The Letter

1334 S. Galloway Street

New York, NY 99756

October 27, 2015

Maddy Bodell

5567 Downing Street

Denver, CO 80210

Dear Maddy,

I was walking through downtown center yesterday morning at an early hour. It was that calm before the storm- you know, early enough that world seems to have slowed down for just a moment. It was so quiet, so very close to silent. Anyways, it was the silence that reminded me of you, Maddy; I had a flush of memories from all those times we attempted to be philosophers, laying in the grass just outside the library just to think about the silence. I know we have lost touch over the years, but I was reminded of you in the silence yesterday morning, so I thought I would send you this letter.

How have you been? The last time we talked we were both finishing up school, and I think the busyness was truly consuming us. Where are you working now? Have you kept in touch with anyone from back home? I am thinking of you and cannot wait to hear about how far you have come!

As for me, I am still a little stuck in our philosopher phase. I have taken to writing notebooks, so I think you’d be happy to know reflection is still a large piece of my life. While completing reflections now, I often think back to seventh grade. Ms. Namath started a book-writing club during lunch period, and I remember giving up every Monday and Wednesday lunch to sit in her classroom and write a short novel. Even then, I think I was fascinated with words and the power they conveyed. For a very happy seventh grader, I wrote a tragic novel; it was a collection of short poems about the death of the main character’s family friend. Then, I understood writing as a form of escapism- imaginative and transcendent. The process of writing always conveyed something fictional. I think back to this understanding of writing because it sparked my love for words, but my understanding of their power then was blurry and unfocused. I had perceived words as inward forces, but no transferred them to how I could grow in the outside world. I still hold on to this use of creativity as a form of catharsis in my reflections today, but I am also working “to think of writing not only as… [a] descent into self but also as the ascent from chaos to cosmos… [an understanding that] through ordering this chaos, we may use composition to achieve composure” (Moffett 234).

I remember in that class we took together, we wrote many reflections; that was probably my first time exploring these topics formally. Many of my reflections were works of fiction. I particularly remember writing my own obituary because that somehow seemed safer than just transcribing my thoughts directly. I often reflected by writing in flowy, metaphorical terms and while part of me knows I will always be a fanatic for aesthetics, I think I chose to write all those reflections in metaphorical terms because it gave me distance to hide and to avoid the task of practically applying my reflections to something greater. They could be beautiful, and thus, a tool of distraction rather than critical reflection.

In the future, as I continue to build on the reflective practices I learned in that course we shared together, I hope I can render the beauty of words into something useful for my future. Just to update you, I just got back from spending a year in New Zealand. Now, I am starting graduate school pursuing a degree in Rhetoric and Composition. I hope to go on to receive my PhD in Rhetoric and Composition while intersecting research and community work on the housing crisis and gentrification into my dissertation. Therefore, I am embarking on a long journey of writing- but this time with greater purpose. I think the greatest take-away I still hold from that class is that writing serves both an internal and external purpose. It can be used to understand inner chaos, but when it is shared, it must examine greater topics and connect to others in a way that is encouraging and transformative. Thus, in my work toward my PhD, I am writing because it still something within me, but I have an academic goal that pushes me to critically reflect on my identity and role in this world while making sense of forces in the greater community.

I remember our university’s motto was ‘to transform passion in purpose’. As someone who likes to stay within her own daydreams, I never understood the value in this phrase- why couldn’t I just have passion? Why couldn’t I just think to myself without connecting those thoughts to something greater? To answer these questions, I actually reflected on my physical state when I was deep in a daydream. When daydreaming, I am still and gone to the outside world- I am floating free of obligations. This state is sometimes necessary to keep me feeling human, but this is not reflection nor is it useful in propelling me into something greater. I may be happy in this; however, I am stagnant. Therefore, passion should be transformed into purpose because purpose requires you to be connected to those around you, to build relationships, to learn more and to create goals that compel you to critically engage with the world around you. To briefly resort back to lyrical terms, it allows you to ascend as cosmos.

This is where I am at, Maddy. I wanted to share a bit of my journey after spending those moments in silence with you. I hope to hear more about your passions and purpose and to hear how you have grown. I will be traveling through Colorado next month and would love to grab lunch sometime.

I hope to hear from you soon! I am wishing you only the best.

