The Same River Twice

September 7th, 2011 | Posted by AnnMarie in Notes - (2 Comments)

I’ve taken to rereading books.

Not whole books. Just a page here or there.

Sometimes when my brain gets a bit overwhelmed, the words themselves, outside of the commitment of a whole story, are soothing.

It’s not the same though to pick up a brand new book, read a few pages and put it back down again. That doesn’t work. It has to be something I’ve read before, something a bit familiar. Something just faintly recognizable, like a book I’ve read years ago.

I find the familiarity both comforting and unsettling, and I’m not sure which sensation I’m reading these smatterings of pages for.

Comfort comes from knowing–knowing what to expect, how you might react. And it’s easy to think you’re not going to learn anything new from something so comfortable, because you think you can have some sort of prescience of the impact.

But then you get surprised.

Herakleiatos is credited with telling us “You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.” Picking up an old book is like trying to step once again into that same river–I always notice the change. Different words will strike me, I’ll “get” an idea like I hadn’t before, I sympathize with a different character, I take an idea for granted that I once thought was illuminating.

And this the unsettling. The realization that things are different, I am different. It’s not the books that change; the words inside them are still the same. Unlike our friends or family, who (presumably) are also changing, books are a static measure against which to gauge where we’ve come.

And sometimes we need just a little hint that the water is still moving.

 

 

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Transitions

September 6th, 2011 | Posted by AnnMarie in Notes - (3 Comments)

It’s September.

Though I haven’t been in school for a very long time, for me this month always hearkens a feeling of newness, a fresh beginning. A new year.

With that, I’ve embarked on a journey to realign this website. It’s been here for several years, and I’ve never really gotten a good grip on what I wanted it to be. It’s always been a place holder of sorts. A place where people can find out about what I do (though not in a huge amount of detail) and a little bit about what I think about (though I’m not terribly confessional here, and don’t usually go deep). I’m feeling like it’s time to change that.

What’s interesting about this is that, in a way, it’s also a reflection of something I’m doing on a personal level: a sort of self-realignment. The past year and a half has held a lot of changes for me in terms of work, having moved, some loss (and lots of gain). I take for granted the toll that can take on a person. It’s exhausting. Even when most of the changes are good, change is still tough and it takes a lot of habit forming and new ways of thinking and being to adjust.

And so… though it’s unnerving, I’m making the conscious decision to change this website in an effort to make it more “me”. My hope is that the process will help me distill the purpose of the site better, and in doing so, help it to be a sort of illustration of the other more personal work I’m doing.

I’d be grateful for any feedback or thoughts anyone wanted to share, either on the process, the mechanics, or anything else. Wish me luck!

 

 

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Today’s Photo

March 9th, 2010 | Posted by AnnMarie in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

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It’s About Time…

February 3rd, 2009 | Posted by AnnMarie in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

At simultaneous times throughout the city, some very odd things are going on. Some incredibly mundane things are also going on. And all these things going on at the same time get me thinking about time. Time means all kinds of different things to different people. Some people don’t have enough, others have way too much of it on their hands. We live lives that require us to be places at certain times before rushing off to the next thing. We wish we could stop time, or speed it up, depending on the situation. I started to think about this concept of time that we, or maybe just I have.

The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos being the linear, more quantitative measure of time, and kairos, the word for the right or opportune moment. Chronos is a pretty simple thing to deal with when you think about it. There are 24 hours a day, and X amount of things to be done in a day. You either have enough of that time or you don’t, and it fluctuates on a day to day basis. Kairos on the other hand, is something that needs to be recognized as such. It has to be seized when it comes. You have to anticipate it and be able to do the right thing when that moment strikes.

My own perspective of time changes on a daily basis, depending on my moods and whatever else is going on around me. There are days when I don’t trust my own sense of time. I’m there at the agreed upon chronos, but someone really needs to invent a kairos watch for me.

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Holiday Perks for Introverts

December 29th, 2008 | Posted by AnnMarie in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

The holiday season is not the ideal time for an introvert. The raucousness, the seemingly endless gatherings, phone calls, and grueling schedule of social obligations–they are all just a little too much for someone who spends much of their time “upstairs”.

Now that the holidays are almost over, and the buckling down period that is January and February are nearly upon us, I can breathe a sigh of relief that I will finally have an excuse to decline offers to socialize. During the post-holiday times, it’s perfectly reasonable to turn down evenings out because they conflict with the other things that normally come this time of year: resolutions.

The post-New Year celebration period is like its own micro-holiday for introverts. Since everyone is resolving to lose the weight, save money, eat better, and otherwise self-improve, they are spending more time at the gym, less time and money on going out and making party. This means there are fewer awkward moments of being invited to an event you don’t even want to go to in the first place. The introverts have free reign to become the recluses they so naturally are because everyone else is doing the same thing.

So, just as Festivus became “the holiday for the rest of us” so shall the two weeks of downtime associated January henceforth be the official holiday of Innies. I shall call it “Inuary”.

Inuary will be a “festival” beginning on the first Sunday after New Year. There will be no parties. No gifts (other than silence) will be exchanged, and there will be no decorations. Acceptable gatherings, if any, will entail little or no small talk, and will involve very small groups of people talking quietly about ideas and/or feelings.

So join me in a rousing moment of silence in honor of the winter calendar’s hottest new holiday–Inuary.

We’ll discuss what we think about it in a few weeks.

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