I am surrounded by books and clothes and other miscellanea, and two open suitcases. I'm reminded of those silly games: how many grown men can you fit in a mini and still shut the doors? How many naked teenagers does it take to fill a shower (a game played with great gusto by many of my compatriots at The Abbey)? My predicament: How many books will fit in two suitcases? Of course, it's not that simple. No longer is packing a game of space. They changed the rules just as I got rather adept at condensing molecules. It was all in the rolling of clothes and the stuffing of socks in shoes and the final combination sitting-bouncing-zipping act. Now it's all about weight, which takes out all the skill (and the fun). Out come the bathroom scales, and a Norton Anthology is always the first to go. My usual argument that books are more important than clothes is made all too jarringly real this time: I'm heading over an ocean to do a PhD; I can't very well leave Barthes and Austen at home. It's a game of favourites, and it hurts my head.
Of course there's always the option of just wearing all my clothes on Tuesday...
to see the world the way I see it now
(Most Recent Entry)
introduction to poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
-- Billy Collins
Every tear you cry
Every doubt you have
All of these things will pass away
All of your big mistakes
Your little old heart would break
Wishing that i could take them back
Write down the things you don't want
Burn them in a glass
Write down the things you dream of
Make a paper plane that flies to Heaven
-- Jann Arden
Considering how hot it is right now, I'd have to advise against wearing all your clothes to the Southern United States. You'd soon wish you were playing the naked teenagers in a shower game. Ah, and weren't those the days.