Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Dance
When I was little one of my most favorite things to do was dance. We had a huge living room with no furniture, which turned into a ballroom for me. I never took classes, but turn on Aretha Franklin, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack (minds out of the gutter people, I was 7), or Vivaldi's Four Seasons and I would be leaping and twirling for hours. Get me drunk now and you end up with similar results.
I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance as often as I can (stupid evening classes!) and it makes me wish I was someone who is flexible enough to at least touch my toes so that I could be the ballerina I planned to become when I was 6.
Fear and Addiction
Dreaming with a Broken Heart (this is my absolute favorite, it kills me)
Your Ex Lover's Dead
By the way, my last post was apparently my 100th post. Which is really pretty sad, considering I've been on here since 2007 according to my stats. I suppose I make up for my infrequent posting with my longevity?
I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance as often as I can (stupid evening classes!) and it makes me wish I was someone who is flexible enough to at least touch my toes so that I could be the ballerina I planned to become when I was 6.
Fear and Addiction
Dreaming with a Broken Heart (this is my absolute favorite, it kills me)
Your Ex Lover's Dead
By the way, my last post was apparently my 100th post. Which is really pretty sad, considering I've been on here since 2007 according to my stats. I suppose I make up for my infrequent posting with my longevity?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Poetry Sunday
The closest thing I have to church or prayer is poetry. When I am conflicted or sad or seeking answers I find myself turning to poetry the way other people turn to the Bible. Thus, Poetry Sunday- a new weekly feature. Well, perhaps weekly. Maybe bi-weekly. Actually it may never happen again considering my track record with regular blog posting. But we'll try and see.
The Meadow- Marie Howe
As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so
the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together
and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers.
Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows
for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay.
The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design
how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence every day.
This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,
and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything
is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight
and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass
bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes,
sputtering into a field the farmer has not yet plowed,
and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,
is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can't say.
I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.
But in this world, where something is always listening, even
murmuring has meaning, as in the next room you moan
in your sleep, turning into late morning. My love, this might be
all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget
what you are. There will come a day when the meadow will think
suddenly, water, root, blossom, through no fault of its own,
and the horses will lie down in daisies and clover. Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the words
that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.
........The last two stanzas make my heart stop, just for a second.
The Meadow- Marie Howe
As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so
the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together
and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers.
Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows
for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay.
The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design
how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence every day.
This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,
and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything
is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight
and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass
bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes,
sputtering into a field the farmer has not yet plowed,
and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,
is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can't say.
I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.
But in this world, where something is always listening, even
murmuring has meaning, as in the next room you moan
in your sleep, turning into late morning. My love, this might be
all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget
what you are. There will come a day when the meadow will think
suddenly, water, root, blossom, through no fault of its own,
and the horses will lie down in daisies and clover. Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the words
that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.
........The last two stanzas make my heart stop, just for a second.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Need to learn how to turn off the blushing
I am learning that being a therapist means that people who you have just met will tell you the most intimate details of their lives without hesitation. Things that I do not talk about with my nearest and dearest, much less someone that I met 20 minutes ago. I do not judge these people, but I struggle to control my tendency to blush, because I am a very pale person who immediately flushes to an attractive tomato color as soon as something uncomfortable is mentioned. Just the thought of blushing usually makes me blush. So, I need to find some "blush reduction techniques". I'm hoping my threshold will be higher as I get more used to hearing these things, but I'm doubtful. I'm keeping a list of some of the things I have so far heard as a therapist that challenged my "counselor poker face"
1. Various masturbation techniques
2. Detailed descriptions of stool samples and problems with incontinence (NOT urinary incontinence either!)
3. Detailed description of a particularly difficult prostate exam (it made me thank the lord I am not male)
4. Erectile dysfunction, difficulty sustaining erections, and a whole lot more information on a variety of men's penises (penii?) than I ever wished to know.
5. The sex life of members of the over 70 generation
That's a pretty significant blush-worthy list considering I've only been in this internship for a couple of months, right? Lord only knows what all else I will hear about before May. If exposure is the key to raising my tolerance level I should be blush-proof by graduation day.
