Rant and Sleep-Deprived Musings

I’m a practical person. It’s that old cliché—a blessing and a curse.

I’m safe. I act safely. I carefully survey each course of action, each possible outcome, before embarking. Spontaneity is not in my vocabulary (obviously, since I just had to use spell check in order to get it down right). In my perfectly ordered and planned world, there’s no room for detours, for concessions to whims, for transient enjoyment, for trips or late-night runs or improvisation.

A professor took me to lunch—she insisted on driving me across town and spending an embarrassing amount of money on fine food for my rather nondiscriminatory college palate. Then she spent the next hour lecturing me on how I need to sign up for study abroad before it’s too late. I need to get out, apparently, see the world, experience other cultures, do something different. She’s right, but how? I have responsibilities, I explained, I’ve already overburdened my parents and I can’t ask them to take on any more, plus, how will I stay on track with core classes for my major? I can’t just step out of the country for a semester and expect that everything’s going to be hunky-dory. She dismissed my concerns as though they were mere trifles, easily solved, not worth worrying about. Surely I had a friend, she said to emphasize a point, surely I had a city-bred friend who was itching for the opportunity to spend time in the country, care for horses, enjoy the simple life for awhile. Really? Because I don’t think I know anyone willing to muck shit for six months time for no pay or reward. I think I made the professor sorry she asked me to go out to eat in the first place.

But people are wired differently (obviously!), and I’m a one track mind, homebody type, I guess. I could have gone to any college across the nation, like my pals at Cornell and UChicago, but I chose instead to stay right here in the place where I’d grown up to pursue with relentless, steadfast determination a goal I’d set for myself long before. Is this a character flaw on my part? Sometimes I think so. I look at friends of mine who embrace the moment, who are out their living their lives with gusto and nary a care. They flit from place to place, opportunity to opportunity, shape-shifting to suit the occasion and laughing all the while. I feel a twinge of jealousy and regret before I shake myself and return to present matters.

But there’s the other side of the coin. Like it or not, life is a series of hoops that need to be jumped through if one is to make it in Society. Planning for the future, making careful preparations, not allowing subtle but dangerous distractions to turn the course….these things are all important.

I know many people—kids of 18, 19, and 20 years—friends and classmates and peers of mine—who are married, having children of their own. Frankly, it scares me a little bit. Are they making a terrible mistake by committing to something so permanent at such a young age, or, a more frightening prospect, am I hopelessly behind? Should I, too, be “settling down?” Egads, no. I’m not ready; I don’t want it. I’ve got other plans.

I also known many people—adults of 18, 19, and 20 years—friends and classmates and peers of mine—who have no idea what it is they want to do with their lives. If you asked them, jokingly, as you would a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” they’d either stare at you blankly, comprehension failing, or instead rattle off a list of possibilities, none of which they have any real plans or means to pursue. Now is not the time for saying, “I want to be a princess or an astronaut or a trombonist or a surgeon.” That time has passed. You don’t have to know your life’s course, for crying out loud, but you need to have a definite plan. You need to be heading somewhere, even if you decide to change your destination along the way. You’ve got to grow up and snap out of it and work at something.

A happy medium between all extremes is what’s needed. Live now, but plan ahead. Be smart and careful. And so, a New Year’s resolution for me and a reminder for us all: Live a little more for today, learn to spell ‘spontaneity’ and then act on its principles. Don’t sacrifice the present for the tantalizing but all-too-distant future.

/end rant and sleep-deprived musings

Pay It Forward

This winter break has already been a much-needed relief from external pressures. I’ve been putting in quite a few hours at work, but I’ve also turned to some old abandoned projects to keep myself entertained. I decided to try my hand at watercolor painting to make my mom a Christmas present—a combined portrait of all of our horses. I haven’t dabbled in art since my junior year of high school, so I was a bit rusty, although pleased with the end result. I still haven’t figured out how to mount all the heads together on the matboard I bought, but I’m working on it. You can see other pictures here, and here, and here.

