A Clean Well-Lighted Place

"I am of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waiter said. "With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night."

I would like a clean, well-lighted place. I would like my heart to remember what it is to stand still. I would like this feeling of dread to stop stretching over me and enveloping me. It is pitch, it is fixed, it is here to stay. I don't want this. I need a light for the night.

Weak, and On Fire

Man. I'd like to believe there was a time when I responded to criticism with fiery resilience, and impenetrable wit, but I don't think I have. I think I am less resilient than I know. I feel weak, and on fire.

I just finished reading How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, and in between readings, in my unrelenting, very-human narcissism and self-deprecation, couldn't help but think of all the ways I did not have the very traits the author argues I should be teaching my students.

I don't have grit, or curiosity, or any of the character traits the book mentions as the "keys to success." My attention wanders after 15 minutes of sustained work, I more often feel burdened by work than curious about how to improve or do things differently, and I just don't feel like I am good at working hard. I know this is all self-fulfilling, and I know that right now I am writing a blog post instead of actually working — I know all these things! Despite knowing how my own mindset is affecting my work ethic, I can't help but indulge the procrastination, and the weakness.

I just want to be weak, sometimes. Is that okay? Can I just cradle myself in my own loneliness, my inability, and my anxiety for a day? Can I hang out in my own little cave of sadness, mopping the floor with my own tears? Can I let myself be overwhelmed by the slow and writhing pain of disappointment for a moment? Just a moment, please? (Why am I asking you if this is okay?)

I feel a little crazy sometimes. And I miss all of you who would answer "Yes! Yes, it's okay!" to all of my questions, because oddly enough, every time you have, I have always managed to leave the cave. To step out, into the sun, without catching on fire.

"I just don't know what challenges I've faced..."

Girl next to me, senior in high school, chatting animatedly with her tutor, rattling off a lengthy list of potential universities: MIT, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA. University of Michigan is her safety school.

Before they dive into the complex work of detangling essay prompts, the two of them — one, dirty blonde, rower, sweatshirt and headband; the other, middle-aged, peacoat, and headscarf — giggle with excitement about the high-schooler's recent reads: Walden, The Crucible, Beowulf. For fun, Catcher in the Rye, and Great Expectations. They muse for a few moments about the depth and beauty of Thoreau's work, and the raw cadence of Holden Caulfield's narration.

Finally, they enter business — both pull out their laptops, retrieving college application essay drafts from their proper folders, and on some cloud drive, review her essays. An issue arises.

"I had so many plans and aspirations to go farther, and now I really feel held back from achieving my potential, but also... I just don't know what challenges I've faced," the young woman says.
"Hmm... it is hard to think of a response to that, isn't it?" the tutor responds. For the first time in awhile, they pause in silence.

--
I can't help but fill the silence for them, and think of so many of my students, who face quite the opposite dilemma: I have so many challenges to face, I just don't know what plans and aspirations I can have. For a moment, I am remembering yesterday, and the smell of sweat and Expo markers and Frito chips that filled my classroom. I am remembering the bodies filing in and out, some on task, some off ask, most, desperate to learn and unsure of how to do so.

In another moment, I am remembering my own high school experience, littered with late-nights on laptops, churning up essays, and plans, and driving to the 24-hour Starbucks to do research, (or at least try, and instead, complain about ex-boyfriends), and the raging discomfort of being unsure of whether I would get into one private four-year university, or the other.

But here she is, here I am, and there they are. For many of them, college is still just a lofty dream, a set of shiny buildings, a gateway to the NBA or the NFL, a far-off land with no parents — a dream. And we all had the same dream, once, didn't we?

It's something like guilt, and something like anger. I've pored over achievement gap statistics for the past four years, and yet, the opportunity gap between the affluent and the poor has not been more perfectly painted than in a ten-minute eavesdropping at a cafe.

After all of this, I sigh. "What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun."

--
I've tuned out for a bit, but jumped back to the conversation just in time to hear the tutor respond excitedly,

"Oh! That's the perfect sob story! They'll eat that right up."

Admissions crisis averted. All will be well.