Sincerely,

Aly

Here's to the Search of the Great Something #6

Our doodling activity this week reminded me of a teaching technique my favorite International Studies professor employed multiple times during my international development course work. The YouTube video below is a part of a series of RSA Animations. Many of the talks discuss sociological, cultural, political or economic questions and controversies, but what makes them truly intriguing is the accompanying animation; as the lecture develops, the viewer watches the drawing happen before his/her/their eyes. The topics of these videos are often radical and challenge the common viewpoint of many institutions of our world today. The viewer is pulled along on this critically reflective journey with the aid of a fascinating, expanding, complex 'doodle'.

The video  I chose to include below ("First as Tragedy, Then as Farce") critically engages topics of capitalism, charity and 'corporate responsibility'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

The Doodle: Intimacy

Intimacy

1) Where am I now, 6 weeks into this exceedingly orange and yellow fall quarter? More than anything, I have come to really appreciate being pushed to write. In my original blog post, I described feeling lost in the face of a key board. As a writer, I have been able to progress again as I have become in touch with a part of myself I thought I lost after returning from Bolivia. When I write, I often don't think ahead of writing words- they spill out and splatter the page. When I finish, I feel like I am returning from a far away journey. In this way, I think my identity as a thinker and my identity as a writer collide. I am a constant daydreamer; I think in circles and in lyrics as memories from the past usually dominate my focus. I am spacey because I think in long, wave-like patterns. When I engage with people or the physical environment around me after a long dream away, I feel like I am returning from a far away journey. Therefore, during the remaining four weeks in this course, I want to become more deliberate in my reflective process. I tend to not plan it out ahead of time and can stay stuck in cyclical thinking and writing processes. To become more deliberate, I want to be more present in my interactions with others; perhaps, by sharing more reflections out loud so that my reflections do remain just 'inward'. I also want to try reflecting in non-writing formats because my identity as a writer is so sporadic and unstructured. The meditation class this week will be an important starting point for that, and I also plan on setting apart 30 minutes every day to go on a walk to reflect in a more active manner away from the distractions and stressors of my everyday life.

2) My map reflects the sporadic nature of my thinking and writing styles. When I was doodling, I thought a lot about what was inside of me (in more metaphorical terms). The outline of the person on the right side of the paper is filled with the Universe, which shows that I think all of us have a little piece of the Universe within us. This piece of Universe connects us to something larger and makes us aware of our potential for greatness. Looking at my doodle now, I see many themes of interconnectedness. I chose the word 'intimacy' because I believe reflection is first and foremost a process of becoming vulnerable. Whether reflections are shared or not, the act of thinking deeply about something renders you still and stillness is necessarily vulnerable. Vulnerability relates to the theme of interconnectedness because I believe we form relationships-with others, ourselves and the world- when we are vulnerable enough to let people in. On the map, you can see the interconnectedness in the link of people climbing into my heart, in the large connection between the eye, magnifying glass and tree and between the roots of the tree and the drawing of myself.

3) One conclusion I can draw after completing three iterations of my map is that I hold a very strong connection between reflection and the process of self-care. I made this connection the most clear in Map 2, but I think this theme is so important as we move through this course because reflection is counter-intuitive to most popular narratives I have heard about 'what constitutes success'. Success is fast, aggressive, competitive, restless. It is a ever-changing horizon reserved for those who can categorically be considered 'the best'. The narratives I heard about success were never lyrical, slow, cyclical, vulnerable or intimate- all the things I consider reflection to be. Therefore, I believe it is crucial that we revision reflection not as something that holds us back, but rather as a mechanism to care for ourselves so that we all can leader fuller lives. Reflection as self-care does not call for avoidance of critical thought or difficult times; it encourages these practices as a necessary step for growth, change and self-empowerment.

Girl, Confounded: My *Literal Set of Unwashed Sheets

A little tidbit about me, when life begins to spiral a little out of control, my room tends to get very very messy. Like piles of things everywhere messy. Thus, in tribute to this messy week, I have photos of my mess, my attempts to clean it up, my eventual distractedness, my cleaning of the living room instead (and it's inevitable re-messyness), and finally my resolve to sip tea in the midst of chaos. Think of it as a metaphor, for let’s say ‘reflection’- the most profound reflections can happen in the messiest of times, sometimes we never quite figure everything out and others might just mess it up, but in the end, we always continue in the midst of inevitable chaos. 

Here's to the Search of the Great Something #5

For my something this week, I included one of my favorite photos from my friend Cam's photography business (check out camwelchphotography.com or on FB!).

