Every season is love

It's not been a month for blogging, or journaling on many days. It's difficult to find time for extra writing when novel writing is already the struggle of the month. After writing 1700 words, sometimes I don't want to immediately rush into writing for myself, and even when I do, I often don't have the time to do so. And because of this, journal time gets tossed out the window, blogging gets flush down the toilet, and novel writing takes the fore.
It's a beautiful time of year. The cold of winter has arrived and it's no longer the portion of fall with brilliant colors. Fall is so short, sometimes. It comes back for a few days of Thanksgiving and for Halloween, but the interim is all winter's edge and the hunger of darkness.
Every season provides room for complaining. In winter it is too cold, too dark, or too rainy for far too long a time; in spring, the colors only arrive at the end, and really spring is winter in disguise. Spring, too, is rainy, and the snow hasn't melted off the mountains for hiking, and the allergens flourish. Summer is beautiful, but sleeping is often difficult when the sun refuses to set and the warmth lingers after dark, and the wetness of the air, and the constant sweating, cloying weather. Fall brings lovely colors, but dies too swiftly, entering eagerly into winter's deathly embrace. Fall suffers the same pains of winter, and worse knowing it has only begun and you've many months left to go.
If you want to complain, there are always points worthy of complaint in each month. And yet, you can also celebrate the differences, and there is ample opportunity for such blessings and thanksgiving. Fall is beautiful in its colors, and resplendent in its holidays: chanukah of the lights, thanksgiving with its cornucopia of colors, family, thanks, foods, and the warmth of togetherness; halloween with its candy, and the entire season full of pumpkin, apples, harvest, corn, turkey, fireplaces, cider, chai, and maple.
Winter arrives with the advent of Christmas, and what better holiday is there than that? Shortly after, you celebrate the new year, and the greens and the reds of christmas join Janus' two-faced nervousness about the impending days. There is valentine's day, the day of love and single-angst, stuck in the center of the northern-hemispheres cold, and st. patricks day celebrating green in a season of white and gray. Winter is full of snow, rain, lovely mountain peaks and early morning fogs. It is the best time for snuggling by a fireplace and reading a book, and drinking warm tea and lighting candles.
Spring is a blessing of verdancy, as the first snowdrops peak their heads out from the frost, and the deciduous trees tentatively turn out leaves, and the evergreens shake their white-fur coats from their sleeves. The animals emerge and the birds begin to return, and the fogs and lakes lie in cold beauty as the world remembers colors and light. Wildflowers come to life on the mountainsides, and the butterflies and bees remember life.
Summer is the time of life, the blooming of full flowers: lilac and lavender and rose, and the sunflower season and time where everyone is outdoors enjoying each other and the world.

Buried Treasure

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/buried-treasure/

in the staggering steps of night

a trite, yet honest, man, speaks:

standing upright means less than once.

brushing back the cobwebs of summer

as a brawl laced with liqueur -

ah, he stutters, whittling at a stone

he clasps tight between his fingers,

war is a brutish adze we claim carves

figurines, or a hammer for sewing doilies -

he sips his soup carefully, balancing

each broth drop on his sharpened blade.

true marble sculpture, he tells me,

requires just the right sort of scythe;

and then he dies laughing, and night goes on.

I live in a world where everything that merits nothing demands my attention, and those things that deserve my notice are drowned in the clamor. Today, I received five piece of mail that all said: “urgent, please reply as soon as possible”, and each soon found a new home in the recycling bin. And there are those tiny advertisements from charities, demure, tentative, knowing that each cent must be well spent and spread thin over a vast territory. But these are the silent questions, the dumb mendicants and lepers who shame us with their neediness.

Anyone can laud the fashionable, the showy, but it takes a great deal of courage, heart, and patience to love the derelict and the wretched. But everything, almost without fail, asks for some semblance of notice. It may be an obscure misdirect, or an embarrassed request, or a gaudy sign that leaves no doubt of intent, but we’re not eternally solitary, aloof creatures.

