Brevity

I read Brevity in its entirety. Then i read some past issues in their entirety. I really dig this magazine. My favorite short to date is "Studies for a drawing in red." I love the color of the piece (scuz the pun). I can see the little boy sitting on the back porch waiting for the hummingbirds. I laughed out loud at "It's Valentines day, you ass wipe." However, i don't know what it means.
I love when i read something and i get to the end and feel fulfilled. For many this is because there is closure or because it had a nice outcome. For me, i love things for the unanswered. I find this to be difficult. I want to write and simply just let people take it for what it is. I go back to the Sam Shepard quote: "Do you go to a rolling stones concert and ask 'what does it mean?'"
I don't care what A. Papatya Bucak (such a writerly name) means in his/her story. I love that i feel red when i read it. I love that in a few short lines i can go 'aww', laugh, and stare at my wrists as i imagine them 'run(ning).'
So many times people ask me what my poems mean. Especially my mother. Is this about me? Hell no it's not about you. Where in the world would you get that? But then i look at it, really dissect each line, and yeah it is kind of about her. Everything i write is usually about my life. In one screwed up way or another. So yeah, mom is in my life; yeah, she's in the poem.
I get that feel when i read other peoples work. There is something just under the surface that i do not understand. I'm okay with that. I like looking at things through others goggles.
Back to red. I have the jumbled emotional attachment to the line "Shall I paint my nails, dye my hair, rouge my cheeks, shroud myself in my living room curtains—red red red?" I want to say this is the point of the piece. I also want to say that i don't get it in the way it is meant. I have asked these questions. Well not exactly, i'm not that clever, but i have had these meanderings when evaluating my own physical failings.
Isn't it wonderful? This whole learning about life by listening to life.

Essay as a genre.

While reading this work i stumbled across the line ""The mixture of elements in the essay--the unsorted 'wholeness' of experience it represents-- can only be held together by the concept of self. The selection and order of the ideas and objects can have no other basis. The order is 'as it occurred to me,' not 'as it usually occurs.'" I have been toying with order a lot in my recent essays. I wish my memory were chronological. It would make telling stories a whole heck of a lot easier; however, my memory is like one jumbled pit of twenty years in which nothing has a certain order. I can look back to when i was 7 and get memories of opening flowery wrapped presents that my mother assures me i "got when i was 4." The past is warped but even more disconcerting is that last weekend is warped.
I find myself writing a piece how i usually do. Sitting at my laptop with the intention of keying in some moments and suddenly it's 2:40 AM and i am looking at 5 pages of word vomit. Then i take the paragraphs and jumble them up. Tell about meeting someone before i had actually met them or place waking up before i actually went to sleep. It's confusing to me because i have lived it. It is probably not even something anyone else notices. I like to warp order, though. I mean, nonfiction is a very relative term. (Whoa! dangerous waters, i know.) I think i like to play with chronological details simply because it happened to me and i want it to appear more interesting than it actually was. I feel the need to entice a reader more than by straight-forward experience alone. But, by doing it on purpose am i discombobulating the notion of truth in the above quote? Or is it more true because it allows me to introduce a reader to someone and tell how i feel about them before i show my actual reaction to them? Which, raises an even bigger question for me--are good non-fiction writers good simply because really cool things have happened to them, or because they can show even the banal things in life in a relatable way?
I really hope it's the second. I am not a cool kid. :)

Man on Wire

Throughout watching this movie i focused on the passion of Phillipe and the internal calling he had to walk across the wire. His drive to complete these dangerous walks, especially the one across the twin towers, is admirable and utterly untouchable for me. When he spoke of it, his dream, he flailed his arms around enthusiastically and the look in his eyes was almost inane. I have never felt that driven or called to do anything. It was a beautiful thing to see his face change during his last walk. He started with an essence of fear and concentration and then he smiled and started to laugh.
My big question at the end of the movie was in his motive. I understand the honor and prestige a wire walker received when walking in Notre Dam however, i do not understand why Phillipe felt the need to be so achieving. Why was one not enough?
The act of setting the wire up and sneaking into the building was so extremely taxing. This was apparent when one of the men in his team began crying during an interview. What an emotional roller coaster it must have been. I do not understand how Phillipe did not feel such a stress and unattainable relief when the deeds were accomplished.
Phillipe could go either way for me. He is either one of the craziest people i have ever heard of or he is so admiringly brave and interesting. I fall towards the latter most of the time. I loved getting to see him speak in the personal interviews. He got high off of walking the wire. I believe it was an addiction for him.
The notion of addiction trips me up as well. Why do we do such dangerous things to ourselves? I was watching some television program with my little brother last night that featured thrill-seeking motorcross riders and the feats they accomplished. One man had shattered his pelvis and as he held up bars in each of his hands (the bars that were the size of those holding his legs together) he nodded and laughed as he said he still rides everyday and still jumps across buildings. Then my little brother looked at me with this mixture of awe and admiration on his face as he said, "i would kill to be that good." Good? This guy has fallen from high enough heights that he literally has pieces of re-bar holding his legs in place? How is that appealing?
Human beings do thrill seeking things everyday though. When i look inward, i know i do it too. I've jumped off a bridge and swan dive style plunged into a murky river that i couldn't see the bottom of. Why? I did it because it was fun. The adrenaline pumping through my arms and legs after i swam to the bank still makes my head spin in memory. I climb 60-90 feet up a rock face just to get to the top? What the hell for?
I guess i do these things because i can. Phillipe walked on the wire for more than that. I'm just not sure what it was.