robin's shadow

we met in April,
flowered in June,
I loved him like a robin loves the northern spring
and winter came

we fell with the temperature
froze with snow
We were the swallow and the Happy Prince
the nightingale I was, oak I remain

I think the sun is like a flower that blooms for just one hour

May the glow of those days light the rest of my life forever

God is a basket weaver

When I ask about which strand is the right one, she smiles and shakes
her head, and slowly weaves it into the basket that I didn't know how
to see.

She reminds me that it's not so simple, or so singular -- the way we
all are carried.

Valley spectator, Spectre speaking

Regina Spektor is speaking to me tonight

On the Radio
The Call
Fidelity

I couldn't remember these songs properly when I clicked on them. It's
like somewhere, along the line, I told someone to ring me when it was
time because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep track myself. The
memory stored itself away until the day of its reminding.

I'm having my heart broken in beautiful and alive ways - breaking like
an egg. An old shell is slowly cracking so that what was safely
stored there in the first place can emerge and run and fly again.

Someone somewhere is singing my songs back to me again.


I know why we go through valleys:
In valleys, it is easiest to hear the echoes.
I know why we ascend mountains:
To call down into the valleys - the message has been carried and
loyally delivered
from mountaintop to mountaintop
we bring good news and guide ourselves through the valleys: the lands
where we to hear the messages we were meant to receive.


Now I know, ... why I take music like my lungs take air...
I keep my memory in music, the way fish navigate by smell.
No wonder
I feel lost without it, and at home immersed in it.
No wonder
In darkness, I am inclined to silence, as though trying to allow
myself to be slippery and forget my way through lto escape the claws.
And No wonder
in tight situations, lacking traction,
I cling to songs like a tow rope.
Though my hands may run red and ragged, and the rope slips, still I can follow.
Though it may be dark,
I can hear the signs echo from the valley walls, enough to remind me
of the steps
They pull me strongly to the land they came from, the land they're
tied to in which my memory dwells, and won't abandon me to whatever
world would claim me elsewhere.

The music crawls like rope down cavern walls, waiting to remind me.
.

Eternity is the Cure for Passion

This song just reappeared itself within my head. I think the title is
"Sunny Days" by Jars of Clay:

"If you're waiting on love,
it's a promise I'll keep:
If you don't mind believing that it changes everything
then time will never matter."

I'm glad someone somewhere is singing my songs back to me when I need them

Mending Wall - Robert Frost

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

I love the dragon that sleeps in the earth

I love the dragon that sleeps in the earth.

The smoke from his nostrils catches the glow of his breath.

The glow from his belly alights on the smoke of his nostrils
which drifts on his steady breathing
casting the dancing shadows that are the world we see.

I love this dragon
my eyes catch his embers as the glow shifts,
winking through the curtains of smoke
twinkling like stars

Even my body is a plume
Drifting like a banner in his breath

Language

We learn by imitation
we synthesize
we innovate
we produce

But, even our productions are affected by what we express,
intentionally or otherwise.

What we express is shaped by the way we anticipate it to be
interpreted by ourselves and others.

In a Dune-like manner,
We all of us are interacting through a medium - language, culture,
communication - by which we channel selected combinations of those we
have observed; we manifest chosen proportions of everyone and
everything that has come before us for the sake of significance and
meaning that can again return to the world from which it came to be
seen, interpreted, and perhaps even understood.

I learned words from my parents, and every interaction with every
person since has flavored their meaning and adjusted the colors by
which I choose to speak. It was the same for my parents, and for
theirs, and for those before theirs…

The voices of the multitude who came before us speak through our
mouths, with our voices. What is "my" voice, but a precise
combination of the voices of those multitudes?

My voice continues through those with whom I've interacted, and theirs
through mine. This is how we participate in the linguistic and
cultural memory. This is how we think, collectively. Our mixing
voices long outlive our tiny breaths.

