I feel myself at a crossroads, gazing down at my feet, wondering where I am to go. I stand here in the river-road of Time, directionless and impatient, knowing my end but unsure of the route. I want to remain steady and still, to wait to be shown clearly my next step. But the flow of Time drags and catches at my ankles, urging me forward, always forward, never to be still, never to rest. The tides rise and fall around me, presenting new ways and means on the twisting and swirling eddies, and I struggle against them and myself to hold my place. Indeed my own passions and desires seek to betray me to the interminable flow. How very, very easy it would be to simply throw myself into this river, to allow myself to be swept away by its floods. To be carried along whither so ever it would, coming to whatever strange new land the river runs through. I don't know what to do. Would it be wrong to let go? Or is that determination subject to the context of surrounding events?

I think too much...

written a few days ago...

I've decided that I miss the luxury of having internet access right down the hall. Perhaps I can blame my lack of writing on that... On the other hand, I am doing more than I was a year ago, am actually engaged in the process of living we all go on so often about, with all its pains and glories however small. Real life happens outside one's head. Or is it one's reaction to what happens outside one's self? In either case, nothing (or moderatly little) real happens without being in the outside.

It's windy out today. Great gusts of a warm rampant wind play across the valley, the dropped and forgotten playthings of the storm that passed through last night. The leaves from the sycamore trees are being tosses helter skelter across the soggy lawns, danced across patios under fallen umbrellas and down sidewalks to be unceremoniously trod upon by the passing student. The sky is moody, bright blue in patches, white clouds - fluff and nothings really - in others, then dark and sullen at being herded against the mountains by the winds, only to be broken up and sent flying by the same wind (or perhaps a relative).

The sound of the wind cause my memory to belie the heat and stuffiness of the small crowded room. I am no longer here, but in a dark and sleeping house. It is mid-winter and bitterly cold. The moonlight is bright enough to make the thick shadow of the house a looming blackness on the piled snow. I feel so very small looking out the breath-fogged window at the white uneven fields, streaching out into inky nothing beyond the end of sight. The wind blows, rising and falling, whistling around corners, driving against walls and drifts, shaking and bending the dead dried stems of the grasses that grew up at the edge of the porch low to the ground. The tones of its the moaning send shivers down my arms and I can all too easily imagine the cries and wailings of those lost on the empty plains before me. But now I have exchanged the cold piercing wind for one hot and rough and the sounds of quietude and rest in a sleeping house for the rattle and grating of conversation, trying to worry objections into oblivion.

And now the wind has gone and all is still. Neither leaf nor petal is ruffled. The very silence of it would weigh were it not that I too am still.

Why pain?
Because pain draws us closer to God.

Why pain?
Because pain strips us of our reliances on things other than Himself.

Why pain?
Because pain makes us face our hollowness, acknowledge it and our own helplessness to do anything about it.

Why pain?
Because pain, when accepted, allows us to see beauty, which is simple and pure and all too easily missed.

Sad songs chasing their tails
running in and out of my mind
playing on and on
never quite out of hearing.


sequel

I sit out o' nights
beneath the star filled sky
remembering soft voices
and now faded thoughts.
The shining splendor seems,
in the chill air and cool light,
familiar and strangely warm,
they seem to know my self.
Quietude brushes by
gently carried on windy wings
bringing further recollection of other
evenings, thoughts, conversations
and a rest never fully mine.

So much to write and so little time....'tis very unfortunate. But perhaps I can catch up a bit...


I am at my favorite coffee shop for what was supposed to be an open mic night that has turned into something radically else. There are a bunch of belly dancers wandering around, mucisians are setting up... Now the music has started and there are three or four little girls up on the stage dancing in their own fashion, moved in what ever way the music wants them to... The rhythm is intoxicating, pulsing with each beat of my heart, flowing through my body. I want to learn...

Sorry about the extra step now necessary for commenting. I discovered I was being hit with comment spam and want to avoid it...

Random collection of scribbling that I managed to pin onto scraps of handy paper...

The other day I had a chance to talk with an old friend whom I have not really been able to speak to for a while. And as we spoke of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings I was reminded that life is not lived out on the fringe of things. Lingering on dark rooftops almost entombed by the dark branches above, accompanied only by the dying light of one's cigarette, surrounded by the sounds of enjoyment drifting up from below is not living, as romantic and aloof and appealing as the setting might be. Not that the setting is of itself wrong, the context is just not right. It occurs to me that life is very much like music - what is good is very often determined by the context...

