Chasing Stories

2012-01-24T01:54:00.005-07:00

days turn colder and the boughs of our summer hopes droop, crack, and fall. But even as the winter nights grow longer and darker, we trust that every season must pass and that even dry, dead wood can burst into light and warmth and fire.

Scribbles

2012-01-11T04:19:00.001-07:00

I loved a girl
walking with the hollow of the moon
[with the quarters and dimes]
silvering against her fingertips
in her pockets

I loved a girl
who always had something to say
and a tide calming voice
but chose to speak with the colors
in her eyes.

I loved a girl
who cared for silly notions
kept them warm and safe,
written and remembered
in her notebook.

. . .

scribbles

2011-12-21T01:27:00.004-07:00

Jane had expected John to see her through the whole evening with her mother. He had promised so. And he was, certainly, right there at the table. Jane, her mother, and John. But he wasn't really there.

John, like his father (and the endless generation of tinkers before them), had a habit of getting lost in his own thoughts. It was like he had stood up from the table, walked to the back door of the restaurant and strolled out into the game reserve of his imagination. His collar open, a newspaper under his arm, and a folding chair at the ready. So while Jane tried to remain civil with her mother, John was out enjoying himself. Alone and perfectly at peace.

Normally this didn't frustrate Jane too much. Quite early on, she had discovered John's excursions, or more accurately, his absences. There was even one time he had just picked her up for a date, one of their first, and on the way to the restaurant (or was it a bowling alley?) John had stepped out of the car. There he was, making proper turn signals, observing the speed limit, but he was clearly not there. Most of the other women John had dated (he would say 'courted') had given up right then, but Jane was different. She thought it was Intellectual. Literary. Attractive.

It wasn't so attractive tonight.

Dear Santa

2011-12-02T16:13:00.001-07:00

In light of the times, I took it upon myself to divide my list this year between things I want and things I need. Some times the line is pretty close, but I'll let you decide. Thanks again,
merrily,
chase

Need
1) Five Fingers

I love my first pair of vibrams, but 2 years of California horse trail, Utah mountain path, and Ghanaian tarmac have left them with . . . a scent. That's why they're out on the window ledge.

Want

2) Messenger Bag

My backpack is great, but I keep wishing I could get to my bike locks without taking it off first. And it would be nice to have a bag that made it easier for drivers to see me at night.

3) Hoodie

I have an old hoodie with holes for my thumbs. I wish I had another to kick around in.

This one doesn't have holes for my thumbs, but it makes me smile.

4) T-Shirts

I like the green one

you might be noticing a theme after this one.

4) eBooks

There will always be books I haven't gotten to - see sidebar

5) iTunes Gift Cards

Whether it's a song or an app, there's always something worth getting.

Visual Stimuli

2011-12-02T12:07:00.001-07:00

just need a few more pins

Afternoon Run

2011-11-23T12:19:00.001-07:00

I will run to the sun
as long as it hangs
and dyes
in the afternoon sky

as long as the earth wheels
and throws its waves
to catch the stars
in its brined blue net

as long as the moon struts
like a black stray cat
outside the haze yellow
circle of an old streetlamp

as long as the sun sprints
above and ahead
like an ember red
gear from creation

can't seem to get this one right . . .

chairs

2011-11-18T17:41:00.001-07:00

two empty chairs
in an open room
sit facng each other
the window lets the sunlight in
and its panes cast shadows on the floor
crossing and recrossing
the chairs
and the hollow space beneath them.

last night
moonlight was on the floor
shadows from the windowpane
again crossing and recrossing
the chairs
and the empty space beneath them

we sat
but not with each other

we listened
but not to each other

The door
to the open room
and the empty chairs
stays closed and locked
to keep the coldness there
even though today
sunlight passes through the window
and its shadows cross
the chairs
and the empty space beneath them

2011-11-17T11:19:00.001-07:00

morning ride

Upgrades

2011-11-15T11:54:00.001-07:00

I've played enough video games to appreciate one simple truth - it all depends on upgrades

Helmet: Safety +2

Pedal Straps: Control +3

Chain: Security + 2

Buying locally doesn't hurt either

in remembrance

2011-11-10T15:39:00.001-07:00

plant your feet
and stand with your long shadow
upon the ground,
in remembrance for all who are buried there

let your heart fill,
empty,
and turn
to all those others whose hearts are beating still

pray that those
like your shadow
and those like your heart
might be remembered, protected, and brought home

2011-11-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

I guess they've decided to keep me around

A Dry Tree

2011-11-02T17:22:00.001-06:00

A woman slept in the shadow of a dry tree,
chained to its roots by the shackle on her wrist.

As the day progressed, and the shadow slipped,
she rolled to follow on the worn, warm dirt.

She was kept by the tree by the shackle
She was kept by dreams by the shadow

Somewhere beyond the tree were memories,
memories she kept outside its shadow.

Memories of things done and done to her,
not remembered in her sleeping beside the tree.

In the shadow of the tree, she had no memories,
no fears or hopes to spin her dreams.

She only slept in the shadow of the tree,
with her arm on the chain and her wrist on the shackle

if you can believe it, this came out of a lecture. And out of a picture.

Jane

2011-10-29T16:29:00.003-06:00

Hey everyone, I'd like to introduce you to someone very special, someone who just came into my life this weekend and has already changed everything.

This is Jane

As far as I can tell, Jane's been pedaling around Europe since the early 80's. She did a bit a racing (or kicked around with people who thought they were racers) but she's mellowed out in the last few years.

It all started when she realized she didn't need to be so dressy. That's when things began to change. She replaced her gears with a single speed crankshaft, got her flywheel 'fixed', and left her rear brake behind in a rubbish bin. Now she just rides on bare, steel charm. And she's got that in spades.

I really wish I knew more about her . . .

How long she sat in a store or in a window before her first real ride? Her first rider. If he was brash or callous or quick or quiet? The day she got sold or left behind or stolen in the middle of the night.

When she got beat up, squelled under a flat tire, or was barreled over. Rider over handle bars, wheels still turning in the air, fork turned aside. And in that one calm moment before everything started moving again, what exactly did she think?

Where has she been since she sat in the store window? Who sat down at the end of the day and tightened her brakes, massaged her chain, and re-taped her handlebars? What has she seen and who has she known up to this Friday, when I met her on Boltoph Lane?

And how do I know her name is Jane?

Sleeping In

2011-10-26T06:16:00.000-06:00

Women are the Grand Puzzle!
Nature's Furies
Creations Fires
To wonder and amaze.

A small man shouted
this other man remembered

waking up beside one women
who wrinkled her nose
burned the oatmeal
and always forgot her keys.

she wrestled in her sleep
while he laid awake beside her.

She pulled at the sheet
rolled away and back again
slid her foot across his leg
and locked her heel behind his heel

She stopped and wrinkled her nose,
he smiled and slept beside her.

A small poetry group got together last night and I performed my usual thievery. I let them pray and silently waited to steal God's answers for myself.

Sacrifice

2011-10-18T17:09:00.001-06:00

And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood;
yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away,
for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings.

And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit

I left the finished letter lying on my desk, not wanting to seal it away. I thought if I gave it time, took the extra minute or two to address the envelope, to find a stamp, then maybe I'd be ready to send it, but the finished envelope was in my hand and the letter was still on my desk.

It's the best you've written.

Every week I sit down to write a letter and every time it never comes easy. I get the date, the "dear", and maybe a line or two more, but then it's done. I turn the page over or pull it out of the notebook. Start again. And again.

If I'm lucky, I make it out of the first page but then . . . I don't know what to say. I read back over the first page and decide it's not good enough. That page gets pulled out and I can almost hear my pen groaning - Again? Really?

After 12 or so tries, I might have a letter and I might be able to say, it's good enough.

But not this letter, the one lying finished and folded on my desk. I had sat down and like a ship finally catching the wind in its sails, I had started to write. Down the first page, over the corner, back down again and on to the second. I wrote and I wrote, the ideas writing themselves and my pen relieved to finally have a decent partner.

It's the first time, the first time the writing wasn't forced, wasn't pulled kicking and screaming through the window of your imagination but walked in like an old friend with a key to your flat.

But here it was now. The only evidence that I had ever felt the spirit of a writer and been its scribe. Folded up and addressed to someone else. Once it was gone, it would belong to her. Hers to leave unopened and unread. Hers to read once, maybe twice, even show it to someone else. Hers to leave in the bin beside her desk. My letter, with the words that walked through me, entirely in her hands.

It might not happen again.

I read the name on the envelope once and checked it again. And then I put the folded letter inside.

Only to her

Later that morning, I came to the large red mailbox outside my college. I felt the weight of the letter in my hands, checked the amount of the stamp, read our addresses, and slowly rested the letter on the lip of the slot, held it there for a moment, and dropped it inside the tall, red mailbox.

Only to her

My hands felt cold just then and I walked back inside the college, slowly pushing my fingers down inside the pockets of my jeans. But instead of just going straight back, I stopped to check my mail. With my hands still hopelessly buried in their pockets, I rounded the corner, entered the office, and peered into my narrow mail cubby. One small letter was sitting inside, leaning against the wall with its back to me.

It's from her.

And I already knew it.

Really Good

2011-10-18T16:27:00.005-06:00

The last few weeks have been good to me. Really good.

It's pretty simple really. I've enjoyed food that looks like this -

Read lots and lots of books in places like this -

Run along river paths like this -

And somehow managed to keep my room clean, find time to write my letters, and even gotten up before sunrise (pretty easy at 7:30).

The last few weeks have been good. Really good.

Why is there Wind?

2011-10-11T14:59:00.003-06:00

Why is there wind, the boy asked. He was lying on the floor, his round stomach flattened against the wood, slowly coloring a blank piece of paper when the question came to him, and just like any child would, he immediately put the question to his father.

His father wasn't looking so much like a serious father just then. His feet were up on the cushions, his shoes were off, and he had a book balancing a few inches from his face. If he were to doze off, as he was just about to do, the book would tumble into his face, kicking him awake and into righting the book. He would then blink his eyes a few times, rub his bumped nose, and try again to read the thick, dull book. The boy had watched this many times while he colored, and he had always continued coloring because he had seen it many times before.

But with the boy's question, the father happily closed the book, tossed it onto the table beside the couch, and tried his best to sit up and look fatherly. Why is there wind he repeated, thinking all kinds of thoughts while his soon looked up to him from his belly.

Well, he began, with a slight grin across his face, wind is just air that's running.
The boy thought about that answer for a moment but thought his question wasn't quite answered. Not yet.

But why does air run, he asked?

The father smiled again, and continued, well because air loves music.

The boy understood the words but was too confused to ask another question, so the father continued. The wind, like mom, loves music and he runs everywhere he can to find it. Sometimes he'll whistle through the holes in rocks or between doors, or sometimes he play drums by slamming shut windows or blowing down bikes, which you should never do, but what he really loves are trees.

The father waited for the question.

Trees, the boy asked?

Of course trees. If the wind runs through them, the thousands and thousands of leaves will rattle and sing. It's the best kind of music and that's why you always see the wind running through trees.

The boy sat for a moment, thinking about his question and rocks and windows and trees and leaves and his question again. He thought for a good long while for a boy, and said, finally, okay. So he settled back to drawing on his paper and his father got less serious once again, laying back down on the coach and putting his feet up on the cushions and choosing not to reach for the very serious book on the table. Just as he was settled in, the boy stopped coloring again, looked up from his belly, and asked, why does it rain?

The father folded his hands on his stomach, turned towards his son and said, why don't you tell me?

the creative adult is the child who has survived - Ursula K. Le Guin

I Miss Driving

2011-10-11T12:33:00.001-06:00

Sleeping Books

2011-10-08T07:47:00.001-06:00

The clock behind me rolls noisely over its gears, again and again and again. The rest of the library sits silently, and the books lean sleepily into one another, as if they've been standing in line for days, waiting for someone to talk to. Along the ceiling, a skylight runs from the back wall to the front, the windows blanched to keep the light from shining to brightly or too clearly, almost like the gray clouds that are covering Cambridge this morning. Like the light that passes through the clouds and the skylights above me, church bells continue to ring from some unknown tower. Rise and fall, Rise and fall, Rise and fall - coming through the walls into the quiet library. Eventually the bells will stop, but the clock on the wall behind me will continue to roll, again and again and again, noisely over its gears.

And I will turn the page of the book in my lap and continue reading.

Nzuri Sana

2011-10-07T17:51:00.001-06:00

Five years ago, I began learning my second language. The first words I learned were Papa nou ki nan syel la. Our Heavenly Father.
Yesterday, I began learning my third language. The first words I learned were ninafanya kazi ya uanafunzi. I am a student.
As you can tell, a few things have changed between now and then. Five years ago, I was a new missionary. My ties were pristine, my shoes were fresh from their box, and my shirts were still white. And I had 9 weeks to learn as much creole as a I could. I would learn how to ask a question, to make polite conversation, and eventually how to share what I believed.
Now, I'm two days into my first term at Cambridge. My shoes are brand new, I have trousers with their tags still attached, and all of my shirts are clean (but only two of them are white). I'll have a few short weeks, across only a few short months, to again learn as much as I can. How to ask for directions. How to ask what I did wrong. How to say, please tell me about your life.
People say languages get easier, that the third comes quicker than the second because you've already "scaled the wall". That you've already learned it's okay to express the same feeling in completely different words. I hope so. But even if that's completely wrong, I'm hungrier this time around because I know what's waiting on the other side. I know what it feels like to finally say the words, just perfectly, and to hear an entire bus of Haitians explode into laughter because I got the joke right. I was still an American. I was still white. And I certainly hadn't transformed into a Haitian. But I felt the smallest bit closer.
I want to feel that again.

Crossing the Bridge

2011-10-06T07:59:00.001-06:00

I'm still alive. I promise.

27 Hours

2011-09-29T13:26:00.000-06:00

It's 8:13 at night but my body thinks its closer to noon. My body also thinks we've been up for 27 hours. It's right about that part.

In those 27 hours, I woke up in my bed in California, took my dog for a walk, got a hair cut, grabbed lunch at Café Rio, hopped on a plane headed to London. In those 27 hours I made a new friend because the girl beside me couldn't sleep either. In those 27 hours, I nervously passed through immigration, carried 100 lbs. of my life through aimless tunnels too far underground to have natural light, and I fought to stay awake on a train that cut through country side where stray wheat grows as a weed along the bike beaten paths. In those 27 hours, I grabbed a taxi, walked into my college, and somehow found my room. I bought sheets, towels, some dinner, and hunted for the toilet, laundry room, and shower in my building.

If I had some sleep in the last 27 hours I could probably see something witty, redeeming in this jumble of a day and a night and a day, but I didn't get the sleep and so I won't have the something witty or redeeming to say. I'm simply writing to say I'm still alive. And now. I'm going to bed.

The Ferryman

2011-09-27T01:09:00.001-06:00

When you die, you wll find yourself along the shore of a great and terrible river. You will be afraid, knowing that you must cross it but having no idea where you will find the strength to swim for so long and against such terrible currents. But just as you begin to despair, before you fall to your knees with your face in your hands, you will see a small, dark shape take form upon the river. It will not seem to move at first, only slowly sharpening into view, with a man atop a boat, with a great oar in his hand. He will look as tired and worn as you, with eyes that have hollowed like used and empty wells save for the small shimmer of blue in the center of his eyes, but still he will raise his oar and pull against the river bottom, bringing his boat slowly and surely towards you. When he comes ashore, do not expect him to rest, he will not want too. Instead, take from your mouth the coin that your loved ones placed for you there, and give it to him. With one hand still upon his oar, he will take your coin and then offer you his hand. Hold surely and do not doubt. Even though his palm will be worn, ancient, and dry, he will pull you safely within the boat and after one last look upon the length of the shore, he will pull you across the river.

Whether you expect the comfort of the golden fields or the narrow, sloped pits of regret, take this moment not to fear. He will guide you across the river, regardless of your judgement. He will guide you across the river because you will have a coin to pay him. Trust that you will have it because I will place it there. That is my last duty and neither I nor the ferryman will fail you.

I don't usually think about death, but the least few days, I've thought more and more about Charon the ferryman. It's because I've been thinking how different my own life will be once I cross "the river". And more importantly, how I have been able to pay the ferryman. Like the dead, there is nothing I could have done to pay my fare. Instead, many many people, from my family, friends, and mentors, have each sacrificed in some way so I could have my coin for the ferryman. I can't begin to say how much I owe them.

