Sunday, September 14, 2008

Bingo

It's been raining for about three days. There have been discussions today about how Americans don't like rain, how we should be thankful for it because it means that there is food, how we are only sad because of the flooding. 

The almost inevitable Sunday afternoon/evening homework is upon me. I'm sitting with Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Mark Doty, a book for my poetry class-- Ekphrasis writing, poetry in response to art and music. I was already thinking on page two, hmmm a book about one paining, I bet Mom would like this. I'm on page 7 now, and I've gotta put this up here because it's such a cool thought. He says, on the question of whether intimacy is the highest value:

"But then why resist intimacy, why seem to flee it? A powerful countercurrent pulls against our drive toward connection; we also desire individuation, separateness, freedom. On one side of the balance is the need for home, for the deep solid roots of place and belonging; on the other is the desire for travel and motion, for the single separate spark of the self freely moving forward, out into time, into the great absorbing stream of the world. 

A fierce internal debate, between staying moored and drifting away, between holding on and letting go. Perhaps wisdom lies in our ability to negotiate between these two poles. Necessary to us, both of them-- but how to live in connection without feeling suffocated, compromised, erased? We long to connect; we fear that if we do, our freedom and individuality will disappear." 

I love to write in my books. I am an underlined as opposed to a highlighter and I like to write my own comments out to the side. To the right of this section I wrote "BINGO." If he ever solves it, I'll put up some more on here, as well as any other insights gained from the book. I've got to read it before class on Tuesday, but I don't think that will be a problem ; )