Back in the A-z land/dealt this crazy hand/ no queen in sight/like a bird incapable of flight/I'm crawling on the ground, falling down, calling to be found/calling out for you/that voice that cuts through/the ruckus in my head and says/"go to bed, my dear, and soon you'll awake in better days"

I'd like to someday start a Scandinavian, Freddy Mercury cover band and call it Viqueen (tiny, blonde boom). As many of you are aware, I often write about places and the effects those places have on me; I'm not sure why I do it, in the same way I'm not sure why F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed with Zelda for so long--She only loved your money, Francis! Nonetheless, I think where we are, independent of with whom we may be or what we may be doing, permeates our subconscious and makes us behave and think in a distinct manner. Again, I direct you to the change in tone and subject between my blog posts from Lima and my blog posts from other places. Of course, you could always just counter with: "Well, why wouldn't your posts be distinctly different? You were in a place, where most things were brand-new to you, and you just changed your general approach to life and it's opportunities for a few months." To which I would respond, "touché." 


By the way, mi querido lector, that will be the theme of today's post, contradictions--rather, me contradicting myself, or not. Hmmm. 


Focus! Ok, let's get back to that thing I was talking about when I was talking about that thing. In short, for this post will be a short one since I'm continuing to partake in that distinctly American Act of heading out for the coasts (aka. I'm going back to school. Maine, getcha  popcorn ready); Arizona, I bid adieu to you and to you, D.R. I now answer the question I'm sure you've asked yourself once or twice: "Why don't you ever write about your home state?" 


It's a legitimate question, for I've spent an overwhelming percentage of my life here--emphasis on "overwhelming." I'm sorry to give you this as an answer, but, truly, it's the only one that will suffice until I've spent a more sufficient part of my life outside of Az. You ever hear the old saying "when you want to say it all, you end up saying nothing," deer reader? Well, that saying applies aptly here. Now, I shall contradict EVERYTHIING I just said: Joan Didion is an incredible essayist. (How great would it be if I just ended the post here. You'd be scratching your head so hard, D-R, you'd probably start a small fire up there). I bring up Joan Didion because she is the author of one of my favorite essays of all time; for anyone whom's ever gone through a long, transitional period in his/her life where you honestly could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, and, in fact, didn't even realize you were in a tunnel until after you came out into the light, this essay is for you. Don't believe me? Think I'm leading you astray? Well, read the first paragraph of the essay and tell me it doesn't sound like it was written in your soul years ago, and you've only now realized THIS is exactly how you felt or still feel.  


"It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my  finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was. When I first saw New York I was twenty, and it was summertime, and I got off a DC-7 at the old Idlewild temporary terminal in a new dress which had seemed very smart in Sacramento but seemed less smart already, even in  the old Idlewild temporary terminal, and the warm air smelled of mildew and some instinct, programmed by all the movies I had ever seen and all the songs I had ever read about New York, informed me that it would never be quite the same again. In fact it never was. Some time later there was a song in the jukeboxes on the Upper East Side that went “but where is the schoolgirl who used to be me,” and if it was late enough at night I used to wonder that. I know now that almost everyone wonders something like that, sooner or later and no matter what he or she is doing, but one of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before."


Can't get enough, can you? No worries, my Deer Reader, here's the link to the complete essay. Enjoy it!
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~zkurmus/html/didion.html 
And, if'n you're still in a good, readin' mood, you're lil ol' blogger wrote a himself a poem recently, a poem about what I just said I can't really put into words. It really has been too long hasn't it? Then again, it's been less than a month. Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large and contain multitudes. (Whitman boom!)

But do I carry yours?

I write your name

I erase your name

           

You had turned in for the night,

but even in your sleep you fill me with angst.

Is that fair?

Nothing ever happens between you and I—

true—

yet, always, something is about to happen.

Running Running Runing with my backpack on

The morning is so pretty and she laughs with me all the way to school

Theres the playground I look to her and smile

She kisses the top of my head and sends me running in

I’m home, or somewhere like it, and am directed to your room;

slowly, I push open the door and take my place next to you. From here, I can hear you dying

and almost feel guilty when a smile creeps onto my face.

I’m far enough away so you don’t notice me; though you feel me.

I dont know what comes next

I see the pattern and Im supposed to be smart enough

Can you help me figure it out I know this one and that one there

Are you listening to me

I just want a little help

I’m still writing, you know?

Remember? It started right here. Now, it’ll be your turn to learn as

I start to read aloud:

“Like a smoker who’s recently undergone surgery to have a cancerous lung removed, I take a long drag and realize something inside of me is missing, something which was killing me from within—true—but still a part of me. This is your song now.”

Im  running still

Im breathing still

Im running until I become a blur and you and me become blurs and fade into each other

Thats how youll go I promise it will all feel like a dream

And not a war

Arizona, Deer Reader, and anyone else to whom it may concern, I shall see you sooner or later, of that you can be sure.