There’s a lot of life, yet, to live; I see this in myself. But I must also engage in vying for that life in others, so that their joy, too, may be complete. Often I set that precedence so blithely, and blindly glance over the wounded ones, the lepers, the untouchables – those who need more than anyone else in the world the touch of divinity. Can I be love’s hands and feet?

I'll love you always

How can you say, “I’ll love you always,” without crying? What instance of life must such words be used, with what persuasion, that tears are not implied? And the floodwaters rise, tonight, as I whisper these goodbyes. I’ll love you always.

Is someone dying, or leaving for a distant place, or hurting in unfathomable ways? I’ll love you always.

Is someone furious and threatening departure, or foreign to such words and ways, or depressed? I’ll love you always.

These are the words of Christ, dying for us, the words of Stephen as he’s stoned, the words of the father stolen away from his son, or the boy going to war, or friends setting sail for the new world, or two friends estranged by the beliefs of their fathers, or the tragic tale of two lovers in warring factions – I’ll love you always.

And these are the words on my life, as friends never forgotten set their weary feet upon far-reaching trails and step away, into the horizon, into the rising sun, into the wandering deserts and a promised land – I’ll love you always.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/ill-love-you-always/

La la lune

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/la-la-lune/

Of what does the other moon dream?

That half whom we never might see

Does it face the stars complacently?

Knowing the sun its other side feels?

it pulls at tides on a world unknown

oh, olwen, I’m following the heart of thee

as a doe lightly leaping over still waters

my heart quickens – I loved the darker half last

la la lune, la la lune, what do the shadows see?

You can spend every moment of every day studying the facets of spiritual love, and be completely baffled at its prisms on a twist. “You can learn all that there is to know about their [love’s] ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they [love] can still surprise you at a pinch. –Tolkien (with Ben interpretations and additions).

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

What is it, Olwen? It is the quilt of snow over the trees and fields, the cirrus clouds on summer days that look like cracked ice drifting over a tropical sea, it is in the sunflowers and snowdrops in their seasons, the tulips in the moment, and the cold snarl of the mother bear; it is the dance of sun and moon, the clasp of a warm hand when yours is chilled to the bone, and it is being tucked under a mighty wing, wide as the heavens and closer than your own heart. 

Gentle Summer Love

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/06/gentle-summer-love/

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Sunny days pierce me as surely as biting winds, colliding with my soul and warming me. It’s as though I’m sitting beside a fire with my friends, the cool wind nipping at my neck but my eyes are mesmerized by the embers bright, and the sparks like shooting stars fired back at the heavens – I’m warmed and unafraid, the master of my destiny. And love surrounds me in just such a way, the intense fragility (nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals / the power of your intense fragility - cummings) of our spirits strengthened like a three-cord rope (And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart – Ecclesiastes), until we are more than the things we bring.

There is peace in this world, and anger. As the sun rides high over the sky, and sets in pumpkin and cranberry sauce like a thanksgiving spill, the storms of night linger over distant Europe, tearing snow up from the mountains and dashing it violently against the rocks. The herbivore quietly nibbles at flower stalks while the predator stalks the prey, and what shall we say, when the beast survives? That the world is not beautiful? But see the petals, the roses, the sky, the mountains striking even in the night where only their shadowy silhouettes frame the horizon.

Tonight, I’m enveloped in loving-kindness, and shipped into sleep, praying the waves are gentle, else I might wrestle with the good night.

The King, the Warrior

the warrior survives, hides,

between the pillars

of low and high tides.

the sea rages denial

inside an empty shell –

iron red-hot courses

in martian veins,

with quicksilver wings

its mercurial elements

shift, love, engage;

and who, eros, are thee?

to force atlas over

my shoulders

the wolf father hearkens

the ocean mother beckons

howling in waves the earth

my warrior’s garden,

and prays his king’s alive

Everything is words now. I see them scrolling down the walls like the matrix. Every flower efflorescing; every bird swooping into the eaves and chirping before sunrise; every smile and touch; each fragile-as-glass moment, mercurial as the Oregon spring, translates into a babel-spring of kaleidoscope diction that twists as I shift the scene.

