Monday, July 19, 2010
Morning. Whoa. I am awake before a vast majority of the population. What I hear is peace. What the day will bring, I have not a clue. Right now I am Rachel. I am not a student, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a girlfriend. My only responsibility is…well… whatever I decide. For now, that has me here. Writing for the sole purpose that it feels good. What I would like to examine now actually coincides with this. What I have been putting some thought into lately is whether I too frequently just do things for temporary satisfaction. “If it feels good, do it”. I have become someone new. Someone who uses any occasion to party, to drink, to disobey. I look back on my thoughts and ideals from my freshman year and think “how naïve!”. Is it possible though that I have immatured throughout the past three years of high school? Maybe. I’ve turned into a hypocritical son-of-a-bitch as well. I go back on my word if that means that I feel happy. I say “feel” happy because this happiness is anything but legitimate. But isn’t life about being happy? That’s what someone once said, right? Have you not heard of “Carpe Diem”? I do value my spontaneity. I can at least give myself credit for that. I think planning is the most unecessary aspect of life. We plan, plan, plan… and for what? Whatever you are planning for will soon be over and done with, a thing of the past. That is why I find it imperative to exhilirate the spirit! Trust that gut feeling deep in the pit of your stomach and take risks. As far as my reevaltuation goes, it will have to wait for I have a class to attend in no time at all. Morning, I cannot figure out why I’ve always had such a problem with you. Probably because I stay up until it gets to the point that my eyes can no longer stay open. I don’t know why I push my body to these insanely grueling lengths. I always saw night as my friend. A companion who is with me through those lonely hours where I am the only one in their right mind who is awake by choice. However, morning, I have underestimated you. Prejudged you, even. You really are not all that bad.
Monday, June 14, 2010
A Hurricane
Without a warning, you come a long
Those clear blue skies are dead and gone
Those clear blue skies are gone
The waters were calm, I was sailing through life
Now I wonder if I’ll even survive
If the breeze will oneday come and take away the pain
But you’re like a hurricane
You saw, you conquered, right after you came
I could try to prepare myself for your wrath
Before you ruin everything and everyone in your path
But there’s no preparing for what you do
My only option is to wait till you’re through
I could always try and run away
But that’s not an option, not today
There is so much I’d be leaving behind
Your rage and destruction, it never seems to end
You’re no longer a brother, no longer a friend
I don’t know who you are, or what for that matter
You’re just a hurricane that has left this home shattered
Those clear blue skies are dead and gone
Those clear blue skies are gone
The waters were calm, I was sailing through life
Now I wonder if I’ll even survive
If the breeze will oneday come and take away the pain
But you’re like a hurricane
You saw, you conquered, right after you came
I could try to prepare myself for your wrath
Before you ruin everything and everyone in your path
But there’s no preparing for what you do
My only option is to wait till you’re through
I could always try and run away
But that’s not an option, not today
There is so much I’d be leaving behind
Your rage and destruction, it never seems to end
You’re no longer a brother, no longer a friend
I don’t know who you are, or what for that matter
You’re just a hurricane that has left this home shattered
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Writing Life
It's not often that I actually read the passages on ACT practice tests and so on. With this, it was shocking to me that i actually was inspired greatly by one of them. Instead of skimming through these paragraphs like I usually do, I actually found myself taking much more time than I should have on this section. Out of 4 passages, this is the only thing I managed to read in 18 minutes. Not because I'm dyslexic or anything but because I was enjoying myself and didn't care to read about "how the Indians of America transformed the world". Instead, this was about writing. An excerpt adapted from Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. I know I will more than likely regret this decision in a couple of minutes, but I would like to copy it onto here for my personal gain. Here it goes!
When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.
You make the path boldly and follow it fearfully. You go where the path leads. At the end of the path, you find a box canyon. You hammer out reports, dispatch bulletins.
The writing has changed, in your hands, and in a twinkling, from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool. The new place interests you because it is not clear. You attend. In your humility, you lay down the words carefully, watching all the angles. Now the earlier writing looks soft and careless. Process is nothing; erase your tracks. The path is not the work. I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope birds ate the crumbs; I hope you will toss it all and not look back.
The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years' attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often the bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.
Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff the work needs it, or the world. Courage, exhausted, stands on bare reality: this writing weakens the work. You must demolish the work and start over. You can save some of the sentences, like bricks. It will be a miracle if you can save some of the paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves or hard-won. You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now. (Are you a woman, or a mouse?)
