it's the strangest thing.
i'm happy to be home, but now
i'm having trouble falling asleep.
and if i'm having trouble falling asleep,
it means when i finally do fall
asleep, i have trouble waking up in
the morning. my family thinks i'm lazy,
and they might be right. i don't know
why i don't sleep. i miss
listening to music.
i'm sing
ing Spir
it, take
me up
in arms
with You,
and You're
raising the dead in me. n [apple]

i think that i shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree.

a tree whose hungry mouth is prest
against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

a tree that looks at God all day,
and lifts her leafy arms to pray;

a tree that may in summer wear
a nest of robins in her hair;

upon whose bosom snow has lain;
who intimately lives with rain.

poems are made by fools like me,
but only God can make a tree.

["trees" by joyce kilmer]

first of all, i was waiting for the plane to take off from dfw when i picked up the american airlines magazine. the magazine typically includes mensa puzzles, which i then typically spend a lot of time trying to solve. i've decided i'm not mensa material, but i thought this variation was interesting:

one of the clues asked the reader to fill in the blanks to create a word...

S_ _ _ _ _SS_ _SS

my answer was soullessness. the magazine's answer was selflessness.

so i'm no mensa candidate, and i probably shouldn't be a motivational speaker. lesson learned. i'll try optimism in the future, just like optimism is trying me.

secondly, here's a poem entitled "power," by adrienne rich. the first time i ever read it was about 9 months ago, and she still makes my jaw drop. read it. really. it's beautiful.

Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-end
still she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.

there isn't much i wish to report. christmas went very well for me. as much as i believe in the power of words, i don't want to cheapen the intimate happiness i felt with my family. we played games. we ate spaghetti. i have sad and french clouds on a t-shirt.

tonight i told my mother that it felt good to be home, and goodness does it.

she asked, "does this feel like home?"

and from the air mattress i'm sleeping on,
from the floor of the room across the hall
from the room i slept in all summer,
from beneath borrowed,
leopard-print sheets,
from all sides of my heart,
i said, "yes."

i really meant that, mom.
i think i'm getting much better.

where is your smile, idealistic girl?
a deeper facegrave
would welcome grazing worms--
but what a pregnant mouth you have!
how selfishly you dream of death,
writing for two.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

i'm having a good visit with katie. i'll be on a flight toward hawaii tomorrow before anybody is awake. have a good night...

i'm in washington, d.c., visiting my sister katie.

it's really wonderful here.

i love the way the city looks. the buildings lean up against the streets in tidy rows. the dirty snow is heaped into piles on the street corners; i suppose that the logical reason for this is that the snow has been shoveled by city workers, but i prefer to think that it naturally fell this way, the way a rain cloud might hover over a single unhappy college student in the middle of finals week. and why shouldn't it be true?

(it's driving me a bit crazy that i cannot access my final grades yet.)

i love the people i've seen here. i have heard so many languages, even far from the museums and monuments where tourists are not uncommon. the international community is all around me, in every café and bookshop, each individual communicating in his or her own unique and beautiful language.

also, there are tons of kerry/edwards stickers here. this is a nice reminder that not everybody hates john kerry.*

i think the metro is what really makes my experience here so powerful in my mind. on those hideous orange benches, i return to the other cities where i have ridden subways. i suppose that's only paris, london, and athens, but i feel as if subways have epitomized my travel experiences. i'm not sure, but has travel epitomized my life? according to the transitive property (pictured below), subways have epitomized my life. i think i'm misusing that property... that seems fair, because math has always misused me.**



anyway. the idea of riding the metro all day appeals to me greatly - is it as illegal as it seems like it ought to be? i'm not going to find out.

i've done a lot of reading since i got here. i say "a lot," and really i have only read most of one book. but still! now i can read books the contents of which i will not need to commit to memory for a test.

