Adriene Crimson » memory

Little Birchy

adriene — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 03:21:14 +0000

I recently started a paper journal to document my job search process.
I misplaced it.
It is thoroughly frustrating for me to have lost this item.

However, I will not use this forum to extol the virtues of digital anything. I’ve lost blog posts, word processed documents and digital photos almost at the same rate as journals, printed papers/letters, and printed photos.

I’m just sad about this journal because it was the first one that I’d planned on looking back at in the future to get a hindsight view of my experience with the detail of my written notes added.

Perhaps that was just too much planning on my part. I’m okay with that but I miss my little journal. It was cute. Here’s what the cover looked like.

It made me happy and had a great binding. Sigh. I’ll miss you little birchy. I still have hope to find you in a random place where I will greet you with a laugh and some ink on your pages to celebrate.

courting

adriene — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:31:03 +0000

Things I remember about being in court:
wood

being a small child
having a chaperone

peanut butter cup

anxiety
small voice
confusion

sunlight

Mrs. Naylor

mustard yellow jacket
brown pants
a $20 bill
brown leather wingtips

feeling the pain (on my behalf) in everyone’s heart
(even the judge)

witnessing myself from outside of myself

Sometimes a song comes on just to break my heart, again.

adriene — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:21:55 +0000

Listening to Dead Can Dance’s album Into the Labyrinth makes me, an atheist, feel as if inside a temple where I am filled with a potent, un-nameable, un-categorical mystical energy.

Their song “The Carnival is Over” is particularly mesmerizing for my spirit.

Here are the lyrics:

Outside
The storm clouds gathering
Move silently along the dusty boulevard

Where flowers turn and crane their fragile necks
So they can in turn
Reach up and kiss the sky

They’re driven by a strange desire
Unseen by the human eye

Someone’s calling

I remember when you held my hand
In the park we would play when the circus came to town
Over here

Outside
The circus gathering
Moved silently along the rainswept boulevard
The procession moves on, the shouting is over,
The fabulous freaks are leaving town

They are driven by a strange desire
Unseen by the human eye

Someone’s calling

The carnival is over

We sat and watched
As the moon rose
For the very first time

the music that woke me up

adriene — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:25:27 +0000

When I was a kid my bedroom was just off of the living room at the front of an old stone Victorian apartment house in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I had two walls of windows and at the foot of my bed was a glass door with a sheer curtain, as if my room had been a sun room when the house was for just one family. It was a cozy room that my mom painted a pretty pinkish purple color called Hawaiian Orchid – a color that she let me choose at the paint store when I was less than 10. It was either that or smurf wallpaper – even then I knew better than to surround myself with a pattern!

Anywho, because of the glass door, with sheer curtain, it was easy for me to hear what was going on in the living room after I went to bed. One night, after falling asleep, I awoke to hear the most beautiful music playing. It was delicate, intricate piano sounds and I had to investigate. I got up and looked out my door into the living room where the sound system lived.

There was my mom, sitting on her knees in front of the tape deck. I had a moment of trepidation that she’d scold me for being out of bed but the music was just so gorgeous that I had to go sit with her. And I did just that. I kneeled next to her and just listened. She didn’t send me back to bed, but I think the music lulled me back to sleep because I don’t remember anything after sitting & closing my eyes.

The music was George Winston‘s album December that my aunt had copied onto cassette, TYPED UP THE CASSETTE COVER (with a typewriter!) (I know – so awesome) & sent to my mom for the holidays.

Here’s a quote about the album that I found out there on the interwebs:

The mother of all solo instrumental albums, and with good reason. Mixing traditional carols with Pachelbel’s Canon and a few originals, Winston produces a solo piano album of unparalleled — and undeniable — beauty. How can music be simultaneously stirring and soothing, relaxed yet exalted?

That album and Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Original Sound Track Recording Of The CBS Television Special are all I need to stir up holiday season nostalgia – even if it is against my atheistic heart’s wishes!

memories of ron – part I

adriene — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:37:00 +0000

my dad’s a scuba diver.

when I spent summers with him, sometimes he’d take me out to his dives with him. that usually meant that I’d sit in the boat while he was digging up starfish and sea urchins. sometimes I’d swim around and try to get back in the boat (which usually meant I’d end up hanging off the edge of the boat waiting for him to pull me back in. i’ve never been very strong in the upper body.)

sometimes he’d bring some giant or tiny lobsters up (the ones the lobsterpeople would have to throw back) for me to look at and we’d watch them swim away. sometimes we’d sneak them home and eat them – once we had a lobster with a claw that was at least six inches across. my mom kept the empty shell for years.

anywho, the real story I wanted to tell was about the time he brought up a fresh scallop. he split the beautiful, white shell open, sliced out the guts and threw them back where they came from. then he slurped the still living scallop muscle right down his throat while I watched, somewhat awed, somewhat disgusted. he offered me some and after I declined he said “I love it when I can feel them wriggle down my throat.”

I wish I were that adventurous with food.