Leaving

2011-09-25T23:02:00.001-06:00

They often come up behind me, placing one arm against my shoulder and bringing the other arm around to shake my hand.

"You're leaving aren't you, how soon?"

I look them in the eye, catch their hand in mine, and say (again), "I leave Wednesday." In my mind's eye, I can see the plane. Watch it slowly taxi to the head of the runway, hear the engines warm and roar, and then feel the back of my neck pull quickly into the back of my seat. And the wheels will lift and all the passengers will hold their breath. And I will have left.

But I will already have left before then. When I say goodbye to my mom at the security checkpoint, when I have my backpack on and set down my second bag, just long enough to look back once, say again "I love you". Then I'll pick up my bag, turn back, and know that I have left.

But then I will have left from the very first step I took that morning. Even in the circles I will make around the kitchen and between my bedroom and the car, every step slowly lengthening the distance between my life now and slowly pacing towards my life then. I will have left from that very first step that morning.

But then it would have begun when the letter came in the mail, when my parents excitedly called, when we read, "Mr. Arnold, we are pleased to inform you . . ." And that letter came after one of my own, when I sat down and wrote and thought and rewrote. Stayed up late at night with worry, correcting my essays, checking my letters, and worrying and not sleeping again. I had left when I finally hit "apply". But I was already leaving, with small steps toward the door, before then too.

One afternoon, I woke up underneath a tree in King's College, looking up through the branches at the sunlight that swerved and danced between the leaves and the branches. I picked up the open book from off from my chest, sat up on my elbows, and looked around at the green, the worn cobblestones, and the Cam. One day, I have to come back, and with that thought, my hopes slowly settled and sank into the dirt around that tree. Then, just then, was when I left.

Boots

2011-09-22T23:54:00.001-06:00

"It rains in England," she said.

"But I don't wear boots," I said.

"It rains, it hits your legs, rolls down your cuffs, if you wear the shoes you normally wear, your feet will get soaked."

"But I don't wear boots."

She was arguing for practicality. I was arguing for wardrobe integrity.

A few weeks later, she finds an advertisement for boots. Importantly, modeled by a greyhound. The dog. She smartly left it out for me to see.

The next day . . .

I guess I do wear boots (I chose the brown ones).

A New Name

2011-09-21T17:38:00.001-06:00

When I started this blog a few years back, I spent the longest time deciding on a name for it. To be honest, Word of Me was more of a compromise then a decision, a placeholder until I could figure out something I really liked. But time went on and I got too busy to worry about the title.

I feel like it might be time to get a new name - my life's changing and hopefully my writing has too. Just for kicks and giggles, swing by my first post (I was kind of lost in the sexiness of literary theory, as if you can't tell).

But that aside, what should I name it now?

Scribble

2011-09-20T00:19:00.001-06:00

Have you ever heard something
Seen something
Felt something
Even just the smallest part
(most especially the smallest part)
And knew you loved the whole?

Like a measure of music was played
And before the brief notes ended
You had heard the echoes of the entire measure
And knew you loved it.

Or you read a page from a book,
And in the spaces between the words,
The spaces between the letters,
(and within the letters)
You had read the entire story
And knew that you loved the first page
As much as the last
And every page that came between.

Or you saw her for one moment,
Or heard her speak one word,
Or caught one glance of her eye,
And you loved her
And you knew you loved her

Because somehow you saw
And heard
And felt
The eternity that was in her

And you'd always wondered,
But never known,
Until just that moment,
That eternity was in you too.

this one came completely out of nowhere, out of a feeling I had while watching The Sunset Limited, a short movie on HBO adapted from a play by Cormac McCarthy by the same name. I couldn't watch it all, but what I did see was incredible.

Monsters Under Our Beds

2011-09-18T02:34:00.001-06:00

When we were children, most of us worried about the monsters hiding underneath our beds. We were wrong then, either they weren't there or we didn't need to worry about them. But we were right about one thing weren't we? - it's when we lay down, at the end of the day that we can feel our fears growing beneath us, almost as if a mattress and a bed frame is all that stands between us and their tentacles, fangs, or barbs.

It's now 12 minutes after 1, and I can feel my own fears growing beneath my bed. That in 9 days, this summer is over for me, that in 9 days I leave for England and for grad school. But that's not really the scary part, not the heart of it. I've gone off to college before, I've even relocated to a foreign country a few times (I'm including New England). And I've already lived and studied in the very town I'm moving to.

What I'm afraid of is the darkness underneath my bed and at the back of my closet. I'm afraid of not knowing what's there after. When I've left the country before, I knew that I was coming back. Where i would live, what i would be doing, and where i was headed. But this time, there's something else out there and I still don't quite know what that is, and at night, in the dark, lying in my bed, that can seem quite scary.

I guess that's why I've been avoiding my bed the past couple of weeks. pushing the sleeping hours farther and farther back into the dark morning hours, as if I'm pleading with my parents again to have one more hour before bed. Or I make sure that the evenings are so exhausting, so occupying, so distracting that it's impossible to hit my bed with a single lingering thought. Most nights, I'm be asleep before I even hit the pillow.

But I'm here now, awake, at 12 minutes past 1, wondering if I should read Hemingway or the Bible until I feel sleepy. But before I make that strange decision, I've realized that my 6 year old self was right - that there is something to be scared of underneath my bed. But maybe like my 6 year old self, I'll realize that the things hiding under my bed aren't really that scary.

Conquer the Bridge

2011-09-16T11:24:00.001-06:00

When I began running last fall, I set for myself a simple goal: run 4 miles in 30 minutes. Break that down by mile, it comes out to 7:30 / mile. Not fast enough to blaze through a race but it was good enough for me.

Up until a few months ago, that was my only goal for running. 4 miles and 30 minutes. But then my brother offered me the chance of a race - the 2011 Conquer the Bridge Race in San Pedro. 5.3 miles, over and back again on Vincent Thomas Bridge. And I said yes.

So last Monday, for Labor Day, I ran across the bridge with my brother and sister-in-law.

The best part, more than outrunning my older brother (sibling rivalry dies hard), was realizing I had pushed far beyond my old goal. Instead of keeping a 7:30 pace for 4 miles, I ran at 7:06 for over 5.
That's a great feeling. Even if a woman nearly twice my age blew past me on the last mile.

Widow Spiders

2011-09-13T23:58:00.002-06:00

Griffin and I walked down the hill this afternoon, as we always do, always in the afternoon. Griffin wore his black collar and I carried the leash, unhooked and loose in my hands. Since Spring began, we have watched the spiders weave their webs in the crooks of open branches or the spaces above the landscape lights. The oldest, strongest, and most practical had survived the unexpectedly cold night last week, others had or would not survive. I saw one yesterday, in the afternoon walk down the hill, gray instead of brown, slow instead of sure, feebly trying to bind up its last meal like the window who gathered sticks for her empty barrel of meal and exhausted cruse of oil. She was not there, in her crook of a branch, this afternoon, and her last meal was still bound on the web. Left behind but not by choice. Griffin did not notice, he never noticed the spiders, even when he walked through their webs and I had to pull them out of his hair. I think he finds my skittishness entertaining. But he was already at the bottom of the hill, waiting for me to open the gate and walk with him across the street, still with the leash unclasped and unhooked.

Across the street from the bottom of the hill, on the bike path by the horse ranches, Griffin and I had a choice. Left to the elementary school and to the elementary school's field or right, farther down the bike path towards more horse ranches and the open, empty road. Griffin thought left, because he likes the field, and I wanted right, because the school doesn't like dogs, especially now that school's started. Since Griffin had the collar and I had the leash, and they were not connected, we each had equal ground. Griffin looked down the path to the left and I stood motioning to the right. He looked back towards the field again, back to me, and finally gave in.

Do You Fear Death?

2011-09-12T00:14:00.001-06:00

Hemingway, in a nutshell.

Listen Light

2011-09-11T23:05:00.001-06:00

You sang creation with your back against the ground
And the grass weaving into your hair
And your heels furrowing into the dirt like seeds taking root

You stopped, smiled, and laughed
As you drummed to chaos
With your thumb and fingers against the outside of your thigh

You let the stars continue the song
Like a fiery chorus in the night
And they silently watched and followed the light in your eyes
Waiting to hear and see you
Sing again

Write Like Rain

2011-09-06T01:05:00.002-06:00

She never likes the way she writes
because she writes like rain.

rain comes and goes without a choice.
for brief mornings or long days,
Lets itself dance on roofs,
slide down windows,
sink between the blades of grass for the dirt beneath.

it could be warm or thin or cold or sharp
but it will fall when it falls
without a breath of choice

she could not choose to write
as the cloud could not choose to rain.

she had to wait for the words to rise,
to billow and to break
never when she expected and never when the moment was right

she'd race for a pen or the typewriter,
so the words could dance against the keys,
slide down the margins of the sheet,
and sink deep between spaces on the page.

I wrote this the other day, typing away on my iPad, and reading it again tonight, i felt like I was reading this for the first time. I don't know why, but I'm glad that I saved this as a draft and didn't just throw it away because it didn't sit well with me then.

Mr. Dale and Mrs. Watts

2011-08-31T12:46:00.002-06:00

Just needed to write something . . .

When Adam Dale moved into apartment 3C, he had a suitcase and a blender.  He had nothing else.  The superintendent was a friendly man and thought to ask Mr. Dale about this but didn't.  The super thought his new tenant was a quiet one (and he was right) and thought to leave it alone.  All the same, he left Mr. Dale the keys to the new apartment and a phone number to call should anything break.  He really was a friendly man, but Mr. Dale really was a quiet man too.

As you can imagine, it wasn't too difficult for Mr. Dale to get settled in.  His blender went on the kitchen counter, in the corner.  His suitcase was rolled into the bedroom, unzipped, unpacked, and put away in a closet that was almost entirely empty.  All that Mr. Dale had needed to unpack was a few white shirts, some socks, underwear, a number of ties, two sweaters, and a jacket.  Not much, but you would have noticed, as Mr. Dale certainly did, that all of it was new.  The shirts were still in their department wrappings, the ties were still bound, and the sweaters still had their tags.  Mr.  Dale did not want to think about that right now.  He had not want to think about that for several weeks now, and out of habit, began to anxiously rub the ring on his finger.

Despite Mr. Dale's meager possessions, the apartment did not feel entirely hollow.  The apartment had previously been furnished, meaning there was a table in the kitchen, two chairs in the living room, a number of lamps, and a bed in the bedroom.  That was part of the reason why Mr. Dale choose this apartment.  That and the light.  Every room had at least one bay window and his apartment stood on the Southwest corner of the 5th floor, meaning the light would sidle across the floor shortly after dawn and slowly tick across the room like the hands of a clock as the day progressed into the afternoon and sunset.  Mr. Dale had appreciated that.  In the next few weeks, Mr. Dale would quietly memorize how the light moved through his apartment.  He learned that if he began reading at 4 am (as he usually did), sitting in the living room chair along the south wall, the light would just begin to cross his right foot at 4:54 am.  By 5:15 am, he could turn out the lamp and read by the sunrise.  When he came back to the apartment to read again at about 4:30 pm, Mr. Dale could sit in the opposite chair of the living room, with the light just beginning to slip away from his left foot, and know that he should switch on the lamp by 5 pm.  It helped Mr. Dale to know these little details, and in the months to come, he would register the slight changes the seasons would bring and adjust his schedule accordingly.

Mr. Dale's new neighbor, Mrs. Watts never knew any of this.  She lived in Apartment 3B, in the room just up the hall from Mr. Dale.  The superintendent had told her that the apartment had sold but she hadn't been in the day Mr. Dale had moved in.  She would have dropped by to say hello.  But she missed that first day, and having missed it, Mrs. Watts wasn't sure if she should go over.  She was that kind of women.  But she was observant.  Not like the nosey women who must know and gossip all they can regarding their acquaintances and neighbors.  No, Mrs. Watts simply saw what went on around her, had a mind to notice and remember it, and continued living her own life.  Because of this, she did notice one small thing about Mr. Dale, even though she never introduced herself (and since they both kept the strangest hours, they never ran into each other on the stairs on in the hallways).  She noticed he talked to himself.  At first she thought it was the television, but then the voice moved around and it was still the same voice all the time, quite unlike a television or radio set.  It had started the night that Mr. Dale had moved in, just when Mrs. Watts was waking up to go to work.  It was faint, and she could only just make it out, but it was the direct and even toned voice of a man reasoning with a friend.  Of course, the walls were not so thick to muffle everything, but they were still not quite thin enough to allow Mrs. Watts to make out what was Mr. Dale was saying.  And she was not one to pry, but still, she knew that her new neighbor spoke to himself at the same hours of the day (when Mr. Dale was not reading, but she couldn't have known that yet) and that there was something sad in the sound of it.  Mrs. Watts was sure of that.  Whatever Mr. Dale was saying to himself or to God or to the walls of the apartment, it was sad, and she began to feel sorry for him, though she still didn't think it was right to go over and introduce herself (she had missed the first day).  She was still that kind of woman.

Whispering to the Dark

2011-08-27T20:01:00.000-06:00

sometimes we ask questions like children whispering into the mouth of a large, dark cave. Such caves will usually hold the answer, yet the answers cannot be provoked. Even if we shout. Even if we begin to throw stones. Even if we light a fire and attempt to smoke it out. Despite all of this, the answer will lay curled up on its stomach, its tail over its eyes and ears to block out the noise. Meanwhile, we will only get more frustrated and annoyed. And we still won't have our answer. Such questions require the one last thing that we can do, that one thing that we absolutely do not want to do. We must take one step into the darkness, and then one more.

We would much rather the answer came to us, submissive and subdued.

if only we remembered that our goal should not always be to have the answer but to let our eyes get more accustomed to the dark

Thinking in Pentameter

2011-08-27T01:36:00.002-06:00

in the last few weeks and months, i have toyed around with poetry. Fiddled is an appropriate verb for it too. i am not too sure what i am doing but it's been fun all the same. Let's add whittling in too.

part of this i owe to Allison Benison White who recently published an award-winning collection of her poetry, Self-Portrait with Crayon. i attended one of her poetry readings and picked up her book the same day.

i told a really good friend about this poetry fiddling (being a certified poet herself) and she left me with an interesting idea - with the more poetry i read, the more my thoughts will speak like poetry. it will continue to be the same random, mundane ramblings half the time, but slowly, they'll slide into haiku, rhyme, and pentameter a bit more easily. here's to hoping.

until then, here is some of White's:

Waiting

I think of broken snow, but this is permanent. Two separate women on a bench - crossed at the wrists, her hands could make a smaller version of the dancer unlacing her shoes. Or maybe she's just clutching her ankel in order to communicate a small, but consistent pain. The kind that makes you look at pictures because words are not sufficient to describe it.

God said just float on a black lake like a child floats on her back to stare at stars. Let go. Watch cool paper boats. But I'm afraid of black water and the way women ignore each other at restaruant counters (one sips her coffee while the other draws ciricles on a paper napkin). When a child throws a stone into a lake, God is pleased, and opens in rings, then fades to prompt the child to throw again.

When I hear her set her coffee back on the counter, I look at my napkin to pretend I'm occupied with my love of circles. This could be an aerial sketch of twirling ballerinas, I think - each dancer ignoring the small white pain in her ankle. Like a moon incessently reflected in a lake. When a child floats on a paper boat, she wonders, Where do stones go after they've pleased God?

This is a hinge at the end of a lake boat, but I still don't know how to draw the fear of separation. We were alone for a long time. After many years, God said to the child, There are hundreds of wet stones in your mouth - and inside stone, the possibility of black unopened umbrellas.

The Predator - The Historical Conciousness Series

2011-08-26T01:07:00.008-06:00

This post is a little bit out of left field. It all started when my mom saw that i was watching Predators (2010) on the television. Her response was something along the lines of "really?" i tried to explain that the Predator films are great examples of the value of historical consciousness. Certainly, they're not much more than good popcorn films but placed with a historical context, they bring so much more to the surface. She was still a little bit skeptical.

Historical Artifact?

So, as any good fan of science fiction and history (with far too much time on his hands), I figured I'd write out my argument. To see if I really am off my rocker . . .

