Sunday, October 31, 2010

I do not swallow my own mistakes well, and mostly I try to reverse them or to turn them into good things and I do not think that this is a sign of denial, but more a constant stream of realizations. I often make the same mistakes twice, but only because sometimes maybe these mistakes are necessary and because everyone situation varies. I am trying to make sense of a bundle of things that don't make sense, I am trying to say 'I'm sorry, sometimes I make things harder than I should and I will stop now, and make them easier."

I am tired of my one-sided readings for women's health, even though they are interesting, they are sickly biased and strange. As though abortion policies are some direct attack on women of color and not just an attack on women of poverty. Yes, there is a high percentage of women of color when talking about women of color, but that is some deeper issue and to impose racism on an issue where it does not exist gets us no where, but further divided. I am tired of this, and it is the same in every article, as though women are the only victims, as though people of color are the only victims, as though any one group can be affected by things. It is hard to read these articles and respect them. It is hard to read this, and I realize that these are why I have such difficulty with feminism.

I have too many things to think about, and not enough time to think about them.

Monday, October 25, 2010

I dreamt that all my teeth fell out again. No, not fell out, but once again, my jaw got stuck, locked, and the only way for me to open it was to pry my teeth out. Like my teeth were too big for my mouth. I have these dreams too often for comfort and one day I will wake up toothless. Today, I talked about my Grandma for forever and remembered that I have rooted myself in Madison, but it is not where I come from. Today I remembered that people can not make up their minds and that everything is intertwined and that everything everyone does effects me, even when I ask it not to. Today I felt sad, not just nervous or excited or unsure, but sad for the first time in a long time, and it made me sleepy, which I think is what sadness does. I don't have time to be sleepy or sad, but I am falling apart, just for a second, silently, and inwardly, because I am in the library, and because you don't fall apart in the library. I am not surprised, but surprisingly disappointed that the mystery of people that I love so much has come again to bite me in the ass and I want to be a person who disappears but I don't know how, even though I am trying and I am running off to Kenya and no one has time for all of my bullshit, not even me, and I feel like I am maybe almost a burden on people who don't know me enough to know that I am light. I dreamt that all of my teeth fell out, and it hurt but it was something I could understand, and I only want to have dreams like this from now on or I do not want to have dreams at all.

The way I think about things keeps changing and it is good, growing up is good, learning that what you think is right is not necessarily so is nothing but good, and I am digesting this instead of spitting it out, which is new, this lack of denial is new, sitting in my underwear is new, and these new things are scary because I want everyone to know me always, but perhaps you can still know me and perhaps I am still likeable even if you do not know everything, or much of anything about me. I should trust people more and I should trust myself more and I should worry about what people are thinking less and I should love people more but think about how I love them a lot less and think about how they love me even more less.


Today I made cupcakes with my cousin and his little girl and she is the apple of everyone's eye and that is how it should be.

Friday, October 22, 2010

"When I am with you, I feel the intensity of an unknown
something,

.....................

I am too often pregnant in my dreams and it does
bother me somewhat that I refuse delivery when it
needs to happen, claiming that I can't have my baby
because I won't be pregnant anymore and that is
where the emptiness begins."
Jenny Boully
from One Love Affair
the poem "He wrote in Code"

I just read this, now and it reminds me of how I only ever seem to write about real life, and the story in this poem is so sad and lovely and it reminds me mostly of Sarah, because she could write this, if it had happened to her. Yesterday, I workshopped a poem about Grandma, and I got mad when the class didn't get it, when they asked me to maybe change the plot, because I wanted them to know that this is REAL life, and that I can't just go changing it. I wanted to tell them, I AM NOT A CHILD AND MY GRANDMOTHER DOES NOT HAVE ALZHEIMER'S AND YES, WE MAKE BREAKFAST FOR TEN, WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME. I am struggling, but not giving up that I will find a way to explain this. This being my life, this being the spaces in between us, this being the distance between my mouth and the words I speak, this being that overwhelming sense that we are always feeling the same thing but can't talk about it because we don't know how, so we watch movies instead and that's OK. This being my belly full of stars. Mine Blood Relations we are a miracle. In creative writing I am always surprised that people almost know what I am trying to say, and that convinces me that I will be able to explain all of this one day. If the story isn't clear, the feeling always is, and that is what's really important, and I am excited that through time I have learned how to explain myself with less words. Maybe I will send this to DJD instead of stories about the Carpe. Maybe, maybe I am good enough that he will read it and enjoy it, even if it is rough and needs lots of work. I am convinced that he knows about love the way I know about love, so I want him to read it.

I already have lots of edits in mind, lots and lots, but here is what I have so far:

Guest Bedroom
Grandma recites Wordsworth to me before we go to bed and then tells me she will probably die soon. I sleep on this, curling myself around the thought of her absence, just to see what it feels like. I dream up this conversation to the tick of the grandfather clock (which grandma taught me to wind three times today, to ensure I won't forget). "Does it kill you that you can't remember it all? and Grandma, before you answer, can you just take my heart out?" "Sometimes you just have to learn to love the empty spaces." I wake up to the smell of bacon.

At Grandma's we make breakfast for ten even though we are only two. How many times in my life will I have the perfect moment? over and over and over again.


