So This is Love...

I write to tell you that I have fallen in love.

And, even better, it's the eternal kind.

I have fully committed to love New York for the rest of my life. The streets, the trees, the subways, the window displays, and most of all, always, the people. I was walking to the N line on 57th and 7th and this overwhelming happiness hit me. I was intoxicated with movement and light, with the feeling that this could last forever. The dichotomy of the full moon and skyscrapers. The thing that excites me the most is the purpose of this place. Everyone always has some place they're going, a destination. I may be able to see them (blue puffy coat, red scarf, black boots) but the truth is, their lives are all folded inside of them, imperceptible. Everyone is a mystery to me; everyone is a story. That's what I love most about living here. So many thoughts, conversations, and most of all, so many possibilities. Surrounded by this motion, this mystery, I feel a certain elation. I feel the potential of my mundane. The rush of the sacred that New York creates surrounds me.

Spicing It Up

Today, my stomach burned with roiling lava. Too much damn red curry. It started out tasting lovely, the coconut milk gently tickling my tongue, the spice offsetting it nicely. As the dinner progressed, however, I eyed my seemingly never-ending bowl of chicken and rice and bamboo shoots with much resentment, grudgingly pushing on til the bitter end. That such a lovely meal should end so violently (at least, as far as my stomach's concerned) struck me as funny. But that's how it goes with curry, I s'pose.

Zoom Zoom...And I'm Off

Hey guys. So I come to you overflowing and lost. So much I want to write about, but so little of it I actually know how to put into words. I'll begin with a short aside:

I saw the film "Precious" over the weekend. If you don't know the whole story, I'm not going to explain it all here, but it's basically about an undereducated black high school student who has great adversity in her home life. She eventually attends an alternative school, a school where troubled teens can work toward acing their GED exam. The most important thing their teacher, Ms. Rain, teaches them is this: Write. It's this singular phrase that she repeats throughout the film, with the same calm voice, even as Precious' world falls apart around her. "Write," Ms. Rain counsels. "Write." Despite Precious' pregnancy, her abusive mother, her contraction of HIV from rape, writing is the one way that she can control and filter life, which so often felt like it was one big rug being pulled from underneath her feet. Ms. Rain has a point.

Taking Ms. Rain's advice, I'll forgive myself that I don't actually know what exactly I want the topic of this entry to be, instead I'll just WRITE. (Although, I will say for sure the "Precious" is one of those movies that absolutely must be seen, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. It's because it's disturbing that it's important; see the world through greatly different, and much more troubled, eyes.)

So, anyway, lately I've been thinking about traveling, wanting to push off so badly it's like a physical need. I've been daydreaming of (almost) everywhere: I want to revisit Paris and Vienna and the Middle East and I want to venture for the first time to Japan and Kenya and Botswana and Senegal and Cameroon and Morocco and Australia and China and Moscow and Ireland (for some strange reason, I've never had the inclination to visit South America...hmm.) I'm longing to meet someone whose questions I can't answer because I don't understand their language. I want to have to act out my sentences with hand movements. I want to marvel at the subtle things that make one homesick: differences in light quality, how the sun sets there, the smells. In short, I want to get lost.

And I've been thinking: honest to God, who am I, anyway? How is it that I've come to accrue certain feelings when talking about certain topics, certain knee-jerk reactions to things my mother says, the way I laugh even? Aren't we all, in the end, merely a collection of habits? Habits, that, if examined, leave us bewildered as to where to go next--we don't know any other way to be. But how did it all begin anyway? People are always saying, "Well, you've got to start someplace," and that's true. But how do we find that sweet spot, anyway? How do we come to choose that someplace? It's mostly started by our parents, of course, and we're not really conscious of who we are until much later, but by then, so much is already in place. And did I even want any of it? Where does "me" really begin and predestination end? How is it that I have needs in my soul and don't actually understand where they originate from? Ach, to be a fish, free in the sea. Or Mae West.

Philosophy major much? Probably. Then maybe I'll find some satisfying answers to my incessant questions. Although, I do risk just treating myself to more and more questions and then POP. I'll self-combust. Hah.

On Vogue: I was flipping through an old October issue this evening and finally got fashion, which has long eluded me. It's meant to be art (right, duh, it is art.) No, but it's more than just being art; you have to view it like you would any other canvas as well. Appreciating the aesthetics, questioning the symbolism. Haute Couture is just another way of experimenting with visual manifestations of the introversions of ourselves (although, it's a bit more exciting than an art museum--that's partly the point, too.) Fashion is art. Got it.

