I think I may have just had one of many long awaited brain child today. It occurred to me on our drive home that writing, in particular blogging, can be incredibly one sided. Flat. And all together uninviting.
So I hatched a plan. One that requires a laminated hand-written sign, string, dry erase markers, and possibly a new email.
More details to come. Stay tuned, friends.
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
February 20th 2012
What are my intentions in this place? What have I set out to do in this place, specifically this time space that has been given to me? Do I dedicated it to myself and my well-being, regardless of its cost to all those sharing the same time space? Or do I dedicated it to others: the others who are less fortunate. Those with the quieter voices, if not mute all together? To my friends and family. Or to the men who will come and go in my life and the potential gain and loss of love that will inevitably rotate with them?
As I grow older, I understand that these intentions would adapt. I have fallen in and out of love with myself as much as any other thing I suppose, and so it only seems natural and fair to wish better or worse things for myself as the cycles complete themselves. But now, in a moment when I'm at a relative loss for self-worth and what exactly determines my own, I have also seemed to have misplaced all roots for my intentions as well.
What was the purpose of this job choice? Was it something I had pursued, or was it simply something that I accepted because it was offered to me and seemed like a better option that staying stagnant and unemployed? Now, on the verge of completing my term of service, I feel at a loss. Was my impact enough to justify doing what I did for more than 10 months along with the inevitable sacrifices I made along the way in order to continue? Was it worth trying to continue on this same career path: education and teaching? I'm not sure if I'll ever really receive an answer to any of these questions, but they feel worth asking of myself regardless.
I want to move forward into other realms of passions I posses, but I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from this time frame. I want to be a writer, but can I make it without becoming some over-developed jaded woman whose focus and point-of-view have been predetermined for her?
Am I good enough to make it at all?
I want to cure the impending cancer of my mother's country. Bring the knowledge and insight I've gained from this experience to do just that. But nothing comes of my hours of research. And what few opportunities present themselves are outside my grasp because of my inability to speak Spanish fluently.
From across the living room, my eyes focus on the microwave. In place of where the time should be displayed in its pixilated green text, a message scrolls from where its previous user had failed to complete their task:
press start.
I have no idea what half-expired meal lays waiting on the other side of that black plastic door, but I recognize how easy it would be to move forward and do just that. Press start.
My body craves a beginning. Any beginning at all. It says to me, "don't you know you're alive?"
As I grow older, I understand that these intentions would adapt. I have fallen in and out of love with myself as much as any other thing I suppose, and so it only seems natural and fair to wish better or worse things for myself as the cycles complete themselves. But now, in a moment when I'm at a relative loss for self-worth and what exactly determines my own, I have also seemed to have misplaced all roots for my intentions as well.
What was the purpose of this job choice? Was it something I had pursued, or was it simply something that I accepted because it was offered to me and seemed like a better option that staying stagnant and unemployed? Now, on the verge of completing my term of service, I feel at a loss. Was my impact enough to justify doing what I did for more than 10 months along with the inevitable sacrifices I made along the way in order to continue? Was it worth trying to continue on this same career path: education and teaching? I'm not sure if I'll ever really receive an answer to any of these questions, but they feel worth asking of myself regardless.
I want to move forward into other realms of passions I posses, but I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from this time frame. I want to be a writer, but can I make it without becoming some over-developed jaded woman whose focus and point-of-view have been predetermined for her?
Am I good enough to make it at all?
I want to cure the impending cancer of my mother's country. Bring the knowledge and insight I've gained from this experience to do just that. But nothing comes of my hours of research. And what few opportunities present themselves are outside my grasp because of my inability to speak Spanish fluently.
From across the living room, my eyes focus on the microwave. In place of where the time should be displayed in its pixilated green text, a message scrolls from where its previous user had failed to complete their task:
press start.
I have no idea what half-expired meal lays waiting on the other side of that black plastic door, but I recognize how easy it would be to move forward and do just that. Press start.
My body craves a beginning. Any beginning at all. It says to me, "don't you know you're alive?"
