the winsome brunette

making connections is like drawing lines from dot to dot, like the constellations. that is our rooftop of the little macrocosm we know; it is not anything short of astonishing.


______________________________________

Star Charts and the Long Awaited Summit Coma

I was driving to find where I was going. The piano music was being heavily carried from my car stereo to the open, the green, and the inviting environment around me. The music’s volume was at an embarrassing high, and under no circumstance would I have decreased it. I drove by houses propped on hillsides, with various Toyotas and Subarus parked in driveways or on the shoulder of my guide: the narrowing road. I was not sure whether I would soon need to turn around, if I was embarking upon a fenced-off, steep cliff wall dead end, where my vehicle would confront the absolute prohibition of “No trespassing.” I then spotted a brown sign, an always warm site. “Now entering ____ National Forest,” it read. Certainly then my speed increased, and I wound around the tight curves of a new found land, a place I had never been before, an existence I never planned to encounter, a realm which drew me in like a familiar and curious voice sounding from another room; it drew me in as I was determined to name the song. Alas, I came to a fence, a posting of bear-watch information, and a diminutive clearing for vehicle parking. I pulled into a space, neither marked by yellow lines nor boundaried by curbs. I looked forward at the base of the hill in front of me and acknowledged my destiny: continue onward. I reached for the appropriate stick which had been waiting for me in the backseat of my vehicle, and opened the door to step out onto dirt as delicate as a Persian rug. I looked around for signs of other people, and footings of a trailhead. I passed the boundary, and dared not look back at my vehicle (but did take care to lock it!). There it was before me: a clear, thin trail detailed by dried clay and rich purple stones. With my stick piloted by my right hand, I followed and stepped largely up the incline, atop the rocks, glancing around my walking area. I heard a noise and, just as quickly as it came to my attention, felt my heart jump. “Bears!” I thought. Everyone always thinks bears are waiting for their chance to eat the human being, and victimize the human being. Did these people have no deep love for their childhood teddy bear? I glanced up, and approaching me was a woman about the estimated age of 39; she wore brown shorts, green long-sleeved linen, and carried a seemingly unoccupied black and yellow hiking pack. She smiled and began to speak with a deep sigh, “Hello.”
“Hello,” I answered.
“Where are you going?”
“Um, I’m not sure; I don’t know where I am, even!”
She chuckled and came to a pause. “Well, you don’t always need a plan, but you need to know where you’re going, or what destination you desire. The rest of the way is no sweat.”
“Yes. I suppose I’m simply headed to the top of the hill.”
“Hill? this is a mountain! Funny how she tricks us, and certainly not out of bullying and amusement’s sake. It’s always for our maturing process. I’m talking about Earth, of course.”
“Yes.”
“Well, enjoy your tread. And don’t consider turning around when the trail breaks, or when you grow exhausted. There are some strange things on the path that might distract you, rare-looking rocks and whatnot. Keep going, the summit is only 3 miles up and, believe me, it is otherworldly.”
“Oh, okay, cool. Thank you for the encouragement.”
She grinned and passed me as I walked on with my back to her. I wondered: where is her car? Maybe she parked it a respective distance away, and is taking a real hike! Or perhaps she lives in some of the houses I saw on the road.

The stones turned to dirt and sticks. I worked my steps and my stick in a progressive rhythm. Every few steps I would stumble on loose dirt or overlook a slight dip. For me, a stumble easily turns into a fall, or a bump turns into a startle, a collision with a tree or pole; so I try to meditate on my footing by keeping my eyes in study of the space around my walkway. Then something catches my attention: a depleted, antique, even ancient-looking golden object. I halt and kneel down to gain better sight of it. I pick it up, out of the embedment in which it lied, and realized that the object was a balancing scale, abandoned probably in the 1850s during the expeditions here on ____ Mountain. I thought to myself: “the woman at the head of the trail probably saw this, and I’m sure other hikers have, I probably should leave it where it was.” As soon as I began to find its distinctive place in the dirt, I felt a tickle on my right hand. Sure of it being a spider or insect, I brought my hand to sight and widened my eyes. A brown scorpion, fairly endowed in size and speedy leg movements, lingered upon my vulnerable skin. I very firmly and hastily jolted my hand forward in hopes of swinging it off of me. I looked again to see it yet removed and released an “Ahhhh,” but by no means a scream, and proceeded to shake my hand in frenzy. The scorpion disappeared, and was not found on my shirt or pants, or the ground around me. I ran a few steps up the trail, holding my stick at its center, as if it were a bow carried by an archer. I stopped to catch my breath and absorbed the sights around me.

