Oh, I'm underwater alright, but I'm not drowning. Nope, I'm just swimming underwater!
I'm making progress, so it's not time to breathe yet.
Finished the maps last weekend, although my advisor found another pile -- but only 3 more to go! I'm thinking I can get through them tonight and tomorrow.
Last night, started and finished an entire book that got recalled to Zimmerman. AND RETURNED IT. That's Virgo satisfaction!
Even talked to my bestest pal in Chicago, who's bravely going it alone in a rough personal time. Got her to laugh, which was about all I had to offer her. Still, I think she needed it.
This weekend: the map analysis portion of chapter 3.
Next week: analysis of neighborhoods south of Montano.
Next weekend: the write-up of same.
And then grading portfolios.
And books, books, books. I figure they're all due at the end of the semester, so I've gotta get serious real fast. I'm getting better at culling what I need and disregarding the rest (not a Virgo strength -- we think EVERYTHING's important because it's all connected! It will all be useful eventually! You never know what you're gonna need!). I'll basically have from December 16 (when grades are due) to the 23rd (when I'll have to start X-mas shopping and packing for NYC -- woo hoo).
Then X-mas.
Then five glorious days in our nation's largest city. Holy cajole.
Then writing/finishing/pulling my hair out on/ the theory chapter. (Jan 2-8)
Then a conclusion. (Jan. 9-13)
Then pulling it all together and ...
Sending to committee (Jan. 13).
Totally doable, right?
Do you see why I'm not breathing? The spell could dissipate if I breathe for a single second.
But for whatever reason, it still seems doable. Hard. Excruciating. PAINful. Tight.
But doable.
Lord god halleluiah.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Friday, November 25, 2005
Evolution of Happiness
Our family gets lighter and lighter in each generation. Pictured is the natural emotional state of my grandmother.I showed this picture to friends, and they immediately asked, "Is she German?"
Yes, with a work ethic that could kill an ox.
The story told about her this Thanksgiving came from my grandfather. He said at the time they met -- just 17 -- as the oldest of 5, she could cook a three course meal and all the pies. I said she could probably do that by the age of 12. She didn't disagree.
She never could stop working that hard.
And people wonder where I get my drive to work. Hers was relentless. I like to think that my generation adds the element of joy to balance our lives for the better.
Picture of a Racist
This is my grandpa, a smart, charming, wonderful man who would disown me if he ever knew I dated -- in his words -- non-WASP men.Strange and heartbreaking that this harsh reality is still such a danger in our families.
Incredible that love has the potential to subsume so many differences.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Drowning
He's read a book on asphyxiation
tells her to keep breathing
says suffocating's the worst way to go –
eyes bugging out -
but there is a peace before death.
He doesn't know how much like a myth
this sounds to her
how she'll think of this promise
when her body wants to stop pulling in breath
how she wonders if she can get to this place of peace
then choose again to breathe
whether she can pull the peace back through her lungs
send it racing to all her twitching extremities -
her antsy feet,
the yearning at the edges of her calves.
The silence of all but her breath
announces his absence
in a way echoed by the messages he's stopped sending,
and she imagines his fingers occupied now
typing code into another woman's elbow
the small of her back
her toe pads providing the alphabet for his sorrows.
She's deep now
and the tanks he filled
with recognition of her
are pulled down to dangerous levels
while the sails of his rescue ship
fill to billowing
racing in someone else's direction.
She paces herself to shallowness
conserves motion
chooses to face the bottom
that will be home for a while.
Strange that the ocean,
which makes so much noise,
is silent from within.
She thinks, perspective is everything,
but all she can hear is herself,
the roaring in her ears an illusion of effort.
Suspended, she wonders why she's here,
but the fish flashing by have no answers.
What else does that book say about death?
He never told her, and now he's too far away to tell her
and anyway, that's why she's here
in this metaphorical sea of silence
that sounds so much like her past
she confuses it for her future.
Understanding, they say, comes in waves,
and hers reaches crescendo just as she realizes,
there's nothing to do but float,
notice what's beautiful as it passes by,
and be thankful for each breath that sustains
the last of her efforts at love.
tells her to keep breathing
says suffocating's the worst way to go –
eyes bugging out -
but there is a peace before death.
He doesn't know how much like a myth
this sounds to her
how she'll think of this promise
when her body wants to stop pulling in breath
how she wonders if she can get to this place of peace
then choose again to breathe
whether she can pull the peace back through her lungs
send it racing to all her twitching extremities -
her antsy feet,
the yearning at the edges of her calves.
The silence of all but her breath
announces his absence
in a way echoed by the messages he's stopped sending,
and she imagines his fingers occupied now
typing code into another woman's elbow
the small of her back
her toe pads providing the alphabet for his sorrows.
