Finding Forgiveness In Sparkling Spots on the Windshield

It started to rain while I was driving home from grocery shopping this evening. Little drops-- the gentle rain, the Oregon rain, the kind I like sitting outside and thinking in-- fell on my windshield. I had taken Scholls Ferry Road home, instead of 217, because I wanted the darkness, or maybe the solitude, or maybe something I can't really find on deserted roads but keep looking for anyways.

And why do we keep looking, after the sun has gone down, after we know it's gone, after we become enthralled and captivated and completed by the starlight, after all this and so much more, why do we keep looking?

The raindrops sparkled for a moment as they splashed across my windshield, and then disappeared in the darkness. They sat there, on the glass-- I wasn't using my wipers, and knew they had to be there still-- out of sight, but, somehow, not out of mind. And the sparkles were so pretty, and I wished they would last just a little bit longer, just a little while so that I could--

And what would I do? What would I say? I turned up Angie Aparo a little bit more, trying to drown out the darkness and solitude and anger I never really wanted to feel anyways. Yes. I lied.

Or maybe you did. Or maybe this was all just something that happened, like the things before, and the things after, and the things in between.

But I've known some horrible people, and I've known people that have done some horrible things to me, and you fit into neither of those categories.

Erase. Rewind. Reconsider. Stop.

That yearning. For the places and people we still care deeply for, even when it's dark, and raining, and the large green highway signs seem like the only thing, save the pain and yearning in our chest, that connects us. For a future that isn't isolated and unresolved. For a chance to say thank you to the people who most deserve it. That yearning that hurts because we refuse to forget.

I'm tired of singing
All the sad songs in my head
But I can't find enough of anything
To drown out what you said
- Matt Nathanson

I'm so tired of oscillating between these undefined feelings of incompleteness and uncertainty. Of wanting an apology and wanting what's mine back. Maybe you could start with that piece of my mitral valve. I still need it, you know. I need it to move the blood, oxygenated and ready and waiting, along home. Where the fireplace and oatmeal raisin cookies and smells of mango and happiness are waiting. Where I can look out into the distant dark, and watch the trains move along, humming the sad songs in straight time. Where I can look inside, and find all that there ever was, waiting once again. Where I can find the stillness in that way that is not altogether sad, but rather reminds us that we're older, and, though our records may crack, though we'll end up throwing away birthday cards, though we'll never really know, can still wake up and watch the sun rise.

Under the streetlight, down by the water
Don't worry baby, it's nothing you ever knew
If it makes you feel better, throw down a quarter
Don't worry baby, it won't stick to your shoes
- Angie Aparo

Sometimes, I think I could drown in this place of familiar feelings and promises I promised I wouldn't promise again. How it hangs over my head, and I'm going under, and can't stop. How I gasp for water, because it feels so normal, so safe, so desirable to drown once again. How I still try to hold onto the new memories and bright lights and whispers in the dark, but they always seem to be connected to the lifeguard who can't swim, to whom I don't want to drown with me. How the time is never now when we're looking back, and faded.

Breathe in the quiet regret you promised that you wouldn't feel. Breathe out the moments you can't have back anyways. Whisper, "Goodnight," like all the nights before, and mean it, too, once again, because forgiveness is hard enough without being cast aside like an empty bottle of Monarch gin.

Whisper, too, the words you don't yet believe, but know, somewhere, somehow, you should. Whisper them faintly, when the lights are off, and the contacts are out, and the bed turned down, and everything else is still and silent. Whisper them to the train tracks, to the piano melodies, to the tears you still know will come. Whisper them while thinking of the memories, and saturations, and smell of Chicago in the morning. Whisper them without regret.

"I forgive you, Sean."

Fire Doors That Won't Close

I got home last night, after spending nearly two hours of the afternoon on the I-5 parking lot. The 85-degree weather joined forces with the appalling pollen count, and, with the aid of black vinyl seats and mis-addressed packages, I just felt miserable.

Maybe my misery had nothing to do with all of that, though. It was the end of a long week. Or three weeks. Or three-- anyways... the days go by so fast, don't they?

And all I wanted was to finish off the bottle of gin in the freezer.

I was on call, though, and had already been sent two night orders. And that was good, really, because I like driving around at night. Especially at times like those.

Times like those. The times when I play "This Is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" on repeat as loud as I can stand, and sometimes even louder still. The times when I try to find the fastest road to drive on, because all I want is the scenery around me to feel as fleeting as everything else of seeming importance. The times when a reasonable mother might say, "Don't go out when you're feeling like that. You'll get yourself into an accident."

I heard someone say something like that once.

Today is full of much of the same. I've thought about driving down to Corvallis, finding a corner at the Interzone, and just watching people and life float by. I've thought about calling Jen, and babbling about obfuscated metaphors and guarded references. I've thought about opening up the freezer. Or maybe just trying to get that LED to blink.

My glasses broke, too. I wonder if someone is trying to tell me something.

Sometimes, on a glass window or polished floor, out of the corner of your eye, you see a face, or a feeling, or a fragment of a memory that just won't die, and it fixes you in that formulated phrase. Of whether there is time enough, or not; of whether the train has passed you by, or merely late; of whether the deck, sanded and stained, will ever feel new, or if it just needs to be thrown out with all the dirt in the vacuum bag.

In cleaning my mom's house during the past two weeks I've taken out dozens of bags of trash and recycling. When trash is like that, when it piles up visibly, in the open, and not yours, it's easy to get rid of. You don't think about everything that comes with the trash and everything that leaves with the trash. You don't think about the trash much at all, save how the dirt makes you sneeze and gag and wish it wasn't there.

Maybe if I was better at writing, I could put all my trash out onto college-ruled paper, and have someone-- a loved one, perhaps-- throw it out for me. I've tried, but the words all come out wrong, and the wrong words just seem to add to the trash. And so all I have now is this breathing in of failing to describe the feeling, and this breathing out of remembering this is what the living do. All I have now is the sound of trains passing by all night long, and the sight of reflections on the television. All I have now is a feeling that I'm looking for forgiveness in all the wrong places and faith that I'll be able to forcefully answer the megaphones in helicopters asking, "Hey, are you ok?"

Yes.

On a Corner Holding a Sign, Please Help

The years of dust. The unopened certified mail. The half used prescription pills. The birthday cards from her sons. I stop every few minutes, while cleaning my mom's house, and fall-- sometimes into deep thought, and sometimes into an emotional abyss. Sometimes, I just fall.

Maybe it's because she's been particularly absent, forgetting both Christmas and my birthday, but over the past year, I've been thinking more and more about what's happening to my mom. The years passing by without fail, her body following the silent footsteps of her mind as they both wear thin at the edges, the glimmer of what might be that turns into the tear of what could have been.

On all of the onramps and offramps throughout Portland, beggars make camp throughout the day, pleading for change with their crude cardboard signs of misspellings and humility. I hand a man-- he looks about my mom's age-- a quarter and two nickels, and he raises his head just enough so that our eyes meet. He mouths a God Bless, and hobbles back to the side of the road.

Martin: Toby, if we start pulling strings like this, you don't think every homeless veteran will come out of the woodwork?
Toby: I can only hope, sir.
-The West Wing

Isaac replies, "I'm hoping they're gonna spend it on booze. Look, Danny, these people, most of them, it's not like they're one hot meal from turning it around. For most of them, the clock's pretty much run out. They'll be home soon enough. What's wrong with giving 'em a little Novocain to get 'em through the night?"

I see the man through the rear view mirror. I can't imagine I could ever have the strength to do what he does. To stand there, to look up enough to meet someone's eye, to take the coins and buy something-- food, alcohol, drugs... anything-- it seems beyond what I'm capable of.

This weekend I got a letter from my mom-- the first time I've heard from her in nearly a year. She "didn't have my address or phone number"-- I've lived in the same apartment for a year and a half, and had the same phone number for over three years-- and couldn't contact me. After a few lines, I had to stop and find a corner to sit down in.

The people on the ramps, the dozens I see every day, they seem so far removed from my life. I gave them a few coins from the $135 I made today. I drank from water I pulled out from my little cooler, while they drink from bottles that have sat in the sun all day long. I drove away from each of them at 65 MPH, and they stand, with crutches, and canes, and fragments of humanity. They seem so far away... until I think of my mom. And it seems, then, the line that separates my mom from them is so small that I'm caught with a feeling, a fear perhaps, of connection. But it's not just my mom, with her illness and insecurity, that connects me to those people on the side of the road.

At the downtown Stumptown Coffee Roasters, John Brodie's "Signs, Desperate" collection is being featured right now.

"Signs, Desperate” grew out of glimpsing a middle-aged, apparently middle class person standing on a corner holding a sign. I didn’t see what the sign said, but after thinking about what it could have said, realized the sentiment was relatively irrelevant. Basically, all it needs to say is “ON A CORNER HOLDING A SIGN, PLEASE HELP.” That pretty much explains the situation. This inspired me to make my own signs which could explain my or others present situation, in various states of revelation, which may or may not be in need of help.

We all hold signs. Most aren't asking for help, directly-- our culture isn't like that-- but the signs are there, in our hands, in our eyes, in our memories that appear when we walk the train tracks at night. I've been thinking about my signs lately: the LEDs that won't light up, the road signs that haunt me, the books that sit by my bed. I should find some cardboard to make my signs, to hold my signs, to hold me.

Or maybe I've already found it. Not made from a collection of fibres, but from a collection of people. Not drawn with a black magic marker, but with words and sounds and sentiments shared. I guess, too, I'm more open than I imagine I am-- than I imagine I could ever be.

Some people need help. Some people don't. And some people don't know. But it's something to realize you're standing on the corner, holding a sign.

Notes From the Road: That Yearning

Sometimes, phrases grip me. "I still hear trains at night, when the wind is right." "Experience your America." "And we lied about the things we would feel when we're older." "And I'd like to fall asleep to beat of you breathing."

"This is it... What you called that yearning."

They grip me with a cherishing so deep that I'm left, as Marie Howe writes, speechless.

That yearning. I always think of that yearning in terms of the familiar symbols: the dangerous smell of Drano; the difficult phone call; the letter that sits on the coffee table; the song lyrics that repeat over and over in my head. That yearning binds me up and reaches into my soul, depositing and withdrawing feelings with reckless abandon and without keeping score. I used to think that I came out of the exchange with less-- less feeling, less hope, less of my soul. I seemed to lose at life, and was haunted by the memories of what used to be. I wanted to live there-- not in the past, but in the memory of the past.

I see differently now. I still long for that cherishing, that yearning, but because it helps me to see how alive I am, and how much I love this, love what is happening now, and love who I am. How I love the good and love the bad, because, in the end, it all becomes me.

3350 miles. 89 hours. A whole lotta feeling. This trip was filled with that yearning, with that cherishing so deep of the joys and pains and hopes and memories that come with being part of the living.

I like long drives: the open road, the solitude, the blaring music, the changing landscapes, the strange sounds, the long silences... and that yearning that becomes especially apparent. I like being able to remember the things, memories sweet and horrid, that have become the mileposts in my life. I like to savor those mileposts, the mileposts that form that yearning.

"Why aren't you crying?" Jen asked me on Tuesday afternoon.

I didn't know. I was sad, yes, and dreading that goodbye, but I didn't feel like crying. "I don't know." I looked away.

"Because you're a guy," she offered.

Yes. Yes, I am. But I still cry. I cry with movies, and with songs; I cry after classes, and after reading the news; I cry a lot, and I have no problems with that. It wasn't because I am a guy. "Maybe."

Later, as Rt. 2 spun off from I-91, I watched her car drift off, watched her waving goodbye, watched her blow me a last kiss. And then they came. They get in the way while driving, and I hate that. But still, they insisted on flowing, and all I could do was turn up the music a little more.

That yearning. For the people we desperately want around, the people we desperately miss, the people we hope to hold again. That yearning that hurts because we bother to love.

I drove through PA, with the shitty roads, and bad weather, and trucks that act like Boston cabbies, listening to Angie Aparo loudly. I love Angie Aparo. It was pure chance that I learned about him-- Lupe just happened to stop by and mention him one day-- and now I desperately want everything he's ever done. Life is full of those little chances, hidden amongst the rubble, we happened to win.

Like meeting Lupe, too. And Liene. The people who climb into my heart through the back window, unnoticed until I realize how much I miss them. The people who seep into more and more of my life, influencing my vernacular, my outlook, and my Winamp playlists. Those little chances I've won.

That yearning. How I missed friends I care so much about, yet spend so little time with. How I wanted to drive south just a bit, and say hi. Maybe eat a sandwich, maybe miss a mutual friend, maybe just sit around and drink shots until we're piss drunk and carefree. That yearning that hurts because we bother to care.

It's the third biggest city in the country, and of course I expected to pass several signs directing me there. But they kept popping up, one after another, for over 1000 miles along my route. Reminding me of that yearning. It's seems, sometimes, like I've had more than my share of friends who stop talking to me for reasons I don't quite understand.

I don't think I'm a horrible person. Once in a while, I don't even think I'm all that bad. So what is it, what is it about me, that is so wrong, that drives people away? This isn't a cry in the dark. This isn't an angst-filled question. Most of the time, I don't really believe it's me at all. Maybe that's self-delusional, and maybe I'm missing something painfully obviously. I don't think so, though. I'm not the best friend in the world, but I try wicked hard, and don't turn out half-bad most of the time. I think, in the end, most of my friends appreciate me. So why can't I let go of those few who don't?

I miss her so much. I want to know what she thought about the season finale of the West Wing; I want to hear more stories about her crazy/ evil/ insane roommate; I want to ask if anything amazing has happened in her life since last we talked, if only so I share the amazing things that have happened in mine-- happened because of her; I want to know she is well, and doesn't regret knowing me.

That yearning. For the places and people we still care deeply for, even when it's dark, and raining, and the large green highway signs seem like the only thing, save the pain and yearning in our chest, that connects us. For a future that isn't isolated and unresolved. For a chance to say thank you to the people who most deserve it. That yearning that hurts because we refuse to forget.

The first urban traffic I encountered was near Spokane, on my last day of driving. Somehow, by chance, I had avoided urban rush hour traffic through my entire journey (though taking I-70 across the Midwest, instead of I-80, certainly helped). I had only been to Spokane once before, when I was 11 or 12, I think. My mom had picked my brother and me up for the weekend, as usual, but instead of taking the 217 exit, we continued onto I-84. "Where are we going?" my brother and I enquired.

"It's a surprise."

It was one of the only vacations I can ever remember taking with my mom. We ended up visiting a Native American museum that was closing-- my mom had read about it in the paper--and, as the trip took 8 hours each way, not much else. Still, I miss that. And I miss my mom. It's been almost a year since I last talked to her, and several years, now, since a conversation didn't hurt enough afterwards that I regretted having it.

That yearning. How we long for the warmer days that exist only through the fragmented lens of memory. How we hope and wish and pray and try anything-- anything at all-- to ease the life-sucking pain afflicting our loved ones. How we try to find that balance between living our own lives, and not leaving behind the people we know we should love. That yearning that hurts because we refuse to give up on the people who have already given up on themselves.

The sun had already set as I sped across the Columbia River Bridge at Umatilla. Oregon, at last. The gentle bumping of the tires over the concrete slabs, the crisscross of green steel passing me by on each side, the "Welcome to Oregon" sign I barely caught as it blurred by. It was the blurring of the sign, how the visits here had become less frequent, and quicker, and how I seemed to be able to form less and less of a picture, that gripped me with that cherishing so deep.

That yearning. For the rain and the mountains and the trees and the sky. For the beach, and the Interzone, and the people whose faces we know. For the high unemployment and above-average gas prices and daffodils that bloom in February. That yearning that hurts because I know I would give it all up to be 3350 miles away.

These yearnings along the way-- these yearnings that hurt-- fix me in a formulated phrase. And how should I begin?

They hurt because being alive hurts. That pain is how we know that we've made difficult decisions along the way, struggled with the agony of options presented, and we now live with those choices. It's not a negative pain, either, or one that takes our soul, piece by piece, and gives nothing in return. It's a pain that teaches us, guides us, and shows us that we can move forward without losing everything. It's a pain that reminds us we can still care, deeply, for the places and people we know. It's a pain tells us we are living, and that this is what the living do.

We sit at the rest stop, and as the Gorge winds blow just right, we hear the sound of trains echoing through the darkness. The trucks rumble by, and we softly hum a sound not unlike the beating of the breathing of the people who we love. We fall asleep with the blanket and the pillow and the cherishing-- that yearning for the everyday-- that grips us, and leaves us speechless.

Good-byes

I still hear trains at night, when the wind is right, I
Remember everything, lick and thread this string
That will never mend you or tailor more
Than a memory of a kitchen floor, or the fire-door
That we kept propping open
And I love this place; the enormous sky
And the faces, hands that I'm haunted by
So why can't I forgive these buildings
These frameworks labeled Home
-The Weakerthans

I didn't think I'd make friends at Marlboro. It's hard for me, caught in that vicious cycle of not talking to people I don't trust, and not trusting people I don't know, and not knowing people I don't talk to. I went almost a whole year without interacting with anyone at Marlboro on a personal level. And I hated it.

People sometimes ask me why I came back after my first term, if I hated being here so much, and I don't really have an answer. Maybe I didn't want to disappoint the people who believed I could make it out here; maybe I didn't know where else to go; maybe it was, as I oftentimes think, just a big mistake. I certainly wasn't happy about the beginning of my second term:

I have to go in and register tomorrow. (First, though, I have to get out a map of the campus and find out where I'm supposed to go.) I usually like new beginnings, particularly the start of a new term: new classes, new professors, new things to learn; they usually outweigh the anxiety I feel about new places and new people.

Things are different this term. For the first time I can remember, I'm not excited about starting anew. I don't know if it's just depression, or if it's apathy, or if I have just gotten tired of walking the same old streets for so long. I slept nearly the whole day-- this, after sleeping for twelve hours last night. I'm worn out, and I need a break. Not from school, or work, or "this;" I need a break from me.

