I can hear every raindrop fall with astounding clarity. The sun manages to creep it's way under my heavy eyelids. It is cold and it is wet and I am tired. The stone bench and the weather have been conspiring against me. 

In Russia the babushkas used to yell at me for sitting on stone surfaces. They said it would make me infertile. They told me the cold from the stone would travel up my abdomen and make my uterus cold; the hard surface wouldn't help either. However, as soon as I sat on my jacket or my scarf it was completely fine, like my sheer scarf was enough to protect my fertility. I always thought this was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. How could an entire country believe something so absurd? In retrospect it makes sense. It is so hard to be a mom in Russia, women want to give themselves as good of a chance as possible, even if seems ridiculous to someone else.

But here I am, sitting on a cold, stone surface and thinking about the sweet, terrifying babushkas who were always looking out for me. I think next time I visit the moon bench I will bring a scarf in honor of the countless babushkas who took the greatest pleasure in scolding me. They would cringe at me now, but I think they will be very proud of me next week when I have a scarf to save my uterus. 

The air feels like the snap of a pea, or a sharp knife going straight through a head of iceberg lettuce this evening. The longer I stay inside of if the more I enjoy it. The bees are not here anymore. Maybe they are finished with the tree wearing the coat of vines, or maybe they don't like the cut of the knife. Without the bees, and without the breeze the backyard of the English House is much more still than it was last week. Except for the trees shedding death. Also, I am much taller than I was last week. Standing on one of the long benches beside the picnic table I try and face the trees without arching my neck backward. But although I am taller today, there is still an arch in my neck.

When I came to the backyard of the English House today I didn't feel very much like attending to my environment, I felt more like attending to myself. I kept looking at the ground and only thinking about me. But I was aware I was doing this, so I made myself change, and by the end I was able to be more outwardly focused.

Wet bench.  Cold.  Cold.  Wet.  Rain falling down.  Do I really have to stay the whole hour?  Yes.  Yes I do.  Leaves and rain fall together.  Check the time.  People walk by.  Trees sway.  The nature looks nice even if the sky looks gloomy.  Miserable is a word that we use to describe the weather, but it really describes how humans feel in the weather.  Check the time.  Pay attention to the sounds.  The soft patter of rain dominates every other sound.  On listening further, I can hear the wind and the rustling of the trees.  Snyder.  Worms coming out in the rain and then decaying on the sidewalk.  Gross.  Next time I'll need a thicker sweater.  Cold.  Check the time.  Time's up.  Meh, this wasn't so bad.  

After reading only the first page of Brothers and Keepers I could already see how silence and voice found common ground--as described in Yves-Charles Grandjeat's article--in Wideman's ability to speak to his brother in the form of letters. The distance and silence between Wideman and his brother allowed him to be hopeful that his brother might reunite with him despite the space, time, and unknowingness that existed between them-the silence. In this case voice was the unwillingness to get caught up in the "sense of urgency, of inpending disaster..." (pg5) that was plaguing those in close physical proximity to his brother's crime. This really makes me wonder about our definitions of voice and how more often than not we refer to voice in our class as the literal ability to speak out and the limitations that prevent people to do so due to race, gender, and/or class. I think that another way to understand voice is to look at it as choice: having the choice to create silence is also voice. Wideman chose to move away from home and in this action dilIberately created space and silence between him, his brother, and his family. However, it is crucial here to understand how silence as voice can also be a used as a silencing tool. For example, lately in our class, we have been discussing how choosing silence allows others to speak. I am not opposed to the sentiment behind this, however, I do realize another effect that choosing silence can have on the class in its entirety.

Walking 'round octagon. sane brain? steps too many jenny. footfalls on rock rebel. treble voices talking troubled voices whispering shhhhhhip by the shore the shoe store. online pine daisy crazy. fart. cold nose not there. fold hose hot share. twenty to timing monotones. slap slap slap flap slap. walking round octagons. 

I walked around the cloisters fountain for 20 minutes at approx 86 steps/min, 1 step being approx 1.3 feet, amounting in about .423485 miles.  I am a crazy lady now. 

The genre of my Thoreauvian walk is not obvious. My description of the ecological aspects of Bryn Mawr is very pastoral as I mention feeling "at peace with my surroundings," incorrectly portraying them in an idealized fashion. However, while reading my essay a second time, I noticed that I casually include some elements of the supernatural in a work that is intended to be nonfiction. Trees are able to fight back when humans alter them and a force only named as "nature" is able to guide me, the protagonist, on my walk without my influence. Because of this, I have chosen to rewrite my Thoreauvian walk as a fable or fairy tale.

Original:

“Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base.” This is the only definition on Wikipedia for the plain grass people walk on everyday. And this is not the exclusive definition for the plain grasses, either. “Grass” and “Graminoids” are shared names for other long-leaf plants like cereal, bamboo and marsh. I thought plain grasses have different names of its own besides just “grass”, like lawn grass or field grass, but both terms have not yet been included in Wikipedia. And I can’t find any synonym for grass in Merriam Webster Dictionary either. So maybe it is just grass. (This paragraph may be difficult to read because grass is just grass!)

Why doesn’t grass have other names? That is what I have been anguishing about while sitting on the grasses on a wet day. (If I can somehow turn my observation of grass into a poem, I will have something to post. But grass is not a poetic term! What should I do?)

Okay, now my observation of the grass on the platform in front of Carpenter Library written in scientific-narrative way:

The grasses have long, narrow leaves. Most of the leaves are green. A few are yellow or embroidered with a yellow fringe. The leaves should have pointy-heads, but the grasses I observed are so well trimmed that I cannot see any pointy-heads. (I wonder if the grasses like the regular “beheading”) The end.

Windy out but not in here

A tent that shields from the elements

But shutting me in

With a squirrel

Absent right now

But any minute

Any second

It could approach.

Am I sitting where the squirrels fight?

Where they thought

They could frolic and wander free

Away from students.

But here

Even when they are absent,

I am in their tracks

They cannot escape from me

As I invade their space

And I cannot escape from them.

Difficult To Be Really Present With a Headache

ORIGINAL VERSION: GENRE: NONFICTION

I'm currently sitting on the third step from the front of the fountain at taft garden. I have never noticed these peculiar bugs before but they are tiny, tiny flies or mosquitoes of a creamy tan color. They are floating so gracefully, so carefree, gliding around in circles. I wonder if they have any agenda or if they are simply enjoying themselves, enjoying their life. They don't seem in pursuit of anything but rather just trailling around and around in a random motion. But of course I'm not certain. The sun is peeking through the clouds, trying to force its way through so that although the light around me is a grey-white, I still cannot comfortably look up because the sun is still bright. Maybe I could find a deeper meaning in that. I wish I could but at the moment, it is difficult for me to be truly present because all I can feel is either

It is cloudy today.

The ground was moist and I could almost feel water flowing in the air, up towards the sky.

Human body has density that almost equal to that of water, and according to some biologists/anthropologists, human species originated from the ocean.

Water could construct a key connection between human and nature.

When we think about water in biology class, we came up words like solutions, osmosis, and homeostasis.

When we think about water outside class, we related water to life in other ways. We drink water, we swim in water, we see rain formed by water.

For many times we have heard "water is the origin of life", but we didn't know why. Because we cannot live without it, or because we are composed of it?

Perhaps we don't need to know why. Perhaps we should just have it, touch it, feel it.

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A drop of water is transparent

yet no one sees it through

Get wet in the rain and have fun

whenever we could.

Dews make me wet

when tears are not dried

I do not wish to see sun shine

for one second in my life