She's deep now
and the tanks he filled
with recognition of her
are pulled down to dangerous levels
while the sails of his rescue ship
fill to billowing
racing in someone else's direction.
She paces herself to shallowness
conserves motion
chooses to face the bottom
that will be home for a while.
Strange that the ocean,
which makes so much noise,
is silent from within.
She thinks, perspective is everything,
but all she can hear is herself,
the roaring in her ears an illusion of effort.
Suspended, she wonders why she's here,
but the fish flashing by have no answers.
What else does that book say about death?
He never told her, and now he's too far away to tell her
and anyway, that's why she's here
in this metaphorical sea of silence
that sounds so much like her past
she confuses it for her future.
Understanding, they say, comes in waves,
and hers reaches crescendo just as she realizes,
there's nothing to do but float,
notice what's beautiful as it passes by,
and be thankful for each breath that sustains
the last of her efforts at love.
Grace
Just give it 5 weeks
and he’ll fall
hook
line
and sinker --
sinking her
to new lows
fresh blows
baby-breathing
themselves
from cheek to cheek
as she turns them
one
after
another
faced with his promises
that become her test.
And the line?
It snakes
around the block
for the double feature
star-studded bill:
the young star rising
and the seasoned leading man --
her father
fresh-faced from the junket
still acting this play
that long ago
changed casts
and left Broadway
for off off off Broadway
somewhere
on the right or wrong side
of her bed.
And the hook?
She still looks for it
in the soft flesh
of her cheek
where it inches its way
toward digestion
as first she eats
and then is eaten
by the monster
that lurks
just out of reach
of the shore.
On the sixth week
she’ll rest
alone
worrying the stone
that eclipsed her mountain
wondering again
how many times
this feature will play
across her face
what message waits for her
beneath the credits
rolling their way across hills
surrounding the lake
where locks nest
and hatch keys
that will open her
like the jaws
of the whale that housed Jonah
in preparation for his turning point --
God’s face revealing itself
as his test.
and he’ll fall
hook
line
and sinker --
sinking her
to new lows
fresh blows
baby-breathing
themselves
from cheek to cheek
as she turns them
one
after
another
faced with his promises
that become her test.
And the line?
It snakes
around the block
for the double feature
star-studded bill:
the young star rising
and the seasoned leading man --
her father
fresh-faced from the junket
still acting this play
that long ago
changed casts
and left Broadway
for off off off Broadway
somewhere
on the right or wrong side
of her bed.
And the hook?
She still looks for it
in the soft flesh
of her cheek
where it inches its way
toward digestion
as first she eats
and then is eaten
by the monster
that lurks
just out of reach
of the shore.
On the sixth week
she’ll rest
alone
worrying the stone
that eclipsed her mountain
wondering again
how many times
this feature will play
across her face
what message waits for her
beneath the credits
rolling their way across hills
surrounding the lake
where locks nest
and hatch keys
that will open her
like the jaws
of the whale that housed Jonah
in preparation for his turning point --
God’s face revealing itself
as his test.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Life Thoughts
Isn't it strange how we move into and out of philsophical periods?
I guess I'm neck deep in a moment of life-introspection. Feels good, I guess. Surreal but good.
Camus said -- or was it Sartre? -- that life was experienced in a spiral -- you're always circling the same shit, just at different levels of integration. Whoever it was, I'm sure he said it a little more gracefully than that.
It's all familiar and yet disconcertingly new -- because I'm in a different place than I've ever been before in terms of perspective, yet the landscape is the same.
I keep getting overwhelmed at all there is to do, as though if I can just get over the hump it will all be okay. The myth of the hump. There is no hump! More exactly, there is no OVER the hump, because life just continues to pile up in all the indiscriminate moments.
The older I get, the faster life moves. I remember being an undergraduate and NOT being able to understand why so many philosophers wrote about time and space. Come on, guys, I wanted to say, it's just time! Just space! They're just the background for our lives; they don't change. No matter how old you are, it's all just minutes and days and months and years. It's neighborhoods and cities and countries and one world. Now, though, I wonder why no one's written anything SATISFYING about space and time that explains what the hell is happening all of a sudden! Why don't MORE philosophers write about space and time? And write about it more pragmatically! I need HELP.
I was at the homage to the petroglyphs this weekend at the soon-to-be-terminated termination of Paseo del Norte as it transitions into the National Park that has been a sacred space for Native peoples for millenia, as evidenced by the layers upon layers of religious art and symbols. An elder spoke about this latest battle lost. He reminded us that the earth will go one no matter what we do to it. That the signs aren't good, and we'll soon see disasters piling up on themselves. It's time to plant and store our food for the coming storms.
