Sentimentality

Sentimentality is not an uncommon feeling for me. I embrace it, as a matter of fact. I stalk it. I sit on its front steps and wait for it to come home so I can beg for more. (Creepiest metaphor I've ever come up with. Sorry.)

The point is, I often do things just because they seem romantic to me. Just because, I suppose, I've read about them in a book somewhere down the line.

So it shouldn't surprise you that on December 11th, 2011, following my last Ultimate training in Austria, I had an emotional walk home. It was a long walk, too; down a lane lined with trees and bordered by fields. There were mountains in the distance. I trudged along, past families out for their Sunday strolls, couples heading for the Christmas Market at Hellbrunn, and equestrians guiding their horses gingerly around the walkers. I was thinking, as I walked, about my frisbee playing, and how it was the very last thing I expected to be doing in Europe, and how it was also the best. I began to make up a poem in my head. Sometimes when I do this I don't write the poem down; I tell myself I'll copy it out later, and then I never do. On December 11th, however, I veered off the path, found a curb to perch on, leaned my back into the late Fall sunshine, and wrote my poem on a scrap of paper I found in my backpack.

Here it is, not fancy or fine, but small, and dripping with the sentimentality I can't help but adore:

I love the feeling of throwing a frisbee,
of knowing as soon as your wrist releases
and the disc leaves the curl of your hand
that no matter which direction it goes,
it will fly straight
and without a wobble.

December 11th, 2011
Hellbrunn, Salzburg, Austria

Welcome to Finals Week

Welcome to Finals Week.
This semester, it is comprised of cigarette smoke wafting in from the hallway
mixing with the raspberry in my tea.
This semester, I pore over my German book,
leaving International Conflicts
(Oh blessed easy class)
for tomorrow morning.
This semester means no music for the 1 a.m. student
The pounding headache is enough
And there are some verbs that even Paul McCartney
can't conjugate.
This semester is looking around and wondering, once again,
how things will look next time.
And how oh how will everything fit in my suitcase
And how do I get more people to follow me on Twitter?
This semester creeps to a close, me teetering on the edge between night and dawn
Still studying,
Trying not to think that in a few days
I'll be standing on American soil again
And my parents will be there to greet me
In English.

In Which My Prodigal Claim is Proved False

When I was in 1st or 2nd grade, I wrote the following composition on a piece of 1st or 2nd grade practice paper (you know, that tissue-thin stuff with the blue and red lines designed so that every laboriously-created letter could have a guiding mark?):

What is once loved.
You will find.
Is always yours.
Take it home.
In your mind.
And nothing ever can take it away.

I still have that piece of paper with the above words printed upon it, and while at times I've felt proud of those strangely poetic words, mostly, I've had the sneaking suspicious that I stole them.

Not on purpose, of course, but at that age, everything is about recitation and imitation. That's the only way to learn, really.

So today of all days I decided to do a Google hunt and see if I could find "my" poem under someone else's name.

Here's what I found, at the bottom of a chapter of Harry Potter fanfic, of all places:

"What is once loved, you will find, is always yours from that day.
Take it home, in your mind, and nothing ever can take it away."
- Elizabeth Coatsworth

And then I did a search for Elizabeth Coatsworth, and found this:
http://www.oldchildrensbooks.com/collectors-corner/authors/elizabeth-coatsworth

She was a children's book author, which of course makes sense; If I had stolen that verse from somewhere, it would have been from a book. Even back then, I was a ridiculous reader.

It also occurs to me, however, that maybe I didn't steal this verse on my own; one of my teachers could have printed it on the board for everyone to copy.

But then again, what if that wasn't it? What if it wasn't even an assigned, or an unconscious theft? What if we were asked to write something, and I, well aware that my composition was unoriginal, scrawled it out anyway? Holly Gruntner: violating copyrights since 1998.

The world may never know.

I guess I'm glad this mystery is finally (mostly) solved, but I'm a little sad at the same time.

I would have liked to have been a child prodigy.

