Lately
When it rains
It really rains
I mean
It pours
Truth
Lies
Drink
Tears
N'importé quoi.
Falling apart
Maybe
Is
Knitting
Newly together
Or maybe
Not.
You're crazy.
Crazy bored
Crazy lonely
Crazy lovesick.
France.
It's a dream
A hoot in hell.
Ah
But how beautiful
Is hell.
Devils?
Elsewhere.
Broken
Or not
Who knows.
It doesn't rain
Not in
San
Diego
But
In Santa Cruz
Also
No.
Only without.
Leave
Really really really
Leave.
Can't.
Come home.
No such thing.
Lately
When it rains
It's inside
Your
Two
Waters.
Showing posts with label venting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label venting. Show all posts
Monday, May 30, 2016
Thursday, March 31, 2016
AKA I'm Cold
Sometimes the wind blows outside like it's trying to break in. Once I stared outside and imagined a woman scratching at the glass, shrieking and howling like a ghoul. It reminds me of Ireland, especially when it's also raining.
Already this place with its moody skies and sullen clouds feels suspiciously like home. I have come to know the cold winds that blow like spurned women, and the emerald grass that grows stubbornly despite the snow. The sun comes out from time to time, and suddenly sweaters are pushed up past the elbows. People wear shorts in 50 degrees, which is so strange to me.
Those are the good days. Sometimes weeks on gray weeks go by and I feel that a part of me withers as it shivers. The cold and snow really aren't that bad, although they tell me that this Winter has been uncharacteristically mild (woe is me), but snows have a way of making me forget how to speak. It blankets the persistent grass, and it blankets my mind. Curiously, softly, languidly.
I do like bursting through doors and unwinding my scarf, unbuttoning my coat, shrugging it off. I like to bring the clean scent of cold in with me, letting it roll off me in waves, smelling it cling to my hair and my hands. Days like these, I can feel my face growing longer, my skin shrinking from exposure.
I do not welcome this. And yet it touches me. This incessant gray moves me strangely, and not like the glass-shard gray of Irish seas. I go numb here, I think.
It is good I am here. But someday I will be always beneath sun and salt.
Already this place with its moody skies and sullen clouds feels suspiciously like home. I have come to know the cold winds that blow like spurned women, and the emerald grass that grows stubbornly despite the snow. The sun comes out from time to time, and suddenly sweaters are pushed up past the elbows. People wear shorts in 50 degrees, which is so strange to me.
Those are the good days. Sometimes weeks on gray weeks go by and I feel that a part of me withers as it shivers. The cold and snow really aren't that bad, although they tell me that this Winter has been uncharacteristically mild (woe is me), but snows have a way of making me forget how to speak. It blankets the persistent grass, and it blankets my mind. Curiously, softly, languidly.
I do like bursting through doors and unwinding my scarf, unbuttoning my coat, shrugging it off. I like to bring the clean scent of cold in with me, letting it roll off me in waves, smelling it cling to my hair and my hands. Days like these, I can feel my face growing longer, my skin shrinking from exposure.
I do not welcome this. And yet it touches me. This incessant gray moves me strangely, and not like the glass-shard gray of Irish seas. I go numb here, I think.
It is good I am here. But someday I will be always beneath sun and salt.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Remembering Casablanca in Syracuse
Today snow fell in large clumps and it was strange. I am well used to snow by now, but still I ran and exclaimed jubilantly at the blemishes I made in what was smooth and white. We spun with our tongues out and roared when we caught some wayward snowflakes.
It is very late, so likely there will be less sense and more truth in what I am saying. I opened this document with the vague notion that I ought write about my experiences on my home campus, and also that I wanted to explain my little poem a little. It is not my intention to say anything against Casablanca, or Morocco, or Africa. My poem, however flawed, captures honestly how I felt in the moments after it all happened.
I did cry, and I did hate those men. I never thought of the difficulty of their situations, how the economic disparity created desperation that forced crime rates to rise. The iPhones they stole could buy groceries for months. I had 400 durham in the bag one man tore from my shoulder, but that is nothing. Forty euros, maybe. Funnily enough, I remember adding that little bag and its contents to my list of grievances. It cost me 9 euros, a not-quite-impulse buy from an H&M in Place Kleber. It was black, and the perfect size for going out. I still can't understand why its loss bothered me so much. It was as if the fact of taking it from me was stripping me of an externally imposed femininity that I held to nonetheless.
