Hi From Neptune

Art + Cakes

Miscellaneous observations:

- Mr. Wallace really is a beautiful person. He’s the kind of teacher that can open your mind, justify you in every sense and leave you feeling about a hundred feet tall. No words I’ve been able to find do him justice… (And that might be the ultimate goal as a writer: to describe and express the people who take you beyond words.) This week in scholarship we talked about romantic poets – Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats – and read through things like this.

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

- From A Thing of Beauty by John Keats

He spoke of aging (we’ll get back to this), of the raw exposure to humanity which these poets embraced: both the ‘world beautiful’ and all the pain of life. Passion, spirit, assumptions, hopes…

And then he said: “Is this too deep for a Tuesday afternoon?”

- This morning I took another step on my journey toward becoming one of those lovely, affectionate old ladies with lavender sweaters (you know the type). They’re the ones with big smiles and welcoming voices, who usher people into living rooms with roaring fires – the kind who exclaim warmly at news of school, chalk and birthday presents... They thrill their grandchildren by letting them lick the beaters and send them merrily out on a mission to set the table; they play folksy music from the 50’s, play with the dog and laugh so loud. They’re the type who let you have all the cushions and more tomato sauce, who look so pleased when you ‘eat so well’ – they’re those grandmothers who stuff visitors full of cakes, mashed potato and home-made Christmas cards.

[Ahh, I’m so soppy: even thinking about Nana made me cry.] Back to the point…

I baked a chocolate cake. [Yes, that’s my point. No mocking.] I baked a chocolate cake, iced it with jam, cream and smarties and took it to school. Once there (and Dad you know all about Group (or at last you should if you’ve been listening :P)) we dished it up to all the people in the room, offering it round to ‘thank you very much’s, ‘legend’s, ‘ooooooooh…’ It’s a good feeling. Giving people things makes you happy!

Labels: art, english, links, nana, school

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Sharing the Sharing

Labels: art, blogs, design, links

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Thoughts for the future

[ Blogmaster stuff: tried out the new updated template, but couldn't decode the sidebar - I need my personalization. Oh, and I'm back! ]

Ever feel like life just never changes? It's a delusion, I know - but so tiring! Lately it's been as if I never go home: as if I emerge from a restless dream, go to school, focus, listen; and then get on the bus, off to some nameless place where there is no respite, and back once more to school. It must be because this is my last year, and I've been considering, really considering, things which have only been vague half-thoughts before. University, for one: NZ$15,000 a year, just to live. The flat, the food, transport, clothes: $15,000. Add in $3-4000 for each paper, and I'll be tackling at least twice the living costs... Need a job. I really do. For me might be the gap year, not to travel (or not just to travel) but to make money for food! *rueful headshake*

It's odd (or not so odd), but coming from a family where money is scarce, the dingy, damp-ridden flat of the typical student holds no appeal at all. Not one ounce - and I don't need luxury here, just something waterproof. Noodles are the same. No appeal. Ah, I've got the soul of a well-off person (it would make sponsoring a child slightly easier as well :P).

There's something magical in my mind about the knowledge base at uni - about sunny days and majestic oak trees, reading some beautifully obscure textbook while sitting on the grass with a bottle of water at your side. About, too, rain on walls of glass (see the Otago Uni library) and a bright, well-lit room, the soft hum of talk and tap of keyboards as you surf the net for some website equally obscure. I find myself fantasizing about a place where people care about what they learn... *sigh* People who want to learn.

A dramatic school, artsy and (just) sporty, LPHS tries to appeal to everyone, not just the academic elite. It's human, inclusive, positive - but it has its downfalls. There are, always, Y9's running around like lousebitten jaggedhearted squirrels. They shriek. They shriek! It offends every geeky sensibility in me. The soft-spoken, wide-eyed "Wow, that story is gorgeous - the delicate interplay of words, the rhythm" child that I am is utterly bewildered by people who shriek. Why? They're friends, for goodness' sake! What will happen if they touch you?

Intimidation happens too. There are some people with a talent for broad, arching sweeps of generalisation: for useful, considered definitions of character, ability, situations. I'm not one of them. They make me nervous, because I don't feel I can respond: what use, when they speak in such vibrant, bold terms, to add in my little bit of detail? A doubt, appearing in my mind, does nothing to enhance. It’s colourless, insipid. It adds nothing but its presence. I must say here that I’m (usually) secure about what I know – but some people just unnerve me. The decisive, dynamic ones… I’m undone by admiration. I turn into a sponge.

I was invited to a friend’s party a week ago (just skip this bit if you’ve got that sinking feeling :-P). She’d come over for a holiday from Oregon to catch up with all her Kiwi peoples, spending time with people she hadn’t seen for 4 years. I was apprehensive, pleased to see her, anxious – a ball of nerves, really. Only these weren’t useful nerves. They weren’t the kind that fill you with adrenalin, get you bouncy and rambling, turn you green in the face: no, these were more like chloroform. I was just present. (Of course, it didn’t help that I’d thrown myself into painting the hour before, switching off all the outside pathways.) I was in, in my own mind, watching and considering, utterly absorbed in the being of things. In short, no more capable of interesting conversation than a tea towel.

At this friend’s party there were: her mother, father (both very well-educated, well-travelled, good-hearted American intellectuals), family friends (including a potter with a passion for second-hand shops and a V.I.P. at Otago Uni, ex-USA academic), mutual friend Adele (who, because she’s such a social soul, couldn’t help believing in me to make it on my own), her German exchange student Anka (really, really nice but only slightly less awkward with the crowd than me), Adele’s parents (opinionated, joking, inclusive), and a girl from our school named Sibby. Now, she was the clincher. Sibby is… gorgeous. Stylish, well-spoken, tactful, witty and blonde. She’s our Head Girl, and for good reason. She terrifies me.

I was trapped, nearly inanimate, in a noisy, crowded room for hours. It was agonizing. Everyone was talkative, friendly – and, in my painfully impressionable frame of mind, loomed as cool and distant as the Himalayas. My awareness was a hundred million miles away, being incinerated in the midst of some outlying star… (Just an example of the images that floated across a muted perception:

Betelgeuse, in the belt of Orion… Orion, famed hunter-constellation of the Ancient Greeks… Ancient Greeks, who give birth to Heracles, Zeus, Athenian democracy, the heroes of Thermopylae… Sparta, warrior-state and martial consciousness… Persia, ancient to the ancients, built in the very cradle of humanity, conquered by Alexander the Great… Alexander, ancient to the ancients, hero of Cleopatra’s Egypt and legend to Julius Caesar himself… Caesar, who met his death on the Ides of March … et tu, Brute…

I learned some things. First, which I don’t quite yet believe: that these people, imposing, impressive and inspiring as they are, are just like me. Second: that I should not attempt anything social while in this state. It. Does. Not. Work. Oh, maybe with close friends, the kinds of people with whom you laze around on sunny days: the kinds who pelt you with chocolate chips, who clear their junk-scattered couch for you, who pull faces at you in a boring class. The kinds who never, ever let you leave without having a piece of cake. They are immune to anything – you’d do the same for them. But with others, the reflex-smile acquaintances… To them, it’s unfair. So I’m not doing it again.

Labels: dreams, job, money, school, shy, thought, uni

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