~ ~ ~

Memory is such an odd thing. With little to no warning your are overwhelmed with image after image, layer upon layer of sights, sounds, emotions. I was sitting in the commons reviewing the day's assignments and at the sound of an apparently unrelated note I was hurled back to another warm midmorning, sitting with a newly dear friend in the near empty commons talking of life and its lessons. To chill evenings, watching the upperclassmen pouring in after seminar waiting for friends to filter out of the mix, anticipating the coming discussion of the evening's excitement or follies...

I've been feeling teribly neglectful of various duties incumbant upon me recently. So I thought I'd try to make some headway on at least one of them...

My oldest cousin (three years my senior) is married now. He and his new wife are honeymooning in Hawaii, land of our ancestors. I've been to a few weddings in the past couple of years, but this one sank in the deepest. All manner of reflections roiled and simmered in my mind all week-end. "My generation is coming up, our parents are moving into the background. " More prominant was "I knew him when he had long purple hair in highschool... and now he is married!" Less prominant, but none the less still consciously there was "I am not ready for this at all...I think."

*sigh*

In any case, it was the best and most worthwhile all nighter I have ever pulled...

Quote of the week-end:


"Hey Sarah, let's go to San Francisco."
"Okay."

More forthcoming...

Is it possible to find contentment in discontent? I don't mean to propose a paradox exactly, but I do mean something along those lines. For all intents and purposes, life at school has picked up where it left off. Classes move along, assignments are given and accomplished. Life such as it is flows contentedly. And yet I am unsettled. In class, reading through the material, talking immediately after class I am for the most part happy. And then I want to talk about it all with someone, one I know will see things with the same excitement and from a similar direction as I do and I am at a loss. I can't. It is quite simple really, and painfully miserable. So in attempts to distract myself I shift the mess around in my room, or flake out of other things and hide in a cafe, or wander around the market places of the internet looking for the things I've been meaning to buy all summer. I will tell you honestly that none of it works. I want something I cannot have. I want to be content in the midst of my discontentment.

So I will go and try another distraction, another thing to pour myself into for the time being and not think about the coming up short at the end. Because that is life...

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Plato

"The unlived life is not worth examining." - Mr. Collins

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." - Jesus Christ


It is so odd how things work out. I've been musing and pondering much of late on what it is I want more than anything. For many, perhaps even most, the answer to this is simple, they want to be happy. I don't. Now don't get me wrong, I do not want to be unhappy, but that is simply not the most important thing for me. What I want more than anything is to live. Just that. The real question comes when you ask what it means to live. At first it seemed as though living were seeing and doing and experiencing with a passion (which of course leads to more discussion.) But that left something lacking, it was not enough. With that definition you are lead to (or left with) a hedonistic approach to everything. No living - truly living - consists of finding truth, the Truth. And not just finding it, but seeing it, knowing it, making it part of who and what you are in your deepest self, until you are no longer, but only Truth. And this causes pain. Because in this life that is simply not possible. We can come close, so close but we can never fully die to ourselves before the body dies so that total union is never achieved in this life.
Now the odd part of it all is that though I've been pondering and considering all of this for the last two year (or more) it didn't all come together in something resembling coherence until last night after watching Garden State (very good movie, the cinematography is amazing and the plot line is nearly as good) after meeting and hanging out for hours with a group of local poets. At one point in the movie Sam says to Andrew " I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's life, and it's pretty much all we got." It's life and it's real, truth is a reflection of reality and reality of the Truth. And He is pretty much all we got.

I wandered into my self a little while ago and ambled over to the curio cabinet that holds bottles filled with stuffs like extra time, the dreams I don't remember, and, as I discovered, things that I've learned. Not school-ish lessons, those go into a neat filing cabinet or are piled in the desk in a heap to be sorted at a later time. No, these lessons are the life-ish sort, the ones we learn without noticing right away. I took them down one by one, opening each and reading the lessons in turn. Amoung them were:
~Pain is not made meaningless or paltry by laughing at it. At times that is exactly what is needed.
~True love takes many shapes and forms and they are easy to confuse.
~ There are still things I want to do for their own sake, like write and learn to play classical guitar and wander the country alone and perhaps learn to skateboard...
~It is not hypocrisy to pass on advice you are not always able or willing to follow yourself.

I pondered them, holding the scraps of paper in my hand. I will not soon forget.

