time travel is for broken-hearted lovers

never have i ever wished harder for a time machine than the last few days.

technological advancement has enabled time preservation of the cruelest kind... i can pull up emails from a few months ago, years ago, and read them and transport myself back to a time that was so happy and filled with promise and yet so achingly out of reach. so real and in my grasp, summoned from memory as if it were yesterday, but still rigidly in the past. i can remember, but never resurrect.

how much i wish for second chances. if only those sweet words that used to be heartfelt could be re-learned and practiced. like sitting back down at the piano and playing that favorite song. climbing back on a bike after falling off and riding it over hills to the next town over, leaving this dreary place behind.

all my deepest desires to still time, to go backwards, to wallow in nostalgic longing, can be traced back to a painful understanding that nothing lasts, and somethings you can never get back, no matter how much you try to recreate and/or preserve them. we are all victims to time.

a scientific inquiry into the varying experience of sunsets over time

Some data:
The sunset time for Fremont, CA (94538) for today, Wednesday Nov. 9, 2011, is 5:01 pm PST.
The sunset time for Los Angeles, CA (90034) is 4:53 pm PST.
The sunset time for Syracuse, NY (13203) is 4:46 pm EST.
The sun sets in Oxford, OH (45056) at 5:28 pm EST.
In Lexington, KY (40512), the sun sets at 5:31 pm EST.
And in Miami, FL (33101), it's 5:34 pm EST.

I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for the variance, like the earth's tilt on its axis and the rotation in relation to the sun, but I'm going to leave it to more scientifically-inclined minds than mine to furnish those reasons. (Did you see how I gave zip codes instead of latitudes and longitudes, which would have proved infinitely more useful in answering this question? Although I did try to arrange those cities in order from North to South.)


All I know is, it gets dark disgustingly early now, and I was correct in thinking that, when growing up in the Midwest, the falls were never so dark, nor the days so short (and unfulfilled) as they are on the west coast. It was not just nostalgia playing a dirty mind trick on me.

book it!

it's National Read a Book Day! to celebrate, i finally finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. i love the feel of a finished book in my hands: soft and worn from so many intimate hours cradled in my hands or toted around in my bookbags and luggage, and the pleasure i get from fanning the pages of a book without fear of losing my place - that is the delight of an accomplishment made tangible.

"holidays" like these probably mean less to us as "adults" than they did as kids. it makes me nostalgic for "quiet reading" sessions in Montessori school, spending rainy weekends at home in my reading nook/fort tucked into a sleeping bag with my beverage of choice in a thermos and whatever Roald Dahl or Redwall book i was working on that week.

and remember Book It!? goodness knows i don't believe in incentivizing anything, but since i was such a voracious reader as a kid anyway, i never became dependent on free pizza to encourage my continued reading, and my parents probably appreciated that small window of time when my appetite for reading and pizza were similarly insatiable, and i could at least get free pizza out of the bargain.

so, drop your work, turn off the tv, build a fort and read in it! i'm going to pick up some books* at the library on my way home and do the same. i might even indulge in a little personal pan pizza, too, for old time's sake :-)

happy reading,
stef

*for those interested, the books i'm reading next are:
1, 2. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, both by David Sedaris (i'm seeing him in October (!!!) and wanted to catch up on what he's been writing)
3. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (highly recommended to me after my recent efforts to eat and understand my food better. for those of you without the time to read the whole book, i highly recommend and urge you to read the New Yorker's review of the book, which does such a thorough job outlining some of the key points, you'll get the gist and maybe consider vegetarianism/veganism! i myself made a note to pursue humane treatment of factory animals as a future policy pursuit.)
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry (never had the opportunity to read it in school and i think it's about time i did!)
5. Paradise Lost by John Milton (excited about this one because it will be a fine compliment to East of Eden, at least, i hope...)

back when "Walkman" meant something

5 Seconds of Every #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hit From 1993-2011 [takes you to another webpage]

my friend Kathee pointed this out to me and it was just too good not to share.