But he also said this: Don't forget to enjoy your life. Live and be happy. No one of us, nor any one generation, can fight all the fights to be fought. Part of the battle is adding your personal joy to the balance of the world. Rilke said, "joyfully add yourself and cancel the count."
I guess I'm neck deep in a moment of life-introspection. Feels good, I guess. Surreal but good.
Camus said -- or was it Sartre? -- that life was experienced in a spiral -- you're always circling the same shit, just at different levels of integration. Whoever it was, I'm sure he said it a little more gracefully than that.
It's all familiar and yet disconcertingly new -- because I'm in a different place than I've ever been before in terms of perspective, yet the landscape is the same.
I keep getting overwhelmed at all there is to do, as though if I can just get over the hump it will all be okay. The myth of the hump. There is no hump! More exactly, there is no OVER the hump, because life just continues to pile up in all the indiscriminate moments.
The older I get, the faster life moves. I remember being an undergraduate and NOT being able to understand why so many philosophers wrote about time and space. Come on, guys, I wanted to say, it's just time! Just space! They're just the background for our lives; they don't change. No matter how old you are, it's all just minutes and days and months and years. It's neighborhoods and cities and countries and one world. Now, though, I wonder why no one's written anything SATISFYING about space and time that explains what the hell is happening all of a sudden! Why don't MORE philosophers write about space and time? And write about it more pragmatically! I need HELP.
I was at the homage to the petroglyphs this weekend at the soon-to-be-terminated termination of Paseo del Norte as it transitions into the National Park that has been a sacred space for Native peoples for millenia, as evidenced by the layers upon layers of religious art and symbols. An elder spoke about this latest battle lost. He reminded us that the earth will go one no matter what we do to it. That the signs aren't good, and we'll soon see disasters piling up on themselves. It's time to plant and store our food for the coming storms.
But he also said this: Don't forget to enjoy your life. Live and be happy. No one of us, nor any one generation, can fight all the fights to be fought. Part of the battle is adding your personal joy to the balance of the world. Rilke said, "joyfully add yourself and cancel the count."
"And the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
Friday, November 18, 2005
Searching for the source of grace
I've got a lot to remember.
I heard this week that I must work to be more gentle, which really means to allow myself to have more fun, to be softer, to be touched by softness. This from an unlikely pairing of sources, whose distinct emotional timbre allowed me to hear the message in stark concert that resolves in stereo.
Part of this art lies in not forcing your life to happen but rather letting it wash over your awareness and feel simply ... graced. Feeling gratitude for grace.
Here to help me remember, some lines from my ole poet standby, T.S. Eliot. A hard man whose words somehow soften me:
From Four Quartets:
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and love and hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
...
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
From The Wasteland:
Shantih shantih shantih
(The peace that passes understanding.)
I heard this week that I must work to be more gentle, which really means to allow myself to have more fun, to be softer, to be touched by softness. This from an unlikely pairing of sources, whose distinct emotional timbre allowed me to hear the message in stark concert that resolves in stereo.
Part of this art lies in not forcing your life to happen but rather letting it wash over your awareness and feel simply ... graced. Feeling gratitude for grace.
Here to help me remember, some lines from my ole poet standby, T.S. Eliot. A hard man whose words somehow soften me:
From Four Quartets:
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and love and hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
...
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
From The Wasteland:
Shantih shantih shantih
(The peace that passes understanding.)
Full Circles and Circles
Mikaela says:
So it appears I'm in the poetry scene again. You might say, of course, look how hard you worked for the National Poetry Slam event in Albuquerque in August! And you'd be right. The amount I was willing to pour into that event does indicate my dedication to poetry in general and performance poetry in Albuquerque in particular.
But I still felt like an outsider. A visitor dropping in from the past.
But this week an old poetry friend from the time of my first forays into performance poetry was the visitor dropping in from MY past. He's probably the only person in the world who remembers being witness to the first and only time I slammed. He even remembers the poems I used and one of the lines in particular -- a slutty line, he concedes -- but a great line nonetheless.
Sitting in the Frontier with old and new poetry friends, I was struck with an overwhelming realization: I am one of them. Maybe not a performer, but a poet. A thinker. An appreciator of their art. And a friend.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing more poetry -- living more poetry -- than I have in a long, long time.
And it feels right for my life. That I've been away a long time and now have something more to offer.
We're starting to talk about yearly events -- large-scale events -- that I will help coordinate. How exciting! An end to my academic career, and the start of a life balancing work in neighborhood communities with work in the poetry community.
Do you see? Do you see how grace allows us to see the plans in the chaos of our lives?
Welcome to the circle.
So it appears I'm in the poetry scene again. You might say, of course, look how hard you worked for the National Poetry Slam event in Albuquerque in August! And you'd be right. The amount I was willing to pour into that event does indicate my dedication to poetry in general and performance poetry in Albuquerque in particular.
