All entries for June 2005

NIghtmare

I woke up slightly earlier than I have been in the past few days. That is about half an hour ealier. But I didnt want to wake up. I really didn't. I tried to go back to sleep, but I also hate pretending I will succeed in my wishful attempt. I stayed there for another minute, kept playing in my head what had just happened in my dream and questioning the human ability to sleep in such a strange position – not sure which one, but both my hands were pulled by both extremities of the bed (and I have a queen size bed, so imagine) -, and then gave up. At first, I couldnt reopen my eyes, and thought that was my own body telling me I needed more sleep, but then, my mind was already too active to switch off again. So I just got up.

I didnt like my dream. In fact, for that same reason, I am calling it a nightmare. I'm still a bit like "what the…?", but I understand IT IS NOT REAL. However, something very poignant tells me my tutors are extravagant enough to give me an exam like that. The setting was the front garden of my old school (from nursery to high school). Students from Warwick from different degrees were all sitting on the grass ready to take their exams; the procedures were exactly like the real exam conditions, except we were all sitting on the grass. I was supposed to take a Creative Writing exam, and even though I felt – in the dream – I knew everything, just seconds from what I thought was the distribution of questions, I went blank and forgot the format of the exam (and we all know how crucial that is in term of time management). And then, 2 of the invigilators started a sketch on the front corridor that leads to the main entrance of the school – the garden where we were sitting borders it -. And so I got confused and assumed that I was in the wrong exam, that I had sat with the Theatre people (Lail was sitting next to me, so that was reason enough to jump to that conclusion). So I looked around me…no one from my degree. I was alone. In Freudian analysis, I think this is an image for the fact that I am alone in my degree. All the Creative Writers have form this little group I find terribly hard joining in. I dont relaly belong, and I guess that to some extent, even if I have my own friends elsewhere, it does bother me a bit. But back to the story. So I decided to go ask one of the invigilators (it seemed like you could stand up in the exam). She said she didnt know and that we were assigned that place for our exam, even Creative Writers. Ok, so where was everyone else? Suddenly as I looked around, I devised the rest of them at the back of the garden. I went to join them, having lost a terrible 40 minutes of a 3 hour exam. I was panicking. But so were they. The exam was so hard. I kept thinking David Morley had had some kind of looney fit or something and given us the hardest exam ever, with mathematical trick questions, kinda like the stuff that only Asperger syndrome sufferers (I want to say geniuses really), are only able to decipher. I must add at this point, in constant reference to In Dreams, that I recently read "The Curious Incident" where the narrator is a bright kid with Asperger's and that last night I was looking at my best friend's sister mock math papers.

I couldnt do the questions obviously. I have become very dumb. And this is no joke, I really have. But everyone seemed to be doing them collectively. Standing up, conferring, coming up with conyectures all together. So I asked someone to help me, because I had already lost 40–50 minutes of the exam, and needed to catch up on some time. I tried my hardest to contribute, but it really was too hard for me. I think the person who was helping me was my brother (although he isnt a Creative Writer, he is very clever, and good at Maths, more than I ever was or could be). The question involved some kind of riddle with a tree. We had to get to a universal law by decripting what the riddle said, following the an ascending pattern on the tree. So, there were letters on the tree, and then a junction that determined where the turning point was in the analysis.

The lights were red where we were, by the way. I don't know what that means. But I never said I actually believe in Freud's theory.

Finally someone figured it out. My brother said: "here we have it, look this is what it is". And I didnt get it….but i thought I'd go along with it. Then everyone went back to their seats, to copy down the answers. I thoght I'd do the same, but I couldnt even figure out what the question was saying so I thought I would never be able to frase an answer if I didnt know what they were asking me to do in the first place. So I kept looking for a question booklet, and no one could give me the actual one. I kept getting bits of paper and disorganized questions. I was just going to copy whatever my brother wrote. And then, he just yelled at me. He said that now that they had come up with the anser for the first question, I had to make them all waste less time and start figuring out the second one. And that was my nightmare, because I couldnt. I knew I couldnt and they were counting on me.

"Freuding me a season": my insecurity about not being good enough, smart enough, but also letting people down, especially the ones I love. Heavily recurring in me. And that's it.

(I wanted to include some pictures of the images I saw, but it wont let me…sob).

: 29 Jun 2005 14:42 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The fantasy is over

It was foolish of me to think this perfection would last more than it has. It was too good to be true. I have lived in this house, in this place for too long, I know exactly how it works. I grew up here. I convinced myself that everything was better than it had ever been, because I had matured, because I missed this place even though I was scared to come back, I wanted for things to be ok with me, with my mom, with the way I felt about being back. But I keep fighting and fighting, and all I get back is that I have changed, and that everytime I come back, I will feel the same, that I have changed, that I dont think like people here, that I dont act in the same way, and that I dont want the same things out of this life. So what do I do? Not come back? Build my life around what I believe, serving others around the world, travelling, or condemning myself to feeling miserable about the place where I grew up? I love this place, I love the Dominican Republic, deep down I love the mess, and the noise and the ignorant silliness. But at the same time, I dont belong anywhere anymore, and least of all the place where I feel the safest, surprisingly. I feel a stranger in my own house.

