longview catharsis
in all my nearly-27-years wisdom, a couple of weeks ago i volunteered to step in and paint the condo that my parents are about to sell. i lived in this condo for 4 years of college, from 1999 to 2003 when i graduated into the worst job market in at least a decade and my brother took over. that condo was freedom. i had somehow managed to convince my parents that since they were nice enough to pay for my schooling, they should at least invest in some property rather than throwing money away in rent.
so we traipsed all over austin until we learned of this unit not even really for sale which was the pet project of our realtor. we went to look and let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. the whole place smelled like dog piss as the tenant who'd been living there a while had a huge boxer or maybe two and it was wall-to-wall highly absorbent carpet. but i had this *feeling*. there was a huge balcony which no one else had access to overlooking the street. it was gated and in the horseshoe style with pool in the center, à la melrose place. and the window light was nice and it had great vaulted ceilings, and i just knew this was the one. my parents agreed.
the main bedroom was probably 20 feet long with a closet at one end, and there was a sink on the other side of the wall. so we knocked down the wall, put in a small bathroom and washer/dryer where the hall sink and end of the bedroom had been, gutted the kitchen, picked out all new cabinets and counters at home depot, ripped up the carpet and put in an affordable saltillo tile. not only was i living alone for the first time ever, but i was living in my own place, where i was the master, with my own stove, my own fridge, my own shower, my own walls to decorate however i wanted and my own door that i could shut and lock and no one else could get in. in short, it was heaven.
as time went on and i got more and more bored by the cool colors we had chosen for the rooms (teal, pale blue, and lavender/periwinkle), i felt it was time for a change. my bedroom transformed to a metallic satin silver. then, in 2001, the large white area that served as living room/dining room/kitchen became too depressing for me. i had broken up with my boyfriend of two and a half years, my grandfather had died, and i had fallen in love with a poet who i never so much as kissed. when i came back from montana that august, having gained a fresh perspective and some new friends, i went and bought red paint. it was called "rapture."
i chose a marigold color to accent the space on one side and several friends and neighbors came out to help. it was glorious. we recovered my couch to coordinate and suddenly everything looked so much brighter. everyone loved it. anytime people came who hadn't seen it before, they gushed. so when my mom told me that it was time to paint over it, not only did i see an opportunity to make some money before i head to california, but i also saw a chance to say goodbye. to put to rest something that i started. and to clean the palette for someone else.
i started last wednesday (on independence day), took off friday for the task, and worked all through the weekend. on sunday, i finished the main room and was considering giving up for the night. i had started to tape in my old room when i heard thunder. and i knew then that i couldn't stop. i had once written a poem, right at the time that i was falling in love with the poet with the line "ink of night spills down the sky, tonguing the horizon pink, as thunder builds on the silver walls like untold stories." i needed to hear thunder and rain in that silver room one last time. so as it started to rain, i began the task of covering the walls with white, working along the corners and crevices with the window open as the rain poured violently from the sky.
i didn't finish that night and the rain only lasted an hour or so, but i relaxed my grip on a girl i had been, in a space that is no longer mine to experience.
Labels: before, poetry
yellow
do you remember being fearless? really fearless in a way that kept you from ever averting your eyes or backing down? i just got off the bus and there was a girl on there, riding with her father and her grandfather, and she was probably about 9. my parents have told me that when i was young, i would go up to anyone and talk to them, would never worry about what i "should" do. most of you probably know a bit about bus etiquette. you don't normally look at anyone directly, unless it's by accident while you're shifting your gaze somewhere else. blank stares are encouraged. talking to people is acceptable only if a) you got on with the person, or b) you're insane. this girl was blonde, tan, had blue eyes, the men she was with looked very rugged and her grandfather was a veteran. a guy got on the bus and he had headphones on and she told him that she liked his shirt. he didn't hear because (of course) he wasn't looking at her and his volume was up. so she moved toward him and said more loudly that she liked his shirt. she would just look at people and not in that distracted kid way but directly as if she has just asked them a question and was waiting for an answer. now i will do some forward things, but it's never without fear, it's a conscious effort always to get past my reservations and live in spite of them. anyway, just a thought.
i've been away a while and started several posts that i never finished. here's a quick retrospective on the last two and a half months of my life:
1) i got accepted to nyu.