It turned out to be a really shitty term. I hated most of my classes-- especially the ones that left me crying. I hated the walk up the hill to the library. I hated having to go to the dining hall to have meetings with my professors over lunch. I hated it all.

I love my computer
You make me feel alright
Every waking hour
and every lonely night
-Bad Religion

I found things to love, though: books that weren't assigned, 130 hours of the West Wing... the Internet. I've always loved the Internet, of course. I remember those late nights in middle and high school, getting lost in the wealth of information available to me over that boxy 9600 modem with the string of Christmas-colored lights. I remember the shiny new 33.6 modem that slide into the empty PCI slot and let me load pages like there was no tomorrow. I remember my first cable modem, bright and white, and how I thought I didn't need anything else in the world.

I've read blogs all along-- even before they were called blogs. Something about the humanness of the interaction, being able to read into someone's life, learn about someone's personality, has always attracted me. How people shroud emotion and learning and life in words and metaphors and glimpses of silent moments. How there's never enough, and always too much. How they make me laugh, and cry, and fall in love. How I meet people who turn out to be closer than the solitary digital connection might suggest.

Random comments about auditory crack, Christmas presents from far away, cookies and chocolates and feelings that come, and go, and come again. Connect the dots, fill in the blanks, fast forward.

The sound of packing tape being pulled off the roll, the heavy lifting of boxes and junk down stairways and dusty roads, the good-bye hugs that never last as long as you want or hope or need them to last, the tears that are hidden until the words form themselves here.

The downside to making new friends is, of course, the good-byes. Good-byes to the people, good-byes to the buildings, good-byes to the life that coalesced while I wasn't watching. There's still one more good-bye, too-- one that I'm not ready for, and probably won't be when the time comes. I'm sad to leave Vermont this summer.

I'm excited, for sure, to see Oregon again. To visit LB, and eat brunch at the Interzone, and live in the same city as my best friend. To see the mountains, and the ocean, and all the places I miss. To just be there, again. And I'm sure it will be nice.

But I'll miss this place. I'll miss home.

Redefining the Everyday

We woke up early, considering, and the room was warm. It's always warm in here, when the window has been closed all night, and the sun has been up for a while, shining through the east window that stretches from wall to wall, and the beatings of two hearts have punctuated the darkness for so long. I'm okay with the warmth.

"Hungry?" I ask.

"Mmm hmm."

Blueberries. Blueberries are my favorite. I add frozen blueberries to the scone mix I packed along. I seem to be doing that a lot, lately. Packing, I mean; packing things up, and bringing them along. When I made a category for Jen yesterday, to better organize my entries because I'm odd like that, I noticed that basically every entry in the past three weeks has been about her. Then I realized, on an hour-for-hour level, I've probably spent at least 50% of my time during those past three weeks in her dorm.

I see my clothes starting to linger in her closet, though I wonder if I'm leaving them by accident, or if she's really just stealing them on purpose. She does hilarious and sweet things like that.

The scones are toasty and sweet smelling. The oatmeal bubbles away, punctuated by the rehydrating bing cherries, and swirls of brown sugar. A banana is broken cleanly in two.

Two is a nice number, I think.

Breakfast. Movie. Bed. It's always seemed like a nice way to spend a Saturday morning, in theory, but I really had no idea. Disappointment was not in my vocabulary this morning.

Crumbles from the scones line the Powerpuff Girls plate, traces of soy milk grace the Veggie Tales bowl, still-warm coffee sits in my LBCC thermos.

It's been a good morning, and I'm happy. I'm light, too, and in love. I look over, I look into her eyes, I look to see if she knows, I look to see if she believes.

I think, maybe, sometimes, she does. When she's dreaming, perhaps. And then she wakes, I imagine, and looks over at me, and doubts, and wonders why, and convinces herself, somehow, she is wrong.

I wish she wouldn't do that so much.

Later in the day, I discover that I had bookmarked her old Livejournal sometime last year. In February, I think. I remember reading it, too, and then wondering why she stopped writing. I remember wondering about who she was.

Life is strange, and circular, and congruent, and unexpected.

She was in the Town Crier last term, too. Campaigning for Dean, I think. I read about people in the Town Crier all the time, people I don't know, and I go to the Marlboro directory and look up their photo. It helps me believe that I know people at this tiny Liberal Arts school where I don't actually know people. I remember looking at her photo. She's not fond of it, but, at the time, I thought she was cute. (I still do, of course.) Our biggest disagreements seem to be about her.

I wish she would agree with me more.

I rewrote the second email I sent her, twice, so that I could fit in, parenthetically, an open invitation to dinner. I tried to be subtle, tried not to look like I was trying too hard, but I had a crush on her, even then. I'm crazy like that, I guess. But how could I not? With her randomness, and veganness, and cute crush on the French boy. With her talk of vegan cheese, and her talk of me. With the curious and furious affections that follow us around.

I was crazy, too, when I couldn't wait two days, after meeting her, for our first date (that I wasn't even sure was a date at all). I made pitas, and hummus, and dropped by her room. "It's not that far." "I had them lying around."

I'm terrible at these things.

How we waste our precious time
Marching in the picket lines
That surround those striking hearts
And we know who we should love
But we're never certain how
-The Weakerthans

I don't really think I'm good with explaining how I feel. I try and try, but my meaning never comes across close enough to how I intend it. Hours of inconsequential and important talk; four page emails; the unspoken sentiments of cooking dinner every night; the three words muttered and lingered upon at then end of every phone call.

I don't think she gets it, entirely. I don't think she understands, fully. I don't think she believes, completely.

I really should try harder.

Moments of Reconsideration

Sometimes, Life gets in the way of patterns and process and certainty. Sometimes, Life is distracting and full of unexpected moments. Sometimes, Life makes it hard to be jaded and miserable and alone.

I haven't written much here for the past week. I have several half finished essays, things I really wanted to write about, but I put them off, and they look different now-- so very different. It's a nice feeling, though: a reminder that texts, what we write or say or experience, aren't static and unchanging. They constantly take on new meanings and change trajectories. Texts are dynamic and interpretative.

One of my entries was about my struggle to write my Plan papers:

I've been sleeping better and less, feeling more content and sad, trying to follow the straight lines as they circle round and round. I've been feeling guilty this week for writing in my new paper journal, for blogging here, for thinking about the things I care about and make me happy and lead me to where I want to go.

I've started writing my papers for school, but they feel so forced and impersonal and passive. And that's the way it's supposed to be, right? I shouldn't fill my paper with overt uncertainty and self-reflection, because it's just not academic; it's not the way it's done; it doesn't fit the mold. Mold. Disintegrated organic matter, stale, historical, old. Mold, indeed. Even the uncertainty and self-reflection I relegate to the introduction seems forced, distanced, controlled-- moldy.

The Tibetan issue, regarding independence, regarding identity, regarding moral choices for future action, is complex, multifaceted, and, much to the detriment of dialogue, highly polarized. As such, it is difficult, particularly for a student in the West, to sift through the varying positions of the debate, or even identify distinct positions at all, and try to settle issues of "what happened" or "who did what." Parsimony is a much-hailed outcome for political scientists, but it always comes at the expense of detail and complexity. To the extent to which details and complexities inhibit dialogue, parsimony is beneficial to understanding. But taken too far, it moves issues outside their context, exacerbates exclusion and Otherness, and leaves unanswered the most important questions, which are invariably predicated on complexity and uncertainty.

I speak of "a student in the West," but what the hell does that mean? I've jumped from cookie-cutter positivism to cookie-cutter post-modernism? What the hell does any of this mean? Why the hell am I writing these papers at all?

When Marx critiques the capitalist model, one of his approaches is from the vantage point of alienation. When we create something, make something, write something that isn't for ourselves, isn't for what we want, we don't connect to it, and the process leaves us feeling empty, automated, and inhuman. We're alienated not just from our labor, and from the products of our labor, but also from ourselves, our humanity. And that's exactly how I feel when I write these papers. Each line is a forced flow of factoids; the paragraphs are sewn together with arbitrary and awkward segues. And in the end, I've said nothing that matters to me.

I want to write things that matter to me. I want to write things that are true to me. I want to write things that make me feel something, or at least capture, in some small way, the things that I am feeling. I want to screw this school shit and move to Montana.

But I don't, of course-- at least not completely. I'm connected to, invested in part of the normalized way of thinking. I am complicit in my own surveillance, my own control. When I blog instead of write my school papers, I feel guilty. This is, of course, Foucault's critique: power is omnipresent, with multiple points of control, most notably on the sub-individual level. I don't need Seth or Lynette to yell at me for not writing, I feel bad already; the discipline and punishment is self-discipline and self-punishment. I am my own keeper; I am my own oppressor.

Foucault's world is deterministic and static. Power (and thus control) is everywhere, and acts everywhere. But what of agency? What of choice? I'm not comfortable living in a world so dystopian, so constricting, so depressing as Foucault makes ours out to be. I think the world is what we make of it, to an extent, and I don't want to make it follow Foucault's.

As I was writing that, I was thinking, as an aside, how easy it is to blog, to write about things that are important or meaningful to me. I could easily write several pages a night, if I wanted, yet I can't seem to write these papers for school. I can't seem to form my writing into that mold. I talked to Meg about my problem today, because Meg is awesome and makes my world go 'round. She invariably ends up saying the things I think about, but don't feel empowered enough to say or commit to. And today, per usual, she put my problem in terms of voice. I can't fit my voice into that academic model anymore, I can't force my writing to fit the mold. And so, perhaps, I should use another voice, a voice I'm more comfortable with. This voice, here.

There is a story to tell about China and Tibet, and it's not my story. I can't objectify it, or "study" it, though, because I'm not objective, and neither are my sources. But I can't confine that story to relativism, either, because the story is important, and it means something to me. That meaning to me becomes, itself, another story-- the story of my experience with the Sino-Tibetan story. That story is meaningful, intimate, and what I know; that story is what I can write about.

Another was about a girl:

Where a small knife tears out those sloppy seams
And the silence knows what your silence means
And your metaphors (as mixed as you can make them)
Are linked, like days, together
-The Weakerthans

She smiles at me for hours. I sit in the steel chair for just as long. We wonder, in our selective silence, if the other knows what we're thinking, if we are both playing the same Wittgensteinian language game. Does he know that I smile profusely because I don't know what else to say? Does she know that I sit in the uncomfortable chair because I don't want to leave? We sit alone, together, and watch the wall, and wonder what it means. And then we wonder why we're wondering, and wonder if we'll always just wonder.

Why does it take so long? Why does it take me weeks to know someone well enough to say, "hi"? Why does it take me months, or years even, to say, "Hey! You're funny, and caring, and wicked cute, and I wish you'd stop by more often"? Why can't I just buy into a language game, knowing that, yeah, it might suck, and I might misinterpret something, and your smile might not mean what my smile means, but maybe-- just maybe-- it might not suck, and I might be right about something, and your smile might mean what my smile means?

I worry about smiles in my direction. I worry that a smile if just a smile, but I make it out to be something far greater, because it's all I know how to do when I mean something far greater. I worry, too, that a smile might be more than a smile, but there might also be something bad, something mean, something hurtful behind that smile, and I should wait a while-- and wait a while longer-- to make sure it's genuine and true and meaningful. I worry, and I hesitate, and I get caught in my silence. My anxiety and fear paints itself on my face as disinterest and lack of commitment. My anxiety and fear keeps me alone.

I like you. You like me. But how do I know you like me? How do I know this isn't just a thing, a fling? How do I know when summer comes, or graduation comes, or graduate school or work or Life comes, you won't toss me aside like a half-spent cigarette butt? I can't do these things for fun; I can't do these things simply because I'm alone and would rather not be; I can't do these things incompletely.

I worry, and I hesitate, and I get caught in my silence. I don't know how to explain that "slow" doesn't mean anything other than slow. It's not second-guessing, it's not stepping back, it's not regretting; it's just taking time, and being certain, and relating in the only way I know how to relate-- in the only way I'm comfortable relating.

I watched ESotSM again, and it made me laugh, and cry, and wonder why I worry so much. I always worry, thinking that worrying will protect me from being hurt. Invariably, I end up hurt. After the measured spoonfuls and the marmalade and tea, I still think it's worth it, after all, and I'm okay with the possibility of ending up hurt. But why do I still worry, then, if, apparently, worrying is as effective as Mary Schmich says it is. Maybe we aren't playing the same language game, and maybe it won't work out, but maybe I should stop worrying so much.

Maybe I shouldn't leave this time; maybe-- just maybe-- I should stay, and not worry.

Eternal Sunshine of the Agonic Mind

Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start
- Coldplay

I don't go out much to places with people around. By "much," I mean "ever." I've lived in Brattleboro for almost a year and a half, and I've been to the movie theatre once and... well, that was it. I went down to a show in Northampton once, too, which I guess I should count so I don't seem entirely pathetic. It's not that I'm against going out, per se, it's just terribly terrifying going to places I don't know, drowning in the seas of anxiety and unfamiliar faces and exposed loneliness. If I were more comfortable, if I knew places better, I'm sure I would go out more.

When I lived in Corvallis, I used to hang out at the Interzone several nights a week, writing, scribbling, sketching in little notebooks I carried around. It was strangely soothing, and something I've come to miss recently. I write more now, much more, but it's always on my laptop, always at home. I miss recording those moments of people watching, those moments of staring at my Americano, those moments of shyly looking up, catching someone smiling at me, and wondering why I can't smile back. On Saturday, I bought notebook, a cheap paper notebook, and decided to try and get out more. Sit in a coffeeshop, go to the theatre (not that I would take my notebook there), the little things I enjoy, all things considered, but don't do.

The little Latchis blurb on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind caught my eye a couple weeks ago, and it looked like something I'd really like, something thought-provoking and timely, something that would make me feel good. I kept putting off going, for all the usual reasons, and had resigned myself to wait for it to come out on DVD, as I've done with so many other movies that come through the theatre. But last night, with my nifty new notebook sitting on the table, inspiring me, and thinking so much, recently, of the uncertainty and ambivalence I have towards ever-present thoughts and feelings, I went and saw it.

Oh, the irony.

I had a vague idea of what ESotSM was about; I knew it concerned trying to erase memories of love, and about the trickiness of said memories, but nothing, really, of the details. Oh, the irony. I walked into the theatre while Jim Carrey was soliloquizing on the beach, writing into his little notebook, just thinking. I sat down, sort of dazed; I don't even know when the last time I felt such affinity with a theatrical character was. I intended to write about it when I got home, but I ended up just sitting on my futon, scrawling five words into my notebook, and staring at the wall.

Memory is something I often write about here because I'm never certain what it means, why it matters, and what to do with it. It's a powerful thing, an ever-present thing. It's not just a part of us, it is us; our entire identities are constructed through experience (phenomenologically-speaking). Usually, I'm worried about getting caught up in the nostalgia, in living life looking backwards because the past seems so much more pleasant, more comfortable, more certain than the present. I'm worried about clinging to the past too hard.

My memory box is just that-- a collection of memories. Memories, perhaps like love, are bittersweet, though. For all the happiness and warmth those memories give me, they also leave me sad and longing for those times again. Sometimes, too often, I think I get lost in the nostalgia, and live through memories, rather than reality.

I usually write about the good memories, the memories I miss. But I have other memories, of course: bad memories, painful memories, memories that still haunt me in the dark. I remember lying on the floor, feeling heavier and heavier, and wishing I hadn't swallowed all those pills, after all. I remember playing with Legos in my room, pretending I didn't hear my mom screaming to no one at all. I remember getting the email from Jen, "The one you're probably not gonna like so much."

And they do. They still haunt me in the dark. Things get better with time, of course, but it's a slow process, and one that is always incomplete. Sometimes, it's non-linear, too.

It still hurts, for sure, but rather than the "blah blah blah I'm so alone blah blah blah whiny bastard" pain, it's more of the "bumper cars can hurt, for sure, but there's still fun to be had" pain... This still sucks. I'm still hurting. But things get better with time.

When I wrote that, things were getting better. And they continued to get better. And then not so much. It started on the borders of night, when I was falling asleep and waking up, the borders that kept expanding. Then there were the reminders, the things I heard, or saw, or touched, the things that were ever more present. And then came the doubts, the doubts about everything.

I am over you. I think I am over you. I wish I were over you. I am not over you.

Of course, it's much more complex than that. I don't know what I would do if she wrote me, or I found her IP addresses in my server logs, or she sent a birthday card with stickers and smiley faces and hints of her quirky wit. It's horribly complex. And there's Life, Already in Progress, too. People I've met, conversations I've had, moments I've wished I could say just a little bit more. It's horribly, horribly complex. And it seems like things are getting worse.

I've been watching as the stitches start to loosen and break at the seams. I try to forget the painful memories, push them aside. It seems better, more helpful than clinging to the pain. And the more I notice things falling apart, the harder I try to stop thinking about it, hoping, wishing it'll just go away. Like slamming on the brakes when you start to fishtail.

I've never thought that I would be interested in losing all my memories connected to something or someone. There is always so much good inextricably linked up with the bad. It's bittersweet, and that's the good news. And I know that's the good news.

I don't know why I can't seem to forgive this framework of home, knowing, feeling, on some ineffable level that I already have. I don't know why this framework of home seems so negative, so awkward, so hurtful, when in fact, viewed contextually, it's something far more beautiful, more wondrous, and more complete that it appears: it reminds me both that what I experienced, what I felt, and maybe what I still feel was as real and wonderful and blissful as I remember, and, more importantly, perhaps, that I can feel that way again.

But as I start to spin out, as I try so hard to stop, as I push the painful memories from my mind more and more, all the blissful moments go too, and I'm left feeling empty and alone and in pain. There's no beauty; there's no wonder; there's just me, in the corner. And maybe not even that, because who am I without the pain/ joy, the happiness/ sorrow I've experienced? It seems, then, I don't need to visit some doctor and have a procedure to erase my memories. I'm already doing it, by myself, in a horribly bitter manner. Ignoring painful memories, trying to forget them seems to be as bad as clinging to them.

As Jim Carrey's character realizes how beautiful, how important his memories are, he changes he mind about wanting to lose them. "Stop the procedure," he calls out. But the memories keep disappearing, and he grows more and more desperate. "Let me keep just this one," he pleads near the end.