And nothing is plain, the world sings a chorus of curious words, like the opening scene of the Silmarillion. I understand little of this logos. Brent Weeks, a bestselling author wrote (tweeted):

If, while puking, you consider what words would properly describe what you're feeling... you're a writer.

Sometime this is me, though my skill can leave the descriptions wanting. I still want to write all the words, and fill my journal with meaningless swaths of them. While washing my hands just now, I contemplating how rubbing a bar of soap was like rubbing a religious icon, hoping the relic will impart its healing through its, and our, touch. I also contemplated the ill-advised pun using the word “lye” and dredging up some iconography wit, but decided against it.

Listening to the sermon this morning, I’m balancing each sentence spoken, tasting it as a delicacy – does it have the right sauces, spices, panache? The message was moving, and well spoken, this morning, and also of great importance. EM is an acupuncturist of words, needling the nerves with wisdom, wit, and an eagle’s eye for uncomfortable Biblical passages worth disassembling and putting back together.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

We tackled 1 John 4, and among the verses of love, so customary we blithely read them now, there is this barb, like glass in the cake. And hearing this, we scramble for a way out, as a mouse hearing the shrieking owl, knowing our falling short.

We’ve all been hurt, at some point or another. Some numb the darkness down, tying it like Loki into our guts where it rumbles with hurt as our growing shame drips acid on the face of our fears and pains. Some explode – it’s fight or flight – and erupt in the face of offense, ever prepared for a fight. Internalize or externalize, at the end, we must still love.

I’m still reading Iron John, a book about the masculine and the mythical journey of masculine holistic life through the fable called, unsurprisingly, Iron John. Today, the passage was on the warrior, and I’m trying to bind everything I discover into a coherent whole, but as with the words, sometimes it seems like shattered stained-glass windows scattered across the hole of night.

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashipn the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.

(Tolkien : Silmarillion)

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/the-king-the-warrior/

Inundated

Inundated

seas outside,
who requests this moat, tonight?

Once a house, a boat

soaring on an inland sea.

In undated lands, we

flow over, overflow

low mountains, clouds, drifting

below the flood, below

gold-leafed mud, shining

tiny cities, water-whelmed;

rising, the ocean breathes

salty dreams alkaline,

brine bitter as wine clams

over hearts tonight

locked behind window, pains

bleed over the sill, puddle

in your eyes, faltering

hands fumble, still

desperately distinct.

all your answers lie

in my heart tonight.

Where you are in always

time, there is, love

never sleeps, ever

dreams.

