Day Residue...a series of small observations

Lately the days have too much in them, so that they leak out into the dreams and make the evenings too still.

Last night I dreampt that Grandmother died again, but this time it was easier. She chose the time. She got dressed up right before she left, because she wanted to look nice. I was with her.

My clients inspire me, often toward self-expression.

The job search continues to be demoralzing, and I feel like I am in a vaccume with it all.

I miss my creative self. I miss music and writing. And yet is this the tragedy of becoming "real"? I always wondered about this. I don't want to go back to the highschool days of living in books and songs, but there has got to be something in between. Or are there just too many people in the world, too many words, and not enough energy for them all.

In the background of our daily grind, things play out like the earthquake. Tonight our friend arrives home safe and we will see him, and that bigger world will cut through the humming tedium of this one, and then... as always... we will return to the daily grind, a little changed, but largely a cog in the wheel of time. It's easy to see how many of us turn a blind eye to the larger world as we get older. It's so hard to care, the way it splits your perception in two, the way the small world screams so loud as to drown out the extra world it does not leave room for. And where are we, in the middle-- messengers or casualities-- a thousand shapes in between?

Snow Days

And in the midst of bitter cold, the white fell.  And it filled the glass jars of things from the coast, creating a beautiful strangeness.

New Year

As the new year is upon me I am faced with the reality that I never write in this blog anymore. I am not sure what to make of that just yet, meaning I am not sure whether to continue or to, perhaps, resolve to. I suppose this was inevitable, as I was never entirely sure what the purpose of the blog was, some amalgamation of journal, letter to friends, and open communication to the invisible internet ethos. Things without a set purpose are quick to return back into the nothingness, I suppose, from whence they came.

Reading J and M's blogs makes me want to blog more, and to send out images of the beautiful or interesting into the world, believing it matters. But that is them, and perhaps not me. I am not sure.

Regardless, I am pondering my New Year's go-lutions (a combination of "goals" and "resolutions" inspire by Jen L).  I like the emphasis on "go" in this neologism. Plus I am fond of neologisms, in general. 

One of my golutions will surely involve writing or returning to the realm of the creative, be it poetry, prose, songwriting, or all of the above. I am not sure why the creative comes and goes in waves, how much to accept it or how much to fight it. It's like the tide in that way-- requiring a delicate balance of your approach; going too far in either direction can lead to missing out or missing persons. Either way it's bad. I suppose writing, like the sea, takes you in and spits you back out again a thousand times, each time in a new place. So it's a confusing shoreline we traverse.

I have been working on one poem for over two years I think. Based on that sentence, one would assume it is a great poem, a kind of epic or crowning achievement. In fact, it is a normal poem but longer than the others; I do not think it is fantastic in any way except that it has roman numerals inserted between stanzas to make it seem more important. The question becomes whether to give up on it or keep pushing. Is the clay overworked or just needing a few more poundings? You would think such things would be easy to tell, like pasta-- aldente or mushy-- but they are not. 

And in the end, I keep telling myself it's about the process of writing the poem, not the form of the poem itself. Focus on the outcome ruins things sometimes, the same way focusing on the shore, when you are so far out, only makes you tired.

The poem, if it matters, is about the Sago Mine incident that happened back in, what, 2007 or 2008? Maybe that is what makes this one harder: it's based on a real thing, or at least a real note scrawled by a real dying, now dead, man and reprinted in a real newspaper article that I read.  Maybe it is the reality of it that makes it harder to give up.

First Impressions: Charlotte

It's been years since I've been to Charlotte. It is technically my hometown, and yet never felt like it. We grew up in the very South of the city, really in Pineville, which-- back then-- was not the sprawling suburban mecca it is today. The drive to my mother's house, which was once rural past their neighborhood, is now populated by Mega-Mansions and other strange fixtures of modernity.  Plus, we seemed to be more attached to Asheville-- where the rest of the family was from-- and where we went every time there was a weekend get-away. 

Even if I had considered this my home, I would scarcely recognize it now.  Downtown was originally a desolate, shiny collection of businesses and banks which shut down at night and looked like a glass ghost-town after dark. I hear there are condos downtown now, and restaurants, and something besides Banks.

Charlotte always wanted to be Atlanta, and it seems it has gotten its wish.  There is a new light-rail system, a new highway loop around the city (which I do not know how to navigate), and even the small roads I once traversed are unrecognizable, dotted with giant brick mansions and new chain restaurants. I suppose this is what everyone says about every boomtown in America. And we all feel a unique sense of (irrational) betrayal when we say it, as if life ever promised to stay the same.

Unlike others, I do not feel any sadness, really, or disappointment. I never liked this town, or else never really connected or identified with it. It seemed a temporary place to live out of necessity for a job, but not anywhere my family had wanted to move. There was no mountains, nothing interesting, no other family (except my mom's, which was very different from us). It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't anything special either. It didn't get into you.

Aside from the changes, my other first (re)-impressions of Charlotte is, to be blunt: wow-- I miss black people. As we travel around the city (even just driving in, or walking in the hospital), I am struck by the sudden realization that Knoxville does not have the same kind of racial integration. For one, it has fewer black people, and then they all appear to be relegated to one side of town and are, for the most part, poor.  