Today was my employer’s 26th annual ‘White and Bizarre Elephant Christmas Party,’ but my first year attending. I was unsure of what to expect; I knew some of the people, but not very well, and others were complete strangers—and of an utterly different social stratum than that with which I am accustomed. The food (all home-cooked) was quite good, though I craftily hid the lack of turkey on my plate, as my boss isn’t particularly fond of vegetarians. The gift exchange was interesting, to put it nicely. The gift I had brought was the hit of the afternoon and was “stolen” multiple times. A hand-crocheted mini-afghan my father won in a charity raffle, it was most popular and I was glad to see it go somewhere where it would be appreciated. A few raucous individuals, however, had found it most amusing to bring gag gifts to the party. One respectable older woman innocently plucked one of these nicely-wrapped beauties from the table only to uncover a plastic donkey which, when its ears were pulled, crapped out cigarettes. My loot was better, but only marginally—a set of nineties Wacky Fav-O-Rites tapes. Funny, I guess, but even if I had a cassette player, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be rockin’ out to Hot Rod Lincoln.

As I was helping with clean-up following the festivities, the farm foreman, a kind-hearted man who’s lived a bit of a hard life, came up to me and offered me his gift, a box of nice chocolates. Surely he wanted them, I said, or at least his kids or grandkids would eat them. But he was insistent—said he had too much candy as it was and didn’t need any more. I thanked him profusely and we wished each other a merry Christmas.

It was a small thing, but it got me thinking. I’m not by any means a bad person (I think!), but I am self-centered, self-absorbed, and, at times, greedy. I think we all are. If we could all be instead perhaps a bit more generous, a bit more concerned about others….

But it’s an old argument, one we all know and believe in yet at the same time, in our mocking cynicism, dismiss as hopelessly naïve and ridiculous. Human nature is too cruel, we say, this is the way things are. Yeah, it’s great if you’re a good person, but dammit, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

I’m not one to preach The Reason for the Season. Given my glaring lack of religious convictions, that would be rather hypocritical. But still, Christmas is a time of family, coming together, charity, love, joy, peace on Earth and goodwill to men. So, a challenge for us all—one we should already do daily, yet all too often forget: this holiday season, pay it forward. Drop the cynicism (so what if no good deed goes unpunished?) and instead act not for reward, not for karma, but out of genuine, pure, unadulterated love.

Now What?

Yes, that is the question: Now what? My idle hands are anxious. This semester was, undoubtedly, the hardest I’ve ever worked for a class. Organic I was brutal, and now I sit on tenterhooks waiting for the final grade postings. If I pulled an A on the final, I’ll have an A in the class; if not, I’ll have to settle for the first B of my life. Which is a bit ridiculous, when you think about it, and the sooner this perfectionist streak is broken, the better for my health, but still—it’s the principle of the thing.

What did I learn? Hard work. Hours. Patience. Practice. Teamwork. All things that should have been obvious from the get-go, but apparently not so much for me. A D on the first test sobered me up quick. It’s not about Organic, though, it’s about the sort of mindset I should have. Don’t sweat the trivial, but don’t give up in the face of adversity—all lessons far bigger than some stupid class I’ll have completely forgotten in a few years’ time.

I’m exhausted. My sentences are short, choppy, barely coherent. I feel like I’ve run a marathon. I’ve beaten myself down unnecessarily over the past few months, a foolish decision that’s led to nothing but severe back pain. Gah. John Keats: “Oh soothest Sleep, if so it please thee, close, in the midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes.” Why do we make ourselves so miserable?

But now is a time of rest, relaxation, and recharging. A month of pause, with no scholastic obligations (save prepping for Organic II). I’ll work some, make a little money to pay off the horse, get caught back up with Jack Kerouac and Kahlil Gibran (how I’ve missed them!), enjoy the holidays, contemplate the New Year, eat until I bust my casing….

