A little more navel gazing...

Life has been full and oddly overwhelming lately. I'm not busy in the normal sense of the word, but I'm keeping myself busy and keeping my mind full (ha! mindful. I'm such a dork) with teaching ideas, poetry ideas, who-the-hell-am-I-and-what-the-hell-am-I-doing ideas. I don't have internet or cable at home, so I've been reading fiction in the quite hours when I'd normally zone out in front of a flickering screen. I read A Million Little Pieces* in one day. Then The House of Sand and Fog, and now I'm half-way through Pigs in Heaven. This is easily the most non-critical prose I've read since I took a class on creative non-fiction during my MFA.

(*Regardless of the Oprah debacle, it's questionable how much of Frey's "memoir" is memoir, especially in light of the tidbit I heard somewhere that Frey pitched it as a novel, but memoir was so hip at the time that his publisher convinced him otherwise... anyway, this is unsubstantiated rumor, but I'm still thinking the book is a novel.)

I'm excited and terrified to teach Intro to Poetry Writing this semester, and have been spending a tremendous amount of time compiling the course packet which essentially is a mini-anthology of the poems that helped me figure out how to be a poet. Of course, I'm still figuring that out, so the thing never feels done and I'm convinced that once I drop it off for copies, I'm going to realize that I left out the most important poems. I guess that's why there are xerox machines, right? I couldn't bring myself to use a textbook or stock anthology because this is the first time I get to teach what I love, and I wanted as much control over it as possible. Now I'm thinking: what the heck do I know about poetry? and just hoping that my excitement for it will cover up the gaps in what I don't know. I'm hoping to post a more substantial something on transitioning from comp instructor to teacher-of-what-I-love sometime soon, but not today.

As for my solipsism: I'm busy putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again after what I can only describe as the most difficult year of my life. Who would have thought that moving to a new city could completely decimate a person's self-ness? Okay, maybe decimate is the wrong word. Maybe scramble. Maybe perforate. Maybe shred.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I got in the car filled with all my stuff and drove six hours to this big, crowded, scary place and started trying to make it fit. Today, I can say it sort-of, almost does. But the me who sorta-kinda fits here today isn't the me who showed up 364 days ago and that's what I'm trying to understand. I did some massively stupid, self-destructive things while ostensibly trying to survive, and I'd like to be able to explain, someday, to myself and the people those actions affected, why I acted the way I did. Right now, I can't even come close, except to say I was sad and lonely. But that doesn't feel like an answer.

More importantly--or at least of more immediate importance--are the questions I have about my work and my place at UIC. I'm still having trouble finding a poetic community here, probably because there are not a lot of poets in the program to begin with, and the ones I know are primarily working on dissertations and not taking workshops with me. I'm also struggling to see my exam committee, and the dissertation committee that follows it, coming together. I'm not sure what my lists are going to be and I'm not sure who I'd like to work with. Unfortunately, I do know who I don't want to work with and I don't like that feeling. I'm hoping that I can slap a quick coat of paint over the mistakes I made last year academically and be more productive and positive this year.

Aaaah....I could go on and on about this, but I have many more things to take care of in my tiny little window of internet time today.

Names for things

I was listening to poems on From the Fishouse yesterday. There was a line from a Barbara Jane Reyes poem that keeps skittering through my head: "In my native tongue, breath is word is spirit. I can think of no single, adequate translation."

I don't know multiple languages--at least not well enough to be aware of the disconnects inherent in translation--but I have been thinking about the shortcomings of language. Today, I'm thinking about the word homesick.

All yesterday morning, I watched black clouds creeping south across the Chicago skyline. At noon, the sky opened up and for a couple of minutes, the air seemed to turn to water. The afternoon was hot, muggy, stiff. But last night the sky opened up again. The gates of all the fences flapped open, the dumpsters danced in the alleys, screens literally blew out of my windows, and I sat, rather stupidly, I admit, right in front of my patio and watched it all. And remembered the first night I spent here in this apartment. Remembered the weeks that followed, and how it hurt to be here.

Then, homesickness was physical--I was sick for weeks with this dry, hacking cough that finally made me decided to quit smoking (and okay, maybe I was just sick, too, but I think I would have gotten better quicker if I hadn't been homesick), exhausted, weak. But the mental/emotional side was hell, too. Being constantly nervous and uncomfortable because nothing was familiar, aching to see my family and friends (and okay, trying to make a long distance relationship work and ultimately not doing so didn't help either). During those first six weeks, the six weeks when I decided I had to immerse myself in my new life if I was ever going to adapt, I thought the homesickness might just kill me.

Here's where the problem with language/naming comes in: today, I'm homesick. But it's nothing like what I just described. It's a restlessness. I want to get in the car and drive. I want to put this stuffy little apartment behind me. But god, how I miss my parents and my sisters. I was talking to my mom about the upcoming visit and she said she would be so happy when Carla and I both got home because then she would feel whole again. And yes, that's how I'll feel, too, when I'm sitting at the kitchen table and the people who make me who I am are there with me. I'll feel whole.