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Old writing and ramblings
So, earlier today I decided to tackle two major things that have been sort of sitting around the new place: (a) my suitcase that has been moonlighting as a dresser for nearly 7 months and (b) the boxes that were sitting in my storage unit since I graduated in 2009 and whose content had become a complete mystery to me. So hours into the project, after purging myself of a lot of unnecessary knick-knacks and consolidating all my boxed belongings as best as I could (for now anyway, my next goal is to buy a very sturdy bookshelf, I had no idea how large my personal library was until today...), I sat down and started flipping through old work that I had kept from college. As a writer - and one who's been fairy lazy at her craft for some time now - it's always fun, albeit painfully embarrassing as well, to revisit old work and see how you've adapted along the way. Some things will never change in my writing and I love seeing those little qualities in my work, and I also love catching the mistakes that at the time seemed like poetic genius and now cause a slight cringe ("Oh wow, Mariel...what were you thinking"). Anywho, here a couple of poems that for better or for worse came about and I felt compelled to share:
A Turkey's Egg
The stork with his Egyptian tongue,
the Spaniard with her red rag
fade among the smog of barnyard duties:
a rooster's cry
casts its political eye
among the old and new.
I pull my eel's head close
and watch the ducks
cut the green film
of the pond's surface
like the Parson's hand
through a sinner's heart.
Yet today, a stranger falls behind
duties and politics are forgotten.
if only for a brief moment
to watch a gray misfit against yellow.
He does not belong,
a turkey's egg.
But there is some undeniable beauty,
a grace among his muscles
weaved together under down feathers
like some filthy oriental rug
the others can not posses.
No dogs will bite,
none will marry.
They don't understand him.
And now, with neck bowed
aesthetically awaiting the serrated death
of another rejection beak,
he sees himself in the water
among the reeds and rushes,
blurred with the reflection
of the beautiful birds
he so desperately needs
to feel he's a part of.
A turkey's egg.
Born among the yellow smog of those ducks
and barnyard politics
will forever remain a swan.
A Mild Epiphany
Your childhood comes and goes
like rippling cloth or faded velvet,
filled with your mother's cheap
Puerto Rican coffee,
cobble stoned streets,
summer nights laced with sage,
and poorly planned photographs.
You convince yourself
that you haven't completely lost that.
Astronomy is simply
brief glints of heaven,
bedtimes stories serve
as passages to far-off worlds,
and your skin will always live
for the touch of cold, terracotta tiles
bathed in the summer's humid tongue.
Now as a woman,
your skin has lost its amber hum.
You only watch strangers
at laundromats while telling yourself
Next month will be the month!
For what? You don't know, but it seems to fit.
Being content has been surpassed
by growing wants and needs.
Adulthood has come in the middle of the night
and rested its tattered strings over your face,
throwing illusions into your eyes.
You were once a swinger of birch trees,
an alchemist,
passionate
weightless.
A nomad who always returned
to the hands of God
and her mother's kiss
every night.
And now you wait.
You wait when this real life
will return -
wrapped carefully
in butcher paper, twine, and love.
A Turkey's Egg
The stork with his Egyptian tongue,
the Spaniard with her red rag
fade among the smog of barnyard duties:
a rooster's cry
casts its political eye
among the old and new.
I pull my eel's head close
and watch the ducks
cut the green film
of the pond's surface
like the Parson's hand
through a sinner's heart.
Yet today, a stranger falls behind
duties and politics are forgotten.
if only for a brief moment
to watch a gray misfit against yellow.
He does not belong,
a turkey's egg.
But there is some undeniable beauty,
a grace among his muscles
weaved together under down feathers
like some filthy oriental rug
the others can not posses.
No dogs will bite,
none will marry.
They don't understand him.
And now, with neck bowed
aesthetically awaiting the serrated death
of another rejection beak,
he sees himself in the water
among the reeds and rushes,
blurred with the reflection
of the beautiful birds
he so desperately needs
to feel he's a part of.
A turkey's egg.
Born among the yellow smog of those ducks
and barnyard politics
will forever remain a swan.
A Mild Epiphany
Your childhood comes and goes
like rippling cloth or faded velvet,
filled with your mother's cheap
Puerto Rican coffee,
cobble stoned streets,
summer nights laced with sage,
and poorly planned photographs.
