What is life?
At the moment it is realizing that even seemingly small choices have consequences and repercussions. And being the non-committal, procrastinator that I am, I really don't what to have to face these outcomes. I feel like I am looking at myself through a magnifying glass, both examining and waiting to get burned.
I have promised myself over and over again in the past (and not so distant past) that I would not be the cause of someone else's pain again. I've done with that, no more, not again. And yet, looking ahead at the choices I have to make in the near future, I can not see anyway to avoid giving someone disappointment and pain. In my own mind, I know what I am going to do when the situations arise, but I am almost sick at the thought of facing them. I am weak and scared, and all I want to do is run and hide.

Sunlight is fading from the hills
and I am trying to remember how to be happy.
Lines of shadow darken, color fades
I sift through memories
as so many recipes in an old kitchen drawer
looking for the one that will tell me
the ingredients I lack.
Cool air and quiet slowly saturate my haunt
and I grasp for words I will never utter aloud.

A thought to fill the time until I find some to spare on posting...

Readers may be divided into four classes: 1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic (1772-1834)

I am going to be yelled in a moment or two, but these are the first moments put together I've had since I've gotten here. Ten minutes ago the livingroom floor was not visible beneath the litter of mattereses and sleeping bags... There is a bit of fog outside, making the breeze just a bit on the chill side. I am not really sure how many of us have decended upon the welcoming home of Dz's parents.
"we're going"

It is raining and I have Bible verses running through my head.
Perhaps it it because we are coming up on the Triduum, but I keep thinking of the verse "...and he went out and wept bitterly into the night..." I've always thought that it should be raining during Peter's repentance, though it says nothing about it raining at that time in the gospels. Perhaps it's all of the comparisons of rain to weeping...
I had an interesting discussion with Toque last night about humanity, sin, and humility. He was making the case that at some point we have to acknowledge that we on our own are not able to do anything but fall. It is simply who and what we are. This is where humility comes in, we have to ask God for the grace not to fall, recognizing our own inability to accomplish anything good. Humility becomes necessary because we are commanded to be "perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect." My thoughts ran more along the lines of the difference between men and women's responses to this. For all the fact that we all fell in Adam, that we are all men sharing the same fallen human nature, the "daughters of Eve" have inherited something peculiar to themselves in the way they view sin, particularly their own. Mother Eve was, to a certain extent, the incentive for Adam to fall, her company, beauty, just she in herself. Women have in a way inherited a sense of guilt on account of this. I think this is the reason women will often see the sins of others as being their own, why they will withdraw in certain situations. They see it as a danger zone of pain, either for others or themselves. I know there was an element of this playing in myself the other night...

They were an interesting group there, collected at the base of the amphitheater. It may well have been the setting for a play of its own, three ladies and two gents discoursing amoung themselves on the random and profound. Walking down the steps, my familiar blew up on an errant breeze and wrapped itself around my heart closer than the lover's arms around my waist. Unconsciously I shivered, while laughing to myself at the wonder of meeting this collection of friends in the empty park.
surprised "Come down and join us."
cheerful " We're giving speeches on random words. Come on it's your turn..."
laughing "It will be fun. Go on, up on the stage."
Voices chiming in, meaning to be welcoming and open, isolated and closed me off. I did not belong in this merry group. Usually I would tell myself that I was being silly and childish, to pay no attention to the familiar twining itself about my heart like a cat about one's legs. This night, though - the moon a low crescent, the stars bright though the light haze in the valley, the trees all around tall and slim, low and round, the laughter, the light- removed all within me with which I ordinarily dismiss my familiar. I gave in. No, I was not of this folk...
As he climbed up to the top of the covering, up amoung the tree branches, I wandered to the top of the amphitheater, stepping on the backs and seats of the long brown rows of bleachers. There now, I can observe and enjoy, listening to their conversations and laughing with my familiar.
called "What will you give for water?"
called in reply "Nothing, for I need it not."
to themselves "Ah the self-sufficient sort...."
I knew then I would not be allowed to remain backstage, in the wings, apart, alone. And sure enough, W came walking up the center aisle.
murmured "Please come down."
whispered "I don't belong here."
laughing softly "I don't either... please come down...for me..."
His voice trailed off. I wouldn't look at him, but I knew his face wore a troubled look, partly sad partly pleading. With a sigh I followed him down the aisle, back toward the collection of people at the foot of the stage.
calling up to the figure perched above "Your turn."
called down "What am I to talk about?"
obvious reply "Talk about her"
I had to laugh. About me?
quipped "Here I'll help- let me get out of sight."
I saw a chance to escape again, climbing on the stage looking up at him as I passed under his hanging feet, feeling far away from him now. I lingered in the shadows of what ought to have been the backstage, listening to him holding forth on peanuts and his roommate.
to me "Your turn."
curious "Mine? I don't think so."
reply "Yes. The word is 'wall'."
leaning back "Then I am the wall and nothing you say can penetrate..."

And so wore away our time in the theater, this scene of the pageant wherein we play in played out and past.

As we walked back through the quiet park, away from the abandoned amphitheater, he asked me what was wrong. He caught the tears I had not let form or fall as they tugged my voice, catching my throat. I was at a loss. How does one describe one's familiar? A daemon? To tell him that it wends its way into my heart in a surer fashion than he, possessing without effort what he desires for his own? That I weary of the struggle with it... No, better to laugh and say nothing is wrong, that I am being silly. But he knows me too well and will not let me be drawn further away from him. I am grateful for his struggle to understand, it gives me strength for the fight.

ACK taxes!!!!!!!!!! Evil evil taxes! In the past I have not minded having to file taxes so very much. It was simple enough, and the refund (when I didn't think about the fact that the refund was actually money that ought not to have been taken from me in the first place) was rather nice to get in the mail. It made you feel like you suddenly had extra money to play with. This year however, it is simply confusing. Too many forms, schedules, instructions...too much stuff to process. Perhaps I ought to go and ask someone for help...

Excerpt from letter written 15 March. Edited for content.

"How possible to love someone so much you ask, love… perhaps it is a way of seeing them… seeing more of what is to be loved in them, more of God in them. As you wondered this, I immediately thought “yes but you love your child even more than this” to a similar effect, how is it possible to love more than this? The answer must be God, and the desire to love Him that is somehow in our nature. I mentioned this in my last letter…as a lover you must first seek Him, completely desiring Him as your love, your only love, satisfied only and alone with and by His love. All other loves will satisfy only when they come through and are offered to Him. Because we are created for Him, it is only His love that will satisfy, and our souls somehow know this. I’ve sought this grace from Him for years now, seeking to find rest and stillness in Him, often failing and returning with tears and new realizations of what love is. "

Random:

~I spent perhaps half an hour this morning tying a friend of mine into a corset. Yes, an corset- one of those things that make the waist of the woman wearing it look impossibly small by a trick of the eye. I came to two conclusions. First, ladies' maids were in fact necessary, because it is impossible to get one of those things on without assistance. (I've always wondered about that...) Second, they don't really make your waist that much smaller, they shift the attention to the bust and hips and give a very definite line from one to the other. Hence the famous "hour-glass figure." They look extreemly uncomfortable to wear, and from what I've heard are also bad for you healthwise (something about damage to intenal organs...). So why is it that I as still curious to see what I would look like in one? *sigh* vanity of vanities...

~Reason #59 to get a computer of one's own: Papers are much easier to write on one's own time and not around the schedule of half a dozen other people.

The due date for the last paper of this year is...now let's see...five days away. I have only the vaguest of ideas of what I am going to do with it. I keep making time for it and something happens, and my efforts are thwarted. I took off from rehearsal this week-end and the Lady Gatekeeper needed the computer for application essays at the same time. So I think, "Ok, write an outline and collect ideas." This being done, and the computer still not available, I wander down to rehearsal, only to leave an hour and a half later to go to my philosophy prof.'s for supper. I am very glad I went, but it did not get anything done on the paper. Tonight, little things eat nearly 2/3's of the time I'd set aside for it...
*sigh* Perhaps I do worry too much about these things. I know I can write enough in four hours. But I do need those four hours, and it would be rather useful to have them all together rather than spread out over five days.
I think I'll wander off tomorrow night. Hmmm what am I doing tomorrow night, oh that's right...maybe I won't be...

On a brighter note, the seniors turned in their theses last night as the cover charge the one, if not the best party of the year here on campus. It began at 11 and lasted 'til 2 from what I've heard. Strange enough, there were few senior to be seen about today...though those who were to be found had something of a glow to them and a certain lightness to their step. It was very good to see. Defenses start in three weeks...the year is winding down. Soon the freshmen will be reading the Republic and then it will really be near the end. Graduation will come and nearly everyone will go. And time will move on...

The Temptations just came on the player, singing My Girl... "I've got sunshine on a cloudy day..." Which is rather fitting at this moment, for it is raining and the sun is shining through the clouds, lighting up the drops as they fall. There must be a rainbow hiding around somewhere.