So, today I'm homesick, but not homesick like I was here, and so, to bring it back to where I started--shouldn't there be words distinguishing the degrees of things--you know, besides "very" and "really" and all the other words we teach our freshmen to avoid?

Anyway, a week from now, I'll be hanging out in scenic Chatham, Ohio, and everything will be right in the world.

cultivating joy

I forget sometimes I chose this life. I made it. I had a choice: find a job or go back to school. Stay in Akron and feel safe or move away and...who knows. I chose school. I chose away. And I forget sometimes that I can also choose how I feel about it.

A few days ago, I was talking to my Mom and I told her I hadn't done much that day--just watched a movie, read a book, played around on the internet a while, took a nap. And what did my mother say? "Oh, that would be so nice. To do what you want, when you want." Yes! That's it! That's why I'm doing this. Because the things I love--reading, writing--require quiet, and solitude, and great expanses of open time. And I have that.

It's scary here. I've been a loner for a long time; I've gotten used to spending days in my apartment without talking to anyone. But here, in my new city where I still feel so much like a visitor, I'm afraid to be alone too long. I'm afraid I'll disappear here. I'm afraid no one will miss me.

But then I remember. I made this. This is what I want. A room of my own. A summer with only part-time work, the rest for being a poet--a reclusive, introspective, quiet and still poet.

The wind blowing through my sliding door smells springtime sweet and somehow I've come to love the sound of the train rushing by--just far enough away that I don't always recognize it as train--and why, how, do I allow myself to forget sometimes that I am the luckiest girl in the world?

Day 9 - Fail

It's time for bed again and still no poem. 2 days in a row. I wrote three lines of something ghazal-ish, but not good, not done, not worth posting.

I'm feeling bored by the stuff I keep coming up with.

I'm glad the weekend is almost here, but I'm not really looking forward to it. Just work, no fun plans. If I were in Ohio, I'd spend Saturday afternoon at my folks' and Sunday afternoon at my sister's. I miss weekends like that. I miss routines and familiar kitchen tables. It's going to be really, really weird spending Easter alone. Hopefully they're playing The Ten Commandments on one of the channels I get.

Break-up/Break-down/Break-through

I constantly struggle with how personal to get on this blog. My first impulse: totally personal. Then I remember that I'm also hoping to someday use this as a site for self-promotion and think that I should stick to academics and poetry.

Well, that's not very much fun. And while I've never had a ton of readers, I think there's even fewer these days. Is it possible that people actually prefer my whining and introspection? Hopefully, because today, that's what you're going to get.

*

I've been sad lately. Sad about my break-up, sad about some other personal relationships that aren't/can't be what I thought/hoped, sad about being away from my family, etc. And what is surprising to me in all of this is learning to distinguish "sad" from "depressed." Having been diagnosed with chronic depression at 21 (and having self-diagnosed years before that), I am programmed to label all bad feelings: Depression. But that's not it. There's a difference between chronic and acute that I never had to learn. Right now, my sadness is directly related to events in my life, in a way that previously wasn't true.

I don't know what that all means, but it's something I'm trying to figure out. There's a lot I'm trying to figure out. Like who the hell I am after this last crazy year. This time last year, I was waiting anxiously to hear back about my PhD apps (I think I might have already heard from UIC, but I'm not sure) and everyone I talked to said they hoped I would end up in Chicago (well, maybe not everyone, but a lot of people) because small town girls like me need to live in a big city once in their lives. What? Says who? Something about being in unfamiliar territory being good for your work--a shock to the senses. Well, I still wonder why Chicago was supposed to be better for that than say, Knoxville, TN, or Tallahassee, FL (or any of the five other places I applied to). I'm way burnt-out on public transportation, smelly homeless people, and cement. Why couldn't I be someplace where a car isn't an inconvenience? Where there's grass in places other than public parks? Where you can actually see horizon once in a while (across the lake doesn't count)?

But back to the original question--how has this past year changed me? I haven't figured that out yet. I'm probably tougher, I guess, street-smarter. A little bit braver. I can do tequila shots without training wheels now, and drink PBR just as fast as anyone else sitting around Lil Joe's on a Wednesday night. I'm healthier--I quit smoking. But am I a better poet like everyone said I would be? Hell no. I haven't written a poem that I'm ready to submit since I've moved here, and it's been over six months. Maybe I've become a tougher critic. But mostly, I think being out of my comfort zone has forced me to focus on survival to such an extent that I don't know how to tap into my new/boundary-pushing experiences in a creative way.

