Two Winter's Nights

Two Winter's Nights:

A Story

"He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking."

-Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

1. Happy Henmas gift exchange (Club, stationary, tea, Tolstoy, and russian brow brushes) 2.  A novel.  3. Mashed sweet potatoes, blackberry avocado salad with candied walnuts, and bbq tofu supper. 4.  The Nutcracker at RWB.   5.  A sad girl with a sore tailbone.  6.  Speed skaters across a lit bridge.  7. Skates. 8.  Frosty friends.   9.  Winter layers and Bear the cat.   10.  The city falling into night.

had a merry little christmas

Everything falls gently; like the snow...if you let it.

Then who the hell was I

The time has come, where winter's coolness has effected the skin, but the sun bleeds right down on me, picking me up where ice runs thin. Grab several layers of sweaters, scarves, and woolen socks; bring all your favorite books, and come hideaway all day (all night).

The sweetness of that soft spot next to the nose.

Often to get my flow sometimes I have to begin, right here and just roll. I lose my mind (all day) and exhaust myself stressing into the night. At past the midnight hour, I begin to think about what I was supposed to begin hours ago and what I really wanted to do all along was just sit, right here, writing these words. 

So regretful the time I wasted, when all along I could have been filling spaces. My terms final essay needs to be fine tuned, it's done but it's just not quite done yet. 

A little (personal) treat for finishing the year. Above, plus around 15 more. When the bells of January ring, I may crawl into a literary cavern where I am forced to read literature. It's practically a dream come true.

"His struggle with words was unusually painful and this for two reasons. One was the common one with writers of his type: the bridging of the abyss lying between expression and thought; the maddening feeling that the right words, the only words are awaiting you on the opposite bank in the misty distance, and the shudderings of the still unclothed thought clamoring for them on this side of the abyss."

-from The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov 

pocket the sun

Well I might be stuck, but I'm not so sure. When the sky empties and the day falls and the sun drops down like a coin from a pocket onto the ground for someone else to pick up, later; another day...You might find the moon slipping into your palm and the next thing you know it's nightfall and everything is falling all over again.

Patience was kind.

Don't make me sad, don't make me cry.

Sometimes love is not enough

and the road gets tough

I don't know why.

anthropology.

(ici.)

A friend an I were having a discussion about academia, which is of course nothing unusual during exam season. I was reading a theory of music textbook trying to discover if there was something special (besides the obvious)  that occurs in classical music vs pop music, while simultaneously encircling valuable quotes from Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, when conversation began to drift. My explanation of my essay became convoluted because I had been stewing over the same pages all day/night, so we scrapped the toughtalk. I changed the topic to instead asking advice on a rather trivial subject matter in my personal life. I was very persistent on getting an answer out of him, not forceful mind you. The friend is a Bio-anthropology major and although I know very little of what both of these subjects consist of, the advice that came out of him was quite possibly the best I've ever heard.

"Modernists would say, 'Forget about it, completely. Then come back and look at it later.'"

I know he's talking about bones and artifacts when he tells me this, but still.

As plain and as trivial an answer this is, why is it such a complex action to perform?

"The swans are always on my mind, and they lend magnificence to life. It is strange to note that nothing in the whole world, not in art, literature or music, has such an effect on me as these swans and cranes and bean geese. Their calls and their appearance."

-Sibelius 

happy & home

“Our souls are worn down through continuous contact with one another.”

-Sibelius

What will you do tomorrow? What was done wrong yesterday. Did I forget something along the way? Put an end to the fret-and forget about what was and is long gone and long ahead. Stick to the moment, revel and enjoy each lasting breath. Each blink of your long spider-lashes. Each swirl of winter's icy wind, every snap snap snap the snow underfoot makes. Love everything (petite ou grande). Toujours aimer beaucoup. Surtout vous. 

Oh what I'd give just to fly from point A through M. I am wishing it were possible now- but it's certainly  plausible some day.

just like a--

poem of photographs

flowing &

following

through;

form

&

move

forward

december doldrums

Move away, and you start something--something no one back home ever thought of. But why do you have to go to do it? In our snow-covered prairie city we have all the opportunities we need.

Talk about getting caught up in the winter doldrums, I succumbed to extreme feelings of loneliness, boredom, and overall displeasure with la vie.

Today, I woke up (early), made a breakfast of toast with cucumber/mayo/cheese, almond milk, and raspberries. I'm trying to eat b a l a n ce d breakfasts. After yoga, I had coffee, OJ, and oven baked some potatoes with onions, garlic, and mushrooms. More coffee..a bit of studying, relax--and then back to work.

I certainly think yoga is the key to my self-happiness, or at least it opens the door to it. At my lowest time (around a year ago today) I began doing yoga and was feeling pretty on top of my game. I'm going to try and keep it up-going to once class a day or at least 5 classes a week. Hopefully then I'll be back to normal--or better than.

Exams, papers, and magazine contributions. This is going to be a busy month. Not to mention many friends return home from far away (both coasts). My mind will wander to Australia where my sister is. And also to where my Grandparents are.

I kind of just needed to do this to release, and get back on track.

Maybe one day I'll share some beauty in this blog, but for today my insights will have to suffice.

No one knows where we go; when we're dead or when we're dreaming.

--We have ideas about this, theories, myths, outlines, hymns, songs, poems, and god dammnit we even have names for it. Nightmares & daydreams. Heaven & hell. But where the hell do we really go?

writing to or not to.

Love. I love many things, and one of them is writing. I absolutely and always have loved to write. I recently found a journal entry from when I was nine saying how I want to be a writer (or a Marine biologist, president, prime minister, queen of england), but that is besides the point.

This has been a dream of mine for some time. This verb should come so easily to me, but the longing has diminished. I can't tell whether my obscure arrangement of words are doing me a favour or if they are a flaw. Do I continue procuring obscurity or do practice order?

