Saturday, May 30, 2009
the flower shop girl
"i suppose," she began tentatively, "i suppose it's because i never knew."
the monk was careful not to interrupt; he was sensitive to such moments, like when a blossom was just about to unfold, and how important it was not to speak, or even breathe. he watched her face carefully, staring at the late afternoon light reflecting white off the wet pavement.
"all this time, i've tended these flowers, taking such pride in their health and appearance, even though i knew they were temporary- symbolic gestures, really- and even though i knew they were always for someone else, some other woman who was finding happiness. i did this with simple contentment for years now, without the faintest sense of wilt or dissatisfaction- or jealousy- within me. this was my role, and it was my obligation, my duty, to fulfill it. there was nothing else."
she shifts her weight somewhat, but her eyes remain on the light off the slick concrete. "and yes, i admit, at times, i felt myself above it all. there's a certain- powerfulness? at being able to do your job, without being tossed about by your feelings. especially when you are dealing with, and working for, those who are practically drowning in emotions. 'falling' in love. such silly children." she laughs briefly, her voice slightly breaking, her eyes taking on a reflective shean. "but i never knew. i never knew."
the monk was careful not to interrupt; he was sensitive to such moments, like when a blossom was just about to unfold, and how important it was not to speak, or even breathe. he watched her face carefully, staring at the late afternoon light reflecting white off the wet pavement.
"all this time, i've tended these flowers, taking such pride in their health and appearance, even though i knew they were temporary- symbolic gestures, really- and even though i knew they were always for someone else, some other woman who was finding happiness. i did this with simple contentment for years now, without the faintest sense of wilt or dissatisfaction- or jealousy- within me. this was my role, and it was my obligation, my duty, to fulfill it. there was nothing else."
she shifts her weight somewhat, but her eyes remain on the light off the slick concrete. "and yes, i admit, at times, i felt myself above it all. there's a certain- powerfulness? at being able to do your job, without being tossed about by your feelings. especially when you are dealing with, and working for, those who are practically drowning in emotions. 'falling' in love. such silly children." she laughs briefly, her voice slightly breaking, her eyes taking on a reflective shean. "but i never knew. i never knew."
Friday, May 29, 2009
limits
{how do i know these eyes really see?}
a wall
the air and water within straining
(i want to know the sky raining
it's the truth, i think:
the truth.)
the sky has limits.
the earth has limits.
love and inspiration and hope
and i have limits too.
(but if the sky cries
then maybe someone wants
to break the skin of clouds too
and drain abscesses of bounded
cysts.)
pacing borders.
arcing gestures
that bound and shape space
like bubbles before popping
the filling and the stopping
of the endless bounded march.
(parenthetically,
this is the rain dance.
and one day, this purposeless
happenstance will summon
the accident
that breaks the palindrome
and symmetry and rhyme-
and this will be the truest time.
a wall
the air and water within straining
(i want to know the sky raining
it's the truth, i think:
the truth.)
the sky has limits.
the earth has limits.
love and inspiration and hope
and i have limits too.
(but if the sky cries
then maybe someone wants
to break the skin of clouds too
and drain abscesses of bounded
cysts.)
pacing borders.
arcing gestures
that bound and shape space
like bubbles before popping
the filling and the stopping
of the endless bounded march.
(parenthetically,
this is the rain dance.
and one day, this purposeless
happenstance will summon
the accident
that breaks the palindrome
and symmetry and rhyme-
and this will be the truest time.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
relief
i want to fall from
google earth images of the world
satellite-made squares
of flat and pixellated color:
there must be a ground here somewhere
a place to land
and make a crater,
and an atmosphere to cook in
well-done.
i'm tired of interactions
with a world made flat
and accessible
by computer screens.
there are mountains
sharp as needles
and broken valleys
crumbled
and the sea has its own
textured skin, hiding
its own textured depth.
the face of the world
and the face of me
are not two dimensional.
help me find
relief.
google earth images of the world
satellite-made squares
of flat and pixellated color:
there must be a ground here somewhere
a place to land
and make a crater,
and an atmosphere to cook in
well-done.
i'm tired of interactions
with a world made flat
and accessible
by computer screens.
there are mountains
sharp as needles
and broken valleys
crumbled
and the sea has its own
textured skin, hiding
its own textured depth.
the face of the world
and the face of me
are not two dimensional.
help me find
relief.
on the run
the smell of coffee sticks to my clothes.
i will walk from here carrying an aura of caffeine
people will part like a wake as i pass
with a sudden need to sit with a paper and chat
in a half lit room surrounded by noisily-made orders.
i have an appointment to keep,
but i am extending the downtime
and underestimating the time of commute.
something in me wants to keep still.
i will turn into something different
as i always do.
water is infinitely mutable
and i aspire to be like water.
but have you ever wondered,
if there is something brittle
holding each to its own nature?
modern life stretches the taffy
of our natures just to see
how much it can take
and how much it can give.
endurance and productivity
are key to an economy seeking
perpetual motion machines.
someday soon, water will tire of
playing vapor and liquid and ice
and will sublimate somewhere far from here
free from transformations.
and i will leave this cafe
with the smell of coffee on me
with a wake full of silly dreams.
i will walk from here carrying an aura of caffeine
people will part like a wake as i pass
with a sudden need to sit with a paper and chat
in a half lit room surrounded by noisily-made orders.
i have an appointment to keep,
but i am extending the downtime
and underestimating the time of commute.
something in me wants to keep still.
i will turn into something different
as i always do.
water is infinitely mutable
and i aspire to be like water.
but have you ever wondered,
if there is something brittle
holding each to its own nature?
modern life stretches the taffy
of our natures just to see
how much it can take
and how much it can give.
endurance and productivity
are key to an economy seeking
perpetual motion machines.
someday soon, water will tire of
playing vapor and liquid and ice
and will sublimate somewhere far from here
free from transformations.
and i will leave this cafe
with the smell of coffee on me
with a wake full of silly dreams.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
reworking amphibous from the beginning
“The road is long
with many a winding turn
that leads us to who knows where
who knows when.
But I am strong
strong enough to carry him.
He ain’t heavy,
he’s my brother.”
-the Hollies, “He Ain’t Heavy”
When the rains come to Mililani Town, the waters pull the red dust off houses and cars and streets and sidewalks, until they gather and flow like tired streams of blood into the gutters. With an angry hiss, the waters disappear into a black place that no one sees.
It is there that the kappa Yagoro lives. There, in a hidden lair formed of rusted copper pennies, he feasts on abundant toads (and the occasional corpse of a cat or a dog), and eavesdrops on conversations that echo down from the world above.
All in all, he is content, as content as an exile like himself can be. But sometimes, he feels an emptiness that he cannot satiate with food alone. Sometimes he creeps to the edges of his wet and shadowed world, and watches, and waits. On most such days, nothing comes, nothing happens, and he skulks back to his lair, unhappy.
But on this day, in the damp aftermath of a short rainstorm, he finds what he was looking for…
Randy never wanted to play the game.
But Dean, his older brother, had insisted that they have a “sword fight” with a couple of metal reinforcement bars he’d found, and that they hold their duel in the rain drainage canal behind their house. And Randy knew that there was no refusing his older brother.
So here he is, eight years old and gripping the rebar for dear life, knuckles blanching. The criss-cross pattern of the rusted metal bites deep into his soft palms. Before him stands his older eleven year old brother Dean, holding the same sort of rebar, angled and preparing to strike.
Around them, lichens and slick silt lay low on the rain-drainage canal floor; the sloping concrete sides of the canal part as wide as the Red Sea to stay out of their way. The darkness of the tunnel at the end of the canal hangs suspended, the shallow waters at its mouth still and ripple-less. Everything seems to lie in wait for something to happen.
Finally, Dean moves to strike. With a grunt bordering relief and exertion, Randy heaves his rebar up to meet his brother’s. The two “swords” meet with a dull clang. The reverberation is strong, and Randy feels his teeth rattle in their sockets. Before those reverberations can settle, Dean strikes again, this time from a different angle. Randy desperately twists his rebar up to defend himself once more. Clang. Again and again and again Dean attacks, and each time, Randy blocks, just barely.
Dean’s onslaught is relentless, with barely a pause between strikes for Randy to breathe. When it is finally over, Randy’s chest is heaving, and despite his best efforts, the tip of his rebar kisses the floor.
“Now it’s your turn,” Dean says, with no break in his voice to betray the least bit of exertion. “You attack me.”
