It's Christmas Eve which also means that it's the anniversary of my birth. I'm now 23, which is pretty solidly in the realm of what most people would consider to be "adult." To me it feels... prime. By "prime" I mean completely indivisible by anything rational, e.g. "I am living the prime of my life, nothing appears to make much sense, but maybe a really nifty interpretation of the randomness can garner some sort of symmetry." You know?
The first birthday I've spent away from home has been filled with mate-drinking, Andean Fox wood carvings, and sentimental e-mails from my faraway family. I've never so tangibly felt distance like I feel the hemisphere between myself and home. I mean, I don't know explicitly what "home" is at this point but tears pricked my eyes here in the hotel lobby as I thought of things like evergreens, guitar-strumming, my parents, my brother, cinnamon rolls, and a steady Oregon downpour.
This feels real, though. The wind is gusting as per usual and the clouds are really outdoing themselves. The towers are spearing the sky, I'm surrounded by wonderful people (my fellow volunteers gave me a ruler of intangible things as a birthday present), and I know that the void of the things I miss is a sort of fullness because it means I've lived beauty.
And thus another arbitrary ritualistic flag has been waved. I'm far from home but I'm still reaching; forging my identity around fleeting semaphores like "birthday," "family," and "prime."
12.24.2010
12.21.2010
Required Items Delivered to the AMA Volunteers
We are living in the wilderness, miles upon miles from civilization. When our supervisor, Viviana, asked us what she could bring us from town, we requested the following:
(1) 2 bottles of wine
(2) a remedy for foot fungus
(3) 4 santa hats
(1) 2 bottles of wine
(2) a remedy for foot fungus
(3) 4 santa hats
12.20.2010
A Home Among Towers
As I write I sit in an exorbitant hotel lounge. There's a Christmas tree with a broken string of lights, a blazing hearth, and a French family playing fuse ball. It's all very incongruous here in the national park. Soon I will have to steal myself for a ten minute hike through a gusty downpour to the tent where I sleep. With a full-sized mattress.
My volunteer stint here in Torres del Paine has been an exercise in strange contradictions and surreal beauty. Along with my fellow volunteers, I've destroyed bridges, analyzed worm census data, pretended to be an endangered deer in front of skeptical Chilean youth, and written found poetry from the back of a whiskey bottle while a band of damp Portuguese read heartfelt verse aloud. I've marveled at the improbable fairy-tale grandeur of this place, what with incandescent glacial lagoons and monolithic granite spears and mid-summer snowfall. I've marveled at my own freedom, at the moon, at the disconnected slide-show of odd and wondrous things that somehow must cohere into the trajectory of my existence.
So, you know, I've been living.
And the holidays approach! I will be 23 in a mere four days! There are a few strategically placed Christmas trees around the hotel, but I can't help but miss the smell of my mother's cinnamon rolls, ritualistic construction of paper snow flakes; stealthy attempts to flock my brother with fake snow. I've never spent my birthday and Christmas away from home before, and it's a lingering sort of homesickness. But we four volunteers are organizing a gift exchange that involves broken tent parts. We discuss our families' holiday traditions over tea, and asked our boss to bring us Santa hats from Punta Arenas. Something festive is happening, and it just might be that I'll grow closer to my family and its rituals through distance.
I'll conclude with a sneak preview of the pictures that we recently uploaded to Picasa. For the full exposition, visit this link.
My volunteer stint here in Torres del Paine has been an exercise in strange contradictions and surreal beauty. Along with my fellow volunteers, I've destroyed bridges, analyzed worm census data, pretended to be an endangered deer in front of skeptical Chilean youth, and written found poetry from the back of a whiskey bottle while a band of damp Portuguese read heartfelt verse aloud. I've marveled at the improbable fairy-tale grandeur of this place, what with incandescent glacial lagoons and monolithic granite spears and mid-summer snowfall. I've marveled at my own freedom, at the moon, at the disconnected slide-show of odd and wondrous things that somehow must cohere into the trajectory of my existence.
So, you know, I've been living.
And the holidays approach! I will be 23 in a mere four days! There are a few strategically placed Christmas trees around the hotel, but I can't help but miss the smell of my mother's cinnamon rolls, ritualistic construction of paper snow flakes; stealthy attempts to flock my brother with fake snow. I've never spent my birthday and Christmas away from home before, and it's a lingering sort of homesickness. But we four volunteers are organizing a gift exchange that involves broken tent parts. We discuss our families' holiday traditions over tea, and asked our boss to bring us Santa hats from Punta Arenas. Something festive is happening, and it just might be that I'll grow closer to my family and its rituals through distance.
I'll conclude with a sneak preview of the pictures that we recently uploaded to Picasa. For the full exposition, visit this link.
12.09.2010
A Brief Anthropomorphism of Birds
I have arrived at Torres de Paine National Park. My four days here have been strange for many reasons, one of which is imminent access to internet in the wilderness. There is also an eerie light at 11:30 at night and, fabulously, tea time.
I could say many things about this strange life that combines tent-dwelling with lounging in a high class hotel, but for now I want to reserve most of my commentary for my observation of Patagonian birds. Specifically, I want to observe that THESE BIRDS ARE THRILL SEEKING DANGER ADDICTS.
Nathaniel does not condone this claim, stating, and I quote, "There is no logic in the anthropomorphism of birds." However, I cannot help it, given the ridiculous weather in the Region de la Ultima Esperanza. The wind hear gusts at upwards of 100 miles per hour. Impelled by this preposterous force, the avian of life of Patagonia is wont to plummet horizontally across the ragged contours of the earth at velocities far greater than those induced by gravity. They careen through rain and sleet and wind and snow, and there is no way they are not having fun.
Sometimes I wish I could be a bird in Patagonia. That is all.
I could say many things about this strange life that combines tent-dwelling with lounging in a high class hotel, but for now I want to reserve most of my commentary for my observation of Patagonian birds. Specifically, I want to observe that THESE BIRDS ARE THRILL SEEKING DANGER ADDICTS.
Nathaniel does not condone this claim, stating, and I quote, "There is no logic in the anthropomorphism of birds." However, I cannot help it, given the ridiculous weather in the Region de la Ultima Esperanza. The wind hear gusts at upwards of 100 miles per hour. Impelled by this preposterous force, the avian of life of Patagonia is wont to plummet horizontally across the ragged contours of the earth at velocities far greater than those induced by gravity. They careen through rain and sleet and wind and snow, and there is no way they are not having fun.
Sometimes I wish I could be a bird in Patagonia. That is all.
12.02.2010
Cochamó to The End of the World
Oh dear. I need to update this blog more often... Shall I recount how it is to herd geese on a swimming horse in a beautiful bay at sunset? What it feels like to reconnect with beautiful long lost friends beneath impossible granite megaliths? What about my experiences as a recent victim of theft and impermanence, or my 30 hour long existential bus ride South, or the way in which Nathaniel and I battle travel-weariness by scrambling chocolate chip cookies on the stove top?
In the face of profound absurdity I suppose I will start with Thanksgiving. On November the 25th I found myself with one of my best childhood friends in the Chilean equivalent of Yosemite, a 10 mile mudslide away from civilization. There in the wilderness a French woman had taken it upon herself to recreate the North American holiday of Thanksgiving by employing pack horses to cart in turkeys, wine etc. We were an eclectic Thanksgiving bunch, and the motif of bubbles pervaded our conversation as we consumed a miraculously delicious, abundant, and authentic Thanksgiving meal. When it was my turn to say what I was thankful for I said freedom.
And then it began: the sudden dessimation of my most valuable possesions. While hiking down a step slope I fell directly upon my high-falootin-oh-so-convenient electronic reader and shattered any hope I had of finishing Cat´s Cradle. Then in the Puerto Montt bus station some light-fingered asshole lifted my small backpack whose contents included but were not limited to my computer, my camera, my iPod, and a significant written segment of my soul.
Luckily travel insurance will cover some portion of the loss, but my journal is the really big heartbreaking problem. I had been writing in this journal for the past three years. I had filled up all the fronts of its 180 pages with the tiniest handwriting I could muster, and I was starting to fill up all the backs of the pages too. It contained the only truly selfish writing I´ve ever created, and all of my secrets, exaltations, and tragedies that seemed too raw or trite (or maybe too true) to share with another human being. It was often sad and rambling but sometimes it was beautiful and I loved it because it was a part of me. It was like a fucking Horcrux.
And then some dude in a bus station stole it and he probably can´t even understand English. As our Patagonia-bound bus pulled out of the station I cried for the first time on the trip, and I also wondered about the deliberate construction of ego, attachment, and suffering. Ah, impermanence, when you strike you strike hard, you bastard.
