Nerds

           There were always different classifications of kids in grade school.  There was the popular crowd with the latest, coolest stuff, clad in the flashiest gear- well liked by teachers but scornfully envied by fellow students. Then, there were the rebelious, edgy kids- the stereotypical rock listening, head banging, pierced, black-clad students.  In the middle were the every bodies, nothing special but not especially nothing.  Finally, the nerdy crowd; the honor roll kids, those that passed every test no matter how hard or impossible it seemed.  These kids were amazing at school but, typically, had few or no friends. 

            I always wondered, in elementary, middle, and high school about the nerds.  I mean, they got perfect grades and I envied that so much.  I felt a green monster creep into my mind every time I did poorly on a test and the straight A student next to me had a huge grin on their face at the paper in their hand.  Granted, I was a social youth so the amount of effort put into studying or paying full attention in class wasn’t tip-top but I did do a good portion of preparing.  However, I never could bring myself to devote all of my time after school to just do homework or study.  There was too much fun to be had!  Nevertheless, I always wondered what it would be like to get that A every time, and how gratifying it would be.  Because of this last semester, I know what that is like.  The sweetness of reward for hard work, jumping up and down because you did well, proudly revealing the good grades to your parents; I’ve done all of that and it was good… for a week.

            The last month of second semester, my classes became my life.  Those I saw were either in class, at lunch/dinner, passing by in the valley, or in the library.  Music my only companion, I slaved to expand my brain even further in my work and studies.  Oh, but the grades and merit did I reap.  A victorious end to a rigorous semester.  Merely a freshman in two upper classmen courses and six other normal level ones.  I credit myself with pulling through somewhat unscathed.  But oh, the victory is tainted.  For joy cannot shine to its full when blemished by a sliver of the shadow cast by regret.   

            I feel for those nerdy kids I encountered in grade school because now I know what it is like.  You know, maybe they are fine with loosing social time to get the grade, maybe that is what brings them life, being stuck to their books, but for me, it diminished life.  It made me think, more than anything (no pun intended) about priority.  When I was in the final weeks of school I learned a lot about priority.  I learned that I should stay off facebook for a weeks at a time because otherwise I wouldn’t get what was important done.  I learned that I should grab dinner on the go in order to eat it in the library so I could start on a paper at the same time.  I learned that senior send-off, the speedway races, and other end-of- the-year activities were out of the question as long as I still had six finals and two papers in the following seven days. 

            Now, I have learned that you never get life back.  You never get your freshman year of college back.  You cannot turn back time and retake those moments you missed out on.  You cannot joke about funny moments that you weren’t a part of.  You can’t reminisce on events you didn’t go to.  You cannot grow friendships if you didn’t put the time you "didn’t have" into them. 

            I know I won’t fondly muse about the hours I spent in the library, the days I practically saw no one, or the number of dinners and lunches I spent alone in a library cubicle.  And in forethought, will I love the times I stay late at work, missing time with my husband, possibly kids?  When will I ever love missing a soccer game?  A school function?  A music show?  A birthday? An anniversary?  I won’t.  But too often in today’s world do people pull this stunt.  I don’t want to live to work; I just want to work so I can live.  It’s like waking up, feeling as though you have wasted or missed half of the day…. I woke up when I got home and felt as though I missed half of my freshman year.  

            Relationship has always been so important to me.  I thrive on it.  Without it I know I would cease to exist.  This last semester, the second of my freshman year, has taught me many a thing but mainly this: one cannot hold themselves from company for community is what we all desire and need.  The want for acceptance is universal and once accepted and loved, anything can go wrong but those who care for us can always hold us up.  We need not support ourselves forever and rely on our own efforts to push us through for we are blessed with God’s gifts called friends, on earth for us to love and be loved by. 

            We all need love and I have learned that I shall not starve myself or others of it.  For in the end it is what will carry me- not money or grades, material or earthly things.  For these shall all perish.  But that which cannot be torn, broken, diminished, forgotten, or effaced endures and that is the love of and care for those close to our hearts.  

The Picture Painted on Silence

Music--one most powerful force in my life.  I am moved by it unexplainably.  Is it the dissonance in the chords and their resolution that stirs me?  Is it the dynamics?  The climactic, inspiring moment?  The moving changing phrases?  A combination of the aforementioned that arouses my senses?  The latter I believe to be so.  Music is conceived not by a single mouth, horn, string, key, or bell but an entire, full masterpiece is crafted with no one part left out.  All pieces contribute and mold to make the beauty that is to grace its audience’s ears, stir inside them emotion, set the mood, change an atmosphere, or transport them to a far off place-- be that place present, past, or imagined. 