I loved ESotSM; it was artistic, and beautiful, and thought-provoking. But rather than giving me new things to think about, I think it ended up reminding me more of, and providing contrast to, the thoughts I was already having. Memories situate us where we are, which is the aspect that the characters in ESotSM were reacting against; but I think, more importantly, and one of the themes of the film, is that memories tell us who we are, as well.

This is about embracing Pascal's agonic doubt... This is about finding my way back. This is about remembering who, not where, I am. This is about living though the space in between.

Superficially, I want things to make sense, be rational, be less complex; I want to follow Descartes' quest for a constant methodology, a consistent life: I doubt, therefore I know, therefore I think, therefore I am. But I don't really believe life is like that. (Oh my God, a disbeliever in the Enlightenment Project; run for your lives!) Life isn't simple; it isn't ordered; it isn't even consistent. There are contradictory truths, irreconcilable dialectics and an inherent uncertainty to it all. Pascal, on the other hand, was looking for something different; his doubt was encompassing, agonic. He wasn't searching for rationality like Descartes, but rather for the dynamics that make us doubtful and uncertain and human. He wanted to embrace his agonic existance, not solve it. "The Cartesian wants to be rational, while the Pascalian wants to be a person," Michael Weinstein quips.

When the truth is I miss you
Yeah, the truth is that I miss you so
And I'm tired, I should not have let you go
- Coldplay

Isn't this the best part of breaking up
Finding someone else you can't get enough of
- Liz Phair

This is the complexity. This is the doubt. This is the dialectic. This is the space in between. Living through the space in between isn't about a journey somewhere, or a hurdle to pass, or a length of time, even. It's not about anything at all. It is something. In between is the complexity. In between is the doubt. In between is the dialectic.

Living through the space in between is living life.

The Space In Between

I've got memories
I keep them away from me
They won't behave
Won't be what I want them to be
I've seen it all and it's all done
I've been with everyone and no one
So many squandered moments
So much wasted time
So busy chasing dreams
I left myself behind
- Tindersticks

Things are breaking.

One of my windows is broken. I am exposed.
One of my speakers is broken. I am partially deaf.
One of my laptop feet is broken. I am unbalanced.
One of my headlights is broken. I am functioning improperly.
One of my chairs is broken. I am falling through.

Things are coalescing.

My tea is vibrant. I am happy.
My house is warm. I am comfortable.
My cupboard is full. I am satiated.
My coursework is cohesive. I am content.
My room is organized. I am home.

Time is moving slow. There are still five weeks left. Time is moving fast. It has already been five weeks.

There's a dialectic afoot and uncertainty in the air.

This is the space in between.

I don't know what to make of things.

I think I know what this is about. You might think so, too. We are both wrong.

this is how it happens

sticks in my hands    i hesitate    lost between beats    there's tension    like looking down from a tall building    you know you're going to fall, you can't resist    it's terrifying, but you want what you fear

you can't save yourself    someone's got to reach out and break the spell    someone's got to grab you    a touch, and you shiver back into your skin, like the crack of a drum out of silence

you've got to find your way back
- Patrick Friesen, from "Singer"

Pain is such an easy thing to learn to love. It fuels late night coffee-drinking binges so I don't have to sleep, and don't have to dream; it reminds me of nostalgic pleasures, of times when its lonely and austere offices were my only recognized companions; it comforts me, in its own way, whilst I sit on my kitchen floor, thinking too much.

My rug, too, was bought on sale. It seemed like such a bargain for a comfortable place to fall down on. The little things and the cheap things, at times, provide such comfort. It seemed odd, somehow. Or maybe it is the smallness and the cheapness that occupies my attention and distracts me from real troubles. I reached over, and picked up the coffee cup, which now seemed barely warm. It was as though the coffee was holding on to the last vestige of heat ever so slightly. Everything, it seemed, was holding on, ever so slightly.

I was sitting on the floor of my kitchen, an hour after getting home from work, and a short 10 hours since I woke up. Is this all that is left? Is this all that there is? I felt cheated. When do I find out what the rest of life is like, the kind I saw in picture books on the coffee table in my dentist's office? When do I find something other than the small joy of sitting on a cheap rug, drinking not-so-cheap shade-grown coffee?

I wondered about the shade-grown coffee farmer. I wondered what he had left after the end of the day. Was he happy, getting his $1.57 a pound? Did he care? Did he have time to care? Free time is such a dialectical gift. We desire more and more free time, and yet, when it appears, we are haunted by the questions and concerns it allows. Free time, indeed-- you get, it seems, what you pay for.

I have too much free time, and too much time to think. I spend too many nights sitting here on the floor. There has to be something more dignified, something more fulfilling than this. I sipped the rest of the coffee, leaving only the sand-like particles of coffee that had slipped through the French press and ended up in the bottom of my ceramic cup. Sometimes the only things left are the things that get left behind.

Unopened books, unstarted letters, the actions I keep putting off. I want to write these papers, talk to these people, listen to the sounds of morning and not be scared. I want a pair of clean socks, and the voices of the past to calm down. It's loud in here, and I'm tired. But it's not all like this. There's the everyday, too: the curtains I hung, the books I arranged, the coffee I bought from the store. There's the pictures I put up on the wall, and the floor I washed with dangerous smelling cleaners.

This is the mad season; this is the space in between; this is when you sniff too much Drano.

Purgatory is a space in between.

Memories feed on each other, growing, with the whole weight of history behind them; I always remember the minor details. On August 31, 2001, I had my first taste of gin. It was another time in between. I had quit at Bon Appetit, and not yet started again at LBCC; I had dropped out of school, and was caught in the dialectic of wanting to go back, but being unable to concentrate, to study, to think; I was taking so many pills (thank God for $5 co-pays), but none of them seemed to be helping anything at all.

It was a Friday. A Friday night. I brought her roses; I don't know why. Maybe... maybe I'm just like that. We were drinking gin. "A little water?" "A little," I said. "No, too much," I said. "It's ok," I said.

Things happened. Things didn't happen. At the time, I never thought I would end up being the conservative one in a relationship. I never thought I would predicate certain things on some genuine assertion of love. I never thought love would turn out to be so important to me. "Do you love me?" She frowned. "Um. Yeah. Sort of. For tonight, at least. And the morning, too." I put my shoes on, and left. I called, and told her it wasn't enough. I went home and drank more gin, and thought about what might have been.

Spring forward, fall back down
I'm trying not to wonder where you are
All this time lingers undefined
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving
- The Weakerthans

Over the years, the ratio of gin to water has increased. A little bit. A splash. Now, it's just the slow dissolution of the ice cube. Gin reminds me of things I want, and can't have. Gin reminds me of things I can have, and don't want. Gin reminds me of miscommunication, and misunderstanding, and misinterpretation. Gin reminds me of the things I shouldn't miss, but miss anyways.

Over the years, the weight of gin's memory has increased. Gin after leaving Stonybrook. Gin after Cassie left. Gin after leaving LBCC. Gin after Jen left. Lots of left and lots of leaving. And wondering who did what.

This is not about a breakup. This is not about someone I miss. This is not about a bitter boy, dying in the dark.

This is about memories that cling like leeches. This is about pain that comforts like cocaine. This is about straight lines that always seem to circle. This is about the glass of gin in front of me. The glass I'm staring at. The glass that calls my name, repeating the horrors and comforts of those precious moments of pain. The glass that says, "We know you Sean. We know how you feel. We understand you. Come, sit with us again. Come, let us comfort you again. Come, be with us-- be us-- again."

This is about accepting pain's omnipresence, and saying no. This is about embracing Pascal's agonic doubt, and saying no. This is about looking at the faceted glass, the sparkling ice cube, the sweet-smelling gin, and saying no.

This is about making an appointment to have my window repaired. This is about adjusting the audio output on my speakers to make do with what I have. This is about finding a slim book to balance my laptop on. This is about getting out a screwdriver and replacing the broken light. This is about sitting on a different chair.

This is about finding my way back. This is about remembering who, not where, I am. This is about living though the space in between.

Moments of Wastefulness

But as I'm growing older, I'm bored
I remember when misery thrilled me much more
- Ben Folds Five

This is life
What a fucked up thing we do
What a nightmare come true
Or a playground if we choose
And I choose
- The Offspring

What Time is it There? was showing at the Chinese Film Festival on campus tonight. Focusing on the mundane and absurd, it's an amazing film about grief, loneliness, and isolation. And, of course, I couldn't go see it.

It rained today-- wonderful, complete, long-lasting rain; it's been such a long time since it last rained like that. It's been a while, too, since I last sat on the roof of my car. And so, tonight, I sat on the roof of my car, in the pouring rain, soaking in the beady drops of refreshing contentment.

It's those little moments, those stolen moments that are so very blissful, so very beautiful, so very true. Everything does look perfect from far away.

Sometimes I wonder, am I wasting my time by stepping back, and losing myself in the moment? Or are those the only moments that I'm really living?

And it's strange, the dichotomy of those moments. I sit in the rain, and I know I feel happy. The feeling of the rain drops, the sound of the puddles growing, the smell of renewal-- it's all so beautiful and wonderful and exuberant. But at the same time, there are so many other things going on-- or not going on, as the case may be. My room is in a state of partial rearrangement, which is to say that it's horribly cluttered and disorganized, my homework isn't being done and I basically have five weeks now to write 75 pages on something or another, and it's possible I'm really just addicted to the rain, using it to remember things I want desperately to remember and forget things I desperately want to forget. So where does all this leave me? Am I wasting my time living those 'moments of beauty,' as it were?

Remember, life is just a memory
Remember, close your eyes and you can see
Remember, think of all that life can be
- Harry Nilsson

Next week is my birthday, and it's partially to blame, I think. I don't feel old, per se, but I definitely feel older, as it "another year has gone by." And what do I have to show for it? Moments of beauty? Moments of bliss? Moments of anguish? Moments of surrender? Is this all I have, all that's different? Fleeting moments, remembered experiences, emotions plucked out of time? Is that good? Bad? Normal? Normative?

In the end, does it matter that I sat on my car for a while, and was happy and content and felt okay?

Yeah, this is one of those existential queries. And it always ends up like this. Not so much with the Kool Aid and smurfs and what-not, but with the uncertainty and lack of trust in what I believe, in what I want, in what I know. Sometimes, I think too much.

Like a sound we notice
Until it stopped and left us there
- The Weakerthans

It's so stupid how this whole thing started, how I started slipping down this icy hill. I know better. I am better. This should be old school shit by now. Why should what other people do, or not do, bother me so much? Why should I always feel guilty about doing something wrong, when I honestly can't think of anything that I did wrong?

I think that's the hardest thing for me: to accept that some things aren't my fault. Even now, even while I'm writing this, I feel the need to write, "maybe I'm too dense to know what I did," or "I should have said this, or that, or something else entirely, instead," or "maybe this is my fault, after all." We're so mean to each other; we're so hurtful to each other; we're so disingenuous and dishonest with each other.

We should know better; we're capable of so much more. And maybe that's what the little moments of beauty teach us-- maybe that's why they're important, after all.

Moments of Recovery

You have helped me in my work and in myself. And I have helped you in your work and in yourself. And I am grateful to heaven for this you-and-me.
- Kahlil Gilbran, as quoted in the journal of Mary Haskell

If I accept the sunshine and warmth I must also accept the thunder and lightning.
- Ibid.

I blame Love Actually for making this seem like a good idea. I can blame you, a little, for giving me the bloody script book, too. You know how beautiful that movie is, right? And how it makes you want to believe that love can exist? And how it makes you want to tell someone that it does exist? Like Colin Firth says, "just to check"?...

Maybe you're horrified at this point... (I wonder if Robert Browning ever worried about that sort of thing when he wrote to Elizabeth Barrett.) Anyways, even though it isn't Christmas anymore, and even if Eavan Boland is right about love never being the ideal depicted in the arts, I thought I'd, you know, just check.
- A Letter to Jen

Eavan Boland's Against Love Poetry is sitting on the floor by my table. As one might guess from the title, it's a critique of classic love poetry, an argument against the idealization and romanticization of love in traditional literature. I pulled it off the bookshelf a while back when Jen posted one of the poems, "Quarantine:"

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

It seemed, I don't know, not so Jen, and, a few days later, I asked her about it.

I don't know; I guess I always pegged you for a sap. (But, um, in a nice way, I SWEAR.) And she's, well, not so sappy. Do you have the whole book that "Quarantine" is from? There's this other poem in there, "Thanked Be Fortune," that contrasts the "reality" of marriage with the idealized version of love depicted in books above the bed; it's always made me think about love and idealism. On some level, I guess I agree that "everyday love" isn't "idealized" like in the arts, and maybe, sometimes, using "merciless inventories" is a more accurate way of talking about love than romanticizing it. But maybe that's only because we make love like that, when we take it for granted, and turn it into something everyday and ordinary. Whenever I think about real world idealized love, I think about my Martin Sheen boss. If there is anyone I know who's found perfect love, it's him and his wife. Maybe love like that IS super rare, and I'm just incredibly lucky to know them well, but it's always struck me at how much they CHOOSE to be happy and perfect.

Weeks pass, things change, and I keep looking over at Boland's book, sitting quietly on the floor, and wondering if I still feel the same way about it, about love, about things I said. I keep looking this entry over, wondering if I really, truly believed what I wrote, or if it was just some attempt, some effort, to make myself feel better, to force myself to move on.

Most of the time, I do still feel the same way: that we can choose to make things ideal, to make things perfect, to be happy. That we choose, to a large extent, to be in love, and that we, ourselves, have the power to make love as perfect or imperfect as we want. The idealism of love poetry isn't something to shun because it's not ordinary or everyday; rather, the everyday, the ordinary should be changed, altered, rethought so that it becomes special and ideal and classically Romantic.

But sometimes, I waver in my faith. I hear things, see things [Cf.], remember things, and I waver in my faith. It's not pain, per se, but longing, and remembering, and wishing.

This dichotomy, this bifurcation of my thoughts, my feelings, me-- it's so unsettling. Be happy, Sean. Be sad, Sean. Live in your misery, Sean. Forget about life and write you Plan, Sean. Say, "I'm still completely, foolishly, illogically in love," Sean. Choose something, anything-- just choose, Sean.

And it would be nice, for a while, to choose something, anything-- to pick a feeling and run with it. But it's not really like that, is it? It's not cut and dry, it's not decisive, it's not complete. These are the shades of gray we live in, the blurred outlines that define us, the shifting tense through which we exist. These are the yearnings of the everyday: uncertainty, irony, and bittersweetness. These are the moments of life, in all its wonder, and all its discomfort, in all its sureness, and all its fluidity. This is what we have.

Celina quoted part of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet yesterday, a book I haven't thought about in a long time. I picked it up, and started reading through it. Gibran's writing is so beautiful, so poignant, so insightful on some basic human level-- and yet, as is often the case, it is so simplistic in its content. Like any good Marlboro student, I hate to be on the bandwagon of conformity, but it truly is an amazing piece of work.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

And isn't that exactly how I feel? Isn't that how I know I didn't make a mistake? Isn't that how I know I'm okay? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Jen asked me, once, how I knew that I was in love with her. I went through the chronology, the important details, and the movement of feelings.

But I think it was when I decided that being with you, with all the horrible uncertainty and fear and possibilities for pain that comes along with a relationship, seemed to offer more promise than staying in my safe world of solitude.

The conservation of action: as completely as we give ourselves to something is as completely as we open ourselves up to its inextricably linked alter ego. And that's Gimpel's lesson, too, isn't it? That the moments of pure bliss only exist in conjunction with the possibility of less blissful moments? And that's the good news, isn't it? It's the reminder that we can feel, deeply, completely, unconditionally.

Blah blah blah, all those other things I want nothing more than to say to you right now, as you sit here in front of me, looking studious and adorable.
- Email to Jen

I know, for certain and without hesitation, that if I could feel again as I felt then, I would take this, and that, and everything in between. I know, for certain and without hesitation, the next time I fall in love will be as completely and unconditionally and idealistically as before, because I can't imagine any other way turning out better in the end. It's tempting, at times, to agree with Eavan Boland, to agree that all there is to love are 'merciless inventories' and 'duty dailyness routines;' in the end, though, I can only imagine that such thoughts would limit the potential for bliss, that such a vantage point would limit the ability for one's breath to be taken away every day.

And I love this place; the enormous sky
And the faces, hands that I'm haunted by
So why can't I forgive these buildings
These frameworks labeled "Home"?
- The Weakerthans

Writing all this out helps so much. I start off these entries feeling so uncertain, so bifurcated, so unsure about love, and living, and life. I don't know why I'm still hanging around these same old tracks, clinging to these same old memories that offer not solace, but soreness, and sitting here with the beating of my heart and all the thoughts that engenders. I don't know why I can't seem to forgive this framework of home, knowing, feeling, on some ineffable level that I already have. I don't know why this framework of home seems so negative, so awkward, so hurtful, when in fact, viewed contextually, it's something far more beautiful, more wondrous, and more complete that it appears: it reminds me both that what I experienced, what I felt, and maybe what I still feel was as real and wonderful and blissful as I remember, and, more importantly, perhaps, that I can feel that way again.

For a phone call from far away
With a, "Hi, how are you today"
And the sign recovery comes
To the broken ones
- The Weakerthans

While composing this entry, I paused for a few minutes and checked the mailbox. An envelope, with a handwritten return address-- a welcome change from the usual droppings of junk mail-- was slightly visible. I pulled it out, and smiled. It was a birthday card from Tini. How she remembered, why she even thought of me, is beyond my comprehension. And, really, it doesn't matter. It feels good to be thought of.

Recovery comes to the broken ones. And maybe other things, too.

The Stretch In Between

So much for endings. Beginning are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.

