Life & a bit of Billie

Sorry, I can't actually bring myself to write that much right now. You could blame it on my current lack of motivation.

I'm on my winter break from college. Yes, relaxation time and all that jazz, but now I'm sitting here, attempting to place the pieces of the puzzle that is my life. Trite, I know - both the situation and the phrase about the puzzle (we're losing focus here!), but it's true.

In about 5 months, I will be venturing (or at the pace I'm at) wandering into the work world. Apprehensive...unhappy. I guess it's too early to say for the latter. I could actually like working if I found a position I enjoyed.

This summer, I researched - no, obsessed about my future. Got an internship at the local courthouse, swore up and down (what did I say about those trite phrases) that I was going to law school and graduate school. But after a few weeks of unsuccessfully studying for the LSAT and getting to know myself a bit more, I saw that law school wasn't for me - at least at this point in my life. It's all good though.

Writing was pulling me in a direction I didn't think I would experience. And the yearning to both teach and share my writing - ah, new directions.

But this semester, I chose not to apply to graduate schools, even based on the fact that my professors believe I had a strong portfolio and sponsored a reading for two other student writers and I.

There were a number of reasons for this "sudden" change...I was too busy trying to keep my head above water (I feel bad for the original person who wrote phrases like this...they should get some sort of spoken copyright royalty or something) with all my clubs, my job, my schoolwork, my sorority, and my boyfriend. It was difficult, but somehow I did it this semester and didn't fail a course OR have a nervous breakdown. Yay, me?

And I felt like I needed a break from school...at least for a bit. I dreamed of being Dr. and Esq.,but something about the time feels wrong and I also missed the deadline for NYU's writing program (I swear the earliest deadline of any graduate school in writing I have seen...Dec. 18!) and hadn't even thought about the GRE.

So I'll save the application drama for next year, when I'm more prepared and confident. I had already decided in the summer that I wouldn't be attending graduate school unless I was given some considerable financial aid and with some serious networking coming up (meeting reps. from Random House and Doubleday just to name a few on Monday in NY) and AWP in NY at the end of the month, I have some faith that I can generate some interest. Besides, I can only hope that Jane's been talking to Allison Joseph and Camille Dungy (two of her writing comrades) about me. That...would...secure...the finances.

Since I've been home (when I wasn't lounging around with my boyfriend), I've written about 30 pages of poetry in a beautiful untouched journal.

(I started to think about this journal 'phobia' I have, which randomly became sort of a collection. I hate wasting journals...)

I'll post a fall poem. It's my favorite month and I feel as if it hasn't truly exited...

My Autumn
for Rilke

Perhaps it is just a tree
lanky and overgrown.
Braches sweep the ground,
dramatic gestures as the
wind bristles its limbs.

Sneakers crunch through piles
of leaves, scuffing concrete.
Reds, yellows, browns
float to the ground.

I think of Frost, Eliot, Rilke –
what a true poet would say –
Wander along the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly while the dry leaves are blowing.

I'm thinking of submitting to a chapbook contest (a contest that published short manuscripts/books of poetry). There are several deadlines coming up...and the worst they could say is no.

I just started working on a charcoal drawing of Billie Holiday. I haven't drawn in years. Sometimes, I just get these urges.

The picture's not so awesome and I'm obviously not done. I dabble in all of the arts (some more than others. For example, I am a musician & writer more than I am any sort of a skill Artist).
The eyes will be the hardest...their proportioning is always hardest to me...and it's Billie. Her eyes were her. As was her voice, but not the sort of dynamic that can be caught on paper...in a drawing. I applaud the poets who could capture Billie.

"I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing."
-Frank O'Hara

I could comment so much on this poem "The Day Lady Died," but I prefer this response:

"I wanted to be Frank O'Hara,
staring at the newspaper with her face on it.
What picture did they use?
That gardenia - would it sit with her? Rot?
Was it even real? The way she was?
I could have held it - my breath - afraid,
as if it would have ruined the moment."
-Me

Well, I'll have to save some more Billie for later. One of my favorite poems I've written is about her.

Goodnight.