untitled

I wrote this quite some time ago but found it yesterday and it matched my feeling yet again. I shared it with a friend and it made me feel like I wanted to share it with more than he solely.

a feeling of sadness washes over me

washes over me but not like the tide over the rocks

not crashing

not softening edges over time

why this feeling?

in the midst of total bliss

with blossoming love

and natural beauty

and air so fresh and crisp it feels at times intoxicating

why this downtrodden face

a frown pulling corners of lips to chin

how?

when each day I’m greeted by fawn chewing dewy morning grass outside my front door

and the turkeys run ‘round the track in a perfect quartet

with funny gobblers and spastic heads

how can you feel as you do?

here in this heaven

how can you pout or complain?

when you are privy to such delight

such endless delight

The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer

Because it jived with me...

From Farming: A Handbook by Wendell Berry.

I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it. I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts, and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing, and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven's favor, in spite of the best advice.
If I have been caught so often laughing at funerals, that was because I knew the dead were already slipping away, preparing for a comeback, and can I help it?
And if at weddings I have gritted and gnashed my teeth, it was because I knew where the bridegroom had sunk his manhood, and knew it would not be resurrected by a piece of cake. "Dance" they told me and I stood still, and while they stood quiet in line at the gate of the Kingdom, I danced.
"Pray" they said, and I laughed, covering myself in the earth's brightness, and then stole off gray into the midst of a revel, and prayed like an orphan.
When they said "I know that my Redeemer liveth," I told them "He's dead." And when they told me "God is dead," I answered "He goes fishing every day in the Kentucky River. I see Him often." When they asked me would I like to contribute I said no, and when they had collected more than they needed, I gave them as much as I had.
When they asked met to join them I wouldn't and then went off by myself and did more than they would have asked. "Well, then" they said "go and organize the International Brotherhood of Contraries," I said 'Did you finish killing everybody who was against peace?" So be it. Going against men, I have heard at time a deep harmony thrumming in the mixture, and when they ask me what I say I don't know. It is not the only or the easiest way to come to the truth. It is one way.

meta-for-me

[Note: this is somewhat long and quite angsty. To be read in the style of slam poetry.]


There are many metaphors for it.
Look down your nose at them.
On your high horse.
Up on a pedestal.

I’m metaphorically tall.
In reality short.
And quiet.

But in metaphors I scream and turn my nose up at people.
In metaphors
I do abhor
Metaphorical me

And I can point to it
“That!”
The thing to change.
The edges to soften.
The judgments to allow to give way to the gratefulness.

Metaphorical me.
Ivory tower but about to jump.
Looking down on your foldgers coffee and “conventionally” grown broccoli
All the while starving.
All the while being eaten away inside
Stopped by
Pride?

Disengaged. Fully enraged.
Discourse, high horse.
Just say it the way you want, even if it lacks specificity.
At least you’ll share their reality.

Asking, “but how do you define…?”
Keeping this conversation in a bind
While I try to convey the meaning of “truth”
While it gets away.
Off the bus.
And we fuss over the meaning of progress.
I digress.
We regress.
We shoot the shit.
We play with it.
This is fun this back and forth.

Meanwhile the world remains.
Crashing waves of shallow ideas with more power than your highly refined multi-variate, multi-leveled statistical analysis published in the ASR.

What’s your argument?
Where’s your evidence?
How big was your sample size?

My argument is this vent.
My evidence is irreverence.
My sample size is infinite, reprise.

And I’ll have a PhD
A doctorate in knowledge monopoly
A ticket to a lifelong game
Growing egos through departmental fame
Masking this with modesty
And holding fast to the goal that they shant ever see
What’s really going on

This is your brain on grad school.
Year one like pasta salad
Year two like poached eggs
Year three like oatmeal
Come and look at your brain.
Insane.
Refrain.
Fain.

But the hardest part is the response.
Calling it quitting instead of liberation.
Calling it a mistake, ignoring thoughtful deliberation
Making judgments instead of my congratulations cake
Quickly destroying the supports you built up around me
When I was doing things the way you saw fit
The way in which society sanctions it
And now I’m freefalling
Metaphorically
But when I land it will still hurt, and not just rhetorically

NOLA

I have some serious peeling going on on my upper back and shoulders after getting sunburn in NOLA while working on an extension ladder scraping paint off the eves of a house. It's a reminder of my time spent in New Orleans, 4 days of work 5 nights of play. I learned that I don't know how to pronounce French words, that Bourbon street is not somewhere I'd like to spend much time in, that you can be white and be a minority, that eating fast food more than once a year is too much, that is quite likely easier to travel with friends than family, that I am old, that I am young, that I can carry an extension ladder by myself, that I love beignets, that zydeco music is super fun to dance to, that I can dance with a partner (in this case a 40 something sweaty native who was super sweet and fun to dance with), that I can do without but only for so long, that I am spoiled in a number of ways, that I am making the right decision to leave graduate school, that being in a car for more than 15 hours at a time is too much but it's made more bearable by good conversation, good music, and Dr. Pepper from Race Trac with crushed ice. The most interesting thing I'll come away with is that New Orleans is an incredibly unique place with bizarre happenings. At random, I saw black men dressed as Indians as part of a tribute/celebration, men in skirts smoking out of plastic tubes, the most awkward young, white guys attempting to dance in seriously awesome ways, a parade! where old guys kiss young girls and give them trinkets, and much much more. NOLA's a great city. I hope I get to spend more time in it soon.

I learned even more than that but those things are the first that come to mind. I'll post pictures soon and I'll try to snag the ones I don't have from other folks.

John Holt on Education

"Education, with its supporting system of compulsory and competitive schooling, all its carrots and sticks, its grades, diplomas, and credentials, now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern and worldwide slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear."

Instead of Education, 1976

too

too many things to carry
too many worries to worries
too many times I've told you

too much love!
too much love!

too many ideas I never wrote down
too many stones turned over in curiosity
too many stories on the bus ride home

too much for who?
too much for who?

too many storms in the summer
too much artificial light in the room
too many two letter words to memorize

is this too much for you?
is this too much for you?

etiquette

Is there some kind of blog etiquette regarding length?

If so, I probably violated it last night. Sorry about that.

Off to the gym even though I'm feeling exhausted. Maybe it'll wake me up so I barrel though those last 200 pages of Field Methods articles I have to read. Unlikely. The good news is, my IRB is complete (but not yet approved) so I'm well on my way to another scrabble monday of participant observation. Ooooohhh....

Have a good hump day.