The Full Thought >>

A Link to the Past

2011-08-24T01:10:00.006-06:00

After yesterday's post, it might appear that i have a regrettable set of talents and accomplishments. That may still be true, save for one skill, garnered over a lifetime of struggles.

To demonstrate:

tonight, i watched a soccer match with a friend. Before i had arrived, he told me, he had been playing an old video game on his computer, a game i had also played when i was 12 or so. Pausing the match, he pointed to his computer screen (laying on the ottoman) and asked, "doesn't that just warm your heart?"

And this is what i saw -

"Oh, you're in the observatory, right? Just after healing yourself of the deku curse?"

My friend was a flabbergasted. Ignoring the desktop and seeing past the file window that nearly filled the screen, I had discerned his exact location and progress in the game - by the wall and floor tiles. The number of heart containers helped too.

Now, some might consider this frightening- that my adolescent mind so completely and faithfully absorbed the world of my video games (in this case The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask) that not even a decade has proved long enough to dim those memories.

But the thing is, it's a lot more important than that. i still remember playing this game because i played it with a friend, the same one who had me over to watch the soccer match. Sure, we rode our bikes together, wrestled with his little brother on the trampoline, and saw horrible movies together. But this was really one of the best parts of our friendship - trying to figure out how to save Zelda and the land of Hyrule together.

(For the record, we've probably been the Heroes of Hyrule a half dozen times)

So I'll remember Link, Epona, and those long hard days in the water temple because of my best friend.

That's worth something, right?

Apologies to Ex-Girlfriends

2011-08-22T02:49:00.002-06:00

i realized today that i am really really good at one thing - writing apology letters to former girlfriends.

Now, i don't have a stock letter, but they all look and sound the same.

For usually the same reasons, I stopped calling, and then got confusing. More than a few ex's have told me they had no idea what happened.

Now, at this point, you might be wondering - "why on earth is he publicizing this?"

Great question. The reason is, i have these apology letters down pat because i have written so many of them over the years. i count upwards of 7 (2 of those to the same girl, a few months apart).

Now, there's something terribly wrong with that. i hope that i apologize not simply to make things right, but as the first step to never doing that certain something again.

Offering the same apology over and over again, albeit to different women, doesn't reflect well on my character. It doesn't mean that i've learned anything

So again, why on earth am i sharing this with the world [including girls who i might potentially date]?

Because i intend to never write this kind of letter again.

Because i'm ready to let the first 7 apologies actually be true.

p.s. if i happen to owe you one of these, send me a message and i'll get one to you right away

Dream Jots

2011-08-21T12:39:00.003-06:00

Last night I dreamed that everything that has happened in the last 15 years is only a dream. That I woke up, 10 years old, at home and in my bed. On the eve that the world ended.

No matter how dark things got, I said to myself, "I became a good man, I was happy, and I'll be okay." That's why I started swimming after a seadoo drove through our front door. That's why I jumped over the hedges after stealing a tomato. That's why I slept on the roof after the giant crocodile settled down.

And I woke up, 25 years old, at home and in my bed.

[favorite line from the dream: "nevermind that I don't have any trousers on, how are you?"]

Half-Minute Webs

2011-08-18T18:13:00.000-06:00

he sits in an empty, clean room
rocking back and forth while holding his knees.
Lines in the carpet go out from him like the spokes of a wheel,
like the strands of a web
but this he did not weave.

A spider will sit and watch each line
and each joint of silk,
waiting for a life that will come and end
upon her lines.

And she will make another web.

But he sits at the center of an empty, clean room
with the lines pulling out away from him,
waiting for the memories to leave
and the web to break

so he will never again sit at the center of an empty, clean room

The Opening, Part One

2011-08-18T01:43:00.001-06:00

I've made myself a little goal. It doesn't need to be the great American novel, it doesn't need to be the story I've dreamed about for months. It just needs to be written by September 18th.

Here's the start. But my question is, if there was more, would you keep reading?

Khale awoke from terrible dreams in a strange, dark place. He noticed the smell of it first. The dry, ash of a fire long since forgotten, and the more putrid odor of whatever had been cooked on it. There was also the feel of wet, clinging heat against his skin and the clotted sweat it drew. For Khale, this was a familiar discomfort and he tried to kick off his blanket as he had done since being a child, but found that he had no covering. He was naked in the open air and still the heat pooled on him like a stagnant sink of mud. The attempt to kick off his imagined sheets alerted him to another sensation, the sharp pain that rose from his side. The sting of it was so quick, so complete, so unexpected that Kale not only winced but cried out. He desperately tried not to scream, to thrash in agony, knowing it would only deepen his pain, but his will was not so strong. He gasped for another breath and for another deeper scream, but an unseen hand clamped against his open mouth. The shock of it drove his maddening lungs to pull even harder for a breath, but he felt little air pass through the sieve of fingers that suffocated them. He instead felt dry, stinging chalk burn along his tongue and the back of his throat. He tried to breath, to cough, to struggle, but the hand pressed harder against his face and other, unseen hands and bodies pinned his arms and legs to the ground. In the perfect stillness of his terror, Khale thought that it felt like a fire was catching in his throat, glowing and burning down his spine and up into the hollows behind his eyes. As that fire burned its way into his weakening arms and legs, Khale saw the dark, old face of a man looking over him. One eye was white, scarred and seemed not to see, but it was this eye that looked most closely at Khale, forcing him into a numb darkness and the nightmares that he had only just awoken from.

Photo Jot: Dream Skethches

2011-08-15T01:26:00.002-06:00

It's only been a few months but I've already started to let some of my yearly goals slip my mind. One of those has been photo jotting - taking a photo and writing whatever comes to mind. Well, here's a compromise: a sketch I put in my journal, which I photographed a few minutes ago, and the jots.

The room was dark save for one small strand of light that fell through a crack in the worn out walls. His impulse was to run, straight across the empty and dark space between for that crack and the auburn light that came from it, but then came fear. He did not want to cross that room or that darkness, even with the speed that his fear would give him. Instead, he walked away from the light, hoping to find the a wall he thought was close beside him. If I can just find the wall, he thought, then I can keep to it, cross the corners and eventually I'll come to the light. With arms outstretched, he took the first three, fearful steps, hoping in the wall he could not see. And he found it.

His fingers ran along the groves of the mortar, feeling the smoothness of the stones worn down with time and the damp darkness that settled in the room. The stones were all like that, even and smooth, but all of different shapes, and they were all cold. But even though they were cold, even thought they were as dark and unknown as the emptiness at the center of the room, still he found himself pressing against them for comfort. He was so much at ease, at first, that he almost forgot his plan to sidle across the walls until he reached the light. But only almost. Standing up a bit straighter, and facing the wall, he started to take one step at a time to his side. First his left hand would slide along the wall and his left foot along the floor, when both were sure and set, he brought his right hand and his right foot to follow. Then he took another step. After three such steps, he turned to look for the light, now over his left shoulder. Only a bit farther, he hoped, a few more steps along the wall and I will see the way out. So he took another step, and another, and another, feeling the confidence of moving in the darkness, and feeling the comfort of the wall in front of him. After maybe 10 such steps, he found what he had been expecting, a corner, and quickly stepped from the first wall to the second, without even yielding one glance back towards the strand of light coming through the far wall. And the second wall was just as dark, just as cold, just as worn, but just as comforting to him as he took yet another step.

He must have continued like this for some time, taking more steps, confident in taking steps but slowly forgetting the soft light he had seen from the far wall. But soon fear came back, even along the wall, because he had taken so many steps and not yet found another corner, the final wall that would lead to the light he had first seen. So he stopped, and slowly turned to look over his left shoulder where he hoped and expected the light to be. But as his head turned and as he hoped, he only saw the unbroken darkness. Had it gone out, he thought, is the crack still there, is there still a way out, am I too late? He drew his left hand away from the wall and continued to scan the broken space of darkness around. Just at the point where his hand and shoulder and neck would turn no more, he found the light again. But now it was on his right side. For a moment, he thought himself a fool, having simply guessed the wrong direction to take, or not noticing the angle of the wall. Surely he had just made the wrong choice when he first started. All I need to do is go back then, he said aloud, feeling brave enough in this dark room to not only think his own thoughts but to speak them. He had stopped wondering if he was alone.

So he continued back. Ten straight steps to his right, with his face towards the very same wall and his fingers now running against the same familiar, smooth groves of mortar he had already followed. Ten such steps back to the first corner, another glance towards the light behind his right shoulder, and another ten and then three more steps back where he had begun. He stopped now and looked again, convinced to see the error of his first guess, that the light had always just been right over his right shoulder, but again, he only saw and felt the darkness, as he turned, farther as he turned, again pulling away his hand from the wall and turning and turning in the silent, lonely darkness (he hoped) until he once again saw the light to his left side.

He did not understand and he could not understand how the light was back where it had first been, where it had always been, but in that moment he finally had the one thought that would save him, the first thought he had in the dark room. To run across the dark space straight towards the light. I must tell you that he nearly followed it, that his right hand, already free from the wall started to reach across the void and his left hand started to slowly press out until only his finger tips still touch the smooth mortar between the stones, he even turned his feet and was ready to run. But then he thought his second thought, and he let it become his last, I have to let go of the wall he thought. He pulled away for a second, and only a second, completely free to dash towards the light, but he still was only thinking of that second thought, and so he fell back into the wall, both hands against its cold surface, his face pressed against it too, and he slowly sank to the floor, towards the narrow wedge of a corner that always sits between the wall and the floor, and you would think he was trying to push himself into it, into that narrow corner between the wall and the floor, and turned away from the light, and he tried to think of it no more.

Stolen Scribbles

2011-08-13T02:16:00.000-06:00

Thursday night, I practiced a bit of thievery at a poetry reading at the Huntington Beach Art Center, featuring Allison Benis White and Collier Nogues.

My first bit of swindling involved a disproportionate number of strawberries from the refreshment table, but the second was more literary. During the readings, I jotted down words, phrases, or sounds I liked and worked them into my own ideas.

Since I don't have anything refined to put up, I figured I should just put up these stolen scribbles (the poets were incredible by the way):

White open space, with little shadow to find your place, without contrast to know where the foot of an idea can rest, where the word can grasp the air, and ride with enough emotion.

the shock of the ideas run along the line of my cheek and blaze across the uneven peaks of my spine, before they're spent on the sparse foliage, before leaving behind black spiked twigs that slowly smoke while the idea still gathers and settles as words behind my breath, coiling and rising like incense.

By Post

2011-08-01T16:48:00.000-06:00

I need to move my clothes to the dryer,
I need to move my clothes to the dryer so I can wear my shorts,
I need to wear my shorts so I can ride my bike,
I need to ride my bike to get to the post office,
I need to get to the post office because I wrote you a letter,
I wrote you a letter because . . .

You wrote me a letter,
which you folded,
and addressed,
and stamped,
and walked to the mailbox.

It passed through bins and hands,
my name and your name,
to and from this state to that state,
from your hand to my hand,
with my words in your thoughts,
and this day being Monday,
meaning Thursday or Friday,
you'll read and think
what I thought and I wrote,
today

Bonfire Scribbles

2011-07-29T14:38:00.002-06:00

Last night, I rode my bike back from the beach well past sunset. I was off the main streets, following a dark bike path alone. I was enjoying the feeling of blind, uncertain speed, watching my own inconstant shadow appear along the ground beside me only to crash into a dark wall before appearing again. Anyways, it left me wanting to write, but not the time to do so. So, some scribbles of what I had wanted to write last night . . .

I listened to her talk about her future and her interests. She was a girl who probably did not use those gifts too often, she was beautiful, and caught in the kind warmlight of the fire then, which pulls away all the unwanted lines and begrudging marks of imperfect beauty and leaves only a kind and inviting glow, she didn't especially need her words. But something about them felt unfaithful. They sounded like young men sent to fight in a war they didn't believe in, in a land they hadn't heard of, dishonest to themselves but loyal to the order that set their feet forward. They didn't believe her either, but still they moved with her voice like the rising embers of the fire. She smiled again, in that warm bonfire light. Half of her face was auburn and gold, but the other black and unclear in contrast. Only one small piece of her dark iris caught any glint of that light, like the small and narrow crest of a wave that curls around the gilding of the sun as it drops below the horizon, while the water beneath remains dark, blue, and cold. I wondered if my own face looked the same and turned, letting the light grasp me by the shoulders while my face welled with shadows that ran like water down my chin and onto my chest, soaking down my shirt and my pants and my shoes until they spread and dried out onto the sand.

Captains and Heros

2011-07-26T17:20:00.002-06:00

For the last couple of months, the movie theaters have played a number of comic book films - Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Thor, Cowboys & Aliens, and Captain America. And I've seen all of them. But all too often, I walk out of these movies wishing they had just done a little better, well honestly, most times I'd hope they had done a lot better. If anything, we can all blame Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight - thanks for setting the bar so damn high.

The latest movie in this run was Captain America. I was disappointed but also entertained. Leaving the theater though, I had a thought that should of been a scene which should of guided the movie. So I thought I'd give it a go, see what it looks like on paper (this would probably be right in the middle of the film, after Steve had survived the super-human process). If you haven't seen the film yet, this could be a little confusing.

Steve sat at the table outside the examination room, keeping the gauze against the crook of his elbow where they had drawn so much blood. A pin prick would have caused him to faint before, he thought, remembering all of the liters they had filled and filled. The answer will be in your blood. . . since Professor Schmidt is dead. It worked, I worked, and he's dead, he thought as he pulled the gauze away to look at his arm. The cotton was as dry and as white as when they first pressed it to his arm. I worked, he thought, as he placed the gauze on the table.

"Excuse me Private Rogers, sorry to keep you waiting." He was a square man, entering the room from the opened door with a pile of papers and folders tucked underneath his arm. He fumbled with them while trying to put his hat on the rack, all before turning to see Steve on his feet. Perfect posture for a perfect soldier, he thought to himself, this square man. "Oh no need for that Private. I'm not with the army."

Skeptically, Steve relaxed and began to sit, "who are you with sir?"

He grinned, as he looked up from the shuffled papers, "let's just say I'm not with the army, but you can continue calling me sir. If you'd like. Mr. Flint works just as fine."

Both men had now taken their seats and the square man had finally found the sheet he was looking for.

"I've been asked to give you this," he said, extending the sheet across the table. "It's your orders," he added, raising the paper and his wrist in invitation.

Steve took his orders, read them slowly, and Mr. Flint watched him quietly. "I'm being sent to New Mexico. I thought the war was in Europe, sir, Mr. Flint."

"Couldn't sneak that one by you could we? No, Private we don't need you at the front. We need you in New Mexico." Mr. Flint started to stand, but before straightening, he leaned on the table, "your country needs you in New Mexico." Mr. Flint tried to hide a sarcastic grin, but he obviously wasn't trying too hard.

He was nearly to the door and even had his hat in his hand and nearly on his head when Steve stopped him. "Why am I not being deployed?" Mr. Flint stopped, his back to the table and Steve, holding his hat just above his head. "I tried to enlist 4 times, and I was denied 4 times because I wasn't strong enough. But even after this, after all Dr. Schmidt did, I'm still being held back."

Steve would have tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but he didn't have the presence of mind to try. Mr Flint then exhaled in resignation, put his hat back onto the coat rack, readjusted the papers in his arms before putting them back down on the table and slowly took his seat. He looked Steve squarely in the eyes, pushed his papers to the side and put his elbows onto the table.

"Because you're a hero."

Steve was ready to ask a question, but Mr. Flint, this square little man, continued, "You can thank the Senator for that, after your little run through Brooklyn, I admit, the taxi door shield, quite fetching. 'American Super-Soldier Thwarts Nazi Saboteur in Brooklyn', they even interviewed that little ginger you saved from drowning."

"He could swim."

"Of course he could, but it sounds better this way. It makes you sound like a hero. And that's the problem."

Steve still didn't understand what was happening but knew enough of this square man already to know that he would get to the answer, eventually, if he just let him continue talking.

"See, we like little guys, average boys, who go out and fight. While they're alive and kicking, they inspire us. If they die, well they die, and we just move onto the guy who's still holding a rifle. But a hero, well, we let a little bit more go. We put all our hopes in him, he's the best we got, he's our American hero, now we're talking about you," he jabbed across the table, "But this is war, and chances are, you'll die in the mud with the rest of them. Hell, the Nazis already have your picture and your name, they really should put the senator on their pay roll for that, if you touch any of that dirt over there, they'll happily put you down and make sure all us American patriots back home in the moving picture shows see the 'Death of Captain America' before the looney tunes."

