Blog on favorite quote from reading...

I think my favorite quote from any assigned reading is from my book repot on ZAMM...“You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge."

I think this quote is great in that we never quite know where we are going to end up, but if we think about it, there is an ebb and flow to the world... We end up where we are always meant to, but furthermore, we end up in places that sort of make sense. I think this quote goes back to the idea of time, and how in many ways it is immaterial. Our past and present are always intersecting and weaving in and out of each other... I think the key is to know when to close a chapter and to move on, and sometimes the themes or characters in the last chapter cross over into the next... And sometimes they stay right where they are and are meant to. I think everything happens for a reason in our life, and when you look back things connect in ways that they were always supposed to, and you can feel this and know it... This quote by Robert Pirsig, above all, seems to suggest that. We do not need to know what our future holds in store for us, we just need to keep moving forward a few steps at a time, and eventually we will get to the place that we were always meant to end up and the place that we always wanted to be.

Blog on Dreams and Inward Journeys

Dreams and Inward Journeys was a book that helped my writing, and how I tapped into my writing, immensely. All of the stories were hugely formative, but for some reason the one that sticks with me is Stephen King's. He may be the most famous writer within the book, but I do not think that is why... For some reason I have very vivid dreams, and they stick with me, oftentimes for long periods. Stephen King wrote about this very thing, and how he applied it to his writing. I believe that this was the most formative thing that I read in the book, because much of my writing this semester was from my life, but in a way my dreams also influenced the things I wrote about, and the fears that I have, as well as the hope that I have for my future. Stephen King wrote about all of these dreams he had as a child and how many of them stuck with him to provide the basis and the ideas for entire novels. This is incredible, as some people do not have dreams that are consistently that vivid and alive within their subconscious, but I know that I do. Stephen King's essay on how dreams influence his writing has been very important in the writing that I have done since. When I have a fear that manifests itself in a dream, I try to write about it and release it in a way... I want it out of me so I can move forward, fearless and truly alive... Stephen King's story has allowed me to do just that. Our dreams, I believe, often tell us something, and it can be something incredibly important or it can be nothing at all, but they always say something about where we are at in our lives... If we can channel this, we can identify things and truths within us that we otherwise could not have... Stephen King understands this, and now that I do, it will be apart of my writing, always.

Blog on Stafford book

William Stafford's book shows the truth that exists within him in an incredible way. William Stafford is so understated, but in it, he is brilliant. You can see when he speaks, and you can read in his writing, how cerebral he is... But where a lot of writers fail is that they are incredible cerebral, but they are a wallflower, just observing every thing and not participating in life... They end up writing about the death of life within life, but Stafford does not do this. William Stafford is immensely intelligent, but he is also always apart of life in a physical and very spiritual way. Stafford's poetry always shows this.
I think the most interesting part about William Stafford's writing is his connection to the spiritual realm that exists within life... Somehow he is in touch with the truth in the world and you can tell that he may not totally understand it, but he feels it and he knows it is there. I remember when we watched the video on him talking about this boy who had gotten lost in the Northwest Woods, and no one could find him, and there was a great probability that he was dead... What was beautiful is that he wrote that the child had just gone home, as there is no separation between the earth and ourselves. He felt the spiritual connection, and somehow understood it as well, that exists within our lives. We are connected to our world, and we were always meant to be, and our world is connected to us. The energy we have as humans is not separate from the energy in all of the world... And being in sync with that is one of the most important things we can understand from this life.
William Stafford did not have to be a Bukowski or Hemingway type, his personality was understated, but he understood and comprehended things that most people could never understand or even recognize... Stafford writes about the beauty that exists within our lives, that most people miss in so many ways. I think William Stafford should have a greater recognition for his work, and I hope that he always has it.

Extra Credit Blog: Zen And The Art of Moving On

For the longest time I longed for New York. I longed for its cold, its quiet and the warmth of the fire place in the winter. I missed my Victorian Era house and its view.

