Storms and Absenteeism; Set Aside Haiku

I've been a little absent lately. You may have noticed. I have been writing only gradually on Vincenzi after posting the chapters a few weeks ago. Research on the thesis, as well as reading for Vincenzi, have had a sort of dull, but steady pace. The sun and rains are out - sometimes simultaneously - and that has shifted my mood a bit. As my mother can attest, my mood has been rather and frustratingly subdued due to an overabundance of free time and and frustrating vacancy of income. Both of these I am capable of remedying, but I have a strong preference for work I can stick with over time rather than work that I plan to do for only a scant few, if profitable, months. As it is, I am sitting on potential part-time eggs that would carry through the school year and beyond; to say the least they have not yet hatched. Alas...

Last night, though, there was a storm. The monsoons - summertime, midday rains - have arrived in Flagstaff and I love them. The Southwest has been plagued by drought and fire and despite the divine efforts of some, many parts remain unseasonably arid. (Who would have thought that global climate change would actually get to Texas so soon? Too bad politics don't change as quickly as the weather out here.) At least two of my housemates were frustrated by my eager and sometimes overeager meteorological prognostications, hoping for endless days of sunshine and heat. (I am not arguing with any Midwesterners out there about what constitutes hot, but am mostly reflecting the local sentiment.) I, on the other hand am thrilled. Walking around last night down a nearly deserted San Francisco Street, my umbrella an unimpressive shelter from the rain, was an unadulterated pleasure. It was heavy and chill and wet, but like rain in the Midwest - even where it can be fierce and deadly - it feels like a blessing.

In high school I had a penchant for writing poems about clouds and the rain. A leaden and laden cloud has a distinct look of... well, pregnancy about it. It is full; full of not-yet rain, not-yet lightning and thunder, not-yet sound and fury, and the not-yet life that follows. Rains are signs of fertility and blessing, they bring a sense of novelty to place and a power to disrupt what is going on for what is to come. Desert rains clean off the dust and pollen that has gathered on fenceposts, building walls, car doors, and the rest and it is suddenly gone, everything crisp and new. I recall Daniel Pinchbeck writing in Breaking Open the Head that many intoxicants, marijuana being the most abundant example, can reveal the novelty we once experienced in the world as children; this, he argues, is why everything is so "deep" when one is high and that one can be enchanted by the most mundane of realities. Honestly, I think rain does this to me. (Rain and the movie Pleasantville, after which I always sort of breath deeply and thank the stars I live in a world as vibrant and rich as this one.)

An optimistic assessment of my absenteeism may suggest my own fullness. I am determined to finish the rough draft of the Vincenzi novel this summer - preferably by the end of August or earlier - and am expecting to have something like a literature review accomplished for my thesis before classes begin. I am keeping busy, if somewhat distractedly so, and my silence is a sort of outward contemplation of the internal brewing. I have also made a bit more of a point to meditate and practice focus explicitly, which I have a heartfelt hope leads to greater success on the previously mentioned projects. An uncommon clarity of dreams and recording them also suggest an awakening, heretofore latent power in me; or so I expect. This fullness - characterized by a frustrating lethargy in between bursts of energy and a sense of overall frustration and anxiety - may very well be a creative pregnancy. I like the idea, it is something to meditate on and make real. I hope that with some diligence it will sprout out of the rain-soaked earth, all green and fresh and ready to grow.

...

Post-script: In typing "mundane" I seem to prefer to type "mundance" which sounds like a delightful everyday sort of dance, but also seems to suggest the moon. Of course, Moondance is a Van Morrison song, besides. Not to mention the theme of rain, which suggests "dancing in the rain" (my favorite reference being this one). Mundance is simultaneously mundane (ie everyday, nothing special), a regular and fun dance, and a celebration of the moon (the ending of the day?). Not exactly a "deep thought," but a game my fingers played and wanted to entertain.

...

And some set aside
haiku I allowed to lounge
in my Moleskine

(Note: Moleskine, being Italian, has a pronounced final "e".)

20 June

Le chat noire across
the street, all eyes & black fur
& welcome mystique.

These everyday
monsters - one's intrusion, the
other's chase - spook me.

27 June, from the Macy's patio

Stones scattered in
spirit, gathered in love;
not human, aware.

Not the first to see
the serene excitement of
the bark-line faces.

Midday broken in
copses & stealthy shadows;
revealing? Hiding?

Gewgaw windows of
inverted stars forced
from occultation.