Edelweiss

“I eat a persimmon and the teeth of a tinker in Tibet are put on edge” Robert Penn Warren

eliza — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 15:45:49 +0000

Two men, with boxes- carrying cardboard packages.
One man, different each time, twice today with a same-sized box in his hands.
Held by the corners while he talked to his lady-friend walking adjacent in the slant-light.
Two men disjointed-an hour apart, a parking lot apart, half the world away
bringing boxes to their cars.
connected by corrugated paper and wondering
Why they felt like smiling.
Then someone ate a persimmon in Tibet.
This poem inspired by the poetry of Allen Ginsberg

Angst

eliza — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:32:31 +0000

Good grief. I’m such an angsty kid.

Finals Week: The College Edition

eliza — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:27:11 +0000

Strange to post here again after several months of abstinence. The website where my newer blog is located so here I am washed up on the plutonian shores of WordPress, grateful for the respite that blogging offers the unproductively restless soul. I ought to be writing about manic-depression but alas, i have little motivation for such trivialities as formatting an APA-acceptable paper. I would be studying manic-depression if I wasn’t supposed to be. It’s about to get dark outside. The best time of day.

So Let it Be Frozen

eliza — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:49:09 +0000

This might be my last post. May this blog forever be a freeze frame of me in my angsty adolescence, like the squaws in the museum of natural history.

stride rite

eliza — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:24:42 +0000

I keep boomeranging back to this theme for my blog. I’m attracted to the magazine format i guess. And I’m such a boomeranger you wouldn’t even believe… okay, you probably would.

So my long-lost Lil Wayne poster came in…

eliza — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:55:44 +0000

So my long-lost Lil Wayne poster came in the mail today. Actually I ordered two Lil Wayne posters: one for one of my besties and one for myself. Other ways I plan to spruce up the walls of my chintzy dormitory: A Good Will Hunting poster (It kind of looks like Matt Damon and Robin Williams are on fire, but I don’t mind. It’s “interesting”- shout out to Dardy- and it’s my favorite movie so it makes me happy), A Rolling Stone, Taylor Lautner poster (pretty cute I must say even though I’m not gaga for him- and it’s for my roomie’s birthday anyway), Pink Magnetic Strips (on which I will magnetically pin photos I snapped and ordered from snapfish.com very cheaply), Index Cards With Bible Verses (I’m still not sure how best to arrange them stylistically, like, as a border around a mirror? or in a chain above my desk? or slipped in a plastic, accordion, vertical photo-displayer you can pin to the wall?). As you can see I’m very excited about the interior design aspect of college. I think me getting really into dorm design is a subconscious form of denial that I will attend college in the fall, or at least avoiding thinking about it. To be honest, when I do think about I feel sick. Or nothing.

napsymptote

eliza — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:23:55 +0000

this empty hotel restaurant is a good nap atmosphere. if only i could doze off in public. lively jazz wafts in from the lobby, incoherent concierge conversation choppily cuts through the music at odd intervals, silverware clinks from tables being set in the back of the restaurant, and a soft afternoon light reflects off the glossy floor tiles, tempting my eyelashes to lower, lower, low… the lanky doorman keeps walking in and out of the front doors. he wears glasses and stands outside the lobby, squinting into the chilly street and opening the door for whoever bustles in with their bags and companion who they randomly found out there in the world. i don’t think i can do anything else until i sleep. my eyelids want to close. so badly.

eliza — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:36:25 +0000

Sometimes it’s okay not to be original. Sometimes a successful day is one in which you can’t be bothered to take off your pajamas for anything.

Things I Like Today

eliza — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:29:30 +0000

Being arbitrary
The color green
Hope
My posters
TV (loving you Philo)
School

Overdone: Trying to Make Fetch Happen: Marathon Time

eliza — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:19:39 +0000

Overdoing it is such a thing for me. I have so much energy from this mad impetus to make people happy. I want so much from life but I don’t always go about living the right way. Sometimes, instead of living in the present, instead of making peace with imperfection, I rush to fill the negative space with words and create meaning by wearing a figurative red hunting hat. In the process I miss details. I miss the dimples of life. The intricacies of a simple moment. The nonverbal communication flies over my head in a million pieces and I’m to busy thinking of things to say to pick up the signal. It’s like holding the iPhone 4 the wrong way. It’s basically hedonism. Or gluttony. I am ravenous for satisfaction. For perfection, maybe. I try to get everything I possibly can out of every moment but what I am realizing this year is that the best way to do that is sometimes to sit silently in the car with someone and look out the window. Or to rhyme a bunch of random words. Or to drink a sprite in the car at Sonic. Or to grab the first thing that catches your eye. It’s about surrender and not always trying to make things happen. Trusting that things will fall into place without you. That the stars align just fine without your direction and that if something like a commercial airline can fly through air then maybe you can interact with people at a party without worrying. That’s how I sleep at night. Stop trying to make “fetch” happen.

But there’s this gray zone I get stuck in sometimes, where I get stuck in my own head. The gray matter zone. My philosophy has been that I try to make myself so vulnerable to the painful truths of life that it’s almost like I openly seek them, I want to stub my toe on them, because if I am vulnerable, nothing can hurt me. Because a long time ago I decided that by always being open to the fact that I could be wrong, I could somehow avoid being really wrong, because I didn’t pretend to know what I was talking about. What is that?

It’s a weird philosophy. It’s a way of living that is full of self-criticism and thus self-centeredness. I thought, the real way to not feel pain is to feel all of it, convert it into a suggestions/comments/questions box. Be amoebic, freeform, play-doh. Be so open to criticism that when you get it (mostly from your own head) you instantly absorb it and self-correct without hurting because you weren’t made of any substantial thing to begin with. That’s why I can be so harsh on myself, because I feel like if I’m wrong I want to know about it. I don’t want to be ignorant. It’s that whole “out damn spot”, Macbeth thing. I’m a purist. OCD. And I am always open to questioning myself, which, in a way makes me quite unstable. I’m never sure of what I’m doing. It’s the straw man philosophy and honestly I think it’s sounding more and more like trash.

But does God want me to live like this? No. This is pharisee-living. This is not freedom. This is why I love Galatians 5: “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you”. And this verse kind of sums up the chapter: “When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.”

I am weak. I am not right all the time. I am made in the image of God and permeated by the holiness of the Spirit. For when I am weak I am strong. Not by works. His grace is sufficient, arketos.

So I don’t need to try so hard. They say running isn’t so hard. It seems hard at first but it’s really not bad at all.

As Paul says in Philippians: “Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back”.

It’s marathon time.