This Anna is not THIS Anna

Or, in other words, this is not me.

...But I kind of wish it were?

                             shoot.

Three cheers for Anna Wintour on a soup can!

Is reading fashion news a daily guilty pleasure of mine? Perhaps.

SUE ME.

[Refinery 29 article here] 

love, this anna

Today

I haven't done much

besides

stick a third of a roll of Valentines bubble tape in my mouth

and stand in the shower,

blowing giant bubbles,

while trying to come up with a creative cover of a Fleetwood Mac song.

With no water running

(I forgot to turn it on).

But on other days  I've done lots of things.

like:

You BET that's me on the accordion!

•  Last week when we formed a little band in our living room [guitar: mika violin: brookie  banjo: b-ricks keyboard/beats: kato and nan (yours truly)]  .   

•  And then we tried some fleet foxes and simon & garfunkle and sufjan on for size, and peppered them with some mournful fairy harmonies.

•  And then we called ourselves Children of the American Revolution and played a little opener on Friday:

[okay recording here]

 love, sleep deprivation, and tambourine bruises,

banana

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?

We all know I like to write about silly, beautiful little things that don't really matter that much, probably.

But here's something (or someone, rather) who matters a lot:

Beatrix Rose

who is now two days old

and the most beautiful thing.

   

not to mention

Daphne Marion

who is four and a half months 

 

and

Lily Belle 

who is almost three and so excited about her new baby sister.

 

 Am I a proud auntie?

Love, pink, and uh oh! She came early I need to get KNITTING,

Banana

On James Baldwin and how he gets it (and me).

I wrote my first short story this week.

JINKIES!

 Was it good, you ask? No. Not really.

And of course that's okay.

So it's not a very big deal, really. I wrote most of it the night before/ morning it was due.

Just like I do everything, you know?

 So why does it matter so much to me? And why do I do that anyway (write everything the morning of)?

I'll tell you why. 

And James Baldwin will tell you why.

It's because I'm scared scared scared SCARED SCARED.

And this is why:

Of all the things I want and hope and yearn to be (which is a considerable list of things, you have perhaps noticed), a writer, in its most hazy and glamorous depiction, is perhaps what I want most.

 So write, you might say.

Write every day! Write everything. Write poems. Write dumb things. Write brilliant things. Write about people you don't know and people you wish you knew and yourself and weak people and brave people. And I DO. Kind of.

Actually I write all the time.

But I'm so afraid of writing something good (or trying to) because that's what I want more than anything, and if I fail... well then, I fail everything.

So purposefully procrastinated mediocrity is safe. Huh? I've been planning that story for WEEKS.

But I wouldn't let myself write it. SCARED SCARED SCARED. Waiting waiting waiting.

As the brilliant James says,

"I thus gave the world and altogether murderous power over me, but also that in such a self-destroying limbo I could never hope to write.

One writes out of one thing only-- one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give".

Oh dear

I'm paying so much money to earn a degree in thinking myself better and smarter than everyone else, and then not being able to do anything with it.

And I love it.
Oh dear.

Here it Comes...

A better version of me.

Happy Belated New Year, I guess.

The sun has been incessantly flirting with me. It's toying with my affections, giving me a beautifully bright false hope that perhaps this winter might just be a little less miserable than the last.

Well, maybe it will be.
I will be, anyhow.

And you know why? Because "The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung" [via Walt Whitman]

And I should at least be humming along.

...Don't you think?

Resolutions, renovations, and hesitant hopings,
Banana

P.S. I'm moving to Paris with Gracie in the Spring. Have you ever heard such a lovely sentence?

human hosepipe.

I will not say much beyond 

the fact that heartache

is inescapable, probably necessary to ultimate happiness,

and positively rampant in my little household. 

So let us turn to our ever-wise friend and posthumous mentor, Clive Staples,  for a bright and beautiful thought my dear dear friend, Jacob, blessed me with the beauty of:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

-C.S. Lewis

Ah, wisdom. It's delicious, is it not?

My roommate showed me this gorgeous video made by a BYU Professor that captures so perfectly the essence of relationships. And the wonderful Weepies' lyrics can never hurt:

So here's to vulnerability, still missing him every every minute, and this beautiful world that still spins madly on,

Banana

Kate wrote me a haiku

and I liked it:

spritely musician

red lips and knitting needles

pour me some tea, please.

