Online Magazine!

I have started an online magazine with my friend Sarah. The Stubbled Chin a literary and arts magazine, highlighting some events around Portland, and also featuring some work from my friend and me, as well as receiving submissions from others. The website is still in its beginning stages, but be patient with us and check it often. We'll be updating events and so forth.

Visit the site, comment on it; I'd love to hear from you! We're also on Facebook!

http://www.thestubbledchin.com

manda

We Feel the Motion which Follows Sound

This is another essay I wrote this past term.

We Feel the Motion which Follows Sound

All my serious lovers have listened to and watched me play the piano. I only let my serious lovers listen because I’ve realized that people can easily get wrapped up in music and feelings too quickly and subsequently do what they will ultimately regret. That happened to my first “boy-toy” E. We kissed on the piano bench of the Baptist church auditorium after everyone had left. He said “Sorry” a few days later and would continue to say “Sorry” for ten months after that. I learned my lesson about music and love. He wasn’t serious. But the other two were. For them, I would compose songs that made no sense, I would play hymns, oldies, Chopin, love songs. The first guy J would sit on the bench with me and watch my small hands, then watch my concentrating face until I started laughing and had to stop playing. Then always he would kiss me. The second guy B wouldn’t sit on the bench with me, always a few feet away. He would close his eyes or look at the ground at first, then look at me. I would smile. When I was through playing, he would hug me tightly, tell me I looked like an angel, then kiss me tenderly. Music drew us closer together. The dissonance and harmony of the notes echoed in our relationships. But like every song, our relationships ended, and they always ended shortly after I played music for them. But in those moments when the music sounded in the air, consumed our ears, and grabbed our hearts, we were close. In those moments, we realized we fit together perfectly.

John Stainer, author of “Music in its Relation to the Intellect and Emotions” says “...when one is held under the spell of an emotional mood, the memory often places before us, very vividly, scenes and memories which have long past by, and it invests them with new meaning and new force”(pg 51).

J and I planned to go somewhere. Now I don’t even remember where that was. Maybe it was school. Perhaps “Wunderland” on Belmont. We even had coupons. He couldn’t find his glasses though. Not in his room. Nor his parents. “Did you look in the bathroom?” Not there either. He lifted up the cushions of the couch. It was of no use for me to help look. I sat on the piano bench and played “Falling Slowly.” I whispered the words as I played. “I don’t know you, but I want you all the more for that.” He stood up and walked closer, standing behind me, his arms now on my shoulders and neck. “Words fall through me and always fool me and I can’t react.” He kissed the top of my head. “I love you,” he said. I stopped playing. We kissed. We found his glasses. We left, together.

The story was a little different with B. We were staying in that night, sitting by the fire. We talked about music. I said I played Chopin for my final recital. “I wanna hear it!” “Eh, it’s too long of a song. I don’t think you’d like it.” We sat up now. A blanket fell off my shoulders. I adjusted it. “Well, then play something else.” He stood up, helped me up, and led the way. It was cold out there, out in the garage where the piano was. B ran back inside for a blanket which he draped over me while I played. I first played “The Piano Man” and he laughed. Then “Falling Slowly.” He stared at the concrete floor, then closed his eyes. “Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time.” He smiled. “Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice, you’ve made it now.” After the song, he hugged me tightly and we walked inside and up to the bedroom. At 3 a.m., I left his place and drove back to my house, alone.

And now, while I am sitting alone in my room playing “Falling Slowly” without a boyfriend for an audience, I sing different words. “Take it all! I paid the cost, it’s too late. Now you’re gone.” And I Bang, BAng, BANg, BANG a dissonant chord.

“Falling Slowly” has evolved with my emotions. It’s no longer a song I associate only with J, nor only with B. It’s a song that I once played for J and he dumped me, a song I once played for B then he dumped me, and now a song I play alone, a song I play nostalgically. Stainer also says this about music and its effects: “The common fellow does not want something entirely new, but something which will recall his old frame of mind and its pleasures”(pg 58). I don’t play a new song. I don’t want something new. When a new lover comes along, I will play the same song. I will feel the same emotions, just in a new room, on a new piano bench, with a new man. We’ll end up doing the same thing. And he will end up dumping me soon thereafter.

Aristotle stated something very similar to Stainer: “Why is sound the only sensation that excites the feelings? Even melody without words has feeling. But this is not the case for color or smell or taste...But we feel the motion which follows sounds...These motions stimulate action, and this action is a sign of feeling.”

After I played for J, our action was kissing, and searching...for glasses, but sometimes even for each other.

