Writing

In the opening chapter of his autobiography, Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez explores his introduction to the English language, and the strain his commitment to mastering it places on his relationship with his parents. Being Mexican immigrants to America in the 1970’s, their primary language of intimacy and engagement is Spanish, their efforts in English being halting and deeply accented, even though his mother is an excellent speller of words. The emotion most stirred in those early days - when he as the up and coming scholarship boy gets to be out and about with them - is one of embarrassment and perhaps frustration at their limitations. For him, as with most people looking to escape the limitations of a certain kind of background, aspiration is a keen motivator, one that drives him to seek to immerse himself in knowledge and books, and take up the manners, airs and graces of the class and culture he looks up to. ...

Source: What you lose in the breaking, and the leaving, and in the tearing up of things is not the weight of the burden of a flailing we, unravelling as it were, beneath the weight of the angst the uncertainty of ambivalent inquiry weaves in its wake. What you gain is not peace, or freedom, or the sense of soaring free; a relief craved like cold water on a blistering summer day - a breath drawn deep, air gulped a sigh of resignation at the certainty of leaving. ...

[ Source] --- The sense of something Brewing; Hope’s shoots, soft, tender- Beginning, Again

For Mag 269 --- Here beneath The glow of your halo, Mother of God, With clasped hands And humble spirit I bow in supplication, Bringing a prayer For redemption, for Absolution from this Weight, this burden Of deferred hope. The crash of thunder, Flash of lightning, Fire and smoke, Echoed across seven hills Is etched in my memory A callus chafed raw By this journey, This unceasing battle Of Self and Spirit Of good ambushed by doubt ...

[ Source] When March finally dragged itself to an end, I remember thinking that I hadn’t felt as stressed as I did at the time since 2008, 2008 being a nadir of sorts; one that ended up with me quitting my job and heading back to grad school, my version of navigating a delayed quarter life crisis. So out of sorts and form did I feel that I took myself away to the Starbucks in Union Square, one Sunday after church, ordered the most decadent hot chocolate with cream on offer and proceeded to have a conversation with myself. What quickly became apparent from that exercise was that there were a number of pressure points which were driving my malaise. ...

For Mag 268: --- The dinginess within cannot hide the beauty that lurks here, hidden beneath the patina of age and wanton neglect. Haste hinders the unveiling of poise, of grace carved out of ugly rock, of error transmogrified* by intense, pregnant intent, into a towering edifice of strained sinews and abs chiseled to perfection. This is no drowning Narcissus sinking into a murky river of swirling self indulgence; this is David, bare and broken saved by the master’s hand. ...

With time one learns there are no real endings, only times, and new seasons… --- NaPoWriMo is a wrap for this year, even though I never did get round to completing the Day 14 challenge. Big ups to La Reine and Tolu who challenged and inspired along the way… Bring on 2016!

[ Source] Four stars for the Chelsea boots in brown; five from Wood, for their soft leather and inner cushion, for how easy they fit his wide feet and how they arrive in time for spring and the promise of new beginnings. One star from Miles, for how they fall apart; split at the heel after seven months of use; for how they’ll harm your feet, and fall apart as though sawn in two. ...

In the unknown you clutch vestigial memories of night journeys and of trains and being surprised by grey granite segueing into lush greenery but once you cross the Bridge across the Firth of Forth Hope awakens ‘Cos you’re Home. On train journeys, coming home and the Forth Road Bridge for the prompt for Day 28 at NaPoWriMo, a truly gorgeous sight on a (rare?) sunny November day as I found many years ago…

Pause, On the corner of Kings’ and 23rd North West and smile, let your face crumble like a cookie dipped in spring milk. Tell her the musky scent of her perfume reminds you of spring wafting in on the wind heady, yet subtle, hardly felt. Moan about the weather, of snow pelting down like hail of sunshine shoved into a corner by clouds and then nightfall When you find she’s clutching Chaucer to her chest and McEwan in her bag, read her a line from Komunyakaa: ‘I took seven roads to get here and almost died three times’*. ...