I love you, Kate.

My wonderful roommate.

Kate-o potato,

The lady so great-o.

Kate and Brookie and the Homecoming Parade.

 Love, oreo milkshakes, and groller bears,
Banana

Farewell to Green



[Scenic Alpine Loop in Provo Canyon]



Autumn is my favorite season.

I can feel it slipping away, though, and all the pumpkins on my porch are starting to rot.

Bother.

So my tribute to fall is a little overdue, perhaps, but here it is. In the form of a poem my little brother, Ethan (who just turned 9 last week) wrote. It is surprisingly wise:

[The assignment was to write a fall-themed poem with each line starting with a letter of "FALL." But he had more to say, so he expanded it to say "FALLING"]

Farewell to green

And good-morning colors 

Let's have some fun

Let's jump in piles

It's fall alright

Now it's time to say goodbye

Goodbye fall

And here's a poem by me, slightly less wise, but brought about entirely by a walk to school on a beautiful fall day.



[magic picnic in Sundance]



Today         10/18/10

I will skip class to read Robert Frost

In a halo of yellow leaves,

slightly shivering in the early light

 of what promises to be

A golden afternoon.

It’s just that sort of day.

Today I’ll remove my soft leather 

moccasins

and my dark denim jeans, molded

precisely to the shape of my hips

and thighs.

They’ll flutter to the ground

like a piece of gently torn tissue paper-

two flapping legs.



My braided hair will untwist itself,

 pins shooting out like

porcupine quills

and

falling slowly to the earth

as waxy red leaves.

Off will fly my cable knit cardigan

(the color of forget-me-nots),

 Followed eagerly by scarf,

earrings,

blouse,

bra.

Today I’ll stand, naked and glowing,

In the pale autumn sun.

Just me and Robert.

And everyone who passes

 Will wonder-
 At the transcendent orb of metaphor

And olive skin (steadily growing pinker)

 That bounds between the branches

And bursts into the sky-

 A shower of amber beams. Rivulets

Of light.

Everyone will wonder, as the drops

cascade from their noses,

but soon they will see (they can’t help but see)

that it’s just that sort of day.

 Today they will see

and free

me.

It’s just that sort of day.

Goodbye fall,

Banana

nouvelles.

Bad news: I feel quite a lot like a rotten tomato, and look precisely like one.
Good news: I'm really really

really

happy.

Despite everything, you know?

...And that's good news indeed.

The Sound of Silence

 'Twas the night before Halloween, and all through the house...
not a sound was heard
(Not even from Anna and Shea, who are normally the loudest people ever).

Talk about Spooky!

Anyway, I have a new confidence in last minute costumes. At about 7 or 8 in the evening, Shea and I realized we needed something to wear.
So we were mimes. And I loved it. Seriously.
Have I perhaps discovered a career path at last?

Um... know of any good mime academies?

 Not that we really even need the training.

 Roommate Christine (aka rocker chick) had a lovely party with amazing cheese balls.

 Annie was fragile.

 This dude was something very politically incorrect.

 Little cute-as-a-button Ally was a brainthirsty zombie.

 Clark was a double rainbow.

And Seth was... well... you know. Seth.

And we all lived Happily Ever After.

(And Shea still had eyeliner on two days later)

Love, candy, and falling asleep to Hitchcock with nasty cheap make-up cracking all over your face,

Banana (mime extraordinaire)

I'm not saying this is good...

...but I wrote a poem.

And I'm going to share it.

It's called "By the Fountain" because I wrote it by a fountain on a magically stormy day that was dripping with this inexplicable feeling of...significance.

And so I sat down and wrote a poem just as the drops fell to meet me.

And the thunder said hello.

By the Fountain  10/4/10

The sky seems so present

that the earth slips away

and the conquering clouds crowd in.

and the solitary people rush in

to clasp eyes and levy the distance

between

with unuttered hellos.

and the impatient thunder bellows

to be released

from its prison of professionalism.

The air feels so heavy

that the eyes, they drop

and splash off the bold face of possiblity.

ping, ping, ping.