The Growing Season

Even in the furrows of difficulty, does nature sow the seeds of resolution

The plow that breaks the earth and seeds for new growth seeds come
hand in hand. One hand drives the plow, the other sows the seeds.
Rending and resolution meet in the furrow.

First, one prevails, then the other. But, both were there from the beginning.

stories as meaning and memory

Stories are how we organize and make meaning of information.
Therefore, the best mnemonic is a good story.

Two images of God

God is the _whole_ journey
(and by this, I mean all possible paths)


God is a writer
he has to let his script
go out and be interpreted by others
here is hell

To Light, as seen through the bushel

(In the way that a leaf or a twig carves a path through the stream)
I am a sculpter (and a sculpture)
of time.

I am a time sculpter
a reorganizer
a gatherer

I am the shepherd's apprentice
of fireflies
and the little light they carry

I love the dragon that sleeps in the earth

The sun scattered across the water
The breath that spreads a smile from its first to final
The voice that echoes in the stars
The wind that makes a lifeless banner dance
The reflection in the mirror of the sky

I used to love the edges
since they gave the light a stage to dance

But, I am learning to love the light.

When I learn to love the blinding sun from which it comes,
I will know everything and nothing

I will know when we finally peek
around the corner
we will see not a man behind the curtain
but come face to face with ourselves.

I delay, because then there will be nothing left
… and everything

(We will dissolve like birds in the throne room)
Never a clearer mirror

Bly's Badger, Keats' Stars

With whose voice do I scream
as I root my feet in the earth and expand like a stalk
imploring for heaven?

The scream
takes all the effort of my life,
but will make no more sound
than the lifting of fingers from the keys before the final bow.

But, it is not a voice.
It is the hollow wind of the universe
breathing
in which I am a flapping banner

Oh, but to fashion my form like a whistle and
capture the glorious friction!

The expensive friction, the difficult friction,
the grit of one presence saying
I AM HERE
as it meets another
and moves across a surface

Oh, and I love friction,
the unnecessary heat returned to the system.

But oh, to feel!
It is to know that something at least is and was -
the blessing and the curse of substantial beings
to feel the rasp and feel the proof of friction.

And, with this friction,
this inefficient heat,
this proof of being and changing,
with this friction as my guide,
I craft a whistle
so that the hollow breath of the world
may catch the sails of my being and SING
before
this breath expires.


I breathe gratitude to those who came before, and left me their images
with which to think.

The Cup that Rumi longs for

This is the passion that drives the universe
- to have something to say -
and to strive your whole life
your whole being
generations
climates
solar systems

to say it

Because it never comes out quite right

But, if you could just send it out
And hear yourself echoed back from the sky,
your heart could die in peace

they seem like truths

All that you see and seem is a mirror, and you are the projector

People are good at saying what they WANT to be true

We are what is left when it comes time to solve for the final unknown
after all else is measured.

the tour

Many times,
I wanted to say:

"I'll be your tour guide.
I'll take you everywhere and show you everything,
but I won't say a word. See what you will."

My heart is begging that you'll choose to see and understand.

Do not look directly

Some things tarnish when exposed to air
and so I hide them here
wrapped in words

The ink takes the 1st
beating of reality
(those with eyes may see)

The words, the second
(those with ears to hear may hear)

What remains is for those with hearts to listen to the silence underneath

Longing (another definition)

The desperate pledge of palm on (sliding) glass

sometime in maybe Aprilish, I think

I am in China :)
Spring turning hot summer
downpouroutside
night, not asleep yet
I am in CHINA!

healing the world

I have a friend who is Jewish.
I asked him once about the laws he chooses to follow -

He said some of them, he really believes are the best way to live.
For some, it's hard to tell what benefit they may have. But, as tiny
humans, we don't know what is really going on in the world, and what
part obedience of the laws plays in the grand scheme.

There is a phrase for it - I forget the phrase - but the meaning is of
Healing the World.
The world is broken, but by the actions we choose and the laws we
follow, we are healing it without really knowing the exact ways that
this is done.