I thought for a bit about posting random bits of thought that got caught on scraps of paper that happened to be handy at the time they wandered out of my head, but have decided against it. The last month or so of this summer has left me rather discontent with my style of writing - I seem to either be depressing or, as one friend put it, stuck in "middle school". I have no desire to ramble about the little things that make up the day to day of my life (it would take a far more talented writer than I to make it interesting to any degree). So I am left with the inner workings of my self, which does not come off very well either...
This being said, I am going to continue writing in whatever fashion whimsy leads me at the time, hackneyed metaphors, middle school poetry and all and hopefully the summer of my discontent will pass...

It is possible to have trust without hope? I feel comptetely lost, stumbling in the dark, only knowing the ground is beneath my feet because I keep bashing into things, clinging to the thinest thread of trust. I know as surely as I know anything that I will be given the strength to find my way out of the dark, but I have no hope of when or where, just the scarlet thread of trust...

Picture this: Driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, just as you are leaving the city, you drive through a couple of small tunels. As you emerge from the second you are presented with the Pacific ocean and the coastline laying itself down before your eyes to the lyrics of this song...

Take a long drive with me
on California One, on California One.
And the road a-winding goes
from golden gate to roaring cliff-side,
and the light is softly low
as our hearts become sweetly untied
beneath the sun of California One.

Take a long dram with me
of California wine, of California wine.
And the wine, it tastes so sweet
as we lay our eyes to wander,
and the sky, it stretches deep.
Will we rest our heads to slumber
beneath the vines of California wine?
Beneath the sun of California One.

Annabelle lies, sleeps with quiet eyes
on this sea-drift sun.
What can you do?
And if i said, O it's in your head
on this sea-drift sun.
What can you do?

California One, The Decemberists

Funny how things work out sometimes...

it's friday, the work week is over. the sun is setting resignedly over the hills. this past week I have carried the wind on my back (it was heavy) and perhaps remembered how to smile. dreams and plans for futures loom and withdraw, like the ocean tides, and I am left standing on the shore.

can you tell that I am avoiding having to actually do something....

randomly found online quiz...

What tatoo fits you best? (or something like that...)

Your peronality says you would most likly pick some
kind of flower. Something beautiful and
something that displays your grace. You are
quite origanal.

I took this perhaps a week or two a go... I think there is a bit of resemblence between the present me and my ghost off to the right...

travel log...

30 July
heading up north, not very far, but away from here. clouds are massing behind the mountains and I think we are headed strait for them. the heat is dry and unmoved by the wind pouring in from my open window. I fear I am equally unmoved by my driver's now occational emotional outbursts. perhaps I'm a bitch for being unfeeling, but that's how things are at the moment, and I am not going to do anything about it right now. i'll have to be nice and good when we get there.


the hills are having their usual calming effect on me. the mulitude of greens, subtle and drastic at the same time are soothing my distressed heart, playing the part of a cool balm on the rawness i feel. there are moments I feel like some sort of vampire, preying on the emotions and affections of the unsuspecting, and at the same time, willing sweet fools who take what I offer...

am i imagining or can i really feel the residue of the cigarette smoke at the back of my throat... the feel of the dry paper on my lips and the warm greyness in my mouth are vividly impressed upon my senses. i want...

31 July
so apparently, given the right conditions, it is possible for gasoline to vaporize in the fuel lines before it reaches the engine. this is damaging to the performance of the vehicle and general mental health of its occupance. Fortunatly, it does not take long for a small car to cool down on the side of the freeway, even in 100* weather...

I am sitting in a local cafe. On the wall behind me a government conspirocy theory movie on 9/11 is playing. I'm sorry that I missed the beginning, I would like to have their whole story. The evidence they are presenting in interesting, including interviews with eyewitnesses, newspaper articles, government reports - all with an anti-government hint. The narrator's voice is calm, but every now and then he throws in a bit of sarcasm. I would wager that the purpose is to undermine public support for the government's war against terrorism and all that goes with it (increased security at airports, government buildings, etc.; the Patriot Act, the war in Afganistan, the war in Iraq)
"America has been hijacked...by a group of tyrants..."

The woman whom I think is in charge of the showing is giving a speach.
"Keep your minds open...it's important to think critically..."
Machiavelli just came up... I am now regretting my lack of attention to the news in the last few years.
It is only too easy to loose trust in everyone and everything...but things like this make one wonder. The wondering is good, but how far should it go?

I stand waiting and watching beyond the open door. The wind brushes past me, catching at my hair, my clothes.

"Why do you stand here? What are you looking for?"

