Alright. Just to get started, I was still thinking about the "pause" we were discussing in class on Friday and realized we only really talked of the pauses before obvious life-changing moments. What of the pause between the more simple moments, the space between cause and effect, and how they represent so much more? I was remembering, the other day waiting for my dermatologist to swipe away a bothersome (in more than one way) mole on my face of how--just in the split second between the moment you slice your skin with a razor and the moment in which it decides to bleed, there is a bit of a pause. Damn it, that is going to hurt in a second. The skin, impeccably severed and clean in shaving cream or body wash, almost as if it is taking in its breath just before the scream of red frothing into pink, beading and tracing the line down a knee, or a chin, toward cold porcelain. How strange that a cut so clean, almost numb in its splice, can bleed so profusely, so insistently, before leaving permanent scars. Those scars will become how you know your face, the turn of your jaw, the bend of your knee, the boney line of a shin. They cost the least pain and the most blood, didn't they? And-we inflicted them, however carelessly and with no malintent, upon ourselves in the swift turn of a hand, a ritual of hygiene, that will forever record an unremarkable Tuesday morning on our aging skin.
And so? What of these pauses? What of this pause? Does it represent anything other than the minutia of daily life?
My question would be, not "does it represent anything other than the minutia of daily life?" but rather, "does it need to?" For isn't that what life is made up of? The day-by-day repetition of the same ritual, the slight, seemingly unimportant variations from that routine (such as accidentally slicing yourself open with your razor, or making an additional stop on the way to work) and, once in a great while the things that we talk about - vacations, marriages, and other monumental occasions? The very question seems to say that the minutia are unimportant, or at least less important. But aren't pauses, those elusive things we've spent so much time talking about the past few days, ultimately minutia themselves?
ReplyDeleteEver since we had this discussion on Friday I have been thinking about the pauses in my life and from my past. To me these pauses are necessary to our daily life. We don't notice it at the time, but weeks, months, or years later we are able to recall these pauses. One second you could be talking to a family member and an hour later they could be gone. Those conversations, whether they last a minute or an hour, will last forever. These pauses represent a lot more than your day-to-day activities, they allow you to look back on a lifetime of memories.
ReplyDeleteSince Friday I have been thinking about the pauses that consume our days and many times whisk past us even acknowledging them. They become the things that shape us and the moments that we go back to again and again. The life changing ones are the ones that haunt us even if we would like to forget them. Yet the simple sweet ones are the ones we play over and over in our heads; not wanting to forget. Pauses seem to be a simple gift given to us in this hectic world that we live in. Think about the pause that happens when you hear your phone beep and then read one of the sweetest texts from someone special. Or the pause right before the phone call comes in about a job that you have just been offered. The pause when you answer the phone and your friend has exciting news to tell you. In that pause you know that neither of your lives will be the same again. These simple moments and breaks in time are what make life exciting and sad at the same time. But these are the moments that are continuously driving our minds back to remember.
ReplyDeleteThese pauses before seemingly insignificant moments, or 'small moments' in our lives allow for us to recognize the infinite amount of detail in our lives, bodies, and thoughts. Too easily do we right off the small moments in our present lives as insignificant, instead of recognizing them as the fine-printed bench marks in certain stages of our lives-the scar on my chin from preschool (how I viewed life then) to the moment before I opened my letter from Auburn (how I viewed my life at that moment).
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are too many details and specific incidents throughout our lives for us to recognize and remember all of them, so these pauses before routine actions/situations remind us of the person at our core who remains constant through the years, and who we always identify with in past and future pauses.
I think about the thousands of pauses, the eons of space separating words from their targets. The area where and when “I love you”, “I don’t care”, and “my name is”, have yet to arrive. How we were before they landed. Were we floating? Alone? Secure? And how it’s those many pauses which are the make-up of how we are thought of. So many of those pauses I want to return to, to snatch back the dagger or the lie. It’s in those pauses that we were falling with our hands in our pockets—certain that there will soon be a collision but no longer in control. And maybe that’s what all the pauses have in common-- the similarity of uncertainty, the great equalizer of suspense.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of the purpose of these singular, tiny moments of pause and I can't help but drift into what they mean in their larger context and the roles they play in different lives and even different phases within a singular life. Sometimes the tiny pauses seem to be a place where ones personal demons can fester and grow and these tiny moments of pause quickly cascade into moments of weakness and regret, regardless of previous good intentions. For other people the insignificant pauses are the times where real change is grown and nurtured because everyone has "decided" to change in some way and failed whether it be sticking to a diet, deciding to study more and get better grades, or simply trying to stop spending so much at the bars. The big declarations of change proclaimed dramatically within our own head is just one step to real change and these tiny moments are what make change so difficult and is where people falter most. This is why I see every pause not as simply a good or evil place, but rather a forum in which either good or evil can come. If one takes away a person’s pauses then their life is nothing but a train hurdling down tracks, unable to deviate from the tacks already laid. The small pauses are where destiny meets free will.