The part you must jettison is not only the best written part; it is also, oddly, that part which was to have been the very point. It is the original key passage, the passage on which you yourself drew the courage to begin.
Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let it rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself.
The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever. You are free to make several thousand close judgement calls a day. Your freedom is a by-product of your days' triviality.
Here is a fairly sober version of what happens in the small room between the writer and the work itself. It is similar to what happens between a painter and a canvas.
First you shape the vision of what the projected work of art will be. The vision, I stress, is no marvelous thing: it is the work's intellectual structure and aesthetic surface. It is a chip of mind, a pleasing intellectual object. It is a vision of work, not of the world. It is a glowing thing, a blurred thing of beauty. Its structure is at once luminous and translucent; you can see the world through it.
Many aspects of the work are still uncertain, of course; you know that. You know that if you proceed you will change things and learn things, that the form will grow under your hands and develop new and richer lights. But that change will not alter the vision or its deep structures; it will only enrich it. You know that., and you are right.
But you are wrong if you think that in the actual writing, or in the actual painting, you are filling in the vision. You cannot fill in the vision. You cannot even bring the vision to light. You are wrong if you think you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins. The vision is not so much destroyed, exactly, as it is, by the time you have finished, forgotten.
I really just wanted to put this out there. It says a lot about my actual feelings on writing and why I choose to embrace it. At this point, I have to leave it at that before my fingers fall off from all this typing.
When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.
You make the path boldly and follow it fearfully. You go where the path leads. At the end of the path, you find a box canyon. You hammer out reports, dispatch bulletins.
The writing has changed, in your hands, and in a twinkling, from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool. The new place interests you because it is not clear. You attend. In your humility, you lay down the words carefully, watching all the angles. Now the earlier writing looks soft and careless. Process is nothing; erase your tracks. The path is not the work. I hope your tracks have grown over; I hope birds ate the crumbs; I hope you will toss it all and not look back.
The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years' attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often the bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.
Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff the work needs it, or the world. Courage, exhausted, stands on bare reality: this writing weakens the work. You must demolish the work and start over. You can save some of the sentences, like bricks. It will be a miracle if you can save some of the paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves or hard-won. You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now. (Are you a woman, or a mouse?)
The part you must jettison is not only the best written part; it is also, oddly, that part which was to have been the very point. It is the original key passage, the passage on which you yourself drew the courage to begin.
Putting a book together is interesting and exhilarating. It is sufficiently difficult and complex that it engages all your intelligence. It is life at its most free. Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let it rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself.
The obverse of this freedom, of course, is that your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever. You are free to make several thousand close judgement calls a day. Your freedom is a by-product of your days' triviality.
Here is a fairly sober version of what happens in the small room between the writer and the work itself. It is similar to what happens between a painter and a canvas.
First you shape the vision of what the projected work of art will be. The vision, I stress, is no marvelous thing: it is the work's intellectual structure and aesthetic surface. It is a chip of mind, a pleasing intellectual object. It is a vision of work, not of the world. It is a glowing thing, a blurred thing of beauty. Its structure is at once luminous and translucent; you can see the world through it.
Many aspects of the work are still uncertain, of course; you know that. You know that if you proceed you will change things and learn things, that the form will grow under your hands and develop new and richer lights. But that change will not alter the vision or its deep structures; it will only enrich it. You know that., and you are right.
But you are wrong if you think that in the actual writing, or in the actual painting, you are filling in the vision. You cannot fill in the vision. You cannot even bring the vision to light. You are wrong if you think you can in any way take the vision and tame it to the page. The page is jealous and tyrannical; the page is made of time and matter; the page always wins. The vision is not so much destroyed, exactly, as it is, by the time you have finished, forgotten.