Randy hesitates, only partly because he needs a break. If there is anything worse than being attacked by his brother, it is attacking him. At least if his brother hit him, it wouldn’t be Randy’s fault. If Randy hit his brother? Well, there’d be hell to pay.
But again, there is no refusing his brother.
Randy makes a limp swing in his brother’s general direction. Dean doesn’t even have to lift his sword to avoid it.
“Oh come on,” Dean chides. “You have to do better than that.”
Randy puts a bit more effort into his next attack, enough to produce a grunt.
Dean deftly brushes his attack aside. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Harder!”
After a few incrementally stronger swings, Dean glares at his younger brother. “What are you, a girl? Swing harder!”
Finally, Randy closes his eyes, wraps the rebar back behind himself like a baseball bat, and unwinds. The rebar whistles through the air. But instead of the sound and feel of metal ringing on metal, there is a sickening crunch, then a dull clattering, and then Dean’s angry cry:
“Randy, you little shit!”
Randy hesitantly opens his eyes. He sees Dean rubbing the knuckles of his left hand, his rebar on the canal floor.
“I’m sorry,” whimpers Randy.
Dean’s thin eyes widen with rage. He closes the distance to his younger brother instantly, and with a shove, pushes Randy down into the wet floor of the canal. Randy collapses, stirring the dark silt, his rebar clattering noisily beside him.
“You little shit,” Dean repeats, turning his attention back to his left hand. “You hit my knuckles!”
“I’m sorry,” Randy mumbles again, his voice breaking. Tears begin to well in his limpid eyes.
Dean glares at his younger brother in disgust. “Oh, not again,” he mutters. “I’m hurt, and you’re going to cry?” His eyes flash, and for a moment, Randy thinks Dean is going to push him again. But instead, he stomps off, scaling the sloped walls of the canal, up to the hole in the chain-link face.
“I’m going home,” he calls out, as he steps through the hole, out the rain drainage canal, and back to the weedelia field behind their house, leaving Randy alone.
Yagoro watches.
The boy sits on the dirty canal floor for long minutes, sobbing quietly. The Sunday afternoon sun glides slow across the washed out, after-storm sky, incrementally growing his shadow.
What is it about the boy that intrigues Yagoro so much? He cannot say for certain. Perhaps it is that he reminds him of himself, or who he could have been. Perhaps this is why he wants to help him.
Yagoro decides to reveal himself, something he has not done in more than three centuries…
At first, Randy doesn’t hear the sound. It is so very soft, on the verge of imagination. It sounds like water sliding through hidden pipes, occasionally punctuated by high trickles, or the ploip! of a raindrop.
It is coming from the dark tunnel at the end of the canal.
Randy stops crying as the sound grows louder and more distinct. Curiosity piqued, he rises off the canal floor, his clothes damp, and walks towards the tunnel mouth.
About ten feet before the tunnel entrance, the floor of the canal suddenly drops about half a foot, and water, the stubborn remnant of many rainstorms, sits and stagnates. Randy creeps to the distinct shoreline, the concrete lip at the water’s edge, and glances into the glassy green-black pool. Within the shallow water, he sees a thick carpet of emerald-colored algae interspersed with silver pearls of air. Squiggling within and between the algae fronds like little question-marks, countless black tadpoles disperse hither and thither, disturbed by his shadow.
Randy peers into the solid blackness of the tunnel, as though he could hear with his eyes. The sound is more distinct at this proximity. In fact, he realizes with fascination that the sound is composed of half-foreign words, like the lyrics of some tinny, distant radio. He struggles to make out those words, his lips making exaggerated shapes.
“Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare…”
Even though Randy’s father is from Japan, and Randy attends Japanese school every weekday afternoon, he only knows enough to recognize that it is Japanese. He doesn’t have a clue what it means.
Suddenly, a large, slow ripple fans out across the water’s surface, pushing towards Randy. He skitters away from the concrete lip as the ripple crests, breaks, and reaches for his sneakered toes.
“Don’t be afraid,” comes a voice that sounds like a river.
Far from reassured, Randy turns and begins to bolt away.
“Please. I promise, I promise not to harm you.”
Randy reaches the place where he and his brother had just had their “sword” fight. He grabs one of the rebars, and spins around, swinging it wildly.
But there is nothing behind him. The canal up to the tunnel remains empty.
The voice continues. “I promise,” it repeats, somehow carrying just as clearly across the increased distance. “I promise not to harm you. And a kappa’s promise is always honored.”
“What,” Randy calls out, his voice a tight squeak. “What is a kappa? What are you?”
There is a sound like the rush of water from a faucet being turned on and off in rapid succession. Randy realizes dimly that the sound is meant to be laughter. “What is a kappa?” calls the voice. “That is a good question. I could show you what I am- but given the tenuous state of our relationship, I think that would be a bad idea. A bad idea, indeed.”
Randy’s brow furrows. The voice may as well have spoken in Japanese. Most of the words flew above his eight year old head.
“I can at least give you a name,” says the voice. “My name is Yagoro. Tell me, what is your name?”
Randy grasps the rebar tightly. “I don’t talk to strangers,” he says warily, half aware that he already is talking to a stranger.
The laughing sound begins again. “But we’re not strangers, you and I,” says Yagoro. “I watched your little chanbara match. And from that, I would hazard a guess. Your name is either Randy. Or it is little shit.”
Randy dips his head, reminded of his brother’s recent remonstration. “It’s Randy,” he mumbles, although from the way he said it, it might as well have been the other name.
“Did you hear that, Little One?” whispers Yagoro, apparently to someone nearby. “His name is Randy. Ranidae. Just like you! No, this cannot be a mere coincidence.” There is a sound of settling water as Yagoro calms itself. “And the older one with you, the one who forced you to hurt him? What is his name?”
Randy is silent. It was one thing to give up your own name, but another to betray the name of your brother.
Yagoro sighs. “Ah, you needn’t tell me his name. But I can guess your relationship to him. Do you know any Japanese? Did you know that older brother in Japanese is onii-san?”
Randy nods. He knows this.
“Good,” acknowledges Yagoro. “And oniisan, why, it is very close, very close to oni-san. Mr. Devil. An apt description of older brothers, eh? Hahahaha!”
Despite himself, Randy begins to laugh shakily.
“Tell me,” Yagoro continues, “do you love your brother?”
Randy is at first taken aback by the question. Then, he is taken aback by his hesitancy to answer. Finally, he replies with a light nod, “Yes.”
“Why?” Yagoro asked. “Why do you love your brother?”
Conflicting feelings surge within Randy, feelings that he doesn’t have a name for yet. Finally, he shrugs his shoulders. “Because.”
Yagoro clucks, its voice sounding like drips from a leaky faucet. “That is no answer. That is no answer at all.” The voice grows soft, reflective, like the still waters of a bottomless pool. “I once had a brother, a long long time ago. And I loved him dearly. How could I not? He was perfect, in every way, whereas I, I was not. I would spend my days watching him from the shadows, wishing that I were more like him, wishing that I could walk in the sunlight, so unaware and unashamed of myself.”
There is a sigh, like the buildup of a wave that disappoints once reaching the shore. “And one day, I revealed myself to him, to my brother. But do you know what he did to me? He pretended to respect me. But it was all a lie. He had somehow discovered my one weakness, a certain belief in decorum and custom, and had taken advantage of it, to best me. And after he defeated me, he called me a monster, and cast me down the river, and out to sea, far away from him, so that I would never see him again. Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare…”
Yagoro’s words return to the present. “Randy, you must never trust older brothers. They only seek to keep the younger ones down, bury them in the forgotten places. I have long lost my chance to win against my elder. But you- you must find a way to best him, to best your brother.”
There is an almost hypnotic quality to Yagoro’s next persuasive words. “Randy,” he says, softly, gently, like lapping waves. “Randy, I can help you. I can be the advocate that I never had. Return here, late in the night, when the rest of the world, when your brother sleeps. And bring a single copper penny. Hold it in your hand, and it will grant you safe passage to me. Farewell, Randy, Ranidae, until next time.”
The waters stir once again, but from the decreasing sound of its voice, Randy can tell that Yagoro is disappearing into the depths of the tunnel. “Farewell, Ranidae. Until next time.” And, after but a few moments, the canal returns to stillness and silence.
Randy exhales, and realizes that he hasn’t been breathing freely for many minutes. He allows his arms to fall limp, and the rebar to clatter from numb hands.
with many a winding turn
that leads us to who knows where
who knows when.
But I am strong
strong enough to carry him.
He ain’t heavy,
he’s my brother.”