A thousand miles and 14 degrees of latitude later I find myself in Punta Arenas, a bleak windy outpost city that overlooks the Straight of Magellan. The wind is so strong here that the trees are bent, and geographical phenomena are named things like "The Last Hope." The times have been a bit demanding lately, what with the theft of my things and a pesty stomach illness of Nathaniel´s. We have consoled ourselves with culrinary adventures and incredibly improbable duels with fate and fortune. Most notably, we have scrambled cookies, purchased scratch-it lottery tickets, and composed a letter to an admiral of the Chilean navy explaining why he should grant us passage on a naval vessel bound for Antarctica.
.
In three days we are going to be commencing a three-week volunteer position in Torres de Paine national park. I have no idea what we are going to be doing. All I really know is a) it is supposed to be jaw-droppingly beautiful and b) we will be living in tents. Hopefully I´ll also befriend a gaucho with a horse, meet some other interesting people, and find something vaguely festive to do for the holidays.
And thus live continues to be vivid, overwhelming, beautiful, unexpected, and all that jazz. To Freedom. Cheers.
In the face of profound absurdity I suppose I will start with Thanksgiving. On November the 25th I found myself with one of my best childhood friends in the Chilean equivalent of Yosemite, a 10 mile mudslide away from civilization. There in the wilderness a French woman had taken it upon herself to recreate the North American holiday of Thanksgiving by employing pack horses to cart in turkeys, wine etc. We were an eclectic Thanksgiving bunch, and the motif of bubbles pervaded our conversation as we consumed a miraculously delicious, abundant, and authentic Thanksgiving meal. When it was my turn to say what I was thankful for I said freedom.
And then it began: the sudden dessimation of my most valuable possesions. While hiking down a step slope I fell directly upon my high-falootin-oh-so-convenient electronic reader and shattered any hope I had of finishing Cat´s Cradle. Then in the Puerto Montt bus station some light-fingered asshole lifted my small backpack whose contents included but were not limited to my computer, my camera, my iPod, and a significant written segment of my soul.
Luckily travel insurance will cover some portion of the loss, but my journal is the really big heartbreaking problem. I had been writing in this journal for the past three years. I had filled up all the fronts of its 180 pages with the tiniest handwriting I could muster, and I was starting to fill up all the backs of the pages too. It contained the only truly selfish writing I´ve ever created, and all of my secrets, exaltations, and tragedies that seemed too raw or trite (or maybe too true) to share with another human being. It was often sad and rambling but sometimes it was beautiful and I loved it because it was a part of me. It was like a fucking Horcrux.
And then some dude in a bus station stole it and he probably can´t even understand English. As our Patagonia-bound bus pulled out of the station I cried for the first time on the trip, and I also wondered about the deliberate construction of ego, attachment, and suffering. Ah, impermanence, when you strike you strike hard, you bastard.
A thousand miles and 14 degrees of latitude later I find myself in Punta Arenas, a bleak windy outpost city that overlooks the Straight of Magellan. The wind is so strong here that the trees are bent, and geographical phenomena are named things like "The Last Hope." The times have been a bit demanding lately, what with the theft of my things and a pesty stomach illness of Nathaniel´s. We have consoled ourselves with culrinary adventures and incredibly improbable duels with fate and fortune. Most notably, we have scrambled cookies, purchased scratch-it lottery tickets, and composed a letter to an admiral of the Chilean navy explaining why he should grant us passage on a naval vessel bound for Antarctica.
.
In three days we are going to be commencing a three-week volunteer position in Torres de Paine national park. I have no idea what we are going to be doing. All I really know is a) it is supposed to be jaw-droppingly beautiful and b) we will be living in tents. Hopefully I´ll also befriend a gaucho with a horse, meet some other interesting people, and find something vaguely festive to do for the holidays.
And thus live continues to be vivid, overwhelming, beautiful, unexpected, and all that jazz. To Freedom. Cheers.
11.13.2010
Puerto Varas to Chiloé
So I wasn't sure what to expect when Vicki, the owner of the hostel we were looking over in Puerto Varas, suggested that we go "canyoning." "It will be so much fun!" she said with a smile, "you get to play in the river and go repelling and I'm pretty sure I can get you two in for half price."
And thus I found myself in a wetsuit jumping off a 40-foot waterfall with a little Frenchman that may or may not have been part frog. For those who do not know, I have an aversion to jumping off of things into water. It's the feeling of falling. I really, really dislike the feeling of falling.
"Come on!!" said the Frenchman, "launch from zee rock! Come!"
And I did, much to my own dismay and exhilaration. In the midst of a steady spring downpour I closed my eyes and leaped, falling down and down into an icy pool. I bobbed to the surface and then prepared myself to repel down a legitimately huge cascade, which I did while the volcanoes watched, peeping their snowy faces through the rain.
In Puerto Varas we were also witness to a marauding Andean Condor. We were rambling about on the slopes of the Osorno Volcano when this bird of immense proportions circled us so closely that we could hear the wind whistling through its feathers. After I was certain that the bird's intention was not to claw out my eyes, I began to understand why people worship the condor.
Her property is on the northern tip of the island of Chiloé, in a bay called Caulín that is acclaimed for it's fabulous oysters:
Of course, as always, the answers remain elusive. At least for me there's reverence embedded in the questions, and their daily asking seems right, even if intellectual 'progress' infinitely repeats like the One Great Story that I'm not sure I believe in.
Anyway, it's been beautiful. I thought I'd list a few extra links here at the end for those who are interested:
Our Most Recent Picasa Web Album
The YouTube Video of the Condor Sighting
Nathaniel's Awesome Blog
Slide Show of People Canyoning Where We Canyoned
And thus I found myself in a wetsuit jumping off a 40-foot waterfall with a little Frenchman that may or may not have been part frog. For those who do not know, I have an aversion to jumping off of things into water. It's the feeling of falling. I really, really dislike the feeling of falling.
"Come on!!" said the Frenchman, "launch from zee rock! Come!"
And I did, much to my own dismay and exhilaration. In the midst of a steady spring downpour I closed my eyes and leaped, falling down and down into an icy pool. I bobbed to the surface and then prepared myself to repel down a legitimately huge cascade, which I did while the volcanoes watched, peeping their snowy faces through the rain.
In Puerto Varas we were also witness to a marauding Andean Condor. We were rambling about on the slopes of the Osorno Volcano when this bird of immense proportions circled us so closely that we could hear the wind whistling through its feathers. After I was certain that the bird's intention was not to claw out my eyes, I began to understand why people worship the condor.
Later, while walking down the sunny streets of Puerto Varas, Nathaniel and I discussed our upcoming move to the island of Chiloé. Work with snails was rumored to be a part of the farm job we were taking on the island, but I didn't really believe it. "Nathaniel," I said, "if we really do have intimate contact with snails at this Chiloé place we should put them on our faces. Pinky swear?"
I don't know exactly what inspired me to say this, but, to Nathaniel and me, the pinky swear is sacred.
On Friday afternoon a bus dropped us off on the Chiloé coast in a rainstorm, and by Sunday we were massaging snail bellies. Inés, the owner of the farm/restaurant/hotel where we are working, also makes and sells snail-based cosmetics. It was our noble task to clean filthy snail habitations and otherwise commune with our new mollusk friends. This is just one of our many jobs at Inés's, which have also included making marzipan, painting, moving firewood, pouring cement, and cutting Styrofoam with hot knives.
I don't like oysters, but I do like the spectacular sunsets that unfurl on rain-free evenings. Everything turns purple, and Nathaniel and I have far-discussions as the algae oxen bring home their last cart-fulls of algae. Is every story some iteration of One Great Story that infinitely repeats? What does it mean to have a moral compass? How should we think about the laws of nature? Is enlightenment related to mollusks? What the hell are we going to do with our lives once we get back to the Northern Hemisphere?
Of course, as always, the answers remain elusive. At least for me there's reverence embedded in the questions, and their daily asking seems right, even if intellectual 'progress' infinitely repeats like the One Great Story that I'm not sure I believe in.
Anyway, it's been beautiful. I thought I'd list a few extra links here at the end for those who are interested:
Our Most Recent Picasa Web Album
The YouTube Video of the Condor Sighting
Nathaniel's Awesome Blog
Slide Show of People Canyoning Where We Canyoned
10.31.2010
Rain and Questions
This is a rainy Halloween, with fat drops trickling down the windows of a big restored mansion. Nathaniel and I are still in Puerto Varas--we're watching over a bed and breakfast that is owned by my fifth grade teacher's high-school best friend. Right now "watching over" means reading Vonnegut in the common-space and waiting for guests. Also, thinking about questions.
Lately, you see, I've been faced with questions that are very difficult to answer. Here is a list:
(1) What did you study? ("Religion and Neuroscience" doesn't translate well into Spanish, and it also doesn't make very much sense.)
(2) What are you going to do with your education? (I either get quiet and awkward or say that I want to become a cat because felines in general seem to be enlightened.)
