Love, Actually

I watched that yesterday with her, after drying her tears and listening to her speak, her mouth moving to shape daggers thrown at her countless times over these long years. How did it happen? How can it stay that way? If this is one of the innumerable untold stories of sacrifice, how does it end? What a waste of breath, of living, coursing veins! And in the midst of conversation I realized how very soon it could all end, and how the thought of that end could pervade every moving second of life. How does it feel, to be alive and yet not? To die and not have made the most of life?

There are lessons to be learned, but I don’t want this only to be a lesson for me. Because when it’s an actual life wasting away in order to teach that, to pass on the knowledge and experience, it becomes infinitely worse. I feel a certain type of sadness for that.

I wanted to make this post as ambiguous as possible without losing the actual meaning of what I am saying. If it makes no sense, don’t bother. It makes sense to me. I’m writing this for myself, I suppose.

We were there, on the very edge, looking out. And there was the sparkling, hazy blue of the bay, and the white hangars and the reddish-brownish-yellowish-tan mountains on the other side. And there was dew, too, and fresh growing grass, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching down and petting it. It felt…so soft. And so giving. And so very…alive. I took that in and wondered about her, and how I could make her feel what I feel, but then I suppose I have that wonderful thing called youth. I have the rest of my life.
She laughed at the mention of daydreams. But she nodded when I talked about hope.

No matter what happens, I’ll always love her.

Hope

Tragedy, after tragedy, after tragedy. Disaster. Trauma. Tsunami. Hurricane. Earthquake.

It’s like the apocalypse in slow motion.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith when it seems that everything around you is in ruins. Scratch that, it’s always hard. But when reality sets in, and the cynics and the sadists are saying that the terrible will stay terrible and those who are down, no matter how hard they try, will always stay down, I find that it’s those who keep hoping, keep living each day to keep that little spark alive, are the ones who are the real winners.

There are people who don’t believe in love. People who think nothing will ever get better, that the world is one big unresolvable problem.

There are those who won’t give fifty cents to a cause they might even believe in, because they say that fifty cents, in the grand scheme of things, is nothing. Those fifty cents, in the end, are “just a drop in the bucket.”

There are people who pity Haiti, but shake their head sadly because they think – no, they know – that this country will never be able to get back up on its feet. Naysayers. They are afflicted with a terrible disease called complacency.

Keep hope alive. Nurture it. Love it. Hope makes people human. Hope keeps this world turning. As long as we are alive, we must hope, and hope, and hope, even when the city walls crumble and all we are left with is a pile of dust and rubble at our feet.

Hope is not idealism – and there’s nothing wrong with idealism. Hope is not naïveté.

Hope is…

Hope is you, and me, and everyone around us. Hope is in the sun, the rain, the smiles, the tears, the clouds that break to reveal rays of golden glory that warm the very soil we have planted our feet upon in the noble pursuit of happiness.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

The Good Life

To look out upon a cloudless sky, laden with stars sprinkled unevenly from one side of the great deep blue-black dome to the other, to see each one as a small puncture in the fabric of the blanket that God places over this land when the sun disappears over the hills…

To see a moon, its halo a powdery yellow-white glow in the cloudy purple sky, tinged orange by the street lamps flickering in the preciously undiscovered nocturnal world of a suburb…

To see silvery light that turns every shape it touches a beautiful dove-gray, and every shadow the deepest inky black…

To have walked these rain-soaked streets, to have kicked up the resting orange leaves piled by the sidewalk curb as feet lightly race down the slick streets in the dead of night, past the lights, the houses, the occasional car…

To have seen the gauzy yellow haze that lay over hills rolling one after another into the distance, to have stood upon that black tar before falling over the edge of the Earth into those cottony shades of green and silvery-golden satin that, rough as they were, captured essential beauty, reflected the depth of dreams, of life, of existence on this planet…

To have seen these is to have made the most of time.

There’s beauty in life and in time and in silence, as well as silence shared with others. Laughter, too, and smiles that crinkle the edges of a person’s eyes so those windows to the soul are halfway shuttered but fully exposing what emotion, or emotions, rather, lay behind the flecked and nuanced color of the iris and the pupil.

A terrible preoccupation with the present, with so-called life experiences that do nothing to further life, those experiences that are so naive, which prompt their perpetrators to call the rest of us innocent in the somewhat derogatory sense of the word, they are a chronic illness.

