As I flicked my cigarette and the wind blew my hair in my face for the thousandth time, I looked up. The same stars that I’m searching for in the ashtray LA sky, I could see clearly from Christmas-card perfect Amherst. I smile because it’s home.
I’m sitting at my favorite hookah bar, on my favorite busy, car-infested boulevard, listening to a conversation that I take and leave as my ears will allow. My thoughts are everywhere and nowhere at once, and when the waiter asks me if I’d like more tea I absentmindedly nod. He winks and coyly asks me if I have enough sugar.
I respond, I never do. For the tea.
There’s Middle Eastern music in the background and it reminds me of that boy that I once loved. We’d spent many nights there, on that hectic, garishly, almost obscenely busy boulevard that catered to late nights and breaking curfews. My eyes lost focus again, but I didn’t let myself get lost by the ashes that had collected on my cigarette and in my head.
I was moving to Texas at the end of this week. Though I should probably rephrase that and say that my mom and sister are moving to Texas and I was moving to limbo. Leave the college and come back home, leave the home and move to nowhere, is basically the summary of my nomadic wanderings for the winter. I wished for a second I had decided to hibernate in my dorm room until everything had settled, and then I repeated to myself what has become my life’s philosophy: Things happen and nothing is certain.
But death, I suppose.
I needed a moment to fix the medusa’s head that my hair has become, because a storm had descended on San Fernando Valley. My valley. It was saying goodbye in the way a scorned lover would, howling at my infidelity at having another valley to seek comfort in, and another home in which to toss and turn on restless nights.
I walk to the bathroom and in front of the mirror run my hands through my hair. I miss my long, untamed curls, but I decided to straighten my hair so it’s my own fault. My lips aren’t chapped for the first time in months, and I resist the urge to lick them because the wind will make me pay for that decision too. My eyes are dams, the only sign that there is something rushing forward, pressing outward, wanting release. I’ve changed.
I walk back to the carpet we’re sitting on, appreciating and loving the fact that its nearly 2 in the morning and there are people out. Just out. The waiter walks by, grins and asks me if he can change my coals. For a second I really want to quote Buddha’s Fire Sermon, for absolutely no reason. It’d be lost on this moment. Maybe later, maybe with someone else.
Instead I say, I’m leaving. I am. It’s time.
Sleep. Miles and miles of sleep, that’s all I’m thinking about. And the stars. I’m looking at them. Wherever I am, there they are, where I am, there are stars.
They’re where you are, too. It comforts me, and I grab my coat and walk back on to that boulevard.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
our bodies are about 2/3 water, the earth is 70% covered with water, and we made fire
The truth was that on Memorial Hill, I wanted nothing more than to burst into flames. It occurred to me briefly that if I let the cigarette flame reach my mouth it might trigger the spontaneous combustion I had been begging for. But I was completely aware that in that dense of a fog, the chances of me bursting into flames were about as likely as the chances that God would answer me as I extended my hands upward and demanded, “Give it back.”
Give what back? I don’t really know. Plenty of things are gone that I want back, but it was a pitiful excuse for a supplication because I didn’t even know which I was referring to.
I paused and waited. What was I expecting? Nothing really, maybe something along the lines of divine revelation or a shooting star. I just knew that that night I needed something to keep my legs from freezing to the ground. I needed to feel connected to something. Ironically, I was going about this by avoiding all human contact for a few minutes, but it was ephemeral I knew it. I’m never alone here. We’re never alone anywhere.
I was considering walking through the fog and into the forest when I saw the headlights announce the presence of another soul at the bottom of that steep hill. I had blissfully enjoyed the fact that for a few seconds it was just me, my cigarette and my smoke on that hill. It was quiet, the kind of quiet you fall in love with. It reminded me of my philosophy professor, who midway through the journey of his life decided he needed to retreat into the woods. Complete silence and utter solitude, and he made it sound like the most normal thing to do. Frankly, I’ll admit the thought was seductive, but I lacked the fortitude to go about it alone.
While lost in those thoughts, I realized my visibility was being greatly reduced. I could no longer see into the woods, and I couldn’t see how steep that hill is. It was no longer the same hill I had walked to moments before. I was overcome with a deep appreciation for water in all its forms. This is somewhat ironic because of my morbid (and irrational fear) of the dark blue spots on maps, but at one in the morning… I loved the fog that added an air of mystery to my hill, I loved the ice that could cause me to break my neck, I loved the snow that just one week ago inspired excited running about, god… I even loved the tears that were forming in my eyes.
And that was the truth I came to. The water was simply existing, constantly changing, and patiently reminding me that I have to change too. I was burning inside, I was a smoldering pile of ashes on that hill and the water was caressing my face, murmuring the promise that when it was time for me to burst into flames, it would be there. Then it happened that for a few seconds I forgot about the boundary that divides my insides from the ground, my thoughts from the fog, my life from the earth.
Suddenly, I heard someone behind me talking on their cell phone, and I knew it was time to go. I finished my cigarette and looked up into the sky again. “That’s enough,” I whispered.
And it was.
Give what back? I don’t really know. Plenty of things are gone that I want back, but it was a pitiful excuse for a supplication because I didn’t even know which I was referring to.
I paused and waited. What was I expecting? Nothing really, maybe something along the lines of divine revelation or a shooting star. I just knew that that night I needed something to keep my legs from freezing to the ground. I needed to feel connected to something. Ironically, I was going about this by avoiding all human contact for a few minutes, but it was ephemeral I knew it. I’m never alone here. We’re never alone anywhere.