You convince yourself
that you haven't completely lost that.
Astronomy is simply
brief glints of heaven,
bedtimes stories serve
as passages to far-off worlds,
and your skin will always live
for the touch of cold, terracotta tiles
bathed in the summer's humid tongue.
Now as a woman,
your skin has lost its amber hum.
You only watch strangers
at laundromats while telling yourself
Next month will be the month!
For what? You don't know, but it seems to fit.
Being content has been surpassed
by growing wants and needs.
Adulthood has come in the middle of the night
and rested its tattered strings over your face,
throwing illusions into your eyes.
You were once a swinger of birch trees,
an alchemist,
passionate
weightless.
A nomad who always returned
to the hands of God
and her mother's kiss
every night.
And now you wait.
You wait when this real life
will return -
wrapped carefully
in butcher paper, twine, and love.
Pardon the dust
Here she is, in all her messy glory.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
:sigh:
I wish I would write more, without inhibition. I miss going through sweater pockets and finding tattered tidbits of what would be good writing once combined with whatever other mental babble I managed to scribble down over the course of the day.
Instead, I turn out my pockets and scramble to find the millions of numbers I need to call to make sure that my gap insurance claim was taken care of, or my hospital bill got sent to the right address this time.
Boy, is it it exhausting growing up.
Instead, I turn out my pockets and scramble to find the millions of numbers I need to call to make sure that my gap insurance claim was taken care of, or my hospital bill got sent to the right address this time.
Boy, is it it exhausting growing up.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Bath
It's 8:36 on a Friday night, where are you?
I'm home, still sitting in my work clothes that now smell like Nag Champa and the tofu fajitas I threw together after walking in the door. It's been a long two weeks. I can feel the tension creeping up the left side of my neck, threatening to spread its cold fingers along the lining of my cortex. I want to run a bath, but I can't drag myself to the tub to actually get it started. From below my windows I can hear the slow trickle of UC Berkeley hipsters and the young Temescal crowd milling about the Avenue. Contemplating, maybe, to start at the Kingfish first. I want to join them, but I feel content overhearing their terrible conversations from my perch on the 2nd floor instead.
The room is the mess, our suitcases and boxes overflowing every which way in some plea for order. Instead I sit, clack clacking away on my sister's laptop, undecided if buying that bike online was such a good choice after all....I'm sure I could've found something similar at the flee market this weekend, even though I know all the bikes for sale are stolen.
Jesus, do you know how good it is to hear that? The white noise of a passing BART train and the ho hum of the occasional car circling the block praying for an open spot? It's welcomed. I told myself tonight I wouldn't make the dive to San Jose. Instead, I'd sit around amidst my own mess and write: a small pleasure I haven't partaken in for some time. I want to be proactive and take my new journal down to one of the cafes within walking distance that stay open later, but I've caught a cold and I've finally gotten a bed you see. Yes, a frame and all! And it's been ever so difficult to drag myself away from her.
I got the mattress some months ago after the inflatable one I had finally ruptured - I'm sure my flopping around half the night to try and get comfortable wasn't helping. Well, there went my small savings in foul swoop. But it as worth it. I was in love with my new bed, regardless of it having to be on the floor for the time being. Then the searching started and it was endless. Bay Areaians are obsessed with Craigslist and often times because of so, it's a real hit or miss. And, of course, finding a bed frame became more of a pain in the ass than it really should've been. I'd find a solid lead only to discover it was located in Holister (hours and hours away), or not great quality ("tends to squeak a lot during those romantic moments" really? why would you even post that?!), or the whole thing just sounded incredibly sketchy ("must pick up in the Safeway parking lot behind my house, no exceptions"). So I kept looking and looking and looking. Emailing and texting frantically in the hopes I could finally get off the ground....
Then I found it. A slightly used Ikea frame, real wood, but painted turquoise. I opened the picture and about fell over myself dialing the number listed. It was perfect! I felt like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, determined to have it no matter what the physical cost! 150? A little steep but...oh, you'll take $100 if I pick up tonight? DONE! So here I go, my sister in the passenger seat in Lola the Corolla. Didn't matter that it was in Livermore, I was going to have that damned frame if it was the last thing I did...that night.