this compendium of pop music is really super fantastic. i mean, you know, it might not be everyone’s bag, but for me, well, let’s just say i’m a sucker for all things nostalgic (that should be the name of a blog...) it reminds me of middle school bus rides, field trips, and track practice. really awkward middle school dances and driving in the car with my mom when she still listened to “adult contemporary” (Kiss FM and Delilah anyone!?) and hadn’t discovered NPR yet. it reminds me of playing in the orchestra in my ghetto middle school and playing the piano part in “All My Life” – the only recognizable section of the song in a really poorly arranged transcription. and it reminds me of joking around in the dorm with my college roommates, playing all the “hits” and making up dance moves like we were in an endless sleepover party, when we should have been writing term papers. *sigh* good times. it reminds me that once, popular music was a way to connect to a wider scene and to have things in common to jam to. as middle schoolers, we never intellectualized stuff ("man, the bump in that part was greeeaat." "shit, phenomenal use of autotune! cheeky!") but it was just about what was catchy, what got stuck in yr head, what was worth sitting by the radio, cassette player in hand, in order to record and keep. back when we didn't have ipods and digital music and the internet and music was made precious by the radio – back when some songs were worth sitting thru the commercial breaks for! and, i’ll admit, i still secretly jam to at least 80% of this list when i’m alone and in need of some cheer.

another really great thing about this is how easy it makes it to realize how absolutely super shitty popular music has gotten. right around 08:00-09:00 (that minute represents a mix of good and bad) things start taking a turn for the worse. but then at about 09:07, when Britney Spears comes into the mix, things are derailed completely and can never be righted again (“Wild Wild West”, “Genie in a Bottle”, “Baillamos”??!!!! these are songs i couldn’t stand even when they were “hits." oh good lord.) until right around where Outkast and Eminem emerge, things are dark and bleak and i think that maybe i should stop listening, but after a while it becomes acceptable again (eventually it gets to Lady Gaga).

i can see why i turned to indie/alt. music and never went back.

oh, The Internet. how i love thee.

in the span of thirty minutes i went from reading this article complaining about Lost, to reading about Original Sin, to reading about The Fall and then learned that...

"The term 'prelapsarian' refers to the sin-free state of humanity prior to the Fall. It is sometimes used in reference to sentimental recollections of a past time when conditions stood in sharp contrast to the present; this situation is called nostalgia." [source]

huh! i am learning so much about Star Wars and pop culture and human nature, according to the Old and New Testaments.

thanks, Internet.

first signs of spring

portents of spring:
-tulip blooms
-shorter hemlines
-longer days
-insane animals
-the re-appearance of matzos on the grocery store shelves!

the latter is the one i am currently most excited about, as matzos is the true harbinger of better times!

for with matzos comes gefilte fish, served with bitter herbs and horse radish, and that always makes me thirsty for sweet sweet kosher wine.


before long, i am flat on my back, drunk and remembering kosher dinners at my friends Will and Laura's house, weeping with nostalgia and homesickness between bouts of food coma.

i should perhaps feel guilty that i'm taking all the joys of jewish cuisine, without any of the religious experience, but i have to say from past experience that the food itself is a religious experience, so...

huzzah!
-stephan!e

some musings on the passage of time

i realize that in some form or another, this blog has largely been devoted to chronicling the passage of time: noticing the changes demarcating the stages of life, nostalgia, the seasons, the future, the past, memories.

but, if this blog is supposed to be a reflection of my most persistent thoughts, then that seems about right.

Time is an interesting phenomenon to behold, and thus my fascination. such an intangible thing, a deception, but relentless. 15 minutes goes unnoticed, but what about 5 years?

i can lament the sweet brevity of childhood, but feel tormented in the endlessness of a single day at work, fail to understand how short the days are while at the same time, counting down the days until the summer or my next vacation.

does it seem accurate to say a year is 365 days? somehow a year seems so long, but when i think about the days that comprise a year, it seems so swift. and how quickly a month passes! it's already march...

and yet, june can't come quickly enough...

some things you take for granted until you stop to think about them, and that's the trouble with Time. perhaps this is why nostalgia is such a poignant emotion; it is a form of concentrated regret for lost time. it is regret for our readiness for the future, our persistence in pressing onward and forward, regret we feel when we reflect on how far we've come and see the distance and extent of our own removal.

usually, we don't remember Time until we see its signs in the accumulation of little changes: the appearance of first wrinkles (laugh lines around the eyes), childhood clothing no longer being appropriately whimsical for the workplace, high school references no longer being recent enough to be relevant, "child" actors now in their 30s or 40s (sometimes it takes seeing someone else's aging to understand your own).