I'm also less confident than I was when I got here, and I've never been a terribly confident person. I'm afraid to speak my mind in class because I don't want to disagree with the profs (and I usually do) unless I'm sure I can argue my side (and I usually can't), I constantly feel like I'm on the outside of an inside joke because I haven't read the right book or essay, I doubt my own abilities as a student/scholar/poet in ways that I never have before. On the other hand, I have increased confidence in my ability to teach and in my desire to teach. But the balance isn't good. Maybe that's it--balance. I can do tequila without training wheels but I can't do PhD work without them. I'm uncentered and off-kilter.

It's not all bad, though. My cohort (that's what they call the incoming class here) is amazing: lots of smart, interesting people who are as good at gossip and silliness as they are at theory and criticism. I'm heading back to Ohio on Friday for a much needed dose of family and country living. And even if I'm not doing work that I totally love, I'm being challeneged and pushed and do have some small bit of faith that eventually I will get out on the other side feeling smarter, more in control of my poetic talents, more eloquent, more prepared for my career as a poet and professor. I've never been so great at the waiting part, at the struggling through. I like instant gratification (who doesn't?) and I'm frustrated that the big changes haven't happened yet, I guess.

Still, I'm waiting for that break-through. I need some poetry to gush out of me too fast to edit. I need to come up with a kick-ass paper idea that I can get excited about researching and writing. I need to meet someone (a prof, another student?) who will click with me, my work, who will get what I'm trying to do and know how to beat it out of me. I'm freaking tired of floundering. I'm tired of writing half-baked drafts that bore me when I go back to them. I'm tired of being the new kid, the country girl who's homesick all the time, the MFA who doesn't know how to talk about theory. I just don't know how to fix any of it. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing until I figure it out.

*

And just for good measure--here's my "F-you, Chicago" song (and when I say Chicago, I mean my whole new life, just so you know. I'm over hating the city, for the most part (besides what I mentioned above).)

Dollop

I think I just fell in love...Dollop, the cutest little coffee shop I've ever seen, has been hiding just a five minute walk away from home. The review on the website says:

"Dollop is a true “coffee home:” a coffee shop for those intent on setting up shop with laptops, newspapers, books and caffeine for hours at a time...The back wall contains an unassuming threshold that leads to a comfy cove with couches, library-like tables and bookshelves: seemingly designed for those who would go to the library if not for the anti-noise and anti-beverage laws."

If only I had found this place sooner! It's like they built this little cove for me. I hate working in libraries, but I've found that my apartment is just not conducive to hours and hours of studying time. Especially this week, since there's a crew literally hanging outside my window repairing the bricks and the balconies and making a lot of noise and dust.

An hour ago, I was ready to go awol, rent a car and drive to Ohio just to get the f$#% out of the city, but now, I think I can wait the two weeks until I'm supposed to be going home for my first visit in what feels like years.

Thank you, thank you Dollop! You may have just saved my life (or at least my sanity)!

Counterproductive

I have (day)dreams of living a normal life...getting up in the morning, driving to the office, sitting in my cubicle for the next 8 hours, driving home, cooking dinner and watching TV until bedtime. Going on actual dates with my boyfriend instead of just talking on the phone 2 hours a day (some days, not all!) and having something to talk about besides how I'm (not) adjusting to life in Chicago.

I am really, really torn. A couple days ago, I was torn enough to cry for oh, I don't know, about 4 hours straight. Today, I've got that under control, but I'm still feeling really--off.

I'm not a quitter, so even though I have major doubts about the rightness of me being here, I'm in it for the long haul. Unless something more practical and more pleasant somehow hits me upside the head. Hence the title of this post: Counterproductive. This little emotional crisis I'm having is definitely not helping me get stuff done. Not helping me write poems, even though I play the angsty poet card all the time. Not helping me be successful at anything.

I took the MFA path to see if I could really be a writer. And I found out I can. Am I taking the PhD path to find out if I can really be a scholar? Because that's what it feels like, but that's not exactly what I'd intended. Do I really want to teach? Or do I just want the benefits of an academic schedule? These are questions that I am constantly asking myself...and I can't come up with an answer.

Another issue I'm having is that my family is really, really important to me and it is absolutely breaking my heart to be away from them. I thought because I wasn't married and didn't have children that I somehow didn't have roots and could go where ever I wanted. How stupid am I? My home is my parents and my sisters...not northeast Ohio. They used to tease me about what a Mama's girl I was. When I was little, I hated sleepovers because I got homesick. When I went to girl scout camp, I had to sleep next to the troop leaders or I wouldn't sleep at all. Everyone said I would never move away...and I hated it. I hated thinking I was that needy, that dependent. And now I realize they were right. Sure, it's gotten easier since that first week when I was blocking my door with piles because I didn't trust the deadbolt...but it still doesn't feel right.

People are telling me I haven't given it enough time...but in my experience, when something is this hard to adjust to, it's usually because it isn't right.

Alas, like I already said, I'm not a quitter. So nothing is going to change, except now the whole world knows how I'm feeling. That's okay. I'm kind of an open book anyhow.

I miss my real life.

The end.