I'm not following Jewish laws.
But, I was thinking about this because today, I feel like I can look
back on what I feel is a small part of my role in healing the world.

even more fragmentary

the even more fragmentary nature of recent posts may be resolved once
I exist on internets that allow me to edit thoughts post-posting

edit to the previous

( I just realized I had written this in a notebook, but it somehow
didn't make it in with the previously-posted ideas)

I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
I also feel lost.
Maybe I am supposed to be lost for a while.

always seeing the stars

Sometimes, life seems like maybe one long dazzling punch in the face,
that you don't realize it until it's happened.

All Summer and the day after

"I think the sun is a flower, that blooms for just one hour."
- All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

I think, that like many natural phenomena, human beings go through
periods of extension followed by the necessary contraction, followed
by the rebounding expansion, and so on.

It sometimes seems like every 10 or 12 months, I get a really good
month. That isn't a bad ratio.

I think I feel sometimes, that my time for expansion is beginning to
cool, and it is time to contract once again. I think I feel a little
disappointed, as though the opportunity to stretch and grow came, was
hobbled, and is now passing. There certainly were good parts, and I
have been accomplishing my missions, but it doesn't feel like the kind
of full stretch that it seems it could have. I will have to begin
gathering my energies for the next one. I look forward to a little
shade and quiet.

Smile for the camera

I have a lot to be happy about all the time.
I am living in a dream year.
But, when I look at pictures of myself here - even ones where I
thought I was happy and smiling, thought I was being pleasant, thought
I was looking exuberant - I think I actually look kind of depressed
and maybe a little desperate, as if I am afraid that looking into the
camera will open a channel to something I'm not ready to see or to
have seen.

The most disturbing part is thinking at the time that I was happy and
fine, when the evidence seems to point to more ... weary, and slipping
in my poorly calibrated attempts to keep up the act.

to Tumblr

For internet accessibility reasons, it might be a while until I can regularly get to this blog. So, if I have something to say, it might end up on Derivations on Tumblr instead. I'm just sticking the link here for now in case I need it later - if you try to follow it and can't, it's because I haven't actually used it yet. I also finally set up email posting, so maybe I won't even have to use it. Also, the 'old' Wordpress Tracy Update will also be continued on the Tracy Update tumblr, since I have discovered that tumblr is so much more convenient for me to use here...

Here we go again (deep breath)

gettin' up again~



got a call to answer

what solvent to create the solution?

"First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."
-Matthew 23:26

These simple instructions have seemed so difficult to follow for so long - how do you clean the inside of a cup?

...Perhaps by drinking it?
Can't go under it, can't go over it ...

the breathing is worth the work

To my 5-years-ago-self:

Thank you for your work,
the first good lungfuls are already worth it.
I know you remember this song in your struggles - it is now one of emerging -
keep going - there is sight of land - and we can almost stand again...



I'm not sure if you can hear me or not,
but thank you.
The drowning has seemed awfully easy at times.
Thank you from the future. You did well. We're going to make it.
briney, tangled in seaweed, and all...
Don't let up...

Thought pocket

God is all of the journeys

There is a cradle that can be made in the distance between two peoples' eyes

the pain of parting is down payment for reunion

everyone is me, but with their own unique changes. I am you, with some important differences.

when trying to make decisions under emotional influence, remember that your brain is on drugs

everyone just wants to be respected, understood, and allowed to live

a torn seam in the fabric of my life has just smoothed over.
it's a little like being able to see the whole sky again - front and back.
and maybe the water will warm enough that my fractured iceberg will dissolve, and hey, it's all water anyway.

I got rhythm, I got music, I got my wide horizon
my world just recovered some of its fullness

regathering the horcruxes… I made too many .. In attempt to save it, I divided my heart and scattered the pieces into hiding. I face a cooling - now I've been remembering my hiding places - bring them back together, gather embers - it is not yet time to fade.