I was considering walking through the fog and into the forest when I saw the headlights announce the presence of another soul at the bottom of that steep hill. I had blissfully enjoyed the fact that for a few seconds it was just me, my cigarette and my smoke on that hill. It was quiet, the kind of quiet you fall in love with. It reminded me of my philosophy professor, who midway through the journey of his life decided he needed to retreat into the woods. Complete silence and utter solitude, and he made it sound like the most normal thing to do. Frankly, I’ll admit the thought was seductive, but I lacked the fortitude to go about it alone.
While lost in those thoughts, I realized my visibility was being greatly reduced. I could no longer see into the woods, and I couldn’t see how steep that hill is. It was no longer the same hill I had walked to moments before. I was overcome with a deep appreciation for water in all its forms. This is somewhat ironic because of my morbid (and irrational fear) of the dark blue spots on maps, but at one in the morning… I loved the fog that added an air of mystery to my hill, I loved the ice that could cause me to break my neck, I loved the snow that just one week ago inspired excited running about, god… I even loved the tears that were forming in my eyes.
And that was the truth I came to. The water was simply existing, constantly changing, and patiently reminding me that I have to change too. I was burning inside, I was a smoldering pile of ashes on that hill and the water was caressing my face, murmuring the promise that when it was time for me to burst into flames, it would be there. Then it happened that for a few seconds I forgot about the boundary that divides my insides from the ground, my thoughts from the fog, my life from the earth.
Suddenly, I heard someone behind me talking on their cell phone, and I knew it was time to go. I finished my cigarette and looked up into the sky again. “That’s enough,” I whispered.
And it was.
cada atomo que existe en mi tambien existe en ti
Se me ocurrió una idea mientras que esperaba el avión que me va a regresar a mi nuevo hogar…
No había podido escribir en tanto tiempo algo que de verdad me dejaba satisfecha, y puede ser porque no me venían las palabras. El problema que quizás no vi fue que estaba tratando en un lenguaje que no tiene la historia, no tiene el peso que tiene el lenguaje de mis padres, de los que han venido antes de mi. He estado tratando de expresar algo tan intimo y tan profundamente importante para mi en un lenguaje que me hace la primera de una nueva línea, y a veces se necesita tocar las raíces de una historia, una vida, para de verdad poder decir lo que se necesita decir.
Estoy llorando lagrimas amargas, pero de verdad no estoy llorando en lo absoluto. Mis ojos están secos porque no a quedado ni una lagrima por los asuntos que constantemente murmuran mi nombre, rogándome que finalmente me quiebre, que admita que no estoy feliz, que no estoy bien. Es una canción melancólica que no es exclusivamente mía, pero que fue conducida por medio de la sangre que me apega a vida, que siempre a existido, que nunca nació, y que nunca morirá.
Me recuerdo del refrán que siempre me decía mi papa cuando me sentía deprimida, “Marcha, marcha soldado valiente. No temas fatiga ni sed. Que en tu frente la gente algún día, cariñoso laurel ceñirá. Al rigor del calor y del frió…”
Y el resto no me acuerdo… Lo puedo oír tan claramente hasta ese punto, y después de eso no hay nada. Es deprimente. Pero me consuelo que aunque sean pocas palabras, dentro de mi inspiran movimiento. Eran las palabras que mi papa me daba de forma de consuelo, y eran las palabras que su papa le dio a el. Y eso es lo mejor que yo podría esperar. Una acaricia es temporaria (pero tan bella, tan extrañada), pero mucho después de que me olvide como era un abrazo de mi papa, me acordare de esas palabras.
De repente me siento increíblemente pesada, similar al efecto de cargar una montaña en los hombros. Siempre me gusto la metáfora de que cada individuo es una isla, solitaria en si misma, pero ahora creo que tengo que modificarla con ayuda de Dave Eggers. El escribió que hace tiempo habían unas gentes que vivían en unas montañas rurales, apartadas del resto del mundo. Centro a su sistema de creencias eran estas mismas montañas en que ellos vivían porque ellos creían en la existencia de montañas simbólicas que se heredaban de una generación a otra. Eran el sumo de todos las partes que constituían la vida de todos los que vinieron antes, y se cargaban hasta el día en que volares de la montaña en que naciste.
Y eso lo creo mucho. Dentro de mi esta todo niño, niña, hombre, mujer, novio, novia, madre, padre… todo lo que ellos sintieron corren por mis venas; memorias que nunca me acordare, vidas que nunca viviré, muertes que nunca moriré. Es la unión que tengo al pasado, porque todo lo que paso antes de mi dio paso a mi existencia. Y cuando yo siento el dolor de estar sin padre, siento el dolor que sintió mi padre cuando el perdió el de el. Estamos unidos por una linea que no empieza con solo el y yo, pero que extiende por todo tiempo.
Universalmente solos. Es un concepto paradójico porque implico que aunque estoy sola, tengo la compañía de todo mi línea genética. Y quizás lo que quiero decir es que simplemente mi isla incluye una montana que espero algún día felizmente pueda brincar, sabiendo que también escribe unas palabras en la alma de alguien.
Comment:
Edited due to the writer's rusty Spanish skills and inability to concentrate.
