then

The past was brilliant. The future, bright.

"Tonight was a great night.
Politics is fun.
When I am sitting in the middle of a dinner party
positioned right next to a demolition derby and eating
chicken with a state house candidate and a Justice on
Michigan's Supreme Court, I think about you and I
think about how all light blue candles smell like you,
and these thoughts make me smile. Your are a real
jungle beauty Lindsey. You can never see you, but
once in a while you appear out of nowhere and eat the
farmer's chicken before returning to wherever you
come from. You better be achieving something down
there. I don't care what it is, but it better be
something.
Love you in all the right ways.
--- Lindsey wrote:

> When she got to the door, she could still hear his
> car running at the curb. She wanted to look back,
> but she knew that in a certain sense, it would mean
> she had lost. She took her time finding her key-
> she was always losing her keys in the bottom of her
> purse. She thought that, of all the people that she
> really knew with any degree of depth, that he would
> have understood the ache. In fact, she was almost
> sure that he did. A few days would pass before she
> would come to the conclusion that his denial of the
> "reality" of it all was just a projection of his own
> sadness.. his own loneliness. But for now, she was
> exhausted. Tired from talking only to find herself
> unheard. She had loved him. She knew he knew that
> much. She found the keys and was so lost in thought
> that she hadn't noticed that the car was still
> running on the road. It wasn't until she was near
> sleep that she realized that she had never really
> heard him leave. She considered the fact that he
> might still be by the
> street... waiting... and she let the thought take
> her to sleep.
>
> Justin wrote:When I told her that
> it wasnt real the last time she
> looked at me as though she wanted to be hurt but
> didn't know how. She left the car and walked away as
> I yelled her name and then "oh...come on". She was
> tired of discussing her relationship with him with
> me
> and wanted to be angry but she didn't know how. All
> she could feel was sad, sad for her family, sad for
> her friends, sad for the love that she didn't have.
> I
> had been a break from the sadness from time to time
> but was now part of her cycle. I felt guilty
> watching
> her leave but I didn't follow her.
>
>
>
>
> --- Lindsey
> wrote:
> > sometimes you have a little glass family inside of
> > you and i love that. i love who you are and that
> > you are my friend. sorry about the drunk part,
> > better luck next time. carl and i have been
> > emailing off and on. supposedly he's in Oregon.
> > Have you heard from him? if not, tell me and i'll
> > forward some of his emails on. they're refreshing
> > and beatiful
> >
> > my legs hurt like jello nails. i ran 4 miles
> today.
> > the worst part is- that's only a quarter of the
> way
> > to the goal. ughh.
> >
> > i am angry at you. you never told me to love Doug
> > Blocksma. you even saw him. you even knew that he
> > liked comic books. and you didn't tell me to hold
> > on to him. i blame you for it all. i would have
> > listened to you , you know. now, for all i know,
> > it's too late. thanks for ruining my life.
> >
> >
> > when you're not with me, i'm blue.
> > blue's clues. en espanol. please bear with me.
> > it's all i can do and this has been a helluva.
> i'll
> > be home in august and i hope i show up on your
> door
> > someday and maybe you'll be there. except you'll
> > have to do the buzzer thing first before i can
> > really come to your door. and... tell sean kemp
> > hello and that he's got beautiful eyes. tell
> > yourself that you're beautiful all over.
> >
> > Love, Linds
> >
> > Justin wrote:
> > Uhm, I didn't understand a word of what you just
> > said,
> > could you repeat that pleasE? My brother saw you
> in
> > ohio but he was singing and there was a rapture
> and
> > then blood shed so he didn't have time to say
> hello.
> >
> > I miss you like I would miss my left arm. It still
> > feels like I can use you but your not here and all
> I
> > have is memories of you and It feels like your
> here
> > all the time but your not. Ha. Me and sean just
> got
> > really drunk and I am drunk right now. I will
> spend
> > the next hour trying to channel you in my mind.
> Tell
> > me if anything happens. If you need a new car I
> have
> > one you can have. Wait no I don't I lie alot. Miss
> > you when your not here. Or when I think about you.
>
> > Thats more accurate. Hope life is happy and bye.
--- Lindsey
wrote:
> > ohio means good morning in japanese. currently, i
> >just tried to play raquetball in flip flops
> >unsuccessfully. i do homework. go to class. work.
> > i cut people's hair and eat food and fall in love.
> >i walk to and from school through the ghetto and i
> >love the stray cats and the street fights. i write
> >music and round up bongo players. next month i'm
> >recording. this month it rains a lot. i was down
> >in the valley for a few weeks. a really hard few
> >weeks. i'm coming out of it. lessons learned.
> >time to slow down and enjoy life"

