could those of you who still remember Kant comment on the idea of academics (ie those in academia) as "knowledge producers"?
the phrase was brought up at the university and strikes me as being both arrogant and erroneous. it's wrong even without going into the process of coming to know. knowledge is something other than information. information can be made and produced, stored and passed around. but knowledge is what's inside of you after you've assimilated that information.

we the rich are all one with the dead
one day - perhaps even soon
we who now tread so heavily
will join them in the silent sleep
beneath the earth
exchanging the sunlight both sweet and harsh
and the touch of the wind upon the cheek
for crumbling stone and dry earth
and what will remain to mark our sojourn?

the lives of countless others
nameless faceless distant
kept broken and poor to fill our desires
they too will die - be laid in the ground
to enjoy perhaps the first rest
they have ever known

the tawdry signs and boards displaying
our valuing of life and love
a theme of lust and greed
appealing to senses already deadened
and appetites brought low through a surfeit of plenty

what call have I to mourn for us?
we take from life what we will
the self all important
and consummately empty
perhaps it is that emptiness that brings sorrow
the loss of so much that could be
and never comes before the sleep
beneath the head of stone

reflection from class last week

the train comes by
filling the window space
with rush and rattle
drawing my attention
down the tracks - away - away
clatter clack clatter clack
bringing an unheeded freight
of silence in its wake
leaving the mind to wonder
of the where's and who's
coming and going in so
passing a fashion

seems like i should write something today but i forgot the exercise book with my scribbles from this past week and don't feel up to recreating them off the top of my head... there's more poetry coming it'll just be a bit...

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them. Lest we Forget

it's Anzac day today, a memorial of the landing of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli. last friday there were tables set-up all over town selling poppies and people have been wearing them all week. there were dawn services at the war museum and memorial services all over the city. it's a national public holiday and people seem to be glad of the three day week-end but there seems to be more of a general consciousness of the reason for the memorial. the papers here have been filled with war stories; the library had books about Gallipoli and the Anzacs; signs around that say "we will remember them, lest we forget." all in all a distinct lack of commercialization about the whole thing - no sales for the week-end, no big movie releases. all so very different from our memorial day.

May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

i love the way the rain
melts away the edges
of the distant hills
green greys made soft
kissed by a morning
bow

today i saw a lovely red porsche with a bike rack (and a bike on the bike rack) on the back... it made me smile.

i've spent the majority of the last couple of days going through the company "induction" - ie standard training for incoming staff. it's been a rather odd experience, since i'm just the cleaning girl and kitchen help. at every other job i've worked it's pretty much been a case of getting dumped into the deep end of the pool and being told 'now swim - quickly.' it's what i've always thought should happen when starting a new job, actually telling people about forms, styles and standards for documents, giving a run though on how the email system works, how to file documents and then search for them, generally trying to make everyone who comes in feel as though they were part of the company community. And yet i almost feel myself resisting or vaguely resenting it. perhaps it's because i am "just the cleaning girl" and i don't see the majority of this applying to me. on the whole it's very interesting to see my reaction to the whole process.

when doing research for an academic type paper, when do you know you've done enough? i'm at the point where i'm re-reading articles that i somehow printed off twice without realizing it - and i'm not picking up that i've already read the whole bloody thing 'til i get close to a third of the way though...

sigh

i think i just don't want to start writing...

first day of work today. oh, yes - i've managed to get a job. it actually came through the other day in the late afternoon. i had a day to go and find suitable 'office' type clothes on a very limited budget. fortunately there is a decent secondhand shop just up the road that will yield up some very decent goods if one just sifts though it long enough. so i'm officially the new 'catering assistant' at a rather swank law firm on the harbor-side edge of downtown. in reality i'm the cleaning girl who takes apart the coffee machine, makes sure nothing is growing in the refrigerator, wipes down the counters and tops off the milk and biscuits every morning. i may get to do some baking and cookery type things, but i think my main function will be to clean... but we'll see how things progress.

our internet connection is freaking out.

i was listening to concert radio NZ but decided i'd had enough classical music for the morning (as it was fueling my desire to curl up with tea and read novel) and thought i'd switch over to wxpn out of philly.
now the internet has been slow all morning - pages taking longer than usual to load, radio coming in and out, but playing nonetheless. so i find station page, link to live streaming, load it into winamp and wait. and wait. now it become a test of wills. its been 'buffering' for the last 5 mins now reading 0% 20% 50% 80% 0% over and over and over.

i give up. 'net: 1 me: 0

i don't know what the deal is. the building is practically deserted during the day. who is choking up all of the bandwidth???

the rain drops run down the pane and i fear me the wind is blowing them in onto the window sill as well, in spite of the mostly closed window. my little basil plant in its over stuffed wee pot will get very little sunlight today. the wind makes our small room rather drafty and chill, but without the cracked window it is unpleasantly stuffy. the cars are backing up along the mortorway - it seems drivers do know how to drive cautiously, it just takes a spell of nasty weather to bring it out.

i have thus far spent the morning tucked away with my book, watching the window out of the corner of my eye to judge the time. but the clouds are thick and low - touching the tops of some of the higher buildings in the downtown and entirely hiding the tower (a word about the tower: picture the lower half an inverted Cloud City and you've about got it) - preventing me from being able to judge the light very well. so now the morning is nearly gone and i am no more inclined to turn from my book than i was a few hours ago. it still looks like it did at 7.30, why should i be wanting to be productive?
answer: because i've a term paper to produce in two an a half weeks time...

ah, i have news: my class schedule has taken yet another potential job from me. perhaps i will elaborate the subtle intricacies of my class schedule as laid out by this institution of higher education. but not now. i am disappointed - i actually wanted this one. a bookstore, even though located in a mall, is still a bookstore.

c'est la vie

what word describes the sound of air pouring fourth from a vent? one of those square ones you see in drop ceilings across the westernized world. "rushing"? "discharge"? "effusion"?
coupled with the tapping clatter of keys and the occasional bit of objuration coming from the disgruntled ESRI crafters it re-enforces the weighted silence of the grad student lounge.

what am i doing here?

i am "researching" for my next paper. this one is about farming subsidies. i will readily admit that i am feeling a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the topic. the propositions for my proposal are dull and lifeless; i wrote them because i had to but i don't know if they will actually lead to anything worthwhile, much less 4000-5000 words worth of something... objectively i am pretty sure that they are actually ok (i think, this could be wishful thinking though). but i, the researcher and scribbler of words, am finding nothing in what i wrote that is leading me to further thought on what more to write...

what am i doing here?

i don't want to be an academic. an inveterate scribbler of words out of touch with the world and reality who takes other papers and makes new ones to feed the endless cycle of journals and digests while feeding the ego with thoughts of informing those who form the minds of the masses... a scholar perhaps, learned, well-read, conversant, trained in the lore and practice of my immediate field and those related. but an academic?

one of the first things i was told about auckland and nz in general was that there are more cafes and coffee-type shops per capita than any where else in the world. now whether or not this is (f)actually true there are certainly a whole heck of a lot of them. no street is complete without at least two per block. add to this that every other cafe seems to also be a licensed bar and you have a rather interesting dynamic set up for job hunting...

"do you know how to make coffee*?"
"no, but i learn really quickly"
"do you know how to work behind a bar?"
"no..."
"well, i'm looking for someone who is already trained, but if no one comes up i'll be sure to get back to you"
"ok, sounds great. thanks for your time"

if you don't know how to make coffee* (*espresso, et al - they don't do drip coffee here) or how to pour drinks, you and your cv can go to the back of the line. and the idea of training is almost unheard of - if you don't already know what you are doing you are wasting their time.

back to the drawing board; there has to be something i can do in this soddering city...

