After two days of cleaning and reorganization (interrupted by memories in the form of old cards and songs), my bedroom sparkles a little more. The contents of the closet and dresser have been set to rights, the air smells faintly of natural pink grapefruit cleaner, the window candle, frog candle, and twinkle lights have have been lit, and the Harry Simeone chorale is playing through the computer speakers. The room feels more like a sanctuary again, but I wonder how much of that is the clean ambience and how much is the fact that I simply have more time to enjoy it, now that the last papers have been turned in and I await the semester’s grades.
Having always been a proponent of the benefits of free/alone time and rest, I took the beginning of grad school a bit hard. It took, I think, a semester and a half to resign myself to having little leisure time. My fellow grad students and I made fun of the Sports & Leisure majors in the Writing Center. “You can major in leisure?” I got used to always looking to the next thing when one thing was finished: the next paper, the next reading, the next meeting. I think part of the reason this semester went so well for me was because I finally entrenched myself in that mindset. I was an academic machine, and I would conquer two part-time jobs, church volunteer work, a boyfriend, and family on top! Roar.
Diligence and hard work are really good. Multitasking and managing multiple people's expectations successfully makes you feel mature and accomplished. It IS, basically, the definition of maturity.
Which is why we often feel guilty and childish when we rest. Because to be an adult means to work, and meet demands, and keep up a good reputation. When that breaks down, or we choose, for a moment, to not worry so much about those things, our actions are attended by a strange pressure, something uncomfortable that pulls us in the direction of effort, because we should at least be doing something.
I’m just not so sure about that. I’m not going to dive into fractions or percentages, or say that even God took a day off after creation, but I am convinced, deep in my spirit that ebbs into peace in this quiet, dimly lit room, that we are meant to rest, and to behold both our creations and God’s, and acknowledge, and revere, and see, and listen.
I am so glad Christmas gives me the opportunity to see. I love that it is a season of watchfulness, both a beholding of what is and an expectation of what is to come. We are meant to rest in this.
Magnificat anima mea Dominum,
et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salvatore meo.
The Poison and the Purging
April 1, 2011 at 11:25 am (Commentary, Personality, Poetry, Quotes, School)
It’s April. It’s snowing. Actually, it’s slushing. Disgusting. It’s a disgusting morning. I woke up 20 minutes later than I wanted to, the morning after my mid-semester meltdown, and jumped into my filthy, paper-and-cafe-apron-strewn car with wet hair, burning sinuses, and a distinct sense that I was holding my psyche together by sheer force of will. Drove straight to the English department building, slopped through the slush trying to protect my 9-page, single-spaced portfolio draft, and gathered myself in the women’s restroom. Yellow cement block. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The comparison kind of works.
My professor’s minuscule office is hung with what look like tapestries. He’s a Gothic Lit specialist. The room was warm and comforting. He knows my name; I knew I didn’t need to ask before I sank into the faded orange plush office chair. He asked me how I was, and he meant it. He always means it. He’s middle-aged, sensitive, theatrical, and everyone desperately wants him to be their uncle. I told him the previous day hadn’t been the greatest.
“Before we get to the paper,” he said, “can I help you with any of that stuff?”
I told him that my stress had culminated, that I had cried, and he said, “Good! You need to.”
He may have used the phrase “purge the poison,” which oddly enough, is something Ibsen, the subject of my paper, thought about. The story goes that while writing the play that I am analyzing, he kept a scorpion in a jar on his desk that would get agitated until he threw a piece of fruit inside the glass. The scorpion would attack the fruit, releasing its poison, and return to a more docile state. Stress is a toxin that must be expelled. I encounter difficulty when I try to think about emotional release as a necessary part of mental health. But I almost broke down again when Dr. Tapestries told me I needed to let myself cry. He freed me by releasing me from the expectation of having it all together. We can free each other, no matter the nature of our relationships. My professor is not my uncle; I didn’t know him two years ago; he knows my name but not much else. And yet he freed me. We build monstrous castles of stress with the bricks of other people’s expectations. Sometimes we need someone else to knock them down.
Graduate school has ruined and saved me. Adulthood is still ruining me; I have yet to find out if I can survive it. I have never known so much disquiet and anxiety. People disappoint me daily. I disappoint myself daily. The world is horrible, horrible, and beautiful. I can’t really see the beauty right now, but I believe it will shine out again.
What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever.
The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose.
The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north; the wind whirls about continually, and comes again on its circuit.
All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; to the place from which the rivers come, there they return again.
All things are full of labor; man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
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