Werds, dude...

I'm enrolled in a creative writing class. It's pretty introductory, but exactly what I needed, especially after the tumultuous nightmare that was English 300, which had me cursing the name of English from the very words of "Analytical Research Essay Final" in my syllabus.

This class is not only challenging me to write, but to write what I mean, what I feel, and to write with beauty. A classroom puts a strange spin on creativity, because not only are you writing to improve yourself and express yourself to yourself, but to express yourself to others, as well. It's a weird suspension between creativity and responsibility. It's difficult.

Our first assignment was to write a poem with the prompt of "Where I Am From." I wrote this.

Isaac Middleton

Poem Number 1

Creative Writing

August 30, 2012

I Am

I am streets, streets, endless streets

Winding, knotting, tangling.

Dust matted deep into cracks

Of the roads, of the wrinkles, of the faces,

Wearing smiles.

Greeting traders.

I am of a foreign music, of a secret language

That rests precisely at the tip of their mouths.

I am a question, forever.

Unaware, happily so.

At home.

I am tucked-in shirts, short-cut hair, well-trimmed souls.

A gross marriage between the firm hands of Faith

Strangling into submission the sad face of Learning.

A faith misguided, misinterpreted, misused.

Unknowingly, happily so.

I am a sky like a big blue mouth, devouring this desert,

And perhaps the dessert does the same to me,

With mountains like crooked teeth,

Shouting life into me that I might remember their bodies.

For I can never go back.

Unwillingly, happily so.

 (It's about my home in Mexico).

And now in an hour and a half, I will join mah pals in starting up the rehearsal process. The Music Theatre department is putting on a show for both the president of the university and all the wealthy-pocketed donors who have supported Western all these long years. I'm kinda nerves, dude. These people are rich and important and stuff. I still don't know how to tap... Maybe rich people really like roller blading chimpanzees....

Happy?

After spending about a good hour poring over my Music History 1 book (a text so large and scholary-looking that you'd expect God's holy secrets to be scribbled all over the insides), I climbed into my lofty little bed and closed my eyes, when the quite unlooked for thought entered my head.

I'm happy.

And I'm not really talking about the happiness where you feel that the world is humming in a beautiful harmony with itself, or even the happiness where you know everything will be alright in the end. I honestly have no assurance of that, and hot damn do I wish I could hear the world hum, because that would be insanely cool. 

It's more of a vulnerable happiness, a messy happiness, where you have no assurance of safety and you have no harmony, and your life is sort of disheveled and grossly stressful, but you're at peace anyway. It's that feeling when you look around you and see that you're doing exactly what you want to be doing. Maybe you're not exactly who you want to be, but even with that you're at peace, because you're grasping for more. You're living, maybe even with a few inhibitions that you wish you could get rid of, but it doesn't really matter. You're living and you're working and you have this inner feeling that this is what you're supposed to be doing, who you're supposed to be, where you're supposed to be. Like you and Destiny had a tea party or something and are now best pals for a day.

Today, for instance. I woke up sick. Stupid allergies. Went to my first music class of the day, wasn't terribly intrigued, sat next to a little freshman girl that I couldn't decide if I was more annoyed at her ability to keep talking, or astonished and impressed at her ability to never breathe between sentences. I investigated a step further the frustrating rabbit trail of possibly studying the BIS degree (all of my advisors are telling me to talk to the other. It's quite frustrating when you're advised to talk to someone who advises you to talk to the person who advised you to be advised by them). But even then, I was studying the nature of music. It was fascinating. I then went to my theatre class, which taught me about the incredible marriage between Zen and art-- learning to get in touch with yourself and understand yourself and your role in the world so that you can understand art more and create it more effectively. The delicate balance between mindlessness and mindfulness. I was surrounded by friends and scholars and romantics (who are, at the same time hypocrites and liars and just stupid sometimes, just like me). I went to tap class, which ungraciously reminded me that I suck, that I look like a chimpanzee trying to roller blade or something when I try to do the various combinations. But I learned, which was painful. I then worked, which was what it was, and I'm grateful for it being what it is. Then I met with a great friend and tapped some more, and learned some more, and now only slightly bare resemblance to my roller-blading chimpanzee friend (which, I'm sure we'll be reunited as the next class roles around). I went to my favorite coffee shop and studied the words of Plato and Aerostotle and other Greek philosophers about their views of music and how it should be used and approached and made. It was absolutely fascinating. It's difficult, maybe even sometimes tedious. But it's beautifully interesting, which amounts to the cost. Then I went home to a house so full of creative beings that it feels like the inspiration is shining through the walls. I listened to Sigur Ros and studied some more and ate food that I bought from Wal Mart (which is a necessary mistake in and of itself).

All this to say, life is messy and gross and stressful and feels like a very slow, excruciating explosion. But if you are where and who you're supposed to be (or want to be), all of that becomes worth it.

And even so, I am very selfish. My day was self-serving, which is a regret. I am not perfect.

Also, this happiness should be lasting in the character with the strong mind and open heart. I have neither, but am learning to acquire them. So who knows how long these emotions will last.

I am a hopeless, pessimistic idealist. It is annoying, yes. But I am thankful for it.