2) i cut the hell out of my hand while photographing out at the rhizome collective brownfield site. how? you ask. christening a boat. pictures to follow.
3) i went to new york to look around and sit in on a class. i saw adrienne, got lost on the subway a few times, walked a LOT and tried to get a feel for the city. i met some cool people and the class was amazing, but...
4) i decided not to go to nyu. just can't do it. i realized that i don't want to JUST be doing poetry, and i would prefer to do photography right now (which i've been wanting basically since i got back from maine).
5) i joined a photographer's group with my friend robyn and a bunch of people who work with GSD&M. i've already met some great photographers and may be doing a joint gallery show with them in a few months.
6) i started walking to work once or twice a week. that's from hyde park to south of the river. being in nyc made me realize i should get mobile.
7) i got a raise. i just may stay at my job a while longer.
8) i've been writing. like a crazy fool since i got back. turning down a creative writing mfa program got my creative writing juices flowing.
9) i've been learning guitar.
10) i've started lifting weights.
that's really about it. i've got a bunch of projects in the works and am hoping to really get started on them in the next month. gotta go apartment hunt...
Labels: future, photo, poetry
graduate purgatory
as you may know, i am hoping to go to grad school for creative writing in the fall. the research i did for choosing schools to apply to was extensive and i ended up applying to all but one of the schools i had wanted to (by the time i got to feb. 1st, the prospect of one more application hit me like the proverbial straw - sorry alaska). i applied to 11 schools. that's right, let me spell it out so you get the full weight of it - e l e v e n. did i mention that i'm also insane? in my research, i went to the library with a list of all the poetry teachers in all of the programs that i was remotely interested in. i alphabetized the list. now you may think that's a pretty anal thing to do, but the poetry section at UT spans quite an area and i promise the other way would have been more difficult. anyway, there were about 90 poets on the list. i went through and got one book from every poet that had been published (which was about 75) and i read at least three poems from each one. then i found the poet on my list and if not one of their poems sparked something in me, i crossed them off my list. if they did, i put a little star by their name and moved on to the next one. when i had finished (and had done internet research and scoured some anthologies to find the remaining poets) i crossed the schools off the list whose poets hadn't impressed me. i tried to only keep those schools who had at least two poets that i liked. this eliminated certain schools which i had planned all along on applying to: i.e., columbia, brown, the new school, and iowa. i figured that if i considered our styles so different, they would probably feel the same way about mine, and i wouldn't have too much to learn there. i don't want to write postmodern poetry. it did put some schools on the list that i hadn't fully considered though, like ASU and NYU.
well, the letters are starting to arrive. and as they do, i'm starting to think that maybe the universe knows more than i do about my desires. why is that? you may be wondering. well, because the schools which have rejected me were schools that i couldn't really see myself at - utah, houston, montana. they were schools that i applied to because i felt i should. even though they have great writers, there was part of me that really balked at having to live in houston (houston was my one concession - the one school in texas i applied to because it's sooo good, despite the fact that i want to get the hell out of dodge, which is to say, out of texas). and i applied to utah also because it was a good school even though i never felt i could be comfortable there. as far as montana, i've been to montana, i had my important experience there and it was with photography not poetry. it felt done. now, i'm not saying that i'm not going to get rejected from places that i truly would have liked to go to, but the fact that i got waitlisted at michigan makes me think that things will turn out as they should. jill said that i wouldn't get accepted somewhere that i wasn't supposed to go. it makes a lot of sense, too: the schools that think my writing is worth something and think they have something to teach me are the ones i'm supposed to be at. all my rejection letters are up on my fridge. 4 down, 7 to go. and if nowhere accepts me, then i'll know i shouldn't be in grad school right now and i'll find a photo job somewhere.
and in case you're keeping tabs, here are the schools i'm waiting to hear from:
virginia, george mason, nyu, syracuse, indiana, illinois and asu.
Labels: poetry