and my memory is so fucking unclear

this Unicorns video made me smile so much i almost squeezed some tears out. it made me think of my friends, and dancing in an apartment in the summer in the dark, and how much i wish we could go back a few months and relive certain moments.

some things should last forever.

who was i with? what time was it? where did you go?

love,
stef

a change is gonna come

i am so nervous and excited about tomorrow's election results that i am having trouble doing anything but reminiscing and imagining the future. for the whole of my political and social consciousness, i've only known a world of disappointing Bush policies and political farce. i can almost hardly imagine living in an america i am proud of, where i trust and believe in my government and my president. but, i am ready for a change.

it's been hard for me in the past months to watch all the election coverage and read the news about the grassroots efforts to support Obama and have to remain removed from it. hard for me to feel like teaching my little classes of 6th graders california math and science standards was a better use of my time and energy than campaigning to ensure fair elections. it was hard for me to understand how best to take part in achieving the ideal of america i wanted to see. admittedly, i was never really a huge fan of Obama, but i like the energy and enthusiasm he's breathed into the political process (eventhough i think his stances on policies are kinda lackluster and stale). i think Obama's significance is his function as a symbol of hope, change, and youthful energy, and that is sadly all i'm looking for right now from my political system. the thought of his possible loss is just too tragic to imagine. i get sick to my stomach thinking of the possible repurcussions. i think that if Obama loses this election, millions of young ppl will be forever removed and distrustful of the political process, will lose their belief in that great dream called Democracy.

so here i am: a middle school teacher in south central LA, close enough to one of the few remaining battleground states (Nevada) that skipping work to do political work has been tempting, discussing the main issues (abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage, immigration) with my 6th graders and hoping they take my political excitement home to their parents, incapable of planning a math lesson tonight b/c i keep thinkingabout tomorrow and how our lives might change, and the futures of my 6th graders could change, starting Wednesday, but wondering if, wishing, i could have done more.

it's funny: in the past four years, i think i always imagined things differently. as a freshman in college, having organized and canvassed for Election 04 ("anything but Bush") in ohio and being devastated and heartbroken by the results of those efforts, i was disenchanted and confused and vowed that wherever i was in 08, i'd be working even harder for election and campaign efforts. i imagined myself as a grad student, going door-to-door, leafletting, helping voters with registrations and absentee ballots, educating citizens about the issues and getting ppl excited. basically, insert a slightly more grown-up me onto a generic college campus doing almost the same thing i was doing in undergrad. it's just so funny to think back on that and see where i actually ended up, and how laidback and immobile the actual future-me ended up being.

and now, with only about 24 hours before the results of the election will be revealed, i'm remembering the same feeling i felt four years ago: the terrific electricity of knowing that possibly, in the space of a few hours, a new president will be in office, and potentially great things could begin to happen again. this moment is bringing back memories of me as a freshman in college, of waiting in the writing center late at night watching the results slowly coming in, tired from a day's hard work at the polls in the pouring rain. everyone abuzz with energy and excitement as we held on to our hopes that our work had paid off, replaced by negativity and disbelief when the results eventually revealed a Bush win. i'm hoping and praying to the cosmos that i don't see a tragic repeat of that 2004 election day, because my lack of action this time around will have me even more devastated and angry at myself for the loss.

so, for the sake of memories and posterity, a song for change, and a flashback (a blog post written November 3, 2004 – the eve of election night):

"A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke [mp3]

-stef

it must be fall...

back to showering in the late afternoon with the lights off, taking early evening naps with the music on, eating dinner alone in my room, shirking work to daydream constantly, and being helplessly and incurably nostalgic.

even with it being endless summer here, i can still feel my vestigial fall depression. like an invisible cord tying me back to the heartland. oh my old kentucky home...

