The Talking Parcel

The identity I acquired in my childhood years! I found some of it! This (and other shows featured on Tales of Long Ago and Far Away) has flavored me ever since I've been able to remember things!

Everything you see is a Mirror

Rorshach inkblots, windows, mirrors,... they're all the same idea.


Everything we observe is necessarily filtered and understood through our own personal perceptions. Everything I perceive is a projection of myself, because I am the only tool I have with which to understand what I see. Everything is a mirror.

Knowing this increases clarity - not because it increases visibility or because it lets me see more - but, because it allows me to understand better what I AM perceiving and interpreting, and from this, I can better learn.
(I am less likely to be mistaken by thinking that what I interpreted was just a representation of the thing itself)

Since everything is a projection of myself, then (even if all I can ever see is myself) the extent to which I am ready to acknowledge myself increases the depth and dexterity of understanding with which I can interpret others.

Even if projections of myself are the only tool I have with which to interpret, the use of any tool is a skill that can be learned, and a good tool in good hands is useful for many things.

stem

For the record,

I have been deciding not to write in this blog for my own good. When I can write clearly and honestly again, I will do so.

I decided this when, about 8 months ago, I wrote a letter home to my mom, and realized that it was the first time in too long that I actually felt as though I were preparing a message for someone other than myself.

Dear Rossy,

I think it's safe to tell you that the light is back in my eyes and the smile is back on my face.

I don't know what's going to happen next,
but it'll be good.


Thank you for your hope and your note all this time.

Mirror

Recently,







everything is a mirror








I can only see other things, in other people, in nature,
to the extent that I know myself.
I look to my thoughts on others to learn about what they are reflecting.

Awake,

Hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
-Invisible Man, Ralph Ellis

No more red balloons,
no more incubation,
I'm awake.


No more rolling about like a cannonball on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's ship.
I've done enough damage by passivity.
No more eating truth off of the ground like a stingray.
I've spent enough time in the mud.
Blindness and bottomfeeding can inhibit the ability to look up.

I find myself feeling suddenly capable,
having a sense of direction and a measure of endurance.
With this knowledge, I have some responsibilities to take.
I've got a person to be.

Someone has pulled back a curtain on a big picture that I've been oblivious to.
Keep to the small, see the big picture, don't drop the oil in the spoon.

I have let myself be taken captive for too long by tasks in dreams that, after 30 seconds of consciousness, are clearly not real.
I think I am at last awake.


Every day, I will go to bed happy because I have worked and lived

Have you noticed that the air often seems clearer after a storm?

The cure for passion is eternity

I AM

I am not just my face
or my feelings
or a collection of chemicals working out to equilibrium

I am more than my personality,
the frequencies of my voice,
my pulse and heart rate

I am none of these things.
I am all of them.

I am not just a sister
or a daughter
or a friend

I am integrated over my past
and my future
of which my considered self now
is but an instant


I think God is like this, too.
That's how He gets to make statements like
I AM
without supplying a particular referent.

Thus the omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence.

That's how I could watch my concept of God dissolve.. not like a vanishing, but more like a solution.


GODISNOWHERE
is true, either way you read it.
He's nowhere.
He's everywhere. everything.



A friend once asked how I thought of God.
My answer then was A person, I suppose for the reason that I found it convenient and useful to think of the relation between God and myself as the kind of relationship that might exist between two people. I recognized that this was probably a limited view, but it seemed the most appropriate for then.

I explained to a different friend a few days ago that I'd felt about God as though we'd been in pen-pal correspondence for quite some time, becoming familiar with one another but never really meeting, until one day I received a letter along the lines of "I suppose it's about time I told you, _______..." - I don't know what exactly would follow, but it would be something that did not invalidate what I knew of this person, but really called into question my sense of familiarity and prompt me to wonder whether the image I'd built of them was at all representative of the person I'd actually been writing to this whole time.

QUESTION

Given this spin on my understanding,
what is my response ability?

It is Well

The howareyou?goodyourself?fine exchange has often bothered me.


We'd already exchanged formalities, but as he left, he half-turned back to say "Are you well?" his voice lifted at the end in statement of a question.

Several words caught at my throat.
He'd asked the right question.

