Living, not writing

It's not working. Life is taking over. I'm helpless to resist. Long ago, I wrote, "Why must it be either live or write? This question keeps me up at night." I'm now getting plenty of sleep, as if it's been decided for me. Does this mean I'm a failure? Ah, but the time's not up yet. I still have weeks and weeks. Sort of. It feels as if time's going too fast, though, and that a huge paper is not a contribution to my well-being or the world. No, I'm not being lazy. I do plenty. But I just can't focus. I have produced approximately twenty-five rather dull pages on my topic. It required staying in my pajamas and not doing ANYTHING else those days. But really, I just want to be a person and enjoy my friends. Have coffee, talk. Write personal poetry. Any suggestions? Does a master's degree matter at my age? Haven't I proved ENOUGH just by surviving and thriving?

Hoop-jumping to commence soon!

The time has come to quit whining (even if only to myself) about my thesis, and to start writing. As my advisor implied, I can go on believing forever that I’ve not read enough to know anything about my topic. I’ve read some, I’ve done some thinking, and (theoretically) I can therefore begin. As my sister agreed, it’s all BS anyway, no better or worse than previous BS I’ve produced, especially a paper I wrote two years ago in a course called “Writing Pedagogy,” based on a piece of “found” text that consisted of the word “BLAH” handwritten more than 200 times. I created an erudite 16 or so pages about that “artifact.” Surely I can create 75 pages on the literature and films surrounding the (mostly fictional) character of “Calamity Jane.” If I can post on a blog, I can do anything! I hope such ego-boosting occurs with all who do blogs! I suspect that it might! Ahem. So, for all the friends and acquaintances whom I may be neglecting in order to focus on this master’s-degree-obtaining task, here’s the thing: Marylyn’s need to be needed must be set aside for a few months while she tries to meet the six-year deadline imposed by the degree-granting entity with which she has become entangled. If she does not complete the requirements by the end of April, all heck will break loose. Or rather, she’ll have to undergo re-examinations in courses that were taken six years ago, and she does not want to do that, even though they were great courses ("Introduction to Literary Criticism" and "Women's Autobiography"). Yes, I’ve heard of people who procrastinated longer than the two years I’ve been guilty of doing same, but I don’t have that luxury, being an “older” student, and having taken a course per semester, making it truly “gradual school,” as an artist friend calls it. It’s now or never. This won’t be my last blog post, but it will be the one I’ll be referring friends to for a while in order to explain my absence from their e-mail inboxes and other media. Carry on with life in the real world, and I'll rejoin you soon!

Can we hairtalk?

Having read somewhere that women’s comments on each other’s hair are the equivalent of men’s remarks about sports teams, that is, a ritualized “bonding” exchange, I’m trying to go deeper. Surely there are hidden meanings in women’s hair-related conversations! I think hairtalk is shorthand that women friends and even mere acquaintances use to describe their “spiritual” and/or psychological states, and sometimes to establish a hierarchy, a temporary pecking order, although the cultural “values” of styles and methods get contaminated by other factors and are never static. One exchange I had recently was a three-way. A woman who’d started CUTTING HER OWN hair very short was complimented (drastic changes, of course, trump everything). A comparison was made between her and another woman whose hair was a similar length, but because she was black, the “do” had a different look. Self-reliance was emphasized, and the manner in which one cuts one’s own hair was described. The African-American woman admitted that she had not cut her own hair, but acknowledged the wisdom and economy of doing so. Both women came to the conclusion that in the future they would go through a period of dreadlock. This, I think, was an important moment in the bonding process. The money-saving woman added that, following the period of dreadlock, a period of head-shaving would follow. The other woman did not respond directly, thus indicating that this was not a (nun-like?) passage she anticipated for herself. Meanwhile, the third party (me) advanced another economical (retirement-related) tack, that is, one of letting the locks grow and braiding them. The amazingly common denominator was ACTUALLY PLANNING THE FUTURE of our hairstyles to parallel life’s passages! Since none of us could know upcoming hair trends (which may have an influence), the plans were symbolic, and showed an acceptance of certain styles “meaning” certain renunciations, aspirations, roles. I must say that this type of “bonding” exchange seems "richer" than male reports of sports teams’ wins-losses/responses to wins-losses, because the females involved create most of the content themselves. I am willing to entertain arguments. And I know “richer” isn’t necessarily “better”!

Death-in-life experiences

A long time ago, during a period of transition in my life, I had a dream that I was lying in the woods in a pile of leaves, dissolving. It felt delicious, almost orgasmic. I was becoming part of the forest, losing all the pain and sorrow I'd been preoccupied with at the time. But the dissolving stopped somewhere near the back of my neck, perhaps where the "lizard brain" resides, the basic instincts. So, I lived. I woke up and continued. But I did not forget the wonderful experience of almost non-existing. About seven years before that dream, I had had an accident on a Massachusetts highway, spinning around uncontrollably in a borrowed Volkswagen after vainly trying to correct a skid on slippery snow. I was a new driver, but cars all around me were wrecking that night. My vehicle went ass-end into a ditch, breaking its rear axle. Just before the spin ended, my mind said to itself quite cheerfully, "Well, here we go!" These are my near-death experiences, and I kind of like them. A few days ago, a friend of mine whom I hadn't seen for ages turned up at a gathering and mentioned that she'd been having death dreams. The people in the dreams who were dying were herself in another guise or persona. In the dream, disappearing was just fine, no problem, but when she woke up, she was distressed. I think she should have been glad. It's a privilege to be able to imagine or even experience some kind of death before the actual one occurs. So many things that begin in life, end. Whole "lifestyles" can come crashing down. Rehearsal is good. I don't know what my next death will be like, but I'm not afraid to find out. Not much, anyway.