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01.06.04 - 6:42 p.m.
my stay in nyc, and later in c___ was quiet, but fulfilling. quite is exactly how i wanted life to be. i had dinner, lunch, coffee and other mini-reunions with friends from college and made each of those meetings my 'event for the day'. at other times, a long phone call with someone i hadn't spoken with in long while counted as my "main event" for the day. mostly, i read for pleasure...books i'd meant to read but never had: lahiri's interpreter of pleasures and the namesake, rushdie's shame, selvadurai's funny boy, conde's heremankhonon, and achebe's things fall apart. it's important for me to practice reading for pleasure and without a pencil or highlighter in hand, so that i don't forget that i enjoy reading. i decided that i achieved peace of mind and perspective, which i count as huge. i had some difficulty leaving i__ this year, mostly because i felt saddened by my changing emotional relationship to my network (or "chosen family" as a wise friend put it). i recognize that i need to turn my face towards leaving here...which means investing less of myself in making a home for myself here - appreciating the home i already have - and in many ways, returning to the homes that i've left while i've been in gradschool. i happened to visit two childhood friends at their offices (one at g.e., the other at a prep school grades k-12), and two other friends showed me where they worked. i've never regarded writing as work, resisting the flattening detached robotic images this evokes. i accept that i have to practice "this is just a job" mentality...and include time limits to that so that i can stop thinking so much about my research all the time. i haven't seen any of the _lord of the rings_ trilogy (although, i finally watched the first harry potter movie). i do believe in the mesmeric and inspirational power of viewing this film. i'm not sure why i've been so reluctant to join into the fun... (geez, i still haven't even seen e.t.!). perhaps a fear of surrendering myself to fantasy and escape, or unwillingness to try to command the language of another universe when i remain perplexed that i'll ever master the language of the world i'm in already! all of these are killjoy rationalist arguments. i'm sure that after my first week back here, i'll be ready to let myself go and just go see these movies! [more later - just had to put something up on this page]
MUSIC:
READING:
FEELING:
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