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December 29, 2005
reading glasses and then some...
i have purchased my first pair of reading glasses.
let's think on that for a moment. reading glasses...
and these aren't prescription glasses. these are the kind of glasses that you pick up from a rack in the drugstore. i'm wearing them now. very cute, of course, and very useful. have to admit it: i need them.
is this one of the signs of getting older? readings glasses and strands of gray hair...
in february, i typed up the 10 things i missed and didn't miss about the south. i've decided to take the 10-things idea and look at getting older.
10 things i appreciate about getting older
1. having more patience (although i'm sure there are those who would argue otherwise)
2. becoming more comfortable with me
3. seeing the world more clearly
4. mastering cooking
5. dispensing advise about things i learned the hard way
6. not bumping my head so much
7. more listening, less talking
8. eating healthier
9. drinking more water
10. learning to resist umbrellas
10 things i don't appreciate about getting older
1. having bad knees
2. not having any kids yet
3. not being able to shake it like i used to (i used to be able to stay on the dance floor all nite; after one good "drop it like it's hot," i'm done)
4. still not being financially stable (grad school will do that to you)
5. my parents are getting older, too
6. feeling like time's slipping away
7. not being carded
8. needing more rest
9. reese is getting older, too
10. the world doesn't seem to be changing much
all of this from my first pair of reading glasses...
poem for the day
"The Bean Eaters"
Gwendolyn Brooks
They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.
Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.
And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.
Posted by emnorris at 06:15 AM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2005
after Christmas, before New Year's, away from Syracuse
i spent my first Christmas morning alone...it was a long morning. but it got better because friends came thru for dinner. we ate and watched the first harry potter. that movie always makes me think about Christmas. another milestone: this is the first Christmas that my family didn't screen "a Christmas story." i really think that that may be the best Christmas movie ever.
i flew out to st. louis the day after Christmas to meet the rest of my family. it's been years since i've seen a lot of my extended family. last night, we talked and played games and laughed. more of the same to follow until i leave on friday.
but getting here was a trip. the first leg of my flight was delayed an hour in syracuse. the trip from pittsburg to st. louis was terrible. the temperature on the plane was too hot. the person i was sitting next to keep touching me. he continually crossed the divide between the two seats. and normally, i'm not petty about that stuff. i recognize that there isn't lots of room and that we all have to be patient. but i felt like he felt like he had a right to extra space. so i was hot and pissy. but i am here--safe with my family.
but, before that terrible pittsburg/st. louis trip, during my one hour in the syracuse airport, i read brokeback mountain by annie proulx. i know this sounds cliche, but i'll say it anyway: i couldn't stop reading. it's getting a lot of hype these days because the movie was recently released. (last i checked, it still wasn't showing in syracuse...now what's that about?) it was a marvelous short story, a welcomed break from the reading i've been doing for my exams. i don't want to write much about it because i'm trying to hold onto the magic. the last time i felt this way about a story was the green mile by stephen king. for whatever else folks may say about king, i think he's one of the greats at character development. at the conclusion of that book, i was so connected to those characters that i cried. cried because of what happened to john, cried because the story was over. i just cried. and, after all the books that i've read, the green mile was the first time i ever cried. isn't that something? i wonder why. and even after reading brokeback mountain, i didn't cry. i closed the book and sat there, looking out of the window, wanting the story to continue but aching for it to end. even as i type this entry, i take breaks to stare at the ceiling, hoping that my reaction to the book will come to me. there's sadness...but something else.
i'm haunted by a line from one of the characters:
"...i wish i knew how to quit you."
my translation: "i don't know how to be without you."
what does that mean to not be able to be without someone? something? it seems to me that that kind of pain stretches to the horizon, like the Wyoming sky. it bites like the winter wind and snow falling sideways. and, simultaneously, it is the sweet smell of broken grass. it is supple and strong. it is...
poem for the day
"Conditions XIV"
Essex Hemphill
You left me begging for things
most men thought they had below their belts.
I was reaching higher.
I could throw my legs up like satellites
but I knew I was fucking fallen angels.
I made them feel like demigods.
I believed my mission
to be a war zone duty:
don't create casualties,
heal them.
But I was the wounded
almost dead.
Helping the uninjured.
Men whose lusty hearts
weakened in the middle of the night
and brought them to tears, to their knees
for their former lovers.
They could look at me and tell
they did not want to endure
what beauty love scars give me.
So touch me now --
Hannibal, Toussaint.
I am a revolution without bloodshed.
