Workaholic, or GO semester, GO!

Most people who know me probably would not describe me as a workaholic. Maybe it’s not the best term to describe this condition, but it serves its purpose.

Given free time in a familiar place, I am known to go crazy. Free time in an unfamiliar place, I flourish.
Given a packed schedule of school, work and extra curricular fun times – I am known to exhaust myself. I will probably complain about it, but be simultaneously enchanted and bewitched by this appearance of having it all and doing it all, all at once.

And so begins semester eight, in which I attempt my regular courses, senior seminar, two work study jobs and a weekend job, leaving not a single day at my leisure. I am a slave to you, my days – my time passing. I, in fact love you! You give me purpose. And anyhow, I love to feel like this:

I am about to punch a flower.

In other news, it has been over a year since I left for England. I get the feeling people are getting tired of this story, which I am never tired of telling – so that is unfortunate. Avert your eyes if you wish:

What if you got everything you ever wanted? Where would you go from there? I have to ask myself this in particularly dire times, when it feels as though the joy I felt at  Keele will never happen again. The other extreme of this is an untamed enthusiasm, because now I get to build an entirely new dream. I get to imagine heights and depths and make them mine all over again.
Invention is work and you know how I love that!

Bringing the Personal to the Public…

I’ve got a “gift” for it:

With surprisingly little panic, I’ve finished another semester at USM. Last fall the semester just continued to build and build and build and by the time I had to move out, I was a frantic mess of dining hall stomach aches, unfinished papers, a week of intense drinking, sledding and gift giving. I felt unfinished and out of control. And I am a bit of a control freak. The semester petered out into nothing – I stalled for a month before I boarded the plane to Manchester. I recall literally nothing of the month of January, aside from New Year’s Eve festivities:

Above: Rolling down the snowy streets in a shopping cart, some random rappers provided us with on-the-spot jams.

In fairly typical fashion, I always feel the need to reflect on the past year by the time I reaches mid-December. I frantically make lists in my head. Things I need to do, loose ends I need to tie up; I also swarm with a feeling of complete love and devotion to the people in my life. Hot diggity, do I know some amazing people. Future authors, savers of the world, thinkers, artists, female presidents.

This year has been largely dedicated to my own development and exploration. At surface, I think it probably seems as though it has been the most polarized year of my life thus far. However, that is completely inaccurate. I’ve seen highs and lows, and very little in-between. But only because I’ve allowed myself to experience such things. Because as a rule, I am not afraid of any kind of passion. Because at this point in my life, I can handle that kind of turbulence with a certain amount of grace.

This love of life, it makes me weak at my knees,  The Kinks, “Strangers”
Live to the point of tears, Albert Camus

How do you prefer to take your enthusiastic quotations? With a bit of French philosophy, or rock and roll? I can’t decide.

God Damn It, Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga, she is the best. She wears dresses made out of post-its, Kermit the frog, metal… She flaunts her sexuality and scares the shit out of people. She growls in the middle of interviews, wears a weave, has a fantastic musical talent and I would like to marry her. I was really enjoying what she was saying in this interview…

So the journalist asks, “Are you a feminist?” As though these ideas from a female would absolutely have to be labeled as feminism. Because that would somehow explain the “unnatural” and powerful display and ownership of sexuality in a woman. And people could rest easy at night knowing that not ALL women have a natural inclination to enjoy sex and displays of sexual prowess, just those menacing feminists.

But here’s where I was disappointed by Lady Gaga – she said no, she was NOT a feminist. Because feminist is a four-letter word, still. I don’t mind so much that she didn’t choose to identify herself as such; Most people are intimidated by the word and really it’s a personal choice. When I use the word to describe some of my own views, people tend to look at me like I might at any moment rage out and kick someone in the dick, or burn my bra. What I mind is this idea that a feminist is someone who couldn’t possibly “love men, hail American male culture, beer and bars…”

But hey, wait. WAIT. I am a feminist and I like all of those things: Men, male culture, beer, bars. What. What? I also like wearing makeup, shopping and occasionally corny “chick flicks.”