That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

Now try How and Why.
- Margaret Atwood

I think I'm getting a new camera for my birthday. OK, I know I am. It's odd, really, because I only started looking at them for fun. My parents never buy my brother or I expensive things. He's a little bitter, sometimes. They thought the Band of Brothers DVD set, which he asked for last year, was too expensive, and got him Minority Report, instead. (He hated that movie.) Our little half-sister received a digital camcorder for Christmas, and our little half brother got a Game Cube. I'm beyond caring. Or maybe I'm just happy that my parents are paying part of my tuition. It's hard to tell, really.

But this year, I'm getting a new camera. It's possible that my parents have decided to spread the wealth among us now. Maybe my little brother and sister have been bad recently, which, I suppose, makes me seem good. It could be because I let my Dad claim me as a dependent this year, which saved him almost $2000 on his taxes. Whatever it is, I'm getting a new camera.

I'm excited. I know nothing about photography, save that it's the art of photographs, but I see so many incredibly photoblogs, and so many incredible photos, and I want pictures of my own. I want pictures to supplement my words, to redefine my words, to speak my words. I want to write less, and say more; I want to write about less, and speak about more. I want something different here. I don't know How, I don't know Why-- I just want something different.

But not too different. I like this. I like it here. I look back over my archives, and this has become more and more what I want. And that's it, I guess: I don't want something different, I just want something more: more complex, more meaningful, more me. I don't want a new beginning; I want to work on the stretch in between.

And me, too-- I want more. Not more things, not more stuff-- not more of more. I want more of less, more of this, more of me. I want more of the stretch in between.

I walked a mile and a half to the waterfall. I walked a mile and a half back to the road. In between, I saw the waterfall. It's that stretch in between that makes me think, that makes me live, that makes me want more.

It's that stretch in between that we find the How and Why.

Errata?

And I'm losing all these stupid games
That I swore I'd never play
And it almost feels ok
- The Weakerthans

Don't you hate it when you turn the thermostat up, and feel even colder? When you go to bed earlier, and sleep in even later? When you make the music play louder, and you still drown in the silence?

Don't you hate it when you have so much to say, and you say so little? When you try to be more honest, and you end up feeling more fake? When you tell yourself to forget, and you remember all the more?

Don't you hate it when you throw your penny in, and the only wish you can think of wishing for is that you would stop wishing for the wish you wish you didn't wish for?

I sat there for a while; sat there watching the water flow by. I sat there for a while; sat there watching the pennies sparkle under the morning sun. I sat there for a while; sat there thinking about all the people who had come before-- all the people who had wishes and hopes and dreams of their own.

I remember them. I remember them all. I remember those who wanted "Til Death Do Us Part." I remember those who wanted "Tonight Is All We Have." I remember those who wanted "Until Something Better Comes Along." I remember them, and all that they meant to me, and all that I didn't mean to them.

Harder, I think, than making It work, is making it work After It. Maybe this isn't helping; maybe, even, it's hurting. Maybe I should stop. Maybe I should relocate. Maybe I should add "deny from 140.192. / deny from 209.86." to .htaccess.

I want so much for this to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And it is, and it isn't, and it is. I want so much for this to be a relic, a memory, a thing long since past. And it isn't, and it is, and it isn't. I want so much to be able to skip ahead, and read the last page-- the last page that I'm never able to write... that I can't write.

I don't know what it is that I do, what it is about me that is so bad. I don't know why I can't figure it out, and why I can't think that maybe it's not me. I don't know how people can care so little, how they can leave me so easily and so completely.

I wish someone would whisper in my ear, "Everything's ok." I wish someone would whisper in my ear, "Isn't this stream lovely?" I wish someone would whisper in my ear, "In the end, you're not too bad."

I wish there were whispers in my ear, sentiments in my heart, dreams in my head. I sat, listening to the gentle splash as I tossed another penny in, wishing.

On Lingering Feelings And Time Spent Listening

Is it this place that makes me fall from you
Forget the words that once rang so true
Did we expect that life was ever fair, my god
- Toad the Wet Sprocket

Because maybe this entry isn't for everyone...

...

Garage sale, Saturday, I need to pay
My heart's outstanding bills
A cracked up compass and a pocket watch
Some plastic daffodils
Cutlery and coffee cups I stole
From all-night restaurants
A sense of wonder, only slightly used
A year or two to haunt you in the dark
- The Weakerthans

I used to tell Jen that I thought about her every waking moment, many of my sleeping moments, and a few of the moments that didn't exist. And I did; I thought about her all the time. I never knew how not to, though. I don't understand how people can love incompletely, how they can keep it from consuming, in a wonderful way, their entire existence. I'm naive, of course-- I'll be the first to admit to that. I think beauty exists in every moment; I think, to a somewhat significant extent, we can choose to be happy and content; I think perfection exists in our minds alone; I think love actually is all around us.

Sometimes, I like to pretend that I'm bitter. But I'm not, really. I've tried to become bitter-- why, I can't imagine. It's not me, though. I'm cynical, yes, but mostly to mask my exuberance and optimism-- my little defense against people who might think I'm a sucker. Because I am. I am such a sucker. I am a bit like Gimpel the Fool.

I am Gimpel the fool. I don't think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that's what folks call me. They gave me the name while I was still in school. I had seven names in all: imbecile, donkey, flax-head, dope, flump, ninny, and fool. The last name stuck. What did my foolishness consist of? I was easy to take in.
- Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Gimpel the Fool"

Gimpel the Fool was naive, for sure. But, he explains, how could he not be? How could he, who was so optimistic and trusting, not believe people? How could he know, for certain, that he didn't see shadows in the dark, or that his child wasn't premature? How could he know, for certain, that honestly didn't permeate the world? And even if he had become more cautious, less trusting, more bitter, would he have been better off? He argues, at the end of his life, that he wouldn't. He had faith, and optimism, and trust in others. He was fooled a great many times, but in the end, he was happy. Happiness, as the Dalai Lama points out, is not the means to an end, but rather an end-- the end-- in of itself. Gimpel the Fool spent his entire life being derided by others. He was too trusting, too naive, too foolish. Ha! If only I could be Gimpel the Fool.

I thought about Jen all the time. And, of course, I needn't stay in the past tense. I think about her all the time. It's not that I think there's been some kind of mistake or that I'm having some sort of bad dream. It's not that I think she'll change her mind or change her heart. It's not that I'm still hoping for something that isn't there. But maybe I am. Maybe. I am. A little, subconsciously, even though I try so hard not to. I lay awake at night, going over every little word, every little gesture, every little look. I get up and check my email, knowing there won't be anything there, but not being able to not check. It's the year or two that haunts me in the dark.

Time passes. Things get better with time. Things are better. Or maybe I'm just pretending they are. Or maybe I'm just pretending to pretend they are.

These things, these thoughts, these feelings-- I don't like sharing them with others; I don't want to talk about them, I don't want to write about them, I don't want people to know I have them, hold them, still. They're not special, they're not unique, and they're not of great concern. Hearts are broken everyday. Sometimes, we break them on purpose; sometimes, we break them on accident; sometimes, they just break.

Jen was wonderful for a myriad of reasons. She gave me hope when I was running short. She made me laugh when nothing else could. She inspired me with confidence, and showed me that I had some of my own. I wouldn't trade anything that happened for the world, and I don't regret any of the time I spent with her, or for her, or because of her. That time was perfect, and I miss that perfection.

Sometimes, things just happen and hearts just break. I feel guilty for thinking, once in a while, that I'm unlucky that that happened to me. I feel angry with myself for thinking that I'd be better off if I could blame Jen for something, be angry with her over something, convince myself that somehow she broke my heart.

What the fuck? Things are too good and I'm pissed about that? I've learned, changed, grown and I'm pissed about that? My life is so much better and happier and more complete than it was six months ago and I'm pissed about that? What the hell kind of fucked up world am I trying to live in? What the hell kind of fucked up world am I trying to create for myself?

And it's strange, it really is, these fucked up realities we sometimes create for ourselves. How I try to push off, mitigate, relegate all these other good things that have happened over the last few months, the good things that are still happening. How I've been happy, and am happy, and then try to pretend it's all a facade.

This is my bitterness. This is my facade. How I try to pretend I'll miss Jen forever. How I try to pretend I'll love her forever. How I try to pretend that starting over is impossible.

Hey, I've found the safest place to keep all our tenderness
To keep all those bad ideas, to keep all our hope
It's here in the smallest bones: the feet and the inner ear
It's such an enormous thing to walk and to listen
- The Weakerthans

I've been trying to find the words for the last three weeks-- the words that shape me, the words that explain me, the words that make me whole. I couldn't find those words. I couldn't figure out how to get from where I was to where I want to be. I was stuck not wanting to check my email at 3am, but not knowing what else to do. Over the past few days, I've spent a lot of time walking and listening. And it is an enormous thing. The things I see, the things I hear, the things I think about-- they all remind me why I'm not bitter, but hopelessly optimistic, why Gimpel wasn't flawed, but gifted.

I miss Jen. I miss her witty comments, her obsession with Martin Sheen, and her Chicago accent. I still miss her, but like how I miss my other friends that aren't around much anymore, because old friends are always missed. I love Jen. I love how she made me feel, how she was a good person, and how she inspired me to do things I wouldn't have otherwise done. I still love her, but like how I love all the people I've loved before, because love isn't predicated on romantic possibilities.

"Two guys have ascended five miles into the sky. They walked up a wall of ice and are preparing to knock on the door of heaven itself. There's really no limit to what we can do. You know what the trick is? Get in the game."
- Natalie, Sports Night

Starting over seems impossible at times. How it takes so long to trust someone enough to say hi, takes so long to learn the new details and particulars and factoids, takes so long to assuage the overwhelming fear I have of human interaction. It's hard to start over. And it gets harder every time. But it's not impossible; it can't be. People have such capacity for accomplishment, such capacity for growth, such capacity for love. People have such capacity for creating new beginnings.

Did I pick these streets, or were they the only ones plowed? If the sun rose and the snow melted and I saw them for what they were, would I still want to walk along here?

Do stars dim because they are anxious about the light they provide? If they grow old, or tired, or worse, where does that leave us?

Does the future supplant the past? Are we disks of ferrite-coated ceramic, waiting patiently to be spun until we are dizzy, and altered so that yesterday never happened?

Is it worth it to examine and contemplate the meanings of the meanings of these words that we hold? Is it worth it to feel this way at all?

Those are the questions I ask, in some form or another, every time. Always the same questions, always the same doubts-- and, until I met Jen, always the same answer: I don't know. Eliot's Prufrock asked if it would be worthwhile, after all: after all the joy, all the sadness, and all the pain, after the talk of marmalade and the talk of tea, after the talk of you and the talk of me, after everything. Would it be worth is, after all, or would we wind up by the window, saying "This is not it, this is not what I meant at all." Mr. Prufrock drowned in the sea of human voices, drowned in his inability to escape his disillusionment. He said it wasn't worthwhile, after all.

He was wrong.

Old Friends

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on.
- Mary Schmich

Inspired, in part, by one of the stories that Lynette told me last week, I decided to dig through one of my boxes of collected papers, find the addresses of some people I haven't talked to or seen in years, mostly people I worked with at Bon Appetit, and write them letters. It was oddly frightening, and exciting, and, in the end, enjoyable.

Every once in a while, I remember that I have all those addresses, and I think about writing to the people who have long disappeared from my life. I've wanted to write them, for sure. I've wanted to tell those people how much they meant to me, how I still remember them, years later. I've wondered if they would remember me at all, wondered if they ever think about me. I've wondered if they would remember the same stories as I do, wondered if they're still around, in Corvallis, in Oregon... in life. I've never gotten past what to say, what to write to them, though; I've never thought I had anything substantial worth writing them about. And it always seems to come back to the substantial, or to the concrete, at least. I have memories and thoughts and feelings, but I don't know how to transform them into something worth writing, into something worth sending. Lynette's story, though, how she "made someone's day" in an indescribable, but real nonetheless, way seemed to provide enough impetus for me to try.

As I started to write the letters, I thought about all sorts of things, abstract memories and recollections, I had forgotten: the kidnapping of my teddy bear (which I think sounds better, and more mature, in the context of the whole story), shelling two cases of hard-boiled eggs a night (432 eggs), the foil-wrapped balloon disco ball, the time my saucier pretended to cut off his hand off and freaked me out, the time my prep cook did cut his hand (not off, but it was enough for the ER) and freaked me out, the pitchers of beer "left over" from caterings.

When I left Bon Appetit, everyone signed a chef jacket for me. It's an old one, filled with stains, and blotches, and memories of work. Some people wrote nice things: "Please, oh please, don't go," and "You will always be the twinkle in my eyes." Some people wrote not-so-nice things: "I'm still upset about your birthday party," (from a woman I didn't invite) and "we'll have to go to coffee maybe," (from a girl who stood me up... twice). Some people... well, I'm STILL trying to figure out what the hell they meant (or is wrong with them): "There once was a man from Corvallis/ who thought his dick was a chalice," (from the saucier I mentioned earlier).

I look over these signed names in front of me; I think about these recrudesced memories; I contemplate this confluence of the concrete and conceptualized. It seems to me, all too often, that I have a hard time connecting those disparate existences. Despite my social anxiety, or perhaps because of it, I value the social bonds I form with others more than I could ever articulate. These memories, these thoughts, these abstractions mean so much to me, yet I never seem to be able to construct concrete expressions of them; I never seem to be able to sign my name to a jacket and give it to someone. I never seem to be able to finish writing the letters to people long gone from my concrete life.

I worry all the time that people in my life now don't know how incredibly much they mean to me. I'm not good at the customary methods of social interactions: I can't call people on the phone, I don't stop by uninvited-- even email, with its purported impersonal nature, is hard for me. I worry all the time that people in my life now will become like the people in my past. I'll never write, I'll never call, I'll never let them know how much they meant to me, how much they still mean to me. I worry that the social bonds that make up my life are fleeting too fast, and that I never get a chance to articulate my appreciation.

Yesterday, I finished the last of the letters I set out to write. It was a small stack, a bit more than a half-dozen. I wrote a few current friends, too, because it seemed important to me to not fall into the easy trap of turning around, looking back, and getting lost in the past-- the easy trap I too often fall for. I held the stack of letters in my hand for a while, held them as concrete expressions of the appreciation I so often forget to show. I held the stack of letters in my hand, and felt good about what I had done, in multiple senses of the phrase: I felt good about where I'd been, and what I'd done there; I felt good about where I am, and how I got here; I felt good about writing people from so long ago, and writing people I still know; I felt good about affixing the stamps, and sending the letters on their way, despite the conflicted feelings of anxiety and appreciation and uncertainty I felt as well. Mostly, though, I felt good about myself, and hope that maybe, just maybe, the people I wrote to will feel good, too.

The Character of Faith

Only children, madmen, and savages truly understand the "in-between" world of spiritual truth.
-Paul Klee

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
- Thomas Aquinas

Before this year, I'd never bought a piece of large furniture in my life. Some people might argue my apartment was filled with leftovers and throw-aways and unwanted dregs. I would not be one of those people; I thought I had an apartment full of character.

My kitchen table had a broken leg that responded to my mood. On my bad days, the ones where I would sit on the floor, looking around for a reason to breath, the leg would fall off, and the table would collapse. I'd swear, and scream, and put it back together. Sometimes, you just have to pick up the pieces.

My bed was old and oversized. A queen, I think. I'd always wanted a big bed, but I had a small apartment, the first one I lived in, and the bed took up 85% of the room. (My bookshelf swallowed another 10%, and my lack of caring caused the remaining 5% to be covered in clothes.) I'd lay on my bed on Sunday mornings-- the one day when I got to sleep in, the one day I worked less than 10 hours-- and stare out the skylight. The sun would eventually reach the midpoint in the sky, shine down on me, and make me uncomfortably hot. Sometimes, you just have to roll over.

My sofa was old, too, but otherwise functional. I laid on it, I slept on it, I sat on it, I stood on it. What more could I ask of it? The arms of the sofa were too big, though. They were monster arms, rising too high, sloping out too far, always getting in the way. I moved the sofa here, I moved the sofa there, but the arms were always annoying. Eventually, I stopped trying to fit it to my wants and needs. Sometimes, you just have to give up.

My coffee table was wooden and stained. It was the good sort of stain, though-- the sort of stain that protects and beautifies and shines. Of all my pieces of furniture, this was my favorite. Of all my pieces of furniture, this was the last piece I acquired. I kept a great many things on my coffee table: magazines, drugstore receipts, dirty plates and cups, paper journals, bouquets of flowers, bottles of fruit juice and memories and alcohol. Over the years, I rested my feet on that table, I rested my head on that table, I rested my life on that table. It was perfect. Sometimes, you just have to keep waiting until something perfect comes your way.

I have no old, free, leftover furniture here in Vermont. I have a futon that's functional. I have a bookcase that's bare. I have a table that's typical. I feel at home, here, but not in a home. The small degrees of separation seem important once in a while, seem like they matter-- should matter-- to me. I wonder why, though. Why should I miss my misery, my unhappiness, my incompleteness, my old, dainty furniture? I don't know. But, sometimes, I miss my life[ ]less ordinary.

I think for a while longer, though, and I'm uncertain again. At home, but not a home? I don't have the things, the objects, the pieces of furniture. But did I find something else, instead? Can't what makes me feel at home also make me feel like I have a home?

This term, this past month, this week-- I don't know when, exactly, but sometime, somehow, somewhere along the way, all the pieces came together, in a subtle and indescribable way, and my life feels complete in a complex fashion. I'm happy with where I am, what I've done, and where I'm going. The future offers more promise than the past; somehow I've turned around; I can see, I can consider, and I can live.

There are problems in my life, still, to be sure. There are pieces I'm trying to pick up off the ground and reassemble into something that broke. There are mornings when I roll over and refuse to meet the day head-on. There are looks I see in the mirror, when I'm all alone at night, and tired-- looks that say, "I want to let go," "I want to give up."

But outside of those moments, and within them, a confluence of conditions have created, or perhaps reawakened, something here, something inside of me-- something I've been wanting for a long time, something perfect I've been waiting for: faith.

Moments of Rediscovery

I've been holding the book for the last twenty minutes, but I can't remember anything I've read. I close it and look at the cover. Law In An Emerging Global Village: A Post-Westphalian Perspective. I open it again. "In a somewhat unusual move, but one that deserves special notice..."