But I still felt like an outsider. A visitor dropping in from the past.
But this week an old poetry friend from the time of my first forays into performance poetry was the visitor dropping in from MY past. He's probably the only person in the world who remembers being witness to the first and only time I slammed. He even remembers the poems I used and one of the lines in particular -- a slutty line, he concedes -- but a great line nonetheless.
Sitting in the Frontier with old and new poetry friends, I was struck with an overwhelming realization: I am one of them. Maybe not a performer, but a poet. A thinker. An appreciator of their art. And a friend.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing more poetry -- living more poetry -- than I have in a long, long time.
And it feels right for my life. That I've been away a long time and now have something more to offer.
We're starting to talk about yearly events -- large-scale events -- that I will help coordinate. How exciting! An end to my academic career, and the start of a life balancing work in neighborhood communities with work in the poetry community.
Do you see? Do you see how grace allows us to see the plans in the chaos of our lives?
Welcome to the circle.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Mucking around in it
The past has thickened into a fog that cuts off my perspective yet again.
These issues...these questions about how to balance the focus on what I need and what a boy needs -- moving forward with my own work and leaving room for intimacy... they're all wrapped up in two traumas from my past -- my father and the man who broke my life into before and after.
Although these things are to some extent discrete, they bleed into every other relationship. Some more than others.
Life presents me with an opportunity to heal through repetition. This time, I have more stability, but the circumstances are the same: Meeting a boy with a broken heart, he falls in love despite himself, but he's still conflicted, she comes back into the picture, there's a decision point, and because I am the ideal and she is real, the choice is always clear: He goes with the King's Daughter 'cause Aphrodite was never his and he could never live up to a god.
Yet, I'm not a god. Just a girl with a father who built a big black hole where love should be.
And being alone is safe. Being codependent is easy. The rest is academic.
These issues...these questions about how to balance the focus on what I need and what a boy needs -- moving forward with my own work and leaving room for intimacy... they're all wrapped up in two traumas from my past -- my father and the man who broke my life into before and after.
Although these things are to some extent discrete, they bleed into every other relationship. Some more than others.
Life presents me with an opportunity to heal through repetition. This time, I have more stability, but the circumstances are the same: Meeting a boy with a broken heart, he falls in love despite himself, but he's still conflicted, she comes back into the picture, there's a decision point, and because I am the ideal and she is real, the choice is always clear: He goes with the King's Daughter 'cause Aphrodite was never his and he could never live up to a god.
Yet, I'm not a god. Just a girl with a father who built a big black hole where love should be.
And being alone is safe. Being codependent is easy. The rest is academic.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Defending the Defense
Locked and loaded. Date set. Shotgun procured, and I am wed to the thesis.
The committee is signed on, belted in, and I have yet to belt one back. And won't until February 3, after which it will all seem a bad, bad dream.
Okay, it's not nearly that bad, but despite the fact that February is a matter of blinks away, I have no idea how everything that must get done between here and then will happen. Of course, I do. One step at a time. Hopping from rock to rock with blinders on inbetween so that I don't fright like a skittish horse.
Despite my outright terror, today went great. The committee met and feasted (and I do mean feasted) and talked through the data, the story, the methods. And for the most part, I felt a strong sense of what I'm doing, what it means, how it will get done. The problem is that it's too big and scary to carry around in my head all at once, so I can only think about it in tiny pieces, which leaves me feeling scared that I don't have the big picture. But today, for an hour and a half of grace with people I trust and value, who genuinely want me to succeed and want to help make it easier (or at least less tortuous), I knew what it all meant and what I had to do.
Tonight, with library late notices and recalls piling up like newspapers on a hermit's porch, I'm feeling the pressure still. But it's okay. It will get done.
It's a good thesis.
A good process.
A good committee.
And life again is filled with grace.
The committee is signed on, belted in, and I have yet to belt one back. And won't until February 3, after which it will all seem a bad, bad dream.
Okay, it's not nearly that bad, but despite the fact that February is a matter of blinks away, I have no idea how everything that must get done between here and then will happen. Of course, I do. One step at a time. Hopping from rock to rock with blinders on inbetween so that I don't fright like a skittish horse.
Despite my outright terror, today went great. The committee met and feasted (and I do mean feasted) and talked through the data, the story, the methods. And for the most part, I felt a strong sense of what I'm doing, what it means, how it will get done. The problem is that it's too big and scary to carry around in my head all at once, so I can only think about it in tiny pieces, which leaves me feeling scared that I don't have the big picture. But today, for an hour and a half of grace with people I trust and value, who genuinely want me to succeed and want to help make it easier (or at least less tortuous), I knew what it all meant and what I had to do.