ReplyDeleteSomething interesting I have come to find in the pauses of my life is how similar each of them are. For example, I was in Guntersville two months ago with a couple of friends and we decided to go out on the lake. There is a cliff called "Goat Island." It's about 40 feet high: a sheer drop. The water is at least 50 or 60 feet deep (thanks to the TVA), so there's no danger in jumping off the cliff if you do it right. The first time I got up there, it took me about two hours and 6 cans of liquid courage (beer) to jump, but I did it. Ironically (and embarrassingly), that's about the same amount of time that passes between me deciding I want to call a girl and me actually calling her (minus the beer).
ReplyDeleteAll humor aside, these examples prove that it is in the pauses themselves that we find out what we're made of. You can sit in any psychology class and have somebody tell you what Freud thinks about it, but self-realization cannot be taught. On the cliff, the rationalization of safety is what kept me from going. I knew it was safe; I'd seen my friends do it, but that wasn't good enough for me. It was simply the act of thinking about it too much that prevented my spirit from kicking my brain off the pedestal. Obviously, calling a girl is probably not as dangerous (unless she's an axe murderer), but it's the same concept.
The long pauses make you think, which is not always a good thing. It's those short ones-the second your breath leaves you after stepping off the cliff or when she picks up on the other end and says, "Hello?"-those are what anyone should live for.
Integral to the human condition is the inclination to weigh prosaic events down with (unnecessary) meaning. There are minute happenings, or what we call the "pause", and contrary to the popular conclusion, I prefer to sit back and enjoy the moment at face value. For instance, let's say I am walking, and on that walk, I watch a leaf fall. While there is the verbose approach to such an occurrence--it could be symbolizing an end, etc.--there is also the sensual experience of such a moment. There's the color of the leaf, the feel of shoe against gravel, the smell of summer-turn-fall. Rather than being confined to an interpretive mode, there is simply the moment. In short, I'd like to think of there being two different approaches to such "pauses"--the experience and the analysis. My question is whether or not we are limited to a single one /while/ we are within the "moment." Does every pause warrant interpretation?
ReplyDeleteI never really thought much of the pauses until they were brought to my attention in class on Friday. It is actually amazing how much of my life is a pause. Well, in thinking about simple pauses I tend to have quite a few while driving. For instance, since I have been involved in a couple car accidents I tend to watch my rearview mirror more so then what is happening in front of me. Many times I find myself in a moment where I am not a part of the actual situation, but I am imagining what would happen if the car or truck behind me does not stop until the front of their car meets the back of mine. When I think back on these simple pauses that have such an impact on my life it is crazy to think how much these pauses and moments mean in the composition of us as individuals. So, I definitely think I will take more time to actually experience and live in the pauses that make my life so meaningful.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that we keep talking about a pause in terms of how its smallness or shortness magnifies its importance. I have to wonder about the question of the long pause. How do we respond in the long pause? How do we handle long silences or great gaps between seeing a loved one? I think we often rush the pauses away. We seek to process, manage, and complete so many tasks that the gift of the long pause is often lost on the person who is experiencing it. Being caught in the suspension of a long pause can either feel like a trap or like flying, depending on one's perspective. Perhaps this is because the long pause takes patience, or maybe it is because of how accustomed we have become to constant movement.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I learned over the past summer is how to appreciate the in between. Being thankful for the process is just as important as seeing a task through to its conclusion, and I think this is true of both the short and the long pause. Maybe the art of understanding the pause and its importance is tempered by patience and awareness. I've heard sculpting and carving described as finding the object to be sculpted or carved within the material. I think of pauses in a similar way. If we can existing within a pause with the awareness of the moment and the patience not to rush it away, I think that pauses both long and short can become more meaningful in the grand scheme. They can go beyond the "minutia" and become a vital piece of our lives.
