Thursday, March 8, 2007
Diversion...
...is the main reason behind this entry.My finals are officially in full swing and I'm waiting my last class of the quarter! Time flies when you're...reading constantly and living a hermit-esque existence. Anyway, yesterday was my final in American Lit 1918-Present, I just turned in my Poetry Portfolio for my workshop course, and now I'm (not) working on my take-home exam for American Lit -1865. I've barely considered my term paper for Postmodern, Generation X, and American Minimalism seminar course (nor it's exam) and Astronomy has too fallen by the wayside. On the upside...I have added a handful of books to my Amazon wishlist (priorities people, you have to have priorities!)
My realization for the day:
Writing is weird. Editing is worse.
I feel like I've almost always been writing...which is nearly true. I've been involved in some kind of creative or academic writing since I was 9 years old. It's just one of those things that came to me through my fascination with books and a wonderful, life-changing teacher--Ms. Woolard. It's hard to say whether I would have ever fallen in love with words if I had been placed in another class in elementary school. Oh course I, like anyone else I'm sure, would like to believe that my drive and passion is something that has come completely from my heart, but face it--I would have never spent hours crouching on a log in the woods deciding what color the breeze felt like on my face as a 9 year old (a task I remember vividly).
At the end of that year, she gave us final comments in our poetry notebooks (Which I have on my bookshelf in my apartment and has moved with me ever since). In a string of yellow post-its she told me she thought I had talent, and that she thought I had great potential as an author or poet. Maybe she wrote that in everyone's notebook. Maybe she has spent the year reading snip-its of verse of a young girl trying to find ground to stand on and not feel quite so lost in herself. I like to think she meant it. I like to think she remembers writing it.
And I think she does...
I was working in an ice cream parlor again the summer following my senior year and lo and behold, she came through the line on my shift. She recognized me. A woman who sees so many kids in her classes year after year...saw me after 9 years. After 9 years of students, when I told her I was going to college her instant response was: "For English, right?" I don't think I could describe the way her face dropped when I told her "No, science...wildlife and conservation biology". Her ice cream craving turned into a prophetic visit...she reminded me that writing has been a part of me for so long, and that there is still a bit of the 9 year old searching for the right color in the breeze.
It's my plan once I graduate to compile a grouping of my favorite poems/papers and send them to her. Thank her. And tell her I'm no good at science.
If
If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie wern’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.
If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.
If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.
-e.e cummings
"Sky through museum ceiling".
Personal Photograph by Natalie Rogers.
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