After playing for B, our action was pure closeness, followed by a permanent distance.

We were called to action, some sort of motion; we had to do something. In our cases, we, already feeling such a natural connection emotionally and physically, responded to the sounds of the song physically for each other.

After playing for myself, I am called to action, to change. “You must change your life” as the art in Rilke’s poem states. “You must change your life.” It’s all action. Action after sound.

Stainer describes a four-step method in reacting to music, that motion we feel that follows sound. We first have a sensation. The vibrating notes and chords in our bodies and eardrums. These sensations of hearing and feeling then reach our intellect. We recognize form. The beat. The patterns. The repetition. After our sensations and intellect are aroused, we feel a sudden sentiment for the beautiful. Our minds recognize form as being beautiful. And once we finally see the beauty in the music, our emotions kick in.

For those who never studied music and who do not have any musical knowledge, Stainer’s four-step action process is cut dramatically short. He says that the music immediately skips to the emotions, by-passing the intellect, calling to action only emotions and feelings, which are fleeting.

J used to play bass in high school. He said he missed it. Once, he played a chord progression on the piano for me. Right there, he told me everything he knew about music. Bass and that one chord progression. But if you asked him what else he knew about, what else he liked, he would say, “I know she’s beautiful when she plays. I love to watch her play, and listen to her play. It makes me love her.”

B sang, not well, but he sang. He knew almost every song there ever was to know. He knew words. He knew lyrics. He knew the ups and downs of music. “I don’t know, I just love the sound of a piano. And you just look so pretty while you’re playing, like, angelic,” he told me.

I’m singing those words. “Falling slowly, eyes that know me and I can’t go back. Moods that take me and erase me and I’m painted black. Well, you have suffered enough and warred with yourself. It’s time that you won.” Stainer’s right. Aristotle’s right. We feel something after music. Whether that just skips our intellect or goes straight to our emotions, we act upon the music. Those feelings of love and closeness and longing are in me, are present in the music when I play. J heard those feelings in my music. B did too. Straight to emotions they went. Love. Closeness. Longing. This was our action. Kissing was our motion. My love was the sound.

Clean Hands, Dirty Heart

I know I haven't written anything for awhile, but this is some writing I did for a writing class of mine this last term.

Clean Hands, Dirty Heart

“Manda, did you draw this?” My mother was sitting on the toilet. Bathroom light off; there was always enough sunlight in the Arizona afternoon that flooded into the double-wide trailer house. The bathroom was bright, I remember that. The floor tile was white, as well as the countertops. I don’t remember a shower curtain; but if I were to make one up, it would be white too. And my mom was just sitting on the toilet with a white piece of paper in her hand.

I got a glimpse of the drawing. I couldn’t look at her in the eyes. Even as a kindergartner, I knew when consequences were coming.

“It’s a very good drawing. And I’m glad you’re discovering things about your new baby brother, but you really shouldn’t draw this at school….Okay?” I could tell she was sincere. She may have been lying, but my 5-year heart believed everything she said.

“Okay,” I whispered, hanging my head low and walking out of the bathroom. I never saw the drawing again. That was consequence enough.

Maybe my mom was right--it WAS a good drawing, but certainly not acceptable in a Christian school. Every free-time during class, I would draw, mostly swing-sets, and by now I was getting pretty good at drawing them. I knew how to draw two “A”s on opposite sides of the paper, then draw a horizontal line connecting the points. Two vertical lines for the chains, then a crescent for the swing. I already knew how to write “A”s, considering my name had three of them. The difficult part was keeping a steady hand to draw straight lines. When I wanted to make a really good swing-set, I stuck my tongue out a little. This seemed to help me concentrate.

That drawing was my best swing-set yet. The “A”s so perfect, the lines so straight. I’m sure by the end of the drawing, my tongue was touching the bottom of my chin. Although I was a near veteran at drawing swing-sets, I was new at drawing a boy’s body. My little brother, Jonny, had just recently been born and he was so different physically from my sister and me. I had discovered something new that I wanted to draw. I started drawing the swing-set then I decided to fill the swing. I drew my brother’s naked body and included all the parts. Once satisfied with that, I drew myself beside him. I always drew myself happy. My brother was content, too. It was a sweet drawing, innocent, and playful. But not acceptable.

I had sinned with my hand.