Mr. Flint paused, without any smirk, he was serious. "And when we see that, we lose something more, we can't just buy more war bonds for the man still stuck in the trench. It won't matter if those men keep fighting, the best we had is already dead. You Goliath's end up costing more than you give."

Now Flint stood with age, like all of the names and figures written in his stack of papers were just copies of the burdens he carried inside him, all the costs in the spreadsheet of war. He walked back to the rack and put his hat on like it was a lead weight.

"This is war, Private Rogers, men will die winning it, if one dead hero doesn't break us."

And Mr. Flint went out the door and down the hallway, his feet falling slowly against the shine-clean floor, while Steve sat with his hands weighed against the table, on either side of his orders to New Mexico.

Going Under

2011-07-24T23:45:00.001-06:00

[another scribble I put down in my journal this morning, with some touch-ups]

I have been and will always be a fool, he wrote in his journal. He wasn't blushing, yet, but he would, she was too beautiful, and he had already start to feel the small collapses that began in his chest, they always began with that one sudden mis-beat, meaning larger dominoes were falling with every strike, starting new chains, and loosing more pulleys, tripping more switches, and striking every mechanism. His fleeting scribble was the last bit of his personal will, like an epithet composed on the morning of your death, his last record before the momentum of falling gears and levers and switches moving through him forced him to stand and set his feet to walking, over to her table, towards her downturn eyes and upturned book that seemed to reflect the light back into her face, even past her loose bangs that she tried and tried to slide across her forehead and behind the hook of her ear, before he looked at her, waiting for her eyes to turn towards him, and "excuse me, could I join you?"

He could see that many steps ahead and left his scrawl across the opened pages of his notebook in case he never came back, if everything went terribly, unredeemably wrong and the captain went down with his ship, the rigging singing in glorious despair as it first tightened, snapped, and settled into the waves, and maybe someone would find the note and understand the ruin of a man that had sunk to the floor and someone found a way beneath the still waters of the linoleum to settle onto the rocky bottom beneath.

But what he couldn't see, what he should have seen, as soon as he stood, is that she slightly tapped her finger across the jacket of her book, raised and dropped her foot in the air, just as he stood with his face towards hers, sawing with every little gesture she could use to shout for herself, and only to herself, but at least she had to say, somehow, just for herself, "finally!"

Hourglass (2)

2011-07-24T22:04:00.001-06:00

Last week (or maybe two weeks ago), I got some feedback on my Hourglass Scribbles, on how I might tighten tings up a bit. I've never had the habit (the virtue) of revision, but I was encouraged to give it a try. Here's the new poem, and here's the original.

And what if I could see in the pauses between seconds,
let the tide of time run still without ebb or flow,
and breathe without fear of the weight of sand above me,
or the fall onto the pillars beneath me.
At peace in the present, without

As if the glass could topple over onto its side,
and free some small grain of present from both deserts,
even if a correcting hand will come,
righting the glass,

opening the sieve again

for the store of unfallen time.

It shifts in silence, a wilderness of horrors,
where our fears beyond the horizon
settle beside the memories we leave forgotten.
But storms arise and place all time beneath and above us
within the air we breath and the glances we take,
until all fears are once again moments,
waiting in the eye between two seas of an hourglass.

History of the Elay'n Archipelago

2011-07-23T01:20:00.001-06:00

In my last photo jot, I wrote about two brothers walking along the beach. In the introduction, I mentioned this was part of a larger story that I had been building in my head for the last couple of weeks, but I wasn't quite sure I could put it all down yet. Like I somehow had to make a couple passes at it, through writing, until I could finally hit it dead on. Well, this will be another pass.

Instead of trying to start the story again, I thought I'd begin laying down some joists. What I mean is, I need to establish some of this world I hope to write in. This isn't just a neighborhood drama that could be happening right now, just down the street from you. The people and setting I have in mind are imagined. They don't live in our history, our faith, or our experience. They're from my imagination. It just has to be that way, but if I'm gonna do that, I need to be really be clear how this world works.

So . . . the history of the Elay'n Archipelago

As historians, we like to begin with the sources.  Perhaps that's why so few of us choose to study the Elayn' Archipelago.  It doesn't appear they have any.

Unlike all the Kingdoms along the Eastern Shore, the peoples of the Elay'n Archipelago keep no written records.  In fact, they do not write at all.  Many argued (and continue to do so) that the Elay'ns lack written language because they are fundamentally inferior, that their core nature is too crude, barbaric, or listless to ever produce written languages as those found all across the "fairer peoples" of the Eastern Shore.  Such is simply not the truth.  It is only prejudice, given a cloak of authenticity because of centuries of ignorance and arrogance.  Sadly, such prejudices have kept many from realizing the true tragedy of Elay'n history.  But that will be spoken of later.

Regardless of its explanations, it still remains that the Archipelago retains no written accounts of its history.  Undoubtedly, that proves a great impediment to the archivist historians of the Eastern Academy.  However, this is not to say that the Archipelago lacks its own records.  Instead of written records, history in the archipelago is retained, recorded, and transmitted orally.  In many cases, it appears this is done formally, with special individuals appointed to preserve the history for a particular family, clan, or even island.  From the few such individuals I have encountered, it appears each is the repository of an overwhelming amount of history, remembered and repeated with the most sacred reverence.  In short, the archipelago has its history, and these historians preserve it with diligence that equals, if not exceeds, the work of our most revered scholars.

However, these oral accounts are largely inaccessible for two reason.  First, the study of Elay'n languages is still extremely limited.  For each Elay'n language that is studied (at least, by a modest group of scholars, priests, and merchants), there appears to be at least 11 languages for which we have no knowledge at all.  Thus, a historian from the Eastern Academy must be prepared to devote a small edge of his lifetime to learning a number of these languages before he could ever begin to receive and study Elay'n history.  However, such sacrifice rarely proves enough.  As noted above, these retainers of the past take their calling as a sacred duty, treating the accounts they remember, even the words they recite, as holy gifts.  As such, they are not shared often, lightly, or without purpose.  I myself was frustrated for years by one such retainer who refused to share his history until he had trained his son to take his place.  It was his son's right to hear the history first, and regardless of how well I learned his tongue, I was forever a "stranger" . . . 

I really thought this would be a lot easier. As you can tell, I didn't get much down. Trust that it took more time than you would care to know. And the most annoying piece, for all the work I put into laying down this joist, I realized there were other pieces I wasn't clear on. Like I pounded the nails into the beam, only to realize that I needed to reset the foundation and dig a few feet deeper.

Maybe it will be clearer in the morning

Sidewalk Scribbles

2011-07-20T17:44:00.004-06:00

Like stories not written,
hopes not warmed,
and dreams not willed.

I see a person from a distance,
a small moment of their eye,
or a slight turn of their words
and I wonder what's left beyond that choice?

Like I've found some corner, some person,
where my life may turn down a narrow street
walled by sun and night warmed bricks
with glints of light caught by small winowpanes

So much is not seen in that one moment, of knowing and feeling the turn,
but it's there,
she's there,
with one slight turn of her words,
or with one small moment in her eye,
and I wonder what regret is left beyond that choice

If I keep my feet in front of me,
my eyes straight laced to the cracks in the concrete,
my hands in my pockets and my shoulders raised to the cold I imagine,
what regrets will follow me when it's too late to turn,
too late to look back.

But what's beyond that corner and that turn?
What if the warm bricks turn cold,
and the walls run narrow?
Or if the windowpanes stopped glinting and the alley got darker,
if all the streetlights were broken and the shards were unswept beside the gutter,
if the sounds from the street went quiet,
then silent?
If I turned for a word or a look and ended up pressed, blind, and silent?

But
then
I might
not be alone

And that turn I felt,
before I heard that small turn of her words
or saw that small moment in her eye,
was something real.
Like a story that hasn't been written
but could.

Weekly Photo Jot: Tide Stones

2011-07-17T22:21:00.002-06:00

Another photo jot. I missed last week, so I'll be posting a few more to catch back up. But even though this is a free write in response to a photo, the story that I want to tell behind it has been rolling around in my head for a few weeks now. Ever since I had a dream of sinking deeper into a black ocean, with tides of supple ink rolling across and within themselves.

That dream felt like a misplaced manuscript that was buried in a large and forgetful archive. Since then, I've been trying to find more documents about these people - where their island rests, what their stories are, and what has happened to their history.

The tide and the clouds were pulling away from the shore as Ay'li followed me along the beach. He was my senior brother by nearly two seasons. His hair was darker, the line of his jaw more sure and his feet more planted, but he walked with ease along the beach and spoke with greater comfort. The mothers often compared him to the trees along the shore, either bending with age or rocking to the wind, comfortable with its own shade and its place along the sand. He always had that same ease with me, even though we weren't completely brothers. Not truly, but when we were alone, away from the village and the others, Ay'li often called me brother. I never found the words to thank him for that.

"So brother, what stone are you going to choose?" He hopped among a few tide-washed piles and slowly turned over them with his feet.

"Would this be big enough?" He held a flat stone in the hollow of his hand.
"No," I said, after lifting my head from my own search.
"What about this stone?" Again, he held a stone that rested easily in his finger.
"The stone must be heavy and sure to sink," I recited.
"Than this should be perfect."

I looked up again, my brother holding a grin across his face and a grain of sand between his fingers. I smiled, or tried to, and added, "heavy and sure enough to sink me."

"Oh, well I don't think we'll ever find a stone big enough for that brother. We should just give up now and return to the elders. 'Mothers and Fathers, no stone will suffice, his head is filled with too many clouds to sink."

Of course he was teasing me. Ay'li always did. But I loved him for it.

As if accepting the futility of our search, he strolled to the pebble free sand and fell onto is back, his hands resting behind his head as his chest rose calmly and happily with each breath, like the ease of the low tide rolling in and sliding back. I wanted to believe that he was right and tried to by sitting next to him.

"The Fathers and Mothers would love that. I'm supposed to choose my stone, alone, and you explain to them why we come back empty handed. Why I come back unburdened."

We were running out of room to joke. That was my fault. I couldn't laugh like my brother could. I couldn't sleep on the beach and breath with the restfulness of the tide. He would return to his family's oki that night and I would sleep outside the village again. He would awake in the morning to remember his clan and his ancestors. I would awake alone without a spirit to hear me. I would be diving beneath tomorrow and he would not. Ay'li would have his family, his oki, his ancestors, and his prayers.

I would have my stone and the gods who called me below.

Scores of waves came and fell while we sat silently. "We'll always be brothers, Ay'li".

No, we won't, and I got up, to search for my stone and my burden alone.

Bedtime Stories - Severus Snape

2011-07-17T00:49:00.001-06:00

One day, I'll be that dad who puts his children into bed by reading them a story. One of those stories will be Harry Potter.

I know we'll finish the first book together and they'll each despise Professor Snape. "He wasn't going to steal the Philosopher's Stone, but he's still bad, I know he is dad, I know it."

Then I'll smile and say, "I don't know, but I promise we'll find out together, just not tonight."

I'll carefully put the book back onto the shelf, make sure all the monsters are comfortable in the closet, turn out the lights, and tell my children good night. I'll continue down the hall, turning out lights, sweeping aside toys, and dreaming about Hogwarts. And when I finally climb into bed next to my wife, my heart will break a little more for Severus Snape - who never stopped living for the woman he loved and lost.

Hourglass Scribbles

2011-07-13T22:10:00.002-06:00

It's been a dry day, and I found myself staring at my hourglass. And I started typing. Not usually my thing, but I might revise and rework it later.

And what if I could see in the pauses between seconds,
let the tide of time run still without ebb or flow,
and breathe without fear of the weight of sand above me,
or the fall onto the pillars beneath me.
At peace in the present, without

As if I turned the black sand glass to rest upon its side,
with some small grain caught between one single moment in the sieve
I dont think I could rest for that instance, just as the grain could not remain still,
but knows it will soon be righted,
to either back into the reserve of unfallen time.
One grain redeemed, only to fall at another time.

Time is a desert, a wilderness of horrors,
where what we fear beyond the horizon
is exceeded by the memories we leave forgotten behind us.
But storms arise and place all time beneath and above us
within the air we breath and the glances we take,
until the fears above and beneath us are once more the moments,
waiting in the single spot between two seas of an hourglass.

Therapeutic Typing

2011-07-06T14:20:00.001-06:00

Apologies up front. I have no idea what I'm going to be writing. I just came up stairs and sat in front of my keyboard for two reasons:
1) I wanted to hear my fingers typing away at the keyboard and
2) I wanted to hear the voice in my head as it recited those same words.

I just wanted to type.

I think there's also a story in here somewhere. A story completely apart from my own life - apart from the neon green tape that I picked up for my bike. Apart from missing a green traffic light because I was staring from a convertible at the dotted white clouds of a 6am morning. Apart from the charming young man at costco who hit on me, and for my height, of all things.

It would be fun to write about those things, and they honestly sound better when I write them here than when I remember them in my head. Kind of like adding frames to pictures, words add something to memories. But I don't want to write about those memories, or go "meta" and write about writing. I just want to type.

You know, the funny thing. I'm actually going to put this away now. I'm going to press "comand + a" and then roll my wrist around to the right side, stretch out my middle finger as if it were giving the bird, and then drop it like a hammer against the "delete" key.

Because I just wanted to type.

And I'll write later.

#20

2011-06-28T13:33:00.001-06:00

Stumbled on this clip the other day. Now I can't stop thinking about #20 and the girl in the teapot.

Weekly Photo Jot

2011-06-28T01:25:00.004-06:00

As I wrote about in my 25 Before 26 List, I wanted to try, over the course of this next year, to post a photo every week and then free-write what ever comes to mind. Well, it's been two weeks since my birthday, so I guess that means I need to get started then doesn't? By way of warning, I'm not allowing myself any time to revise this tonight, so there might be some egregious errors.

The chanter stood with his back to the unlit pyre, singing to the unseen gods while the mourners held their places. Though none of them had ever read the sacred chants, many had heard them enough times to trace the priest's words before he reached them. Even those too young to know the words sensed the lines that were coming, as they expected the movement of a tree rocking in the breeze. The song and the sorrow was natural, ancient, and right.

As the sun reached its point above and below the horizon, the chanter slowed his song, offering reverent silence for the unseen gods beneath and the unseen gods above who could now pass between. In this moment they could be honored and their dead son could join them. The mourners turned from the sunset to the woman who held the torch before her. Other women held their arms straight and stiff along their body, holding the torch and death at defiance. Others balanced the torch and its flames against their open palms, as they did with their children and their offerings. But this old woman held the flame in front of her, tightly but absently, keeping the coiling, rising flames only a few inches before her face. The radiant light of the torch against her face in the twilight brought back all the beauty and innocence of her youth, and for a moment, all were too amazed to realize that she remained unmoved. The moment of her duty had come, yet still she did not rest the torch against the pyre or fold it in the unfeeling hands of her husband, in the place where she had slept and in the place where she had hoped to die. Concern grew amongst the mourners but all knew their place, even if the widow had forgotten her own. With great care and child like reverence, the young man beside her slowly brought his arms around the widow, extending his hands to cover the old woman's. Slowly he brought her forward and slowly he guided her hands to place the torch within the man's embrace. It had been done, and the straining fire of the torch found new life among the brambles and the broken body of the old man.

All, save for the old woman, turned from the fires surrounding the body to the sun. Still above and still beneath. The unseen gods would welcome their son. The relieved mourners each moved away with the silent chanter as their guide back to the village. Except for the young man and the old woman. He stayed with her as she saw the fire flame above and beneath with renewed life and light, while the burden at its hearts remained cold and only grew darker.

Finding Voice

2011-06-24T00:58:00.000-06:00

One of my goals last year was to write out a certain story that I had planned out in my head. Honestly, I had only imagined enough content to fill a few pages, but I hoped that if I got some of it down on paper, it would continue writing itself.

Well, it didn't really happen last year, but I tried working on it tonight. Simply put, it was damn hard. I don't know if I'm too much of a perfectionist or I've completely lost the habit of writing fiction but I couldn't bring the first paragraph together. Even though I knew exactly what I wanted to write, exactly what points to cover, and what would have to follow on the next page, I couldn't write a paragraph I liked.

