Today's title brought to you by the marriage of The Books, José Gonzalez (who I saw in concert two weeks ago and learned-thanks C-that the guy was studying for his PhD in, oh, don't worry, Biochemistry, when his musical career took off) and apparently Nick Drake too (thank you Youtube, I did not know this was a cover) in the form of The Cello Song.
This is not the actual wording: 'live' is not the verb used. But I took some poetic license and improved the lyrics. You see, The Shins have this song that I love, Girl on the Wing. I didn't understand the lyrics exactly the first few dozen times I heard it but I felt like they said exactly what I felt. Then I looked up the actual lyrics and didn't like the song as much. I want to say that I was one word off and back then I cared more about correct form and so I obliviated (yes, a harry potter verb though no, I don't own a wand) my version for the correct one. And now I can't remember my version. It's a sort of loss. In the same way that understanding a foreign language comes at the expense of hearing the sounds for what the are, out of the context of meaning. Thus I'm doing away with doing away with my incorrect versions of songs that I like. At best, I'll keep in remembrance both versions.
So yes, "live". Because it seems the less passive verb; more demanding. Something like reaching. Which is what spring is all about, after all.
In my preschool class at school we planted beans, maybe two weeks ago now. I am obsessed with them. There are over 23 clear plastic cups lining the window sills of our classroom and every morning I come in, even on Tuesday and Thursday when I work in Kindergarten, to check on their progress. No joke, I pick every one of them up, one by one, turning the cups and examining the difference in a few hours, a little daylight, and some water. Sometimes I water them too but even then they get more than a once-over. I'll start watering at one end of the row and as I go the anxiety builds so that by the time they are watered and I can take the time to lift them, tilt, and admire them, I am like one of my 5 yr olds who comes through the door everyday bouncing on her toes she's so excited to be there.
It's weird because my sister is having a baby and that hardly phases me. Maybe because babies aren't incubated in clear plastic cups or maybe because the wonder of it is too big for me to grasp. All I know is, every morning I come in and find myself looking at these plants and saying to myself "But you came from NOTHING!" Something like a phenomenon.
I'm thinking of starting my own bean growing operation at my apartment but I'm worried about there being enough sunlight. I've fairly convinced myself that if I can successfully grow my own personal bean stalk to love and stroke and admire, that I will awake or perhaps merit that hereditary green thumb that must hiding out somewhere in my genetic makeup. Surely nature misread 'green' for 'little' and I'll end up with both.
It's no wonder though, this fascination for coming-from-nothingness. It's kinda where I'm at right now.
Example Number One: A few weeks ago I had a talk on the phone with some friends about my running. The sad truth is, I am still out of commission as far as running is concerned. One friend expressed concern about my running and all too frequent injuries. ( It was at this moment that I realized that I don't like it, and really don't like it, when people show concern for me. I figured out that the reason is because it raises the suspicion that, after all my meticulous analyzing and decision making, I don't know best. If people are concerned, clearly I must be doing something wrong. And, as we all know, I hate being wrong. This would be some much more accurately expressed in French: on deteste. I'm going for universality here.) I was expressing my frustration with another friend who is also a runner and also, like me, perhaps not a natural. My frustration was due to the lack of conviction I inspired in others regarding my ability to run and not be weary. Or injured. It was this fiery conversation about me conquering the world and proving everyone else wrong: I was going to defy, though I'm not sure whom. The problem is, the experts don't agree, you see. My podiatrist tells me I need a hard orthotic. My chiropractor tells me that doesn't solve the problem, but only masks the symptoms. My chiro also tells me I need a shoe with more stability and cushion than my barefoot shoes offer and the barefoot community tells me that we were made for minimalization. My knees tell me that I don't like shoes that aren't minimal and my feet tell me that they don't like running anymore, possibly because I ran in minimal footwear.
But I had this conversation and pumped myself up and talked to more people and became all the more convinced that I could learn to run and not get injured. I even started to think, hey, maybe one day I'll tackle a marathon.
Except that right now, just walking is still hurting. And, well, I might cave and go to a Dr so one can derive that things are pretty bad. So right now, I've got nothing. I've got sunny days and blue skies and hour upon hour during which my feet ache to hit the pavement, figuratively speaking, while my feet literally, well, just ache. But I'm holding out for something. Out of nothing.
Example Number Two:
I have this conviction that this summer is going to be one of the best summers of my life. The truth of it is, it's unfounded: I have no plan. I keep having these visions of a perfect summer. Earlier this year that vision involved taking the 'long' out of 'distance'. Disintegration. Then the vision evolved into a mountainous escape working at National Parks: fresh air, trail running, high altitude sunrises, my camera, and bearded and braided granolas. Nonmaterialization. Now I'm torn between starting my new life in the bubble which is P-Town and spending the plentiful hours I'm not working poolside whilst reading my required French MA literature and running off to France to visit with old people for 6-8 gluttonous, delicious and terribly quaint albeit lonely weeks. Or I could waitress, nanny, take some jobs that my mom doesn't have time for, volunteer, sell my soul to a call center, write, spend my days reading and listening to French and well, you get the point. Indecision meets and possibly breeds nonmaterialization. This is a really big problem because I figure that when I want something bad enough, I'm pretty good at making it happen. I just don't want anything that bad this summer. I've already checked off all the big things from my list. When you have a job that allows for variety, creativity, structure, laughs and of course hugs and when you're waiting for the impending beginning of the end which is grad school, what you do in the interim just doesn't seem to compare or matter.
It is the middle of May, 2011. In 3 weeks I will have no job, no apartment, no roommate and certainly nothing monumental in sight.
But I gotta say: I gotta feeling.
Example Number Three:
I'm reading Tom Sawyer right now. Somehow, in the deprived childhood that I led and am still leading, I never read Mark Twain. I don't know how this happened? I have no explanations. All I know is, my children will read it. Most especially my boys. Because a little mischief does a'body good. And I've thought a lot lately about the crazy things I've done in my time. Maybe the correct verb is mourn: I feel like I've lost my edge or something. Gone is that version of myself that would think up ridiculous questions for the sake of striking up conversations with complete strangers. Gone is the sort of punk and gone is the sort of hippie. Gone is the honorary "Gentlemen's" and other such and less official club memberships that gave me "one of the boys" status. Gone is the rootless. Gone is the concert hall junkie. Gone is the planner of game nights and summer barbeques.
I hear Phoenix whenever I see my younger sister: Do you remember when 21 years was old? It's not maturity that prevents me from doing all the envious things she does, allowing the proper amount of drama and cruciality. It's something else. It's that I know better. Or that I've come to need a purpose and I can't remove that need.
Maybe life and the people in it is going too many different directions, maybe I'm just too tired to reconcile all these different facades of myself or maybe each require too much energy in their own right anyway. For whatever reason, I feel like I've lost an edge. I don't dream like I used to because I'm content where I am. Which should be great. And is.
And yet, sometimes, I think I miss having something to look forward to. I miss being completely unrealistic.
So I've started making unrealistic lists to compensate for the ailment, whatever it may be. I'm going to try to remember this summer what it is to be uncomfortable where one is. I've bought my third copy of Peter Pan, the boy who won't grow up. I once wrote a paper on it in college. My premise was that Peter is not in fact the protagonist but the antagonist of the story: the embodied truth that refusing to grow up is unnatural and harmful. I'm going to try to remember that.
Today, Charles Langridge Morgan, whose quote has been on my board for years though where I heard it and who he is is long forgotten, will help me:
"The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up."
For the dreams that came to you when you were young / told of a life where spring has sprung.
Something out of nothing. Or somethinglikethat.