I have always loved this photo because it is obviously planned but seemingly so spontaneous- it is beautiful, yet its intimacy convinces me I am a part of something private, deeper than the surface. As we embark on a week of telling stories through photography, I thought it'd be fitting to share a photo that grabs an instant. In this way, photography may have may power than words because it sees the fleeting- that breath in the cold cold air that we may have missed as we remain hidden under the layers of our chaotic lives.

Experiment

https://docs.google.com/a/tramhiggins.com/presentation/d/12wTZvQYRNUiCJvDO4f2JqC-IHUqUw5MT7txUmoUFTjg/edit?usp=sharing

Missed Christmas

I missed Christmas last year.

Now, the official story goes that I was on a big and grand adventure. That story isn’t untrue. On Christmas day, I was surrounded by beach and pastel homes and mid-summer like air. There were no snowflakes, like home. I was with a new family- lucky to be taken in, vulnerable to that dangerous feeling in which desperation for home warped me into a shakiness that would love anything.

I got wooden earrings; the spirals hung like wind chimes.

I missed my last Christmas at home. After 10 years of living in my home- suburban, tan, special in no particular way- my parents were selling the house. When I left for Bolivia in August, I remember saying goodbye to my father was the hardest part. My soft spot for him always loosens me in waves. When I said goodbye to him, I held back tears by daydreaming of our last Christmas in our house. I superimposed that picture of happiness over the lump in my throat.

I got to Bolivia, and I got really sad.

I think I was sad before, but the way the permanence of it all seeped into every atom, so that I always was walking on falling tears, left me dizzy. Disorientation and misdirection manifested “angers and jagged edges that [were], perhaps, protests against a growing lightness of being” (Will). So, I stayed, knowingly giving up my last Christmas and my special little corner of the Universe.

On Christmas, I got wooden earrings; the spirals hung like wind chimes. 

Technology broke my isolation a bit. There Christmas day was, huddled in between snowflakes and an iPhone screen. The day was so close it could have whispered in my ear, nuzzled in collarbone. My sadness draped me at the nape of my neck. Sadness like that (sadness that is not just momentary, fleeting) alters your direction. All of a sudden, your memories are always with you. And I know “it is said that God gave us memory so we could have roses in winter”, but those memories misguided me (Will). When sadness infiltrates your memories, the present becomes a vast chasm between you and your loved ones. When it rests at the nape of your neck, you don’t want to be seen in all your ugliness- you want ecstasy and fearlessness and elation. To be seen by your loved ones when sadness is around your neck is to be rendered imperfect.

I put the iPhone screen between me and that day. I put an unsure smile between me and the rest of the world.

On Christmas, I got wooden earrings; the spirals hung like wind chimes. I went home soon after. I missed Christmas day, but I went home soon after. Sadness was still faintly there but it grew to be complimentary to my being, my foreverness (“as foreverness is allotted to us” (Will)).

With wind chimes on my ears, sadness eventually said:

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,

and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,

yours and mine, and

still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

“The Invitation”

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Starter Post

Here's to the Search of the Great Something #4

For my something this week, I am sharing my favorite spoken word poem, "When Love Arrives" by Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye. I share this for a few reasons:

(1) The hopeless romantic in me has been embarrassingly present on this blog. So, a poem about love only seems fitting.

(2) This poem connects many memories of love across time. It is a long reflection from multiple perspectives. In this way it reminded me of my 'Notebook" posts. I connected may feelings from many spaces in my life and tried to turn them 'outward' by highlighting a theme of me being unable to speak the truth to many people in my life. Here, the personal is turned outward and 'love' is the omnipresent metaphor (connects to the in-class drawing activity, eh?). It tells stories, yes, but it leaves us with a lesson that I still covet close to my heart (a lesson that also has to do with 'the silence'): "If Love leaves, ask her to keep the door open behind her. Turn off the music. Listen to the quiet. Whisper, 'Thank you for stopping by."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdJ6aUB2K4g 

Metaphor

Metaphorical

(1) Best Representation

Mint chocolate chip, strawberry, caramel swirl... No matter how you take it, ice cream makes life a lot sweeter. However, its sweetness doesn't come easy: it is an active process of getting chills and avoiding all the melting drops of sugary goodness. In this way, ice cream does 'reflect' the processes and importance of reflection. Reflection begins with placing value on oneself long and steady enough to begin to critically reflect- you must push past the cold, take that positive risk to end with sugary sweetness or a little bit of an uneasy stomach ache or potentially sticky fingers that will leaves traces of yourself every where you go. You indulge, thus, to discover all the feelings resting at the tips of your taste buds.

