middle schmiddle

Jet black jungle bunny...

I'm keeping that one.

I'm sitting in my apartment drinking Jasmine tea and listening to Brandi Carlyle. My skin is so dry, my lips are dry, my body misses Austin's humidity.

My own understanding of "middleness" relates to my experiences with travel. I often feel as though I'm in the middle of a variety of things, like: two places (the place I just left and the place I'll go to next), two identities (the person I was in the old place and the person I'll become through my experiences in the new place), and two other identities (how I feel myself most intimately vs. how I'm trying to relate to the culture of the place I'm in <--I find myself between those identities).

Sometimes the feeling of middleness, or in-between-ness, is liberating; I'm not bound to the rules of a single place, to the culture based group-mentality that many of its long-term dwellers come to occupy. Sometimes middleness feels isolating; when I want things, like a sure community or a stable lover, and rules start to look like the way to go (i.e. do this, or act this way, and you'll get this).

I think that ultimately I'm in between two natural human desires, though maybe I'm more sensitive to the tension than some. These two are a desire for variety and change and a longing for reassurance (stability, constancy and balance). Elena, you've told me about your wish to reconcile the two.

I want to be at peace with this kind of middleness; to not feel as though one thing--constancy vs. variety--is better than another. My mom stayed with me for four days, and she spent a lot of time dreaming about my future. To her, Arkansas is only a middle-place: the gap between college and the rest of my life. To her telling, this is how it'll go: after this brief stint in the south, during which I'll learn valuable job skills at my internship, I'll move to NYC or San Francisco, get a job, apply to graduate school, meet my true love (according to her I'll only ever have a normal dating life when I decide to move to an intellectual community. All I have to do is give in and go to Columbia). "Then you can stop this gypsy lifestyle," she says.

I understand all the appeal of her dream. Some of it sounds attractive to me. But I don't know if I can do it. Even if I do go to New York, it'll be with gypsy intention--to live an exciting, unrooted life. Maybe what I'm referring to as "middleness" is a seed deeply sewn, one that all my actions & outlook grow from (in which case it shouldn't be called middleness at all: it's more a beginning, middle and end).

I met this guy at a film screening I attended alone in Little Rock two nights ago. He was from Arkansas, moved to L.A. to attend film school, lived in a bus for a while, then moved back to Arkansas five years ago. He was open, frank, warm and funny. Those are qualities I respect and want to emulate. I think I see them most in modern "gypsies."

if i type "jbjbem" into the search box, it takes me to the urban dictionary entry for jbjb : a jet black jungle bunny

i'm still in middle america. i was about to make some crack about being a middle child, but none of us is one.

i've been thinking a lot about death. my grandmother, who's 95, told me a little while ago, "old people don't have a future, they only have the past and the present." this was kind of immediately depressing to me at the time, and i kind of made her this sad face and she just looked at me and said "its true" in a very matter-of-fact manner. the past year particularly i've had this growing fear that my grandparents were going to die and i was going to forget a lot of things about them, and that i wouldn't be able to pass on the memory of how amazing they were to potential future generations. i felt this heavy weight, and that i was likely going to fuck up and drop it. this time i've spent with them now has kind of reduced that fear, in some ways. i think this is in part because i'm getting more comfortable with death (but more uncomfortable with the fact that i was uncomfortable with it to begin with), and in part because i'm figuring out some balance between beginnings, middles and ends.

i recently started meditating regularly, and while i'm sitting there, trying to clear my mind and focus on my breathing, i repeatedly catch myself thinking about the things i should be doing instead of actually doing them. and therein lies the problem.

i don't know how much of a blog writer i am, i kind of feel like i'm writing some shitty inspirational speech.

an idea

Joanna, I know you're back in the states.  Why don't you post something about MIDDLE America?

Middles

A couple of weeks ago Amanda, one of the interns, brought some of her city friends to the farm. She got up at 5:30am with the rest of us to help load the van for the market. Once Michaele left she went back to bed in her tent with her two city boys; she slept for another three hours while the rest of us went to work in the fields. Once the sun had risen higher the three stumbled out of their tent and out to join us weeding in the fields. One of the boys mentioned a question his housemate asked him recently: "which do you like better: the beginning, middle or end". I think this is an interesting way to consider things. The other boy, more of a cynic, said "yeah, then you end up talking about nothing for hours". I retorted "So what do you prefer talking about, starvation in Africa? Is that talking about something?"
But he had a good point--that it is quite a vague question and it really depends on what it is. If it is something you dislike you will prefer the end; and you will like the beginning and middle best when it is something you really love.
Thinking about this question I realized that generally I love beginnings and I don't usually mind ends too much, but I have a problem with middles. I love the excitement and anticipation that comes with beginnings: they are times of potential and pure possibility. I probably like ends of things because they are also the beginning of something else. But I often find that in the middle of things I am not content--I am continuously looking forward to the next beginning. I have trouble being in the moment; enjoying the now. The unexciting, the normal, the middle of things. And this is what most of life is: the middle. Middles are where things are built and where things grow. I often get myself through the middle of things by planning new things, new beginnings. But is this a good way to be? Always consumed with plans for the future; preventing me from focusing on what is happening to me right now.
So I suppose this is why I suggested it as a theme; I would like to try to come to terms with middles and get better at appreciating them.