"Life is a series of low comedies."

The title of today's blog comes from a little comedy song I heard on Prairie Home Companion. I've been thinking about it all week. Maybe because I've been working on our "Discount Comedy Show." Right now, I'm supposed to be writing a song of my own for the show. Good god. I am not a lyricist and far, far too easily distracted.

Just saying. So like any die hard procrastinator (it's a perfectly acceptable way of life and no one can tell me otherwise) I decided to write a blog. So I've been thinking, what does that phrase, "life is a series of low comedies" even mean? A low comedy of course is something in the vein of National Lampoon's or The Three Stooges. A lot of situational humor, often where people on the stage suffer at the expense of our laughter. So there you go. Really that phrase is just your most basic of Buddhist principles: "Life is suffering." But you know what? I like that when you put it in the light of comedy, it gives us an option we didn't have before. We can laugh. We can suffer and we can still laugh because well, what else can anyone do, you know?

It reminds me of my first registration ever. Freshmen year (and every semester since) I stayed up still 5am. Amanda and I made a big production of it. Covered up all the clocks so we wouldn't be tempted to sleep, made coffee, cleaned, did odd jobs like sew buttons back on jackets that we'd been meaning to do. It was pretty grand. And then registration time rolls around. Our suite mates start screaming because they got all their classes within minutes. Amanda and I were locked out of the system. I started crying. I decided to just submit a paper on turnitin.com that I'd been working on. That site was down. I started to sign into Facebook to complain to the entire world (as people do)...and my page was under site maintenance.  I just started laughing. So, so, so hard. I was laughing so insanely that I was crying and I couldn't tell if I was actually crying or not and neither could anyone else. My suite mates were pretty sure I'd cracked. And I was pretty sure at that point that everything, no matter what, couldn't be that bad after all. The irony of it was too delicious; there just had to be a happy ending.

Life is a series of low comedies. And it is so much suffering, everywhere. But I don't think anyone will ever be able to convince me that it doesn't end well.

Well Didn't I Just Find Pandora's Box

You should listen to this song while reading this blog.

This past Saturday night will go down in my memory as the scariest night of my life. It's not a huge deal, but basically I was driving back to Milledgeville in this monster storm on 441. If you've ever been down 411, you would know that there are no gas stations, no stores, no nothing but farms for the entire length of it. Now I was doing this drive sans cell phone as it was. Add a tornado warning, pitch dark, and varying levels of utter downpour...and you've got my drive home. I was pretty sure I was going to die. A little irrational maybe, but try telling that to someone who is scanning the horizon between flashes of lighting for signs of a tornado. 

It's funny how people react to these kind of situations. I turned the radio off because the storm watch announcements every couple minutes were just making it worse, turned on the Jars of Clay CD Redemption Songs, and prayed. And prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed... Sound about right? I mean, my friend Jordan who is an atheist told me this story once. Her family witnessed an accident on the highway and were the ones to pull over and call 911. She said that she put her hands on an injured person and prayed for their protection. It didn't change her convictions about the existence of God of course, but I don't think her response or mine was all that uncommon. I think we have this gut level reaction to cry out to the heavens in times of trouble. We're hard wired. I like how our filters go off in those moments too. What you pray for can give you a good sense of what's really important to you. 

Of course I prayed that I would live; I think that's pretty obvious. But I was surprised to hear why I wanted to live. I prayed that I wouldn't die on this stretch of highway because it would be a long time before me parents found me if I did, and I didn't want them to worry. I didn't want to break my mother's heart. 

I never want to break my mother's heart. My mom found out recently that I had a blog and she wanted to read it. I told her she couldn't. She didn't understand why. She didn't understand that it was because I thought her reading it would change her high opinion of me. Would somehow give me the added pressure of making sure I was writing something that would make her happy. But maybe that's not fair. Maybe I'm giving her love conditions that don't exist, but I don't think that just goes for her.