I look up at the clock on my phone. 9:06. It's been such a long day. They've all been long days recently. I pick up the phone. 0-send. "Hi, this is-- Please enter your pass-- You have no new messages. If you would like--"

In "This is What the Living Do," Marie Howe talks about the everyday things we do, the details of life that seem insignificant and troublesome and pathetic:

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil
probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty
dishes have piled up
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the
everyday we spoke of.
...

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight
pours through

the open living room windows because the heat’s on too high in here, and
I can’t turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street,
the bag breaking,

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying
along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my
wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called
that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to
pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss – we want more and more and
then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the
window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing
so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m
speechless:

I am living, I remember you.

The dead give up something when they move along home, and we like to think that it's those mundane details that seem to squeeze the very life out us-- the clogged drains, the horrid roommates, the icy driveways we keep getting our cars stuck in-- those things that the living do. And it is. The dead give up those details-- but also something else. We do these things-- we keep doing them-- because of this yearning we have, this force that compels us through these mundane details in search of something better, something more.

It's cold in here. I walk over to the heater. 61 degrees. I leave it off. My laptop is sitting on the table. My new table. There's a card in the corner. "Use that furniture!" I am. Alt-tab. No new messages.

I'm hungry. I walk out into the kitchen, where it's even colder. A pan is soaking in the sink, a crust of marinara still visible along the rim. Crumbs are left on the cutting board-- schiacciata, probably. I forgot to wipe my knife off, too. I'm not hungry. It's too cold. I open the refrigerator. Broccoli. Eggplant. Tofu. Pasta. Pickles. That's funny; I sent someone pickles once. That's not really funny.

I go back in my room, and sit down on the futon. I pick up the phone. And how should I presume? And where do I begin? I try to find my voice. I try to find me. I put the phone back on the charger.

It's that yearning, those mundane details, that reminds us we are living, and, because of that, we can remember the things that are gone. It's bittersweet, always, because we desperately want the Drano to unplug the sink, and we desperately want that letter to come, and we desperately want those who are gone to be with us again.

I'm tired. It seems like the day just began. Hasn't it just begun? I didn't get a chance to take my shoes off. Or wash my hands in the sink with that strawberry soap. Or bring home the red and violet tulips and put them in the little yellow vase with a bit of water so they would stay fresh for days. In the end, we just run out of time.

I check the time. 9:37. I should call. Maybe she wants to know that I care when she's sick. Maybe she wants to know that I care. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she's already asleep. I hesitate. I think. I look at the clock. 10:04. I pause.

10:30. The heater's been on for a while now. I take off my hat. I look over at the cards on the bedside stand. "It's maybe the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me!" Really? Maybe? Maybe not? Why don't you call? Why don't you write? "Read between the lines." Translation: I used to love you.

Mary Oliver, in "The Ponds," writes about dichotomy of beauty in the world:

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe
their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them-

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided-
and that one wears an orange blight-
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away-
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled-
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing-
that the light is everything-that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

Sometimes we stop, and see how much simple beauty there is in the world. The perfectly clear sky, the gentle breezes that mark the beginning of spring, the patches of daffodils that line Highway 34 in Tangent. And when we get closer, we find things aren't so perfect after all. We see the blights, and the nibbling, and the imperfections, and, suddenly, somehow, the beauty evaporates. How can something be beautiful with this? Why would something be perfect with that? The images we have in our minds turn out to be far different from these stark realities. We feel disappointed. We feel let down. And we lose sight of the obvious fact that life is always greater than the sum of its parts.

I walk over to the table. No new messages. Tab to Local Folders. Scroll down. Open. Reread. No "Thanks for coming." No "I miss you." No "Gimme Ma Space." Instead: "A real email is forthcoming, I swear." Forthcoming. Indeed. Like so many things. And what would happen if we waited around? Waited around for just those things? Two new messages. Spam. Junk. I hate you. Do I? Scroll up. Scroll up. Open. Reread. Reminder: "How could you NOT think I was completely in love with you?" Pause. How indeed. Page down. Repeat times eight. Statement: "You're definitely insightful." Question: Are you still insightful? Can you see how much I need to know what happened? What is happening? What is going to happen?

I thought we had something. But it's cold, now, and I don't know anymore. I'm hungry. I walk out into the kitchen. I should eat something. I'm not hungry. I open the refrigerator door. More reminders. I'm bored. I walk into the bathroom, and brush my teeth.

Minty freshness. I'm tired. I wish you were here. I wish I were there. Why am I doing this again? Enough already. But not enough. Dreams last for so long, and I can't seem to stop dreaming. The future, the multitude of our futures. The outlines of our lives. I fall asleep. Because in the end, I'm happy to just think. And wait. And see what happens.

Yearning, to paraphrase Richard Wilbur, calls us to the things of this world. It reminds us that being alive allows us not only the trials and tribulations that tax our very soul, but also the possibility for so much delight. Tragedy teaches us that pain and happiness, sorrow and elation are inextricably linked; the choices we make don't lead to one polarization or the other, but rather to a combination of both. The beauty of the world is not reducible to individual blossoms, or to a set of blissful-- very blissful-- circumstances that might now be gone. Rather, it's the whole that matters.

Life is always greater than the sum of its parts.

The dangerous smell of Drano. The flaws of a blossom. The squeeky sound of the laundry line being drawn in at 7:30 in the morning. The letter that still sits on my bedside table. These are the parts.

I am living, I remember you. This is the whole.

And this is what the living do.

Selah

I've read that etymologists are undecided about the meaning of the word "Selah;" it appears in several places throughout the Bible, most notably in the Book of Psalms. When I was growing up, though, it was used to bring silence, and meant 'pause, and consider what was said.'

What have I said here? Why do I write here? What have I become here?

Stop. Pause. Consider.

Selah.

Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
-T.S. Eliot

For six months, I've been hopelessly attempting to clarify the ineffable, explore the indescribable, and raid the inarticulate. For six months, I've been writing here. It's strange to look back on what I've thought about, what I've written about, what I've created here.

I've never been happy with my writing. The only B I got in middle school was in Humanities. I passed Freshman English in high school on a technicality (not as good a story as you might imagine), and didn't complete (or even attempt) another writing class until I took the requisites for my CA degree. I avoided writing as one might avoid the plague. The irony of me choosing Marlboro over other, less writing-intensive schools has never been lost on me.

At times, the raid on the inarticulate has seemed like a futile and wasted effort. At times, I've been terrified of showing what I am, and who I am. At times, I've thought about going no further. At times, I've even thought about stopping altogether. It's scary, when you're as guarded and shy and reserved as I am, to even look for the words to write about these things, let alone actually share them with others, anonymous as these "others"-- as you "others"-- are. Or were.

It's strange to think that anyone and everyone can know so much about me. It's comforting, too, when I realize that most people just gloss over these words, picking out the overt meanings and moving on. It's nice, really it is, to know most people don't study my words, highlight my allusions, examine my line breaks. It's nice to know most people think I'm writing about astronomy, the El, my voicemail, and FireFox. It's nice that most people don't wonder why I allude to Eliot's measured spoonfuls, or to Hemingway's dialogue between Jake and Brett, or to Schroedinger's Cat. It's nice to still have secrets.

Hidden as they are, though, the truths in this flog are still me. Me. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I never planned it this way. Do we ever? Do we ever measure out the spoonfuls of our lives? Do we ever stand at the juncture, thinking about the benefits of the path less traveled?

I wouldn't have chosen this path. I had started down the other one, indeed. Things change, sometimes. A random event, an offhand comment, a single line in an email that has no earthly explanation for existing. "Whenever you write like that... I always think it's very good."

And so I wrote more like that.

Things change. We change. People change us.

You find things you didn't know you had; you find things you didn't think you could have; you find things you didn't know existed.

The space in-between, the border between past and present tense, is always hard to live in. It's troublesome and worrisome and the only certainty is that there isn't any certainty. I want to say that nothing is the same anymore, but, of course, many things are still the same. I pick out those few things that are different, those few little things, and hold them up to the light, glorifying them, totalizing them, believing they have somehow come to mean everything.

They aren't. And many things are still the same.

I'm impatient, and insecure, and think too much, and sometimes it seems like I'm running out of time. Quick, decide: What will you have for breakfast tomorrow? What will the title of your Plan be? Which Graduate program will you choose? Which park will you watch the quacking ducks eat the scraps of bread from the sandwich your grandkid couldn't finish?

Stop. Pause. Consider.

Selah.

It's easy to lose sight of the small moments-- the true moments of beauty that give you something to compare the big moments with. Earlier tonight, I went outside and watched the stars for a while. It was clear, and crisp, but not uncomfortably cold. The stars sparkle and shine and sit there timelessly in the fabric of the sky. And I point and say, "Look! Orion!" And I say, "Look! The big dipper!" And I say, "Look! Cassiopeia!" And, of course, I have no idea what I'm looking at, or who I'm talking to. It doesn't matter. It looks wonderful, and the world is wonderful, and I feel wonderful.

Stop. Pause. Consider.

Selah.

What is this, here? What have I said? Why do I say it?

This is me. The words, the thoughts, the feelings-- all of this is me. These are the measured spoonfuls of my life, laid out for contemplation. These are the stepping stones I've used along the way. These are the mileage markers that show how far I've come.

This is me. I write because these words sound nice to me. I write because sometimes it's the only thing that makes sense to me. I write because once, a while ago, someone said they liked what I wrote.

This is me. And it's because of you.

Selah.

Timorous Days of Silence

It's quiet here. I've been getting up early. It's warm outside. I've been feeling something ineffable. In both senses of the word.

Some people drink. Or eat ice cream. Or sit at home all day. Or go shopping.

I'm drinking coffee. I'm eating Tofutti. I took a shower, and put my pajamas back on. I've been shopping.

Shopping? Me? How unusual?

Yes. A little bit. But I don't buy clothes, because I have no fashion sense. I don't buy consumables, because they rarely interest me. I don't buy nifty gadgets, because I feel guilty for so many reasons. I buy poetry.

Hi. I'm Sean. I'm very unusual. And my large collection of poetry is now explained.

I have begun,
when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question

to ask my dead friends for their opinion
and the answer is often immediate and clear.

Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child
in my middle age?

They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling-whatever leads
to joy, they always answer,

to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were-
it's green in there, a green vase,

and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes.
Billy's already gone through the frightening door,
whatever he says I'll do.
-Marie Howe

Recently, I've become enamored with Marie Howe, whose collection, What the Living Do, is an autobiographical anthology of poetry about her abusive childhood, the death of her brother, and others, from AIDS, and her struggle to find meaning in such a tragic world.

The world is Tragic. It's not good; it's not bad; it's Tragic. And sometimes it seems full of difficult phone calls, and you desperately want someone who's seen it all to tell you what to do.

For my Plan, I've been reading about the connection between political theory and Greek Tragedy. It's interesting, and thought provoking, and, most of all, hopeful stuff. I've been talking with Meg, too, about the role of tragedy in the world, and how, with the rejection of the certainty that exists in moral choices, it brings uncertainty, but also hope, to the our lives.

The Sun Also Rises. And sometimes it's pretty to think about what might be, or what might have been.

If you'd only let me in.

So you don't get to be a saint
Martyrs never last this long
-The Weakerthans

I ordered Patrick Friesen's You Don't Get to Be a Saint, too. [Finally.] Mmm. I know this one will make me happy and warm and wishing, ever so faintly, that I could still be a saint. I desperately wanted to get The Shunning, also, but, at $8, it would have been the most expensive of the books I got. Then I saw it used at Amazon's Marketplace, and I got excited and ready to buy it. But I didn't. Because I'd already picked quite a few books out. And I sort of want to actually read them.

Yes, so other books are coming, as well. But I don't want to talk about them all now.

Amazon's Marketplace is one of the coolest things. That I can buy used books, dirt cheap (because people have no idea the PURE GOLD they're selling), without having to leave the comfort of my home is SIMPLY AMAZING. (And one of the books is coming from a bookstore in Vermont, which means it will be here soon, soon, soon, and I'll be excited and joyous and other related adjectives.) Also amazing is my ability to find the books I want on sale at Powell's. Lovely.

All of this, for so little.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question
-T.S. Eliot

Not all good; not all bad. Tragic, indeed.

Separations And Silence

Terrorized by the ruling party
Calendars and commas
Small request
Could we please turn around
Then you whisper your arrival
Walking backwards to the door
Wonder briefly what it is
You're hesitating for
All the streets lie down, deserted
In the darkest part of night
To lead you through the evening
To the light
Pulled along in the tender grip
Of watches and ellipses
Small request
Could we please turn around
-The Weakerthans

Yesterday morning, I was in the library, reading and writing, sitting and thinking-- the usual motley mix of sleepless morning activities. Marlboro is such a quiet place in the mornings. It's quite a quiet place at anytime during the day, for sure, but particularly so in those early hours. The few people walking around are silent and sleepy, Dalrymple is deserted, and more noise in the library is generated by the snores of people sleeping there than by anyone awake and working. I sat in a chair, on the third floor, and stared out the windows endlessly, and my stare seemed to travel endlessly, uninhibited by the campus below, the forests in the distance, or the drifting cirrus clouds in the sky.

For a few moments, then, things made sense. The numbers added up. Thoughts became lucid. And who would have thought that lucidity would come in such large bundles?

Thoughts on my Plan, ideas that had been swimming around in my head, uncongealed, for weeks, crystallized and coalesced onto scraps of paper. Thoughts on the future, plans for who I am and where I'm going, became clearer and more refined. Thoughts on last week, feelings that have been morphing and changing and conflicting, articulated themselves into certainty and hope and desire.

And the sun came out, and looked warm, and was warm. And the day passed, and seemed beautiful, and was beautiful. And I smiled, and felt wonderful, and was wonderful.

Falling out, falling out
Have you ever wondered
If this was anything more than a crazy idea
-Natalie Imbruglia

Last night, I got an email from someone. On any other day, it would have seemed flattering and nice, I imagine. It said, inter alia, "I'm impressed by your lovely grammar and vocabulary..." I thought about all the other times people have told me they like how I write-- people I've known for years, people I've just met, people I've never met at all. It feels good to hear-- it feels really good to hear.

On any other day, that email would have felt good, too. But it came now, and I've been wondering about it, and about my writing, and about me. The lucidity and contentment of yesterday morning fades into the background while I sit here, wondering and worrying.

Thought I found the words to say
Just to get you feeling fine over heels my way
-Train

Is it possible that there is something in my words that, somehow, isn't in me? Is it is possible that, somehow, there is something more to my words than to me? They're refined and ordered; they sparkle and alliterate; they speak to things we-- I-- don't often speak to; they are careful and clever, and thoughtful and thought provoking. And so, is it possible they have a life of their own, something separate and sundered from me? Is it possible someone can love my words, and not really love me?

Moments of Unconditional Love

Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
-William Shakespeare

I worry about all those times in the past, the times it seemed real, or felt real, or was real. Does the future supplant the past? Are we disks of ferrite-coated ceramic, waiting patiently to be spun until we are dizzy, and altered so that yesterday never happened?

A long time ago, I was in love. I could condition that statement, and say it wasn't really love, or wasn't true love, or wasn't unconditional love, and perhaps I would be right to do so. We learn, we change, we grow. But it was love, back then, as well as I understood it, and I would have done anything to hold on to it.

It didn't work out. I have explanations for why; logical, rational reasons for what went wrong: I wanted her to love me without condition, without saying "but," in the way that I loved her. She thought there were more important things in her life, things that I couldn't be part of.

Those reasons never seemed to make sense to me, though. Why would you not want someone to love you unconditionally? How could there possibly be a better feeling in the world? It's possible I'm naive. And it's possible I'm a sap. And it's possible I have childish fairy-tale notions of what love is, or should be. It's possible. But I'd rather believe in my fairy-tale world any day than believe that the world is a cruel and unloving place, and we have to settle for something less than perfect.

We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say
"I wanted it this way"
And wait for the year to drown
Spring forward, fall back down
I'm trying not to wonder where you are
All this time lingers, undefined
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving
Memory will rust and erode into lists
Of all that you gave me
Some matches, a blanket, this pain in my chest
The best parts of Lonely
Duct-tape and soldered wires
New words for old desires
And every birthday card I threw away
-The Weakerthans

For a long time after Cassie left, I had doubts, though. I would stay awake at night, and wonder what might have been if I had been less demanding, if I had been willing to accept less of her. I would stay awake at night, and wonder if that was really as good as it gets, and if I missed my chance, my opportunity, my 'one.'

Jay and I like to laugh at how I relate to people. I don't talk to people I don't like, I don't like people I don't know, and I don't know people I don't talk to. It's a silly little circle, and a circle I can't seem to escape from. Whenever someone loved me, I always thought I was just lucky. It was chance, or a roll of the dice, that got me where I was. And I took love in any form it was offered, despite the preconditions that always seemed to follow. The woulds, the coulds, the buts. It always seemed like I was lucky to have anything at all. The love wouldn't last, though, and I would think that I wasn't compromising enough, and I would think, if I could do it again, I would take even less.

Lately I have desperately pondered
Spent my nights awake and I wonder
What I could do have done in another way
To make you stay
Reason will not lead to solution
I will end up lost in confusion
I don't care if you really care
As long as you don't go
So I cry, I pray, and I beg
Love me, love me
Say that you love me
Fool me, fool me
Go on and fool me
Love me, love me
Pretend that you love me
Leave me, leave me
Just say that you need me
-The Cardigans

Feeling alone is a horrible thing. Some people can pretend it doesn't bother them, and some people can make it not bother them. But not me. I hate being alone. I hate feeling alone. And I used to think, in the middle of the night when everything was still, save the pain in my chest, that being alone is the worst thing ever, and something I would always live with. During those long, cold nights, if I was given the chance to go back and be with those people who said they "would love me," or "could love me," or "loved me, but," I think I would have gone.

I tell myself that someday, this will all be worth it. Maybe I'll make friends at Marlboro; maybe the Internet, to which I'm always connected now, will offer me some enduring wisdom; maybe, as was my hope when I first came here, I'll use my degree from here and do something that makes me happy and proud.

