Alphabets

My body is trying to tell me that I need to write again.

A few nights ago, as I was going to sleep, but not quite ready for bed, I dozed off with my face in my pillow. For a few split seconds I saw a carousel. As it turned silently in my mind, I narrated the scene to myself in short lines of poetry. I awoke suddenly and said aloud, "I need to write again."

I was startled by the words. I don't know why I said it, but it left me unsettled.

I have a confession. I'm kind of mad at my poetry. Around my senior year of college we began to develop an adversarial relationship. I think this arose, at least in part, because I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, but I knew what I desperately wanted to do with my life, which was write poetry.

One day I decided that I wasn't going to dedicate the rest of my life to writing. I decided that I was going to do something else and that, to spite my writing, I'd be very happy with my decision and very good at my chosen career (luckily for me, the first part of this is true, and as for the second part, well, I guess my boss would be the judge of that).

I've tried to explain a poet's relationship with words, but I just can't. The only people I've met who sort of understand are musicians. Even people who prefer prose don't seem to feel the same way about writing as poets.

All of this confusion and emotion and anger and pain that comes from this mad passion can leave one feeling quite isolated. I grew tired of the isolation. The only thing that made it bearable for a few years was having a close friend, another poet, nearby to talk about these things that no one else understands. When she moved to California to go to graduate school, my entire poetic support network moved with her. I began to resent my writing.

When I angrily decided that I would not pursue writing as a career, I felt as if I had KO-ed my writing love. I was proud of myself. I felt strong. Poetry could not defeat me if I were simply to quit.

Still I find these moments of pain. I feel an emptiness. I hear phrases, names, fragments of conversation that I want to save and use in my poems. Indignantly, I refuse to claim them.

I feel as though I had a small lover's quarrel with my soul mate and, because we are both stubborn, we both refuse to come back to one another. Each is waiting for the other to yield.

It's a conundrum. Intangibles can't really yield. As a result, I'm always the one to come crawling back. I'm tired of crawling back. I'm ready for the writing to come to me.

But it won't.

A few months after I'd made this quiet decision, my LA poet started to catch on. She started to ask me about my writing. Ask me if I was writing and what I was writing. I kept telling her I didn't have the time. "Make the time," she said, "you need to write." I brushed her off. I grew annoyed with her for reminding me of something I was trying to forget.

She'd try to coax me and encourage me by telling me how I was better than almost everyone in her master's program. I told her she was exaggerating.

Then one day, for some reason or another, I sat down, and almost against my will, almost without my own consent, I wrote two or three poems. They were amazing. They were the flawless sort of works that are so perfect you feel they could almost fly off the page. The kind of poems that have no "process" and so can't be explained. The kind of poems that make poets crazy because they don't know how or why they write them, they just do (every poem I have written that has ever won an award has been this kind of poem).

I showed my LA poet. She said, "Oh my God, you need to write. There are so few good writers, I can't sit by and let one of them not write."

Here was my friend, trying to be the best friend and fellow writer she could be, encouraging me, giving me feedback, being supportive, not nagging - approaching the situation in the best way she could - and I wouldn't listen.

I was (and still am) really mad at my writing.

I'm still mad at my poetry.

I used to be in a place where reading a good poem brought me unbelievable joy, but now I'm in a place where it angers me. I've become something I loathe: a jealous writer.

Jealousy always seems a sign of mediocrity to me, especially among writers. Those who are great should not envy talent, they should admire it. Those who are great need not envy greatness, because they have it themselves. My jealousy showed me just how pitiful I'd become.

So I buried myself in outside things. I became so busy and so "otherwise occupied" that my once feigned excuse of busyness became a truth. There were a few months where I thought I might never write again. I even began reading some good fiction without having pangs of regret.

Then came that dream.

I have been uneasy since that dream, but I've left room for the uneasiness to persist.