The point is – Lady Gaga further perpetuated the idea that we have a need for gender roles: Men are one thing, women are another (even if she is attempting to challenge what this other is) and feminists are separate from apparently men AND women. It just seems backwards and disappointing from someone I considered a fearless creator.

Why is feminism such a frightening idea? It’s not anti-male, by any stretch of the imagination. Do so many people still really think that? It is also like by saying you are feminist, you are immediately labeled as self-serious and humorless. What? I founded a club last year through USM’s Women’s Resource Center, and even my friends met my efforts with things like this: “Oh, you’re such a little feminist!” Like it’s a cute phase I’m going through.

I think I should just do the three extra courses, and get my minor in women and gender studies. Academic feminism, we need YOU! Finger point.

Poetry Post #5

Neighborhood, Version #1

Your overturned bed sheets
and a hive of kamikaze bees -

the rupture of their bodies
in our backyard.

Your toes splayed over
red and white tiles -

the recollection of those little shards that
pitched downward into the night.

 

Wyeth Painting

There are things to come across her path/ The thinned summer sky pressing down on her dress;/ A static wind comes and then another.

A mouth-less, vision-less crawl in the dark./ She feels a temperature rise, a sea roaring distant/ There are things coming across her path.

Waiting for the hollow creak of the door,/ Or birds landing in their grounded nests-/ One wing catches her cheek and then another.

Giant hands, circus hands, the smile of her crooked elbow./ “Money” and “surgery”, like invisible bombs falling –/ The words accidentally coming across her path.

The collapsed trunks after a storm,/ Her legs slumped, tucked under and useless/ First one lame thigh – and then another.

So left in tangles of briar and ragweed,/ Twisted bones like tree limbs –/ Clever eyes moving on the things in her path.

An hour closes in on her, then another.

 

Both of these are impossibly old (1-2 years.) The first, “Neighborhoods”, is an early version of a poem I submitted to the Bridport Prize. Of course, it was rejected – but I don’t see that as really discouraging. It’s important practise to submit submit submit and be rejected. The second poem was a modified villanelle I did for a creative writing course, based on the Andrew Wyeth painting, “Christina’s World.” It’s not a shining beacon, but I liked working with the form and I’m excited about taking a class in versification next semester so viola!

Christina's World, Andrew Wyeth

Berlusconi Parmesan

My cousin Acacia, Vassar graduate and writer extraordinaire, is currently abroad in Italy on a Fulbright. Her blog juxtaposes Italian and American culture and it also serves as a satellite for her experiences as an English teacher in an Italian high school. She shares pictures and anecdotes. Her writing is colorful and thoughtful. Read on:

http://berlusconiparmesan.com/

You Were What Mattered Most

My friend Ryan put together a video of our mini-trek across Italy a couple days ago. Early into our trip, we realized that the best way to absorb the culture was to just be in it, rather than paying for it. Sure, we missed out on a lot of things (and to be fair, we did pay to get into the Accademia), but I think we ultimately had a better time than a very well coordinated museum hop. We spent a lot of time in laying in parks in the sun, dipping our feet in canals, trying to get lost in cities, sharing headphones, eating breadsticks and jam (the poor girl’s diet) and dancing.

Which is primarily what the video is of.
I think we really captured the best of Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice and Milan. And the very best of Keele too.

Of course, watching this made me really miss living in a state of mind and being where I could just decide to fly somewhere, anywhere in Europe I wanted. I miss Venice and how it smells, I miss the heat, I miss the train rides and observations and simple amusements. I miss old buildings and art. More than anything, I miss my Keele friends. Watching the video made me realize that more than anything. We had a really good life. We still, have very very good lives, of this I am sure. I just wanted to note that I could have been anywhere in the world; So long as the friends I made were with me, I would have had an amazing time.

When Ryan and I were doing our pants-dance, we were all just sitting around in Laina’s kitchen, eating olives and breadsticks. Drinking that pride of Liverpool, Lambrini. We had spent the entire day laying out on the lawn, doing absolutely nothing but enjoying one another’s company. How often are we allowed that now?

