I'm giving up self-degradation and unjustified judgmental thinking for Lent.
Happy Ash Wednesday.
25 February 2009
24 February 2009
Take-offs, White Roses, and Landings
There was a red flare.
A singular red flare, to the side of the road. I saw it at a distance, through the rain and fog. Even though I rendered my wheel to the familiar bend of 280, I can tell that there were no other cars around, no lights, no signs of movement. It wasn't until I was passing by the flare that there was momentum of wreckage on the ground: the carnage of a car accident or the like. But it was brief. The moment my headlights hit the scattered pieces of metal across the road, perpendicular to said red flare, the wreckage-laid road disappeared. And it was in that space of time, in which my thoughts were developing the images I just saw, that my eyes adjusted to a figure, standing to the side of the road. A singular figure. Now, it may just be that I was driving 60 miles per hour on the slick wet roads. It was late, and I had just shaken myself from a deep nap. But as I passed the figure, its face shadowed under the late night sky of the unlit 280, he managed to vanish from the roadside and became my backseat passenger. I peered up, and there he sat, grinning at me from my rear view mirror.
Now as I've said, it could be that I've just woken up from my nap. My late night habit of taking drives have never resulted in something so delusional. It may have been that I forced myself to drink a Venti soy latte from Starbucks just as I was about to board the plane last morning. Or that I've been pummeled by lack of sleep, Orange County climate, and/or change in diet. It may just be that I participated in two days of a proper Catholic mourning ceremony: wakes, funeral, and burial; family time is when I shed crocodile tears. Out of all my acute principles, showing my less than desirable emotions in front of hundreds of Vietnamese relatives is not acceptable. I like to keep my grieving private, closer to my soul, because I'm used to that sharp pain. To publicize such pain in front of Vietnamese Catholic relatives is the biggest fake I can manage. In any case, I was there, for a 92-year-old man who received a peaceful death, dressed in black, white at my brow. I spent time with his grandchildren, embraced his addling wife, and carried white roses up and down the aisles of his church, and left some on his casket as his corpse was lifted down and covered in dirt by a construction machine, which took roughly about five minutes to cover and pat down with grass. I spent a night studying characters in card rooms across the county. I tried Korean food for the first time. I drove stoned from Mission Viejo to Garden Grove. I shivered tasting salt in Newport, and realized that I miss being in love so much, but I refuse to submit to that longing, because for once in my life, it has to be right. Each one of them has told me that I love to love; although half of them spoke out of spite, I think the other half truly knew me.
And now there was this man in my backseat. But he didn't stay long. As instantaneous as the second-frame he became another presence in my vehicle, I flickered my eyes to another curve in the road and then raised my eyes again. He left me to myself, and I continued driving in the rain.
A singular red flare, to the side of the road. I saw it at a distance, through the rain and fog. Even though I rendered my wheel to the familiar bend of 280, I can tell that there were no other cars around, no lights, no signs of movement. It wasn't until I was passing by the flare that there was momentum of wreckage on the ground: the carnage of a car accident or the like. But it was brief. The moment my headlights hit the scattered pieces of metal across the road, perpendicular to said red flare, the wreckage-laid road disappeared. And it was in that space of time, in which my thoughts were developing the images I just saw, that my eyes adjusted to a figure, standing to the side of the road. A singular figure. Now, it may just be that I was driving 60 miles per hour on the slick wet roads. It was late, and I had just shaken myself from a deep nap. But as I passed the figure, its face shadowed under the late night sky of the unlit 280, he managed to vanish from the roadside and became my backseat passenger. I peered up, and there he sat, grinning at me from my rear view mirror.
Now as I've said, it could be that I've just woken up from my nap. My late night habit of taking drives have never resulted in something so delusional. It may have been that I forced myself to drink a Venti soy latte from Starbucks just as I was about to board the plane last morning. Or that I've been pummeled by lack of sleep, Orange County climate, and/or change in diet. It may just be that I participated in two days of a proper Catholic mourning ceremony: wakes, funeral, and burial; family time is when I shed crocodile tears. Out of all my acute principles, showing my less than desirable emotions in front of hundreds of Vietnamese relatives is not acceptable. I like to keep my grieving private, closer to my soul, because I'm used to that sharp pain. To publicize such pain in front of Vietnamese Catholic relatives is the biggest fake I can manage. In any case, I was there, for a 92-year-old man who received a peaceful death, dressed in black, white at my brow. I spent time with his grandchildren, embraced his addling wife, and carried white roses up and down the aisles of his church, and left some on his casket as his corpse was lifted down and covered in dirt by a construction machine, which took roughly about five minutes to cover and pat down with grass. I spent a night studying characters in card rooms across the county. I tried Korean food for the first time. I drove stoned from Mission Viejo to Garden Grove. I shivered tasting salt in Newport, and realized that I miss being in love so much, but I refuse to submit to that longing, because for once in my life, it has to be right. Each one of them has told me that I love to love; although half of them spoke out of spite, I think the other half truly knew me.