---

[at the beginning of college, i couldn't stop listening to this song.
somehow, it's come to be connected to my first fall away from home.
listen: "Sparks" by Coldplay]

during my evening nap, the way i was lying on my stomach, the way my face pressed against the matress, the way i curled my arm under my head, the way i could distantly smell home, made me think, "this is what i must have felt as a baby." i could remember, somehow, lying in my crib at home, remember the softness of yellow fabric against my cheek, could imagine my now 22-year-old body as a 22-month-old baby, and felt saddened by the thought of all those years in-between. i have an image in my head now of how the movies depict the passing of time thru environmental changes – the furniture moving, the paint on the walls fading and cracking, the movement of cars and pedestrians outside, the leaves changing color and falling, growing green and spruce again – while the person of focus stands in the middle of a room, still, looking straight ahead and head on, changing only a little. i find this interesting. i'd like to measure my life in the movements my furniture makes.

---

that reminded me of a moment maybe two years ago. i was having dinner with a group of friends in the dining hall at school, and we'd been there for an hour, at least, a usual "family dinner" kind of affair. we'd all finished eating, but were just sitting there, enjoying one another's company. for some reason, i had pulled away from the conversation for a moment just to reflect. the weather outside was nice, it was just beginning to get warm out, and the sun was beginning to set. i was watching people walking to classes or returning to the dorms for the night. i was watching my friend Newman throw back his hair as he tried to eat a piece of toast with jelly. for some reason, something about the gesture – the look of unfettered glee on his face, his booming laughter, his awkward fumbling and negotiation of all that mess and hair – made me think that this was probably exactly how my friend looked as a kid, that this was someone's baby boy, that this was someone who had a mother who probably loved him very much, and probably loved to fix him peanut butter and jelly when he was a boy, would cut off the crusts and cut the sandwich diagonally, because he liked the shape of triangles better than rectangles. and now this boy, grown up and away at college, was eating that same favorite snack he loved as a kid, but probably thinking that it just wasn't the same as the one his mom would make him growing up. and i dunno why, but this brief moment, this smallest and most mundane of events made life seem very precious, and suddenly cruel. it reminded me that we were all kids once, and now, through great luck and perseverance, were growing up quite quickly into adults. i thought about the remaining year i had in college, and how terrified i was. i looked around the table at all my friends, and i imagined (or remembered) all of us as kids, imagined us small, helpless, scared, alone. and the idea both tickled and depressed me.

anyway, just things i'm remembering now that i feel fall is in my heart.

-stef

---
UPDATE 10-22:

maple leaves

"oh please God bring relief
even if it's only brief
she says that we were just make-believe
but I thought she said maple leaves...
... and when she talked about the fall
I thought she talked about the season
I never understood at all."

- Maple Leaves [mp3] by Jens Lekman.

that's me three years ago, enjoying a wallow in the leaves with friends.
this became an annual tradition for me and a few friends, oh i miss it so!
[photo credit Se4n.]

i got an email from my friend Sara tonight. she gave me an update on the goings-on back home, the activisms i've left behind, and she spoke of the leaves in the Fall and how spectacular they are. i can hardly believe it: one season spent away from home and i've already forgotten what it means to have an autumn, to feel the weather change and to trade in flip flops for boots, to bundle up and enjoy a walk with crisp leaves underfoot, the smell of summer leaving the leaves, the smell of air pressure changing and the way the woods get damper and colder and the smell of the rocks on the trails.

i miss all those things. i was just thinking about the last week of school last year. i remember one night walking out to my car, it must've been close to midnight, and the stars were out and the moon was brilliant and casting crisp light onto the treetops, and the wind was perfect, just chilly enough to justify wearing my jacket, my hands grateful for the large pockets. it was hushed and peaceful that night, unusually calm, i think finals were winding down and everyone had worn themselves out from studying or partying, or had moved home early. i remember pausing in the middle of the parking lot, craning my neck to stare at the sky, trying to remember what the immensity of that moment felt like. it was perfect. i wanted to live in that moment forever.

i miss the way weather affects my mood. in LA, i don't have good days just because of the way the sun is shining differently (because it never varies) and i don't get to appreciate the way the wind feels extra comforting one day over the rest. i miss those fall days when the weather is such a seductive companion, stealing you away from your work, abandoning work that always remains, always accumulates, to enjoy fleeting moments of sunshine and breeze.

her email made me homesick. i miss the feeling of fall. here, it gets cold enough to make me enjoy my bed's warmth, to make it harder to get up in the mornings, but when i get off from work, it's still 90 degrees out and smoggy. i want to live in a place where the seasons change.