We clatter inside to escape

the noisey adventure of feeling.

And without,

it begins to rain.

love.

banana.

I forgot I could like TV.

"Lisa, blonde GUYS aren't dumb. They're just evil. Like the guy on the Karate Kid and nazis."
-Bart Simpson

That said, I swear I'm going to start posting again.
Maybe.
Life is just so much more Lifey without the internet. You know?

Banana

"you're just like all the old people that come by here"

said the Nook salesman at Barnes and Noble when I tried to explain to him that

• it wasn't near as comfortable as holding a book
• and they just rhyme "nook" with "book" to trick you, but it's not actually a book, you know
• and, besides, whipper snapper, you can't even turn the pages.
• !?!?

Anyway, my aversion to technology often garners some raised eyebrows. Or maybe it's the whole knitting in public thing (which is totally justified this week because Etsy told me it was "National Knit in Public Week." via THE INTERNET! so there.)

Anyway.

I love books
the feel of their spines in my hands
the tingle of anticipation when turning the title page.

and the look of a book (a real one) stacked high on a deliciously musty book shelf
and handwritten, postage be-stamped letters
and probably telegrams if they still existed.

But obviously I'm using technology to blog this and my phone has a touch screen and I love it.

So there.

Whatever I'm trying to prove.

Though often it frightens me that we all live on and in the internet. And forget to actually talk to each other sometimes.I think I saw a Fairly Odd Parents episode about that once. Spooky.

And I will now conclude by saying (like I did indignantly to the sassafras salesperson),
"I just love old-fashioned things."

to which my father replied,

"Like me?"

[wink]

-Banana

p.s. What's up the "Girl with the Dragon tattooed everything" or whatever? Should I be reading this? wisdom much appreciated. xo.

oh, the horror!

I suppose this is my annual post on fear.

Last year I took a slightly humorous approach regarding nonsensical phobias. 

That seems to be my idea of defensive coping skill.

You see, during my most intense moments of heartache, hurt, or panic I have always found myself satirizing the whole ordeal. Describing it as a tragic farce; a clown with a painted purple tear on his cheek. Morbidly funny. Self-deprecating. I find that if I make someone else laugh when telling them of the things that truly strike fear into my heart making my knees and chin tremble and lightning flash and the walls cave in all around me in a cloud of nasty black smoke and charred ruins of life ambitions, well then, it can't be that bad. That way I've (sort of) vented, and am justified in keeping the rest in. To fester, probably.

But the new me won't allow it, I keep telling myself. Someone wise probably said once something along the lines of, a life lived in fear is no life at all. Yes, I'm sure of it now. Maybe it was Dumbledore or someone.

So... what am I afraid of, you ask?

Well, the problem is that the answer is probably everything.

Uh oh. I'm afraid of EVERYTHING?

yeah, kind of.

Here's the thing. I've never successfully explained to anyone the world in which I live. It's just... so personal. Its borders are completely within my own mind and idiosyncratic tendencies.

But people have definitely made attempts at describing it.

"spacey" "reclusive" "creative" "silly" "private" "shy." I've even got "inconsistent" at worst ["bi-polar" at very worst] or "dynamic" at best.

no, no, no people. the truth is I'm just terrified of being ripped out of the very deliberately crafted existence within my brain.

I surface on my own from time to time, just long enough to apply to college or get a job or feed myself or whatever else I figure must be done. But, honestly, I feel very much detached from most of those lifely duties.

Sometimes I feel like my dreams (day or night) are more tangible than my waking hours. Which is weird, I suppose.

Yeah, probably really weird.

I've always had this talent of falling asleep as soon as I decide to. As soon as my head gets anywhere near the pillow (sometimes before). I feel like an inability to sleep is for people who are involved in this world. Whereas I am just slipping naturally back into my own.

Anyway.

That may or may not explain why getting out of bed in the morning gives me the heebie jeebies from time to time.

let alone becoming the grown-up I'm supposedly supposed to be becoming.

or the fact that, as tough as it has been to be living at home much of the last two months,

I'm a little scared of the move I'll be making on Sunday.

With friends, fun, summer delights, and an adorable lovefriend waiting for me,

it still scares me a bit.

Now that's just silly.

...right?

Banana