Author Archives: janaremy@gmail.com

my passion…

me & Frida, in the graveyard
On my nightstand right now is Paul Theroux’s The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific and I’m loving every minute of it–pen in hand underlining the great passages, talking back to the book as I’m reading along, and dreaming about taking a similar trip someday. Theroux is not only paddling the Pacific, but at the same time his marriage is crumbling and he’s renegotiating his life. What a perfect read for me, right now (and it even has trains–of course it has to have a few trains since this is Paul Theroux of The Great Railway Bazaar, after all).

But what I really want to say in my post today isn’t to wax rhapsodic about Theroux, it’s to say something about myself. I want to be a travel writer. Not as my main gig, perhaps, but in the off-season of my everyday academic life. Travel is my passion, it’s what I save my money for, it’s what provokes and pleases me in a way that nothing else does. I dream about the open road, about trains, planes, and trails. And I love writing. I read travel writing more than all other forms of literature on my bookshelf. And, indeed, that’s about all that’s left on my bookshelf these days besides poetry (and most of that is place-specific poetry that I’ve purchased while traveling). I want to tell the stories of my wanderings–I want to share them beyond my small-ish circle of friends. And I want to widen that circle with people that I meet from around the globe.

Yesterday I sent off a short piece of journey-writing to a major periodical and I realized just how right that felt. I held my breath as I pushed the send key on that submission, and then I fretted for a few minutes about whether it got to its destination safely. And now, I’m riding high. That piece has legs and it will keep walking until it finds a good home. I love that feeling. And I want more…

PS: Yes, I will still keep up with my academic writing, but I need this extra stuff. It’s what keeps the juices flowing…

PPS: Pictures above of me in the graveyard near Harvard Square in February of last year and on The Great Wall 5 years ago…

looking back (not a 9-11 post)

One of my most unglorious public moments was when I gave a talk at the Sunstone Symposium a few years ago, about 10 days after having surgery on my left leg (surgery necessitated by the mysterious bacterial infection that I’d been fighting for 6+ months).  I looked like shit when I gave my talk, and was so weak that I couldn’t stand for more than a few seconds.  I was taking painkillers all day long to even make it through the event, and was quite emotionally fragile.  I’d also gained quite a bit of weight during the months I spent immobile on the couch, too–ugh.

But what I like about this video is that I can look back and see how much has changed since that hard time in my life. I’m now healthy and strong–emotionally and physically. My body’s immune system is so robust now that I’m rarely ever ill.

As a historian, I’m rather obsessed with marking change over time, with creating a narrative of how the past has impacted the future.  So when I watch this video and think about how awful that time was, or how it hurts to see myself declaring love for a spouse who’s since left me, it can be a bit…hard.  But it’s also validating to see just how much change has happened in my life since the Fall of 2008.

I want to put my arms around my then-self and tell her that life is going to be more amazing than she could have ever imagined.  That she will recover from the surgery and walk confidently again.  And before long she will paddle to off-shore islands and fly in small planes and travel to the places she could only dream of.  I want her to know that she will finish her dissertation and be a professor and nail a job that will make her happy everyday. I want her to know that she will experience tenderness and unconditional love from new friends and partners. And although she knew then that her children were divine, I want to tell her that this will be even more evident as they grow and make wise choices with their lives.

But most of all, I want her to know what she learned about “what has to be done” will be the most important lesson of her life, and will get her through all of the challenging days that lie ahead…

keep breathing…

Last night there was a shift in the weather at about 11pm.  I threw open all the windows and stepped out to the deck to watch the wind start pulling the trees back and forth.  Listening to this song, on repeat, louder and louder, feeling as though I was standing on the brink of something terribly exciting and wild and new:

This morning it’s raining and lightning and wholly unlike any other SoCal August weather in recent memory. My plans for being out on the ocean this morning are waylaid (for awhile), but I feel sure that something else interesting will happen in the meantime…

The storm is coming but i don’t mind.
People are dying, i close my blinds.

All that i know is i’m breathing now.

I want to change the world…instead i sleep.
I want to believe in more than you and me.

But all that i know is i’m breathing.
All i can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

All that i know is i’m breathing…

if this is you…

This morning when you went to the prosthetist’s office you were feeling a bit fussy and discouraged. Because for the past six months things just haven’t been right. Either your leg has been too long, or too short, or the knee hasn’t been taking a charge or the socket has been leaving pressure sores. And you feel like every little adjustment just spawns more problems ‘to be taken care of.’  And you are oh-so tired of walking with a “loaner knee” while yours is in the shop.  Ugh.

If this is you, then you unloaded it all when you got to the prosthetist’s.  Venting your various frustrations and concerns about possible changes.  And then you surrendered your leg to be worked on again, to get the loaner knee out & the pylon changed out for a shorter one.  You also suggested some alignment changes–to point your toe out and to bring down the heel a bit.

