The Great Hush

The end of a chapter has come. I am in the last page, walking slower and slower, afraid of the finality of the end, the blank space that will fill the end of this page.

This is the part of the story where…I don’t know. The part where self-reflection is a spot of blue sky and everything else has become a series of stratus clouds constricting the blue and stretching away. This is the part where I need to catch a breath. This is the part where my romantic self notices again the things that make life beautiful. Fragile and beautiful. The swallows that follow my car, the smell of thunderstorms,  The children next door (they are human sunshine), the simple white coffee cup in my hand, the excitement of a good book, nighttime sounds in my ears, stars above my eyes, cool grass under my feet. This is summer. This is the sigh, the exhale, the great hush to separate me for a moment from this moving, spinning, leaping, consuming life.

Junior Year Reflections

Breathe. Just two weeks left. Less than that really. I'm at the stage where I realize how all the things in my peripheral vision that I wanted to do this semester are now impossible. Ah well. 

Finals week reminds me of steaming milk. (Yes I know, I frequent coffee shops a bit more than what is healthy) You begin the semester with fun and games-with big bubbles. Then the milk really begins to froth, but everything is under control. And then gradually, but faster and faster, the thing gets hot. And right when it's too hot to touch and you can't hold on; it's over.

Done. Semester completed. Latte ready on the counter.

But in all of this, in all of the lattes, art projects, coffee dates, non-gender neutral dorm supplies (thanks a lot, Target), missed classes, school events that I usually avoid, nose piercings, semesters spent abroad...I've learned a few things.  

1. Don’t be selfish with your time.
2. Think twice before you steal a mug. You might want to make it a habit.
3. Double filter what you say. 
4. Go on great walks, with or without people. Find fields of flowers to think in.
5. Make friends with the librarians.
6. Eat salad.
7. Own sturdy slippers. (I've worn out three pairs already)
8. Keep your secrets. Leave some things to the imagination.
9. Take your vitamins.
10. Pray. A lot. Every day.

And there you have it. The wisdom of a 21 year old. Go.

Tea-Types

   

  Hot baths used to not appeal to me. You fill this porcelain hole that is too shallow for swimming with hot water and sit for about an hour in your own sweat and dirt. Baths only became appealing when I began to view them differently. I don’t remember when it started, but I began to think of a bathtub as a huge teacup. Of course, this would make me the tea bag (or tea leaves, depending on how dedicated a tea lover you are). The analogy could have stopped there, but of course it didn't. The tea-types began. I started by typing myself, and then it moved to randomly creating tea-flavors for people based upon their personalities. 

For instance, the Kate flavor would be something like this:

-Solid, blunt, black tea base. English or Irish breakfast perhaps.

-Romantic and sensitive, wild rose.

-Sweet and understated, vanilla.

-Spunky, stubborn, Ginger.

-And finish with something subtly odd, like a moss that can only grow underwater.

Not only do I myers-briggs everyone I know, I also tea-type them. 

I should probably think about getting a different hobby.

A Little Revaluation

  I’ve been thinking. This usually happens during my swims or long walks.

Valentines this year had a new flavor, the flavor of decision and of contentment. 2010’s Valentines was my first to spend with an actual, serious, boyfriend. In 2010 I thought I had everything.

But somehow, as a single girl spending her 2011 Valentines with other girls, I felt like I had even more. There were so many beautiful moments on that day, like waking up to the sunrise peeking through my teal curtains. Like carrying daisies around the grocery store, and feeling beautiful just holding them and being excited to give them to my beautiful friends. Things like that, days like that, though they ooze with clichés and cheese- those are the things that will define this semester.

That is the contentment flavor, the decision is simply this: I am twenty, I am single, and I love it. Really, I do. I am inebriated on independence.

   I’m sure one day I’ll get around to finding that guy with Jimmy Stuart charm and a Tom Hanks laugh. I’ll know I’ve found him when he’s the kind that can write to me about bouquets of newly sharpened pencils, bring me daisies instead of roses, and not be afraid to scrape all the garnish off that dish just because it gets under my skin. (I’m referencing You’ve Got Mail a bit today, I think it’s time for me to watch it again.)

But until that day gets here, I am decidedly content to be Kate. And that is it. 

Photo Via

6am Thought

The man

braved every gust of wind, sleet, snow, and ice

only to face water in its chlorinated form.

braver than the regulars

braver than the swim team

This man 

is the reason I had to leave my bed 

with only five hours of sleep

and trek through a foot of snow

to watch him thrash through water.

But.

I won't regret it

if

he does it for a woman.