No había podido escribir en tanto tiempo algo que de verdad me dejaba satisfecha, y puede ser porque no me venían las palabras. El problema que quizás no vi fue que estaba tratando en un lenguaje que no tiene la historia, no tiene el peso que tiene el lenguaje de mis padres, de los que han venido antes de mi. He estado tratando de expresar algo tan intimo y tan profundamente importante para mi en un lenguaje que me hace la primera de una nueva línea, y a veces se necesita tocar las raíces de una historia, una vida, para de verdad poder decir lo que se necesita decir.
Estoy llorando lagrimas amargas, pero de verdad no estoy llorando en lo absoluto. Mis ojos están secos porque no a quedado ni una lagrima por los asuntos que constantemente murmuran mi nombre, rogándome que finalmente me quiebre, que admita que no estoy feliz, que no estoy bien. Es una canción melancólica que no es exclusivamente mía, pero que fue conducida por medio de la sangre que me apega a vida, que siempre a existido, que nunca nació, y que nunca morirá.
Me recuerdo del refrán que siempre me decía mi papa cuando me sentía deprimida, “Marcha, marcha soldado valiente. No temas fatiga ni sed. Que en tu frente la gente algún día, cariñoso laurel ceñirá. Al rigor del calor y del frió…”
Y el resto no me acuerdo… Lo puedo oír tan claramente hasta ese punto, y después de eso no hay nada. Es deprimente. Pero me consuelo que aunque sean pocas palabras, dentro de mi inspiran movimiento. Eran las palabras que mi papa me daba de forma de consuelo, y eran las palabras que su papa le dio a el. Y eso es lo mejor que yo podría esperar. Una acaricia es temporaria (pero tan bella, tan extrañada), pero mucho después de que me olvide como era un abrazo de mi papa, me acordare de esas palabras.
De repente me siento increíblemente pesada, similar al efecto de cargar una montaña en los hombros. Siempre me gusto la metáfora de que cada individuo es una isla, solitaria en si misma, pero ahora creo que tengo que modificarla con ayuda de Dave Eggers. El escribió que hace tiempo habían unas gentes que vivían en unas montañas rurales, apartadas del resto del mundo. Centro a su sistema de creencias eran estas mismas montañas en que ellos vivían porque ellos creían en la existencia de montañas simbólicas que se heredaban de una generación a otra. Eran el sumo de todos las partes que constituían la vida de todos los que vinieron antes, y se cargaban hasta el día en que volares de la montaña en que naciste.
Y eso lo creo mucho. Dentro de mi esta todo niño, niña, hombre, mujer, novio, novia, madre, padre… todo lo que ellos sintieron corren por mis venas; memorias que nunca me acordare, vidas que nunca viviré, muertes que nunca moriré. Es la unión que tengo al pasado, porque todo lo que paso antes de mi dio paso a mi existencia. Y cuando yo siento el dolor de estar sin padre, siento el dolor que sintió mi padre cuando el perdió el de el. Estamos unidos por una linea que no empieza con solo el y yo, pero que extiende por todo tiempo.
Universalmente solos. Es un concepto paradójico porque implico que aunque estoy sola, tengo la compañía de todo mi línea genética. Y quizás lo que quiero decir es que simplemente mi isla incluye una montana que espero algún día felizmente pueda brincar, sabiendo que también escribe unas palabras en la alma de alguien.
Comment:
Edited due to the writer's rusty Spanish skills and inability to concentrate.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Where is the soleil...
Noah says, The storm is coming. I reply, I sure hope because its been dry as hell here.
I can't get that song out of my head, and its making me want to sing it as loud as I possibly can at midnight on Memorial Hill. Somehow I figure that will help me get rid of the worst writer's block to strangle me ever. Or at least it will give me a cold so I don't have to write any more bullshit papers for my seminar.
Or write anymore bullshit in general.
So storm please come... because I can say that I am thundering. I'm being filled with warnings that the storm is coming: a storm of words, a flood of realization, the death of some(thing), the survival of some(one). And I begin to see that these waters aren't drowning anything... they're cleaning.
Sigh. The eternal optimist.
I can't get that song out of my head, and its making me want to sing it as loud as I possibly can at midnight on Memorial Hill. Somehow I figure that will help me get rid of the worst writer's block to strangle me ever. Or at least it will give me a cold so I don't have to write any more bullshit papers for my seminar.
Or write anymore bullshit in general.
So storm please come... because I can say that I am thundering. I'm being filled with warnings that the storm is coming: a storm of words, a flood of realization, the death of some(thing), the survival of some(one). And I begin to see that these waters aren't drowning anything... they're cleaning.
Sigh. The eternal optimist.
Monday, October 22, 2007
When I Signed Off On A Delivery of a Ton of Bricks
I miss home.
I miss my sister.
I miss my mom.
I miss Leslie.
I miss James.
I miss Anna.
I miss my bed.
I miss my favorite places to eat. (Yes, I am that kind of person.)
I miss my dad.
I'm not unhappy, but I'm not steady.
I miss my sister.
I miss my mom.
I miss Leslie.
I miss James.
I miss Anna.
I miss my bed.
I miss my favorite places to eat. (Yes, I am that kind of person.)
I miss my dad.
I'm not unhappy, but I'm not steady.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
When I Was Hitting the Button Really Hard
We constantly hit the self-destruct button. Unintentionally usually, but most of the time we have some sort of inclination that what we are about to do will hurt us in some way.