-the Hollies, “He Ain’t Heavy”
When the rains come to Mililani Town, the waters pull the red dust off houses and cars and streets and sidewalks, until they gather and flow like tired streams of blood into the gutters. With an angry hiss, the waters disappear into a black place that no one sees.
It is there that the kappa Yagoro lives. There, in a hidden lair formed of rusted copper pennies, he feasts on abundant toads (and the occasional corpse of a cat or a dog), and eavesdrops on conversations that echo down from the world above.
All in all, he is content, as content as an exile like himself can be. But sometimes, he feels an emptiness that he cannot satiate with food alone. Sometimes he creeps to the edges of his wet and shadowed world, and watches, and waits. On most such days, nothing comes, nothing happens, and he skulks back to his lair, unhappy.
But on this day, in the damp aftermath of a short rainstorm, he finds what he was looking for…
Randy never wanted to play the game.
But Dean, his older brother, had insisted that they have a “sword fight” with a couple of metal reinforcement bars he’d found, and that they hold their duel in the rain drainage canal behind their house. And Randy knew that there was no refusing his older brother.
So here he is, eight years old and gripping the rebar for dear life, knuckles blanching. The criss-cross pattern of the rusted metal bites deep into his soft palms. Before him stands his older eleven year old brother Dean, holding the same sort of rebar, angled and preparing to strike.
Around them, lichens and slick silt lay low on the rain-drainage canal floor; the sloping concrete sides of the canal part as wide as the Red Sea to stay out of their way. The darkness of the tunnel at the end of the canal hangs suspended, the shallow waters at its mouth still and ripple-less. Everything seems to lie in wait for something to happen.
Finally, Dean moves to strike. With a grunt bordering relief and exertion, Randy heaves his rebar up to meet his brother’s. The two “swords” meet with a dull clang. The reverberation is strong, and Randy feels his teeth rattle in their sockets. Before those reverberations can settle, Dean strikes again, this time from a different angle. Randy desperately twists his rebar up to defend himself once more. Clang. Again and again and again Dean attacks, and each time, Randy blocks, just barely.
Dean’s onslaught is relentless, with barely a pause between strikes for Randy to breathe. When it is finally over, Randy’s chest is heaving, and despite his best efforts, the tip of his rebar kisses the floor.
“Now it’s your turn,” Dean says, with no break in his voice to betray the least bit of exertion. “You attack me.”
Randy hesitates, only partly because he needs a break. If there is anything worse than being attacked by his brother, it is attacking him. At least if his brother hit him, it wouldn’t be Randy’s fault. If Randy hit his brother? Well, there’d be hell to pay.
But again, there is no refusing his brother.
Randy makes a limp swing in his brother’s general direction. Dean doesn’t even have to lift his sword to avoid it.
“Oh come on,” Dean chides. “You have to do better than that.”
Randy puts a bit more effort into his next attack, enough to produce a grunt.
Dean deftly brushes his attack aside. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “Harder!”
After a few incrementally stronger swings, Dean glares at his younger brother. “What are you, a girl? Swing harder!”
Finally, Randy closes his eyes, wraps the rebar back behind himself like a baseball bat, and unwinds. The rebar whistles through the air. But instead of the sound and feel of metal ringing on metal, there is a sickening crunch, then a dull clattering, and then Dean’s angry cry:
“Randy, you little shit!”
Randy hesitantly opens his eyes. He sees Dean rubbing the knuckles of his left hand, his rebar on the canal floor.
“I’m sorry,” whimpers Randy.
Dean’s thin eyes widen with rage. He closes the distance to his younger brother instantly, and with a shove, pushes Randy down into the wet floor of the canal. Randy collapses, stirring the dark silt, his rebar clattering noisily beside him.
“You little shit,” Dean repeats, turning his attention back to his left hand. “You hit my knuckles!”
“I’m sorry,” Randy mumbles again, his voice breaking. Tears begin to well in his limpid eyes.
Dean glares at his younger brother in disgust. “Oh, not again,” he mutters. “I’m hurt, and you’re going to cry?” His eyes flash, and for a moment, Randy thinks Dean is going to push him again. But instead, he stomps off, scaling the sloped walls of the canal, up to the hole in the chain-link face.
“I’m going home,” he calls out, as he steps through the hole, out the rain drainage canal, and back to the weedelia field behind their house, leaving Randy alone.
Yagoro watches.
The boy sits on the dirty canal floor for long minutes, sobbing quietly. The Sunday afternoon sun glides slow across the washed out, after-storm sky, incrementally growing his shadow.
What is it about the boy that intrigues Yagoro so much? He cannot say for certain. Perhaps it is that he reminds him of himself, or who he could have been. Perhaps this is why he wants to help him.
Yagoro decides to reveal himself, something he has not done in more than three centuries…
At first, Randy doesn’t hear the sound. It is so very soft, on the verge of imagination. It sounds like water sliding through hidden pipes, occasionally punctuated by high trickles, or the ploip! of a raindrop.
It is coming from the dark tunnel at the end of the canal.
Randy stops crying as the sound grows louder and more distinct. Curiosity piqued, he rises off the canal floor, his clothes damp, and walks towards the tunnel mouth.
About ten feet before the tunnel entrance, the floor of the canal suddenly drops about half a foot, and water, the stubborn remnant of many rainstorms, sits and stagnates. Randy creeps to the distinct shoreline, the concrete lip at the water’s edge, and glances into the glassy green-black pool. Within the shallow water, he sees a thick carpet of emerald-colored algae interspersed with silver pearls of air. Squiggling within and between the algae fronds like little question-marks, countless black tadpoles disperse hither and thither, disturbed by his shadow.
Randy peers into the solid blackness of the tunnel, as though he could hear with his eyes. The sound is more distinct at this proximity. In fact, he realizes with fascination that the sound is composed of half-foreign words, like the lyrics of some tinny, distant radio. He struggles to make out those words, his lips making exaggerated shapes.
“Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare…”
Even though Randy’s father is from Japan, and Randy attends Japanese school every weekday afternoon, he only knows enough to recognize that it is Japanese. He doesn’t have a clue what it means.
Suddenly, a large, slow ripple fans out across the water’s surface, pushing towards Randy. He skitters away from the concrete lip as the ripple crests, breaks, and reaches for his sneakered toes.
“Don’t be afraid,” comes a voice that sounds like a river.
Far from reassured, Randy turns and begins to bolt away.
“Please. I promise, I promise not to harm you.”
Randy reaches the place where he and his brother had just had their “sword” fight. He grabs one of the rebars, and spins around, swinging it wildly.
But there is nothing behind him. The canal up to the tunnel remains empty.
The voice continues. “I promise,” it repeats, somehow carrying just as clearly across the increased distance. “I promise not to harm you. And a kappa’s promise is always honored.”
“What,” Randy calls out, his voice a tight squeak. “What is a kappa? What are you?”
There is a sound like the rush of water from a faucet being turned on and off in rapid succession. Randy realizes dimly that the sound is meant to be laughter. “What is a kappa?” calls the voice. “That is a good question. I could show you what I am- but given the tenuous state of our relationship, I think that would be a bad idea. A bad idea, indeed.”
Randy’s brow furrows. The voice may as well have spoken in Japanese. Most of the words flew above his eight year old head.
“I can at least give you a name,” says the voice. “My name is Yagoro. Tell me, what is your name?”
Randy grasps the rebar tightly. “I don’t talk to strangers,” he says warily, half aware that he already is talking to a stranger.
The laughing sound begins again. “But we’re not strangers, you and I,” says Yagoro. “I watched your little chanbara match. And from that, I would hazard a guess. Your name is either Randy. Or it is little shit.”
Randy dips his head, reminded of his brother’s recent remonstration. “It’s Randy,” he mumbles, although from the way he said it, it might as well have been the other name.
“Did you hear that, Little One?” whispers Yagoro, apparently to someone nearby. “His name is Randy. Ranidae. Just like you! No, this cannot be a mere coincidence.” There is a sound of settling water as Yagoro calms itself. “And the older one with you, the one who forced you to hurt him? What is his name?”
Randy is silent. It was one thing to give up your own name, but another to betray the name of your brother.
Yagoro sighs. “Ah, you needn’t tell me his name. But I can guess your relationship to him. Do you know any Japanese? Did you know that older brother in Japanese is onii-san?”
Randy nods. He knows this.
“Good,” acknowledges Yagoro. “And oniisan, why, it is very close, very close to oni-san. Mr. Devil. An apt description of older brothers, eh? Hahahaha!”