            Music is part of my life.  I feel so attached to it and have for as long as I can remember.  When my ears are fed music I feel as though I physiologically respond to it:  The phrase begins to crescendo, my heart beats faster; a dissonant chord resolves, my body relaxes; a heavenly harmony sounds and my eyes close; my blood pumps in sync with the rhythm.  

            Not only body but mind reacts to this auditory stimulation.  My head reels at the sound of a sweet violin, or a dark cello.  I am inspired at the sound of a strong horn or the intensity of an organ.  My heart sighs at the soft exhale of woodwinds.  I am, body and mind, consumed by the irresistible poetry of the air.

            On many days of this past semester I would spend endless hours at studying in the library.  It was there the sweet sounds of orchestral works, or award winning soundtracks would accompany me as I worked.  Too often would I find myself having to stop and simply close my eyes at the absolute delight of a specific song.  Certain songs cannot simply be listened to, they must be experienced.  In the library, I would, when I heard an especially affecting song, close my eyes and break from my work to bask in the heavenly art embodied in that tune. 

 Music is such a gift.  I know it to be a divine one for how could something so beautiful and pure not stem from a higher power?  The talent of nor passion for producing it is universal.  Only a select few of the greats conceive such works as can be compared to perfection.  And though not all attain this passion or talent all who seek it out may equally enjoy as the musicians paint their picture on the silence.

 

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”  ~Victor Hugo 

 

Latest Favorites:

~Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto In E Minor, Op. 64 - 2. Andante

~ Mozart’s Adagio for Strings

~ Piano Concerto No.1 Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

~ Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor

~ A Boy and A Girl by Eric Whitacre

~Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre

~ Road to Perdition Soundtrack

~Becoming Jane Soundtrack

A befuddled muck of confusion

I wrote this a while back in this last semester and thought I might share it.... many of the questions and struggles posed within the text are still some I wrestle with and wonder about.  

Life.  What a small word with such an expansive meaning- or vast gamut of meanings- so many connotations and denotations.  This word is unique to every being endowed with it.  It is the fingerprint of each person’s existence.  No finger print the same. 

            Life shapes us.  Life creates.  It is indication that a being is breathing, living, changing, growing, surviving.  It distinguishes the organic from the inorganic, existence from the nonexistent, animation from the inanimate, liveliness from the lifeless.  At least those are the denotative definitions we have to explain life.  In many ways those would be easy to stick with.  Some times I wish I could understand life in a sentence or two as the dictionary explains it so.

           Life, in it’s many facets, has become hazy and unclear to me of late.  I try to reason as to why this has become so but I can’t seem to put my finger on it.   Is it because I have been thrust out of my comfort zone?  Weaned away from my parent’s care?  Then, if this is so, do I deny my own ability, in growth, to spurn question and thought?  Is it just experience that creates growth in me? Or is it my own intellect that drives my cognitive expansion?  The things I stumble upon and wonder- are they product of me or my environment?  That is the first step to understanding how I come to this befuddled muck of confusion.  I land in this scary place where I feel that my grounding and control I had in life is lost.  Like the completed puzzle has just been undone and I’m left to figure out how to put it’s millions of pieces back in place again.  Sometimes it feels like I am in a vortex- life speeding past me but I have no control over the direction I fall.  I just fall and that’s it.  At first the falling is frightening but after a bit it’s more of a hassle than a fear.

            This is the place where I feel stuck- or maybe it is a place where I feel as though I am standing still and life is just happening around me.  But I know I am not standing still.  I continue and thrive.  But what is thriving?  What causes me to thrive?  I go through the day’s motions- check things off my to-do list but is that where I draw my satisfaction?  I would say not.  Relationship is where I draw my satisfaction.  Though an introvert, I find company is what spins my wheels, pumps me up, makes me remember I am loved, and gives me positive outlook. 

            Relationship, though, is a thick, complexly beautiful branch on the tree of life.  What can relationship be defined as?  I move to say that each person has his or her own definition.  One woman can say that she is in a relationship with the husband that beats her.  A man can say he has a relationship with his son from a divorce to whom he sends gifts but never visits.  A married couple of 40 years can proclaim that they are in a solid relationship.  Of these examples, I may not agree with all but to each specific person, that connection with their other is that individual’s own definition of relationship.  Each life that a person has lived will define their expectations, values, understanding, and qualities desired in relationship.  No individual beyond ones own realm of influence should define what that individual’s relationships should look like or how they should carry out their life- unless their lives breach upon the safety of another’s life.  No matter, this is where life is a fingerprint. 