So I stood up, got myself an apple juice, and paced for a bit. It took me a while, but I realized part of my problem was voice. That even though I knew what I wanted to say, I didn't know what perspective to take with it.

You see, most of writing (like the writing I'm doing here) is in first person. "I" is always the speaker. When you get that in fiction, it's like you're reading someone's journal or hearing the character actually relates what happened to them. Think, Heart of Darkness - Marlowe recounts his journey up river in search of Mr. Kurtz, with all of his insights, emotions, and personal prejudices interspersed among the events. It makes for some great reading, but that wasn't going to work here. I wanted to tell the story of a relationship between two characters where each was to be equally dynamic. Writing from first person would mean that one character would always be the focal point and the relationship would be a secondary element. That doesn't quite work for me, not with this story.

The problem is, I've written so much for so long in that one voice, it's hard to work another way. So I did a very literary thing, I "borrowed" from another writer. My first thought would be something by Le Guin and after running through the catalog in my head, I remembered she used a different voice, third person objective/limited, for a short story in Four Ways to Forgiveness. Now the trouble was finding it. This was the fun part. See, the books in my room are distributed in the same way shrapnel is dispersed by a hand grenade - the book had an equal chance of being on my bookshelf, in my sock drawer, under my desk, or between my sheets. 10 minutes and a handful of oaths later, I found it, read some appropriate passages, and tried again.

And it worked. I got a solid paragraph.

This entire adventure has made me wonder if I have some kind of prejudice toward voices? Because I write so much in first person, because everything I say is in first person, has that made me uncomfortable or less familiar with other voices? Does that mean I'm more comfortable with stories that are told in that same way?

Perhaps this is why it's so important to tell or write a story about things completely removed from our experience. To make up tall tales or conjure up faerie tales. Those kind of imaginative stories let us use those voices that we rarely get to practice. We can say, naturally, that "Once upon a time, an old man was walking in the rain," instead of what comes so naturally, "this is what I did today".

Gifts and Thanks

2011-06-22T23:12:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago, I shamelessly posted a few gifts ideas for my birthday - you know, to point my family and friends in the right direction. Everything I got was amazing, from the hardback of a book I loved, a book that a friend loves, something completely expected, and something that was just . . . something else. Since I also got a shiny new camera, I thought it might be worthwhile to post them here, and more importantly, to say thanks.

First, Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin. I actually already owned this one, but the edition looks like this:

But my brother, sister-in-law, nephews, and niece (you should see their cards) got me this one:

Sure, it's the same words, but this is one of those books I want to carry around with me for the rest of my life. If it's always gonna be on the bookshelf, I want it to at it's best.

By way of books, my friend Rachel also sent me this, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin:

She knows I love chess and you can tell it's a theme with this one, and having read it, I can see why she loves it.

Then leave it to my best friend Nick to pull this one on me:

That's right, the Complete Calvin & Hobbes. Every single comic strip written, drawn, and colored about a boy with an imagination and his pet tiger. I don't care if I'm moving 6,000 miles in a few months, this 25 lb. masterpiece is coming with me.

And finally, I have to love my mom for always finding what I love and still finding a way to surprise me:

I had asked for an hourglass, but I never expected something so amazing. All glass, 30 mins. of black sand, and a tassel that simply says, "Ya, I'm not your grandfather's hourglass". I can't wait to one day have my entire collection laid out on the study room table and to point to this one as my first. And as the one I got from my mom.

I've gotten so much else in the last couple of weeks that also deserves recognition, but they're just a little tricky to photograph. Like the amazing dinner at Hillstone Santa Monica from my brother Graham or the advice I got for my future from so many others.

If my 12 year old self saw this, he'd probably demand, "where is the gameboy?!", but I wouldn't have had this birthday go any other way.

25 Before 26

2011-06-22T00:49:00.002-06:00

A week ago I turned 25. Since then, I've scribbled down random notes of things I'd like to do, habits I'd like to form, and adventures I'd like to meet - all before I turn 26. I think this will be a great year.

1) Conquer the Bridge
"Conquer the Bridge" is an annual race held by the city of San Pedro. It's only 5.3 miles, but it requires running across the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Twice. I'd like to run it.

2) From King's Cross
Get on a train at King's Cross station and just go somewhere.

3) A Picture's Worth . . .
Since I'll be getting a new camera in the next few days, I figured I should give myself an excuse to use it: upload a new photo once a week to my blog and free write a response to it.

4) UKL
Yet another goal I fell short on this last year - to write a letter to Ursula K. Le Guin, my favorite author. I really don't have any excuses.

5) the Pacific
My best guess is that I've swam in the Pacific Ocean close to 25 times. I know. I've lived in Southern California, less than 5 miles away from the beach, my entire life and that's all I can show for it. But since I'm leaving the coast behind in a few months, I figure I should get one good swim in. And make it count.

6) TiGeorge's Chicken
In LA, there's a small Haitian restaurant called TiGeorge's. Now that it's been close to 2 years since I had some Haitian cuisine, I'm willing to make the drive.

7) How Readest Thou?
At one point in my life, I read some portion of scripture every day. Sometimes the New Testament, the Old, The Book of Mormon, and so on (I'm Mormon - I have a few more books I get to read). What I need, now, is a reason to do so again, and I don't think I'll find one until I start reading.

8) Silent Mondays
This last year, I had the chance to learn a lot more about Mahatmas Gandhi (thank you Hist 202). One thing that stayed with me was his practice of Silent Mondays. Essentially, he would spend the entire day in absolute silence. It didn't matter if he was meeting with heads of state, he would simply write out notes. I want to try that for myself, for just one day at least.

9) The Terrible Attack of the Abominable Snowmen
This was one of the few things I wanted to do last year but failed to: find a strip of Calvin and Hobbes that features snowmen and recreate it. If you've read any of those strips, you'll know just how fun this will be.

10) Tom Hansen's Blackboard
(500) Days of Summer, as a film, has a lot of good things going for it. One of them, is just how amazingly designed everything is, particularly the sets and setting. For example, the lead character, Tom Hansen, has an entire wall with a chalkboard finish, allowing him to draw furniture, to-do lists, stories, memories, and anything else. I don't think I'm established enough for something like that, but maybe I can make my own space to create, just a wee bit smaller. This could mean a white board on my bedroom door, dry erase markers for my bathroom mirror, or a stretch of blank canvas on my ceiling.

11) the Sabbath Day
There's something different about a Sunday that doesn't involve the usual entertainment, the usual work, the usual past-times. I'd like more of those kind of Sundays.

12) Portabello Market
One Saturday, two summers ago, I strolled down Portabello Road in London with a couple of friends. I knew this was a place where the "riches of ages are stowed," But despite my expectations, I was simply too concerned about the pounds in my pocket to possibly buy anything. That can change.

13) Well Read(ing)
Every semester since I started my undergrad, I have taken at least one English course. I probably won't ever have that again. So now it's up to me to sit down, write up my own book list, and read them.

14) Journal
For most of this last year, I gave up my habit as a faithful journal writer. Probably the simplest explanation was that it was a stressful, frightening year. The last thing I wanted to do at the end of the day was to put all of those feelings into words. But now I regret not writing for all that time, more so that it's even harder to get back into the habit even when the anxiety is mostly passed. I need to start writing again.

15) Namaste
I'd really love to pull off the scorpion pose, but maybe I should just focus on getting one good yoga practice in each week.

16) Baking Soda or Baking Powder?
Simply put, start digging through cookbooks and the internet, looking for new recipes. Let's say that I'll try cooking something new twice a month. And, yes, I once put in baking soda when the recipe called for baking powder.

17) Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison is one of the great American writers of the 20th century. Thanks to Invisible Man, that's not really an opinion. What I didn't know was that Ellison use to write out the works of other writers, by hand, in order to improve his own writing. In a way, it was like practicing literary chords. I'd like to do the same.

18) Poerty
I always carry a small journal with me, just in case I need to write something down, whether it be a story, a name, or a phone number. But I'll try filling in the last few pages with poems, the kind I'd like to keep on hand, memorize, and one day share at the drop of a hat.

19) Faith & Reason
In the last couple of years, I've made it a habit to read the kind of books that challenge and fill me. For some reason though, I've repeatedly decided to ignore these kind of books when they relate to my faith (for example: Rough Stone Rolling, Understanding the Book of Mormon, the Infinite Atonement). It's like I've tried to keep these two pieces of my life separate, and I don't see any reason to keep it that way.

20) The Girl in the Teapot
A few summers ago, when I was living in Cambridge, there was a young woman who I ran into often. Simply put, she was stunning. So much so, in fact, that I thought it impossible for her to ever have any interest in me. Well one morning, I decided to grab breakfast at a small café called the Teapot. While I looked over the menu, I saw this young woman walk past the café windows, double back, and come inside. She ended up at the table next to me. To my regret, I ate my breakfast in silence, without once saying hi or even offering a recognizing smile. Now, as I think back on that summer, she shows up again and gain - crossing my path, doubling back, and waiting quietly near me. No need for (more) missed opportunities.

21) Brunch & Stories
This last year, I got a discussion group going with a few friends. Basically, we'd watch a short video (usually a TED lecture) and then we'd meet together for brunch and talk through our ideas over some good food. I'd like to keep that going.

22) Sleeping In (with Purpose)
Now, this might not be that relevant come September - I'll be back in school, I'll have a social life, and so on. But even so, this could have a BIG impact on the next three months: to only sleep in when I plan to. No more of this, "I'm sleeping in because I have nothing better to do." That just means I'm not being wily enough with my time.

23) the College Gardens
I'm not sure just how many gardens there are in Cambridge, but in a year, I want to say that I've walked, read, and napped in every one of them.

24) Creative Community
If all else fails, I'll have to try my hand at fiction (or join the circus). So, just in case, I'll post one creative writing piece each week.

25) Mr. Darcy
Mr. Darcy certainly made his fair share of mistakes in Pride & Prejudice. But one thing he got right, and unquestionably so, was that he wrote a letter that stated, without reservation or uncertainty, that he loved miss Elizabeth Bennett. I want to write that kind of letter.

Creative Communities

2011-06-20T13:00:00.000-06:00

I've been juggling a few projects that I'll eventually post here. My next list (25 before 26), the opening for a short story, and a handful of word images from every time the light makes it through the leaves outside my bedroom windows. If this is gonna become a private blog, it has to be worth it right?

But until then, I found something wonderful on creativity, something that made me want to sit down and write, to read poetry so I could steal the sounds between wonderfully colliding words, and to run my finger across a canvas thick page with black squid ink.

See what it does for you . . .

Accountability: 24 before 25

2011-06-14T01:44:00.000-06:00

Last year, on my birthday, I drew up a short list of 24 things I'd like to do before I turned 25. Since that happens tomorrow, I thought now would be a good time to see just how I did (and spark some thoughts for this year's list).

1. Enough with this Television
Basically, to not sit in front of the tv because I had nothing better to do.
Did I do it? Yes and no. When life got just too out of hand, I started wasting time in front of the tv again. But at the same time, this goal really made me go out of my way to find the stuff I like to watch (the movies, the series) and sometimes, to buy them. So I'll have to keep working on it.

2. Begin a Chess Collection
self-explanatory
Not too hard. First board and piece set purchased in Ghana (though the board got bent a little). Now for the next.

3. Begin an Hourglass Collection
self-explanatory
Not yet.

4. Tea with a Good, Old Book
Go to a rare book's store in Cambridge, purchase a book, and then read it at a nearby tea shop.
Didn't buy a rare book from a prestigious book vendor, but all the same, I curled up in the corner of a tea shop and read some Walt Whitman.

5. The Old Testament
read it
Not even close. But I did make it through the Law (the first five books, by Moses). I thought if I could just make it to Isaiah (the poet prophet), I'd get enough steam to carry me through, but Deuteronomy was a bit more than I could chew. For what I read though, it was all worth it for Genesis 25:8-10 (what would it have been like for two painfully estranged brothers to come together to bury their father?).

6. The Qu'ran
read it
Not by a long shot. I didn't quite realize it when I made this goal, but the Qu'ran is not like any other sacred text I've encountered. While it certainly echoes the Old Testament in parts, it largely lacks a narrative. That's hard for me. I always need a story.

7. To Rule Them All
read The Lord of the Rings
YES I DID! It took over a month to get through this epic (and the appendixes) but it was so worth it. I'm so glad that my understanding of Middle Earth (in the third age, to be precise) doesn't rest solely on Peter Jackson's visions. The films are great but the source material is something else.

8. To Ursula K. Le Guin and the Others There . . .
get in the habit of handwriting letters to my friends and eventually write my favorite author (UKL)
In part. I've been writing my friends - a few at home and one serving a mission. It's made me appreciate the ease of emails but also the overbearing easiness of its words. There's weight when you etch your 'e' to a page and see just how poor your handwriting is. The time and effort changes things. Now I just need to write UKL . . .

9. Here I am the Same
run along a beach and run along a mountain
Done and done, and I have the blisters to prove it.

10. "Come and Dine"
Cook good food for my friends regularly and share some great conversations
It came together, in a lot of different ways. First, my roommates and I got in the habit of cooking Sunday meals together. We didn't spend too much time on it, we usually ate our collective lunch around the television, but it changed things. Cooking and eating together really helped make my roommates this last year the best I've ever had. Second, I invited some friends to join me for brunch once a month at a nice little restaurant in town, and to discuss the impact of post-structuralist ideas on creativity, education, and narratives. Heady, but wonderful stuff. I'm definitely ready to keep this one going.

11. A Clear Stretch of Road and a Full Tank of Gas
Take a road trip with a group of friends
Does carpooling with 4 friends to Las Vegas to attend an academic conference count? Good enough for me.

12. Leave No Trace Behind
go camping in Utah
Didn't happen.

13. "Hi, 4 for the midnight showing please."
see a midnight showing of any movie with a group of friends
Honestly, there weren't any movies this last year that we were worth a midnight showing. Now this summer, well, that's a different story. They haven't been at midnight but I've seen some great, geeky films with a lot of friends in the last few months.

14. "Finish up your greens"
go vegetarian for a week
It's not as easy as it sounds. But, I did get in the habit of eating meat only once a day. It's still with me. A year later, I'm not so sure the vegetarian/vegan diet is the best way to go (either for me or for anybody), but I feel good about the way I eat.

15. Home Teaching
be a 100% home teacher
During finals, everybody dropped the ball (rationalization?). I have never enjoyed home teaching. I always felt guilty about not setting up appointments, but equally relieved that I didn't have to sit through the awkwardness of that hour. But this last year, it was really different. I had a great time home teaching, and ya, miracles happened.

16. The Terrible Attack of the Abominable Snow Man
Locate a snow man themed comic from Calvin and Hobbes and re-create it.
Didn't happen. In my defense, the valley really did not make it easy for me. There just wasn't a lot of snow when I needed it. But I'm so down for making up for it this year.

17. "The Play's the thing . . ."
see 3 plays
Ya, I did it. But I did because I had to, for other reasons (dates, honor program requirements). I didn't really see plays that I wanted to see. But I do know what I want to see. Anything by Wole Soyinka to start.

18. "It's not about the Bike"
Buy a road bike, ride it, love it.
Her name's Julia. She's a nishiki. She was made in 1983. Oh how I love her.

19. Honor the Sabbath Day
Don't do homework on Sundays.
Ehhhhh, not quite. I still need to work on it. But there were a half-dozen or more times when I really tried to hold to this standard. It was frightening how everything fell into place.

20. Unleavened words
take more jottings from my moleskine, expand them, and post them to my blog
I really lost sight of this one. To be honest, I lost sight of my writing in general throughout this year.

21. "Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems"
read some books of poetry
Didn't happen either. I'm still looking for another poet I can get lost in.

22. Stories Untold
take some of the stories I've been writing in my head for years and finally type them out.
Well, I tried a few times, but never quite produced anything. They're still mulling up there thought. Hopefully one day.

23. Namaste
Get into yoga
Absolutely. At the quarry. At the Lotus Temple. If there was yoga, I was there. I'm right now perfecting my dragon pose (yes, it's a sexy looking as it sounds).

24. [Ice-9]
it's a secret
This must all be horribly cryptic but I think I did better with this one. It would probably require me calling a few girls to see for sure . . .wait . . . not quite. . . still rocky . . . but I'm not so sure there's anything any of us can do about this. Not entirely.

