"What does this vaingloriousness down here?”

After reading all three of the assigned Robert Browning poems for my class, it is clear that Browning had a liking for the use of parentheses in his poems. It seems (to me at least) that whenever it is inserted, there is a hint of sarcasm and wit that is spliced into the lines. For instance, the line from “Love Among the Ruins” in the beginning, “Was the site once of a city great and gay, / (So they say)”. Even if the parentheses weren't intended to have a criticizing tone, in today’s world we typically attach that phrase to express doubt or sneer at what comes before. Upon reading the whole poem, it seems that this perspective isn’t far off.

The speaker of the poem has some interesting introspection as he heads along the ruins of the city with anticipation at seeing his yellow-haired lover (I hope it’s not Porphyria, or else run). The way in which he describes the city’s past features and feats are not necessarily in a manner of reverence or awe. He claims the citizens believed “that glory and that shame alike, the gold / Bought and sold,” which implies that gold is not an ideal way to bring about feelings of glory and shame. In fact, when describing the landscape in the present day, he seems pleased at what nature has done: “And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass / Never was!”. Aside from the obvious words “plenty” and “perfection”, the use of the exclamation point helps to solidify that he prefers the way nature has overridden whatever came before it, however vainglorious it was (thank you Thomas Hardy for that vocabulary). This presents slight similarities to Coleridge in “Kubla Khan”, where nature always prevails over whatever humans try to do. In its simplest form, it is a pretty patch of grass that blankets over an ancient civilization as if to say “I’m here again.” In the beginning of the poem, I get the potentially far-reaching idea that the “quiet-coloured end of evening smiles” is a way of nature smiling at what it has done after the city is completely gone. Speaking of figurative language, the imagery in this poem is heavily favorable toward nature, which can give more hints at the speaker’s attitude right from the first stanza.

When the speaker predicts complete silence when he reaches his lover and they embrace, I believe he is highlighting an important distinction between his situation and the ancient city. Despite being completely without words, he knows the love he shares with her is much more powerful, passionate, and meaningful than any of the loud and prideful history of the ancient city. In addition to this, the final words labelling the lives lived filled with “foolishness” and “sin” cement his attitude. The views in this poem mimic the sentiments in Romantic poems like “Ozymandias” and “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”, in which it is clear that no amount of glorious things will last forever. Should it be a surprise that Browning was a deep admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Percy Shelley? I even struggle to believe that the speaker’s love for the girl will last forever—there is little that we know of her besides her “eager” eyes, and in a way this type of description of her reminds me of “She Walks in Beauty”. 

On a side note, the silence the speaker mentions in this poem reminded me of Sonnet 13 from Sonnets from the Portuguese. Perhaps, just as Elizabeth’s silence is a way of “dauntless, voiceless fortitude”, Robert may have taken inspiration from this as to why he wanted the girl in his poem to “say nothing” when they greet. SILENCE ho.

Good Morning and Good Night

I wouldn't pay so much mind to running if I wasn't able to do it anymore, but recently, against my better judgement, I decided to go out anyway. I haven't even been able to take the time to admire all the intricacies of the environment. Because I was going so slow, however, I paid more attention to everything. 

    Typically I leave at twilight, when the cool air begins to settle in, and for the chance of a pretty colored sky; though, none can really top a sunset at Polihale. By the end, the sun has completely settled and everything is dark, but this is when you can notice the little details of each house. I must say, our neighborhood (and I presume other neighborhoods around) always does an excellent job at decorating for Halloween. It might seem over the top at first, and maybe a bit tawdry at times, but then I come to appreciate how Halloween can really bring life into an otherwise plain street. Looking past all the consumerism, prepping for a holiday nearly months in advance is, at its core, a reminder of something to look forward to. The same thing happens during Christmas, except the weather is wonderfully cold and suitable for a run at any time of the day. And oh, the sound of the heater turning on in the morning is one of the most soothing house sounds of all. 

    So as I moved slowly past the houses, I began to notice the gradual increase in houselights. It's incredibly strange how void of life the homes look without lights, during the middle of the day, ironically when it's sunny and bright. I forget that people are in fact living in them until I see the lights come on in the upstairs rooms or kitchen. Some lights are warm yellow while others are whiter and brighter. In any case, it's one of the few things to point out when my thoughts are idling on a lonely street. 

    To kill the rest of that quietness, I often head to the main road with much heavier traffic. It feels slightly safer to run here because of the overabundance of light and paved sidewalks, but it's louder and more stop-and-go. Given enough effort, I can make it to a park to get an area of repose before going back on the main road, but what I like more is wandering into other residential blocks not of my own to do much of the same as before. Really, the houses look much of the same. As a bastard would, I can guess, based on the exterior of the houses, what the family could look like and contrive fake scenarios in my head of their daily life...

    "Honey, it's time to get up. You have school today..."

    "What do you want for breakfast? The Cheerios or waffles?"

    "Looks like that 405 Southbound is experiencing a slowdown from a head on..."

    "Good morning... Let's go outside..."

    "See you later, have a good day."

    "Your hair looks gre-at!"

    

You know, the ones with the beautiful wooden doors and high windows that look into their living room or, at the very least, the hallway to the kitchen/living room always seem to get this imagination going in me. There is just something so human in the frame of each house, the placement of the garage, their lawns, their plants, and everything in between. 

    And, on the topic of Halloween, it's nice to see the life within the lit rooms of the homes make its way out into the streets. I remember the Halloweens being remarkably at-ease. Hardly could I want stay in; not with the fantastic weather we'd all been wanting after an extended summer, and not with the excuse to stroll with a hand in my pocket in the same streets I run while out of breath. One Halloween night, when we did not go out, my cousins dropped by our house just because. Upon opening the door, they let themselves in, which the rest of their friends that were tagging along with them took as a sign to also waltz right in. They got their candy, but for some reason they all decided to sit at our large dining table to recuperate (or God only knows what). It was hilarious; I joked that our living room had just become a classroom. 