I know I always seem to talk in vagueness – that's not grammatically correct, but I coudnlt care less right now! -. I never give precise examples of what I'm talking about, and I know I should. Ah, what people expect from me, it's so hard and so painful.

Cant do this right now. Again. I just wanna talk to you gusarapo.

: 28 Jun 2005 03:01 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I am home

I can feel the cold from the air conditioner beneath my feet. I can hear the fans of the cooling devices of the entire neighbourhood. It is quiet. And that's how I like home. When I can breathe and feel the fresh morning air, and hear nothing human. It has been so hectic since I got here, it almost seems like a brief dream of connected events. But now I can grasp it, and smile and say "Yes, I am home". And I like it too. My apprehensions and my fears, they have all faded. I don't care if they are thinking it. I don't care about what they say. I just wanna have a good summer. I think I am here searching for other things. I hope I find them.

And I'm clearly not into this entry anymore, so I'm just gonna leave it. Poor skills Sarah, poor skills.

: 26 Jun 2005 14:13 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Love, Love, Love, alla Bovary!

As for Emma, she did not ask herself whether she loved him. Love, she thought must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,—a hurricane of the skies, which sweeps down on life, upsets everything, uproots the will like a leaf and carries away the heart as in an abyss.

From Flaubert's Madame Bovary

: 02 Jun 2005 20:06 |  Tags: Quotes |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Santa's Designated Elves

Snowmen have melted into Chinese dolls.
Santa’s workshop in the North Pole flood,
raining in factories of the East.

Young elves in Xihuan, six to sixteen,
ruined clothes from poverty,
piece together the glee for other elves,
on Christmas Eve.

The sun sets and rises on a single crack of light,
as red sacks rise up to the sky;
trucks for little blue overalls,
parasols over little pink ribbons. But

the gingerbread smell is extinct
in Santa’s oven.
The factory spits scarce fumes for feeding:
time is too precious to be burnt.
Seconds, 420 seconds, 7 times 60 seconds,
the tick tock of the clock flocks them
back to work.

“But don’t forget!”Mama Clause says.

Once every three weeks,
the pouch grants them a treat:
one toy for each elf.

“You must work ‘til 10!”

“Great!” says Li Xuang, “At least we don’t deal with those dumb reindeer”.

: 02 Jun 2005 18:28 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Quick Notes

(Inspired by: Seven poems-Mark Strand)

1
At the edge
of your arrow body,
wounds bring fatalities.

2
A scar remembers the wound.
History is written all over the book
of your tired flesh.

3
When we walk in the sun
radiant light comes out of our touching lips.

4
My body lies down
champagne of memories
spill from the cup.

5
The rock is pleasure
And as I give it away
it cracks,
but never breaks.

6
When I talk to the window
it answers
a mirror of fog.

7
I have a key
to the garden of my dreams,
and it’s a jewel
that I will keep.

: 02 Jun 2005 18:28 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Encounter

- Inspired by Robert Browning's "Meeting at Night"

While the gray sky tints sand and sea,
The silver moon settles to half-height.
The foolish waves play a skipping game,
And dream of drawing circles at night.

My boat finds a piece of land;
crashing its prow into the raspy sand.

The coconut juice scent swathes the surroundings,
Whose trees end up in a ranch.
As I lean over to touch the window pane, I see
The dim light of a sign of life.

A quiet voice leads me inside.
Two hearts beat side by side.

: 02 Jun 2005 18:27 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Place In My Heaven

-To Oliver

Tender and soft,
as the last caress he never gave me;
he offers his hands
like a beggar,
joining the far ends of them.

He holds a handmade wooden boat:
Pink and blue sails,

waving to the absence of wind,
white flowers engraved on the prow,
spelling out the fated serenity
of early death.

"Why hold a present

if there's no one to give it to?"

He is forever trapped
in a workshop of water and ice,
frozen statues all around;
a place in my heaven with
void whispering sounds
mother, father, sister...
...brother

: 02 Jun 2005 18:25 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Plaza de España

Plaza de España, splendid at night.
A worn bench and my fingers to the sky
Draw with the delicate breeze in my hand
The lost Tainos’ spirits in the stars.

Fifteen Century monument—
Diego Colon’s dwelling guarded
by a single skyscraping tree,
fencing the man-made miserable
meager roads, polluted rivers.

To the smell of roses, wine and red beans
in restaurants and colonial buildings,
I stand and dance around bright black lamp posts
and feign to sway long dresses with sparkles.

History made my barricade
I watch latin damsels and youths
turn modern in this ancient spot,
where the present is in the eyes,
and the past forever around.

: 02 Jun 2005 18:24 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Deadly Passion

It is quiet in the house. It had been somber
between them for years. His last kiss still tastes sour
on her lips. A riot shattered her arteries
from mind to heart, hauling her life into final
self-inflicted abyss. The rocking trees squealing
with the murderous wind, breathe “It’s June, time to rise
in vengeance”. The fading light of a white candle,
spreads a soft pear scent, as his roundly open flesh
turns slowly into rotten prune and his cold dead
eyes become fixated crystals. She had warned him,
about returning there. She places the antique
pistol on her dresser and gently combs her hair,
golden guitar strings, as she broods about the night
passing by. The waterfalls of her eyes shrivel.

: 02 Jun 2005 18:23 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem