this is my first blog post.

I’ve never really tried blogging before.  The idea has appealed to me for a while, but I’ve gone back and forth between yes-definitely-gonna-start-one-soon and ummm-way-too-busy-bro.  I blame it on college. *sticks out tongue at school*

But that’s really only a teasing tongue.  Partially because plenty of my classmates have blogs and post regularly, but mostly because I love school (if you’re still in high school and think I’m crazy, I promise, college is better) and really, really miss being up there.  I’m home for the summer, and that’s cool, but I honestly can’t wait until Fall Semester.

So, I’m a college student home for a few months.  We’ll check that off the list of things you ought to know for a lot of the blog to make sense and jive.

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Also important!  I have a sneaking suspicion that cephalopods are plotting to take over the world.  Think about it.  They’re smart.  They live down in the depths of the ocean, and we really can’t say for sure what they’re up to down there.  Add that to the fact that they have tentacles.  Then consider that many of them have beaks.

Fleshy tentacle things with beaks.  World domination is clearly the only possibility going on with that combination.  H.P. Lovecraft was kinda visionary, guys.

(I’m an English major with a Writing minor, so I can be excused these little flights of fancy.  Lovecraft suffered from night terrors as a child, and he made up things like this:

Keep in mind that this is in the ocean.  Cthulhu is BIG.

That’s not really a justification for why I should be excused from having a realistic view of the world, but look at that guy.  Seriously.)

Coming home after your first year at school is a bit… tricky.  Not bad, exactly.  Just weird.  You make all these wonderful friends at school, fall in love with campus, dig your classes and profs, spend all your time pretending it’ll never end, et cetera blah blah blah BOOM SUMMER.

School friends!!  I'm on the left.  In the middle is Anna, who is super nice and (sadly for us) has graduated.  Jacob is on the far side, and he is my bro and fellow poet.  We were standing on a picnic table that was partially submerged in flood.  It was awesome.

School, like anything, has its ups and downs and all arounds.  The whole year wasn’t as non-stop wonderful as that last bit made it seem.  But it was one of the best periods in my life.  And it will continue to be, of course, come Autumn.

Meanwhile, my family is moving.

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Day 1: In Which Mom Sits Sister Sibling And I Down And Revelates The Revelation

I was fairly thrown.  We’ve lived here, in our big log house out in the woods, for almost thirteen years.  It’s pretty.  It’s woodsy.  There’s a gigantic swamp and a scary swath of woods where there is definitely, definitely some kind of presence that’s not entirely friendly.  Might be imagined, but I think Cthulhu’s gonna rise out of the sea one of these days.  Obviously I don’t base my view of real on what’s usually understood when you hear the world ‘real’.

So, to have possibly created a magical and not-exactly-benevolent forest being means you’ve got some emotional investment, right?  So suddenly I’m all react react react.  Every emotion was like, ‘Bro, you’ve gotta feel a lot of feels’.

I did, but it was really weird.  I can’t exactly put it into words.  I wasn’t upset (this was all about two weeks ago), exactly, but I was definitely rattled.  It was sort of like a flatline, if flatlines thumped about and went to raves.  If that makes any sense.

Moving’s not a first for mia famiglia– we’re Italian (70%ish), so I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to throw in applicable phrases in the wrong declension– since we moved out here years ago.  But it’s been a while.  I got in touch with a friend from school who’s moved a lot and kind of talked it out.  She was awesome and sent me a long response and was really encouraging.  Yay friends!

Day [Insert the Rest of the Days Between Day 2 and this Exact Moment]: In Which The Revelated Revelation Reveals Itself More Fully

After a little bit, the initial surprise– it’s not every morning your mom sits you down and says, ‘Guys, we’re moving.’– I’ve been pretty ok.  Yes, it’s a big change, and yes, I have a love/ hate relationship with the whole change thing.  Plus, if I could measure the weight of change in the past year, it’d be something close to Godzilla.

Actually, this isn't to scale.  Godzilla's big, but not that big.  Still.  You get the idea.  Size.

Details will likely emerge in future posts.

But change is essential to avoid stagnating and getting stuck in a rut, and getting stuck in a rut is really not fun or healthy or even particularly interesting.  It’s also, well, change.  Upsetting all the comforts of life and generally being all unsettling.

Honestly, though, a lot of things started to come together for me over the past weeks.

Change upsets the comforts of life, but that’s actually good thing.  Not a nice thing, always, because nice things don’t upset the comforts of life.  Comfort, though, isn’t necessarily good– that’s the second time I’ve used that word, which I suspect is important– but growth, development, progression always forward to truly realize yourself, those are good.

By good, I mean something that really benefits you as a human being.

Poetry is good, for example.  I love poetry, and there have been times I’ve lived for the sake of my writing.  Math is good.  I’m not good at it, but algebra is beautiful.  Let me hear you say symmetry, right?  Both are challenges, though.  Both require change.  Try writing a poem without some kind of change as a catalyst.  Even if you do, it won’t work, because everything is change.  Nothing is static.  Putting pen to page is change.  Jump back to the algebra idea– solving the equation doesn’t change it, exactly, as you’re rendering the answer that it always represented, but it does mean change for you, as the solver.  You now know the answer to the riddle.

Ok.  Back to life and the moving thing.  Moving is change.  Change is hard.  But change is essential, and everything is basically change, because without it, we’re entropy.  Decay.  And even that is change– decreasing is change, too.  Heh, look at me, including everybody.  Hugs all around.

I digress.

Even my typing is change.  I just turned my head slightly.  Change.  My best friend got married last year.  Change.  Cephalopodic monsters will someday conquer the world and devour our souls.  Change.

So, without meaning to, these beliefs (which rattle around inside me and every once in a while stumble out into the starkness of the world and spend a while trying to explain themselves through my super unfocused writing) re-asserted themselves and said, ‘Bro, it’s all good.  Change, man.  Plus, you like the new house.’

(Which I do.  That’s not important right now, though.)

Thus, my family and I will be moving soon.  Less than a month.  *gulps, still being somewhat apprehensive* I’ve packed up my bookshelves (all three of ‘em), smoked my last few cigars, and started telling my friends and reassuring them that yes, we won’t be moving far, yes, I’ll be back at Alma this Fall, and no, I’m really doing ok, though long hugs and conversations are always uber welcome.

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During the course of our conversation, the lovely friend I mentioned earlier who I talked to the day I found out we were moving told me she wasn’t going to tell me everything’d be ok, since it’s not really an expression that proves to be true.  And she was very wise in that– everything’s not going to be ok, and that, surprisingly, is what is ok.  We must change.  I must change.  Hopefully I’ll get some good poems out of it.

Definitely not ending on that cute little here’s-your-take-away point, ‘cause that’s just cheesy.  (I agree.  Saying cheesy is cheesy.)  I hope this wasn’t boring.  Nothing is as awful as boring.  Probably because boring represents sameness and thus not change, but that’s taking the argument a bit far.  At least for today.  Anyways, I promise* to post at least once a week, or more when my schedule can manage it.  I have a few ideas swirling about in my head already, and writing this was actually pretty fun.

Take care, guys.

*Read, ‘vaguely have the best intentions’