I had gone up quite high, and could barely view my vehicle below, but had so much more footing to perform. I set the stick’s end back to the ground and throttled forward. Not ten paces after, I noticed a sign posted on a tree to the left of my path. “ARCHING ZONE: Be aware of others and self. Make noise while on trail.” I felt my facial expression turn into a quizzical one, and sensed no humanly presence near me for miles; And by that point, my advising stranger surely was a good distance away. I walked on, and began to contemplate Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and how those present surroundings did not seem to be a disagreeable place to dwell and plot anti-monarch activities. Calmed since my startling bug encounter, and arriving to flatter trail space, I began to look around more than just down. I heard, but did not see, a wrestle in some bush nearby. I thought: “Bear! No, maybe a mountain lion or lynx, or raccoon, or squirrel…” I walked slowly with my head in that direction, searching for the cause of the unthreatening noise. At the favorable angle, I spotted a white goat behind bushes and a fallen tree’s stump. It looked up at me and expelled a “Baah” in my direction when I mistakenly cracked a stick with my foot. This unexpected mountain goat looked at me harmlessly, and seemed to see me the same way. The goat stuck his head back down into the green, and carried out his goal. I laughed in surprise, almost amazement, and walked forward, turning around to see the goat again from new angles.

After a long sect without any surprises, I stopped to look at the summits of neighboring mountains which were becoming near eyelevel. The hilltop to my left was blanketed green with few trees independent of each other. It was at that point when I became extremely glad of my decision to attend this trail, proud of magnetic sensory which had brought me to a place reminiscent of the sights within my imagination. I then heard the splashing of running water, which at first was thought to be vehicular traffic or maybe wind traveling through the treetops. I eared more carefully, and found a very small creek hidden in tall grass. I watched for scorpions and other unwanted multi-pedaling creatures, but sat cheerfully at the waterside. I touched the water with my fingertips and heard yet another grappling noise. Before making any judgments, I sat up straight and looked around for a sign of any large animal with potential to hurt me. I saw nothing, and persuaded myself to be unworried; this in fact worked so efficiently that I felt a nap coming on, and willingly helped my heavy eyelids. I had seen so many things only half way up the trail, and my legs were tingling from the consistent movement they had undergone. I fell into a slumber without fully letting my hearing rest.

I dreamt. I experienced so vividly and freely the images of an airfield, near which were compost fires bellowing out menacing black smoke. I talked to caterers of the fires, and felt displeased with their indifference toward the ugly smoke. I know more occurred in my dream, but the next event I recall is when people of all size and character, with various tools, baggage, and means of expectation, began to slowly fall from above. In a panic I asked a dream figure to explain what was happening to the people. She told me in a whisper that the weather of Alaska has been causing some other locations to lose gravity. She also said that there is an unknown way of stopping it. I was nudged and woke.

Moving around slowly and hearing my bones crack, I regained consciousness and felt welcomed by the breeze. I heard an extremely close sound of presence in the grass and moved my head back to see what stood near. Upside down, I found a grey ram within five feet of me. I flipped suddenly as to receive a rightful view of the magnificent creature, but this caused it to jump away from me. However, it stopped and looked back at me. I smiled and was still close enough to see its nostrils flare. It then scampered away. I stood up and tried to see it distance itself, but was unable to see it anywhere. I found myself to be confused but without hesitation prepared to move on.