(3) What is your occupation? (This is often encountered when we have to check in places--Nathaniel and I share terrified eye-contact and freeze. Last time we wrote "itinerant vegetable worker.")
(4) What did you do to deserve this profound freedom? (I ask myself this one, and then struggle to remind myself that, in Tibetan, the word "guilt" doesn't exist.)
(5) Are we just walking non sequiturs? (Nathaniel just asked me that now, over his copy of The Grapes of Wrath. I kinda like it.)
This list is by no means comprehensive. In other news, Chile's only astronaut lives upstairs. Apparently he won some contest, so he got launched up above the stratosphere and gets to take part in the pilot project for a space-tourism agency. He may even go to the moon, and he's one of the happiest people I've ever met.
And I think that this Halloween is going to be pretty quiet. Although the holiday has certainly taken hold here in Chile, Nathaniel and I are going to stay at the guest house and protect it from marauding hooligans (read: we are lazy and might wear some silly hats). It's funny to compare this Halloween to my last, when I bade a confused Indian tailor to made me a sugar-glider suit:
Lately, you see, I've been faced with questions that are very difficult to answer. Here is a list:
(1) What did you study? ("Religion and Neuroscience" doesn't translate well into Spanish, and it also doesn't make very much sense.)
(2) What are you going to do with your education? (I either get quiet and awkward or say that I want to become a cat because felines in general seem to be enlightened.)
(3) What is your occupation? (This is often encountered when we have to check in places--Nathaniel and I share terrified eye-contact and freeze. Last time we wrote "itinerant vegetable worker.")
(4) What did you do to deserve this profound freedom? (I ask myself this one, and then struggle to remind myself that, in Tibetan, the word "guilt" doesn't exist.)
(5) Are we just walking non sequiturs? (Nathaniel just asked me that now, over his copy of The Grapes of Wrath. I kinda like it.)
This list is by no means comprehensive. In other news, Chile's only astronaut lives upstairs. Apparently he won some contest, so he got launched up above the stratosphere and gets to take part in the pilot project for a space-tourism agency. He may even go to the moon, and he's one of the happiest people I've ever met.
And I think that this Halloween is going to be pretty quiet. Although the holiday has certainly taken hold here in Chile, Nathaniel and I are going to stay at the guest house and protect it from marauding hooligans (read: we are lazy and might wear some silly hats). It's funny to compare this Halloween to my last, when I bade a confused Indian tailor to made me a sugar-glider suit:
10.25.2010
Odes
I sit now in the home of a kind lawyer in Puerto Varas, Chile. Snow-frosted volcanoes loom surreal over an indigo lake, and I’m sipping tea, reflecting. As always there is too much to recount. We’ve worked for two weeks for a old man from Ohio, we visited my old friends in Temuco and danced until 5 a.m. through an earthquake, and now we’re here, in the picturesque tourist haven of Puerto Varas, discussing religion and politics with our wonderful Couchsurfing host.
I have mentioned, I believe, that the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is the shit. In one particular anthology, Neruda writes every poem as an ode to something: “Ode to the Bicycle,” “Ode to the Artichoke,” “Ode to the Onion,” etc. In this spirit, I am going to try to allude to my experiences of the last couple of weeks in a brief series of odes. Enjoy.
Ode to Thistle
We are now intimate enemies, Cirisium arvense. Farmer Daniel calls you "Canadian Thistle," but I know that you're really called "Cursed." After spending untold hours chopping your invasive thorny hide into bits with a hoe in the cherry orchards, I'm confused. I think I've come to love you as much as I hate you. There's something almost proud about your spiny face under a gray spring sky. You know what "green" means. Your evil is pure.
Ode to Steinbeck
You genius, you. Of course it’s strange to be reading your North-American epic East of Eden, being on the wrong continent and all, but it’s so true and mythic. I can’t stop. You are my company during lazy afternoons on the Valdivia farm, where I read post thistle-murder with tea. I binge on your words, wonder where I come from, get lost in your universe. Pristine phrases float through my mind like clouds… “I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.”
Ode to the Sea
You must be tired of odes by now, you infinite expanse of base-notes and lights. I can't help it, though—you're too beautiful outside of Validvia, framed as you are by the ramparts of old forts and yellow flowers. As pelicans muse like old men above your turquoise tufts, Nathaniel and I talk about the grandiose intangibles of life. God becomes a hypothetical mollusk, and we wonder what we can know.
Ode to Beer
European immigrants pander your strange golden rainbow, and we sample every variety in little plastic cups. I didn't think that you could come honey-flavored; thick and sweet like syrup. The "Gran Torobayo" is clearly the best, but I don't know where the name comes from and you're not nearly as good as your Oregonian cousins. I love your improbability, however, and I laugh to myself as I sip something so rich and brown and German.
Ode to Marcelo
“Temuco.” We wanted to go there, but the gleaming labeled bus wouldn’t stop for two grungy backpackers waving their arms on the side of the Pan-American Highway. You stopped, though, with your giant empty tea truck. We didn’t think that our shyly waving thumbs would yield any results, but you stopped and you saved us. You honked for us to come and then threw our backpacks where the tea used to be. For two hours you ferried us, laughed and chain-smoked, shared pictures of your son. You asked to friend us on Facebook and showed us how people are good.
Ode to Coffee
Grounding beautiful delicious dirt—I could write an anthology just for you (poor Nathaniel listens to excerpts daily). Everyone here drinks Nescafe, which isn’t coffee at all, and you’ve become a distant dream during the last few weeks. But then Vickie, a fascinating entrepreneur, serves you up steaming as we talk about chocolate and organic food and entertaining the prince of Monaco. Maybe we will work for Vickie arranging her porch and watching after her bed and breakfast. Maybe I will drink more of you, you beautiful bevarage. The possibilities are delectable.
10.15.2010
Pictures!
Dear Readership,
Nathaniel and I have collaborated to create a Picasa page documenting our experiences in South America. The first album, "Mint Binge," has just been uploaded, and it can be viewed at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/N.C.southernexposure/MintBinge#
In other news, I am glad that the miners have been freed from the bowels of the earth. I ask myself whether any Chilean will be able to discuss any other topic for the next three months, or whether the local news will ever stop broadcasting the story of "LOS 33 MINEROS DE CHILE."
Life is good. Tomorrow I'm going to explore ancient forts and visit the Beer Museum.
Love, and thanks for reading,
Caitlin
Nathaniel and I have collaborated to create a Picasa page documenting our experiences in South America. The first album, "Mint Binge," has just been uploaded, and it can be viewed at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/N.C.southernexposure/MintBinge#
In other news, I am glad that the miners have been freed from the bowels of the earth. I ask myself whether any Chilean will be able to discuss any other topic for the next three months, or whether the local news will ever stop broadcasting the story of "LOS 33 MINEROS DE CHILE."
Life is good. Tomorrow I'm going to explore ancient forts and visit the Beer Museum.
Love, and thanks for reading,
Caitlin
10.13.2010
Nostalgia is a strange loop.
Lumaco has changed a lot since I lived there five years ago. There’s a new municipal development across from my family’s tiny carnicería—before there were just tufted hills. There’s a new upstairs to my Chilean house, with rooms for boarders and a vaulted view of this rapidly growing rural village. There are fine lines around my host mother’s eyes, internet access in my host-home, and a supermarket.
Some things haven’t changed, though. Bread is still cooked in a wood-fire oven and served with avocado and cheap tea. The television is still incessant in its broadcast of tacky music videos, and roosters still crow outside of my window. Lumaco means “water of the trees” in the language of the native Mapuche people, and Lumaco’s brown river still bustles through on its determined course through the pine forests Southern Chile. I don’t think it ever noticed my absence, or cared that I returned.
One evening I went running alone on the same gravel road where I always used to run, back when I was a lost seventeen-year-old feeling trapped in spiritual gridlock of small town life. Drunkards wavered to their countryside homes as the sun wavered on the horizon, and my lungs filled with the rich scent of wood-smoke. It was just like I remembered, except for this time everything was on my own terms.
Nathaniel and I went to Lumaco last weekend, and, over extended broadcasts of the Chilean Miner Rescue Mission, I tentatively reformed my connection with the dreary lost loving place that I once called home. I had been afraid of returning to such a complicated nexus of memory, but Nathaniel played my host brother’s guitar and we drank tea and laughed and talked about the moon. I relaxed and flirted with some kind of atonement.
I was glad to get on the southward-bound bus, though, and watch Lumaco’s hills melt back into memory. I don’t want to live that life, and I never did. I prefer to carry it with me as I move, buried somewhere deep in my strange mosaic of self. Now I’m hoeing thistle and collecting alien-brain seed pods outside of Valdivia (see Nathaniel’s post for details), and the journey continues to evolve.
Tonight, I think, I will toast my tea evolution of journeys. And to the color of Chile in the spring.
