Good-bye, March

A whole 31 days since February


a whole 31 days since February.

It's hard to believe it's been that long
or that it's gone so fast.

or that
... April will be here.


Another March of my life has passed by.

***
I saw I Have Loved Strangers tonight, and I admire the character developments, though I do not understand
***

In my dream,
Jeremiah lies on his side in the streets
He has nothing but what God has given him, and this is a burning in his bones
a compulsion to speak a word he himself does not understand
a pressure in his chest that builds until it finds his voice
What voice is left for him?
He sobs,
because sometimes, cold and ragged at night he wonders
whether it isn't all just a game -
whether there is something in life that could be his
whether burning from the inside out with nothing but a message
is really the only life that he can have,

and whether it has all been some mistake

***
from the play:
lines are half quote, half paraphrase

I always think the same thing when I see a mad prophet: what if he's right?

What if he looks in my eyes... and they're my eyes... and I have to go barefoot through the streets?

What people don't realize is that you do have a choice - you don't HAVE to be a prophet. I won't say God isn't insistent...he's very persuasive... but you can say 'take this cup from me, I won't drink it' and he will pass on. Of course, there are consequences. Perhaps he doesn't answer my prayers anymore. What I know is that He is resistible.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and wicked - who can know it?

Thus sayeth the Lord:
What iniquity hast thou seen in me? That thou wouldst go so far from me? Gone after the imaginations of your heart?
Be ye desolate.

It makes sense to be strong.. and prepared... but don't be afraid. You don't need to be afraid.

At first, it was only the faintest rain.
We were overcome by wonders.

I will make them drink the water of Gall for their words are diseases and must be purged.

The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth ... But his word is in my heart as a burning flame, and I am wearly with forbearing. I must ignite.

In the beginning,
I did not mind the pit. I had questions about the mire. But it felt nice to say things without bad consequences... to myself.

Rats do not care. From that time, I began to mind the pit.

I took hold of the rope, but when they pilled it, my fingers slipped away,
I could not make my hands clutch the rope

The Lord is with me
The Lord is always with me. Who can help me?

I am against them that prophesy false dreams.

This is a miracle - if I walk in a field of wheat, I cannot eat it
- but I can eat this miracle

I'll need words.
I'm perfectly happy to lie - it's just that I've never done it before.

... you're running from an apocalypse that is never going to take place when you could be HERE! with ME! Comfortable and warm!

What does God say of false prophets?
He deplores them. and they die.

We were overcome with wonders.

I was in those microseconds, violently alive,
but those microseconds pile up
and eventually, we came to the end of them.

We found their bodies in the morning
they were shot through with stars.

****

Sometimes,
I think that all I really need or want is God.
and I think I'm right.
But you know, I think there's a comfort in needing or wanting something.
And the thought of not needing and not wanting anything else to me is sometimes
terrifying.

"Kindness"

I attempted to construct this based on a translation provided by a friend from a Bulgarian poem and on the sudden random empathy I felt for its words.
I'm sure I'll want to revise it further.

note: there is a word which frequently occurs as the same word in Bulgarian which means both Kind and Good. I have translated it into many other words, depending on what I felt like connoting in each verse because Kind and Good just don't have the right bundles of significance with them in English.



Sometimes I am so full
that brimming, I shudder to contain
the joy which overflowing, pains
the limits of my body's frame

my very veins and vessels, tangled thick
threaten to burst - a single prick, I long for
to relieve this beauty from its strain
and release me, finding what I truly am within.

Sometimes I am so real!
The boxwood shrub and holly take me in
and gathered in their basket, where my hands
are sought and found by unawaited, unanticipated games

Sometimes I shine like honey,
Then, brilliant lips love me.
Sometimes, a golden sunflower,
As beautiful as the head of a girl.