Thinking back to Thanksgiving, now, a week that I spent in cien horas de soledad. My parents were out of state visiting family; I was alone with the horses. On Thanksgiving Day I didn’t see a single other human being. I went a little crazy, just that fast in isolation—had some nice conversations with a few Red Tailed Hawks before I shook myself awake. Got up at five each morning to tend to the horses, then did a few hours of chores, turned my attention to paper-writing and studying for a few more hours, went to work, then back to chores, back to studying, sleep a few hours, repeat.

Five-thirty in the morning, pitch black. Cold, too, breath freezing in panted wisps. Cracking the slivered pointed shards of ice, plunging hand into water until it burns so cold that intense pain and dull numbness ensue. And, from all around, a chorus of coyotes in surround sound. Two packs, east and west, yipping and howling, all too near, an eerie, primal sound that stops me with instinctive fear, adrenaline. Some nearby dogs start up, too, and the neighbor’s rooster, predicting dawn, a symphony with a half-mile radius. How’s that for an experience?

Gave my zebra finches, whom I’ve had since third grade, to a favorite professor today for her daughter. I’ll miss their constant singing and cute little perch-hopping, but I guess they’ll make some little animal-crazy but mammal-allergic five-year-old happy. Got a new dog this weekend, too. Went on Petfinder and searched for an Adorable Beloved Dachshund for my parents. Found a shelter with 100 dogs and 22 cats all in need of homes, so happy to see us, barking and purring and jumping in their cages. Poor castaways. Picked out Suki fka Frances, and the rest is history. Cute little bugger, but pretty much devoid of personality. All she wants to do is curl up in a lap and sleep all day long.

Last night I set a few books and assorted paraphernalia out to study one last time, then shuffled off to find something to eat. I returned in time to snatch the above picture. That ain’t gonna fly, pooch.

On Life and Death

I’m farm-sitting again. This morning, after finishing chores and feeding the menagerie, I pulled out of my employer’s drive and headed for home. Almost immediately I was confronted with a foreign unidentifiable object in the road; I braked and swerved. Perplexed, I slowed to look as I drove by. Was it a dead bloated calico cat? A bundled package of tattered papers? The world’s oddest-shaped piece of petrified driftwood?

The reality proved more sinister and more depressing. A great horned owl, full grown and large, lay spread-eagled on the ground, facedown over a young disemboweled possum. Both were stiff and cold. Rarely do I have the opportunity to see an owl, living or dead, and the sight of this majestic creature stirred me enough to bend down, pick it up, and move it off the ground. And what a beautiful thing it was, even in the stillness of death. One eye was closed, a papery opaque lid shut forever, but the other was cracked open, striking yellow, still staring solemnly. The beak was short, hooked, and powerful. The feathers were unbelievably soft and in varying shades of browns and earthtones. The puffy “horns” blew in the faint breeze, almost comical. Leathery gripping pads covered the bottoms of the feet, harsh talons still covered in sacrificial blood of the owl’s last supper. I could have sworn that at any moment the bird would wake, shake itself, give me a wicked look, rise, and fly away. I laid it reverently in the grass beside the road, gathered my composure, shivered in the cold, and resumed my drive.

Oddly enough, I had little sympathy for the possum and left it lying frozen to the pavement. Perhaps this was because it was common vermin, an everyday sort of roadkill. But more likely it was because it was the victim only of nature and so-called natural order—the food chain, The Way It Has Always Been. Its predator, however, had been snuffed out by something unnatural, a careless driver, a man-made folly, a tragedy, whether accidental or intentional, cold unfeeling machinery, hard pavement, eminent domain.

The day passed. I made the return trip in the black night. I passed the place where I had left the owl and peered into the darkness, but couldn’t make out the exact spot. And then—something in the road. Again, I braked and swerved. And lo and behold, there, on top of the very same possum, was another owl, this one very much alive. A barred owl this time, also large, white and black and gray. I stopped right beside it, as it showed no signs of moving out of my way. We exchanged a Look. “Fucking owls!” I said, a little more loudly than I had intended, despite my lack of an audience. “Stay out of the fucking road!” And, as though understanding, the raptor grabbed its meal in one clawed foot and hopped awkwardly to the grass, leaving the possum behind (presumably for later) before flying off irritably into the night. Silent wings. Another beautiful bird.

