Blisters.

Appropriately enough, I first had the pleasure of reading Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" in my First-Year Writing class at Belmont.

And, also appropriately, I had the same reaction today that I did two and a half years ago. My first question was: "Who is the author who can sit down and write perfectly on the first draft, and how can I be like her?" I suppose this reaction suggests some amount of laziness on my part for wanting to be able to skip ahead and avoid the first draft stage. Forgive me my impatience: I am an American, after all, and therefore prone to an addiction to efficiency.

My methods for counteracting this lethargic tendency are scattered, at best, but I often remind myself of the lessons I learned in my ballet days. Please indulge the following lines about my history in the art... I was intensely involved in ballet from the age of nine until I was nineteen. You would think that after a full decade of sweat, blisters, and sore muscles I would have perfected the art. And yet I still had to take ballet class six days a week and attend endless rehearsals. In the summers I attended elite intensive ballet schools in Boston and Seattle in hopes of further honing my skills. While all of these experiences were wonderful

on many levels, there were also many exceedingly painful moments. More often than not I was tired and injured. Many days I was forced to wrap my toes in layers of tape and second skin (a burn relief substance that proved very helpful in protecting blisters) in hopes of preventing the formation of any more blisters while dancing in my pointe shoes. Despite all the pain, the feeling of being en pointe was completely worth it. My point (pun intended) is: the same is true in ballet as is true in writing. Blisters are the "shitty first drafts" of ballet. I endured them and ended up in the picture to the right.

Moral of my rambling: "shitty first drafts" are absolutely necessary to achieve a graceful and worthy finished product. It is impossible to produce a polished piece of prose or poetry unless you are willing to withstand some blisters along the way.

Coco Chanel Mademoiselle.

I have spent the last several days being acutely aware of every smell that comes my way. After reading sixty pages on the unique and understated attributes of smell, I have found myself analyzing each scent as it assaults me, soothes me, warms me, or sickens me. For me, one of the most interesting observations made by Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of the Senses was her comment on the power of smells to revitalize memories. She suggests that smells possess a remarkable power: "Unlike the other senses, smell needs no interpreter. The effect is immediate and undiluted by language, thought, or translation. A smell can be overwhelmingly nostalgic because it triggers powerful images and emotions before we have time to edit them" (page 11). Upon absorbing this idea, I quickly realized the truth to Ackerman's assertion as I almost immediately began thinking of smells that are associated with certain memories of mine. 

For example, no matter where I am I can recognize the smell of Bongo Java coffee and immediately images of pleasant afternoons spent with friends are brought to mind. The smell of ginger cookies conjure memories of a dear friend's house, while the scent of my own perfume reminds me of my mother taking me to Dillard's to buy my first bottle of Coco Chanel Mademoiselle. A whiff of a good friend's cologne instantly brings his face to my mind, and the sterile smell of a chemistry lab reminds me of my father... Seeing as I have waxed eloquent with examples of how certain smells are associated with certain memories, I believe that Ackerman knows what she is talking about.

The Tortoise and the Hare.

As an avid reader, I have developed many reading habits over the years. In particular, I have lately begun to notice my tendency to always read in what I call "fiction mode". 

Allow me to explain this phenomenon. As a child I voraciously made my way through everything from The Chronicles of Narnia to all of the Nancy Drew mysteries, and I soon developed a knack for speed-reading. I could blaze through any book I was given. The problem soon became that I read so fast that I couldn't slow down enough to gain the comprehension that is necessary in an academic setting. I began to blur my "fiction mode" of reading with my "academic mode" of reading. In high school I learned that speeding my way through The Great Gatsby or Dante's Inferno might be enough to pass a reading quiz but it was not enough to enter into the class discussion. This realization set me on a quest to develop multiple modes of reading. When I am reading for pleasure I allow myself to fall back into "fiction mode", but when reading for school I force myself to slow down into "academic mode". On my own time I can read at the rate of the hare and speed towards the finish line, but for class I must confine myself to being the tortoise... Slow and steady wins the better grade.

Another downfall of my speed-reading is that when I fly through a book I am likely to miss out on appreciating the satisfaction of a well-written sentence or the pleasure of a beautiful description. For example, one of my favorite books on my shelf right now is Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. This gem of a book contains a

compelling plot which slyly tempts me to slip into "fiction mode", but both the implications of the story and Lewis's eloquent narration require a tortoise-style read for full enjoyment and comprehension. Though I allow myself to be drawn in and rapt up in the narrative, I keep a bit of myself aware of slowing down to enjoy the experience.

All of this rambling to say that my goal for the semester is to continue in my separation of "fiction mode" and "academic mode".

Also, everyone needs to read Till We Have Faces.