Rails

by Scott Owens

Every child should have one, a pair, really,

a matched set, set apart just the right width

so that one foot pressed against each one

leaves you stretched out about as far

as you can go, unable to move, feeling

almost trapped, almost actually in danger.

And every child should walk them as if

that's what they were intended for,

leading out of town, around the curve,

along the river, revealing the backsides

of people's homes, clotheslines and refuse,

the yards you weren't supposed to see.

And every child should learn to balance

atop the railhead without the constant

unsightly tipping from side to side,

should be able to step exactly the distance

between the ties consistently, almost

marching without kicking up ballast.

And every child should have a bridge

they go under to hide and look

at dirty magazines and smoke cigarettes

and place coins on the rails to flatten

and see if this could be the one

to cause the train to leap the tracks.

And every child should know the lonely

distant sound of late night travel

when bad dreams have kept them awake

wondering where they come from, what

they bring or take, and where when it's all

done they might return and call home.

april is the sweetest month

This April, I am the closest to being jettisoned out of the normalcy, routine, safety that is Formal Education that I've ever been, ever.

No jokes: it's been stressful. It's been a sort of a mess.

But this April has also been a good freaking month. Of so much growing up (and the growing pains) and good conversations on long car rides and spontaneous on-site prayer interventions and mindblowing paper-writing and the yolo-est yolo-in' in such a long, long time.

It makes me excited and tired and not make any sense with my words.

So here:

 a time for the old and the new. what a mindblowing and awe-inspiring blessing class this has been. I've learned so much about life and people and leadership skills and teamworking, for reals. 

"Transduction is...taking something and putting it somewhere else."

4.6.14, hsl
"okay I'm gonna go back to studying in 15 minutes"
the bluebell. the blahblahs. the drama

 a time for inviting uva to my home-home. singles awareness club, circa april eleventh 

"wait please don't leave. please please stay. I like that you guys are here."

4.11.14 fdf reunion. dumplings and bees.

"dear God please help us to love people."

4.11-12.14, strat

"FIRE FRIDAYS" yes

4.12.14 jazzfest at fellini's

"what is tomtom? like I know it's entrepreneurship blahsomething but what is it, really?" 

 4.13.14 international center bluegrass picnic

"#haha #genuinelaughters #ourlivesaregreat"

"grrrrrrl whatchu lookin' at"

 true feelings^

 4.13.14, ruffin: impromptu childhood toy-making

"if you hear my voice, raise your right hand

and take your left hand out

and shake it allarounnddd"

 hopenhauer schopenhauer

4.15.14 exhibit day 1, OpenGrounds 

4.17.14 shenanjoe on the corner!

coffeedate with my coffeeguy

"HOW DO YOU KNOWWWWWW EVERYTHINGGGGG

AGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"It just makes sense!"

 4.17.14 exhibit day 2

introducing the Little to transduction

 the most pda couple ever

4.18.14 rebs' artshow, ruffin

"quotidian"

4.18.14 the largest and happiest pizza in all of charlottesville

4.20.14 blessings over brunch

hehee "SHE IS A DOMESTIC GODDESS YES" 

4.20.14, downtown with my juju

"sharing life"...until I was called to a rescue scene!

4.24-25.14, hsl

"poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric"

making the biggest mess ever made during the writing of a paper

"this is terrifying!"

"it is not complete, but alas, deadlines"

4.25.14 fourth year banquet...for US??

 "but of course!!

when two people with perfect, complementary heights take a picture, it can't help but be good ;)"

"sometimes, blurry laughing pictures are the best" 

4.26.14 fauxfield 

"dear God thank you for this weather and this place and this company and this perfect food"

 rogue cork

4.26.14 YOLO lynchburg

"it's very...you"

"WELL THAT'S TERRIBLE I WON'T GET IT"

 4.27.14, meade ave.

"can myyy postgrad life be this picturesque too??"

 "wait wait what do you mean five pictures huh? is it starting now? wait huh?! it just! uh"

timerphoto tricks

 getting all excited over neopets, life lessons, First Heartbreaks. I work with the best people.

4.27.14 dear God would you watch over Julie as she travels homeward

dear God would you keep Judith focused on and fired up for you

dear God would you help Madison rest certain in uncertainties

"This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it" Psalm 118:24

4.27.14, strat srat

"sorry sorry sorry I'm so sorry but we're not davidchang sorry" 

complete with cheesecake, hawaiian leis, obnoxious yearbook comments.

the Last GCF Birthday Surprise

and it was so good.

ya did GOOD!

4.30.14 first year suite...ees ;)
fourth year reunioning. ah.