And now there was this man in my backseat. But he didn't stay long. As instantaneous as the second-frame he became another presence in my vehicle, I flickered my eyes to another curve in the road and then raised my eyes again. He left me to myself, and I continued driving in the rain.
17 February 2009
Coffee Society
On this road where I travel daily, you travel the same road, a hundred miles away, with your own business. From this end of the pavement, I can feel you make your way, and I think you can feel me make my own way. If you lived and died on this concrete highway, I'll know as soon as I reach it.
The summer she cried over her loss, I cried the same the next summer. When I walk out my door and appreciate the droplets of rain on my face, I know I love what I've been given-giving-gifted, and can take the steps to grasp what I want of myself. The way I pictured myself when I was twelve. Pining for change won't make changes.
So here's to my running start.
The summer she cried over her loss, I cried the same the next summer. When I walk out my door and appreciate the droplets of rain on my face, I know I love what I've been given-giving-gifted, and can take the steps to grasp what I want of myself. The way I pictured myself when I was twelve. Pining for change won't make changes.
So here's to my running start.
15 February 2009
Order # E1396641
I'm haunted by you, Cin. You are a dear person to me. You always wear different masks. I wish I could see past them. Smile.
14 February 2009
Dogs in the Slums Who Become Very Rich
We're floating, hear that song. Even when I'm elevating, ripping away from the mud, memories speak louder than the present, and I get lost and deeper still. I'm sick of my self-rhetorical devices, but how will I reach the source, the knots, swarming in piles, waiting to be solved? I'm desperately growing up, and at the same time, enjoying the slow, painful process. Here I am, at the turn of the dial, at the transitioning point in my life, no, I've always been transitioning, but here, I am very aware. Do I really want to be at peace, or do I live to obtain my continuous thresholds of revelation? If God took the larger picture and put it inside of a frame and then put it in another frame and then another and so on, I might be in that zenith frame in the middle, waving at the universe, another fleck of dust seeking Nirvana. I am the Fox Confessor and the Bird Gehrl and 16, Maybe Less. I've danced with masked men, sang at weddings, and swam with Origin. I am the accumulation of a life experience that is embedded in a singular perspective, and I am not fucking ashamed. I'm living, don't touch me, no, I live I love present particle I am I be I I I.
12 February 2009
Imagination
"But don't you ever wonder... I mean, let it affect you emotionally?"No, no I don't. I still dream, and I do still wallow. All night I tossed to anxious-tinted realities. I cried in my sleep. No one was there to rip me off of it. Graduation date is looming. In my nightmare, I sat staring at the stage as my classmates walked across it. I heaved in sadness, and when I turned to my right, he was there. He was plotting, planning to get far, far away, like he always wanted. Run away to Oregon to become a musician, useless bachelor's degree in hand. And in my despair, the thought dawned on me:
I am stuckBy virtue of the sunlight streaming in my window, and my preconceived usage of the alarm clock, I woke up from this nightmare. I think it's going to haunt me for a good, long time. It's enough that I have to handle my stasis day by day. There's nothing more thrilling than the thought of my escape from this subdued mode of living. To cut all attachments, to be freed from guilt and obligation. To finally live.
right
here.
How fucked up is it to allow a dream to ruin my day. I am stunted emotionally. I can't seem to climb out of bed, but I can certainly write my frustrations out. Not that it would help. Just mapping out visually a scramble to my thoughts yet again.
Now that I've lost Chloe, I'm more alone than I've ever been. As much as I love being in a relationship where one takes care of the other, my inability to take care of myself got in the way. Now I'm occasionally visited by Tiger Lily Feather, whose good sense and sassy nature allow her to sleep with me and to hold her in my times of need. She seems to understand, girl to girl, that I'm as broken as they come, and sometimes, I can't keep the glue on enough to survive a day outside my bed. And I'm breaking in other fragments; I'm afraid that I'm becoming almost irreparable. She also misses Chloe almost as much as I do. (But as she is a cat, she doesn't let that affect her much.)
What am I doing?
11 February 2009
10 February 2009
Happy One Year
to us. Or maybe just to me. For my liberation. For the Change.
I could never forget the way we started, the growth, and our Friendship. I hope we grow together as people, and I do not regret.
I love you.
I could never forget the way we started, the growth, and our Friendship. I hope we grow together as people, and I do not regret.
I love you.
05 February 2009
03 February 2009
cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth
You know that there's something wrong with you when you confuse being high with your usual morning drowsiness. Makes you think that you always wake up alert.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)