HOLD ON TIGHT

HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT And when we were children, staying at the archduke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. ~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot Sunday, December 14, 2008 history when snow blankets the ground all weekend, and the only sign of life outside my window is an animal print, curiously bear-like, one gets the sense of winter, winter, winter. this is my second night of sleeping on benedryl pills, hopefully by the end of the exams i will get off them. writing to try to lift that strange blankness in my head that blankets me, like snow, when you first get up in the morning after benedryl. waking up in the morning to read the times is a particularly emotional experience today--the realisation that to live in america now is to live in a very transitional period. growing up, i'd never known what it meant, that word, historical change. when you live in singapore, one senses nothing really changes. there is something about growing up in singapore, studying every day, that makes life surround you. there are financial crises, retrenchments, near-explosions, losses, always progress, progress, progress. but when i say change, change is a very different word from the linearity implicit in the word progress. then i remember wanting to feel unsafe. i think i let myself go in jc--i mean, really let myself go, hanging out, being involved with with people twice my age, motorcycle-pillion-ing, cigarettes--because i wanted to feel unsafe. it's something funny to joke about retrospectively, when you've gotten over it all--the nausea, the feeling of shaking yourself up so severely that you're certain something in your head has popped. i also remember my love of writing poetry then, the desire to capture little moments, the desire to make little moments seem momentous and historical. i don't write anymore, but if ever i got back, it wouldn't be to poetry, it would be either a verse-play, or a novel, or A Very Long Poem. a different notion of history that suggests it doesn't just reside in the re-imagination of moments. posted by dawn # 7:50 AM Comments: Post a Comment << Home		[publishing] Publishers Weekly . Dystel & Goderich . New York Center for Independent Publishing . Association of American University Presses . Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators [people] clarisse . nurul . aunty zarina (ummi's bakery) . jeremy . pak . cyril . softblow . karen & kenny (booksactually) . eric . joel . [other loves] digitaljournalist . ballet dictionary . poetshouse . urbanwordnyc [me] dawn, singapore, new york city, ithaca. [yesterday] doctors and nurses things to do when you have lost your voice sick to the core wedding glassware am lit break my hea-a-a-a-a-ar-t, break my heart Comus, 1787 on the verge of a trembling walking with grace little moment [archives] January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009

HE SAID, MARIE, MARIE, HOLD ON TIGHT

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

~ The Waste Land, "The Burial of The Dead", Eliot

Sunday, December 14, 2008

history

when snow blankets the ground all weekend, and the only sign of life outside my window is an animal print, curiously bear-like, one gets the sense of winter, winter, winter. this is my second night of sleeping on benedryl pills, hopefully by the end of the exams i will get off them. writing to try to lift that strange blankness in my head that blankets me, like snow, when you first get up in the morning after benedryl.
waking up in the morning to read the times is a particularly emotional experience today--the realisation that to live in america now is to live in a very transitional period. growing up, i'd never known what it meant, that word, historical change. when you live in singapore, one senses nothing really changes. there is something about growing up in singapore, studying every day, that makes life surround you. there are financial crises, retrenchments, near-explosions, losses, always progress, progress, progress. but when i say change, change is a very different word from the linearity implicit in the word progress. then i remember wanting to feel unsafe. i think i let myself go in jc--i mean, really let myself go, hanging out, being involved with with people twice my age, motorcycle-pillion-ing, cigarettes--because i wanted to feel unsafe. it's something funny to joke about retrospectively, when you've gotten over it all--the nausea, the feeling of shaking yourself up so severely that you're certain something in your head has popped. i also remember my love of writing poetry then, the desire to capture little moments, the desire to make little moments seem momentous and historical. i don't write anymore, but if ever i got back, it wouldn't be to poetry, it would be either a verse-play, or a novel, or A Very Long Poem. a different notion of history that suggests it doesn't just reside in the re-imagination of moments.

posted by dawn # 7:50 AM

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