Two nights later, Laina and I trekked through her woods to the observatory. Just because we could. Just to enjoy one the company, the night sky, the reeling happy feeling. And the final months dissolved into walks in the woods with Pierre, guilty reality TV pleasures with Kelly, the development of a bad habit with Ryan, dancing with Amanda, baking with Laura…

I just wanted to clarify – in case there had been any confusion. All of you were what mattered are what matter the most to me.

 

 

November Comes

A crazy man peters up on a motorized scooter, looks at no one in particular and says,

“Daylight savings time
I have found is
The best time…”

His poem trails off in sunshine and the reprise of his tiny bike engine.

Another man with a guitar stops and asks me if he might play me a song. I may choose from three subjects: Protest, love lost and love found. I go with love found, sip my tea embarrassed as he stands over my body in the leaves, singing me one verse after another.
A pug is being dragged along the cobblestone with a dead leaf stuck in his whiskers.
It is sixty five degrees on November 8th in Maine.
I put my face into the sun and hope for a few last seasonal freckles.
A man poses with a plastic tommy gun. He wears black lipstick and jumps on and off and on and off a park bench.
I think about going north, towards Nova Scotia red tides, beards of pines on mountainsides. I think about being dirt caked for months, nails split with rich brown, guzzling sea salt.
Another man in the park with a guitar plays a slow wail of a song over buzzing cars.
The sun begins to sink to the other side of the world; I’ll begin again soon.

Something Missing

It seems as though everyone I know is yearning for something that is just out of reach. Our bodily experiences have nothing to do with what our minds crave… And loneliness is born.

What does it mean for someone to feel differently about their lives depending on their location? I couldn’t tell you how Edinburgh felt, exactly – it’s just different. Lately I miss Edinburgh and Liverpool.
When I go out to a bar or club or some limb of either, now – I expect to see certain faces that are not there. The weight of drink swirls inside my belly and evaporates to my head. Five months out and this disconnect is still completely palpable.

So, what does it mean to survive now?
My greatest fantasy has long been giving up my possessive ties over people and belongings. I want to be entirely untethered and poor and happy. That takes a certain amount of stupid, blind courage, which I lack. My ideas about being completely desolate and dependent on the kindness of strangers of course, is glamorized. I’m lower middle class, but I’m still middle class.
But the conditions under which my heart and soul seem to thrive and survive seem more impossible since my return to Maine.

They tell you to go and pour yourself into every experience when you are abroad. And of course no one knows how to handle the devastation of the return. And no one can tell you how to, because no one ever knows how to.

Over Edinburgh

On the Autumnal Coast of Maine

Eat your pizza on a kitchen floor, while spooning.

Watch mountain goats scamper

Hobo City. Do not enter.

Drink sparkling porter.

Mountaintop pinecones for mom

The point.

Everything smells like smoke

I can't dog. I'm dun.

Open Letters

Dear Keele and England,

Could you stop for one moment to consider that I’ve still got a life here in Maine? I realize you feel the need for me to include you in my dreams every night. It’s also become clear that amidst my good things here, you will steal my attention with hunger pangs and phantom limb feelings; so I break concentration and daydream my time away, thinking of when I’ll see your pretty woods and prettier faces again. Well that’s just not fair! I’m in Maine now, that’s just how it’s going to be. You’re making moving on extremely hard and I have a lot of things that require my full attention here, like coursework and a job and more fun things. Maybe not as fun as you… but… I… See what you’ve done to me, Keele? England? Own up to this! Someone! Anything?

Dear Portland,

Well, we’ve got a history don’t we? Not all of it good – but we saw each other through. Your summer fogs and storms were among the most sensual of weather; your sunny warm days and ocean smells are unparalleled. Remember that time we watched a man in a gorilla suit chase girls down Exchange St? I laughed and you just flickered your lights joyfully. You’ve fed me and clothed me. You’ve seen me fight and fall and I still feel like it’s a homecoming each time I return to you. It’s you I sleep with tonight. And no, maybe not entirely by choice… But we can build from our history. While Keele has caused a certain amount of devastation, you can repair it.

With Love -

Caroline