I’m sure before and after that incident there were the usual occurrences of taking toys from friends or siblings, but the second major sin I remember with my hand came just about a year later. By now Jonny was a little over one. He had blonde, blonde hair that curled at the ends, just like my dad’s. His huge blue eyes sparkled in his pasty round face. He could already smile with a smirk. He was clearly trouble. My family of five was visiting Oregon for a relative’s wedding. Summer weather. Sun shining. Slight cool breeze, green grass and green trees. The perfect day for a stroller walk, I thought. My brother had a blue stroller, with primary colors filling basic geometric shapes where he was supposed to sit. Before he was born, I used it to push my dolls around. My dolls always obeyed me. I imagined the walk going perfectly: I would push him around the block and he would fall asleep. I came across one obstacle in making this stroller ride perfect: my brother wouldn’t lie down. Being the six year old mother that I was, I warned him.

“Jonny, no. Lay down!” I insisted as I gently pushed his shoulders back. He stayed for one second and by the time I got around to the back of the stroller again, I noticed he was sitting up, bright-eyed as ever. “Jonny, no! I told you to lay down!” I became meaner this time and tried to push his shoulders back harder but he was stubborn. He clearly didn’t see my vision for the perfect stroller ride. “Jonny! NO!”

I slapped him.

Not only did he then lie down, he cried. My dad came rushing outside with no time for me to try to make him laugh. I was doomed. And ashamed. I had slapped my brother so hard that my hand hurt. Punishment was coming for sure.

“Now, Amanda, I want you to know that this hurts me more than it hurts you, okay?” This is how my dad prefaced his spankings. I hardly believed him. I didn’t know about irony back then, but I did think it was odd to be receiving a slap on the behind because I had slapped my brother in the face. But I didn’t ask many questions. The spanking echoed in the room. It was long time before I would take Jonny on another stroller ride.

Slapping was tally two for sinning with my hands. And three. And four. And I’m sure five.

I became quite a fan of slapping my brother when he frustrated me or didn’t do things my way. He became a fan of biting. The older he got, it seemed, the more difficult it became to deal with him. I still feel guilty about this particular day. My mom had gone into the store for “just three things”, which usually turned out to be fifteen things in three double bags. My brother and I were sitting in the teal Ford minivan in a parking lot in Northern Virginia. We had just recently moved from Arizona. He was bored and three. I was sophisticated and eight. And of course he wouldn’t be quiet. I just wanted to sing a song, but every time I started to sing, Jonny would break out into “Jesus Loves Me” or “The ABCs”. You can see my frustration. My song was clearly better than his choice of songs. My song was a country song-- “Is there life out there so much we haven’t done? Life beyond the family and the home….” Same song I used to entertain my dad when he smoked in the Arizona dusk. This time I didn’t even give my brother a quiet warning.

“Shut up! I started singing first.” I was still sitting in the middle seat, and he was standing right beside me.

“But I wanna sing too.” His voice was sweet.

“No, just shut up!!” There was silence for a moment; I thought my harsh yelling strategy worked. But through the years I would learn that it never worked. I started singing again. I only knew a few lines of the song and dammit, I was going to sing those lines without interruption! But Jonny started singing again. I yelled. I slapped his face.

This time was different though. I was genuinely angry with him, beyond the point of just mere frustration. I was hot in the face from anger. And when I looked into his eyes to slap him again, I saw fear. He was cowering. I slapped him again. And hard. I was even more angered by his fear. He started bawling of course and immediately I became a “joker” for “King Ali Bobwa” and tried to make him laugh. It worked thankfully and my mom never knew. I’m not even sure he remembers the incident. But I still feel bad.

Physical combat would continue between my brother and I for the next ten years and add to my running list of sins with my hands. The next sin with my hands was of a different kind. It wasn’t violent; it didn’t hurt anyone much like my first sin with the drawing. After moving to Oregon from Virginia from Arizona, I was home schooled and since both my parents worked, I was home alone. Being any typical seventh grader, I wasn’t too interested in school work. Since I didn’t read the assignments, I didn’t know a darned answer on the tests. So I cheated. My parents kept the answer keys in a box on top of a bookcase in their room. It didn’t take me long to find it. They probably suspected something was up, so they eventually covered the box with a brown fleece blanket--like that would stop me. My parents never said a thing to me about it and I still haven’t confessed it to them. Oh, sure, I feel guilty but it wouldn’t have any relevance today. This was the sixth sin I remember with my hands--cheating.

The sins with my hands began to increase in badness. Drawing. Slapping. Cheating. What next? Holding hands. That’s what I remember.

“After church, can I go to Starbucks with some friends?” I asked my parents. I was a sophomore in high school.

“Well, who else is going?”