That's enough writing for tonight. But I will say this, it was a great year - miserable, tiring, and wonderful.

Games and Stories

2011-06-12T01:58:00.004-06:00

Though I wasn't around to see its first, humble beginnings, my life has pretty much witnessed all of the video game industry's growth and rise. From the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Genesis to the Playstation to the Gamecube to the XBOX to the Wii. From a D-Pad to rumble packs, motion controls, and on line play.

Beyond these simple changes and markers of development, it's been interesting to see how the place of the story has changed in video games. In the beginning, it was really simple.

First, there was no story,

Then, there was only the basics.

And now today, so many games are criticized or even ignored by fans and critics because their stories completely stumble. Of course, the amount of fun it offers is always the most important issue. Except when games are being advertised.

It seems the strongest way to interest gamers in a new product is to begin telling a story. The gameplay mechanics might be outdated, buggy, or mundane. The end graphics might be hideous and the sound work grating. But if you can use a trailer to tease us with a story, well, we'll be interested.

Take these for example (by the way, it's so worth it to watch these full screen),

Whatever changes we might make (to graphics, to systems, to controls), I have a feeling we'll always come back to stories.

My question is - are we telling the right kind of stories yet?

Going Private

2011-06-10T15:01:00.000-06:00

Update: in the next few days, I'll be switching my blog from "public" to private". This is mostly due to a new project I've joined centered around creative writing, and I will need a little bit more control over who has access to my work.

Post a comment here, in my inbox, or on my facebook page and I'll get you the details for accessing my blog after I've changed the reader settings.

thanks

Wristwatches, Handguns, and . . .

2011-06-08T02:13:00.009-06:00

The other day, I learned that the Creative Writing Group at BYU is hosting a blog for the summer, to help their writers interact with each other's work.

The other day, they posted a prompt to get people started, if they didn't already have a short piece in mind. Here's the prompt, direct from the blog:

One day you come into work and find a cookie mysteriously placed on your desk. Grateful to whoever left this anonymous cookie, you eat it. The next morning you come in and find another cookie. This continues for months until one day a different object is left—and this time there's a note.

Now, I had a couple of thoughts on how to take this on, and tonight I wrote one of them up. I figured I could post it here before sending it off to them (if I ever do). Anyways, any thoughts, reactions, or criticisms are welcome:

The Full Thought >>

Annoyed Rattle Snakes

2011-06-05T00:01:00.000-06:00

In the last few weeks, I've gotten swept into trail running. Just a short walk behind my house is a horse path. That leads up into the hills behind my hometown, where there are more paths and more hills. I started running around on them, and the I soon found myself running a 7 mile circuit, happily expecting the Dana Point Harbor to come into view.

Maybe I've been running on blue polymer tracks for too long.

I've loved being out there. The loose dirt feels better on my feet. I love the strength of the breezes. I love not watching countless cars pass me by. I know they're automobiles. I know they're machines that cost thousands to build, thousands to fuel, thousands to maintain, but my ego still feels pricked by every 4 cylinder minivan that beats me on the line at a stop sign. Running alone, out on the hill crest above all those roads with their cars, it just feels better.

Friday, I had pushed myself a little too far, deciding to keep going around another turn, up another hill, just to see what was there. I ended going farther than I expected (a lot farther), and felt the exhaustion follow me into today. But still being a little 'trail crazy', I decided to take my dog for a walk on those same trails, to check out some of the shorter trail loops I'd passed by.

I didn't really think it through. First, those shorter trails seem a lot longer when you're walking, and second, my dog's a retriever - he'll only go the distance if there's a tennis ball involved. Regardless, I pushed through our marathon walk and somehow talked my dog into it too. Thankfully, Griffin (my dog) isn't too keen on arguing. Instead of throwing a fit, he just slowed down a couple of times, eventually coming to a stop behind me. He didn't sit, he didn't tug on the leash, he just waited. He let me put some force on the leash, the usual amount that means 'let's go'. But he wouldn't have it. I had to ask him kindly to keep going, then, he would start moving again and trot out in front of me.

It's enough for Griffin to make his disagreement known. Then, he'll let me carry on with my stupidity without saying another word.

Anyways, we were walking on a decline, my mind was just beginning to wander, and I noticed a rattle snake 6 feet in front of us. He was asleep (or as close as reptiles can get), enjoying the afternoon sun and slowly annoyed by our presence. Griffin hadn't seen him. I did, and I didn't worry about his feelings when I tugged on the leash and brought him right back to my hip. The snake took its time, rattled once in annoyance, and slithered into the brush. We passed by, quickly, and I kept my eyes on the path the rest of the way home. Griffin had the decency to only tell me once, "I told you this was stupid".

My mom put it best tonight. "Maybe it's a warning." That works for me. I think I can get over soccer moms beating me down the road for not having another moment like that. Plus, there aren't any rattle snakes down at the beach. I can live with that.

Birthday Ideas

2011-06-04T16:43:00.000-06:00

It's my birthday in a few days. Kind of exciting. Quarter century. Kind of a big deal.

Now this might seem a little materialistic, but I thought I might post here some gift ideas for my family and friends. For a couple people, this is really easy - they're getting me ready for Cambridge. Getting new clothes, cost of living, filing paperwork, and so on. They're doing more for me than I could ever know.

But in case other people want to get something for my Quarter Centurion Day, here's some thoughts to point you in the right direction.
1) Chess Board. There's a lot out there, but I'm thinking a board like this one.
2) Hour Glass. If you've read my 24 before 25 list, you'll understand these first two first two gift ideas. But don't break the bank getting an antique, 6' hourglass. I'd love something smaller and simpler.
3) Books. I've moved over to a Kindle, so I do all of my first reads there, but there are a couple books that I'd love to have hard copies of. Like Gifts by Le Guin (hardcover). Or a first edition of A Wizard of Earthsea, also by Le Guin (this one might be tricky to find). As for digital books, I'd love any poetry collections and any classic science fiction or fantasy pieces. I'm also a sucker for comic book anthologies (of the really good stuff).
4) Clothing. Gift cards would be the way to go here. I usually find stuff I like, that fits, at Banana Republic, Gap, J. Crew, and REI.
5) Movies. I'm a big fan of Miyazaki and I don't have Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, or Princess Mononoke.
6) Music. My taste in music is both eclectic and erratic. So, an iTunes gift card would be groovy.

I hope this helps. But beyond this list, anything with meaning for you, for me, between us would be just as great.

And, no pressure.

An Unchanging Story

2011-05-24T01:05:00.003-06:00

We change the world around us to fit our needs.

We buy health foods when we need to lose weight. We buy bigger jeans when we'd rather not give up our carbs. We check and refill the air in our tires before a long bike ride. We drop our loser boyfriend when we realize we can bear the risk of finding someone better. We install new locks after we tell him that. We draw a map on a barroom napkin so she'll know where to meet us Friday night.

In the same ways, and for the same reasons, we change our stories. Because they feed us, clothe us, and propel us. Because they are our companions, our guardians, and our guides.

I have had the rare chance to hear a man tell the same story twice. Actually. To hear a man tell two stories about the same time. And they are not the same. That moment in time has not changed though. The movements he made, the words he said, and the way the shadows slid in from the back window in that minute have not changed. But he needed a new reason to explain those actions and those words. Those choices needed to change. That's why I heard a new story for those unchanged minutes.

For how much we rely on stories, it's painful sometimes to realize how easily they change. They may be chiseled on stone, written on paper, but they never quite set and they never quite dry. There's always time to etch a new ending, to erase an old beginning. And we're often never the wiser when they do change.

I'm grateful that I can see new words to old stories. I'm grateful that I know some questions that can explain the revisions. But there are still times I ache for an unchanging story.

2011-05-21T00:48:00.000-06:00

I met my father today in a bookstore.

Don't think that I use that term lightly, without some qualification. For many of you, that term 'father' evokes the man who cared for you as a child and still does now, if only in your memory. He's the man who taught you how to throw a ball, who sat with you and your homework , who talked you through your first date (or intimidated the young man who came to pick you up). My father wasn't that man for me.

I won't get into it all here. That's a whole 'nother post. It's enough to say that it was a hard conversation. One I couldn't prepare for or guard against. I'm writing this tonight to talk about that last point, about the bookstore. Of why, in all the places in all the world, I would choose to face that conversation there. In a bookstore.

Because I feel safe there.

In every bookstore, I can count on a few things. Or rather, people. First, there are the authors. They're real of course, but somewhere else. Flesh and blood, breath and voice, smiles and tears. Somewhere, they're real people, living on their lives. Just not quite in the bookstore, not entirely, but that's as close as I'll get it. Next, are the characters. They're real for me, and maybe for you if you've read the right books. But for everyone else, outside of that space of a shared story, they're not quite real . Except in a bookstore, I can walk down the right aisle, grab the right book, turn to the correct page, and there's their name. And that's enough. They're real, even for you if you haven't read the book.

So when I meet me my father there for a conversation, I wasn't quite alone. In the aisle just down behind us, I could find Ursula K. Le Guin, and she'd be there with Ged and Orrec. These two never had that kind of conversation with their fathers, but they would understand.

Maybe in the corner, I could find Gloria Naylor with Mama Day. I didn't grow up in Willow Springs and never weeded Mama Day's garden, but I think she'd be willing to give me advice.

I'd have to find Maya Angelou there too. She always makes me smile. Chekhov would make me chuckle. Whitman would hand me a piece of straw and let me quietly think. Faulkner could talk me through the stories that weren't shared, and hopefully he'd buy me a drink. Then I'd find Tom Bombadill, Ben Okri, Lloyd Jones, man, and Toni Morrison.

That's why I had that conversation in a bookstore.

Write it Out

2011-05-19T01:19:00.001-06:00

I'm kind of angry, kind of jealous, and kind of ready for a good long run . . . but it's the middle of the night. So I'll write instead.

On the far left corner of the street stood the Shadow Well Ink Company.  It's gone now.  The shop closed, the building condemned, the bricks torn down.  I think someone might have even thrown a fistful of salt to add to the ruin.  And they never did clear it all away, like broken bones left open in the street.  But I remember what it was like, the store I mean, when the bricks stood together in a wall, the door bell still ready to announce a customer, and the shop sign read "open".  But that was all before.  Before that book arrived. 

Moving Out . . . Slowly

2011-05-15T01:06:00.002-06:00

On Monday morning, I'll drive off down the I-15, headed back home to California. That means today, I've slowly closed up my room like some bizarre traveling circus and tried to find space for all of it in my car.

I know this is one of those moments when I should take inventory of my life - just graduated from college, moving on to grad school, headed back home for the summer, saying goodbye to old friends. I really should give myself to think about all of it (and dole out a countless number of thank you's), but that's last on my list.

Instead, I started by taking inventory of the things I'm loading up (just leave the heavy stuff for later). Guess what I discovered? I own . . .

57 Books, 47 purchased in the last 9 months (my kindle's a gem, but there's something comforting about a stack of books)

12 Comic Book Anthologies (I thought I was getting into light reading - V for Vendetta, Watchmen, the Unwritten)

18 Assorted and Filled Moleskin Journals (it's what writers do, right?)

18 T-shirts (and I haven't worn 10 in the last 6 months)

5 Scarves (I never wore any of them either)

1 Chessboard, Checker Board, Mancala, Risk, Settlers, Dominion, and Guillotine (what can I say, I love games)

4 Japanese Animated Films and 6 Collections of Anime Series (I love cartoons too)

1 stack of letters from Friends who all have cellphones and computers (Facebook has stopped being personal enough)

1 Graduation Tassel (white for a BA. I threw out the cap and the gown. Spring Cleaning)

5 Pairs of Yoga Trousers, a mat, and a Set of Hindu Prayer Beads (Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare)

3 worn Juggling Balls (if all else fails - join the circus)

And 1 Beautiful Bike

I'll take note of everything else later.

Same with all of those life-questions.

Memories Towards Mother's Day [Day Two]

2011-05-03T23:30:00.000-06:00

When I was in kindergarten, my mother was actually in Grad School. Imagine that, three boys, all living at home and trying to get a master's degree at the same time. Anyways, one day, I happened onto one of her textbooks - it was the biggest book I'd ever seen. Grabbing hold off the cover, I pulled the pages back and stopped at page number 636. I remember it had a diagram of the human face with the different layers of skin, muscle, and bone all displayed. I think it was because it was one of the only pages with pictures that I stopped there.

Eventually, my mom found me staring at the page, and I asked her what it meant. She then clearly explained to me the 14 cranial nerves, where each one was and why they were important. She said that people can sometimes get hurt on their face, and if it's serious, and the nerves get damaged, it can affect their emotions or personality. As I thought of more questions, she answered them, and she then helped me to memorize exactly where each of the 14 cranial nerves were.

The next week, I took my mom's book to kindergarten for share time, and I taught all of my classmates about the 14 cranial nerves and showed them exacty where they were.

My mom has always been my greatest teacher, not only for what she has taught me, but because she has never thought any question or any idea was too big for me.

Memories Towards Mother's Day [Day One]

2011-05-03T01:42:00.000-06:00

This coming Sunday will be Mother's Day. That alone has made me think more about my own mother, particularly in trying to recall and order my many memories with her. Because she raised me alone, you can imagine that there are so many to remember, and I'm afraid so many more that I've forgotten. To keep some of these together, I have decided to write some of them here throughout this week. To help me remember and to let my mother know how much I love her.

When I was in elementary, each year the children were invited to bring their fathers to school for the day. Well, half the day - the fathers were, of course, so busy. But even though it was only half a day, that was always too much for my own father. But I never came to school alone on those days. Each year, my mom would put on a dark suit with light pinstripes, complete with tie, vest, and matching umbrella. She looked every bit the part for a working professional, if only for her hair.

I never felt alone on those days. I never felt like the kid who had fallen short because my own father didn't show. My mom was right there, every year, even though she was always the only mother in the room. I could always smile with the rest when my mother introduced herself to the class. I hadn't come to school alone.

My mother has never left me alone.

Irony

2011-05-01T00:06:00.000-06:00

I've lived in Provo for five years and not until tonight, two weeks away from my last day here, it finally happened.

I was in the front room with my roommate, just watching TV.

*Knock*Knock*Knock*

Sitting farthest from the door, I asked him, "would you get that?"

Without a word, he gets up, goes to the door, and opens it on a beautiful young woman.

I can't help but notice: 5'9", Brown hair, blue/green eyes, easy pose, relaxed tone.

"Hi, can I talk to you guys for a minute"

must be a sales trick, get a pretty girl in the door

"I was just with the manager, looking at the apartment layout, I'm thinking of moving in, but it's not like they tell you everything. I just wanted to know what you think of the place".

We were only too happy to oblige.

So in short, a beautiful girl named Sara walked into my apartment today. A beautiful girl who will probably be the girl next door.

I've only waited for five years, and it comes now, right when I'm ready to move out.

Maybe I should stick around just a little longer.

Me in Music

2011-04-24T23:59:00.001-06:00

This weekend, I needed to grade 38 finals for my Hist 202 course. Each final consisted of 3 handwritten essays, varying according to each student's interest, narrative flair, and general penmanship. In other words, it took a lot of time.

To keep myself going, I decided to work to some of my favorite albums, and as you can imagine, I listened to a lot of them. Anyways, every now and then, a particular track would stand out to me with some thought. Like, "this is what it feels like when I run" or "that's exactly like my last yoga class".

To keep it all straight, and to celebrate the end of my grading, I thought I might list some of those thoughts here, with a few of the inspiring samples.

So, me in music. . .

What I feel when I unchain my bike, take down the road, and soar through the shadows in the trees:

When I'm convinced of there being something divine:

The soundtrack to most of my childhood memories (the ones that matter):

The last mile at the track:

How my body moves, from warm-up to top out, on a good day climbing:

My best; when I'm not afraid of just being me:

The Letter Came

2011-04-23T00:52:00.001-06:00

I didn't take the keys. I didn't go out to the box. I didn't look inside.

Instead, I came home and found the letter resting reverently on my desk.

My name was on the envelope, her name was in the corner, and I smiled as I read so many of a friend's words.