Ooh! Meant to mention: if you're looking for a great read, check out "The Giant's House" by Elizabeth McCracken. It's about a spinster librarian (I don't actually know any real life librarians who are spinsters, just sayin',) who falls deeply in love with a real life giant--a boy who grows to be 8 foot 4 inches. It's a remarkable novel, not what you'd expect. Less about the love between them as the mental snapshots we take in the day-to-day and a truthful commentary as to the way people are and why they are that way. It might be one of the saddest books you'll read.

G'niiiiight. Gonna watch "Dead Like Me," that oddly touching show with the similarly oddly beautiful Ellen Muth. Seriously. Google her. You'll be puzzled and pleased simultaneously. She's that kind of pretty.

Chew on This

Came across this in my desk today. Forgot what a great little poem it is. If you like it, you may want to check out Boss' book of poetry, "Yellowrocket." Enjoy!

The Truth is a chewy

treat, like

toffee, only

less sweet

and slightly

nutty, like

birch bark,

with a salty

aftertaste as

steely as a

flint spark,

best doused

with straight

whiskey or

dark coffee.

--TODD BOSS

Poet's Corner

Hey y’all! This is a collection of poetry that I’ve written, some recent and some older. Let me know what you think! J And, I'm sorry, but the blog keeps messing up the indentations and spacing, making my words/transitions harder to follow. It's a real bummer, but I hope that you can still get the feel I intended...

Ocean

Freedom in the epochs of the sea

once covering cliffs,

Now covering me.

Clear, crisp freedom!

sailing weightless

I’m a seagull here,

swooping.

Refreshed, subdued, elated am I.

freedom in the silt of history

Washing all around me:

dinosaur, fern, rock, bone.

This ocean was once the sky

a sky of deep ripples and undulations

Encompassing all of us in gentle

blue.

(untitled)

All the world’s poetry

if you pay attention.

Life’s impressions, stencils

vivid half-stamps.

Our laughter, lace

looping around that which should be forgotten.

Glances, gorgeous flickers of…

what?

Radiance.

Funnel

Emptiness coupled with overflow

The two thrash and write within my heart.

Endings, beginnings, patterns

that aren’t probably even there.

Hoping, praying, hoping, hoping.

You’re gone, gone, the one I love.

My disconnect from you unreal, too real.

Worrying, hating, worrying, worrying.

It’s right, it’s wrong

I miss you, I don’t want you,

All I want is you.

Y-O-U.

you.

me.

you & me.

Who is, who ever was, you?:

The one I loved, the one I love.

Love, love, love, change, accept. Harden.

Harden & accept.

Grow, shrink, shrink, grow

A piece of me gone, for the best, maybe so.

The frustration of never knowing what to make

Of this, too involved am I.

you you you me me me

you & me.

love love love. grow shrink

GROW

Louisiana

When I think of you, the first thing I see is sticks.

Mysterious, vertical sticks that pass for trees,

Lonely among the shallow swamp water.

Then, it's a padparadscha sunset,

the color of Sally Fields' grief.

Next, a rosy face with a warped nose,

laughter streaming off it like the sweat from the gumbo pot

and burning just as fiery.

Last, moss silently waving as the big, yellow moon

and the saxophone's crescendo rise.

I see you but I don't know you. You remain my enigmatic collection of beauties cast in stark relief.

Childhood

Lately, I've been seeing jacaranda leaves casting their oval shadows on my little arms.

I sigh and lean harder against the trunk, digging my feet in the sand,

Letting the sun burn my insides bright and warm.

I'm alone, except for the sun and the leaves and the sand. It's just us, safe.

Then there's the smell of green jello, or is it green uniforms?

Either way, one smelled like the other: synthetically emerald.

And my teacher, green too, an Irishwoman.

Her skin so thin I could see her mossy tired veins.

Surrounded with oxidized copper.

Missing the sun, missing the dunes.

Three homes in three years, interchangeable in appearance and in my love for them.

Dun colored stucco, matching the soil-less garden beds.

Petunias! Oh, petunias! Pushing through the sand, fuschia.

Houses that persisted to remain dark although the sun enveloped them:

Dark woodwork, thick blinds.

Designed more with office workers in mind than a family,

Indistinct and bland. But home nonetheless;

The office furniture of my past reduces me to tears of longing.

Burned grease married the grey cafeteria,

A fine, dismal couple.

Recess a cage I could not escape,

The green grass meant to be freedom

Instead presenting me with a crisp boredom.

Mask came down; thoughts surged and resurged and resurfaced.

A botched translator of children's speech

is what I became.

Looking at the white-gold smear left by a shooting star,

Nestling my head into the cool dip of the sand,

Thinking this would last

forever