*sigh*

i was saving up little things all week to share and now they are gone...

*sing-song*
all gone...

there was something about rain in the city - how it sticks and is messy and dirty - how natural bits that we take for granted in other towns, wind, rain, tree lined streets, all seem rather lost and distracted in this city - as if they are still trying to figure out why there are tall ugly buildings and mazes of pavement blending roads and sidewalks and alleys where there was forest and streams for so very long - how wind and rain are very old and have very long memories and become used to change so very slowly with much confusion in the between times

but i've forgotten it... i was not feeling so well for most of this week; but i'm better now.

in other news i turned in my first graduate paper today. "where does the answer lie? population control and the disjunction between the arguments" my thanks to em for her help in finding resources. i'll see about putting up a link to it somewheres abouts if anyone is interested (or perhaps even if there isn't any interest...)

signing off...

"that must be a weird feeling"
"what?"
"hearing something and not knowing whether it's yours or something you heard"
"yeah, it is. it is really kinda frustrating because people ask you stuff like that and you don't know if it is yours or someone else's. and I don't know where it comes from"

by now it is very much something he wrote or was inspired to play. the riff that he was playing has had about a dozen variations and is morphing into something else even as i'm trying to capture a description of it on screen.

dog gone flighty music bug-
come

back

here...




you know, i think plato was right about inspiration. it is something from the gods.

why is it that people don't talk to each other in elevators? it's a long way down from the 25th floor to the 1st floor and the whole way down none of us said a word... it's very peculiar.

ah, what was i doing up on the 25th floor? well, i was interviewing for a job. i think it went well - i was able to intelligently answer all of their questions (well, except for the bit about what exactly the company does, but i don't think that hurt too much). much more damaging is my weird class schedule that has me in class all day for four days in a row and thus unable to go to work. that is not so good.... really not very marketable no matter what spin you put on it. but i'll hear about it in a day or two.
...
perhaps i should return to the drawing board sooner. i really need to find myself a job - or we really won't see anything of this country than this overgrown suburban sprawl.

a friend of mine asked me a bit ago in an email if married life was heavenly. i'm going to continue my tradition of cheating on posts and use some of the letter i wrote to her...

In all honesty, married life very much not heavenly... and I mean that in the best possible way. It is very earthy, and gritty and right now rather monetarily poor. There is quite a lot of making due and being very frugal (giving up alcohol for lent was very good for that... and hopefully I'll have a job in the next week or two and we'll be able to afford to drink again... :) But it is wonderful. There is a lot of adjusting to do - mostly of things you'd never think you'd have to adjust to: like not seeing him for however many hours of the day, or where he decides to leave his shoes and socks when he gets home or how he eats his soup (which somehow you'd never noticed when you cooked for him before...) He is more fully your best friend and closest companion... He gets to kiss you more and snuggling is a must both morning and evening. (I would have to say that part is pretty close to heavenly...) All in all, I am happy and would not trade my life right now with that of a king. (though being able to get out of the city would be very nice...)

there is a water spirit residing in our building - a very unhappy water spirit. he can generally be found lying on the floor along the hall between the kitchen and the showers. he spreads himself across the entire width of the already narrow hall forcing anyone wishing to pass from one room to the other to either leap across or wander around with wet socks. i know he is unhappy, anyone (or thing, as the case maybe) soppy enough to get in the way of someone heading to the toilet or shower must be unhappy. on particularly warm days he wanders off to visit his kin down in the harbour. but he is almost always back in the evenings, reaching out toward the kitchen, following the contours in the uneven floor.

lesson: people really need to be more careful while in the shower

This little dude was on the ferry back from Tiritiri with us. He was pretty excited about being on a boat and I don't think he sat still for two minutes put together the whole trip back.

Little kids are cool...

I went on a field trip today for the Environmental Processes class (or "paper," as they call it here) I'm taking. We went out to a science preserve called Tiritiri Matangi Island (link is to map - here is link to the 'friend's of' website). The place is amazing. Twenty years ago it was practically bare having been grazed by cattle and sheep for over 100 years. The native bush (forest) and birds were practically gone. Through much persistence by two of my professors and many volunteers they have successfully brought the island back to life. Geoff has posted some of the pictures I took while on the trip.

It was very heartening to see something that had actually worked and was doing well after two days of very intense (and somewhat disheartening) lecturing. By yesterday evening, I couldn't help but feel that men were a blight upon the earth, all of his practices bad and inherently damaging to the earth from which we were spawned. I had to rationally talk myself through the arguments and logic of our faith in a loving God who actively created us and gave us in a certain place within creation. I have been feeling desperate for a Catholic response and input on the environmental issues that have been raised. I found a number of very good articles on the Zenit website (searching under 'ecology' brings up numerous good articles that every Catholic should read).
I was ideally looking for a moral/ethical response to the arguments for population control that I could use in the discussion portion of class tomorrow (faith based arguments holding little water for a basically atheistic crowd). I've read numerous articles for this class from a range of scientific journals saying that voluntary population control is necessary in order to enable future generations to enjoy life at the current standard of living. No one (including myself thus far...) has questioned this conclusion. (Somehow, despite having spent four year supposedly debating and challenging the conclusions presented in the texts I feel very unsure questioning the material in my new scholarly environment...) I don't feel like I know enough or have anything scientifically significant to present as a counter argument. I have moral arguments against the conclusions the that are being drawn from the science but no alternate science evidence to back up those moral arguments. It's all very well to say that something is wrong and is not an acceptable solution, but when I have nothing to suggest as an alternative...

Somewhat relatedly, I've nearly finished reading Slim's wedding gift: Happy are You Poor: The simple life and spiritual freedom by Fr. Thomas Dubay. It is wonderful - simple, clear, from first principles, practical, and realistic. I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to live the Gospel more deeply (ie everyone). Relating this to the above, this is a beautiful solution to the potential global shortage of resources so feared by all of those scientists I've been reading. If we all lived a sparing-sharing life (the term Fr. Dubay gives to the factual poverty advocated in the Gospel) then we would be using significantly less of the earth's resources and it would be able to be developed in a more sustainable manner.

*sigh*

why are there no simple answers in life?

...signing off

class tomorrow morning - first of the semester. i was excited a few days ago, but right now i am at the tired and nearly overloaded point that tell's me i am actually back in school...

my my how little things actually change.

...signing off.

sunlight is filling our small room, unhampered by the rain and street be-grimed window. it has been heavily over cast all day; but now the winds have changed and the evening sky is filled with setting sunlight. the windows are open in the flat across the alley welcoming in the cool air brought by the breeze. in their reflection i can see a lone pine tree somewhere off behind my own building or across the motorway.

...

the sun is gone now; the sky a faint blue accented with sunset colour stained clouds. perhaps it will be clear tomorrow there are fewer clouds now than there were half an hour ago.

our building is full of people from all over the world. the chap across the hall is from Zimbabwe. around the corner are fellows from Korea (Seoul), China (Beijing), and Canada (Calgary). the fellow next to the stairs is from Bulgaria. whatever else i could say about the place it has been good for meeting people from around the world and getting a feel for how others see America. it's not all bad. one of the first questions asked is "why would you want to leave America?" often the next question is our opinion on the presidential campaign. the first is easy to answer: to see the world (or at least some more of it). the second is not so easy and a little embarrassing. neither of us has really been following the campaigns so giving even half decently informed opinions has been rather difficult. (by way of excuse for this lack of attention to civic duty, we were living in DC the most politic'ted city in the country where the campaigning began a-way back in the middle of last summer nearly a year and a half before the actual election... and we were planning a wedding and two long distance moves...) so i've been trying to keep a bit more on top of things now that there is a bit of distance between us and the politics.

