Getting Personal

     I’ve recently been toying with the idea of starting a personal blog. I hate mixing my personal posts and literature based posts here on Lit Bit. I’m okay with some overlap (because I consider this inevitable) as long as a semi-personal post has something to do with literature: like what book I am currently reading or plan on reading or struggling with writer’s block, etc. But the full blown personal, I-just-need-to-bitch posts generally drive me crazy and cause me some embarrassment, no matter how necessary they may have been when I wrote and posted them. So in comes the idea of a completely separate blog that is dedicated to me just saying whatever personal thing I need to say, no matter how irrelevant, mundane, exaggerated. I seriously tried to give this avenue a go. I could really use a place to just unload my thoughts. But I can’t. I tried to write posts for a personal blog. I can’t do it. I can’t be that blatantly personal, that open. I can only do it in vague, round-about ways like this post. How frustrating. I will have to come up with some other solution I suppose. I’ve tried just normal journaling… I only get on my own nerves doing that. :/ And I’m sure before an hour has passed I will be embarrassed by this post as well. *sigh*

 

Lockdown

     I have been on mental and (primarily) emotional lockdown these past few months. As I try to push beyond this mental barrier I have raised against myself and everyone else, my mind pushes back – pushes against the desire to unleash, to let go. It doesn’t take much to deter myself from my goal. I know exactly what to think to make myself cringe and step away from the chink in the brick wall. This isn’t writer’s block – I can feel the store of information swelling behind the barrier, thoughts dammed together, waiting to spill over. I simply won’t let them, but I can’t bring myself to truly be angry either. So how do you get beyond a hurt that permeates into all your other thoughts until your mind draws a line beyond which you can no longer dwell without the wretched onslaught of anguish? This sounds like hyperbole, doesn’t it? I wish it were.

     I extracted myself from an unpleasant circumstance, hoping that the change in environment would allow my frame of mind to recuperate and move beyond. It has been a couple of weeks, but I still can’t bring myself to simply think of some things, much less speak of them. I know I should, I know I need to. I know that would help in the long run, but I just can’t. Even the slightest probing into this pool of thought results in an emotional pain that is nearly physical (and sometimes is). That being the case, my poetry writing has been severely handicapped. While I wish it was easy to write detached poetry (or even prose), it isn’t. It doesn’t matter if I am writing a political poem, or on a topic unconcerned with my personal life – writing still requires me to put something of myself into it. I have to think not only from outside myself, but from inside as well. Does that make any sense? I have to think in multiples when I write – in multiples of self (my better self, my darker self, my self as I am aware and unaware of, etc.), as well as in the multiples outside of the self. So it doesn’t matter what subject I choose to write about, because they all need me to cross that line, to cross into a territory that I can’t access at the moment.

     This battle between the creative urge and self-preservation has been hard. Writing is usually a relief, a place I can go to and say whatever the hell I want, then tuck it away to never be seen again or re-evaluate later. I want that relief very badly, but I can’t seem to make it to the page. I lose control over my thoughts before the beginnings of a poem have even been grasped and then it’s all downhill from there. When I try to unlock a small portion of thought, tangents leak through and eventually overwhelm. This is quickly followed by another mental lockdown. My brain retaliates by immediately staunching the flow and going off on a benign tangent. In the middle of emotional upheaval I’m suddenly calm as the contents of a recently read book or watched movie consume my thoughts. I find myself back in a safe zone, but there is no true relief here. I know my mind is trying to protect itself. I’ve always been passive, so this duck and run technique isn’t that surprising. And it is extraordinarily frustrating to be able to see myself from the sort of detached perspective (how else could I talk about all this (even if it is in vague, imprecise language)?).

     I’m just trying to write and read and hoping that at some point I’ll be able to move beyond. Even toeing the line as I’ve been doing this entire post is giving me a headache and drawing the pinch of skin between my eyebrows tighter and tighter. I suppose the best I can do is to just keep trying. Hopefully reading poetry and listening to music and such will help loosen the ties in my mind as well as spending time with close friends.

 

All thumbs…

UPDATE: I’ve decided I have no thumbs (and neither does my dad). We’ve killed all our plants. We’re not sure what happened exactly…they were doing great and then suddenly started drooping and falling down. In a last ditch attempt we went ahead and planted them. Bad choice though, considering the temperature decided to take a turn downward. Perhaps we will try again when the weather decides to be a bit more consistent. :/

     I’ve never been much of a gardener. Growing up my brother was the one with green thumbs – everything from cherry tomatoes, grapes, beans and even marijuana (silly boy growing anything and everything just to see if he could). While I always enjoyed watching the cycle of growth and color as well as the picking and eating, it wasn’t my hobby, it was his. Our parents encouraged us to have separate hobbies to prevent tension – to make each kid feel special. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I really wanted to try starting my own garden. Unfortunately the place I was living had a very limited season (and I had very limited space in a small apartment backyard). I tried going for just a potted garden, but I had no clue what I was doing or how to properly maintain even that simple of a thing. Needless to say all my plants died and never returned to life after that first season with me. It’s a discouraging thing – watching plants turn brown and brittle.

     When it comes to gardening I need all the help I can get. So when I moved to another state in the Southwest with slightly more amiable gardening conditions, I decided to team up with my dad. He has also wanted to start up a garden, though slightly less ambitious than my ideas of a garden. I can’t help but have that magazine image of gardens in my head – the one where the vegetation is overflowing planters, boxes, and pots, bursting with colors from rich greens to reds and yellows and purples. The kind of garden that seems to sprout naturally with minimal cultivation and added resources. That’s the kind of garden I want.