I think,
that as the life moves up through the trunk from the earth,
it can feel the other branches, the roads not taken,
as it stretches towards the particular leaf from which it will be exhaled back into the world.


When You Are Old by Wiliam Butler Yeats

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced among the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

(Happy Easter.)
One month since I made it to the river

dispersion

it seems,
that when a signifier is no longer present,
that which was signified disperses,
like dandelion seeds or fireflies or mist
and alights a little on everything else around

My grandma's favorite color is green

I come from a long line of strong women
My grandmother began college and moved to a farm to raise 6 children.
My mother and an aunt went to Veterinary School
I have been a math major, a nuclear reactor operator, and made it to China
Enterprise and entrepreneurship run in my family, and I expect similarly of myself

My grandma's favorite color is green - like growing things
I remember:
When I was young -
Saving her perfect strawberry jam by eating it so slowly that it began to mold,
Grasping the upper bar of my crib in protest of being made to retire there in the blue-gray twilight,
Being unable to escape either breadcrusts or unfinished milk
Her approval of my cursive handwriting, and eventually, of my gift-wrapping
The way she colored perfectly within the lines
The colored egg she brought me from a research trip to Ukraine
The greatness of her smile when I visited her in the hospital

When I was young,
I hid from the way she made me eat my breadcrusts, at an age when grandparents were judged by their willingness to provide icecream.
She was the strict one, the no-eating-cookie-dough, brush-your-hair-100-times-a-day, stand-up-straight-don't-slouch, eat-all-your-crusts, drink-all-your-milk, you-don't-know-what-you're-missing, one.

Raising 6 children herself, she had more than enough to spare on a family half that size. Old milk went back in the fridge to come out again when your tummy had made room for dessert. She made nearly every kind of potato at Thanksgiving and whipped out the smoothest mashed potatoes short of instant mix.

She always said she had a dull personality, so she had to wear bright colors, but if you've seen her, and seen the way her enjoyment of life and her pride in her family beams out of her smile, then you might also find her claim a little hard to believe :)

In my high school and college days, I enjoyed the friendship and conversation of a grandma that no longer had to be strict with me. She took interest in my pursuits and encouraged and supported me such that there are many things that I literally would not have been able to do without her. Solid as the stone from which her house is built, and just as midwestern, she raised a family able to go off into the world, and grandchildren who benefit from a firm family foundation.

She is a strong one.
She's lived a long, and sometimes difficult life
Her family is successful, and she enjoys bragging privileges.

I have forgotten how old she is, since every year she tells us that she is going on 27.
Soon, I will turn 26.

When her health came into question for the second time,
She chose probable death over extended medical treatment.

I can only hope that
I, too, will be this kind of strong.

I love you, grandma, from thousands of miles away.
Thank you for who you have been in my life.

relief... is not the right word

I am having a very hard time thinking of the right word to describe the feeling of being told that the letter that might be the last message you will ever be able to send to someone, has made it across the time and distance, and has been received and read.

it is grateful
it is grieving
it is almost debilitating
it is finished
a part of me can let out the breath it's been holding and rest in peace
and the rest of me celebrates mournfully

I told my brother the good news I'd heard - that his email had been received and read.
"That's good to hear," he said - his shoulders relaxed, bringing his forehead down to his hand as the first tears came, and mine followed.

Life

... is blindingly glorious

Spring is here, and once again the world is still spinning, and all right.

I remember two springs ago, noticing that after seeing the world light up again, I felt at peace to let it go on without me, seeing that it was growing and greening again - the life was not forgotten in the cold earth. I keep trying to push the rest of the world on with the warmth of my breath, and let it leave me behind to fade gray and smile to watch it go.

I feel that for a long time, it has been hard for me to tell the difference between living and dying - between breathing, growing, exploring, creating some chaos,... and trying to put things in order so I can die responsibly.