I can’t help but feel that there was some sort of lesson I was supposed to pick up on today. The impermanence of life, or the beauty of it? The give-and-take of it all?

And yesterday my family’s dog, Keaton the redbone coonhound, had to be euthanized. Sigh.

Out of Words

Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen, but not to me?
Oh, things are going to happen naturally
And I’m taking your advice, and looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing
But often times those words get tangled up in lines
And the bright light turns to night
Until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me
‘Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just read of
Others only dream of the love—the love that I love

--Jason Mraz

This is another current favorite song. I don’t know much about Jason Mraz (except that he seems to be another Sexy Modern Artist that scads of teenage girls enjoy swooning over), but I love every song of his that I’ve heard on the radio. He’s got a great voice and he’s obviously extremely talented, and his works are exceedingly creative and simultaneously meaningful, intellectual, and humorous. Great stuff to sing along with—albeit badly and at the top of my lungs—on a long drive.

See I’m all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered, numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words
More words than I had ever heard and I feel so alive

It’s funny how the individual listener can interpret a song (or a work of art or a dance or anything, really) into something personally meaningful that may have nothing to do with the intent of its creator. This is the basis of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” And in my hearing the refrain of this song, I was of course at once reminded of the title of this blog, my personal, globally public journal. I did not, as might be suspected, name it after the lyrics, which I had never heard until a few weeks ago. Still, the small coincidence was not insignificant to me.

You and I, you and I
Not so little, you and I, anymore
And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy
‘Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just dream of
And if you could see me now
Well I’m almost finally, finally
Well I’m free

I’m also a bit obsessive compulsive in that I like things a very certain, specific, consistent way. I like symbolism and such, too. And this in the one-hundredth blog post, and today is the one-year anniversary of the first. Yes, I planned it that way.

And it’s okay if you have to go away
Just remember the telephone, well it works in both ways
But if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that’s okay
‘Cause I’ll remember everything you sang

A lot has changed for me in the past year, some for the better, and some for the worse. For one thing, I’m not longer a pathetic, skeered, antisocial freshman yearning for the long-lost glories of high school. Rather, I’ve developed into a confident, well-adjusted Biology major with a good job and a strong support network. I can’t complain a bit about work or school (excepting that blasted Orgo class). My equine life, on the other hand, has changed drastically. Of the five healthy, rideable, nice horses I had last year, one is dead of cancer, another is permanently crippled despite multiple treatments by multiple vets, and another is lame and unusable with a “fair” chance of recovery—but requiring very costly, involved procedures that leave her ill, swollen from allergies, and confined to a tiny pen, maddened by inactivity. With all of these setbacks, I’ve decided to call it quits on the barrel racing I once loved. A new chapter in my riding life is opening, and for the moment I don’t know where it will take me. Bring it on, whatever it is. And so last week I decided to buy another horse—a foolish choice that will leave me in debt for over a year—but I couldn’t let the guy go to an unknown fate. He deserved a good retirement, and I deserved the companionship of another equine friend. So.

Oh, you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
And others just read of
And if you could see me now,
Well, I’m almost finally out of
Finally out of
Well, I’m almost finally, finally out of words.

Well, I’m not exactly out of words, but I am almost finally out of Almost, Finally. Given the circumstances, I think the blog is due its second incarnation. And so, voila! I give you Carbon Dating.

