"I always feel like I have to hold back a part of myself."

The First Elegy

Ranier Maria Rilke

Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic

orders? And even if one of them suddenly

pressed me to his heart, I would vanish in the strength of his

greater existence. For Beauty is only 

the first touch of Terror we are still able to bear, 

and why we adore it so is because it serenely

disdains to destroy us. Every single angel is terrible.

And so I restrain myself, and choke back

my own dark birdcall. Alas, who can we turn to

in this need? Not angels, nor men

and even the cunning animals know at once

that we are not especially at home 

in our interpreted world. There remains, perhaps, 

some tree on a slope, to be looked at day after day, 

yesterday's walk, and the perverse loyalty

of some habit that pleased us and moved in for good.

Oh the night, the night when the wind full of outer space

gnaws at our faces: for whom would she not remain, 

longed for, mild disenchantress, waiting painfully

for the lonely heart? Is she lighter for lovers?

Alas, with each other they only hide their fate!

You still don't understand? – Fling armfuls of emptiness
out to the spaces we breathe – maybe the birds
will feel the expanded air in more fervent flight.


Voices, voices. Listen, my heart, as only
saints once listened until the enormous call
lifted them right off the ground; but they, impossible ones,
went on kneeling and paid no attention:
such was their listening. Not that God's is a voice
you could bear, oh no! But the breath like a breeze, listen to that,
the endless report that grows out of silence,
rustling toward you from those who died young.

People don't blog no mo' all they do is diss...

Professor, naturalled
No, you may not plunge your hand into my afro hair.  This my hair.  This my real hair.  For real.  Yeah, I stopped putting chemicals in my hair over a year ago.  "Where does a sista go to get her hair done?" asked the ("diversity") candidate.  We, two Latinas and me, had coffee (or tea) to let her see, we ain't there yet, but we on the way. This sista does it herself.  I haven't been to a salon in years.  I guess I'm not the sista to ask.

Starburst

I've been on a Starburst kick lately.  I just sat here and ate almost a whole pack.  I don't really like the yellow ones, but I'll eat them anyway.  I asked my husband if he wanted one before I ate them all up.  He said to give him whatever color I don't like.  Then I said that I wanted him to have one that he does like, not one that I don't like.  And he said pink.

Ginger snaps and academic political intrigue

Every happy tight-knit family at a small liberal arts college do be having some drama.  And here I am, a newbie, wandering into the invisible dynamics at play.  Will I ever rid myself of the naivete that clings to me wherever I go?  He helped me with Julius Caesar.  Kind, sensitive, unassuming, blue-eyed, bespectacled and beanpolishly tall with a mop of graying curls.  He bakes and brought homemade gingersnaps as an...offering?  A gesture.  He wanted me to know he wasn't one of the ones.  You know, the ones.  The good old boys.  Dueling proposals.  Game of Academic Thrones.  He contributed to one of them, even though he wasn't on the committee, and it got mischaracterized, reduced to something it was never intended to be.  I know you're not one of the ones.  I never thought you were.  Every single thing in this world is engulfed in a backstory. 

(No) baby (yet)

Negative.  Nope.  One line (not two).  Who knew cramps could ever become comforting because they're familiar?  They're the opposite of the "two week wait."  Anxious and wondering and reading every ding dang message board on the gosh durn internet because somehow you think it will impart to you the knowledge that you so desperately crave: Am I or aren't I?  Not wanting to take one of those horrid "first response" tests because you're tired of seeing negatives.  Not wanting to call your mom because you're just looking forward to calling her for once and at long last, quenching her grandchild thirst.  But once cramps roll around, you know that you know that you know.  No.  I am not.  And then you can scarf down a package of Starburst without shame.

Downsize

I'm going to miss this house.  The colleague we're renting it from is coming back in July.  So we were on the hunt for new place.  We found one, an apartment, that another colleague is moving out of.  It's a decent little set up.  Literally within walking distance from my job.  A duplex, more or less.  And smaller.  Minuscule kitchen.  One bathroom.  We could have a bigger place if we were willing to temporarily inhabit the home of yet another colleague abroad.  But then we'd have to cough up more dough, and then we'd have to move again once the year was up.  The apartment will be our home until we figure out what life post-P's graduation will look like.

If I ever had a daughter,

the one thing I would want for her more than anything else would be for her to genuinely like, accept, and embrace who she is as a person.  I wouldn't want my daughter to constantly struggle with insecurity.  I wouldn't want her for even one minute to believe that by just existing as the person she is, she is inherently deficient.  I wouldn't want her for even one minute to use other peoples' lives as a measuring stick.  I would want her to be able wake up every morning and truly believe that she is enough.