(2) Worst Representation

Ice cream is cold, but that coldness is fleeting. You indulge knowing the potential consequences: sweetness, stomach ache, sticky fingers. It is a rational choice, and most importantly, it is fleeting- momentary on a hot summer day. On the other hand, reflection requires staying still. You cannot be fleeting, your thoughts cannot be fleeting because an examination of one's self must be purposeful to reveal the extraordinary. Ice cream is nice on a hot summer day; it is not a sustained critical process that can turn someone inside out in the way that shows "imagination is what saves us" (Yancey).

(3) Prediction

Dr. Kt believes the metaphor needs to be expanded- an ice cream cone is much too simple, reductionist to a fault. Perhaps the metaphor should have been a 'banana split' or a Dairy Queen Blizzard or a multi-layered sundae. Reflection (although when popularized, often reduced down to a 'lovey-dovey hippy tendency) is complex and produces diverse results. It is not always easy or hard. It cannot stay restricted to a binary of 'painful' or 'relief'. It has many layers that move beyond the scope of a few scoops of ice cream.

(4) Agree-Disagree With Reaction

While the argument to expand the metaphor to a more complex model is persuasive, I disagree that the metaphor of a three-scoop ice cream cone cannot make an important point in regards to the purpose of reflection. With the metaphor of ice cream, I argue that reflection should be seen as a form of radical self-care or radical self-love. I use the term 'radical' to denote that reflective practitioners must move beyond fleeting thoughts or one-time compliments in order to push their thinking (and thus, their ways of living) to the threshold level. Radical self-care may be a process awash with disturbance and discomfort, but in the end, a more wholesome understanding of the soul awaits- for better or worse. Reflection as radical self-care begins with a positive risk, much like the positive risk of eating ice cream: indulgence with a greater purpose.

Four Posts

(1)

“El amor es nuestra proyección”

Scribbled onto the bottom cusp of a quechua poem, the blue ink drags me alert on this dreary Tuesday morning. Foggy, damp, chilled- all signs show that I should be bundled up in fuzzy socks with my bed dutifully pushing out all the whirs of the World. Mmmm, let’s add a cup of tea there, steaming in my lap.

Regretfully, I come back. And there it is: "love is our projection".

I wonder if he knows I have fallen in love with him. Even if he did know, I’m sure he could not know the moment in which I fell in love, consumed by my own projection. It was just when you pushed those hairs off my forehead all while poking fun at my overly demonstrative demeanor. I so hope you know and share in this projection of ours. I wish to stay on your fingertips.

Paradoxically, of course, I hope that you know all this while I concurrently pray that I will not be the one to say it first. I want it to be known but not said, so that my being in love may stay flawless and fleeting, suspended in our projection.

(2)

Aly Higgins, Filler of Passport Books, Dies at 87

After a long life chasing an insatiable thirst for adventure, Aly Higgins passed away quietly on October 6, 2083. She was found by her upstairs neighbor hours later. The neighbor noted that Higgins held a cup of tea, her legs wrapped up in her favorite quilt.

Higgins spent much of her childhood and young adult life in Colorado. However, she discovered her passion for travel early on; during her senior year of high school, Higgins spent a month traveling to various cities across the island-nation of Indonesia. In the five years that followed, Higgins would trek across all six inhabited continents, leaving footprints in England, South Africa, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, Austria, Turkey, Japan, Australia, Hungary and Argentina. Her pursuit of happiness always seemed to be reflected in her near-obsession with adding stamps to her passport pages.

One of Higgins’ college roommates, who remained in close contact with Higgins over the years, arrived to clear out the apartment. Under a large pile of clothes, the roommate discovered a pile of old notebooks. Assuming the notebooks to be old travel logs (Higgins was an internationally acclaimed travel writer), the roommate read the notebooks as she cleared the closet.

“Honestly, I am so surprised at the contents of her notebooks. This is not what I expected. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make sense of much of Aly’s writing, but I expected more travel stories… You know, even in college, Aly couldn’t sit still. She always wanted to be somewhere else. Of course, she had close friends, and she was always really good at giving all of us these big philosophical speeches, telling us things like: ‘We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were’ (Didion 6). I appreciated the speeches, but it always seemed like Aly gave these speeches to quiet something within herself, to convince herself of something we could never understand. I loved her, but I could never be sure she really loved me. She always seemed to be dreaming of something bigger that I just couldn’t give her. I remember she was dating one of our good friends, but she left after graduation without pause, not saying anything. So, that’s why I am so surprised at these notebooks. You know what’s in them? It’s thoughts about us, all of us who were a part of Aly’s life at some point. There are just pages of her talking about lots of people. Things she never told us… I can’t believe she couldn’t tell us all this.”