Still eyeing for the ram, and working my hiking stick and brainstorming carving styles, I decided to walk along the stream instead of on the dirt trail. Doing so, I was watching the ground as before; only now I had water to the right of me. The water flowed opposite of the direction I was traveling. I considered that perchance the goat I saw earlier wasn’t a goat, rather a ram, maybe of certain sex. It perplexed me to think of rams and mountain goats sharing the same low altitude land. It was then when I found my next strange sight, and this frankly had me wondering whether I was still asleep and dreaming. In the creek, I saw two fish: one was attempting to swim downstream, the other up. I could not fathom what it was causing their bind, and I shook my head with a look of delusion. I walked on and away from the water as it curved to the right, or the north, and I went south to reacquaint myself with the pathway.

I came to a flattening, and stopped to embrace my view of the valley behind the protection of the hills. I acknowledged my surroundings as being pastures, likely for cows. As I continued the hike, I hoped that the trail hadn’t led me into a private piece land, but that did not cause me to turn around. What now was, however, tempting me to start back for the vehicle were my urge to urinate, and my increasing dehydration. I saw distant black figures upon the pasture, though. I imagined them to likely be cows and bulls, mindlessly eating on the grass and unbothered of my passing-by. Again I was carrying the stick instead of using it to help me balance, for I was no longer treading on a thin passage within the cool shade of the preceded holly. I thought: “I know I should be either on the summit now or soon to find myself at a mountain’s edge.”

On the outside of the pasture’s fencing were yellow daffodils, dancing in the frequent breeze. After the patch seemed to disperse, I spotted two more. As I neared passing them, I found the flowers to be part of the same stem. “A hybrid!” I said out loud, only gaining response from the quickening and cooling wind. I considered for a few moments picking the flower, taking it with me on further adventures to the summit; yet, I would want other scarce hikers to see and ponder it. Also, if I would have removed it from its grounded stem, the buds would no longer be part of the same flower. I pressed on with hardly slowing down.

The fencing ended, and I took a curve for the north and found before me a boulder field. The path narrowed again, but my surroundings remained spaced apart. The daylight was fading I feared becoming cold in the steady wind. I challenged a brief incline upward and stopped in shock. My eyes filled with tears as I stood face-to-face with the biggest, calmest, most elegant moonrise I have ever imagined. I groaned to myself, being merely human and unable to do anything in thanks for the gift, this more than divine sight so suddenly awarded. I fell to my knees and rearranged myself into a crossed-legged sitting position, and sniffled from both my high emotional response and the dropping temperature. I looked all around me and supposed that I had reached the summit, that all I needed to do was spend the right amount of time with the coming moon and return down before the light grew too faint for cautious footing on the trail. Yet, I found myself carefree in the purest, most uncontrollable state. Having seen everything I’d seen, and coming here with a much lower goal than what I’d accomplished, I hoped it to grow dark and leave my footing duties blind and guessing during my return downhill. I hoped to be spied by a bear, or trip on the scale I left in the middle of the path: I felt equipped to handle anything.

I sat before the moon in reflection, awaiting the clear night sky and its stars. Then, I looked to my right, almost as if I recognized something from a long lost memory, and saw yet another branch of the long-going pathway. Before I sat up to investigate it, I looked back to the moon and sighed in relief. I brushed the sand and dirt from my jeans as I stumbled toward the continuation. There was a trail marking which read: “____ Mountain Summit, 1098 ft.” I walked passed it slowly and looked around at the cluster of boulders, as if I were expecting someone. Then, again, I heard a brush in the grass to my left, and saw an object the same color as the grass approaching the opening. It was a lion. The cat looked at me and blinked softly, going passed the apparent seating area and toward a treed area some 100 yards away. My heart was pounding and I could barely move my weary legs. Instead of positioning myself on a rock, I fell on my back to the ground, and gazed directly upward in desperate search for the familiar sight of the stars, “the still-frames of a cosmic movie.” Then I heard more noise, almost like footsteps of a person. I accepted it being the steady steps of a bear. I sat up and looked behind me to see the woman from the head of the trail, the beginning of my journey. She looked down at me with a grin.
“I didn’t think 3 miles would take all day,” I commented.
“You’d be surprised how it all scales out. Exhausted? You look like you fell from the sky, lying the way you are.”
“More than that, I’m overcome by amazement. Why did you come back?” I refused to reposition my sprawl.
“Oh, I’m always around here. This is my land.” She looked out at the horizon. Her face was a gentle blue tint and under the influence of the massive twilight.
“So those are your cows?”
“No… what cows?”
“In the pasture between here and the stream.”
“What route did you take? I’m quite sure there are no pastures on the mountain. It’s covered in trees! Lots of bow hunting during the winter….”
“I saw a mountain lion too.”
“That’s not so strange… any bear encounters? They can be outgoing around here. They can be tricky too, even near a hiker without the hiker knowing it. Are you okay? Would you like some water or potato? You act as if you’re wounded to the head.”
I deviated by asking, “Why aren’t there trees where we are now?”
Still lying on the ground like a slug, she knelt next to me to look me in the eye and say, “Because there is never anything to block the view of the world from a summit.”