10.08.2010
Tusks and Other Muses
"I came here to count the bells
that live upon the surface of the sea,
that sound over the sea,
within the sea.
So, here I live."
--Pablo Neruda
We are now in Valparaiso, a beautifully graffitied port town built on impossible hills. During the past two days we have visited two of Pablo Neruda's three Chilean abodes. Neruda is one of my favorite poets, and it was like a fairytale to explore his eclectic decor and strange collections that included, but were not limited to, carousel horses, figureheads, and snail shells. He also had a fondness for colored glass and bells and green ink, but most of all he loved the ocean. Both of the houses we saw had panoramic vistas of the Pacific in all of its bone-chilling deep-blue grandeur. It was not hard at all to imagine a poet inspired.
But maybe his secret was the narwhal tusk. Neruda kept a 2.25 meter tooth of a narwhal whale, along with a historical painting of the fanciful beast. Strange man. He wrote beautiful things.
And now we're going even more austral. I spent a semester as an exchange student in Chile when I was seventeen, and we're going South to go visit my host family in their small small village of Lumaco. I'm kind of nervous to reunite with a universe that I left behind five years ago, but it should be interesting.
(I also wanted to mention that co-conqueror and travel friend Nathaniel is also keeping a blog. For a completely different perspective on our ramblings, visit nathanielgoessouth.blogspot.com.)
10.04.2010
Santiago, Chile
I am here, staying with a wonderful French-Canadian professor. His apartment is on the sixteenth floor, and from the balcony you can see Santiago sprawling beneath snow-capped peaks that fade in and out of the smog. Boys perform improbable juggling feats at stoplights, impressive colonial architecture stands alongside ugly urban development, and there's a bite in the early-spring air. The biggest flag ever billows over the Chilean treasury--it is at least the size of 16 queen-sized beds, I'd say, although Nathaniel puts it in the twenties.
After spending the day meandering through downtown Santiago, we returned to our kind host's lofty apartment. As I made myself a cup of espresso, I thought about the fact that I'm going to be on this continent for eight months. I didn't have a paper to write, I wasn't late for anything, and I was pressing finely ground coffee into an espresso maker with the back of a spoon. The mountains watched through big glass windows, and everything was beautiful.
After spending the day meandering through downtown Santiago, we returned to our kind host's lofty apartment. As I made myself a cup of espresso, I thought about the fact that I'm going to be on this continent for eight months. I didn't have a paper to write, I wasn't late for anything, and I was pressing finely ground coffee into an espresso maker with the back of a spoon. The mountains watched through big glass windows, and everything was beautiful.
10.01.2010
GOING SOUTH ...almost.
I got up at 3:30 this morning, and showed up at PDX ready to board a flight to Santiago, Chile. When I scanned my passport, however, my travel information didn't pop up. The lady at the front desk looked confused. She scurried to consult her supervisor, and after much hushed conversation around a computer, the solemn supervisor approached me.
"I hate to tell you this," she said, "but your flight doesn't exist."
I didn't know this was allowed. Hell, I didn't even know this was possible. Flights aren't like fairies--they don't go away if people stop believing in them... do they?
After sitting dejectedly by the baggage drop-off station listening to terrible terrible tinny classical music for four eons, and after almost crying to the nice Southern man who was the spokesperson for Avianca airlines, I was put on a different flight that supposedly does exist. It leaves tomorrow. Ostensibly.
And then I will be in Chile. I'm meeting my college-friend Nathaniel there, and then together we will conquer the entire continent of South America. And by "conquer" I mean "meander through," "get lost in," and "harvest the vegetables of." Our plans now are almost laughably vague (see the map I've included with this post). We're planning of traversing Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia, but I think that this is the sort of journey that evolves.
So check back soon! I know that my posting has been meager lately, but now I'm having a proclaimed adventure and will strive to be a reliable bloggist.
On that note, onward and southward I fly!!!! Hopefully.
"I hate to tell you this," she said, "but your flight doesn't exist."
I didn't know this was allowed. Hell, I didn't even know this was possible. Flights aren't like fairies--they don't go away if people stop believing in them... do they?
After sitting dejectedly by the baggage drop-off station listening to terrible terrible tinny classical music for four eons, and after almost crying to the nice Southern man who was the spokesperson for Avianca airlines, I was put on a different flight that supposedly does exist. It leaves tomorrow. Ostensibly.
And then I will be in Chile. I'm meeting my college-friend Nathaniel there, and then together we will conquer the entire continent of South America. And by "conquer" I mean "meander through," "get lost in," and "harvest the vegetables of." Our plans now are almost laughably vague (see the map I've included with this post). We're planning of traversing Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia, but I think that this is the sort of journey that evolves.
So check back soon! I know that my posting has been meager lately, but now I'm having a proclaimed adventure and will strive to be a reliable bloggist.
On that note, onward and southward I fly!!!! Hopefully.
9.16.2010
The Windmill Explained
A 'windmill' (n.) is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational motion by means of adjustable vanes called sails. The main use is for a grinding mill powered by the wind, reducing a solid or coarse substance into pulp or minute grains, by crushing, grinding, or pressing. Windmills are common in Holland. If you want, you can purchase a 20 foot Aeration Windmill System on Amazon.com for $1,957.95.
Beyond these facts, the windmill has fabulous literary connotations. Perhaps you've heard of the English idiom "tilting at windmills." This expression is derived from an episode in Migues de Cervantes' seminal novel Don Quijote. In common parlance, "tilting at windmills" means attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting futile battles.
I chose to title my blog "Tilting at Windmills" for two reasons: (1) because the idea of 'fighting futile battles' (or the noble quest toward that which cannot ultimately be attained) seems to be telling of the human condition and (2) because Carleton College--the institution where I got my undergraduate degree--is partially powered by a windmill. (Technically I think it's a wind turbine, but it's the same principle really.)
Of course I've graduated from college now, and I no longer can observe the steady whomping of a windmill slicing the sky. But I still think that it's beautiful (and noble) to attempt impossible tasks, to reach beyond yourself, to express that which evades language. Although I often feel like the process of chasing the impossible crushes me into minute grains, I think it means something.
So, although I'm no longer in the wind-ridden Flat Place, perhaps the metaphor still stands.
Beyond these facts, the windmill has fabulous literary connotations. Perhaps you've heard of the English idiom "tilting at windmills." This expression is derived from an episode in Migues de Cervantes' seminal novel Don Quijote. In common parlance, "tilting at windmills" means attacking imaginary enemies, or fighting futile battles.
I chose to title my blog "Tilting at Windmills" for two reasons: (1) because the idea of 'fighting futile battles' (or the noble quest toward that which cannot ultimately be attained) seems to be telling of the human condition and (2) because Carleton College--the institution where I got my undergraduate degree--is partially powered by a windmill. (Technically I think it's a wind turbine, but it's the same principle really.)
Of course I've graduated from college now, and I no longer can observe the steady whomping of a windmill slicing the sky. But I still think that it's beautiful (and noble) to attempt impossible tasks, to reach beyond yourself, to express that which evades language. Although I often feel like the process of chasing the impossible crushes me into minute grains, I think it means something.
So, although I'm no longer in the wind-ridden Flat Place, perhaps the metaphor still stands.
9.07.2010
Yesterday waiting to buy movie tickets--
Me: I can't get a student ticket anymore!! Weird... Dad, I'm unemployed!
Dad: No, you're not unemployed.
Me: What? I mean, my summer job is over. I don't have a job.
Dad: Yes, but in order to be unemployed you have to be actively seeking a job.
Me: Oh. What am I then, if I'm not unemployed?
Dad: A weasel.
Dad: No, you're not unemployed.
Me: What? I mean, my summer job is over. I don't have a job.
Dad: Yes, but in order to be unemployed you have to be actively seeking a job.
Me: Oh. What am I then, if I'm not unemployed?
Dad: A weasel.
8.02.2010
August
The last session of summer camp has begun. I locked my counselors-in-training into a freezer yesterday and told them to escape, and soon we'll go hiking, and then river rafting, and then I'll be northward bound into an indeterminate future. Since the solstice my morning runs have become much grayer. The mosquito swarm that has kept me company in my sleeping area all summer is diminishing, and I've noticed that the vacant half-moon has been looking a lot like a question mark. I've also been wondering about inspiration. Muses, you know, and the desire to change the world.
This post doesn't have an explicit purpose, but I thought I'd ramble a bit since I haven't in a while. In the spirit of musing, I'll put up a poem by William Stafford that I absolutely love:
"When I Met My Muse"
I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there tok a new grip
on whatever they touched."I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.
This post doesn't have an explicit purpose, but I thought I'd ramble a bit since I haven't in a while. In the spirit of musing, I'll put up a poem by William Stafford that I absolutely love:
"When I Met My Muse"
I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there tok a new grip
on whatever they touched."I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.