My grandmother is showing me living and dying.
My brother and I are trying to show her how well the world is turning - its ok to go.
My brother's slideshow reminds me of life as well.
The pictures are not well-composed, the subjects are often unprepared for the photos, and many are blurry.
But, the life in them! I remember it! A lesson, for me.



Spring is here

I think it's about time I came back to life.

Living is chaotic :)
I will have time for cooling later

belief makes things true

(thanks to Gavin DeGraw for the song title)

I think, that necessarily, people are not to be trusted;
they are to be believed in.

Fractured (I glimpsed a reflection in the gathered shards)

and I realized that it was me
I was broken
I was shattered
I was scattered long ago

and the visions I see in shards around me is not a lost God, but my soul (it is both)
I am not the only searcher, wading through the mirrors casting slanted golden light. I am not the only traveler, the only gatherer, stooping for pieces smaller than myself - we all of us are pieces

I am also a sharp-edged splinter, cast down with my brothers, my sisters, and in the confusion, I have thought they were someone else. I am a piece in the puzzle collecting.

The God I saw dispersed in shining lights,
As he was dispersed,
so the self I am familiar with appeared
and wondered

I call to the stars and they call back because we spoke with the same voice. They hear their answer in my echo.

In this moment, it is I who knows this.
But, soon it will pass and reflect from a different piece of fractured glass.

a crack around cracks around cracks
and so the light gets in
and we are dazzled

Pitzeem and the Mare

I brought a copy of "The Night Abraham Called to the Stars" by Robert Bly with me.
The other night, realizing I was parched for poetry, I turned to it and asked for water. I'd glanced across this poem before, but now have eyes to see:

Pitzeem and the Mare

Let's tell the other story about Pitzeem and his horse.
When the One He Loved moved to the mountains,
He bought a mare and a saddle and started out.

He rode all day with fire coming out of his ears,
And all night. When the reins fell, the mare knew it right
Away. She turned and headed straight for the barn.

No one had told Pitzeem, but his horse had left
a new foal back in the stable. She thought of nothing
All day but his sweet face with its long nose.

Pitzeem! Pitzeem! How much time you've lost!
He put the mountain between the mare's ears again.
He slapped his own face; he was a good lover.

And every night he fell asleep once more. Friends,
Our desire to reach our true wife is great,
But the mare's love for her child is also great. Please

Understand this. The journey was a three-day trip,
But it took Pitzeem thirty years. You and I have been
Riding for years, but we're still only a day from home.


( and another poem, just the last 2 stanzas:)

The Country Roads

...
In my early poems I praised so many lost things.
The way the crickets' cries in October carried
Them into the night sky felt right to me.

Every way of knowing is blessed by bootleggers.
Because the government does not allow delight
To be sold, you have to find it on the country roads.

平江路上找到我心 Peace River Road

Sometimes,
I arrive at moments like node in which I feel that I am in just the right place for the life that I am in at just the right time. They are brief, but deeply reassuring.





As I strolled Peace River Road that night, I felt like a variety of obstacles were shifting and passing around me in such a way that for a few sweet moments, they were all absent at once, giving me a rare straight shot of perception and appreciation. Like all the clouds parting to expose a mountaintop for a few brief seconds, like realizing Mt. Hood through the trees, like flying on my bike around the curve just as the sun emerged on fresh rain and set the world a-dazzle, a clear sweet breath of something like freedom.















It wasn't hard to feel that I was not just at 平江路, but that it was I who lay comfortably beside the river, the bridges my arms stretched out across the water.

A single star peeked out at me from the beloved sky behind ancient rooftops



平江路 was just perfect. I almost felt that, when I'd been trying to get to China for so long, I had actually been trying to come to just this place at just this time. I thank the hand of God.



And I feel grateful to everyone who helped and encouraged me to get here. My Grandmas, Aunt Karen, parents, friends, colleagues, advisers, and also the support of my boyfriend. All the life that brought me here.





And that's how the changes go, isn't it?
They just go, sometimes, like tectonic plates. *Shoop* different.