Tonight, with library late notices and recalls piling up like newspapers on a hermit's porch, I'm feeling the pressure still. But it's okay. It will get done.
It's a good thesis.
A good process.
A good committee.
And life again is filled with grace.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Grading Done -- finally
So 8 hours later, grading is done.
Oh my god! The portfolios took at least 20 minutes each, and there are 38 students. The worse the grammar was, the longer it took. I have some ESL students, so you can imagine how long those took.
Don't get me wrong, part of the reason they took so long was because I really enjoy spending time with each student, reading their ideas, and peeking inside their understanding of planning as a result of this class. There's a certain voyeuristic satisfaction, not to mention pedagogical benefits. But in terms of me getting time to work on the thesis, holy god. UNBELIEVABLE how long this took. I should have totaled the hours, but it's gotta be in the "days" category.
I'm pretty wiped tonight, and I still have to prepare "Grade" sheets, so I think I'll do that tonight while watching a movie, and start fresh tomorrow with thesis maps.
Sigh.
Never quite as you plan, but still, I feel really good getting this major task done.
It will all be alright. It has to be!
Meeting thesis committee member Tuesday, so lots to do between now and then. And reading friends' theses, tomorrow, too. Yikes! The other Ms are getting close. Very exciting for them. Very sad for me.
Such is life.
Onward and upward.
Oh my god! The portfolios took at least 20 minutes each, and there are 38 students. The worse the grammar was, the longer it took. I have some ESL students, so you can imagine how long those took.
Don't get me wrong, part of the reason they took so long was because I really enjoy spending time with each student, reading their ideas, and peeking inside their understanding of planning as a result of this class. There's a certain voyeuristic satisfaction, not to mention pedagogical benefits. But in terms of me getting time to work on the thesis, holy god. UNBELIEVABLE how long this took. I should have totaled the hours, but it's gotta be in the "days" category.
I'm pretty wiped tonight, and I still have to prepare "Grade" sheets, so I think I'll do that tonight while watching a movie, and start fresh tomorrow with thesis maps.
Sigh.
Never quite as you plan, but still, I feel really good getting this major task done.
It will all be alright. It has to be!
Meeting thesis committee member Tuesday, so lots to do between now and then. And reading friends' theses, tomorrow, too. Yikes! The other Ms are getting close. Very exciting for them. Very sad for me.
Such is life.
Onward and upward.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Passion for Landscape
Alf Simon, director of the Landscape Architecture program at UNM, shared his 5 reasons for sustaining a passion about Landscape at an all-school assembly that showcased a speaker from each of the school’s 3 programs. Alf was so eloquent and moving that I got a copy of his list to share.
5 minutes and 5 things that I love about landscape architecture
by Alf Simon
Presented at an All-School Assembly, School of Architecture and Planning, University of New Mexico
October 25, 2005
1. Landscape the idea
§ Landscape (not to be confused with landscaping or plants) is a continuous cultural and environmental project
§ People and landscape transform and shape each other over time
§ Landscape and people sustain and reveal each other
2. Landscape is dynamic
§ The cycles of landscape range from minute to minute, hourly, daily, monthly, yearly and so on. It is fruitless to try and freeze a landscape in time
§ Process and form is the text of landscape
3. Therefore, landscape is about constant change, and the architecture of landscape is an architecture of transformation, change and uncertainty. That, to me, is exciting.
4. Even when you dream your dream takes place somewhere, and that place, that landscape that you conjure up in your unconscious, is absolutely interdependent with whatever crazy events are unfolding. The landscape of the conscious world is also interdependent with our movements, actions and values – with our lives; and that is why it is so important to make good landscapes that support, reinforce and inspire us.
5. The architecture of landscape, both as idea and as place, has the power to move and inspire more than anything that I have experienced.
These are 5 reasons why I love landscape architecture.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Heading to the weekend
So I made it through a tough week. Tonight: the last of the grading. Tomorrow: a play -- Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love at the Vortex. Local performance poet Danny Solis is the lead, local columnist and personality Gene Grant is in it, as is Eric Bodwell. Some of my favorite ABQ boys!
I feel put through the ringer, and although I've spent all week cursing teaching and all it entails (grading, preparation, reading shit that' s not for my thesis), it's also been the source of ego boosts this week, too. Tuesday was a lecture/discussion on Transportation Planning -- of which I know next to nothing. Most of what I know I got from reading their textbook (through the prism of my other interests, of course!). The only advantage I have is that I'm a better student than my students. Otherwise? I'd be lost for sure. Thursday was a lecture/discussion on Community Development -- of which I know next to nothing (hmmm...noticing a theme?). What I know I know from sporadic lectures in other classes and ... you guessed it ... the textbook.