Despite himself, Randy begins to laugh shakily.
“Tell me,” Yagoro continues, “do you love your brother?”
Randy is at first taken aback by the question. Then, he is taken aback by his hesitancy to answer. Finally, he replies with a light nod, “Yes.”
“Why?” Yagoro asked. “Why do you love your brother?”
Conflicting feelings surge within Randy, feelings that he doesn’t have a name for yet. Finally, he shrugs his shoulders. “Because.”
Yagoro clucks, its voice sounding like drips from a leaky faucet. “That is no answer. That is no answer at all.” The voice grows soft, reflective, like the still waters of a bottomless pool. “I once had a brother, a long long time ago. And I loved him dearly. How could I not? He was perfect, in every way, whereas I, I was not. I would spend my days watching him from the shadows, wishing that I were more like him, wishing that I could walk in the sunlight, so unaware and unashamed of myself.”
There is a sigh, like the buildup of a wave that disappoints once reaching the shore. “And one day, I revealed myself to him, to my brother. But do you know what he did to me? He pretended to respect me. But it was all a lie. He had somehow discovered my one weakness, a certain belief in decorum and custom, and had taken advantage of it, to best me. And after he defeated me, he called me a monster, and cast me down the river, and out to sea, far away from him, so that I would never see him again. Kappa no kawa nagare… Kappa no kawa nagare…”
Yagoro’s words return to the present. “Randy, you must never trust older brothers. They only seek to keep the younger ones down, bury them in the forgotten places. I have long lost my chance to win against my elder. But you- you must find a way to best him, to best your brother.”
There is an almost hypnotic quality to Yagoro’s next persuasive words. “Randy,” he says, softly, gently, like lapping waves. “Randy, I can help you. I can be the advocate that I never had. Return here, late in the night, when the rest of the world, when your brother sleeps. And bring a single copper penny. Hold it in your hand, and it will grant you safe passage to me. Farewell, Randy, Ranidae, until next time.”
The waters stir once again, but from the decreasing sound of its voice, Randy can tell that Yagoro is disappearing into the depths of the tunnel. “Farewell, Ranidae. Until next time.” And, after but a few moments, the canal returns to stillness and silence.
Randy exhales, and realizes that he hasn’t been breathing freely for many minutes. He allows his arms to fall limp, and the rebar to clatter from numb hands.
radiohead, maquiladora, 1994
Here it comes, Here it comes,
I can feel the hills exploding
Exploding gracefully
Burning up the freeway
Here it comes
Grass is green at the edge of the bubble
Beautiful kids in beautiful trouble
They all seems to fall out of the sky and come down on you.
Oh baby burn
Fast Toyota
Burns rubber
Useless rockers
From England
Good times
Had by all
Just swallow your guilt and your crutches
Blue and white birds steppin' hard on the pedal
Interstate five walk straight down the middle,
And it seems to fall out of the sky and come down on you
Oh baby burn
radiohead, lift, 1996
This is the place
Sit down, you're safe now
You've been stuck in a lift
We've been trying to reach you, Thom
This is the place
It won't hurt, it will not hurt
A smell of recognition
A face you barely loved
Empty all your pockets
'Cause it's time to go home
This is the place
Remembering all the things you always see
You've been stuck in a lift
In the belly of a whale
At the bottom of the ocean
A smell of recognition
A face you barely loved
Empty all your pockets
'Cause it's time to go home
Today is the first day of the rest of your days
So lighten up, squirt
okay, so i will NEVER order usps media mail. it has no time guarantees, and can deliver a simple package anywhere from 1-3 weeks. i only chose it because it seemed like the most reasonable delivery option. the others cost almost as much (sometimes more) than the value of the package itself!
i'm referring, of course, to the first (actually second) printing of "marsilani 4" which was 10 books. i'm kind of frustrated, because i've been mentioning it to people, but without a book in hand, it kinda still seems pretty abstract...
oh well.
i'm referring, of course, to the first (actually second) printing of "marsilani 4" which was 10 books. i'm kind of frustrated, because i've been mentioning it to people, but without a book in hand, it kinda still seems pretty abstract...
oh well.
there's something about 2 am.
lately, i have been waking at about this time spontaneously every night. i don't know what it is. it's not like there's something that happens...
...although tonight, there were a couple of cats yowling away somewhere, spitting and shouting at each other in conclusion (the neighborhood dogs were barking in reaction, "shut up!"). and then, there was a strange bird, a forest-sounding bird, singing its song to no one in particular (except me... and yes, this is so "wind-up bird"-esque... funny how a lot of things in my life seem to reflect that book, the one that i hated so much).
but all these disturbances came after i woke up. i had just been having some kind of dream about jennifer aniston (no, not that kind of dream). she was playing some role. she was playing this "good girl," and it was a prom or some kind of affair where people get all dolled up. i had never seen the movie before, but it was a scene where you knew something bad was going to happen to her, and it was going to be because of all the catty girls around her. but in this scene, she seemed oblivious (they always seem oblivious just before), and was actually singing a number about making everything special. she "fuffed" up a plate of what she called "dirty spaghetti" (these really huge "noodles" that she "lifted" like a bouffant hairstyle), along with other dishes...
...and just like that, i woke up. i could hear lynn breathing in the perpendicular couch. the silence and stillness (at least the initial stillness) was disappointing. i focused on sensations, just to keep from feeling this wave of- i don't know- self-hatred, self-disgust, depression, that keeps coming over me lately. and that's when the cats and the dogs and the birds came chiming in...
i spoke to my grandma briefly. i told her how much i missed her, etc. it's almost a cry for mercy. i feel i've been neglecting her memory somehow, and, in fact, neglecting consideration of a lot of people, a lot of things... but i'm so tired. it's taxing just to take care of what i need to, what is most pressing...
in brief moments, especially with the kids or with lynn, i try to forget. i delight in them...
...
this "afternoon" (or yesterday afternoon; it's 2:30 am), we went to the lantern floating festival out in magic island. we arrived later than last year's, so we didn't get to make a floating lantern; we just managed to write our dedications onto a tag that would go on another lantern. i was a bit irritated at this; it seemed like they had just run out of lanterns, like literally, the people just in front of us got the last one. and lynn thought, and i thought, oh great, what a way to remember my grandma...
so instead, we played in the ala moana waters... carried the kids around. tried (weakly) to encourage swimming... and then, just as the ceremony was about to start (we were making too much freaking noise), we left... as crowds of people were filing in, we, wet and disheveled, were walking out... mochi, candied apple with sprinkles, and home.
...
i keep thinking/reliving the stories i will write. and i keep thinking, why can't i write anything that is happy? why am i so fascinated with patterns of irony? life is... life is so many moments, so many feelings. sometimes i wish i could wake up and i would be a different person. not a different life. just a different me. because i think the me i am right now is stuck in a rut. stuck in trenches... dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. drowned in mud and fleas.
...well, the bird is singing again. the wind-up bird. so i will listen. and i feel a headache coming on. i must sleep. that's what people are supposed to do right now. tomorrow will be another "behind the wagon" drag. but i can hope that the death of sleep will reincarnate me into something better.
lately, i have been waking at about this time spontaneously every night. i don't know what it is. it's not like there's something that happens...
...although tonight, there were a couple of cats yowling away somewhere, spitting and shouting at each other in conclusion (the neighborhood dogs were barking in reaction, "shut up!"). and then, there was a strange bird, a forest-sounding bird, singing its song to no one in particular (except me... and yes, this is so "wind-up bird"-esque... funny how a lot of things in my life seem to reflect that book, the one that i hated so much).
but all these disturbances came after i woke up. i had just been having some kind of dream about jennifer aniston (no, not that kind of dream). she was playing some role. she was playing this "good girl," and it was a prom or some kind of affair where people get all dolled up. i had never seen the movie before, but it was a scene where you knew something bad was going to happen to her, and it was going to be because of all the catty girls around her. but in this scene, she seemed oblivious (they always seem oblivious just before), and was actually singing a number about making everything special. she "fuffed" up a plate of what she called "dirty spaghetti" (these really huge "noodles" that she "lifted" like a bouffant hairstyle), along with other dishes...
...and just like that, i woke up. i could hear lynn breathing in the perpendicular couch. the silence and stillness (at least the initial stillness) was disappointing. i focused on sensations, just to keep from feeling this wave of- i don't know- self-hatred, self-disgust, depression, that keeps coming over me lately. and that's when the cats and the dogs and the birds came chiming in...
i spoke to my grandma briefly. i told her how much i missed her, etc. it's almost a cry for mercy. i feel i've been neglecting her memory somehow, and, in fact, neglecting consideration of a lot of people, a lot of things... but i'm so tired. it's taxing just to take care of what i need to, what is most pressing...
in brief moments, especially with the kids or with lynn, i try to forget. i delight in them...
