I found myself feeling antsy and earnestly wishing that I could be back in Kythera again. To wake up beside the chickens and olive tress. To walk to the shore and drive to some new paradise I hadn't yet visited on the island.
But I can't do that--this year is different, my place, my person--I don't have the liberty and financial means to take such a sojourn. And I should have learned from my going there what I need to do for myself: make time to be with just me.
It's hard, realizing that amidst the urgency of my needing to work so many jobs and do all that I can do for school (etc.) that also--I'm avoiding myself. That isn't say that the things I do with my time (the people, the tasks) aren't rewarding--they are, generously so, and in different ways which enrich my life.
But I bury myself in this living, and I cannot forget to make sure I can just be.
I don't want to struggle with the issues of depression--I want to be well, to be healthy, to be good. And this is something I cannot do alone.
I feel so fortunate to have a partner who is so dedicated to my/our health. To our future. This is wholly new to me. The concept of partnership. This 50-50.
So I'm trying to be well. It's immeasurably painful and draining, but I know that I want nothing else but that future. I want every day to feel like the peace I felt in Greece. I want so many things and before I can do or have them, I have to be okay. I know this.
Other things--my first year at Columbia's MFA ended, work was crazy--
I was asked to work FT this summer, and got a raise (!)--and they're giving me some kind of a proper office space (vs. the desk in the Graduate loft with the rats and poor air flow), and an iMac! I just wanted a bigger monitor than what my little work MacBook allowed.
This is a good thing--even if it means that I'll be more tired and frustrated with pitfalls of Teachers College. Speaking of which--I went to the restroom and after sitting on the toilet, I realize I had stepping in shit which was around the toilet (small, not noticeable at first--looks like someone had tried to clean it up poorly). SINCE WHEN DOES SHIT NOT GO INTO THE TOILET? Sadly, welcome to my life at TC.
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I'm so glad that the school year is over. I've feel so jaded with writing and being in class at Columbia. I'm in this funk now (again) where I don't really want anything to do with poetry at all. I love school, I love learning--I want to always be in school, but I feel like it's so (point/use)less to write poems. I can't stand my words and I feel that my pursuit of it is so disgusting. Vulgar.
I want to spend the summer reading fiction. But after having dinner with Cal & JB last month, I realized that if I continued writing poems, I need to go back to my (UCLA/Bedient) roots and make shit new in the same way that the universe does. Go wild. I want to go back to the wilderness. To unlearn what Columbia put into me (which is not possible to do). To carry all that I've done and want to do, and to keep--on.
I shouldn't forget myself.
Next year will be pretty crazy--20 hours/week as the Chair's Fellow (which is such a great thing for my tuition), working probably 2 days/week at TC (with the raise!)--doing thesis with LBB, etc.
I really want to apply for a creative Ph.D next fall, so I'm taking an English Dept. course on 'Radical Poetics' this fall to write a (hopefully) killer critical paper for my application. And I need to study for the subject GRE test. Back to the books (which is something I feel comfortable in.)
It still bowls me over that it's been a year since the tumult of 2009. I hurt, I love, and I fear but want the future which I stow inside of me.
We're planning on moving to (probably) Brooklyn in late July/early August--preferably Cobble Hill.
I ride my bike everywhere and am churning my dark chocolate ice cream tonight (I made the batter yesterday).
I want to make time to cook. To make things via fabric/sewing. To do all the things I love doing but set aside because NY life is hectic. At least I'm riding my bike everywhere. God I love that.
In many ways I am the best I have ever been--only tired, bedraggled, lost in my quotidian humdrum.
But there is no exquisite pain. There is only my determined attempt to take care of myself.
& yes, how I do wholly, love. The biggest shift in my terrain.