But both classes went BEAUTIFULLY. Maybe because I didn't try to say too much (not that much TO say, really) or maybe because I had to think really quickly about what it was that I wanted them to know. Mostly, I wasn't afraid to extrapolate from the information my larger points about the role of government and the underlying values that should inform all our planning (and political) decisions.
And we had a public meeting in the North Valley for a planning process that's just getting started that I got to facilitate, only because my normal project manager had another meeting in Socorro. It went GREAT. I was so ON. There is nothing like facilitating a community meeting. It's almost better than teaching. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which was better. There's certainly less post-stress from teaching. The hard part about community meetings is the work that comes after to capture and use responsibly all the information you get.
Last night was a meeting with fellow poets to choose poems for a local anthology published by the Harwood. Wading through over 150 entries. Arguing about the merit of poems. What's new? What works and why? What speaks to you? What's too important to leave out? What is lost if not included? What will only do a disservice to itself by being included among other poems that are sure to overshadow it and render it flimsy at best? SO FUN. Talking and laughing and advocating and putting your foot down and knowing when to let go. Mostly just reveling in being one of several poets supporting other poets through love of their poetry.
So this was a professional development week, disparate though it still seems to be. And now? Now time for grading and then THESIS ALL WEEKEND LONG. And the break has actually wet my appetite to get back into the mix. I actually want to do the map analysis to see what my data actually show. The story will uncover itself this weekend, and then all I have to do is write it up! Holy god let it go quickly.
All this time feels positively decadent. Now I just have to not waste it.
I feel put through the ringer, and although I've spent all week cursing teaching and all it entails (grading, preparation, reading shit that' s not for my thesis), it's also been the source of ego boosts this week, too. Tuesday was a lecture/discussion on Transportation Planning -- of which I know next to nothing. Most of what I know I got from reading their textbook (through the prism of my other interests, of course!). The only advantage I have is that I'm a better student than my students. Otherwise? I'd be lost for sure. Thursday was a lecture/discussion on Community Development -- of which I know next to nothing (hmmm...noticing a theme?). What I know I know from sporadic lectures in other classes and ... you guessed it ... the textbook.
But both classes went BEAUTIFULLY. Maybe because I didn't try to say too much (not that much TO say, really) or maybe because I had to think really quickly about what it was that I wanted them to know. Mostly, I wasn't afraid to extrapolate from the information my larger points about the role of government and the underlying values that should inform all our planning (and political) decisions.
And we had a public meeting in the North Valley for a planning process that's just getting started that I got to facilitate, only because my normal project manager had another meeting in Socorro. It went GREAT. I was so ON. There is nothing like facilitating a community meeting. It's almost better than teaching. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which was better. There's certainly less post-stress from teaching. The hard part about community meetings is the work that comes after to capture and use responsibly all the information you get.
Last night was a meeting with fellow poets to choose poems for a local anthology published by the Harwood. Wading through over 150 entries. Arguing about the merit of poems. What's new? What works and why? What speaks to you? What's too important to leave out? What is lost if not included? What will only do a disservice to itself by being included among other poems that are sure to overshadow it and render it flimsy at best? SO FUN. Talking and laughing and advocating and putting your foot down and knowing when to let go. Mostly just reveling in being one of several poets supporting other poets through love of their poetry.
So this was a professional development week, disparate though it still seems to be. And now? Now time for grading and then THESIS ALL WEEKEND LONG. And the break has actually wet my appetite to get back into the mix. I actually want to do the map analysis to see what my data actually show. The story will uncover itself this weekend, and then all I have to do is write it up! Holy god let it go quickly.
All this time feels positively decadent. Now I just have to not waste it.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Turning corners
But today it seems doable. Fog clearing a little. A little.
Last night was a public meeting whereI actually got to do some facilitation. I can't even describe what a rush it is to lead community discussion. It feels like gathering power, focusing it in a prism, and unleashing it to tie people together in the cords of their own shared interest. Picture the scene from Little Mermaid where Ursula the Sea Witch stirs the water to create this huge maelstrom (my word of the week) that sucks in power and creates one swirl out of disparate elements.
Yeah, like that. Only instead of doing it for my own self-interest, it's in the interest of community. Community vision and action.
I just keep hoping to clear things away, clear time for thesis. But it's not happening, so I have to change the mindset and just do a little bit at a time. It takes so much mental energy to actually work on it that it hardly seems worth it for just a half-hour. That's the issue at the moment.
If I can get all the papers graded by tomorrow (hardly doable, by the way), then I can really spend the entire weekend on thesis. Maybe even finish with the maps by Monday and do a write up in time to share it with my committee.
I have a hard deadline of Nov. 8 to have things as pulled together as I can, and well, it's not looking good.
When will this END? Sooner if I work on it, I realize. Oh the paradox! Someone please send me some strength! I'm drowning over here!