It was home and it was all that I knew. When I went back in December, after breathing the warm Phoenix air for six months, I was elated. The joy of seeing friends and family and my old home was incredible, yet it faded quickly as people realized I was not the same, and as I realized that home was not the same. I drove around my small town, bored, longing for punk rock clubs and record stores. Unable to find anything I could relate to, except for my best friend, we left for New York City. 

We drove to the train station in Poughkeepsie, where we were both born, and left. Believing that there was something better on the east coast than what we had always known. 

After an hour and a half, we stepped into Manhattan and made our way to Greenwich Village. In a way I was looking for what I had left behind, and my future. As we walked into the bar that once sat Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan, somehow I knew I would get older and it would be ok. 

We came back from the city, I said my goodbyes to my best friends, which I have gotten very good at doing and I left. I came back to the city of Phoenix, and for the longest time I longed for the comfort of home again... Until one night in a club in Tucson. 

For some reason, at the Congress Club in Tucson, amongst the waves of punches in my back and the ringing in my ears; I woke up and I moved on. When I was younger I played guitar constantly, and I still did, but I only had an acoustic guitar, after selling my two electrics a couple years earlier because I knew I'd be on the road for a while. All of the sudden the crashing of bodies, the tinnitus, and the wall of sound from the electric guitars playing root notes with fifth intervals, made me believe in rock and roll again. I came home, bought a record player and began collecting records... Then I went out and bought another electric guitar, amplifier, and I picked it up like I had never put it down. I was passionate about something again, and I was ready to move on, wherever I was. For some reason that guitar made me want to go to the west coast, again... It reminded me of all the reasons I moved to the West Coast in the first place... The warm air and the cool night breeze and the promise of new nights, in a new place, with new love. 

I realized that I was ready to finally move on, and was done mourning the loss of New York. For better or worse, this is home... And I am proud to say, since accepting this, I've found a job, I've seen places in the city that I have never... I've met new people... And I met a girl. I barely know her, and that's alright, but somewhere in her and in me is the potential or the promise of future nights thinking of her and not longing for New York. 

The semester is ending, and in this semester I have learned a lot. I think the most important thing I have learned though, is that as cliched as it may be... Life is short and New York will always be there, but my life will not be. And I believe, and I know, for as many fateful events in life, we make a conscious choice to live fully each morning when we wake up... And when we go in search of life, it looks for us, too... And sometimes it saves us. 

 

Evaluation of Semester and Writing Process:

This semester was incredible in a lot of ways for me, and in a huge way this class changed me, immensely. I wrote about things that I have not touched on in a long time, and in a way it helped me to move on from my past and move forward with my future in the warm West Coast Sun. So for that, I thank you, Professor Mathes, as much of that is due to you.
Truthfully, when I started the class I was very guarded, and the walls that I put up were immense and I think impossible to break down, which made it impossible for me to connect with people in the way that I truly wanted to. I still longed to be back in New York and could not fully embrace the fact that I had escaped from the dark and the cold of a small town in Upstate New York, and I had made it out like I always wanted to. This class helped me to realize that, and it helped me to realize that life is a beautiful journey that we need to embrace and hold on to for as long as we can, as life is short, as cliched as that line has become.
The writing process for me is simple, but the impossible immenseness in its simplicity is incredible. The most important part of writing for me is trying to get to the truth... It is trying to get to my core, unguarded so I can reach out to my reader, and have them relate to that universal emotion that I am feeling underneath everything else. This is difficult in person, as I think my walls prevent me from saying how I really feel, and this class allowed me to say how I really feel, and I was able to bring that into my everyday life. Because of this class, I have been able to just be myself, and the most confident version of myself, because I know that I have experienced extraordinary things, and have been scarred numerous times, but they are all real and they are all worth talking about to be able to move forward.
I think in many ways this class gave me courage that I did not have before it, because it gave me the courage to say what I felt, and to absolutely mean it. I hope that came across in my writing. Without this class I am not sure that I would be the person I am right now. And when a change is that incredible and that palpable and occurs in one semester, I think that really says something about not just the student, but the teacher as well. Professor Mathes, your questions and your assignments that made us find the truth within ourselves, has made me a better person, and a happier one... So thank you for everything this semester.