As I said before, I wanted to do something “special” for the 100th post, 1-year landmark. So I looked about for a way to update the layout—skin, it’s called, apparently—and I went on a search around the Internet for a suitable background to download. Whenever possible, I like to use my own images and be as original as possibly so I’m not stealing others’ creativity. I tried to commission a new skin from some bored anime-obsessed Australian kids, but they seemed to think my specifications were too restricting and ignored me. So I scoured the Web for a substitute and, to make a long story short, eventually figured out how to program my own. Not the best, by any means, but considering that I have exactly 0 knowledge of HTML and the only image programs I have to work with are Windows Photo Gallery and MS Paint, well, I’m a little proud. But I do ask for any help with suggestions or in modifying it. I think the background works best on computers with larger monitors, and there’s not much I can do the change the size there. How do the colors of the font work? Is it legible? Too hard on the eyes? I’ll take any feedback or criticism, and if you subscribe in a reader, I’d appreciate it if you’d trot on over to the actual page and look it over to let me know if it works or not. You’ll be missing out on awesomeness if you don’t. ;)

A Song of Praise

On a trail ride the other day I spooked up a few deer. They retreated into the woods, and I followed, mounted. The few does that reside in that pasture are accustomed to seeing horses, so while they remained wary and alert, they allowed me to approach them slightly so long as I didn’t make any fast moves and kept a reasonable distance. I pulled out my camera and tried to focus it on the doe closest to me, then snapped away several times before she disappeared in the undergrowth. But truly she had vanished long before she turned and trotted off, for her coloration was so perfectly matched to that of the mud and decaying leaves and dull gray bark of trees that, had I not kept my eye focused on her movements from the start, I would have never known she was there. I attempted to find the deer in the pictures later when I loaded them on my computer. I knew they were there, since I had taken the photographs, yet I honestly could not find them in several of the images. I wish I had the ability to evaporate into thin air like that—poof, you’re gone; now you see it, now you don’t.

I spent the past week studying relentlessly (or, rather, in short sporadic but intense intervals punctuated by various complete wastes of time) for five tests, ranging from incredibly easy to insanely difficult. The class that corresponded to the latter category was Organic Chemistry, a real doozie of a course with an exam nearly every week covering comprehensive, complicated material. I practiced for hours doing and redoing mechanism problems, tracing the paths of electrons from one orbital to another, forming new products by reacting with other reagents, acids and bases and salts and cyclic molecules and conjugated dienes and halohydrins and substituted alkynes all invading my dreams at night, spinning and combining and decomposing and adding and combusting….

It’s a frustrating process, predicting what will happen or completing a challenging multi-step synthesis problem, but hugely rewarding and invigorating when you accomplish it successfully. And, really, as much as I hate to admit it I find myself quoting the claims of the textbook—it’s “beautiful.” But not so much for the reasons given by the authors, though they are certainly valid and improving productivity in industry is undoubtedly important, but more for the paradoxical complex simplicity of it all. For in tracing an electron, a comparison can easily be drawn that extends to one’s own life.

An electron, by itself, is virtually nothing. Infinitesimally small, it carries a negative electric charge arbitrarily given the value of -1. Electrons are in constant rapid orbit around the nucleus of every atom, and they are endlessly being lost and gained and shared in the game of chemical reactions, bonding molecules together, forming new compounds, transmitting electric currents, vibrating furiously as they reach new “excited” states, jumping out of orbitals, free, charged, loose, wild. Individually insignificant, one of countless googolplexes in existence in a concept so massive we could never hope to comprehend, yet, when acting in synchronism, they are the very stuff that makes and moves the world.

And so are we.

If I were to write a memoir today about the first nineteen and a half years of my life, I would call it Carbon Dating: The Secret Love Lives of Molecules. And I would try to express this beautiful concept in words that wouldn’t do the subject justice For these tiny shreds of matter are the driving force for everything we know. Break down everything into some 100+ elements and categorize them on the periodic table, then turn them loose to smash into one another. What happened on that first day—that “let there be light” moment, the Big Bang, the spontaneous generation of the cosmos? Ever since then those elements have been synthesizing and creating and…here we are.

From the simple yet innovative attachment of two hydrogens bonded to an oxygen, to the hydrocarbon methane that then branches into alkanes and from there accumulates nitrogen and such until it folds and pleats into amino acids, proteins, tissues, organs, a leaf, a tree, a deer, and us. You and I are made of the stuff of stars, as they say—we’re all stardust.