I believe in happy endings. It won't always be the ending you expect, or the ending you once wanted, but it will happy nonetheless. Tonight, I'll remember all those things I miss. I'll sit on the floor, I'll cry for a while, I'll tell the universe there's been some kind of mistake. I'll go to sleep tonight, and tomorrow will be a little better. And someday, I'll know what all this was for.

Things change, though. People change. I changed. Those moments of pain, those moments of regret, those moments where I thought I would take something less than what I deserved became less frequent. Being alone still hurt. Feeling like I would be alone forever still seemed horrible. But I realized there were worse things in life. Things like being with someone who didn't love every fibre of my being like I would love every fibre of theirs.

Some people don't seem to need that. Some people seem to be able to settle for less than unconditional love. That ideal always seemed so perfect to me, though, that there always seemed to be a part of me that was holding out-- the part of me that kept me from accepting less than everything back then.

I don't think there is ever only one person or only one possibility or only one chance for us. I think the world is open, and, if we choose, there can always be new beginnings. It's easy for me, now, to say that waiting was worth it. But it's something I've always (sometimes more, sometimes less) believed in. And I truly think there is no better feeling than what it is I feel right now. I don't love incompletely. I can't. Some people would say I'm naive. Some people would say I'm too open with my heart, and I'll just end up getting hurt in the end. But I think that's exactly why most people have so much trouble finding love that lasts, or love that fills every moment of every day-- they don't really want to make themselves vulnerable enough to have it. They choose, instead, to settle for something less, something safer. But like Jen was saying,

after the first time someone rejects you/tells you they don't want you, you kinda lower your standards. It's like you're trying to find someone who you can stand that can also sorta stand you. (Or, if you're like me, you basically give up all hope. *grin*) Well here's the thing about that - it's true and it's not true. It's true for some people, people who eventually settle for whatever reason. It's not true for those incredibly lucky people who, when they least expect it, find JUST what they were looking for - wait, not only find it, but they can actually HAVE it. It's surreal - it takes your breath away every day. And, in the end, you realize that there are no imaginable standards to which you can hold it.

And there really is nothing in the world like this feeling I have now. It's not just feeling content that someone loves you some of the time; it's having your breath taken away every day. Maybe it won't last and maybe we'll find out we aren't really perfect for each other after all. Sometimes things don't work out, and sometimes it's not anyone's fault. But at least I won't regret a single moment I spend with her.

She calls to speak to me
I freeze immediately
Cause what she says sounds so unreal
Cause somehow I can't believe
That anything should happen
-Tal Bachman

People are quick to quote part of Shakespeare's phrase from The Tempest, but they often forget (or don't know) the rest of it. What is past is prologue, but what is future is what we choose. We can choose to take something less than perfect and run with it. We can choose to settle for something less than what we deserve. Or we can choose to hold out. We can choose to wait for that perfect moment. And nothing has ever made me feel as good as those five little words from someone who has waited too.

'Yes' is being my answer.

I know you might roll your eyes at this
But I'm so glad that you exist
-The Weakerthans

Requiem For My Nasty Little Thoughts

Does anyone know much about quantum physics and entangled particles and faster-than-light communication? These things are happening to me, and the only analogy I can think of is how certain subatomic particles are paired, each having a spin opposite of the other, and when you measure one of them, the other "becomes" the opposite.

I really should have taken that quantum mechanics class.

In the meantime, some [completely unrelated] other thoughts of mine:

Throw away my misery
It never meant that much to me
It never sent a get well card
-The Weakerthans

If I fall along the way
Pick me up and dust me off
If I get too tired to make it
Be my breath so I can walk
If I need some other love, then
Give me more than I can stand
When my smile gets old and faded
Wait around I'll smile again
Shouldn't be so complicated
Just hold me and then
Just hold me again
-Matchbox 20

Three years ago, I moved out of my parents' house. I hadn't spent much time there, other then to sleep, since I was fifteen, but it still felt different to have a place of my own. It felt like I had "grown-up" and "accomplished" something. And I had. My culinary degree was already collecting dust on the shelf, and I was managing the swing shift at Bon Appetit. I worked mornings at LB, and took classes during the day; I was almost done with my first year of liberal studies. It should have been a great time in my life. It wasn't.

I don't remember much from that time. In my diary, there is an entry on February 2, the night I received the approved petition from the Court:

It's weird. I've wanted it for so long and yet, it seems insignificant now. I just feel dead. Nothing. At all.

There is one undated entry after that, and then nothing until June. I wasn't a daily journalist, but there are no other gaps more than a week anywhere else in the journal.

I remember a few events from that time period: being hired for the classified position at LB, starting meds again, trying to kill myself, staying at the regional mental health center (surprisingly, not related to the previous event), having a birthday party. They all seem like fleeting moments in my mind; moments I can't quite connect or make seem real in any tangible sense.

They were ugly times. I could never hope to conceptualize how much people loved me, and cared for me, and tried to help me then. And I can't understand, now, how I could think that things were so bad. They were. They were every bit as bad as I thought they were. People who have never stood on that precipice can't hope to understand what those demons are like. Dave Pollard, annoyed at Lisa Lieberman's Leaving You: The Cultural Meaning of Suicide, once wrote,

Judgments fly left and right: suicide is "petulant", "an act of aggression", "a variation on 'fuck you!'", involves "dishonesty, self-pity and sheer malice", a "glorified tantrum", "self-loathing masquerading as concern for others", "competitively morbid". These hackneyed guilt-ridden labels are an insult to both the intelligence and the valour of the ferocious, life-long emotional struggle of those that commit, or seriously contemplate, suicide.

It's been a little over two years since I last had a debilitating episode of depression. For a long time, I've feared that it could reappear and reassert itself. I've feared that I could lose control, and lose hope. I've feared that I could fall down and hurt someone in the process. I've been hesitant to trust people in the past, to trust myself, fearing it could strike again.

Lie down
Lick the sorrow from your skin
Scratch the terror and begin
To believe you're strong
-The Weakerthans

I don't think depression ever goes completely away. I think my brain chemistry and psychology and disposition will always leave me vulnerable to its terrible grasp. But I also think I have changed since those darker days. I have learned, and grown, and accepted things. I believe I am strong. I think I can overcome. I know I no longer fear.

Possibility

In an elevator with smooth metal doors
Pressing all the buttons
Stuck in between the floors
So you start taking back stairs
On sunny days
You're quietly slipping away
And the center of gravity
Is the same for you and me
We're all spinning around
The sun together
Are you ready to let go
-Liz Pisco

I visit APOD almost everyday. It is usually a welcome break from my little world of insignifent concerns. That there are things in the universe so complex, so beyond my understanding, so completely beautiful-- it takes my breath away and leaves me in awe. How can things like that exist? How can there be such complexity in the universe? How can there be such beauty? How is it that I can be filled with so much wonder?

I used to look at the picture everyday and see hope.

Now I look, and I see possibility.

Moments of Inarticulacy

"What are you feeling, Janet?"
"Light. I feel light."
"Floating on air?"
"No- the other kind of light."
"What do you mean?"
"White light. I feel like... the sun."
-Douglas Coupland

Sometimes, I just sit here for a long time-- longer than I realize. Hooverphonic is playing, the fans in my computers are humming away, the heater kicks on and off-- there is this noise in the room. Secondary noise. Inconsequential noise. I don't here it. I hear my heart beating. I hear my metered breaths. I just hear myself and that "human noise" that I make.

I get lost in thought, trying to think of how to capture the moment into something concrete, something static, something rememberable. Most of my readings lately have focused on the dependent relationship of thought to language and, further, on the fluidity and uncertainty of language (and thus thought). I am having trouble, though, accepting that thought is solely the construct of language, and my thoughts exist only to the extent to which I can describe them with language (and the further implication that even if I could describe my thoughts, you would never really know about them because language is too imprecise and unstable).

On a social level, perhaps there is a lot of truth in that. Indescribable thoughts certainly can't be related in any meaningful sense by articulating a sense of indescribableness (though, for a number of reasons, I reject the absolute nature of that assertion). On a personal level, an internal level, though, there is something, indescribable as it is, that I feel right now. I know it exists, and to suggest that it is without meaning because I can't attach a linguistic meaning to it seems like even more of a disservice than fumbling around with an imprecise and an inaccurate discourse.

Inaccurate Signifiers:
Content.
Hopeful.
Happy.
Beautiful.
Light.

Derrida talks about how signifiers slide into other signifiers without ever reaching the signified, the "truth" (or "meaning"). He argues that this results in fragmented identities, since we can never say, in any meaningful sense, what we mean.

So is this my fragmented identity? Is this all indescribable, and thus nonexistent? Or can I sit here, not talking or writing or thinking, but just listening to the human noise I make, and feel?

Regrouping

There was an entry here; those thoughts seemed so scattered, though, and so incomplete, and too worthless to remain.

I don't know. About anything. Or anyone. Or a certain one.

But I have left the words that are not mine, because they still seem important in sketching the path I'm on.

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
-T.S. Eliot

I had forgotten how beautiful and calm the evenings were here. Back in Vermont, the snow had buried any vestige of life ages ago. I have pictures, from the beginning of the term, which show trees with brightly colored leaves, and a front lawn of scraggly country grass, dotted with weeds and other reminders of things undesirable. The pictures seem so fake, though, so contrived-- an illusion of a time long since gone…

I would stay here, I think. Right here, in the breeze, and the silence, with the trees, and the sunset. It grows dark, and colder, and I sit here, listening to the timeless song of motionless trees.

Buy me a shiny new machine
That runs on lies and gasoline
And all those batteries we stole from smoke-alarms
And disassembles my despair
It never took me anywhere
It never once bought me a drink
-The Weakerthans

I'll have something better in a few days, I think.

"Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again"

If you see this beautiful and (more importantly) happy woman, would you please ask her what happened to my mother?

I miss her terribly.

Thank you,
Sean

Moments of Realization

I was done for the night. My computer was shut down, my teeth were brushed, I had retrieved my book from the living room, and I was on my way to bed to read a little and then go to sleep. I was tired, and finished. As I walked thorough the family room, I stopped, for a moment, looked out the large window, and watched the snow drift down so effortlessly, so unconcerned. A few inches now covered the yard, and clothed the Japanese Barbary bushes in a lascivious white outfit.

Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I will go out, and enjoy the snow. Surrounded, mocked, imprisoned by snow for much of the school year, I was finally going to have my fun with it. I was finally going to do what you are supposed to do with snow; do the things that you forget to do, as you grow older. I was going to play.

There are movies and poems and books that tell us to seize the day. They tell us there is nothing like the moment, and we should not hesitate, we should not wait, lest we lose the opportunities that present themselves. We shouldn't hold things inside, and fail to follow the direction of our heart. It's so easy to put things off, though, and wait just one more day. The sun never ceases to rise in the morning, and we never fail to wake up. Tomorrow is as constant and certain as today is. Though we live such fragile, short linear lives, the future seems so patient and eternal.

I listen to the soft tapping against the window. It has been minutes now, in front of the window, but everything is so still. I think about all the reasons for waiting, and none of them seem satisfactory or convincing. Now is the time, and it's foolish and wasteful to wait until tomorrow.

Yet still I hesitate. Fear. Uncertainty. Why? These perceptions are so irrational, so illogical. I want to call out. I want to scream. These moments, that pull us apart at the seams, are so telling and so defining. I don't want to wait any longer. I want to choose.

I lay down my book, put on my gloves and hat, and walk out into the brisk night. The snow is barely falling now, and I look out at the edge of the porch light's grasp. I can see so little with that small bulb, yet everything sparkles with beauty. Even beyond the lighted landscape, I know the gentle layer of snow exists. It is a beauty that has no limits, even though we, with our frail senses and conditioned behaviors, are blind to appreciate it fully.

Walking out into the lawn a ways, I start rolling a snowball. It grows bigger and bigger, picking up snow and weight exponentially. After a few minutes, I can barely move it, and I head for the hill. At the edge, I lose my footing, and the ball escapes downwards. Before it hits the bottom, it breaks apart, seemingly for no reason.

Why would such a strong, cohesive snowball break apart? Did I make it wrong? Or not pack it enough in the beginning? What happened to my majestic snowball? The truth is that snowballs can't run on autopilot. As careful as I was in the beginning, packing it tightly and keeping it round, it could never survive the stress of falling down the hill unguided.

I smash the pieces together, and glue the seams with fresh snow. It was aesthetically more pleasing, but lacked the structure to move anywhere. I stop working on it, and fall down. No matter how much you patch it, no matter how much you cover the scars, the damage is too great, and it will never be the same again. At that moment, I think that, I fear that, I'll never be able to make another snowball as big and as perfect as that one. I feel tired, and worn out; I feel too used up to try again. But the snowball just sits there in front of me. It doesn't give me points for not wanting to start again.

I begin rolling another snowball. Oddly enough, it seems more round, and more clean, and more ideal than the one before. Soon, it's the perfect size for the second segment. Second segment? A snowman? When did I decide to make that? Sometimes, things just turn out like that. An idea whose origin you're never certain of takes over, and becomes the master plan. And then you backtrack, and incorporate it into the past. Yes, all along I was thinking of this. This is what I always wanted.

I try to lift it on top of the first ball, but I can't; it's too heavy. I'll wait until tomorrow, and enlist the help of someone else. Together, we'll put this snowman together. I roll a third, final snowball, and set it alongside the others. There, perfect. Everything is ready; everything is set to finish in the morning. Now I can rest; now I can wait. These snowballs are safe and permanent, even if the other snow should melt by morning. I can stop now, and rest, and wait a little while longer. It will be easier tomorrow, easier to do what I want to do.

But can I really wait? Can I really leave this for tomorrow? What if rains, and melts my beautiful snowballs? What if there is nothing left for me in the morning? Stacking the snowballs seems so difficult; I don't think I have the strength to do it. A brisk wind picks up from the northeast. I feel cold, for the first time. And I wait there, standing next to my three snowballs, for a little while longer.

The snow has started to fall again, much heavier this time. I look skyward, and watch the large snowflakes appear at the edge of the stream of light and float towards me. So many, so beautiful; it seems as though they appear from nowhere. They are drawn to me, surrounding and bathing me with their brilliance. Minutes pass as I stand there, all alone in the night. I can feel the snow stick to me. The snow becomes me, and I am the snow. I am perfection, and brilliance, and beauty.

I can't return to the house now; it feels too good to leave this place. I lie down in the wet snow, and wait as I am slowly buried by the falling sky. The motion light turns off, and the snowflakes disappear from sight. I can feel them, still, as they cover my face, and I look out into the pale moonlight, searching, intensely, for the source of this joy inside me.

Moments of Definition

I know we're headed somewhere , I can see how far we've come
But still I can't remember anything
-Gin Blossoms

Could someone clarify why
There's no structured narrative
No neat story-line to explain
-The Weakerthans

Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
-John 20:29

I think moments are important, and even defining, in life; we tend to remember moments that comfort us, hurt us, and ultimately change us.

Moments are certain and specific; they can epitomize distinct feelings, distinct perceptions, and distinct realizations at a distinctive place and time. These moments become moments of revelation and moments of definition; moments we remember as being crucial to who we are. But I wonder to what extend life unfolds in moments, and to what extend we can be certain of the moments in which it unfolds.

When I think about my recent past, there have certainly been moments of great change. I am very little the person I was five years ago. I wonder, though, if I can pick out specific moments, and say, "Ah, here; a moment of revelation." If I could, what would they look like?

Lying in front of a mirror, an empty bottle of aspirin in front of me, and thinking this might not be such a good idea after all. Throwing a match through the small hole in the window, and being deafened by the explosion. Looking around a classroom full of people I had worked with and studied with, and feeling, for the first time in years, that I had found home. Drinking most of a fifth of rum, and realizing I was wrong about everything. Standing in a packed courtroom, and listening to the cold, sharp words, "Youth shall be committed to the Oregon Youth Authority for placement in a Youth Correctional Facility for a period not to exceed five years." Walking along a bark dust path, and deciding it might be worth it, after all, to pose an overwhelming question.

Definite. Succinct. Linear. Those are important moments in my life, for sure. But can I really define myself, and understand myself, by looking at those specific, memorable moments? What of the moments of waiting, the moments of contemplation, the moments in between? Are they not important, essential even, to the moments they follow and are followed by?

At the end of Season Three of Babylon 5 [my favorite TV show ever, by the way, despite the questionable acting and, at times, somewhat tedious dialogue], G'Kar says,

All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation… The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.

Moments of revelation are nice. They are complete packages, a problem coupled with an answer. They are memorable, with a distinct and defining location in the linear past. They are powerful, and able to change our outlook on, and interaction with, life. They make great sounds bites and movie endings. 'Oh, yes, look at that; a lesson, after all.' But moments of revelation aren't everything.

I find myself most interested in the moments in between, the moments of transition. I think about my life all the time; what it means to be human, what it means to live the good life, and have the good life, what it means to be me. But I have very few answers, and very few revelations; my contemplations are almost always undertaken in moments of transition. I guess I'm hoping that someday, somehow, all of these moments will add up, something will click, I'm beaten over the head with a 2x4, and everything will make sense-- the big revelation, The Answer.

The Answer is, of course, what I'm seeking here-- some absolute truth, some supreme realization that will make life understandable and worthwhile. More immediately, I want to know why I can't sleep at night. I want to know why everything in my life stopped making sense at the end of last term. I want to know why my identity suddenly became describable by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle ("the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known" [and vice versa]). I want to know why, despite almost all evidence telling me I should, I can't tell someone, "Oh, um, by the way, I think I'm in love with you."

It's discouraging, sometimes, to spend so much time thinking about these transitions and not come up with any answer. I feel like I think and think, and read and read, and write and write, and still my search bears no fruit. I feel no closer to any revelation now than I did a month ago. I want The Answer. I need it. Most discouraging, though, is that I think it doesn't exist.