i found this image on google


today i ran into my friend mr. tacky and talked for a while about my upcoming relocation. then suddenly i realized everything danish, a three-way intersection of danish absolution: i sat with hamlet, prince of denmark texts scattered before me, as we discussed our friend who is studying in denmark and then laughed at tacky's eating a danish.

annoucement: i saw the blue slipper production of hamlet twice. don't i get credit?

friday's group of presenters were at no point dull. judith caused questioning, megan had me agreeing, and charles had me hollering, cheering.

i was going to write about the muses but i realized that i have a former entry about them. so look if you want. ha.

*we need imagination, you know. if we ceased to use that part of our existence, we would not be able to imagine living, and cease to live.*

sam johnson is the man.

if we can make everything as it seems or doesn't, if we can bring things together, create our destinies, write our own scripts with justice, then we are all bards. the duty of a bard is not to create destiny, however; it's to conduct or 'ringlead' not so much the jounrey in life as the things and scenery we experience along the way.

last night i went to see the blueslipper production of my favorite shakespeare play, hamlet. when i first heard about the play's happening, i knew that i wanted to attend on whichever allowing night, and that that night would be a night to remember.

last week i was making a delivery, listening to highly enjoyable music which i've been savoring for a few months, when it began to snow lightly. i love the way the snow spastically falls to the ground, but that day i became slightly nervous about having to drive the icy city streets. i wondered about season change, and by that, feeling change, when i arrived to the house of the people awaiting two pitas. avoiding mud and approaching the front door, i looked up to the sky in time to see three geese flying southward, close to the ground. i "hmmed" to myself and finished the business.

winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that
way.

hamlet, the masterpiece which never ceases to amaze me, sing to me, somehow, with courtesy, aligned me that night. drinking coffee during intermission i noted a witty shakespeare winking at me from the confines of a book on display. the night, which proved its rightnness, its power, and my prediction (only remembered after the experience), served me me a plate of wonder. although we drove back through thick snow at 3am, some of the most lovely, obvious, and connected moments were had. there was laughter, smooth conversation, exchange of admiraiton, and most importantly, a steady crawl towards campus on 8th street with no headlights. the sky was most brilliant peach, most innocent. perhaps the hazards then recently faced are what made our first real winter moment (in march!) ever so gentle.

"she wasn't done with me."

it takes so much hysteria to find our way back to our place, to the only cornerstore in town that carries sparks, the laundry-mat where we left our car keys. i am grateful.

to ask someone to be a wife or husband, or to ask them to redefine their filial ties and adjust love for mother or father, is to ask a lot.

