Ice Cream Anyone?

The first novel I ever wrote got me suspended from school for "pornographic" images. I call it a "novel" since, as a child, I supposed any piece of writing that was typed and bound and took more than five minutes to write was implicitly the work of a novelist. My school principal was unimpressed and told my mother that the themes discussed in my book were not supported by the school; therefore, since a parent had complained, he must suspend me from school. My mom criied behind me as I sat in the cool leather seat positioned in front of his huge mahogony desk listening to him read the notebook piece of paper, which contained my pornographic references.

I still was quite confused because the only thing that I knew about the word "porn" was from the caption on an old 1995 Jerry Springer episode. The show was entitled: "You're Too Fat to Make Porn," and from what my eight-year-old self observed, people were confronting these "fat" women about this "porn" issue. I figured it was some type of food they were consuming and making for others, and when Principal Hank Williams pointed out my references to ice cream cones in my novel as pornographic, I figured there must be some sort of connection between food, fatness, and porn.

The whole experience was confusing, and Principal Hank instructed my mother, still crying at intervals, to take me home from school immediately. On the way home in the car, my mom began yelling, "How could he think ice cream cones were a sexual reference? You were nine-years-old when you wrote that. How can he expect a nine-year-old of those kind of insinuations! He's the sick one!"

I wasn't quite sure what sex had to do with ice cream or this porn issue, but I did feel awful I had written my novel nonetheless. When we got home, I dramatically threw the accursed manuscript into the fireplace and watched it burn page by page, crying, embarrassed of being a writer.

I haven't written a "novel" since. Mom said the experience stifled my creativity, and I guess in some ways she was right. I've never exactly felt like everyone else, and kids in elementary school were informative enough to remind me of this. A mom from New Zealand, a Jewish father from New York, and a vocabulary full of strange synonyms like "singlet" or "advert" spoken with an awkwardly strong Philly accent made my first six years in Barrow County, Georgia, an unfair defining childhood. When your best friend compares you to the ragamuffin children dressed in curtains on Sound of Music because your mom sews your own clothes, it doesn't help to make a child feel quite "normal."

This deficiancy in normality produced an insatiable desire for acceptance, and finally resulted in a peaceful, quiet, and eventually joyful acceptance that I was not like anyone else. This realization has made me reluctant to write at times, because, now that I feel so comfortable in being different, it seems inconsistent to be a writer that resembles anyone else. There is nothing special in my writing - no defining stylistic diction or description. How then can I ever expect to be a writer, if I can't get over these inhibitions? For to not be a writer, would be to not give in to my truest passion. And that passivity is inconsistent to my personality. So in not writing for fear of being unoriginal, I violate myself in the most dishonorable of ways and rob myself in not being loyal to my deepest core of desire.

If I do decide to be a writer, then arises the question of what to write. My story, while different from all others, has not those elements that shock readers with their horrifying realities as so many books attempt to do these days. It's just my life, and I feel exaggeration of my life events would be false, thereby still being untrue to my nature. Then, by honesty, I risk boredom in my readers. The only thing worse than not writing is writing a thing that bores and leaves the reader unimpressed (meaning, without any impression being made). A tragedy is this: a life that uses the earth to do nothing but absorb and leave no trace, no residue, no film, dissipating into the air ineffectual.

Therefore, I can only do one thing, and that is take a risk. In risking my vulnerability, I embark on an effort to be true, honest, and pure without compromising my effect as a writer. Perhaps all artists must carefully tread this line or risk losing all credibility and identity in such an endeavor.

i cant begin to tell you what its like, seeing life, and all its misery, knowing there's somethin so beautiful about it - that's all - and what you never believed about them is that they could love something fierce-like.

While you crushed them and shoved them and told em: "you aint ever gonna make it, kid," they stood up, and wiped their tears, stood on their own two feet and made what you thought would be a crutch into a stepping stone to success and said, "now, crush this."

here's a little something from my personal journal..