City

I'm a country child. I was born with a backyard, a garden, a large maple tree and a collection of birch trees, and all the space for running around an energetic boy needs. Eventually, we moved across the country, from mid-west chills and humid heats into precipitation and less cloying heat. We lived in a crazy house with an epic backyard, my favorite backyard of all time. We had a deck on stilts with stairs leading onto a hill that sloped down towards a creek. Then the backyard sloped steeply up towards a rickety wooden fence with planks missing (perfect for scampering out of the backyard as a shortcut to the high school soccer fields) The tiny creek was a boy's wonder: frogs, tiny waterfalls, chemical-orange colors, fizzing waters, eddies, salamanders, the smallest of fish, water-skippers. Because of the steep slope, my parents gardened in terraces, and my father built a series of descending levels on the sunlit side of the backyard. Much of the backyard was shaded by towering pines.
When I was twelve or so, we moved again, to my parent's current residence. The backyard is a forest and a creek meanders through there as well, though getting to it proves a worthy task (we were more stubborn than the brambles - we made paths). I've never lived in the city, in an actual city. I think there is something frightening about cities, and fascinating. The magnitude, the intoxicating and muddled scents that assault the senses, and the claustrophobic and unnatural meshed with the communal and industriousness. It is an ant colony with every ant its own queen, and other queens besides: queens of business, queens of religion and culture, queens of media and industry, queens of monetary value across the spectrum, and queens for each district and home.  How do you make sense of this chaos?
This is what today has been. A city. Friends suffering from hurts, panic, stress, fights, busyness, married life as introverts, changes of churches, difficult work partners, sickness, more sickness, tough job situations, shortages of money, frustrated bosses, hospital visits from fear, anger, frustration, impatience. I woke today and expected a day off, a day of peace, and I received a sensory overload of emotional angst from each friend I visited today, and worse things. It's like visiting a city and encountering a wall of smog that irritates your eyes and burns at your nostrils until you cry. You want to fix the industrial waste flooding the city, want to give life to the trees, blue to the sky and waters, vigor to the zombie-ant-workers shambling down the streets. A tsunami of hurt, and I felt dissected from it, as though I could not pierce the wall and help, only watch as an outsider.
When my friends hurt, I get nauseous. This is most particularly involving fights. When people fight, and my friends are hurt (emotionally, spiritually, physically etc) in the process - whether I am witness or not - my gut gorges on a city of its own, a city of chaos and visceral turmoil. I almost feel physically ill if the anguish is enough, and just lie in my bed praying. I have not felt so for a long time. But tonight, as friends suffer without sabbath at the mercy of endless bleeding days - does it come tonight? Will I sleep, or lay awake and stare at the window, listening to the thoughtless slapping of drops against the glass and screen.
And finally, just finally, the compelling news of the finish line, broken and reddened against the asphalt. I drew this, I think, and I knew this ended here. Too many things, too fast. I wanted one chance, I wanted to help. Is there any possible arc of time where winning was even a remote possibility?
What a night.


From space, the cities are stars, speckling the globe as candles. All these fireflies, street strobe lights -what stories these constellations? A global bioluminescence, transforming this marine world into a glowing jack-o'-lantern, an incensed thurible, a disco ball, spinning and dancing around the sun. I dreamed, last night, of a regression of time. That was my original topic.  These were the notes I wrote at 5 in the morning when I awakened from the dream:
dream: going back in time - everyone is going back in time
elms are labeled (even though they are maples)
tell dad to remind me of a quote I said: apparently my journals traveled through time?
(find the black spider of time)

Time to drink chamomile tea, curl up beneath the blankets, open the window, light a candle, read a book, and drink in the serenity of the world when everyone has retreated into themselves.


I was back home, the luscious greens of summer still wreathing the yard.  The garden clambered up the fences and sprawled across the walkways. But strangers had invaded our yard and placed stickers on everything, weird giant labels on trees, bushes, grass, garden, house, and somehow even the sky - even the clouds were labeled. I glanced at the giant maples towering over the yard, and the giant label read: "elm" in atrocious yellow and black. It was not an elm, it wasn't, it wasn't, I heard voices shouting inside my head. But I could not argue with the strangers - the label transformed the tree into an elm, and the beloved tree was a maple no more.
I didn't want an elm, I wanted a maple. Father came and walked around the yard with me, glancing at each peculiar sticker. Sam came running outside, and we knew something was wrong. He was getting younger. Somehow, we knew that each day, he was losing a year his life. Tomorrow, he would not remember this year, would have lost a year of his life. What would happen when he reached birth? We tried, each following day, to remind him of this, but it worried him so, and we gave up. Soon, he disappeared. Then I started getting younger. I could not stop the regression of time. I wrote things in my journal so that the next day I might remember them, but I forgot about my journal the following day. I thought up a crafty and hopeful phrase, and told my father to always remind me of it, each day until I was no more. I cannot remember the phrase now. It was a blessing, a faith, and a hope where none existed.
We found out, when I was but 10 years old, that a black spider was causing the time regression. My parents, too, now regressed in time. Every day, they lost years, and we only knew through the keeping of journals. We searched and searched, but could not find the black spider that was destroying us. I woke before I was undone, though I remember my parents getting younger faster and faster, almost surpassing me. A frightening vision into my psyche, I suspect, though I awakened with wonder. I remembered thinking that God had given me a phrase to keep me, even in the times where everything appeared inexorably in decline. I almost remember the phrase, the one I implored my father remind me of each day, but come morning I just could not quite recall it.