-stef

p.s. i wrote this post with the hope that some of you could send me photos of the changing leaves. it would help me to remember home. send to free [dot] radical [dot] lee [at] gmail [dot] com. thx!

save your day

"do what you must,
you need to be brave to save your day."

===

the end of summer came suddenly. here in LA, all the restaurants and pubs were lamenting the death of summer, trying to sell off the last of their summer wine collections and closing the patio seating. i spent the weekend walking thru thrift stores looking for a sweater that would remind me of the sweaters i have back home.

i watch the days pass thru my window in the apartment, watch the sunlight change angles on the tree leaves, wait for leaves to fall, wait for night to get cold, wait for december so i can fly home and lie down in the snow and grass and drink hot chocolate in the kitchen of my house and feel warm again.

this video captures the kind of sepia hues and nostalgic tones i meant when i wrote this post.

there are no words to describe how i'm feeling lately, only images. and i feel a little lost because i do not know how to produce them myself, only share them.

-stef

introduction

i can't stop listening to this song by Voxtrot. it fits my mood and the way i've been feeling lately, like flipping thru a stack of polaroids you found tucked away, all sepia tones and childhood memories, a feeling of loss and recovery – "i won't know how much i've lost until i've gone away."


i imagine all my childhood memories – raking leaves and jumping in the piles, taking bike rides to the park with my mom and dad, picking apples in the country on weekends, hanging Halloween decorations in the yard, the brisk chill of getting in the pool at the end of the summer – flashing thru a projector, reflecting off a screen and flashing on my face. there is jumping, there is running, there is dancing, and there is laughter.

it's getting colder as it slowly turns to autumn in LA, and i am having vestigial memories and longings for the changing leaves, cool breezes and indian summers, the look of grass (of bluegrass!) and the smell of my neighborhood at dusk, and the look of the sky, which somehow i remember seeming closer to earth and looking softer than it does here, where it is far away and tinged with gray, immense yet distant and always revealing itself to make me feel small and alone.

i listen to this and imagine driving home from school to surprise my parents, imagine stepping my foot in the door and seeing them emerge from the living room, running to hug me. or i imagine blasting this in my car late at night, as i drive thru the deserted streets in oxford, ohio, to meet a friend for drinks, to crash at someone's house for a sleepover, to go to my boyfriend's house and sit on the couch and talk. it's a rush to feel at home again.

this is music that makes my feet move. they want to hit the pavement, to start running, to put pedal to the metal and drive drive drive, to find endless roads and listen to this on repeat. as the music picks up, i get closer and closer to home.

-stef

---

"Introduction" by Voxtrot
Open your eyes and stretch your hands
This house is clean but it is not my home
Did I make this bed
The two hands touch on two

Sometimes I think of some place colder
The sound of traffic and the way it's worn
When you feel yourself grow up inside of here

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me just like I am

Remember we ran through lovely streets
We made our rules and then we broke them first
It felt like we were running all the time
When I wouldn't give one ugly moment
I'd wrap it up, I'd keep it in my sock
I can keep it, yeah, I know what's yours is mine

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me when

I step into the sea, it let's me love some other day
We get bored of weakness all the time
Now I won't know how much I lost until I've gone away
Your sun sets when my sun starts to shine

searching for home

that's my room last year, 2 or 3 days before the end of the year. i took this picture in a fleeting moment before i ran out of the room to meet friends to eat lunch at the dining hall, and something about the light that morning, the way my bed looked, the wood of the floor, the look of all my senior project books stacked up on my floor, all read, annotated, and waiting to be returned to the library, made me halt, smile while fighting back the urge to cry. it was the first really gripping moment i remember knowing i would miss moments like these, these significant pauses before a sudden leap.

---

i've been dragging my feet around my apartment in Los Angeles for the past week, remembering how happy i was just a few days ago, thinking about how funny it is, these changes in moods, the feeling of safety and completeness suddenly rushing away from me, like a parachute that won't open, just a useless backpack – dead weight.

i find myself trying to preserve some memory, some trace of a past self, a past life, a vestigial existence, in order to live thru my present. i'm collecting all the salvagable bits and pieces – the smell of the linens on my bed, the warmth of sunlight thru tree leaves coming in my window, the look of shadows on wooden floor, the smell of an old book and the feel of a hardbound in the crook of my arm as i walk around town, the tune of a Billy Bragg song i used to hum, the slight hum of a harmonica – and trying to weave them together, trying to create a home from them, some shelter for my troubled mind, some comfort to retreat to when i forget how to fall asleep at night, when i get tearful and remember that there's no one home to eat my dinner with, again.