Each in His Own Tongue

Here's a poem for you, because I love it, and because I have so much to say tonight that I'm having trouble writing it down:

Each in His Own Tongue, by William Herbert Carruth

A fire-mist and a planet,--
A crystal and a cell,--
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
And a face turned from the clod,--
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high,--
And all over the upland and lowland
The charm of the goldenrod,--
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in,--
Come from the mystic ocean
Whose rim no foot has trod,--
Some of us call it longing,
And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,--
A mother starved for her brood,--
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathways plod,--
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.

Broken Glass

What does broken glass mean?
Is it the beginning of something, or is it the ending?
I’m sure I don’t know.
I only know that it was a cappuccino bottle that broke, one of those little ones that come in six packs like they’re beers.
I didn’t even notice the bottle until it fell from a desk in the middle of lecture,
Sending crystal shards tumbling to all corners of the room.
The prof stopped speaking, which surprised me;
I’ve seen them push through cell phone rings
Through whispering
Through endless coughing fits
The broken glass did it, though.
Again, what does that mean?

Jon was up in a minute, slouch left at his desk,
Keeping his place in his open anthology.
He began to pluck dripping pieces of glass from the tile with his fingertips,
Crouching in front of the prof,
Who I think was trying to make a joke.

The girl who spilled was out the door by then.
I didn’t realize until later that she had cut her hand on a piece of her own former bottle.
Which might be ironic.

Something about the way Jon knelt and gingerly picked shining shards from their caffeinated graves
Made me jump up and offer to fetch a broom.
Will mumbled something about checking the Humanities Lounge
But I didn’t waste any time.
The lady in the Division Office showed me the janitor’s closet, and handed me broom and dustpan.
She was very kind.

Prof still wasn’t lecturing, which was still strange, but I supposed
That it would have been more awkward to sweep through American Indian Writers,
To scrape glass to the beat of Sherman Alexie.
I read a book once with a heroine who didn’t know how to sweep.
She had to be taught, and of course it was pretty romantic, because the boy who taught her was in love with her.
But how funny to not know how to sweep.
I’ve always hated it because you can never get all the dust
Or all the glass.
No matter how hard you try, there will be a line of dirt left when you are done
Particles too fine to be flipped into the dustpan.

Today I see no glass glittering in the corners.
Jon’s back in his seat,
And I’m back in mine,
And the prof is speaking again.
And all I can think is how strange of a morning that morning was,
And how it certainly must mean something.
But for all the drafts I’ve made of this narrative,
For all the deep romance and tragedy I’ve tried to pull from it,
I can’t decide if it’s only beginning to mean something because I want it to
Or if it was nothing from the beginning.

Lenten Resolution Revealed (among other things)

This morning I sat in Turtle Mountain Cafe, reading Langston Hughes, eating my breakfast yogurt, and sipping a hot chocolate that would have tasted better had I not witnessed the worker making it. She dumped a few scoops of powder into hot water and stirred it around. No whipped cream or anything. So much for Fat Tuesday.

I'm giving up chocolate for Lent (and any admiration for my sacrifice is much appreciated-I think chocolate is probably the hardest thing I can possibly give up, save reading, which would not even be realistic), so I thought I'd better get as much in as I can while I can. Will eat a Kit Kat later as well.

I've also been dreaming of Spring Break. 1 exam, 1 four page paper, and 3 days are all that stand between me and home.

Sometimes People Die

Because The Cold has suddenly morphed into something much more sinister, and because said sinister sickness has a severe sucking effect on my ability to craft cleverly creative posts (although it apparently has no impact on my annoying alliteration), I'm just going to give you a conversation that I heard a few weeks ago in American Literature:

C: (slow, 9:15 a.m. voice) "So last night, I had just gotten done reading Grass (Carl Sandburg), and I found out my Grandma died."
T: (stupidly, because how do you react to such news?) "Really? Oh I'm sorry!"
C: "It's okay...sometimes people die."

Sometimes people die.

