Love, Rachael Caine

Email project. the thing is, I'm having a difficult relationship with the email right now. Its impulsive, leaves too much room for my impulsive nature to engage in a conversation or a thought and then be past it or over it by the time someone responds and engages back.email is risky business. i see the allure for love letters, but the rest of its means are risky. yes, risky.

A poem from Csterne

Laura,

I just read this poem In my endless, not so rigorous, flipping through. It made me think of the Quarter Life Crisis Quarterly. Maybe we will look back on our twenties like this?

Caroline

TO MY TWENTIES

How lucky that I ran into you
When everything was possible
For my legs and arms, and with hope in my heart
And so happy to see any woman--
O woman! O my twentieth year!
Basking in you, you
Oasis from both growing and decay
Fantastic unheard of nine- or ten-year oasis
A palm tree, hey! And then another
And another--and water!
I'm still very impressed by you. Whither,
Midst falling decades, have you gone? Oh in what lucky fellow,
For the moment in any case, do you live now?
From my window I drop a nickel
By mistake. With
You I race down to get it
But I fund there on
The street instead, a good friend,
X---------- N---------, who says to me
Kenneth do you have a minute?
And I say yes! I am in my twenties!
I have plenty of time! In you I marry,
In you I first go to France; I make my best friends
In you, and a few enemies. I
Write a lot and am living all the time
And thinking about living. I loved to frequent you
After my teens and before my thirties.
You three together in a bar
I always preferred you because you were midmost
Most lustrous apparently strongest
Although now that I look back on you
What part have you played?
You never, ever, were stingy.
What you gave me you gave whole
But as for telling
Me how best to use it
You weren't a genius at that.
Twenties, my soul
Is yours for the asking
You know that, if you ever come back.

- Kenneth Koch

Spiritual Crisis

I went to yoga this morning. I went to church on Palm Sunday. I sat next to a Baptist minister on the plane and talked to him for two hours. The Bhagavad Gita sits next to my bed. I have read both the Tao De Ching and the Tao of Pooh. I wrote a paper in high school about whether the beat generation was as Buddhist as they laid claim to be. I went to an astrologer one year ago today. And Anne Lamott's "Grace Eventually" sits next to my bed.

I am enraptured with those who believe, trust, and have faith in something larger than themselves. I am so intrigued and jealous mostly, of those who have something secure to grab onto and wonder, again and again, how they got to that place. It seems to have a lot to do with vulnerability--about opening yourself up to something and letting go. It is an act of giving over. But how do you choose which one to give over to? Can you really be open to all of it and truly experience the kind of faith, enlightenment, or trust that is offered to you?

I am not sure. All I know is that yoga was hard today. I couldn't get to a higher place for even one second. I couldn't sink into that darker, quieter part of my brain and reach any point of peace. It was wild and crazy in there and I wondered if maybe yoga wasn't my path. Maybe back to church this Sunday. Maybe I need an astrology appointment.

Choice in spirituality. Its a fairly new thing. Something I think our generation is blessed with. But do we ultimately have to choose something? Or can we continue to choose nothing?

First Post, Test Post

Checka 1 Checka 1, 2. I promise my next post will be of some consequence--for now just a test.

My March

Just a taste of the various mind of someone mid-crisis.

March 4:
From email to Alissa Romanow

i am generally alright alright. applying for jobs for next year. excited to maybe start a writing workshop camp this summer or next or in the fall. just a few kids and a lot of words. in my basement or in a community center. its a hope and a dream but it could be something that i could volunteer to do in schools and stuff. i want to do that. i want to hang out with teenagers and hear their stories and have them get recognized for their stories. create a zine or something....i ended up going to that thing that jon suggested i go to. it was pretty interesting. nothing new but hearing it again was good--that anything CAN be possible. that if your way of thinking about something isnt working, why not think differently? and ultimately, i came up with this plan for a writing camp type thing. which is a motivating thing for me right now. just to think about...play with...etc. but, i am also applying for lots of other jobs. i think i want to stay in philly for another year but yesterday i applied to work at a school in costa rica. i have trust that i will end up where i need to. but its also fun to put a lot of shit out there.

March 11:
From email to Cordelia Jensen

Thinking that I will most definitely be in Philly next year. At least, I dont want to leave. I really want to stay, delve in, create, hang out, be around all my friends, and play here. Imagining journeying somewhere else makes me feel icky. But I did apply to work at a school in Costa Rica...so you never know...I will most likely be here though. And maybe do some working with you guys?! Unless I get a fantabulous job. And I dont know what Karson's status is gonna be...




March 30:
From email to Alex Smith
i think i am doing better here. now that it is sunny, i wonder how i can get a job that leads me outside. i am looking at all these pictures of summer search kids on their summer adventures and getting super itchy. i chose not to go back to the farm and i think that was the right choicee--to give philly a real and honest chance--but argh, to be outside all day! and sleep there too! i will have to build myself a sleeping porch perhaps....your good at building things, wanna build me one?

i have made rules for myself that are helping. i am not allowed to think about moving anywhere until at least august and probably not really until january. i have to breathe more. read more. check email less. and continue to give things a shot, even if they fail the first time.

Quarter Life Crisis Quarterly

This is where we share our stories as we go through this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis.

Any story. About any thing. Write now.