Sometimes, I am true and white!
How rarely that I glow this bright!
I want a gift to give for everyone - a dream -
I want to share with them - And for my whole love

to burst in pieces, a shattered pane of glass,
glistening pieces scattered into hands
so kind and warm. - And to the tangled roots, to give
some sap to keep the secret that I live!

Sighting

You may think that this is completely random



But you'd be very wrong




This is part of something huge.

Ella Enchanted

Have you ever read the book Ella Enchanted?

Well, neither have I.
But I read the back cover and enough of the beginning to get the idea.

There's this girl who had a curse put on her at a very young age. It wasn't meant to be a curse. It was meant to help her become a beautiful well-behaved daughter. But the best of intentions and the means by which they are carried out sometimes conflict - as it was, the spell was something along the lines of 'She'll do whatever she is told to do' which sounds nice, but really messed with her.

Anything that people told her to do, she had to do - whether or not she agreed. Certainly, this was not a good thing to let other people know about. As she grew up, she found ways to put it off, to do things in unexpected ways, to get around it if the command was not specific enough, but whatever she was told, she would eventually have to do in one way or another. It would press at her and compel her until she had accomplished it.

I feel like I can relate.

Once I have it in my mind to do something, I have to do it. Eventually. In some manner. If I am prevented, it does not go away. It waits. It reminds me of itself periodically.

If too many of these things build up, they keep cycling through my head, and the only way I can remove them is by accomplishing them in some manner, or justifying their impossibility.

(Possibly, there are many things I do not remember... but I guess I wouldn't know)

Thumbs Up

One of my exceptionally charismatic professors walked into the math lounge to give me a 'thumbs up' which it took me a while to recognize since I was palm-on-forehead trying to make the square of a determinant work out to 720.

I hoped this is what it meant,
and later on I found out I was right:



yay! Passing the Qual! and
oh. yay - thesis proposals...
I feel as though I have proceeded through some rite of passage. My reward is to be granted another-

it is rather exciting right now anyway.
...

in the meantime:



there are beautiful things outside.

...and... I need to work on the midterm for previously-mentioned professor's class... /=|
but it's ok! because:

Still There

it would have been a beautiful, sunny picture - if I'd had my camera then.



But I like the way that this came out

Beautiful Things Afoot

I was taking pictures - and some videos - of the cavernous snowy petal tunnel that makes me feel like the bird flying through the banquet hall when I bike through it. Through since the petal snow has become a carpet. I came to take pictures of the carpet as well,

and my Hum Conf prof stopped to say hello, and how he'd just been thinking that it would be a wonderful day to take pictures but not of the trees - rather, the earth, the carpet, the blanket of pink.

I was watching the ways the petals stirred and swirled like a minor hourglass as they followed peoples' footsteps.

So, this is for him.









I will add more when I have caught up at more of my homework...

For the giver of the cookie that I found by my door:

and Back Again

I remember sharply,
but not in detail,

telling you that I was concerned about my in/ability to interact with and care about people on a personal level.

And you laughed,
reminding me that I'd just gone all the way to Cairo for the purpose of volunteering in a school for refugees.

But I was serious.

And I didn't know how else to explain it - It was a feeling - I was describing a feeling that had acquired words only recently - so I had nothing else to say.

So I told myself that it was an amusing, though very troubling, irony.
And I let you laugh.



I have been finding words, slowly. A Taylor expansion of the idea, if you will.

I think it's easier to go all the way to Cairo.

And even while I was there, the thing that concerned me most was not the traffic or the language barrier, but whether I'd be able to deliberately move into meaningful interactions with the people in my group and the people at my school in such a short time, knowing that we would only be there for a matter of weeks.

(It's possible that this is only true in retrospect, and I may revoke these thoughts tomorrow, but)

I think I have been making a mistake
in supposing that I have a responsibility to handle myself, and if I cannot even do that, what hypocritical business have I wanting to help others?

and in supposing that I was too small and broken that I could not be used by God to work among people. He would have to rebuild me first.