_____________________________________________________________________
the present shimmers in its own real way.

this is part of that

And you knew this would happen.
This is part of that.
Suffer the hours.
See the ugly-
the unapologetic-
and wrap it in your solitude until it does not shriek.
Only forward
by small
shrouded steps
and
unknown is all it will ever be.
Death. Departure.
(when nothing turned something turns nothing again)
We approach cautious or casually.

and when we
know,
it will be too late to retrace
or to catch our breath

A heart kept is a heart in decay.
A heart given is buried alive
but beating.
Beating still.

More Than Myself

"Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me...
I tapped my own head;
it was glass, an inverted bowl.
It's a small thing
to rage inside your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself."

matters

so, we only get one life, right? and one body to experience it in. and all along we´re loathing or trying to adjust or learning to appreciate this body that´s really just bent toward decay and changing fast anyway. humans are such babies as a species. i feel like we don´t even come close to placing value on what really matters. or...giving it the attention it deserves. but...i have no idea what matters. i have no idea what is important and what is disposable.

self image? community? survival? patriotism? faith? financial security? expression? words? memories? family? animals? space exploration? the moment? goals? laughing? thinking? babies? beauty? solitude? avoiding pain? embracing pain? preparedness? spontaneity?

what am i supposed to crave when the demands of the day are met?

what the fuck matters?

Spoken.Written.

When I was loading my entire life into my car to move west, she made a big huff about not making room for a $15 toaster she had bought me on a visit to Philly. I made it fit; I judged her for her petty shortsightedness. Four years later, I have no idea what happened to that toaster, but I wish I had it now. I've been craving toast.

"A merely clever man is partial to self, despising other, vaunting ego; the man of understanding takes the larger view: nothing exists to take exception to. Nothing is real."

Despite all his thinking and believing, R. Kelly has yet to fly.

At some point a few weeks ago, I made the decision to be less active on facebook. I have been better for it. Now I look at people more. Welcome silence. A sense of decluttering of the mind. I do not feel any negative impact from not being up to speed on other people's minute to minute statuses. I have been trying to live deliberately, even if it's through lulls in conversation or waiting in lines.

I highly doubt that at the end of my life I will wish that I had spent more time keeping up with people on the internet. I'm trying to live here. now. not in some quasiauthentic virtual space.

Not never, just less.
Choosing deliberately instead of just default habit.
Being aware of how I am spending my thoughts and my time.
It has made a difference. Really.

"Well, God said in the Bible you're supposed to honor the Sabbath, so you need to go."

Invincible.
Intense/Placid.
Indifferent/Interested.
All of the Above.

expectation

"Choosing not to become the person your family expected is painful. You have to leave their world completely just to make sense of your own life. And then fate lures you back whenever it can to give you a chance to measure the distance between yours and theirs... and to see if it's just as far as you remembered."
-This American Life, NPR love

alien

Thought:

Dehumanizing crazy downtown/urban dwellers is easy to do because they so effectively dehumanize themselves.

At what point in the divorce from reason does humanity go, too? Never? Even when they can't string together a comprehensible sentence? Even when they see their own lives through a smudged pane? Even when they urinate freely in public? Even when (whether due to their own choices or sheer shitty luck of unfortunate birth circumstance leading to susceptibility to make poor choices where others might not) they've certifiably and irrevocably lost their minds?

What makes any of us human?