...
this "afternoon" (or yesterday afternoon; it's 2:30 am), we went to the lantern floating festival out in magic island. we arrived later than last year's, so we didn't get to make a floating lantern; we just managed to write our dedications onto a tag that would go on another lantern. i was a bit irritated at this; it seemed like they had just run out of lanterns, like literally, the people just in front of us got the last one. and lynn thought, and i thought, oh great, what a way to remember my grandma...
so instead, we played in the ala moana waters... carried the kids around. tried (weakly) to encourage swimming... and then, just as the ceremony was about to start (we were making too much freaking noise), we left... as crowds of people were filing in, we, wet and disheveled, were walking out... mochi, candied apple with sprinkles, and home.
...
i keep thinking/reliving the stories i will write. and i keep thinking, why can't i write anything that is happy? why am i so fascinated with patterns of irony? life is... life is so many moments, so many feelings. sometimes i wish i could wake up and i would be a different person. not a different life. just a different me. because i think the me i am right now is stuck in a rut. stuck in trenches... dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. drowned in mud and fleas.
...well, the bird is singing again. the wind-up bird. so i will listen. and i feel a headache coming on. i must sleep. that's what people are supposed to do right now. tomorrow will be another "behind the wagon" drag. but i can hope that the death of sleep will reincarnate me into something better.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
no one said it would be easy
okay, so i'm a bit disappointed that people haven't gone online to purchase either a book or a downloadable copy of my work. i began an initial printing of 10 books (all i could afford right now), but have been waiting over 10 days for the usps to deliver it. i intended to sign and send the copies to a few people.
i think i will have to distribute all the books in this old-fashioned way: purchase a large number of books in bulk, and hold them in my trunk, and pass them out.
as they say, you can drag a dead horse to water... (or something like that).
i get my hopes up a lot, without even being aware of it. i tell people about things, and then later on, check to see on whether they follow through (it is possible to check on "hits" or "views"). but the ticker never really changes. it's a down time, a bad economy, and quite frankly, no one is really interested in what i write anyway. i just thought that a few people would, out of curiosity, or friendship, or whatever.
you can't count on people. bottom line. after all, it's the consistency rule. in the soul asylum song, david sings: "you can't believe in yourself. you can't believe in anyone else. so why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"
so i'll stop sitting and waiting.
and i'll work as hard as i can to support kids, family, friends, in their endeavors to express themselves. it's hard to find a voice in this world. a little encouragement goes a long way. there are a lot of people who are so particular about their tastes, and feel that modern "amateur" culture is like a cacophany of bastardized, inauthentic, unqualified novices and charlatans giving opinions on things they know nothing about... (so what's wrong with that?)
when i went to williams college, i was always considered the "rude hawaiian," who knew nothing of snow or culture, as i surfed all day and slept in a grass shack. but i survived and thrived in that environment, when some of my brittle prep school peers fell by the wayside. i'm a strong believer in the amateur. as they say, zen's mind, beginner's mind. i get a bit suspicious of those who have crystallized to the point of only seeing limited potentialities in the world. and, as i mentioned earlier, i HATE statements about very young children being "moldable." (education is not about cookie cutters. it's about drawing out. it's about nurturing soil, and seeing what surprising things break through and grow.)
so i, for my part, will try to be nurturing.
and as i'm an older tree myself, i will refuse to wait on harvests, or the behavior of the weather (which is as predictable and reliable as the behavior of people), and simply draw sustenance from my roots, and breathe through my diffuse contacts with the sun and sky.
no more sitting and waiting for the new world to begin. it begins (and ends) with me.
i think i will have to distribute all the books in this old-fashioned way: purchase a large number of books in bulk, and hold them in my trunk, and pass them out.
as they say, you can drag a dead horse to water... (or something like that).
i get my hopes up a lot, without even being aware of it. i tell people about things, and then later on, check to see on whether they follow through (it is possible to check on "hits" or "views"). but the ticker never really changes. it's a down time, a bad economy, and quite frankly, no one is really interested in what i write anyway. i just thought that a few people would, out of curiosity, or friendship, or whatever.
you can't count on people. bottom line. after all, it's the consistency rule. in the soul asylum song, david sings: "you can't believe in yourself. you can't believe in anyone else. so why sit and wait for the new world to begin?"
so i'll stop sitting and waiting.
and i'll work as hard as i can to support kids, family, friends, in their endeavors to express themselves. it's hard to find a voice in this world. a little encouragement goes a long way. there are a lot of people who are so particular about their tastes, and feel that modern "amateur" culture is like a cacophany of bastardized, inauthentic, unqualified novices and charlatans giving opinions on things they know nothing about... (so what's wrong with that?)
when i went to williams college, i was always considered the "rude hawaiian," who knew nothing of snow or culture, as i surfed all day and slept in a grass shack. but i survived and thrived in that environment, when some of my brittle prep school peers fell by the wayside. i'm a strong believer in the amateur. as they say, zen's mind, beginner's mind. i get a bit suspicious of those who have crystallized to the point of only seeing limited potentialities in the world. and, as i mentioned earlier, i HATE statements about very young children being "moldable." (education is not about cookie cutters. it's about drawing out. it's about nurturing soil, and seeing what surprising things break through and grow.)
so i, for my part, will try to be nurturing.
and as i'm an older tree myself, i will refuse to wait on harvests, or the behavior of the weather (which is as predictable and reliable as the behavior of people), and simply draw sustenance from my roots, and breathe through my diffuse contacts with the sun and sky.
no more sitting and waiting for the new world to begin. it begins (and ends) with me.
nin, burn
used to love nin back in college. it sustained me (perhaps isolated me) during the last year or so when there was no one to count on. i'm feeling a similar darkness nowadays. perhaps that's why the appeal for nin is there.
this song's a classic, before the downward spiral (which, at the time, i also loved). warning: language, of course.
this song's a classic, before the downward spiral (which, at the time, i also loved). warning: language, of course.
Friday, May 22, 2009
again, regressing: amphibious
Late that night, like clockwork, Randy wakes up.
He can hear Yagoro’s whispers, like the echoes of scratches on the insides of copper pipes.
Randy gently shoves Donald Duck and Owlie aside (the soft tumbling of bells), and peels the ragged covers off of his body.
The air is cold to his exposed skin. With his first shiver, he realizes something about tonight is different. He blinks the sand out of his eyes just to be sure. The air around him remains suspended and cool, everything hiding within its skin. He glances around at the huddled occupants of his room: the bookshelf, the desk, the clumsy looking bed. Everything is painted in shades of blue or grey or silver. The familiar red warmth of his previous dreams is absent. Tonight, the colors are dead and cold and flat and real.
Randy creeps out into the hallway. The texture of the matted carpet grounds him as he passes, first the guiltless snores at his brother’s bedroom, and then the slightly distanced interpenetrating rhythms of his parents’ log-saws. He descends from the second floor to the first, the stairs unpredictably creaking beneath his weight. By the time he reaches the groaning front door, his bare soles numb on the frozen tiles of the foyer/laundry room, he decides that he definitely needs his shoes tonight. He shuffles his feet into his distinctly weatherworn pair, laces open and bleeding like viscera.
His footsteps are too loud as he makes his way through the backyard. He proceeds tentatively, and finds the wooden door in the back fence. He can feel the texture of the rough, splinter-shod wood as he presses his palm onto its surface to slowly push it out.
The weedelia field beyond is pale and washed out beneath a diffuse moon. The waxy leaves are dark and absorbent, keeping their reflections to themselves; the usually gaudy yellow flowers peek like countless cyanotic fetus-heads. Randy creeps on the dark pathway between the silent watch of the flowers and beneath the moon, until he is before the maw cut in the chain-link fence. He gingerly steps through the opening.
The concrete slope of the canal is both rougher and more slippery than he remembers. He finds he must concentrate to keep his footing, as he edges his way through some vast and illegible spray-painted symbol, frozen and luminous. He reaches the canal floor, and feels the dry lichens and dessicated sediment crunch beneath his shoes.