"I am looking for a way to find what I once had. Tell me, wind, how to find it..."

"You cannot go back," replied the wind's ever-changing voice. "Time does not work in such a way with men."

"No, do not tell me such things," the tears and searing pain betraying themselves in my voice, yet knowing the wind spoke truly. I cannot go back. The passage of Time necessarily brings change, but through the will somethings are able to remain. Turning, I gaze once more through the doorway, remembering wondering if my will is strong enough.

Eli, the barrowboy, you're the old town
Sells coal and marigolds and he cries out all down the day
Below the tamarac she is crying
Corn cobs and candlewax for the buying, all down the day

Would I could afford to buy my love a fine robe
Made of gold and silk arabian thread
She is dead and gone and lying in a pine grove
And I must push my barrow all the day
And I must push my barrow all the day

Eli, the barrowboy, when they found him
Dressed all in corduroy, he had drowned in the river down the way
They laid his body down in a churchyard
But still when the moon is out, with his pushcart, he calls down the day

Would I could afford to buy my love a fine gown
Made of gold and silk arabian thread
But I am dead and gone and lying in a church ground
But still I push my barrow all the day
Still I push my barrow all the day

Eli, The Barrowboy -The Decemberists

who's seen jezebel?
she was born to be the woman i would know
and hold like the breeze
half as tight as both eyes closed

and who's seen jezebel?
she went walking where the cedars line the road
her blouse on the ground
where the dogs were hungry, roaming

saying, "wait, we swear we'll love you more and wholly
jezebel, it's we that you are for only"

who's seen jezebel?
she was born to be the woman we could blame
make me a beast half as brave
i'd be the same

who's seen jezebel?
she was gone before i ever got to say
"lay here my love
you're the only shape i'll pray to, jezebel"

who's seen jezebel?
will the mountain last as long as i can wait
wait for the dawn
how it aches to meet the day

who's seen jezebel?
she was certainly the spark for all i've done
the window was wide
she could see the dogs come running

saying, "wait, we swear
we'll love you more and wholly
jezebel, it's we that you are for
only"

Jezebel by Iron & Wine

I came to Life with my hands open, awaiting the good things I knew would be poured into them. I was not mistaken. As long as my hands remained open they were filled. I saw loves and joys, hopes and dreams placed in their once empty palms. At times the desire to assure myself that these were actually mine to hold and keep was too great and I found my fingers trembling. What would happen if I closed my hands on these gifts? How long would they remain with me if I did not? I did not know, and Life provided me no clear answers. Something within urged me not to cling to such apparently fragile things, and so I resisted the desire to close my hands upon what I had been given. I would wait and try to trust.
Months have passed and some of these treasures have been carried away with Time's winds. They were not meant to be mine any longer and perhaps will not be ever again. With sleepless nights and tears I mourned their passing. Others have remained, though seemingly changed to ash even as I watched and waited. These too I mourn. I am asked how could I not fight for these my treasures? Because in a very real way they were not truly mine. They were given to me, yet in a most transitory fashion, placed in my open hands. And so now I stand waiting, tears occationally disturbing the layers of ash, perhaps waiting for a phoenix to rise. For these treasures are still in my care, though not in the form they once had, and I will not reject them in order to reach after something else.

(catching up on my postings...I'd forgotten about this stuff in the ebb and flow of the past week)

8 July
Listening to the safety instructions as I sit in my exit row seat, I wonder idly if I really know them as well as my years of flying should warrant. I remember as a child being fascinated by the flight attendant running so smoothly through the routine...

The crowded trees and hidden roofs of Keaukaha slide by as we taxi down the runway. I'm on the wrong side of the plane for watching my home sink below me. It is raining again up the hill and I cannot keep the drops from being mirrored on my face. As the plane rises into the low clouds I catch a last glimpse of rugged curving coastline, white surf breaking on black rocks, forest of dark greens sweeping away from the dark blues of the sea. And then all was white and greys. Now the clouds lie below me, and below them is the ocean.
Its raining of Maui too. Watching the downpour from above the clouds gives the impression of a...
Lani, Moloka'i...perhaps I'm not on the wrong side of the plane. Ribbons of white sand beach lie along the edge of the islands, sometimes faced by off shore reefs, other times only kissed by the waves of the open ocean.
It looks like another world up here, with plains and hills, canyons and mountains - all of cloud. It is very beautiful - but I have seen few places that are as stark and empty.
How can there be so many shades of blue? The sky goes on forever, pale ice at the horizon to rich azure at zenith, and the sea holds a myriad more...

watching the news on the TV's near my gate...
I am struck again by another national leader urging a "return to normalcy", this time made by Prime Minister Tony Blair of the U.K. Assuming that the purpose of terrorist attacks is to disrupt the normal flow of life and business, this injunction makes sense. It is a show of personal and community strength, almost a passive defiance of those who made the attacks. In another way though, the "return to normalcy and business as usual" is disconcerting. It seems to be an ignoring and dismissal of the attacks altogether. Those killed are left to be mourned by their families and friends as the rest of the world goes on shopping...