This goes for everything. In every aspect of our life, we find something that will send us running towards the hills and we do it. This is how we got to the moon after centuries of fear that God was somewhere in the skies waiting to strike us down if we ventured into his heavens. This is how we have vaccines, how we exercise to the point of near devastation, and how we smoke pot knowing our lungs are paying the price. Its a necessary evil in life, the corrupt good that lies in doing what we're not supposed to.
We learn. After so many times, the mouse in the Skinner Box figures out that when there is music the cheese is hard to get, and we figure out that we are not invincible, but instead adaptive.
So we give another inch. We learn that we can press the button for so long and still be okay. Or we fuck ourselves over by jabbing our finger against the button one too many times.
And start again. New button, new poison. You pick and you choose.
Self-destruction is just one second away.
This goes for everything. In every aspect of our life, we find something that will send us running towards the hills and we do it. This is how we got to the moon after centuries of fear that God was somewhere in the skies waiting to strike us down if we ventured into his heavens. This is how we have vaccines, how we exercise to the point of near devastation, and how we smoke pot knowing our lungs are paying the price. Its a necessary evil in life, the corrupt good that lies in doing what we're not supposed to.
We learn. After so many times, the mouse in the Skinner Box figures out that when there is music the cheese is hard to get, and we figure out that we are not invincible, but instead adaptive.
So we give another inch. We learn that we can press the button for so long and still be okay. Or we fuck ourselves over by jabbing our finger against the button one too many times.
And start again. New button, new poison. You pick and you choose.
Self-destruction is just one second away.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
When I Was Thinking of Them
I have nothing but an endless stream of words that leaves me breathing in so deeply as to grasp the full extent of their meaning. It is beauty and chaos, it is killing me but allowing me to truly live.
To philosophize is to die. That I truly believe, though my pondering has merely left me short of air, and feeling dizzy. How strange is it though, to not be able to control my bodies reaction to certain thoughts. Oh man, in all his foolish behavior believing he is master of the universe, and yet cannot truly control the eruption of a sneeze, the subtlety of a sigh, or the threatening watering of the eyes. I have learned never to claim that I have control over my body because honestly, I feel my body belongs to no one in particular, not even myself.
Perhaps it belongs more to others. I know that my mind is my own, for that is the only entity that I can truly embrace through reason. As for my heart, experience has shown that it is in the wind, in the rain, in the earth, in fire, and yet never truly in my body. It wanders around as lonely as a cloud, and occasionally settles itself on my chest, constricting any kind of movement, except for those which it wishes to pursue.
And thus, at this moment, on its own volition my foot is tapping away, constantly restless, constantly in search for a place to run. My heart is racing, for no one and someone in particular because although they may be a thousand miles away, my heart is there, in that warm and friendly (polluted) sky, waiting for a reunion with my body.
Although at the same time, a part of my heart was left in DC with Eric, and a part was torn away for the few minutes that I was in Philadelphia. That was truly astonishing though, how I felt a part of me racing towards my love, using my eyes to scan the area, searching for the boy who holds an incredibly special piece of my heart and soul.
Sigh. Involuntary or not, those sighs are signs that my heart is restlessly pacing back and forth. For whom? For them.
To philosophize is to die. That I truly believe, though my pondering has merely left me short of air, and feeling dizzy. How strange is it though, to not be able to control my bodies reaction to certain thoughts. Oh man, in all his foolish behavior believing he is master of the universe, and yet cannot truly control the eruption of a sneeze, the subtlety of a sigh, or the threatening watering of the eyes. I have learned never to claim that I have control over my body because honestly, I feel my body belongs to no one in particular, not even myself.
Perhaps it belongs more to others. I know that my mind is my own, for that is the only entity that I can truly embrace through reason. As for my heart, experience has shown that it is in the wind, in the rain, in the earth, in fire, and yet never truly in my body. It wanders around as lonely as a cloud, and occasionally settles itself on my chest, constricting any kind of movement, except for those which it wishes to pursue.
And thus, at this moment, on its own volition my foot is tapping away, constantly restless, constantly in search for a place to run. My heart is racing, for no one and someone in particular because although they may be a thousand miles away, my heart is there, in that warm and friendly (polluted) sky, waiting for a reunion with my body.
Although at the same time, a part of my heart was left in DC with Eric, and a part was torn away for the few minutes that I was in Philadelphia. That was truly astonishing though, how I felt a part of me racing towards my love, using my eyes to scan the area, searching for the boy who holds an incredibly special piece of my heart and soul.
Sigh. Involuntary or not, those sighs are signs that my heart is restlessly pacing back and forth. For whom? For them.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
When I Missed A Feeling Forgotten (His Arms)
I'm up at 2:44 am on the day of my first college class. I'm supposed to be at The Moral Essay (english class) at 8:30 in the morning, ready for something... ready to learn, i guess.
Right now though, I feel like I'm clinging to something that feels about to be torn away from me. I am holding on to that image of me sitting at the planter, with all my friends, and with people who at some point were friends.
I can see it so vividly it feels as if it were a film on pause. Everyone, in my heart and mind, is stuck in that one moment. Actually, more accurately... I am stuck in that moment. I am trapped, so willingly, in that image that I wish could recreate itself.
