love of the temporary

Yesterday, I had to escape from procrastinating from packing by taking a walk. Home is always seductively comfortable (never mind that if I stay here a month without a plan I grow stagnate and restless, verging on insanity). On the corner of Green's Lane that stone house I always admire stuck out from the younger homes with ugly siding-- homes I secretly played in the foundations of during construction. Across the patio of the old house white nightgowns and garments were strung to dry, it looked so quintessential and out of place in Randallstown, it was only five but the house was dark and invented a lovely old lady already gone to sleep. 

I usually go to the elementary school playground at odd hours of the night and I was shocked to find it has a life of its own at dusk. Two teenaged guys rolled past me on their bikes showing off, a few kids were occupying the basketball courts for a wild game of soccer, and I actually had company on the swing set. Outside the air vents of the school, a cloud of bats was spiraling like the outline of a smoke curl. I kept watching the moon pass between layers of clouds and smiling at the people around me. My neighborhood always seems newer and more interesting when I am leaving it. I feel nostalgic about home and anxious about my upcoming travel. Lately I've been telling myself, I need to find a place to settle. ... and yet, here I am ready (well, I would be if I weren't writing to procrastinate actually packing) to leave again.

Is it only the quality of the temporal that makes a thing enticing? How do we remain in love with the familiar? David Foster Wallace wrote, "The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day." I wonder if the same is true about place and what the equilibrium between exploration and home is, what the meeting ground of wandering and being located is.

Three years ago, trying to settle into Harrisonburg, I wrote: "The untied knots can be redone. He spoke with conviction of 'a covenant with the land: eventually one must come home, one must come to rest and mix their blood and sweat with earth.'" ... and a few weeks later, "I went up the hill till the cold reached through the ground into my bones. Always aching to be discovered, always hide away. I went to the hill to pray, city glittering beneath me, stars speeding away. The universe is growing too, so maybe it understands my little girl heart. I was born into longing, a heart of dreams. Tonight I was thinking of desire in the newborn quiet between those golden orbs, of the spaces immeasurable, vast empties, my heart craves for its own expanding- pressing outward since my birth..." The human being is made of some many contrary desires.

Bouldering

 

These photos made me think of albums I've seen of cool people I know actually climbing/ a Portlandia-esque montage of how I would pretend to know things about climbing...

Shot 1: Steep angle to establish the precariousness and incredible-ness of the climb.

Shot 2: Set the scale and undaunted/exhilarated stance of climbers.

 Shot 3: Wardrobe is really everything.

                                                    Shot 4/5:  Beginning Pitches (Notice our fabulous finger-holding technique and great use of legs.)

                                                           Shot 6: The Reach

                                                    Shot 7: Some rewarding teamwork.

                              Shot 8: Re-establish the extreme height and daring of our climb (and relative ease despite clinging to a cliff face = bonus cool points.)

                                  Shot 9:  Looking down after 'owning' our climb and jamming... and crimping... and uh... this reminds me of when I try to make fun of my genius brother and end up getting stumped by my lack of mathmatical engineering language.

Anyway. We're pretty cool. We can climb rocks in dresses.

Come Autumn

The season turned this past week, chilly mornings consuming summer's heat. I've followed my migratory path homeward from Harrisonburg to the familiar oaks and the winding Patapsco river.

I miss mornings walking to work in Chinatown, not so much approaching that corner where the sharp acidity of urine would swell into my nostrils, but the call and response of "Goodmorning" and "Buenas Dias" or Mama Lupita saying in Spanish, "Where is our boyfriend? Only you and me.We'll fight the other woman." Or Ellie and her dancing as she sang out, "cha-cha-cha." I miss the unpredictability of those days. Papa T. playing blue grass on his harmonica and telling me of his dreams to someday return to Tennessee or Kentucky.

I haven't written poetry for a long time, but visiting Emily and Thia is always a good excuse to-- we filled our glass bottle mugs with spicy mocha concoctions and headed up the hill to draw out words. Two coffee stained pages later I discovered my insides are coated with anger, guilt, longing, helplessness, and love. I've been re-reading Louise Glück's Matins and this is a rough response:

If you care so much then, God

you will have to speak up.

She passed the year in that

classroom never correcting

her mispronounced name

wondering if she fully existed,

while they said it does not matter

if he assaulted women, he is

a brilliant theologian. 

He dressed his biases in the 

blood of Christ once and 

ordered a friend to be engulfed

in flames: laughter and bone 

licked clean, carbon & black silt,

and did he weep on the cool stones

or did he praise You?

If you are so merciful, let us forget You.

What I know is I am not ashamed,

we embraced once,
later we only shook.

Speak up then, if it is not Your name.

Surprises

September 4th was a crazy day in my life. I arrived home from a 72 hour train ride to surprise my mama -- which included 1) a phone conversation with Claire in DC that went like: "I'm on 1st and Constitution now, where are you? ... Wait you're on First street now, too?... Is that building to your left and behind you now? ... what can you see?" whilst pulling my suitcase around and holding my pillow.  2) Parking behind my front yard bushes, running through the backyard ducking beneath the bushes, opening the back door without drawing the attention of our usually alert dogs, and sneaking up the kitchen stairs. 3) My mother screaming and waving her hands frantically while simultaneously recognizing me and shouting, "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie." Quite worth it.

This scene was shortly followed by me screaming frantically and dancing around the kitchen between moments of running back to the computer screen to make sure I was reading real words-- my reaction to being accepted as a Glimpse correspondent. (I thought the decisions had been announced in mid-August so a few weeks earlier I'd thought the opportunity had passed and had been chastising myself for how I could've done a better application. Ha!)

Glimpse is supported by the Matador Network. It features stories by young people living abroad and their company's mission: "We envision a world in which all young people go abroad, seek out meaningful cultural experiences, and share their stories with peers. We believe that powerful stories will inspire new generations to engage with people from other cultures and to be responsible global citizens." I'll get to work with a professional editor, take Matador Univ. travel journalism class, and publish my stories from abroad.

I am (needless to say) extremely excited and nervous and feel incredibly blessed. I'll be heading to Guatemala at the end of September where I'll begin my Spanish immersion program and writing.

Momento

I mysteriously received this e-mail from myself, so it must be true. Oh dear.

* * *
Dear Self,

You recently discovered that you have SMRA (Sporadic Memory Replacement Amnesia), which causes you to forget things, as well as create new false memories in your past.  Do not delete this email.  Here are some of your most recent symptoms of SMRA:

1.  Belief:  Last night, you purchased a train ticket to Harrisonburg, VA.

Truth:  Not only did you not purchase said ticket, but you promised your best friend Claire that you would not leave the state for the entirety of your visit home.

2.  Belief:  You have friends in Harrisonburg, VA.

Truth:  Harrisonburg does not exist.  The names of your friends are the names of pets you had as a child.

3.  Belief:  You won a writing fellowship to travel to Guatemala.

Truth:  You like guacemole, and you will stay home and be Claire's life coach and feed her guacemole.

Keep this email at hand, so that you know what is real.  This is crucial.  Make Claire a sandwich.

--Megan Brauckmann