 Today, in the land of university library 

I was given the task of erasing pencil marks from the pages of a recently returned book. I was sad to erase them, the student had obviously read every page and her thoughts wouldn’t be passed on to the next reader.

Yes, I am one of those people that likes a book to be underlined, favorite passages starred, and small notes scrawled in the margins. {unless the typeography is too perfect to ruin- then I want it spotless} I like my books marked up for the same reason that I like freckles and scars: stories. That sprinkle of freckles across your nose tells about the summer in Cape Cod where you read The Catcher in the Rye for the first time {and have read it many times since}

I have a scar on my knee that tells two stories in which I fall painfully and dramatically- once in Russia and once in Mexico. Tattoos, though they are often quite unfortunate looking, can be redeemable if they own a good story.

So I was thinking all of this while erasing another student’s story out of the library book. And when I finally finished erasing all 130 pages of underlining, starring, and scrawled notes…I decided to plant a tree for the one cut down. Hence, I’m marking the world wide web with my story and my thoughts.

Maybe that’s what blogging is about today- it’s not simply a sharing of information. It is taking something that’s everyone’s and making your own tiny marks in the margins.

We Will Call it Word Blot

mush gush go away feelings I feel no more for you come back logic I never knew we drifted apart hold me tight icy grip don’t slip freeze it off moles leave holes scars leave stories sever tear but don’t pretend it wasn’t there where wear leaves lines in lines we wait we live we stand we run in lines swim in lines lines make circles squares hexagons stars stand alone hearts break perfectly in half and make more lines but really just graphite on paper you can rip tear shred burn but you wont you will stand in that line that circle that square no tear no repair don’t complain you know its fair you know you sow thoughts but never movement never change it jingles in your pocket in your car under your step step step click clack smack on sidewalks crunch crunch on gravel crunch crunch cardboard cereal goosh smoosh on mush gush go away feelings

Focus

With every new year, there are resolutions. I have come to see that a sense of unrest within a person can often breed beautiful things- the new year is simply an ideal catalyst. In hindsight I have labeled and organized each year in my life, usually stamping it with a single word or phrase to summarize those 365 days of experiences. This year I have stopped scoffing at the cliche notion of a resolution, I am simply tired of only categorizing everything in retrospect. A plan of action will simply effectuate my resolve (my resolution) to focus. There are many changes of focus that I wish to see. Here are a few hopefuls.

More tea & Less coffee

Grow Roses (and wake up to smell them)

Take Longer Walks

Read (at least 5 more books than in 2010)

Paint Like Mad

I'm Losing Things

They are little. 

A sock, a key, a hairpin.

I tear apart my room searching for the one little thing. I will be that woman from the Bible story, the one who cleaned her house looking for a little coin. But while trying to be that woman, that determined, detailed, clean freak- I've been ignoring the big things. 

Today, I finally stopped looking for my slippers. I walked into my closet, and suddenly they were there. Put away. In their place. Some little things find their own way home. 

Either that or I've been cleaning in my sleep, which wouldn't be surprising.

Segue

 I have stopped stopping to smell roses, stopped noticing if they're red or painted impostors of red. The eerie dreams have returned, now taking their cues from Plato's The Cave and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Today I spent my time doing white rabbit things, but tonight will see some change. My room is cleared and ready. I'll tie up my hair like Violet Baudelaire and begin the first painting of winter break. The first of many, i hope.

Like so many things that have to change, I want to spend my break feeling more like a contented to wander Alice- never fettered to a pocket-watch. 

And it all begins when i move my white rabbit habit to the back of the closet.

Soulmate In a Bottle

  Everyone has a secret, nerdy, interest. Or at least I think everyone does. Most are very adept at keeping it a true secret. For some people, it is an entire shelf of star wars paperbacks. For the more academically inclined, it's an obsession with prehistoric dinosaurs, the lives of civil war generals, or learning dead languages. 

  What is my nerdy interest? (among many) Well of course I couldn't bring up the subject without divulging this information. Let me preface it first. My childhood friend's mom always smelled wonderful, and it took me forever to finally realize that the wonderful smell was called "eau de rose" and it sat in a bottle on her bathroom counter. (note to Shakespeare, here is proof that a rose can smell as sweet by another name. Or at least without a name in my case)

  When I was eleven I visited a perfumery, and the whole wide world of perfume expanded around me. No longer was it limited to my grandmother's Coco Chanel, my mother's amber colored perfume that I never knew the name of (though it reminded me of white diamonds), and my father's musky cologne. 

When I couple these experiences with my already slightly heightened sense of smell, I know the nerdy interest blossomed here. I have been watering it since.