This is my 151st post...

Conclusion: It is hard to stop thinking in the dark. I am beginning to fear the setting of the sun and the arrival of the night. I want to work all day and keep the sun up... Fortunately, I can do just that all week-end (without keeping the sun up). Oh, joy...

Happy 1st Blog-day to me...

So, I've been writting for a year now. Somehow it seems fitting that this is the day I leave home once again. It was because I came home last year that the writting kept up; I wonder if it will be that way this year...
I've been reminicing about this past year while I packed. Much has happened, loves were lost - and found, friendships shaken and rebuilt, strengths and weaknesses tested. I questioned the all reasons for being at school, while never doubting that it was where I was meant to be. And this blog, my burrying ground and junk-drawer for thoughts, has witnessed and recorded it all...

Well...
(the relative lateness of the hour must be affecting my brain, so I'm not going to say anything more)

It is Sunday afternoon and the house is nearly empty, well as close to being empty as it has been since I got home. The family has scattered to the proverbial four winds (for the afternoon) and I have time to fill by myself. The desire to read has somewhat abated since yesterday's reading of Steinbeck Of Mice and Men. I am looking forward to returning to school and discussing it with someone (the one-sided discussions I've been having with myself can only take me so far). I've been nibbling at an Harry Potter book (I will confess unabashedly that I have read all five of the books and am looking forward to the next) while waiting for the very slow dial-up connection to the outside world (also known as the internet) catches up with what I want it to do. All in all I am happy to be five days away from leaving. I think that I need to go while there are still things here I want to do and people I want to see, or I will start chaffing under the ever present knowledge that there is a 2000 mile barrier between myself and where I want to be... On the other hand, it will be hard to leave my younger siblings, not knowing when I will see them again, that they will continue to grow up and I won't really know them and they won't really know me... life is strange.

Random observation: blogging was meant to happen late at night when the house is asleep...morning blogging is not very practical when you have little people coming up to you every few minutes asking if you are still on the computer. ("Gabe, I can sit at the computer all day." "Wow...") I think I will surrender of the obvious and get dressed for the day... hopefully I will come back with beautiful thoughts about the beach...

Here Comes

Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Chirping robin, budding rose.
Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Gentle showers, summer clothes.
Here comes summer,
Here comes summer,
Whoosh - shiver - there it goes.

I've introduced my younger siblings to the wonders of Shel Silverstein. I remember picking up A Light in the Atic somewhere, library book sale or church grab box or whathaveyou, and thinking that I had found a treasure. Now I will freely confess that I had not read very much Silverstein myself, flipped through some of his collections of poems and The Giving Tree. Reading to my little sis, I was struck by the depth of some of these "children's" poems, "The little boy and the old man," "Nobody," "This bridge," for example. I need to wonder about these a bit more...

Random thought spawned by being home that I lack the time to turn into proper blogs...

...streets familiar in a parallel way hints and shadow of past life and what once was possible...

The warm humidity inclines me toward the water, strange for one who care not for swimming.

The land spreads itself out for my viewing, hues and shades of green down to the water. The sea is less than ten miles away... The deep blue turns grey under the reflection of the clouds.

Darling, remember
When you come to me
I'm the pretender
And not what I'm supposed to be
But who could know if I'm a traitor
Time's the revelator

They caught the katy
And left me a mule to ride
The fortune lady
Came along, she walked beside
But every word seemed to date her
Time's the revelator
The revelator

Up in the morning
Up and on the ride
I drive into Corning
And all the spindles whine
And every day is getting straighter
Time's the revelator
The revelator

Leaving the valley
And ducking out of sight
I'll go back to Cali
Where I can sleep out every night
And watch the waves and move the fader
Time's the revelator
The revelator

Queen of the fakes and imitators
Time's the revelator

-Gillian Welch

How much are we products of the places we grow up? How much of this place do I carry with me, and in me? I look around my home town, or rather my home island, and I know I could never be satisfied to stay here. It is beautiful, both the land and the people, but small in the same ways. I look at the lives of the people here and become discontent. I do not want life in the way they have it. Don't get me wrong, on the whole there is nothing wrong with their lives, they are good and full. But I have seen more, and now this is not enough. But I wonder if I am really any different from these people I so easily pass judgement upon. Why should I think that I need something more than this place can offer? Is it simply in the seeing and the learning and the doing that one is driven further afield? If so, where am I to go?

