i was packing up my things today in preparation for going back to school, and became somewhat nostalgic, as i am prone to do when preparing to go back to school.
i woke up realizing this was possibly my last break at home with my family as "a child." as i may be spending my spring break in oxford writing my senior project and gallivanting with friends, i felt guilty for waking up as i have on any other day before. this was a significant moment in my life, i wanted it to be recognized with fireworks and somber meditation, you know? next year, at this time, i'll have my first real-world job, i'll be living on my own - i'll be living far away! - i won't be going back to Miami, i'll be flying back to L.A. to go back to my own apartment, preparing to teach classes. how weird the difference a year makes.
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today my eyes feel tired and dry, like i've been crying all day (but i haven't). i'm sorting thru the mess that's accumulated in my room for the last 22 years, trying to figure out what's important enough to take back, to keep, to tuck away in secret drawers, to give away, to burn, to preserve, to remember, to leave, to live, to let die.
frequently, the most trivial, ordinary things are the most precious. it's the little notes left in forgotten corners, stuck on doors and mirrors and desktops, that linger on bookshelves and in notebooks and letterboxes. these are the mass of my personal affects, the ones i've been collecting and saving to the chagrin of my mother - who finds this practice messy and pack rat-esque, or that my dad sees and dismisses as over-sentimentality. how to explain...
i don't keep a diary any more. my blog is my living document (oh, the digital age...). but there are things - little things - that i don't post here, but these things, when you piece them together, say more about the life i've lived and the people i've met than anything else. after all, it's the little gestures and details that mean the most. it's not a gift someone gives me that i cherish forever, it's the way they laugh when we're together, the way they hold my hand when we're walking together, the way they tie their shoes, their shape in a doorway, the way they muss up their hair when they're stressed, the way they sip their coffee or chew cookies, their walk, their handwriting when they write a note to me compared to when they're making a grocery list and don't care about presentation.
it's these things - these portraits - of my loved ones that i choose to remember and save. i have thousands of little portraits tucked in books and pockets, which, whenever i feel sad, always make me happy to know that i'm truly very lucky.
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anyway, this is all very funny, b/c the one thing i really meant to post on today was this note i was looking at today when i was packing up my stuff:
it's from the summer, the contextual clues suggest probly from before i went to Mongolia, and i wrote it about my brother. we had just gotten back from a run - he was running, i was riding my bike - and i was ad-libbing this song about him as he ran, joking him for his tanlines. i sang it in a country accent, high and whiny. there were other verses too, but they were forgotten between the street and my room.i thot it was funny, an endearing moment b/w my brother and i captured on post-it.
i guess i wanted to post about it but turns out i had more to say.
-stephanie
5 comments:
I think that we are all coming to realize that web2.0 environs are maturing - as though somehow they never needed any. As with america, barely a few centuries old, youth can be ignorant arrogance.
For example, in my aCtIvItIes, my on-line work is absolutely seperate from my off-line life - to the point of exact, near-exceptionless reality. But really, it is just the fine line between my handle and my surname. Without that paper wall, it all comes down like a house of cards.
So it is not deception or secrecy. And yet it might as well be as the difference is mucho grande. Devils in the details. I could not even imagine some of the responses I would get from half of my work on indymedia by people I might consider open minded here. The same who chastise me for not wearing the right clothes. On-line is no different. There is video work and art I would never share for reasons that go to the heart of the development of software. That is pretty freaking specific. We are somehow supposed to believe that anything that can be digitized can be shared, which is simply not true. As we mature, it will be exposed as a lie. It is a very closed minded reality that has and will, sadly, continue to terminate relations online.
Are offliners bad because I cannot share my stuff openly with them or onliners bad because of the disconnect with being true blue. Everyone has there agendas. Art suffers as a result. Along comes someone who says something benign, like "art is bad", and suddenly what was pushing a half gram of paint across a canvass becomes hauling a tonne of stones up a hill both ways through ten feet of snow with a hurricane force wind at my face.
(I should point out that I always find myself in the place of the fat lady - if I am blogging/web2.0'ing, the game is all over. The shit will hit the fan. It always has with me and others.)
Your point on gifts versus little gestures is well taken too. My own little thing is I keep everything anyone ever gives me. Even those sublime, often assinign hall mark cardboard (& for how much $.$$?!). You would have to thieve gifts from me for it to leave my possession! (Some have!)
Think I got a similar relationship with my dad you have with your bro.
Good luck Steph. It's been a privilege watching you through your words and I wish you the very best in your final months. I hope that life brings you all that you desire.
thanks, brian. those are very kind words and wishes, i appreciate that very much.
it's been a pleasure knowing you thru yr words as well, and i am most grateful for the work you've shared with me. thank you!
-stef
You know, blogging is, in a way, liberating, because it allows you the freedom to not only organize and dissiminate information, but it forces you to pick and choose what's really worth the risks of sharing and worth the potential gain.
Got hammered in my own comments recently - for buying a friend's girlfriend and another friend a 21st b-day shot. Total stranger. The sad thing is, I'm used to it. But even that's a good thing. Over the years, I've learned more about humanity from blogging than I ever would from a silly diary.
Hey, it's also best to pitch as much as you can, if you're moving across country after graduation. Material goods really are the devil :)
Just a headsup - http://wordpress.com/blog/2008/01/21/three-gigabytes/
Lots of commentary about podcast hosting. I was gona write a comment on teh subject (I still do not have a writing blog), but maybe wait 'til ur about.
Dont work too hard, now!
~ remaerdyaD
my captcha - "iifoomm"!!!
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