Basically I would say that this book just got be caring about writing again. I was in one of those “I just can’t wait for Spring Break and for work to stop so I can do nothing for days, get bored, and then wish I was back at State College again.” I get in these stupid moods all the time where I completely immobile by boredom with life and I beg myself to do something interesting, meet new people, or pick up a pen and get inspired. But “getting inspired” is the hardest part. But this booklet was actually uplifting. That other students on campus are writing, and writing really interesting things. I think I definitely want to check out a meeting or post one of my poems for this semester. Last semester when we had poetry assignments I actually went to the library and tried to check out “poetry books” that I just felt were so irrelevant to my life. That is until I picked up Julia Kasdorf’s books and a grad student suggested I check out Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and then I watched the movie that James Franco stared in about Howl. These kinds of writings were ones I could relate to and feel moved by. I still appreciate the classics but they are to be obviously honest – are intimidating. With poems written so long ago by older poets it brings me back to “I can’t do that”, “I am not a professional writer” but neither are the authors of these entrees.
David Gessner's non-fiction reading definitely taught me that you have to make your own adventures, go out and explore more. As cheesy as it sounds now reading what I just wrote - it's still true. His exact words, "You need to still find wildness." So much of my time is spent doing school work and when I "relax" I waste time browsing on StumbleUpon.com looking at pictures of people visiting amazing places or people creating things and I envy them. Instead of getting out there and doing those kinds of things I make excuses like, "I don't have the money [time, people, tools... insert other excuses here]." When I do get the chance to check out some of the cool things Penn State offers I want to do more... but if I get stuck in the virtual world rut I find it hard to get out of it. I interpreted David's comparison between saving the world < saving a little piece of it and starting a novel < assigned a writing exercise to get momentum just like going on a cross country road trip < go on a camping trip. Things like this can absolutely add to my experience and momentum for adventurous writing and living.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
For Those Who Can Ride in an Airplane
“I’m twenty-eight years old and trying to figure out most days what being a man means. I don’t drink, fight or fuck but these days I find myself wanting to do all three. I don’t really have a favorite color anymore, but I did when I was a kid. And back then that color was blue, and back then I wanted to be an astronaut, an artist, an architect, a secret agent, a ranger for the World Wildlife Fund, and a hobo. When I was six years old I used to always throw my clothes into my blue and yellow hot wheels car carrying suitcase and run away to beneath the dining room table. I’ve made out with more girls than I wish I’d had and not nearly as many as I’d like to. And I’ve been in love three times so I doubt I’m going to try that anymore. And I spend most days making pictures or thinking about making pictures or masturbating or thinking about masturbating. And I’m trying to find God everywhere and figure this thing he made called a man. And the TV tells me its bare-knuckled bombing, so I guess if I had a tank or a missile my penis would be huge. And thats what I want because thats what being a man means or at least thats what they keep telling me. My pops, he takes care of us. He puts the garbage out twice a week. He drives forty-five minutes to water flowers. I sit on the bus when a seven year-old boy sits down next to me and asks me my name. “Anis.” That’s a nice name. “Thank you, what’s yours?” Quentin. Anis, do you want to read Robin Hood with me? So tell me what my fists are writing, Mr. President. My fingers, they open up like gates when I type and the wind is swinging in the wake, mother fucker. I lift bridges with poems and forests grow in my mother’s eyes. “I am looking for God, Quentin.” “While this world says “fuck you” for trying. For this world hates your eyes, Quentin. For they are simple and pure. And this world hates your fingers, Quentin, little like the stems of flowers. For not being able to pick up the things you have left behind, because you are still learning to do so. I don’t drink, fight, or fuck but these days it’s only two out of those three I don’t do, Quentin. And I fall in love three times, so I don’t want to, want to, but I still do, Quentin. And I want to find God in the morning, in the tired hands of dusk. But, instead, I drive sixty through residential streets praying to hit a child so that they may stay forever night and forever red and forever full of light and crayons and simple outstretched limbs… ..Trying to pick up way too much way too fast, forgetting what it means to be a person. In a world where egos are measured with tabloids, where automobiles are like morals, where beliefs are like naps, you leave them behind when somebody touches you. And in a place where oil takes precedence over life, I find myself sitting on a bus, when a little boy floats down like fresh water, carrying a book I used to read and asks if I want to see what he sees if only for a little while. Then asks if I want to give to him what I see if only for a little while, then says to me he’s going to show me the world. And starts moving his fingers beneath the words, not always noticing what is written, sometimes skipping whole sentences, sometimes skipping whole lines… …because his fingers are moving fast and I wanna tell him, “Slow down, Quentin. You can see it all if your finger whispers on one word. Slow down and hold what you see just a little bit longer.” For in a world of fast faces, I’m looking for God everywhere, trying to figure out a little better this little thing he made called a man.”