[is it absurd and audacious to say (i think) i write like this]

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

By E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

[brrring ringaling]

c: hello?

m: hey...! are you free? for about thirty seconds?

c: sure, I'm okay, what's up

m: well, well mmm. well, it's just that I just got out of my First Last Class of the semester and I'm feeling crazy about it.

c: your first laaa? first whaaat?? first laaab class?

m: no! no! my FIRST! LAST! CLASS. IT IS THE END. IT IS OVER. you know, cause it's Wednesday! it's the last Wednesday, and I just had my last class of Wednesday!

c: ohhhhh! wow congratulations! hahaha yeahhh nearing the end!

m: yyyyyyyyeah it's completely insane, right?! it's hitting me now, it's real, it's really the end, class ended and I was just standing there in the classroom and couldn't really move, like I just couldn't leave the class cause once I did it would officially be real and

c: wait wait where are you right now, are you still sitting in class?!

m: noooo! I leffftt!! and it was my Pavilion Seminar class, on the Lawn you know?! and as I was walking out it was like gooodbyyye, class! goodbye, Pavilion seven! goodbye LAWN, goodbye UVA, goodbye MY UNDERGRADUATE CAREER EVERYTHING IS ENDING!! IT IS REALLL AND TANGIBLEE AND IT IS FREAKING ME OUUUUTTT

c: hahaha it's good! good job and congratulations! hahaha

m: I just thought I'd call you cause you're my non-romantic significant other and all and this is what people do, right? they call their significant others when their heads are pounding with unbelievable reality and emotions are coming up the esophagus in excitement and insanity?!

--phone blips out--

m: helloo??!? helllo okay I think maybe my phone is freaking out and I can't hear you anymore but thank you for listeningggg! I really appreciate it!! okay goodbye now goodbye!!

--hang up; indistinct voices in background call out Sunnn? Sunnn! Sun!! SUNNN--

m: [turn around] hello?! I was wondering if those voices calling out for Sun were wanting for me to turn around!

herd of gcf kiddos: haha you guys have similar backpacks!!

m: haha yeah! where are you guys coming from?! why do you guys travel in herds? how is this the last Wednesday?! I just got out of my First Last Class!!! and man, the end is near and it's real and I am freaking ouutttttt because it is the end of ALL THINGSSSS!!!!!

[I join the herd and we travel in a slightly larger herd, me continuously asking why they are in a herd and where they are herdily headed to; we run into another, smaller, herd of gcf first years, all coming out of their Last Chem Lab of the year, on their way to celebrate with ice cream [adorable] and we all say hello hello hey aw congratulations ah! hahha ah! the end the beginning ahhh goodbye!]

--Calling: C--

m: hello??? hahaha sorry! my phone must have freaked out

c: no it's okay! 

m: well I just wanna say thank you! thank youu for being my non-romantic significant other! thank you for being the person I call when I am having a crisis-joy-fear freakout! thank youuu for these past four years! thank you, UVA! THANK YOU WORLD, THANK YOU GOD!!!!

--phone blips out in participatory overexcitement of all the fourth year feels; 

leaves me hanging, arms outstretched in absurdity and euphoria and bittersweetness of 

everything, everywhere, ever--

[end scene]

[begin: life]

The Loudest Voice

If nothing else, I would not have survived Comm School

for the quietness of my voice.

Find myself in group meetings with naturally loud-voiced, well-dressed pre-success people, squeaking in indignation at myself for being out-louded by things said in charismatic voices proclaiming no content,

Disillusioned by the injustice of a world run by people in suits giving out gold star stickers on the basis of how many times you open your mouth, not the true helpfulness of the substance you preach.

Probably never get any work done because I'd be spending so much time analyzing body language, the inane but flashy bright lights of all those powerpoint presentations, nursing a ripely festering inferiority complex.

Missing all the group chats; NO IMESSAGE AHHH.



Or maybe my voice would have gotten a little louder.

And then I would've been left with one less outward signal from my body that tells me I am passionate about this subject!! whenever my voice naturally gets loud loud LOUDER as I find myself discussing the [dis]merits of curvy fonts for curry places and other important things in life that might actually turn out to be Important Things of Life.

[non-segue]

NFTFH: I think the curvy fonts for curry places is actually going to be a thing. Like a little test, just a little one. Level 11.

the universe is trying to tell me something about time

Sonnet 106: When in the chronicle of wasted time

by William Shakespeare

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their ántique pen would have expressed
Ev'n such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing.
     For we which now behold these present days,
     Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

time time time time time

The New Song

by W. S. Merwin

For some time I thought there was time

and that there would always be time

for what I had a mind to do

and what I could imagine

going back to and finding it

as I had found it the first time

but by this time I do not know

what I thought when I thought back then

there is no time yet it grows less

there is the sound of rain at night

arriving unknown in the leaves

once without before or after

then I hear the thrush waking

at daybreak singing the new song

THE COOKIE OF SORROW AND SUPPLICATION

so much incompetence and stress and groveling for mistakes made this weekend.

pls.

I am a mess.

and yet, this weekend was also a time of dispensing weirdly mature, fourth-year wisdom to a little sista in much need, sweeping in, all knight-in-shining-armor style, dispensing mickey d's soft serve cones and french fries like a reallife crisis expert.

truths:

• it is okay not to be okay
• we are heirs with Christ
• there is probably something in our dna that causes us to wonder about things that lead to conclusions consisting of something like ["thank you Jesus!"] and once this happens, one more puzzle piece of the soul is settled in its right place.
• "I know it's easier said than done. Boy do I know it. But I'm just telling you these things cause in this moment I have the privilege of being Not You, being an outside voice speaking into your life. Take it! Listen! Breathe!"
• just keep breathing. just keep swimming. 

oh boy. oh boy oh boy oh boy. girl.

[easter] sunday mornings are for:

celebration of Jesus; sharing of joys

fancy brunch rejections

free-form pancakes

chopsticks and "egg things"

impromptu banana-fate fulfillments

restorative conversations

honesty and love and
extended hugs for short-term goodbyes