The Granny Smith apple core at the edge of a coffee saucer

The single carnation set to balance on the edge of the English Department’s bike rack

The old man whose slowly biking his way down Broad St. whistling a tune I can’t recognize

The old woman whose taking a break from weeding at the edge of her vegetable box

the single star that’s somehow fought its way out from under the clouds to show itself off in the cube of sky my window holds

chocolate sprinkled across a cappuccino

the touch of another human being against my shoulder, on a crowded sofa, in the palm of my hand

Every time I read Sohrab Sepehri’s poems I’m awed by his ability to  notice such fine threads of vibrancy in life’s tapestry, but I think this week I’ve learned: It’s only when the flame inside you is so weak that the smallest rush of cold breath could put it, that you burn through every potential piece of warmth.

I’ve realized since coming to Oxford that my writing process is considered quite strange. I often go through at least three to four full drafts of work before I start to think about grammar, word choice and all those juicy details. In fact, my first draft is a ‘free-write’ of everything I think on the topic I’m writing about. As strange as my process is, it means that I usually have a full draft before most of my colleagues , though my first draft will probably require far greater editing/rewriting than their first draft. But I find this ‘free-write’ process not only incredibly enjoyable, but also essential. All students in the humanities know that you don’t REALLY know what you’re really even striving to say until you’ve finished the final sentence of your first draft. To write the first draft, I usually put on good music and then just start writing with the rule that I can’t stop for a good two hours and by then I will have all my ideas out in some sort of logical order.  Once it’s over, I’m exhausted. Try writing for even ten minutes non-stop. It’s not easy. It demands a state of intense concentration. But there’s a thrill. It has speed. It has drive. It takes on a power of its own. Soon you find yourself sitting behind the wheel, just taking it in, enjoying the ride, the view, only occasionally making a move to make sure that words don't jut out too far from the lane.

But this time it’s different. I can’t start. I just don’t have the energy right now. I started out in the library, and couldn’t get through a paragraph. Now I’m sitting in a coffee shop, an Americano and vanilla pastry later, I’ve barely moved through a page without stopping from mental weariness. How will I ever turn this in by tomorrow? Everything in my life has become so exhausting. I’m climbing to get to the top of a slide, and with every step I’m finding that the ladder is getting taller and taller.

Nests & Things

If I was asked what animal I would like to be, I would say bird (at least this week, I would). Not because they can fly (to me, running is like flying).But because the nest I saw yesterday, on the branch of the tree painted in autumn’s shades of red, yellow and orange, nestled in the walkway between my college and my department building, was very messy. The nest was disheveled. It had bits of branches sticking out of its sides. It had pieces of yarn, and paper candy wrappers, and even a bit of cloth poking out its sides. It was messy and disorganized, and yet perfect in every way because I knew that the bird who had built it earlier in the Spring loved it. Not only was it just enough for her, but it was where she fluffed out warmth to her eggs. It was where she taught her babies to fly and watched them learn to swallow.

And yet, she left it. She flew away and left the home with all of its woven memories. Wherever she is, she knows that the autumn that’s easing into winter will unravel her home and all its branches will fall to the earth.

But she doesn’t mind. When it’s time again, she’ll build another. Maybe again on this tree. Maybe one in a walkway that gets more sun. Maybe, not even in Oxford.

Last night when I got home, I rolled up my sleeves put on thick washing gloves and cleaned the bathroom, kitchen and my bedroom. Once all the loose paper in my room was in ‘neat’ piles across my desk, and my clothes were all hidden in one way or another in the closet or in my drawers, I knew I was ready. I put my backpack in the center of the room. I reached in and pulled out what I’d been thinking about all day—the two big pomegranates I had bought from the small market. I placed each of them on my bookshelf, nestled between my favorite novels and the photos of Mehdi and my sister. And then I stood back. Yes, this home is ready for the weekend.

This morning I woke up and noticed my crooked ceiling lamp. The broken fridge irritated me. The water in the shower that’s either burning hot or freezing cold annoyed me. The desk chair with its broken back nearly drove me mad. The lamp shade that’s dislodged and wobbles dramatically from one side to another….

There is so much I must learn from birds. 

Walls at their breaking point

In the middle of our complex lesson on Attached Pronouns in Classical Arabic, our tutor slipped in a short aside on the “guarding alif.” The alif that appears in perfect plural verbs. It’s not read. It’s silent. It just stands there like a wall, he said, as he drew a sharp, vertical line down on the white board. It stands there to let you know that this word ends here. And its stays there. Well, that is until we need to attach a pronoun or something to it. With a swipe of his thumb, he obliterated the guarding alif and gave it ownership.  

Last night I came home from Paris. I’d spent three days talking incessantly to one of my dearest friends. When I rode to the airport on Friday, I felt like I was scrambling out of Oxford for a breath of fresh air. Last night, when I returned, I climbed up the three sets of stairs to my attic room. I opened the door and felt the rush of iced breeze. My radiator had been off for the length of my three day trip, and steeping into my room felt like stepping into a freezer. The central heat was off for the night. I changed and slipped under my duck feathered duvet, and pulled another blanket over myself. The air was so cold that my forehead was starting to pound. I shut my eyes, and while I was so exhausted, the freeze in my nose was so alarming I couldn’t sleep. I spent hours going back and forth between suffocating under my blanket and bringing my head out only to freeze. The night passed. I woke up with the headache I’ve had all day. Sleeping in cold isn’t unfamiliar. I do it often, only not in a room with walls. I sleep in the cold when I’m in the mountains, when I’m near the highest peak in mainland America, when I’m at the edge of the Sierra lakes. I take the cold as a gift from the star ceiling over my head. But in this room, in this house, in this city that is defined by its medieval walls, this air was painful.

This headache has been a lens. Everything I’ve done today, touched today, I’ve seen and read and experienced through this headache and the story that came with it. I’m immersed in a world of invisible walls: my hard book cover, the gloves that protect my fingers from the slashing breeze as I ride my bike, exhaustion, the locked café doors.

I’m reading a book about ultrarunners, people who never ran a day in their life, who become proof of man’s unlimited and boundless capabilities by running hundreds of miles in unimaginable natural terrain. They break every physical, mental, and emotional boundary we think exists. I’m close to the finish line, only 20 pages left to read, and I can’t decide if this book has been uplifting or miserable. Because every time I’m confronted with such inspiration, with people who break every link in their chain, I’m upset by how bounded I feel. Knowing what we can achieve and knowing how to achieve it are different from actually believing you, yourself are capable of it.

Walls are as easy to bring down as they are to build. I’ve realized this even more from this painful and stubborn headache. It’s not the swipe of the finger that really matters, but what we attach ourselves to once we’re standing in the vast boundless openness before us that gives it meaning.