I even have quoted on the sidebar, the great role to others that one man, broken on the wheels of living, can serve.
I think I had imagined that one must be adequately repaired, and one could not function while breaking or in a state of disrepair.

And it is good and responsible to know yourself, to handle yourself, but not when these preparations obstruct or delay or dismiss being helpful to others.

Because we are all blind and stumbling and breaking, caterpillars on the rim of a glass.* One of the few things we can have is each other. Perhaps I have no business or ability in guiding, but it matters that we let ourselves be led.

And I am being rebuilt, but by no means should this process inhibit me from giving of the little I have.

I have made the mistake of thinking that I must be careful to maintain and protect what has been given to me, since what I have is not my own.

And it is true, that it is not my own,
but my response should be instead to share it, to always risk breaking again. I am not rebuilt to last.

a candle must not fear fire
books were meant to be deshelved, read, and shared
tents were made to be weathered outdoors




God did not fix Moses or Gideon or Jonah or Abraham first.
He called them as they were.

This is sometimes frightening, but that's only when I forget that all I have is what's been given to me, and it was not given grudgingly - only when I am too distracted trying to keep my own head above water to feel the little nudging currents around me. I should know by now that when submerged, I am given gills.


* (There is a type of caterpillar which is blind and spends its larval stage in a sort of caterpillar herd. They move by feeling their brothers and sisters around them and moving with them. A scientist once placed these caterpillars around the rim of a glass, head to tail. Feeling the first one move, the rest followed, marching indefinitely forever in circles.)

Wayfaring

(I would like to briefly comment on the vast difference between knowing what one should believe and actually believing it. I do not know how to pass from one to the other. Sometimes it seems these worlds are hidden in wardrobes.)


Sometimes I am as a leaf on the water,
not knowing how wide the river runs, or how deep,
but feeling the subtle currents on all sides,
nudging me along the streams, rivers, tributaries
to finally join the ocean.

Sometimes I am as a salmon
feeling the waters pressing against me,
nosing upstream and fighting, because even when I don't know the scent of the waters,
I know at the end is a familiar place, from which the water comes.

Sometimes I am a tired shark
flicking my fins just enough to keep the water moving over my gills,
weary and wanting to rest (but to rest is to sink),
enjoying the glide when I find ways to move (to conserve) with least effort
gathering strength to swim again.

But always always
always going home

And when I wash up battered and fish-eaten on the other side
They will know me by my sweater.




At the end of the world, the waters are sweet






(this post contains at least 5 allusions)

Qual Kit

I got another wonderful thing in the mail the other day.


Thank you!



Tomorrow, I face the Qual.
But it's only the Math Qual.
(I have a lot of friends in Physics)

Valleys

according to The Conference of the Birds

it goes:

The Valley of the Quest
The Valley of Love
The Valley of Insight into Mystery
The Valley of Detachment
The Valley of Unity
The Valley of Bewilderment
The Valley of Poverty and Nothingness

Be nothing first! and then you will exist,
You cannot live whilst life and Self persist -
Till you reach Nothingness you cannot see
The Life you long for in eternity

Like a traveler happening upon a signpost,
I have been taking some assurance and comfort from these descriptions.

cherry blossoms

especially at night


taste fine-grained like lavender baby powder (if you didn't choke on it)

would appear a circling cloud of smooth flake-thin scales

feel like soft blue bedsheets that are just that right temperature of cool

sound like a shell held to someone else's ear

3.21.07

I like today's date.
It's such a peaceful unassuming number.
and
(3*2)+1=0+7



I saw an old friend today.
By 'old friend,' I mean she's been in Ireland for half a year.
I wondered, as I recognized her, whether I was dreaming. Then I wondered if I was in Ireland. These possibilities both seemed more real than her being here.
We couldn't stop and chat or anything like that, and she won't be here for long. So here I am wishing we could've had a little longer when I wouldn't even be thinking of it had we not seen each other for just that moment.