The thing I fear most is disappointing people. It puts a lot of extra stress on my relationships because I'm constantly holding myself to higher standards than I'm holding other people to. I like to seem well-read, well-listened, intelligent, insightful, charming, and on top of all that I strive to be genuinely good person. I'm constantly failing because who on Earth can do all that all the time? But there is no way I'm alone in this. I'm sure pretty much everyone wants to be a good and interesting person. So maybe we all just want our mothers be proud of us. 

It's Slow Going

So I'm learning to play the guitar. I'm pretty awful still, but then again it's only been a couple days. And I can barely feel my finger tips on my left hand, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

We got this movie called Coal Miner's Daughter. It's about Loretta Lynn, "the First Lady of Country Music." She was a pretty cool lady...who didn't learn how to play guitar until she was 24. So I guess that's good to know. I'm no Loretta Lynn but maybe I can still give it a shot.

Home Thoughts

I like not sleeping sometimes. There is something monastic about being awake for longer than is comfortable. And the day seems so much fuller when you start it early. I stayed up fairly late and impromptu slept over with Anna last night. She woke me up at eight so she could get to work. Instead of going back to bed I went ahead and took a shower and just started my day. The water is softer here...I think. And I smell just a little bit like licorice because I used my little sister's body wash. Who knew that orchids smelled like licorice?

But it's good to be in Savannah. Charlie-cat sat in my lap and let me brush him for a while. If you've never seen Charlie let me assure you that he is the most monstrous animal you have ever not seen. It's like having a bobcat on your lap when he graces you with his presence... I should post some pictures.  

I think I'm going to wander down to the river later and write some poetry for class. It's not everyday you get to write poetry by Moon River. ...okay so it's not actually Moon River, but I like to think they're cousins or something. It's all the same water right? But I'm supposed to write in blank verse-- unrhymed iambic pentameter. It's too calm for me. I like to write poetry from a place of urgency. It doesn't usually take me very long to write a poem, at least not at first. Blank verse makes you slow down. Maybe that's a good thing, and it's definitely something I could get used to. But for now it's weird, like walking along with someone who has an uncomfortably slow gait.

Because it's All the Same

Today I'm dedicating this song to God. I was listening to it while I was reading for my Bible study today. I am so excited for the work he's doing in me. I'm reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. He has been talking about how every good thing, every act of love, every truth is of God, wherever we find it, because if God is the truth and the light, no truth or light can exist without him. Everyday, even as I'm reading the Bible, I realize that God is soo much bigger than it. Yes, the Bible is authoritative, sacred, beautiful, truth containing....it may very well be the best word on the subject of God. But God is bigger than the ways we can talk about him. So so so much bigger. I wish I could sit for coffee with Jesus and Rob Bell and just chat, listen mostly, but just be there. They speak truth and beauty.

Have you ever stood next to a very large bell as it was ringing? You know how the sound kind of vibrates in you, even after it's stopped? That's what their truth does to me. It resonates still.

That's Just the World We Live In

Springfest was astronomically more fun that I thought it was going to be. Basically I spent the entire day showing people the campus, answering their questions, generally being a good host for the school. It's so nice to have a niche for my "know-it-all"ness. And it's nice to be around people that are positive and excited.

I did have a weird moment though. Someone made a joke about the earthquake and Japan and just sort of jokingly said "To soon, too soon!" and we laughed it off. But you know. We talked about it a bit after that. Apparently thousands of people have died or gone missing. Just thousands? I thought. That's not too bad for a natural disaster. Really? REALLY?! How could I think thousands was a laughable number? There's a line in a story by Mishima spoken by someone in the face of a family tragedy.

"Three of them! What nonsense! Three of them," she said. It was too large a number for one family, too small a number for society. 