So now that I have the page sitting open before me, full of potency (wait can something actually be full of "the ability to become something"... *shakes head* sorry, philosophy paper still taking its revenge)
What was I going to talk about... oh yes, peanuts... wonderful things those. Salty, full of good stuff for you, paritcularly the ones who talk...those are especially beneficial because they increase the practice of charity (eg. not tick'ling them to death) and patience (eg letting them continue to full up one's comments with randomness). All in all, they are rather pleasant and tolerably good to eat. The southern ones are particularly nice... so I think I will continue to associate with them.

I think my roommate and next door neighbour will live...it's a good thing too. Things would get so quiet and deadly dull without the two of them... I might even get ahead with my homework (how awful ;-) I have missed them, all they do is sleep (which I seem to recommend in great quantities, being the way to cure all physical evils).

Hmm, I think I am wondering off to the beach...I know I had more to talk about, but it will just have to wait.

I wandered up toward the commons in the pouring rain last night, having just turned in the paper that had been consuming my life essence (ok, so now that it is done I am allowed some exageration...) as I was saying, I wandered up to find the promised jam session. And I did. They were playing in the small room that houses the ping pong table (the accustics are good in there...) I paused for a moment, after I had passed through the door. The small group looked complete, Toque leaning on the table bleeding music from a 3/4 classical guitar, Dz intense and radiating life, seemingly unable to be still for more than a moment, a few other making up the circle. I felt the briefest flash of- not alienation, but something akin. But it was music and I needed the sustinence. We sang 'til just before cerfew, and I walked back to the dorm in the still pouring rain, musing over the eveing with Toque.
I am ambitious for music of my own. Someday I will hold my own place in that circle. But until then, me thinks I will not be with out that twinge of "withoutness" at such gathering...

Remote publishing!! Wireless internet!! No, I have not managed to make the leap into the 21th century. I am simply stealing time on a friend's computer while he is not looking...
So some good news: my paper is nearly finished. After five hours of making myself sit in one place, though surrounded by books and all the music I could want (well, for about 10 hours at least), I got to a point where I could say "yes it is as done as it is going to get without someone else going over it and shredding...uh, er...proofing it." Nah, it is not all that bad (I don't think) and it may even be some good. But I am immensely relieved and I can feel the stress level dropping as I type. There really is no feeling like accomplishment.

The owner of the stolen laptop with the remote internet connection (and sole possessor of all the books and music as well) has returned. I'll get him to proof my paper and perhaps wander around in the rain. The next two hours are all mine, to do with as I please. No paper worries, no homework to speak of...

I am going to wander off now...

"...but if sensation, then also imagination and appetite. For wherever there is sensation, there is also pain and pleasure, and wherever these are, there is necessarily also desire."
Not that I know what Aristotle is actually saying here, but it sounded good and so I thought that I'd share it with y'all. Which rather sums up the state of my philosophy term paper...
Not good...
Believe me, I had every intention of getting my usual three week head start and having it done last weekend and ready for proofing and revision. But somehow all of my time went the way of the prodigal son, without the heartening reassurance of repentance and return home at the end of the story. So now I am looking at a deadline 72 odd hours away (minus class, work, homework, sleeping and eating hours...wait, do I really need those last two? I wonder...).
Not good...
This evening was spent with the Sprit. I wanted to make a quick supper and start on my homework as soon as the occupant of my computer haunt had departed for the evening's activities. The Sprit has not been well (see account for details), so I was going to make her some supper as well. "If we start the movie now, it will be done in time for you to write when Katarina has left," quoth she. Looking at her, all bundled up and still cold, regaling me with stories of her doctor's appointment, and how good everyone has been to her today (note: I had not seen her all day, and she lives next door), how could I possibly say no? And we were going to be done by 7, 7:30 at the outside. So we sat and watched the Dark Crystal (a cult classic well worth seeing at least a dozen times) while I made food on the coffee table and tried to forget about the homework that was not yet done, and the paper that was not yet finished. It was almost made worth the time spent on it by the Sprit's comment at the end, just as the end credits music was beginning to swell, and the hero and his love are standing together..."And it's an even better movie than The Princess Bride because there is no kissing in it!" ...how can you top that one?

so here I sit venting, well over an hour past the time I wanted to be in this same seat, without having gotten anything scholastically significant done. However, I have fed the hungry, and visited the sick, and practiced (some) patience, so perhaps it was not all for a loss...and besides, I do have those 72 odd hours...

How I would love to have the time to go on about the absurdities this campus has witnessed this past week-end, the glories of the sunsets of the past several days, the beauty of the valley in the twilight of yestereve, the hilarity of walking (or perhaps "tripping" would more accurately describe the activity) down the hillside in the dim moonlight after having quaffed a bottle of rather good chardonnay in the most wonderful company in the entire world - but I am simply too hard pressed for time and must needs be off this very minute to attend to a very important something or other...

At the request of my lady, Queenie...

The sound of waves washes over
gentle and even as my breath
hazy light slowly growing
chasing shadows to darkling corners.

~blink~

Thoughts of the day memory of the night
counting hours between the now and time
when my love will take me away
to what or where is unknown, but...

~blink sigh~

A low grey over the hills hints of a chillness in the air
through the door, a breeze brushes my cheek
up the walk past a lamppost
buried in green, buds, and hidden sent.

~blink sigh blink~

Chapel doors of dull brown belie the glories within
new dimness beckons, welcomes silent prayer
small bell rings, eyes raised to the Cross
my daily fast is broken on the Bread of Life

(I do hope this fits the bill...)

Reflections on Ash Wednesday

My mind's eye
wanders across a snowy barren field
seeking the solid shadow we'd left behind.
A grave yard cold somber
lone on the plain with the pines standing guard.
Grey head stones, white piled snow,
they lie alone, so alone with their end.
All end here, with the stone, snow, and tree.
The dust of my frame recognizes its kin
mortality weighs with the silence of years.
Often I return here to this cold shade
Bearing the marks of my ancestral fate and doom
Alone this is my end, the dust and snow.
The Light calls beyond the cold and shade
freeing from the cling and grasp of the dust
A Cross in the road, born on my brow, engraved in my heart
whispers hope of an end beyond the grave.

"Remember man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return"

I've seen W again. After five months of nary a word he appeared in the afternoon light. I wondered at it, the immidiate flush of pleasure at seeing his familiar form, then hearing his voice. Five months, longer if you want to count from our last conversation. Does it matter? I wonder...
I've been wondering much about the nature of friendship. We all ask about love, trying to figure out what it is, why it is. But somehow friendship is lost in the betwixt and between.

"Why are you still my friend?"

Twice now I've been asked, many times I have wondered. With some people I take it forgranted that there is enough common ground, a shared interest that allows for conversation and companionship. With others though, there is nothing and no matter how much I'd like there to be, unless something changes, there will be nothing.
The Sprit and I had a symposium of sorts on friendship last night, lasting long past the time I was supposed to start homework. Love, duty, trust, converstion, time, respect, interest, all of these go into a friendship, but is there something more, something that takes it beyond the sum of these parts? I want to know, perhaps so that I can mend friendships I've broken, or build on friendships that are (hopefully) becoming...

Randomness for the day...

To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers - or both.
-Elizabeth Charles, writer (1828-1896)

To my afternoon class

heavy eyes
clouded skies
sleep lingers, nibbles my toes
dances in the corners of my vision

peeled eyes
heavy sighs
sleep stuffed into my pocket
voices now making a bit of sense.

Jeremy Fisher...

Sleep is a great big fish
waiting to swallow me
as I sit fishing on the
pond of knowledge.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher(1844-1900)

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life - the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
-Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)

I fear me that our government has failed the first portion of this test, and will all too soon fail the latter portions as well.

(disclaimer: this event is being recounted to the best recolection and taste of the narrator...any departure from the reality of history is either accidental...or not.)

I was sitting in the chair that is now under the window of my room this afternoon, reading, when I hear a random yelp from the Sprit who is sitting on the floor, with her homework scattered across the majority of the remaining space. I look over and she is laughing...
"What?"

-deep breaths-

"I read the note on your file cabint and saw, under once a week 'Bailey' and 'Wiskey'. Now I knew you wanted to start drinking a bit more often, but I was still a little shocked, and I thought "Why hasn't she told me and why haven't I been invited along???" Then I read it again... andI saw that it really said 'D******** Bailey' and I***** Wistey' which suddenly made SOOOO much more sense!"

My turn to laugh, sans intermission for a good five minutes...


I do need to start drinking more often...

I was looking out my window this afternoon, trying to ignore what appears to be poison oak on my arm, and I noticed that spring has, for all intents and purposes, arrived. The sycamore tree is sporting small leaves, all soft and pale green. I was reminded of Laura Ingles' Farmer Boy and the old farmer's saying that the time to plant wheat was when the maple (or was it oak??) leaves were the size of a baby's squirrels ears... I remember Alice wondering to her brother how they knew what size baby squirrels ears even are. I am rather happy that it is basically spring already, but I wouldn't have minded a month or even a month and a half more of winter. I've found that (as long as I am properly dressed) I like the cold (or perhaps it it because it gives me a reason to dress for the weather...). I like the occurrence of real weather here in the land of nearly perpetual sun. I will miss the fogs and mists more than I will let myself notice...
~ ~ ~
I was sitting at lunch today with one of our tutors and a rather random assortment of fellow students, listening to them discuss deep and weighty philosophical matters. I think the conversation began with a discussion of the "where," "whatness," and purpose of music... I did not say much, if anything, but then I never do. I sat and listened, going over what was being said, comparing it to what I've heard from others and what I think myself. All the while, in a back corner of my mind, I was wondering at how much we take conversations like this for granted. I'll wager (with all of my years and experience to back me up) that you'll find few other places where such discussion is an everyday affair. I wondered too that the ache, which I usually associate with beauty and love, was slowly being drawn out. Per'aps I am meant for the philosopher's life after all...