the time in LA doesn't move. it never rains. it never gets colder, so if it weren't for the shortening days, i wouldn't know that we were heading toward december.

i feel an onsetting depression: i try to celebrate small successes – a tasty self-cooked meal, finding textbooks online for almost $100 less than bookstore price, fixing the broken printer at home, finding my keys after absent-mindedly misplacing them, crossing the street without getting hit by a car – but i find i'm pretty good at realizing when i'm trying to fool myself.

it's funny: when i would go back to school in Oxford for the fall, i would always get bouts of seasonal depression with the change in weather. the sudden cold, the lengthening nights, the accumulation of work, all would make me miss the summer and my family, and home.

but today, and yesterday, and all the many days before, i've been wondering what life in Oxford is like, missing the closeness of everything, the convenience of having 20 or so friends in walking distance, of having constant company, of never feeling alone. i miss going to class and being pleasantly surprised to bump into a friend on the way over on my bike. i miss my bike. i miss classes i enjoy. i miss having friends.

i had a post in mind when i came here, but it seems i've already written it. over a year ago, i wrote these two posts back to back and they, as reflections on my present state, echo and project my distress.

i'm listening to Billy Bragg now, and i'm pining for home.

-stephan!e

i've put you in my suitcase

i'm sitting in my room, on the floor, in the middle of heaps of stuff i'm stuffing in boxes.

i'm flying to LA on friday morning. early friday morning. and i'm not coming back.

i'm scared and sad and nostalgic and don't even know where to begin sorting the books i want to bring...

but i don't feel alone, because these last few weeks have been filled with so much love. and eventhough i can't listen to it, it puts me in mind of a song by Devendra Banhart, that, when i listened to it in March, i knew would characterize this particular feeling accurately: confused remembrance and clinging-on. wanting things to stay the same, but knowing that a kind of soft embrace of the impending future and all its changes is necessary to continue living without getting left behind. i dunno, that's what i'm trying to tell myself right now anyway, as i carefully place my things into a suitcase one pound at a time.

in between the layers of soft (borrowed) clothes, frames and pictures. if i can't have these faces in the flesh, i'll settle for them behind glass. (and i'll wake up to them every morning and press my face against them and pretend there's not all this time and space between us. all my friends and family are going to be in the midwest. i've never been 3 time zones away from them for longer than a month before. this shit's bananas.)

love and faces,
stephanie

on the intimacy of clothing: an analysis of what's in my drawers

yes, that is my closet, but i hardly wear half of it. really, the middle shelf is all i wear and the rest are keepsakes. read on...

i'm sorting through my desk drawers at home. oh desk drawers. they're so fun to clean! don't you agree? drawers are like the limbo of office supplies and personal effects. if they get shoved into a desk drawer they're probably on their way to the garbage, but for some reason, you decide not to toss it just yet, and hide them away in the back just for yourself to find later when you're trying to cut down on all your material possessions.

i read an essay or short story a long time ago about a middle-aged man confronting the reality of his father's death. he realized he never knew his father in the way he wanted to, and now, after his father's passing, was trying to reconstruct his father's life from his possessions. in the story, the author finds his father's wallet tucked away in a nightstand drawer, and clutching it close to his heart, tells the story of the object: how its edges were worn from everyday use, how he imagined it snuggled close to his father in the back pocket of his jeans, the smell of the old leather (isn't it amazing how that smell never completely fades?), imagined the stories that wallet could tell: all the places it'd been, the kinds of things his father bought, the touch of his father's hand, the pace and rhythm of his walk as felt from a jeans pocket (i remember the story being particularly striking to me when i read it, however many years ago, b/c of the significance of the wallet being so close to his father's bum, tucked into a pocket and nestled beside his father's buttock - something so peculiarly taken for granted and yet so beautifully described that it made me wish more things could be kept in back jeans pockets.)

of course, i read that story a long time ago, but something about it lingers with me still: the idea of closeness, how use and physical contact transforms our objects into possessions. old shoes, worn and hole-y shirts...