7.20.2010
Why I love kids:
Nolly, 7 years (gesturing at empty bowl): Touch the cheese Caitlin!!!!!!
Me: But Nolly, there isn't any cheese there.
Nolly: It's imaginary cheese! Ewwwww! Play my game!
Me: What is the game called?
Nolly (with exasperated look): It's called Touch the Cheese. Duh.
Me: But Nolly, there isn't any cheese there.
Nolly: It's imaginary cheese! Ewwwww! Play my game!
Me: What is the game called?
Nolly (with exasperated look): It's called Touch the Cheese. Duh.
6.22.2010
A Brief Note on Mountains and Their Affiliated Poems
I like these mountains quite a lot. They are purple, green, and brown, and their proddings into heaven are very brave. I marveled at them as another solstice ticked by, and at the white rushing mountain rivers that clearly embody the spirit of the West. I think I have the spirit of the West too. I have fallen for these mountains and their coursing white-water capillaries.
In California, at this altitude, I identify with the beat-writer Gary Snyder. After learning about Zen in a monastery in Japan, Snyder returned to the U.S. to work on trail crews in the Sierras. Snyder also fell for these mountains, and he saw his labor on their flanks to be a realization of Nirvana. I've wondered whether my hoeing and painting and walking and planning are realizations of Nirvana. Of course I can't be sure, but it's been damn beautiful, and the mountains don't ask many questions about Nirvana. They just sit--perched on the earth, nudging the sky.
In California, at this altitude, I identify with the beat-writer Gary Snyder. After learning about Zen in a monastery in Japan, Snyder returned to the U.S. to work on trail crews in the Sierras. Snyder also fell for these mountains, and he saw his labor on their flanks to be a realization of Nirvana. I've wondered whether my hoeing and painting and walking and planning are realizations of Nirvana. Of course I can't be sure, but it's been damn beautiful, and the mountains don't ask many questions about Nirvana. They just sit--perched on the earth, nudging the sky.
6.14.2010
So I'm done with college.
I've written all my essays, taken my exams, and painted the interior of the college chapel in excruciating detail. I spent a week jumping into the river and reveling in the general glory of Minnesota springtime, and then I walked across a stage wearing a funny black frock and the president of my college gave me a folder with a piece of paper inside. I bid tearful farewells to a community that has defined my universe for four years, and packed up all of my worldly possessions into check-able airplane parcels. And now I'm done. When I fill out forms that ask for my occupation, I can no longer write "student." (Actually, this is an appropriate time to revisit a post I wrote back at the beginning of my Junior year: "When I was a student...")
As I write this, I'm sitting in a small airport in Bakersfield, CA, munching on brie cheese and trying to wrap my head around this incalculable turning point. I'm about to start my summer job working with teenagers in the foothills of the Sierras, but a large part of me still feels stuck somewhere in the Midwest, in the place where I poured my essence into books and people and questions and preposterously beautiful clouds. I'm excited that the f-bomb ("future") is falling with spectacular mystery and vividness, but I'm also kind of heartbroken. As much as I was challenged at Carleton, I loved it there. And now that imminent, formative section of my life is over in a way that makes me want to capitalize the word "Ending."
Bakersfield is an odd city. An incongruous, man-made oasis, it floats flat, shiny and hot like a mirage in a brown desert. I'm leaving soon to go to camp, where I will be up close to the sky in fragrant dusty evergreen forests. Hopefully I'll manage to learn something from the young ones, and, if I'm really lucky, teach.
And so life keeps turning, vividly and inexplicably. Fear not, however--I may be done with school for the moment, but I have every intention of keeping up with this blog. My plans for this falling f-bomb of a future are amorphous at best, but, whatever happens, it makes sense for me to write about it.
Cheers.
As I write this, I'm sitting in a small airport in Bakersfield, CA, munching on brie cheese and trying to wrap my head around this incalculable turning point. I'm about to start my summer job working with teenagers in the foothills of the Sierras, but a large part of me still feels stuck somewhere in the Midwest, in the place where I poured my essence into books and people and questions and preposterously beautiful clouds. I'm excited that the f-bomb ("future") is falling with spectacular mystery and vividness, but I'm also kind of heartbroken. As much as I was challenged at Carleton, I loved it there. And now that imminent, formative section of my life is over in a way that makes me want to capitalize the word "Ending."
Bakersfield is an odd city. An incongruous, man-made oasis, it floats flat, shiny and hot like a mirage in a brown desert. I'm leaving soon to go to camp, where I will be up close to the sky in fragrant dusty evergreen forests. Hopefully I'll manage to learn something from the young ones, and, if I'm really lucky, teach.
And so life keeps turning, vividly and inexplicably. Fear not, however--I may be done with school for the moment, but I have every intention of keeping up with this blog. My plans for this falling f-bomb of a future are amorphous at best, but, whatever happens, it makes sense for me to write about it.
Cheers.
6.01.2010
Valediction Sprint
This spring I took a class called "The Art of Oral Presentation," and today was our last meeting. Our final assignment was to write and deliver a valediction, or farewell. During class we raced through 11 speeches, and it was interesting to hear my classmates' various perspectives. The following is what I wrote for the class: a farewell to the thesis driven essay, as representative of my career as a student.
"I vividly remember the moment when I understood what it meant to write a thesis-driven argument. I was in tenth grade, and Mr. Wood was my English teacher. He taught me how to collect my ideas into organized points and state them with painstaking clarity, and I felt like he was stealing my soul. I thought bullet points were bullshit and found absolutely no poetry in paper-writing.
"For seven years after this moment of realization, I have waged war against the thesis. In high school I struggled to spin strange arguments about Plato’s philosophy the motivations of Hamlet, and here at Carleton my struggles became battles as I wrote about big things that should be capitalized like Consciousness and Beauty and Truth. With every crisp articulation of an argument I felt more acutely the failure of my words to express what I was trying to say.
"I’ve never had a child, but, by the end of my senior year of college, I’ve come to figuratively conceive of the paper-writing process as a sort of birthing. After waiting until the last possible instant to start writing, I agonizingly construct some sort of thesis, and then cling with some doubt to my argument as words painfully come forth. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat in a Sayles classroom into the nether-hours with grim determination and a rapidly cooling cup of coffee, and I sold my soul to the second floor of the library when I decided to write my comps about that which cannot be defined. According to my calculations, I’ve written upwards of 500 pages during my undergraduate career, and it scares me to contemplate how many hours I spend laboring to bring forth this vast progeny of papers.
"But now I have one day of class left before I indefinitely end my career as a student, and my war against the thesis is over. I’m graduating from Carleton, and I’ve written all my papers. Never again will I purchase a large dark roast and disappear into the lonely recesses of my own confusion. Never again will my heart sink at the sight of a blank document and a blinking space bar. Never again will I laugh at the ironic fact that the universe cannot be crammed into a coherent, crisp unfolding of points.
"And, although my relationship with paper-writing has been tumultuous at best, I’m a little sad to see it go. I don’t know exactly when I began to see beautiful side of carefully rendered structure and syntax, but, strangely, I’ve come to appreciate the painful process.
"This is how I think about it: in Greek mythology there’s this guy named Sisyphus, a man who was doomed for all of eternity to push a boulder up a mountainside only for it to slide down again, and again, and again. The existentialist writer Albert Camus wrote that Sisyphys represents humanity, and that there is only hope for us if we can imagine Sisyphus to be happy with his fate. I like to think of the thesis-driven argument as my boulder, and, as per Camus’ advice, I’ve come to love it as much as I hate it. Over time I’ve managed to find something almost noble in the impossible task of writing life down in comprehensible terms, and now my frustrated engagement with that task is over.
"Since paper-writing has been such a staple of my education, in my mind the thesis is inevitably linked to my Carleton experience. I guess it’s natural then, that, as my college career draws to a close, I’m almost frantically grasping for some coherent binding statement to sum up my time in Minnesota. I want to lie out my college career in bullet points so that I can wrap my head around it and make it mean something.
"The thing I hated most about writing papers was the conclusion. For some reason, the last sentence is always the hardest."
"I vividly remember the moment when I understood what it meant to write a thesis-driven argument. I was in tenth grade, and Mr. Wood was my English teacher. He taught me how to collect my ideas into organized points and state them with painstaking clarity, and I felt like he was stealing my soul. I thought bullet points were bullshit and found absolutely no poetry in paper-writing.
"For seven years after this moment of realization, I have waged war against the thesis. In high school I struggled to spin strange arguments about Plato’s philosophy the motivations of Hamlet, and here at Carleton my struggles became battles as I wrote about big things that should be capitalized like Consciousness and Beauty and Truth. With every crisp articulation of an argument I felt more acutely the failure of my words to express what I was trying to say.
