Long and short

Long and short

This is actually the 7am to 9pm day for me, but it went by in a whirl. Both day classes were good, and I think I solved my little conflict problem. Most of the people seem really anxious to learn, and I’ve already got one paper back revised. I felt really good today.

In Dr. Anderson’s class, we watched Dolores Claiborne. The readings we had this week gave me an idea for my paper in the class. I think I’m going to do a textual analysis of Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year to see what the nodes of authority are in the text.

Defoe is trying to make sense of horrendous events at a time when science and religion were first coming into conflict. I haven’t read it before, and it is one of the earliest “documentary fictions” in English literature. In 1717, people were grasping for some way to establish standards for reasoning, while the impact of Christianity was still strong. I wonder how it all plays out in a time of crisis? I think I’m going to look into it. I know the book marks a radical turn in political perspective for Defoe, and I wonder how much the tragic experience shifted the “balance of power” in his view.

Dr. Anderson wrote an interesting response to my introductory essay. He said that reading it felt a little like going from 0 to infinity in a quarter mile. I suppose I do that a lot. I take in ideas, and then I take off. He also told me, as we walked to his car tonight, that I sound like I’m studying for my comprehensive exams for a Ph.D. Not really, I’m just trying to make some sense of stuff, and it seems like I’m finding a new piece in the puzzle every day.

In a Dark Time is doing Plath right now, so I had to pick up my copy of Ariel to look through it again. One of my students, Adam, has taken to surfing my site from time to time. He also seems to be doing quite well at blogging. His first essay did remind me of a poem by Plath, so I suppose I’ll just have to quote it.

The Night Dances

A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals—
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself—
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off—

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six-sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.

This reminds me of so much more, though. It reminds me that I preferred to photograph dead flowers. Their shapes were so beautiful as they died. It reminds me of the calla lilies around the stage in the Nirvana unplugged performance. It reminds me of a Neil Young lyric: “I see a comet in the sky tonight / makes me feel like I’m all right / I’m moving pretty fast, for my size.” It reminds me of the snow that fell last week. It reminds me of the constant calculations, trying to put a frame around the mountains of knowledge that pass across my eyes each week. It reminds me that it’s been a long time since I made a woman smile.