...

dark outside now. i'd really like something sweet. mmm, or a cup of good coffee (which is not hard to find in this city)...
guess i'll get another glass of water and read for a bit...

signing off...

i am avoiding...

you see, if i keep busy with lots of little things i can avoid the unpleasantness of writing up and polishing my CV (variation on the theme of a resume). which means i in turn also avoid the unpleasant uncertain sensation that accompanies searching for a job and the nervousness of job interviews. i can also avoid thinking about shrinking account balances, falling exchange rates and the generally higher cost of living here in the city (caused somewhat by our government's shortsighted and selfish policies).

but you see, it is rather hard to keep busy when the room is tidy and supper is already started (there are only so many times you can go check on a pot in the other room) and the inbox has been checked for the third time...

which inevitably brings me back to the conclusion that i have been avoiding: i need a job.

hmmm, i think i'll go and check on that pot one more time...

something about the weather on the weekends here... it is raining for the second weekend in a row. folks keep asking us when we arrived and then saying what a beautiful summer they just had. and it's windy - downright blustery. our window keeps swinging itself shut leaving us without fresh air in our damp-ish, badly ventilated room.
yesterday was beautiful - sunny, warm. there was a breeze but the wind itself was busy hauling the large over stuffed clouds away to the northwest. we walked up to one of the neighbourhoods in which we are thinking about looking for a place to live. it is a hip borough with lots of off beat shops and cafes. kiwis do two things far more than their american counterparts: drink coffee and smoke. and most of the cafes are also licensed bars. so the three most common addictive substances are readily available on nearly every corner... (sorry a little post-modern angst coming out there...)

signing off...

i've come to the conclusion that i ought to be making more use of this page being so far away and all... and i've been wanting to write more but making the excuse that "nothing comes"... but if i make myself actually sit down and at the very least describe something about the day, even if is just to say something about the noise or a funny smell or odd people we're now living with, it will be more that what i've been doing recently (which being nothing would of course me more...)

...
so
...

we just got back from a three day field trip up to the Northland region of NZ. it's been an intense three days; lots of driving and lots of talking. mostly talk about environmental issues, but also just random stuff amongst the people in my program. i found myself becoming more and more quiet as other people talked more and more. perhaps i innately feel that there must be an equilibrium of noise in a given volume of space/air. the Northland is beautiful - rolling hills and forest (native bush, pine for harvesting, and everything in between). it's not the image drawn to mind by LOTR, and i'm glad we saw the Northland before going down to the south island. i was able to fall in love with this and appreciate it for itself without trying to make comparisons to "the movie." see Geoffrey's page for pictures

on coming back to our flat i made the very pleasant discovery that our small refrigerator had died sometime while we'd been gone. fortunately we'd only just moved in and hadn't done much by way of shopping. we lost a jug of milk that was nearly full, but i think the eggs are still good (people here don't refrigerate their eggs anyhow...) and the rest was fruits and vegetables. i guess it's a matter of being thankful for small blessings.

i'll save descriptions of the flat for some story to warrant it... off to fold laundry...

I'm an auntie!!!!!



see nephew, sister and brother-in-law here...

I have come again to the Hill House. The Sprite and her Sage Husband have made it a place of love and warmth, good scents and lovely sounds. I would be content to fall into the roll of invisible housekeeper - taking care of the little things they didn't notice needed to be done. But there are very many things I need to do and the weight of them is nearly stealing away my breath...

~ ~ ~

We have come very very far. And our journey is still only part way done. We have seen cities and deserts, mountains and valleys, wealth and squalor of many sorts. We had hours of conversation, of music, of wind, of silence.
It seems hard to believe that a week ago we were still at home...

...there are pictures on Geoffrey's page.

there is a little red oak tree in the backyard. most of the leaves have fallen - taken away by the wind and turned brown by the sun. but there are a few, perhaps a dozen perhaps a score - bright red, scarlet, the color of rich blood - still on the thin branches and twigs.

In a speech Thursday at St. John Lateran, Nicolas Sarkozy said, "No one denies that the French system of laicism is a guarantee of liberty: liberty to believe or not; liberty to practice a religion and to change it; liberty to refuse to betray one's conscience with public practices; the liberty of parents to educate their children according to their beliefs; liberty from discrimination from government due to beliefs."

Sarkozy, who was at St. John Lateran to take the title of "honorary canon," traditionally bestowed on heads of the French state, said his country has changed a lot. "The French have greater differences in convictions than before," he said. "Now laicism presents itself as a necessity and an opportunity."

However, he added, "Secularism should not be a denial of the past. It does not have the power to sever France from its Christian roots. This has been tried. It shouldn't have been done."

Sarkozy met with the Pope at the Vatican on Thursday morning.

"Like Benedict XVI," he said, "I think a nation that ignores the ethical, spiritual and religious heritage of its history commits a crime against its culture, against the whole of its history, patrimony, art and popular traditions, which permeate living and thinking in such a deep way."

The president added: "To uproot is to lose meaning; it is to weaken the foundation of national identity, and to drain even more the social relationships that have such a need of memorable symbols.

"For this reason, we have to join the two ends of the chain: to accept the Christian roots of France -- even better, to value them, to defend the laicism that finally reaches maturity. This is the step I want to take this afternoon in St. John Lateran."

"I am calling for a positive laicism," he said, "that is to say, a secularism that watches over freedom of thought, of belief and unbelief, does not consider religion as a danger, but as an asset."

so I've updated my template - I don't know if it's all that noticeable. I'll probably make it a work in progress and play with it for a while. meanwhile I'll play with photos using picasa2 (yay free downloads) and post lots of stuff on my photo page...

snow is falling again - it's slowly been falling all day. it is dampish snow and i am somewhat afeared that it will freeze over night and make the roads hellish.

but for now it is simply and utterly beautiful. everything curves - the tree branches, the mounds collected on the holly leaves, the sinks where the leaves are fallen on th ground.
they are saying that it is likely to be gone tomorrow but i don't care. it is beautiful now and now is where i am.

I just got thank-you letters from an entire second grade class. I'd taken their class on a nature walk back in October - I actually don't quite remember doing it - and something must have made and impression (on the teachers at least...).
hmmm, I'll have to go and look the date up to see if it was just me or if I'd only helped... it would be a shame to take all of the credit.

in other news - paper cuts are a pain.

leaf blowing: one of the greatest exercises in futility that i have ever encountered.

they are blowing leaves off the roof and from around the building - again. this is the weather report. but as the man said "job security - they pay the same each time!"

there is something broken in our government...and i don't know if it can be fixed.

first snow!!!

it was just a light dusting but it did come down. and we're supposed to be getting more tonight and tomorrow...

...snow...

well, i had wanted to say something...

in other news - my computer hard drive is nearly full. it took longer than i thought it would though - nearly three years.
i really need to just dump stuff onto my external hard drive...