Cities like Charlotte and Atlanta have what Knoxville lacks-- a black middle class-- and an every-day sense of racial diversity. Growing up this seemed normal, of course-- going to school with people from different backgrounds, having neighbors from India, Korea, Mexico, and always having black kids in class. As I became an adult I realized this was a unique experience (sadly) and that many white people who lived in smaller or less-racially diverse cities (or cities that did not bus) were somehow able to live their entire lives without really interacting with black people. 

In my observation, this leads to a few things, the most benign of which is that they are kind-hearted liberals who refer to black people as "African-American" (because they have read somewhere that they should) but feel uneasy around them-- not for hatred but for what is now termed in the literature-- "implicit anxiety" or "modern racism" or "aversive racism." I don't want to go on too much of a research tangent here (although this is our area)... but studies have shown that most white people (including these "liberals") have increased blood pressure around black people and tend to limit or avoid conversation. The most benign interpretation of this is that they are anxious they will offend the other person. Of course there are also those who are anxious the black person will hurt them somehow. Both processes are racism, just different kinds.

I truly believe in busing and I think it is a tragedy they don't do it everywhere (and have stopped it in Charlotte now, after white people sued). I don't think we'll ever achieve good race relations if people don't grow up in contact with each other and get used to it, feel more comfortable.  

Even the time I have spent in Knoxville, not interacting with black people (except at work or stuff like that), has been bad for me. The fact that I find it notable, here in Charlotte, that I am among more diverse people is, in itself, a problem. That sort of thing should not be notable, should be normal.

I miss it. 

First Impressions: Hospital

I am sitting here in the hospital waiting room, which is almost as nice as the one in the picture. Either hospitals have vastly improved in the 6 years since I had surgery, or this one is especially high-class.  Maybe cuz we're in the big city of Charlotte.

Of course, no matter how high class the hospital, there are still the usual inconveniences which-- for now-- qualify as novelties: waking up at 5:15am, driving through dark streets with the few other cars, the more plentiful bikers, the eerie glow of the pre-day silence.  There is the strange banddaid smell that permeates all hospitals, the ringing of phones and dinging of elevator doors, the confusing corridors I am sure I will get lost in on my way out, the sudden sense of easy kinship you feel with the other waiters, as you are all joined in the waiting for loved ones. 

My Dad's surgery is one of those that is billed as simple but when I finally looked at diagrams, is pretty amazing.  They are taking out essentially 1/3 of his large intestines, I think it is... or his colon (which in the pictures looks like large intestines). Then they will sew the small intestines back into it. If all goes well, he will be in the hospital for 3, maybe 4 days, and should have a normal recovery. This is all in response to some pre-cancerous-looking objects they found during a recent colonoscopy. 

My dad works for the hospital-- or rather, the hospital system (at a different office)-- so it is interesting the perspective I imagine he has.  My first impressions of the facility are very good: The chairs are nice, the lighting not as hideously fluorescent as I imagined it to be, and the people are all very nice. They have a man at the desk whose sole job it is to coordinate and inform the families in the waiting room.  Each patient is given a tracking number, so I can see on this fancy computer screen (which is the like the one at McKay's used book store) which phase of surgery he is in. If  I leave the waiting room for the cafeteria or etc, they give me a pager so that I can be reached at all times.

It's like a surreal combination of hospital, airport (the news TVs on, the strangers all waiting), used book store (the fancy tracking screen), and restaurant (the pagers that buzz as if your table is ready).  It is a clearly modern world we live in, but I do half-wonder (as re my brief ER visit  in Knoxville) whether this is simply a big city thing, as our hospitals are not as new or as nice.

New Band

Okay, so most of you already know that our old band "broke up" (that sounds very dramatic, like we need a Vh1 special about "Behind the Music".)  Well, only a year later we've got a new band: Me, Patrick, and two girls from church choir: Ellie and Erin. Our band is called: The Emma Lees (Grandmother you will like this because the name is shorter than our old one?)  And this is our little website:  http://the-emma-lees.ning.com/   I think you can join there; if not I can "invite" you.

This is a picture of us playing at A's church BBQ (plus some friends): It was a good time!

Updates on life

A got a job!  She will be directing/coordinating volunteers at the Volunteer Mission Center (w/ homeless folks). She loves the guy she'll be working for-- a really cool minister dude. She is so relieved and excited (as am I). She'll start in July.

A's Aunt Ellen died Friday after a painful battle with cancer. :( This was at once a sadness and a relief, as Ellen was so skinny and suffering. :(  A is going up there for the funeral this week, but a memorial service will be held on Thanksgiving.

A and I will only see each other 1 week in June (b/c of funeral, church camp, mission, etc)... but this 1 week will be at the beach... so good times, perhaps to help ease the hard ones.

Looking forward to July 4th weekend: We're traveling to Asheville for Max's big photo show opening, and then our annual get-together with J and friends.  This year it's gonna be a homemade beer-tasting party! 

I am working on submitting some poetry chapbooks (collection of my poetry works) to enter into contests so that they might get published in very early form-- one deadline is in June and the others are this Fall.

Grandmother's cancer is temporarily gone/in remission I guess is the right word?  Yay for that!!

I'll likely be traveling to Charlotte in July b/c my Dad is having surgery. Not anything life-threatening but it's major surgery. I think he has to be in the hospital 4-5 days. :( yuck.

I think that's all the life goings on... :)