Many worlds in this one, alien and ignorant. Not all are as conducive to sustaining life.

here's to hoping

L-
You make me smile to think that others feel remotely the way that I do every second of my life. My life is beginning to show signs of relief. I hope that you feel the same now. I'm sorry you have to worry about stupid papers. Eventually they will be a thing of the past and get to eat ice cream and walk around naked the moment you walk in the door.
I miss you dreadfully.

apathy

this morning i drove past
an accident (crash) i very nearly witnessed
(thump)

airbags deployed and went limp (flaccid)
engine
smoking after impact

i barely looked-
worried more about making the green before sirens muddled up the whole scene.

forgotten phantom panicked face
in the passenger window.

impassive
nearly asleep awake
but something moves in my periphery
something stirs me
from cold

everyone in their single shells (loaded and cracked)
(ready) (or not)
(categorized)
(scrutinized)
(one of a dozen) (or more)
all bent toward decay
sooner or later
and still we do.
i am largely uninspired.

some outrageously beautiful and constant strength

S:

L: You are experiencing the gut wrenching aspect of being human. You are facing down the heavy and the ache and the daring to love. It is always a dare. Always a risk. You are having to realize- to feel in that unbearable way- that connecting with others means being vulnerable to a lack of control. It is humbling. Makes you feel limbless- stranger to self. Welcome, though. Welcome to it. let it all fall apart. ... And don't even think of dating until you feel good on your own.

S:

L: Have you left the house today? Make yourself leave the house today.

S:

L: And it GOES in waves. Minute by minute. One foot in front of the other.

S:

L: Crazy is an ok place to feel. At your core, you are not.

S:

L: Damn. Damn. On a positive note... you were doing fine. focus on the fact that for a good stretch of hours you were ok. you will get there again. What is your plan for today?

S:

L: Cling to the little moments of ok for dear life... even knowing that they're probably temporary. Lose yourself in the ok. Keep me posted- progress... distraction... steps.

S:

L: Of course, of course. You're doing well.

S:

L: Let it be enough. Could be years. Could be never. there is no calculating these things. you will never regret taking this time- however long or short it may be- to figure out you... to be good with you... to know yourself on your own two feet. Embrace the lack of accountability... try new things... eyes wide open and ready to embrace and refigure your worldview on your own terms.

...

You will find that you are a remarkably rare type of person... which will be lonely, perhaps, at first... but eventually will turn into some outrageously beautiful and constant strength. You are your own creation.... always... which can be terrifying or empowering. let it empower. embrace.

written

Eliot

Contentedness and the inability to

be moved

(swayed)

while retaining the ability to feel.

risk.

without becoming vacant.

We are rarely victims- mostly volunteers.

What do you volunteer yourself to?

What are you choosing?

We do the damnedest things to feel a sense of purpose.

I rode late with no knife.

Old people holding hands after[an assumed]all.

We're all rubbish.

We are all teeming with potential

and I ignore stoplights.

real freedom

"of course, there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing." -David Foster Wallace "This is Water"

I've been surprised to learn that DFW finds resisting isolation so important to personal happiness/freedom/identity.

I don't know much of the guy {yet}, but i had an image of a brilliant, cynical, reclusive genius author man... not a man who sees value in sacrifice for others or pursing authenticity in relationships with others.

This whole idea is a fresh thought. I understand the importance of genuine interaction and love for others... I understand that so much of our identity is contingent upon our relationship with others....

but i always bristle a little when sacrifice for others or concern for others is valorized or privileged above self knowledge... (not that it is in this particular quote... but my first reaction was to read it as such).

it's some kind of balance... paradoxical... but self is so important. so important.

self-knowledge and genuine concern for your own basic needs, in my mind, are the absolute first steps in authenticity in interaction with others.

in other news: best summer of my life and flying by and freedom and eyes wide open and healthy living and wonderful wonderful others

our own light

been

been absent

cause

been in Europe

and

been living

don't lose sleep

school ended.

teeth

teeth

what matters?

someone died today.

loss.

fear of losing.

it was good, last week, in conversation

to hear myself saying, "that was when i was sad"

like it was a billion years ago

a childhood memory

formed by it, but so far removed

i have been immeasurably happy

and am

but it occurred to me

that i will not always be

this happy-

that sad will make its round again.

what matters

in a world where people

are lost?

now

happy or sad

matters

maybe.

do not succumb to unfounded fear

do not dwell on if

but make a little

home in now

without boundary

Sound bytes:

"Ms. I, is it bad for someone not to believe in God?"