*thinking*

no time like the present...
it's saying that this is going to take a while... 15 mins remaining.

i downloaded picasa2 so that i could play with my pictures on my own computer. i need to figure out how i can resize the files - they are unwieldy when they come off my camera... is there something better out there for me to pick up for free?

i'll come back and ramble in a bit...

so i've added two more links... chaps i found while doing some research on the community gardens here in the park. the odd thing is they are in the UK and i'm in DC. but they write well and seem to be living the sort of modern globally and environmentally concious farmstead life that i would one day like very much to have...

so i thought i'd share...

the one rub is that the wizard is rather pagan...this makes reading rather interesting sometimes- leaving one with a feeling of "if he only know the whole of it..."

i've put up a new page for photographs... it has lots of color... and even a few pictures... more will be forthcoming...
see "photos" link in sidebar for more details

so i cleaned up my links... but i didn't have the heart to get rid of a couple of them so they've been filed under the heading of "maybe something new..."
i've thought about giving the whole thing an overhaul - i really like toque's and tasik's new pages... but i'm kinda sentimentally attached to this one... perhaps i'll wait until i learn enough to design it entirely on my own and then up it up...

yesterday's winds have stripped many of the trees and now there are drifts, great big ones, of leaves everywhere... the winds here sound different from the winds in socal...less big. not small, but having less magnitude. they say less. perhaps they are too busy taking the leaves off of the trees and moving them up and down streets and back onto people's lawns to be having conversations or carrying tales and messages. or maybe they are distracted by having to move through so many buildings...

my cell phone is making the pathetic noises that dying phones make, an ironic counterpoint to the bouncy happy folk music coming out of my computer speakers...

"there's a car on fire down at 13"
"really?!"

sirens echo off the valley rises and up the streets coming closer. i watch as the flames licking the hood of the car and the open doors are doused with water. they are very efficient these firefighters. in seconds all that is coming from the car is white smoke drifting away on the light breeze.

words fall as so many leaves
stripped from the trees by the careless fingers
of the east wind.
they drift along the lanes of my mind
gather in great heaps
ready for the bagging of conversation
or the burning onto paper with pen or pencil.
and yet they remain
scattered in heaps - unspoke - unwrit
to be kicked and scattered again
by whim or passion's unruly progeny
until, ground down beyond recognition,
the what of them is gone
leaving only an
"i was thinking..."

intensity

my brains feel like they are slowly trying to pour out from behind my eyes - the florescent lighting in the office is pressing down on my eyes which makes me want to close them so that my brains will stay in my head.

...now where was i with this education program outline...

i really don't want to be sitting at the computer any more

the tv is on in the next room but i don't think there is anyone watching it... just as well tv is evil... i have killed evil tv

i am tired and feeling very drained...physically and monetarily... i spent hours at the mall (mall is evil too) wedding shoe shopping. the worst of it was that i was suckered into buying insanely expensive tea in ridiculously large quantities ... after the first thrill of finding really good loose leaf tea wore off the reality of having spent a large portion of my small paycheck began to settle in...(this is the worst because i love tea and feeling bad about spending money at tea is not happy) *sigh* oh well tea is tea and it will be good and i will be able to share because i had to buy so much...

but now the weepies and kin are on pandora and and i have friendly glass of pinot noir beside me and lover in next room so life is looking better...

i did manage to find shoes. they are not really what i was looking for but they will do and they might even be high enough that i won't have to get dress hemmed... that would be good... i need to figure this out...perhaps i will do this when i go home tonight... guys have it so easy - all they have to do is go to a tux shop and find the right size. end of story. but the shoes put me one step closer to accomplishing my oct goal: my dress. still need to check on length and get bodice to fit...

next month's big goals are invitations and marriage prep.

i have list of things to do while in cali later this week:
-talk to caterer and figure out budget and menu
-talk to girlfriend (helen) doing flowers
-talk to dj (raab) for reception
-talk to hotel people (spi and bm) for guests
-see church hall for reception
-talk to choir director (john) about musics
-photo mission and hall
-see peoples!!!! (most important)
...but i really need to get all of the other things done too...without being arrested for grand theft auto... this might pose a challenge...

my da is getting married...everything is changing and feels so different... i feel different to myself... i'm not sure what to make of it all...

when i first stumbled upon these electronic pages they were as entrancing as any of my favorite books. one theme ran through them more frequently than others: that of wanting to leave, to just go somewhere anywhere, not here. at times i sympathized, sharing the author's frustration and cabin fever. sometimes i remonstrated saying that there was always something beautiful to be found around you where ever you were - it was just a matter of knowing how to look. and there were times it was my page that was bleeding the desire to fly, to have done and be gone.

i've lost track of everyone for a while making the excuse that things were busy or that the net connection was too slow or that i was trying to "get out and live in the real world". but that gives the lie to why i started writing in the first place...
i've begun again to read these pages again and the same themes are threading in and out between the lines on the screen. the desire for change. and now i look and see and know that desire and i am helpless.



i am so very far away - i feel so very far away.

more

so after having camera for quite a while now...I am finally going to put up pics... comments welcome...

note: i hate shoe shopping.

old green hills heat off blacktop breath of wind coming off the river caught amoung old buildings
music
peoples

he has long curly brown hair tied up in brown shoestring - has the sloping shoulder of a thinker - head tilt of one who listens to hear - bright blue eyes - full almost scruffy beard. the shoelace is caught on his shoulder, right above the shoulder blade. for some reason it caught my eye... on his feet are the fisherman sandals I somehow knew he would be wearing...

the tide of people in the tent ebbs and flows. it fills and empties the old metal folding chairs sponsored by some senator who from the look of the chairs should have retired from public office long ago...

black dress with red patterned dots - a bit of red lace at the hem and neckline. she is keeping time with the drumbeat, tapping her feet on the warm blacktop.

nora jones cover

pink and cream porcelain cheeks sticky with ice cream shared out of an over large cone with mother and older sis- blond hair pulled up and still escaping in wisps and waves - blue eyes with dark lashes.

hills swallow sounds down in the valley ridge after ridge rises leading the eye away far and away

A man who is 'ill-adjusted' to the world is always on the verge of finding himself. One who is adjusted to the world never finds himself, but gets to be a cabinet minister.
-Hermann Hesse, novelist, poet, Nobel laureate(1877-1962)

The day's have been cool for the middle of summer in DC - low humidity and filled with cool breezes. I have been lost in my reflections and reminiscences of last year. It's odd, I've been here a week and though it feels as though I've been back much longer I've seen no one but my fiance. I've been downtown once, to the memorials, and wandered around here in my corner of the neighbourhoodcity.

the air has been odd all week. it wants to rain - the trees and ground beg for the rain - and it does not come. the rains teased today, smattering and pattering the leaves and grass. but it would not rain. for long stretches of moments i feel as odd as the air, wanting to pour out something. but it will not come. so i sit and wait for it to come, to relieve...

20 May

The rearview mirrors gave perfect postcard presentations of the receeding senery. I peaked over and around Tasik's broad shoulders in effort to watch the road that was approaching, but that proved a more difficult task than watching the mirrors. As the familiar road flowed by I couldn't help but reflect on all of the times I had driven that road over the past four years. Watching the seasons change, the course of the stream and the road itself. It seemed fitting in a way that the road is finally open and unhindered by lights or extra stop signs, just in time for us to leave. But leave the way we found it - for the most part. As we passed other bikes most gave us the ubiquitous, knee-level, two fingered wave. I had to smile as we gave the correstoponding countersign. I'd passed countless bikers on that highway, always watched for the sign. Now on my last day as a resident of SoCal I am the one on the bike.