For Those Who Were Never Taught How To Ride A Bike
I am nineteen years old
and most days I find myself trying
to find what I want to be.
I made lists of majors that I would
hope my parents would agree.
Which looking back is bull,
when I was a kid I don’t remember
trying to find approval.
I told my teachers, Sunday preachers
and preschool crushes that I will
rule whatever the sky touches.
But the Lion King told taught me t
hat even the King couldn’t touch the Shadow Land.
What I didn’t realize then was that the darkness
would cast over my entire potential future dream plan.
I loved lemonade stands in the summer,
my mousey blonde hair dyed green by chlorine,
how all the neighborhood kids would come to our backyard
to jump on our trampoline but sometimes that's all
they wanted from me or so it would seem
because they would never let me sit near them
on the bus ride to school so I would sit with my best
friend Therese and we would cry sometimes
because those girls were so mean.
Kids can be so god damn mean.
This summer, where now I find myself instead
enjoying lifeguard stands
or more like who stood on them
with sun kissed tans, my hair died blond by bleach,
and sun bathing wishing I were at the wildwood board walk
bare feet, hung over on the beach because
I never ate enough and drank too much.
But I was inside a hot sweaty gym with bicycles lined up
with training wheels
and it feels awkward here
not like any other place I volunteered.
You see I’ve only worked with inner city kids
who taught me how to dance so I showed them
how to read or I would go to homeless shelters
to give food and feed empty mouths but they’d preach
and fill me up until I was full of their knowledgeable meal.
Here I was told that these teenaged boys and girls
had never ridden or rode. Never could try training wheels.
I met Brandon. Tall, lean, black boy from the suburbs
but be a real kid and ride a bike is something that he had never done.
He didn’t talk much, but he would not stop singing.
I wrote my essay out of order with titles for each scene. I decided to now put it in chronological order.
The Introduction:
My name is Molly. I have an alcoholic, addictive, and bipolar brother. And I am an enabler.
7 Months Ago:
Sunday brunch in the commons in East Halls was my favorite. There is nothing that an omelet with everything on it and extra cheese with tatter tots on the side could not fix from the previous blurred out weekend. Or so I thought. I place my tray and silverware on the assembly line to be cleaned, put my hands under the automatic hand sanitizer, and walk downstairs while I wait for my roommate and two of our guy friends to do the same. My phone vibrates and “Home” is calling for the second time this morning. “Hey Mom, how are you? Sorry I didn’t pick up earlier I was eating,” I ask thinking this is her weekly check up phone call. “Um well… Molly, your brother is in the hospital.” I run outside and hide behind the building and ignore my friends phone calls that are wondering where I went. My mom continues to tell me that Patrick punched through the basement window and is now in surgery to get his hand reconstructed. The glass cut through a major artery and may never regain function in his hand. After I assure my mom that I’ll be fine I then call my sister, “There was blood, so much blood, Molls. I thought he was dead for sure this time.” My sister is a nurse, and for her to be scared into hysterics about the amount of blood she cleaned up made me spin.