I truly wish I could say that I am in love with college. For longer than I can remember, people have told me that I belonged in college, because high school was not the place for me. I was older, more mature, than the rest of my fellow high schoolers, and that was probably true. I am an old soul, I share something that links me to antiquities, but that also pulls me towards a new epoch in life.
But I don't feel that way. I miss my friends, I miss my home, I miss so much that it feels impossible that I would be able to let it all go and become something new. I know I am changing, and I can feel it. Thus the image fades. And as time goes on, the faces will become more and more blurry... the smiles will be less clear, the voices will not ring, and the colors will become a dull black and white.
The truth is that I miss everyone. Everyone. I miss the people I loved seeing and I miss the people I dreaded seeing. I miss so many moments. I miss Leslie jumping into my arms. I miss hugging James. I miss singing with Anna. God, I miss those things so badly. And they won't be there forever. Right? They will fade. Those feelings will fade because if anything, emotions are based in impermanence. I will no longer miss these things at some point... and that scares me so much. I will have changed more than I thought possible because the people who matter most to me in the world now will cease to be freshly burned into my mind.
I'm so scared that that will happen. I don't want it to. I don't want to ever stop missing Eric's smile or Abby's jokes or Jamie's judging, Tay's sarcasm, Azia's dead pan humor, Spencer's red hair. I don't want to stop missing those things because then I won't be me.
Thus I am caught at an impasse. To be happy, I must forego this constant ache that reminds me that I miss someone... but when that ache is gone I will no longer be happy that I have/had such wonderful people in my life.
And this is me. The college student. At 3 in the morning... hoping that she's in constant heartache. But at the same time laughing with her new friends.
I'm a myriad of things that don't seem to make sense... and I miss the people that know that about me.
Right now though, I feel like I'm clinging to something that feels about to be torn away from me. I am holding on to that image of me sitting at the planter, with all my friends, and with people who at some point were friends.
I can see it so vividly it feels as if it were a film on pause. Everyone, in my heart and mind, is stuck in that one moment. Actually, more accurately... I am stuck in that moment. I am trapped, so willingly, in that image that I wish could recreate itself.
I truly wish I could say that I am in love with college. For longer than I can remember, people have told me that I belonged in college, because high school was not the place for me. I was older, more mature, than the rest of my fellow high schoolers, and that was probably true. I am an old soul, I share something that links me to antiquities, but that also pulls me towards a new epoch in life.
But I don't feel that way. I miss my friends, I miss my home, I miss so much that it feels impossible that I would be able to let it all go and become something new. I know I am changing, and I can feel it. Thus the image fades. And as time goes on, the faces will become more and more blurry... the smiles will be less clear, the voices will not ring, and the colors will become a dull black and white.
The truth is that I miss everyone. Everyone. I miss the people I loved seeing and I miss the people I dreaded seeing. I miss so many moments. I miss Leslie jumping into my arms. I miss hugging James. I miss singing with Anna. God, I miss those things so badly. And they won't be there forever. Right? They will fade. Those feelings will fade because if anything, emotions are based in impermanence. I will no longer miss these things at some point... and that scares me so much. I will have changed more than I thought possible because the people who matter most to me in the world now will cease to be freshly burned into my mind.
I'm so scared that that will happen. I don't want it to. I don't want to ever stop missing Eric's smile or Abby's jokes or Jamie's judging, Tay's sarcasm, Azia's dead pan humor, Spencer's red hair. I don't want to stop missing those things because then I won't be me.
Thus I am caught at an impasse. To be happy, I must forego this constant ache that reminds me that I miss someone... but when that ache is gone I will no longer be happy that I have/had such wonderful people in my life.
And this is me. The college student. At 3 in the morning... hoping that she's in constant heartache. But at the same time laughing with her new friends.
I'm a myriad of things that don't seem to make sense... and I miss the people that know that about me.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
When I Finished Harry Potter and Cried For James, Anna and Leslie, and Many Others
I sleep with my windows wide open because its comforting to feel that even though the world is dark and lonely, streetlamps are on to illuminate people’s ways on even the darkest of nights. Though I may be laying down, blanket warming me, and my head softly resting on a pillow, there are others that are still out there wandering, eventually, and hopefully, finding their way home.
We anticipated that life doesn’t end when the sun sets, and that life always seems to be more interesting at night, and thus we placed streetlamps on corners, along streets, to keep us from being lost. Its instinct, I believe, that truly prevents us from ever really being lost, because at every moment, and ever second we have been psychologically trained to survive. How did we ever manage to beat out the wooly mammoth or the saber-toothed tiger if we didn’t naturally just really want to live and see another sunrise?
This need, this constant and never-ending desire to breathe, to find light, is what brings love into your life. It draws people into your heart, and not because we consciously strive to find people that will guide us and help us, but because it is what we have done for thousands of years. A person lost is not one that doesn’t know where they are, but rather one that has lost all hope of ever knowing where they are. You can never truly be lost until you admit that there is no way that you can find your way, and when there are people in your life that act as guideposts you can never be lost.
“No man is an island, entire unto himself. Ever man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main,” preached John Donne. He said this to the knowledge seeking people of the Renaissance, people whose life was being affected every day by new technology, new art, new music, new ways to wage war, new ways to cure disease, new ways to die, new ways to truly live. Isn’t that so similar to the lives that we lead now? Everyday we are exposed to a myriad of things that make us happy, and everyday we learn of things that make us infinitely sad. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t walk under the sun, and there isn’t a day that we don’t walk in the shadows.