To live in the present is not to pursue false emotion and false highs; that only sullies the beauty of the action of treasuring the time of now. To live in the present is to love the time that one is in, to love that skin, to do that which furthers the progress of the mind, heart, soul, body, whatever that will contribute to the sense of self, the purpose of life that is so very human and yet so very intangible.

To see, to really see, is to live in the present. To feel, to think, to act truly, genuinely, authentically, and wake up in the presence of morning sunlight able to relive the memories and in time, accept them as necessary to the development of one’s character, that is living in the present.

That is a good life, I think.

Writing Exercise #1

There is an art to creating sentences just as there is an art to making oatmeal at just the right temperature or heating the water in your shower exactly the right way before stepping in and letting the hot water rush all over your body, in the kind of strange otherworldly cleansing that, perhaps, showers are supposed to represent in the weird deep psychology of our minds. Writing this is kind of like pacing, I’m trying to type at a speed where I don’t really know what I’m going to type next but it’s letting me form coherent words and things like that. It’s strange, that I feel this kind of anxiety at the end of every sentence, as the period at the end looms nearer and I feel that I have run out words to type or thoughts to write down. I wonder, can you run out of thoughts? If I did this long enough, would I run out of inspiration? Would something magically happen in order for me to continue to write? Would something occur in the whole phenomenal grand scheme of things to make sure that I, lonely writer at precisely 12:30 am, would be able to continue to write, because it’s like the story or life and the world and just, history, I suppose. We’ll never run out of history. It just keeps building and building and building upon the foundations of the events that came before, and before that, and before that. Maybe I really am running out of things to say. I’m pretty sure it’s only been about five minutes. Can you imagine what it would be like if I typed liked this for 15 years? 20 years? A lifetime? But I suppose, in a way, that’s what I will be doing. As a writer, I’ll just be writing…forever. So I’ve got to keep moving so that I can have things to write about.

I suppose it’s a lot like my philosophy of life. You’ve got to keep moving, because then you’ll run out of things to write. You’ll run out of music on your iTunes. You’ll get muscle cramps, and MIND-cramps, because I realize that fine, theoretically, you could write for ages and ages about one little room, because the mind is virtually boundless and you can get sparks of inspiration from ANYTHING in your room or space or wherever it is that you are situated at the time. But in any case, that’s not REAL LIFE. Real life is…real life is…eff, real life is everywhere, huh. Okay, but I guess I just think that if you’re not doing something that you absolutely love, that keeps you actively moving, in some way or another (in your heart, mind, body, soul, whatever), then you’re REALLY living. Living is not just breathing. It’s changing, learning, loving your skin and the people and places and things you choose to surround yourself with. And even the people and places and things you don’t choose to surround yourself with. Because, even though I’m not the biggest believer in the whole “you are where you are because it’s good for you” thing, you ARE there. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and hell, why not just enjoy yourself while you’re at it.

Writing this has made me realize that my brain is singularly occupied with these strange kinds of big deep philosophies and things that I’m not really supposed to be thinking about every second of the day. I think what’s a little…different about me is that I always always always try to find a bigger meaning to whatever it is that I’m looking at/hearing/touching/whatever. I think I need to get out of here and climb a mountain or go to Mozambique or SOMETHING.

Okay, it’s 12:40 am. I think that was a pretty okay writing exercise.

Ain’t No Mountain High

It’s been one semester of Gov Team, and I love it. I love the team, I love the teacher, I love the ideal, the competition, the everything.

On the Wednesday of finals week, Mr. Chiang played music in the background as we supposedly worked on our state questions. As soon as “Don’t Stop Believing” came on, my unit and a few other people around the room burst into raucous song, singing the lyrics as loud as we wanted to. Later that day, M, who has history the same period as Gov Team in the room next to us, told me that her class was trying to do their history final exam, but all they could hear was our singing, loud and clear through the walls. Man, I love Gov Team.

Earlier in the year, on the bus back from the fail APAPA conference, I remember laughing until I seriously thought I was in danger of suffocating. I remember questionable matchmaking and leg-massages, and the entire bus reverberating with the sound of us shouting singing Ain’t No Mountain High and Don’t Stop Believing, every Beatles song we knew, and more.