and the book i have been reading is the truth (with jokes) by al franken. i am aware that many of you do not have any respect for al franken, and you'll be delighted to hear (read?) that i myself am on the fence about him. but no, i am not giving myself over to conservatism. i am only wondering whether or not al franken's books hurt america the same way that (i perceive) ann coulter's books hurt america. or rush limbaugh's books. you get the idea. i've started to read books both by coulter and limbaugh, and i've not managed to finish them. this is because i have become fairly frustrated with things that i perceive to be personal attacks, though obviously neither of those authors knows me personally. i understand that this is primarily my problem, as i take things too personally, but are those authors without any blame of their own? i just don't believe that the political realm is helped by sweeping statements like "democrats are unpatriotic christmas-haters" or "republicans are closed-minded bible-thumpers." in that spirit, i'm making my way through the truth (with jokes) with a critical and thoughtful eye. parts of the book are disappointing, and parts of the book make me uneasy, but i'm 200+ pages into the book. with the exceptions of the hero with a thousand faces by joseph campbell and most everything written by charles dickens, i don't generally quit books in the middle. and at least al franken doesn't make me cry.

i want to be a shining beacon of love and acceptance in the face of diversity, political or otherwise. *** i'm not sure how i can accomplish that. i need to make a lot of changes in my life. i'm not sure if i am capable of opening myself to the potentially unkind words of others. i am so nervous that, if indeed i am elected president of the college democrats of harding, the semester will be psychologically more difficult because of how active i am hoping the club can be.****

i will not be able to make a speech to the entire student body. but, if i could, it would go something like this:

i am a member of the college democrats not because i want to fight against your political opinions, but because i want to establish the existence of an alternative. i want to make students at harding feel comfortable to subscribe to whichever political party they would prefer. i am not interested in contributing to the division between parties, but i am interested in contributing to a campus-wide sense of unity despite previous divisions. this unity is nonthreatening, and this club is nonthreatening. except for alex cone. he's pretty threatening.

(i probably wouldn't actually mention alex cone. and, of course, i would start it off with a humorous anecdote about some crazy prank i pulled on my sister in grade school. that's standard chapel procedure.)

________________________

* i'm just kidding. i know that they do.

** i am fully aware that the series of numbers, letters, and parentheses i have included on my blog is not actually the transitive property.

*** this does not mean moral relativism. it means lovingly stating my opposing viewpoint and continuing to display love to those who disagree with me. please do not confuse the two, because i am trying to make positive changes in my life and my psyche is too feeble to withstand the unfair criticism that flows from the misunderstanding of my intentions.

**** not active in flag-burning, but in service projects. but if members of the club are just itching to burn a flag, i could probably come up with a confederate flag for them.

so i went to the emergency room the other day because i had a muscle spasm and couldn't move my neck. my head had to tilt to my left for about two days. that was lame... sometimes things are so ridiculous that surely they aren't real.

now i'm sick. but i don't want to complain.

it's been a very difficult semester. anybody who reads this anymore can see that. loose braids all around. i'll be happy when it's over and my finals are complete. the six i have should not be so terrible. the one i'm the most worried about is the one i get to take first (advanced composition), and i feel blessed that i won't have to think about it after monday at 10 a.m.! because, um... that's when the testing period ends. you know.

so what was my favorite class this semester? what was the most useful? advanced comp. has made me a better writer... a more reader-oriented writer. french literature has really stretched me and i know my french is way better now. grammar has made me very critical - which i don't perceive to be a positive change - but at least i have a respectable knowledge of grammar now. british literature has exposed me to so much beauty. ethics class has expanded my tolerance and my understanding of where tolerance is and is not necessary. french conversation has given me many new friends, and obviously my conversational skills have developed.

i guess when i look at each class individually, it was generally an incredible semester. i'm thankful for that.

i am pathetically behind at christmas shopping. who knows what i'll do. there are people for whom i cannot shop. what's a girl to do? i've decided thus far to ignore christmas and study for finals.

or, more precisely, to ignore christmas and finals and finally post something.

now, finals.