Darkness. I seem to touch it everyday, and not in the ways that would seem most obvious, like realizing impending doom in the world, but rather within myself. Within us we carry an immense tolerance of pain and of happiness, but it is the pain that takes the greatest toll on us. You can drown in sorrow more readily than you can drown in the ocean, and yet we can survive. We can survive because light just seems to come amidst the major storms in life, and it just so happens that it can exist in the embrace of a friend, the kind words of a stranger, in the unbreakable bond between family.
This is what friends are. They are the streetlamps that keep you from being lost in the dark. Regardless of where you are and where you are going, they are there to keep you from falling off the edge of the cliff, crashing into a wall, or simply from succumbing to a darkness that could seem eternal. There is sunlight, sure, but when the night comes, rest assured that there is always light.
There is always hope. And so even as a child, when I was afraid of the dark, and now as an adult, when I’m afraid that the night will never end, I look at the lampposts and I fall asleep… because I am not lost, because there will always be a way to find my way home.
We anticipated that life doesn’t end when the sun sets, and that life always seems to be more interesting at night, and thus we placed streetlamps on corners, along streets, to keep us from being lost. Its instinct, I believe, that truly prevents us from ever really being lost, because at every moment, and ever second we have been psychologically trained to survive. How did we ever manage to beat out the wooly mammoth or the saber-toothed tiger if we didn’t naturally just really want to live and see another sunrise?
This need, this constant and never-ending desire to breathe, to find light, is what brings love into your life. It draws people into your heart, and not because we consciously strive to find people that will guide us and help us, but because it is what we have done for thousands of years. A person lost is not one that doesn’t know where they are, but rather one that has lost all hope of ever knowing where they are. You can never truly be lost until you admit that there is no way that you can find your way, and when there are people in your life that act as guideposts you can never be lost.
“No man is an island, entire unto himself. Ever man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main,” preached John Donne. He said this to the knowledge seeking people of the Renaissance, people whose life was being affected every day by new technology, new art, new music, new ways to wage war, new ways to cure disease, new ways to die, new ways to truly live. Isn’t that so similar to the lives that we lead now? Everyday we are exposed to a myriad of things that make us happy, and everyday we learn of things that make us infinitely sad. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t walk under the sun, and there isn’t a day that we don’t walk in the shadows.
Darkness. I seem to touch it everyday, and not in the ways that would seem most obvious, like realizing impending doom in the world, but rather within myself. Within us we carry an immense tolerance of pain and of happiness, but it is the pain that takes the greatest toll on us. You can drown in sorrow more readily than you can drown in the ocean, and yet we can survive. We can survive because light just seems to come amidst the major storms in life, and it just so happens that it can exist in the embrace of a friend, the kind words of a stranger, in the unbreakable bond between family.
This is what friends are. They are the streetlamps that keep you from being lost in the dark. Regardless of where you are and where you are going, they are there to keep you from falling off the edge of the cliff, crashing into a wall, or simply from succumbing to a darkness that could seem eternal. There is sunlight, sure, but when the night comes, rest assured that there is always light.
There is always hope. And so even as a child, when I was afraid of the dark, and now as an adult, when I’m afraid that the night will never end, I look at the lampposts and I fall asleep… because I am not lost, because there will always be a way to find my way home.
Monday, July 16, 2007
When I Was Leaving, But You Were Still Here
So I call it the “Going Away to College” Blues.
But really it could be the “I’m scared out of my mind, but not really” Syndrome. I mean, I always knew it was coming. Of course after high school had to come something, whether it was getting a job, or well, going to college. I pictured it differently though.
Here’s what I thought would happen:
I would graduate. I would be incredibly sad because I was leaving all my best friends, but we would hang out all of summer and every moment would be somehow more significant. We would all reminisce about how high school was amazing, but college would be better because some of us would be going to the same one, even dorming. I’d probably be going to Berkeley or San Diego, but maybe even UCLA. I would be worried because I’d feel bad about moving out of my house and leaving the family in general. It would be an extra long summer too, because class wouldn’t start around September. In the end, I would just want to be with my friends all the time, and perhaps even a boy, enjoying what was left of being a kid.
Here’s what’s actually happening:
I graduated. I truly didn’t hate going to Granada because it was an escape from home, but still, I don’t have the fondest memories of senior year. It actually kind of sucked. A lot. I did well, and had really kick ass friends, but, I don’t know… something was missing, or something was altogether too abundant. I do want to be with my friends a lot, but as the date of me moving away gets closer and closer, I feel conflicted. People that I really love, I can’t seem to be around because I feel like I want to tell them everything. I want to say, remember the time that we… and then everything blurs together. Every moment that has past seems to escape the ability to actually be remembered, and I can’t seem to be able to pinpoint when and how we became best friends. And then there are the people that I can’t call or talk to that I really want to, because it just feels that they’ve already left.
Isn’t that strange? The past four years, I have wanted nothing more than to leave high school, and now I want nothing more than to just be back in that time period when all the people I know and I had a future together. I know its possible that I will still be friends with some of the people I went to high school with, yet… will it be the same? Next summer, will I dread coming home and leaving the people I will then have spent a year with? Won’t everyone feel that way?
I wish I had more time, is the point I guess. I wish I had more time with some people, so that I could know that we’d be friends in a decade… or even a year. And some people I wish I could go back and change certain moments. If this had never happened, would these feelings still be relevant?
