Today I was in the Berkshires again, helping a gathering of relatives finish putting siding on my grandmother's house (the one my grandfather built, piece by piece, which was always beautiful but never quite done.) There were too many people there to do too few tasks, so when I was not admiring bats and tadpoles and finding snakeskins in woodpiles, I spent a lot of time on the ground looking up at those working up on the staging. The swiftly-moving clouds made it look like the house was sailing through the hills, with my father and his family climbing high in the rigging, to steer her and keep her sound. It was one of nature's more apt metaphors, I think. At least, realistic or not, that is how I always feel when I am out there in the woods and the hills.

Oh, lift and tow that line
Set your sails and bide your time
It's family and the life of ease for me
Oh, lift and tow that line
Leave your troubles all behind
There's no other place I'd rather be...

When I was in school I was always envious of people with the really big clarinet cases, the kind that you could fit a bunch of music into.  Mine was not exactly the compact kind, like some that were tiny and could be squeezed anywhere, but it wasn't actually big enough to hold anything useful.  Running about for band-related activities was always a bit of a disaster, with too many things to carry and keep track of.

When I started playing trombone my luck was not much better.  Some trombone cases, I knew, would fit a flip folder in them, but not the one I had, and so I was stuck with an even bulkier instrument, suddenly found doors complicated to get through, and still juggled the same amount of stuff-- harrowing for someone who likes neat packing, organization, and not too much to carry.

However, with the arrival of my ebay trombone -- an ancient but playable horn with a bit of a stiff slide -- finally, my need to store everything in one piece of baggage has been appeased.   It is not compact.  It is not lightweight.  The latches that hold the slide in place inside the case frequently come undone of their own accord.  But so what!  In this trombone case (which smells musty, as of long storage in an attic) I can fit not only the instrument, and music, and slide oil and various cleaning devices, but also a walkman and headphones and batteries, a light jacket (which sometimes helps with keeping the slide in place), and a hardcover copy of the first volume of the diary of Virginia Woolf.  What more could one ask for?

(And yes, I know that I am incredibly silly.)

The three of us walked purposefully through the mall, searching for silver candleholders as though they were the Holy Grail; within a few hours two of us were ushering at the third's wedding.  Who would have known, a few short years ago when I met them in an admissions office (only because the person I was supposed to meet didn't show up), that they would ever be more than vague acquaintances, that we would stay in touch despite graduating years apart, that some unknowable combination of coincidence and choices would lead us to this particular here and now, all together again, all depending on each other, in a certain sense.

Maybe they were the people I was supposed to meet, after all.  Isn't the world amazing?

I broke down and bought the new Modest Mouse cd today. I really liked it when I first listened to it at WRCU last semester, which is unusual since I haven't been terribly impressed with other Modest Mouse albums. They were all right, but didn't really stand out. But now I'm having a hard time reconciling myself with liking this new one because based on what I've heard on the modern rock stations that I listen to at work, Modest Mouse is now incredibly trendy. I feel guilty for liking the album that is trendy, and not liking the ones that aren't, despite the fact that the trendiness is in no way related to my liking of them.

My taste is likely too mainstream-oriented for the indie snobs I associate with at WRCU. And though their opinions quite frankly matter little to me, somehow I seem to have acquired their value system unintentionally. And there's no reason that non-trendy is by definition better than trendy, even though it's presented that way in some circles. In reality it's just as random and limiting as believing that what is trendy is better. People who enforce the rule of the non-trendy haven't freed themselves from an arbitrary mainstream system of valuing things, they've just embraced the opposite side of the dichotomy.

I was talking to someone once about how frustrating it was that Colgate was so culturally homogenous, using as an example the fact that everyone wears the same fancy name-brand clothing. She said, "Well, if you go someplace like Oberlin, you have the same problem. They're still all wearing the same clothing, it's just t-shirts and ripped jeans."

It's funny that it's so hard to just like what we like, free of the context of those around us. Whether the goal is to follow or rebel, the choice still has everything to do with what everyone else is doing. And even when people are just trying to be themselves, instead of fitting into a category or following certain rules, our choices are laden with unintended implications that affect how we see each other, and sometimes, how we see ourselves.

I think I need to go to the library and get some books of poetry. I just can't stand any longer not being able to write. And it's no coincidence, I think, that my writing has flourished when I've had the most opportunity to study good poetry in school. It's not a deliberate thing, but when I read poetry a lot the rhythms return to my head and words of my own begin to fall in place like they're supposed to. Like I know they can.

I've dabbled in so many things, I've decided to be so many different things, that writing has often and easily been cast aside. But looking at my own history (playing with rhymes almost since I could write, trying to write a novel when I was eight) it becomes clear to me that I have always been a writer, and I always will be a writer. Maybe not the kind of writer that makes money (but since when does profit have to justify everything?) I need to write, it is part of me, it is what I do. It is my Art. It is My art.

And that's why it kills me during these dry times when I can't translate feeling to words and can't get anything down on paper. I haven't really written since high school (aside from this whole blogging deal). I look back on what I wrote then, and I know it's crap, but that's not the point: it doesn't negate the fact that as I wrote it I was able to take something troubling my head and release it onto the paper and feel a little better afterwards. Some of it is stupid and immature because there were a lot of stupid and immature things going on in my head. As I see more of life that can only improve.

But it's as though emotion and writing feed off of each other; not only can a feeling trigger the need to write, but writing can also help me feel more clearly and deeply, and see the world more fully. And that, I think, is why I start to get this deadened feeling when I haven't managed to write for a long time, even a little. My senses are dulled and I feel less. And then I have less to write about. It's circular.

So I need to figure out some way to get myself back on track, so that this will be an upward spiral rather than a downward one, so that I can feel accomplished and productive in at least some part of my life (because earning doesn't lend itself to feeling productive in quite the same way that creating does), and so that I can wake up at night with words in my head and scrawl them down in a notebook with my nose pressed against the page because I haven't put my glasses on, so that I can obsess over words and rhymes and rhythms, so that I can stay up late trying to get something down just right because finally something in my life feels more important and more exciting than sleeping after all.

So, another silent June, another quiet summer. What have I been up to, you ask?

I have been working, with my hands more than my mind, and coming home with blotches of paint on my hands and elbows. I have been watching the Red Sox quite frequently on TV, and am enjoying living among the Red Sox Nation again. I have attended a ridiculous amount of minor league baseball games.

I have forced myself to stop dwelling on two withering friendships, and have worked to cultivate more carefully those that remain. I have tried not to lose track of people who are far away. But I have also been learning to enjoy my solitude.

I have played computer and video games until my brain felt numb. I have read the Harry Potter series. I am presently reading Virginia Woolf's diary with a sort of violent desperation, as though I might be able to explain my own life by means of hers, as though the answer must be there somewhere between the lines if only I could find it. There are five volumes. It will keep me busy.

Most of all, I have been struggling to find where I belong, which is neither here nor at Colgate. I am ready for another transition in my life. I just can't figure out quite yet where to go and what to become. As always, I fear this stagnation.