"I’ve never had a child, but, by the end of my senior year of college, I’ve come to figuratively conceive of the paper-writing process as a sort of birthing. After waiting until the last possible instant to start writing, I agonizingly construct some sort of thesis, and then cling with some doubt to my argument as words painfully come forth. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat in a Sayles classroom into the nether-hours with grim determination and a rapidly cooling cup of coffee, and I sold my soul to the second floor of the library when I decided to write my comps about that which cannot be defined. According to my calculations, I’ve written upwards of 500 pages during my undergraduate career, and it scares me to contemplate how many hours I spend laboring to bring forth this vast progeny of papers.
"But now I have one day of class left before I indefinitely end my career as a student, and my war against the thesis is over. I’m graduating from Carleton, and I’ve written all my papers. Never again will I purchase a large dark roast and disappear into the lonely recesses of my own confusion. Never again will my heart sink at the sight of a blank document and a blinking space bar. Never again will I laugh at the ironic fact that the universe cannot be crammed into a coherent, crisp unfolding of points.
"And, although my relationship with paper-writing has been tumultuous at best, I’m a little sad to see it go. I don’t know exactly when I began to see beautiful side of carefully rendered structure and syntax, but, strangely, I’ve come to appreciate the painful process.
"This is how I think about it: in Greek mythology there’s this guy named Sisyphus, a man who was doomed for all of eternity to push a boulder up a mountainside only for it to slide down again, and again, and again. The existentialist writer Albert Camus wrote that Sisyphys represents humanity, and that there is only hope for us if we can imagine Sisyphus to be happy with his fate. I like to think of the thesis-driven argument as my boulder, and, as per Camus’ advice, I’ve come to love it as much as I hate it. Over time I’ve managed to find something almost noble in the impossible task of writing life down in comprehensible terms, and now my frustrated engagement with that task is over.
"Since paper-writing has been such a staple of my education, in my mind the thesis is inevitably linked to my Carleton experience. I guess it’s natural then, that, as my college career draws to a close, I’m almost frantically grasping for some coherent binding statement to sum up my time in Minnesota. I want to lie out my college career in bullet points so that I can wrap my head around it and make it mean something.
"The thing I hated most about writing papers was the conclusion. For some reason, the last sentence is always the hardest."
5.19.2010
Dear Blog,
I'm sorry to have forgotten you. It's just that the SUN has come out and I'm not taking any classes that make me write papers... I've found myself spending much less time on the computer, and thus procrastinating via non-blog mediums.
I still think of you, though. I promise. I compose blog-worthy odes to photosynthesis and meaning and laughter as I walk very slowly across my last few weeks of college. My thoughts never quite become text, however. They kind of float there like cottonwood, while the gaping Minnesota sky reminds me that my existence is negligible in terms of heaven.
I hope you're well. I wish I could really show you the magnificence of Spring.
Regards,
Caitlin
p.s. A gem from philosophy notes of yore:
I'm sorry to have forgotten you. It's just that the SUN has come out and I'm not taking any classes that make me write papers... I've found myself spending much less time on the computer, and thus procrastinating via non-blog mediums.
I still think of you, though. I promise. I compose blog-worthy odes to photosynthesis and meaning and laughter as I walk very slowly across my last few weeks of college. My thoughts never quite become text, however. They kind of float there like cottonwood, while the gaping Minnesota sky reminds me that my existence is negligible in terms of heaven.
I hope you're well. I wish I could really show you the magnificence of Spring.
Regards,
Caitlin
p.s. A gem from philosophy notes of yore:
4.24.2010
Homi Bhaba
A famous Harvard professor, Homi Bhaba, came to Carleton to speak last Thursday. According to his Wikipedia page, "he is one of the most important figures in post-colonial studies," and "he has been criticized for dense, barely comprehensible, jargon ridden prose."
I won't claim to have understood everything that Bhaba said during his hour-and-a-half long lecture, but, as he discussed the genocide in Sudan in terms of colonial discourse, I was moved. He also had fabulous glasses, and his eloquence was dazzling.
In fact, I kept a long list of direct quotes from Bhaba while he spoke, and re-arranged them in to the following poem after the fact. I'd like to think that it is an apt summing-up of his message.
I have dreamed of world revolution
Here we are, caught in between
violence and the sacred
striving to forget
the unpronounceable things we
scribbled in the margins of history.
"Life fell to pieces here,
... and now poetry is barbaric."
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
How do we excavate the silences
while trapped in the double
time-frame of memory?
It's a terrible mystery--
but the future can't wait to be born
and I am here, in your poem
unsatisfied.
I won't claim to have understood everything that Bhaba said during his hour-and-a-half long lecture, but, as he discussed the genocide in Sudan in terms of colonial discourse, I was moved. He also had fabulous glasses, and his eloquence was dazzling.
In fact, I kept a long list of direct quotes from Bhaba while he spoke, and re-arranged them in to the following poem after the fact. I'd like to think that it is an apt summing-up of his message.
I have dreamed of world revolution
Here we are, caught in between
violence and the sacred
striving to forget
the unpronounceable things we
scribbled in the margins of history.
"Life fell to pieces here,
... and now poetry is barbaric."
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
How do we excavate the silences
while trapped in the double
time-frame of memory?
It's a terrible mystery--
but the future can't wait to be born
and I am here, in your poem
unsatisfied.
4.06.2010
In Praise of Rain
It's raining.
Out the window, I can see the drops splashing into puddles in the concrete. The green is greener, and, outside, it smells like everything my heart is missing.
I sit here in the library with my thesis to edit and the sinking realization that electricity involves calculus, but somehow the rain makes it ok, at least right now. Yesterday I reveled on a particularly alluvial balcony. Today, with each little splash, something inside me sighs a quiet thank-you.
thankyou
thankyou
thankyou
thankyou
.
.
.
Of course the breeze ruffling the rain-slick oak leaves is so much better at expressing my current mood than these damn words. And of course the last tidbits of my college life (i.e. NOW) are all map-less, unbounded and terrifying.
Terrifying, but also very free.
Falling.
I love the rain.
Out the window, I can see the drops splashing into puddles in the concrete. The green is greener, and, outside, it smells like everything my heart is missing.
I sit here in the library with my thesis to edit and the sinking realization that electricity involves calculus, but somehow the rain makes it ok, at least right now. Yesterday I reveled on a particularly alluvial balcony. Today, with each little splash, something inside me sighs a quiet thank-you.
thankyou
thankyou
thankyou
thankyou
.
.
.
Of course the breeze ruffling the rain-slick oak leaves is so much better at expressing my current mood than these damn words. And of course the last tidbits of my college life (i.e. NOW) are all map-less, unbounded and terrifying.
Terrifying, but also very free.
Falling.
I love the rain.
4.05.2010
A Conversation Between Sartre and the Buddha
I came across the following vignette when I was searching my hard drive for some old notes. I wrote it last May, when I was concurrently enrolled in Philosophy 240 "Existentialism" and Religion 270 "Buddha."
Sartre: I’d really like to thank you, Buddha, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with me about essences.
Buddha: It literally was no problem at all. My potential manifestations are infinite. You are talking to an illusion right now.
Sartre: Wow. Well, I really appreciate it anyway. Umm, so I guess you probably know my ‘slogan,’ “existence precedes essence.” When I say this, I mean that we humans, unlike common objects, have no essential nature. We are free to forge our own essence through our actions. I’ve heard that you have an interesting perspective on essence and the composition of the self, and I was kind of curious what you might have to say about my philosophy.
Buddha: I agree with your criticism of essence, Jean-Paul, but I don’t agree that such a thing as a paper cutter would have an essence, while human beings do not.
Sartre: Well, I think you’ll find that it’s really quite simple. A paper cutter has essential properties that are fixed by its type—it is created with the specific purpose of cutting paper. In contrast, man was not created with any specific purpose (since it is now widely acknowledged that God is an incoherent concept). In light of this, man forges his own essence via a process of becoming.
Buddha: Despite the fact that your criticism of essence initially appears to be promising, I now see that we have different views entirely on the matter. While you think that tools do have essences and that humans create their essences retroactively, I hold that essence cannot exist. Every concept and form can be shattered to reveal emptiness, or no-thing. You argue that, for humans, the how of existence precedes the that of existence, but the truth is simply that there is no that. That is a chimera; a propagator of suffering.
Sartre: You are a nihilist!
Buddha: Some have accused me of this. They are not enlightened.
Sartre: I’d really like to thank you, Buddha, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with me about essences.
Buddha: It literally was no problem at all. My potential manifestations are infinite. You are talking to an illusion right now.
Sartre: Wow. Well, I really appreciate it anyway. Umm, so I guess you probably know my ‘slogan,’ “existence precedes essence.” When I say this, I mean that we humans, unlike common objects, have no essential nature. We are free to forge our own essence through our actions. I’ve heard that you have an interesting perspective on essence and the composition of the self, and I was kind of curious what you might have to say about my philosophy.