The Answer, I think, is a Grail, of sorts. It isn't the end result that is important, really, but rather the search, and the one who searches. It is the search that teaches us about ourselves, and about each other, and helps us learn the things we know to be true. The search is a string of moments in transition; we find, along the way, small moments of revelation that seem to indicate there is, in the end, an overarching revelation, a singular realization that makes it all worthwhile. But maybe the only thing that revelation will teach us is that it was the search, itself, that gives life meaning, and that moments of revelation, as clear and concise and complete as they seem, aren't meaningful without the moments of transition. The examination of those transitions, then, these examinations of those transitions, would seem to be as important as the exploration of revelations.

It doesn't feel satisfactory to exist like this, though. It feels foolhardy, and wasteful, and pointless. If the search is all that matters, and the Grail is most likely an illusion, why search at all? Why waste so much time and energy and life searching for something that might not even exist? If transitions are as important as revelations, and revelations turn out to be unimportant in the end, why bother looking at those transitions? I don't know; I have no rational answer. Without rational answers, I'm left with unrational ones, like faith:

I wonder, perhaps, if faith is elusive because it exists, for me, in the search itself. To struggle to find meaning where I think no meaning exists; to live a good life when I don't know what good means; to keep searching even when the search, itself, seems hopeless; to not yield when yielding seems the only option. Perhaps those are as true a meaning of faith as any others.

And so I keep thinking, and reading, and writing. I stay awake at night, and keep searching these moments of transition, hoping, ever so slightly, that they will lead to moments of revelation, which might, if not provide meaning, at least afford assuagement.

Moments of Recollection

Or am I standing still
Beneath the darkened sky
Or am I standing still
With the scenery flying by
Or am I standing still
Out of the corner of my eye
Was that you, passing me by
-Jewel

Having some free time today, I opened up one of the memory boxes I've stored here. It has all the cards, yearbooks, degrees, awards, and other random pieces of paper that I've collected over the past six years, or so. Two things, in particular, caused me to lose hours of my life today, lost in a drowning pond of thought: a napkin and a set of awards.

The napkin is from my shit job at Bon Appetit. At the time, I was the night Sous Chef, which was really not much more than a glorified bitch-monkey. When I started in that position, it wasn't too bad. I had enough staff, enough time, and enough energy to put up with the corporate shit that was pervading the site at the time (HP's glorious attempts at cost control were going full bore at the time). As time passed, though, my crew shrank, our hours were ostensibly cut (though I always ignored those cuts), and the workload increased. Typical.

The night baker was one of the sweetest and most honest people I have ever known. I adopted her early on as one of my surrogate moms (I have several, by the way). She wasn't particularly speedy, but she was fast enough to do her job, and she did it superbly. She was, in fact, the only person on my crew that I never had to check up on. As more work got dumped on her, though, she started to get stressed out. Overtime wasn't allowed, and she hated to leave stuff for the morning baker, so she started working through her breaks.

That, I think, was about the point when I really began to lose it. I started walking into the freezer multiple times a shift and just screaming. Not pretty. I just hate it when good people get screwed over and don't stand up for themselves (it reminds me too much of myself). Besides the illegality of causing her to work through her breaks (and it's illegal for an employer to allow that in Oregon, even if the employee consents), it's just fucking mean. Polly worked her fucking ass off for them, and they kept saying it just wasn't good enough. Plus, she was my mom, no?

I had many a meeting with my exec, which, not so incidentally, usually ended with me heading straight for the freezer "to check on something." Yeah. They really just didn't fucking care. "If it's too much for her to handle, she can quit." As if there are even half a dozen people in Corvallis that could do her job as well as she did it.

One day, she had to do a bunch of things for a special catering, and worked until a half hour before her shift ended without taking a break. She came up to me looking absolutely dead. "I'm just going to sit down for a few minutes, and then I'll be back to wrap cookies and make the krispy treats."

A little break, my ass. I blew off whatever I was doing (because, at this point, I was way beyond giving a flying fuck), and went and made her krispies. I'm one of those secretive people, though, who doesn't like to tell people I'm going to do things for them. Mostly, I think, I just like people to be surprised by good things. I had finished by the time she came back, and was back doing whatever the hell I was supposed to be doing. She walked pasted me, towards the Groen kettles where she normally made the krispies, and let out a loud, "Oh my God!" I still remember how relieved she looked when she saw the krispies were already done. She wrote me a thank you note on a napkin, and I took it home with me.

For a while, I had it taped to my bathroom mirror, and I think looking at it every day helped me survive, quite literally, that year. Eventually, the job became too much. By the time I quit, I was barely making it to my car after work before I would start crying. I was working at LBCC full-time by then, too, and no job, especially one I didn't really need anymore, is worth that.

I keep the napkin in a box now, and rarely see it. When I do, though, it reminds me of Polly, who was, in so many ways, the mom I needed at that time in my life. It reminds me of the good things about working at Bon Appetit, things that often get buried in the deluge of horrible memories from that job. And it reminds me that I'm capable of making people feel good. Of all the things I want in life, making people feel happy and good is by far my paramount desire. I've never been happier than when I do that, and I'm really just a greedy bastard who wants to feel good.

At LB, I was able to do the same sort of surprises that made people smile and me happy. Ever since I left there, though, I've felt that feeling missing in my life. I feel so trapped by my social anxiety at Marlboro that I don't even smile anymore. I miss knowing people well enough that I can make them happy. I miss feeling appreciated (I already said I was a selfish bastard). I think, perhaps, that's why I started writing here. If the real world is closed to me, perhaps I'll mistype a bit or receive guidance from the brain, and write something funny or meaningful or worthwhile here. And maybe you'll smile, and maybe you'll laugh, and maybe you'll feel good, and maybe you'll think, 'hey, yeah; I'm not the only one who's FUBAR.'

The other thing, of interest to me tonight, in the box is my set of awards from culinary school. I have a degree, and it's very degree-y (to think I'll get something substantially similar from Marlboro is somewhat depressing), but it's the awards that really mean something to me.

The first is from my classmates, and it reminds me of how much I miss them. I was given the Sleeper Award for my awesome ability to sleep through morning classes and not get my ass booted from class by Chef Scott. (I feel absolutely terrible, in retrospect, for sleeping through all those classes). Whether by osmosis or blind luck, I managed to sleep through just about every class and still be able to talk about the different types of coffee and fabricate a square-cut chuck into subprimal cuts (which I imagine is quite the useless skill now). Along with the award, they gave me a framed picture they had taken of me one day. More accurately, it was a picture of me they had taken after dressing me up a bit. In the scheme of things, though, it could have been MUCH worse.

The other is the Special Achievement Award, the very pinnacle of my culinary schooling. When I was a first year, I remember a girl, Andrea, getting it; she was about the only person I knew at all then, and, for some reason or another, I decided I wanted to win it, too. With the exception of my poor class behavior noted above, ahem, I busted my ass to rise to the top of my class. I moved from a C student barely scrapping by (and in all honesty, I think I was given a C in bakery because they felt sorry for me, not because I deserved it) to an A student who pushed the envelope (more, perhaps, than some people might have wanted me to).

When I won the SAA, I remember looking around at the nineteen people who had become my family, and thinking that moment was every bit as good as I had imagined it might be, and so much more. The foundations of cooking, the knife skills, the permanent scars-- those are all wonderful things that culinary school gave me, and with the exception of knowing how to make head cheese (something that made me go "eww" long before I became a vegan), they're things I'll use forever. But it was the sense of family, of belonging, of acceptance on such an intimate level that means the world to me.

My memory box is just that-- a collection of memories. Memories, perhaps like love, are bittersweet, though. For all the happiness and warmth those memories give me, they also leave me sad and longing for those times again. Sometimes, too often, I think I get lost in the nostalgia, and live through memories, rather than reality.

I listen to the Weakerthans a lot. They rock, for sure, but it's the lyrics that keep me going back for more. Indeed, I have yet to find another lyricist that is as talented, subtle, and complex as John Samson. Their latest album, Reconstruction Site, is mostly about trying to overcome the overwhelming nature of nostalgia.

So you whisper your arrival
Walking backwards to the door
Wonder briefly what it is you're hesitating for
All the streets lie down, deserted
In the darkest part of night
To lead you through the evening to the light
Pulled along in the tender grip of watches and ellipses
Small request:
Could we please turn around

As comforting and certain as nostalgia is, it's never really enough to feel complete. It's always like watching a reflection in a pond, and if you try to actually reach out and touch it, you find it's merely an illusion, an echo of something else. It's not a small request, though, to turn around and live in the moment. Moments in the past exist on a linear line, and we can pick and choose where we want to waste away our time. I can lie on my bed, look at the napkin, and return to that moment when Polly was so relieved. And it feels good, so good, to do so. I can return to the present, where I live 3000 miles from that memory, and it becomes so easy to think that moment was anomalous, and won't happen again; it becomes so easy to hold on to it, to watch that reflection in the pond ever so carefully, and believe that it will never happen again. But in doing so, I miss everything that happens around me; I miss that I'm going to a school that lets me study just about anything I want; I miss a community that's at least as caring as the ones I've left behind; I miss living a life that could build upon those memories I have, and turn out to be even better than before.

And when tomorrow gets here
Where will yesterday be

It's so very hard to turn around, to look forward, to move forward. Like what bothers me about love, I don't like the uncertainty and randomness of living in the present. It seems to cost so much, and offer so little. In reality, though, it costs nothing to turn around, and that little bit the present offers is the difference between watching the reflection in the pond, and being the source of that reflection.

Moments of Contemplation

But what you miss is love
In everything below and up above
And could she bring it all
A miracle
-Vertical Horizon

Thought I found the words to say
Just to get you feeling fine over heels my way
But it don't matter how
I lost the word and nerve and now
There's nothing more for me to say
Feels like I'm wasting my time
Hanging on this same old line
There's nothing left for me to find
-Train

It's the dialectics that scare me.

I saw Love Actually again today (as a complete aside, the fucking Eugene theatre edited scenes out-- wtf?!?). I really love that movie. As good as it makes me feel, though, it's so bittersweet-- some of them end up in love, some of them don't end up in love, and some of them lose the love they had.

I had dinner with Gary (my old boss) and his wife, Chris, tonight, and it was so wonderful. They're both super cool people, and they're so happy together. It's truly like a fairy tale marriage (from the outside, looking in). I want to believe that all relationships can end up like that. I want to believe that two people can love enough, and work enough, and try enough to make a perfect relationship. I see them, and I know it can happen.

But it doesn't always work that way. I know people who have been in love for years, and are still in love, but find that love, alone, might not be enough. That uncertainty, that seemingly randomness scares me so much. It makes me want to shun love, and avoid it at all costs.

But I don't shun love. I always end up having little crushes on people I know. And once in a while, those little crushes turn into big crushes. The synaptic pathways associated with that person cause all the little dopamine and norepinephrine and phenylethylamine producing cells to go into overdrive. C'est voila-- biochemical love.

I have a dialectic relationship with love. I don't like being in love, because I rarely do anything about it; I just sulk in my potpourri of happiness and misery. But, at the same time, I do want to be in love, because I crassly think that love can turn out perfectly. (Perfectly, here, is meant in a relative, not absolute, sense.) The optimist in me is winning. Every time I fall in love, I try harder to make it work.

And it's so hard for me. I don't think people without social anxiety can ever really know what it's like for me to contemplate relationships. Most people say, "Oh, yes, I'm shy, too." But they have no fucking clue. It's not about sweaty palms and nervous glances when you ask someone to dinner. It's about being robbed at gunpoint and trying to figure out how to say, "Hello." Adrenaline has been a remarkably evolutionary tool for escaping danger. It sucks, though, when your body can't differentiate between real dangers and imagined ones.

I don't know if I know what I'm talking about anymore. And it's possible I'm a little bit drunk (an '83 bordeaux and '98 pinot-- oh God, I love eating at Gary's).

But somewhere along the way, I fell in love again. And now I'm torn with that love-hate, bittersweet relationship I have with love. I want to ignore the feeling, and let it go away; I want to just forget the fear, and anxiety, and uncertainty that comes along with it. But I also want to embrace it, and believe that I can try hard enough to make it work somehow. I want to think that this time I can get past the anxiety that truly makes me think I'm about to die.

Loren Webster wrote a few days ago,

The reality, of course, is that if you’re lucky, life is bittersweet, not just bitter.

Life is so uncertain. Sometimes love works out, and sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not anyone's fault when things fall apart. It's that uncertainty that I'm not good with; I want stability and security so much. I want things to be perfect, not just bittersweet. Things are never perfect, though, in any absolute sense, and to some extent, happiness and sadness are inseparable.

Striving for bittersweetness seems counterintuitive and unsatisfactory to me. When faced with the alternative of being just bitter, though, perhaps it's not such a bad thing after all. Maybe uncertainty, randomness and bittersweetness are as good as it gets. And maybe, just maybe, it might be worth it after all.

Stolen Moments

I lie on the roof of my car a lot. There is nothing particularly special about the roof, or my car, but I like being out under that stars. It was (and is) beautifully clear out tonight. Earlier, I grabbed a blanket, my santa hat(!!!), a flashlight, and my Chinese text, and set up camp on top of my car. I didn't really study, but my text seemed like something I ought to have, with the final tomorrow, and all.

A long time ago, after work one night, I sat on top of my car with a girl I loved. Only she didn't know I loved her. Much later, after she had moved on, I found out that she loved me then, too. I never told her how I felt; it never seemed quite like a good idea. It never does. Back in that moment, on top of the car, that didn't matter, though. Nothing at all mattered. It was just a moment of looking at the stars. Everything I wanted, everything I hoped for, was squeezed into the single wish that that moment would last forever.

It's those little moments, those stolen moments, that are so very blissful, so very beautiful, so very true. Everything does look perfect from far away.

Sometimes I wonder, am I wasting my time by stepping back, and losing myself in the moment? Or are those the only moments that I'm really living?

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that its all a lot of oysters , but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl
-Counting Crows

The Weight of Things Unseen

This is what you always wanted
It's what you asked for
This is what you always wanted
And now you want more
-Lit

In Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," he talks about the equipment that his squad carried in Vietnam. Only, it's not really about the things they carried; it's about the things they carry. The things we carry. The things we internalize. The things we ignore, and the things we don't know how to deal with.

It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.

I had another meeting with my Plan sponsors today, and I don't really feel good about it. Sure, talking to them was good; they have ideas and perspectives that offer more optimism than I could ever hope to muster. But in talking with them, the weight of the institution came down as well. You can study the relativity of human rights-- but only so far. You can examine oppression, exclusion, and alienation in the PRC and Tibet-- but only so far. You can spend time examining the subjectivity of knowledge-- but only so far.

I've expressed to them how education seems like so much of box; it confines-- defines-- who I am, and what I do. Sure, they agree, to some extent Marlboro is a box. But it's a very big box, and you have room to move around in it. I wonder, though. I do more work in a month at Marlboro than I would in a whole term at the UoO. The box here is big, indeed-- so big, it's almost impossible to escape. If I was at the UoO, the box would be much tighter, much more restrictive, for sure. But by the same token, it would also be easier to climb out of, to do my own thing.

We decided to stick to most of my original Plan. Deviations and alterations here and there, but nothing changed substantially. "Do you feel good about this?" they asked.

"Yes," I lied.

I never thought I'd be a senior and feel like this. I thought, foolishly perhaps, that things would get easier for me. I thought I would be able to stop carrying these things.

In my final essay for IRT, I somewhat avoided the assignment, and wrote about trying to find value in post-modernist thought. My thesis, simplified, asked if a perspective so consumed by relativity and second-guessing was of any value to international relations theory.

What have constructivists left behind, though? On what points did they compromise in order to enter into the normalized framework of mainstream IR theory? Most importantly, has the mainstreaming of constructivist theory sidelined its radical parent, post-modernism, by shifting the debate from critique to dialogue?... The driving ideals of post-modernism-- the constant questioning and rethinking of knowledge, the search for manifestations of power and their purposes, the constant rethinking of identity and its consequences-- should be a permanent fixture of IR study.

Only, my paper wasn't so much about IR theory. It was about me, as all of my writing, of late, seems to be. Is it really worthwhile for me to tear myself apart-- deconstruct myself, as Derrida might say-- and question every viewpoint, every experience, every fundamental epistemology? I concluded my paper by referencing an article by Richard Ashley, in which he compares the post-structuralist to an itinerate condottiere-- a roving mercenary. Ashley describes the IC as having great skills and unique talents that make him valuable in the world. What he lacks, of course, is a home to call his own. Ashley's point was that the post-structuralist, by nature, needs to continually shift his standpoint, constantly problematize the self, unendingly question the established order. But that wasn't exactly what I wrote.

Ashley's IC is destined (or, more accurately, chooses) to lead a lonely, ungrounded life; a life where nowhere is home.

Loneliness was never anything Ashley talked about; rather, it was my own self-doubt, my own fear that interjected it into my paper. To be fair, I don't remember writing it. I don't remember writing any of the conclusion, but that's really another story. I digress. And I worry. I worry about the loneliness of living from an ostensible "blank space," as Foucault described the home of the post-modernist. I worry about what life will be like if I pull ever farther back from the world. I worry that, in the end, it isn't worth it after all.

I carry that worry. I carry, too, the pain and anxiety and hopelessness that worry causes. I wonder, often, if I've become accustomed to misery and loneliness-- that in those things that hurt so much, I've found definition, stability, even a home, of sorts. And how much do I cling to those things? How much will I ignore and hide to avoid leaving my pain, and the certainty it provides, behind?

I think I know what I really want. I think I know what I really want in a lot of different things. I've taken those desires, though, and internalized them so much, buried them so deeply, that I don't know how to do anything with the things I want except carry them around.

I wish my writings were more like short stories. I wish I could get to the end, and find a meaning, or a truth, or something to act upon. I wish, at the end, I could find an answer, like the narrator of Raymond Carver's "Cathedral."

My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything. "It's really something," I said.

There isn't, though. Not because I don't believe in storybook endings, but because I don't think I've reached the end of any story here. It's taken months to be honest enough with myself to admit that I know what I want. Perhaps now I'll be able to learn how to stop carrying it around.

