Two different characters at different points of existential angst. In one of the stories, the character may or may not be somewhat... magical? The first character is a bit unsettled, and oscillating between... well... ideas.
(written in a stream of consciousness style - apologies for typos. I was house-sitting and enjoying the air-conditioned house and just kept typing. Both are, of course, unfinished)
Story #1 Excerpt:
It could not have been worse for me, had she died. No. Dying is closure: an comprehensible finality. Death is easier. The reason I surrendered my comfortable existence grew from that nervous uncertainty, that fear stranger yet than the afterlife.
There is a land, they say, worse by far than death. A place to where a person once removed is forgotten. They become holes within the memories of lovers and friends and family. Like phantom limb itches, those fleeting memories cannot be dredged to the surface, yet eternally yearn to be remembered. Within this deathly limbo of pale fog, those taken wander aimlessly, screaming to be remembered, until they no longer know even themselves. They begin to lose their faces, turning grey and transparent, indistinguishable from ashes and mists swirling in that misty region. I could not bear the thought of her ending there.
Sometimes, I wish – no, believe, that life revolves around miracles like punch lines. The divine weaves elaborate victories from traumatic, climactic swellings. Life always seems to involve treacherous climbs up impossible and unlikely hills or mountains, a trying task, to find saving grace caught in the thicket at the summit, and the most gorgeous panorama of sky and trees and rivers and the journey taken: a journey worth the ending. I argue life without climbing through trials and tribulations towards heaven is like living in grey rooms with grey cushioned walls: safe, yet slowly suicidal.
For these very reasons and stranger subconscious beckonings, I sold my serenity for a battlefield. You’ll never find an oasis without a desert, or a summit without a mountain. And you’ll certainly never find true love in only introspection.
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-- following story would be 60% better with pictures. Matthew: draw some on paint and send them my way --
In the middle of a vast forest sat a walrus, and he was lost. So lost, in fact, was this walrus that he knew it not, but it itched behind his whiskers something fierce. As he sat beside his frog-filled pond, he couldn't but imagine this was not his lot. Harold's Pond, he called it, for he was Harold, and it was his pond. As the sun belly-crawled its way into the sky, Harold still couldn't divest the feeling that he belonged elsewhere.
Croaakck the frogs and toads garbled, hopping on their lily-pads and puffing out their chests in morning greeting.
"Good Morning, Fellows," bellowed Harold in his bluskery voice. Peering at his face in the pond, he brushed back his whiskers and wrinkled his nose, staring wistfully at the rippling sky.
"Top of the morning, Harold," the frogs ribbitted in reply.
They sat quietly, slowly contemplating the sun flickering through the breezy trees. Harold felt a new feeling surging through him, a movement, and even his whiskers hummed in expectation.
"Has Any Of You Ever Believed In Anything... More?" Harold rumbled, his voice echoing across the waters.
The frogs kvakked, berping in confusing.
"Thought Not," Harold grumbled. But Harold knew, in his ample gut, there was more, and today, he wanted to see it. And so, with considerable girth, Harold gathered a sack of his things and set off for the sage of the forest. If anyone knew what life was missing, surely the sage would know.
Harold had never seen the sage. Harold had never even left his glade. But everyone in the forest knew the sage had answers, and answers were what Harold needed.
(continued tomorrow?)
zen and not-zen words. mostly not.
don't walk when you should run
or jog when laying down
sometimes close your eyes to remember
the color of the sun
shut the blinds and realize the beauty outside home
stomp through puddles,
or barefoot through muddy meadows
and cleanse your heart anon
fall in love, it may only offer once
dance the dares of distant dreams
until your end, the adventure's ne'er done
follow me, truly we are better two than one
and listen, closely dear,
to the waves of a life begun
I missed two days of blog-writing on this most hectic of weekends. Thankfully my journal suffered not. On Thursday night, I was notified that a bachelor party would be taking place at my house, and one of my roommates was hosting. J was already leaving for Idaho with his girlfriend, so that meant I was stuck entertaining myself. Thankfully, soccer exists. Even then, arriving home at ten meant that I was arriving just as the roommates decided to step it up a notch in alcohol. I said my hellos and then sequestered myself away in my room. I did steal some pico de gallo and chips first. The revelry on the other side of my door was vaguely obnoxious, and managed to make both reading and writing difficult. I don't know how I managed sleep; I suspect it was divine providence.
The next morning, I picked blackberries and then scampered to a wedding, and another, and then returned home to bake a swift cobbler before crashing. Sunday I enjoyed a leisurely morning, went to church, and then went to A's Oregon reception. The wedding reception lasted from 1-3 according to the invite. I got back home at 10pm. I love those people.