And then there’s every Monday, with our arms slung about each other’s shoulders as we sway and sing the team song in terrible but wonderful harmony, exchanging sultry winks, occasionally tickling each other, and giving each other dramatic looks. Which reminds me, we need to choreograph that, asap.

Remember the practice run for Regionals, our panicked faces as we came to the conclusion that we were going to fail? And then, a few weeks later, when Chiang learned that we made it to States, B and I ran from journalism to C110 to check, after hurriedly telling Balmeo “We’ll be back!” right as she prepared to take roll.

I don’t know what will happen at States, and I most definitely do not know what will happen after we all graduate. But I do know that after just half a year, Gov Team has given me more than I bargained for – friendships, memories, and purpose. There really isn’t any mountain too high, any valley too low , nor any river too wide for us to cross, as long as we have each other.

I miss you guys!

War of My Life

Come out angels, come out ghosts

Come out darkness, bring everyone you know

I’m not running and I’m not scared

I am waiting and well-prepared

I’m in the war of my life, at the door of my life…

-John Mayer, War of My Life

How very appropriate.

I really do feel that I am at the door of my life. Last year of high school, and I feel that I really am becoming my own best friend. I actually really truly enjoy being who I am.

Last year was a series of events that felt like a row of dominoes collapsing, one after another after another after another…dominoes I was afraid to see fall, dominoes I didn’t even know existed.

I want to say it should never have happened. And maybe it wouldn’t have, if I did it over again. But I do feel that everything that I went through last year – the way I stretched my heart and mind and soul and body farther than I’d ever care to stretch them again – taught me something about who I am, and who I was, and who I want to/will be. The silent screams, the tears, the running through rain…it was important. It happened for a reason.

I’m in the delicate process of weeding out the unhealthiness in my life – not just food-wise, either. It’s so refreshing to live a life you don’t have to worry about, though I’m not saying I’m not proud of the life I’ve led up to this point. I feel like I’ve gained wisdom, giant shiploads of it, to the point where I end up spewing it out at random to people who cross my path at a given time.

It sounds a little strange for a 17 year old to talk about being wise, but the truth is, I feel a little like I’m older than 17. Like I’ve aged, in certain ways. But I like who I’ve become.

I like that I laugh more easily now. I like that I can’t help but smile sometimes, as I walk across campus or put a piece of bread in the toaster or annotate a poem in Lit AP. I like that I’m a little bit crazy, a lot more articulate, and an inch taller. I like that. And I like knowing more of who I am.

I’m moving forward. I’m climbing the rigging of my ragged ship to reach the crow’s nest, where, feeling at the top of the world, I’ll put my eye to the telescope and see everything I can see.

I tend to fall into periods of silence, where I’ll just stare out the window or at my fingers curled in my lap, and I’ll just think. I’ll explore my mind. Maybe it’s irritating to other people, but it’s helping me. How will you ever make friends with yourself if you don’t take the time to listen to what your heartbeat is saying?

There’s a language that your self speaks. In the beat of your heart, the  blue of your veins, the curl of your hair on a particular day. It’s in the flecks of color in your eyes and in the dreams that flash before them in moments of deepest sleep. It in everything you do and everything you surround yourself with. So, I’d say, take the time to listen. What you’ll hear might surprise you.

Spohkin Wurd

Words:

Township

Horizon

High school

Max

What came of the free-write session, unedited, uncut:

If I saw horizons I would leave and follow them, to whatever township it is, whatever sunlight and glory I was going to come to and it would be mine. But hey they taught me in school that that’s selfish, so you over there, it’ll be yours too. And mine. And everyone’s. And maybe I’ll find some kind of sparkle or glitter or twinkle in your eyes that will lead me to the end of that horizon, and I’ll

fall

fall

fall

into the unknown world and we’ll have to bring back the existence of light and knowledge and peace. Pax et Lux. I wrote that in an essay. Why are we consolidating thoughts into one stupid piece of graded work, why can’t we just move and dance and sing and say as we wish because in my opinion there’s no other way to have a harmony, a melody, with fingers dancing over keys or keys over fingertips. And music can be made as long as you believe in the power, in the beauty of your dreams and mine, the white canvas, the white we paint in so many colors. The glass bottle a drew with colored pencils of green, yellow, pink, blue, purple RAINBOWS connecting Heaven and Earth and the sky with the ground and doves with war, children, shafted to the side to make room for logical thought, shafted to save face with those who have lost all the mysteries. Septimus and Thomasina, on an empty shore…And they dance until midnight blacks out their end.