Sleeping:
I wake up with my hair line and pillow case soaked. Crack the window open. As hard as I try to think of anything else I still keep having the same dream. My brother is in a casket and I get up to speak at his funeral but when I step in front of the podium, I have nothing to say. No fond memories, no reminiscing on our relationship, no speech about what kind of person he was – nothing. I didn’t obtain that knowledge. I don’t know who Patrick is, what he likes, or remember anything pleasant about our lives together. Just us being in the same house, forced to live with each other because we were related and still dependent upon our parents for shelter. Sounds barbaric.
Not Sleeping:
My heart pounding, my breath quickens, my forehead is damp and saliva builds in my mouth like I am going to get sick. I close my laptop and lay my head down. I feel nervous – but for what? This anxiety is completely foreign to me. I just want to close my eyes and hope this knot in my stomach will melt away. But if I sleep, I will dream and they will be nightmares.
Leaving School:
At the start of my 3-hour ride home to Philadelphia, the driver hands me her bowl, “This will help, I promise.” I grip the end and watch as the flames lick the herb. I breathe in, release my thumb, and suck in until it hits the back of my throat. I pull my lips off the glass but keep breathing in as much as my lungs will expand and I let the smoke escape the car while I roll down the window. My mind races faster than it would in any panic attack I have ever experienced and I don’t speak a word the entire ride. I think I convinced myself to be pissed off at her so that I wouldn’t be so angry with myself.
3 Days Ago:
The sun will set behind other apartment complexes in about an hour, but we are only going to be here for a few days so I will soak up as much sun as I can get. My mom, sister, and I took a flight a few hours before my dad and little brother so we could go food shopping and get the place set before our first session early in the morning. It’s going to be the first time I see my brother since his first rehab in February. Which was the first time I saw him since Christmas. Which was the last time my dad tried to admit him in Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital for the third time. “What time is it?” My sister rolls over on the towel and I am guessing rhetorically asked me because I had fallen asleep. Mom gets up, takes her towel and heads for the door but struggles with the lock. My sister tries but can’t get it. I try and the key will turn but is refusing to unlock the door. The three of us are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with three beach towels, stuck outside our apartment. “Try and see if any of the windows are open around back, Mom,” my sister creatively and desperately suggests. I walk backwards and look up to the second door balcony that my sister and I looked out of to see the view when we first arrived. To my satisfaction, it was open. I put my foot up against the newly planted palm tree and both hands on the side of the apartment. “Bridge, hoist me up like in cheerleading.” I yell to my sister. She cups her hands and I put my other foot in them and I can just get my grip on the edge. “Mom! A hand please?” My sister screams because there is no way her little self can support all of my weight. My mom copies my sister’s body position with my right foot and together they try to lift but it is still too high. “Just stay under me in case I fall,” I manage to say as I lift my entire body with my hands holding on to the railing and lifting up my legs up and over. I was left with scrapes and broken skin on my left leg and hands and the door never again got stuck.
I accompany my mom on the ride to the airport to pick up my dad and little brother while Bridget stayed to order pizza and hop in the shower. When we are about to turn in into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport I get a sharp pain in my stomach. Not motion sickness I usually get when I read in the car, but more like as if someone was taking a welded knife and puncturing my stomach for 30 seconds and then releasing. I don’t remember the car ride home much except for that I taking deep breaths into a plastic bag while my dad rubbed my back. My mom didn’t even park the car but instead pulled up to the door so that I could run up stairs. The second I opened the toilet bowel seat, everything that I had eaten in the past 8 hours was being released. This process continued every hour until 5:30 am. My sister slept in Michael’s room in fear I was contagious and so my routine vomit wouldn't disturb her slumber. No one bothered to wake me for the morning first session until noon I woke up to my phone ringing. “How are you feeling?” My mom asks in a sympathetic and helpless tone. “Well I haven’t puked since earlier this morning, which is an improvement!” I try to sound up beat so that my mom is convinced I am feeling better. I didn’t take a plane ride down to Florida just to miss seeing Patrick on the first day when we only have 3 days with him.
