Summary #1

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-08-25-maya-pompeii_N.htm?csp=hf

New archeological discoveries lead to theories as to why the ancient Mayans left their homes of 1,900 or more years in great haste. Everyday items, such as pottery, found in the Mayan city, Kiuic, point to unplanned retreat. Possible causes include warfare or draught.  

44 words

Other thoughts:

My youngest brother is leaving tomorrow morning for basic training with the National Guard. I'm acutally dropping him off in an hour or so, and he'll be gone until Christmas for a two-week visit, then off again. He'll be training in both South Carolina and Virginia for the next six months. The military told him not to pack many things; they issue most everything he will need. But I got home tonight and all he has packed is one rather small black backpack. Somehow, in that one bag he's taking everything he needs for the next six months. I can't fathom this. Perhaps it's my personality; I know I'm not a hoarder, but maybe I have an exaggerated sense of the essential. Maybe traveling light is a guy thing.

I don't know exactly what he has in there other than simple toiletry items, an ipod, some envelopes, stamps, and writing materials...

I know I'd want pictures, a book (how I'd choose, I don't know), a Bible, markers of my personality, items that would remind and anchor me amidst life-upheaval. But if I were like the Mayans, or my brothers, having to choose singular items to survive on, I can't think of a harder choice. Granted, the Mayans didn't know when they'd return, and my brother at least has some idea of returning to civilization, but what would you bring? What is your anchor?

The questions themselves...

Does it make me odd that I have always loved writing, having a favorite type of pen (the Pilot G-2), being affectionately labeled a grammar nerd, yet I have always been extremely nervous about having others read my writing? So why in the world am I writing a blog? Let me attempt to answer...

When I was a writing undergrad (go ahead and scoff and ask me what I intended to do with that), before I found my calling to be a teacher, I clearly remember two points when I realized that I would never write as a profession. The first was when my brother told me that I wasn't screwed up enough to be a real writer. He truly said this jokingly, but it haunted me. I found myself near wishing for something tragic to happen just so I could have something to write about. My poems seemed trite. Forced short stories. It took me a long time to realize that my life was already made of tragic pieces...still is...nothing grand or historic, but I lived/live a flawed life nonetheless.

The second harsh awakening came while I read Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet for the first time. I often return to this slim volume of wisdom for creative refreshment and as a reminder of why I love writing, when I know it in the deepest parts of myself, but I can't voice why. When I can't write why:
"Search for the reason that bids you write: find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all - ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write?" I found that I could not equate death with being denied writing. At the time, that was a small death for me: to realize that I would not be a writer. What was I going to do with my major now? It was too late to switch, and I honestly couldn't think of something I enjoyed more. But Rilke also reminds me:
"...to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to live the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now." I still struggle with this lesson in contentment. But I cherish it.

Sometimes, words are not enough to express life. Authors and artists try, sometimes convincingly and authentically, but I don't know if it always possible. This meager blog is being required of me by a journalism class, yes, but through it, I will at least pretend to be the screwed-up writer that I used to think I couldn't be. I also hope that through it I can attempt to write and to live some of the questions.