The man was small and nondescript. I never even saw his face, although he took little care to hide it from me. He hit me across the ribs with his crowbar- hard enough to bruise, but I knew immediately that they weren't broken. When he saw that I wasn't fighting back, he grabbed the bag, gave a jerk, and took off, the cheap strap flapping absurdly behind him. I watched him go. I don't know why I didn't try to run. I turned and watched another crowbar descend on my friend. I heard the thud as it hit her between her shoulder blades. Michelle screamed.
It seems almost ridiculous now, as I sit in my dorm, miles and months removed from that day. I feel safe here, and already the room begins to take on the familiarity of home. I have never dreamt of that night in this bed. It is too comfortable, that bed.
Morocco was a funny trip, because Fez and Chefchauen don't seem to belong with Casablanca. I will write more about them later, when I am more capable, and again, when I return to Morocco. But Casablanca was so strange because I never saw anything of the city. Only the train station, the walk to the Airbnb, and the little streets around it. We bought wine in a corner shop, and bread that we were thankful for later. We had come by train from Fez that afternoon.
I remember that it was 10 when we finally left for dinner. I wore my friend Anna's green sweater. She wore it just the other day, and I could not stop looking at her in it, remembering and not remembering. We went to some Italian restaurant, because it was not too far. Still, we had to take taxis. When we left, some five men followed us back in a car. I suppose you can guess all that happened next.
To add insult to injury, we were all immediately and violently ill afterwards. Food poisoning. So we never saw the beautiful mosque in Casablanca, nor the beaches, nor the markets. Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter most mosques, but this one in Casablanca was an exception. However, we were sick. Terrible stuff. Police swarming the apartment, asking me questions in Arabic and then French, about our passports, and to recount again and again what happened.
I remember waking up the next morning unable to move, sweating profusely. My head hurt so badly that it took all my energy to turn it away from the light streaming in from the window.
I am leaving out many, many details. I do not want to paint a bad picture, and one day I will write a post that presents Morocco glowingly. It is a wondrous place. It is hard for me to remember it all here and now. It is also hard to keep from submitting to MENA stereotyping. You know, the lurid descriptions of the mysticism of the Orient, the enigma, the seductive, beguiling sands.
Sometimes I am afraid to walk alone, or at night. During those few days in San Diego, I saw a man in my driveway and I was afraid. I had bad dreams for a long time, but that's life. We were not seriously hurt, and it was a good lesson to learn.
Go to Morocco. Go safely, and do not carry too many valuables. Let the mint in the tea soothe in the heat of midday. Let the Berber talk you into buying their wares- they are beautiful and stoutly made. I bought a rug as a gift. Dyed saffron and poppy.
I can hear the snow. Isn't that odd? It shouldn't be possible.
Good Night.
It is very late, so likely there will be less sense and more truth in what I am saying. I opened this document with the vague notion that I ought write about my experiences on my home campus, and also that I wanted to explain my little poem a little. It is not my intention to say anything against Casablanca, or Morocco, or Africa. My poem, however flawed, captures honestly how I felt in the moments after it all happened.
I did cry, and I did hate those men. I never thought of the difficulty of their situations, how the economic disparity created desperation that forced crime rates to rise. The iPhones they stole could buy groceries for months. I had 400 durham in the bag one man tore from my shoulder, but that is nothing. Forty euros, maybe. Funnily enough, I remember adding that little bag and its contents to my list of grievances. It cost me 9 euros, a not-quite-impulse buy from an H&M in Place Kleber. It was black, and the perfect size for going out. I still can't understand why its loss bothered me so much. It was as if the fact of taking it from me was stripping me of an externally imposed femininity that I held to nonetheless.
The man was small and nondescript. I never even saw his face, although he took little care to hide it from me. He hit me across the ribs with his crowbar- hard enough to bruise, but I knew immediately that they weren't broken. When he saw that I wasn't fighting back, he grabbed the bag, gave a jerk, and took off, the cheap strap flapping absurdly behind him. I watched him go. I don't know why I didn't try to run. I turned and watched another crowbar descend on my friend. I heard the thud as it hit her between her shoulder blades. Michelle screamed.
It seems almost ridiculous now, as I sit in my dorm, miles and months removed from that day. I feel safe here, and already the room begins to take on the familiarity of home. I have never dreamt of that night in this bed. It is too comfortable, that bed.
Morocco was a funny trip, because Fez and Chefchauen don't seem to belong with Casablanca. I will write more about them later, when I am more capable, and again, when I return to Morocco. But Casablanca was so strange because I never saw anything of the city. Only the train station, the walk to the Airbnb, and the little streets around it. We bought wine in a corner shop, and bread that we were thankful for later. We had come by train from Fez that afternoon.