1. Various masturbation techniques
2. Detailed descriptions of stool samples and problems with incontinence (NOT urinary incontinence either!)
3. Detailed description of a particularly difficult prostate exam (it made me thank the lord I am not male)
4. Erectile dysfunction, difficulty sustaining erections, and a whole lot more information on a variety of men's penises (penii?) than I ever wished to know.
5. The sex life of members of the over 70 generation
That's a pretty significant blush-worthy list considering I've only been in this internship for a couple of months, right? Lord only knows what all else I will hear about before May. If exposure is the key to raising my tolerance level I should be blush-proof by graduation day.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Senioritis
Wow, I can't believe it's November already! Perhaps that's because it has been July according to this blog for the last 4 months. I could say that it's because I've been busy with school, but I would be lying. I officially have senioritis, and have discovered that the benefit to going to a crappy grad school is that you can do the bare minimum and still get As! You think I'm exagerating? I got a 99% on a midterm that I didn't study for. Not, I only studied for a couple hours right before hand. I. Didn't. Study. At all.
Anyway, it's been an interesting couple of months. While I've been busy NOT doing any school work, I have been doing a lot of self reflection. By the way? I don't recommend it. Self reflection causes you to both become totally absorbed in your own troubles, and unless you are Gandhi you will not like everything you discover.
One of the more positive things that came out of this period was that I've started creating what some call a "bucket list". As in, things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Considering my intense fear of death I am not calling my list a bucket list. Instead, it's my "things to do once I graduate and have actual free time" list. Right now it's kind of a small list, but I expect it will grow.
The TTDOIGAHAFT List
1. Learn to play the cello
2. Train Siva as a certified therapy dog
3. Take a dance class
4. Go to Europe, and start prioritizing travelling over possessions
5. Start writing again (started this one)
6. Start rock climbing again
7. Create the garden in the backyard
8. Read poetry again (started this one too)
9. Reconnect with old friends
There have been a lot of pieces of myself that I have buried while I've been emersed in my career, marriage, house renovations and school. It just took too much energy to do everything at once, so I feel like I've become a bit two dimensional. But I've been woken up a bit, reminded of what I used to be like, what I used to love. And that's coming back. As soon as I finish slacking through my senior year.
Anyway, it's been an interesting couple of months. While I've been busy NOT doing any school work, I have been doing a lot of self reflection. By the way? I don't recommend it. Self reflection causes you to both become totally absorbed in your own troubles, and unless you are Gandhi you will not like everything you discover.
One of the more positive things that came out of this period was that I've started creating what some call a "bucket list". As in, things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Considering my intense fear of death I am not calling my list a bucket list. Instead, it's my "things to do once I graduate and have actual free time" list. Right now it's kind of a small list, but I expect it will grow.
The TTDOIGAHAFT List
1. Learn to play the cello
2. Train Siva as a certified therapy dog
3. Take a dance class
4. Go to Europe, and start prioritizing travelling over possessions
5. Start writing again (started this one)
6. Start rock climbing again
7. Create the garden in the backyard
8. Read poetry again (started this one too)
9. Reconnect with old friends
There have been a lot of pieces of myself that I have buried while I've been emersed in my career, marriage, house renovations and school. It just took too much energy to do everything at once, so I feel like I've become a bit two dimensional. But I've been woken up a bit, reminded of what I used to be like, what I used to love. And that's coming back. As soon as I finish slacking through my senior year.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Learn How to Stucco in 12 Easy Steps
1. Purchase ingredients for stucco and dump into the plastic tub specifically made for mixing stucco. Discover that specifically designed stucco mixing tub is actually too small to mix stucco.
2. Drive to Lowe's, purchase second plastic tub. Return home, divide mixture in half, add the required 2 teaspoons of water, start mixing.
3. Discover that the cement mixer previously mocked at the store is now worth it's weight in gold as mixing large tubs of sand and water is not only agonizing but also takes forever.
4. Become frustrated and add three times the amount of water required in order to speed up the mixing process.
5. Stucco finally mixed, dump some on a trowel and smear it on the wall.
6. Watch all the stucco fall off the wall and onto the ground.
7. Repeat until sweaty and frustrated, then pick up stucco with hands and begin smearing on the wall manually, as a monkey might smear feces.