"With my soul" I replied.

At last, it is the right answer.

Llena de Estrellas

from 9/17



谢谢，郝鹿路






9/18/07

"Don't Limit Yourself,"

he told me.

I guess that's what happens if you compare yourself to others, or to the way you think things should be done, or to the things you think you're capable of, for too long.

I shall try my best to take that advice.

I am trying to more consciously make full use of available resources.
I am relearning.

Today I feel like I have concluded an experiment.

Results:
I shall approximate the person I was before the experiment began,
but with much more experience.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have teleported a human into the future -
and with a gain of information.
Absolve yourself of doubts -
She was right the first time.

No more secrets

No!
Stop asking me!





What my computer doesn't know is that the content is already hard enough to understand.
How can we get anywhere by layering encryption?

No more secrets.

Tango is good for me

It all boils down to a single moment when you know exactly where you are in the universe,
and it's terrifying


These were the instructor's words as I walked into the already assembled Tango class.

Tango is close
You can hear them with your skin

Tango is about presence
Don't lose yourself in the crowd

and focus
Be completely aware of your partner


For someone who has always tried to stand on her own two feet, tried not to get in the way of others, tried to carry her own weight, tried not to impose herself,
it takes some getting used to.

Tango is playing a game of distance,
of pushing back
resistance
culminating in a most definitely shared motion. slide

It seemed to me like a walking game of team tai chi.

It most certainly takes two.
And this is what I want to learn:
how to take two separate, present, individual energies
and compose their distinct forces into an experience,
an achievement
unattainable by one alone.


It seems that this requires
sharing weight
imposing oneself
taking another's space (ask first)
and trusting that such actions will be received and returned.

It's a balance of both self and other that I cannot yet manage except in extremes.

I'm decent as an individual. Or as a nothing.
As part of a team?
I have a lot to learn.

All Together Now

Two of my friends were married today.

To each other.

It doesn't feel weird. - People my age (and younger) getting married.

I think because it felt like just another way that we could be there for each other as two of us moved through a particular stage of life.

I'm glad I got to come back home for this.

I was prepared to train-hop, carpool, or hitchhike home for this, but fortunately things worked out such that I could just fly.
No way I would've missed it.

His parents adopted me when I befriended his brother in high school. They were all brothers in some sense - some biologically related. With the exception of her brother, the groomsmen were also guys I knew from high school. They made the whole groomsmen thing look like a developing inside joke. We are a dependable, though scattering, friend group. And now he's getting married, so - although not all of us could be there - it seems natural that we would come back together and contribute to his wedding ceremony by providing groomsmen, two (count 'em) two best men, and music. The wedding was held at home in his mother's garden. It was a beautiful day.

I actually don't really know her all that well, but she's certainly a mature, capable, responsible (not to mention beautiful...) young lady for whom I have tremendous respect.

Inevitably, we shall enjoy this time together and will then disperse to the lives we are finding separately. But, it seems that inevitably, some event will prompt our mutual support, and we shall condense again.

John 5:2-9 ...I understand

Even if not quote physically... even if only metaphorically...

Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep [market] a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.

In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.

When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time [in that case], he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?

The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.

And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.





...I understand how the man could pick up and walk

The ability to walk is one that I treasure,
metaphorically and physically.

It's an unfolding of an incredible dimension of renewable freedom

Feliz Tres de Mayo

to me.

This is the 1 year anniversary of what I consider to be my personal emancipation day. I am constantly struggling to remember and to use the freedoms I have.

In honor of (I don't want to call it an 'Independence Day'... and 'Freedom day' sounds too trite) Yom Talata, I'm posting some drawings I made before and after going to Cairo.

Happy Dreitag.


A few days before leaving for Cairo:




Upon my return, ~5 weeks later:





and now:



It is difficult to remember sometimes.
I haven't walked through all the walls I could've,
and I must be more careful about the manner with which I disregard some.
Sometimes people don't expect it.
Sometimes I don't expect it.
Sometimes I keep my walls because they make sense to me somehow.

But, I'm still trying. I go in and out of my cages. I forget and remember again.
But, I'm trying.
I've been trying.
I will keep trying until I can recognize the illusions,
and see through them to my fellow human beings, the way God sees them, on the other side.