I find it difficult to seriously consider the pauses in my life, mostly because I think that our fast paced lives have trained us to be against the pauses we encounter and instead constantly be searching for the next big event. Yet, these pauses, moments before (or after) the next event are usually when we encounter some significant meaning or truth about life. I do believe there is a reason people use the phrase "stop and smell the roses". To pause is a very important act because it is when we are able to best take in a clear view of our lives and appreciate the beauty in the world, and yet at the same time I think too much meaning can be applied to a pause. The best way to understand pauses is to neither overlook them or apply too much deep meaning and thought and therefore miss taking place in the events. Pauses should be acknowledged as part of a balance in life.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't as well put as some other things on here-- all the lovely thoughts about the places in between-- but life is made up of one pause after the other. Maybe it shows how much of a 90's baby I am, but I think of Semisonic's "Closing Time"-- "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." We puddle-jump from one pause to the next; the key, then, is seeing pauses as an action in their own right. The difference between "I love you" and "I can't" is a collection of pauses buried in our everyday lives; when the answer is given, it is within a pause of its own.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, I see the pause as a gift, as a chance to sit back and reflect on a surprisingly profound or significant event in our biopic. At times, certain amounts of introspection can lead to a certain, limited sense of enlightenment. However, it has been my experience that the pause tends to cause irrational thoughts to balloon to overwhelming proportions. What at one second can be a friendly remark can in seconds be turned into a biting insult that warrants repercussions. A simple creak becomes an onslaught of poltergeists. A cautionary honk spawns a nightly news special. It is at these moments that the pauses become too much, and it becomes our duty to let our lives resume play.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else, I've had a bad case of pause recognition all weekend. It seems that the more ethereal a pause is the more inclined we are to ignore it. I think a great deal of our astonishment at the existence of these pauses is our cultural disposition more than anything. Americans are one of very few populations on the planet that have systematically devalued ordinary leisure and mindful peace. The pauses in my life always point me towards windows in the post office when I am beyond exhausted but this blasted package simply must go out today. Or towards the fragility of life when I catch myself pausing when I should be keeping my eyes on the road rather than my navel. Pauses reveal what my life is riddled with - tasks, longing, exhaustion, hope. They're a shot of realignment, or one of those bug zapper things that sends me whizzing back to the reality that every footstep, or misstep or shifting weight from one foot to the other has purpose. If the pauses in life really are pauses, then they are timeless because oddly, wonderfully - they make time count.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that pauses can be put into categories. There are life changing moments that one will always be able to reflect on, and simpler moments that change a person, but in a more gradual manner.
ReplyDeleteA simple pause that makes you stop and think or one that makes you feel every drop of the moment can put you on a new path without you even knowing it. This is what makes the simple pauses worthy. Sure, the life-changing ones can make you consciously know exactly why you are the way you are. Example: "I am sad because my dog died." You can remember where you were when you found out, and what you were doing. So, when someone asks why you are sad, you will have an answer. The simple pauses are special because they are subtle. A simple pause happened to me today. I suddenly became very calm. I had been anxious all day, and suddenly I wasn't. Normally, I wouldn't have given this a second thought, but our discussion from Friday came to mind. I retraced my actions and realized that I had been skipping through the songs on my iPod (I do this when I am nervous.) When I stopped, there was a pause. A pause right before the next song came on. Then, a soothing slow country song began to play. I was calm. There was that simple pause when I was nearly holding my breath hoping I wouldn't have to push that "next" button again. Then, a feeling of relief when the pause was over and a song came on that was just what I needed to hear. So, sorry for the rambling, but no, I do not think pauses are just minute markers for our lives but rather the very things that make our lives what they are.