I wonder how true this is...
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
~Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Resignation

run, run away little girl
away from this battle you cannot fight
this battle you've no chance to win
no chance without the loss of your heart
lost and yet so full, so torn
the pain of refusal of that same heart
now weeping tears of helplessness
helplessness at knowing you can do nothing
to make it right.

I just got this from my uncle (always a good source of random ways to waste time). Anyway, it is rather interesting and amusing. I don't know how it is done, but if anyone figures it out, I'd be interested in hearing...

Proud Refrain
What are you dreaming, soldier,
What is it you see?
A tall gray Gothic tower,
And a linden tree.
You speak so sadly, soldier,
Sad and wistfully . . .
I cannot hear the tower bell
In the swirling sea.
What meaning has it, soldier,
A tower, bell, and tree?
Nothing, nothing - only once
It meant my life to me.

-- Fr. Thomas Heath, OP

I found this on the site of a friend and couldn't resist. Read more about Fr. Heath
Requisat in pacis.

This originally wanted to come out as a poem, but when I sat down to write it, there was too much there so it will remain prose...
We came up here to drink in the candle lit darkness. You to one, I to another, we two unbeknownst to ourselves to a past that would no longer continue to be. We sat looking at the others through the dimness that was so like the future, vague shadows of things we thought we knew. Already on that night, the rains of change were falling, changes that would obliterate all that we had shared over the past year as surely as rains washed away the prints of all those who have so often walked this path. I looked around today for that familiar track, known so well as to be able to walk it blindly. It was gone. The whole place is as changed as you seem to be. Nothing recognizable, it is all gone, washed away by inexorable change. I may as well have been looking for a sign of recognition in your eyes, this area was foreign. I wept as I looked at the new sprung beauty around me, tears for you and the pain I have caused yet again. But my tears will mean nothing to you. I could not give what you sought, and you have rejected all that I offered. No, my tears will go as unheeded by you as they were by the river they fell into. And yet, I would not exchange the beauty I have found, with all its pain, for the shadows of the "what-may-have-been." I will rest content in my loves and pains, thanking God for what He saw fit to bring.

untitled

That man is truly good who knows his own dark places.
-Beowulf

The wind is playing the part of a fitful lover. He comes on strong and sure, and you think that it will be windy all day, pleased with the thought of it. Look for him and he is gone, all is still, you feel forgotten and abandoned. He returns, sweeping you up in his arms, expecting- knowing- that all will be forgiven. "Where are you going? Take me with you," I whispered as he swept by me. He is silent, teasing, mussing my hair, trying to make off with my cap. Smiling, tho' with a hint of a sadness I can't help feeling, I walk on, not waiting for a reply, not looking back.

Randomness for the day:

What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see theDawn!
-Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)

~ ~ ~
(a new word to add to my vocabulary)
repine (ri-PYN) verb intr. 1. To feel discontent; to fret. 2. To yearn for something.
synonyms: bleed, chafe inwardly, consider, daydream, deliberate, despond, dream, dwell upon, fret, gloom, grieve, lament, languish, meditate, mope, mull over, muse, ponder, reflect, ruminate, sigh, speculate

~ ~ ~
30 degree teperature changes in one day are not pleasant... I'm guessing that is it now in the mid 80's. Tonight, however, it will drop down to the low 50's or perhaps even the high 40's. Ah the joys of living in southern Cali...

Sunset or Coming Night

My heart feels nigh to breaking
I cannot breath
the glowing intense beauty...
now gone faded
shrugged from the shoulders of the hill
once more drawing breath without pain
and yet - the loss gives greater pain
laden with sorrow and night
than the sunset ever could.

testing testing let's see if I can send you off to some where innocuous...

A beautiful girl once told me that when she was small her mother used to call the moon seen during the day a "children's moon" beecause it was up so they could see it. I've thought of it so ever since...
The "children's moon" was out this afternoon as I was walking down from classes, hiding behind a streak of clouds. For some reason, I have never paid much attention to the fact that during the day, the moon is much the same colour these high thin clouds. I glanced up and for a moment did not even see the half moon. Now I fear me that it is no longer visible and will be seen no more this day, for the clouds have thickened and show no sign of moving on. It would seem that the winds of yester night and this afternoon have gone. Looking out the window now, it seems as still as it was this morning. I walked up to work in a pre-dawn stillness that I have rarely felt here. The sky had not yet dressed itself in its daytime blue and was still in its bedroom greys. The hills to the south showed a hint of orange and pink. I could hear birds, not many, and a truck coming down the hill on the other side of the closed highway. The quiet was almost tangible. But it was not a pressing, smothering quiet, like so many I have felt in the past week or so. Perhaps that is why I noticed it...

I am trying to figure out how to make in text links... bear with me.

~ ~ ~
After several attempts to figure this out, I give up...for now.
HTML is beyond me.

(Shhh, I am avoiding homework, which is a rather sorry state of affairs to be in on the first day of class...)

You know how some people have a list of historical or important personages they would like to meet and/or get to know? I have one of people I see everyday. There are so many people right here at school that I know to be amazing, interesting, extreemly inteligent people, but I am too shy/nervous/scared/(insert favorite wimp synonym) to actually go up or sit down and talk to them. I'll just think about it and suddenly every thought even remotely coherent goes *poof* all gone no more nothing there. It is at times very depressing. Perhaps the worst thing about it is that it is all my own fault. Pride will not let me risk making a fool of myself (or even edge about a potentially uncomfortable situation). I need to get over this...

I just stumbled over a foul mood, or perhaps it stumbled upon me. In any case, I am no longer looking forward to spending the evening soaking in my books. Perhaps I am still a bit "hungover" (to borrow a phrase) from Brideshead. I still have the knotted hole in my chest where my heart lives when I am not paying it any attention...
Someone once told me that if you were unhappy, more than likely it was because of something you were doing, or not doing as the case may be. I don't know what I am doing wrong right now, but at this moment, I am looking at life and am not very happy with things. Nothing very particular, I don't think. Ah well, I will deal with this in my usual fashion. I will first ignore it, filling up my thoughts with all of the mundane things that need to be done. Then I will get frustrated with it, denying that I am actually unhappy, because what have I to be unhappy about? If this fails, then perhaps I will betake myself to the chapel...

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I am in the middle of Brideshead Revisited. At this moment, I feel like my heart is breaking for all of the pain that is waiting in the book. And I know it is just a book, but is it so real, so true to life. You want to find someone to blame for what goes wrong, to have a definite "bad guy" whom you are free to dislike and a "good guy" to cheer for. But this is simply not the case. These characters are so human, they have failings and triumphs, joys and sorrows that you, the reader, feel along with them. As beautiful as the beginning of the book is, I know that I would be cheating if I stopped before things got painful, just as I know I would be cheating life if I started acting as if the ugliness and pain in life were not there.
I've been reading the last 70 odd pages of the book aloud to the Sprit. Earlier she commented on my ability to "sit and be still," to enjoy being in one place, physically, even if mentally and spiritually I am wandering in the world of whatever book happens to be lying open on my knees. This came back to me as I was kneeling in the dark chapel, praying. You see, I generally have no trouble being still and holding still once I settle down to pray. However, when I am getting close to being done, I am filled with an anxiousness to be off and out. I feel like I am going to go crazy if I sit still for a moment longer, like I will simply burst out of my skin. It is the strangest thing. I hope the merit of one's prayers is not determined by the devotion and attention given to the end of them...

I was thinking about actually sitting down and writing something real and substantial this evening. Somehow I don't think that is going to happen any more. I am in the middle of re-reading Brideshead Revisited and I can't take my mind off it for very long. I would very much like to sit down with someone over a never-ending pot of tea or good coffee and talk about it for hours on end. I may very well be back later tonight, having been overwhelmed with it all and needing an emotional break. Somehow random thoughts that would under normal conditions be seeking an escape are all caught up with Charles and Sebastian, and the brilliance of it all...

I've a few more minutes before I have to give up the computer...
The sun has come out and the clouds are thin-ish and broken. You can still hear the river from just about anywhere on campus, but the thundering of boulders along the bottom has stopped and the streams across campus are gone. I wonder if we'll be having class tomorrow...

On a random note, I apologize for the incoherency of the travel posts... I suppose my stream of consciousness is not the easiest to follow...

And no, just in case you were wondering, I did not go that entire time and not write any poetry. However, this is the only one that I will be sharing with you...

Agitation

A single blossom on the branch
awaiting the cold
ignorant of its impending doom
glistening with dew

Flash of red, flutter of green
birds flying by
frightened off by a fear
unknown to me.

I am waiting, expectation sits heavy
it fills me
pricking the tips of my fingers
ringing in my head.