It's a little too strange to relive the past year and all that it started as, all that it ended as. So many firsts. So many lasts. But isn't every year somewhat that way? I refuse to be a captive to sadness and mourning over phantoms I cannot bring back to life. However, I can't refuse the nostalgia about all of it. Regrets, what ifs...it'll just mess with your thoughts, hold you back, and I'm not trying to be immobile.

My mind still races daily and never seems to settle on any one particular thing. It is almost like I have to literally sit down and consciously think, pushing aside and clearing space so that I can actually see what is occurring inside my head. Everyone's moving ahead in life - do they know where they're going? They seem to see it so clearly, have it all together I guess. I, too, feel myself advancing toward something but not always sure exactly where. Too afraid of where I'm heading sometimes, afraid to analyze too deeply my decisions, what I agree to or give assent to, or what I don't decide to do. Sometimes I'm just afraid to feel the pain I know resides beneath the exterior, to acknowledge the anxiety I feel about some of my choices. I don't want to look too closely at some of my hasty assumptions about what is okay or not. When you have broken something, a favorite vase or decorative ornament, you try so hard not to look at the shattered piece, turning the chipped side towards the wall, hoping to forget the damage.

[I am trying to put words and reasons to my decisions with not much luck at any of them being truly legitimate.]

But why do I go ahead with unapproved things? Because of fear, I suppose, and a thirst for progress. Can't progress sometimes be described as "new thinking," but in reality, it's covering up an idea quite far from progression in thought?

I know a few of my last decisions have been made as a result of mistaken identity, and I've been on a course fearful to face my reality. Until now. Lessons learned. Can there be retribution for these, and will Time be fair and give me my absolution?

ss

These are times where I can catch up with life, only to find it leaving me in the dust again, me trying to catch up with it once more. Does it always feel this way, I wonder? As time moves faster and faster, and I seem to want to go slower so I can take it all in, I cannot help the sensations I experience as I watch life racing by, trying to grasp the edge of it and hold it so I'm not left behind.

Everyone knows my addiction to feeling things, life mainly, and it's never going to be okay that I don't touch and feel everything. Sometimes I just want to sit and drink in the sweetness that life seems to be dripping with, and watch. I'm not really sure there is much time for this, but there is time nevertheless. I'm pretty certain that I have never been much good at waiting, but for now, I'm practicing the art of silent sitting.

am i that complicated?

why do people dream?

it's because they believe they were meant for something. usually something grander than their present circumstance. some other satisfaction exists out there different from the kind they feel at present. and with this natural pull for more, so instinctive in our human selves, we reach higher. not to capture a title necessarily or a status even, but a genuine place of fulfillment, a plateau by which one may observe their successes, their past struggles, their abandoned burdens - all shed in pursuit of the dream.

the accomplishment of the dream is never dissatisfying. unless you pursued someone else's.

*

I describe myself, these days at least, as a wanderer, a "free spirit" some have said. i am simple when it comes to earthly pleasures, and deeply complex in the aesthetic realm. i find little use in fancy clothes, brand new cars, exquisitely made jewelry, and an expensively furbished flat. the American dream of reaching this status includes going to college, going to graduate school directly after, snagging a highly paid, highly flexible career, getting married in style, buying a fine house in the suburbs - not too far from the city - getting a new SUV and mid-sized sedan (no minivans allowed), having 2 or 3 kids so as not to scare the neighbors, putting them through school, extracurricular activities, college, buying them cars, houses, weddings, divorces, going on expensive holidays together, retiring, traveling, and giving huge birthday checks and tuition checks to the grandbabies.

Besides doing this, people die in the process and forget they had dreams and adventures planned for themselves. things not on the map. people are stifled and suffocate in their dry-cleaned suits and home entertainment theaters.

something dies.

maybe people aren't even growing ambitions in their kids these days, so it never even gets a chance to die because it never even gets a chance to breathe. people don't mind dying because they think it's living.

affairs. mid-life crises. emotional isolation. workaholics. no personality house wives bored out of their damn minds. it all starts out looking like the American dream, but pretty soon about half of them dissolve into this, statistically speaking, and the other half slink along hiding secrets and lies, afraid of looking glasses because they can't look past someone else's ideal for their own life.