Cherry, Cherry Coffee

The slow bend of reconciliation
sidles in through the side door
two hands touching on the shopping cart
your elbow grazing mine in a stuffy cafe
a stolen glance at your eyelashes fluttering while you read
the first smile
the first hand hold
all over again, and somehow
more radiant,
a ream of sorrow and sadness
eradicated by a mysterious shining of
us, again
we, again.
So this is love,
ba da da dum,
so this is love.

The Heavy, The Light

When the stick of the day spreads around you like
that old quilt, the batting spilling out and over,
falling through the air, surrendering to the weight of the world;

I am dragging my feet through the slosh of a jungled place
a sometimes-alive and mythical,
dark and growling,
shadowed, tangled, somewhere
My breaths are deep and fruitless
a forced inhale and haggard exhale—
shabby, tired, breaking

something about this is just like the last

when we were suspended above it all,
the pinpoints of trees dotted at our feet
we were weightless and laughing,
always laughing,
our voices flitting about the sky and
echoing forward into our sun-striped future but

then the storm came,
and the branches bent beneath it all,
the trees crashed the mess of it
hulking giants tripping bloody on the floor of the world
and the stars got punched out,
until we were smattered in this darkness

up close, it's all charred and broken
it's all hard to carry
it's all sinking slowly

it's just like the last
it's always too heavy
and only here
are my arms too frail
too weak
to carry
the things that we left

Mirrors

The tension between vanity & insecurity
Suspended questions of self hanging in ceiling-cracks,
the refrigerator, the gardener, the roads
humming along, while my crinkled knuckles tighten
at the foot of a full-length mirror

On The Nature of Ghosts and The Magnificence of Hope

There are always the smiles that stay with us
longer than we would like —
teeth, teeth, and teeth,
once incisor, now fang
waiting to tear at the fragility of me
to bite and taste the saltiness of all my parched parts

but then, a bursting light of You,
and I remember the ways You made these gears fit,
the way You took your divine sculptor's knife and chisel
to chip away at all the corrupt things
and find the image you hid, long ago

Oh! The corrosion! The filth!
No wonder it is taking so long!
In the face of Your mighty hands,
my feeble fingers insist on clinging to my old self
often
Give it back! I know nothing else!
and most importantly,
Who will I be once it is all gone?
Who will I be without my old skin?

You smile, and call,
All you must do is allow me to show you.

Fragmented

Where the pieces of me end
and the fragments of you begin
there is the slightest crack,
the smallest, hairline fracture,
but still — a gap

housing loose strands of
my selfishness and
your confusion
and my insecurities
and your arrogance
all hanging together like
wiry hairs that do not know
where they were born

I am this:
espresso cubano, 2 shots,
hiding behind steam & sugar
You are:
red eye — hot & straight up,
and while I have always preferred black coffee
these days, I find my limbs extending into
past refrigerators, rummaging aimlessly
for the half-and-half [french vanilla]

my weakness is hulking
an infinite bulge of mismatched socks and
mirror shards buried under tarpaulin and dust
and I am sorry it's so messy,
and that I have lost the keys to everything,
and that all the plants are unwatered,
and that the wine stains just won't come out,
and that my hands have forgotten how to clench into
the fists they once knew
and that my eyes keep leaking and leaking,
and my lips have lost their blueprints for
building words that make my heart make sense again,
and that I am not strong enough to carry both my weakness and yours,
I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.

Mea culpa, Mea culpa

I don't do much, sometimes
I don't lose sleep
I don't always bring home piles of papers
to grade
I don't call all 130 sets of parents, always
I should,
I should I should I should.

If I am asking them to work their hardest,
then I need to be working mine.

Despite not losing sleep, I'm still tired
and I don't know
I don't know how to care a lot
without caring too much
without being frustrated and hurt
when they don't care in return
I don't know why I don't work harder,
but I should,
I should I should I should.

If I am asking them to work their hardest,
then I need to be working mine.

I've heard sage wisdom, of protecting oneself from burnout,
of striving for sanity for sustainability,
but I think I have
spent so much of me
building walls of "sustainability"
that I can't see past
the burning brick.