Isn't that just the way?  Thousands die in an earthquake, and somehow we manage to wrap our minds around that number. Or we can't and it doesn't mean anything to us. And a single death, like the death of a loved one, of course that is a tragedy. I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to make light of something like that. But somehow it seems...more natural. Like it is a reasonable loss. But why is it okay to laugh at large scale tragedy happening across the world but not at funerals? Life is life. And in both instances, life is lost. Even more than that I want to know how I can have a day like today, a beautiful wonderful sunny day while tragedy surrounds us everywhere we look. It's a hard thing to accept sometimes. And I'm not cynical enough to say, "It's because it hasn't happened to us." Of course that contributes. But I think I like the way Hobbes puts it:

Up a Lazy River

I'm either insane or just really zen right now. The week I'm facing is, well...we'll just call it daunting. I can think of other words. But somehow it barely matters to me that I have two tests and three papers due next week. (That's at least one major assignment for ever day but Friday mind you.) And that's not including the stress of our impending Variety Show... or registration. Or my entire Saturday being swallowed whole by Springfest.

But the thing is, I'm listening to Bobby Darin, and Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday these days. How can I be anxious in the face of all that swing? Nothing keeps your head cool like jazz.

I heard recently that no one knows the exact origins of jazz music. But I like to think it was born out of an attitude of transcendence. Someone down in the Louisiana basin thought, "Broke don't mean we can't be happy. It don't mean we can't have class." And damn does jazz have class. Soul, show. I heard this quote about jazz once.

"From the start it had a kind of epileptic charm, it fitted the times, it made jokes and it wept, it laughed out loud, it dozed, and sometimes spoke of regret."

I think that's about perfect.

Mortal Coil

I've been thinking about self recognition. Like, literal looking in the mirror self recognition. It is so weird to me sometimes. I'll be going about my daily activities and this...consciousness is in control of my actions. I'm saying things and doing things and feeling small or tall or pretty or lumpy. My ideas about who I am are constantly being reshaped. And then I look at myself in a mirror, stare right at--right into my own eyballs, and there it is. My body. The case I am contained in. Except not. It's the "case" that I am. It's my eyes that are seeing attached to my mind that has its certain perspectives about how this world works. It's my nerves that make me nervous, or happy, or in love. I read a quote recently. "Love is chemicals," is said. Synapses firing in a morse code meaning "this means more to you."  I am the body I am in. Except for those parts that feel so outside of me. But love feels so outside of me sometimes. It feels like something poured in, added later, like vanilla into bland pancakes.

Can you imagine the day you realize that the bald-headed, chubby, short-limbed thing in the mirror is you?  One day your mother has got you in her arms and your eyes go wide and you think, That thing there, that thing is making the face I feel myself making. I am watching thoughts rush through the eyes of that small stranger and they are identical to mine. We are lifting our arms together. We are rubbing our soft heads together, we are, we are, we are...and in a sudden flash of insight, I am. One day that happened to you. Do you think you were disappointed? Until that moment you were anything. Sensations. You were the negative space you felt against your skin. At most, you were arms and toes receding out of your peripheral vision. We all became less and less until the maps of our bodies were fully charted.
And now, the only mystery is that ethereal substance that seems to fit, but not quite fit into our chests. This living thing that is breathing on it's own, twisting and curling it's fingers. As formless as our own faces be for we learned they were ours. Making us forget that we are only flesh. Requiring us to believe that we're missing some crucial piece of human anatomy. Casting doubt on our three-dimensional sensibilities. Sending us off and large into the blue beyond and then-- I catch my eyes in the mirror again. And I am only, only, always only a body.

The Poem-Line

I hung some poems on the line;

They needed air,

We cannot quite remember Spring,

They thought.

There must be something

Better than television.

I caught my poems

Sneaking out the window and said,

“All you had to do was ask.”

I strung them one by one

Against the blue and

They went flapping, flapping—

Making clatter calls to birds on the sill;

Suddenly it seemed so cruel.

I realized they were not linen.

They were not even mine at all but

 Feathers over fleshy beating hearts.

So I unpinned them.

They went flying off— up, up, up!

And have not yet come down.