Spring

The days lengthen and the air warms
I feel my life rise up out of the waking earth

beautiful life

I remember writing on this very blog how my life was going to be awesome, because I was going to be so aware and try so hard. I've been feeling lately that I've just been doing a lot of doing. I need to find the hole in the cracks to fall through and be somewhere real and valuable. But, that description is misleading because I still think that where I am now is a good place for me to be at this point in my life. So, maybe I'm just being dissatisfied or thinking too much about what I don't have. However, I sometimes reflect on the things that keep me busy vs. the things that feel like being where the life is.

But then again, I guess there's always life to be near and in. Need to tap into that every day. (I've been considering whether up and doing Teach For China would be a welcome and growthful change in my life, or whether it is really more of the same (in the way I'm approaching it).

In the meantime, this is somewhat encouraging, and reminds me of other ways I used to write on here ...

2.20.2012

"Jesus > Religion" Spoken Word

found on An Aspiring Yogi in the West, thanks again my one-sided friend.

Imogen Heap, Filmed in Hangzhou

noticed on An Aspiring Yogi in the West's blog. A blog I have a one-sided friendship with.

counting blessings

my gosh, it has been so long since I've written, that I accidentally read a bit.

It is inspiring, to some extent, to think of all the things that I have now, and all the ways that I have come, however normal or expected they may be,

because there was a time when I did not have even them.

I had forgotten what I'd come through.

merge the looking-glass

I was hovering above the surface of the water, on a ferry between China and Japan, contemplating the nature of my fear.

There was a time when I felt established in my concept of the world and of God, even if other aspects of my life were trying.
My concept of God was not unlike as a parent, encouraging me to grow and become spiritually mature and responsible, to stand on my own and no longer need parenting.
This concept began to erode and eventually decentralize, showering every aspect of the universe in a dazzling brilliance, as if to illustrate the riddle: Godisnowhere.
I described it to a friend once as though a long-time pen pal had written one final letter saying that I would no longer be receiving letters from them this way, and that they were not who I thought they were. I didn't know where to look after that.

This corresponded with series of other life-events that wrought general shattering of plane of my life. When I stand on one shard, I feel I have access to the life and memories connected to that shard, but not to memories or self from the other. It feels like it began the morning I was pushed through the ice into cold water and awoke, submerged in my lower bunk, disoriented, homesick for the first time in my life, and trapped, unable to go home. My room was an echo-chamber into which rocks were daily thrown. I first swam, then crawled out and learned to walk again over a period of years. I told myself that I could stay with things because if it ever became /that bad/, I was young. I could restart my life, and still live a relatively long time. In some ways I hadn't considered though, I had already started over, and shouldn't be too hard on myself for only being 5 years old. In the times I could not walk, I learned by being suspended from the mirror of the sky.

I still sensed within me an understanding and desire to know God's will and do it, and a trust that it would be the best way to live, but also a fear that God would call on me to give too much. But, in my difficult times, had not there been provision? Had it really been too much? ...it still feels difficult to volunteer for, although volunteering still seems like the correct choice. I feel conflicted, and I sometimes fear the voice in the sky, though I know that my pain is not from God, and instead, there was provision.

I am reminded the example of a child staying with a kind aunt while his mother is in the hospital giving birth to a baby brother. The aunt is kind, but the child cannot help but link her to the absence of his mother and may resent it.

I was hovering above the surface of the water, on a ferry between China and Japan, contemplating the nature of my fear.

I perceived myself two selves - one contained within me, and the other without. One, the concave reflection beneath the mirror of the sky, and the other spread broad and convex. One side of me, internal. The other side, more external. I perceived that my interior me feared the other, which also feared. A fear of harming, a fear of pain; a fear of abandonment, a fear of insufficiency, and both reflections retreating sadly from one another.

I perceived that these two aspects of me were interchangeable. And both feared. They might as well be one another. I perceived that they did not desire to fear, and that they should be friends. And they were. Reunited, I felt capable and confident in myself and in approaching others.