Seeing previously absent friends again always does something interesting for my sense of emotional balance. 'Happy' isn't the right word.
It's like when something too good to be true ends up being true after all.



She picked a good time to come. The cherry blossoms and various other blossoms are brushing the sky like oil paints. If ever shadows could be made of light, this would be it. The fluffy patch of white in Eliot Circle is politely radiant.




One of my dormies was telling me about a Japanese term that recognizes the beauty of transience.















And,
just in case the elusivity of the piano theme music from La Historia Oficial has been bothering anyone else:

The Feathers of the Soul

I have always admired wings and feathers.
I wanted to have both when I was younger. I probably still do, but haven't thought about it much lately.

I remember being upset when I learned that the balance between a bird's size and ability to lift its own weight in flight tips at about forty pounds. I was upset because I weighed something between 45 and 50 pounds when I learned this. If only I had read more about birds sooner. I could have used wings...

Birds heavier than 40 pounds, like albatrosses, must be content to glide, since they cannot sustain the sort of muscle mass necessary to flap that kind of bulk into the air - the needed energy intake is just not sustainable.
For a long time, in my head, I built gliders that would have adjustable tails and wingtips. I wanted something that could give me falcon capabilities.
I haven't thought about that for a long time either.

I think that swimming through air would be an incredible feeling, and am somehow not content to swim in water.
So I run and bike and ski/board and climb trees instead.


This is from The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar, translation by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis



One night a fool of God wept bitterly
And said: "The world, as far as I can see,
Is like a box, and we are locked inside,
Lost in the darkness of our sin and pride;
When death removes the lid we fly away-
If we have feathers - to eternal day,
But those who have no feathers must stay here,
Tormented in this box by pain and fear."
Give wings to aspiration; love the mind;
And if at death you'd leave this box behind,
Grow wings and feathers for the soul; if not,
Burn all your hopes, for you will die and rot.

Vertigo

I found this posted on someone's door, and tracked down the quote:

Anyone whose goal is "something higher" must expect some day to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us. It is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
-Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Question

There was a story I read as a child long ago, which was well-organized and well-illustrated, almost a little too well for my age to appreciate (I thought this at the time, and found the content a little creepy, but I would like to find that book again since I don't think it would scare me now).

It was a story of vikings, on a journey, with many 'legends' strewn and wrapped together, almost like an Odyssey for a Viking cast. I say 'legends' because I don't know enough about Norse myths and legends to tell if the author of this story made them up.

That was years, well over a decade ago, I'm sure. But images we find sometimes stay with us and return when we understand enough to make use of them.


One such image is the black dog:

Here is the story as best as I can remember to tell it:

There is a part of the story where the men re-enter their ship after some battle to find a black dog sitting on the deck, staring straight ahead. It is not theirs. Several men try to move it, but it is impossible. The dog effortlessly resists all attempts to push or pick it up, all the while staring straight ahead as if the men are of no consequence.

The leader of the Vikings tries to command it to leave. In response to this direct address, the dog answers, "There is one question I can answer, and that is not it." Enraged at this insolent uncooperativeness, the leader further insists that the dog depart the ship, asking why it is there. To everything the dog answers evenly, "There is one question I can answer, and that is not it."

There is another main character on the ship, I don't recall his name, but he is the - what I like to call - Odysseus character. He is clever and observant. He sees the tricks, he sees the big pictures, he knows the stories. He is the twist at the end of the plot.

He comes to the leader as he tries to argue with the dog (the dog is beginning to growl and bristle) to tell him that he knows of tales of men who return to find a black dog rooted on their deck. It the black dog of fate. As long as the dog on board, the dog will steer the ship to one of two destinations. Eventually, the men will find either an island filled with treasure beyond their wildest dreams or the roaring falls at the end of the earth. There is no way to move the dog, and there is only one question it will answer.