Lyrique

Thunderstorms rage outside as I listen to melancholy musique, tearing up at the somber poetry and its symmetric outpour. Do not decry those tears; rain seeped through the window into my soul. I pen, in the silence that is the storm.
Where I stay up all night / And all that I write is a grey grey tune
Even the dim light of this laptop screen draws moths towards the window - night creatures eager for light. The bats soon swoop in for the feast. A great silk moth latches onto the window, and in my fright, I thought it a bat. Are they here for the light or the shelter beneath the eaves?
Are you looking for answers / to questions under the stars?
Dimly, the street lamps flicker through the valley beneath, illuminating needles of heavenly weeping falling onto unyielding asphalt. The souls of a thousand faces, spread across countless spaces, struggling, fighting, praying. I imagine a web of intersecting colors, illuminated by the cracks of lightning splitting this sky, a network of all our spiritual supplications. I read the Genesis, I read Psalms 23, I read Philippians 4, and I read Revelations 22. Listen, the storm is a song.
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Dreams collide, dreams of balloons and skies and transparent goodbyes, but distant, distant, as though a painting of a photograph of someone else's lives. It is a speculum of silver and stained glass, showing clearly nothing of love and hope and love, and the drums of the stormy night rage unending, though it is not rage, but the humming of bass strings.
All I ever learned from love / Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
Small rivulets burn their whispering paths down the hills into the valley, into the creek in the hammock of the hills. I suspect the salmon leaping upstream to love and death, inextricably bound, mind this not. I can hear their splashes, a counterpoint. A coyote howls, an owl shrieks, the creatures stand still. But not the rain. I smile, and wonder what whispers the wind to comfort the clouds. May those words be carried far and fair this night.
Won't you come away with me tonight? /  We can fly past the moon and the starlight
What the water wants is hurricanes,  / and sailboats to ride on its back
And I ride the storm into slumber to swim with the salmon, gallop astride the lightning, and follow these rivers unto the vastness of the ocean, so I may gaze in its reflection and witness the sky.

And then, there are no words. Only the weeping of violins as bows breathe across silver strings.

Homeward Bound

We played soccer tonight, and I managed to hit a girl in the face almost immediately. I felt TERRIBLE. So I played defense for half the game. Following the game, Peter and I raced for the swings and the ginger beer (no alcohol content, thankfully), and discussed our weeks. It was, perhaps, the hardest day of work I've had in some time. I had such a simple task, but could not seem to get anything to work. I basically had 10 hours of poor excuses for my boss today, because I may as well have been not working.
And tomorrow I'm going home (family's home).
I think I spent an hour thinking about what books I wanted to bring with me before I realized I should probably pack other things, too. Hopefully labor-day weekend traffic isn't abysmal. Anyway, when we finished soccer and swinging, Peter and I walked back to our respective vehicles, and Peter asked if he could have his keys back from my tote bag. However, his keys were not in there. It was getting dark (8:15? 8:30?) and was nearing nautical twilight. We scampered back out to the field and carefully perused the grass. I even took off my shirt and rolled through the grass, because we couldn't see anymore, hoping I might roll across his keys. I just got incredibly itchy. Frantic, we called D and asked if anyone else had picked up keys, and he said no, so we checked the cars again. D mentioned that sometimes smart phones have flashlight apps, so we could try that. I found a flashlight in my car and we used one of our phone's flashlight apps and began searching in earnest once more. It was astronomical twilight at this time. Without the flashlights, we saw nothing. We strafed across the field and eventually, on my way back, we found the keys.