I remember that it was 10 when we finally left for dinner. I wore my friend Anna's green sweater. She wore it just the other day, and I could not stop looking at her in it, remembering and not remembering. We went to some Italian restaurant, because it was not too far. Still, we had to take taxis. When we left, some five men followed us back in a car. I suppose you can guess all that happened next.
To add insult to injury, we were all immediately and violently ill afterwards. Food poisoning. So we never saw the beautiful mosque in Casablanca, nor the beaches, nor the markets. Non-Muslims are not permitted to enter most mosques, but this one in Casablanca was an exception. However, we were sick. Terrible stuff. Police swarming the apartment, asking me questions in Arabic and then French, about our passports, and to recount again and again what happened.
I remember waking up the next morning unable to move, sweating profusely. My head hurt so badly that it took all my energy to turn it away from the light streaming in from the window.
I am leaving out many, many details. I do not want to paint a bad picture, and one day I will write a post that presents Morocco glowingly. It is a wondrous place. It is hard for me to remember it all here and now. It is also hard to keep from submitting to MENA stereotyping. You know, the lurid descriptions of the mysticism of the Orient, the enigma, the seductive, beguiling sands.
Sometimes I am afraid to walk alone, or at night. During those few days in San Diego, I saw a man in my driveway and I was afraid. I had bad dreams for a long time, but that's life. We were not seriously hurt, and it was a good lesson to learn.
Go to Morocco. Go safely, and do not carry too many valuables. Let the mint in the tea soothe in the heat of midday. Let the Berber talk you into buying their wares- they are beautiful and stoutly made. I bought a rug as a gift. Dyed saffron and poppy.
I can hear the snow. Isn't that odd? It shouldn't be possible.
Good Night.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Casablanca
They came in the night.
They'd lain in wait,
planning and brooding
on angry stomachs
as not even rats can.
Men.
two, three, five,
(or so we heard)
who grabbed for us
and brandished rusted crowbars
and a knife meant
for chubby, childish fingers.
We fled?
We must have.
We fled into brick and mortar
that welcomed us
like the board welcomes a steak.
Like a dream, it was.
Yet it was not a dream,
for Casablanca is warm in my dreams.
And I cried.
Not as a child,
not as a woman,
not as an American,
not as the daughter of a fortunate man,
But, my God, I cried.
Inshallah, a cry I knew and didn't know.
I cried because they took my phone and my money.
I cried because strange men grabbed me
and groped for more things
they could take from me.
I cried because I was small.
They made me little again,
a child wailing for her mama
because men bruised her
and flung her aside.
I cried because I was scared
and never thought to fight back.
I cried because I couldn't stop
once I'd started.
And an evil part of me
wished their mothers could see
how
low
their
sons
fell
so that they would cry too.
The terrible weight of mortality,
I remember,
balanced on the point
they held against
Anna's green sweater.
I cried
because I didn't want to play
at being grown up anymore.
But now I do not cry.
Maybe the cameras will catch them.
Maybe even the police will help us then.
But maybe not.
Maybe there's no one we can trust.
Not even the doorman
who asked me kindly to sit,
and offered me Café au lait.
We will leave Casablanca tomorrow.
They'd lain in wait,
planning and brooding
on angry stomachs
as not even rats can.
Men.
two, three, five,
(or so we heard)
who grabbed for us
and brandished rusted crowbars
and a knife meant
for chubby, childish fingers.
We fled?
We must have.
We fled into brick and mortar
that welcomed us
like the board welcomes a steak.
Like a dream, it was.
Yet it was not a dream,
for Casablanca is warm in my dreams.
And I cried.
Not as a child,
not as a woman,
not as an American,
not as the daughter of a fortunate man,
But, my God, I cried.
Inshallah, a cry I knew and didn't know.
I cried because they took my phone and my money.
I cried because strange men grabbed me
and groped for more things
they could take from me.
I cried because I was small.
They made me little again,
a child wailing for her mama
because men bruised her
and flung her aside.
I cried because I was scared
and never thought to fight back.
I cried because I couldn't stop
once I'd started.
And an evil part of me
wished their mothers could see
how
low
their
sons
fell
so that they would cry too.
The terrible weight of mortality,
I remember,
balanced on the point
they held against
Anna's green sweater.
I cried
because I didn't want to play
at being grown up anymore.
But now I do not cry.
Maybe the cameras will catch them.
Maybe even the police will help us then.
But maybe not.
Maybe there's no one we can trust.
Not even the doorman
who asked me kindly to sit,
and offered me Café au lait.
We will leave Casablanca tomorrow.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Mourning Paris
(14 November 2015)
There is a candlelit vigil in Place Kleber tonight. The statue of Jean Baptiste Kléber is very stern in the flickering light, and the heavy shadows. A woman is crying as she lights her candle. Her hand is shaking a lot; it's making her entire body tremble. She is being rocked back and forth by a woman I assume is her mother. They are the spitting image of each other.