They were comfortable with one another for several days, until there was a test. I did not succeed, and instead caved and emptied myself like a ship trying to stay afloat, and failed to hold my sense of person, sense of limits of responsibility, and regard my sense of appeasement. I emerged from the scenario, but not with anything of value. I failed to keep from abandoning myself, and I do not know how to ask the reflections to trust again, especially when I am not capable of assuring their safety. They desire to trust me to manage, but I give them no evidence.

Trust-building exercise: Impossible Questions

I was recently reading the following from an old article on Joel on Software about interviewing software engineers, when I came to his typical interviewing process:


Introduction
Question about recent project candidate worked on
Impossible Question
C Function
Are you satisfied?
Design Question
The Challenge
Do you have any questions?


I noted the 'Impossible Question' nested there in the middle and immediately thought that perhaps he was giving an example of a bad interviewing process. But no, it was his own method (...at the time. He now has an updated post on interviewing: GuerrillaInterviewing3)

Here is his description of the way he (at that time) approached the 'Impossible Question':


*****
OK, the third thing on that list is the impossible question. This is fun. The idea is to ask a question that they have no possible way of answering, just to see how they handle it. "How many optometrists are there in Seattle?" "How many tons does the Washington Monument weigh?" "How many gas stations are in Los Angeles?" "How many piano tuners are there in New York?"

Smart candidates will realize that you are not quizzing them on their knowledge, and they will enthusiastically leap into trying to figure out some back-of-the-envelope answer.
*****


I stopped after reading this to analyze the mingling feelings of dread, numbness, and envy that I was feeling, surprised since this was an informative article by a knowledgeable person. Why should I be anything other than interested and happy to learn from it?

I realized that I felt a bit put-off by the section: "Smart candidates will realize that you are not quizzing them on their knowledge, and they will enthusiastically leap..."

I feel that I am a smart person, but would not have responded to the Impossible Question that way at all. I think that perhaps a better adjective than 'Smart' would be 'Confident', 'Experienced-with-interviews', or even better:'Trusting' ... because my first emotional response upon imagining being asked the examples of 'Impossible Questions' was not a leap into an enthusiastic challenge (that contained too much variability to have any hope of being accurate in), but to think to myself, You don't really want to hire me, do you?

It occurred to me that my past ... 5? 8? Years of significant human interaction since leaving home has carried strong elements of feeling that if I am not careful, people will set me up, take advantage of my goodwill or whatever else they want from me for their own sake, and discard me for not fulfilling impossible (usually unspoken) demands if they have the chance. At least being asked an 'Impossible Question' gives me a chance to realize what game is being played and exit by accepting the better situation of being discarded sooner than later. If I really want something out of a situation, and can play the game long enough, then it can work. If there's not something I want so much, then Ok, we both know what's going on. I'll be going now.

It occurs to me that in good situations, this sets me up to feel always on edge, always needing to cross my t's and dot my i's and use exactly correct punctuation. It has kept the monsters from leaping out of the shadows and devouring me so far, so I keep doing it. Even when it doesn't work, I keep doing it because it seems like the best way to keep the monsters down. Every now and then, I don't see everything through to the last iota, partly because I may want to assert the ability to assess that it's not always worth it, and perhaps also to give someone a chance to discard me for not being perfect, although, in a situation where I don't have to feel like I should have been expected to be perfect.

This kind of response may be preventing me from reaching for speculative challenges. How many piano tuners are there in Seattle? I think it would be completely absurd to try to actually estimate that with any kind of confidence. However, thinking about it might be interesting in that the attempt to come up with the most reasonably possible estimate might produce some interesting thoughts or connections as side-effects. It can be fun to wonder about something together as long as no one is tricked into thinking they are actually right.

It was good of this article to show me this conflict in ways that I am vs. ways that I can be, and would like to be. I've been needing things like this.