Discipline (or lack thereof)

I took this picture. I have no idea where or what it is...

Can we just talk about something for a sec? Somewhere along the line, I created this impression of myself as a disciplined person. Actually, I think I've thought of myself this way for quite some time. I always turned in my homework on time. The assigned readings got completed. I usually managed to keep my living space from falling into a state of total disarray. Also, my dancing. I used to go twice a week for at least an hour to the parish hall of Westminster Presbyterian. Then I started taking a very intense dance class and would go every week. The thing is, I go every week. Rain or shine or snow or hail or sleepiness or Friday afternoon torpor not withstanding. I simply allow myself no other option. The one exception is if I'm feeling really sick. But otherwise, when I'm sitting in the big comfy red chair and feeling like I'd rather just take a nap, I say to myself, "Shannon, what day is it?"
"Friday."
"And where should you be?"
"Dancing. But I don't wanna!"
"Are you sick?"
"No."
"Is your leg broken?"
"No."
"Then get up and go!"
And that's all there is to it. There is only one option. I have come to see all that as incidental. It's one thing to be very disciplined about one big commitment every week. It's quite another thing to be disciplined about something that ought to be happening every day. I am speaking specifically of writing and this whole guitar enterprise. These are things that I should be committed to doing in at least 15 minute increments every single day. Who can't find 15 minutes in a day, even a busy day? The problem is partially that I sometimes save these things till the evenings, which are in many ways the busiest times of the day for me. But I work from home, for crying out loud! Can I not fit in 15 minutes of guitar practice on my lunch hour? I absolutely could, but I wait till the end of the day, till I'm tired and feeling like Oh, I worked so hard today, I shouldn't have to do something else I don't want to do. Then I spend the evening watching episodes of 30 Rock on Netflix. A wonderful show, but I could take 15 minutes out of the evening for the guitar without causing undue stress. That's the thing that gets me. My reasons for NOT doing it are so stupid. Grrr...

So I've decided to go with the 30 day challenge method. You know how they say it takes 30 days to form a habit. Well, I'm going to try to commit to 30 days of practicing the guitar for 15 minutes every day. I know, the writing needs work too, but I feel like trying to take on both at the same time is overly ambitious, so here we are. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm saying that I'm starting today, because I've already practiced, so that's one down, 29 to go...

S.

Writers' Blocks

Are you tired of the poems yet? Well, too bad, because you're getting more. I have this strong inclination to keep posting old work throughout Lent, I'm not sure where it's headed, but that's what I aim to do. In trying to "write more," I've discovered all these obstacles to trying to write post college-life. First of all, no deadlines. If I have as long as I need to do my work, why do it now? Second, I seem to have forgotten how to find inspiration, write poetically, revise, or do anything good, ever. I had a couple of false starts, as well as some playing around with old work that was supposed to go somewhere, but it all seems to have fallen out of the old brainpan. Sometimes I even manage to scrape together an idea, but when I go to put it on the page, it doesn't sound like a poem. I would say that I've just lost the touch, but one of my favorite pieces that I've ever written was written post-college. Which brings me to the greatest stumbling block: work ethic. I bet if I sat down every day, even for as little as half an hour, ye olde skills would start coming back to me. But, that hasn't been happening. Sometimes I wish my schedule wasn't so erratic. But, I have to remember, I've come a long way already. Six months ago, I thought the Craft was stone-cold dead and I would never be a writer again. Silly me. You can't kill your art. You can only cryogenically freeze it so that it falls into a very deep sleep and it takes tons and tons of work to figure out who you are enough to wake it up again. That's all. Piece of cake...?

This week's installment of "old-poetry-meant-to-inspire-me-with-my-former-skill" is from my senior capstone project. It's a little darker, but it feels appropriate.

Finding the Geraniums, Gone

With the winter coming on,
I guess they felt they had to do it.
But now the green mounds, the
neat plots of geraniums are
decimated. Each plant has left
a crater in the world of wood chips,
a conspicuous absence of flower
and form.

And I wonder, who did this?
who decided that unnatural yanking,
prying palms and fingers should
do the work a jealous frost had
set aside for himself

It must have been a dirty job.
I think they struggled, as
they were torn from the ground.
I can tell, because around
each pothole there is a strewing
of dark flannel leaves,
the bright drops shed
from blood red petals
like a scattering of hens’ feathers,
in a butcher’s yard.