Last night was a public meeting whereI actually got to do some facilitation. I can't even describe what a rush it is to lead community discussion. It feels like gathering power, focusing it in a prism, and unleashing it to tie people together in the cords of their own shared interest. Picture the scene from Little Mermaid where Ursula the Sea Witch stirs the water to create this huge maelstrom (my word of the week) that sucks in power and creates one swirl out of disparate elements.
Yeah, like that. Only instead of doing it for my own self-interest, it's in the interest of community. Community vision and action.
I just keep hoping to clear things away, clear time for thesis. But it's not happening, so I have to change the mindset and just do a little bit at a time. It takes so much mental energy to actually work on it that it hardly seems worth it for just a half-hour. That's the issue at the moment.
If I can get all the papers graded by tomorrow (hardly doable, by the way), then I can really spend the entire weekend on thesis. Maybe even finish with the maps by Monday and do a write up in time to share it with my committee.
I have a hard deadline of Nov. 8 to have things as pulled together as I can, and well, it's not looking good.
When will this END? Sooner if I work on it, I realize. Oh the paradox! Someone please send me some strength! I'm drowning over here!
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
from deep in the afternoon
Feeling underwater.
I cannot believe my life this week. So surreal.
I'm floating and disconnected and panicked all at once.
Teaching went well today, but I have no idea how. I didn't know what I would say until about a half-hour before, and even as the class was going along, I had no idea how it would play out. It turned out perfectly. The timing was divine. Asked my last question with 5 minutes to go. Made my last point with a minute to spare.
Isn't that weird?
But in the meantime managed to piss off one student enough for her to contact the Chair of our Department and ask for intervention.
Hella week. I tell you!
Public meeting tonight. Then more grading.
Poetry meeting tomorrow night. Then more grading.
I thought I would have a guest lecturer Thursday, but he just cancelled, so now I have to plan for Thursday's class, too. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
And all I want to do is go to Juarez!
But I haven't TOUCHED my thesis in weeks, and I'm having a major meeting with committee member next week, so, not looking good for bubbles.
Pop pop pop.
Rainy check? Splashed hopes? Bleeding fantasies?
I want to scream and sink into the growing hole in my chest. Can't decide which would be more satisfying.
I just need TIME. Where can you buy extra?
I cannot believe my life this week. So surreal.
I'm floating and disconnected and panicked all at once.
Teaching went well today, but I have no idea how. I didn't know what I would say until about a half-hour before, and even as the class was going along, I had no idea how it would play out. It turned out perfectly. The timing was divine. Asked my last question with 5 minutes to go. Made my last point with a minute to spare.
Isn't that weird?
But in the meantime managed to piss off one student enough for her to contact the Chair of our Department and ask for intervention.
Hella week. I tell you!
Public meeting tonight. Then more grading.
Poetry meeting tomorrow night. Then more grading.
I thought I would have a guest lecturer Thursday, but he just cancelled, so now I have to plan for Thursday's class, too. Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
And all I want to do is go to Juarez!
But I haven't TOUCHED my thesis in weeks, and I'm having a major meeting with committee member next week, so, not looking good for bubbles.
Pop pop pop.
Rainy check? Splashed hopes? Bleeding fantasies?
I want to scream and sink into the growing hole in my chest. Can't decide which would be more satisfying.
I just need TIME. Where can you buy extra?
Monday, October 24, 2005
Connection vs. Oneness
I just want to make the small but crucial distinction that while I do believe in connection, I do NOT believe that everything is "one" in the sense that "we're all connected, so why can't we just get along?" I think diversity remains critical to connectivity; otherwise, it's all just uniform. I think it takes a big leap of faith and strong moral stance to understand how we can be connected to un-like things and people. Advocating oneness is too ... totalizing and profoundly disrespectful of the uniqueness of each living, breathing, and non-living or breathing thing. We're made up of atoms, and beneath that connected by cosmic strings, but we add up to different people, individual stars, and crazy-real viruses that all share this universe equally.
It's the difference between acceptance of additive reality and imposition of reductive reality. Viva la difference!
It's the difference between acceptance of additive reality and imposition of reductive reality. Viva la difference!
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Listening, Connection, and Community Design
So a while ago, I started my philosophical treatise on connection -- how connection is really the moral standard because it reflects the reality of the cosmos. It's gravity. It's chemical bonds. It's storytelling and love and family and community. All those things.
Today, reading Planning in the Face of Power by John Forester (a classic text, by the way), as he described the difference between listening and hearing, I made the connection that even this distinction is really at its heart a moral as well as practical reliance on -- connectedness.
