posted
This is piece I wrote for my english class this semester, giving substance to some of my thoughts over the past few months. Enjoy!
8:00am, 10 December 2010. The view from the waterfront is a rhapsody in light, choirs of green and yellow trumpeting while the deep blue bass of the estuary eases along, December ice floes in tow. My wool sweater and overalls are flecked with milk and bits of hay as I stand, leaning over the railing, cheering on my classmates and teachers that have braved the 4˚ weather for the final Polar Bear. Suzanne yells from where she is ankle-deep in freezing mud, waiting. “Take off your clothes!” Henry and Clark bound down the steps, heedless of the ice, to join her. And then suddenly they are in the Bay, these swimsuit-clad, shivering bodies tearing through the ice sending a bright, arcing descant of water droplets spinning through the frigid air. Henry yelps and runs shrieking from the Bay with an exaggerated falsetto, while Clark, like a true mountain man, rises from the water with a triumphant yell, frost clinging to his beard.
And throughout this, I see everything, I feel everything, I am not pulled back to a Deep Thought giving weight to the light, and I am satisfied with how perfectly happy I am. My willingness to simply exist in time, contentedly, is participation enough. There are moments when time is slowed by thought, when our protagonist does not realize that the reason for her clumsiness on the road of adolescence is that she has been walking with her head turned back into the swiftly fading past. It is not until she is righted that she sees that, off balance, she has been treading in circles. And so I am presented with the wonders of the present, and the great plains of freedom we are afforded.
A few months ago, I became aware of the paradox of psychological time; that the more we enjoy a moment, the faster it passes, and so on and so forth until the happiest person has the seemingly shortest life. Our darkest moments stretch on the longest, a fine comfort to those unsatisfied with living. Until, of course, these moments are already in hindsight where every second seems equally ephemeral. Given this, does it not make sense that our lives are a race to the finish? We do what makes us happy, and in turn, we are rewarded swiftly with death. So what, our protagonist asks, having followed her train of thought to the end of all courses, is the point? Presently, a timid voice makes itself heard. The answer is in presence.
The supreme sacredness of being, to be ingested into the body willingly, each and every cherished moment with the power to send anyone into a fit of existential euphoria or despair. Here is the key to anything we could want to know: in the present day that we experience through senses, logic, and emotions, and in the past and future, which exist solely inside our own heads. The unbearable void of awareness, of cognizance, is a miracle. It doesn’t matter how long or short the moments are: when one fills one’s life with meaning, meaning is given to life.
Perhaps before the semester I would have been so caught up with feeling and seeing truly everything that I would have plucked my exquisite desperation from the air to twist and tame with words. Like a dragon, it would spit fire at sporadic moments, consuming philosophies and psychology with an intentionally distracting hunger, to channel the brunt of the weight I took on outwards through my fingers in poetry. But the grace of practical work changes that; it calms the spirit and brings to the surface kindness instead of asceticism, calluses on the previously idle body of a preoccupied mind. I have spent too much time inside my head. That being said, I’ve spent a bit too much time outside of my head as well, disoriented and overwhelmed to the point of amnesia. I came to Maine looking for myself, and I found something that makes me able to breathe in the cold air rising from the salt marsh, and feel it reverberate up into the sky. I would be worrying, and I feel peace. I would be memorizing, and I am experiencing. I would be past, and I am present. Here, I feel as if on equal footing, both inside of myself and out, still very much in the moment of excited camaraderie at the waterfront. These sodden people are my story, this symphonic land my sky. That is the gift the land has given me (a present of presence, if you will), the ability to stand and watch, and participate. The work that I have done with my hands (numb as they are) is good work, work that helps others as well as myself. And after I leave, as leave I must, I will always be looking for the sweet ribbon of melody I have heard here, giving my all, with an inner flame as peaceably perennial as the tides.
Posts: 47 | Registered: Mar 2010
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posted
The difference between a diary and actual writing is understanding that in actual writing, you are attempting to communicate something. Here, you seem to be attempting to communicate how literary you are. This is an inherently self-defeating enterprise.
And, lest this be your answer- the fact that something has meaning to you does not help you to convey that meaning to other people. It's a common misconception. You won't advance that much in your writing if you don't spend a lot of time doing it, and doing it honestly.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I like some of the images and expressions. "peaceably perennial as the tides" has a nice ring to it (although I don't know if the tides are peaceable - perhaps I could be persuaded).
It's a bit on the dramatic side.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I liked the first paragraph. I didn't feel like I had the concentration power for the rest of it. I'd say you frequently find a good rhythm on the sentence level but still need to get past using every word in your arsenal to say something simple. Not everything has to be presented in metaphor.
Don't stop writing, by any means.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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