"Where are you taking us?" The leader asks.
"There is one question I can answer, and that is not it," says the dog.
"What question is that?"
"There is one question I can answer, and that is not it."

This goes on for weeks.

They cannot move the dog. They cannot know whether it will bring them to glory or destruction. They are in unfamiliar waters and cannot chart their course.
They can only hope.
And think
of what the right question might be.
They try questions all the time, but none of them are the right question.

One day, the leader gets fed up.
He thinks of a question and goes to ask the dog.

"There is one question I can answer, and that is not it."

Finally, the leader loses his temper.
He goes off shouting at the dog to get off his ship - it's his ship, he's the captain, and he orders the dog to get off! Where are you taking us? Are you going to destroy us? Where are you taking us? How do we get rid of you?

To each the dog responds,
"There is one question I can answer, and that is not it."

but it is not a forgiving dog. As the leader rants, the dog's answer becomes a growl, then a snarl, then malicious barking, but the captain goes on. He tries to forcibly remove the dog from his ship at which point the dog picks him up and begins spinning him in the air above his head, about to hurl him off of the ship.

Just then, the Odysseus character runs up through the chaos and directly asks the dog, "Who is your master?"

The dog immediately stops and puts the captain down. His eyes oddly glazed, he sits back and, like a robot, says "There is one question I can answer, and that is it."
He sits and tips his head back where the Odysseus character can see the dog tags around his neck. The dog stays stock-still as they approach to read them and allows the men to inspect its tags.
I don't remember the name on the tags, but I believe it was one of the sea or wind gods. The captain calls out, commanding the dog to return to its master. The dog howls such to tear open the sky and rises up, disappearing into a tumultuous wind.

It is gone.

The men erupt into shouts and cheering, but amid their voices, another sound is growing and tugs at their attention.

"What's that noise?"

The dog had left their ship, but not before steering it well on the way to its fated destination. The noise, coming from the rim of the horizon, only grew louder. The dog had taken them to the falls at edge of the earth.

There was little time to prepare.


****

He who has ears to hear,
let him hear.

Pink

The flowers on this tree are all so pretty
colors and petals so neatly arranged



Their leaves bend down like rowing wings

floral sea turtles

or neatly-feathered birds pushing off into the air



They all live together





And when they fall, their whole round dish of pink meets the sidewalk
where I pick them up
and in my hand, their delicately soft yet structured form
rests gently limp across my fingers
exactly like a dead bird

Gang Aft Agley

The deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon. Already the sun had left the valley to go climbing up the slopes of the Gabilan mountains, and the hilltops were rosy in the sun. But by the pool among the mottled sycamores, a pleasant shade had fallen.

Walking slowly through the brush, I expected to find it somewhere - a floating, loosely basketball-sized cloud of color, the pink that surrounds the sun on a horizon. Although it came and went, it never vanished far into the forest. It did as it wished. I'd come to find it before it could return again, to keep it in the forest.

I didn't have to look hard. I found it, warm light pulsing calmly by the pool's edge, and walked quietly to it.

"Hey," I said, although it doesn't speak.

I picked my way near it and sat down. It hovered a few inches off the ground.

"I found you," I said obviously. "I knew you'd be around here. I wouldn't forget you. I'm not that kind."

I mustn't make it feel threatened or panic. But, neither was there any place for it here. It could not be permitted to stay or show itself anytime soon.

From the distance came the sound of men shouting to one another.

I'm never sure how much it understands. It doesn't speak and keeps to its own affairs. It's sometimes unusual, sometimes unexpected, but it makes no difference.

"You know, if it weren't for you out here, I could stay back in the fields and finish the work around the yard...," I said, trying to smile and without a hint of admonition.

I think it understands more than it lets on.
It is yet mysterious to me. It seems to mean no harm.
"You're different." I said.
I watched it beginning to glow like a coal in the darkening evening.