Another Poem

Because isn't that what you want on a Friday afternoon, when the world is nearing spring? When I was a senior in college, I did a capstone project around the theme of object poems (don't ask me why that, I'm just sitting here trying to remember, and I can't for the life of me). I did a whole series on the theme of wooden spoons. I do have a strange sort of fascination with them. This poem is really odd. I really had forgotten all about it till I was going through my stuff. But I love the progression of it. You'll see...(oh, it's a prose poem. Don't be thrown off by the lack of line breaks.)

a lifetime in spoons

Should I tell you how from my infancy I have wanted a wooden spoon, how I tossed aside rattles and binkies in inarticulate rage, waiting for someone to recognize what I really needed?

In toddlerhood, my first steps were goaded on by the promised prize of a wooden spoon, but when I finally crossed the room, they had quick-switched it out for a baby doll, as if I would never know I had been cheated.

I have been a difficult adolescent, engaged in shouting matches with my mother about whether I could wear my dangly spoon earrings to church, whether my first boyfriend could bring me a box of spoons for our date, each hardwood nestled in its little paper cup. Madly criticizing her drawer full of other spoons, stainless steel, cheap nylon and sad plastic; melting in the pot, turning yellow and cracking, ruined by age until I passionately wept at the sight.

Someday, though, I will grow old enough to acquire a house and a fence and a kitchen of my own, to get all I’ve ever wanted. Then I will fill that kitchen as I please, stacking heavy ceramic bowls and lighting archaic candles in the evening, hanging the walls with spoon prints, and mounting my favorites on plaques like hunting trophies. When my parents finally come to dinner, squawking about my lack of taste, I will serve them soup, forego the silver, and set the table with wooden spoons.

Still Waiting...but in the meantime...

Hey, folks. Well, we continue to slog away over here. Many things have been going on, some good, some not so good. It is still Lent. And I think it still does make me feel pretty crappy a lot of the time, but I do think that it's worth it. I do think I'm getting somewhere. I'm having new thoughts. New ideas. Sometimes I feel like our backyard looks right now, squishy and muddy and full of dead leaves that should have been taken care of last fall and weren't, so now they're just sogging all over the place. But soon. Soon. Soon we'll dig out the fire pit so we can have bonfires and sangria. Soon we'll start seeds for the garden. Soon I will plant my sister's cosmo daisies along the back fence. Soon new life will start over. Sigh. Oh, please, let it be soon.

Anyway, one of the exciting new developments is that one of the art groups I work for is starting to do an interdisciplinary artist critique once a month. We had our first on ever this past Thursday, and it was a big success, with a photographer and a painter doing in depth presentations, then others just brought in one piece of work and we left comments on sticky notes. It was a great night. But, for a while, I thought that I was going to have to share some of my writing, just because it was our first time around and we weren't sure who would volunteer. So I was going through some of my old stuff that I haven't touched since graduation, almost three years ago. It was quite the walk down memory lane. Some stuff was "OMG, I can't believe how bad this is!" and some stuff was, "Why did I ever look down on this? It's so much better than I remember!" Especially the fiction. I always insist, whenever I mention it, that I can't write fiction at all, that I tried and it was terrible. But looking back on it I can say, yeah, this isn't perfect, it's not wonderful, but it's not that bad. It's actually pretty okay. So, I'd like to share. Here is a poem I wrote way back, I think in my junior year. Approximately 1 million years ago.

Need to Know

At my grandfather’s funeral,
I waited until no one watched
the casket very closely.
And then I sidled very near,
finally getting a boost from the kneeler;
so I could touch the pale hand
that lay on his chest, clutching
the gold crucifix.

The hand was stiff, and waxy as
the candles that lit our vigil.
I pulled my hand out quick
and turned around slow.
To see if anyone had noticed,
But no-all of the adults still pulled
their long faces and talked
in hushed voices about how
much we all had lost.

My cousins were all too young
to dare me, so I had dared myself.
There was no trace of mourning in me,
just sheer, ribald curiosity.
To touch the hand of death,
to learn to know the feeling,
and to pull back quick, and not get caught.

Lent Sucks

So, it is Lent. As always, during Lent as during all seasons, I set lofty goals for myself. I have decided to fast, which I hate, but we had a very compelling discussion in Bible study on Fat Tuesday that reminded me why it is so important. I hate fasting. But then I thought out this beautiful plan because, here is the thing of the thing. I feel like I have always had the whole "Jesus died a horrible death on the cross to take away your sins" thing shoved down my throat my entire life, to the point where the whole thing has become basically meaningless. I mean, not the whole Christian thing, but pretty much the whole cross thing. So, I had this great idea where I would totally plagiarize from Wallace Stevens "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" and do Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Cross. I would write beautiful, poetic posts and gain beautiful, poetic insights and grow in my faith and unicorns would prance around the back yard and I would poop rainbows. But, let's just get realistic for a second.