I guess I could be working harder.

(I wish I wanted to. I should I should I should.)

October Endings

I haven't written in a while.

And this makes sense:
when your soul is tired, when your heart is tired, when your body is tired, there is sometimes nothing left to give — let alone to write.

And this is what I demand every day:
that my students write.
- despite everything, in spite of everything, because of everything, for everything — that they write.

And here I am, stumbling over one, tiny blog post.

Things I am learning.

Called to walk through suffering. We are called to walk through suffering. Not against it. Not above it. Lately, my "incurable optimism" is appearing to be more and more like realism that has never known suffering. I am the ultimate wimp, but God is so good. So strong. And the only reason I have made it through some of these days.

I have never been an angry person, but I think I have always been angry. It's like I was just waiting for the moment that my anger — at all of it: our unjust educational system, our own mistreatment of each other, our brokenness and hate — would have something to hit. Something to target.

And there all of you are. Beautiful, and shining, and fierce, and fighting, and some days it takes everything in me not to scream, not at you, or to you, even, but for you — it is not you're fault you are like this. But from now on, it will be.

So tired.
I am so tired.

Will you please keep fighting? Will you fight when I can't?

Sunday Evening

The resounding silence of us,

hanging up.

After we have spent the last six hours

floating through all of eternity,

waving “Hello, there!” to pterodactyls and

the Appalachians and

hammerheads and

the Empire State Building and

robots and

teleportation devices

we are still experiencing

the sun and the moon

three hours apart.

What stretches longer?
The distance of miles or the distance of hours?

For us, it may be miles:

The warmth of your palm pressed against my face

is the span between a small ant

and its mate on the other side of a 

basketball court.

For us, it may be hours:

Your laughter jostling mine on a park bench

is a half-empty coffee mug

left on the kitchen counter

from two mornings before.

Whether it is miles, or hours,

I do not know,

but I do know the feeling

of climbing toward

the moment we meet again

five days from now

in an over-polished airport terminal

amid the buzzing of overhead P.A. systems and

men waving goodbye to the ones they love and

women waving goodbye to the ones they love

we will be two Pacific salmon,

swimming to the upper reaches of river,

only to give, and give, and give,

and one day — some day,

die.

Things That Are Important

1. Laughter
2. Hands
3. Roads
4. Learning
5. Warmth
6. Cold
7. Fire
8. Grief
9. Words
10. Words
11. Words
12. Words
13. Words
14. Words
15. Laughter.

Writing with you feels like pressing my hand against a window, you pressing back from the other side of the pane, and the glass between us suddenly dissolving into thin air — our palms kissing warmly, exactly as they should.

Cell Phone Lifespans

We throw around the word "dying" so often these days. I wonder what life would be like if these situations were actual, literal instances of death:

[Beep] My phone is dying. (Do cell phones go to heaven?)
[I'm hungry] I'm dying.
[Laughing] I'm dying!

*Shudder.*

Caffeine Withdrawals

One out of five posts on this blog are about coffee.

I feel like hundreds of tiny, sniveling woodland creatures with tacks on their shoes are trying to Riverdance on my brain.

Sharing Food

In many ways, we share our food as we share our lives. That first meal together, neatly cutting things into halves and swapping gracefully across plates: half my burger for half of yours; my hopes and fears for your greatest insecurities. We traded big, without a second thought.

As we have grown together, we have learned the rhythms of each other's chewing and the exchanges have become smaller, less formal: the unconscious reach of my fork snagging a bite of your macaroni, the natural movement of your hand stealing one of my chips; a story of your mom for a story of my uncle, one embarrassing moment for one proud one. There is no need to cut our meals neatly into halves; the swap has become so seamless I hardly notice the end of the meal sometimes, as it always inevitably stretches into wine, or gum, or cigarettes.

We're framed differently each time, depending on how crowded the place is — the only ones in the entire restaurant, or crammed at a communal table for six; our voices dwindling to whispers exchanged in a corner booth, or roaring to laughter at a table with friends.