We were both, in a sense, at the edge of our faith. We shared an extra ginger beer and prayer of thanksgiving before each driving home. It was near 10. Still, I'm thankful so much for friends that will roll about in the grass with you to find keys, and friends who will pray and share their deepest fears with you while swinging and drinking ginger "beer" while sitting on the backs of cars. It was a gentle reminder of rest and a difficult week finally finished. And now, in the morning, I'll be homeward bound.

Belief

Amid other deep or casual conversations yesterday, I was asked at one point, "Do you ever find it difficult to believe in God?" I responded no, with a little explanation, but it's actually quite a difficult question. There are a couple of ways this can be interpreted, even, so I'll start with how I responded. (These are my answers, and not indicative of actual apologetic arguments. I'd have to write a book to explain everything, not a paragraph)

1. Do you have trouble believing that God exists?

No. I've read numerous essays and books on apologetics, from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim writers. From ontological arguments to arguments of design and existential arguments and arguments from morality and meaning - all of these and more I've delved into, searching for various proofs. I've been moved by each, and I certainly have been affected by some more than others. I've even read their counter arguments, and arguments from the problem of evil or chaos or arguments on why there does not have to be a being beyond existence, beyond time, beyond space for such things to exist.  But at the end of the day, my experience and my belief and the things I've seen and heard and felt propel me deep into the heart of God and knowing. I don't have any trouble believing that God exists, but that does lead me directly into the next question.

2. Do you ever have trouble having faith in God?

I think one of the biggest cultural blows to religion was at our nation's foundation, when our nation spurred our culture in a very individualistic, deistic direction. I remember a story I was told, about a missionary who went into a small third-world country devastated by famine, war, and sickness. When he was helping at the church, he struggled every day with the hardship, the pain he saw, and asked the priest, "How do you stay faithful when you see such pain? How do you endure when surrounded by such trials?"

The priest was a bit surprised, but responded, "How do you have faith when you want nothing? And culture tells you happiness is simply another toy easily within your grasp? How do you have faith when it is harder to see what you are being saved from?" Sometimes I do have trouble having faith. Not often, but it happens. I heard once that if you do not doubt, you are not asking enough questions. Sometimes, doubting can spurn you into greater wisdom or into seeking more fervently after answers. Yet if doubting turns you bitter, perhaps you are more angry than curious.

If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

~Yann Martel Life of Pi

3. Do you believe that God cares? Or believe in God's interaction in your life?

This comes back to the topic of deism. Yes, I do believe God interacts with me on a personal basis. I have some different perspectives than many American Christians, but I very fervently believe that God loves ME and died so that I could be sanctified by his blood unto salvation. So do I believe that God interacts with me and my life? Everyday. Do I believe that God cares? Absolutely. Do I always feel comfortable in that belief? Certainly not in the most difficult circumstances.


There are difficult times, and there are less difficult times. Sometimes it is like when I have a runny nose or stomach aches. Whenever I suffer such symptoms, I regret not being thankful when I am in good health. You only remember how difficult times are when they are difficult, and how much of a struggle doubt is when you are doubting. The wider view is the tougher one.

Comme ci comme ça

The more I see of people's lives, the more I'm dazzled by each person's fantastic defiance of expectations.  I see a couple people who are, at first glance, so similar: sporting, outdoorsy, lovers of good books, outgoing, competitive, *swedish*.  I think, "those two are like twins! They are so similar!" Then, as I interact with each, alone and in tandem, I realize they are so different as to be beyond belief. He likes soccer and running sports, she all sports, especially football, soccer, and ultimate frisbee; he enjoys day-hiking, and she prefers backpacking and long hikes; he endeavors to understand all the rules in games so he can compete with authority and knowledge, while she tends toward sneaky strategy and feisty competition. He's a hopeless romantic and she owns no jewelry, wears no makeup, dislikes receiving gifts and is ambivalent about dating.

