"When I write a poem,

I process experience. I take what's inside me - the raw,chaotic material of feeling or memory - and translate it into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a poem. This process brings me a wild kind of joy. Before, I was powerless and passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning. Because poems are meanings, even the saddest poem I write is proof that I want to survive. And therefore it represents an affirmation of life in all its complexities and contradictions...because poems can be shared between a poet and an audience, they also become a further triumph over human isolation."
-Gregory Orr

2 am and I'm thinking Kierkegaard?

I can't sleep. Every time I try my heart starts pounding and my head starts racing as I think about all the things I have to do. I was on campus for nine hours today, came home, ran three miles and I still can't sleep. Chronic stress?

So instead I'm reading some of Kierkegaard's essays...which I love. I like philosophy and I think Kierkegaard's ideas are my favorite thus far. He was one of the few philosophers that believed faith to be the ultimate principle that should guide humanity, plus his hair was pretty neat. I've picked out some quotes. I love quotes...almost more than Oreos.

"There has been said much that is strange, much that is deplorable, much that is revolting about Christianity; but the most stupid thing ever said about it is that it is to a 'certain degree' true."

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."

"God created humankind in his own image and in requital we created God in ours. A person's conception of God is essentially determined by the kind of person he is."

"Man almost never avails himself of his freedoms, freedom of thought, for instance; instead he demands freedom of speech."

Facebook Fast

For those of you who regularly stalk me on facebook, you have probably noticed that you haven't been. Yes, that sentence makes sense and no, I didn't "defriend" you because you started dating my ex.

About three weeks ago, I was looking at my profile and realized that I was tagged in over 1,000 photos. I thought to myself, "That's absurd." My self responded and said, "and a little creepy." I am virtual "friends" with over 500 people. Hmm. I suddenly felt like I live in a fish bowl.

The lack of privacy disturbed me. I think that people are meant to float in and out of one's life for one reason or another, but facebook kind of halts that "floating" process. I mean, as much as I love finding out that the guy I sat next to on a plane two years ago had macaroni for dinner, I could probably be filling my brain with more valuable information. Its capacity is limited, after all.

So for now, I'm footloose and facebook free. It might just be a phase, it might not be. We'll see. If you need to get a hold of me, call me. If you don't have my number, there's probably a reason.



and if you haven't seen this, you should.

Someone asked me what my blog title means...

Perteneciste a una raza antigua - de pies descalzos y de sueños blancos.
"You belonged to an ancient race - one of bare feet and white dreams."

La música es siempre mejor en español.

Good Medicine

In the fourth grade, I wrote a story about a family of turkeys that disguised themselves as cows on Thanksgiving so they wouldn't get eaten. My teacher, Ms. Wyatt, told me that I was a very good writer and I believed her. In hindsight, I realize that she probably told this to everyone, even the kids who wrote really stupid, non-turkey related stories.

Where was I going with this???

Oh yes, I love to write. It's probably the one thing in which I tend to pride myself. (Look at me, not ending that sentence with a preposition!) I don't play sports anymore, I can't read music, I rarely cook. My last art project was a seventh-grade self-portrait and my teacher thought it was a former US president.

But I do have journal after journal full of my writing from over the years. It's the one thing that I have been the most consistent with in my life and has proven to be good medicine.

Most of my readers are probably bloggers so here is where I express my admiration. But not everything can go on a blog...this is the internet after all. I've learned a lot about myself because of the personal, brutally honest things that I've written down and it has turned into a rough, sometimes insightful, sometimes weird, sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful summary of who I am. I would recommend it.

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.”
- American novelist Don Delillo

ps. The turkeys escaped to Canada and lived happily ever after.

I think Ralph got it right...

Attached or unattached, I actually really like Valentines Day.

I don't read a lot of poetry but I've always liked this one and it seems appropriate for this day of love. I feel like it captures the "essence" of love...whatever that means. Happy Valentines Day :)

A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again, —
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
And is the mill-round of our fate
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

THE RULES : Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right.

Came home the other day to find that my roommate had emptied her purse on the desk. I suddenly understood why she is having so much more relationship success than I am. What more could a girl need than a three-decade-old self-help book that explains exactly what men are REALLY looking for, a to-go sized tube of toothpaste, and extra-strength gas-x?

ps. I'm writing this banking on the fact that no one that reads this blog really knows my roommate and the fact that she never looks at this page. If I am wrong on either accounts, I will be in big trouble. If you don't hear from me within three days from now, you know what happened.
-Erin