Sometimes people die of trifling colds that have them prostrate with fever one day and shaking with coughs the next. Sometimes people die of endlessly blogging instead of studying for American Lit tests they have tomorrow. Or German tests they have tomorrow as well. Sometimes people die of excitement for Spring Break, or of delight found in a certain Plathy book, or even of hyperbole. Sometimes people die from holding grudges too long (I think they explode), or from indecision regarding what to give up for Lent. Sometimes people die of curiosity about death (or do they really die from the irony of it all?). Sometimes people die when vengeful blog readers get fed up with absurdly awesome alliteration.

It happens.

I Carry Your Heart With Me

A few things I've done today:

1. Took a German test (horrific. I was so tired last night, and the Nyquil was kicking in, and I just stopped caring about dative verbs. It happens, although I certainly hope I get my act together for the next test)

2. Walked to Subway with my roommate for dinner. The girl behind the counter was quite chatty: "You know Andrea broke up with her boyfriend of 2 months and she called in to say she couldn't work. When I broke up with my boyfriend of 2 and a half years I worked every single day!"

Can I just have my Italian BMT please?

3. Played intramural volleyball. We had an off night, which was really okay. The not so okay part was two members of our team being poor sports and huffing off the court afterwards like they wanted nothing to do with the rest of us. If there's anything I've learned playing sports, it's that any loss (or win) is a culmination of events. Bad serves, missed blocks, out-of-bounds spikes, etc. It's incredibly unfortunate when people choose to point fingers and dwell on individual plays.

4. Went to community council, which was interesting and fairly heated as usual. I spoke up against spending money on things like paint-your-own-piggy-banks and tie-dye-shirts, and was instead in favor of using our money for something more permanent, like lamps or chairs or a Blu-Ray player. I don't think I made a whole lot of friends at that meeting.


I guess this hasn't been a very Valentine-y post, but here's a Valentine-y poem I found to love things up a bit:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-E.E. Cummings (I Carry Your Heart With Me)

In Just Winter

In just Winter
The world smells like ham and cheese sandwiches
which I notice as I walk from class
Past the table where Dom sells
truffles
and love poems
for Valentine's Day
and I keep my head down
because I promised to buy one
and I haven't.
I used to pick the melty cheese
off the sandwiches we had at school
and eat just bread,
wincing as I encountered some American
I had missed.
Past the igloo on the mall
soft and melty
the entrance a black hole with mush surrounding
I never went in, you know?
Mom used to tell me not to make snow forts like that
because they can collapse
and crush you into suffocating whiteness.
I was only allowed to dig a little bit into the plowed snow
at the edge of the driveway, making a half cave
that barely concealed my sled and I.
It's just Winter
and the world is of softening snow
and ham and cheese sandwiches.
Someone asked me why I didn't say anything in American Lit.
Her name might have been Brittany or Angela.
I said I just didn't feel like it.
How does one explain
that the soggy world outside
(even as it dissolves into nothing)
means more today
(as it drips to nothing)
than even F. Scott Fitzgerald?

No More Winter Dreams

Today my American Literature professor called Ernest Hemingway a "crazy genius bastard."
And I have to say, that even after an unfortunate experience with The Sun Also Rises, I agree with her.

We're finishing the Modernists this week and retreating back to Dickinson. I don't want to go back to Dickinson. I want to stay with the Modernists! Nothing against dear Emily, but I studied her last semester as well, and two consecutive semesters of depressing, abstract, randomly-dashed poetry is too much for me.

On top of that, because we spent the first 15 minutes of today's class discussing E.E. Cummings' Buffalo Bill, we lost time discussing Hemingway's Snows of Kilimanjaro. And since in order to give Ernest his due we'll have to pick up on Snows on Friday, F. Scott Fitzgerald (who was supposed to commandeer all of Friday) is instead being cut down to one story.

As you may have guessed, the main reason I was so excited for this class over Christmas was because of F. Scott. And now he's being pared down to Babylon Revisited. Winter Dreams are discarded until further notice (perhaps forever) to make way for Snow (on a mountain in Africa that is no longer snow covered, according to the footnotes in my Norton (thank you global warning)).