I believe that the minuscule pauses of everyday life represent something greater all its own. The pauses we take to decide between two fates, from simple choices like eating cereal or yogurt and the more complicated ones like going to Auburn or Alabama for college, are what shape us into the person we are today. These pauses leave permanent scars on us, not physically, but psychologically. Experiences are different because of these pauses which ultimately lead to our decisions
ReplyDeleteI think some of my best moments in life are pauses. The car ride to lunch one day last summer when my mother switched from being my mother, to being my best friend. The pause before the first time my boyfriend told me he loved me. These are the kind of little moments I will never forget, but, are not catagorized as "life changing". Pauses are important because they can do anything from prepare us for a certain moment, or let us calm down and restore ourselves from something, or let us clear our minds, and appreciate life. I feel the more I appreciate my existence is after a time when life in chaotic, and those moments when I am finally able to breathe. They are under appreciated, but I am a very low-key person, and I am happiest not when I go out every night and make every day into some sort of craziness, but when I can laugh and smile with the people I love, and be excited for all the dreams I want to conquer. Being able to pause and think is such an essential part of my life that I feel it would be chaotic without it.
ReplyDeleteAs I left the classroom and life began again, I started to label everything as a pause. Every moment became a time that could be enjoyed and lived in. The “seize the pause” mindset began to besiege me. Perhaps I just love the idea of pauses too much or I am trying to ascribe larger meaning to mundane events, but everything became a significant and symbolic pause. The drive home was a pause from schoolwork and social interaction. The walk into my apartment was a pause from air conditioning. Everything I did was a pause from something else. Suddenly, the dull points in the plot that makes up my life’s narrative became so much more detailed and symbolic
ReplyDeleteBut as I overzealously called everything a pause, it hit me that the real pauses that have changed me the most in life were not anticipated. When they happened they presented me with a chance to choose to be optimistic or pessimistic. I either imagine and try to create a positive/teachable/sitcom moment, or resort to the critical/narcissistic strain that haunts me. It's like in high school the awkward pause before your first romantic relationship (junior high relationships do not count. You must have access to a car before I count it as dating). Does he like me? Is he staring at me like that because he cares, or do I have part of my spinach and mushroom sandwich in my teeth? What happens if he does like me? Should I send him a note, or tell bff Susie to tell Mary, who will tell Bill, who will tell THE BOY? He could never like me, of all people. . . yeah, you get the point. We all went through high school. But in that pause, before the declarations start and before you know the truth, that's when there is the most potential, the most danger, the most adventure. In that moment, you can imagine yourself growing old with that person, spending your waning autumn days shuffling down the beach, collecting shells for the grandkids, or yachting around the world post-retirement. In that pause, it's a torture/excitement that is addictive and repugnant all at the same time, where imagination can run wild. Then reality comes, with it's tendency to tear down fantasies and leave nothing but the bar naked truth behind: the guy declares his love for your best friend/captain of the cheerleading squad and he wants you to tell her of his love. But in that moment before the harsh reality, there was atleast potential for a fairy tale ending. Sometimes those moments of imagination help us through the nastiness that is reality.
After leaving class on Friday, I paid more attention to the small pauses throughout my weekend. The clearing of my photojournalism professor's throat signaling he was ready to begin class. The opening of a diet coke before my first sip. The few seconds after a knock on my door. The previews before the movie started. Waiting for the microwave to heat up my food. Listening to the ringing of the phone while he's not picking up. The breath the singer took before the music started. Sitting at the red light. Waiting for my computer to turn on before I can start my homework. This is my weekend in terms of pauses. But isn't that what makes up everyday life? The inbetween? The getting from here to there? I thought what Josh said was interesting, about the long gaps. I tend to forget about those. The time from now until kickoff of the first football game of the season. From now until I go home to visit my sister at her last Homecoming game. Hearing back about a lab result. Those long pauses, the pauses that feel as though they last forever, shouldn't be overlooked either.
ReplyDeleteI'm writing this late, in Geology class, and I think this entire class counts as a pause. It's just fifty minutes of my life that I feel I'll never get back. Who wants to learn about rocks? Not me. An oversimplification of this course, I'm sure, but the point I'm getting at is that I think I spend exceedingly long periods of my life in "pause mode," most recently during a ten hour drive to Tampa. I honestly don't remember the drive there, because I somehow zoned out since I didn't deem the drive there important enough to remember, or to even think about consciously. I suppose now that I'm more aware of them, I'll start paying more attention to them. Except during long drives. I'm still going to zone out.