8. Continue to smear until the "may cause flesh burns" label is spotted on the cement bag.
9. Scream in a girlish manner and hop up and down frantically until a hose is procured.
10. Locate rubber gloves and continue to smear stucco on walls.
11. Once stucco is completely smeared on the wall look up youtube videos online on "how to stucco". Watch videos of Mexican laborers in America doing excellent stucco work, and American missionaries in Mexico doing shitty stucco work.
12. Decide to refer to the stuccoed walls as having a "custom hand applied finish", open a stucco company, and make millions because the only equipment needed is two tubs, a rake, and a pair of rubber gloves.
2. Drive to Lowe's, purchase second plastic tub. Return home, divide mixture in half, add the required 2 teaspoons of water, start mixing.
3. Discover that the cement mixer previously mocked at the store is now worth it's weight in gold as mixing large tubs of sand and water is not only agonizing but also takes forever.
4. Become frustrated and add three times the amount of water required in order to speed up the mixing process.
5. Stucco finally mixed, dump some on a trowel and smear it on the wall.
6. Watch all the stucco fall off the wall and onto the ground.
7. Repeat until sweaty and frustrated, then pick up stucco with hands and begin smearing on the wall manually, as a monkey might smear feces.
8. Continue to smear until the "may cause flesh burns" label is spotted on the cement bag.
9. Scream in a girlish manner and hop up and down frantically until a hose is procured.
10. Locate rubber gloves and continue to smear stucco on walls.
11. Once stucco is completely smeared on the wall look up youtube videos online on "how to stucco". Watch videos of Mexican laborers in America doing excellent stucco work, and American missionaries in Mexico doing shitty stucco work.
12. Decide to refer to the stuccoed walls as having a "custom hand applied finish", open a stucco company, and make millions because the only equipment needed is two tubs, a rake, and a pair of rubber gloves.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Dr. Livingston, I Presume?
We have reached Threat Level Radioactive Killer Insects here in the Zamora household. At this point I'm waiting for the green ooze to start leaking out around the foundation because I'm pretty sure that we're living on top of a subterranean pool of nuclear waste. That's the only logical conclusion I can come to based on the size, variety and sheer number of insects and terrifying creatures that have been invading our house.
It started when I moved Hiccup's dog crate and what I thought was a very small and active worm started making it's way across the floor. Oh, how I wish it was a worm. But as I looked closer, I realized that there was something very, well, snake-y about it. I did what any young, independent, and strong female would do- screamed for Danny. He captured it, and we stared at it in horror for a while as it slithered frantically in the bottom of a glass, slowly realizing the implications of the baby snake. MORE. BABY. SNAKES. I pictured hordes of snakes everywhere we turned. Fortunately we only found one other snake a couple of days later, just as tiny, and also very dead courtesy of our cat. This is the only thing she is really useful for- killing things around the house. Except sometimes she doesn't even bother to kill them because she finds it more entertaining to bat them playfully around the house and then leaving them angry and vengeful.
Okay, so we had the plague of snakes. Then we had the horde of cicadas that spent their day hiding in the plants around the house and making the exact same noise that's in the previews for Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I don't know if that noise is also in the movie because the noise in the preview freaked me out too much to watch the movie. Little did I know I would soon be surrounded by thousands of little horror movie props predicting my imminent demise and transformation into a human skin lamp.)