Showing posts with label wedding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wedding. Show all posts
Monday, August 5, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Weekend Words
I don't know what this weekend was. A beautiful mess? I spent all weekend at a wedding in SoCal for one of my very best of friends. Normally, I find time for writing every day. This weekend was blessedly chaotic in artful and heart-wrenching ways. I laughed until my sides ached, cried salt towards the sea, regaled fairy tales of chandeliers into A's listening ears, was healed and lent healing, was broken and prayed for God's soothing, loved, lived, listened, thrived.
Words of poetry surrounded me surely as the ocean mighty, whose waves cried against my feet each dawning morning. Burgeoning words blossoming as first flowers after forest fires, violet, gold, and crimson in an efflorescent wildfire. And no time for journaling, for sewing seeds and reaping some glorious paean of writing following a nearly ideal weekend.
I'm bubbling over with words, but I can't even begin placing them down correctly. I'm shy on sleep, my metabolism bristled against my despairing circadian cycle and staunchly refused all food all weekend. Every night, we stayed up late and shared a desperate joy, a last gift whose spiritual offering was not just for A, but was equally a gifting unto ourselves. I want to write. I want to shout and write poetry and scream and dance and live and run around in circles until I wear silly holes in the floor. My heart is ablaze with love, and where art thou now, brother?
Change is this: an end and a beginning. I craved an important piece of this ending, and an earnest christening of this new beginning (A actually broke a wine bottle in the car and spilled wine everywhere. There is some "christening" pun being made here, certainly, but I'm whistling innocently with measured nonchalance). Hugs and photographic memories, heart-wrenching words that followed me all weekend - I'm full of words and empty. I'll never find time for writing everything this weekend meant to me, and I suspect I couldn't. It meant everything to me, and always will. It was sanctified, a holy communion.
I wrote a couple of poems trying to capture my thoughts, and ended up with 6 broken haikus, 1 sonnet (Elizabethan), 1 free verse, 1-ish metric adventure, and nothing worth repeating that adequately captured my feelings as this weekend captured my heart.
These words have soared with me on my journey into normalcy, whatever that is, as another beautiful exemplar of this weekend. I don't know why I put them here. That's how cognizant I am of my current thought process.
The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
And I come back, remembering two different worlds. Sagebrush and succulents, a saline seaside where sands and shores mingle, and roll uphill into a tanned and sunny world. Palms and aloes dominate the fauna, gulls, pigeons, turkey vultures, and herons the fowl. Adobe and sun-bleached or sandblaster woods are boxes leading into the hills above the ocean. The worlds as like as green and grey, and colored in like pallet, each in exquisite fashion. The mightiness of the sea, here, in the southern lands, and the mountains, evergreens and trees, here, in the 45th, a green belt of verdant flora with scarce a pace of dirt between where brush or shrub clamber skyward, greeting the sun's harp strings. I would miss my world, though the greatness of theirs burns brightly in my heart. But when the mists roll in over the mountains, and the dewdrops trickle down tulip petals and along the efflorescent hydrangeas and rhododendrons, and each blade of grass prisms the light into tiny rainbow droplets - I know I am home.
Words of poetry surrounded me surely as the ocean mighty, whose waves cried against my feet each dawning morning. Burgeoning words blossoming as first flowers after forest fires, violet, gold, and crimson in an efflorescent wildfire. And no time for journaling, for sewing seeds and reaping some glorious paean of writing following a nearly ideal weekend.
I'm bubbling over with words, but I can't even begin placing them down correctly. I'm shy on sleep, my metabolism bristled against my despairing circadian cycle and staunchly refused all food all weekend. Every night, we stayed up late and shared a desperate joy, a last gift whose spiritual offering was not just for A, but was equally a gifting unto ourselves. I want to write. I want to shout and write poetry and scream and dance and live and run around in circles until I wear silly holes in the floor. My heart is ablaze with love, and where art thou now, brother?
Change is this: an end and a beginning. I craved an important piece of this ending, and an earnest christening of this new beginning (A actually broke a wine bottle in the car and spilled wine everywhere. There is some "christening" pun being made here, certainly, but I'm whistling innocently with measured nonchalance). Hugs and photographic memories, heart-wrenching words that followed me all weekend - I'm full of words and empty. I'll never find time for writing everything this weekend meant to me, and I suspect I couldn't. It meant everything to me, and always will. It was sanctified, a holy communion.
I wrote a couple of poems trying to capture my thoughts, and ended up with 6 broken haikus, 1 sonnet (Elizabethan), 1 free verse, 1-ish metric adventure, and nothing worth repeating that adequately captured my feelings as this weekend captured my heart.