And so it is. Unbelievable, inconceivable, all explanations completely implausible and illogical. Whether or not the metaphysical “exists” is no longer the question: it must, it does, eternal, permeating all. Call it a deity or a divine spark or a flash of pure magic energy or an instantaneous combustion and pop! there’s the first proton, something from nothing. A few billion years later, and look what’s happened. Everything.

And what is left?

Everything else.

Lift every voice and sing.

Oh, to be a Work of Art

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life after all

Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I'm crawling on your shores

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine

--Emily Saliers


I listen to the radio all the time these days on my daily commutes to and from school and home and work and rehearsal. And late at night when I was secluded out in Nowheresville during my house-sitting stint, when I had nothing but homework and the Internet to keep me company, I tuned into the local variety station. During those late late hours, stretching sometimes ‘til 2 in the morning, I discovered the radio show Delilah. The title deejay serves as a psychologist/mentor/mother-figure/marriage counselor/role model/friend to her listeners, who call in with requests for love songs and anecdotes about their children and uncles and estranged boyfriends. Across the country, working overtime in cramped cubicles or driving through winding roads with a lover or tucking children into bed after a bath and a story, we all heard these personal stories and empathized. Then Delilah would select a tune and the waves would fill the room and I’d snuggle down deeper into bed. Music is a powerful thing. This tune by the Indigo Girls is a current favorite, both for its melodic qualities and overall catchiness and for its powerfully compelling lyrics.


And I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
And I went in seeking clarity

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
Yeah we go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountains
Yeah we go to the Bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine


“Yeah,” I say in my best British accent à la Rupert Grint, “I’ve got to get my priorities straightened.”

And that’s what it comes down to. What we learn from our parents or from professors doesn’t always line up with what we learn in the School of Hard Knocks. The idealism of philosophy and religion doesn’t exactly jive with Real Life. So what do we choose? Do we toss aside our quest for a “definitive” as unattainable foolishness, and go on about our merry ways, forgetting the enthusiasm with which we once embraced our ideals? Do we, instead, live completely impractically, refusing to sacrifice our beliefs, even at the sake of happiness and worldly success?

When we’re young we set our hearts upon some beautiful idea
Maybe something from a holy book or French philosophia
Upon the thoughts of better men than us we swear by and decree a
Perfect way to end the war, a perfect way to be
A work of art. Oh, to be a work of art

But in time a thought comes tugging on the sleeve edge of our minds
Perhaps no perfect way exists at all, just many different kinds
Oh, but if it’s just a thing of taste then everything unwinds
For without an absolute how can the absolute define
A work of art? Oh, to be a work of art

--The Guggenheim Grotto



Or, instead, do we strive for what is Right, doing only the best we can, looking for inspiration wherever we can find it, taking our happiness as opportunities present themselves, but never forgetting our origins and the ideas of our youths, and always searching for excellence, goodness, and the best thing we know how to do?

No matter what, we’ve got to decide for ourselves and come to terms with our decisions. Limbo is no place for the living.

Buck!

Argh. My right hip aches and my left calf keeps seizing up on me and there’s a jagged burning between my shoulder blades. I’ll be lucky if I can walk tomorrow.

See, I showed up at work today and figured I needed to catch up with a few of the horses-in-training that I’d been neglecting due to my school schedule and general laziness. After momentary deliberation, I selected the four-year-old who hadn't been ridden in over two months. No big deal—there was a lot of commotion going on around the barn because they were hosting a driving clinic on the property, but while the horse (whom we shall call "Poseidon" to make his rather unique real name less googleable) seemed a little spooky, he wasn't too bad. I tacked him up and turned him loose to trot in the arena a little bit. No problem.

