What the Lord Hath Made Crooked (Part 1 of 10)

The following is a series of attached photos sent from Liza to the group. As usual, we publish typed excerpts of these illuminated texts along with the original photo. The best way is to read the text, of course, is to to experience it in its illuminated form.

1. I keep a notebook with me at all times. I keep it close for a variety of reasons, but mostly I carry it with me so that I may be all the more able to immerse myself in moments through momentary separation from them. Understanding comes most freely to me when I participate through observance, which means my writing process can most accurately be described as a whirlwind of quick scrawls and a headache of long decodings once my notebooks have been filled. I tell you this only to document the end of my Keweenaw notebook, and in documenting its ending shine a ray of light onto this letter's beginning. For upon browsing through my notebook this morning, I noticed that 8 of its pages are filled with wayward trains of thought that are each, in their own disconnected ways, fragmented responses to your most recent messages. Another discovery of note: I return to school, both as student and teacher in 7 days. On this discovery I'll not now elaborate, for I know all to well my teardrops' effects on black fountain pen ink.
2. I preface (begin?) my letter this way as I currently sit sagging in a haze of confusion, dread, and discouragement, etc. etc. How to impose linear order on my notebook's web of chaos? How to make a peaceful exodus from the stillness of the inner garden and imminently reacclimate to the surrounding distractions and mechanical realities of life in Detroit? How am I to be a creative agent, to resist adaptation to this environment in favor of changing it? (More on this artivism + Louise Glück's poetry in my next letter)
3. Secondary (or perhaps tertiary) explanation for divulging this information: clarification only comes through explanation, communication, conversation, and expression. The advice I most frequently share with my students is to pick up the nearest utensil, put it to the nearest (*appropriate) surface, and see what happens. "There's no wrong way to make," I say. So, I suppose I'll take my own advice now and begin writing to see what I make. I suppose I've already begun.
4. Regarding an explanation or a rationalization for belief: I think it's perfectly acceptable to believe in our feelings, bankrupt of reasoning as they may be; an inability to articulate our reasoning does not cheapen our beliefs, but in effect strengthens them. I frequently can't transmute my feelings into thoughts & I've slowly learned it's often best this way. To me, these feelings that can't be explained away  are those rooted deepest in our souls and therefore those requiring least explanation. Why? The language of the soul is spoken in a tongue indecipherable to the mind, untranslatable to words even.