I really just wanted to put this out there. It says a lot about my actual feelings on writing and why I choose to embrace it. At this point, I have to leave it at that before my fingers fall off from all this typing.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Time Most Certainly Flies
I've got to hand it to this thing called time. I was always told that it would pass in the blink of an eye, but nevertheless, I underestimated it. From last year to this year I think I look like the same person except with some boobs. I honestly can't say that I remember any 365 day period where I made a huge physical transformation. So I found myself thinking of how I looked in 7th grade and how I look now. Drastic change. But I can't remember when that change actually came about. I guess it all blends together.. Small continuous changes that we do not pick up on until we are looking in the mirror 5 years later saying: "Whoa, when did this happen?" But it's right now, the present, 2010. I'm much more content with my appearance than the 7th grade version of myself was. Who's to say what I'll walk around looking like in another 5 years? When I will be legally going to bars. I'm approaching the 2 month mark to the day that I've been waiting for since those days when my brothers would push me around in my playskool car. That's right! My seventeenth birthday is August 7th, which is when I will be getting my drivers license. So.... time, as we continue on in this love/hate relationship I will try to acknowledge the power you have over us all. I certainly didn't give you the credit that you so justly deserve.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
meHarmony
Why is it that the only poetry that I have been inspired to write lately has been based on the assholes that come in and out of my life? Seeking a muse. An actual something in my life that I can find beauty in. Not just some annoyance that I wish to complain about using rhyme sequence. So, if you are or know who or what that something is that I need so very much. Please, please let me know?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Maturity Shmaturity
We are only young once. It's sad but true. We have to go on with our days accepting the basic idea that one day we will be old and grey and talking to our grandchildren about "what the kids are listening to these days". It happens. It is our job to take advantage of our youth because soon enough we will be living in regret over what could have been if we do not seize the day, Carpe diem. We will have plenty of time to be mature and responsible in the later years of our lives.. Why bother going through a school day and restraining yourself from letting loose because it would not be the "mature" thing to do? I think it is a waste of our precious time and energy to worry so much about making sure what we are doing is mature or not.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Variety Is The Spice Of Life
This week, I am vacationing in Park City, UT. Today was my first day at the mountain and my friend Tori and I decided to venture off on our own. Being that it is the week after Christmas, the lines for the chair lifts were a real bitch. We decided that the two of us would just take the single's lane in order to get up the mountain in a more timely manner. My first trip up the mountain I was paired up with a group of men that I would estimate to be about twenty five years old. As the lift operator matched me up with them he said "You may not want to go with these guys". They were straggly and unkempt, but they looked like a good time which was reason enough for me not to listen to the man's advice. As soon as we took off the men started joking around with me asking if I was scared of them. I said no and just laughed as they ripped on the lift operator. Things got quiet for a while and I was staring at the beautiful sights that Utah has to offer. To break the short lived silence, the guy next to me turns to me and says: "Chairlifts are for smoking weed, you want us to bust out a J and you can have a hit?!" I respectfully declined, it's really not my thing. But, I really found so much humor in those men. For the rest of the day I chose to only use the single's lane. I figure there are plenty more characters to be found at this busy ski resort. Sometimes I sat quietly and just noted the behavior of the people sitting beside me. Other times I interacted with them, asked them questions, and made stupid comments. I observed plenty of personalities over the span of my day. There were several stereotypes such as: the bitch, the overprotective mom, the bratty kid, the couple that has no shame in displaying massive amounts of PDA, etc. Even when we met up with my brother, his friend, and my parents, I insisted on taking the single's lane while they stuck together on the lift. As much as I love spending time with the people who I came on this trip with, I can sit around with them any day of the week. It is not every day that I get to hang out with such a diverse crowd and for today that provided a certain level of entertainment as I froze my ass off sitting on the lifts.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
All We Want
All we want is sheer perfection
We act like all our needs must be met
We beg and plead for true affection
We're never pleased with what we get
All we want is attention
We all want to feel loved
We cry out for a simple reaction
We all want to be thought of
We can't always get what we want, that's the fact
But it doesn't stop us from looking back
We desire the things we had, but lost
We all want to be happy at any cost
We're all desperate to fulfill what we need
We demonstrate hypocrisy, we demonstrate greed
All we want, is we want it all
No matter how big, nor how small
The confliction in our minds is always a task
We want what we want, we want it when we want it
So tell me now, Is it all too much to ask?
We act like all our needs must be met
We beg and plead for true affection
We're never pleased with what we get
All we want is attention
We all want to feel loved
We cry out for a simple reaction
We all want to be thought of
We can't always get what we want, that's the fact
But it doesn't stop us from looking back
We desire the things we had, but lost
We all want to be happy at any cost
We're all desperate to fulfill what we need
We demonstrate hypocrisy, we demonstrate greed
All we want, is we want it all
No matter how big, nor how small
The confliction in our minds is always a task
We want what we want, we want it when we want it
So tell me now, Is it all too much to ask?
