Practicing Domesticity: College = over

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

College = over

Today has been one of those milestone days.

I took my last (and only) two finals - Physics of Music in the morning (done forever!) and Imperialism and Independence at night, so I had a long random time gap in between to anticipate my final final.

Barring failure in either of those two classes (need both to graduate!), I will be finished with my undergraduate collegiate life. Forever.

I am no longer a college undergrad. That's strange.

However, tonight is not one for nostalgia. Tonight is one for partying!

All five of us lovely ladies are now finished, and so we thought what better way to go out than all together; one might say, have a house party.

And that's exactly what we did. The five of us piled into Charlotte's car, vetoing ideas of the ocean, we opted instead to head to 7-11 for a quintessential slurpee. Then, music blaring with the windows rolled down, we drove the length of downtown State Street, making our way to the spot known simply as The Amazing Stargazing Spot.

This little spot actually turned out to be a dead-end street up in the foothills. We pulled out our blanket and laid down to simply look up at the stars (ok, I sat up to ensure we didn't get run over because we were kind of on a road).

And then we left (after getting asked what on earth we were doing by some lady driving by who probably lived in one of the nearby houses). And we came back to our cute little house, which is ours for less than a week now.

And we slept. Amen.

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What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Source: Sleeping Preacher (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

The Silence

by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

College = over

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