a bit of humor, from the archives...

I've just returned from my summer Hudsonville visit, during which I had the opportunity to sift through some writings from my middle school years. This poem had me crying with laughter, and recalled to me vividly the utter (if melodramatic) despair that mathematics invariably elicited from my poor unscientific soul. I remember composing it during Algebra I class with Mr. TenElshof, in Room 111 at Plymouth School.

The moment I walk

into Room 111,

the teacher's brisk talk

submerges my brain

in fetid, black water

that's numeral ridden

where every plain concept

seems murky and hidden.

I struggle to rise,

to breathe and break surface,

to open my eyes--

to understand Math.

But all is illusion,

vague, muddied confusion...

The water drifts endless

in directionless path.

-Abby Pettit, seventh grade, age 13

"We rarely consider the soul's excellent qualities or who it is that dwells within her or how precious she really is. And so we don't bother to tend her beauty. All our attention is focused on the rough matrix of the diamond, the outer walls of the castle, which are none other than these bodies of ours. Remember, this castle has many dwellings: some above, some below, others to either side. At the center is the most important dwelling of all where the most secret things unfold between the soul and her Beloved."

-Teresa d'Avila, The Interior Castle

for Hannah

You told me last night that you never leave the kitchen dirty before bed.

I recall marking the passing of time by the growth of clutter in our bedroom years ago.

Time-lapse those months, and behold a miracle:

inanimate objects being fruitful,

multiplying,

subduing our little earth.

Even after we parted

I would laugh,

comforted,

to hear Mom complain of your slovenly ways.

Oh how her eyebrows glowered

when your diamond twinkled in the grimy light

of quarters undomesticated.

Now within you ripens a natural life.

My heart stumbles at the sight of the ascetic sink,

the scoured counters.

"You wait! Your girl will be just like you!"

Your coffee sloshes over the brim

at the spasm of her willing limb.

Dear one!

My hopeful joke is no threat.

gleanings

The reason I cannot escape myself:

..."we continue to behave more or less like the people we are, even on a pilgrimage"...

The reason I cannot stop trying:

..."It is an open secret among pilgrims and other theoreticians of this traveling life that you become addicted to the horizon"...

So:

..."I will gaze at the moon / and cleanse my heart"...

---

I have not understood much of Anne Carson's pilgrim essay, Kinds of Water. There are snatches of Spanish flung in it, and unfinished ideas, and epigrams beyond my wit to concretely solve. But I think I take away the important things...or, at least, some of the important things.

Like life being a pilgrimage through apocalyptic beauty with strangers . One of those strangers being your own hungry bewildered self. The parasite Shame, and the pain you inflict upon yourself to unpry him. Never quite reaching the end. Mystery.

It helped.