The fog twists and swirls around me, blurring the line between my feet and the ground. Nothing feels solid, nothing seems quite there. I wonder how I ended up here, after seeing so clearly...
I want to leave, but that would mean I'd have to move away from the one spot I think I know and strike out into the greyness. It is cold and I am alone and afraid. I can hear a Voice, low and clear and sure, even through the fog. It beckons me toward it, offering reassurance and comfort, if only I would come and follow. I want to follow, know I'd follow wherever it lead - but qualified by a constant 'if'. If the fog first broke I and I could clearly see where I was headed. If I could be guaranteed that there would be no danger of new or further pain. But now, in this dimness, chill and damp, unsure of footing and way... I do want to follow, but that means I'd have to strike out into the unknown. What if I fell, I know not how far I would fall before coming to a bottom, in this confusion of the senses where I am not even sure of where my feet really are. And still the Voice, my sought-after, wept-for Love pleads for me and beckons...
"He'll come to me...He'll not leave me here..." My pride is my prop, my cane of black by which I feel my way to nowhere. I can see nothing beyond it's tip. The fog whirls and catches at my feet. I turn 'round and 'round seeking on my own for a clearing of the murk, a way in which to wander. Instead, it draws tighter, and the Voice grows a little faint. My heart aches at the realization. Peering through the thickening mistiness, a red candle flame flickers and dances, now hidden, now clear. He has not left me, but it is I who must come to Him, not He to me. Will I throw down my black cane which guides nothingness and despair? Will I be able to take the risk of walking in this fog that at times obscures even the red lamp and seems to dim the Light?

The fog catches and swirls as I lift my foot...

I found an old self of mine not long ago. Odd, but I don't remember ever taking it off, or leaving it behind. Apparently, I had left it in a book I started reading last summer. I opened the cover and noticed a wisp of it peaking out between some of the pages near the beginning. It looked a bit faded and somewhat crinkled, but not too much worse for the wear, or lack of wear I should say. I took it out and looked at it for a while trying to remember what I was like when last I wore it. Rather different, I think, though I couldn't say quite how. A bit sadder, mayhap, but steady. Content, no "content" is not the right word, accepting of the where and how things are for the time. Willing enough to change, but not activly seeking change for its own sake. And yet constatly seeking, longing after something almost inexpressible, captured in moonlight and shadow, the heady sent of the rose, the cool touch of fog and mist. I smiled slightly at the remembrance of it...
On an impulse, I slipped on that old self. It still fit. Oh, it felt different in a few places, but still familiar. Some of the rough spots I remembered are gone, a few of the corners and angles have been sharpened, but on the whole I feel - myself. Funny how that can happen. The slipping on of an old self is as easy as falling asleep, the tears still moist on your cheek and the damp of them soaking into your pillow, and waking the next morning. You see the world under a new, and at the same time, familiar light...

Though one thing about an old self that I have discovered is that once it goes on, it is very difficult to get off, so I think this one will be around for a while...

I built a sandcastle not long ago, beautiful as any dream ought to be. Tureted and crenelated, flags waving proudly in the winds and wispering in the soft breezes. It was all held together with laughter and long talks, adventures and explorations. Brave knights and lovely ladies would make visits while wending their errant ways. It was full of life...
My castle is falling now before my eyes, worn down by changing winds and salty waters... I watch as corners chip and break, as walls I thought sure and sturdy crack and threaten to crumble. The laughter isoften missing, the long talks held over and over in memory. The brave knights and lovely ladies come no more to share their adventures and exploratory finds. I wonder if it will stand for much longer, if its foundations were build upon something stronger than sand and dreams...
Yet I cannot hold it, for who can hold still the sands of time? The tighter I'd grasp them the sooner they would slip from my fingers. Better to let it go if it wills, treasuring the beauty of it as long as it remains. For the foundations may yet hold, withstanding wind and water. Life will fill it again...

