i feel explosive. like there’s a bomb in my chest just waiting to go off and throw bits of my heart all over this city. one throb, one pump, one tick, one tock. tread careful, close lipped. gaze downward, unengaged as if the tiniest flutter will set things aglow. be warned, there’s peril lurking between these lungs.
There is far too much at stake to throw around such power of words. A gesture such as this bears too much weight to just be handed over as nothing. As you run my reputation through the mud, I fear most that even you believe this filthy facade to be deeper than the dirt left on my face. I’m getting used to this mess, and coming to terms with the truth of my own intentions. I never did like feeling of rain on my face, but I’ll stand here and take it. Soaked and soggy I will wait for the storm to blow over, and maybe someday you’ll see that this tragedy was not just yours.
I begun my summer semester today. While everyone is finishing up semesters at state universities, my design school is already starting over. While I am regularly exhilarated by the beginnings of terms, this one is especially rousing. Last semester I managed to find the ceiling on my tolerance for work. The paid gig, the industry experience at the internship, and the usual overload of schoolwork was too much and I drove myself into the ground. To compensate, this semester I will only be taking 8 credits, and I couldn’t be happier. This is the perfect timing for a relaxed term. Extra time for sunshine. Extra time for visitors. Extra time for falling in love. It is the ultimate summer and I’m intoxicated with joy.
However enthusiastic I was when I woke up this morning, I had no idea how powerful today would be. To give you an idea of what this day meant to me, I have to retell an encounter I had several days ago. I was in Michigan spending some time with a dear friend and over a nostalgic beer on the patio of Peanut Barrel, we conversed. He talked of how ready and eager he was to finish this degree, that he could not wait to be back out in the world making a difference for the lives of impoverished children. I, on the other hand, admitted that I was terrified to be finished with school for several reasons. The most obvious being the job market, the other and larger issue is that I fear that the field I have chosen will not make a positive impact on the world. I wish to help, to make a difference, to reach people… not just make things look pretty.
Today, I was powerfully reminded that there is more than enough I can do within my field. My professor not only spoke about the functional and potent difference design can make on the world but also informed us of the cause we will be furthering within our class.
Each of the 5 of students in my “Logos and Corporate Identity” course will be developing a logo and brand identity for an actual paying client. At the end of the semester, all of the money we earn from the work we do will be put into one account and then paid to a foundation that funds education and medical treatment for orphans in Malawi. It’s the foundation that Madonna is a part of, and featured in the heartbreaking video “I Am Because We Are” which I highly recommend viewing part of, if not all.
Incredible start to an exciting semester. I could not be more thrilled.
so empty and so full the city churns with a whirring chaos. the best and mediocre parts of each day drain of their color til all i see is the red. and the red lives in me, pulses through me. the red is the life, the vibrance and the violence. the red in this city moves me forward and holds me back. i wish to slow it down, live in every moment like a photograph. hold it still as if it were laid in my hands, and breathe myself full of its richness. i am rich in so many ways, and no matter whether i stay or stray from this city, i shall never be the same.
train wheels and a few dozen miles stuck between us and yet i’m still left here careening through thoughts of deep blue eyes and folds in nearly as blue t-shirts.
I’ve been rolling these thoughts around in my head for weeks. There’s no cross in the roads, just a happy stride down a curvy road of routine. The decisions that will pull me in drastically different directions are teetering on a far off fence called graduation and for now I just have to keep stride. Swing through 30 hours at the paying gig, struggle to keep it together through the 10 hours of interning, gasp for air swimming through a full course load, crawl through the work left behind by the afore mentioned duties, and struggle not to land on my face in the emotional pool of loneliness I leave hidden during the busy days. I dare not complain, this life is everything I ever asked for and seems to be paving the way to my every dream of grandeur. Now it’s just my heavy heart at the human condition and realizing I may have gotten myself running in the right direction, but now my speed inhibits me from stopping to make a connection or two along the way. Hard work has taken me far, but are my priorities keeping me from getting anything important accomplished?
for a number of reasons, both favorable and foolish, I have come to a place that is peace. it is nothing monumental, but it is notable. so in a very small way, I just have to pause and acknowledge: everything is low key and lovely.
So apparently my super cool design studio is involved in this nontraditional office sport league as a promotion for Saucony shoes. We get free shoes and get, free events like Whirleyball. It’s kind of bad ass. Check it out here! We’re the team called Mr. Design/Pitchfork… sweet deal, right!?
Today was a day of the full variety. Lines slashed through a great many things on a great many lists. And I didn’t care where I was, or who I was with or that I was with no one at all. I ran through the thoughts, and down the sidewalk in the cold. I wiped off the counters here, and then cleaned up these scattered emotions. I put away things strewn about my room, and put to rest those rampant romantic notions. I filled out the forms and sent in all the right papers, then said the right words even if my heart wasn’t behind it. Today was a day of the adult variety. Agendas and checklists, yoga classes and tax returns. Then I opened my computer to close the day, and found I had little to say. With newly filled cupboards and a heart recently emptied, all I could think was, “I wish it wasn’t over.”
Meet Dylan. He’s a character I sketched up and then rendered in Illustrator for my Flash class. We’re supposed to animate a character walking, dancing, and talking (not simultaneously.) Unfortunately for this cute lil graphic boy, its very important to have knees to walk so after much time and tweeking…. he’s been scrapped. No walking, dancing or talking for this kid. He’s a regular Pinnochio.