These words have soared with me on my journey into normalcy, whatever that is, as another beautiful exemplar of this weekend. I don't know why I put them here. That's how cognizant I am of my current thought process.
The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
And I come back, remembering two different worlds. Sagebrush and succulents, a saline seaside where sands and shores mingle, and roll uphill into a tanned and sunny world. Palms and aloes dominate the fauna, gulls, pigeons, turkey vultures, and herons the fowl. Adobe and sun-bleached or sandblaster woods are boxes leading into the hills above the ocean. The worlds as like as green and grey, and colored in like pallet, each in exquisite fashion. The mightiness of the sea, here, in the southern lands, and the mountains, evergreens and trees, here, in the 45th, a green belt of verdant flora with scarce a pace of dirt between where brush or shrub clamber skyward, greeting the sun's harp strings. I would miss my world, though the greatness of theirs burns brightly in my heart. But when the mists roll in over the mountains, and the dewdrops trickle down tulip petals and along the efflorescent hydrangeas and rhododendrons, and each blade of grass prisms the light into tiny rainbow droplets - I know I am home.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
A Toast Unsaid (I'm not making one!)
Note: Turns out I'm (thankfully) not making a toast at A's wedding. I wrote one already, but am thankful my words were not required. Public speaking is not my forte. So, consider this an imaginary toast. Without further ado, my imaginary toast begins anon.
The Toast
One of my first and great memories of A was in freshman year Bible study. Our entire floor had gathered in a classroom circle of desks, and, but moments into the study, an argument started. Who knows what the argument initially entailed, but at some point during the ruckus, A flips open his Bible and claims some insight into the matter. "Open your Bibles to Genesis 2:25, gentlemen," he must have said with sagely sincerity. So we did; and he read with utmost candor, "And the man and the woman were naked and felt no shame."
Whether through perplexity or laughter, the argument soon dissolved into a healing hilarity. From horrible, campy movies, to eternal, comedic floor meetings, road trips, and floor dinners, I grew in my friendship with A. Our sophomore year, we lived together in a four-person suite, and the spiritual motif for our suite-floor was fourfold: men of devotion, men of conquest, men of purity, men of healing. A immediately chose each of our traits: D devotion, J purity, myself as men of conquest, leaving himself as "men of healing".
I think, throughout our years together, A has proven to be that and more. Many times over our years, I needed that healing presence, likely more than he needed my conquest. Now, in his relationship with S, I can see his cherishing and healing still, in harmony. They are a sweet music, whether playing disc golf, nerts, singing strange German tunes, or concocting some delectable dish. I've grown to love this melody, singing healing into each of our lives - a familiar composition, with an aria uniquely new.
I grow even more excited to hear the verses, join the refrain, and dance with them in the chorus of our lives. In the rests and rhythms, the resonance and the renaissance, together let's orchestrate a beautiful future. Together, our euphony will be sweet, our healing bold, in sweeping chorus.
(Toast Portion...?)
To A and S and us all - may we follow carefully the director's guidance, ever creating beautiful music.
The Toast
One of my first and great memories of A was in freshman year Bible study. Our entire floor had gathered in a classroom circle of desks, and, but moments into the study, an argument started. Who knows what the argument initially entailed, but at some point during the ruckus, A flips open his Bible and claims some insight into the matter. "Open your Bibles to Genesis 2:25, gentlemen," he must have said with sagely sincerity. So we did; and he read with utmost candor, "And the man and the woman were naked and felt no shame."
Whether through perplexity or laughter, the argument soon dissolved into a healing hilarity. From horrible, campy movies, to eternal, comedic floor meetings, road trips, and floor dinners, I grew in my friendship with A. Our sophomore year, we lived together in a four-person suite, and the spiritual motif for our suite-floor was fourfold: men of devotion, men of conquest, men of purity, men of healing. A immediately chose each of our traits: D devotion, J purity, myself as men of conquest, leaving himself as "men of healing".
I think, throughout our years together, A has proven to be that and more. Many times over our years, I needed that healing presence, likely more than he needed my conquest. Now, in his relationship with S, I can see his cherishing and healing still, in harmony. They are a sweet music, whether playing disc golf, nerts, singing strange German tunes, or concocting some delectable dish. I've grown to love this melody, singing healing into each of our lives - a familiar composition, with an aria uniquely new.
I grow even more excited to hear the verses, join the refrain, and dance with them in the chorus of our lives. In the rests and rhythms, the resonance and the renaissance, together let's orchestrate a beautiful future. Together, our euphony will be sweet, our healing bold, in sweeping chorus.
(Toast Portion...?)
To A and S and us all - may we follow carefully the director's guidance, ever creating beautiful music.
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