Unlike the the solitary rose, I feel it coming
the approaching end
trying to see beyond tomorrow
through the fog of Time.

A continuation of the below...

22 Dec
It's the shortest day of the year. I looked out the window around 2:30 or 3:00 and saw sunset colors over the hills out to the west. "That can't be what it is" I told myself at the time. Now looking at the clock and the heavily clouded sky, I discover that I was wrong. The sun is gone. I've become such a southerner seeking the heat or at least the sight of the sun. I wonder even more at my fascination with clouds and fog. Especially the fog...

- - -

28 Dec
The clock has just chimed midnight.
I wanted to remember things while I was thinking about them...
~sparrows in the bush. Flock looking at me as I walked by, all chirping to each other about me...
~sunset over the mountains- low clouds, shadow mountains, red glimmer...gone
~moon rising over Olympic mountains, slight cloud cover...cold
~stars at 1am
~black cat with emerald green eyes, gazing out an apartment window, watching the world below. Sees me, eyes meet, he wins...

- - -

29 Dec
I feel like some sort of enchanted creature, waiting 'til the bell tolls midnight... My candle flame is tossed about by the draft of the vent near my head. Behind me my shadow looms massive and distorted, thrown against the wall and ceiling. I am full of half thoughts and musings... midnight.

31 Dec
Silence and darkness belong together; daylight needs something to fill it. Total quiet during the day is unnerving. Music is best for filling the emptiness.

- - -

2 Jan
It's so big and open here. I could sense the openness last night, but not fully. The whiteness goes on for as far as the eye can see, broken by the occasional house or clump of trees. I haven't been outside today yet, but I feel peaceful and restless at the same time. I look out at the hills and want to know what is beyond them. Similar to being in the forest, I feel whole somehow.
The little girls are adorable and they know it. This does not detract at all from their cuteness.
Someone is playing guitar downstairs...

- - -

5 Dec
I am leaving Tacoma with rather mixed feelings. I am looking forward to getting back to school and seeing everyone again. At the same time, I have a vague insistent feeling of running away. If (name deleted) had known before I bought my ticket that we would not be driving back until Sunday, I would have been guilt-tripped until I stayed. And all unintentionally too. I don't think I could have handled staying much longer, the place it too small and right now I want to be moving.
We've just passed under the Narrows Bridge. I've grown up watching trains go along this track. Now I'm riding along it, moving slowly south.
I can see mountains off to the east. They are breath-taking, leaving me instead with a desire to wander and explore. I will have to be content to do both mentally - at least for a while...
The water's edge is right below me, with the Sound stretching away. It is very calm today and the water is clear. Driftwood, entire logs and stumps (and a random lost little boat) fill the narrow strip of sand between the water and the train embankment. All along the edge of the Sound are old abandoned docks and piers. They are falling apart and look like good places to go and read or write or pensivate. I do love this area, and hope to someday be able to explore it high and low.
My traveling companion is a young woman perhaps my age perhaps a little older. Her name is Lee (or Leigh) and she is en route to San Diego.

Sunset now, somewhere in central Oregon, we passed Salem a while ago. The color is lingering below the clouds that now fill the sky. We just passed a sign saying that we are now entering Jefferson. It is a small town, old surrounded by farmland, rolling fields and tree toped hills, lots of pine.
River, bridge, the town is gone and fields have returned. Looking ahead I can see mountains against the sunset.
Cradled in a valley of the hills, the sun set and tree up its last rays, red and brilliant against the sky as a woman to her lover. And he came, for they did not last long and have now gone, leaving the western sky with its pale sunset hues.
We've nearly reached Albany.

- - -

6 Jan
The sun has risen, leaving the horizon with a kiss. The forests and mountains are far behind. I have returned to the region of orchards and fields and live oaks. The sky is clear, a low haze, think in some places, covers the ground soon to burn off in the heat of the sun. For now it gives an unreal sense to everything. The haze is simply there- low and thick with little texture, still, obscuring anything that could come out of it.
And out of it has come marsh land, scattered with trees. Were it nightfall, rather than day's breaking, I would expect to see the ghosts of those who had lost their way in the fog (perhaps the same fog) or had been "disposed" of in the silent waters. It seems very still, not a rush stalk is moving, not a tree branch sways.
Another river, another bridge, this time both very long and wide.
Martinez.
The country is gone, slowly filled up with more and more buildings. We've arrived in Oakland- Jack London Square. The day has continued clear, a bit of Bay fog remains and a few scattered clouds. We are about an hour later than I thought we'd be, so I get to wait around the San Jose station for an hour or so. Not too bad, always lots to see. I'm not sure I want to be back around people quite yet.
- - -
Somewhere between Oakland and San Jose... The marshes began again and the sky clouded over. We passed several sites with abandoned and nearly sunken shacks, some with chimney pipes still extant. And as quickly as that civilization has returned.
- - -
I am at the train station, waiting. Inside became too enclosed and I have moved out front. My ride should be here soon. I have the post travel blues...I have come to expect them at the end of trips...

A continuation of the below account of 19-20 Dec...please read that first if you expect this to make any sense...

The gorge stretches out I'd guess a mile to the other side. Pine covered hills as far as the eye can see. A mist has lowered, I can no longer see the gorge. Through the freight train passing I can catch an occasional glance at the thick fog. Annette is rambling on in a charming old lady fashion about the area and the sights.
The fog is so thick I can hardly see the bottom of the gullies.
My little old lady has rambled long past where we are and probably long after the sights will be dark. She and her friend will be detraining shortly so they will be able to catch the wouthboudn train home.
The snow on the hillside has disapeared to be replaced with pine saplings and ferns. The fog is now the cloud cover above us, with some of it still moving up the valley. There is a hing ot sunset in the clouds out ot the east . I've glimpsed it perhaps twice through the trees.
The novelty of my mode of travel is starting to wear off, mostly due to the exorbitant cost of food and in some small part to the headache that is dancing about the crown of my head. *sigh* and I've got a good five or six hours to go...
---
Food and two movies later and I am nearly there. One more stop then Tacoma. Finally had a chance to talk to (name deleted). He said he was reminded today of the need to take pleasure in the little things. Not to count the cost of small achievments that may not directly bring you to your goal. I was slightly surprised. I suppose that this is such a basic part of how I see everything that I bein to take foregranted that everyone or at least those who in geneal see things the way I do, lives the same way. If I had to explain everything that made me smile or laugh I would sound insane or completely simplistic. Sounds will make me smile, words make me laugh. The manerisms of a child, a peculiar walk, I don't even think I could find the ironies of everything that causes amusement. For example, the cafe attendent Ben came walking down the sairts after the stop in Portland and as he reached the last step, I found myself giggling. Not sure why, but I don't question it. Simplicity of heart perhaps...hopefully...
We're almost nearly there. I can't honestly say that I am tired of being on the train or fed up or frustrated about being late. I feel more like "I've been here for a while now, but that's all right, I don't mind that much." Because I don't. I'll get there eventually, if not in a little while, then a bit after that. Nothing to fret over though...
In a tunnel, the view doesn't change but the sound echos and then fades as we emerge...
---
Cab ride through the fog down familiar streets I no longer recognize.
And I am here.

The following is a record of my travels and thoughts over the Christmas break...

The first hint of sunrise came as we meandered along a stream. The low clouds began to take on hues of red and orange, together with pinks tempered with greys. The hills around are dark with pine, from what I can tell by their shape. The scattered houses are sturdy and warm looking. I don't know quite where I am. Dunsmuir? I'll soon find out.
My traveling companion is a young man- tall, lean and lanky. He is en route to Seattle with his brother and mom. Longish brown hair is mussed from a night of trying to sleep in a coach seat. (I have no idea how mine looks...)
"Eric"
Ah, I now have a name.
It is Dunsmuir. It's small, surrounded by hills and trees. The street running parallel to the rails looks quaint, the shops decorated with lights. An early morning wind is whisking through the town, seemingly the only thing awake to see our passing through.
The not-quite-human feeling is growing again. The forest, hillsides, glimpsed mountain peaks covered with snow, innumerable small waterfalls rushing down to mee the river whisper something to my soul of it alienation from where it belongs (the lack of sleep and food is probably a factor as well) We are rounding a bend, horseshoeing up hill, I think. As my car reaches the far side I am presented with the glory of the ascending sun. Fading, I don't understand. Turn around, first glimpse of sunlight on snow covered hills.
We are high above the river now, at the knees of the mountain we are crawling along. The tree tops are at eye level. Bunches of mistletoe are all that is left in the bare branches. I find the mistletoe amusing and ironic. What a dangerous forest for folk to wander though...
The light grows and I have yet to see the sun. It is likely I will not this day, for the clouds are thick above as far as the eye can see.
The mountain peak keep drawing my eye away from the mountains below. Mt Hood? Mt Shasta? I don't know, my guess is the later because I think we are still in Cali.
I am awake and feeling distinctly unkempt. I must needs wander off to explore my means of travel.
---
Humanity returned with food and a cup of hot black tea. Victuals cost entirely too much.
We are along some unknown large body of water, lake or river perhaps. We are still up in the mountains, inclining me to say lake. However we just left Klamath Falls, leading me to conclude that it may just as well be a river. I need to work on my geography.
I am on the right side of the train. The sun has indeed come out, but is directly behind me, still out of sight.
The hillside out my window is brown and dry, scattered with scrubby looking pines. Dirty patches of snow cling to the north face out of the reach of weak fingers of sunlight. We are stopped for some unknown reason. There is a two-lane highway along the tracks. Not many cars, fewer trucks. the wind is breaking the cloud cover.
Flogging Molly is playing min my ears. Not quite the most Advent of albums, but something of a tradition for long adventure trips.
I'll have to call (name deleted) eventually and tell her I'm going to be a bit later than expected.
---
Somewhere up in the Cascades east side, the sun's come out. Its late in the afternoon and the light is filtering though the trees. The snow outside is perhaps three or four inches deep. The fallen trees are old and dry looking. I'm imagining being out in the forest. There's no lack of firewood and apre patches , but given the elevation, I'm guessing that it gets pretty cold.
The sun's gone behind the trees and hills. A hint of a mist is gathering over the lake and over the peak of the mountain. The ground now slopes upward with cricks (as the two old ladies call them) running down to meet the tracks. The snow is deeper and we are beginning to head down the mountainside. I wish I could smell the forest, the sharp pine, damp earth, and the cold blending and covering it all.
The clouds are low, quickly getting caught on the tree tops across the gorge. What is this fascination with clouds? I am always watching, noticing and commenting on them...

