Roots

The seeds sown in me when I was a child are too deep, too nostalgic and too real - they are not leaves that fall and change with every season, nor new branches that bud and grow with the rain. No, they are the very roots that ground me, without which I will surely fall.

There are those who read what others write
And then there are those who write what others read

coffeeshop reflections

It is a simple pleasure, to come in from the blustery cold into a warm cafe, noses still pink and numb, taking off rain-trodden gloves with undisguised relief and sharing a $2 chocolate crepe with the relish of a well-worn traveler. Warm food never tastes so good as to wind-chapped lips and a cold stomach. To sit for awhile in an unpretentious place, to eat for awhile to fend away the cold more than from any real hunger, to take my jacket off and dust off bits of wayward snow. To watch as people walk by, hands mittened and necks scarved, and wonder where they are off to on such a cold, snowy day. To know that in a few minutes, I too will be walking amongst them again, strolling to my next destination, perhaps never to return again to this one cafe, in this one town, in this one life. But for now, I will recline in my rest-stop, savoring the moment, breathing the scent of fresh coffee and absorbing the murmur of lunchtime conversation that really I have paid to partake, for but a brief moment in my life.

There is nothing quite like hopping in and out of warm stores on the pretext of browsing, but really to enjoy the bursts of warmth like sunbeams on my face, refreshing me before I bow out into the cold again. There is nothing quite like walking into a foreign language bookstore and flipping through the books with quiet marvel and bemused curiosity, how the texts seem oh so much more mysterious and learned because they are in a cryptic language. Or browsing through trinkets in a tourist shop, feeling the cheap metal keychains tinkling in my hands and fingering the flimsy scarves and cardboard magnets we all know are worthless but still buy for relatives we want to gift but do not want to pay much for.

I bite carefully into the simple sugared donut with the languidity of one who has all the time in the world, and sip the watered down orange juice the hotel provides, as if it is but nectar of the gods and not mass-produced grocery juice. I stir my hot chocolate and watch the lumps dissolve and transform the water into a thick brown stew, with two packets of sugar like jewels glistening and vanishing into the chocolately vortex. There is kingly enjoyment in simple things, if one takes the time to let them dance on your tongue, and to realize for a moment what pleasure there is in simply eating, and drinking, in the presence of enjoyable company. One may never have another moment quite like that, quite exactly like that. In the future, I may be dining from fine china, with the richest of fares and the most complex and orgasmic of sauces. In the future I may scoff at $2 crepes and disdain cartoned juice and refuse to even consider an unnamed donut from an unnamed bakery without raving reviews. I may morph into a person I could never dream of today. But for now youth is my money and simplicity my jewels, and I will enjoy the simple things I am given, before they are consumed by the distractions of tomorrow.

We all seek glamor, but really, glamor is really a symbol of fine living, and fine living can come in surprising and quiet ways. To me it is more of a surprise to see peace staring back at me in someone's eyes, to hear content in their voices, and a calm trust, than to see glamorous people with fancy clothes. It is the hardest thing to achieve a lasting contentment, and to be able to be quiet for long periods of time without being tormented. I still, am tormented by the quiet, and turn the radio on to distract myself so I am not plagued by ghosts of the past or constricted by sudden pangs of regret or realization. I too, have not yet found a true measure of peace to which I can sit silent by myself for a few hours, still and reflective, without feeling the need to bolt or to drown my worries with distraction, any distraction. Peace is more elusive than Ferraris or chanel bags or whatever the media plasters on our minds is the symbol of fine and exquisite living. I know if I work hard enough, earn enough, those glitzes will be in my hands, but peace? That I cannot guarantee, and will never be able to guarantee.

what makes me sad/ reflective is

looking into the eyes of a child and knowing that someday evil might reside in those frank, unwavering eyes, that trust will be displaced by disbelief, and love, by lust.

Nights Like These

There are nights like this, when I feel an insatiable, inconsolable need but know not what it is. All I know is there is a hollow that is in my chest, but I know not the shape of this hollow, and so I cannot fill it. When nothing, not gustatory pleasures, nor audible trinkets, nor ordinary distractions and pleasantries seem fulfilling - they seem like sugar and icing when all I really need is bread and water - filling and true. How do you cure something when you don't know the problem?

When people are around me but I feel so alone, when words surround me but have no meaning, when all that seems real is the softness of my pillow and the cool detached sound of cars passing outside the window - the world seems to have ballooned leaving me suspended in the middle of peaceful, lonely air.

There are moments when you feel you are so right, but the world makes you feel so wrong - one person yelling in slow motion in the middle of an impassive, self-absorbed crowd. And then doubt seeps like an unwanted guest through the doors of your heart until the hinges break down and you crumble into many pieces and dissapear, silently, into the thronging, throbbing mass. And beat as one mass of humanity, discordant in pockets, but generally flowing in the same common direction. Where are we going? Where are we all going?

Life is tolerable for the great majority of the time, pleasant and blessed for the most part. But there are nights like these of self-imposed terror, minds stricken by wayward thoughts that throw one out of sync, while the world rolls on rolypoly in its own gargantuan triumph. The discordance is in part sickening, in part illustrative - and I am torn between the two emotions, so that I can't feel either in full, but both in jagged snippets like interference on the television. I suffer in my own hands, at the mercy of my own relentless mind. I feel a stranger to the world, but a shadow slipping away into the night, with no body to chase after.

I love FedEx!

I love FedEx, I love UPS, I love post offices and people who drive delivery vans!!!

Part of it is due to watching King of Queens late at night, part of it is due to me expecting a few parcels and amazed that things can be shipped from all around the world and change hands to me!! The little things we take for granted, how the world could stop running without the mail (reminds me of Newman in Seinfeld as well)... so appreciate the next letter you get and wonder where it came from and who had it last!

How do you cure a broken heart?

And for me the answer is, you wait
Through the moments when even inaction is too strenuous,
The time warp where the shortest second is too long
And the longest night, unbearable
When the world moves like clockwork while your heartbeat is weak
And your lids hang heavy but your eyes cannot sleep.
The wait is unearthly and the torture, divine
Like whips the minutes of doubt and unraveling regret
Slapping against your skin in wayward, clumsy design,
Parched and dying everything seems either mirage else cruel farce.
You crawl in the desert of your own mind,
Searching desperately for the next drop of water,
For if not, you surely must die
But the water never comes and yet your body inches on in unwanted miracle,
Superhuman? Or merely, an animal in fierce raw battle with the world?
The sun beats terribly upon your red, raw back
Every second surely must be your last, surely this pain will smite the very breath from your lungs,
With feverish cheeks you await the explosion of your infinitely fragile heart
But it does not come, but pumps on vengefully, mechanically in its empty shell,
Slowly leaking out the love it contained and replacing it with empty air or gall.
People walk by but they are aliens
For it seems no-one can understand your singular agony,
Surely no-one has ached as much as your emaciating heart
Or died a thousand times in a single night.
And the answer is, you wait,
Force food down your mouth to quiet your stomach,
Drink down water like its beer free-flowing from a tap,
Hold the bedpost tight through the nightmarish dark,
Drench your bedsheets from a dozen sweated shirts and a hundred other tears,
Howl to the moon even when it's light
Feel a werewolf's pain and the wildness of its eyes
Live exquisite moments of dullness and the plainness of hollows
The solitude of corners and the solace of shadows
You are out of harmony, disjointed from the world
Surely everyone must see you and rush you to the ward
But yet no-one does, and so the answer is that you wait.