Once the monsoon rains hit the cicadas migrated back to hell or wherever it is they came from. But the rains brought a far more terrifying creature. We first spotted one in the road, squatting menacingly and waving it's furry legs at us. The tarantula. The next night there was another one the size of a salad plate crouched by the laundry room door. We brought Hiccup inside because if this thing wanted to it would eat Hiccup for a midnight snack. All that would be left is a wagging furry tail hanging out of this things mouth. If spiders have mouths, that is. But I don't actively try to destroy insects as long as they stay outside of my house. And tarantulas are so large and furry that it's kind of like trying to squash a chihuahua, it's almost grosser to kill them than it is to make them leave (correction: have DANNY make them leave). But the worst was about to come:
So, I'm blind. Like, I can't see more than 6 inches away from my face clearly without glasses or contacts. In the morning I wake up and stumble blindly into the shower. Are you already thinking to yourself "No! Mia, don't get into the shower!" It's like the begining of a horror movie when the dumb blond gets into the shower while the creepy man with the axe hides in the bathroom closet. Anyway, I pick up my loofah, wash, then put the loofah down. Which is when I notice a dark blob on the side of the tub, next to the loofah. I immediately become concerned because anything big enough for me to see without my glasses is pretty freaking huge. I bend closer, squinting inquisitively ("Mia! Noooo!") only to find myself face to face with a baby tarantula. By baby, I mean the size of an average human baby. I leap out of the shower and sprint into the living room shrieking "Big spider! Big spider! Danny! Big spider!" (I'm very articulate when I'm naked and panicking)
People, this is getting serious. I feel like I'm in the jungle with vines and spider monkeys slowly creeping through the windows. I'm going to wake up to javelina curled up on the foot of my bed, rattlesnakes under the sink, and tarantulas in my bathtub. Oh, wait THAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED.
I'll be at Costco buying Raid in bulk if anyone needs me.
It started when I moved Hiccup's dog crate and what I thought was a very small and active worm started making it's way across the floor. Oh, how I wish it was a worm. But as I looked closer, I realized that there was something very, well, snake-y about it. I did what any young, independent, and strong female would do- screamed for Danny. He captured it, and we stared at it in horror for a while as it slithered frantically in the bottom of a glass, slowly realizing the implications of the baby snake. MORE. BABY. SNAKES. I pictured hordes of snakes everywhere we turned. Fortunately we only found one other snake a couple of days later, just as tiny, and also very dead courtesy of our cat. This is the only thing she is really useful for- killing things around the house. Except sometimes she doesn't even bother to kill them because she finds it more entertaining to bat them playfully around the house and then leaving them angry and vengeful.
Okay, so we had the plague of snakes. Then we had the horde of cicadas that spent their day hiding in the plants around the house and making the exact same noise that's in the previews for Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I don't know if that noise is also in the movie because the noise in the preview freaked me out too much to watch the movie. Little did I know I would soon be surrounded by thousands of little horror movie props predicting my imminent demise and transformation into a human skin lamp.)
Once the monsoon rains hit the cicadas migrated back to hell or wherever it is they came from. But the rains brought a far more terrifying creature. We first spotted one in the road, squatting menacingly and waving it's furry legs at us. The tarantula. The next night there was another one the size of a salad plate crouched by the laundry room door. We brought Hiccup inside because if this thing wanted to it would eat Hiccup for a midnight snack. All that would be left is a wagging furry tail hanging out of this things mouth. If spiders have mouths, that is. But I don't actively try to destroy insects as long as they stay outside of my house. And tarantulas are so large and furry that it's kind of like trying to squash a chihuahua, it's almost grosser to kill them than it is to make them leave (correction: have DANNY make them leave). But the worst was about to come:
So, I'm blind. Like, I can't see more than 6 inches away from my face clearly without glasses or contacts. In the morning I wake up and stumble blindly into the shower. Are you already thinking to yourself "No! Mia, don't get into the shower!" It's like the begining of a horror movie when the dumb blond gets into the shower while the creepy man with the axe hides in the bathroom closet. Anyway, I pick up my loofah, wash, then put the loofah down. Which is when I notice a dark blob on the side of the tub, next to the loofah. I immediately become concerned because anything big enough for me to see without my glasses is pretty freaking huge. I bend closer, squinting inquisitively ("Mia! Noooo!") only to find myself face to face with a baby tarantula. By baby, I mean the size of an average human baby. I leap out of the shower and sprint into the living room shrieking "Big spider! Big spider! Danny! Big spider!" (I'm very articulate when I'm naked and panicking)
People, this is getting serious. I feel like I'm in the jungle with vines and spider monkeys slowly creeping through the windows. I'm going to wake up to javelina curled up on the foot of my bed, rattlesnakes under the sink, and tarantulas in my bathtub. Oh, wait THAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED.
I'll be at Costco buying Raid in bulk if anyone needs me.
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