Nearly two months later, life has resumed its chaotic swagger toward insanity. The blog, clearly, does not rank in this strength of maelstrom. However, I have recently been considering the relative importance of meditation; thus, Seurat writing may have a chance at resurrection.

The Voyages of the Jolly Roger

I am considering writing a young adult book in iambic pentameter. The story and I have wrestled for nearly a year without success, but now I wonder if blank verse may give it the structure it needs.

More research is needed.

Time well spent

Awake once more -- in a panic realizing that I had neglected an urgent work email, now three days overdue. Despite how much of my time in New York is spent preparing for the next school year, I don't want to be burdened by fall just yet.

Presently I wonder how Seurat writing will fit into the everyday scramble of job, family, home life, college, and faith community, once I return. Given the pressing nature of living, it seems likely that writing will take a low priority, regardless of its overwhelming spiritual and emotional benefits. Writing regenerates; but, sadly, it also takes time.

Is there enough time to be creative?

Is there enough time to neglect creativity?

Hauling tail back to Maryland

Sleeping has taken the edge of despair off my plans for the trip home, but I still worry. The subway, train, subway, subway and bus rides to bring my 70 lb suitcase to Queens could have been the twisted plotline from a dark comedy. Amtrak would not check my bag, and they were none too pleased to let me muscle it onto the train, since it did not fit down the narrow aisles. Upon arrival at Penn Station, I hauled enough junk through unfamiliar Manhattan territory to make a gypsy proud. I clunked my way up and down any number of stairwells before discovering the elevator like it was a gift from Divine Providence.


Observers probably thought I had a body in my luggage -- which, incidentally, would make a great film plot.


I leave on Saturday, and the number of solutions to the stuff problem is staggering. Ship things home? (If so, which items should I entrust to the postal service?) Purchase a smaller, lighter suitcase? Give away most of my clothes and purchase new ones when I return? Living in New York indefinitely is probably not the best conclusion, though the simplicity is remarkably alluring.

After effectively and accidentally moving myself to Pacific time (despite a lack of travel), I'm now too tired to write anything amazing. I am knitting a pair of variegated teal and purple socks. This is my virginal sock experience. They are knit two at a time on circular needles, a miracle I still don't understand. Every row is a labyrinth where I have to figure out which yarn is presently in use and which row I haven't yet completed. This, I suppose, is what people do when they miss home.

My hate affair with poetry

Poetry is not my native tongue. It requires me to think like a sailor and speak like an angel simultaneously. I blame the current state of our relationship on Hashimoto, the verse writing professor at HCC who was so diabolically evil that I took three classes from her in two years. I entered Hashimoto's first class with a secret crush on short story -- but verse writing seduced me, spent an hour in my sheets and then beat me up and left me for dead. I've been chasing it ever since.

To me, poetry is a discipline, a kickboxing workout for the mind. I emerge from it thoroughly sweaty and smelling like a middle school locker room; we both pretend that tomorrow it will be all patchouli and white lace, but I know better. And the deception is part of the masochistic magic, of course. What challenge is it to flirt with something that wants to be mastered?

So as much as I would like to write happy stories about fluffy brown sheep, I think my path leads in the direction of kings and giants. Today I have nothing but a handful of stones. But perhaps tomorrow I will learn to be more clever, luring the poems tent-side and driving pegs through their temples.

Seurat writing

I'm getting sloppy in my 32-year-old age. I find myself throwing words at pages, as if life depended on dashing toward the next idea instead of stopping to place each thought precisely where - and how - it belongs. Pollock writing may create an impression, but it requires nothing of me; and paradoxically, the utter lack of investment saps far more energy than actual crafting.

This is a place for Seurat writing, though on most days it will probably be meaningless dots on the page. However, pointillism itself is a discipline, and like other disciplines, it will reap a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it. In a year, I will think about product. My concern for now is technique.