The little evening breeze blew over the clearing and the leaves rustled and the wind waves flowed up the green pool. And the shouts of men sounded again.

I looked out across the pool.

"Look across the pool," I said shakily. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Look across. Tell me how it could be. No, I mean, let me tell you... I'll tell you so you can almost see it."

And as I said it, it felt like offering firewood to the sun. I realized I don't even know if it can see, or which direction it faces.

"Look across the pool, and I'll tell you."

I would've liked to hear its story, though.

I reached in my side pocket and snapped the safety off of Carlson's Luger. My hand tightened around it and began to shake. I looked at its softly throbbing cloud of pink, churning slowly like a rosy star.

"We're gonna get a little place," I said. "And you won't have to drift around in the forest. We'll have a cow, and maybe a pig and chickens, ... and a little piece alfalfa -"
I think it heard the catch in my voice.

I raised the Luger behind it.
There was just no other way around this. I know I could not have asked anything of it.

"Look down there across the river, like you can almost see it. Gonna do it soon."

But it rose slightly, hovering above me.
I'm sure it saw me holding the gun.

But then it left and floated off, across the river.
I watched the rosy glow dissolving in the distance, reflecting off the waters already darkened by the fading sunset.

I think it understood
both what I was doing, why I had to, and how it must respond (even though I think it knew that I would not be able to actually carry it out).

I stayed beside the pool for a while, leaning back on my hands and trying to see across the thickening veil of darkness.

Then I re-snapped the safety, put the gun back into my pocket, and began the long walk home.
Tomorrow, I'd begin work again.

There you are

good timing.

HAPPY 3.14159265... DAY!

Let the festivities begin!
(or if you've missed Pi Day, here are some alternative ideas from Dinosaur Comics)



I was happy with turning out a couple of these, but then I get this phone call..

Do you have sidewalk chalk?

Oh, did I ever...


















Or,
in realtime...




and.
um.



"Pi is three"


we'll forgive him.

Come on

Just a little more.



We've been waiting for you.

Dear World, P.P.S.

I'm sorry. I was being justifiably angry

I've been thinking of tulips and a documentary called One.

I don't really hate you.
(Mostly because I will not accomplish anything with hatred.
There is greater strength and power in joy than in anger.)

I find you detestable and your methods destructive and senseless.

But I keep seeing the World you could've been,
and the World you can still be.
You can be beautiful.
Even now, you are. Admit it, but take care for your broken places. Show some decency.

What do you want to be when you grow up?
You have a responsibility to work on that.

Please grow up, World, so we have somewhere to live with each other.
You will probably laugh at me, but sometimes my dream for humanity
is for us to be like puppies in the Garden of Eden.

Be a World where we can play outside in the sun without being burned.

Dear World, P.S.

I still hate you.

You cause so much pain, even for those who care about you.


One of my friends told me of psychology experiment she had done in school in which a pair of voles were separated for 14 days and given access to alcohol. Voles mate for life and are normally separated from their partner for only minutes at a time.
14 days must have been an eternity. The experiment was to see how the voles would respond to their isolated situation and the availability of alcohol.
They took it.

After 14 days when they were reunited,
they were individually scrambled and completely dysfunctional together.
I don't know what was gained from the experiment.

World,
what horrible experiment are you conducting with us,
... are we conducting on ourselves?



This drunkenness began in another tavern

I want out of this box.







How are we supposed to help each other when we are isolated voles?


I am sorry.
I have learned to live well in confinement.
I thought it was the best way to live. I practiced.
It is good, but it is not all.
It will be hard to learn otherwise, but I don't want to stay dysfunctional.
I have made much progress.
Help me break out of this prison for drunks.

Seed

This is one of the posters on my wall



If you click on it... you can actually see stuff.

I kid you not

I decided to go biking in the Tideman-Johnson direction today (3.12.07),
for personal reasons.

I didn't go very far,
I just needed to go. There is a river
that moves near the trail.

