The mother of us all

If it weren't for this contraption on my lap and the fact that the fireplace is gas and not woodburning I would feel exactly as though I had gone back in time. It's quiet here in the lobby of my old college dormitory. You can see the beams in the ceiling and the detailed woodwork on the cabinets and chairs. I can picture students here years ago chatting about Lewis and Tolstoy as they sat around the fireplace with coffee and tea. Of course you can't do that now, no food or beverages allowed. Earlier it wasn't so quiet. The cleaning ladies were in, polishing furniture, vacuuming and gossiping complaints about their job or social life. It really terrified me as I read Kerouac's Dharma Bums that my first thought was "servants should be seen not heard" (or not even seen) I wanted to read (and later nap) in peace and that was not going to happen. What a snob I am. First, they are not my servants, I'm not rich enough to have servants, and even if I were I probably wouldn't because I like to do the work myself, generally speaking. Second, I don't even live here anymore! Who am I to complain that they are doing their work as they do everyday and I'm interrupting it with my presence. However, I kept my mouth tightly shut, chastised myself for such cruel and silly thoughts and went on to read a lovely chapter in Kerouac and promptly nap when the vacuuming had finished.
Now it's quiet. there are a few of us in here studying, speaking only in hushed tones, and some girls traipsing in and out as they go to and from their dorm rooms. The sounds here echo, something about the construction and the high ceiling in the adjacent room. It's actually a lovely feature if you aren't trying to nap. and I'm not anymore so it's grand.
I do wonder what's gone on in this room over the years, did a literary rebel such as myself sit here and read on a couch like this in front of this fire? How about a time when all the boys came visiting because girls couldn't even go over to their dorm rooms? Just through the doors two rooms away is the old cafeteria where only the girls dined, but the men would come over to serve them. I think that's a lovely concept. I'm all for liberated women, I don't think I could live in a time when it wasn't acceptable for me to wear jeans and a t-shirt out and about. I don't know how Ms. Alcott did it. But there is something to be said for chivalry.
I was thinking the other day, after reading chapter 5, that perhaps we have liberated ourselves too far. In order to be seen as equals, to be taken seriously by men, I believe at times we have devalued ourselves and our sex. Men are free and easy about sex and women have over the course of time come to the belief that they as well should be free, and quite literally easy. Believing, as I think is part of Kerouac's point, (though I hate to be the type to put thoughts to a work which were unintended by it's author) that since a woman cannot be equal to a man physically, mentally, spiritually, we can at least be so sexually. And so we do what men want, thinking it's what we want and we lose our true selves in the process. We wind up naked, curled in a ball on the kitchen floor "just for nothing, just to do it." Kerouac writes over and over how she liked it, she really did, it allowed her to be "the mother of us all" to be on an equal playing field with the men, her sex allowed her to be a "Bodhisattva" (just the way the holy concubines were taken back in the day). I can't be sure if Kerouac wants us to believe this, or wants to demonstrate that his main character Ray is trying to make himself believe it by saying over and over how she really did like it...it seems he's protesting too much. Especially since Ray has doubts about the whole experience because of his belief that lust leads to birth and birth to pain and death.
I find it interesting we still expect so much of men when we are the ones who have lowered the standards. We laugh at the saying, "no man will buy the cow when he can get the milk for free" and yet so many of us live it everyday. and, we or society have convinced ourselves that it's what we want. We just want to be wanted and loved and so we settle, for less than our best and so drive our men to settle for less than their best.
I don't intend for this to be a treatise on the negative effects of the feminist movement (like I said, I love wearing pants) But I also question if we have let "equality of the sexes" go too far and what it's impact will be on the future of our society? I consider myself more of a feminist than many of the women here at a christian conservative college, but I suppose if you stuck me at Berkley I'd be a prude. I wish others of my sex could learn to revel in the strength, power and beauty of being a woman and try to be less like men. Though I suppose I'm the worst to judge on that subject, considering myself a "tom-boy" who would rather watch and play sports than watch a chick flick, or play with dolls. At college I discovered the power and joy of femininity and I wonder if we valued ourselves and our sex more for what it is, than try to be what it is not, if we couldn't make a more powerful impact on the world around us?

Few and Far between

I have been writing. Just not here. There's something about writing in my journal that just feels more true. It's as though when I open up my moleskin to a blank new page I feel connected with Hemingway and other great writers in a way that I just don't feel when typing on the computer. Granted right now I'm reading Dharma Bums for the first time and there is something about typing that makes me feel connected to Kerouac. (even if he had a typewriter, not a computer) There is a free flow to Dharma Bums which is similar to my stream of conscious writing on the computer. A disjointed, poetic drunkenness that is strong and beautiful. Sometimes I wonder what Kerouac would think of our modern interpretations of his works. If he would tell me nicely that I am an idiot (which I doubt since at the beginning of Dharma Bums he's all about kindness) or if he would just smile at my naivete and say nothing, or if he would think I actually got it on some level.
Point being (Dad) I have been writing. I suppose it doesn't do any good to keep it wrapped up in my journal. If you write to change the world you have to risk exposure and failure, something I'm constantly fearful of.

Silver webs shiver in golden shadows,
The fading glory of another day.
Naked bones stretch to the sky
Hungry, yearning to be made new.

The broken bark sticks hard in my back,
A harsh reminder of reality
As the golden orb slowly sinks
the horizon alters its hue

A crisp clear blue, burned off haze,
unhindered by chasing clouds.
I drink deep the cool fall air
sweetened by an early moon

Peace comes easily in Autumn.


Some days I think I'm a terrible poet. probably because I don't try terribly hard to understand all that rhyme and meter and scanning stuff Dr. Potter tries so desperately to teach me. I think I'm just more of a free verse poet, or as I like to say, a lazy poet. But sometimes, I write something that I think just brushes the surface of something beautiful and I'm almost proud. Proud enough at least to expose myself to the world for its caprice.
I will try to write here more often. until then.