(from last night)
For days now the wind has been whispering to me of impending end. "It comes," it breaths into my ears, echoing, seeping down into my heart. "Why speak to me of ends?" I plead. "They do not belong to me - I am but young..."
"Nay," comes the reply.
Sitting here on the sand, the echoes of a beginning come back to me. But the murmur of the winds words in the waves is louder and I cannot ignore it.
The sea is, as it always is to my ears, mourning the sorrows of the world. I think I know of no sound in nature so evoking of sorrow than the sea...

Now those sad currents are only in my head. Quiet night sounds blend with the music playing in the empty coffee shop. It too has a melancholy tenor. Or perhaps, I am simply projecting my humor upon the world at large. I am alone, and though missing one, content enough. It occurs to me that there is a difference between feeling alone and being lonely...the former is beyond one's own control, the latter has more to do with the will.

"End."
The almost silence presses upon me. I nod acquiescence within myself and move on.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the makings of an amazing cobweb. It bridges the span between the edge of the desk shelf and the wall, and is already beginning to collect dust... I wonder how long it will last, now that it has been pointed out...

Someday I want to be able to play with this passion...

The music I was playing was nowhere nearly as moving as that of one of India's greatest musicians whose stories I often heard while growing up. Sixteenth century Tansen was one of the jewels in the court of Mogul king Akbar. It's said that when Tansen played raga deepak (from Sanskrit, fire melody) things would heat up, literally, and the lamps in the king's court would begin to glow. When he played raga megh malhar (rain melody), raindrops would begin falling to bring relief from the heat.

For some reason though the urgency to play, to create the liquid beauty of sound and rhythm, has left me. I can not blame it on the heat (for it has not been hot), nor on the intensity of my daylight labors (for they are relatively light). I feel this lack of urgency in other areas as well. I have not yet finished a book, nor written much, nor wandered the hills... I feel tired, as if the school year were still weighing on me. Too many worries...

What is it about an open doorway that is so enticing? Particularly wooden paneled doors...looking beyond, to all of the different worlds framed by the doorway, spreading out beyond your view...

*sigh*

I need to find a way through those doors...perhaps....perhaps

Loneliness... is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.
-Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)

Strange enough I've been lonely all my life, most accutely when surrounded by others. But over the past year I've found something...funny how Love can make one see things differently...

I've been wondering quite a bit recently about passion and emotion - where they lead, what they do to you, what happens to you without them... The problem with mulling things over in your head is that they tend (at least for me) to boil down to a few concise thoughts or even fragments of thoughts, and thats all that's left...makes it very difficult to back over things with someone else...
Well off I go...my room is still rather messy from moving and I have a book (or two...or three) that I've been wanting to read for the past few days. I should correct student work, or take care of student loan applications... Soon, my head needs a break...

"Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"
"That's against the law!"
"Oh. Of course."
[Fahrenheit 451]

-Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (1920- )

I thought this was an appropriate quote with which to begin the summer (though don't ask me why). I have not read leasurly since last summer... I am so tired, that I have a dull throb at the back of my head from stress and lack of sleep. I don't know how my finals went... I plan to bug my tutors and my connections in the offices until I know if I am coming back next year... But I am not going to worry about that now, mostly through lack of energy... This week-end will be relaxing and exhausting...

So I somehow didn't manage to get that third cup of tea. And now it's 7:40 and getting dark, and it's stopped raining too. I haven't done any homework for tomorrow (bad) and have not gotten any furtherwith finals studies (also bad). But I don't want to study, I want to curl up in my arm chair (after I dump out all the clothes that are currently living there) and read or play with my guitar (at this rate the Sprit will be playing it before I do...for now she is content to play with the four bottom strings, but it is only a matter of time) or drink tea. I got my tea pot back (and it's clean too).

*sigh*

Does anyone have any motivation they could lend me for a week or so? I'd give it back, honest I would. For some odd reason, the fear of failing is simply not doing it for me...

Oh well, off we go. At least I can get tomorrow's homework done decently...

It's just past 10 o'clock in the morning and I am ready for my third cup of tea. The water I put on to boil in my room down the hall from my haunt is probably ready, and I have perhaps a dozen teas to choose from. I wonder if I am addicted? I've managed to loose my favorite mug and my teapot it up in the Commons, left there from the mad teaparty of a few days ago. I would really like to make a strong pot of tea, transfer it to a thermos and wander off into the fog shrouded hills with a warm coat and several books and not come back until I'm soaked or dark, or both. However, my finals harried mind won't let me enjoy this relaxation beyond the speculation of it, so instead I will wander back down the hall and continue to worry about the equivalency laws of gases and play with my guitar, and yes, drink tea.