You grant someone a hearing. It's institutional. You separate them from you. Their words fall upon your ears, and you make of them what you will. Listening means entering into relationship with the speaker. Meeting them halfway. Acknowledging your relationship in order that you may understand not just their words but their meaning. Forester advocates this kind of listening as the basis of good planning practice but also as essential community building, as well as engaging fully in all our relationships, personal as well as professional.
Zooming out a little, I see that this kind of engagement, this meeting halfway, this commitment to connection, is what I described below that leads to compounding interest of goodwill and good energy.
Happily, Forester's distinction serves as the basis of community design as "making sense together," which solves my biggest thesis problem, which I thought was, how can you plan a space for all these different identities? What would it possibly look like, and how can I know? According to my advisor, and now Forester, there is no prescriptive aesthetic or physical element -- there must not be. The process must be open and inclusive, and the design falls out of that earnest interaction and conversation. The design process models and begins to foster the very type of community interaction that the space should be able to support. So there.
It's all connected. QED.
Today, reading Planning in the Face of Power by John Forester (a classic text, by the way), as he described the difference between listening and hearing, I made the connection that even this distinction is really at its heart a moral as well as practical reliance on -- connectedness.
You grant someone a hearing. It's institutional. You separate them from you. Their words fall upon your ears, and you make of them what you will. Listening means entering into relationship with the speaker. Meeting them halfway. Acknowledging your relationship in order that you may understand not just their words but their meaning. Forester advocates this kind of listening as the basis of good planning practice but also as essential community building, as well as engaging fully in all our relationships, personal as well as professional.
Zooming out a little, I see that this kind of engagement, this meeting halfway, this commitment to connection, is what I described below that leads to compounding interest of goodwill and good energy.
Happily, Forester's distinction serves as the basis of community design as "making sense together," which solves my biggest thesis problem, which I thought was, how can you plan a space for all these different identities? What would it possibly look like, and how can I know? According to my advisor, and now Forester, there is no prescriptive aesthetic or physical element -- there must not be. The process must be open and inclusive, and the design falls out of that earnest interaction and conversation. The design process models and begins to foster the very type of community interaction that the space should be able to support. So there.
It's all connected. QED.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Struggling to ride the wave
I had some momentum. I was writing. Things were shaping up. There's still momentum, I guess, but I'm experiencing this strange but familiar phenomenon that creeps up when things are going well. When your energy is good, it acts as this positive force-field, calling other good things to it. Suddenly you draw new connections; you have more juicy conversations with friends and acquaintances. You write poems. You meet new people. You find yourself in new situations even without trying. And it feels effortless, like when you're in the zone during a game. You're just ON.
So the trick is to let all these good things keep juicing you up while not letting you get distracted from your main goal. That's a tough optimum to achieve. Balance, people. Always about balance.
The opposite is also true, of course. When things are bad, you call negative energy to you, as well.
The difference between the good energy and bad energy always shifts as abruptly as a quantum leap -- it takes a tremendous surge to take you from one to the other. Usually from the outside.
But Newton explained that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted on from the outside. So my only job is to keep myself OUT of the way. To ride this wave of goodness for as long as it lasts. To pay attention while it carries me along, and to make the most of the productivity while it's almost effortless. Cause lord knows, it took a lot of energy to get here, and it will take a bunch to get back once I'm off track.
So ride the wave, baby. Ride it hard.
So the trick is to let all these good things keep juicing you up while not letting you get distracted from your main goal. That's a tough optimum to achieve. Balance, people. Always about balance.
The opposite is also true, of course. When things are bad, you call negative energy to you, as well.
The difference between the good energy and bad energy always shifts as abruptly as a quantum leap -- it takes a tremendous surge to take you from one to the other. Usually from the outside.
But Newton explained that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted on from the outside. So my only job is to keep myself OUT of the way. To ride this wave of goodness for as long as it lasts. To pay attention while it carries me along, and to make the most of the productivity while it's almost effortless. Cause lord knows, it took a lot of energy to get here, and it will take a bunch to get back once I'm off track.
So ride the wave, baby. Ride it hard.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Blissful weekend
No thinking this weekend. Lots of non-thinking. Sleep. No sleep. Bad tv. Eating out. Soy ice cream. Jordan almonds.
And a book. Freakonomics. Interesting read.
And poetry. Performance poetry.
And soccer. Watching soccer.
Housesitting. Enjoying housesitting. Doing nothing but housesitting. Literally sitting. In a house. Going nowhere.
Life this weekend was simple and sweet. Much needed silence. And no work.
And a book. Freakonomics. Interesting read.
And poetry. Performance poetry.
And soccer. Watching soccer.
Housesitting. Enjoying housesitting. Doing nothing but housesitting. Literally sitting. In a house. Going nowhere.
Life this weekend was simple and sweet. Much needed silence. And no work.
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