The Ghost of Journal Entries Past

This past week I helped lead a paleontology field Program with Project Exploration, which, as most of you know from my years there as both student and staff, is a non-profit that runs top-quality science enrichment programs for CPS students. Before the program, I was looking for a journal with enough space in it to take admin notes in, like I did when leading the JP program.

What I came across was my journal entries from the last year I led the Junior Paleontologists (JPs) to South Dakota. PE field students read and write journal entries everyday, and so do the leaders. On the last night, after three weeks of academic, physical, mental, and emotional challenges, the topic is always "What does it mean to be a JP?"

This is what I wrote and read to 14 JPs my last year full-time with PE in 2008, grouped together on the side of a mountain as the sun set. I was the last to read.

Her page is a bunch of scrawled notes and crossed-out words. Every time she begins, a new thought, a new idea pushes its way in, and she must jot it down before it falls out her ear and down the mountain.

She has written this story 5 times in the past. First in 2001, when she was young and shocked at the immensity of the world. Again in 2004, her first year as a leader. In 2005 her mentor was leaving. In 2006 she took charge in her head; in 2007 she took charge in her heart.

Now it is 2008, and instead of having said everything before, there is too much yet to say. Too many memories of discovery, too many astounded faces, too many students she is so dearly proud of to sum it up in a few poorly written words.

And yet, this does not worry her, because if she has learned 1 thing it is that there is no time limit on your membership. She has, now and forever, her whole life to discover, learn, grow, and share that with all around her. There is no need to sum it up, dumb it down, or explain it, because those who get it surely use it, those who give it truly love it, and those who have it hopefully know it.*

A wise student once said "Being a JP is for you to discover it's meaning." It is the thrill of the chase, the hunt with your pack. It's to bite at the moon and grab at the stars, bend the mountain to your will and make the earth yield its many mysteries to you. It's to remember your past and create your future.

I have given you a tool for life, as it was given to me. Use it everyday.

Once a JP, always a JP.

*This refers to a puzzle I gave them earlier in the program. "Those who sell it do not need it. Those who buy it do not use it. Those who use it do not know it. What is it?"

Arrhythmia

Just because I do not share the abject anguish

I see pressed into your features

does not mean I do not understand it.

I am cognizant that your heart is breaking.

Do not think that my adamant bearing

indicates a cavity in my chest.

My own bruised heart is there

still beating after being sewn and re-sewn with catgut and spider silk.

And though it flutters in sympathy under layers and layers of tempered steel,

the tattoo of this arrhythmia will not confuse my sense of reality

any more than your miserable tears can wash it away.

The situation is wrong.

No matter what angle it is seen from,

no matter how the words are strung together,

no matter what the painful quivering of anyone’s heart might wish,

the weight of reality is a dead albatross

hanging heavy on the rope.

If there should come a time when the storm breaks,

and the last vestiges of this glass dream

lay around your feet in glittering shards,

I will be here,

hands and boots planted firmly on the icy earth

and steel across my shoulders.

And if you should call the banners to arms

from across the distance of this mistake

I will be there,

my thread-bare heart animated in time

with the thunderous pounding of a war drum.

Until then

my hands are empty,

my feet still,

my heart silent.

Good News, Everyone!

I know some of you out there might find this surprising, but I am a loud person with lots of loud opinions. No, I know you're shocked, but it's true. And it's also true that my career in science has enabled me to form these opinions through the scientific process of observing empirical evidence, analyzing it, and coming to rational, well-supported conclusions.

I just so happens that throughout the day, I encounter situations that cause my irritable-opinion-syndrome (IOS) to flare up, and to deal with this problem my gastro-cardio-neruologist suggested the homeopathic medicine of sharing these opinions with others. I told him that homeopathic medicine was bunk, and fired his ass. But still, telling people about the stupid shit I done heard on the internet, TV, or elevator that day seemed like an amusing past time. Problem is, I found myself having the same conversations over and over, since all my loved ones are flung all over the country--much as if I put them in some enormous trebuchet while I was asleep--and I can never speak to them all at once.

So that's why I've traversed into this weird-feeling blog territory, where I can put my ideas out there for all my peeps to read, if they care to. And then when you see me coming you'll know what the score is on immigration laws, or twilight, or faux feminism, or scientology, and take the opportunity to get away should the getting be good. I'll also be posting some creative writing on here, in some sort of unholy hybridization of blog space. It may or may not turn out that my creative energies are not just limited to pert opinions.

Although I will continue to do this even if no one reads it, I encourage you to comment and turn these ravings into discussions, even if and especially when you disagree. Arguing at people is never as fun as arguing with people. Also, feel free to share thoughts and critiques on the creative stuff too, especially since I know a lot of straight-up, college educated writers out there who are, in fact, the shit.

Transmission out!
-E