I’m sorry everyone!
I am now reconnected to civilization. It has been a hectic past few days.
The word for whatever day… I suppose for Friday… is “transition.”
I hope you are all enjoying the end of February break.
Filed under: 100 words |
I’m sorry everyone!
I am now reconnected to civilization. It has been a hectic past few days.
The word for whatever day… I suppose for Friday… is “transition.”
I hope you are all enjoying the end of February break.
Filed under: 100 words |
J-Term Contemporary Creative Nonfiction 
We had to move quickly. For four weeks we dreamed days and walked in our sleep. Five hour sheets. Sometimes we did not see sheets at all, and during those moments I felt grateful for the sleeping sack that I composed out of a cotton cloth and lugged around with me. For four weeks our waking hours were timeless transitions between sleep and the next goal. The moments that felt slow—sitting in a plastic chair for several hours after we finished our chai; allowing ourselves time to explore one small stretch of street for four hours—reminded us we were awake.
If you’re comfortable with them they’re not transitions anymore. They’re life and you’re okay with it. But if you’re not so comfortable and change is new to you, you’re allowed to call it a transition. And then you can get over it and write cheesy shorts about all of those rough changes you’ve made it through. Oh, yes, you’re so experienced.
Transitions. They’re the worst when they just don’t happen, but really need to. Because you’re stuck and torn and extremely comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. It’ll just irk you. It itches, balancing in agony between the two.
I’ve always loved the edges of things, the cusp, the in-between-ness of borders and transitions. Perhaps it has to do with being born on March 21, spring announced but not felt in the north, Aries with a dash of Pisces. Perhaps it has to do with growing up female in a boys’ school or spending summers on the brink of the Atlantic, next stop Europe. Perhaps it has to do with reading too much nineteenth-century literature as a teen, or living in England in 1968 or France in 1974 or Ireland in 1998. These spaces hint at hope and possibility.
Caterpillars. Place. Time. Hunger. Dough. People. Technology. Seasons. Hair color. Knowledge. Leaves. Emotion. Bodies. Weather. Relationships. Ice. Skin. I’m in Maryland now. On Sunday at lunch time, I’ll be in Vermont. It’s me, and it’s 2,400 other Middlebury Students. It’s me and everyone who’s ever become a parent, moved houses, or been dumped. Me and Spring, me and people with bipolar disorder, me and cookies, me and iPods. Me and 2:00 and 2:01 and 2:02 and caterpillars and butterflies. Me and the New England foliage and the anywhere foliage. Me and sublimation and evaporation and condensation. I’m well connected.
[…] Transition Published February 8, 2008 100 words , Writing Today’s 1oo-word topic: Transition […]
Tudo bem?
Tudo bom. Onde está sua mae?
Dentro da loija lá.
Sun hits the church baking it white and blue. Smells like maracujá. It tastes like pumpkin.
Rafael tugs me to the shop for my mother’s approval.
Hey KT, want to go to the “Fire” restaurant?
Rafa adds with braces flashing- They have really good caipirinhas.
I feel like we should hold her hand as she steps down from the shop.
She tilts her chin up to the sun- baking the street, the mar, the air. I push her on a current of English. She says Obrigada.
Thank you.
I am the kind of person that likes everything to stay the same. I know a lot of people say that they hate change but I really mean it. I love routines. I love listening to songs on repeat for hours on end. I love eating the same thing for breakfast, the same thing for lunch, and the same thing for dinner every day. I love knowing that I will wake up the next morning and do it all the same all over again. I understand that sometimes change can be a good thing but there’s no harm in a little consistency.
I am there – watching, tired, eyes not feeling healthy. My stomach is the airplane still, too sterile and rambunctious. The time isn’t the same as I’ve found new hours that weren’t there. I want to wake up early but it is not time for that; I must convince myself to go to sleep. I have lost hours that were there but aren’t anymore. I am awake but I should be asleep. I am angry. I want sleep; I want tomorrow to be a day, not a night. I watch Connan – interrupting people before they finish. Shut up dude. God.
The transition from 8th grade to high school was the miserable year. The car ride only changed by five minutes. The student body was enormous and the number of people I knew went from everybody to five. My big brother drove me to school, but he left me in the parking lot on more than one occasion. I made one friend the first day when we both got lost, but he transferred out of my class when I said ‘no’ to a dance. My math teacher posted the number of days until winter break in October. I counted down every day.
Limbo. That’s what last summer was like… I was stuck in limbo. I was transitioning, I guess. High school days were over and the infamous world of college life lay uncertain before me. Time passed like molasses and my days were carefree yet busy. Hours were spent in the gym, coaching and working out. Weekend grad parties turned into an endless string of partying. Same friends, nearly every other day, at a different house, with slightly different food, meeting different relatives and making meaningless small talk. It seemed like it could never end. But transitions know how to be discreet.