Randy proceeds through the canal, each step producing a dead and echoless sound. He reaches the lip of the rainwater, before the solid black darkness of the tunnel. He takes a first step, imagining countless swarms of tadpoles squiggling away like disturbed and restless commas. The water, soaking through the fabric walls of his shoes and drowning the spaces between his toes, is unimaginably cold. Air bubbles up, deserting the sinking ship of his foot. He feels the waterline as a distinct boundary, settling uneasily a bit above his ankles; it is the edge between a vague sense of himself above, and the cold and almost painful clarity of himself below. His second step is reluctantly taken, given the experience of the first. But then he takes another step, and another, and with each successive step, he comes to feel a certain inevitability, if not comfort, in his progression.
He approaches the tunnel mouth. Strange, but when he came here on other occasions, there was always a red-tinged light illuminating surfaces and guiding him. Tonight, he almost feels as though the darkness at the tunnel mouth were a solid wall of pitch. He proceeds nevertheless and relentlessly. The first thing to pass into the darkness is a hand; for a moment, he has the disorienting sensation of losing that piece of himself in the black drink. And when that hand is followed by an arm, a shoulder, a torso, a face, he feels as though he were literally disappearing. But even after his entire self is encompassed by the inky blackness, he still feels his feet in the cold waters, slushing and sludging forwards.
Eventually, he hears a voice.
“Tonight,” whispers Yagoro, his voice scratching the dark walls. “Tonight, Ranidae, I will let you swim in the cold waters, the real waters. I will tell you a secret, a secret that the world has hidden away and drowned and buried. Tonight, I will reveal to you the truth of this world, in honor of our fallen comrades.”
Randy tries to echo-locate Yagoro’s voice, but it is difficult. It seems to come from everywhere, from the walls, from the waters, from the darkness itself.
“Do you know where the kappa come from?” Yagoro asks. “I have mentioned that we are the unwanted children. I was not merely speaking metaphorically. The kappa, my kind, we are aborted fetuses. Our mothers, hidden away from sight, would eject us. Ashamed of our cries, they would drown us in nearby rivers. Our fontanelles would still be soft and unclosed. Open to the cruelty of the world.”
Randy finds a wall with a flat palm. He slides along its surface, feeling decades of red-tinged watermarks stain his skin.
“Later, the villagers would whisper tales of horrid creatures called kappa, wicked and malicious water spirits, to scare the living children away from the riverbanks, to insure that they would never see. Thus, when someone chanced to see a floating bloated corpse with a bowl for a head, they rushed back to the village to speak excitedly about spying a kappa and having lived to tell the tale. In this way, the shame of the aborted fetus was concealed.”
Randy is close to Yagoro now. The whispers have more body now, and a source.
“The villagers told the story too well. You see, there is a kind of magic to words, a kind of magic to lies and denials. If you attempt to cover something up enough, then that thing transforms, and takes on a kind of half-life. But half a life is not enough, is it, my little Ranidae? We deserve what the living have. We deserve legs, and a firm ground to stand upon.”
Randy’s eyes have adjusted as much as they can to the darkness, his pupils straining circles. He makes out a shape, shuffling and crouched, but a few feet before him.
“Yagoro?” Randy whispers. His voice is a dry croak, but it seems to boom within the confines of the tunnel.
The shadow does not turn around. “Oh ho ho,” it sings. “And here returns our little Prometheus. Have you come to grant us illumination and warmth? Have you come to make good on the sacrifice of your comrades? Or perhaps you would like to give up a liver?”
There is an icy malice in Yagoro’s voice. Randy backs away uneasily. Almost in defense, he stutters: “I- I came here to warn you.”
Yagoro does not respond.
“I came here to warn you,” Randy repeats, his voice solidifying somewhat. “My brother- my brother and his friends- they are coming here tomorrow night. They’re going to hunt down all the toads that they can find.”
Yagoro laughs; it is the sound of a knife scraping scales. “You’re here to warn us? Isn’t that a joke, Ranidae? This falls into our plans perfectly. Have you never wondered what a kappa eats?”
The shadow turns, and scrabbles closer to Randy. Randy takes a stumbling step back, his back pressed up against the concrete wall of the tunnel. But he is not fast enough. Soon, Yagoro is upon him. Even in the darkness, Randy is able to make out the decayed face of a bloated and overgrown fetus, and the pale, hairless bowl where its brain ought to be. The smell of rot is overwhelming.
“When your brother and his friends come here tomorrow night, they will think they are hunting us. But I will be hunting him.”
Randy somehow manages to shove Yagoro off of him. As he scrambles out, breathless and cold, he hears Yagoro’s laughter follow him.
The canal, the slope, the fence, the weedelia field, the yard, all pass in a blur. Randy doesn’t stop until he is in bed, huddled between Donald Duck and Owlie, concealed beneath his ragged blanket.
His feet, muddy and wet, soak into the mattress.
He can hear Yagoro’s whispers, like the echoes of scratches on the insides of copper pipes.
Randy gently shoves Donald Duck and Owlie aside (the soft tumbling of bells), and peels the ragged covers off of his body.
The air is cold to his exposed skin. With his first shiver, he realizes something about tonight is different. He blinks the sand out of his eyes just to be sure. The air around him remains suspended and cool, everything hiding within its skin. He glances around at the huddled occupants of his room: the bookshelf, the desk, the clumsy looking bed. Everything is painted in shades of blue or grey or silver. The familiar red warmth of his previous dreams is absent. Tonight, the colors are dead and cold and flat and real.
Randy creeps out into the hallway. The texture of the matted carpet grounds him as he passes, first the guiltless snores at his brother’s bedroom, and then the slightly distanced interpenetrating rhythms of his parents’ log-saws. He descends from the second floor to the first, the stairs unpredictably creaking beneath his weight. By the time he reaches the groaning front door, his bare soles numb on the frozen tiles of the foyer/laundry room, he decides that he definitely needs his shoes tonight. He shuffles his feet into his distinctly weatherworn pair, laces open and bleeding like viscera.
His footsteps are too loud as he makes his way through the backyard. He proceeds tentatively, and finds the wooden door in the back fence. He can feel the texture of the rough, splinter-shod wood as he presses his palm onto its surface to slowly push it out.
The weedelia field beyond is pale and washed out beneath a diffuse moon. The waxy leaves are dark and absorbent, keeping their reflections to themselves; the usually gaudy yellow flowers peek like countless cyanotic fetus-heads. Randy creeps on the dark pathway between the silent watch of the flowers and beneath the moon, until he is before the maw cut in the chain-link fence. He gingerly steps through the opening.
The concrete slope of the canal is both rougher and more slippery than he remembers. He finds he must concentrate to keep his footing, as he edges his way through some vast and illegible spray-painted symbol, frozen and luminous. He reaches the canal floor, and feels the dry lichens and dessicated sediment crunch beneath his shoes.
Randy proceeds through the canal, each step producing a dead and echoless sound. He reaches the lip of the rainwater, before the solid black darkness of the tunnel. He takes a first step, imagining countless swarms of tadpoles squiggling away like disturbed and restless commas. The water, soaking through the fabric walls of his shoes and drowning the spaces between his toes, is unimaginably cold. Air bubbles up, deserting the sinking ship of his foot. He feels the waterline as a distinct boundary, settling uneasily a bit above his ankles; it is the edge between a vague sense of himself above, and the cold and almost painful clarity of himself below. His second step is reluctantly taken, given the experience of the first. But then he takes another step, and another, and with each successive step, he comes to feel a certain inevitability, if not comfort, in his progression.
He approaches the tunnel mouth. Strange, but when he came here on other occasions, there was always a red-tinged light illuminating surfaces and guiding him. Tonight, he almost feels as though the darkness at the tunnel mouth were a solid wall of pitch. He proceeds nevertheless and relentlessly. The first thing to pass into the darkness is a hand; for a moment, he has the disorienting sensation of losing that piece of himself in the black drink. And when that hand is followed by an arm, a shoulder, a torso, a face, he feels as though he were literally disappearing. But even after his entire self is encompassed by the inky blackness, he still feels his feet in the cold waters, slushing and sludging forwards.
Eventually, he hears a voice.
“Tonight,” whispers Yagoro, his voice scratching the dark walls. “Tonight, Ranidae, I will let you swim in the cold waters, the real waters. I will tell you a secret, a secret that the world has hidden away and drowned and buried. Tonight, I will reveal to you the truth of this world, in honor of our fallen comrades.”
Randy tries to echo-locate Yagoro’s voice, but it is difficult. It seems to come from everywhere, from the walls, from the waters, from the darkness itself.