one of my friends said recently that the idea of our bodies conforming to our clothes made him squirm. at the time, i imagined a body with the qualities of a liquid, taking the shape of its container (we are, after all, how many %'s water?) i imagined a huge fat man (or woman) squeezing into a pair of pants, and afterward, the shape of the flesh when it was declothed - the lines pressed into skin from pant creases, the bulge of stomach fat demarcating where the extra flesh flowed over the top of the waistband. yes, that was gross. but now i imagine the opposite, and think of our bodies shaping the clothing, stretching them thru wear and use, the touch of skin lingering in the fabric, the warmth exuding through the fibers.

i guess this explains my penchant for taking people's clothes. i love borrowing worn clothes. while packing and sorting through my closet for things to donate, i found a pile of clothes i'd borrowed indefinitely from my friends. almost every close friend of mine is now missing a shirt, a pair of pants, mittens, a hat, a sweater... i've kept them all this time because they really do have emotional value: i feel safe when i put them on, like i'm wearing a hug.

example: my friend John and i had a mud fight on the lawn behind Shriver Center my junior year. it was one of those spring nights when the trees are just days away from full bloom, and it was raining (i love the way night-time spring rain smells. the smell of cooling daytime pavement and saturated dirt and leaves). we got completely soaked, so we jumped in the fountain. it was wild and wonderful. we went to his house afterward and he lent me a t-shirt and a pair of old corduroy pants to change into. the pants were a little too small for him and they were a little too big for me, but i loved them. i put them on and felt like a little kid playing dress up. a week later, i gave the t-shirt back, but i never returned the pants. that summer, i packed his pants in my suitcase bound for Mongolia and wore them nearly every day (you can see, i'm wearing them here) - the air was so dry we hardly ever changed clothes.

i also have my friend Brittany's brown cardigan sweater. it doesn't fit me very well (the shoulders are bunchy), but i still wear it occasionally and hope that maybe, just maybe, it will fit this time.

i have piles of my mom's old clothes, which i love to wear and think about the prior life they had. was this the dress my mom was wearing when she met my dad? is this the skirt she wore out on their date when he proposed? i found an old color block sweatshirt that belonged to my mom which i wore all the time when i was in elementary school. i spilled acrylic paint on it once in art class and cried for almost half an hour in the bathroom when i realized i'd stained it and ruined it forever.

and i feel cliche about it, but i love wearing my (ex)/boyfriend's clothes. i found one of my ex's old t-shirts in the closet. i loved sleeping in it. i haven't worn it in about 2 years since we broke up, but i still appreciate its softness, and the smell, which i swear, still reminds me of his apartment and the Writing Center.

my boyfriend Ben lent me one of his shirts the other day b/c i was cold, and even though it didn't fit me too well (the sleeves were really long, it hung off my shoulders, the neck was really low), when i wore it, i felt safe and warm, like he was holding me close - closer than would be physically possible with just our arms alone (sometimes i wish i could pull someone into me so tight, and eliminate all the spaces between us, the way you can pull a shirt around you and your body heat fills in the remaining spaces in between). i thought of all the times i'd seen him in this shirt, the way it hung on his shoulders, the way it felt against my cheek when i hugged him, and how much i wanted to be able to take that feeling with me to L.A., when we will be half a globe away from each other starting in the fall. lucky for him, i didn't decide to steal it right then and there, though the thought had crossed my mind.

borrowing clothing is a really intimate act, like sharing a personal space with someone else. think about it: getting into someone's pants (literally, rather than idiomatically speaking, that is). walking in someone's shoes. wearing your heart on your sleeve... i'm out of examples but i'm sure there are more...

this is why i hate packing. i always go to my closet convinced i am going to cut down so much of the stuff in there, that i'm gonna donate half of what i have and make room for new things. but, i always end up putting things back on their shelves. i just can't bear to throw them out or give them away. my dad chides me for being over-sentimental, but he doesn't understand! - this is love i can take with me and tuck away in drawers...

with love and a pair of hand-knit mittens,
stephanie

the long goodbye

pictures from graduation, post-graduation Mac N Joe's excursion, mother's day brunch, and the last weekend in oxford with friends... [click pic's to enlarge]

hamming it up in Yager with Tom and Mikey J:

favorite moment:
Tom - "Hey Provost Herbst!!"
[Provost and President look over, wave, grinning like idiots]

Mikey J - "YOU SUCK!!"