Buddha: I agree with your criticism of essence, Jean-Paul, but I don’t agree that such a thing as a paper cutter would have an essence, while human beings do not.
Sartre: Well, I think you’ll find that it’s really quite simple. A paper cutter has essential properties that are fixed by its type—it is created with the specific purpose of cutting paper. In contrast, man was not created with any specific purpose (since it is now widely acknowledged that God is an incoherent concept). In light of this, man forges his own essence via a process of becoming.
Buddha: Despite the fact that your criticism of essence initially appears to be promising, I now see that we have different views entirely on the matter. While you think that tools do have essences and that humans create their essences retroactively, I hold that essence cannot exist. Every concept and form can be shattered to reveal emptiness, or no-thing. You argue that, for humans, the how of existence precedes the that of existence, but the truth is simply that there is no that. That is a chimera; a propagator of suffering.
Sartre: You are a nihilist!
Buddha: Some have accused me of this. They are not enlightened.
3.29.2010
You know that Greek god, the one that brings the sun up every day with a flaming solar chariot? I think it's Helios, or maybe Apollo. Anyway, no matter his name, any god with a flaming solar chariot needs a whip to crack as he brings on the day with his thundering solar steeds. And that whip is the Kansas turnpike.
I drove 1,143 miles on 1-35 last night, beginning in Austin, TX, and ending in Northfield, MN. Actually, I personally only drove around five hours, between 1 and 6 a.m. This is my favorite shift to drive. My tires devour silent gaping roads, and my freedom is meditative, pure, and alive. The sun came up over Kansas just as the moon set, and there, in the reeling center of celestial rearrangement, it became clear to me that the turnpike is Apollo's whip.
And, with that realization, I begin my last term at Carleton. All the snow has melted, and weather.com predicts a ridiculous 78˚ F for Wednesday. I simply cannot fathom this, and anticipate the inevitable April blizzard with apprehension. For now, though, the whole word looks a little surprised to be naked, and is blushing green. My classes look good. I kinda like it.
I drove 1,143 miles on 1-35 last night, beginning in Austin, TX, and ending in Northfield, MN. Actually, I personally only drove around five hours, between 1 and 6 a.m. This is my favorite shift to drive. My tires devour silent gaping roads, and my freedom is meditative, pure, and alive. The sun came up over Kansas just as the moon set, and there, in the reeling center of celestial rearrangement, it became clear to me that the turnpike is Apollo's whip.
And, with that realization, I begin my last term at Carleton. All the snow has melted, and weather.com predicts a ridiculous 78˚ F for Wednesday. I simply cannot fathom this, and anticipate the inevitable April blizzard with apprehension. For now, though, the whole word looks a little surprised to be naked, and is blushing green. My classes look good. I kinda like it.
3.12.2010
Finals
A warm white fog has descended over Northfield, and the snow is melting all squishy and brown and hopeful. The edges of everything are softened, too, like someone had a lot of fanciful fun developing the universe... My mind is spinning with Thai monks and psychotropic drugs, and I have less than 48 hours to write eight pages and take an exam.
I'll probably survive, although it is fitting to re-visit this limerick that I wrote exactly one year ago today.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I found the wonderfully distracting website Wordle, and pasted in my senior thesis. This was the result (words that were used the most often are the largest):
I'll probably survive, although it is fitting to re-visit this limerick that I wrote exactly one year ago today.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I found the wonderfully distracting website Wordle, and pasted in my senior thesis. This was the result (words that were used the most often are the largest):
3.02.2010
2.24.2010
This is college:
Wearing mittens, I fumble with my psychopharm note-cards, and drop all 187 of them into a snow bank. The moon waxes as I walk home and the snow glitters like it's absorbing the moon's essence. As I fall into bed, I hear three-part harmony wafting up through the ventilation system because someone's recording music in the basement. I set three alarms so I can get to the Rec Center at 6:30 a.m. for my Frisbee scrimmage, and then I read Clifford Geertz's theory of religion as a cultural system over fried eggs so I can have something intelligent to say in class... which started a minute ago. There is a sub-wufer in my kitchen. My housemate installs surround sound and we dance to Michael Jackson and eat of a massive batch of vegetarian chili. (I'm talking four tablespoons of cumin.) During the Olympics, we argue about whether the hockey man impacting the wall creates a standing wave or a time-dependent wave, and I'm soo tired but I have seven pages to write for tomorrow and I really feel like I need to write in my journal. I make quick coffee dates and nap on library couches, and can scarcely believe it when loving cardinal couples chirp bravely of spring as they poke their way through the snowdrifts. I laugh so hard that I cry, and I run out to the wind turbine when it's above 20 degrees. The bright-white winter sun burns my eyes, it smells like the Malt-O-Meal factory is making off-brand Co Co Puffs, and I wonder about truth. I wonder whether I should feel guilty about wondering about truth, given that a significant portion of the world is starving. I'm late for something again. I need to start that paper.
2.21.2010
Fire and Ice
I was just reading my Neruda anthology (again). This is one of my favorite procrastination techniques.
Once more I am the silent one
who came out of the distance
wrapped in cold rain and bells:
I owe to earth's pure death
the will to sprout.
Funny that I bought that book in Varanasi, on the Ganga.
At this moment, everything is shifting, although superficially stuck on winter motifs.
Yesterday we took a bus to northern Wisconsin, and skied ten kilometers across frozen Lake Superior. The way, lit by candles inside ice blocks, was mirrored by starlight. A bonfire blazed at the finish line, right there on the ice.
Once more I am the silent one
who came out of the distance
wrapped in cold rain and bells:
I owe to earth's pure death
the will to sprout.
Funny that I bought that book in Varanasi, on the Ganga.
At this moment, everything is shifting, although superficially stuck on winter motifs.
Yesterday we took a bus to northern Wisconsin, and skied ten kilometers across frozen Lake Superior. The way, lit by candles inside ice blocks, was mirrored by starlight. A bonfire blazed at the finish line, right there on the ice.
Sky and Lake.
Fire and Ice.
I like it when opposites merge, or at least shake hands in poetic ways.
I'm in the library right now. In about five minutes the Geek Bell is gonna jangle, indicating the closure of the library. I still have an essay to write for tomorrow morning. I'm stuck right now, though. Vividly nostalgic for travel and movement. Wondering about my life's trajectory. Distracted by the waxing moon.
2.12.2010
1.24.2010
Catching Now
Sitting down to write comps on a warm brown Sunday morn (34˚!?), I wonder about traveling, and movement. Wouldn't it be strange to presume that adventures only happen in foreign countries? Or that my actions are only novel if laced with Oriental mystique?
This morning I rolled out of bed just after eight, coaxed something a little like coffee from my french press, and pulled on my industrial navy blue rain boots. As I sloshed through snow-melt on my way to the library, I wondered about the present moment. Now.
If the present moment is the only thing that ever exists, then why is it so damn difficult to get your hands on? I feel like I'm constantly reminding myself to be where I am, to stop looking backward into nostalgia or forward into stress and fog. It's a strange circumnavigation of the present, a constant grasping that never quite results in union.
So, tromping through slush-puddles, I brainstormed possible ways to catch Now:
--Stalk it with a butterfly net at a River bend.
--Tickle it as though it were an anemone, so it wiggles and opens.
--Look at it only out of the corner of your eye, like a dim star in the night sky.
--Challenge it to chess.
--Leave a thimbleful of honey in a foxprint and lie in wait.
--Fish for it, and bait your hook with clever puns.
With these ideas in mind, I am going to continue writing about that which cannot be articulated.
Sometimes Sundays seem a little silly.
This morning I rolled out of bed just after eight, coaxed something a little like coffee from my french press, and pulled on my industrial navy blue rain boots. As I sloshed through snow-melt on my way to the library, I wondered about the present moment. Now.
If the present moment is the only thing that ever exists, then why is it so damn difficult to get your hands on? I feel like I'm constantly reminding myself to be where I am, to stop looking backward into nostalgia or forward into stress and fog. It's a strange circumnavigation of the present, a constant grasping that never quite results in union.
So, tromping through slush-puddles, I brainstormed possible ways to catch Now:
--Stalk it with a butterfly net at a River bend.
--Tickle it as though it were an anemone, so it wiggles and opens.
--Look at it only out of the corner of your eye, like a dim star in the night sky.
--Challenge it to chess.
--Leave a thimbleful of honey in a foxprint and lie in wait.
--Fish for it, and bait your hook with clever puns.
With these ideas in mind, I am going to continue writing about that which cannot be articulated.
Sometimes Sundays seem a little silly.