“I don’t know, just a group of people.” But I knew exactly who was going.

“Well, just make sure the guy to girl ratio is about the same. We don’t want you going anywhere with just a group of guys,” my dad answered.

I agreed.

We didn’t go to Starbucks. We went to McDonald’s. We equaled Micah, Evan, Brian, me. Me in a group of just guys, sitting, talking, laughing, sharing sodas and smiles. I held hands with Brian. This only lasted two weeks. My parents didn’t know.

“Hey A, how was Starbucks?” My dad is really curious about these things.

“Oh, it went good. I got hot chocolate.”

“Who all was there?”

“Ummm, about seven people…Let’s see, Hannah, Sara, Evan, Micah, Brian, Katey, and me.” I made hand gestures, acting as though I needed to recreate the table to remember where people were sitting. I think this made my story more convincing; my dad believed it. Because I had not only disobeyed, but also I lied about it, I wasn’t sure if he noticed my nervousness or a difference in the way I acted. I could still feel Brian’s warm hand holding mine.

After that sin with my hands, I stopped keeping count. Didn’t think it mattered anymore. And besides, those sins made me feel guilty enough, I didn’t need to remember anymore of them. From time to time, my early hand sins were brought up at the dinner table.

“Oh yeah, and do you remember that picture of Jonny I drew?”

“The one of him naked on the swing set?” my family would ask. “Oh, yeah. I remember that,” my mom said. Everyone laughed and Jonny’s face turned bright pink, his smile awkward. He still gets embarrassed over this.

I know I should never have felt guilty about that drawing. I was innocent but the rules of a Christian upbringing prohibit such things. But that moment in the white bathroom showed me guilt was real, although sometimes irrational. It then became easier to feel guilt about petty sins, and even more remorse at weightier sins. As I grew, I didn’t need a spanking from my dad, or a lecture from my mom. My greatest punishment was holding onto my guilt and not forgiving myself. My home, my school, and my church had certain expectations for how I should act. I needed to fulfill those expectations; I needed to be perfect. And if I wasn’t perfect, I felt guilty. Sure, I’m not the worst kid on the block, but I thought I was bad enough and had committed unforgivable sins.

My sixty-five year old philosophy teacher Rita wanted me to meet her ninety year old friend Edith, who also majored in philosophy. Rita thought we would have a great philosophical discussion over lunch. She and I drove down to Salem to where Edith lives. Her home is an “Old-Lady House Museum.” Black and white pictures of generations gone by hung in the living room and hallways. Hand-made quilts carefully draped over the foot of the beds. Trinkets on bookcases. Intricate china in the cabinet. She even set out hand-sown periwinkle place mats. I picked up my spoon to eat the white bean chicken chili.

“Oh, you’re left-handed, Amanda?” Edith was interested.

“Yeah, I am. You too?” I asked.

“Yes. Well, I only write with my left-hand. I do everything else with my right-hand. You know, a priest once told me this: ‘Everybody is born left-handed until they sin; then they become right-handed.’ A PRIEST told me that so it must have been true.”

“Oh, that’s really interesting. A Priest, you say?” I asked Edith.

“Yep. I Priest.”

“Well, I hate to question what priest’s say, especially about sin, but I’ve done some pretty horrible things.” I started to tell the lunch table about the running list of my hand sins. They laughed at the funny parts, they silenced when I got serious.

Edith smiled at me with that type of smile that only dear old ladies can do. Sweet, and sympathetic. I already believed what she was going to say next without even hearing it. “You know, Amanda, those don’t sound like sins at all. And you know why they’re not sins? Do you know what separates you and your sins from most right-handers and their sins?” She waited for me to answer. I shook my head.

“What makes you different is that you feel something about your sins. You feel guilty. You feel ashamed. That’s what makes you perfect. Your feeling. Emotion. Don’t worry about it anymore, kid.” Her voice was reassuring but she could sense the hesitation to let go of my sins, to forgive myself. “It’s difficult, I know, this letting go. But look at you, you even feel guilty about letting go of your guilt. I wonder if God knows He made someone this perfect.” We all laughed but the undertone was somber.

I’ve grown up thinking that I had dirty hands and a dirty heart. I have been carrying heavy guilt like chains around my wrists, around my heart chambers. To forgive myself would be difficult, especially now that I have layers upon layers of guilt and sins. But now, after lunch with Edith, I’m suppose to believe that I somehow have clean hands, and a pure heart? I slapped my brother out of anger. I cheated because of my laziness. I held hands in defiance. I am guilty. And my heart feels guilty. My hands feel guilty. But maybe Edith is right. Maybe I did nothing wrong with my hands, only something natural and forgivable. Maybe I do have clean hands and a pure heart. But guilt is a monster; it scares me more and more each time I sin. I tuck it tightly away. Forgiveness never finds it.