(to be continued at a later time, because I am getting tired ;-)

The dark house is once again mine. It doesn't matter who's house I'm in, the darkness and the silence are the important parts. I am sitting in the computer room of my grandparent's house. It is late and the house has gone to bed. Except for me. The nighttime is my own. I am limited only by my imagination, bound only by the silence that I must not break. The silence is soothing, comforting. I am trying to figure things out (always a dangerous thing to do, especially late at night). I've been trying to figure things out all day. Nothing has come. The future is a strange thing, indefinite and inexorable. It will be, and yet it is whatever we make it to be. I have too much running through my head, all of which would make even less sense than what I've already put down does. I wish I had the ability to speak freely, to say whatever is on my mind, anytime and anywhere. It seems that it would be easier to learn to control what one says, than to learn to speak. The words are rarely there when I want to say them. Perhaps that is why poetry comes rather easily at times. What I cannot vocalize I scribble down on a pad of paper, halting and impassioned.

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.

 

 -Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet
(1850-1894)

Something to remember during these hectic days of family visits, and holiday merry-making...

My love and prayers to you all during this blessed season. I am looking forward to rejoing the computer world again...it is getting just a tad lonesome without you all.

 

It is amazing what one can miss while sleeping in the car. The California wine country is alluring (trying to expand my vocabulary) in its own way. Green rolling hills, and vineyard streaching away from the road and up the hills to the north and west. I have somehow managed to be asleep through that streach of the drive the last few times I've been up this way. I was reminded of the movie A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves. There is something rather appealing about vineyards. (I think I've watched too many movies)

I am looking at close to three weeks of internet deprivation, and I can think of nothing to write. Finals are over, and I don't really want to revisit them, even to complain. I am not really sure what to expect from the break, so I'm not going to go on about how wonderful it will all be. I plan to keep something of a scribble book so I'll have plenty to say after the fact. I am feeling strangly emotionally void and not very much inclined to ramble on about things.

However this will not prevent me from wishing you all a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year. Mayhap I will be on sooner than I expect and and in a more holiday mood.
Ciao...

All pau. done. finished. no more. And strangly enough, no feeling of relief, no sense of accomplishment, just a tired feeling of "I really could have done better."

I think I am going to wait until Sunday to post anything more, or I'll simply sound depressed.

Three down, three to go.

Now for some sleep.

FINALS!!!!!!!!

And that is all I have to say....for now.

(excerpt from letter written 9 Dec)

I stopped by the Career Center this morning after classes and talked to M. K. for a bit about grad schools. I told him that I was looking at environmental sciences, but I really don't know where to look for them. He said a web search would be a start and that he'd look into it as well. I know it's kinda early to start looking, but judging from how quickly this past semester went it certainly won't hurt. From the way the grad program requirements look, I will probably have to get a B.S. before being able to get an M.S. But who knows, perhaps a BS will be enough... I haven't looked very extensively, but it would be likely that I'd stay here in Cali (San Fran State University has an interesting Biology department, although I'm sure that it is extremely liberal...)
K. also said that they are planning to expand the summer internship program, so I might be able to get a job in the field I am looking at, which would be great. Not only would I be able to see if I would really like it, I'd also have something really good to add to my sparse resume.

It was so gorgeous yesterday afternoon. the fog had rolled in, thick and high covering the hills and creeping up the mountains 'til they were gone, getting caught in the trees and the hill crests. It looked as though the hills themselves were rising out of the mist - so surreal. I looked out and felt as though I didn't belong to the mortal world at all, the slight wind, the cool dampness, the colors beyond description. Perhaps those poor people who think they are actually elves have something to their claim... I wanted to step through whatever barrier it was that kept me tied to the ground and within this humdrum, prosaic little circle of things, and walk into the beauty I was seeing, become one with it... (just fancy that, plain brown me, part of the breathtaking aching beauty of nature. you know something, I think that is why I want to go into environmental science...so I can perhaps find a way to do just that...) I'm so ridiculous, but it hurts to remember how awe inspiring it all looked...

sigh, and now back to your regularly scheduled reality...

The rain is coming down soft and gentle. Outside the window of my computer haunt, the hills to the west are opaque through the mist that is rolling up the valley. I feel tired but relatively happy. There are no classes tomorrow, and seminar tonight was "postponed." I should feel disappointed that I won't get to discuss the end of Augustine's Confessions, and see how the book all ties together. But that would require cramming to finish it without falling asleep...as it is, I will finish it tomorrow, at my leisure.
Finals begin on Saturday. I don't know how I am going to do. We have not gotten any review guides, and I am feeling extremely undirected. I go back over the year in my mind, and think "We haven't done that much... No wait, we have - I just don't remember it all..."

*sigh*

However, the paper is over, seminar is canceled, and there are no classes tomorrow...
I don't have a care in the world...

*sigh*

Four months of work have been brought to fulfillment in a mere hour and a half. Why is it that things you work so hard for pass so quickly? Take a meal for instance. You can spend an entire week preparing and cooking, and the whole thing takes perhaps a couple of hours to eat (the conversation lasts, hopefully, much longer than that). Well, its the same way with a concert. You practice and practice, and just because you of course don't have anything better to do, you practice some more. You listen to the work on CD for extra re-enforcement. And then the big night, and suddenly you are up there in front of everyone and the music starts and you murmur a silent prayer that you can remember all of the entrances and don't hit any wrong notes (especially in that one number that has been giving you trouble...) You stand, watching and listening (trying not to let it show on your face that your feet are now ready to commit suicide in protest for putting them in those ridiculous shoes). Look out at all the people, seeing who is interested, who is just there. Glance at the clock, amazed that you are almost done, it is the last song, and you still feel like you just walked up onto the risers. Heart still beating hard, the last note held and cut, all in unison. And then the applause, heralding an odd, sad-ish feeling into the very bottom of the heart. Its all over, bow. Sing the encore. Bow, its all over.
There ought to be more to show for all that work...something I can hold and keep (other than a sore throat ;-)

Just for the record, I am planning to do something else with my time next semester... piano lessons perhaps, or judo...

I'm curious...

There was a rainbow on the table in class this afternoon. I'm not really sure where it came from, though I think it was lost. It looked so small and forlorn, and rather undernourished, come to think of it. Perhaps it lost its way on the journey south for the winter and was taking a rest in the warm sunlight, inside safe from the chill wind. I watched it for a while and gradually it seemed to brighten and pick up a bit more color. Once it felt better, I watched it wander back out the window and continue it's travels south.

And the break is over...how does time manage to pass as quickly when you are doing nothing as it does when you are filling every moment of the day with activity?
The drive back down her to SoCal was nearly as random as the drive up. This time the music was provided by Maedhros, resulting in a rather ironic dive. I've never known (and can't really imagine) our driver to listen to anything other than "well ordered" music (all though I don't know if this is actually the case). And so perhaps you can imagine my amusement when the Sprit called out for Flogging Molly's Swagger as the first album of the trip (I'd almost forgotten how much I liked that CD). Flogging Molly was followed by Bela Fleck (a wonderful choice). However by this time most of us passengers had dozed off and our lovely driver took over the control of the music, replacing the Flecktones with a children's choir singing Christmas carols. (I was very tempted to think, as I was roused from slumber by Joy to the World, that it was a means of gentle revenge for subjecting her to Flogging Molly, but charity got the better of me...) However, the heavenly voice of Gillian Welch and the picking of Doc Watson more than made up for the hour and a half of (shrill) children's voices. Pink Floyd, The Who and Talking Heads rounded out the soundtrack of our drive back.

~ ~ ~
I am coming to realize why Toque is so in love with California. The rolling hills and mountain bases along US 101 are at times breathtaking, at others restful. At one along the highway, the road rolls around a bend through the hills and suddenly you are presented with the vast expanse of the sea.