I guess having the blues is complicated. I wish I had chosen my actions more wisely. But now all I have is the present, this moment right now. I have the future too.
Here’s what I want to happen:
I want to let go of all the bad feelings that I hold on to from senior year. Against everyone that I may have wronged (and I wronged some) and those that wronged me (and some did). I want to be happy. I want to be with Leslie as many times as possible this summer. I want to play Mario Kart with Jamie and James. I want to go with James to Italy. I want to dress up one more time with Anna, and go somewhere where we can talk about how much we love Cole Porter, and how we’re still completely in love with the Top Ten Greatest Moment Ever (she knows which one it is). I want to tell Mikey that I didn’t make a huge mistake when I had a crush on him junior year.
And yeah, god, there are a lot of people I’ll miss.
Here are some inside jokes/comments that well… are inside jokes/comments that only those select few would know:
“Hey…this isn’t my wallet.”
“I’m American, white, and twelve inches.”
That made me a little sad. But hey, they wouldn’t call it the blues if I was laughing.
But really it could be the “I’m scared out of my mind, but not really” Syndrome. I mean, I always knew it was coming. Of course after high school had to come something, whether it was getting a job, or well, going to college. I pictured it differently though.
Here’s what I thought would happen:
I would graduate. I would be incredibly sad because I was leaving all my best friends, but we would hang out all of summer and every moment would be somehow more significant. We would all reminisce about how high school was amazing, but college would be better because some of us would be going to the same one, even dorming. I’d probably be going to Berkeley or San Diego, but maybe even UCLA. I would be worried because I’d feel bad about moving out of my house and leaving the family in general. It would be an extra long summer too, because class wouldn’t start around September. In the end, I would just want to be with my friends all the time, and perhaps even a boy, enjoying what was left of being a kid.
Here’s what’s actually happening:
I graduated. I truly didn’t hate going to Granada because it was an escape from home, but still, I don’t have the fondest memories of senior year. It actually kind of sucked. A lot. I did well, and had really kick ass friends, but, I don’t know… something was missing, or something was altogether too abundant. I do want to be with my friends a lot, but as the date of me moving away gets closer and closer, I feel conflicted. People that I really love, I can’t seem to be around because I feel like I want to tell them everything. I want to say, remember the time that we… and then everything blurs together. Every moment that has past seems to escape the ability to actually be remembered, and I can’t seem to be able to pinpoint when and how we became best friends. And then there are the people that I can’t call or talk to that I really want to, because it just feels that they’ve already left.
Isn’t that strange? The past four years, I have wanted nothing more than to leave high school, and now I want nothing more than to just be back in that time period when all the people I know and I had a future together. I know its possible that I will still be friends with some of the people I went to high school with, yet… will it be the same? Next summer, will I dread coming home and leaving the people I will then have spent a year with? Won’t everyone feel that way?
I wish I had more time, is the point I guess. I wish I had more time with some people, so that I could know that we’d be friends in a decade… or even a year. And some people I wish I could go back and change certain moments. If this had never happened, would these feelings still be relevant?
I guess having the blues is complicated. I wish I had chosen my actions more wisely. But now all I have is the present, this moment right now. I have the future too.
Here’s what I want to happen:
I want to let go of all the bad feelings that I hold on to from senior year. Against everyone that I may have wronged (and I wronged some) and those that wronged me (and some did). I want to be happy. I want to be with Leslie as many times as possible this summer. I want to play Mario Kart with Jamie and James. I want to go with James to Italy. I want to dress up one more time with Anna, and go somewhere where we can talk about how much we love Cole Porter, and how we’re still completely in love with the Top Ten Greatest Moment Ever (she knows which one it is). I want to tell Mikey that I didn’t make a huge mistake when I had a crush on him junior year.
And yeah, god, there are a lot of people I’ll miss.
Here are some inside jokes/comments that well… are inside jokes/comments that only those select few would know:
“Hey…this isn’t my wallet.”
“I’m American, white, and twelve inches.”
That made me a little sad. But hey, they wouldn’t call it the blues if I was laughing.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
When I Needed Some Darkness
Man: So, this is the end of the world?
God: Yeah.
Man: It's boring.
God: It would be.
Man: I thought it would be more interesting than this. You know, hail, brimstone, at least some fire or some fucking demons.
God: Why would I subject you to something you could have easily experienced? And watch your language.
-Astoria Alms
You have to wonder sometimes, don't you? Why we were made the way we were, what makes us wholly ourselves. I don't know, I've come to believe we are a collection of everything that came before us, and we carry around our mountains of the past and with that we go through life either building a higher top on the mountain or demolishing it.
It's not existence, though, that troubles me. At least not the kind experienced collectively. Superficially, we have the everyday events that we take part of, the going out for a walk, the eating dinner, the listening to music, but beneath that is what we were hoping to find when we stopped walking, what we felt when we took the first bite, and what that song we were listening to reminded us of. Indeed, there is an Everything in everything that I fail to grasp most of the time, the complete picture that seems to elude me and that only sometimes gives me a clue of what is actually going on.
Suddenly a silence isn't just a silence but rather the hum of two people trying to communicate their feelings, and the sigh isn't a sigh but rather an indication of the tension felt within the lungs. And that's when you realize that life has so many goddamn complications you could never really figure anything out. Its frustrating to realize that as long as you like you may never really figure out anything. At all. You will never really know anything.
