Give me 18.

There may be a few blatant cliches in my poem below. In fact, it reminds me of a Taylor Swift song. However, I have always felt a sort of desperate nostalgia associated with my freshman year of college. Regardless of how many great moments I've had since then, I feel that it will always carry a strange magic.

Give me 18, give me

recklessness and ignorance.

Late nights, bike rides, 

the last summer - 

or the first -

of freedom.

Relationships starting, or

ending

too late. 

Self-assured and unhindered.

New friends, jumping

in fountains and

climbing on roofs.

Breathing deeply, too greedy,

not realizing it'd be gone too soon.

First we live for 21 then

for marriage

and conception.

Why? We push

towards adulthood

then towards middle age.

Full time, no time.

As if the air where

we dwell

is too thin. 

What do we give up to

lead our quiet lives whispering

Entrapment?

Give me 18

Too many friends to hold onto

for long, too many

days awake and

Swimming with bird song, with

A Universe hum.

I was alotted my time

but it's gone.

annie dillard = bosom friend

I am very disappointed to see so many negative reviews for "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" on amazon. I think the fractured radiance mentality is either possessed entirely by the individual or not at all. Although I feel that the way I view the world sets me up for occasionally too dramatic emotional reflection, I am happy to have been granted the gift to look at the world as Dillard does. Below is the conclusion to the "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" essay I wrote for class. I named it, "Fractured Radiance."

For Annie Dillard, beauty is everywhere. It is war and peace, life and death, winter and summer. Rather than take the stance that cruelty is necessary as a means of recognizing glory or that splendor is other-worldly, spotless, even divine, she insists on their messy intermingling. She encourages us to ground ourselves in reality, to realize that we may not change the nature of the world, but we must still live in it. This is her doctrine and beauty is her God. In Dillard’s words, we are “not held aloft on a cloud in the air but bumbling pitted and scarred and broken through a frayed and beautiful land” (230). And if we are falling, she says, “at least [we] can twirl” (273). The earth holds mysteries and moments of revelation. Beauty is attained when the heavy curtain between shadow and light is torn asunder, when the burning sun bursts forth, when we may at last see “the tree with the lights in it” (Matthew 27:51; Dillard 36).

categories.

Categories are useful for making sense of the world. They make information approachable. The problem is that they're constructs. They don't define human thought patterns or tell us how people truly process stimuli. Humans invented a mode of rational thought, the scientific method, and systems of logic, but these mechanisms are precisely that. The human is not solely a machine; we may understand ourselves through technological metaphors, but these only help us make sense of parts of ourselves. At the end of the day, humans are raw and organic. We search for meaning. In everything. We hope for an "aha!" moment, for a time when we will be launched into existential awareness of our being and being in general, or of God. Modern atheism purports that this age of Reason makes it nonsensical, therefore unthinkable, to believe in a metaphysical, supernatural, or all-encompassing Spirit. But we still believe! Why do we still believe? There must be something in our nature that seeks out and responds to the immaterial. I don't think the argument, "That's not rational," holds any weight. We are not rational beings. We do not make decisions based on logic. We make them based on gut feelings, emotional responses tangled up with past experience. I no longer wish to place my personality into categories. I am not a scholar, an artist, a fashionista, a Christian, a spouse, a woman, a daughter, or a friend. I am a human being and many things comprise who I am. I am not required to explain myself categorically because I do not communicate with Computers. Are we losing something profound to our existence - our past, present, and future - when we yearn to become machines at the cost of losing our muddied, hysterical, mysterious humanity?

Emerson.

"Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers...The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Wishful Thinking.

One:

In the morning you pretend
that fall is coming.
The breeze agrees with
your assertion;
The damp air, seeping
into your clothes, stopping up
your nostrils refuses to
imagine it with you
but you know anyway.
You know that wishful thinking
works...
If you really believe it
worked. You can
change the seasons, change
your ways, convince others
of the same. The heat will
fade, the crisp, smoky fragrance
of icy air will liven you,
and us to
think, reason, change.


Two:

I am a woman. One phrase carrying a weight, a burden, a tangle of assumptions. I am female, part of the human race, I am more than 50% of the population. I carry weight. I am large and imposing. Acknowledged by God, educated, opinionated. My convictions are born of study, intensity, quality of speech, lack of sleep. I know I matter more than 50% of the time. I have more than 50% the value of man. I feel: for you, for us, for the somber human race. I have passion, I am passion. I share humanity, human experience. I know. I am informed. I belong. I will tell my tale in my strong woman's voice. I will stand before man and tell him he was, he is, wrong. And he will believe me. He will turn away in shame.

Photographs

Seeing the photographs,
from two weeks in:
We're at the beach, we're
both bashful and
excited, this is new.

Then two months, on
the Ferris wheel; I'm
sure I made you go,
urging you to fill the shoes of
my romantic notion.

Three months, at the park
in your hometown; we
knew then that we wouldn't
tear this one apart. There would
be no heartbreak or easy

falling out.
We were in this
now.

Twenty-eight days before
the binding,
   Intermingling,
      Willful entanglement
of your life
with mine,

The photographs fresh in
my mind; I'm
framing them,
   hanging them,
on our wall.

good things.

Daniel and I are getting married in 46 days!

We will know whether we got the apartment we wanted by sometime tomorrow.

Daniel and I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks this evening; we discovered that we were both obsessed with the film as children. What says soulmates better than a love for odd Disney movies?

My coworker shared a part of his delicious cookie at work today. I immediately asked for the recipe and Daniel, Courtney, Brett and I made them tonight. There are only 2 left from the batch of 18!

I've managed to stay on track with my summer resolutions (saving, tithing, and banjo-playing are still in the works).

My weekend in St. Augustine was excellent: good food in historical St. Augustine with Daniel, Buca di Beppo and shopping on Saturday, and the wedding shower tea party!

My supervisor is allowing me to work extra hours on weekdays instead of taking a Saturday shift.

My skin is clearing up thanks to the routine that has worked for me since the 9th grade. Why did I ever stray?

I am living a busy, exciting life this Summer.