    Seeing all these decorations out is in other words charming and drastically helps improve my dampened mood from my injury. I'm going to make a wish out of an airplane and pretend that it's a shooting star to get over this already. 

A Fire Escape?

Only when the door shut behind me did I realize that a moment repeated itself. I felt like Julius in the final memory of Open City, in which his hands held "metal, my eyes starlight, and it was as though I had come so close to something that it had fallen out of focus, or fallen so far away from it that it had faded away.” The sky had an unpleasant gloom, giving me no feeling of relief from the agonizingly hot weather of the week. I imagined myself alone, in "solitude of a rare purity", stumbling down the steps of the theater in total darkness to accidentally exit out of the fire escape. But this was not the case. I was in no blind spot, there were no stars, and I did not leave through the wrong door. At the end I looked at the sky once more, and suddenly, as if my unnecessary prayers came true, it began to rain. The sky turned into a gorgeous blue as the afternoon shifted to the evening, completely destroying the neutral gray of the entire first half of the day. Since my leg had been injured earlier in the week, I hadn't been able to process my thoughts during the high of a late-night jog. Had I become addicted to the feeling of running? Surely I was going through some sort of withdrawal symptoms. Now I was itching for the hit of endorphins just as I would cross the street into the dimly lit park, and upon which descending the hill at a breakneck speed overwhelms my body with the cold air trapped within the lower region. How demoralizing it was. Once I arrived home I tore off my shoes and reached down to massage my leg, but just as I did so, another wave of the dull ache made me stop and shut my eyes in defeat.

"The face of the world is changed, I think"

Since first I saw what I saw today. Sometime I wonder if I have a heart too soon made glad.

Heading along the road parallel to the elementary school, I saw a mother and her daughters as I approached the intersection. Just as I slowed to a stop, both of the daughters waved diligently to the car that was stopping to my left. My heart...! Upon completing my left turn I realized they were waving at a presumed friend in the backseat of the other car. I was caught off guard at how innocently cute it was, and at how it reminded me of my younger days of elementary school. For this fleeting moment in my day, despite its undeniable mundane-ness, the face of the world is changed, I think.

"Acoustics of time, domed time..."

 “Moji had brought Anna Karenina with her, and she leaned on her elbow and read from the thick volume—it was one of the new translations—only occasionally interrupting herself to participate in the conversation. And a few yards away from us was a young father calling out to his toddler who was wandering away: Anna! Anna!”

— Open City

     Teju Cole

Suddenly glancing at this line sitting inside the restaurant has put me into another state of reverie. Well most will never know, but oh my. It reminds me also of:

"‘Lo! Lola! Lolita!’ I hear myself crying from a doorway into the sun..." 

What is it about calling out for someone in vain? 

At teatime, everybody agrees.

Today my professor entered the room on the day of our math test with what I thought was a coffee from Starbucks. Between hopeless looks around the room while stuck on a problem, I examined his coffee more carefully only to realize that it was tea, not coffee. At first I was disgusted—and I pray that my face did not show that—but then I figured that it might not be a matter of preference, but rather that he simply can't drink coffee. Perhaps it was payback for my immediate judgement, but as I closing the lid to my coffee it splashed a few drops on my paper. I justified my hostility because his exam was unnecessarily difficult at times, and yes, I am absolutely saying that to cope with my incompetency. Baffling still was that he boldly displayed his Venti sized cup with the mystery tea bag handle draped on the outside as if that was perfectly normal. Honestly, no matter how many times I give tea a try, and no matter how strong I make it, a taste of plain hot water still comes through most of the flavor. I get the impression that it's the same feeling that those who hate flavored sparkling water (which ironically I love) get. The worst thing of all, however, is the agonizingly disappointing taste of a weak coffee that’s basically water with a memory of coffee grounds... Just throw it all away.

(This is completely satirical, obviously.)

Fun In Letter Writing

We have got to go back to the 1800s where people used to write letters.

Because I just graduated high school, I've been writing a lot of thank you notes to everyone who graciously sent cards, but because writing is a secret little love of mine, the thank you notes have transformed into a thank you letter, with one exceeding over 1500 words for seemingly no reason. Though it might seem tedious to write a bunch of letters by hand, I've actually found the process quite charming. The delicate process of drafting the letter in my notebook, revising and editing it in a blue pen, and then carefully transferring the final draft into a separate sheet of paper that smells like trees and books with a tint of beige is one that I'm starting to like a lot. My right middle finger has a giant blister, my hand is cramping, and my desk is a smeared mess of ink, but it's great. 

The practical use of letters seems to be dwindling by the second, which I totally understand, but at the same time, the craft of composing a letter start to finish despite our modern technology is one I believe should be preserved. It is infinitely more personal, more intentional, and more fun! It's like writing a personal mini-essay for someone where you can show off your best writing skills and literary elements to sound sophisticated and graceful. Since it's not a face-to-face conversation, you can fine-tune and tweak your message as much as possible to send out your best. Those who do it in an email typically have the advantage of using AI or other technology to aid them, but writing by hand makes it a lot harder (plus, then it takes the personal aspect of it away). And nobody is going to fine-tune a text message, thus letters are a great way to put forth good writing.

This afternoon, for example, I sat in the library with my notebook staring out the window for a bit trying to think of what to write. It took a while, but once the words started, the process felt natural. Just because it's faster and more convenient to type doesn't always mean it's better, right?