And there won't be sides anymore.

Coming Down (from RF2k7)

a little nostalgia -
My last few days in selected photos, chronologically:













***chvnk decathalon battle here ***
(some title about building a cake)






















Because there is no i in Team

I got myself some flowers,

and played myself some music. And it's spring.






Lilacs in the spring and fireflies in the summer - two of the more eagerly awaited things in my life. The march of seasons has its main events and special attractions. Sadly, it might be my first summer missing the fireflies.




I'd told him about feeling like I must store up my memories now because it'll never be this way again, and in case I suddenly had to spend my life deep in a dark mud pit (or a metaphorical one...) and all I would have to sustain me were my memories.

It's not gonna be like that, he told me. Because you'll always have it - It'll always be that way - it's a conscious choice in how you see things.


I think he's right,
and even if I am left a pit,
by choice, I will still see beauty there.
They can't take it away from me because it's not things,
it's a choice.

Perhaps this is one reason why despite many other things, I consider this possibly the best spring semester I've had in the last... six years.

Stories from a Sudanese Refugee School in Cairo

They were displaced from Sudan to Cairo,
Their stories have been carried from Cairo to America,

and I have been a terrible messenger thus far, but it's going to happen.
Getting A Long Walk Home in has been really helpful for seeing concretely what can happen, I think.

I got the ball rolling today, so now I have no more delays or excuses.



4/24 -Movie- A Long Walk Home
5/2 -Talk- Stories from a Sudanese Refugee school in Cairo -Tracy Mehoke
5/4 -Movie- One more showing of 'A Long Walk Home'

*********
As some of you know,
I volunteered at a school for Sudanese Refugees in a slum in Cairo last
summer. It's taken me waaay too long, but I'm finally putting together
an open-campus Show-and-Tell from Cairo.


I will share my story of 6 weeks as an American volunteer in Cairo as
well as the stories of my teachers who were there as Sudanese refugees
in Cairo. Some background information on the conflict in Sudan will be
explained. Ethan Rafal (http://ethanrafal.com/), a Reed graduate who
has actually been to Sudan, will make a guest appearance, /Inshallah/.

The 2 parts are

*#*
A screening of the Documentary (about 45 minutes long) about the
displaced Sudanese in Cairo 'A Long Walk Home'
http://www.alongwalkhomefilm.org/
A Long Walk Home was shot in Cairo, partially at the school I worked at,
during the summer before I got there (2005). Some of my teachers were
among those interviewed.

*#*
My presentation of my own story and the stories of those who cannot be
here to tell you

please set aside some calendar time now for at least one of these events:


1) NEXT TUESDAY, April 24th 7:30pm Psych 105

A showing of A Long Walk Home (I will be available for questions Afterward)


2) READING WEEK WEDNESDAY, May 2nd 7:30pm Psych 105

My talk (and pictures!) about the stories I brought back with me.
My stories come from the same places and people as were filmed in A Long
Walk Home,
Definitely Questions/Discussion afterward. Hopefully, food.


3) READING WEEK FRIDAY, May 4th 4:30PM Psych 105

One more showing of A Long Walk Home in case you missed it the first
time. Questions/Discussion time afterward.


I will have more official advertising out soon. In the meantime, feel
free to talk gregariously about this especially among people who don't
know anything about it yet.

***

Suspension

It's feeling like a summer night
and I was wanting to play outside in the yard until someone calls me in for the 3rd time to go to sleep.

Who can I play with? I consider whether I even can.



My present situation feeling too much
like a loose stack of sketches on transparent tracing paper,


I suspend some insanity
in a mixture of adrenaline and velocity

and afterwards, stretching beneath a tree,
I see the dark-bodied earthworms nudging their way above ground
like pointed tongues feeling out uncertain teeth

I lie down on my back in the grass
and realize that this is what I have wanted to do all week
If Tolstoy's right about how much land a man needs, I'll take this spot right here.

With my hands on my stomach, I watch the orange-shadowed clouds moving slowly through a starless sky.
And I mistake the bloom of a billion new leaf buds on overhead trees, catching the light from the lamppost, for stars.

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.