Halloween has come & gone & about all that I did was sleepsleepsleep & eat some cereal.
It’s never really been my favorite holiday to begin with – big, noisy parties, coming up with a costume, wearing a costume, etc. I prefer sweat pants & quiet, calm get togethers.
But this year was going to be different!!!
I started brainstorming in August for costume ideas, got a plan, got my supplies & got to work. I got all of my accessories done on Friday, with just a few tailoring tasks for Saturday & I was going to be ready to have fun & shake my tail feathers [literally].
Exhausted, I fell asleep early on Friday night. Between then & this morning, I got out of bed about four times & slept pretty much straight through. It was ridiculous, full of hot flashes & crazy dreams & just some general blahness.
So much for the party! Today I’ve spent a lot of time in bed as well, but I’ve managed to make myself clean the apartment a bit. Homeworking has been moderately successful – no real thought/writing has been done, but lots of formatting & setting up of documents for me to fill in later with actual content.
Does anyone else have a low body temperature? It’s hard to tell if I have a fever when I’m normally 96 or 97 degrees – does that make 98 unusual, or just normal?
Friday I signed up for LinkedIn. It’s similar to Facebook, but oriented towards professional networking. I anticipate needing all the help I can get when it comes to finding an internship for this summer & a job a few years from now.
To celebrate the transition to November, I’m sharing one of my all time favorite poems by one of my all time favorite poets [whose words I will soon have inked onto my calf].
October Fullness by Pablo Neruda
Little by little, and also in great leaps,
life happened to me,
and how insignificant this business is.
These veins carried
my blood, which i scarcely ever saw,
I breathed the air of so many places
without keeping a sample of any.
In the end, everyone is aware of this:
nobody keeps any of what he has,
and life is only a borrowing of bones.
The best thing was learning not to have too much
either of sorrow or of joy,
to hope for the chance of a last drop,
to ask more from honey and from twilight.
Perhaps it was my punishment.
Perhaps I was condemned to be happy.
Let it be known that nobody
crossed my path without sharing my being.
I plunged up to the neck
into adversities with were not mine,
into all the suffereings of others.
It wasn’t a question of applause or profit.
Much less. It was not being able
to live or breathe in this shadow,
the shadow of others like towers,
like bitter trees that bury you,
like cobblestones on the knees.
Our own wounds heal with weeping,
our own wounds heal with singing,
but in our own doorway lie bleeding
window, Indians, poor men, fishermen.
The miner’s child doesn’t know his father
amidst all the suffering.
So be it, but my business
was
the fullness of the spirit:
a cry of pleasure choking you,
a sigh from an uprooted plant,
the sum of all actions.
It pleased me to grow in the morning,
to bathe in the sun, in the great joy
of sun, salt, sea-light and wave,
and in the unwinding of the foam
my heart began to move,growing in the essential spasm,
and dying away as it seeped into the sand.