The Hollow Men

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.***

I'm sorry, Mr. Eliot. I don't feel hollow. I don't feel stuffed (except after a weekend at home, away from Food Service). I feel alive, I feel fluid, I feel happy. And I don't wish to look outside at the swirling snow
And the people walking by
In big coats and shapeless hats
And to think to myself
This is nothing.
I'm an English major, Mr. Eliot.
I'm going to Austria this fall.
I'm twenty years old, but not quite grown up.
My life is big.
And I'm sorry, but I simply don't feel hollow.

***From T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"

Early Morning Breakthrough

This you should know about me: I'm kind of bad at talking about literature. At least, I'm bad at talking about literature in class.

Today, however, today was a breakthrough.

We're studying Carl Sandburg in class. I love Carl Sandburg. He writes poetry the way I think I would write poetry if I had sufficient talent in the area.

Anyway, here's the poem we were talking about ("Child of the Romans"):

THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track
Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.
A train whirls by, and men and women at tables
Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,
Eat steaks running with brown gravy,
Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.
The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,
Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,
And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day's work
Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils
Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases
Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.

And all of the sudden, while staring at this poem, sweat dripping down the back of my neck, hoping to goodness the professor wouldn't call on me, I got it. I was pulling out patterns and symbols and random observations like there was no tomorrow.

I guess "Child of the Romans" is kind of an obvious poem, but it was a proud moment for me nonetheless. I think I'm officially an English major now.

Some Winter Scenery

A street lamp flickers across the way
Throwing orange flames onto black,
night-draped snow.
I look up from my book
And stare for awhile,
With the look (I suppose) of someone
Who is looking at something
And thinking of something else.
Then, with a snap I can't hear
The lamp goes out,
And I continue to blink into thin air.

Everybody Likes Walt Whitman

I never read any Walt Whitman until just weeks ago-in the first semester of my sophomore year of college. I had heard of him before then, but my impression was rather blurry; when I thought about Walt Whitman, I imagined a huge, bearded man walking around Civil War battlefields, looking stoutly on the aftermath of bloody skirmishes, and then going home to his white farmhouse to sit by his fire and write poetry about what he had seen.

I knew he was The Great American Poet, but that knowledge was perhaps why I've avoided him until now; I tend to vainly shy away from things that everybody likes, preferring instead to seek out the little-known, the unusual. I thought Walt Whitman's poetry would be brilliant, but worn out. I thought that years of praise and criticism and analysis would dull his words on the page for me.

The first Walt Whitman poem I read was assigned in my American Literature class. The poem was "Song of Myself."
Daunted by the length, I initially decided to skim, turning pages swiftly and without interest. But then a stanza caught my eye, and I found myself really reading. Quickly flipping back to the beginning, I proceeded to read the entire 52 section poem aloud to myself.

I think I now know why 'everybody likes' Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman stands in the middle of a vast, empty field blowing up a balloon. As the balloon expands, it begins to encompass nearby trees and a creek rippling a few miles away. The balloon grows still larger, and soon it encompasses farm houses, children playing, animals, and then entire towns, roads, lakes, forests, cities, clouds. Everything is operating with a deafening roar inside that one balloon, and the roar only grows as the balloon does. Ladies chatter at their tea, trains hum along their endless tracks, crowds cheer after lines of racing horses. People are born and live and die inside Walt Whitman's balloon, trudging along while entirely unaware that they are a part of one man, and that he is a part of them. Walt Whitman knows, though. He knows that he is the barking dog and the coal miner and the giant sequoia tree. Walt Whitman walks the Civil War battlefields and and writes in a farmhouse by a fire and feels always the slightly uncomfortable tug of the entire universe.

1 a.m. Guitar

It's about 1 in the morning
And someone next door
is playing on a guitar
something that sounds Italian
or perhaps Spanish.
She continues to stop and start
trying to reach a difficult chord, maybe
but I don't mind.
I sit in the quiet in my room
listen to my roommate breathe
listen to the guitar
next door
and suddenly
finals seem very very small
the world is small
compared to the cold night
the soft guitar
and me.