And then, as you were putting the leg back on, your prosthetist mentioned that your ankle rotator was back.  You’d forgotten that it was even missing.  But when you put your leg back on and stepped down on it, you remembered.  That little bit of give in the ankle feeling so natural and smooth.  And then you walked back and forth and back and forth in the office, to see what felt right and what didn’t.  And then you realized that sometimes when something is missing (a little twist in the ankle, perhaps), you don’t even realize that it’s gone, but you know that something just doesn’t feel right.  And when it’s back, you can’t imagine how you lived for weeks without it.

Fortunately, I’m nearly all put back together now.  Just one more change in store next week and then (fingers crossed), I’ll be back to my normal bionic self again…

“there is no try…”

Remember that classic scene from Star Wars, the one where Yoda explains to Luke how he should stop “trying,” because to “try” is to fail.  A refresher if it’s been awhile since you’ve seen that one:

Well I say: poppycock.

If there’s one thing I’m learning in my life right now is that there is plenty of trying. And there are failures and false starts and wasted efforts, too. And there is a lot more trying than there is success-ing.

Perhaps I’m just tired of the mindset that I’ve held for too long that if I do something, there is no room for failure. That just doesn’t hold true for me anymore and it’s not a lesson that I want to teach my kids, either.

I’m trying now–at so many things, knowing full well that I will fail…often.  I will fail more than I succeed.  And that’s okay (that’s more than okay, actually).

 

wide open when I know clearly…

Was so hungry for poetry today, that I ate two books of it for lunch (along with some very tasty steak that was just barely pink in the middle and so-juicy and a strong cup of coffee).

If they come in the night

by Marge Piercy

Long ago on a night of danger and vigil
a friend said, Why are you happy?
He explained (we lay together
on a hard cold floor) what prison
meant because he had done
time, and I talked of the death
of friends. Why are you happy
then, he asked, close to
angry.

I said, I like my life. If I
have to give it back, if they
take it from me, let me only
not feel I wasted any, let me
not feel I forgot to love anyone
I meant to love, that I forgot
to give what I held in my hands,
that I forgot to do some little
piece of the work that wanted
to come through.

Sun and moonshine, starshine,
the muted grey light off the waters of the bay at night, the white
light of the fog stealing in,
the first spears of the morning
touching a face
I love. We all lose
everything. We lose
ourselves. We are lost.

Only what we manage to do
lasts, what love sculps from us;
but what I count, my rubies, my
children, are those moments
wide open when I know clearly
who I am, who you are, what we
do, a marigold, an oakleaf, a meteor,
with all my senses hungry and filled
at once like a pitcher with light.

I am too long away from water…

I didn’t see an ocean until I was 14 years old.  I didn’t take a dip in the ocean until I was 35.  And I didn’t begin to learn its currents until three years ago.  But now….I can hardly go more than a few days without connecting with the ocean again–I am literally hungry for it.  Like this weekend, when I felt such a restlessness until I was out bobbing in the surf (again).

I’m beginning to wonder what will happen when I eventually move from this place. I know I won’t live in SoCal forever–so will I find some other love to replace that of the sea?

Exiled (an excerpt)

Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick on the city, wanting the sea;

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Of the strong wind and shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that breaks all day…

If I could see the weedy museels
Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls…

I should be happy, that am happy
Never at all since I came here
I am too long away from water.
I have a need of water near.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

night sky…

Having worked so hard for the past few weeks, I needed a bit of a breather this weekend.  So it just seemed natural to throw the tent and camping gear into the car and set out for the coast, hoping to find a spot to sleep somewhere within walking distance of a beach…

A few hours later as I sat in wet sand at the edge of crashing waves underneath the night sky, I simply couldn’t have been happier.  It was just what I needed (that, and the hours spent swimming along in the shoreline in the sunshine the next morning, were simply sublime)

I tried to take a bit of film to share here, but I suspect that it looks more foreboding than peaceful.  But perhaps you might enjoy joining me nonetheless…(and don’t you love the sound of those crashing waves?)

 

short shameful confession #14

Back when I was in high school and had limited mobility due to having recently lost my leg (to cancer), my boyfriends often carried me wherever we were going. It got me there faster than if I were to ambulate myself, and also fed my uber-romantic teen desires to be swept off of my feet by a beau (I will confess that such moments fueled many a Twilight-like fantasy).

But now it’s been years–if not decades–since I’ve gotten a ‘lift’ from anyone (the one exception might be that time a few months ago that a wave was pulling me away from my canoe and a teammate picked me up and carried me to safer waters). I’m rather proud of my ability to get places on my own two feet, so I tend to look back on my years of being ‘carried’ by men as a bit shameful now…

However, a few days ago I got a piggyback ride up the stairs to the second story of my house…and I enjoyed it far more than I imagined that I would. What a sweet feeling it was to trust myself to someone else’s strength for a few moments…

Previous short shameful confessions