"Oh stay, unkind Montraville," cried she, catching hold of his arm, as he pretended to leave her, "stay, and to calm your fears, I will here protest that was it not for the fear of giving pain to the best of parents, and returning their kindness with ingratitude, I would follow your through every danger, and, in studying to promote your happiness, insure my own. But I cannot break my mother's heart, Montraville; I must not bring the grey hairs of my doating grandfather with sorrow to the grave, or make my beloved father perhaps curse the hour that gave me birth." she covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears.
-from Charlotte Temple, by Susan Haswell Rowson

this girl is pure and niave, which is why the pursuer wants her so greatly: corruptive nature is man. this is why it is easy to treat Good and Sensitive Cordelia with such manipulation. the character in Charlotte Temple suffers the same fate as Cordelia.

to ask daughters to verbally constitute all of their supposed love for their father, is to ask to be misled, no matter how high the amount of honesty.

a shepardess snuggles with her little peep sheep.
i enjoy the notion of the pastoral, of the shepard who experiences loss and spends time lamenting, storytelling, and herding.

melancholiac of black bile contemplates the scale of time, the duration between birth and death. what does this infer?

a friend was telling me about 'the look of recognition,' which is defined clearly as sighting something that has been seen before, whether imagined or actually seen.

this pertains to love. in cymbeline, the two brothers see imogen and know her immediate. although she is dressed as a boy, and has not ever seen her brothers, they still recognize their familial ties and cling to them.

10 married couples are at a party. if each person at the party shakes the hand of everyone else except his or her spouse, determine the total number of handshakes at the party.

monday's discussion on as you like it, reminded me of two films:
the conclusion stating that there's so much to learn in one day 'when obsessively in love' is like the plot in dancer in the dark, a film in which an overworked, blinding mother saves her life's earnings to have her son operated on as to avoid the hereditary blindness. she runs into several malicious, F***ed obstacles. in the end, it works to her advantage.

by the time the jailer takes her to her death, every second is an eternity. in the movie, she counts 107 steps to the hangpost. it is there she receives her son's glasses, signifying that the operation, the saving of his future and vision, was a success.

the other film that came to mind was one of my favorites, me and you and everyone we know. (if you want to know anything about me, you should know that this film easily defines part of me).



birth______TIME___________death
an act of love(sex), whether it's instinctive, deliberate, etc, creates time (a child is born).
love eats time, and smears individuality, all while doing something to these boundaries, or confines, of creation.
individuality is an abstraction which allows a human being to appear concrete and therefore desireable, attractive.
another individual would want to penetrate the concreteness.
hence, love.

time is love, love makes time.

this idea is all over the place. i suggest that you see, or if you've already seen it, review the film.


we can find each other...

at the end of the film, christine, who early on states "we have a whole life to live together, you f***er, but it can't start until you call," receives a call. her stomach drops to the floor. robby, the son of christine's dude, wonders around in search of the source of a tapping noise. he finds the source: a man hitting a lightpole with a quarter.

"what are you doing that for?"
"i'm just passing the time."

love found, through all the whirling events, is representative of synchronicity. it is the essence of time, this duration of existence between "darknesses." it is a beautiful, and something that all people, whether b/c of nurturing or just nature, hold as an ultimate goal.

we're all looking for it. so let's take our minds of it, like rosalind does by running away with celia to the green world.

this is an imagined conversation between hemingway and goethe from milan kundera's immortality:
"if it's an eternal trial, there ought to be a decent judge. not a narrow-minded schoolteacher with a rod in her hand."
"a rod in the hand of a narrow-minded teacher, that's what eternal trialis about. what else did you expect, ernest?"
"i didn't expect anything. i had hoped that after death i would at last be able to live in peace."
"you did everything you could to become immortal."
"nonsense. i wrote books. that's all."
"yes, precisely!" laughed goethe.

know what i think? i think as long as one accepts every place, person, event to which the heart leads, immortality will be acheived. you don't have to write everything down b/c everything is in the pool of the imagination. some things are better unexposed, floating in the rhetorical realm, caught arbitrarily by someone who is of best fit.

similarities between merchant of venice and twelfth night:
marriages (symbolic of togetherness)
the fool, or blocking figure
rings decide the play's good or bad outcome



purgation
the act of purging or purifying.
i am too often frightened of liking so much that it becomes a nuisance, or ugly and despicable. i'm scared to love something to my fullest, which causes me to be perfunctory. but i think i'm finding ways to take all things in waves.... when i love, i really love. i'm learning not to squeeze the rope.

