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.