"What do you mean by bad?"

.... "I don't know... like, my cousin is an atheist."

"People are always growing and changing and trying to figure things out. It is OK to question."

Concerning students/people who defy expectations:

"What it comes down to is someone at some point told them they could do anything they wanted to do."

Why her parents chose to raise her as they did:

"No one told them that who they are is enough. No one encouraged them to do what they wanted. So they made the conscious decision to raise us differently."

Maybe the most important role of teachers/parents rests in paradox. To provide a framework from which to view the world, but also to encourage them to challenge or question or explore outside of the framework. To set clear limits and at the same time to teach them that there really are none.

like a field of forces

although i've broken ties with a belief in god, i wonder what to think about the whole idea of the transcendent.

because i have (had) moments

of transcendence.

(transcendence from what? to what? into what? retreat or advance? an acute awareness of being, the way the present moment consumes any thought of past or future, embodying freedom at whatever cost)

whatever this is... this deep deep peace and contentedness... i want it to stay. i feel more of a sense of wonder and awe at life and the natural world than i have in a long long time.

free to wonder and feel and be.

"The disappearance of all things and of the I leaves what cannot disappear, the sheer fact of being in which one participates, whether one wants to or not, without having taken the initiative, anonymously. Being remains, like a field of forces, like a heavy atmosphere belonging to no one, universal, returning in the midst of the negation which put it aside, and in all the powers to which that negation may be multiplied." -Levinas

"Talk of mysteries! think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come into contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?" -Thoreau

i suppose moments of transcendence could be explained away through some reference to the interplay between our cognition and emotions. and i suppose emotions could be explained away as some evolutionary function that allows us to avoid hurt, overcome challenges.... and that's all fine and good. but shhhhhhh... i feel no desire to explain it away. i want to feel and i want to stay.

what i do know is

what i do know is

it is good to be.

honestly.

looking up

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath:"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Content.

Full enough from contemplating the branches.

Not stagnant

but in no hurry.

Only until very recently did I come to understand or appreciate the Tolkein quote,

"Not all who wander are lost."

The crotch of the tree is not necessarily a bad place to be.

Looking up. Peace.

It is good to be still

It is good to be

It is good

It is

It

it is now and i know that much

still processing

i am easily distracted as of late

can't read a book

or sing a song

with my whole heart or attention.

i bought a bike and i ride it sometimes.

green.

What is ever right? How do we ever know, in life, what is worth risking... what is better left unexplored... what is worth fighting for and what is better left alone?

everyday decisions. risks. worth. moments amplified that impact the present

impactingeverything

at 27, i feel less certain of what i want or what the point may be

than when i was 22

but i am not so afraid of that, really. not really.

debt insurance expired car registration 17 page paper due in 2 weeks and no thesis

what is my point?

what is it that i hope to prove?

infinite interpretations

freedom and paralysis

lightness and a dull, dull weight.

i hope your heart is light.

debate

youtube: Christopher Hitchens vs. Turek

14 segments.

Dear Christians, Preaching to the choir will not prepare you for debate. -L

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM-6FnArd3M

descarte's grave stone reads

"He who hid well lived well."

i waver

I finished God Is Not Great in the airport yesterday. While his argument style may not be flawless, it addressed and answered to so many of my reservations about the practice of religion.

(Everything I am saying or thinking or writing or grappling with has been said or thought or written or grappled with by many many people many many times before repeat repeat repeat. there is some kind of comfort there)

I am beginning to realize that probably this summer I will have to destroy my mother's world. On the phone last weekend, I heard myself answering back to her faith talk with old faithful rote replies, and it made my skin crawl. I still know the language, but I do not subscribe.

It must be,

but I dread it.

Deliberation.

I don't do well with dishonesty

but it is not always so easy

to articulate the truth.

I am growing more and more distant

from the possibility of a return...

A really difficult part of all of this

has been learning to navigate my personal growth and changes

with others who are happily fixed in theirs.

maybe I will always waver

maybe I will always wander

maybe I am wired this way

...

i am facing an altogether different kind of leap.

i hope this anticipation is more difficult than the aftermath.

i hope i am right to hope that people are resilient.