(no subject)

[mangofandango]

From "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham:

"Clarissa simply enjoys without reason the houses, the church, the man, and the dog. It's childish, she knows. It lacks edge. If she were to express it publicly (now, at her age), this love of hers would consign her to the realm of the duped and the simple-minded, Christians with acoustic guitars or wives who've agreed to be harmless in exchange for their keep. Still, this indiscriminate love feels entirely serious to her, as if everything in the world is part of a vast, inscrutable intention and everything in the world has it's own sercret name, a name that cannot be conveyed in language but is simply the sight and feel of the thing itself."

I copied this into my paper journal when I read the book a couple years ago. I identified with it then, and I still do. I found it today while looking over my journal (thinking I should write in it more, that it's good for me.)

A long time ago, when I was around 11 (maybe?) and read "The Mozart Season" by Virginia Euwer Wolff, I was struck by a passage that had something to do with living passionately. I believe it said that whichever character the book was talking about lived every day with passion. My mother asked me if I lived every day with passion, facetiously (I don't remember why, I think she was reading the book to me? I have no idea why she'd ask that question anyway, but I know that she did - in fact, I wrote about it in an old journal.) I told her, quite seriously, that I thought I did. She laughed at me, and said she didn't think there were very many normal (as in ordinary) people who lived with passion. But I was a kid - everything is so intense when you're a kid. I know that I stared at things because I thought they were beautiful and fascinating, and wrote poetry about everything I saw, and I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables because she was so intense and dramatic...I did live every day with passion. Things aren't always so intense now, because that's what happens when you grow up and get busier and things start to be less...new, I guess. But I try to remember that feeling of constant intensity and call it up as often as I can. I do still stop to stare at things, and I try to notice feelings and savor moments. I watch sunsets and sing along to music and cry (or laugh) about TV shows. I watch people and the wind in the trees. I try to find the depth or the feeling in everything, because I don't want to lose the feeling that I do live every day with at least a little bit of passion. In doing that, I find that I do love the world more, and the huge and tiny things in it - even though it often terrifies me and makes me sad.

Comments

[kizlj.livejournal.com]

Carpe diem.

An amusing story, since I get a kick out of it, at least. Fahmi and I took a novel writing class at Barnard last year; the instructor was an MFA student in Columbia's writing program. One class, he told a story about how everyone is hopelessly non-objective about their work, and how his advisor was hideously bummed one day that his latest novel was a total unreadable train wreck no one would even want to publish, etc. The novel did get published, and won the Pulitzer. the book? The Hours.

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

That's awesome. :)

[palliddreamer.livejournal.com]

I think I remember that passage. It was neat to read and be reminded of. And that's why I do peds. =)

:)

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

Being around kids is good for the soul that way (and in other ways too, I think).

[allypopsicle.livejournal.com]

i feel like my intensity has been hibernating since i entered college.
i notice that sometimes, when i'm walking through this one walkway on campus that's filled with windows, i watch my reflection renew itself in each panel, like an old movie struggling to keep up with the technology.

it's one thing i wish i could figure out,how to make my art understand and convey how i feel when i see things like that.

[mangofandango.livejournal.com]

I feel that way too, about art and the intensity. It's really difficult to convey that intensity of emotion, and I can so rarely find a way to do it. I feel like, if I could tap into that better (and if I could reproduce the things I see in my head), I could make amazing things. But I don't know how to do that well or consistently.

Now I want you to do a photo project about the reflections, because the way you talked about it was so perfect. heh.