Who Are You?

I want to ask this question to every person who commented or “liked” or reblogged the illustration I submitted to I Can Read. It was a sketch of a grand piano, and it said “play to your heart’s desire” at the top. It might seem kind of vain, but I was really really excited when it showed up on I Can Read, so much so that when I got home I looked through everyone who left some kind of note on it, and God, it was so…I don’t know what to say. I just kept scrolling down and seeing people’s tumblr screen-names and reading the comments and it was like peeking into the lives of all these different people from who knows where, with all these different stories and identities and struggles and, and, and…wow. Look at how big the world is. Look at how far apart we are. How many people we’ll never meet, how many potential best friends or arch-enemies or lovers who we’ll never know the name of, never know anything of past a a few posts on a blog or a picture or even a tiny, two line comment.

This is why I blog. To be a part of a community. The human network. I was reading comment after comment, people indirectly talking to their boyfriends or girlfriends or fiancés or just friends, telling them “I wish you would…” or “I still want to hear you play” or “yes please. i’ll love you forever”, and people whose dreams were echoed in the pencil marks I made and in the simple words I had written, saying, “If only I really reallly could make this my life. Forever and ever, since I was 5 and after playing for over 10 years to me this is the most beautiful instrument in the world.” I wanted to tell this person “me too.” And I wanted to tell the person who wishes for a piano but is staying in DC “you can always get a cheap keyboard. Or just make friends with a piano store owner.” I kind of wanted to read the poem that someone wrote in English about “playing to your heart’s desire” and tell the person who didn’t get into their dream college that, you know, everything will be okay. And to all those people who quit piano or who haven’t played in a year or a month’s time, I wanted to ask them why? Why give up something you love? There is always time to go back and learn. To that guy who was disheartened after trying to play the piano for the first time in a year, I wanted to tell him that it doesn’t matter how clumsy your fingers are or how scratchy your voice is. Just play. Please, just play, because the world wants – no, needs – your music.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a book. Or a box of kleenex. Or a pencil. Or some other inanimate thing. But humans – humanity – we have so much. So many thoughts. So many faces. So many emotions, struggles, victories, stories. I just cannot fathom how incredibly, amazingly, beautifully diverse we are.

Oh Dear.

I made a handy little list for college essays, which you can get off of my tumblr. And, well, despite my feeling that yes, I was doing okay on my apps and yes, I can finish everything by December 1st and yes, I am way ahead of where my sister was last year, right now the only thought that is occurring to me as I look down at nearly a full page of essays is…crap.

This whole college admissions process is weighing me down like a sack of rocks in water. I feel a little bit overwhelmed, and it’s the first time I’ve felt so…I don’t know, scared? apprehensive? nervous? stressed? – this entire school year. It’s a little bit unnerving to go from feeling that you’ve accomplished quite a bit of work and then realize that all of that is actually not much at all. Things just keep adding up, and I just figured out that Mount Holyoke also asks for a copy of a paper, with comments from a teacher, that “shows you at your intellectual best.” Intellectual best? What’s that? And how can I get some?

I wish I could just go to Hogwarts. You don’t even have to apply, and there’s no college or grad school afterwards – you’re thrown into the real (or unreal?) world as soon as you graduate! Magic doesn’t seem THAT difficult. I mean, what’s making a Draught of Living Death compared to PDP from AP Bio last year? At least you have the ingredients listed out for you in Potions.

Now I’m just whining. I printed out a timelog that I got off of Pitch Design Union, so it can help me get back on track with work. The problem is, I need to somehow balance doing homework and essays with gchat. I think it’s social suicide to get rid of it. And, you know, school is not just about work. It is also about the memories and inside jokes and friends you make that will last you a lifetime, or at least make you keel over laughing for ten straight minutes. And if that’s not enough to convince you, gmail and gchat and gdocs are integral tools for journalism. As much as it slows down my productivity, I have to leave my email window open just in case.

All right. That’s enough.

What’s New?

I’m have a tumblr! I’m keeping this for wordier posts, but photos, art, design, audio will mostly be on the tumblr. Find me at http://luminocity.tumblr.com!