Thoughts on the approach of finals week...


Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

-Lewis Carroll, mathematician and writer (1832-1898)

We're less than a week away from year end finals, and I am starting to feel it. All evening I have been fighting (mostly in vain) against the hard hot feeling of desperation and frustration seated in my chest. I don't want to have study for finals... Finals mean change and people leaving and not coming back. They mean that things will be different and strange. Besides all that, they're hard!!!
So I sat down to correct student work, so I could then do tomorrow's homework, and ignore review guides for another two evenings (tomorrow evening being taken up with seminar and homework of it's own...Thursday is plenty soon to start studying, right??) I discovered instead the Senior year book, full of pictures and quotes (lots and lots of quotes) and read it cover to cover. It almost dispelled the knot in my breast...and then I looked at the papers that litter the desk of the Lady of the Haunt and was quickly reminded of the doom waiting for us next week...
And I had such grand plans for this eveing. I was going to write for a while (it seems that I've remembered how to think, just in time perhaps in more than one respect...) and then take care of assignments and student work that has been waiting around for a week (or two...) and tackle or at least look over and make some notes on the reviews that I had... But as time moved on, my sense of purpose waned and the despondancy waxed (and not even in proportion... And to think just this morning I was thinking of how lovely it was to watch the change in shading in the trees as I walked along the edge of the forest... bother it all)
*sigh*
I am going to be losing my haunt in a week's time... very very sad thought. I need to do something to fix this, and soon...

Isn't it a strange sensation when you suddenly realize that you havn't thought about anything in a really, really long time? Rather frightening, actually...

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man. -Madame de Stael, writer (1766-1817)

A fascinating quote by an author I've never heard of. I am in the middle of a Google search about her. Something I found...she seems very interesting. I'd like to see what she said herself... Hmmm, I wonder if the library has any of her books.

I finally made it down to the Getty museum. I've been wanting to go since I got here nearly two years ago. I will definitely be going back during the summer, there is still so much to see. Amoung many other beautiful works, we saw two Monet paintings Haystacks on a Winter Morning, and the Rouen Cathedral. (Perhaps it is a sign of immaturity in taste, but the Impressionists are my close to being my favorite painters.) It was so wonderful to be able to wander around these huge buildings, absorbing beauty in so many forms, never once feeling the ache I usually associate with the beautiful. Perhaps it was the company, or the novelty of being far away from school mingling with complete strangers...

The day is lovely, clear sky and warm. I am exhausted and I don't really know why... seeing as I have to work tonight, I am going to go to sleep for a bit...

Vive il Papa!!!!!


May God bless and guide our new Holy Father, Benedict XVI.

A week ago today, I was skipping class to take care of put-off-business. This week I have no such excuse...so now I have to go and read it... After I take my helicopter another 500 ft. Why are mindless games so addictive???

Life is strange and for some reason continues to change. Why can't thing settle for just a bit, say long enough for me to get used to them?

I spent this past week-end visiting with my parents and three youngest siblings. It was wonderful to see them, how much they have grown. (My baby sister, age 6 yrs, told me as we walked down to my dorm room from where they were staying that she had been told that I "like to read and listen to classical music." I don't even know if she remembers me on her own...) Mixed in with it all though was the feeling of constraint that I had come to associate with "being at home after the time I should be gone" that I had felt before leaving for school. I almost felt as if I had never really left at all...very distressing. Add to this the strange and almost unknown sensation of homesickness (something entirely unknown to me until very recently) and it made for a very interesting time of it...

Summer is four weeks away and every week has something going on... I look out at the time before me and I can see it slipping by. I am reminded of standing at the beach, my feet in the sand at the water's edge and each wave taking a little more from under me. The sensation of gradually sinking and feeling foundationless is eerily similar. I want things to stay the same for just a little while, so I can get used to them, can get my mind around them and see what is happening and where it all is going.

*sigh*

At the same time, I would not change where I am for the world...

Somehow I've gotten myself to the point of having to chose between semiar and all of the other things that I have to take care of (correcting month old student work, homework...

~ ~ ~
the door to my computer haunt opens and my evening of computer time vanishes... I am happy for the cause of its termination, but I am left with so much to do and no where to take care of it....

Reason # 736 for owning ones own computer: it is available when you want it... (is it just me or does this sound like the last reason?)

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 ;-)