Mantramine is one of my favorite bloggers. And that's not just because she likes to explain codependency and unfulfilling jobs in geeky Star Trek terms I relate to. And it's not just because she is such a totally kick ass writer. It's because she ends each post with the day's mantra, in a way that weirdly parallels the way I've been writing for years.
I've been keeping a journal since I was nine or ten years old. (Let me tell you, those first attempts at writing are... Well I suppose you could call them entertaining, you know, in the way B movies are, but...) I think some time around high school (I'm too damn lazy to get the journals out and check), I began signing each entry "Blackbird." That was my name for that part of myself that the rest of the world didn't know, the dark part, the broken part, the singing part, the part that mixed my experiences with my words in a constant, desperate alchemical attempt to create art. And I think some time around college (see lazy, above), I began writing a word or sometimes a line after the signature to summarize the entry, a kind of title at the end, but not really. Really it was more like Mantra's mantras.
Here, see for yourself. Mantra, this one is for you. And I think you'll know why...
Tuesday, July 20, 1999I heard the words on the [business] trip to [insert dull corporate retreat location here] -- "if you lead only half a life the other half will haunt you until you develop it." I believe it was meant to inspire me to achieve great new things in the realm of customer service. Instead, I push back that ghost of pen and paper before me that will intrude on all my mortal thoughts with its remember me. I say someday -- someday -- but I know someday never comes. I am afraid to seize the day. I am weak and cautious. I am haunted -- unsatisfied. Do I dare to eat a peach?
BLACKBIRD
how shall i begin
This journal entry contains six separate allusions to literature, music, etc... And I am counting the signature, but not the quote by the unknown corporate motivational speaker among them. Bonus points for the person who guesses the most.
Well, since I'm first, I'll do the obvious ones: "Do I dare...." from Prufrock and "Blackbird" from the Beatles. Not the most, I'm sure!
I'm so bad at this type of game...I won't even try
Whatever. I'm not playing this game, even though I'd TOTALLY WIN, just because you're flirting with Mantra.
MPJ + Mantra = BFF
You guys are so seriously deleted from CF...
I was gonna write this beautiful thank you for loving me like this (what more could a blogger want?) then I read JW's comment and fell off my chair.
Mantra + MPJ. I heart MPJ
That was lovely my fellow trek geek
Love me like you love Mantra......
I took having four undiscovered allusions as a challenge and did a little Googling (the only one of the six I would have gotten without any research is Blackbird). I'm also willing to be that at least one of these is wrong, LOL.
How shall I begin — K. Curtis Lyle, Henry Dumas Walking through Subway Skulls, "How shall I begin? / Where do I tear the cloth / Of what God can give to man? / Of what man can give to man? / Of what man can give to woman / that in the end / is of value to himself?"
Weak and cautious — from Professor [Augustus?] De Morgan, "Many a river has to be crossed by a ford before a bridge is built for weak and cautious travellers."
With its remember me — Each flower that sweetens May-day's breath, / Breathes its 'Remember me.'
Seize the Day — title of a Saul Bellow novel or Horace, "Even as we speak, envious time is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future."