Your thoughts are appreciated, PLEASE!

Check It

Check out http://thenastygrape.blogspot.com
I am putting together a book of my poetry and The Nasty Grape blog documents my journey of doing that.

B-neath

It was
b-neath
what I had expected.

It was a
B
plus.

A
B
plus.

No comment was
b-neath
the grade

Not one written comment
b-neath
the grade

I'm not angry about the
B
plus

I just wanted
A
comment

After 3 terms
3
terms!!!

And no comment
3 terms
I repeat

Seriously
Theresa?
Nothing?

An
A
in the class

But a
B
for the final

You are
b-neath
me

I am
b-side
myself

Prevention

I want to move in with Millie,
I just have a few things in my way.

Money
Family
Job
The Likes

I want to buy another car,
but I just have a few things in my way.

Money
Job
The Likes

I want to be done,
I just have a few things in my way.

Money
Time
The Likes

Today I got so tired of it all.
I had no control over

space
and
time

Then the gods handed me those orange scissors
(or was it the Devil?)

Snip cut
Cut snip
Red hair

falling
to the ground.

You know the worst thing about all this?
I have gray knees.

Love, or at least Like

Bubbles.
Bumbles.
Brambles.

Bubbles pop.
Bumbles buzz.
Brambles tear.

You weren't asleep for very long
when I decided to leave.
You're a very heavy sleeper,
making those sleeping noises that only you can.
It didn't even matter that I
stepped on your calf when I climbed over you
to get out of bed.
Sure, you flinched a bit,
then turned your head and went back asleep.

It was maybe 1 in the morning by now,
so you'd only
been asleep for an hour, maybe.
I could tell you didn't want to sleep;
and well,you even told me that.
You'd said: “I'm so exhausted! But I don't want to sleep.
You distract me.”
That's what you said.

When I crawled over you to get out of bed,
I planned on leaving
for good.
It's not that you weren't right for me,
it's that I wasn't right for you.
But as I opened the door of the bedroom to leave,
you made one of your sleeping noises, the kind
that is startling in deep silence.
I turned and looked back at you, with your arm
still in the same place it had been when I was
lying next to you.
You thought I was still there.
Then you made one of those “hmmmmm” sounds.

I knew I had to leave, but not for good.
At least not yet.
So I went into the backyard,
which is a forest basically.
Tall trees, uncontained bush.
It was beautiful at sunset,
but now I could barely see anything.
But the moon was out, a full moon.
I sat at the edge of the deck,
staring out at the vast sky,
looking at the neighbors' houses, wondering if they felt
the same way I did.

You remember that container of bubbles you
had on the deck? Yeah, it was still there.
So, I decided to blow some bubbles.
I watched some of them float away,
but most of them got popped
by the brambles.

Usually birds sit on those brambles, and the
bees buzz nearby.
But it was so late.
Nature knows when to sleep.
I sat there, dreaming. I thought I could see
a bird sitting in those brambles, and those
bees buzzing around it.

I remembered that day when we danced
around the brambles, trying to avoid
falling into them.
But that day, we did fall.
You got stung. The bees have always liked you better.
I got scratched.
I remember how we hurt so bad and nothing could soothe us.
Then you wanted to blow bubbles, those really big bubbles.
So that's what we did.
You blew one straight at me, and it
popped on my scratched arm.
Nothing has ever felt better.
We had found the Balm of Gilead--bubble soap.
We ran to the store and bought
gallons and gallons of bubbles
and practically bathed in those bubbles.
Our bodies healed quickly after that.

I blew bubbles and more bubbles and even
more bubbles until the bottle was almost gone.
It was mostly empty when I decided to set it down
on the deck next to my thighs.
But it spilled.
Just like that—bubble soap poured out onto my
shorts and legs.
Nothing has ever felt better.

That bubble soap healed me once again--it healed my scratches,
it healed my heart.
I knew what I had to do.
I ran inside, found the rest of the bubbles,
and poured them all over my now naked body.
Then I went back into the bedroom,
found you sleeping, still sleeping, still making those
sleeping noises, still sleeping in the same position.
I slowly slithered my way into bed,
right next to your warm body.
You opened your eyes slowly, looked my way, exclaimed
“POP!”,
and went back to sleep.