Two nights ago I dreamed one of my dead friends was secretly still alive and disguised as another of my friends. The dream was long and involved. I was overjoyed. I felt the invisible scales of life's justice had finally tipped in his favor. I went along with the ruse. The dream ended with my friend fainting unexpectedly. Someone was coming, and I didn't know who. I sensed we were in danger. I picked up his motionless body and began to carry him. I carried him up flight after flights of stairs. I reached the top of the building with his body in my arms. There was no where else to go. I woke up.

I don't know what that dream means, but it is a clear message that I need to write again. There are too many things that, left unsorted, will explode out of my mind in confusing and painful ways, and rather than turning into something creative and beautiful, they will fester and hurt. I can't keeping pretending I don't need this. It's ridiculous.

A famous professor of mine once spoke of the magnitude of the poet's "fucking ego." "We all want to write all good things all the time," she said, "we all have this big fucking ego." She's right. This unspeakable trepidation I feel is fear that I will write something unsatisfying to me.

How shameful of me to have succumbed to my own pride in a way that ultimately ended up destroying the very pride I was trying to protect. What a stupid poetic thing to do. How deluded must I have been to believe that stopping the outlet I use to release all of my ideas and creations, good and bad, would stop the ideas and creations themselves?

Awakening with the feeling of the weight of my friend's body still lingering in my arms was a good reminder that, I guess to put it simply, I am who I am. Frustration, anger, indignation, pride - nothing will change that.


So LA poet, if you read this, "thank you" and I'll see you soon.

Happiness Is Not a Fish You Can Catch (?)

I read a couple of articles today that contradicted something I have preached for years. The article said that at least half of our happiness (if it can be measured in halves) is out of our control, and is linked to genetics. I say that we are in control of our happiness.

I say we are in control of our happiness because I've seen evidence of this in myself. When I make an effort to be happy, I am happier. I'm not saying I can control bad things that happen around me. I certainly can't control the sad things that happen around me. I'm not even even advocating that happiness is in the way we handle the bad things around us; I believe that we must strive for happiness at every opportunity, and welcome it from every possible source.

Simply stated, the little things add up.

I learned a few years ago that if you laugh at every opportunity - if you see the humor and absurdity in life - your days are immensely more pleasant. I laugh at myself when I trip over my dog. I laugh at myself when I forget that I didn't turn the nozzle to "hot" in the shower. I laugh when I tuck my skirt into my underwear. I laugh at the absurdity in life (I have a picture on my cell phone of a piece of paper I found sitting atop a stack of magazines in an apartment lobby that read "free/ $1" - and it's not even the inherent absurdity in the sign - it's the fact that (and I know I have stated this before) I thought that only happened in movies). I eagerly welcome happiness.

And I believe that everyone can do the same.

I can't control the things I see on the news. I can't control when loved ones die. I can't control when I, or someone I love, catch(es) a bad break.

But I can play with my dog. I can read Calvin & Hobbes. I can listen to funny stories anytime anyone offers to share them. I can look at myself in the bathroom mirror and laugh at the fact that I sometimes resemble a sad-looking Bridget Jones. I can laugh at the fact that my sister just discovered that my youngest niece really enjoys throwing things in the garbage can - so much so that my sister now has some mateless shoes. I can laugh at the fact that I once heard my mailman confiding to another mailman that "some days I just don't deliver the mail" (and come on, that's wayyyy annoying). I can laugh at the fact that some drunk stole a piece of my porch furniture, and a month later my neighbor saw it about a mile away while he was on a run, veered over, picked it up, and carried it over his head as he ran it back to me. I have to laugh about the fact that my boyfriend got two flat tires in two weeks (Pittsburgh roads SUCK!).

So I guess this study would argue that I am, genetically speaking, one of the lucky ones. That I have personality traits that allow me to find happiness where others can't. I am all of those things that they say most happy people are - social, compassionate, at least mildly extroverted - but I don't like the idea that unhappy people will dismiss the work I put into being happy, the choices I make, the deep breaths I take so as not to lose my cool over stupid things, the lessons I am constantly trying to learn - I can tell you right now, happiness didn't just happen to me.