Life is Beautiful

Did anyone ever tell you that life is beautiful?
It's beautiful when it snows
when you meet someone new
and it's as if
you've known them forever
and you walk home
through the flakes
smiling.

An Unexpected Poem

While dutifully reading an uninteresting (to me) essay for my Understanding Writing class, I found this lovely poem at the very end:

To My Colleagues in the Field

And when that certain grounder
skips blur-white
across clipped June grass

and I move quickly but fumble it
the ball popping into the air before my eyes
I need you moving to cover second

timing my work while the ball's between us
ready to take my toss
tap the bag in stride

and wheel your own true throw to first
in time
you and I will teach the world

to collaborate

Tom Romano
The University of New Hampshire

A Book I'll Probably Write

I spun as soon as I saw him,
hissed to Maddie and to King:
"I'm not going to sit across the table from him and pretend that everything's normal.
I can't."
Stomped down the stairs
Sat down on the first floor
Abnormally, by myself.
King and Maddie followed
Seated themselves across from me,
good friends they are.
I calmed down shortly,
knowing, perhaps, that this wasn't my battle to fight.

I know this about myself: Sometimes I fight other people's battles just for a chance to fight at all.

But it felt personal to me.
I saw the disappointment on Tim's face, the bewilderment on King's.
These are my friends. They're being treated badly by someone.
Fight.

"He's moving out," King said, "he's packing gradually."
"Moving to the apartments to live with Derek and Luke."
Don't say anything, Holly (his face said).
We both knew it was coming.
We knew we wouldn't have him for much longer.

I can see myself writing a book about him in a couple of years.
A book about a boy that I was friends with freshman year, that I fought with sophomore year
A boy I'm not sure I ever really knew at all.

I don't know if I'm sad because I'm losing a friend
or because for once I've found someone I can't read.
And he'll be gone before I get to try again.

I'll see him around campus at first, I'm sure,
haunting the HFA like another musical ghost
thumping the piano in various practice rooms.
Then climbing the stairs with folder clasped tightly beneath arm
Bursting past me through the doors
And out into the night.

He'll transfer early, perhaps,
or graduate with the rest of us.
I'll watch his back as he walks away with his family
I'll wonder if I'll ever see him again
I'll know I probably won't.

Yes, someday I'll certainly write a book
About the boy I almost knew.

Remember Remember the 5th of November

This is what it feels like to be a girl left out.
This is what if feels like to thump up 4 flights, to meet friends going down, on their way.
This is what it feels like to miss out on a movie you've always wanted to see because of a job.
A job you love, don't get me wrong, but a Friday night job that leaves you stranded behind a desk.
That leaves you either watching episodes of Glee or Project Runway or Survivor.
Or doing homework, but only sometimes.
This is what it feels like to see the boy you like walking in as you walk out.
To wonder if he wonders if you're the kind of girl who doesn't like movies (you're not).
If you're the kind of girl who doesn't like the rush of excitement, the plush-but-uncomfortable seats, the dimming of lights.
If you're the kind of girl who's left out.
But you do, and you're not.
Except for tonight, when you are left out because the movie starts at 9, and you work at 9:50.
You are the kind of girl who can't stand to see only bits and pieces of movies at a time.
It's all or nothing with you.
This is what it feels like to thump up to a dark dorm room, to sit down at a computer (alone), and to type a semi-poem about what if feels like to be left out.
This is Friday night.
Remember Remember the 5th of November.
This is what it feels like to be left out.

A B- Day

I am sitting
under the stairs
in the library
typing a paper
that should have been done
last night.
dead flies rest
upside down
near my feet
and I know if I
move
I'll hear a crunch
of dried wings
under shoe.

It's a B- day
and I don't have time
to wonder if I can do it
I simply have to.

At dinner I looked around
Forks meeting faces
Food disappearing
despite complaints.
I needed, right then,
for someone to make my day
somehow.

Then I realized
that tonight
I have to make my day
for myself.

Under the stairs,
in the library,
dead flies looking on
keys clicking clicking
echoing off
the underside of the stairs.

Tonight
I'll make my own day.