“Do you know where the kappa come from?” Yagoro asks. “I have mentioned that we are the unwanted children. I was not merely speaking metaphorically. The kappa, my kind, we are aborted fetuses. Our mothers, hidden away from sight, would eject us. Ashamed of our cries, they would drown us in nearby rivers. Our fontanelles would still be soft and unclosed. Open to the cruelty of the world.”
Randy finds a wall with a flat palm. He slides along its surface, feeling decades of red-tinged watermarks stain his skin.
“Later, the villagers would whisper tales of horrid creatures called kappa, wicked and malicious water spirits, to scare the living children away from the riverbanks, to insure that they would never see. Thus, when someone chanced to see a floating bloated corpse with a bowl for a head, they rushed back to the village to speak excitedly about spying a kappa and having lived to tell the tale. In this way, the shame of the aborted fetus was concealed.”
Randy is close to Yagoro now. The whispers have more body now, and a source.
“The villagers told the story too well. You see, there is a kind of magic to words, a kind of magic to lies and denials. If you attempt to cover something up enough, then that thing transforms, and takes on a kind of half-life. But half a life is not enough, is it, my little Ranidae? We deserve what the living have. We deserve legs, and a firm ground to stand upon.”
Randy’s eyes have adjusted as much as they can to the darkness, his pupils straining circles. He makes out a shape, shuffling and crouched, but a few feet before him.
“Yagoro?” Randy whispers. His voice is a dry croak, but it seems to boom within the confines of the tunnel.
The shadow does not turn around. “Oh ho ho,” it sings. “And here returns our little Prometheus. Have you come to grant us illumination and warmth? Have you come to make good on the sacrifice of your comrades? Or perhaps you would like to give up a liver?”
There is an icy malice in Yagoro’s voice. Randy backs away uneasily. Almost in defense, he stutters: “I- I came here to warn you.”
Yagoro does not respond.
“I came here to warn you,” Randy repeats, his voice solidifying somewhat. “My brother- my brother and his friends- they are coming here tomorrow night. They’re going to hunt down all the toads that they can find.”
Yagoro laughs; it is the sound of a knife scraping scales. “You’re here to warn us? Isn’t that a joke, Ranidae? This falls into our plans perfectly. Have you never wondered what a kappa eats?”
The shadow turns, and scrabbles closer to Randy. Randy takes a stumbling step back, his back pressed up against the concrete wall of the tunnel. But he is not fast enough. Soon, Yagoro is upon him. Even in the darkness, Randy is able to make out the decayed face of a bloated and overgrown fetus, and the pale, hairless bowl where its brain ought to be. The smell of rot is overwhelming.
“When your brother and his friends come here tomorrow night, they will think they are hunting us. But I will be hunting him.”
Randy somehow manages to shove Yagoro off of him. As he scrambles out, breathless and cold, he hears Yagoro’s laughter follow him.
The canal, the slope, the fence, the weedelia field, the yard, all pass in a blur. Randy doesn’t stop until he is in bed, huddled between Donald Duck and Owlie, concealed beneath his ragged blanket.
His feet, muddy and wet, soak into the mattress.
it's not enough
it's not enough to hate yourself thoroughly it seems.
people seem to look down on you with disgust, when you make this admission, that there is, fundamental to who you are, a baseline hatred. they equate you with child molesters and child abusers. people who have little self-esteem, they think, seem to quite naturally express their aggressions upon the world.
i don't believe in this positivistic, constructivist nonsense. this feeling that you can simply turn off what you have seen, and what you have felt. and i think a little bit of self-hatred is at the root of what i am. i'm not going to deny it, simply because it doesn't fit into the happy-happy world i happen to find myself in.
i don't utilize it as an excuse, either for my inadequacies, or for my actions. it is simply my baseline. if i don't acknowledge it as a deeply felt feeling, then i simply will not move from there with authenticity...
the mind is terrible, the wounds are terrible. but if we don't feel where it hurts, then how can we deal effectively with our sickness? (not certain whether it even IS a sickness...)
...
i love others. i cannot define myself, i have few strong feelings that are "self" motivated. but in the face of others, particularly those who are vulnerable or suffer, i want to help, and my self-hatred is largely due to my powerlessness in the face of situations that i cannot change, situations which i cannot do anything about. self-hatred can be an impetus to change, or it can be an acknowledgment of the limits of mortal wisdom, knowledge, capacity.
i think this is natural. i'm sick of people thinking i'm pathological, or something. particularly people who sit in the general's chair, and rain down judgments and orders for the soldiers to "die more sincerely" in the front lines.
...
i once admitted that i loved working with preschoolers. to this, someone said blithely: "yeah, they're so MOLDABLE." i hate that. i hate people who would even say something like that as some kind of casual joke (okay, no, i don't, but understand that this was perhaps a person in authority).
i deal with people, all people, with the assumption that they want to be respected and acknowledged. i think that only people who have experienced a lot of ignoring and dismissal themselves (AND WHO HAVE NOT TURNED THIS INTO A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE WORLD, or hardened their hearts) truly appreciate, on an instinctive level, the need to acknowledge ALL people. my aspiration is to really put this into practice in my life. it takes a lot of patience, but i believe i can do it. that is, be patient and try to really understand people FIRST, without passing judgment...
sorry, this is all just 3:50 am random nonsense.
people seem to look down on you with disgust, when you make this admission, that there is, fundamental to who you are, a baseline hatred. they equate you with child molesters and child abusers. people who have little self-esteem, they think, seem to quite naturally express their aggressions upon the world.
i don't believe in this positivistic, constructivist nonsense. this feeling that you can simply turn off what you have seen, and what you have felt. and i think a little bit of self-hatred is at the root of what i am. i'm not going to deny it, simply because it doesn't fit into the happy-happy world i happen to find myself in.
i don't utilize it as an excuse, either for my inadequacies, or for my actions. it is simply my baseline. if i don't acknowledge it as a deeply felt feeling, then i simply will not move from there with authenticity...
the mind is terrible, the wounds are terrible. but if we don't feel where it hurts, then how can we deal effectively with our sickness? (not certain whether it even IS a sickness...)
...
i love others. i cannot define myself, i have few strong feelings that are "self" motivated. but in the face of others, particularly those who are vulnerable or suffer, i want to help, and my self-hatred is largely due to my powerlessness in the face of situations that i cannot change, situations which i cannot do anything about. self-hatred can be an impetus to change, or it can be an acknowledgment of the limits of mortal wisdom, knowledge, capacity.
i think this is natural. i'm sick of people thinking i'm pathological, or something. particularly people who sit in the general's chair, and rain down judgments and orders for the soldiers to "die more sincerely" in the front lines.
...
i once admitted that i loved working with preschoolers. to this, someone said blithely: "yeah, they're so MOLDABLE." i hate that. i hate people who would even say something like that as some kind of casual joke (okay, no, i don't, but understand that this was perhaps a person in authority).
i deal with people, all people, with the assumption that they want to be respected and acknowledged. i think that only people who have experienced a lot of ignoring and dismissal themselves (AND WHO HAVE NOT TURNED THIS INTO A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE WORLD, or hardened their hearts) truly appreciate, on an instinctive level, the need to acknowledge ALL people. my aspiration is to really put this into practice in my life. it takes a lot of patience, but i believe i can do it. that is, be patient and try to really understand people FIRST, without passing judgment...
sorry, this is all just 3:50 am random nonsense.
the stain
you try to hide the thoughts you've been
the dark unhealthy dreams you've seen
but nowhere left to tuck them in
the stain is plain upon your chin
the pleasant words you write or speak
have all backfired. you barely eke
one tired smile, reluctant leaked:
you're contagion, and you're unclean, freak!
you try to quarantine away
the you that seeks the light of day
the you that masked, tried to inveigh
the you that had something to say.
before their eyes, your sin is plain
you are, despite yourself, the stain.
you are, despite yourself, a stain.
the dark unhealthy dreams you've seen
but nowhere left to tuck them in
the stain is plain upon your chin
the pleasant words you write or speak
have all backfired. you barely eke
one tired smile, reluctant leaked:
you're contagion, and you're unclean, freak!
you try to quarantine away
the you that seeks the light of day
the you that masked, tried to inveigh
the you that had something to say.
before their eyes, your sin is plain
you are, despite yourself, the stain.
you are, despite yourself, a stain.
dream of a rat
i dreamt of a rat that i pursued on foot throughout the detritus of a house, hunted by instinct and peripheral vision, until miracle of miracles i grasped its wriggling body within my hands. i walked out of the house, noted, during its struggles, how it seemed to have well-developed lower fangs, and so, i pressed a thumb to keep its dextrous spine from turning in and allowing access to my skin (no bubonic plague, please). i walked far far away, to the end of my culdesac, and beyond, the asphalt wet and slick. i thought for a moment to toss the rat, but then thought of how it might injure itself against a rock wall or something. so instead, i set it free, giving it a nudge to go find some other house to bother. but of course, as soon as i let it go, it made a 180 degree "flip flop" and a beeline straight for the house i had just left. i ran urgently back home (dimly aware that i was only adding fuel to the fire), and raced the rat back. a moment of hope when, instead of heading for the open door, it veered around the house... but just before i crossed the threshold to close the door on my unwelcome guest, it zipped in and hid himself once more, within...
defeated. by a rat.
defeated. by a rat.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
further (regressive) writing from "amphibious"
Late that night, like clockwork, Randy wakes up.