     Of course I realize that any garden requires work to achieve that flawless, flowing, natural look. Our first course of action was to purchase our seeds: zucchini, cucumber, jalapeños, a variety of sweet peppers, cantaloupe, watermelon, a grape vine, green beans, fennel, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, a variety of flowers as well as some other stuff that I can’t recall at the moment. I went for a wider variety of edibles while my dad focused on a few of his favorites as well as more flowers.

     Once we selected the type of stuff that we wanted to grow we proceeded to use a seed starter kit that my dad had picked up last year. Again, I went for a variety of produce to start in the little pellets of peat, only planting two to three of each type of seed while my dad chose to start rows of the each seed on his half of the tray. It wasn’t long before the seeds germinated and began sprouting stalks and leaves.

     Eventually we decided that the plants were quickly outgrowing the small starter pellets (evidenced by the roots they were shooting out into neighboring pellets), but unfortunately we still hadn’t firmly decided how we were going to lay out our garden, nor did we have the materials to ground the plants yet. So we bought some of those peat pots and some potting soil. I moved the plants that were outgrowing the pellets into these pots while some were left behind to continue growing.

     This past weekend my dad and I worked outside all afternoon to finalize our plans for the garden. We picked a corner in the backyard that gets sufficient sunlight and can also be protected from the dogs. We decided to do a sort of raised bed in order to better contain the garden and minimize expenses on material – no need to waste soil and such. We went ahead and built up the frame of the bed with some scrap wood and fenced the area off.

     

     We still plan on getting some peat moss and then top soil to fill the bed with. We think that the dirt already in place at the bottom is decent enough to not need a deeper container. On top of the fenced off area for the edible stuff we also have a spot intended for flowers. It’s in the middle of the yard so I decided it was only safe for completely decorative plants. There was no way I would risk eating eating green beans that had been pissed on by a pup. My dad agreed with my whole-heartedly.

     We also have a small trellis planter that we are going to utilize for anything that vines, like the grape plant my dad picked out.

     That’s the current status of our gardening adventures. I’m hoping this next weekend will see the plants actually in the ground. We are feeling generally good about being past any frosts (though we could be thoroughly mistaken). I’ll continue to take pictures and post updates on the progress of our green thumbing.

 

Sitting tight…

     I haven’t been around much since January, I know. Neither have I technically been up to much either. Just sitting and waiting…trying to be patient. Everyday, around four o’clock, when the mail comes, it feels as though someone is crocheting with my intestines and I think I’ll vomit. I finally finished applying to grad schools, dropping some here and some there, and now all that is left to do is play the waiting game. I hate this game. I hate that period of suspension where I just don’t know what to do with myself. Do I find a job and tell them (or not) that I’m going to be leaving in four months (I would like to, but I can’t say for sure that I am)? Do I just stay at home and try desperately not to spend money (which could barely be afforded)? Or do I go the pessimistic route of a “career” job? Alternative: sit at home and just wait for the mail to get here – I feel nauseous thinking about it. So instead I have been wandering around in a bit of a stupor, a zombie-like trance. I’ll call it a defense mechanism, a mode to prevent extensive thinking or dwelling on particular subjects. Problem is, of course, that I end up zoning everything else out as well and about the only thing I end up good for is some Halo 3, movie watching, book reading and cooking dinner for me and my parents.

     I’ve applied for a few jobs, but I find that I usually screw up the wondrous personality tests they make you take in order to get a damn retail job. I mean, come on! We’re talking about cashiering at the likes of book stores and Wal-Mart and such. If I wasn’t postal sounding prior to these tests, I’m sure I am after my schizophrenic answers of loving and hating people – as if anyone’s relationship to their fellow beings could be dwindled down to “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “agree,” “strongly agree.” I get confused between answering in a state of annoyance (because I usually find my response to the questions depending completely on the details of the circumstance described) and trying to work around the psychology behind the question itself. And then by the end of the application process I’m feeling discouraged. I’m not generally one of those people that is well represented on paper – in fact I’m generally not well represented after one face to face meeting. Instead I’m the kind of person you need to meet with a few times before you can really decide whether or not you like me. *Sigh*

     Okay, enough complaining. Just feeling a bit stuck these days and trying to work it all out in my head. At the same time I’m desperately hoping that the lack of letters from colleges is a sign that my application has made it further along the acceptance process than others. *fingers crossed* In the meantime I will brood a little more about how unfair a representation of my personality job applications are and wish that they would just ask me to write an essay analyzing a good book or cook them up a nice poem about stocking shelves.

 

Comings and Goings

     I am almost finished with the application process for schools. Just one last batch of paperwork and applications to send off and fill out. And then it’s the waiting game, the sit and twiddle thumbs nervously game. That I can handle. On top of applying to Graduate schools I am also in the middle of moving. The actual move will take place this weekend. I’m leaving behind the city I’ve lived in for about six years now while I pursued my undergraduate degree. It has been an abundance of ups and downs. Although I may not have wanted to admit it to myself, as this weekend draws so close, I realize that I will actually miss this place. It was the first place where I asserted my independence, where I chose to follow the path in my life that I wanted, not the one everyone else thought I should follow. I still mentally pat myself on the back for the steps I took in that direction; I’m proud of myself.

     Aside from all that jazz I am also reading This Clumsy Living by Bob Hicok and hope to have a review of the book of poetry up sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’m excited about finally getting some poetry reviews out. The Book Club is currently finishing up the third book of the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by the end of this month. For the month of February we are going to read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison in honor of Black History Month.

     Even though I am currently not in school I am certainly not lacking in things to do. I can’t wait to get moved and settled, which will hopefully result in more time for me to commit to Lit Bit and the Book Club. Undoubtedly I will keep everyone posted on how the school search goes.