If We Could See the Context of Our Universe

I’ve never really liked poetry, but this is different.  I love this.  This is spoken word.  

My friends are in the poetry forum at my college and they held an open mic night a while ago.  I went because they asked me to, thinking I would hate it the whole time but not wanting to disappoint.  I sat in the second row because being in front seemed like too much pressure.  What if I smiled when I should have frowned? Snapped when I should have shouted? Laughed when I should have cried?

My friend came up to me before the first poet.  She was nervous to say her own poem, but I told her to, we all wanted to hear it.  She said it was sadder than usual but I had never heard any of her poems so I told her to go for it knowing whatever it was she would kill it.  What a girl.  Of course, everyone there was amazing, but she, she was a shooting star on a pitch black night.  She read a poem she wrote about her dad.  Not one of those happiest little elf things where her dad plays a game with her and then takes her to ice cream whether she wins or loses.  No.  She wasn’t that lucky.  I listened to her read and I thought to myself, “Wow.  So this is poetry”.  

I listened to all of the other performers and wanted to be them.  To have something to say that everyone wanted to hear because it was that important.  

It might not be that I hated poetry like I thought.  I was just never introduced to it in the right way.  I went back to my dorm and looked up other spoken word poets.  I read poetry I found online and in books and asked my friends for their favorite poems.  I wrote a poem in the shower and sat down to type it out the second my hair was brushed and my towel hung.  I’d like to say that I put pen to paper but in this day in age it would just be a lie.  I emailed a poet that I really liked and listened to him talk at a ceremony at my school he just happened to be speaking at. And tonight I watched a TED talk just because.  I  never knew I could like it so much, but I’m glad I found out.  

This post is more of a thank you than anything else.  Thank you to the poetry forum.  You guys helped me see that there is more to poetry than just analyzing them for AP exams and English tests.  I never liked analyzing the slavery-representing lobsters, but maybe now it seems okay.

And It Rained For Forty Days and Forty Nights

So it’s finally springtime in April in the wonderful mitten state and we all know what that means.  April showers have begun!  And what better a way to exemplify the way the entire UofM campus felt after losing the championship game than by turning on the waterworks and shattering the sky with bolts of lightning and crashes of thunder?  I can’t think of any either.  So let’s begin with a little bit of story time.  That always made me feel better when there was a thunderstorm.

(This post is about to be pretty long since I haven’t written one in a while, so sorry.  Get your Oreos, snuggle up under your covers, and listen to the patter of rain on your windowsill while you enjoy a nice cup of tea and some light reading. Enjoy.)

So Friday my friend Claire came to visit me from MSU.  We went to a GMen concert (they rocked) and walked around with all of the strangely glowing people at the full moon festival.  The lanterns and lights were fantastic, but unfortunately, being dressed completely normally and having nothing paper-mached on a stick to hold up and dance to, we felt out of place and left to go to sleep.  Which we promptly did two hours later.  Oops. 

Saturday was great.  We woke up early and Claire did some exploring in A2 while I went with the RC to the DIA, Mexican Town, and John K King (not all of us made it there, but at least no one got stuck in Canada?)  

So we arrive at the DIA to find that The Bedroom is on loan from Paris!  I was so excited.  I have a weird obsession with Van Gogh, and no, this was not because of Vincent and the Doctor, however that episode was pretty great, I loved him way before then.  The DIA normally has 4 paintings by Van Gogh and I always loved them.  They were my favorites, aside from The Nut Gatherers, which I was always convinced was my cousin and myself and wanted to take home with me. It isn’t us, in case you were wondering.  So we wandered around the DIA, watched a woman hold milk for 13 minutes, saw Diego Rivera’s mural and a giant plug, and made our way to Mexican Town!

Once there, we ate at the only restaurant people seem to go to in Mexican Town, just because it is super big and fairly tasty.  That was fun.  I was an expert at spilling all of the table’s water, twice, and we had some good food.  Then we walked across the street to a bakery that had the cheapest Mexican pastries ever.  You walk in, take a tray, fill it up with everything yummy, and then pay this snobby teenager who hated working there but needed the money and was being forced by his dad.  He was not impressed with my Spanish at all, but then again, he probably just thinks I’m one of those stupid Americans.  

Then we made our way to the book store.  Well, sort of. My car got stuck in traffic from some horrible accident and an “event” going on at the casino.  We ended up turning around to go back to A2, blasting Disney songs the entire way home and singing at the top of our lungs. 

Once back I met back up with Claire.  Explained to her what Hash Bash is and why there were so many Bob Marley look-a-likes in town and it smelled ridiculous, and why we were not going to the Diag in the middle of the day.  I have no problem with what other people do, but this whole city was crazy and I really wasn’t feeling it.

Then we went to my friends house to watch some Wolverines eat some Oranges.  That rocked and the amount of people that rushed the Diag after was awesome!  Everyone was pumped and excited for Monday Night and we felt practically invincible.

Sunday we woke up, ate, and went to Westifest where we heard some awesome activism through art stories.  Claire went home and I tried to get as much homework done as possible so I could be a crazy college kid the next day and maize out in the Crisler Arena.  

Monday was insane.  Everyone was so excited and so happy.  We all wore yellow and loud “hails” and “go blues” echoed throughout every building on campus.  We went to the game and cheered our boys on for an amazingly great night.  When we lost, it was like 12,000+ people going from extremely happy to depressingly sad, all in one place,all at once, in about 15 seconds.  It was heartbreaking.  But spirits are high for next year!!  We got this!  We on!  We went back to our dorm, the fire alarm was pulled the minute we walked in, as usual, so we kept walking straight to the Union and got some free nachos.  Came back, heard that I missed a Watsky concert during the game, got more sad, and went to sleep.

My phone broke the next day. I spent 2.5 hours trying to fix it with my brother only to find that, come morning today, it was more broken. The soundless alarm that seems to have gone off graciously allowed me to sleep through my Anthro class so that I now have to actually read the book. Woohoo. 

And of course, this all happened with gray clouds over our heads and puddles of rain under our shoes.  

Happy Spring!