Waiting

2011-04-19T00:20:00.000-06:00

Still in my pj's, I walked out to the mailbox outside my building. 38 identical aluminum boxes with marked and numbered keys. 38 identical newsletters. 38 rolls of coupons. And hoping for one letter out of the ordinary, with my name on the fold and a friend's at the corner. One newsletter, one roll of coupons, but still no letter. I use the same key that opened the door, to lock it again, and walk away pretending like I really was there to pick up one newsletter and one roll of coupons.

I'm still waiting for that spark and looking for it everywhere else. In one conversation. In one book I never read. And maybe, it'll have to come soon, like bets hedged long enough that they just have to payout.

So I'll keep reading and keep talking and keep walking to the mailbox outside my building.

People Watching

2011-04-13T11:05:00.000-06:00

Because it's too warm or perhaps because the sun is in her eyes, the two move to a table in the shade. She smiles and he shrugs. Taking places in seats bolted to the table, the young man leans on the table with his arm, maybe wishing for a bench that would let him move closer. And she begins to talk excitedly, smiling again and again, using her hands to flutter words across the air that are quickly scribed, erased, and re-written.

Another young man walks up and their conversation pauses while she hands him a book. The young man notices her smiles are now gone, the flutter in her hands calmed, and he smiles to himself. His smile grows when the other leaves and she begins smiling, again and again, and talking with her hands. He laughs by raising his shoulders and she moves just a little closer.

A Bird Takes Flight

2011-04-08T00:40:00.000-06:00

Have you ever watched a bird take flight? To see it fly from the ground into the sky? In the first moment, it bends its small legs and arches its neck back. Then will all of the strength coiled in those legs and in that back, it leaps into the air. Within in a moment, its wings are opened and begin to beat. Then for the next few, fierce seconds, the bird continues to fight and plow into the wind, gaining another inch, another foot. All the while, its wings continue to beat. Eventually, it finds its place in the sky and settles into a breeze. It begins to fly with perfect stillness, carried in the movement and guidance of the wind around it.

You've probably seen it before. And you've probably seen it in someone else. In that dancer who came out onto the stage. Months and years of fighting behind it. Of stretching, practicing, falling, failing, hurting, and trying again. And then in that moment on stage, you watch the fierce moments fall away as the dancer settles into perfect stillness, carried in the movement and guidance of the music around them.

You've probably read it before too. That one time when the book echoes outside of the page, outside of the voice inside your head and enters the rhythm of your heart. You never saw the scribbles inside the author's notebook. The words forcibly written over, or deleted, or ~~crossed out~~ for a fresh start. You only read the words that were put upon the page when they were carried in the movement and guidance of the stories around them.

I felt it tonight. When my feet stopped striking against the ground, fighting to push my running body through the sheets of air, time, and miles in front of me. Instead, the miles passed between the taps of my feet against the rolling earth beneath me. The echoes of the clocks unseen, with their hands faintly ticking away, were like the guiding beats within my own heart. The sheets of air folded to warm and pull me, just as water bends and welcomes the stone that falls beneath its surface.

A bird leaping into the sky will always beat and struggle, but only because it knows it will eventually be carried in the movement and guidance of the wind around it.

The Next Year

2011-04-06T22:34:00.000-06:00

Last October, I applied for admittance to Cambridge University's African Studies program.

Three weeks ago, they offered me a position.

Tonight, it's official - I've accepted the offer and will be at Pembroke!

If you're not familiar, Cambridge University still houses its students in the many colleges that define the city. In other words, the University is like Hogwarts and Pembroke is like Ravenclaw.

So, this is where I'll live -

And this will be my shield -

Good Mood

2011-04-04T15:31:00.000-06:00

I am the stillness of a cloud in a windless sky.

I am the rising sound that the falling hammer and resting anvil leave behind.

I am the stone quietly watching the clouds move by.

I am at peace with all the world, silently seeing and hearing heaven and earth depart from day to night.

My head bowed and my arms at rest, my heart still echoes in the hollow of my chest.

Not Without a First Kiss

2011-03-30T23:55:00.008-06:00

How do you measure your relationship?

I realized today that I have unquestionably used only one scale for all my relationships. Physical intimacy.

Of course, I remember that great conversations, or that date when I put my life in her hands (rock climbing), or when I felt like I could be completely honest. But I don't hold onto those moments. I don't come back home to my roommates and say:

"Ursula shared her dreams with me tonight, she honestly told me what she wants to do, achieve, and all of the fears she wrestles with while trying to get there. I shared my own hopes and fears as well. [grinning, far away look] We really have a relationship now".

I'm not sure about your experience, but I don't think it's ever worked like that for me. Instead, I always rely on more easily measured steps:

1) She let me sit close to her
2) Hold her hand
3) Put my arm around her
4) Kiss her

After that last one, that's when I come home beaming and my roommates ask, "what happened?" That's when they know it's getting serious. That's when I feel like I have a real relationship.

Isn't that kind of dangerous? More than once I've thought:

"It's okay that I broke up with her, or just stopped calling, I hadn't kissed her yet. So, we'd been on a few dates and had some good conversations, but we hadn't kissed. It wasn't a real relationship. I don't have to make an official cut off."

Never mind that I had shared with this girl so much about myself. Never mind that she had shared with me so much that was close to her soul. Never mind that I had let her feel emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually safe with me. Just because that one piece (physical intimacy) had not been there, it wasn't serious. Right?

I think I've followed this one narrative for dating a bit too long, at least without questioning it. And I think I may have hurt too many women because of it.

So how do you measure your relationship?

Storyteller - Cross

2011-03-30T00:14:00.001-06:00

Last night, I started writing down a story that I had caught by the tail earlier that day. Though I wrote all that I could piece together, all that I could understand, it wasn't anywhere near complete. So, I found there was more to write today. To catch up, follow the link or see the post below, "Storyteller".

But my story is not about these people. My story is about the man that crossed the bridge and the boy who went to look for him.

Along that road, beside the North River, there is also a town called Cross. There, the far road meets its brothers. The South road that continues into rich fields and orchards. The East road that welcomes the sunrise beside the sea. And the West road that slowly covers the sunset behind the Auburn Forest. Each of these countries have their own towns and their own people, yet still they need the roads that lead to Cross. There they trade their goods from one season to the other. They share their news, their stories, their misfortunes. Cross is their place of meeting and departure.

Yet, for the people of Cross, their town is something else. They welcome the grain from the South, the timber from the West, and the fish from the East. They know every trader and his goods. They know of his people and his kin, his fortunes and his woes. They know of the world beyond as it is brought to them, exchanged, and then removed. It is comfortable for them. Yet they do share one burden. One thing that they did not welcome, that they cannot exchange and will not be removed. The boy.

Almost five years ago, a hunter returned to Cross from his winter in the North. Even from afar, the traders could recognize his frame, only too eager to examine the pelts and hides they saw draped across his shoulders and carried by the animal that he lead behind him. While others quietly departed from the roadside to prepare their shops and to inform the others, one man stayed longer, eyeing the hunter as his shadow grew longer across the Far River. "Why does he lead his horse?" His curiosity kept him at the spot and he slowly stepped aside as the hunter reached him. Too old, or perhaps too scared, to offer the customary welcome, the old man simply watched the hunter pass by. The hunter did not pause, even for the offense of passing unwelcomed. He was too concerned for the boy set atop his horse, the boy the old man now saw. The hunter simply continued into Cross as the old man still stood and stared. In time, the old man looked over his shoulder up the North Road, towards the peaks he'd never care to see any closer. With a shudder, he quickly turned back and hobbled after the hunter into Cross.

Storyteller

2011-03-28T23:42:00.002-06:00

"If you hear a story, you are indebted to others and should tell your own story"
- Wangari Maathai

One of the disappointments of my childhood was that my father wasn't much of a storyteller. That thought came to me when I read the line above, taken from the memoir of Nobel Peace Prize winning woman from Kenya (I haven't gotten far enough into the book to know why she won the NPP). With it came a second thought, I don't want my own children to feel the same way.

It's not the first time I've had these thoughts either. Because of my studies, I have the opportunity to read a lot of myths, fables, tall tales, and great epics. Along with that, I try to keep up on the classics (The Lord of the Rings) while also hunting for the best stories in modern comic books (Batman: the Long Halloween is excellent). Every time I read a great story, I'm again impressed by the thought, "I'd like to write something this good".

I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to being a published storyteller (though I have pen names prepared), but at the very least, I want to offer something meaningful to my kids. Sure, I'll introduce my children to my favorite story worlds - Hogwarts, Narnia, Earthsea, Redwall Abbey - but I want them to also grow up with stories that only I can tell.

So, for practice's sake, and because I caught a wild story by the tail as it ran across the horizon, I offer my first shot at beginning a bed time story:

There is a road that runs beside the North river.  Both the river and the road continue  until the Far Mountains.  There, at the mountain's base, where the peak's shadows rest even at midday, the river takes a sharp turn and the road, unbending, continues on, over the bridge and up deeper into the mountains.

Many old men and old women cannot remember who was last to cross that bridge and continue that road.  For those who do, they only have the doubtful memory of a myth left unbelieved.  Yet still, every traveler and every hunter who passes through that country knows not to cross that bridge.  When they return south from their winter hunts or distant journeys, they are received with the old custom:

"Have any crossed the bridge?" they are asked.

"None and not I," they reply.

Then they are received with warm smiles and rich stories from the months lost in their absence.  Yet in all the welcomes, smiles, and stories, no one remembers why the bridge must remain uncrossed.  They only know that it must remain so.

Dating is War [part two}

2011-03-27T17:36:00.002-06:00

If you missed part one, simply follow this link or see below.

Step 3: the Campaign

Now, any student of war knows that nothing stays the same. Even though everyone seems to be playing the same game with the same rules, none of them quite follow the same strategy. Some of us rush into a relationship like a Blitzkrieg, committed to completely overwhelming our opponent through an unexpected onslaught of charm, excitement, and romance. Sometimes we're a bit more methodical, slowly pulling our would be aggressor deeper and deeper into our territory with a scorched earth mentality (offering little but always tempting more on the horizon), waiting for them to unavoidably submit under time and winter. Sometimes we're not so sure we want to get involved, better just to stay back and enjoy being single. But then they just go right ahead and sink our Lusitania and all our comfort in isolationism goes right out the window. And sadly, sometimes we just get steamrolled like the Polish corridor, becoming just a convenient stepping stone for someone else before their next, real campaign.

We're all fighting to win but rarely in the same way.

Step 4: Armistice

There comes a point when you just don't care anymore. You've fought long and hard. Your resources are spent, your allies are exhausted, and you just want to call an armistice. Congratulations, you've fallen in love.

Now, don't think the logistics of war are over. You still have to get your men home. Patch up a few battleships and transition back to a peace-time economy. But the hard part is over. Whatever territory has been lost or gained. Whatever strongholds were defended or abandoned. You've simply gained and given up whatever was needed so you and this other person could finally get beyond the dating.

Step 5: The Formal Peace Treaty

Once again, you're back to formalities. You've fallen in love and you've worked out all of the details in quick shorthand. But now, it's been some time and you'd like to make things permanent. You're thinking about marriage.

Now marriage, like a peace treaty, can really set all things in order. The world will now know, through ample press and fan fair, that your relationship is settled, with agreements in place that will bind you in happy friendship until the end of your life and maybe beyond. On the other hand, a bad treaty will just throw everyone back into war. Bring any kind of idea of emotional reparations or personal sanctions and you can bet that you'll be back in war in a few decades. And for good or bad, you'll have a whole new enemy to deal with (probably).

Dating is War [part one]

2011-03-25T23:59:00.004-06:00

If love is surrender, whose war is it anyways?
- Imogen Heap

You know, she's right. Love is surrender and therefore, it can't also be war. But if you think about it, it's pretty obvious: Dating is War. They just have too much in common.

Step One: The Spark

Ask any historian, they'll all tell you that many factors lead to the First World War. Entangling alliances, the race for naval superiority, and a general sense of political paranoia all precipitated this awful conflict. But that being said, each of them will also add that the assassination of Prince Ferdinand and his wife was the spark that lit the fuse.

At best, the assassination could be called a fluke. A number of assassins, all arrayed across the parade route, failed to seriously endanger the prince's life. At best, they threw one bomb that served to spook the royal entourage. Then, just when everyone was about to go home for the day, Ferdinand's driver makes a wrong turn into a dead end alley, just in time to pass by one of those assassins who was already on his way home.

The sparks that begin a dating relationship are equally flukes. You randomly take the same course together. You run into her again in the line outside the local Duncan Donuts'/Starbucks'/Jamba Juice. Then she inadvertently smiles at something you say. Sure, the right conditions have been building for years but it still takes a certain number of flukes before you can stop and say to yourself, "wow, she's cute, I'd like to ask her out".

Step Two: the First Date/Formal Declaration of War

By the time congress is drafting a formal declaration of war, there's no going back. In fact, fighting may already have begun and if it hasn't, everyone is loading their rifle just in case. However, nothing's official until we cordially inform you that we will begin all attempts to break you as soon as humanly possible. Sincerely, the other guys. A declaration is just a formality, an accepted ritual before the real work begins. Is a first date much different?

To be honest, must of us don't really know what we're getting ourselves into during a first date, so we fall back on formality. We (try) to be ready on time. We plan something simple and ask the same list of questions: What are you studying? What do you want to do when you graduate? How many in your family? What's your favorite book/movie/television program? What do you do for fun? And, on top of all this ritual, we sit up straight and put on our best behavior. We've got to make a good impression first, then we can be ourselves.

First dates work, but honestly, we're so settled into the formality that the real fighting can't come until later.

Step 3: The Campaign

Step 3, 4, and 5 to follow.

Dreams Across the River

2011-03-22T23:24:00.003-06:00

Last night, I didn't get too much sleep, so I ended up taking a nap early this afternoon.

I dreamed of children running across wood floored halls. Of old women shaking their heads at vain old friends. Of young boys flying kites and flying on kites. Of trying to sketch the exact figure of a man as he arched his back and fell into the sky. Of old men desperately trying to win one woman's heart through flattery, magic, and bowls of rice. Of lying drunkenly on a slow pulled cart. Of women using blue cloth to cover the shame of a red marked gate, eventually gaining the pride to pull both thread and post apart. Of looking up to a branch at three birds, red with the color of dusk, standing lean and with striking as they in turn looked down at me. Of men disturbed as I muttered in my sleep.

I woke up a few hours later, with the wine of dreams and all its dregs still swimming in my eyes. I half smiled at the girl studying beside me and slowly put my knees above my feet, my arms above my head, and arched my back like the man I sketched as he fell into the sky.

art by AquaSixio from DeviantArt

"And some fell among thorns"

2011-03-21T01:20:00.000-06:00

As a child, I was taught that Jesus loves me and I should love him. Like so many things I was taught then, I still hold onto them but they have more meaning now.

Today at church, one of my friends taught a lesson about Christ's parables. We talked about why Jesus taught with stories, considered a few examples in Matthew ch. 13, and finally discussed how these stories could affect the way we live our own lives. In particular, I was impressed by the parable of the sowers.

In short, a man walks along his field, throwing seeds into the air for the next harvest. Some seeds fall along the path and are quickly eaten by the birds. Others fall among stones, grow quickly, but are soon blown away since they lack deep soil for strong roots. Some fall among thorns, again growing quickly, but being chocked so they cannot bear fruit. And finally, some fall on good grown, eventually providing rich fruit.

One way to understand this story is the different reactions we each can have towards truth. Sometimes, we completely ignore it. Other times, we're so excited when we first receive it, but we aren't quite willing to sacrifice or endure certain trials for it. Then, there are the times we receive an idea, act on it, but quickly let other priorities take place in our life. And finally, we can let it change us and share the idea with others through our own actions.

A simple story with a lot of meaning. But it took new depth for me today. I realized that the people I value most in my life - among my friends, my family, teachers, or authors - all offer me a new way to talk about my experiences. To understand the endless contradictions that tie my day together and finally loosen as I fall asleep. Each of them has offered me different words or maybe different lenses to consider the story I live or the stories I read.

I realized today that I love Jesus Christ for the same reason. I can say that I have poorly planned priorities. I can explain that I need to better organize my life for the things I really care about. Or I can say that some things have fallen among thorns.

How can I not love someone who can use a story to give new meaning to my own?

Brunch and Stories - Week 3

2011-03-14T00:06:00.001-06:00

This Saturday, the Provo Narrative Group was proud to host the third session of the Post-Modern Discussion Series. Like weeks past, we met at Communal Restaurant to discuss how Post-Modern and Post-Structuralist ideas can impact the academic, professional, and even spiritual life. And of course, to have good food and to share good company.