It's hot...much warmer than it should be in early May. The classical music playing behind me is being mixed with the sound of the fan that is trying to move the warm air around the small apt. The room is filled with late afternoon light, gradually becoming dimmer as the sun sets below the rooftops of the nearby buildings. I'm typing on a stolen computer and trying to argue the humor of Flannery O'Connor. This is proving rather more difficult than I would like - perhaps if I finish my glass of wine it will come more easily...

"I'll fight you on whether those stories are actually funny."
"They are actually funny."
"Are they actually funny or is it just the way you look at them?"

I was trying to say that she portrays the human condition - the humor of it along with its tragedy, patheticness, and pathos. I want to argue that she seems to say that humor is essentially part of life, whereas my friend says that the human condition has nothing funny about it, but the humor comes from the way you look at it.
Now granted there are somethings that are just not funny any way you look at them... but this is something different. I just can't quite put my finger on how...

right now I think I'd like some one else to take over my life; that way I could go off and do the things that I am really wanting to do. It feels like there is so much to be done, I don't even know where to start. I finally took care of getting the tires on my car looked at, but that was because Tasik took it in to someplace and came back and told me that if I didn't do something soon (ie before the next time I drove anywhere at all) I would end up with a blowout or two. So I got to cross that off my overstocked list. Perhaps at this point I just need the pressure of necessity to order things, that way I won't have to decide if it needs to be done sooner or later; it will just need to be done now.
*sigh*
I know, welcome to real life... I get it - but I don't have to like it.

I've been engaged in an ongoing battle with MSN messenger for the last hour and a half or so determined to stay online... It doesn't like me...

I find it ironic that I am drawn to chill, relaxed music to listen to when I want to complain about the seeming increase in the passage of days... Perhaps I am seeking a mean in the midst of it all.

It's friday at last - though the weeks never do seem to take up much time - and I am looking down a long week-end already becoming filled with "to-do's." I have a feeling of aliveness under my skin and it is quite nicely translating into thesis time (and productivity actually)... But I am still left with the feeling that I am losing something...what it is I can't quite say - and that is a good deal of the pain from the losing... It's almost like I am watching the people I love here slowly be drawn away from me, all of us being taken our separate ways...well, perhaps that is actually what it is. I am out of touch (more so than usual and that is saying something) and the distance will only grow with time...

I could say that it is part of growing up and leaving the proverbial nest, but I have given in too easily in the past and have lost too much as a consequence... now I just need to figure out what to do...

say a prayer for us when you have a spare moment

props to Sir Nicholai for the pics...

the random thoughts that class generates...

rain falling over fields - lines stretching out and away - line of earth in dull greens and blues - the falling rain coming down in lines of grey haze - imagining the feeling of openness all around while having clouds pressing down - the rain coming down...


why does beauty ache?

It rains!! I am happy - I've missed the fogs and the wet and the sent of cool damp air...

these fits of passion
possess and release my soul -
all at once feeling
too much to be expressed
then falling back exhausted, the embrace
gone
hollow and depleted, yearning to be content
creativity coming only in the evanescent
moments between rise and fall

the clouds are low, dark grey and burning on the edges from the setting sun -
they may be only a band, thinning and fading toward the center of the dome of
heaven, but from here I can't tell. in the fading light the tops of the olive
trees in the courtyard are waving in the breeze I know is chill and damp. the
western sky is achingly blue, but not the blue of a summer day, or winter
morning. it is blue in an almost foregetful fashion, in the way the old lady
down the road is beautiful. it is soft and faded, tired and knowing that it is
only going to fade still further. looking at her, you feel a pain of regret
that you could not have known her before all that was left of her beauty was a
ghost, at knowing that it will never return in this life, that one day you too
will resemble her. in the same way you ache at the sight of the faded and dying
light of day, slowly draining from the horizon. but she smiles and you still
think "how lovely!" and the sky is blue until the light is entirely gone.
the trees have become dark sillouets, leaves and branches against darkening
skies.

how dark it is! through the open gate I can see the light of a sidewalk lamp and
a single candle red and flickering down at the bottom of the hill. the
reflections on the window almost make me feel as though I were sitting on the
outside looking in - a Peter Pan whose imaginings are so real that they bring
the reflections into reality around him.
all around me are scattered papers, collected through the year in hopes of
remembering something of what has been "learned" when time has brought exams about again.

*spluttering*

So this week I have been out into the desert, slept under the stars, been to the doctor's twice, spent lots of money running errands, done just enough homework though not enough seminar or thesis, and discovered the joys of network gaming (which actually has little to do with the just prior activity or lack there of)... and the week is not over. I feel like I'm on a high right now (which might have something to do with the coffee on near empty stomach about an hour and a half ago). I think I am going to go and ride to nowhere and finish reading seminar... must stay away from my computer while it is in my room...

*taking a deep breath*

excerpt from letters written 21 Oct. edited for content.

"Hi ~
Just got off your blog...Sounds very intense...almost of the type of intensity that threatens to hold one's head under the water...for a bit longer than anticipated and then one comes up sputtering and spewing...

Did you select a thesis theme? And New Zealand????"

Hey ~
- I guess things have been rather intense - I've rather come to the conclusion that I need intensity in my life, or perhaps to help define my life... Without it I feel as though I were heading down a long road without any destination or end in sight, there is no reason to keep on going other than I was in motion already. That is simply not good enough for me. I might end up a bit breathless and scared sometimes but that seems better than the alternative of placidity. I am trying to fill my life with as much of what I love about school and being in SoCal as possible before I leave it behind. It's odd - on one hand I feel so very ready to simply be done and leave it ("it" being school and the life there) all behind. I want to move on. And yet, I know if I did leave now I would feel an incompleteness and would always want to go back and fix it. So I keep on, striving after something that I only see "in a mirror darkly" - to quote one of my proffessors.

My thesis on work - my official thesis question and statement is:

Is proper for the liberal man to manually labor? What is the work and leisure proper to the liberal man?
Manual labor is one of the works proper to man, for it is an integral part of the attainment of leisure, both of which are a foreshadowing of the rest man shall possess in the Beatific Vision.

I've done a bit of work on it (not enough for how late it feels). I am very pasionate about this topic though, so it shouldn't be too hard to make myself work on it. All it will take is a bit of dicipline and making myself work in all of the hours during the week that I have blocked out for it.

New Zealand is still the plan. G. and I keep telling each other that we need to e-mail them and request more information... Right now homework, thesis and everything else I keep runing off to do (such as running off to San Fran, or DC) keeps getting in the way.

hehe, this was supposed to be a short note, because he wanted to look at pictures from today's Ren faire. But he seems to be occupied with instaling anti-virus stuff on his new toy... (yes, I am out in DC at the moment... he helped to fly me out for a visit... *sigh* but I have to go back tomorrow...)

I am feeling down and I can't really say quite why... It probably has something to do with having to ask my parents for a loan that I won't be able to repay until sometime next summer... I think it might have been possible to make it through the year with out borrowing money- if I simply stopped doing everything else and simply holed up here on campus. I would become rather depressed and go nearly crazy, but at least I would not be further in debt.
*sigh*
Money is evil...