I hate Lent. We're only two weeks into it, and I can say with confidence that all the shine of the transcendent solemnity of Ash Wednesday is dead in the water, buried, forgotten. I am sick of the Lenten feeling, of being broken open, of fragility, like raging case of PMS fragility, where I might start tearing up because of an especially touching Visa commercial. I am sick of knowing about my sin all the time. I KNOW about it now, ALL the time, it comes to mind without me having to try especially hard. I can realize actually IN the moment, "Shannon, you are being a disgusting human being right now." And the crazy part is, I ask for this! I ask to see myself more clearly, because I get so comfortable in my "Well, I've never killed anyone" morality, and I want to know truth, about myself, about who I am and what I've done. But it's really yucky. I get cranky when I'm cold or hungry or when my eye is STILL irritating me even after I've been to the optometrist and been forced to wear my glasses for weeks on end and switched to more expensive contacts. And I get lonely and grumpy and fed up and it doesn't take long and it doesn't take much exterior aggravation. It's strangely like these feelings were always there and it just takes a little bump in the road, a little scratch on the surface for them to all come spilling out. Like fasting. You can skip one meal and all of a sudden you go from being Mother Teresa to being Attila the Hun. One unmet need. One aggravating circumstance. Stupid fasting. Stupid Lent. Stupid eye. Stupid everything.

But, when I do eat, when I patch myself up enough to think straight, I know for sure that this is the point. The point is that, left to our own devices, left to our own well-fed, blind self-satisfaction, we are dead in the water. We are only as good as we are comfortable. And it is all there, lurking beneath the surface. We are kidding ourselves when we esteem ourselves to be "good people." The only way to get past this, to find grace, is to slog through the sewer of our own wretchedness, to be broken open, to become fragile, to be driven crazy enough that looking for healing becomes not only sensible, but necessary. Maybe illumination will eventually come, maybe not. Maybe the illumination is just to have to sit and wallow for 40 days in my own selfishness, to know that God loves me enough to die for me, even if I am the person who was going to rip someone's face off because they didn't sufficiently appreciate to beautiful, artistic nature of Edward Scissorhands, the person who can't be exposed to other human beings when she doesn't eat for 9 hours, the person who still gets jealous as a teenager when all the guys are asking another girl to dance.

I'll make it through. I doubt it will be much fun, but I believe that it will ultimately take me, if not somewhere pleasant, then somewhere True.

S.

Things I Luv

Well, this is a fair piece after my intended approximate-vicinity-to-Valentine's-Day publication date, but, I think it is good to at least get it up before the end of the Month of Love. Here are some things that warm my heart:

1. Lists (well, duh) If you've hung around here at all, you'll see that I like to make them. Lists are like the girders of my skyscraper, the underlying structure that gives form and direction to my life.

2. Libraries--I love the library. It is one of the things that makes our nation great, that we have places to go where they give you books for free. And CDs. And DVDs. And cookbooks. And if they don't have the book you want, they'll bring it to you from wherever it is. Did you catch that--they bring it to you!! For free! Well, actually it costs 25 cents here in Bflo, but that's very cheap when you consider how much it would cost to buy the book or even to drive across town and pick it up.

3. Having friends--Friends made my Valentine's Day great this year. Come to think, given my chronically dateless state, friends have always been what made Valentine's Day great for me. This year we got some ladies together and dressed up and had tea and fruit and scones and clotted cream and quiche and finger sandwiches and vegetables and flourless chocolate cake and lemon bars. And we laughed and laughed, mostly at ridiculous things. Friends are always worth having.

4. Feeding people--again, long time readers will know this. (I dream of those corn pancakes, btw) We had Bible Study this past week and someone brought a friend and they brought a friend and we had more folks there than I thought we would and I had made French onion soup and an apple cake and they descended like a locust hoarde on my mountain of food and by the time they left it was all gone. I love that.

5. Dogs--I love dogs. They are so sweet and fun and great. I am still thinking seriously about getting one, so I have dogs on the brain. Every time I see someone walking one, or even see dog pawprints in the snow, I sigh a little and think, "That could be me..." Maybe someday soon, it will be.