When I came to the road, I turned to go back
and saw a small trail that might be difficult to bike on without sliding.
I decided to take it,
for crazy reasons.

I biked, and slid some, and came to a place where the river was framed with beautifully arranged stones - where I drew that picture.

****
I interrupt this story to bring you a previous narrative of how, when snowboarding at Mt. Hood, there was a trail through the forest that looked as though I must go very slowly and take care not to fall too close to trees. I decided to take it,
for crazy reasons.

I fell many times, very near trees.
One of these times, I stayed down - tired and uncertain of where it was safe to move. Then I looked up, and the sun was shining through the pine trees that towered over me, holding the sky on their pointed tops.

****
I interrupt this narrative to bring you the instant in which, no longer able to sit still, I needed to go do something involving expending large amounts of physical energy and velocity,
for personal crazy reasons.

I took my bike, and went south in the rain. It seemed as though the clouds were breaking up so I chose the route that would take me to the overpass, in case the sun came out. The rain kept coming in thin little streaks as the sky became lighter. And, as I turned into a curve, moving very quickly, the sidewalk framed on both sides by sleek pines, the sun brushed its mask of clouds aside and the world became a brilliant glare of silver and outlines.

The wet road lit up white with reflection, the white clouds filling the sky showered down gleaming glassy threads of rain, the pines standing tall on either side of me became as shining ice. As I turned the corner, before the sun again retreated, my world was one of glossy white and edges.
******

The pines held clumps of snow in their branches which the sun, melting it, caused to fall like rain around me and
I swear the sun had such an angle that every single drop hanging, falling from the branches shone like a diamond in a commercial.

What could I do but lean back into the snow and watch the drops fall from the tops of the pines in the brilliant sky
stopping short of my eyes, descending instead on my goggles?

It took me a long time to get back to the main path and the lift,
but the such a surprise was so worth it.
****

I watched the water run through the shape of the river
and the sun came in and out of hiding (as did the hummingbirds). It occurred to me to blur my eyes a bit and watch the river's patterns. The shape of the river does not change as the water hurtles through it like a bird through a banquet hall,
and down the small waterfall between nicely-walled and arched stones on either side.

I walked down a bit past the froth from the waterfall and,
I kid you not
the sun was sinking left and behind me, and as I looked back upriver,
it was as if the froth was laced with silver glitter.
****

With this in mind
I have decided
that the best path to take
is the crazy one
the one that you might slip or fall in, but invites a try.

But only if you keep your head up
and keep the sun in mind
otherwise, for all you'll learn, you might as well have taken the easy way home.

And today,
I wanted to climb a tree and sit in the top like a lotus

because of things like cherry blossoms
and rivers, and how the shapes of pain and joy and love and loss and life and death flow together

because today dying and falling in love seem like the same thing,
both mess with the sense of identity
There is too much river out there
and too little me to refuse either.

Because I've answered the question I've asked myself for years:

Given one of two options,
which would you choose?
1) To expend your life in search of truth with the foreknowledge that you would never find it,
2) To live comfortably and happy, never finding truth, but never searching either.

I am suspicious of people who choose option #1 too quickly. I wonder if they understand either of the choices.
It's been 2 years since the question was posed to me in this way.

Today my final answer is a solid #1.

Oh, hello

Reset? Refresh? Restore?

*



I have waited for these for so long
And then I walked right under them without noticing
because I was trying not to miss something else


Somewhere, in some parts of the world yesterday
it seems an unknown button was pressed

There were not immediate consequences.
Possibly, that remote control was then dismissed as broken or lost.
It may be wedged in someone's couch right now. They have no idea.

I think that it is lying on a field of warm grass with an open blue-clouded sky above.
I think it is God's
and he uses it to remind us of how all things can begin anew.
It is life and freedom and strength despite.

Since we forget so often
that it is always possible.

go, Jonathan!

I think I'll try Defying Gravity -