It's the first of October... I don't know where the time has gotten to. It is already to the point in the year when I can look down the road and count off the weeks until the year is ended and name off the activities that are filling almost all of those weeks. I feel like my life is slipping through my fingers and I am not being able to do anything about it. So I am trying to do the most with it. That is in part why I asked for money - there is so much I want to be doing while I am still here. And doing requires funds, which at the moment, are sorely lacking... So am I being selfish or imprudent? I don't know... I don't think so - but I am getting the feeling that my parents think I am. (Though I generally get the feeling that my parents disapprove of my decisions... well perhaps "withhold judgment" is more accurate...)
*sigh*
perhaps those who say money is the root of all evil are right...

I have yet to figure out why it is that a blank screen fills my soul with dred and an urgent desire to hide behind the nearest book... The very thought of having to confront such a screen in order to begin writing my thesis is enough to make me start thinking along the lines of "do I really have enough sources?" and "I ought not neglect my class work or seminar to spend extra time on my thesis..."
*sigh*
Somehow it will get started - don't worry.

In other news, we were evacuated from our idilic little campus the other night. There is a rather large fire that was threatening to come down upon us with all of it's blind wrath and fury. The information site for the fire is remarkably unhelpful (and has been for the entire duration of the fire) so I don't know quite where it is now, but they have lifted the evacuation notice for school so we're all coming back.

ack!!! the internet is slowly sucking me in... I can't escape the inexorable pull of it's (what it is exactly that makes time disapear so surely when faced with a glowing screen???) I am not even on my own computer (I would be here even longer if I were) and I've been here for close to an hour.. I keep looking around for some one in line so I'll have an excuse to get off and no one is coming in. I am sure that I have important things to do but nothing is rising to the surface of that pool I generally refer to as my mind...
ah, some one just did... good now I can go and be a productive member of society...

Let it be known to all the world (well in potency at least...) that I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the world!! He flew out to SoCal for the week-end to suprise me...

I am still on a high, floating somewhere off the ground. So if I seem a bit distant for the next few days - weeks...- the is probably why... (well, thesis proposals might figure in there somewhere, but the former reason is so much nicer...)

music rises on a hot summer night
stillness of air gives weight
to clothes, thoughts, sounds
notes seem to hang longer, steady, full
faerie lights wink and dance
here and there 'tween blade and leaf
breath of wind, lift of heart

boards, sun warn and grey
rough beneath bare feet and legs
dark shadows - strange and warm
in blacks and velvet deepness
voices low out drawing hearts
surety found in - what?
wonder at recognition of another's
pain, hope, desires, living thoughts

The Rains

lost beauty ever seen in memory
now gone beyond all hope of reclaiming
passing Time reclaims his own
draws along those bound by him
breath of beauty lingers on the air
drifting downward to up raised hands

my scribbling muse has once again wandered through my door and has taken up a seat in the easy chair... now if only I could manage to wander down to the library with the sheets of my writtings or when I had the time to put them up here...
ah well
I make no promises but I should soon have a few poem and a bit of a short story/flash fiction thing I scribbled out a week or so ago...

I don't understand. How can a bad mood settle so thoroughly? I have rarely been so very out of it... Say a prayer that my guardian angel will give me a swift kick in the pants...

so hey guess what- I'm in the Big Apple... yeah, I hopped on a bus last night and got dropped off on a street corner in the middle of Manhatten and now I'm here for three days. I don't quite know what I am going to be doing - but I have internet connection so you'll end up hearing about some of it (or perhaps lots of it...)
At the moment I am looking out onto the river (? I think...) at the George Washington Bridge listening to jazz and the rush of cars on the road below me, and sound of the fan (one of those ancient ones from the 40's or 50's) and feeling the heat gradually rise outside. Across the river the bluffs are green with trees and beneath the trees and very large buildings are red rocks looking very old. I feel vaguly silly that I don't really know where I am spacially or geographically but that only adds to the fun and adventure of it all. I suppose I'll figure it out eventually so I can tell people about my trip without sounding either too blond (no offence) or too hick...

The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
~Sarah O. Jewett

I am curious my friends, is this the case? I am thinking it is, both with people and places. I arrived here in DC two months ago and am loathing the thought of having to leave so soon. I know I would eventually get tired of being in the city and long for the country again...

"Punctuality is the virtue of the bored."
~Evelyn Waugh

Perhaps this is the reason I find it so very difficult to be on time for anything...

hands held open now
receiving all God's goodness-
what of passing time?

The light is slowly fading from the sky, draining the faint colours from the haze that is spread across the patch of blue out the window. There is a bit of reflection shining off the office windows across the street, but it too is fading. I think I am falling in love...this city os so much more than I had anticipated. What is happening to the shy and scared country mouse that showed up less than a month ago?

I've been looking around at grad schools, searching for a master's program that fits what it is I think I want to do. I know it must be out there - everything else I've looked for has shown up hasn't it... ok hang on don't jump all over me... I found the right school (pretty much), I've basically figured out what I want to write about for my thesis, so grad school is the next step. Which means I'll have to take the GED some time in the next year or so and probably take some pre-recquisits and what-not to round out my already well rounded BA. The other bits and pieces that make up life (and I will leave those to you, reader, to fill in) will either come or not as God wills. I keep googling environmental programs, and conservation programs, and ecology programs and nothing particularly strikes me as being what I want to devote years of my life and enormous amouts of money to. I think I need to find someone who knows a bit of whats out there to help me figure out what it is I'm looking for...

It's become rather dark outside, the only lights from the office building are ones from cubicles and hallways left on for cleaning crews or security purposes. The headache that has been taunting me all day is beginning to return with the lessening of the gin and tonic buzz from supper. Time to go and watch some Mariokart...

~When I began this compendium of thoughts I often used excerpts from letters and e-mails to (and sometimes from) friends. In keeping with that...

(from note written 10 June)

DC is treating me well so far. It is very unlike LA, it is smaller and much more self-contained. The different areas and neighbourhoods have a feeling of knowing who they are and where they belong in the scheme of things (do I sound crazy?) Things are much older here, houses, monuments, roads, trees... It's really quite strange to wander up and down the streets and think that people have been doing the same thing on the same road for the last 200 years...
As for work, I am slowly figuring out what it exactly consists of... It's all well and good to say that I am an "intern interpretive ranger" - but what does that mean? So far it's meant answering questions that I know the answers to and finding someone else who does if I don't. In a week or two I'll become one of those nice know-everything people who give programs and hikes and tours around the park... I have to design my own presenations... this makes me rather nervous... it's like writing, producing, directing and staring in your own one act play every couple of days... At school I can simply vanish into a corner or wall or middle of a room and no one notices me and now I am working to figure out ways to make my work the center of attention. Very very different mode of thought...though it's probably good for me.

So apparently there is a bill before Congress now about internet neutrality. From what I've read it would give priority to large corporate users, while leaving whatever is left over for everyone else. If it were not the end of finals week I might do a bit more research on it and write down some of my own ideas on the whole mess... As it is I am going to put up a few links and ask you to poke about yourselves some and come to your own conclusions... So for general info go here, for petition to Congress go here, for more general political goings on...
I will confess that I have not checked out these sites completely, so I don't know where they stand in relation to the lables of "conservative" and "liberal," but the thought of big multi -national corporations getting to use more of what seems like it should be fair use for all is unappealing to me to put it mildly...

the evening air was chill as the sound of corsican and russian chant poured out of the darkness from the direction of the commons roof. it was the perfect way to signal the close of the year...

are we really supposed to have one "love of your life"? Somehow I can't bring
myself to believe it. That's not to say I don't believe in true or lasting
loves, but that almost fairytale like greatest love just does not seem like it
could actually happen. Perhaps I see it this way because I see love as being a
decision, an act of the will, lived and carried out in the day to day of life.
And that's not to say I don't believe in romance - I just have a rather
different view of it. For me, it's all about how you look at it, in a word,
it's all about perspective. The simplest actions, a touch of the hand, a look,
small things, the thoughtful things.
So many different paths and possibilities, who or what's to say that this one or
that one is the only one for you? We are as adaptable as any other animal, to
situations and people. Love happens all of the time, it's the day to day stuff
that makes everything hold together and stay somewhat sane. It's not knights in
shining armor, or dancing in the clouds happily ever after...