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Western graduation:

on Peabody steps

the strappin' Tappan tutors (and Davida...)

singing "Anyone Else (But You)" with Brandon

me, getting the Miller award

candle-lighting ceremony

post-ceremony

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later that night, at Mac N Joes:

Ben and me

Pulkit and me

me and Matt Huelsenbeck

L to R: Karmen, me, Sudie, and Nicole

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the next day, Mother's Day brunch:

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the following weekend, me with Britt and Ashley before moving out

oh good times in familiar climes,
stephanie

celebrating the '90s

my friends and i were chatting at dinner. making plans for the summer and all the fun, wild and wonderful things we need to squeeze into these last 7 weeks of school before graduation and splitting ways.

the big screen TV was on in the dining hall, per usual, but it was on VH1 today and it was showing one of those "best 100 songs of the '90s" specials and all our "childhood songs" were blasting full force, like a freight train of memories, and we were transported back to the times of middle school dances and summer camps and that nebulous time of your life called adolescence.

we were reflecting on the proto-emo music of the time, laughing as we could recall almost word for word the lyrics to Goo Goo Dolls songs ("when everything feels like the movies, you bleed just to know you're alive/ AND I DON'T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE ME, CUZ I DON'T THINK THAT THEY'D UNDERSTAAAAAND!") and how angst-y we must have been as teens to have loved that song as much as everyone else our age did.

and, in reflecting on how super dramatic and emo (before "emo" was a genre) that song was, i remarked how it would be so funny to do a dramatic reading of all our favorite '90s songs. and from this, an idea for a poetry reading of sorts, a collaborative performance for the sake of nothing but fun times and nostalgia with some good friends, was born.

the place i imagine is Bachelor Hall's courtyard, on a breezy spring evening, entry and exit music consisting of a playlist of all the read pieces, and definitely some wine.

now, i'm trying to think of material. any suggestions? i went through my '90s music on my computer (sadly lacking, i've lost a lot of those old favorites in the process of transitioning to different computers) and only thought of a few enticing reads:

K-Ci & Jo Jo's "All My Life" (probly a much better song than a poem, but a guilty pleasure nonetheless. i especially love how the first line of verse is "Baby (11x)" ha!)

Everything But The Girl's "Missing" ("like the deserts miss the rain")

Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" (oh man, this might be "it"!)

Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You" (this would be so uncomfortable to read: "girl relax, let's go slow, i ain't got nowhere to go/ throw your clothes on the floor, i'm gonna take my clothes off too")

other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

x's

-stef

"put me in your suitcase, let me help you pack..."

i was stuffing my things into a suitcase today, readying to leave for my spring break in California, where i'll be taking my CSETs, then spending some long-awaited time with my relatives, then journeying home to retreat into the final days of a blistering senior project.

as i was packing up, i was thinking about how this is one of the last times i'm leaving to return to this place. and as my boyfriend helped me load my things into the car, and my friends gave me hugs before i rode away, this song was all i could think about.

it was like a rehearsal for the real thing, the BIG move, the day of goodbyes... and that's why i like this song, it's sad and hopeful at the same time, it knows that leaving could be a sad thing but chooses to be cheerfully upset about it instead.

enjoy your spring breaks. here's a song for packing and leaving (but please please oh please come back!):

"Put me in your suitcase, let me help you pack
Cuz you're never coming back, no you're never coming back

Cook me in your breakfast and put me on your plate
Cuz you know I taste great, yeah you know I taste great

At the hop it's greaseball heaven
With candypants and archie too

Put me in your dry dream or put me in your wet
If you haven't yet, no if you haven't yet
Light me with your candle and watch the flames grow high
No it doesn't hurt to try, it doesn't hurt to try

Well I won't stop all of my pretending that you'll come home
You'll be coming home, someday soon

Put me in your blue skies or put me in your gray
There's gotta be someway, there's gotta be someway
Put me in your tongue tie, make it hard to say
That you ain't gonna stay, that you ain't gonna stay

Wrap me in your marrow, stuff me in your bones
sing a mending moan, a song to bring you home"

-Devendra Banhart's "At The Hop" [mp3]

the past is glittering

readers, fans, friends, enemies -

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.

---

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