Yeah. I'm kinda tired, but its mostly because I've been having so many nightmares lately it's ridiculous. And that's what I meant by not just everyday existence. In my dreams I have... actually more control than in real life, and yet I don't find it any more satisfying. To be able to wake up is a luxury we are not offered from real life is the real reason life becomes a mountain to carry. You're stuck in whatever reality you have created and that's basically the truth of it. And I want to try to be optimistic about things, I really do, but honestly, I don't care enough to be. I'll be realistic about it.
You're either happy or you're sad, or some lovely little variation of it, and whichever you are, you sure as Betsy can guarantee that you will be the other in a few months, days, hours or even the next second.
God: Yeah.
Man: It's boring.
God: It would be.
Man: I thought it would be more interesting than this. You know, hail, brimstone, at least some fire or some fucking demons.
God: Why would I subject you to something you could have easily experienced? And watch your language.
-Astoria Alms
You have to wonder sometimes, don't you? Why we were made the way we were, what makes us wholly ourselves. I don't know, I've come to believe we are a collection of everything that came before us, and we carry around our mountains of the past and with that we go through life either building a higher top on the mountain or demolishing it.
It's not existence, though, that troubles me. At least not the kind experienced collectively. Superficially, we have the everyday events that we take part of, the going out for a walk, the eating dinner, the listening to music, but beneath that is what we were hoping to find when we stopped walking, what we felt when we took the first bite, and what that song we were listening to reminded us of. Indeed, there is an Everything in everything that I fail to grasp most of the time, the complete picture that seems to elude me and that only sometimes gives me a clue of what is actually going on.
Suddenly a silence isn't just a silence but rather the hum of two people trying to communicate their feelings, and the sigh isn't a sigh but rather an indication of the tension felt within the lungs. And that's when you realize that life has so many goddamn complications you could never really figure anything out. Its frustrating to realize that as long as you like you may never really figure out anything. At all. You will never really know anything.
Yeah. I'm kinda tired, but its mostly because I've been having so many nightmares lately it's ridiculous. And that's what I meant by not just everyday existence. In my dreams I have... actually more control than in real life, and yet I don't find it any more satisfying. To be able to wake up is a luxury we are not offered from real life is the real reason life becomes a mountain to carry. You're stuck in whatever reality you have created and that's basically the truth of it. And I want to try to be optimistic about things, I really do, but honestly, I don't care enough to be. I'll be realistic about it.
You're either happy or you're sad, or some lovely little variation of it, and whichever you are, you sure as Betsy can guarantee that you will be the other in a few months, days, hours or even the next second.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
When There Was A New Beginning
“A good heart and good intentions must lead to good actions before they con truly be commendable.”
-Astoria Alms
When we are faced with an innumerable amount of regrets concerning our life and the decisions we have made, there are few things we can do, but sigh and accept the things which we cannot change. Though one could easily decide to live in the prison that is the past, or long for the promised gates of the future, the important Moment is passing us by. To live within oneself, constantly reflecting on the things that could have been done or the things that should not have been done, is not only unprofitable, but rather cost-detrimental. They take a toll on the human mind, they wear out the heart, and they weaken the soul. If we live everyday wishing it were yesterday, there is an infinity lying between the nothing of yesterday and the possibility of today.
Though of course one should look upon yesterday with the eye of a passing observer, gathering information but not becoming heavily immersed, one must maintain a distance for all has passed. The Moment is lost if not completely appreciated at the time. Thus one must wake up everyday, every single day, every morning, every sunrise, as if it were the first. It is sheer madness to live as if each day is the last because then everything is absorbed in such a rapid way that there is nothing savored softly. To live each day as if it were your first entails feeling everything with the innocence that comes from experiencing the new. Opening your eyes is such a simple human activity, something that we take for granted everyday, but when one truly opens one’s eyes, the world’s intensity level rises more than can be possibly be comprehended.
Everything has so many possibilities, if we could only just perfectly balance our past and our present, to have the courage to reach out and touch the future.
-Astoria Alms
When we are faced with an innumerable amount of regrets concerning our life and the decisions we have made, there are few things we can do, but sigh and accept the things which we cannot change. Though one could easily decide to live in the prison that is the past, or long for the promised gates of the future, the important Moment is passing us by. To live within oneself, constantly reflecting on the things that could have been done or the things that should not have been done, is not only unprofitable, but rather cost-detrimental. They take a toll on the human mind, they wear out the heart, and they weaken the soul. If we live everyday wishing it were yesterday, there is an infinity lying between the nothing of yesterday and the possibility of today.
Though of course one should look upon yesterday with the eye of a passing observer, gathering information but not becoming heavily immersed, one must maintain a distance for all has passed. The Moment is lost if not completely appreciated at the time. Thus one must wake up everyday, every single day, every morning, every sunrise, as if it were the first. It is sheer madness to live as if each day is the last because then everything is absorbed in such a rapid way that there is nothing savored softly. To live each day as if it were your first entails feeling everything with the innocence that comes from experiencing the new. Opening your eyes is such a simple human activity, something that we take for granted everyday, but when one truly opens one’s eyes, the world’s intensity level rises more than can be possibly be comprehended.
Everything has so many possibilities, if we could only just perfectly balance our past and our present, to have the courage to reach out and touch the future.
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