What did I see at first that was so similar? It's mind boggling the difference I see now! Perhaps I'm simply unobservant, or perhaps this is simply the nature of persons, the marvel of creation. At the atomic level of being, God made us unique. I think this is why the tragedy in Death of a Salesman always breaks my heart. It is the tragic lie we swallow so heartily: "you are not important; you are a dime a dozen." It is the most malicious of lies, that which (thank you Obi-Wan Kenobi) is true, from a certain point of view.

But it is not true. The more I see, the more I realize that if I knew all God knew about each one of us, I could not but love everyone with all my heart. I would sacrifice myself for any one of them, knowing the trials and obstacles each has faced, bringing them to this point of life, and knowing their thoughts and reasons. It places things into perspective if I get angry or short with anyone (hopefully I don't). "What was life like in their shoes, today?" Or this past week, or year. 

Well, that was a series of thoughts that might be long essays if I spent more than a couple sentences on each.

I was planning on a Sabbath day, a rest from activity at home. "Introvert time" if you will. Of course my hopes were stymied. That's fine though, I still had a good (if not the most restful) day. I did have the whole morning to myself and I got to read a book (Fellowship of the Ring). It has been weeks (June 26th I think, waiting in line to have my book signed) since I've read a book in one sitting, so I'm thankful I got that opportunity, finally. I did not have time for writing that short story. I wrote a little more of the Jak "Ragnorak" story, and perhaps detailed a little for myself of the Harold the Walrus story, but I wrote no stories about clouds or not-people. Sorry, P. Next time.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
~ Mark Twain

With that, I think I'm going to surrender writing, and go do some reading. Maybe I can read two books in one day. How magical would that be? So much for writing a short story tonight. Shikata ga nai.

Gunshot Robbery of Spring

Thunder exploded in the deep distance, the gunshot robbery of spring.

Only later, sometimes, can we see the faults within ourselves.  From a distance, that image on the television looks real, real people living their diverse lives. It looks perfect, ideal, these perfect people walking as heroes in their worlds. Even the villains can look statuesque, as marble figures stern and cruel. But you take that step closer, and you see pixels, the atoms of digital expression, and realize these are not platonic forms. We are not the shadows of these images, nor are these images we see on the wall perfect. But sometimes, in the moment, it's easy to consider ourselves chiseled specimens of mankind when evaluating our own beliefs and arguments.

Not that we always do, oh no. Humanity bites and growls when threatened with classification. Some never build the self-esteem requisite in deeming oneself the exemplar of humanity. But the point is that often, in the heat of the moment, we believe our viewpoint valuable, more valuable, perhaps, than it warrants on later introspection.  We think our theories, our philosophies, our faith and creativity and experience as the experience and it is difficult to listen. There are times when it is difficult to stop and pay attention to other's viewpoints, difficult to imagine that this wall of shadows we've set before ourselves is not all reality contains.

Even in simple examples like writing a story, I believed my piece elegant and worthy of merit. Glancing back at it now, I wished I'd put it aside longer for revision, as each paragraph is rife with cracks and flawed expression. This is how it is, isn't it? But if we make mistakes, so, too, can we learn from them. In my life, sometimes I feel like spiritual, emotional, physical seasons come and go as surely as natural seasons. I'm passing, perhaps, from spring to summer, or summer to fall, and I can hear the thunder in the distance, I can smell the storm on the wind. 

And there are more important things than my issues, my conceit, my problems. I have friends whose mothers are dying; whose newborn babies cannot swallow food, and they've been in the hospital for days, trying to discover ways of feeding their child; friends running from or enduring painful relationships; friends starting new relationships; friends struggling with money and jobs and anxiety and despair and stress; friends who are lonely or tired or aimless and despairing at finding any direction to their lives. And there are friends just in transitions, frightened of the change.
It is humbling to think of these things and to consider, what have I, really, to compare to these in my life? The worst thing that happened to me this week was getting stepped on with cleats because I foolishly enjoy playing soccer without shoes. Or maybe missing friends in distant places. Humbling. Sure, I'm not certain where my life is going, or where God is taking me, but that friend is losing her mother to cancer, and that friend over there is fighting panic attacks, and that friend over there is suffering from x and y and z, and so on. 