I change the order of things
to suit my desperations.
You can raise your legs,
almost touch heaven.
I can be an angel,
falling.
Posted by emnorris at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2005
taking a break to search for redemption
sitting in my office, reading and responding to student presentations. and i just decided that i needed a break so here i am, blogging. although, i'll have to admit that i've had plenty of mini-breaks in the almost 4 hours that i've been here...feels like i won't ever get done.
so much has happened since my last post. stanley "tookie" williams lost his plea for clemency, and richard pryor lost to a heart attack. at some point, i'll get myself together enough to blog about richard's passing. i'm still sorting stuff out...
however, i've been thinking a lot about redemption...
my sister called me the nite that tookie was executed, and we had a long conversation about redemption--how does it happen? or perhaps the better question is does it ever happen? these two questions have particular relevance when we talk about tookie. he is credited with being a founding member of the crips and was found guilty of first-degree murder--he killed four people although he never admitted guilt and maintained his innocence until the moment they injected him with enough chemicals to make his heart stop. during his imprisonment, he denounced gang violence, wrote children's books about the ills of gang involvement, and was nominated for the nobel peace prize. but all of those good deeds weren't enough for the governator...and i would imagine that those good deeds did not bring any comfort to the families who lost their loved ones--albert owens, yen-i yang, tsai-shai chen yang, yu-chin yang lin.
had tookie been redeemed? did his redemption erase his crimes of the past? can we be redeemed if we sanction state-sponsored murder?
i do believe that redemption is possible. i believe in our power to forgive and to be forgiven. to believe otherwise would mean that things aren't going to get any better.
lyrics for the day
"Redemption Song"
Bob Marley
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book
Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs
Posted by emnorris at 04:18 AM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2005
here we go again...and again...and again
this is the problem with hilltv...
i believe in the right to free speech, i do. but damn...
thought for the day
The Raft Is Not The Shore
Thich Nhat Hanh
One tries to recover, to be once more in good shape, to become whole again...And I think that is the beginning of awakening. People speak about sudden enlightenment. It is not something very difficult to understand; each of us has undergone that kind of experience in our own life. The distance separating forgetfulness, ignorance, and enlightenment--that distance is short; it is so short it is no distance at all. One may be ignorant now, but he can be enlightened in the next second. The recovering of oneself can be realized in just one portion of one second. And to be aware of who we are, what we are, what we are doing, what we are thinking, seems to be a very easy thing to do--and yet it is the most important thing; to remember--the starting point of the salvation of oneself.
Posted by emnorris at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2005
say what i wanna say
i've been thinking a lot about what i can say, share, reveal in this space. the private/public split and all that jazz. so, i've been thinking about saying what i wanna say regardless. not to trip about who may read this...
this week, the supreme court will hear ayotte v planned parenthood of northern new england.
"if the new hampshire law is upheld, states will feel free to more aggressively circumscribe the ability of women and girls to legally end a pregnancy. but if the justices vote to nullify the measure, courts and state legislatures will be obliged to weigh whether abortion restrictions would harm or pose an undue burden on women; a nullification of the new hampshire law would also force state abortion restrictions to include exceptions that protect the health of women."
"abortion wars, once again"
u.s. news & world report, 5 december 2005
"to leave that country before the job is done would be to hand that country to car bombers...when the united states of america makes a committment, we keep our word...this is a very, very important piece of history that we're living through."
vice president dick cheney
fort drum, new york, 5 december 2005
so, between these two things, along with a story on "talk of the nation" about the current state of gay marriage across the globe, i've been doing quite a bit of thinking about what i hold dear, what i believe...
i believe in a woman's right to choose--either way.
i believe that it's been time to leave iraq.
i believe that don't ask, don't tell is bullshit.
i believe that every life lost in iraq is a reason to grieve.
i believe that lindsey lohan is so over-rated.
i believe that kanye was right.
i believe that a homosexual priest can serve with as much faith, love, and dedication as a straight priest.
i believe that wolf blitzer, william bennett, and the producers of hilltv should be ashamed of themselves.
i believe in Christmas.
i believe that the first dumbledore was the best.
i believe that we all gotta swim upstream.
poem for the day
"A Poet Is Not A Jukebox"
Dudley Randall
A poet is not a jukebox, so don't tell me what to write.
I read a dear friend a poem about love, and she said,
"You're into that bag now, for whatever it's worth,
But why don't you write about the riot in Miami?"
I didn't write about Miami because I didn't know about Miami.
