Thursday, November 29, 2007
definition of space
on spaces: i find that i compartmentalize almost everything, with little or no cross-over. letting people into these sequestered kingdoms is where it gets hard and difficult, sometimes painful. it's like this: here is my apartment. here is my room, only i can inhabit it. here is my heart, it is mine. maybe this, too, is a commentary on sharing? my work is compartmentalized, also. my work life and my living life are separate. my room is for sleeping. my apartment is for living. i must find other spaces to write, to engage the creative space, the working space. rarely will i bring papers home to grade. rarely will i write a poem (or intend to write a poem, though sometimes a poem demands to be written where ever i am) in my house, in my room, on my bed. my computer never enters my room. that is in my living space.
my friends, too, i find are compartmentalized: here are my writer friends. here are my crazy i-want-to-go-out-and-act-ridiculous friends. here are my now-its-time-to-think-deeply friends. rarely is there cross over. birthdays and special event gatherings are always difficult this way, and i generally find myself celebrating in different spaces with different people, wearing different hats.
and if i'm to be brutally honest with myself, that goes into relationships, too. even if there is an extreme interest in someone, i shy away from them if i know we know a lot of the same people, if i know that i will be unable to keep those lives separate and compartmentalized, or if there is a grey line between friendship and lover. perhaps i'm speaking too much, now. but this is part of the dealing, right? admitting the problems, putting them out into the open. "hi my name is delana, and i'm a compartmentalizer."
outside of relationships, and thinking of myself academically, i worked hard to keep things separate. i majored in history, and saved my poetic writings for outside the academy. my writing life and my life as a student were different. currently, they're the same as i'm enrolled in an mfa program, and my job as a student, too, is to be a writer, and i find myself in extreme discomfort, trying to negotiate this grey area. so i run. did i mention i'm a runner? not only literally (although i dont feel safe running in big urban areas, so i instead wander aimlessly around nyc, getting in miles, watching each section change as i walk through them) but figuratively as well. i run away from things, sometimes, instead of dealing with them upfront. either i run or i kill/end. so. i'm leaving my mfa program for a number of reasons, but sometimes i wonder if it's because of this imbalance, this failure to find a balance? how so long i kept things separate (and equal?), and when they converge it brings up all new problems and issues that i sometimes rather not deal with...and i find that when i do deal with them, they become bigger problems, and things grow at an exponential rate that all i can do is watch them blow up in my face, and hope to salvage something when the dust settles.
i dont know what will be left of me after december, to be honest. i'm tired. i'm exhausted. i'm hurt and aching, and i find myself compartmentalizing/sectioning off myself from people, and running away, and ending things. burning bridges. but, what's done is done, right? what is said is out in the open and can not be taken back. what's been tried has failed.
i dont know where all of this is going or where it meant to go when i started. just thinking through my past few days/weeks, and thinking about the friendships i might have ended, the opportunities i might have killed, the chances for spaces and people to blend together i kept from happening, and sometimes i wonder if it would be different if i didnt try so hard to keep things apart. if i did listen to my heart that says "i'm lonely". or my hand that says "it's cold" and doesnt reach out to another for warmth. i dont know. i'm still working through it...trying to see where my different spaces can start to intersect.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
ladies wear red?
Saturday, November 24, 2007
thinking about the body
looking back, looking forward
it's cold here, in the city. i've got on many layers. i'm about to step out and see what the holidays look like in nyc. maybe i'll write some poems.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
thinking
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
i'm closer to knowing
© delana dameron
I am closer to knowing
after Phillip Levine
I kneel in my porcelain tub, thigh-
deep in water, to wash the weeks worth
of clothes that piled up in the center
of my floor. I can’t say I know anymore
now what work is, but I’m closer
to knowing sacrifices my grandmother made,
a domestic in those grandiose white houses
on the
families that paid others to do their work.
I can’t say how she did it – scrubbing
the filth from the clothes by hand,
how she spent hours rubbing her knuckles
together – as I am now – to get the friction
needed, the friction and simplicity I took
for granted in those large metal contraptions
of detergents and softeners to rinse clean
our daily sweat and dirt. growing up
will do this, I suppose, when you run
prematurely away from safekeeping
and you find yourself on a Saturday night
forced to forfeit amenities I never once,
before now, had to pay for and cannot now
afford. working up a sweat, my hands
softened and rubbed raw at once, smelling
of downy, wringing the privilege from too many
pairs of jeans, I am thankful for this
meditation in the bathtub, this homage
to the woman who, decades back,
did the same – and I suppose, work is not
doing things out of affordability, but
doing the back-bending labor for a dime,
for three children and an absent husband.
work is not holding your own intimates
between your fingers, but a stranger’s,
plunging them down below the suds,
and picking them up to the light to see
how much more is required of you
before you are done.
Monday, November 12, 2007
change is my one constant
i'll leave you with a reading list of some poetry books i'm dipping into here and there
ross gay, against which
aracelis girmay, teeth
patricia smith, teahouse of the almighty
philip levine, what work is
cyrus cassells, the mud actor
sherry fairchok, the palace of ashes
lydia melvin, south of here
dunya mikhail, the war works hard
and my novel by elias khoury, gate of the sun (about palestine, of course. yes, i'm back on writing about palestine, and with a most-keen eye that i never had before)
more more tomorrow.
best, lana.
(i'll also explain the blog title.)