This is already an inaccurate account of the true story, but I am learning you have to sacrifice some things in order to get the feeling right.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Today has been a day of heart-tugs, starting with my all too short visit to MKE and remembering how much Beyonce family is like my real family and coming home to a letter from my 5th grade teacher, whom I have just gotten back in touch with after 10 years. There are too many places/people I call home, and part of me wants them all to be together and part of me knows that is not how it works, and that the only reason this makes me sad at all is because I love all of them so fiercely and miss them something fierce when I am not with them. I have never let myself be fully enamored with Madison, because I already had places elsewhere, but this year I knew I wouldn't survive with loose relationships so I threw myself fully into Madison life, and now I love it here, but also love it elsewhere. Returning to Beyonce felt almost as much like going home as going to el cafe does. It's comfortable, easy, fun, and warm. I am starting to feel like a grown-up, whatever that means. It makes me happier than happy to know that these people are permanent fixtures in my life and that time doesn't really muss things up too terribly.

My old teacher writes the nicest things, she has always managed to see the best in people, something I try to do but maybe do not do quite so consistently. She writes: "Live and love and laugh, but promise me you will also guard your heart? Not in a steely or fairy-tale-reaching-to-the-clouds-wall-around-your-heart kind of way, but a giving it to someone else way." Which tells me that we don't really change ever, because she is writing this based on what she knew of my 10 year old self, and it is still true today. She writes this because she knows my tendency to love things hard. She is really the kindest hearted person you will ever meet, and her whole letter was warm and encouraging but honest, and I am so happy to be in touch with her again.

The heart-tugs are good, because sometimes my loves gets dulled or lost in the shuffle of homework and work etc etc. I want to be everywhere at once but also always always, I am learning to love where I am more than where I am not.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

In the last two days I've been thinking about my cousins (as per usual) and my music making desires (as per usual) and other such things that so often creep into my head when I am left to my own devices.

Two things that are important to me about my firey-haired Madison cousin:

We are talking in the car about boy names for the baby. He says non-chalantly but excitedly "I can just see him being the hot mysterious guy in high school. Ya know, the quiet guy that all the girls are intrigued by." I have talked about this before, but he is full of love maybe in the way that I am, and there is always a little gap between us but we have a lovely sort of understanding.

He checks in on me with text messages like: "How your tests go there, buddy?"

These are small things, maybe, but I am mostly only into small things. Also, he sometimes thinks my jokes are funny.


Wiz and Sarah had a weekend reunion, and I wish I could have been there to eat and watch movies with them, and somehow in the midst of all of this have conversations about Welchy things, and how our lives are still so intricately entwined to our Welchdom even as we move further apart from each other/our Welch homes. Kenya will be Welchless, and I've never really been Welchless so it will be interesting. Artie is talking about our Welch-road trip and how I might have to fly to meet them after Kenya and I was thinking about how a week or two in close quarters with my family might be the strange and proper transition to help aid my culture shock/life shock.


I am tangling myself in a variety of webs. Like I said before: this could all be trouble... or it could not be.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Already reconsidering my resilience, it's so unlike me, and hours of studying is proving to help me get in tune with myself. I need to surround myself with people who care whether or not my jokes are funny. I need to be around people who like to talk about things, sometimes, I can not be friends at a distance, I don't know how, I want to know everything about everyone and i want them to want to know something about me. I am starting to feel objectified and my post-feminist self wants to be ok with this but my person self is not, because I am mostly only interested in people and all the things that have to do with their thoughts and feelings. I keep being challenged, and I don't mind, I am learning...something. Today it is hot hot in our sun room and I keep thinking about cutting off my hair, and I might just do it, but I wonder if I am doing it to prove something. I am having a gentle shift back into reality, and it is nice, and what I need, but I don't really know who to tell about it. Maybe no one but myself, in fact.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

I really need to be finishing my homework, but I am needing to talk myself through things.

For this first time, maybe ever, I have allowed myself to fall out of touch with myself. I have always been perfectly in tune with my feelings even if that meant being aware that I had no idea what I was feeling. But I haven't even taken the time to figure it out, and I am O.K. with not knowing for now and just hoping that it doesn't all catch up and pile up when I'm not paying attention. I am tired of thinking, analyzing, of being disappointed. I'm starting to get angry, allowing myself to be angry at people for being unreliable and confusing, angry with myself for always bending to everyone's will and for people expecting me to. I am not saying I am revolting, I am still an "aim to pleaser" by nature, and am happy being just that, but I am just coming to the understanding that on occasion I need to keep things to myself, slightly less of an open book so I have things that are my own. I am trying to prove my resilience, to everyone, but mostly to myself, I keep surprising myself. New friends, new Savannah's, are we onto 3.0 now?

Monday, October 4, 2010

home

Sometimes I can't believe I am wearing the same clothes. I am not one for material things, or I try not to be, but I am fascinated by how much these shirts know about me. I used to hate leaving home, and now I can't quite figure out which place to call home, so I am deciding on all of them. El Cafe will always be home but these cities are starting to be home too. I have always known this about myself but it is strange for me to start making myself lives in various cities, to feel the tugs in each direction. And yet my nostalgia is not as strong as it was before I had anything to be nostalgic about. Mostly I am just moving forward, hoping that I will manage to keep in touch with everyone, and that I can fit all of these people in my pocket.