Iv'e been so busy working for the Census, and listening to music all night,
and making poems
That I've broken my haibt of watching TV and reading newspapers.
So it wasn't absence of Black Pride that caused me not to write about Miami,
But simple ignorance.
Telling a Black poet what he ought to write
Is like some Commissar of Culture in Russia telling a poet
He'd better write about the new steel furnances in the Novobigorsk region,
Or the heroic feats of Soviet labor in digging the trans-Caucausus Canal,
Or the unprecedented achievement of workers in the sugar beet industry
who exceeded their quota by 400 per cent (it was later discoverd to be a typist's error)
Maybe the Russian poet is watching his mother die of cancer,
Or is bleeding from an unhappy love affair,
Or is bursting with happiness and wants to sing of wine, roses, and nightingales
I'll bet in a hundred years the poems the Russian people will read, sing, and love
Will be the poems about his mother's death, his unfaithful mistress, or his wine, roses, and nightingales,
Not the poems about steel furnaces, the trans-Caucausus Canal, or the sugar beet industry.
A poet writes about what he feels, what agitates his heart and sets his pen in motion.
Not what some apparatchnik dictates, to promote his own career of theories.
Yeah, maybe I'll write about Miami, as I wrote about Birmingham,
But it'll be because I want to write about Miami, not because somebody
says I ought to.
Yeah, I write about love. What's wrong--with love?
If we had more loving, we'd have more Black babies to become Black brothers and sisters and build the Black family.
When people love, they bathe with sweet-smelling soap, splash their bodies with perfume or cologne,
Shave, and comb their hair, and put on gleaming silken garments,
Speak softly and kindly and study their beloved to anticipate and satisfy her every desire.
After loving they're relaxed and happy and friends with all the world.
What's wrong with love, beauty, joy, or peace?
If Josephine had given Napoleon more loving, he wouldn't have sown the meadows of Europe with skulls.
If Hitler had been happy in love, he wouldn't have baked people in ovens.
So don't tell me it's trivial and a cop-out to write about love and not about Miami.
A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
I repeat, A poet is not a jukebox for someone to shove a quarter in his ear and get the tune they want to hear,
Or to pat on the head and call "a good little Revolutionary,"
Or to give a Kuumba Liberation Award.
A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
So don't tell me what to write.
Posted by emnorris at 03:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2005
snowing in syracuse
i've been waiting for the snow. and i never thought i'd hear myself say that, but it's true. we didn't have hardly any snow in november, but finally, in the first week of december, it's here.
i'm so thankful that the semester is coming to a close. i've been all over the place. and now that the holidays are approaching, i'm feeling kinda anxious. i've gotta figure out how to spend my time. a little time here and a little time wears me out. divorce and blended families.
a dear friend of mine lost her mother right before thanksgiving, and the memorial service was this afternoon. actually, it wasn't a memorial service per se as much as it was a celebration of her life. friends and loved ones gathered to share happy stories. as i was listening and looking around the room, my thoughts were with my father. and i guess these kinds of things make you think about those kinds of things, right? it's been hard for me these past few years being so far away from my father. if i haven't told you about him, stick around. you'll hear plenty about the most wonderful dad in the whole universe. i don't guess i'm any different from any other daddy's girl. the idea of my father's passing saddens me. and every time i go home to visit, he's gotten a little older. watching him age has been most difficult. and i don't know if i'm responding to his aging or responding to his response to his aging. he always tells me: "growing old ain't no fun." he's got bad knees from years of pitching fast-pitch softball. starting a business after retiring from 31 years in the military has done its toll. he's just getting old. makes me wonder about the choices i've made. was this the time for graduate school? should i have left the family business? will i have kids in time for them to know their grandfather? i don't know.
a lot of my anxiety stems from my fear of not being able to take care of myself. dad and i were talking the other day and laughing about the fact that today, at 33 years old, i still call my dad about any major decision. for instance, i just bought my 1st laptop. i had dad on my cell phone and was relaying the messages from the best-buy representative. i could not buy a laptop without his direct input. if my dad thinks it's a bad idea, chances are i won't do it. my other brothers and sisters aren't like that. i mean they'll seek dad's advice, but not in the way that i do. talking in circles again. i'm working thru lots of stuff. and i've been trying to figure out a way to be there for my friend and to let her know that i'm here.
just finished reading The Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman by Michele Wallace. my mind has been spinning since i started reading that book. i don't even know where to start. let me marinate on it for a few days...
poem for the day
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
Langston Hughes
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Posted by emnorris at 03:56 AM | Comments (0)