*sigh*
..so why is there a part of me that wishes it were everything I think it's
not?

There was sun today....clear skies, blue sky and sun! After weeks of rain and
coldness, it was so very good to feel the sunlight...

My mum went home this morning. The clear beautiful day that we had awoken to in the dawn hour had vanished in the hours spent battling trafic and drooping eyelids. For the first time all year, I went to class as a means of forgetting everything else I had to be doing- rather a waste of the time. But the taxes are nearly done, Goodwill has been called, I have someplace to take my car to at least find out what the *&@# is wrong with it, and I have something of a notion of what I am writing on my paper...

I want a stop button for life...

... or perhaps just lessons from the guys who seemed to think they could live in the manner of the last quote posted...

Omnipresent phrase in my mind
Spoken words I've said one million times
Who are you to tell me
It'll always be this way
I close my eyes
And I turn around
And leave it all behind

So free for the moment
Lost somewhere between the earth and the sky
So free for the moment
Lost because I wanna be lost
Don't try to find me

Always try breeze through my life
Repititious things I've done one million times
Who are you to tell me
That I'll always be this way
I close my eyes
And I turn around
And leave it all behind

What could I do
It's not such a terrible thing
What would you do
It's not such a terrible thing

So free for the moment
Lost somewhere between the earth and the sky
So free for the moment
Lost because I wanna be lost

So free for the moment
Lost somewhere between the earth and the sky
So free for the moment
Lost because i wanna be lost
Don't try to find me

The Martinis, Free

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., writer (1922- )

How possible is it to live like this for long? Is one able to live in this manner for all of life? what of security and stability? it almost seems as though the "edge" were characterized by the 'not knowing what is going to happen'... there is an allure about this, but time makes everything familier, even the most spectacular and beautiful or awful and terrible of things. that edge would have to keep being pushed and expanded, a sense of place would never be developed... can you really live like that?

Pretend you're happy when you're blue
It isn't very hard to do
And you'll find happiness without an end
Whenever you pretend

Remember anyone can dream
And nothing's bad as it may seem
The little things you haven't got
Could be a lot if you pretend

You'll find a love you can share
One you can call all your own
Just close your eyes, she'll be there
You'll never be alone

And if you sing this melody
You'll be pretending just like me
The world is mine, it can be yours, my friend
So why don't you pretend?

And if you sing this melody
You'll be pretending just like me
The world is mine, it can be yours, my friend
So why don't you pretend?

~Pretend, Nat King Cole

... and not I am not going to give an explanation for this...

I think I am beginning to think I am getting stressed, if stress levels have any relation to an inclination to depression (or at least mild bluseiness- and if that wasn't a word already I just made it one...). There never seems to be enought time to do even the minimal amount of everything that needs to get done, and I am always exhausted... Each week-end I think "ok now I will be able to get caught up on things" and then somehow I don't, not homework, or paper, or sleep... sigh. Perhaps it's just the weather getting to me. It has turned cold and damp without actually raining yet, with a fitful wind that wanders below skirt hems and down necklines. Watching the massing grey clouds out beyond the hills from the lab class window an hour ago I could think of little to drive away the feeling of pressure and tension (although I was in lab class and that generally has that effect on me, cloudy day or no). I started scribbling and between the notes and objections to the ramblings of the instructor these came out...

play me the falling rain
the gradual sweeping up and covering over
of all things seen and not
by soft sheets of
colors muted, angles grown soft
coming down of cares and sighs
whether washed away or
sunken slowly deeper...


song of falling rain
set'ling cares and sighs deeper
in growing chillness

I fear nothing, I hope for nothing, I am free.
-Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (1883-1957)

What sort of freedom is this? I don't understand. How can you be free if you hope for nothing? It makes no sence, unless you think of freedom as a sort of nirvana or state of nothingness. Even fearing nothing does not seem to acuratly represent freedom, just express an aspect of it.

~ ~ ~

The sky is grey and clouded over today, but it fails to bring the pleasure that such a sight would ordinarily bring. Instead it seems lowering and forboding. The ache of beauty is still present (when is it ever not?), but it does not satisfy, does not fill. I have too many things on my mind, and not enough substance (or focus) in any of it to hold my attention. Thoughts of the near and far future keep distracting me form the present, and I keep returning time and again with a thump and bump of semi-painful awarenesss that I am neglecting life for chimeras and might-be-perhapses. And then I begin to wander off again telling myself that unless I work and plan for the future now, then I won't have much to work with when I get there and it begins all over again.
*sigh* balance will come, with practice and a few more bruises.

three haikus written during seminar this evening... I've been wanting to write and finally gave in...

green tips edging limbs
black wings looming close sit silent
hearalding chill rains

~ ~ ~

falling drops chill hands
'plashing amoung small heart cracks
bringing beauty nigh

~ ~ ~

memory recalls
sardonic smile causitc tone
known - missed- air and walk

I am going to get prefected in a moment I'm sure, and justice requires me to be gone anyway...

But to reiterate me annual complaint: I hate taxes and everything related to them!

they're married now. It seems like such a long time since this morning, and even
longer since yesterday and last week is well nigh unimaginable. But the passed
time is not lost in a fog of incomprehension or insinsibility, it's gone... now
where has it gone? I'm not sure. Lost in love perhaps. And believe me not the
silly insubstantial all blown to the head sort of love. no, the sort of love
that carves out a life, one life, together out of what was two. the sort of
love that leaves no doubt that the bride will not only be at the church when
things are beautiful and centered around them, but will also be there when
times get rough and every little things seems to ge going cross-wise to them.
the sort of love that leaves no doubt taht the groom will devote himself to
her, mind, body and soul, not only when she is the most lovely radiant creature
to walk the face of the earth, but when she is tired, worried and stressed. the
sort of love i see in their parents, so different from each other in so many
many ways, but similar in all of the important ones.
i was witness today to the beginning of a life so beautiful that even now, hours
after i was to draw out words to toast the event, i am still without any i feel
could be sufficient. i am left to say again, it is only the beginning.

A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.
-Nikos Kazantzakis, writer (1883-1957)

someone remind me of this over the course of this next week...


I promise to write soon (-ish...)

perhaps its the time of year but I have a few poems that I mangaged to sketch out over the last week or so...

incomplete

head sinking below the waves
wash after wash of time and event
takes a toll on heart and mind.
waiting for such ineveiabilites
that are not to be counted upon
wandering always amoung
unrecalled dreams and lost hopes
waking recollection of ideals
in attempt to find...


~ ~ ~

All fall down beneath
the reaching gloom of
a deepening darkness-

after seeing the light of
wandering joys that
stumble through doorways
to stay for a moment
while brushing off
hope dusted knees...

after hearing the rush of
speaking winds bringing
tales of a life known
in dreams and desires
all the while rifling
through hair and trees...

after feeling the small song of
a little bird in the bush tree
outside the window sill
beyond nodding rose heads
sweet in life held
though unknowingly fleet...