(randomness of the evening: the Sprit just walked into the computer haunt dressed in a black, green, orange plaid skirt, a green/blue plaid flannel shirt, topped with her 'traditional' red, grey, and green plaid jacket, with a grey scarf, and an orange beannie. "It's SOOOOO cold!!! Oh, this is my protest outfit," she says by way of explanation. As she sat down, I saw bright teal socks peaking out)

Now, I grew up on an island. I've been surrounded by and and in sight of the sea all my life. Yet, as I was staring blindly out the window of the car- not seeing anything of the passing hills- the moment the sea came into sight, I felt something akin to...I don't know how to describe it. For that one instant, I knew what the elves felt when they saw the sea. It is a knowledge, and a longing, and a pain, and something more, itself lasting only an instant or two, but the remembrance of it lingers, coloring your view of everything else.

It is 1 am and the house is very quiet, the only sounds are of the two computer sitting on the table in front of me, and the occasional tapping within the wall of an idontknowwhat. I am waiting and hoping for a phone call that I doubt will come tonight, but one thing hope has never been accused of is being reasonable.
I rambled this off a few nights ago, and could not come up with the end of it until last night in front of a dying fire. At first it was simply to or perhaps about someone, but as it went on it took on other aspects as the material before me changed and grew. The more I wrote, the more apparent it became to me that the poem was also to Someone, the lover of souls. When you first hear that phrase, you think of a Being with a love for souls, but not so much as a lover of souls. But this is not what seems to me to be meant by the phrase. If you hear that a man is the lover of a woman, you know it is as a lover that he relates to her, while someone who merely has a love for another does not have this same relationship. (I am not sure that this is making sense, but I've been thinking about it and the house is quiet and I am not thinking about my paper). In any case, the poem below is not only addressed to someone, but is also to Someone.

~ ~ ~

Silent was the night
that saw you come to me.
Trepidation fills me to the point of tears
echoed in my trembling hands.
Moonlight streaming through the cold clearness
witnesses the ache and the emptiness
welling up and consuming the night.

Ah, this foolish foolish heart-
Jack of all and master of none!
Still you seek after my true self,
hidden closest to my inmost heart.
As from afar, I watch as you seek to enter.
I long for you, to be with you,
for oneness where I am whatever I am
desiring to become so entirely part of you
that I am continually dying within myself.

Yearning for, while still fearing
the fulfillment of the emptiness,
my tears, the scorned heralds of
the weary conflict, fall upon the
heedless page. Why can I not
find the courage to place my
trust in You? What have I to fear
in the flame of Your love?
For Your love is Truth itself and
the consummation of myself will yield
only greater Love.

I've been thinking recently about duty to family and friends. How far does the law of charity extend? How much are you bound to place them before yourself? When do you have a responsibility to yourself that comes before your responsibility to them? I'll think about it for a while, perhaps ask someone I respect and come to a clear opinion of how things work. Then I'll talk to my family, or talk to friends who are wondering about many of the same things and all of my nicely ordered opinions become all disheveled.
There must be a point at which we are no longer immediately bound to our parents, and this in all likelihood varies according to situation. It makes sense that this transition point would be when we reach achieve the ability to support ourselves. Talking to a friend about this earlier, she pointed out that we actually have a responsibility to prepare for our vocation, whether it be the married life or a religious vocation. This is not possible if you are feel that you are "stuck" supporting your family or "fixing" their problems.
With friends the questions become a little different. Simply washing your hands of them with the attitude of "they are grown-up and ought to take care of themselves" seems to me reminiscent of Cain's question of "Am I my brother's keeper?" And while the tie between friends is no as strong as that between family, charity demands something...the questions is what? With family, the question is easy in one respect, it becomes a matter of how much and for how long. With friends however, it's harder, because I don't know what it is I have to do anymore. When do I tell them that they are on the road to possibly screwing up their lives? That what they are doing is leading them away from the Church? My first instinct is to play the big sister and just tell them what they are doing wrong and what they need to do to fix it. But this does not work for the majority of people, and will most likely even make the entire situation worse. My next reaction (which also happens to be my current position on many things), just letting whatever it is go while still being there for them to seek out for letting off steam or sympathy or whatever, doesn't seem right either. I just don't know anymore (I'm not sure I ever did...) and I feel like I am wandering around in the dark with my hands out in front of me to ward off the worst of the stumbling blocks...
But then I suppose that is life...

I am away finally way from school. I havn't fully comprehended this yet, but I think it's real. The drive up from SoCal was an experience. I think I will remember it simply for its music: early 50's doo-op, Baroque, U2's new album, Hyden, hot Cuban jazz. All played randomly and for indescriminate amounts of time. The only thing that could have made the drive better would have been being able to read. I was looking forward to three uninterupted and guilt-free hours of Huck Finn, only to discover that I no longer possess the talent of reading in small moving vehicals. I can read on the train just fine, but the car is just a little too small. So I caught up on lost sleep ("O wonderful wonderful, most wonderful of wonderfuls" to quote a bit of the Bard) and watched the hills slide past while listening to occasional snatches of the conversations of the others in the car.

~ ~ ~

The Sprit has just fluttered in and informed me that the computer has a curfew of midnight tea time, which if not strictly observed (and enforced) will cause said computer to implode or explode, which ever is most convinient for the Sprit. And because the aforementioned time is now passed by seven minutes, I will be closing this...

Just a thought...

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

 

-Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)

 

 

Some friends asked me the other night how I managed to appear so calm and at peace. "You study too much to be at peace...you don't sleep enough to be at peace! Why do you look peaceful?" "Well, I am," was all I could say. Any explaination I could have offered then would not have removed the confused and bewildered looks from their faces. How does one explain that true peace in life is not found in relationships with other people, or in satisfaction in one's classes or job, or "knowing yourself" or in any thing else that relies on you or anyone else. Peace come when you decide to be content with where you are in life right now, because that is where God wants you to be. It is a reliance on Him and a realization that your own efforts are not enought to gain what you naturaly desire from life. Peace is an act of the will (very much along the lines of love, in my experience). And while one may feel unhappy or restless or depressed, that act of the will, that grounding, remains.
Of course (and this is the Catholic upbringing in me coming out), one cannot find peace, nor will to be at peace, if one is in a state of sin. It just does not work. Our Lord is the only source of peace, and if one is turned away from Him, then there is no peace to be found in anything else.

"BANG...bang bang bang...BANG BANG"

Ah, I think to myself, summons from the other world. Wait, it is not late enough to be that... must be summons from the other room. I walk over to the intercom and pick up the phone. Nothing.

"thump thump bang thump BANG"

Cocking my head toward the continuing racket seemingly from within my wall, I wonder why she is still pounding if she does not want to talk. Perhaps, this summons is to her presence...
Open door, close door, open door. And behold, the source of the pounding is lying contentedly in bed, with a retinue standing round.

"You knocked, but didn't pick up," I say reproachfully.
"Yes, that's because I can't get out of bed once I put myself there," replys the Sprit.

She continues to explain, gleefully proud of her own ingenuity, that if she puts herself to bed, and knocks, people will have to come to her, rather than having to fly all over looking for the same people.

"I see."

Good nights are said and the girls wander off to their respective rooms.

Standing next to her bed, I begin to scold the Sprit for making such a racket so late in the evening, shaking my finger for emphasis.

"No more," I say with a poke in the general direction of her blanket covered mid-drif.
"squeak, giggle, squeak. But why not? It worked, didn't it?"
"Yes, but I have homework to finish." With another poke or two (perhaps a few more) for good measure.

This time there is no reply, because the Sprit has been reduced to a squeaking, giggling, squirming mass of hands and gasps.
Hmmm, perhaps this "once in bed, in bed for good" rule can be to my advantage....

"squeak squeak giggle gasp... I re-squeak-sent giggle gasp squeak being forced giggle giggle squeak squeak to make gasp giggle squeak these ridic- gasp-ulous noises squeak!"
"What's that? I can't quite make out what you are saying. Do try to speak more clearly, dear."

The Sprit glares at me as best she can between continued giggles and 'undignified' squeaks, pawing at where my hand used to be in a fruitless attempt to prevent any more tickling.
Pausing in my assault, she gasps out her former assertion.

"I resent being forced to make these ridiculous noises! And in my own bed, too!!"

Now it is my turn to laugh, happily clapping my hand and bending over in an effort to remain quiet.

"Ah mon ami, only you would come up with such a protest"

Through the leaves

my feet leave not a trace

scarce can a sound be heard

save the soft rustle

that marks my passing by.

Here, between the trees

shroud in bright gold,

Time seems to surround

and stop.

Stillness of air

silence of breath

running of water

always flowing, changing moving

dance among the rocks

never, never

still.

Perhaps this is Time

this small clear cold rill.

Different every moment

noticed and in the same instant

gone.

Perhaps the leaves are Time

moments passed and present

and those waiting to fall-

all eternity waiting

for me to walk by.

Perhaps Time is in my walking

steady pace, regular motion.

Passing over and by

all that I come across,

leaving it untouched

yet added to

simply by my step.

Perhaps the path itself is Time

for always running before and behind

bending turning out of sight

through trees, hills

across streams

drawing ever onward

no two moments the same.