I had a conversation with my parents a few months ago about the way they raised me and how appreciative I was of their parenting. I grew up believing I could do anything. Okay, now, I know that sounds like rhetoric cause every kid says that - every mildly successful person says that, and it annoys me. But for me, I really, really believed it. I still believe it. I fully believe that even though I am not working to be a published writer right now, that if I decided to I could absolutely be successful (with a ton of hard work). I even believe that even though the sciences are not my passion, I could, say, go to medical school if I wanted to. Maybe that's delusional, but no harm done because I don't want to go into medicine. Anyway, I explained to my parents that, because of them: "I don't believe that the world happens to me, I believe that I happen to the world."

And I apply that to a lot of situations where I see myself differing from other people. When I see things that don't work properly, I try to fix them, and most often do fix them. If something is making me unhappy, I try to get to the root of it and fix it. When I feel down for no reason, I make an effort to get more exercise (endorphins!) and get outside for longer periods of time (vitamin D, baby).

As such, I'm confident that, even when bad things come my way, I'm going to stay strong and find my happiness again.

This brings me to the second thing I read today - and I read so much today that I don't remember if it was in the same article as the previous one - that stated that if your happiness were to be plotted on a graph (with level of happiness on the x-axis and age on the y-axis), it would form a "U" shape. The study found that people's happiness declines until the age of roughly 44, wherein it bottoms out, and begins to ascend again.

How depressing is that?

While I could personally refute the first study (at least to my own satisfaction, I'm not actually dismissing it completely, I'm just saying it doesn't hold true for me and I don't think it's cut-and-dry sentence of unhappiness to those people for whom it might apply), I have no idea what it's like to be 44! Frankly, getting old scares me. Maybe this is what will eventually unravel my happiness. But I really hope not.

I hope that even if, when I'm 44, things are not at all what I foresee now (which is that I will be married, mothered, jobbed, and housed), I can find happiness in whatever life I'm leading.

Ultimately though, I think that the thing that will most ensure my future happiness is to not worry about stuff like this. This is the kind of thing that could be my undoing, so this is the kind of thing I should ignore. I can't change the fact that I will someday (most likely) be 44 years old. I can't change the fact that I am going to lose more people I cherish.

The only thing I can do is take each day as it comes, and suck as much happiness out of it as I possibly can - spend time with the people I love, try new things, fix problems, and live my life in such a way that, each time my alarm clock wakes me up, I look forward to the day ahead of me.

I choose happiness ( regardless of what my genes dictate, or the number of years I have lived), and I have to say, I am pretty happy with that choice.


Here is a link to at least one of the articles I read: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1721954,00.html

-I'm thinking about my heart, I guess you've heard sometimes it's heavy - but I just keep moving, when I hit a wall I look up at the sky-

As I was searching out those other Ben Lee links (below), I came across this link to "Begin"
and all of a sudden I remembered how this song changed my life. Maybe someday I'll tell that story.

Self-Control is a Funny Thing. (Now with music!)

As I'm getting older, I'm noticing more and more that I'm very good at exercising self-control, but only in certain ways. My self-control, which a lot of people describe as "impeccable,"* usually involves a lot of workarounds. The perfect example of this is my speakers.

My speakers are blown and have been for years. One of my vices, and probably my worst habit, is listening to loud music. I mean loud. I know people who listen to loud music, and they complain about the volume of my music. I just can't help it, and I know this.

Ergo, I have not purchased new speakers. Why? Because I know I'll blow them too and it will be a ridiculous waste of money. Everyone tells me to turn the music down and buy new speakers - and people have even offered, neigh threatened, to buy me new ones, but I still refuse. I know myself. I know I won't be able to turn it down.

Why is this?

Why do I have enough self-control and sense not to buy new speakers, but not enough self-control and sense to turn down the volume (or geez, just not turn it up in the first place)?

I'm annoyed with myself as I ask this question, and as I sit here listening to "Search and Destroy" at a decibel level that could quite possibly annoy my neighbors too.