Maybe someday
I'll find out one thing
That makes me feel
Like I wanna feel
-Flick

Supplicating for Solace

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
-Hebrews 11:1

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
-Matthew 26:39

I've been thinking a lot of about faith, or rather it's absence, in my life. I've never been a particularly religious person, though I have always been jealous of the truly religious. To have such faith, such convictions, always seemed to be such a wonderful thing.

For a long time, I had faith in knowledge, in the certainty of things seen and deduced. Now, I don't know. I certainly think all a posteriori truths are subjective, and I think a priori truths are, at best, subjective; at worst, entirely contrived.

Still, I don't know how to rectify my lack of faith in anything with my belief that there has to be something. There has to be meaning. There has to be truth. There has to be something. I don't think I could live in an amoral world. I know, in fact, that I couldn't. I believe in things, in certain ideas, and I try to live by them. But I can't get past their relativeness to be able to interact with the world. My beliefs? My conceptions? How are they not synthetic manifestations of my white, male, upper class, intellectual, and American identity?

I wonder why I find it necessary to think about these things. Why can't I have the simple life, the unexamined life, the life that looks so happy and sweet on the idiot box? I want to have faith. Faith in science, faith in knowledge, faith in Providence-- I would settle for anything. I read, I think, I study. It doesn't come.

For some, the defining moment of their faith is the night before Jesus was crucified, while he was praying in the garden at Gethsemane. He knew what was going to happen, and in a moment of weakness, he asked God if the cup could pass from him, if he could avoid the suffering and death that would come with the morning. The cup would not pass, of course, but Jesus didn't have to stay in the garden. He could have chosen to give up his faith, to live his life in peace somewhere else, but he stayed and endured.

I wonder, perhaps, if faith is elusive because it exists, for me, in the search itself. To struggle to find meaning where I think no meaning exists; to live a good life when I don't know what good means; to keep searching even when the search, itself, seems hopeless; to not yield when yielding seems the only option. Perhaps those are as true a meaning of faith as any others.

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Interestingly, that was the quote that I used to begin my admissions essay to Marlboro. I was strangely hopeful then, in a way I'm not sure I can recall. Was it possible that I did want to go here? That I was hoping to find something underneath the snow?

The hustlers are far too insidious for that – and far too obvious. They, us, me; we are all responsible for robbing me, slowly, deliberately over the course of my life. From the media monopoly that censors what I can watch and listen to in the mainstream to the outright thievery of money for education, I have noticed more and more that I like the world less and less. But it little profits an idle student to stand by and let it happen.

I don't remember what I was thinking. Perhaps I was just trying to make a clever play on Ulysses. Perhaps it was just part of the joke I played on myself. But, perhaps, there was something more. The essay (which despite your earlier comments I maintain is utter crap) is strangely prescient in places:

Simple questioning is not enough, though. Questions, and their answers, are useless without understanding and purpose.

I will be able to pursue exactly the direction I want, without worrying about core classes or division requirements. The courses I take will be directly related to my life’s direction.

At Marlboro, I would have the opportunity to do this in a highly individualized setting, away from the distractions of American consumer culture.

What now? Have I just lost direction, lost faith, and become dissatisfied with Marlboro, in particular, and school, in general? Does reorienting myself and recovering my faith mean that I should stay here and muddle my way through things? Perhaps redefine my Plan into a context that makes more sense at present?

I wonder. It's late now, and I'm starting to make mistakes, switching around homonyms without thinking, and such. There is more here, I think. Perhaps, since I don't seem too keen on doing any actual schoolwork, I'll have some more time tomorrow to think; more time to figure out what all of this means.

Because faith manages.

Sorrowful Company

During our meeting yesterday, Lynette told me to check out a Plan written by a student of hers a few years ago. The student had gone on a WSP internship in Africa and had come back, quite literally, traumatized. In between my classes today, while in the library studying, I decided to pop down to the Plan room, and just take a peak at what the girl had written. I ended up reading the entire thing.

The academic, "institutionalized," portion of the Plan is quite impressive. Through a postmodern lens, she looks at how self-narratives, the attempt to place oneself in context, work to alienate, exclude, and divide the world that development workers are active in. Her argument is complex, sophisticated, and well written. Mostly, though, it serves as a theoretical look, almost as an aside, at what she, herself, went through during her experience in development work.

When she returned from her internship in Africa, she was completely at a loss to describe her experience. She had become so introspective, so concerned about how to construct her own narrative in a way that would be both meaningful and true that she couldn't function. She couldn't escape concerns that her entire perception of the world was too clouded by her own identity to be able to form a coherent, and, more importantly, "truthful" explanation.

For weeks, she couldn't talk about her time in Africa; she refused even to develop the pictures she had taken because she was so fearful of the discussions that would follow. She had no basis, no platform, no clearing on which she could use to situate herself without falling victim to the debilitating critique of subjectivism.

Her Plan, then, became the way in which she attempted to construct a meaningful narrative for herself. Interwoven with her theoretical argument are these intensely personal recollections and reflections on her experience. Her voice is powerful and compelling; she cares deeply about the world, yet is unable to reconcile her desire to help people with her concerns about subjectiveness, otherness, and ethnocentrism. In the end, she seems unsure than she can construct a truthful narrative for herself, but is left confident that the introspective journey itself is as important as any answer, if indeed not more so.

I've read a few Plans before, and they have varied in quality. Some are technically sophisticated, and even interesting and insightful. Others seem to document the struggle some writers have synthesizing their thoughts with the English language. None of them, however, were like what I read today. None of them spoke on such a personal and meaningful level; none of them spoke in such a way that I forget what I was reading was just a B.A. thesis; indeed, that I forget it was written by such a young person.

I wish I could write like that. I wish I could shape and articulate my thoughts so they are more than just incoherent existentialist (or, more accurately, postmodernist) ramblings. I wish I had some way of structuring all of this within a world where I see, more and more, all structures as being manifestations of exclusion and alienation. I wish I wasn't so consumed; it is just so lonely out here.

Lest I leave you too depressed, while in the Plan room today, I heard John Sheehy, the writing professor, rambling, most notably about the need to build "a brig" at Marlboro-- John Sheehy's Marlboro, at that (in the vein of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I imagine).

Tasting Forbidden Fruit

I wish I could write something funny, and cheerful, and full of fun and cheer. Something, perhaps, about lame ducks.

But, alas, I can't.

I never found it clear, the reason why we're here
The laughter or the tears, and that is how it ought to be
For me and you, now what are we to do, fill it out for you
And maybe we could save the day
-Eskobar

I met with my Plan sponsors today, and, in a way, feel relieved about school. Mostly, because I'm done with Seth's class. Not done as in I finished the work, but done as in I told him I was done. I felt bad telling him, because he has tried so hard to adjust the course so it would work for me. It can't, though. Nothing here can work for me.

I don't know what knowledge means to me right now, and so I don't know how to process it. I can't avoid the epistemological questions that bother me so much; I can’t even conceptualize the ontology of knowledge. I am so lost.

What if the world really is devoid of a priori truths? And what if all knowledge really is just a manifestation of power, drawn, as Foucault argued, from "a strategic distribution of elements of different natures and levels?" How can there be any meaning at all in the world without some foundation to stand on?

Goethe's Faust studied everything, searching for meaning and happiness:

I HAVE, alas! Philosophy,
Medicine, Jurisprudence too,
And to my cost Theology,
With ardent labour, studied through.
And here I stand, with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before

In the end, though, his redemption came not from the acquisition of happiness, but from his search for it. It was the struggle, then, his lonely, dark, unhappy struggle, that provided meaning to his life.

Is that enough in the postmodern world? What about in a world without God to redeem me in the end? Without science, without knowledge, without Providence, who or what is left to offer redemption? I retrieved Douglas Coupland's Life After God off my shelf. He writes about finding meaning in flocks of geese, and moments of solitude in the desert, and in losing the people we love. In the end, though, it isn't enough to be whole.

I tell it to you with the openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

I wonder if that is where deconstruction will leave me: sick, alone, incapable of kindness and giving, and unable to love. I can't keep faking my way through school, pretending that the standard epistemology of knowledge is something I can live with. I wrote yesterday that I have to deconstruct my world, and then hope I can find a way to reconstruct it. But what if I can't? What if disillusionment is the only outcome? What if the world becomes only a Wasteland to me? Am I doomed to Sibyl's lamentations?

My plan sponsors were wonderful today. They both told me of their own struggles with understanding the world and finding meaning in life, despite the uncertainties of knowledge. They offered some suggestions on how I could work my deconstruction into a Plan, though I'm not sure how helpful those suggestions will be. I still want to study nonviolence and human rights; I still want to look at how positive and constructive methods can effect political change. But not until I can make sense out of it, and out of the way I study it. Without that, it seems like such a futile journey. I'll have 200 pages of crap I don't believe in; during my orals, one of my evaluators will ask, "So what does all of this mean?" I'll respond, "Nothing."

I have another week to think about things. Perhaps by then, I'll have forgotten all of this silliness. Perhaps the normalizing functions of education won't seem so bad, and I'll realize that the ontology of knowledge doesn't really matter. Perhaps.

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe
-John Milton

Planting the Postmodern Garden

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival
-Winston Churchill

I had an incredibly productive day. Of sitting. Sitting and thinking. Sitting, thinking, and crying.

Yeah, it's been one of those days.

It's somewhat odd. I haven't been depressed, per se. Quite the contrary, in fact, I feel good. But also confused, and scared, and out of place. Classic Marlboro myopia. (I should warn you, too, I'm having a little alliteration admiration day.)

I've had the same piano/violin melody on for the last 12 hours, and I'm not quite tired of it yet. There's something so sad and lonely, yet strangely hopeful about it. Like you're losing something that defines everything about you, but somewhere on the horizon, the hope of a better future rests.

I rarely know what I really want. Big things, little things; most of my life is a series of accidents and haphazard happenings. Things, more or less, have worked out okay, I suppose. I'm not dead; I'm not in prison. Most everything else is negotiable. But to actually want something, and to actually strive for it, I think it would be wonderful.

I thought I had finally found something like that. Something that motivated me, and energized me, and made the people I so despise a little more tolerable. I thought it would be enough to make it through this last year and a half. But it isn't.

I'm unhappy here, on the most fundamental level. I'm lonely here, in the most tiring fashion. I'm sick here, in a way that consumes everything I am.

In the middle of these lives which are completely meaningless
-Counting Crows

I don't know why I stay here. I don't know what it all means. Or, I know a little bit, but that little bit scares me more than not knowing at all. I wonder, sometimes, what it was like for physicists in 1900. Max Planck had just presented a paper that told them their entire lives were wrong. Everything you know, everything you think you're certain of, is wrong. Worse, though, you discover that everything, fundamentally, is based on probabilities; nothing is certain any more. There is no "truth," no singular, sure answer. It's a predicable crapshoot, perhaps, but a crapshoot nonetheless.

The piano still plays. Slowly, softly, losing everything you hold dear. I found something I really wanted, but to get it, I would have to stay here. And if I stay here, I'll lose the part of me that wants it.

I've been thinking that perhaps I should take some time off, and figure out the fundamental questions that really matter to me. I'm tired of wasting my days learning about trivial historical facts, and pretending that somehow I'll accidentally learn Chinese. I want, instead, to read the genealogies of Nietzsche and Foucault, and the writings of Habermas, and find out what the deconstructed world looks like. Then I want to figure out how to reconstruct my life, in a way that is both meaningful and true. I want to know how I can be Schrodinger's cat, trapped in a structural reality, but still choose to be alive.

Would that be so bad? Would I be a failure? Would I be undesirable? Would I still be unhappy?

Every time I leave school, I'm afraid I won't come back. I'm afraid I'll become engrossed with the practicalities of life, and find too much comfort in established patterns. I'm afraid of never coming back, and afraid I won't think that is such a bad thing. I'm afraid of thinking I'm a failure, and thinking other people think I'm a failure. I'm afraid of finding out that I can be more lonely than this.

The piano rolls on methodically. Bittersweet sadness. What if it's not about losing something that defines you, but about realizing you can't have what you most desire. And what if it's about the hope of learning that life isn't a zero-sum game.

While physicists can't be certain about things any more, perhaps it is enough to have the possibility of predictability; to know that you can't know, and make do with that. Maybe I shouldn't strive to get what I want, but strive to deserve it.

Che Bella

I spent the afternoon swinging.

Hi. Yes, I'm eight years old again.

I had fun, though, and there was a little kid at the park who was smiling, and made me smile. I watched the clouds as they moved quickly across the sky, and that made me smile, too. I read something hilarious at school today, and I smiled a little more. I like that I can still smile, even when I'm horribly confused about everything.

I wonder if it might be worth it after all, just to be able to smile.

Also, I've been reading Patrick Friesen's poetry. And yes, he makes me smile.

You Don't Get To Be a Saint

like stars snow's falling all over town
headlights are passing on the walls
a god's walking barefoot through the drifts

the town drunk's leaning against a tree
he sees a dead hand in the snow
and reaches down to offer his own

you don't get to be a saint the dead man says
you get to warm your hands for a moment
you get to catch your breath and say one thing

I can make you a wizard he says
I can give you life forever
but I can't take the price off your head

I don't want to be a wizard says the drunk
I live with the price and I don't mind dying
I just want to sing a lullaby

he clears his throat and sings the dead man to sleep
then he turns into stillness
like none ever heard ever more still than snow

"For the Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living"

How the time is never now
And we know who we should love
But we're never certain how
I know you might roll your eyes at this
But I'm so glad that you exist.
-The Weakerthans

I had a really long entry written out. But it was eaten. Don't you hate it when that happens? When the web server goes down, the browser crashes, Blogger poops out, or you accidentally hit ctrl-shift-home and delete?

Yeah, OK it wasn't such an accident. I don't even know now why I deleted it. It was introspective, and prescient, and would have told you enough about me to make you never want to visit again. And probably close the blinds and lock your doors, too. But you're safe now; my little secrets will stay just that.

Or not. I was just going to summarize the main (and safe) points, but it turns out that I rewrote everything (only better). To begin, I was wondering out loud (or in keystrokes) to what extent doing something that makes you unhappy is worth it. I've been here a year, and this weekend was the first time I've been genuinely happy for more than a day. What the hell?

And when I think about it, I don't even know why the hell I'm here. I don't know if I ever even wanted to be here. Two days after I was accepted to Marlboro, I so presciently noted, "I just realized: I bought the soy cream to celebrate my acceptance, not mourn it."

Wow; there's glowing enthusiasm if ever I saw it. I've always thought, in a somewhat sardonic way, that I was tricked by my co-workers at LB into going here. I'm not saying that I wish I hadn't come here. I'm glad, really, that I did. I've learned a lot I wouldn't have otherwise, the way I think about life and the world has been dramatically reshaped, to say the least (and, to big extent, I think that complicates my problems), and, to be materialistic, I wouldn't have this beautiful laptop to type on right now.

I think my laptop, more than anything, is a symbol of the dichotomy in my mind. It reminds me of how much faith everyone I worked with had in me; they believed so much that I could succeed in school, and wanted to help make things a little easier for me. It also reminds me, though, of what I gave up when I came here: a job I enjoyed waking up at 5:30 for; people I trusted enough to talk to; happiness as a modus operandi.

So, really, what the hell am I doing here? Getting my degree so I can go on to graduate school? Getting my MA or PhD so I can teach? Or research critical theory and the IPE? Will those things really bring me closer to what I want, and what makes me happy?

The more I read critical theory and post-modern thought, the more I think no. At best, those goals are simply normative constructs of society (and, consequently, interests of power). What if the examined life leads to nothing more than the search for happiness? And what if I come across something that I thought would make me happy? Would it, as Eliot asks, be worth while?

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--

Eliot's Prufrock, much like the Count Guido da Montefeltro, is trapped in a hell; he never gets beyond his anxiety and disillusionment. Sometimes, I wonder if I will.

This is all really nothing. In a few hours, I'll go to Chinese class, and then work on some papers. The thought I had this weekend, that made me so happy and caused all this introspection, will surely fade into the background. The very normative pressures I so despise, control my life so completely. I think, though, for a little while longer, I can at least hold on to the dream of being happy.

Anyways, good things are worth waiting for, are they not?

Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sorrow

"It is all about loving your parents."
-Tagline of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

I miss my mom.

I haven't talked to her in several months, and her birthday is today. I called her this afternoon, even though I knew she wouldn't answer. I left her a message, even though I know she won't return it.

Sometimes, I think I jump through those hoops just to convince myself that it's not my fault she won't talk to me, or that I'm doing everything a son is supposed to do. After all, I don't think I really want to talk to her; I usually end up feeling worse than I did before.

The first few minutes of a conversation are fine. She asks how I am, and how my brother is doing. She asks if I'm eating well and staying out of trouble. Sometimes, she remembers that I'm in school, and asks what I'm studying and how I'm doing in my classes. Sometimes, she remembers that I'm not in Oregon any more, and she wonders what it's like out here. And then the conversation really gets difficult.

I try to ask how she's doing, and she avoids the question. I ask about grandma, and she mumbles a few things in reply. Soon, I'm hearing about how the housing association is harassing her, the libraries are messing with her records, and she can't get a job because everyone discriminates against her (she lives in Santa Clara County and can't use a computer). Sometimes, I'm lucky and am spared the talk about how my dad and his goons are behind her troubles there. Usually, I'm not.

It's hard to have conversations like that. I don't know how to handle her paranoia any more. I don't know what to say when she blames all her troubles on my dad, who has only tried to help her in the twenty one years they've been divorced. I don't know how to tell her that there are even more qualified people that are out of work in Silicon Valley. Mostly, I don't know how to handle her declining memory. She already forgets where I live, and what I do. How long before she forgets who I am?

I don't really know what I expect out of those conversations. Do I just want to hear her voice because she's my mom and I think that should be important to me? Do I think that if she hears my voice she will somehow feel a little better? Am I hoping that my whole childhood was a bad dream and that I have a normal mom who wants to talk with me like I imagine parents and children should?

I don't know why I call. I really don't.

But anyways; I miss my mom.