Old Spontaneity and Taxing Mondays

Some days cost more than others, and, when finished, I just want to run out into the sun and capture its rejuvenating rays. It was a day steeped in memories, without occasion for fully fleshing them out. I often wish writing was my current vocation, though I've much practice remaining before such time.

Following work, I biked to Freddies, grabbed a bunch of veggies, and biked home to make a vegetable-medley curry. No one was home, so while I ate, I played a solitaire game of bananagrams. 

I could probably play that forever and it might never get old. (though I did make one mistake: qiut is not quit)

~Storybook Princess~

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a princess

Not for her tresses, or dresses or wealth

Not for her smiles, perfect and white

Nor for sweet silence, beneath perfect starlight

Nay, though I’d love these, and more I am sure

But this storybook princess I never quite saw

For she lived in a tale, a world of her own

Lonely and sad, beautiful but alone

Surrounded by suitors, greedy and insane

Desiring her beauty, wealth or her name

Yet I fell in love with the words that she said

The air that she breathed, the paths that she tread

Some strange sort of magic, made of love and divine

Carried her words from her world into mine

And my world into hers as I read her sweet tale

As she scorned every suitor, even princes did fail

Every night by candlelight I dreamed in her land

Adventures we’d have, across warm desert sands

Forests and seas, clasping our hands

Always hoping and praying this night may not end

I fall fast asleep book cradled in arms

Praying she slept, my words cradled in heart

Until one fateful day, dream we gained what we sought

To come close together and never need part

--------------------------------------------

I wrote this poem years ago, when I wrote an amusing personal essay on something literary or other. I remember thinking, why would I fall in love with a princess when I could fall in love with a librarian or an explorer (I'll probably marry Carmen Sandiego when I find her - I suspect that name is really just an alias for Irene Adler, though). I was going through my old poetry, and thought this one charming. It fits in nicely with the thematic elements of the book I'm reading.  (I'm no poet, so forgive its lack of artistic merit)

Right now, all of my reading is geared towards my next piece. I was considering, at first, writing a mythos, but I'm contemplating something a bit out of my comfort zone: a mystery. I used to love watching mystery shows with my mother, even when they scared me as a child: Perry Mason, Matlock, Diagnosis Murder (the scary one of the three). I love the Sherlockian method wherein, through intellect and careful study of relevant information, a solution is intuited, however unlikely. I considered, after reading this poem (which is why it's here, however embarassing), whether I might consider writing a piece like the hallowed hunt - a mystery set in a fantasy world.

I also considered writing a piece in chapter snippets, like the Count of Monte Cristo, and every day for NaNoWriMo just publishing that day's snippet here. I'm excited, though. Another entry, full of digressions. Maybe this justifies more sleep.

Day #3: Cache of a Lonely Dragon

For the road often wanders
as feet are want to do
while valuable thoughts it squanders
what 'long the road we knew


I've long grappled with my introversion and its debilitating charm that strangles me, comforts me, tethers and kindles my anger aflame.  It asphyxiates and cossets in equal portions, a mercurial dichotomy that oft leaves me incensed or blessedly at ease.  Is it only or is it lonely? Not lonely, I suspect, for my companions are many. No, it is more diabolical, an infernal poison seeping into my joints with a casual familiarity and a caustic finale.
Loneliness? No. I am a dragon, sitting atop a hoarded mountain of gold, capable of shifting into human form. Entering town, I stare agog at the destitution, the starvation and beggary. I ponderously place a half-penny into a mendicant's empty cup, trundling along the city square.  I speak with them, dine with them, and subsequently align with their thoughts, falling desperately in love with them. Yet I cannot share what I hoard alone.