I'm not planning on having these speakers forever. I'm assuming that one day I'll grow out of this "need for loud" and be able to listen to music at a reasonable level. But what if I don't? I know at least one adult who never did, and who only started to turn things down when his hearing got so bad that loud music began to hurt his ears.

The most ironic part is that I value my hearing. About a year ago, at a time when I was still going to a lot of shows, I started wearing ear plugs to hear live music (probably one of the best decisions I ever made), and yet in an environment where I can control the noise level, I choose not to. I almost feel like I would wear ear plugs in my bedroom before I'd turn it down. Am I the only one this crazy about loud music? Am I the only one this crazy?


There are a few songs, in particular, that are not properly appreciated unless listened to at high volume**:

-"Reptilia" by The Strokes
-"The Revolutionary Politics of Dance" by An Albatross
- "Watch Out" by Atmosphere (and also "Smart Went Crazy")
-"Ah! Leah!" by Donnie Iris (this, my friends, goes without saying)
- "Us" By Regina Spektor
-"Search and Destroy" by Iggy and the Stooges (unfortunately the only decent version I could find is set to a montage from Platoon which is too violent for my taste, albeit tough and pretty well done.)
-"Laid" by James
-"My Name is Jonas" by Weezer (especially the 4-party harmony toward the end -- this is also an amazing song to listen to at the beginning of a run because of the way it builds)
-"Sex Type Thing" by Stone Temple Pilots (oooh early 90s videos.)
- "Starlight" by Muse
-"District Sleeps Alone Tonight" by The Postal Service (especially starting at 2 minutes 18 seconds - and I hate to be such a girl but "Brand New Colony" belongs on this list too)
-"Wish" by Nine Inch Nails (I don't think this is the version I have, but you get the idea)
-"Let Go" by Frou Frou (another girly one)
-"Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2 (the video and the story behind it are both amazing, this linked video gives a little backstory before the video itself.)
- "Pyramid Song" by Radiohead
-"Staring at the Sun" and "Wolf Like Me" ***by TV on the Radio (and "Let the Devil in," too -- which I also believe to be the best song to listen to while speed training)
-"Here Right Here" by Sensefield. (Believe it or not, I could not find a copy of "Here Right Here" on the Web. I did find an acoustic cover by a kid with a surprisingly nice voice who adds a few nice, personal touches to the song (despite having listed the title wrong). Bear in mind the original isn't unplugged and probably wasn't recorded from a laundry room sink.)
- "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin (and I don't even want to start thinking of others because there a million)
-"Twilight" by Elliott Smith
-"XYU" by Smashing Pumpkins (and most definitely "Cherub Rock")
-"What You know" by TI (amazing)
-"I'm not Talking" by The Yardbirds
-"Tyler" by The Toadies
-"Blood Red Summer" by Coheed and Cambria
-"Take Me Home" Reggie and the Full Effect
-"A Stroke of Genius" by Freelance Hellraiser (hah!)
"Cigarettes Will Kill You" and "Apply Candy" by Ben Lee (even though "Apple Candy" breaks my heart)
-"The Woman in You" Ben Harper


This is list is longer than I thought it would be, and I'm sure I'll think of more. I guess I still have a lot of growing to do before I buy those new speakers.

Is that such a bad thing, though? Aside from the hearing loss, I don't think it's so bad that I enjoy music this much. I guess it's a shame that I'm so picky about the way I enjoy it, but assuming I don't actually bother my neighbors as much as I sometimes imagine that I do, I think the pleasure is worth the pain. Although, I say this now and I'm sure that when I'm half-deaf I'll kick myself repeatedly for not listening to everyone - but then again, if that happens, I won't be able to hear them complaining anyway.


* I say this with a hint of irony, or sarcasm, or humor - because I don't think my self-discipline is all that great, it just manifests itself in very visible ways so people seem to think it is (I could be onto something here).
**Feel free to mock my musical taste. Also, by way of a disclaimer, none of the songs I put up are censored versions.
***Does anyone else feel like TVotR really dropped the ball on the "Wolf Like Me" video? I was so disappointed.