It's very strange here this evening. There are the mourners and there are the people who are always hanging around the statue. They are being very loud, laughing and swearing. They have made the vigil into an absurdity. How funny it sounds to hear French people (very drunk French people, mind you) sing along to Fetty Wap when even babies do not make a sound.
It is not drizzling, because although few, the drops that fall are fat and heavy. For weeks Strasbourg was unseasonably mild, but today it is cold. It may rain. It will rain as children cry, with tears falling to the tune of Trap Queen, which blares irreverently from a battered boom box.
Some of the candles have gone out. Some people relight the ones that have enough wick left, the ones that were blown out by wind, or upset by stomping feet. I burn my finger because the wind blew the flame onto my thumb. I hand the lighter to Anna and set the little tea candle down carefully, pushing it to an open space.
Still it does not rain.
It feels wrong to fall back into life's normal patterns; it feels like we ought to stop everything and be quiet and serious, and light candles. But that is not how the world is. The world would have us listen to American rappers insult women and go home, and forget after a while that 129 people died.
Some people will never forget. We are lucky to forget.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Nomophobia
To burn
the bridges of your past
is easy.
Just forget to take care.
let die
all the photographs you saved.
no more.
Cry, if you want to,
or rage,
but it doesn't matter.
They're gone.
Last week I went to Morocco. We were mugged. When I got back, I erased the wrong device. The end.
the bridges of your past
is easy.
Just forget to take care.
let die
all the photographs you saved.
no more.
Cry, if you want to,
or rage,
but it doesn't matter.
They're gone.
Last week I went to Morocco. We were mugged. When I got back, I erased the wrong device. The end.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
My Views on today's film industry
Anger is a beautiful thing. It can be graceful and red as a ruby, the sort that propels forward the femme fatale. It can be blacker and quieter than night, harboring an all-consuming grudge. It can be as wild an violent as a tropical storm, but it is never the same. No two people will ever feel the same anger.
So, that was kind of an unnecessarily dramatic intro for this entry, which, like my previous two, is basically my way of vomiting my thoughts and teenage angst all over the world wide web. Sorry about the visual. But I digress.
Like pretty much every single human being-not just teenagers, but them especially-I get angry a lot. I was angry when America lost to Poland in the 2012 Men's Volleyball FIVB World Championships. I was furious when I stepped on my brooch ( the one-of-a-kind brooch I bought from the Escondido Renfaire) and snapped the clasp straight off. But I get absolutely, positively out-of-my-mind, foaming-at-the-mouth rabid when Hollywood sinks its dirty little claws into certain classics and butchers them until they are near unrecognizable to us purists...más o menos. Now, don't get me wrong...old Hollywood up until the late 90s was great. But now I personally feel that the movies now are so superficial, so pointless. The Age of Louise Brooks up until the Age of Leonardo di Caprio featured films that made a statement (obviously there are exceptions). They were art, not just bloody and/or sexual forms of entertainment. It seems as if almost everything that comes out today only reflects the mindless consumerism of this generation. Indeed, I shudder to think what the Founding Fathers of America would think if they could see the spawn of the great nation they created.
Another thing that makes me bloody agitated is the BLATANT historical inaccuracies. There are mistakes, and such thing as creative license, I suppose. An example would be The Thirteenth Warrior, with Antonio Banderas and Vladimir Kulich. It's a viking epic modeled after Michael Crichton's novel, Eaters of the Dead (which was likewise modeled after Beowulf). Anywhoodles, my point is that the vikings wear non-period specific armor, and the legend of Ahmed ibn Fadlan was a hoax. Yet that was for the sake of the film. In stark, STARK contrast is the 2013 film The Great Gatsby. I loved the book and I adore F. Scott Fitzgerald. So naturally I was PISSED when I saw the movie trailer. Maybe I'm overreacting, but what the hell is up with the soundtrack? Was that Jay-Z? I'm planning on going to see this movie so that I can post a more accurate statement about this whole business, but for now...Where are the great voices of the 20s? Rudy Vallee? Nat Shilkret? George Olsen? Arden and Ohman?
For heaven's sake, Hollywood, how about not letting my brain dead generation walk all over you with their over-priced Toms? How about making art for art's sake? Good Gracious, I'd like to see my Honors Humanities teacher kick your ass with her dainty little heels. Not that good movies haven't come out. Um...hello? THE HOBBIT!
All righty...I feel slightly less like my hormones are running a truck through my brain. Peace and midnight rendezvous,
~Cynthia
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