maybe it's not that aesthetically complex. i just want people to start breathing again.

münchen

12:00pm - coming up from the s-bahn (subway), my eyes glaze over with thick, choking tears. it's all real and I was beginning to see for the first time a whole 'nother world which my eyes had never seen. how strange that it all exists here, preserved, and the majesty still visible. i sit here in a side cafe with a cup of rich coffee (like maybe a few amazing restaurants in the states would be able to compete with) in my hands trying to compose my silly american self amidst the 1940s decor and cloud of smoke coming from a round corver booth behind me. and i sit here, almost at the window sill, writing my childish thoughts and gazing at the snowßcovered park that is hardly important to anyone else except me and the dogs who pee there. i think most people don't even realize there's a park there, but to me it's beautiful and lovely and inspiring and...

and i'm getting a headache from all this smoke. seems like every person here smokes. my headache is accompanied by a women signing the beatles "imagine" and i can't help but smile. then i stop because i realize americans already appear stupid enough without me sitting here dumbly looking out the window at peeing dogs and smiling.

i think i'm gonna get going. after all this is a restaurant and i'm just at a table drinking coffee. plus i stink at german so i'd rather get out of here before another meeting between me and my server necessitates another awkward, embarrassing, "sprechen Sie deutsche?" or her mumbling something and me smiling like an idiot back at here. "sorry im american, i dont need to speak your language." strangely, im one of the few who doesnt think english is the only language available and i hate this barrier between me and them and i plan to break it soon. i begin a german class next week.

3:00pm - so this time i'm in a quaint restaurant outside the Rathaus (city hall) called Augustiner Großgaststtäten Restaurant and from what I understand, it's been here since 1328, which i believe is quite long. it's weird to think other people have been sitting in this same place since then, and i wonder how much things have changed since then. this particular place is situated on the main street of münchen where most of the shopping is. to me, the shops are like a huge, anciently decorated outdoor mall.with thousands if people exchanging lives in the square. there's so many different people here (but they still all speak german!). even people who wouldn't normally speak english in the states have learned german to live in this country. i guess people like it better than english. i am so ashamed for being here and not knowing a word.

anyways, back to downtown münchen - all the buildings are so old. i remember when we visited cincinnatti on a basketball road trip i thought it was lovely because the buildings were so old. ha! münchen is one of the oldest cities and the people have done so well at preserving it. the ceiling, for example here in this particular restaurant, is so ornate, and the pictures so ancient. the huge chandeliers remind me of a disney movie - especially the one right in front of me with deer on it. i feel i'm in gaston's pub or something. the people here in this restaurant are not overly wealthz, but everyone seems quite proper - well, unless you count the women dressed in smart business attire and drinking a tall pint of beer. then again, we are in germany, so it's a bit different that a classy woman in the states ordering a budlight.

i just had another coffee (no free refills it seems in europe) and some bottled water (i think she misunderstood my request for plain water) and sausage (at least a foot long) with amazing mashed potatoes and carrots/peas. i think this is probably the most wonderful city i've been in, and i'm thinking that there are so many more that i will see while i am here! what did i do to deserve this opportunity? i don't know how to answer, but i'm thanking God every day for all this - if only i could believe the reality of being here!

5:00pm - me siento aqui esperando por mi SBahn a wolfrahnstrausse, y la gente de los trens fueron en huelga este dia. entonces, no se cuando que yo puedo regresar a casa. es bueno que yo comi dos horas antes. no se cuando el tren va a venirse. yo anoro hablando en espanol - aleman es mas dificil que espanol. yo peinso que mi boca no fue hecha para pronunciar las palabras alemanas, pero no puedo continuar sin saber la idioma en esta ciudad. estoy llenaba con verguenza porque no se esta idoma, y es muy molestando que no estuve pudiendo hablar con nadie.

se fue...yo necesito encontrar mi camina a casa.

auchtun! auchtun!

ok i just want to to warn anyone who knows im an english major....

i really could care less if any of this sounds amazing bc while i want to be a good writer, im doing good to just get everything written down and out of my head without tryna do it with flare.

so thats the warning...