ReplyDeleteThis post in itself is a pause, which is due to the even longer pause of my computer's internet not working, but in that span of time I've decided that pauses are when I seem to want the most, live the most...when I'm most human. Looking back to the pauses, they're the moments when I'm the most vulnerable, since any walls that I usually keep up are, in those moments, non-existant. I'm more naive, more likely to cry, or more likeley to laugh so loud that people turn their heads. They are the moments when the world itself stands still and there is only you and that moment and nothing else seems to exist outside of his lips, or the open caket, or the opening of your final exam. Everything is magnified times ten. And sometimes, I tend to catch glipses of the future, or at least I can imagine what the impact will mean when it's all over. I can imagine how it will change my life.
ReplyDeleteI think that the pauses that are between the simple moments, the space between cause and effect, are overlooked and unacknowledged, becoming only a minutia of daily life. On the other hand, once they are recognized and given value then they become one amazing thing that happens in everyday life. Everyday I encounter several pauses and once I realize what they are I always am able to take something away from it. To me, pauses are the many moments that make your life what it is.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about pauses I most memorably turn to those moments in between when we do something and when we see the result. Its that moment in a competition between when you complete an event and you are waiting to see the score. Or that minute in between seeing the flashing blue lights and getting pulled over and watching the officer walk to your car. Those are the pauses when your fate is being decided and its at a point where it is beyond your control. You were the cause and are stuck in this inevitable pause before the effect. I think these are the true moments that we learn from our mistakes. Our actions still fresh in our minds we realize the weight of responsility, the importance of our decisions, and the stupidity of our mistakes. As for scars, those are the physical reminiders of an action frozen in time. Like stains collect on a carpet over the years, so our bodies collect with scars. Symbolizing desicions, mistakes, accidents that we lived through.
ReplyDeleteSo is there something that we're supposed to be posting? What's our homework other than the reading?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Frank Walters, a close friend of Kat's and her former grad professor. I couldn't be more pleased that she's teaching you this class. She's graciously invited me to participate in this blog, and I look forward to sitting in on class one day.
ReplyDeleteMost of you have written about pauses as something that happens across time. I'm going to look at them from a different perspective: space. The next time you take a walk somewhere you've walked before, look around carefully at the way space is taken up and try to notice what you've missed before. Chances are these are the spaces that aren't very interesting, for whetever reason, and you tend to overlook them. What remains you pause over; you're conscious of them as you walk past them. Can you speak of spatial pauses? Why not? We tend to ignore them as we do time pauses (unless we're consciously thinking of them to write about them), and like time pauses the spatial ones tend to slip past us without seeming to take up any time at all.
Apply this to writing. What are the pauses in writing? (Not the pauses in the act of writing.) If you're using Le Guin's Steering the Craft, she'll talk about "Leaping and Crowding," knowing what to omit or down play (leap over) in what you write and what to keep in and extend (crowd in). Since you can't narrate a story by telling everything, you'll have to figure out what you include and pause over, giving your reader something to linger on, and what you skip (creating another kind of pause). It's something you learn to feel more than anything else--it's hard to analyze--but it is doable.
I know Kat will guide you through all this expertly, and I look forward to reading your work.
It’s obvious. The existence of such pauses are, in fact, real experiences. Acknowledging that these dwarfs and giants stand in the far-off distance among the trees that encompass our lives is not the main issue. Its simply a truth. Life’s pauses are complex in nature. When you experience what has gone and anticipate what is to come at the same, exact moment… that’s where you will find the subliminal pause. Most often it hits you hard and deep when you least expect it, brutally placing a weight upon your chest the renders you breathless. In that long exhale that follows, that sound like a mute siren, you are brought back to reality: the place where the numbness tingles and the sand, once again, begins to fall through the hourglass. At first, the weight drives you to the ground and leaves you feeling helpless. You lay there, motionless, for a moment. But then, after that long exhale, you find the most important truth about yourself that you never knew: you can handle the weight. This pause, this insignificant flicker in life, is exactly what life is worth living for. The pause leaves us exposed, revealing who we truly are. These rare moments happen in the blink of an eye. However, when we slowly begin to raise our gaze, a whole new world has been laid before our feet. All we have to do is take the next footstep. The pause changes us forever, if we allow it to. A wife leaves her husband, a mother miscarries a child, a son marries a daughter, a newborn constructs a new mother. Through death comes rebirth and through birth comes death. It is one of the many cycles of life. It could also be said that life consists of a bunch of tiny pauses. They are constantly happening in the lives around us. All we need to do is take a deep breath, close our eyes, and then open.
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