Shackleton School, Ashby, Massachusetts, U.S.A
I have a paper to write and it is raining, dark gashes of water superimposed upon the windowpane above my head. Apart from this window, with its Germanic view of brown treetops and grey skies my view is restricted by wooden partitions, my horizons shrunk to a half eaten apple core, my computer and assortments of various rubbish
“I have a paper to write” Sitting here, longing to be a Mozart of writing, I resemble more of the mad scientist, bent as I am into my workstation, hair askew with rock music blasting around me. People stream past and deep in thought I hardly notice them, fingers forming a staccato beat upon the keyboard. I want to write, to capture and release, transport the reader with every word, transform my page into an ocean, a council flat, a jungle. Instead I am forced to write, to talk about serious matters,
I Wake up; slide from the bunk and onto a floor littered with refuge, realizing all the time that I have a paper to write. Get some trousers and a tee shirt, don’t even bother to slide shoes on properly, as lurching forward I burst out of the door and into the rain. “I have a paper to write” a dull mantra repeating inside my head, following the beat of my jaw, as chewing away on a slice of buttered toast I try desperately to work out the way my individual limbs should be working this early in the morning.
I have a paper to write and yet I am not grabbed, no not want to be, by figures and facts, the staples of a good research paper. How can I even try to express love, anxiety, fear of boarding school and the romance of a Khmer temple in such a paper. Can I? Could I at once shed light on mental issues in Iraq and still present it like a story.
I can try to use words that enchant, that tell the facts without embellishment but still make it feel like you are there, standing in a hospital ward, rubbing off sweat with one hand and calming patients with the other. And in the end is that not what my blog is, real life told as if in a story, descriptions of things that matter, that I care about?
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Monday, May 02, 2005
Shackleton School, Ashby, Massachusetts, U.S.A
I look out today and I see incredible beauty in a thousand forms, a land of serenity disturbed only at the horizon, where the gaunt shape of Boston looms beyond forest.
My hands on the rough wood of the balcony I can stare at an ocean of trees, waves of pastel, fiery crests where maple’s touch the hill tops and cascade down, into valleys distant and far. In these woods, these ancient temples of nature, can I feel safe, free of my fears if only for a short time.
It is my world, the one of the woods, for some a barbaric harshness, for me a place of rocky outcrops and wet leaves underfoot, of colors and textures so subtle only a deer could appreciate them fully, the rich tapestry of nature. There, as I walk over rotting logs above dappled streams, I transition, from boy to man, from burdened to free, from alone to a companied, if not by something I can see and understand then by nature itself.
There, in my eye’s I am no longer the Clown, clumsy and laughably innocent, as easy to corrupt and use as anyone. I am no longer the “Spy” or the “Rat”; choosing my morals over my friends, in their eye’s condemning people to awful lives though my actions.
Through thickets I can run, chasing animals as I vault this tree, a thin mist of dew drops cascading from above. Primeval it is, this world of magic in the deserted tree houses clinging to rough bark, their steps worn down and rotten thought years of neglect. There is nature, stamped into the ground by the hoof of a deer, the wood chips from a beaver desecrated tree.
There can my issues dissipate, disappear with the breeze along with the constant leaves, upwards and away. I can grow, relax my arms, perhaps even let out a scream and the odd tears, confident that no one is watching.
So follow me into my kingdom of anarchy, the forests that I can enter but not control. Walk with me as we make our own paths, stepping over saplings to reach a brook, see what I see, hear what I hear, and maybe then, maybe then will you see me.
I look out today and I see incredible beauty in a thousand forms, a land of serenity disturbed only at the horizon, where the gaunt shape of Boston looms beyond forest.
My hands on the rough wood of the balcony I can stare at an ocean of trees, waves of pastel, fiery crests where maple’s touch the hill tops and cascade down, into valleys distant and far. In these woods, these ancient temples of nature, can I feel safe, free of my fears if only for a short time.
It is my world, the one of the woods, for some a barbaric harshness, for me a place of rocky outcrops and wet leaves underfoot, of colors and textures so subtle only a deer could appreciate them fully, the rich tapestry of nature. There, as I walk over rotting logs above dappled streams, I transition, from boy to man, from burdened to free, from alone to a companied, if not by something I can see and understand then by nature itself.
There, in my eye’s I am no longer the Clown, clumsy and laughably innocent, as easy to corrupt and use as anyone. I am no longer the “Spy” or the “Rat”; choosing my morals over my friends, in their eye’s condemning people to awful lives though my actions.
Through thickets I can run, chasing animals as I vault this tree, a thin mist of dew drops cascading from above. Primeval it is, this world of magic in the deserted tree houses clinging to rough bark, their steps worn down and rotten thought years of neglect. There is nature, stamped into the ground by the hoof of a deer, the wood chips from a beaver desecrated tree.
There can my issues dissipate, disappear with the breeze along with the constant leaves, upwards and away. I can grow, relax my arms, perhaps even let out a scream and the odd tears, confident that no one is watching.
So follow me into my kingdom of anarchy, the forests that I can enter but not control. Walk with me as we make our own paths, stepping over saplings to reach a brook, see what I see, hear what I hear, and maybe then, maybe then will you see me.
