THREE YEARS AGO TODAY BUT IT TAKES ME BACK FURTHER STILL

Family home

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

also, it has been seeming like a good decision to....oh gosh, say it out loud, use words, type, type, type...

it kind of still seems like a good idea to move home for the month of january.

it also seems so permanent.
so different.
so much of an end to lovely things.
but my documentary heart is longing, longing, longing to be a lonely girl set loose on the world. and i've never been able to deny my documentary heart.

DON'T FORGET TOMORROW!!

I did imagine I would have a desk covered in a beautiful Iranian mat, spilling forth with books, strange trinkets I've collected like broken Kerr jars and pieces of animal bone, and gifts from other people like old photo slides, Franz Muscha prints, intricately embroidered quilt squares, and drawings.

I didn't quite foresee all of the nooks and crannies being stuffed with mini DV tapes, external hard drives, and film equipment.

What I never in a million years would have thought possible would be me, sitting here, at the afore mentioned desk, adding "moving back home–in the wintertime–to make a documentary" to my list of options post-graduation.

NOT THAT I'M NECESSARILY DOING ANYTHING ON THIS LIST (like getting one of those aboriginal-type piercings ((totally politically correct)) where there's a stick through my nose). 

{imagine annoying gameshow voice here:} WWWWelllllllll folks, is this just some temporary insanity, orrrrr is thiiii-iiissss the REEEEEEAAAAALLLLL DEEEEEAAAAALLLLLL?
only time will tell.
Purchase necessary. Prices and participating organizations may vary. Not intended for pregnant mothers. But not just for men. Not all supplies included in this box. 

moving day, rumbling day

Everyday the Snow Movers come. It takes a while for a small town to wake up from a snow storm that dumps one and a half to two feet of snow (who can tell with all of the drifting and wind-ing). And so every day the Snow Movers come. I hear them rumbling outside, like earth movers moving our white earth from the mountains that have piled up. The streets have been cleared and walls of white line them. Their shoulders are full of lumpy ruts and each parking lot has their respective hill. In drives the Black Cat followed by the dump truck. Shovel, dump, shovel, dump, shovel, dump.
Everybody keeps wondering if the spring will bring more national news flooding because the snow isn't going anywhere, not really, even the snow they drive away will still be in the sound of our voices. It may rearrange itself into new shapely drifts, but it will hang around.

everything all comes out in the winter time

I've forgotten that when everything is white and cold--w & c like it only gets here because you know it goes on for miles, hundreds of miles--you fill up the space with dreams. You can't stop dreaming, how anyone lives without an imagination I've never figured out. Last night as I was laying in bed I thought of the perfect kind of future of filmmaking. It involves lots of things one of which is making blogotheque-take-away-shows-esque videos like this one:

First Aid Kit - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

notice how quietly they cut and follow around. oh, I'll do it, I'll do it, I will.

What I dreamed in sleep was a stream of walking home from school, people being chased by wild animals, me being chased by wild animals, running through the old recital hall where senior citizens were pouring out of their seminar. I hoped they didn't get eaten up by the wild animals. My dreams have been a mash together of the university town I live in and the university town I grew up in. And it's all been winter.

I walked downtown this morning, because my family walks everywhere and because I couldn't face the new parallel parking only zones that they've put in place since the last time I've come back here for a visit. I thought about driving to assimilate with the locals but when have I ever done that one well?
It blizzarded here over Christmas and the town just barely started emerging yesterday. Most of the sidewalks have been snowblowed and are lined with walls of three or four feet of snow. Sometimes when the sidewalk hasn't been cleared you have to climb over a bank of the snow to walk out on the street. You can walk on top of the snow, really, because it packs into dense dense sleeping beasts. Sparkling on top. Sheets of sparkling white. I listened to my iPod as I walked and for once listened to somethings current. I wanted to listen to indie pop to remind myself that the last five years had happened. I love home and am glad to be here but a lot of the things you love have deep deep deep deeply laden cares.

teenage wasteland

We sit in conference in my room. Me on my bed and a whole bunch of furniture and artwork that used to either be scattered throughout other rooms in the house or I had shoved into my closet as I was growing up.
There's the side table inherited from Aunt Milly that's actually made for a record player but I have long since stuffed full with books, notebooks, chunks of collected wood, and tchotchkes. There's the cupid lamp, the arm chair my mom would always tell me I was going to ruin everytime she caught me draping my legs across one of the arms. There's the tall bureau, the small bureau, the large vintage bureau, and the plastic lawn chair. There's the print of Whistler's The White Girl (which used to freak me out but now I feel drawn to her creepiness), the child's drawing (we're unsure of the artist as of yet. I feel like the tinfoil buttons taped on might be representative of something I might do but the nose connotes my sister's work), and the painting of the mad scientist I did in high school.
We're here, convening in my childhood bedroom wondering what to do with ourselves. It's not that we're at a loss as to how to spend the next two weeks. No, there's no worries there. I figured out that my dad doesn't like when I sing Sam Cooke's "Cupid" so I might enjoy pulling that out every once in a while. But the Upper MidWest is a place that will either wash you out or make you wonder about things. So I normally choose to wonder about things.

I lenting climbed over that hill three times

photo by mon père

I feel I'm good at keeping an open mind about all of the seasons. Twas not always this way, I grew up in a very chilly winter-ish place, I dare you to dream about how cold it an get. In this place, it pretty much had all four seasons, but mainly two: Summerish and Extra Long Winter. Summerish is frequently known by the name Construction Season because the Winter is so taxing on every building that it all wears out and must be fixed all the time.
In my growing up years, these Winters were very difficult to face (because they were Winters with a capital "W"). I could tell you stories of that one time I walked out in a blizzard. I stood with my face to the wind, the little flakes of blowing snow stung my cheeks and when I went back inside my hair was frozen straight back. You don't forget things like that. Or how about the number of socks it always seems necessary to wear. Or how about that one winter when the breaks on our family car kept freezing and it was first discovered by me as I was backing out of our driveway. Thank heavens there is not traffic there. How about how some mornings the radio tells you how long it will take until your fingers get frost bit and have to be sawed off. And every car drives around with some sand, candy, blankets, candles and other some suches. Winter Survival Kits. I learned from toddler age that if you get stranded in a car in a blizzard you must crack the windows (we were all smart toddlers, the driving age is very young there).

The point being of all of this: Winter was depressing. It was long and unbearable cold. But I've been living away from home for five years now. Very much separated from these netherworld Winters. I go home every other Christmas, and it was my second Christmas back, this was almost two years ago (I was actually in the middle of my year of existential crisis), and I realized, this WINTER is actually an amazing thing. I grew up with frozen hair and sandbags and wind chills and midwest and fiberous people. We layered to beat until we were lumpy old things and that's actually a fantastic thing. If things get tough you deal with it. Isn't that amazing? In our age of leisure, if things get tough you should get the letter H out and find something easier, n'est-ce pas ? Pas.

Anyway, despite the fact that I came home from that Christmas being more depressed than ever to be back here, I decided that all seasons were delightful. And I can revel in Greek mythologies of Persephone.

But this year, it's killing me. Fall has leapt upon us and this year I'm not relishing the colors and the crispiness. I'm suffocating with the closed-up windows and the darkening of the skies. Monday morning my roommate's and my alarm clocks went off at the same time.
"Roommate E, it can't be 7 a.m. can it? It's soo dark," I whined.

But it was seven.

{sigh}

When things get tough I guess I will l'arch de triomphe and sing songs for Persephone.


Stay tuned for tomorrow when I hope to have a little last day of summer treat.