Saturday, 8:38 p.m.
The icy slats of the red deck are glittering in the reflection of our flickering backyard light. When I run the tip of my boot over them, there is a gummy sensation beneath my foot, not as seamless a motion as a boot running across black ice and tripping up the owner of said boot. The light flickers on with my every little movement, and then shuts back off immediately after. I know I will have to give in to the darkness soon; as it is, I am holding my notebook up to the light cast by the open door to the kitchen behind me. I write slowly, almost illegibly, because I do not want to risk the numbness in my fingertips that comes when my heavy gloves come off.
The snow is falling again, but just barely. When the light is off, I can't even see the flakes, but when the it flashes back on suddenly, I can see them shining in the glow, and then all goes dark again. I find myself wondering if the indecisive backyard light bothers my neighbors as much as it bothers me.
I've been out here in the cold almost ten minutes, with the door propped open behind me for a more consistent form of light. I'm glad my house is empty right now. I need this peace and quiet; something in me craves the stillness tonight. With the chaos of February over with now, and the chaos of March and the AWP conference about to begin, I feel crunched between two extremes. I am recovering from an action-packed visit from my parents last weekend, which involved riding on several buses back and forth between Swissvale and my parents' downtown hotel, as well as an audio-tour of the first-floor nationality rooms at the Cathedral of Learning. I also had a midterm project due 3 days after they left. The day after I turned it in, I felt free as a lark, practically whistling to myself all day long (if I knew how to whistle, anyway, I would have been tempted).
But my freedom was short lived, as I awoke this morning newly aware of the need to finish my assignments early, due to my upcoming, internet-less trip to Boston. After this trip, I will spend a few days with family in New York, then return to more midterm papers and final projects just around the corner. Today alone, I spent five hours in the computer lab, which just got bigger and brighter screens than I am accustomed to, and by the end of my study session, I was left with the start of a migraine and a knot in my chest.
So sitting here with a bit of chilled quietude tonight feels like a luxury. A single tree branch sways , the only movement in the dark. I breathe in crisp air and wonder when I will get another moment like this, in my yard, and whether I can put aside the stresses of the week before and the one ahead--a moment to appreciate this silence.
The tree branch has stopped moving, now, and my fingers are the only motion, as they record my hieroglyphics on a legal pad in the dark. My pen is faulty, and I have to push my finger hard into the page to make the letters come through, so that I can read them later. What a strange sensation, writing words you cannot see, writing in the snow (though just a dusting), writing forcefully on a legal pad as though your life depends upon the words being legible, writing in a flickering light, writing with a bag of laundry waiting in the house behind you, writing when there are so many other things to do, all awaiting your attention. But then, that is precisely why some of us need to write--not want, but need. Most people, non-writers and perhaps even some writers, do not think of writing as a bodily endeavor, but I do, sitting here with one frozen hand, ungloved, and cramped from the cold and from pressing pen to page with the rage of self-expression. My frozen toes inside my fuzzy boots tell me that writing is indeed a physical thing, and the slowly loosening knot of shame and worry in my chest--an anxiety no doubt bred long ago by some worrisome ancestor who had more to think about than midterm papers and cold weather--tells me the same.
Brigette,
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog because it reminds me that even in the civilized urban world, the wild is always a constant participant. You are able to seamlessly combine your busy lifestyle with the serene and calm lifestyle of the natural world:
“So sitting here with a bit of chilled quietude tonight feels like a luxury. A single tree branch sways, the only movement in the dark. I breathe in crisp air and wonder when I will get another moment like this, in my yard, and whether I can put aside the stresses of the week before and the one ahead--a moment to appreciate this silence.”
What also struck me about this piece was your final reflection that “writing is indeed a physical thing,” which I completely agree with. Writing is not only physical in terms of going out in the cold and writing through your body, but it is also physically, mentally, and emotional draining and shouldn’t it be? If you have written something wonderful and something you can say you are proud of and that, in a sense, you admire, should your body not be left exhausted?
I was going to comment on your most recent post and then I saw this title. I love it! Sometimes you need to pull the reader in even before the first sentence or line of a piece and a title is one way to do so, which is often neglected. Even if you didn't spend much time on it, I dig it.
ReplyDeleteBut the energy didn't stop there. The title definitely sets you up for the tone of the piece. There is some really great imagery in the first two paragraphs of the piece. Then, the "I" sneaks up on us. It isn't distracting and I like that there is less of an "I" in the beginning. It gives me, as a reader, more of a reason to keep reading. It's not too internal or self-serving, in that way. It comes full circle in the last two paragraphs (as if the structure was deliberate, which I like, even if it wasn't) with great, full imagery and a new interweaving of the I into that. Good stuff. I love the relation to the branches and the fingers, writing, in this one. I'm a sucker for great metaphor!
I'm struck here by how, in your space, you are entirely present, fully immersed, as if, through these visits, you are becoming an essential and integral part of the landscape itself. Like the words you write even though you cannot see them, so is the calm of nature always there, even when we do not see it.
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