Monday, December 21, 2009
As I explained in my earlier post, Friday was the much anticipated day of worship for the one and only Lady GaGa. With a leotard, fishnets, and a lighting bolt plastered across my face, life was good as I entered a party populated with people who just didn't get the memo on the GaGa dress code. That's right, it was not a themed party. We brought the theme. Pure and utter craziness ensued once we walked in and surprised the partygoers that night. It was a night of ridiculousness as I predicted and it couldn't have been too much better in the end.
As for Saturday, my night consisted of being with the people I really do LOVE. That includes the friends and family who attended my parents' annual Christmas extravaganza. Any time that I can enjoy a Corona and lime with my Pop Pop and my best friends in the same room is quite a good time in my eyes.
To put the icing on the delicious cake that I would like to call my weekend, school was cancelled for today! That's right, a snow day! Life doesn't get too much better than it is right now. An amazing weekend! Parlor Mob is in two days! Christmas is in four days! I will be heading out to Utah in six! Hmm.. How do you like them apples?
As for Saturday, my night consisted of being with the people I really do LOVE. That includes the friends and family who attended my parents' annual Christmas extravaganza. Any time that I can enjoy a Corona and lime with my Pop Pop and my best friends in the same room is quite a good time in my eyes.
To put the icing on the delicious cake that I would like to call my weekend, school was cancelled for today! That's right, a snow day! Life doesn't get too much better than it is right now. An amazing weekend! Parlor Mob is in two days! Christmas is in four days! I will be heading out to Utah in six! Hmm.. How do you like them apples?
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Happy Holiday!
Tomorrow is National Lady GaGa day according to the FaceBook invitation that I recieved a couple of weeks back. I was reminded of this by a notification yesterday. Needless to say, I am pumped. I have every intention of going all out! Coincidentally, my school has a dress down day scheduled for tomorrow. It is Christmas themed and we are required to wear either red or green. Think the Catholic School community would mind if I sported one of her red or green looks? Here are my options.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Peace, dood.
I have just about had it with this peace sign thing. You are not a hippy. I assure you that the losers who decide to cover themselves with this symbol have not burnt their bras or "made love, not war" in the back of a Volks Wagon bus. Those were the people who defined female empowerment. Think about this the next time you see a teenybopper sporting a "PEACE, LOVE, HAPPINESS" tee. Give me a break. Trip on some acid and then we'll talk.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Why? Why? Why?
Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why does the world go round?
As we grow up, we are all taught that there are certain things you just have to accept. Our curiosities were always shut down with the simple answer: "Just because". We are trained like robots to understand that some things just are what they are and it is about accepting them. We continue growing and those naive questions are no longer asked because we have come to terms with the fact that we will not receive any answer that we wish to hear. But does that mean that we do not still wonder? All I know is that we all still ask "why". But now there are entirely different reasons:
Why did he cheat on me? Why does she continue to stab me in the back? Why can't I have a perfect family?
In these scenarios we never can seem to take "Just because" as an answer. We all demand explanations that we will honestly never get. So why must we continue to ask? I feel as though it is essential for us as a whole to accept it. Certain things; they don't work out. Certain people; they hurt you. Now, As I state those facts I'm sure your minds are tempted to ask why! Not on purpose, but because we are all wired that way. We need that explanation. We crave it. The human mind is a marvelous thing and wants to learn answers to all your dilemmas in life. But how is it now, that there are certain exceptions to what it puts thought into? Our mind doesn't even begin to entertain the question: If a tree falls in the forest but no one's around to see it.. does it make a sound? Although we all secretly wish we knew, we accept that that answer is no where to be found. Not everything in life will be explained to you. You will not always receive the answers that you are looking for. And I promise you this, that huge weight will be lifted off your shoulders the second you begin to accept that.
As we grow up, we are all taught that there are certain things you just have to accept. Our curiosities were always shut down with the simple answer: "Just because". We are trained like robots to understand that some things just are what they are and it is about accepting them. We continue growing and those naive questions are no longer asked because we have come to terms with the fact that we will not receive any answer that we wish to hear. But does that mean that we do not still wonder? All I know is that we all still ask "why". But now there are entirely different reasons:
Why did he cheat on me? Why does she continue to stab me in the back? Why can't I have a perfect family?
