes a glorious display of transformation.<br /> That designing Spirit, the master mind of all things on earth<br /> loves nothing so much in the sweeping movement of the dance<br /> as the turning point. </p> <i>-- Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Br. David Steindl-Rast </i>Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-10380959848463675602010-10-24T22:46:00.005-04:002010-10-25T10:10:52.417-04:00Out of the tide pool and into the oceanWell, now. I feel naive. I feel naive, but I also feel that I simply could not have anticipated the events of the past few weeks. I feel blindsided, but I also feel these things were inevitable (at least, in retrospect). I am at a loss to explain. My last post is still meaningful but it doesn't quite cover things ... I thought the storm was well over at that point and it sure as hell wasn't. The analogy doesn't fit anymore, because I'm still dealing with the issues that came up recently.<br /><br />I'm being cryptic. I apologize, but it's the only was I can be appropriate while still trying to process. Some things are meant to stay between you and your therapist, let's face it. But I feel different and I want to note that. I feel different when I wake up in the morning and when I go to bed at night.<br /><br />I've been able to move forward, to name problems, to see the positive and healthy way of dealing with everything that has happened. What surprises me the most is that I thought I was an adult before, but really I was just taking laps around the kiddy pool. Now, I've taken the first deep, icy plunge into the real adult world; a world of frightening ambiguity, of pain, of learning how to cope. You know what? It makes my concern over a B- on a paper seem childish and irrelevant. My anxiety over my GPA pales in comparison to all this. I still care about doing a good job for the sake of it; I'm still passionate about what I do (it keeps me centered, you see). But the intense anxiety and self-doubt that I suffered from worrying about grades and what my professors thought about me seems so unimportant and pointless. If I can get through this, through feeling like I've been turned upside down, then surely I can deal with a poor grade here or there. I have better things to cry about than that.<br /><br />I'm only one person. I can only do so much. I've been pushed harder than ever before to evaluate what I want and what I value. I'm still working those things out, but it does give one perspective (no matter how painful).<br /><br />p.s. I'm okay, folks. I promise. Just work'in through stuff ... guess that happens during senior year, eh?Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-51210304543873610732010-10-21T01:40:00.003-04:002010-10-21T02:11:31.971-04:00Accordion MusicI am sitting here and it is past my usual bedtime. I am up because it is fall break and I have nothing ahead of me tomorrow but what I choose to set in front of myself. I am on-campus for the week and almost everyone else is gone. Today I struggled with that — the solitude I've been craving, the solitude I normally accept with a quiet kind of relief. I had anticipated days of knitting and relaxing, with time to think about the future, time to stretch out away from my weekly obligations and spin up a few dreams and distractions. But over the past few days I've been mired in anxiety and fear; struggling with something that, after building for weeks, finally burst out ... It still takes me by surprise, the unintentional harm that we can pass onto each other with good intentions. Parents to children, friends to friends, siblings to siblings, lovers to each other. Sometimes it makes you feel like something you counted on is suddenly tipping over, the boat is capsizing. It's unsettling and it hurts, especially when someone else is hurting too and you don't know what to do about it.<br />Then, of course, the storm (whichever one it happened to be) passes. Maybe you got fooled by the eye of the storm, and so the next wave hit you by surprise and made you wonder if it'll ever go away. But it does go away, even if you're left looking at a little, tiny bit of wreckage; a wee bit of re-ordering and re-evaluating to do.<br />Tonight, I had to force myself to get ready for bed, even though I felt wide awake. I kept wondering, why? How? How could this happen? I took a hot shower to calm down, told myself that everything is going to be okay, that nothing really important was lost. Some things just got shaken up a bit. Then, as I was about to get in bed, I heard music drifting in through my open window. No stereo, no tinned-up, pre-recorded stuff. It wasn't the dull booming music of a house party. Someone in the house across the way was playing the accordion in the darkness of their side porch. I couldn't see them, but I could hear the song clear across the night air, and it was the most beautiful, wistful thing because they kept fumbling at a certain part, stopping, starting again. As I listened, I knew it was a tune I knew but couldn't remember. I was transfixed. Maybe I only feel this way because it's late and because I'm tired and still a little upset, but at that moment the beautiful, lilting, stumbling accordion felt like it was life. Life in its stumbling awkward, breathtaking, intimate, grand, confusing, upsetting, frustrating, ecstatic, ho-hum kind of beauty.<br />Maybe faith means knowing that messing up doesn't ruin the song.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-27661146805054936192010-10-12T13:59:00.003-04:002010-10-12T14:17:46.141-04:00ResistanceAs much as I love to learn, I also hate the process sometimes ... I like learning new things, but learning new processes, new ways to think about things, new approaches is tricky and we (I) don't always see that as learning.