Goal: to update this blog at least once every week.
I hate that I've become, in recent years, the girl who loves to write, but loves to procrastinate more. When did I become so sluggish? Indeed, in order to improve at something, you must take pains to perfect whatever it is you do. I must write more; if not to experience life in a more full way, at least to write a breathtaking novel and make millions of dollars (not). I love writing too much to simply abandon it like a feeble puppy on the sidewalk gasping for sweet, sweet air. I must, therefore, revive it and cuddle it and stroke its golden locks and name it Sweetiekins once again.
I started class at Pace last night, and while it indeed seems like it will be an excruciatingly boring class, I am glad to be back amongst brilliant people once again. For any of you Pace English Teaching Fellows reading this, I love you and truly admire the work you do. While I am no longer technically one of you anymore (as I was reminded by the brassy-voiced woman from the New York Fellows office who called a couple weeks ago to chirp about how they were no longer financially responsible for me like a mother on opium), I still feel your kinship. You guys are some of the greatest and bravest vehicles for change in the world.
Now that I've had more time to explore what makes me happy, I've been reading a lot more often. I'm deeply into Kurt Vonnegut lately, and for any of you who has never read anything by him before, I strongly urge you to check him out of the library asap. I'm currently engrossed in his early novel "The Sirens of Titan," and while I'm not yet finished, I must declare that it's one of the best books I've ever read. While the plot is so artfully imaginative and out of this world, the characters are so human and real and true. My goodness, everyone should read it! Now!
More to come when I am finished...
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Gosh, haven't written one of these in a while!
And by these, I mean poem.
And by poem, I mean not my best, but one nonetheless.
STILL LIFE
A nail chewed to a torpid worm.
It dangles off my finger, frozen in air,
and I’ll just let it hang just like you let me.
The smiles from our pictures fade.
You never wanted me twisted next to you
in your sheets. The peachy limbs were not symbols of love,
just lustful images, like the ones in the magazines
you hide under your bed with a lumpy smile.
You would never admit that’s all you needed—
The shadow of a breast, the rub of a thigh,
The sighing in and out of lips and opened smiles
in October air. It was at best an image to you.
A still life painting, like apples and grapes
embraced by a bowl. You were the sun streaming light
upon me, and I was the woman standing with a parasol,
chin tilted upward, arrested by curls,
Wanting to grow.
And by poem, I mean not my best, but one nonetheless.
STILL LIFE
A nail chewed to a torpid worm.
It dangles off my finger, frozen in air,
and I’ll just let it hang just like you let me.
The smiles from our pictures fade.
You never wanted me twisted next to you
in your sheets. The peachy limbs were not symbols of love,
just lustful images, like the ones in the magazines
you hide under your bed with a lumpy smile.
You would never admit that’s all you needed—
The shadow of a breast, the rub of a thigh,
The sighing in and out of lips and opened smiles
in October air. It was at best an image to you.
A still life painting, like apples and grapes
embraced by a bowl. You were the sun streaming light
upon me, and I was the woman standing with a parasol,
chin tilted upward, arrested by curls,
Wanting to grow.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
My Journey Back to Happiness
I have a friend named Hector. He came into my life one day as I was perusing Petfinder.com for a feline friend. It was seven months into my first year as a New York City public school teacher when I decided I needed someone small and fuzzy to wait home for me in my Bronx apartment. There were many potential felines to choose from--fat, skinny; long-haired, short haired; spayed, neutered; sad, lonely. Among the photos of kitties squinting in vet's arms and curled up in cages and on tile floors, Hector stood out without even trying. Hector is a Manx, or tailless, cat with large green eyes like a favorite song tinkling over the radio. Feeling alone at my Toshiba, I knew I had to meet him.
In person, Hector was a full out ballad. His story provided the lyrics that could move anyone: his previous owner, a literal rocket scientist, had wanted to put Hector to sleep when he was a kitten. He had an enlarged colon because of his missing tail, and without medication, he would die. When Rocket brought Hector and the vicious request to a compassionate vet in Brooklyn, the doctors refused to let Hector leave the world. They gave him medicine and a home Rocket couldn't provide. Two years later, after living in a cage and courting several potential owners who didn't want to take the chance, I adopted my little man.
This is what makes Hector happy: belly rubs, toy mice, sneaking food, sleeping on my head, running up and down stairs and my new fleece sheets.