In these scenarios we never can seem to take "Just because" as an answer. We all demand explanations that we will honestly never get. So why must we continue to ask? I feel as though it is essential for us as a whole to accept it. Certain things; they don't work out. Certain people; they hurt you. Now, As I state those facts I'm sure your minds are tempted to ask why! Not on purpose, but because we are all wired that way. We need that explanation. We crave it. The human mind is a marvelous thing and wants to learn answers to all your dilemmas in life. But how is it now, that there are certain exceptions to what it puts thought into? Our mind doesn't even begin to entertain the question: If a tree falls in the forest but no one's around to see it.. does it make a sound? Although we all secretly wish we knew, we accept that that answer is no where to be found. Not everything in life will be explained to you. You will not always receive the answers that you are looking for. And I promise you this, that huge weight will be lifted off your shoulders the second you begin to accept that.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thinking Thoughts
I sit here in my room seeking direction from the one person who is consistently there in my life, Miley Cyrus. Just kidding. But not really considering that I am currently blasting "The Climb" and letting it take me away. Well, back to reality. I think this song is so corny. I love it. What's wrong with being corny, anyway? It's totally underrated. I'm a silly person. Taking life seriously is just not my forte. I am realizing that FishVille is more worth my time than Marine Biology. Us Weekly is a better read than The Canterbury Tales. And online shopping should be taken more seriously than Algebra 2. And that's just the way I see it! I find myself procrastinating yet again from the countless assignments that I owe teachers. I'm doing what makes me happy. I sit here. I write. I'm no scholar. No star athlete. No beauty queen. I feel no need to leave behind a legacy. I feel like so many people get caught up in that. I'd rather sit here and feed imaginary fish than work my fingers to the bone just to watch my name collect dust in a trophy case. I just got new b00tz in the mail! See? You can't go wrong with online shopping. So now, I sit here. Same sweatpants/ T-shirt ensemble with the little extra flair that has been added with these fabulous Steve Madden ankle booties. I love this. It's the most amazing feeling. Carefree? That's how I'd describe this. There's no one judging me right now and I still feel like a lucky little bitch wearing these hot ass boots. They're actually a real pain in the ass to squeeze in and out of, but beauty is pain, right? I think it's really something how pair of shoes lightened my mood in an instant.
I'd love to continue this blog but since my mind is an overall jumbled mess it would keep jumping around anyway. I'm sure anyone who happens to be reading this is aware that I need to work on my transitions!
I'd love to continue this blog but since my mind is an overall jumbled mess it would keep jumping around anyway. I'm sure anyone who happens to be reading this is aware that I need to work on my transitions!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Let's get involved
I need to take up a hobby. Let's just say that my extracurriculars are a little less than up to par. Technically speaking, there is not much that sets me apart from any other white girl living in suburbia. But as I sit here reviewing my options for what after school activities I should consider picking up, I realize I have plenty of skills. None that would conventionally get anyone into the college of their choice but they are still valid in my opinion! Are things like compassion and consideration for others considered talents? Does it make a person skilled to be able to deal with trauma and heartbreak? I say yes. I say that developing people skills is just as difficult as becoming an all-star athlete. I say that talent is made up of hard work and experience. It is fair to say that it takes a lot of practice to know how to cope with hardships. Practice makes perfect, right? Well there have been a couple of hell weeks throughout my days, I deal with those just as I dealt with my field hockey preseasons. Basically just trudging through sprints with the attitude that it would soon be over. Thinking to myself: "Don't stop, Don't give up, Don't cry, Don't show any signs of weakness". In the grand scheme of things life will continue to throw issues my way. My hope is that I can become a master of strength. At 16, I am merely a novice for I have yet to experience as much as I know I will in this lifetime. I am not saying that I will fill my college resume with extracurriculars like these however it is something to think about! Are high school sports going to be worth it in the end? I say, no.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Livin' It Up
And here I sit, well past midnight with a pile of completed homework sitting beside me as I await the arrival of my next door neighbor whose kids I babysat tonight. All I know is that I BETTER be making serious bank tonight! I could watch T.V. but I think I’ll let my mind vent a little bit about this stressful night. First of all, I would like to make it clear that I am babysitting for two girls. Ages; ten and thirteen (Yes, that’s right… thirteen). I think I’ve been babysitting these two since I was her age. Now, I for one, find it somewhat difficult to interact with these kids. I know that if I were in her position I would be telling that bitch to leave me the fuck alone! This dilemma however has given me the perfect opportunity to actually do some homework for once. If I had it my way right now, I would be passed out in my own bed.
The public schools have off of school tomorrow and Friday. This irks me, I have had it with Catholic school. Of course, I am still grounded from the incident on Halloween so it doesn’t even make too much of a difference. I barely have reason to look forward to the weekends anymore. Although I did regain full access to my computer and Blackberry! Baby steps, people… baby steps.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