So we arrive and out pops a cute little thing with a septum ring and a black poodle. Oh? It won't fit even with the seats down? Fine. So off to Walmart we run for rope and a shitty fleece throw for the roof. An hour later with the help of her mother's drunk boyfriend's epic knot skills and a pat on the back, we were on our way home. Sure it takes up half the shared room but who gives a shit! It's EPIC!
I have to admit I wasn't so sure about this place, and I'm still annoyed with the parking situation. But it's getting there. For now, I'll finally run the bath. In the distance, a passing yell from a biker bleeds with the last BART train for the night. Yes yes, it seems I'm content from my 2nd story perch after all.
Pictures to come <3
I'm home, still sitting in my work clothes that now smell like Nag Champa and the tofu fajitas I threw together after walking in the door. It's been a long two weeks. I can feel the tension creeping up the left side of my neck, threatening to spread its cold fingers along the lining of my cortex. I want to run a bath, but I can't drag myself to the tub to actually get it started. From below my windows I can hear the slow trickle of UC Berkeley hipsters and the young Temescal crowd milling about the Avenue. Contemplating, maybe, to start at the Kingfish first. I want to join them, but I feel content overhearing their terrible conversations from my perch on the 2nd floor instead.
The room is the mess, our suitcases and boxes overflowing every which way in some plea for order. Instead I sit, clack clacking away on my sister's laptop, undecided if buying that bike online was such a good choice after all....I'm sure I could've found something similar at the flee market this weekend, even though I know all the bikes for sale are stolen.
Jesus, do you know how good it is to hear that? The white noise of a passing BART train and the ho hum of the occasional car circling the block praying for an open spot? It's welcomed. I told myself tonight I wouldn't make the dive to San Jose. Instead, I'd sit around amidst my own mess and write: a small pleasure I haven't partaken in for some time. I want to be proactive and take my new journal down to one of the cafes within walking distance that stay open later, but I've caught a cold and I've finally gotten a bed you see. Yes, a frame and all! And it's been ever so difficult to drag myself away from her.
I got the mattress some months ago after the inflatable one I had finally ruptured - I'm sure my flopping around half the night to try and get comfortable wasn't helping. Well, there went my small savings in foul swoop. But it as worth it. I was in love with my new bed, regardless of it having to be on the floor for the time being. Then the searching started and it was endless. Bay Areaians are obsessed with Craigslist and often times because of so, it's a real hit or miss. And, of course, finding a bed frame became more of a pain in the ass than it really should've been. I'd find a solid lead only to discover it was located in Holister (hours and hours away), or not great quality ("tends to squeak a lot during those romantic moments" really? why would you even post that?!), or the whole thing just sounded incredibly sketchy ("must pick up in the Safeway parking lot behind my house, no exceptions"). So I kept looking and looking and looking. Emailing and texting frantically in the hopes I could finally get off the ground....
Then I found it. A slightly used Ikea frame, real wood, but painted turquoise. I opened the picture and about fell over myself dialing the number listed. It was perfect! I felt like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, determined to have it no matter what the physical cost! 150? A little steep but...oh, you'll take $100 if I pick up tonight? DONE! So here I go, my sister in the passenger seat in Lola the Corolla. Didn't matter that it was in Livermore, I was going to have that damned frame if it was the last thing I did...that night.
So we arrive and out pops a cute little thing with a septum ring and a black poodle. Oh? It won't fit even with the seats down? Fine. So off to Walmart we run for rope and a shitty fleece throw for the roof. An hour later with the help of her mother's drunk boyfriend's epic knot skills and a pat on the back, we were on our way home. Sure it takes up half the shared room but who gives a shit! It's EPIC!
I have to admit I wasn't so sure about this place, and I'm still annoyed with the parking situation. But it's getting there. For now, I'll finally run the bath. In the distance, a passing yell from a biker bleeds with the last BART train for the night. Yes yes, it seems I'm content from my 2nd story perch after all.
Pictures to come <3
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