Lori Prufrock

One of my favorite poems ever is “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot. From general consensus, a lot of people don’t really get the point of this poem and find it rather dark and strange, but I think it is just so impressive and I really really like it. My quote in the header of my blog, “Let us go then, you and I” comes from the first lines of this poem. It goes on to say:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;

I mean how cool is that? I wouldn’t have ever thought of writing something so damn cool. Patient etherized upon a table—I mean really, sheer genius.

Another great one liner that represents the theme of the poem well is: “Do I dare… disturb the universe?”

Anyway, this poem is written in first person format as the thoughts of a rather depressed person who is intimidated by his very existence. I haven’t ever felt that way myself, but I do quite appreciate how well this poem is written and the insight it gives to moments of self-consciousness that everyone feels from time to time. During my years of English classes at BYU, I was asked to analyze this poem multiples times and there was this one line I didn’t ever really understand until now:

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”

I always made up some bull about what he was talking about there about how coffee spoons are unimpressive and that is how he feels or some such nonsense. But I realized the other day what this line really means. I think that it means that the only way he could tell that time was passing was by the amount of dirty coffee spoons that had built up in his sink. Morning coffee is the beginning of most people’s day, and so, in turn, a coffee spoon could represent a day passing. If your life is monotonous, then the only way you know it is Friday is because you have 5 coffee spoons in your dishwashing tray. I’m starting to feel that way myself. I don’t have morning coffee, but I do take birth control pills every morning. My life has become so monotonous that the only way I know what day it is is by looking at what day my birth control package tells me it is. My days are all the same: I work for 6-8 hours with little to no human contact, some days I work out, then I come home and dink around as to not distract the hubby from homework. So really, I mostly spin my wheels until we go to our room at 11. Then I’m terrified of bed time because it always takes me 3-4 hours to fall asleep, during which time I am incredibly lonely and I have to try really hard not to get freaked out by the shadows in my room (apparently I’m a 24 year old that is afraid of the dark). Weekends offer little solace, because they seem to be consumed by grocery shopping, cleaning, and church (don't even get me started on the monotony of church).

It is weird that the whole time I’m at work, I’m waiting for the time I get to go home. But when I do get home, I don’t really do anything there either. I just feel like I'm in a perpetual state of waiting for something cooler to happen. I do realize that it is completely up to me as to how I spend my days, and if I really want to change it up I can. So I have set a goal to find things that will make my life more worth-while, or at least full of variety. What it comes down to is that I’m just getting antsy. I’m ready to move on to the next part of my life. Unfortunately, I am sentenced to 2 more years of monotony until Sam graduates and we can get out of Provo and start a family. I never thought when I moved down here in 2001 that I would be here for the next 7 years. But while I'm here, I have decided to do the best I can with what I have.