the green world, as i understand it, is pertinent to the class theme. it refers to the macrocosm of being, in that outside of us, in the idea of spacious eternity, everything is immovably synchronized. the green world, as c.s. lewis seemed to have observed, is a place where the mysticism of the universe can be a fathomable entity, and where we as earth-dwellers touch it with our bare feet.

perhaps shakespeare uses it b/c of its truthfulness, b/c he, like we, romanticize about its appeal as a kind of glue of the world; rather, categorizing the shadowy unknown as quiet, warm, lush, and peaceful. we will always use/have this green world to thrive off of, an idea which i think is really preserved in his writing, among other things.

return to the goddess.

the idea of comedy is indeed a comfort, for i can't help but see everyday as a polaroid of an entire year, with the way our seasons must change. i know that the first time i read about the canterbury tales, i took interest in how the pilgrimage is meant to occur in the spring when the temperature lightens to a friendly warm and the flowers bloom. the season is started afresh as are the people who confess their wild stories before arriving to a place of redemption, the shrine of thomas a' becket. spring is also a time for breeding, or TWITTERPATION. why sleep at all?



the key to immortality is:
1. incest, i mean, baby-making
2. documentation, writing
3. rhetoric
huh?
expression and thought is what i had in mind while managing to write this in the margin of my notebook. i was getting at the thinking and externalization of feelings and reactions into the form of music, which floats around rhetorically, reaching occasional ears, representing the sound of thoughts and imaginative interpretation. this is all in all a form of "writing," but more specific or abstract. i'm not sure.

i couldn't help but note that last week, on i think wednesday, maggi wore a junior mints shirt while dude in the front row (justin?) cheerfully freshened his mouth with that of the shirt. ha.

my classes are coinciding.

every day will i be appearing here as an actor,
every day will i mark the moments of sacred.
every day will i away to the river in the green.

i like this one a lot:
then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
and do not drop in for an afterloss.
ah, do not, when my heart hath scaped this sorrow,
come in the rearward of a conquered woe;
give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
to linger out a purposed overthrow.
if thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
when other petty griefs have done their spite,
but in the onset come: so shall i taste
at first the very worst of fortune's might;
and other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
compared with loss of thee will not seem so.

allow me to begin by saying how enthralled i am about having hamlet for my personal play. that makes me very happy. so happy that i might cry. although, as said, "first love never leaves," hamlet was not my first but will never mean nothing to me. every run through, or reference, or quote, makes me either tear up or simply sigh. the play, the world in which shakespeare has created to express such undefined existential doctrines, is so close to home.

i'm happy about it.

next, i'd like to say that this indeed is my first shakespeare entry, and i'm pleased to be doing it at this moment before i go to sleep. i think that, under all conditions, this journal will be better than my past sexson ejournal. i will likely post more notes and interpretations. so look out.

today we experienced the methods of mimi. i had fun. however, i was not funnied when she ran out of time. i thought much of her lecture. i was unable to sit in on gretchen mitchium's (sp) class, but i still can confidently declare that these people aren't just well-educated and devoted, but inspirational for people like me.

here are some excerpts from my notebook:
proof of venice's realities:
pounds of flesh (life)
judgment (cruelties)
water/venetian canals (source)
money (greed/flaw)
belmont's mysticism:
love, chivalry
the yellow hues of color i get when i think about it
music (opposite of waht shylock can tolerant)
heavenly qualities b/c of portia's wit and beauty

*king lear takes place in a fairytale world when it is under siege, deconstruction. it is being attacked by outside realities of which the inhabitants never dreamed.

*i need to watch an american werewolf in paris

a reserved, gentle yet assertive leader of the gang sits in a dark pub with three friends. after the number of ale consumption is lost, the gentleman, interrupting his boasting friends, maximizes his thoughts and declares that his ideal lady, so un-goddess-like, is better than their pretty ones simply b/c the attributes which make her a body, are traits to come by once in a thousand years. only the luck of the wind and waves can bring a soul to love's content.

blazon only physical descriptions during a poetic attempt

will=willful
will=to do at some point in time
will=strength
will=william

each phrase in the end couplet serves to attach love to the different meanings of will.

i feel the spring.