After giving this statement, Higgins’ roommate asked to be alone in the apartment.

Higgins appeared to live much of her life on display; she was known as a chatty traveler, never afraid to share her most embarrassing moments with those around her. She embraced a limited openness- she could be vulnerable in many ways, yet she rarely vocalized her feelings for others. She was content in collecting stamps and experiences. Today, Higgins’ loved ones are left with these notebooks- with many thoughts that were left unsaid.

After a long moment of wistful intimacy, Higgins’ roommate ultimately shared: “‘[You know, these notebooks will never belong to us. Aly has shared a lot here, but I’m sure I don’t understand the half of it. Still, even if we don’t understand her, it’s nice to have her here with us in this small way. I mean, i]t is a good idea … to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what [her] notebooks are all about’” (Didion 6).

The memorial for Higgins- daughter, writer, loved one- will be held this Saturday at her family home.

(3)

Still foggy, damp, chilled, I stumbled into my meeting with my thesis advisor. Dr. Mercado and I are in the midst of our ‘relationship-building’ stage. Much of our conversations up to this point have consisted of me begging him to let me write this superweirdnotreallydevelopedsociologicalthingwritteninbrokenSpanish. Typically, our conversations go something like this:

Aly, frazzled college student: *attempts speaking Spanish and flails hands about in crazed fashion, begs Dr. Mercado to let her write something totally not up to his standards*

Dr. Mercado, immensely intelligent DU professor: *blank stare*

Aly, frazzled college student: *…. um, please?*

Dr. Mercado, immensely intelligent DU professor: *sighs before closing eyes and says, in English, ‘Aly, Imma kill you.*

Aly, frazzled college students: *thinks the use of ‘kill’ is probably a little dramatic but also appreciates this unapologetic bluntness. She continues to babble in broken Spanish.*

Dr. Mercado, immensely intelligent DU professor: *eventually sick of frazzled student’s presence, says a reluctant ‘yes’ to things but then promptly gets his revenge by assigning ridiculous amounts of homework to said frazzled college student.*

So there we have it- the usual state of our ‘relationship-building’. Today, however, we moved a step forward. I am not good at giving compliments, and I often keep much to myself even though I know voicing these compliments would bring happiness to those around me. In this way, I rigidly hold many fronteras. Therefore, I was truly shocked when Dr. Mercado, at the end of all my blabbering, said nothing more than this:

“Estoy orgulloso de tú.”

“I’m proud of you.”

(4)

Dear Mom,

On the eve of my graduation, I cannot sleep. I am having a very cliché night. Of course, before this grand milestone in my life, many memories are flashing before my eyes. I think of things I would have never remembered if it were not for the psychological pressure of this looming milestone.

Tomorrow, you already know that I will graduate with a degree, and we will take so many photos to save this moment (well, really this is a collection of many infinite moments crumpled together). But Mom, did you know that I will also graduate with your biting tongue? You are fierce. You are like biting sunshine- radiant in infinite spaces. You are also soft. You were never afraid to hold me, to shake my tears away, boldly telling them that they had no purpose staying there for long.

I am biting like you; I like to be fierce, like you. But, I wish I were softer like you. I wish I could hold people, resting in collective vulnerability. You always stay; I always fidget. I disappear before getting too close to sharing all of my heart. I see tears fall.

Then, I run away as fast as I can.

Teach me to be soft like you, Mom. Teach me how to hold people. Teach me how to say, “I’m proud of you”. Teach me how to say, “I love you” first. I am graduating tomorrow, and I don’t want to be so in my head anymore, Mom. Teach me to turn inside out.

Mom, I never told you that you are my everything. I never was able to stay still long enough to tell you that the small piece of Universe within me stands in awe of the vast Galaxy you embody. I never told you that your laugh is my compass. I never told you that you always bring me home.

On this eve of my graduation, I must tell you that I wouldn’t be here without you. I am so glad you were never afraid to hold me.

Thank you, Mom. Thank you for everything. Don’t worry, I am getting some sleep now. I am falling asleep to the hope that someday, someday if I work awful hard, I will be soft like you, my biting sunshine.

Love,

Your Daughter