I arrive to a room full of older people that looked like parents, one young adult male, and two other girls that looked around my age – if not younger. “How are you feeling, Molly?” a woman with white and black checkered glasses, hefty set, and tanned Florida skin asks me. I answered with a fake smile and nod. “Well then, I guess it’s time to see your addict.” When Patrick walks through the door he is tan and thin and his hair grew out just a little since February. We all hug him and are told we can’t sit next to our relative who we are visiting. All of the other addicts go around and tell the families what they have learned about the other people. I learned that Matthew is 18 just like me and already diagnosed as an alcoholic but is considered a leader in the group, that Ryan who is a handsome kid with a sister my age was shooting up heroine has trouble telling the truth but has good commentary, and that in the last three months no one knows anything about my brother. In fact, Matthew said he walked into Patrick’s room to be astounded that his family photo revealed he had siblings. Let alone 3 of them and that all of them were coming to Family Reconstruction Weekend. Time is up and we now have to say goodbye to our family member’s until tomorrow. Patrick leaves and I cry. I cry for the first time in months.
2 Days Ago
“Why don’t you tell her why you don’t have a relationship?” My brother’s therapist asks my brother about me in front of the entire room of addicts, their families, and my own. Shocked by the question, but more embarrassed by the question or perhaps more scared of his answer I turn completely red. I look at Patrick and he just stares at Greg. “Why don’t you tell her?” Greg is now pointing directly at me. Patrick lifts his head and but doesn’t look me in the eyes, just in my general direction. “I never knew you wanted a relationship with me. You never seemed to have any interest…” my brother is abruptly and sternly interrupted, by his counselor, “Bull Shit!” I feel as if the entire room is looking back and forth from my face to his to see whose reaction is more interesting. “Tell her the real reason or I will.” What reason? They have actually talked about me before? Why is this about just about me? Patrick’s eyes are glaring at Greg’s. I think he hates this attention more than me. I look directly into his dead eyes. “I didn’t like you. I never liked you. I chose not to have a relationship with you.” Before I could admit I think I was better off being ignorant of that fact, I am distracted by snorting and blubbering coming from across the room. I am quiet flattered that the studded belt wearing and hair jell using 20 year old pot head would feel this bad for me that he would start sobbing for my sake. “Would you like to say something?” Greg asks Robby. From that point on I was forced to listen to a little boy trapped inside a mans body cry over the fact that his dad denied his request to spend a week together to reconstruct their relationship. His douche bag of dad who wore tight, obnoxious colored v-neck t-shirts and went fake tanning. His dad who walked out in the middle of the session and never came back.
The Breaking Point:
After another morning of half ass listening to a motherless and yet tragically beautiful cocaine addict, Meredith, try and convince her boyfriend she was through with her infidelities or hearing Brian’s little sister cry that she doesn’t want to see her only brother left go down the same road of her now deceased sibling – Davita, the family therapist, wakes me out of a fog, “Alright, lets take a 10 minute break.” It is 10:03 and if I try to walk through the doors at 10:14, Davita will make me or anyone who is late walk right out that door and sit outside until the next session. This method is to prove if you can’t listen or obey rules, how could you expect your addict to?
It’s like the time my parents brought home a pitbull from the SPCA (thinking that giving Patrick a responsibility that it would somehow cure him because my mom read in an article once that it helped soldiers who came back from war recover. Can’t blame her for trying, it did feel like I was walking on a mind field every time I came home). We would have to stand over our dog’s food and pretend to eat it, to show him we were the alpha dogs. Instead we are now training out addict to behave.
