Fall brings energy without direction

Pretty picture from my alma mater.

Well, I had a brilliant post all written up, but Madam chose to shut my machine down and alas, the post explaining the meaning of life has been lost to the ether of hyperspace.

All right, I suppose it probably wasn’t that brilliant, but I really wanted to post something before I left for the East Coast tomorrow. My MIL had a bit of a cardiac scare, so we’re going to make sure she’s fine and hearty.

It’s definitely beginning to feel like Fall here, and my mind is full of plans and lists and self-made curricula—I’m an eternal scholar, after all. I want to read the world—I catch myself staring at people as they walk by, imagining dark mysteries and passionate doomed love affairs and valiant heroic quests for them. My shelves are overflowing with books I am dying to read, and I am racing to devour them before the library claims them. I want to eat the world, put it in my mouth with both hands. And I am officially the last blogger to get her hands on Eat, Pray, Love—what can I say? There are a slew of people in Minneapolis with a library card looking for enlightenment.

Fall brings with it another mania—I want to talk, want to write, want to communicate something (but what?) desperately. Words crowd behind my eyelids, push past my lips, unspool like ribbons down my chin. But it’s an urge to babble without necessarily having anything deep to say. So I walk in a cloud of language without meaning. I suppose as the leaves change, my thinking will become more disciplined, and this relentless pressure will find some sort of a focus. I hope so, anyway.

The latest victim of my logorrhea was Jessie, who by the way is much more charming, wise, and cool than she comes across in her blog (which is a feat, since her blog is also charming, wise, and cool). And, she has fantastic hair. I managed to bribe Madam with a stream of Cherrios and fruit and water and yoghurt, and she was generous with her good behavior while Jessie and I had coffee and chatted. It was wonderful to talk to someone who was over three feet tall and could talk back. I was practically at the point of buttonholing strangers to talk about "cabbages and kings."

Alas, so many words, and yet the poetry muse has refused to visit to me. Unlike prose, which can be wooed with a moment or two of silence and reflection, poetry seems to come almost as a visitation. I suppose I should be grateful she comes at all...I never wrote poetry until I started blogging. But it’s certainly making me a bad Poetry Thursday participant.

However, the List-making Muse is happy to take her place, so here is a completely impromptu list of things I’d like to try in the next two weeks or so.

1) Read Eat, Pray, Love
2) Actually PULL OUT my novel and face it
3) Plot out a story with Beansprout
4) Get back on track with my mirror mediation

Even though I’ve been remiss with my mirror meditations of late, I still feel the effects—a sense that most dilemmas in my life can be solved by a simple question—does this make me like myself more or less? A sense of wooing myself—a realization that I actually do like myself most of the time, especially when I’m not viewing myself through the eyes of society, or TEG, or my family. And a feeling that maybe my values are worthy, even if they are not affirmed by mainstream society. And knowing that I don’t mind that, after all.

I hope I can find enough time nibbles (and imaginative prowess) to write something for Sunday Scribblings on my travels. If not, hopefully I’ll get to feast at your tables.

Have a wonderful weekend.