Stillness in the moment

passing as a falling leaf

I wonder at the nature of Time.

Questioning through the trees

for answers to intangible searchings-

the rustling of the leaves

reminds me of my step

reverie broken, lost

I turn toward home.

I'd like to thank Toque for the pen and ink drawing that I've added... very reminicent of Gorey. I like it very much, it lends such an air to the page. With my ghost looking out past my right shoulder, I won't mind sitting with my back to the computer room door any more.

The sent of wood pulp is lightly filling the air. It reminds me of home and construction, long hours and hard work. It makes me happy.
I hate to seem like I am stuck on a particular topic, but the beauty of the fall keeps impressing itself on me and I need to speak of it somewhere...
I don't remember it being so lovely last year, with the colours and the cool nip in the air, even in the sun. A hint of wood smoke on the air, a layer of cirrus clouds high, high up making the sky look like blue marble streaked through with white. It's calling to me, the beauty, the freedom and openness. Unfortunately, my books, with their papery, rustling, throaty voices, are nearer and for the moment harder to put off and ignore. Soon enough there will be time...

It's been a while since I've written anything in the way of poetry... I was sitting at my desk the other day though, and this seemed to spill itself onto a random scrap of paper...

Musings From my Window
Green melts to grey
as my eye wanders
the edges of the hills.

Golden foliage draws
me down from the heights,
the splendor of a solitary tree
dressed for the season.

Soon and soon, the garb
will be shed
cast to the ground
to lay about its feet.

~ ~ ~

I've been realizing how close we are to the end of the year. Even though we have five weeks of classes left, every week-end from here on out is filled. Which means that the weeks are even busier. I keep telling myself that I can, really and truly can, handle everything on my plate, that I will not drop any of the balls that are in the air and speeding up. I've heard that will believe anything so long as you tell them often enough, I just hope it works on one's self.

INDECISION!!!!!!
I think it is one of my greatest weaknesses and failings. I can come the the conclusion that I need to buy or do something. And I am suddenly overwhelmed with uncertainty.
"Is this really the right thing to be doing?"
"Is there some way I could be doing it better?"
" Do I honestly need this whatever it is? I've gotten along up until now without it, what really makes me think I need it now?"
" How do I know that I won't be able to find a better one, or a comparable one for less money?" Right now, my indecision is stemming from computers, specifically the buying of a laptop computer. I am no expert when it comes to computers (as you may have gathered from previous complaints, I mean, posts). I know just enough to feel embarrassed about asking basic questions, because I feel like I know the answers.... very bad.
So what am I going to do? I am going to do what I usually do when confronted with indecision, walk away from it. Decide, not to decide on this laptop or that one, but to do without a laptop all together... at least for a while longer.

Ahhh, it is such a relief to come to some sort of resolution.... pathetic...

I found this passage and it seemed to answer unspoken questions...

"Since you walk in these darknesses and voids of spiritual poverty, you think that everyone and everything is failing you. It is no wonder that in this it also seems that God is failing you. But nothing is failing you... He who desires nothing else than God walks not in darkness, however poor and dark he is in his own sight. And he who walks not presumptuously nor according to his own satisfactions, whether from God or from creatures, nor does his own will in anything has nothing to stumble over or discuss with anyone...
You were never better off than now, because you were never so humble nor so submissive, nor considered yourself and all worldly things so small, nor did you know that you were so evil, nor did you serve God so purely and so disinterestedly as now, nor do you follow after the imperfections of your own will and interests as perhaps you were accustomed to do. What is it you desire? What kind of life or method of procedure of you paint for yourself in this life? What do you think serving God involves other than avoiding evil, keeping his commandments, and being occupied with the things of God as best we can? When this is had, what need is there of other apprehensions or other lights and satisfactions from this source or that. In these there is hardly ever a lack of stumbling blocks and dangers for the should, which by its understanding and appetites is deceived and charmed; and its own faculties cause it to err. And thus it is a great favor from God when he darkens and impoverishes the soul in such way that it cannot err with them. And if one does not err in this, what need is there in order to be right other than to walk along the level road of the law of God and of the Church and live only in dark and true faith and certain hope and complete charity... Rejoice and trust in God, for her has given you signs that you can very well do so, and in fact you must do so."
~St John of the Cross

I've discovered the genius of Mark Twain...allow me to demonstrate:

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it wil be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."

No kidding. He is awesome... it is a pity that I will be losing sleep again...

In my mind's eye I keep seeing a young man who reminds me of my cousin in so many ways showing me pictures of his kitten on his phone; a young man who left one with the impression of undaunted life.

Kind reader, pause a moment to remember Paul Levine in your prayers.

Someone once told me, in all earnestness, that you must play an instrument before you are able to fully appreciate music. I was crushed to the point of tears and well beyond words, for you see I somehow believe that this is so. I do not play any instruments, how am I to know for certain this is not true? Now, as I sit and listen to liquid beauty pouring over and filling me, these words rise to the surface and I wonder what it is that I am not hearing, what I am missing. Painful bewilderment seeks to overcome the beauty and the pleasure of the music. I feel the tears behind my eyes, pricking with almost as much pain as that in my heart. How could it be possible that I am not receiving all the music has to offer? Perhaps my capacity really is limited in some way... This beauty is too great not to be desired, sought, consumed... It pains me to think, to know, that there is some aspect of this beauty that I cannot receive...

It feels like fall...well, as much as these southern regions can achieve a autumnal season. The Chinese maples are turning crimson and scarlet, the sycamores are yellowing and the unidentified trees on the ridges of the hills have turned into bright golden splashes against a green background. For, because of the rains, the hills are still green, and there is grass growing on the mounds behind campus. The air, and even the quality of the light, is...distant, cool and remote. The winds carry on them a certain something, a sharpness not felt on the skin, but in the soul.
(I'm not making any sense, but that's ok...I am tired from trying to think about what I am thinking...I don't want to keep loosing my thoughts...)

My thoughts, when I manage to notice them, have recently been taken up by the ideas of time and life and death. Today in class, I was following my own train of thought (rather than the class discussion) and I managed to scribble the main, though still incoherent thoughts in my philosophy notebook: time...death...change...life...eternity...die to self leads to life; cling to self/life leads to death...openness to life brings love...pain...
In Mass the metaphor changed to wine, and the cup of life. I want to live...the desire is almost physical. I want life, to drink it to the bottom of the cup, to the very dregs, along with all that is contained within the cup. And He is that Life that I want...

I don't ever want to be a teacher!!!! No offence to all of you who happen to be teachers, I think you are awesome and I really don't see how you do it. But I would simply go insane. All that paperwork, I couldn't handle it. I have seven students now, and I only talk to them over the phone and correct some of their work. But to have to do all it, for upwards of 25-30 students... No, not for me. I figure if I pay my dues now, I will not end up in the small private Catholic school in the Midwest...

~ ~ ~

On another note, Henryk Gorecki is amazing. One of my tutors lent me Gorecki's Symphony No 3, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. I must have listened to it three or four times that first day... I sat at my desk, watching the rain pour down, consumed in the pain, the sadness, the sheer beauty of it. And at the same time, it is also full of hope. The very ending of the symphony, an A major third (I think), leaves you with a feeling of, I don't know how to express it...its almost a feeling of life, the indominatable spirit of man. And the text for the songs is heart rending.
Right now I am listening to Gorecki's Miserere. There are seven Polish folk songs on the album, and I am completly in love. I wish I knew more about my Polish ancestry. I suppose that is one downside of being an American, it is so easy to loose track of where you are from and who came before. Some day, I will learn...

The moon was so beautiful last night. Clouds had rolled up the valley and the hills were slowly being consumed. As the cover thickened, the moon would slip out and cast a clear and brilliant light down on grounds. The real world seemed to end just beyond the light up buildings, beyond was dark, shadows with texture and dimention. Gradually though, the clouds massed and the moon was no longer able to find the thin spots, and the darkness took on a different quality. As I paced up and down the only sidewalk on campus that seems to get a clear signal, I listened to a dear voice relating problems and heartache, choices and oppotunities. And I wanted to echo my request of the previous night, "Let me help. Please, give me something to do." There is little enough I can do, pray and keep watch. Why does this seem to not be enough? Indeed, it is all Our Lord asked of His own diciples on that night in the garden. So, with a heart heavy with love-shot longing, I prayed. Last night, today, hardly even conscious of it at times. I am trying not to think of what will happen when this longing abandons me, no need to seek out trouble before it comes to you of its own accord. Perhaps this, in part, is the answer to my questions of "why now..."

I just found this quote from JRR Tolkien, and it rang so true...
"I put before you the one great thing to love in earth: the Blessed Sacrament... There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretasts) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, taht every man's heart desires."

