this is just to say: Speed, In-the-life-of, Terror + Self-Struggle

10 September 2010

Speed, In-the-life-of, Terror + Self-Struggle

I can't remember if I've mentioned this already, but I truly love that in my round-trip commute to/from work/school during the week--every day I get to pass by the Museum of Natural History (morning), as well as the Guggenheim and the Met (afternoon/evening). Every day.

I haven't really taken the subway in a while, now. Although, this morning I did feel feverish and felt like my knees were going to melt against the strong headwind on the Queensboro bridge, I persevered. Foolish, probably.

Some days are worse than others. On Tuesday (and maybe because I had to pack lunch AND dinner, as well as a "snack" for Thesis), I really felt as though I wasn't going to make it across the bridge. Maybe it was that the uphill length seemed especially interminable for some reason. I barely made it, I think. But the next day, I got to work in record time. Funny how that works.

Today was the commencement of my swimming at the Columbia gym pool! Yes! A real pool! Cold water! People in Speedos (i.e. serious swimmers). I did the same workout, and even though it was in a longer pool, I swam faster, cleaner, clearer. It felt gorgeous. I haven't felt to slick/ like a sluice in the longest time. I can't remember the last time, actually. Honestly: gorgeous. I don't know how I manage to forget every time how important water is to me. And how invigorating and cleansing swimming is.

I get to drown and stay alive. I defy.

Onward to the boring details: just finished the first week of classes (and work1=TC and work2=WritingProgramOffices), and it was okay! I wasn't too exhausted; I wasn't annoyed with classmates or instructors, etc. Nothing bothered me, actually. If anything, I feel so motivated to want to learn and be 500% prepared for classes--to go beyond what I'm expected to do in a class. I hope this feeling lasts all semester.

I feel kinder, and in return, I think others are kind to me.

Yet the struggle never flees. Some mornings are more difficult than others (yes). I don't like it when dog-walkers yell at me. I think of pathetic-ad hominem-attacks long after I've cycled past them. Something like, "hypocrite!" or, "You only yell at me because I am small and not a car and couldn't harm you and you're an asshole." Puny. I know it doesn't really mean anything, but it makes me sad--some small injury to myself that I have to remind myself to let go.

Every day, the struggle. But I'm okay. I try not to lose sight, to leave my goals out of focus. To just aim for those--and do as much as possible for me to reach them. Everything else will eventually disappear. In this way, I can leave these things which harm me.

I love school very much.

from "Euphoria," by Sina Queyras

1

Dear Regret, my leaning this morning, my leather foot, want of stone, my age
Old, burnished and bruised, my hair lingering, my hand caked, spongy as
November my dear Relentless, my dear Aging, your voice tinny, dissonant
As Stein shot through decades of war and Fortrel, cocktails on the hour,
Zeppelins over Piccadilly, bombing blindly in the fog. Dear Skin, dear Tobacco
Mouth my refusal, my merely geographic, my fibrous strings for you: your
Abundant wit, your lack of shadow and still joy nosing the air. Each moment
Stretches toward you, your dry feet: I carried them, pumiced and peppery
Laid them where regret is a biscuit thing to lean upon and sweeten,
My hour of you, my cursive thoughts, a pulpit beating under these ribs.

2

Dear Time, you swallowed us whole, swallowed us lovely, sharp as bones
Crimping sadly under foot my benign, my flotsam and crabs thin as leaves
Your smoothing, your sinking in. Mornings or mooring, or wallowing
Jericho: tapioca air indolent. I am still there, supple and driftwood, you lovely,
You loved me, your memory dark and west, thoughts like tugboats stitching
The horizon, you pulling me, my pudding, my thin crustacean, sideways
In the late afternoon, your gaze, having so soon forgotten the sharpness
Of mornings, the bite of your look serrating the hour: my treasures, all
Of them, for the pleasure of that slice once more, of our dangling,
You and me, the lot of us in some car, driving some hour, mapless.

3

Under a spiderweb, a tire, slouched: flat, sad-lipped, I think of Newton
Of the original apple, all of these clones since, all of these scentless
Descents. I shake my glass, shake again, melted suffixes tinkling; observe
All things natural: foliage unfurling like old bills, wryly betraying
Your habits, like the dog who digs and rubs, the dog who whines, who
Paws and circles, you trace. Why is pain so much better than nothing? Or
The mark of it more understandable? Why is saying nothing so much better?
Your one-liner like blossoms, uplifting, your currents strap me to air, yes
I guess there is a little texture up here, and oxygen pure as baby’s toes
Which if I recall, are sweet as kernels of corn, if I recall so long ago.

4

To arrive is practice, conversation or conversion, a story over a field
My Sweet, of concrete or whispering, furrows of a path no longer, not
Sure, was there, and snow combed in curlicues and dog ears a zigzag
Through January. Sure you are witty, but are you any less romantic?
In my remembering, I have undone all my beliefs, it is a luxury to lay
Unencumbered here, or there, the bones flexed with tendons, the
Spine like a seahorse, the heart far from a cliche unless beating is
Innocent, though innocence is not as supple as you think, nor as flexible,
Nor as perfumed, nor convenient, or even clean: between things regret
Gathers force. I remember that day: it was cold and the coffee tepid.

5

The small red balloons like thumbprints, waves green as the brush of
Cedar, the wind lapping your hoodie, blind strings tap the air, camera
Bobbing like a dog’s tail. Such lightness, the dog heading off, all
The dogs of English Bay angling off-leash. I would follow backward,
Lay old maps on your white sheets, so sincere, I am in earnest for you:
We won’t regret having not yet knit our acrid puns and jaded barbs, nor
Having the wind slip in under our belt loops, though I gently refuse
Gor-Tex, and you bet I will not concede the game. Those small red
Balloons like tulips in your eyes specs of amber, an amulet, an avatar,
My thoughts of you fully indexed, ready to step into.

10 September 2010

Speed, In-the-life-of, Terror + Self-Struggle

(underbed stor)age