~ ~ ~
and yet...

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears not bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

I spent a goodly portion of the week-end at the "Last Homely House" helping to set up for our dinner there Sat evening and then Sunday brunch... No time at this House is complete without singing which we did a fair amount of. I discovered that the tenor parts of many of the songs we sing are wonderful, particularly the tenor line of Abide with me (the fourth verse of which is just above for those of you who are not familiar with the hymn). I will be looking back on this week-end, full of rest and beauty, often over the next two weeks...

I began and finished Graham Greene's The End of the Affair earlier this week (actually in all of about two and a little bit days) and have been waiting to write on it... But now find that I am at a loss for words to say anything about it. I have not been moved so much by a book since I read Brideshead Revisited over a year ago. Perhaps the words will come with time (or frustration after the seminar next week...)

This is something of a response to topic of the week... it came to me while in
philosophy class yesterday (I know, I know one ought not to be day dreaming in
class but when the Muse wanders by...)

~ ~ ~
The coffeeshop was one I'd been in and out of all summer it was the perfect
place- the only place- for our symposium on friendship. The late summer night
was mild and the place was expectedly empty. The atmosphere itself was
friendly, open with large couches and not-florescent lights. And yet I sat on
the outter edge of our group, on one of the chairs we'd pulled over in the
process of reconfiguring nearly all of the comfy funiture in the place. I'd so
many questions and thoughts and ponderings, collected, gathered and stored from
over the years - and it was all overwhelmed by a searing unintelligible ache.
"What is friendship?" Ah, the ambition of youthful passion in quest of the
good.
Round and round the question was passed, touching on this and the other, and all
seeming so far away. I watched the discussion form and shape itself into a
reflection of so many internal conversations with myself, only drawn out and
voiced by many characters. Gradually, almost inevitably, the ground shifted to
love and the scene to the coffeeshop steps, the sidewalk, and streetlight. Far
into the night we talked, so serious and earnest in our persuit of the beauty
of company and shared knowledge and ideas. Then, I stood apart and laughed
ironically to myself, perhaps more at myself and all of the others by
extenstion, for trying to grasp and understand the greatest mystery of life.
Now though, I smile at the remembrance and echo of the pain and still hold the
wonder that had brought me to that night inspite of that ache.

I stumbled across this passage as I was stealing a few moments between studies to read this morning. (I think I "stumble across" things far more often than any other way of discovering or noticing them. I will be pondering some problem or other and out of the apparent blue something hits and seems to exactly apply to whatever it was I was pensivating about. My guardian angel has a hand in it I'm sure...)

It runs: "We make our own lives wherever we are, after all... college can only help us do it more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get out. Life is rich and full here... everywhere... if we can only
learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness."

I've been worrying about finding a summer job and future plans about possibly continuing on to grad school, and what I need to do to make that a real possibility. But I kept forgetting that what it important in life is to live deeply. What or where or how you do that is almost accidental and is important only in regards to whether it is helping or hindering you in achieving that end.

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind.

-William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)

So my good friend and former roommate is (hmmm, what do you know, are works too... but that implies t that she isn't my good friend which is simply not the case...) getting married in a month... I would have thought that it would take me a while to get used to this idea, but so far it hasn't, which I guess is a good thing. I am down at their little house (this place needs a name, the nest? love shack? (too corny) something will come no doubt) having secumbed to the general feeling of bleh-ness I've been resisting all week. ('nuther mental note: only come to hang out at the home of a happy couple when in the best of moods...) I forgot homework so I've been wandering back and forth between watching over the shoulder of Gigi while she was playing at the computer and reading random books pulled off the shelves in the living room... And now the eveing has passed, pleasantly for the most part, and it is time to go. (hmmm no homework done again. this is becoming a vaguly disturbing trend perhaps I should do something about it...)

The other day I re-discovered one of my favorite songs from back home...

E Pili Mai

'Auhea vale ana 'oe
Ku'u lei o ka po
Po anu ho'okahi no au
Sweetheart mine
E pili mai

Ina 'o 'oe a 'o au
'Ika i ka ahi o Makana
He makana ia na ke aloha
No na kau a kau
'O 'oe a 'o au
Sweetheart mine
E pili mai

~
Where are you
My sweetheart of the night
The night is cold and I am alone
Sweetheart mine
Come to me

If you and I are together
We'll know the fires of Makana
It would be a gift given of love
For all time
You and I
Sweetheart mine
Come to me

semi-response...

moonrings and icy fingers
star scatterd sky
deep breaths of holy wonder
strange peace drawn
from halls of old haunts
gradually gathering bits
of my world from yours.

the white petals of a lone rose
scattered and frail
on the black mesh of the table
remind me of the beautiful things
of my life
and I find myself both
wishing they could find a whole-ness
and simply grateful for their
individual beauty.

see this

Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?
-Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)

I have been wondering recently about self-knowledge and how one is affected by surroundings - where one lives, who one is with... It is so easy to become a different person everywhere one goes. Now granted those differences may be subtle, but for all their subtlely, how deeply do they go? How much of the real self remains constant and unchanged? And how much in the end does it matter? If one finds happiness and goodness somewhere, is there some falsehood in desiring to be there when one know that in other places one would act differently... It almost seems that there is, but perhaps that is a reaction to wanting there not to be...

I have once again joined the campus workforce. It is a rather odd feeling to pick up three week's worth of assorted mail and discover a work schedule among the mix. I suppose it says something the opinion your employer has of you when they are willing to give you a job without notice. So I'll be spending about 14 hours of quality time with the kitchen staff... I am actually looking forward to it. For all of the extra stress it cause last year, I did enjoy working in the kitchen. And the money is undeniably welcome.

*sigh* However, at the moment I feel very ungreatful for the opportunity...

~ ~ ~

I was reading over some of my posts from a year ago. It seems almost strange to think that I wrote what I did. The thoughts and emotions now seem almost foreign and strange, and yet they are still deeply expressive of myself. I have not written anything like that in what seems like a very long time. I would like to again but it is as if something turned off, or went away...

On the twelfth day of Christmas...

Yes I am still alive and Happy New Year to you all! It was brought in round a dancing bon fire and with many a firework and no little amount of the fruit of the vine or nectar of the Norse gods (as the Sprit says. She also says to say hello in lieu of actually posting on her own).
I am also bid to wish you all a happy Twelfth Night and near happy Feast of Epiphany. Here in the country of the Cajuns Epiphany is the opening of Carnival season which will last until Mardi Gras (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday for anyone who may not know). I am told that Carnival is marked with balls and parades (and beads...) Unfortunatly we are leaving before thing really get under way, which is a shame...

We finished watching Lawrence of Arabia this evening and I am left with my head and thoughts in a whirl. I hope I well be diciplined enough to at least scrible down some more of what I think of it in the next few days, but if not here is a little bit. It is a sad story, sad and haunting. The Sprit aptly remarked that he was not a god, nor a saint, nor really in my own opinion a great hero. He was a man, very, very much a man. He did not know himself, not who he was or what he most wanted and this was in the end his undoing. The friend who introdudced us to the movie said he related very much to Lawrence and I find that vaguely frightening in some way. He said that it seems very true to life that all things, great and small, come to an end, and the more one devotes himself to something great, the further from it he will end up. Perhaps this troubles me because for all of my deep facade of cynisism, I am in the end a romantic and I need that ideal to be pasionate about and love almost blindly. Perhaps more on this later...