"When I was a little girl, I used to lie down in the prickly grass of my front yard, sprawled snow-angel style. Looking up at the sky, I would watch puffs of lazy clouds while hoping, with all my heart, to feel the earth spinning through the universe. My 1st grade teacher had said that the planet was being hurled around a star, while spinning like a top, and I couldn’t believe the news. Laying in the grass, feeling the weight of my small body on the ground, I was determined to discover the tilt of the earth and the whirl of the ride. I could only imagine it would be something like the grown up rollers coasters I had pined for at Disneyland but hadn’t been allowed to go on, because the top of my head hadn’t quite met the marker on the Mickey Mouse sign. But, I was sure that if I just paid enough attention, I didn’t need Magic Mountain anyways, because I was already on the most sensational ride in the galaxy.
I have never felt the ride quite like I had hoped, but I think I might have gotten close. There were moments of soft sunshine on my face and cloud puffs in my eyes and hope in my heart where I would experience a subtle rush and wondered if it could have been…the wind of the twirling planet...."
Friday, January 25, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Ending and Beginnings
With the New Year here, much seems like it has shifted in my little world. I finally made the rather illogical decision to withdraw from a grad program I am half–way through, in an effort to focus more of my mind, heart, and resources on getting into a PhD program where I can study the intersection of literature and psychology. I have loved my time at Mars Hill, but more and more I am realizing I don’t have the academic support to do the writing/projects/research I had hoped to do when I started. So, I won’t be in school this spring, but knowing my obsessive tendencies, I will be studying/researching many hours away in libraries around Seattle, hoping to prepare for getting into another program.
Not being in school will afford me the time to focus even more on my current book project, too. I just spent 4 days in the woods, Thoreau-like, trying to put together a book proposal. I think I left the cabin twice. I spent my time by a fire, drinking tea, and staring at my computer screen while I painfully typed away. Writing can be so blissful and it can be agony. This time, it was agony. I have a picture of the ocean as my background on my computer and the one time I did escape the cabin and walk to the beach, I was sort of aghast. So, this is what the real ocean looks like? Why hadn’t it crossed my mind to see the real thing, a five–minute walk from the heartache of my writers’ block?
I am just going to have to find balance. Working harder and harder is not going to get this book written, because I just go mad after about 4 days of staring at a screen. I need more fresh air and ocean breezes. Withdrawing from school only feeds my fears, which then feeds my obsessive impulses, which then effectively cramps the love which needs to be the fuel of this project. Aaack. Holly says this is just a season. I hope so, because I would like emerge from these anxieties and remember why I used to love playing with words.
Not being in school will afford me the time to focus even more on my current book project, too. I just spent 4 days in the woods, Thoreau-like, trying to put together a book proposal. I think I left the cabin twice. I spent my time by a fire, drinking tea, and staring at my computer screen while I painfully typed away. Writing can be so blissful and it can be agony. This time, it was agony. I have a picture of the ocean as my background on my computer and the one time I did escape the cabin and walk to the beach, I was sort of aghast. So, this is what the real ocean looks like? Why hadn’t it crossed my mind to see the real thing, a five–minute walk from the heartache of my writers’ block?
I am just going to have to find balance. Working harder and harder is not going to get this book written, because I just go mad after about 4 days of staring at a screen. I need more fresh air and ocean breezes. Withdrawing from school only feeds my fears, which then feeds my obsessive impulses, which then effectively cramps the love which needs to be the fuel of this project. Aaack. Holly says this is just a season. I hope so, because I would like emerge from these anxieties and remember why I used to love playing with words.
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