I've seen him buck before, both out in the pasture feeling fresh and the first time he felt a flank cinch. Let me tell you, that pony can buck. I've read notes in the log from the previous trainer, detailing how Poseidon trashed her. Once, after watching his antics, I made a pact with myself that if he ever tried it with me, I'd do my best to ride it out as a sort of personal challenge. Normally my first instinct is to safely bail so the dismount is on my terms, but I thought that it would show some real skill and ‘cowgirlitude’ if I was able to stick through one of his fits.

Of course, I had completely forgotten this little internal agreement, and that promise was the last thing on my mind today. All I really remember is fiddling with my jean leg, hitching up the knee so I could bend and swing and push up with the stirrup....

...and then I was looking at the suede of the saddle seat far below me, and I was coming down, but far off center, perhaps behind the cantle, and what the fu—

—and then up again, thrown skyward, slam down, repeat. I figured out what was happening by the third jump, but that didn't help me situate myself all that much as I flopped haphazardly in suspended motion.

I took the mental time to note that Poseidon had that peculiar bucking style that you see in a lot of rodeo broncs: head pointed to the ground, back humped, legs straight. He didn't buck so much as launch himself mightily, huge leaps punctuated by tiny hesitations as he caught his breath and coiled up again (and in retrospect, these split-second pauses must have been what saved me).

I realized at this point that I was riding sans stirrups and sans saddle horn. Both of my hands had a death grip on the reins, which were my sole handhold and sole contact with the horse. I had been carrying a wood stick for a crop, and I felt it crush into the horn and snap in two as the roiling animal plummeted earthward. My legs flapped stupidly to the side, plenty of air clearance between them and the fenders. I readjusted myself the best I could in an attempt to gain some centered gravity, as I was tilting dangerously from side to side. Meanwhile, I was desperately looking for an opportunity to throw myself clear of the raging beast, but alas, I found that my safest position was to stay aboard unless I wanted to land underneath pounding hooves.

In five or so of these mighty leaps (no, I didn't count), the gelding made it clear across the arena. He was heading for the fence, now, and I was certain that he would run into it, scrape me against it, break my leg, toss me off, and leave me tangled in a heap of splintered wood. I braced myself for impact, but the horse, realizing that he was about to slam head-first into the gate, slowed momentarily, and that was just the pause I needed to take control of the situation. I unhooked my jacket from the horn (where it had been trapped, pulling me forward and preventing me from grabbing my safety handle) and fumbled for my stirrups. Then, as Poseidon prepared to pivot and start the whole thing all over again in the other direction, I choked up on one of the reins, pulling his head to the side and preventing future bucking.

He stopped.

I breathed.

And looked around. A crowd of people had just been walking past on the way back from their lunch break. Only one straggler remained near the arena, however.

"Nobody saw that, right?" I asked her.

"Nope, didn't see a thing." She smiled and winked and walked on.

After replaying the whole event in my head, I honestly don't know how I stayed on. My boss said that it must have been because of my first-rate seat. Um, sure, except I was airborne most of the time. My seat was flying through the air a foot above the saddle, thankyouverymuch. No horn, no stirrups, no nothin'. And the hardest-bucking horse I’ve ever ridden. Guess I got lucky today. Thank God for instinct and reflexes.

Well, there’s an adrenaline rush for you. Good to have those every once in a while—keeps you alive, I guess. I’m just grateful that I’m able to type this and have neither a broken arm nor a broken head….even if my back is sore….

[The opening image, by the way, is an actual photograph of the incident. It looks black and white only because Poseidon is a white fewspot leopard and because I became rather blanched as all the color ran out of my face due to shock and horror. The edges are a smidge blurry because it was happening that fast.]

Let's Overanalyze a Bit, Shall We?

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

--John Keats

I remember having to analyze this piece for a high school IB English class. It was one of my favorites of the dozens we covered for the sheer lyricism of its verses. It brings a whole new level to “poetry.”