Hector pursues what makes him happy every day. Until recently, I was not.
A month ago, I left a teaching job in New York that was quickly killing my spirit. An amazing colleague of mine commented on my unglamorous transformation when I told her I was leaving. We were sitting on the 3 train in East New York, clanking past ornate brick school buildings breathing out noisy school children in after school programs and sleepy teachers. I had told my colleague about my decision to leave, and she was happy for me. "I've seen the change in you, you're happy now," she said with a music in her voice. "I've seen you become a zombie over the past few months, and now you are once again the joyous girl I met in September." She was right: I was indeed happy for the first time in four months. I had chosen the pursuit of happiness, as Jefferson did. Or, as my seventh graders would have remarked, Will Smith.
These are the things that make me happy: Reading good books. Writing lists like this that remind me of Kay Thompson's Eloise. Cooking with my mom. Listening to Adam Lambert. Traveling. Being with people I love. Dressing up to go nowhere. Adventurous bubble baths a la age five. Luxurious, worry-melting baths a la age 24. Living inside my head. Educating myself. Sleeping. Having something to wake up to. My grandmother's stories about her life. Yellow turnips mashed up in a bowl with butter. Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda. The poetry in everything. Glee. Kurt Vonnegut. Writing again. Hector.
It may sound absurd to leave a paying job to pursue the things that make you happy, but for me, there was no choice. I found myself floundering in a job where nothing I did was good enough and where kids who I desperately wanted to teach were learning nothing from me. I knew that, for everyone involved, leaving was the only choice. In essence, I chose happiness, something that had been slowly withering away in the background of my life, like unharvested Farmville strawberries after ten hours (yet another new happiness of mine). Like that animated, pigtailed version of myself, I decided to harvest the happiness in my life, as only Hector could show me.
This blog is dedicated to my journey back to happiness, and to my Hector in crime, of course.
In person, Hector was a full out ballad. His story provided the lyrics that could move anyone: his previous owner, a literal rocket scientist, had wanted to put Hector to sleep when he was a kitten. He had an enlarged colon because of his missing tail, and without medication, he would die. When Rocket brought Hector and the vicious request to a compassionate vet in Brooklyn, the doctors refused to let Hector leave the world. They gave him medicine and a home Rocket couldn't provide. Two years later, after living in a cage and courting several potential owners who didn't want to take the chance, I adopted my little man.
This is what makes Hector happy: belly rubs, toy mice, sneaking food, sleeping on my head, running up and down stairs and my new fleece sheets.
Hector pursues what makes him happy every day. Until recently, I was not.
A month ago, I left a teaching job in New York that was quickly killing my spirit. An amazing colleague of mine commented on my unglamorous transformation when I told her I was leaving. We were sitting on the 3 train in East New York, clanking past ornate brick school buildings breathing out noisy school children in after school programs and sleepy teachers. I had told my colleague about my decision to leave, and she was happy for me. "I've seen the change in you, you're happy now," she said with a music in her voice. "I've seen you become a zombie over the past few months, and now you are once again the joyous girl I met in September." She was right: I was indeed happy for the first time in four months. I had chosen the pursuit of happiness, as Jefferson did. Or, as my seventh graders would have remarked, Will Smith.
These are the things that make me happy: Reading good books. Writing lists like this that remind me of Kay Thompson's Eloise. Cooking with my mom. Listening to Adam Lambert. Traveling. Being with people I love. Dressing up to go nowhere. Adventurous bubble baths a la age five. Luxurious, worry-melting baths a la age 24. Living inside my head. Educating myself. Sleeping. Having something to wake up to. My grandmother's stories about her life. Yellow turnips mashed up in a bowl with butter. Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda. The poetry in everything. Glee. Kurt Vonnegut. Writing again. Hector.
It may sound absurd to leave a paying job to pursue the things that make you happy, but for me, there was no choice. I found myself floundering in a job where nothing I did was good enough and where kids who I desperately wanted to teach were learning nothing from me. I knew that, for everyone involved, leaving was the only choice. In essence, I chose happiness, something that had been slowly withering away in the background of my life, like unharvested Farmville strawberries after ten hours (yet another new happiness of mine). Like that animated, pigtailed version of myself, I decided to harvest the happiness in my life, as only Hector could show me.
This blog is dedicated to my journey back to happiness, and to my Hector in crime, of course.
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