 I don't believe that there are human soulmates. But I do believe in a perfume soulmate. You can laugh. I'm sure it is funny. But, to quote my favorite elf, "I'm in love! I'm in love! And I don't care who knows it!"

Today, I stumbled upon what may indeed be my bottled soulmate. I confess I haven't actually smelled it yet (more nerdy confession: I read perfume reviews and in depth evaluations, much like a sports fanatic will watch play-by-plays and read up on an athlete's history)

To conclude: my soulmate may have been found. When I get home I'll order a sample, and then the rest is up to fate. Or just my nose, for in the end it always knows. 


That's enough melodrama for today. I have papers to write.

Big Sterile White Box

  I gave a long visit to the Ulster Museum yesterday. It is not solely an art museum, but I kept mostly to the upper art floors.

Art museums are so much more enjoyable to me when I can just pop in the headphones and not be dragging a boyfriend around. 
{I saw many couples out on dates. They always looked so bored. Go to a movie and end both of your misery. Having a date in an art museum doesn't make you more cultured, wanting to be there is where the culture comes from.}

But this post is not about that. Excuse my cynicism. 
   I am always perplexed as I walk through the pure white rooms, wooden creaky floors, and silence. Always an eerie silence, unless it is crowded. My disconcertion arises because of this; when you take artwork away from its day, its setting, its brother and sister paintings, and put it in a white box...well it's like putting an exotic or extinct creature inside a white cube. 

   It is no wonder that people don't understand art. Without the proper habitat and knowledge of current events (an ornate Victorian manor, a Grecian temple, a Frank Lloyd Wright building, industrialization, world wars, civil rights movements, etc.) the paintings become obtuse. Art is just as much a historical artifact as it is brush strokes, composition, and canvas. A simple card with a few sentences does little to help the uneducated eye understand the importance of what they are perceiving. I know the big white box setting keeps things objective, but the objectivity does little to aid in understanding the rows of paintings behind glass and barriers. But, sadly, it looks like I'm simply complaining. I'm just tired of being excited and enthralled by a piece of artwork, but only because I'm educated about the artist and the method. I don't think I'm special in this; any person with a basic education and interest in what they are looking at would have a much similar response.  
   I just want everyone to love art, to feel art. I want people to look at a painting and feel a catch in their throat. I want them to stand in awe the way people once did in gothic cathedrals, feeling closer to God.
And how can we do this if we don't understand it?
This rational, sterile world isn't good for me. I want a renaissance. 

   A name will define you for your entire life. 

At the moment of birth, you are stamped with your parents idea of what you should become. 

Three stamps. First, middle, and last. 

And you will spend your life being defined by what that name is or isn't. 

My name is common; I don't ever have to spell it to a Starbucks barista. But I do have to share it with the psychotic mother of the reverse mullet and eight half-asian children. 

   Kate is it to you, but what is it?

Two sharp consonants, one syllable. A shorter, modern version of Katherine.

Several possible origins, one being a Greek goddess (Hecate), one the Greek word for Pure, and one the word for torture.. 

Pure Goddess Torture? 

oh my.

What would I be like if my name were Anne, Emma, or Rose?

I don't really want an answer. I don't think there is a good one. 

This is just me thinking.

Death by Mango Yogurt

My lovely roommate and I leave our window open most nights. We find that it helps filter out any un-ladylike smells that drift in from the restroom next door. This of course has meant that we often receive six and eight legged visitors on our walls or under our wardrobes. Naturally the unexpected guests are aware that the exploration of our room comes with a great degree of risk to their well being; but they seem to be no more aware of the finite nature of their lives than any human.

But I digress. 

(Sometimes I like to digress just so I can say the word. As Peter Pan would say, "Oh the cleverness of me!")

Today as I was cleaning the room I found a little dead moth. It had drowned in the leftovers of this morning’s yogurt. If it were a spider, well, I’m a bit judgmental when it comes to that race of creepy crawlys.

Being a moth and not a spider, I was sad that I didn’t get to rescue the furry thing. Why do people smash them?

I have always had a soft spot for moths. (among many other critters)

The way I see it, moths are just misunderstood butterflies.

Too bad I have trouble adopting this sort of compassion for the majority of human moths in my life.

✉

illustration credit where it's due:

kate is it. again.

An entire summer of words have been sitting in my fingertips, swelling my hands to imaginary exorbitant proportions. 

I've said many times; my heart is in my palms, my brain in my fingertips, my soul connects them. 

I would rather lose my eyes than my hands. But I digress.

With a deleted blog and a red moleskine fit to burst, I needed to get these words out somehow.

So, kate is it is it again. 

And welcome to the first post of many.

✉