6. My job--I have the greatest job ever. I work with people I admire and enjoy and respect (most of the time anyway). At this point, I have just exactly the right amount of work, so I stay busy but not overwhelmed. I am around art all the time. I am learning new things, but it isn't scary. I feel supported, but not watched. I have never had a job that I enjoyed so much in my whole life. I need to figure out how to keep having a life that's this awesome all the time.

7. My space heater--it came from Target, and I think it cost me about $17. If it only lasted this one winter, I would have no regrets about buying it. Our house is set to a balmy 55 degrees during the day, but I just stay in my little room with my little space heater and get through the day like I'm in Bermuda (well, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but still). I seriously do not even have enough words to tell you how much I enjoy my space heater. It has changed the way I experience winter in Buffalo. Thank you, space heater, from the bottom of my heart. You are a valued member of this community.

That wraps it up for me today. I have in mind a little project for Lent, but I don't want to tell you about it in case it doesn't come to fruition. If it happens...you'll see it. And you'll know.

S.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

This is an old picture of me in my glasses. We'll get to that later.

Okay, a month of non-blogging. That is not admirable. Now at this timely junction I must present another post of "OMG, I haven't posted in so long, but here are all the cool things I've been doing!" Most of the cool things in this issue are work related. We started rehearsals for the next show at the Alt. It's called Wading through the Light and Shadows and it's kind of a compilation of original poetry, shorter prose pieces, original choreography and an ethereal soundscape/sound effect type stuff. It's a pretty cool show, and it's been running since February 4 and will keep going till February 21, so if you're in the Buffalo area you should go see it. I've enjoyed this show quite a bit because I was able to have the littlest teeniest tiniest bit of actual artistic input. It hasn't been much, but it was something, and since this is only the second show I've ever worked on, really, I should be profoundly grateful. But those rehearsals were taking up every night, along with new work for the Arts Council, a new fundraising project, illustrating a book with refugee kids, lobbying the city to get permission to do painted cross walks, and other such types of work during the day, my schedule was packed. Now that the show's playing, I actually have more free time, which seems fairly ironic to me.

I've also enrolled in another dance class, Modern 2, not surprisingly a continuation of Modern 1. And again, I'm keeping my head above water, but only just. With this class we actually have a book(!) and reading assignments(!) and written reflections(!) so it's more time consuming than the last class. But the book is wonderful, it's like a compilation of philosophical treatises on the theory of Modern dance written by the people who essentially created it. Maybe they'll be something on here from that soon. Also, I've been to see Avatar, taken the first of what I anticipate to be many trips to the botanical gardens, and made rolls and a number of cakes. And I'm also trying to make head way with learning to play the guitar, which might be going well? I'm learning lots of new chords, but still have a general inability to move between chords in, you know like an actual song, without embarrassingly long pauses while I watch myself adjust my fingers. Sometimes I feel a sense of despair of ever being able to master even the simple aspects of playing the guitar, but that's really the point of this whole experiment, trying something that I find really difficult and sticking with it, even though it remains...really difficult. All of these things have kept me away from the tip tapping of the keyboard that produces these delightful chronicles.

I just have one actual crystallized thought to share for the day. I went for a check up to the optometrist about a week ago and found out the the irritation I was experiencing in my left eye was actually corneal keratitis, which is just a fancy way of saying that my cornea was irritated by lack of oxygen and becoming hazy. I was condemned to wear my glasses for three days, which suddenly blossomed into a full week when my appointment had to be rescheduled. This was surprisingly difficult for me. I haven't worn my glasses for more than the time right before bed or first thing in the morning for years. I didn't feel like myself in my glasses. I didn't feel as pretty either, which made me feel more shy and more invisible. But I still had to do my life, go to Argentine tango and vie for dance partners with everyone else. Go to Emerging Leaders in the Arts meetings, my current most-obnoxiously-akin-to-high-school experience in terms of being in a room with peers, cool kids, and trying not to feel like a silent, awkward loser. But you know what? It wasn't that bad. There were lots of times that I could forget that I was even wearing them and could discover that I was myself even in my glasses. That glasses vs. no-glasses is not an intrinsic part of who I am, not the way the comment I forced myself to make at the ELAB meeting about how artists need support and critique from other artists, not just professional development, is an intrinsic part of who I am. Which is good to know. Good to remember. So that's my revelation for this week.

That's all.
S.