I don’t hesitate for a second to head straight for the woman’s restroom down the hall, open the first stall I can push open, and lock the door. I let out a long, dramatic sigh. It seems like the first seconds I have had alone all weekend. Instinctively, I unzip my newly bought pair of yellow, high wasted shorts (we were going to spend the last day on the beach and thought I’d look nice) and sit down even though I didn’t have to go. I place the palms of my hands over my eyes and it isn’t until I dig my nails into my forehead and run them through my hair that my eyes are finally uncovered and to my complete anguish, discover a rose pedal stain on my underwear. “SERIOUSLY?!” My voice cracks. “Molly? What’s the matter?” I didn't even hear my mom had entered the bathroom. “Do you or Bridget have a tampon on you?” I say with a grudge against Mother Nature herself. For the time being I rip a piece of toilet paper out of the dispenser and fold over twice and place it as a temporary pad on my underwear and pull up my shorts and zip them up before I hear a rip. “You have to be kidding me,” I say with almost letting out “fuck” in between that sentence before I realized my mom was still in the bathroom. I look up to the ceiling because I feel that stinging feeling I get right between my eyes that travels down my nose, so I tighten my jaw try to and hold back the tears.
I am now in a bathroom stall, trying to squeeze into my older sister’s two sizes too small jean shorts, at my brother’s rehab over 1,000 miles away from home.
Forgotten
I have known the excruciating emptiness of glass,
Far beyond any repair, meaninglessness of baseball cards and bed sheets,
All the pain in picture frames and paintings,
Abandonment of a destroyed ottoman,
A neglected windowpane, cabinet, photograph,
The forgotten scribbles on drawing pads,
Desolation of dried up deodorant, a blue lamp, baseball caps,
As sit at my so-called dining room table in my college apartment on my Macintosh computer, I stare at a blank word document. A white canvas waiting to be filled with Times New Roman size 12 font by my diligent typing and selective thoughts that will flow through my finger tips- if only I get started. But my Microsoft Word shares a screen with three different Internet tabs: Facebook, Blogger.com, and Google. My mind is equally stretched thin by also reserving data space for my long list of “To-Do’s” before the weekend, how many hours left until I can take another dose of my decongestant, and while still seeming to be interested in my roommate’s complaints about her team she was put for next weekend’s Beer Olympics. How is it already 1:45 AM?
Procrastination is a battle of the mind by attempting to justify excuses by occupying one’s self with other activities. Because you see, before starting that 30 day work out challenge - need the day to catch up on rest so you start the 7th season of Entourage. Before picking up playing the piano again you might as well check your email real quick and make sure you didn’t miss any of our notifications on Facebook – just to get it out of the way first. Procrastination is about defeating yourself by thinking about how you think. No organizer or time management app you buy will ever make you get the things you wish you could finish actually completed. The reason so many of us wait until the very last minute to buy Christmas presents or write that weekly response for class is because we let ourselves cave in to choosing what we want right now rather than what we should do for the future. That wanting, yearning, feeling of instant gratification will never go away. I will always want to start drinking on Wednesday rather than start studying for my exam on Friday, but sitting here now realizing I would be better off sleeping than writing knows the benefits of getting things done in a timely manner. The trick is to think about what you know now is right, but that the you right now is not the one going to be tempted or making the decisions – it is the future you. See, right now as I am currently reflecting on how I failed to not procrastinate I am disappointed in myself. What I should have done was accepted that the future me was going to give in and if I did I was going to hate myself for it (which I do).
Being productive has nothing to do with will power or desire – it is about playing a game within your mind. You must out smart yourself from checking if someone has commented back on the Toddler’s and Tiara’s video you posted on Facebook but instead fulfill your New Year’s resolution of stretching for 15 minutes a day. You will constantly make yourself empty promises by running to the HUB at 11 o’clock at night to print out paper’s for a class tomorrow when you know you should be starting your rough draft on a paper due next week. Procrastination is an idea everyone has to work around and live with on a daily basis. It isn’t something that we can completely delete from our lives but over coming it by mastering your mind is a skill only the present you can teach the future you, you choose to be.