            Then I ask myself this: if I agree or disagree with these different interpretations of relationship- if I take and reject thought from each definition- then what is my own?  I wonder to myself sometimes if I will ever truly know this.  At points I feel as though I have a blueprint laid out for each different relationship situation I may encounter but then again, once placed in context, this blueprint molds to the specific relationship.  For example:  I know I want specific qualities in a man for a romantic relationship but why, in individual instances, do I pretend certain negative qualities don’t exist when highlighted positive ones out shine said undesired negative ones?  My emotional-cognitive side takes over to the point where I shroud my perception of that man with my own, modified, sugarcoated view of him.  This facade I create, based off of a model, becomes what I am so infatuated with and desire to see in that model- so much so that when the real man fails to meet my façade’s qualities I become disappointed (This is why I feel God holds no expectations of us).  These imagined, concocted expectations drive the later, inevitable disappointment I so often deal with after the end of a romantic relationship.  It’s the same circular trap. 

            I battle over and over with myself on this.  Do I become so objective to the situation that I suppress my innate instincts to let something flow and sparks to fly and all that jazz?  Will a heart ever be truly guarded in a dating or other situation to the point where breaking up or ending things leaves no sting?  I try for this with all my power.  At least I want it that bad.  For the sting and hurt after the end of a relationship throbs so bad that it is discouraging ever to invest oneself that amount again.  Yet chemicals react and my mind pushes me even so once another opportunity arises.  My heart hopes this time that it won’t be broken but moves on in, nonetheless, bracing itself as it enters.  I fear it become battle worn- used to the blows, the ends, the hurt.  I fear it become cold and accustomed to defeat.  That vicious cycle of beating faster yet again, enjoying it’s freedom until alas it beats for nothing and returns to its slow, monotonous pulse.  I pray for the day when I can comfort my heart to know it is safe to flutter.  Oh, but then my mind constantly pulls at me to not await that day lest it become too anticipatory for it.  

And it is here I hit the wall.  I can no longer figure it out.  I am such a complex mess with mind and heart at close disconnect. 

Number 1

So blogging.... never thought I would get into this but too many thoughts swirl around in my head to not have an outlet for them with out finding that I might go a bit crazy.  I suppose, in all honesty, I am slightly intimidated by blogs.  Those whose blogs I have previously read and continue to follow normally have very deep, philosophical things to say.  It is scary going up against that standard with my new, meager blog.  Nonetheless, I hope to, in the same way, provide my own insight to the world.  Maybe a lot of this blog is for my own personal release but it is my hope that others may get something out of it as well.  

"A Genesis" is the name I found most fit for my particular blog because, of late, genesis is the best descriptor of my life.  I suppose, initially, many would think of the first book of the bible when they see the word genesis.  Though similar, my intentions with this title, however, vary from this denotative definition to a connotative one- a coming into being.  Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines the term genesis as such, " the process or mode of originating; production; formation; origination."  

Over this past year I notice how I have changed.  I have finished with my physical growth and begun on the journey of tedious and intricate mental growth.  Much of this, I feel, was due to (speaking of change) my first year in college.  The first few weeks, admittedly, felt like summer camp but once that facade fell away, it was as if life had just begun.  I had never felt the weight of responsibility in the way that I did during that first semester (okay, AND second semester).  I was on my own- blazing my own trail.  There were times I can specifically recall when I thought the floor had fallen out beneath me.  This feeling struck me as odd because I hadn't ever been babied or overly guarded before college, in fact, I enjoyed a proper amount of freedom.  Whatever the cause or reason may be, I still felt unearthed, poorly grounded, and rather free floating.  At times, this was especially unnerving and at others I thought nothing of it.  To this day I am still finding that grounding but I know I won't find the same grounding that was my foundation before.  It is time to rebuild.  I am in the process of this "construction" currently but feel as though I am, at least, nearer to the ground than before.  It has been quite a trek and through these last two semesters I have learned much outside of my scholastic education (and much inside it).  

This year has been one for the books.  I am a different girl/woman than the one that was dropped off at the door step of Rice in August of 2008.  I stood, this morning, on that same door step.  I stood there just like I had stood two semesters before.  But this morning the evolved me realized how it had morphed.  I stood there, yet again, ready to embark on another part of life.  My mind cannot begin to comprehend the wonders of time and experience.  I could not have stood there, waiting to leave, and guessed, even remotely close, at who I will be the next time I stand on another door step or wait to leave one.  With each open door and each closed one I finish and begin a chapter of a story that is to be my life.  

I remain completely mind boggled at the thought of what time and experience will continue to do.  I sit here writing my first blog and who knows what mind will be behind this screen come next year? and the next?  Is it not amazing?  Scary and exciting.  Comfortable and uncomfortable.  All continually new and all completely inevitable.  A genesis.