Poached Eggs over Chicken Hash followed by a Dark Hot Chocolate, beside countless Voiced Ideas

This week, we discussed "Narratives of Creativity". In short, are there different ways for us to talk about and think about our creative potential? Acting as the baseline for our own ideas was Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Presentation, entitled "A New Way To Think About Creativity". Even if you missed our discussion, Gilbert's ideas are still a pleasure to hear (especially if you've ever wrestled with writer's block).

Of course, each of us brought our own stories and experiences and probably walked away with new thoughts that were equally diverse, but here are some of the ideas and questions that stayed with me.

If we believe creativity to be a mortal, personal commodity, does it make it that much easier for us to also treat art as a commodity?

Does despair, sadness, and pain actually improve and inspire art? Does art really require anguish?

Is it possible to use a divine narrative for creativity if we don't already have a spiritual component to our lives?

If we believe creativity exists outside ourselves, how can we discern between true and false sources?

If our art comes from the Divine, how does that change our responsibility to it? to those who will experience it?

The Provo Narrative Group would again like to thank everyone who joined us Saturday morning, for the ideas they shared and the community they so easily create. And as always, we cannot say enough about Communal, for not only providing such wonderful food but also offering a space that so easily accepts discussion, collaboration, and creativity.

Getting Set Up

2011-03-11T00:32:00.000-07:00

The other day I ran into an old professor. For the last couple of years, I've taken his classes, asked him for his advice, and generally tried to keep in touch. But this semester, that hasn't really happened, so it was nice just to run into him.

After a few updates, he said something like this:
"Oh the other night at the Honors Symposium, were you there, I looked for you. Anyways, I was talking to a young woman named _______, who had known you before Cambridge. She's just been so impressed by where your life has gone and what you've accomplished. But like she said, you've lost touch."

And with that, he remembered another engagement he needed to keep and continued down the hall. Now, I may be dense, but I still got the subtle suggestion there - there's a girl who was interested in you and she still might be, maybe you should act on that.

I laughed to myself at first, but then I realized that every conversation I have with this man ends in nearly the exact same way.

"I ran into _______ the other day, she was quite impressed with your presentation . . . "
"I was speaking with _______, have you met her, she really is an impressive young woman . . ."
"I saw the way you reacted when ______ was speaking. Remember 'he who hesitates is lost'"

I realized he's been trying to set me up for years now. Years. And I've been oblivious to all of it.

Yes. I really am that dense.

Running for a Word

2011-03-07T13:31:00.002-07:00

Running has taught me to look at the world in two ways: in numbers and feelings.

Numbers was easier for me and came first. 2 miles. 15 minutes. 12 more laps. All of the complicated things in life that have to be treated with language ("I'm sorry I forgot to call", "what am I going to do", "why is she treating me that way") seem to fall away to cold digits. 1, 2, 3, 4, breath, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . It's comforting, calming, and simple.

Feelings came later and are that much harder for me to hold onto. If you can imagine times when you're utterly overwhelmed by an emotion (grief, joy, fear), there's usually very little room for language. It's only later, when the feelings begin to fade, that language becomes useful again, like amber hardening with some fleck of the past encased inside. While I run, language seems to take a seat in the bleachers, and the unexpected emotions follow behind me. I know they're there when a fresh runner passes me by - something else runs warm and angry through my breath and I start to barrel down on the unsuspecting offender in a slow-burning rage. It's there when 3 miles lie behind me without a thought in between and only something like peace echoes behind my footfalls.

In either case, language has to wait for the time after. When I get back to my apartment and tell my roommates where I've been. When I meet a friend and have to explain the pain in my thigh. When I sit down to write on my blog. It's always there, but only after I've stopped moving, stopped running, and stopped breathing with purpose.

And what do I do about the girl last week?

Numbers came first. 5'9". 115 lbs. Fast pace. Medium Stride. Hair tie probably 1 and 1/2 inches off center to the left, causing her trailing hair to bounce close to her left ear and sweep right across the flat of her neck. Very even pacing between strides (not seeming to favor one leg over the other), open palms, and loose arms - long distance runner?

She had been categorized, classified, and measured without emotion; she had been running her warm-up, meaning that I could just pass her by and throw her alongside the other figures (2 miles down, 2 miles left, 23 runners passed per lap, 1 minute 23 seconds per lap, 15 minutes more).

But then, almost as if she had heard me etch her statistics on the chalkboard inside my head as I passed her by, she came back from her warm-up stretching and took up directly behind me. Her pace was perfectly even again, but slightly faster than normal. Slightly faster than my own. She meant to gain a foot on me every 5 strides. The numbers were gone and I started running with the furies.

For the last mile of my run, she was there at every step. If I tried to burn through a turn, she picked up as well. If I blitzed past a slower line of runners, she did too. I didn't care if I was going to ruin my pace, if I was throwing off a perfectly paced workout for this maddened foot race. I had to out run her. But imagine all of that conviction in warm emotion, like flickering blades of heat against your face from a wild fire.

When I finally reached the last 100 m of my run, I knew I was sprinting. She was still there though, maybe not so hard after the last mile, but still there, right in my lane, planting her feet on the warm indents that my own feet had left before they had time to cool or fade. And I crossed the finish line, with all of the emotions of my run feeling more and more awkward as I slowed and finally stopped.

Just as I was beginning to come back to normal language, I saw her stop just ahead of me for a drink of water. And when I finally had words and breath to speak them, she jogged back onto the track, with an even, measured pace.

"Damn"

Language of the Night

2011-03-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

A friend told me that dreams are only stories that we can never fully share. Because dreams are written in the language of the night, the following morning we are unavoidably left without translation, without words to convey everything that happened. Instead, dreams are intended to guide us through the day with the story only we need, from the images we carry, and in the way we write.

This afternoon, I sat down and forgot to stay awake. It was more like the undertow on the coast - relax and you'll unavoidably be swept out to sea and down beneath the surface. It was a warm darkness, perfectly comforting silence. I know there was a story, but I one I didn't keep for myself.

I guess some stories only need to be read in a moment, and once finished, can just as quickly be forgotten.

Saturday's Scribbles #2

2011-02-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

I know that I like to write, but I've found that it's so much easier when I'm in the right kind of place - a nice restaurant, a café, a quiet park. Along with making it easier to commit words to paper, it also tends to push my writing in a certain direction, so I thought should mention that I scribbled these words at Communal and at Guru's (it was a day for food).

Did you know that when you read a book, a real book, a small space opens like a window and you can read lines of your life. Today it came faint, but the window eventually opened and I saw myself. I was at a booth, my hands resting folded on my lap. The cracked spine of a book lay along my thigh and my notebook sat at the table's edge, a capped pen waiting against its cover. There was also a drained cup of hot chocolate in front of me, with two dark rings inside, one near its lip and another one settled near the dark, rich dregs. A young woman took the cup and plate away, quietly and with a smile, seeing that I was alseep, my head drifted back over my shoulder and against the tall padded seat. I saw now that I was an old man, a crown of white hair with stray flecks of red along my temples. My black framed glasses still rested atop my head, the same glasses I had bought years earlier when they reminded me of my grandfather and mother together.

But then I wasn't so old and I was reading another book and I was not alone. Her foot was resting against my leg underneath the table, and as she wriggled her toes, I looked over my book with a smile, seeing her hide her eyes and her own smile in a cup of tea. Seemingly without reason then, I let my right hand fall away from the book and rest across the table. She took my hand while we both continued reading.

But then again, the window closed, and I was once again reading lines of a story instead of lines of my own time, having again lost my friend to the folding pages of a book. So I continued reading, waiting to see another line of her handwriting against the pages of my life.

The World As It Was . . .

2011-02-19T14:20:00.004-07:00

Last week, one of my roommates shared this video with me. It's from 1994 and it really shows how much technology has changed in the last 17 years, or at least, how much we've changed with technology during that time.

Kinda scary right? Email, FaceBook, Blogs, iPhones, eBooks, and continually synchronising digital media. It really starts to add up.

Well, I also happened to stumble on this video last week as well. Like the video above, it suggests how much we might change because of technology, yet instead of looking back, it looks forward. So what do you think, is any of this possible by 2027 and would we really want any of it?

(give it a minute to see what I'm talking about)

Completely bogus or too modest? And remember, Michele Foucault never wrote an email.

Feminism, Pronouns, and Bicycles

2011-02-17T21:59:00.002-07:00

I would like to believe that I'm fairly mindful of gendered issues. At least, my mother says I'm a feminist, and since she's a woman, than it really matters. But I've always wondered if I've fallen short in one small thing. Something so small I think I can dismiss it, but the fact that I'm writing about it now, after having thought about it again and again, perhaps means it isn't so small. It means it has something to do with principle. The principle of being a feminist. . .

A long time ago, I read a reflective little article from a beautiful woman explaining her own journey to womanist and feminist thought. In it, she recounts her thrill as a young girl when she learned that ships, nations, and nature are all granted the feminine pronoun. In a way, she then had the same grandeur, the same power, the same guiding elements. But like so many children, she grew up with a maturing perspective. Looking back on that same fact, she instead felt that there was a great injustice. That these things weren't granted the female pronoun because of the good in her sex, but rather, this pronoun was meant to reflect all of the capricious stereotypes applied to women throughout history. Dangerously fickle. Prone to unreasoned fury. Un-originally maternal. And so on. Really an interesting piece.

As a young man growing up with the realization that I was being raised by a woman, and only a woman, I thought to myself, "there's something here I should follow". Of course, I couldn't just abandon female pronoun usage overnight. I still needed to be understood. But I could slowly move my way around it. Ships, nations, nature, and all of the other things in this category could just be exactly what they are: un-gendered. And if I absolutely needed to use a feminine pronoun, I could do so consciously, with perhaps some subterfuge to give it a more complex, honoring connotation.

All's well then, right? Not exactly. Despite all this, I still catch myself relying on the feminine pronoun for one thing. My Bike. And it goes far beyond a simple pronoun - her name is Julia.

On the one hand, I know that I agree with what I read so many years ago. But there's some part of me that just can't look at this bike as just "it". She's my bike and her name is Julia. That's just the way it is. But as this has worn on my feminist conscience, I've asked myself why I am so committed on this one point?

It's not because she's maternal. It's not because I think she's fickle (which some bikes can choose to be, which has more to do with being human than feminine). And I hope it's not because I'm in control, that she's just a vehicle for my dominance. I really hope it has nothing to do with any of these reasons.

I think my bike will forever be Julia because I'm a lot happier with her than without her. And I hope that will always be true for all the real women in my life.

So, do I get to keep my feminist membership card?

A Stone's Breath

2011-02-15T11:05:00.002-07:00

Have you ever rested your hand on a stone and felt it breathing?

Their breath is deep, slow, and strong, like men lost in chanting prayer.

As each day grows or wanes, as each night passes, they only accept the change. They breathe through the changing light and the fading seasons. They accept the cold or the warmth, sunlight or the moon, and just keep breathing.

If you've rested your hand on a stone and felt it breathing, have you ever wondered why you can't breathe that same way too?

Writing in the Mirror

2011-02-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

for the last few months, I have written in my journal a handful of times. That's unusual for me. It didn't matter how late or how tired I was, I always found the time to write at least a few lines.

In the last few months, I haven't been more tired, I haven't had less time. I've lived with more fear.

I have lived with the fear of not knowing. I thought I had learned how to live with that. To live with the unknowns behind my questions. I could live in the in-between among my broad questions. But these last few months, I had many more unknown questions about my future. Nothing big or grand but real questions about the next month, the next year. Questions without answers, that close, made me afraid. I didn't want to think about it, so I stopped reflecting to write in my journal.

Tonight, I called my parents and heard them laughing together. I felt hope as real as my fear. Just as near, just as sure, just as unexplained. And I could write about that.

Saturday's Scribbles

2011-02-05T23:04:00.000-07:00

Without editing, straight from my moleskin. Commence vicious, critical evisceration.

This morning, I opened my eyes at 9:30 and only started to stretch my toes at 10:15. I slowly fond my jeans, argued between shirts, and fruitlessly tried to direct my Samson hair. Finally, at 10:45, all of the pieces of public chase were gathered and properly marshaled, ready to march out the door to only the fanfair of an ipod and the rustle of keys against my thigh.

I don't think I quite know what to do about being alone in the morning. Monday - Friday, there's alwyas a clss ,some meeting, or some work to do up on campus, so it's get up, get dressed, and get out. At most, I let myself eat breakfast alone in solaced silence. Being alone is so much easier at the end of the day. It's like pulling away page after page of a book, leaving them behind on the neglected left hand cover until at last there's the final page, the final word, the final round content period, saying "I am and so it's done." Being alone at night, after a day with voices, people, and their ideas is like sitting like the period on the final page of a book - "I am and so it's done."

But it was morning, too many hours away from the end of the day and it was Saturday, no duties/hours to fill on swarmed campus. I needed a place ful like a newspaper's classifieds page, requiring no depth of reading, only a cursory galance and review, yet still offering the comfort of being shielded and enfolded by the large, loose newspaper walls of words. A bookstore café fit perfectly.

There's something friendly about café shop music - it can be engaging, dull, draw your attention, or be completely forgotten. It can stir emotion with familiarity or unexpected originality. And it's there, for the moment you arrive until you leace. It's almost like that firend you've always had, patient and familiar, at times unexpected and comforting, quietly ignored when life gets too busy but welomcing again when things begin to slow. But the music at a café shop can't buy you that tall hot chocolate. Instead, I paid for the drink, like thanking a friend for his company and bribing him to keep talking to me for another hour.

So I sat at a green table, with my tall hot chocolate on the far side, my offering for listening to the music, and a smaller plastic cup of water in front of me. I had my phone and wallet still pressed in my pockets, which I ocassionally removed to feel their warmth against my hand. I also had my book - dull, heavy, and long, with thick pages had to be earned before they coudl be turned - no squatter like claims could be made by skimming.

Disconnected, unedited thoughts. Kinda unfair right?

Scribbles

2011-02-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I stood by the road waiting for a bus. It the was end of the day and my long-legged shadow stretched behind me, pacing back and forth to the the drum beat rhythm of my toes against the concrete. I kept my hands in the pockets in front of me, shrugging my shoulders like I could push away the cold. Up I walked, facing my shadow, who awkwardly shrugged and turned away. Back down along the sidewalk, I watched the cars climb up along the road, passing through arcs of shadows from the building across the way. Again, I shuttered as I took in another breath and watched with surprise as my shadow exhaled its own dark breath against the ground. From the bright cold around me, through the tips of my toe and up through the stretched legs of my shadow, out along the ground. Coils of cold breath, out and across the evening ground towards sunset.

Dinner with Mom, #7, Winter Blue Eyes

2011-01-23T00:33:00.002-07:00

Dinner with Mom
Small din of voices,
somewhow rising and falling without notice
to the even-toned music that began in one corner
and faded into another
joined by the tapping of waiter's shoes against a stone silent floor
and the clang of plates against bowls from the kitchen behind the bar
Laughter and clipping silverware
words and ordes
ideas and flirts
ice settling in a glass and bud-like candles dancing on a table's edge

#7
On Christmas Day, my parents gave me a Kindle. Twenty minutes later I bought my first eBook - The Lord of the Rings. Tonight, 28 days later, I read the last lines and finished the story, slightly saddened that I cannot turn the last page or close the cover. Having only 20 minutes dividing me from that feat, my mind still aches from the effort and perhaps now isn't the time to write, but still a word should be said or repeated . . .

In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ‘tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey’s end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.

Winter Blue Eyes
With my family in town, I spent the day with them. We ate, we shopped, and we talked. As we were walking through the mall, my father came up beside me and asked, "did you see her?" I was puzzled and asked who exactly he expected me to have noticed. He kindly explained that a beautiful young woman had walked past me, her head turned with a smile as if she knew or hoped to know me.

I hadn't seen a thing.

On our way back out of the mall a few minutes later, my mother said she wanted to pass by that one department again, to look at some shoes. While she pretended to search for a nice pair of boots, a beautiful woman, with braided hair like blades of summer wheat, walked up and stopped in front of me. With a smile that shined through her winter blue eyes, she asked me if I was doing alright. I smiled back.

"So did you see her that time?"