Imaginary Vacation

In the imaginary vacation that Lovey Loverpants and I own, we open up our imaginary doors every year to our friends and family for one imaginary week. The question of which friends and family are invited is not the important question. The important question is, rather, how long will each stay?

The people who are allowed to stay in our imaginary palacial bedrooms, to sleep on the imaginary beds with high-thread counts are laidback, good-humored individuals, people who may or may have a proclivity for Flavor-Ice addictions as Mr. Loverpants as I do. These friend/family folkien won't mind the announcement of a Magical Mystery Tour which may or may not lead to the shadiest imaginary burrito stand on the imaginary island. We invite people who would not roll their eyes at an optional Bible Study, nor start to tweek out in absence of a television set, because in our imaginary vacation house, the object of the game is to forget that televisions exist, and that TiVo rules the world. Our imaginary vacation house is a place to live splendidly, if for only one week, to dig one's feet into the imaginary sand that creeps over the imaginary back patio. To rise early or sleep in all spread out like a starfish on the bed, to eat so so many Tropical Starbursts that one really might just burst.

If this sounds appealing, registration is now open at our imaginary vacation home. Please fill out an imaginary application which can be found by clicking this imaginary link.

Based on a long weekend in Durham, NC with some fine, fine individuals, the admissions process may prove quite selective.

This gurl? Oh. She's in for the week.

And this lovely? She's invited, especially since she lives so close to our imaginary vacation home!

We'll be waitin' for ya by the imaginary frog pond...

Finding my people

Have you ever known something in your heart which your mind took a bit longer to articulate?

Had dinner with one of my college mates this week and tossed out names and stories from the days when we would eat dinners on retro colored trays every night at Brooks Dining Hall. I noted that college mate was a senior when I met her and I was merely a wise fool, all of 1.25 semesters into my college education. My sophomore year of school was one of my most personally tumultuous but, by far the best academically. I was thinking that it was almost unfair that College Mate came to know me when I was still finding my way, and unfortunate that she was more or less out the door. I don't think the person I was my sophomore year represents my best self. And it's not because I became something super sensational henceforth, able to spin fine china on sticks while reciting the book of Isaiah backwards and forwards. It's just that I was only beginning to find my people.

And say what you will about college as a place to refine your interests and stay up late and pull amazing things off on very little sleep and discover new music and new talents -- it is very well all those things. But in its most simplest function, I would argue that college is all about finding your people.

When you find your people, your posse of hallmates with whom you jive, the one or two professors who inspire you, you find a bit of yourself. You find your confidence. Ultimately, you find your path. Even finding one person on campus whose name you know and whose crooked walk while carrying an umbrella you recognize from a mile away but whom you will never have a conversation with because that's not the point. The point is that you find that person interesting and you're glad to know that he/she is there, because he/she is one of the people you found on campus, and just by his/her being there, your college experience is more complete.

It took me a long time to find my people in college. My search was somewhat stunted because I had found my people late in high school, but those people, I would come to realize, were about finding other people in college. As they should. My sophomore year, I became an RA and among the pool of responsible, creative, nerdy, whimsical RAs, I found a few of my people. Two of these people read this blog today (Hi Petie, Hi Haddy) and I consistently congratulate myself on finding them and keeping in touch with them, because they are good good people, people who accept you at face value, people whom I look up to immensely, people who know that you just went through a break-up and send you cards that read: Boys are stupid. We learned that in kindergarten.

The next year of school, I found more of my people, specifically people whom my kids will call Auntie Spas and Auntie Walley. One of whom my kids will call Dad.

December 2000

Poet Laureate

The new poet laureate's name is Charles Simic. Given that, you can probably surmise...what?
He's white.
He's old.
He probably writes some obscure verse, no?

You'd be right on those accounts. But I'm quite excited about Simic. There's more to him than merely a senior scrivener. He's originally from Serbia, and emigrated through New York to Chicago. He's now my neighbor in that state just due north, writing free or die, I suppose.

Simic served in the army and went to night school at the University of Chicago. He became a professor of literature at UNH with only a bachelor's degree. Compare any of the self-impressed proffies of literature today with Simic. Ask them if they served in the army. Ask them if they ever had to work full-time while putting themselves through undergrad. I bet you'll find few, if any, who rose to tenure with that kind of resume. I bet you'll find many who are still self-impressed.

Simic, on the other hand, seems incapable of being so impressed with self. When notified that he had been named Poet Laureate, he asked if he could call the committee back. He wasn't sure that this was what he needed.

What do you think? You devote your life to the love of literature, particularly poetry. Do you need to be Poet Laureate of the United States, esteemed by the Library of Congress, charged with advancing poetry as an art form as your JOB for one year? Is that what you need?

Or would you rather watch your state monument's nose crumble a bit more?

Simic describes being a poet as a real chore. Read this, I love this:

So demanding is poetry for Simic that he was taken aback when asked whether he is grateful for all that poetry has done for him. His answer, after a pensive pause, had the kind of unexpected twist that one finds in his poems: "I have never said to myself anything like that. Most of the time poetry, as it exists in the mind of this poet, is a huge pain in the [rear], a huge annoyance, because you are always thinking about it and worrying about things you haven't done well." Then he added, "I am happy it's there. I couldn't imagine my life without this constant annoyance, anxiety, obsession." - David Mehegan, The Boston Globe, August 18, 2007.

I'm excited about Simic and getting to know him through his work. Poetry gives me so much pleasure, more than almost any other art form in life. I can really lose myself in poetry, forgetting whatever pouty mood I was in before, forgetting whatever chores I was slated to do for the rest of the evening. I have been to a sort of poetry camp as an adult and enjoyed it very much, but I do understand what Simic means about poetry being a real pain sometimes. Being away from a computer or my journal causes me great distress and until I am in a place to write again, to channel the changes and sparks that are taking place in my mind and heart, I am merely a woman with a lot of garbage rattling around, a lot of toxins splashing around inside of myself. I've got to get it out and onto screen or paper, or the obsession, the anxiety, the annoyance will cause a pollution problem.

That's something to think about, isn't it? Poetry may just be the grass and flowers that grow on top of our personal landfills.