Now that this thought is off and afloat, I can start my paper, due in 14 hours.

Why do I dream of Montana? Thoughts of days spent there move swiftly like the many flowing rivers. I wouldn't even try to count the days, count the ways I would drive along through counties named like Cascade, Park, Granite or Big Horn. 

I would pack up the little silver bullet, filled with food and goods, and take off on a trip of my own. Maybe I'd be gone for awhile? 

Reading alone in the silence of my room. Reading aloud at a party with a bunch of people I sort of know- want to know- knew, and do not know. But what's the difference the next day? I'm better than I was the day before. It doesn't matter what I do at night. 

There is a lamp that stays on most of the night across the back lane. Shadows stir, cars go by. The trees move like performers of a slavonic dance. Fast and fierce. Snow falling outside- inside I am like a backwards snow globe. 

Winter is coming. I can be found at my desk, in the company of good friends. Perhaps watching the world go by from inside a glass bowl.  

New name.

But I'm still the same.

I'm no longer "There's-a-girl-out-there"

 It's been almost 4 years. 

From Flora.

Sur La Siene

Courbevoie (Paris), July 2011

Once upon a time, I fell in love. And it was not with the river, or the oh-so typical someone. No regrets and few frets. Oh, I will never forget the love I felt, the love I felt for myself.

Monday is when all the souls depart- Sunday (day of the saints) is when there are whispers of death (through softened breaths)

Beauty is in the street

Paris, 1968

 "From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve."

-Fareed Zakaria

There, I would repeat to myself "This is where I will die!", but the truth is I don't know. And that's alright and if I can live with that fact, that confining morose feature of life then the time that goes by, slow yet countable days; I will be alright.

The darker, the deeper. The deeper, the closer to truth. Something valuable is at the end, perhaps a virtue. All I know is, it's unknown and I want it. I want to know.

WANDERLUST

 Dream of the East.

Cambodia above (from here).

Watch the day break into a purple mass

Nepal by D.W Rawlinson.

all i want to do.

Blue friday (something blue to you).

Dát někomu modré z nebe.

"Some days we just want to look like astronauts and that's okay."

Thank you, Man Repeller.

old tree

Frustration builds as does my rage; I have but one thing that makes me feel free.  Oh and it's the thought of me, old me the old tree.

But now it's gettin' late
And the moon is climbin' high
I want to celebrate
See it shinin' in your eye.

 

-Neil Young

everything i could never tell you

harvest moon.

With that crazy yellow moon behind me

Haunting, daunting upon each and every breath

The smallness I feel underneath

Chased by the clouds of the evening sun

Awakened by all of the morning with glee

I loved the moon

But it's powers are beyond me


(harvest moon)

bludy good.

"You know sometimes I really do think that I will be a heller of a good writer some day. Every once in a while I knock off a yarn that is so bludy good I can’t figure how I ever wrote it."

-Ernest to Ursula Hemingway, 1919

All autumn I've been sleeping in. Watching through my window the leaves gild and morning sun bounces off them and sparkles into my eyes. Walks and talks outside with homemade cappuccinos in hand. Wanders through the night.  The fur and jackets come out. Layers pile up. Lace them boots. Textbooks takeover Kundera time. Except at night it's Me & Milan against the will of tick tock my clock.

I look for beauty. I long to get better. I'm going to be good. I want to know me better.

Red lights on (faux) fur friday. Drank some of that red, red wine. Talked and danced until the morning. Ate the angriest of poutine. What a good way to ring in October, oh my.

the pros and cons: FLARE

This is something I decided to do. I woke up this morning realizing what I was spending most of my time on, was not what I loved to do. Sure, immediacy is often necessary. But not constantly because it needs to be taken in d o s e s. It becomes invasive if you let it. And believe me, you have no choice in doing otherwise once committed. I made a list of what I love. None of which was I able to enjoy (at all). Everything became shortened, brief.

What I love: 
Family
Literature
A good sleep
Real genuine conversations with real genuine everyday people
Exercise and all around healthiness


How how I was affected:
F: I rarely see them. This saddened me. Family is the only thing close to permanent in life. And even they aren't permanent. As I'm witnessing presently. Time is more than precious.
L: There is no time to enjoy it. It is an activity that requires the presence of both leisure and pleasure.
A: I have nightmares. Each and every night. I wake up and it's the first thing on my mind. I dread it, it pushes back everything else I have to do.
R: I miss my friends.  I desire trust and truth. Having conversations with them that aren't work related. Having conversations that aren't me panicking and them dealing with me. I miss being the teacher. Having the time and patience to assist others. Be true and genuine to myself and them.
E: I'm the type of girl who needs to play. I've always been active. On multiple sports teams. Or in yoga. I need to go to the gym and exercise at least three times a week or I am miserable and slow. I simply have no time. Because I have no time, I also eat garbage. Kielbasa is not for dinner, then lunch and dinner the next day.


Plato says that it is very important to sort your desires as I did. What truly makes you happy vs. what you think makes you happy. The desire for things that encourage the soul not harm.

It is hard to do so, but can you do the same? 

The good readers and the good writers. Both are lovers and composers of texts. Makers of the harmonious whole. Assemblers; creators of work.

the text, the work.

the parts, the whole.

limbs, bones, etc vs. the mind

the fragments vs. harmoniousness

The Herschel Supply Co.

Never, ever have I lusted after a backpack. Or felt the absolutely necessity to have one. Usually a tote suffices. Increased workload means increased lbs on the shoulder.

So badly do I want one of Herschel Supply Co's backpacks. Stylish, functional and with a long history. Their lookbook photos reminded me of a roll of film I took in the Spring, which are the bottom two.