1.16.2010
Roots, Again
We had a poetry group in India, called "And Thus I Have Word." One of our "assignments" was to write about home, but, although I tried desperately, I couldn't write anything more than scattered notes about Oregon, or family, or trees. Yesterday I discovered these notes. And yesterday, although I should have been working on my comps, I compiled them into a semi-coherent expression of home.
Here it is:
I remember my father speaking to me as he steered winter-studded truck tires along Lorane Highway, through the gloam. Douglas fir silhouettes serrated a silver sky and my dad nodded to his daughter over a vanilla latté, casually explaining that a Doug fir skyline at sunset is what it means to be home.
Before that white pickup truck there was a white Chevrolet, a behemoth of a carryall piloted by my plaid-clad forester grandfather with thick-rimmed glasses and an intimate knowledge of trees. Before that… there are vague allusions to the Potomac and the British Empire, but nothing I really know.
My mother’s dad was a forester too, and with sylvan synchronicity my grandfathers took their families eastward by rail in 1964. After riding the Empire Builder backwards with their forester fathers my parents fell in love, even though they were too young.
What follows is a story of a marriage sundered in New England blizzards, of a strange succession of stumps over roots, and of a retreat back to what was left of the forest so a lost growing daughter could perceive both laughter and tears in Pacific rainstorms. Listening for tree-speech, she would hear Ken Kesey’s cuckoos sing eulogies for silenced animistic whispers and other forgotten truths. Her grandfathers’ great notions became ashes, and she gave them back to the Cascades.
And now. Sometimes I curse myself for moving east again. In college I’m learning about religion, about how early evangelists felled the sacred forests of Europe and then stuck sweet-smelling effigies in pots to celebrate the birth of a saviour. I think westward, to a Christmas tree farm in Skapoose, where I was conceived. I recall my mother’s father; how it took him over a decade to write his dissertation. I like to imagine him hunched over his typewriter, struggling to find the right words to talk about trees.
Here it is:
I remember my father speaking to me as he steered winter-studded truck tires along Lorane Highway, through the gloam. Douglas fir silhouettes serrated a silver sky and my dad nodded to his daughter over a vanilla latté, casually explaining that a Doug fir skyline at sunset is what it means to be home.
Before that white pickup truck there was a white Chevrolet, a behemoth of a carryall piloted by my plaid-clad forester grandfather with thick-rimmed glasses and an intimate knowledge of trees. Before that… there are vague allusions to the Potomac and the British Empire, but nothing I really know.
My mother’s dad was a forester too, and with sylvan synchronicity my grandfathers took their families eastward by rail in 1964. After riding the Empire Builder backwards with their forester fathers my parents fell in love, even though they were too young.
What follows is a story of a marriage sundered in New England blizzards, of a strange succession of stumps over roots, and of a retreat back to what was left of the forest so a lost growing daughter could perceive both laughter and tears in Pacific rainstorms. Listening for tree-speech, she would hear Ken Kesey’s cuckoos sing eulogies for silenced animistic whispers and other forgotten truths. Her grandfathers’ great notions became ashes, and she gave them back to the Cascades.
And now. Sometimes I curse myself for moving east again. In college I’m learning about religion, about how early evangelists felled the sacred forests of Europe and then stuck sweet-smelling effigies in pots to celebrate the birth of a saviour. I think westward, to a Christmas tree farm in Skapoose, where I was conceived. I recall my mother’s father; how it took him over a decade to write his dissertation. I like to imagine him hunched over his typewriter, struggling to find the right words to talk about trees.
1.05.2010
"Write your way through the tangle..."
My professor said this today; he was referring to the "comps project" (or senior thesis) that we religion majors are expected to complete this term. He also said that we had 0.5% of our lives to write this paper. I don't know if this was comforting. One girl ran out of the classroom crying.
I myself haven't internalized how difficult this is going to be. I was re-visiting my proposal for the first time since I wrote it in October (apparently I'm writing about the ineffable?), and I discovered many amusing found poems* that were written in India while I was putting together my foundational ideas for this project. Because I'm not yet as worried as I probably should be, I'm going to copy them below.
#1 From: The Craft of Research, Chapter 1 (some punctuation altered)
Readers and their common problems
Writers and their common problems
Motivate the question.
That word "problem," though
Has a very special meaning:
Space Flight
War and Peace
(Re)Creating Yourself
...
Freedom might be frustrating.
#2 From: The Encyclopedia of Religion, "Theological Positions and Virtues"
Our millennial nostalgia
is looking a little dog-eared
we seek a sense of coherence
a common center
but we produce little more than
bland tolerance--
please
disclose something of the mystery.
#3 From: Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist (this kind of alludes to how ridiculous my project is going to end up being...)
the painted picture of a cake
could not help being literary--
the dharmic drama of the universe
reinterprets the moon.
skin, flesh, bones, and marrow
entwine as vines
and the painted picture of a cake
with secret words
is matchlessly poetic.
*For those who do not know about found poetry, it is written by looking at a source (such as a page from a book) and selectively re-arranging phrases to make a poem. It is highly entertaining--one of my favorite procrastination techniques.
I myself haven't internalized how difficult this is going to be. I was re-visiting my proposal for the first time since I wrote it in October (apparently I'm writing about the ineffable?), and I discovered many amusing found poems* that were written in India while I was putting together my foundational ideas for this project. Because I'm not yet as worried as I probably should be, I'm going to copy them below.
#1 From: The Craft of Research, Chapter 1 (some punctuation altered)
Readers and their common problems
Writers and their common problems
Motivate the question.
That word "problem," though
Has a very special meaning:
Space Flight
War and Peace
(Re)Creating Yourself
...
Freedom might be frustrating.
#2 From: The Encyclopedia of Religion, "Theological Positions and Virtues"
Our millennial nostalgia
is looking a little dog-eared
we seek a sense of coherence
a common center
but we produce little more than
bland tolerance--
please
disclose something of the mystery.
#3 From: Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist (this kind of alludes to how ridiculous my project is going to end up being...)
the painted picture of a cake
could not help being literary--
the dharmic drama of the universe
reinterprets the moon.
skin, flesh, bones, and marrow
entwine as vines
and the painted picture of a cake
with secret words
is matchlessly poetic.
*For those who do not know about found poetry, it is written by looking at a source (such as a page from a book) and selectively re-arranging phrases to make a poem. It is highly entertaining--one of my favorite procrastination techniques.
The Year of the Tentacle
In Bodh Gaya, when we were waiting to meet the Karmapa, the Oregonians on my study abroad program decided that we needed to have a new year's party when we got back to the States. Of course we needed a theme, and after a little brain storming, we decided that (obviously) the changing times demanded that we wear tentacles.
It would be two-thousand tentacle.
This came to pass. Gladly. A lot is often made of New Years, what with resolutions and ridiculous parties and finding someone to kiss... This year it was relieving and beautiful to put on tentacles with a small section of my sangha. We went to the beach and played games and read from the dictionary and drank Blue Moon beer in honor of the blue moon. At the stroke of midnight I reached my arms for the ceiling, laughed a little, and then went to bed.
Now I'm back at Carleton, where my pipes keep freezing and my to-do list keeps growing beyond what can reasonably fit on a sheet of notebook paper. Instead of rain there are icicles--they reach for the ground, but can't quite touch... But it's been lovely to reunite with long-lost friends, and I'm intoxicated by the smell of books. I've been bustling around, constantly late, but I've made a point to make every walk from my house to campus a walking meditation. (Note: eyelashes freezing to scarf.)
On New Years Day, we tentacle-ers went out to the beach to bid farewell to the sea. We stood without speaking as the wind and roaring ocean bored into our eardrums, at once grand and beautiful and a little bit cruel. My friend Lilly looked out over the raging, exquisite foam and spoke:
"The ocean is here. All is well. It's going to be a good year."
It would be two-thousand tentacle.
This came to pass. Gladly. A lot is often made of New Years, what with resolutions and ridiculous parties and finding someone to kiss... This year it was relieving and beautiful to put on tentacles with a small section of my sangha. We went to the beach and played games and read from the dictionary and drank Blue Moon beer in honor of the blue moon. At the stroke of midnight I reached my arms for the ceiling, laughed a little, and then went to bed.
Now I'm back at Carleton, where my pipes keep freezing and my to-do list keeps growing beyond what can reasonably fit on a sheet of notebook paper. Instead of rain there are icicles--they reach for the ground, but can't quite touch... But it's been lovely to reunite with long-lost friends, and I'm intoxicated by the smell of books. I've been bustling around, constantly late, but I've made a point to make every walk from my house to campus a walking meditation. (Note: eyelashes freezing to scarf.)
On New Years Day, we tentacle-ers went out to the beach to bid farewell to the sea. We stood without speaking as the wind and roaring ocean bored into our eardrums, at once grand and beautiful and a little bit cruel. My friend Lilly looked out over the raging, exquisite foam and spoke:
"The ocean is here. All is well. It's going to be a good year."
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