Something drove me off campus yesterday, an errant feeling of urgency come to find me perhaps. It was still raining, and cold-ish, with a wandering wind that seemed to reflect my unsettledness of spirit. I headed out to the hills behind campus, the old familiarity ensuring that I'd be able to walk without seeing and not risk wandering off a cliff. The churned up mud brought to mind tales of man's creation and earthly end. "Remember man that thou art dust..." "And the Lord took some clay..." I'd forgotten how different the very smell of nature is when it rains. I could smell pines, and something sweet and unseen. The stream was strangely sounding melancholy, though, which at the time did not strike me as odd, but now I wonder what was troubling it. The footprints of the hosts of hikers had been washed away, and I could loose myself in the wandering story that sprang to mind without reminders of the "real world." As I walked back, I stopped in the middle of the stream, letting the rain fall. It seemed to respond to my unknown request and gradually grew harder. Looking up to the trees and hills that surrounded me, I felt at one and the same time, completely foreign and perfectly in place. And so it goes...
~ ~ ~
Last night I walked outside and looked up, expecting to see the same fog and clouds which have covered the sky for the last few days. It was gone. I saw the stars, clear, bright and completely unexpected. They were absolutely breathtaking. As I continued walking, I saw that the fog had ringed the campus, was climbing the hills, and filling the valley off to the west, but for whatever reason, had cleared overhead. It was like the campus was wreathed with the fog and crowned with a cap of stars. The air was cool, but not the clinging, chill damp of the earlier day. It was such a delicious feeling to wander the sidewalks (avoiding the puddles filled with drowned worms) and see the fog drifting through the trees and look up and see the stars. You could almost feel the starlight drifting down, mingling with the fog.

It's raining here for the first time in months. And I think the wet, cold, gloom of it is making me depressed. This is very sad. I was estatic when it began, but now I am beginning to wonder if being here in the land of the almost perpetual sun had not in some way messed with my head. At home it rained nearly all the time and I loved it. Too much sun was boring and I would long for the rain. After living here for a year, and still longing for the rain, now that I have it, part of me wants the sun back. The sun came out for a bit yesterday, and caught the prism I have hanging on the window, sending faerie rainbows dancing across my walls. I was at one and the same time, thrilled to see the sun and my faeries, and sad to see the rain stop and the clouds breaking up. This is a wretched conflict to have in one's self...I don't think I'll be able to live somewhere it does not rain more often.

I wrote this last night, and had forgotten about it until just a few minutes ago...

Sitting on the outside
always looking in
Peter Pan without the safety
of Neverland to fly back to.

Think back, concider
am I guilty of the self-same fault
my heart accuses another of?
Feeling forgotten
glanced at and passed over.
"What does not happen
is simply not meant to be."
Would that my lonesomeness
believed this simple reasoning
No this is no more true
than to say "What is, ought to be."
For this is not always so.

Waiting, watching
listening, longing
there is naught to be done
quiet acceptance is all that remains.

The rain is falling all around...

I was sitting in class this afternoon and I made the mistake of looking out the window behind the tutor's head. The hills were completely swathed in fog and the rain was falling just hard enough to be heard on the roof...needless to say my concentration was shot. so I made the most of a sorry situation, and this is what came out.

 

The rain is falling

soft and steady

stilling all my haste.

 

My thoughts rise up

with the clouds in the valley

their object far, far away.

 

They wend their way

along the coasts, seeking

the sea - sad, dark, and low.

 

A cry, sharp and clear,

longing and freedom

personified in a single sound,

brings me back to the valley.

 

thoughts in the fog...
the wanderlust is growing in my heart, along with the ache of loneliness. ah, this familiar of mine, surrounded by gourps of people, laughing, talking. I know any of them would welcome me, but the sense of belonging is lacking.
i wish i could wander into the fog, through the fog, and come back somewhere new. i wish there were some way to hold the fog in myself...the calm, impassive quiet- i want to hold it close.
the shapes of the trees are bluring and melting. the oaks seem to possess a secret they will not share. they hold it secure in the branches with the fog to give them strengh.
there are roses in bloom all around me. their sent is perhaps on the air, but the faintes breex jsut woke up and is now making the flower heads to sway and nod.
what is the fog? the scientific account does not satisfy, is not enough. there it too much to be felt in the fog- damp, chill, stir of air, settling of sound, diffusion of light. it calls and calms, inviting confidences and introspection. everything is muted, life- its problems an pains- become less important.

~ ~ ~

So for a week I've been avoiding the paper I roughed out Sunday night. I was mad at the world and stung by the injustice of everything when I wrote it and I wanted to wait until I could reaproach it with some objectivity. The objectivity came last night sitting in the fog that blanketed the campus and is just now beginning to break up. I sat and scribbled, curled up in a patio chair, listening to the wandering conversations and random snatches of music...
Later hearing the warm voice of a friend excitedly telling me about the concert of the evening and the week-end's plans, I found the world shifting, ever so slightly, back into a more tolerable frame. The longing is a good thing, it keeps you searching and waiting and watching, never too settled in this life.

I was thinking about getting old today, of the possibility of someday having a husband and children, and grandchildren. It seems like such a strange and foreign idea. I remember when I was a very small girl, perhaps four or five, thinking that the eighth graders in my school were so very big. My circle of friends has always been made up of people older than me in age, but equals in other ways. But, I don't feel grown-up, I don't seem to think and feel in any way differently from how I recall thinking and feeling as a small child. Its so odd to think of having changed and not realize it...and that this unrealized changing will continue for as long as I live.

Goldfish are going to bankrupt me!!! I love fishes, they're so delicious! Cheezy I know, but so are the crackers....

My fancy was caught by a collection of Arabian poems in an anthology that my roommate picked up at the library book sale. I think I might be able to get it back if I post some of them. Things get rather lonesome without one's fancy...

Tears
Tears, ere they death, for many a one I shed.
But thine are all my tears since thou art dead.
To comforters I lend my ear apart,
While pain sits ever closer to my heart.

Thy Garden
My thoughts are as a garden-plot, that knows
No rain but of thy giving, and no rose
Except thy name. I dedicate it thine,
My garden, full of fruits in harvest time.

To Lighten My Darkness
To lighten my darkness,
I look for the red crescent of her lips
And if that comes not
I look for the blue crescent
Of the sword of death.

Oh, joy of friends gathered upon the cool meadow
To drink wine handed by white hands!

Flowers of Spring in the meadow
Between spread slim fingers!
You sit drinking the tulip-coloured wine
In the midst of this green earth
With all her waters.

Love
Love was before the light began,
When light is over, love shall be;
O warm hand in the grave, O bridge of truth,
O ivy's tooth
Eating the green heart of the tree
Of man!

And an Irish one for good measure...

Ideal

~Padraic Pearse

Naked I saw thee,
O beauty of beauty!
And I blinded my eyes
For fear I should flinch.

I heard thy music,
O sweetness of sweetness!
An I shut my ears
For fear I should fail.

I kissed thy lips
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I hardened my heart
For fear of my ruin.

I blinded my eyes
Any my ears I shut,
I hardened my heart
And my love I quenched.

I turned my back
And the dream I had shaped,
And to this road before me
My face I turned.

I set my face
To the road here before me,
To the work that I see,
To the death that I shall meet.

~ ~ ~
2 am is such a random time. One thinks the strangest things...and music sound better.

the one frustrating thing about this, is that you still cannot write everything here. you will still run into things and events that you just can't put up. and that's all i have to say right now.

My familiar has returned. I thought I could loose it in the bustle of school and work, but it found its way back to me. It prompts me to think cynically that when all others fail me, when they go off and leave me standing wondering where everyone has gone, it will still be here, tenderly caressing my already sore heart with thorny and bitter thoughts.

I am sitting here in my computer haunt with my tea cup Barker before me, staring
at the opening of a three day week-end with nothing in sight but a paper. The tea burn on my arm throbs, but the angry red streak is slowly subsiding. The public radio station, coming in over my little radio placed on the desk across the room, is having their fall pledge drive. Someday I will be in a finantial position to support public radio, but now I can only listen and be greatfull. I owe much to public radio, it was my introduction to music of all sorts - classical, jazz, blues - as well as a host of random programs and old radio shows.

I have decided to admit that I am not, or rather have not been, feeling well, and have actually been fighting off a cold or flu or something unpleasant all week. This convieniently explains the
aches in my back and legs and arms that make walking across campus with a bookbag full of Aristotle and Augustine and Ptolemy such a tiring chore. I don't think being in denial about more than one thing is healthy for mind, body, or soul. Of course this leaves the question, "What am I in denial about now?" but if I told, then I wouldn't really be in denial, now would I?

What do we mean when we say that time is dear, or that something costs to much time? Do we simply mean that we don't want to devote however much time we think it will take to whatever it is we were thinking about doing? I highly doubt that we are thinking about the fact that we have a limited amount of time in this life and there for must use it wisely. Time is our allowance from eternity, portioned out to us while we are here in this unglorified mortal body. And it really is limited, when you think about it. A friend of mine was telling my about his plans to hike the Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada the summer after he graduates here. He is expecting it to take four months and he is so very stoked, he positivly glows while he is talking about it. But he knows that if he does not do it that summer, then he never will. Time is funny like that, it never comes back to where it was, and while there is more of it in front of you, as far as you can tell, but you can't keep pushing back the things you want to do.
Tempus fugit, take it, live. If you are willing to take advice from one who is still figuring all this out.

I saw the Therese movie with my father this evening. It was very will done, and I enjoyed it very much. I admit that I cried at several scenes, particularly Therese's death, which was very beautifully done. I can't think of anyone I'd have rather seen Therese with, it made me remember again how much my own father loves me.