Each time I am enchanted by the new flavors and tastes dancing on my tongue, and the way new memories with you sit in my heart for a long while afterward. Despite the delight of it all, our meals are paired perfectly with longing, as I venture to a place of new menus and specials, where I will eventually order a meal too large or too boring for just one person, where the rest of the food will sit by itself, perhaps too rich or too salty or too by itself for its own good. Hmm...

It is a beautiful thing, to be always craving and be always full.

Champagne Supernova

I used to hear this song and feel a swell of longing and pain ride in my stomach and sit, crawling through the depths of me and making me think of how much I missed you.

Now, I am hearing this song for the first time, dreaming of you and I, the world set out before us, a boundless story waiting to be written, our love stretching across rivers and oceans in different directions and meeting in the middle like two estranged birds, departing for seasons and always trusting that they will come home to one another.

This song is kind of stupid, and I don't quite understand it —

but it's nice to hear it for the first time. It's nice to see the world for the first time. Everything looks different, and better. Blessed.

Harrington

I have missed this.
The distant sound of Odwalla lids screwing on bottles,
sitting next to the whispered chatter of
midterm papers and lab reports spinning out of
tired college fingers on
tired Macbook keyboards.
The quiet arrival of 1am,
the feeling of detaching your soul from the screen
for just one moment
only to realize the overwhelming emptiness of
the chairs surrounding you.
Where are you Francisco?
I remember finals week, spring 2012
welcoming the sunset
and greeting the sunrise
all in one sitting
with potato chips and half-open eyes,
smiling warmly, victoriously
at the procrastinated products on the desk before us —
we were warriors, then.
Now, I'm sitting alone,
at one of those tables
too high for comfort
staring into the glassy black of the
window reflections
sleeves still rolled up to my elbows
this hulking lack of productivity
looming in front of me.
This is hard sometimes,
and I am tired,
but boy, have I missed this.

Tangles

I am combing through my selfishness
With an afro pick,
a wide-toothed comb,
weaving seamlessly through
the largest of knots, yet
passing over the tiniest tangles,
in hopes they'll go unnoticed,
by everyone but me.

At the end of the day,
when I am worn and weary
from a day of thinking too much
and not loving enough,
the knots will still be there,
tiny, tiny reminders
of how messy
my messiness
is.

Things I would like to remember...

(-)
1. It is hard to understand grace
2. It is hard to give grace
3. It is hard to accept grace
4. Everything we do affects someone, somewhere
5. I am selfish, often
6. I am loved, always
7. There is beauty in saving some things for last.
8. I am not good at painting my nails
9. Spanish is important to practice
10. We are not as resilient or capable as we think.


(+)
1. Rolling hills & tall grass
2. Spaghetti
3. Sand on gym floors
4. Cheese
5. Red, black, plaid, green
6. "Mirrors" by Justin Timberlake
7. Soap & musk & beach
8. Coffee
9. The Head and the Heart / Death Cab / Young the Giant
10. That feeling of coming home to your favorite friends.

Readjustments

Learning time and time again how to recognize my limits and readjust my goals.

I am not invincible.

This is not Joanne vs. paper, or Joanne vs. sleep, or Joanne vs... anything, really. Listening to myself (with a disgruntled heart). I need rest. I need to make things easier sometimes.

I can't help but feel a little bit saddened, like I'm giving up, or not capitalizing on this amazing opportunity, or wasting other people's time and energy (not to mention $$$).

Somewhere along the way though, I had forgotten completely about the process, and focused entirely on the product; ironically playing testament to the sort of thing I'm criticizing in my thesis. In fact, I am wasting my own time and energy, trying to do the impossible in the next three weeks: stay sane, love others, and take care of myself.

Time for readjustment. There isn't enough time to regret the fire of the fall that withered into stagnant ash during winter quarter. I don't have time for that! So onward -- writing, writing, writing.

So, okay. I can do this. Maybe it will be 40 instead of 60. Or 30 even. (NO! Okay, I can do 40.) That is okay. I will write a book another day, if I really want to.

Readjustment is important. Humility is important. Still learning, all the time, to set my sights on different moons.