There was a time when my training was so finely tuned that I could automatically break apart a poem like this line by line, pointing out assonance and alliteration, personification, metaphor, hyperbole, synaesthetic imagery. I could tell you whether the verses were written with iambic, trochaic, or dactylic meter, and what type of poem it was (sonnet or quatrain or lyric ballad), and recite the author’s biography, and give various interpretations for reoccurring motifs and themes. All of this came almost without thought, for I had practiced so many times that writing a paper became simply second nature. Critical analysis essays flow rapidly from the buttons on my keyboard, churning out paragraph after paragraph, closing in on the elusive Meaning of the Literature.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Ah, a personified season, given physical, anthropomorphic characteristics! Ah, the wildly winsome alliteration of “winnowing wind!” How artistic! How poetic! How romantic!

…but maybe there’s more to it than that. Perhaps I got too caught up in the literary devices at the expense of the actual essence of the poem. For works such as this are meant to be read, and understood, and enjoyed—they are meant to be interpreted, not as critical, stuffy works of literature, but by each unique reader. They are meant to speak to the psyche of every individual.

I saw that a new movie just came out about John Keats called Bright Star. It tells the story of his doomed affair with the love of his life. Sad story—particularly sad, since the poet died at age 25 of tuberculosis—but so fitting with the tragic romance of the time period.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Yes, Keats is simultaneously lamenting and revering the autumn of his days, as he dies a slow death while he should still be in the figurative spring of his youth. Metaphor! I say, but a metaphor that extends far beyond the dead poet’s self-pity and personal reflection.

It is autumn now, and the leaves are dying, the chloroplasts decaying to be recycled later, the leaves shining gold and vermillion, bright beauty, and then fading, crumpling, tearing away, falling, crispy, crunched beneath feet, rotting, turned to soil and detritus, which is aerated by earthworms, broken down, reused, nutrient-rich, obtained by the infinite root hairs of the great tree, incorporated, green leaf again. No life without death, no joy without sorrow, no triumph without failure. It’s the great paradox. And here is beauty. Enjoy it while it lasts.

puddle-wonderful

Two Fridays ago, my parents took my injured mare, Bones, for her long-overdue MRI in Oklahoma. I wanted badly to go so I could care for my horse and tour the facilities at the veterinary hospital, but was unable to miss class and needed to stay home to care for the other animals. The news wasn’t particularly good: her digital flexor tendon is torn in three places. With protein injections, shockwave therapy, and at least four or five months of confinement to a 12’x12’ pen (aka hell on earth for a herd animal), she has a “fair” (~70%) chance of recovery. Oh, and it’s going to cost $3500. Yeah, I’m completely broke. Now, as I type this, she’s colicking and having some reactions to the shots and treatments she received earlier today. Lovely.

Later, last Tuesday, I took the long way home to enjoy a particularly vibrant sunset. I pulled over at my favorite bridge and peered out over the water of the swollen creek to catch the last glimpses of reflected pink clouds. I returned to my car as the sky went navy and passed the slumped form of a dead black dog by the side of the road. Pity, I thought, and that was all, until I saw its two live companions. That necessitated another stop. The big spotted one ran off terrified, but the little limping black one with the chewed up face, droopy tail, and obvious leg injuries was all too happy to be hoisted into my backseat. Now she won’t leave. Who wants a puppy?

And then the rain came. A torrential downpour that turned the parking lots into lakes; the streets into rivers; the campus grounds into marshes. My umbrella couldn’t protect me from the monsoon as I slogged through a literal three-inches of flowing water on the sidewalk (ruining my favorite shoes, I might add—a beloved pair of suede Rocketdogs, the cool kind that fasten with Velcro). The eeriest thing, however, was the presence of the earthworms. I didn’t realize what they were, at first, the tiny pink squiggles lining the pavement at regular several-inch intervals. Pale lines, floating and sinking and writhing under the rippling surface of the water. How many tens of thousands of had emerged from their soppy earthen tunnels only to drown on the sidewalk or be smashed underneath my feet? A martyrdom of annelids.

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

--ee cummings


While the heavens poured down, I made a realization—nay, admission—that I hope in time will prove cathartic. Let it rain.