<br /><br />Let me be specific. In my senior seminar, one of the most important "learning outcomes" is, according to the prof, to learn how to conduct independent study and research. That sounds straightforward, but it's very difficult because independent study means working without prompts, without rules, without an imposed structure. Structure becomes something you define for yourself, for the needs of the project. There are guiding principles, important ones; otherwise the paper would end up un-readable. I spent the whole afternoon yesterday spinning wheels, getting hung up on how to structure my mid-term paper, where to hang all the shiny baubles of thought that I haven't even articulated yet. I feel like I wasted all that time and have nothing to show for it, and now have even less time to get the paper done. I hate not having a prompt to follow, a way of knowing if I'm getting it right.<br /><br />On the other hand, I'm trying to see yesterday as a part of my learning process, a process not of acquiring new information, but one of "well, that approach didn't work ... what do I do now?" I am trying very hard to cut myself some slack and realize that perhaps learning how to approach this kind of paper is important and valuable in of itself. That learning for myself which strategies are most effective when I'm working without an imposed structure is perhaps the most important lesson I could take away from this class, no matter how frustrating or scary that is. After all, how do you grade that kind of learning?<br /><br /> I've decided to start again using the concept of the one-inch picture frame. Mostly I wish I wasn't so burned out. Every time I try to work I end up with a headache and a stomach ache.<br />Urg.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-40334280067961745332010-10-07T13:25:00.003-04:002010-10-07T13:44:55.529-04:00SiftingHm. This campus is full of wise women. I finally listened to my boyfriend's advice and had an honest talk with one of my professors about my anxieties and feeling behind every week. I'd worried a lot about having that conversation, probably because I feared (incorrectly) that I would be instantly judged. I was not. Instead, we had a chat in which she told me was doing really, really well - that the challenge for me in her class is not to step it up a notch but to learn how to reign myself in a little. She repeated, once again, that you need to pick your battles.<br /><br />Pick your battles. It's a phrase I've heard often, but never really embraced. I generally want to tackle everything at once. It's tough for me to reign myself in, focus on just a few things and let the rest go.<br /><br />I feel like I repeat myself a lot on this topic. Especially on this blog. Sometimes, I look at myself and think, "jeez, chill out ... why can't you just move on?" Then, I think that you readers (I'm assuming there's more of you there besides my mom and my aunties) must be yawning and thinking the same thing.<br /><br />So, for my sake more than yours, I'm going to throw out a little more Natalie Goldberg because she helps me see my obsessions and preoccupations and steps backward in a more compassionate way.<br /><br />"It takes a while for our experience to sift through our consciousness. For instance, it is hard to write about being in love in the midst of a mad love affair. We have no perspective. All we can say is, “I’m madly in love,” over and over again. It is also hard to write about a city we just moved to; it’s not yet in our body. We don’t know our new home, even if we can drive to the drugstore without getting lost. We have not lived through three winters there or seen the ducks leave in fall and return to the lakes in spring. Hemingway wrote about Michigan while sitting in a cafe in Paris. 'Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan. I did not know it was too early for that because I did not know Paris well enough.'"<br /><br />-- Natalie Goldberg, <span style="font-style: italic;">Writing Down the Bones </span>(The Hemingway quote is from <span style="font-style: italic;">A Moveable Feast</span>.)<br /><br />p.s. Thanks to the veggie co-op, I have okra! What does one do with okra?Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4516569407530535435.post-4482276462388161122010-10-01T16:08:00.003-04:002010-10-01T16:41:40.408-04:00Only you can put out the fire!Oh my. I feel burned out, entirely undone. I am still searching for a satisfying, hard-working, take-no-prisoners, have-fun, don't-fall-behind lifestyle that doesn't leave me completely spent at the end of every week.<br /><br />It's still hitting me that I might be setting the bar too high, or perhaps aiming at the wrong bar all together.<br /><br />I feel discouraged every week because I can't get everything done. Every week, it seems, something happens to set me off, make me cry, and make me feel that I'm not good enough. Why is it so difficult to find what it means to live a sustainable life?<br /><br />I had an enlightening conversation with a very wise woman yesterday. She told me that part of school is learning how to choose. You must choose what is important to you, what you want to get out of a class, and probably someday a job or a grad school program. Trying to do everything only makes you sick.<br /><br />I know this. I've gone over this already, written about it already, talked about already. How and when does learning take place? That's what I want to know. What does it mean, really, to be a compassionate person? I will not be a doormat; that is not compassion. Will I learn to let go of some things? Will I learn to stop eviscerating myself over every little slip, every item not finished or perhaps only half-assed? Will I learn to take a stand over what's really meaningful to me and what I can reasonably accomplish every week? Will I extend that understanding to other people?<br /><br />I don't want to run around feeling like my head is on fire. But I was also told yesterday that I am really the only one who can put out that fire. Really. Seriously.<br /><br />Okay. Good decisions made this past week. One, deciding to get farm fresh, local, organic veggies through the veggie co-op. I now possess many hard-to-identify root vegetables and some lovely field greens. Two, deciding to pitch and run that story on sexual health in <a href="http://www.guilfordian.com/">The Guilfordian</a>. I think it's a good piece of journalism, and (more importantly) it will probably get people talking. Three, deciding to finally take the time to update this blog.Ivyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346341425666715831noreply@blogger.com2