He can hear Yagoro’s whispers, like scratches on the insides of copper pipes.
Randy gently shoves Donald Duck and Owlie aside (the soft tumbling of bells), and peels the ragged covers off of his body.
The air is cold to his exposed skin. With his first shiver, he realizes something about tonight is different. He blinks the sand out of his eyes just to be sure. The air around him remains suspended and cool, everything hiding within its skin. He glances around at the huddled occupants of his room: the bookshelf, the desk, the clumsy looking bed. Everything is painted in shades of blue or grey or silver. The familiar red warmth of his previous dreams is absent. Tonight, the colors are dead and cold and flat and real.
Randy creeps out into the hallway. The texture of the matted carpet grounds him as he passes, first the guiltless snores at his brother’s bedroom, and then the slightly distanced interpenetrating rhythms of his parents’ log-saws. He descends from the second floor to the first, the stairs unpredictably creaking beneath his weight. By the time he reaches the groaning front door, his bare soles numb on the frozen tiles of the foyer/laundry room, he decides that he definitely needs his shoes tonight. He shuffles his feet into his distinctly weatherworn pair of shoes, laces open and bleeding like viscera.
The sounds are too loud as he creeps through the yard. He proceeds slowly, and finds the wooden door in the back fence. He can feel the texture of the rough, splinter-shod wood as he presses his palm onto its surface to slowly push it out.
The weedelia field beyond is pale and washed out beneath a diffuse moon. The waxy leaves are dark and absorbent, keeping their reflections to themselves; the usually gaudy yellow flowers peek like countless cyanotic fetus-heads. Randy creeps on the dark pathway between the silent watch of the flowers and the moon, until he is before the maw cut in the chain-link fence. He gingerly steps through the opening.
The concrete slope of the canal is both rougher and more slippery than he remembers. He finds he must concentrate to keep his footing, as he edges his way through some vast and illegible spray-painted symbol, frozen and luminous. He reaches the canal floor, and feels the dry lichens and dessicated sediment crunch beneath his shoes.
He can hear Yagoro’s whispers, like scratches on the insides of copper pipes.
Randy gently shoves Donald Duck and Owlie aside (the soft tumbling of bells), and peels the ragged covers off of his body.
The air is cold to his exposed skin. With his first shiver, he realizes something about tonight is different. He blinks the sand out of his eyes just to be sure. The air around him remains suspended and cool, everything hiding within its skin. He glances around at the huddled occupants of his room: the bookshelf, the desk, the clumsy looking bed. Everything is painted in shades of blue or grey or silver. The familiar red warmth of his previous dreams is absent. Tonight, the colors are dead and cold and flat and real.
Randy creeps out into the hallway. The texture of the matted carpet grounds him as he passes, first the guiltless snores at his brother’s bedroom, and then the slightly distanced interpenetrating rhythms of his parents’ log-saws. He descends from the second floor to the first, the stairs unpredictably creaking beneath his weight. By the time he reaches the groaning front door, his bare soles numb on the frozen tiles of the foyer/laundry room, he decides that he definitely needs his shoes tonight. He shuffles his feet into his distinctly weatherworn pair of shoes, laces open and bleeding like viscera.
The sounds are too loud as he creeps through the yard. He proceeds slowly, and finds the wooden door in the back fence. He can feel the texture of the rough, splinter-shod wood as he presses his palm onto its surface to slowly push it out.
The weedelia field beyond is pale and washed out beneath a diffuse moon. The waxy leaves are dark and absorbent, keeping their reflections to themselves; the usually gaudy yellow flowers peek like countless cyanotic fetus-heads. Randy creeps on the dark pathway between the silent watch of the flowers and the moon, until he is before the maw cut in the chain-link fence. He gingerly steps through the opening.
The concrete slope of the canal is both rougher and more slippery than he remembers. He finds he must concentrate to keep his footing, as he edges his way through some vast and illegible spray-painted symbol, frozen and luminous. He reaches the canal floor, and feels the dry lichens and dessicated sediment crunch beneath his shoes.
musings on fundamental guilt
i recall once, stating my most fundamental frustrations to shodo-san, the rinzai buddhist priest. i told him, in my broken and halting japanese, how i always wanted to be good, but never could quite arrive. and so, i had always always always been haunted by this fundamental non-acceptance, or even hatred, of myself. that was the feeling that was most "sincere" within me: the hate.
and i recall shodo asking me: "where is good? where is bad?" he was trying to point out the absurdity of my conceptual constructs. normally, we ask of such concepts, "what are they?" as in: what are the defining elements of the concept, what are examples. but by asking it as a "where" question, shodo posited it as more of a thing/place that i was in relationship with (because that, essentially, is what the concept was). and, as a "place," "good" doesn't exist.
we assume (even viscerally assume) that "good" and "perfect" exist outside of ourselves. but aside from us, the ones who yoke ourselves beneath their fictitious weight, these concepts do not exist. why, then, do we continually persecute ourselves when we don't measure up to these (ill-defined) concepts?
...
i don't recall much from my college religion classes, and i definitely can't articulate with precision the statements and arguments of the many philosophers/writers we encountered. but one recurring theme, it seems, was that of an "original sin." this is, of course, a largely christian concept, but in many of our religion classes, we attempted to find resonance with this idea in philosophical texts.
i recall that we explored this topic through language. in a way, the subject who is "born into" a world of language is necessarily "indebted" to language. he initially hasn't the means to speak properly, and engage within the linguistic economy. there is thus a fundamental guilt in the subject. he must gradually (l)earn his words, so that he can participate in the exchange, and define himself (actually make himself from scratch) in the process...
there have been many other ways to express this notion of a fundamental guilt. freud once posited (in beyond the pleasure principle) that the original organism (a single cell) required part of itself to be "overwhelmed" by excesses of energy in the outside world, to, in essence, die, in order that the living and vulnerable processes within remain undisturbed. in a sense, then, at the CELLULAR level, there is this continual and necessary relationship to DEATH contained within LIFE, a death instinct, that is, an instinct towards self-disintegration and destruction. freud utilized this image to explain the compulsion to repeat found in post traumatic stress disorder...
on the skin of reality, we assume that everything should run hunkey-dorey smooth, so long as all our major concerns are addressed. but somehow, we in the modern age, who have every convenience at our disposal, we still feel uneasy. why? those who feel disturbed are often made to feel weak or otherwise defective: "what's wrong with you? why can't you love and appreciate yourself, your position in life?"
i think that there IS something wrong with me. but that wrongness is a necessary consequence and condition of existence. the people who believe in the "once upon a time" and "happily ever after" of existence, who are able to posit a peaceful baseline to existence, they are able to drown out the disturbance fundamental to existence through the continual retelling of fairy tales. but what if things were NEVER supposed to be "alright?" what if everything were always in play? death/life, and this fundamental guilt, what if they were always already supposed to have been there?
what if, instead of starting from those innocuous words, "once upon a time," our life were always starting from "scratch," from a mistake, a revisioning...
as i mentioned in previous postings: there are two ways to form a crystalline wave. you start with a supersaturated solution, pregnant with significance, in both instances. in one, the "gradual" approach, you slowly (or quickly) evaporate the solvent, such that the crystal solute precipitates out, through a kind of natural "stacking" process. in the other, the "sudden" approach, you "scratch" the surface of the container, creating an edge for crystals to swiftly and instantaneously adhere to.
does guilt come from this slow, pre-ordained stacking process? or is it from some fundamental but necessary error in processing?
is the origin of the universe yin or yang, even or odd?
and i recall shodo asking me: "where is good? where is bad?" he was trying to point out the absurdity of my conceptual constructs. normally, we ask of such concepts, "what are they?" as in: what are the defining elements of the concept, what are examples. but by asking it as a "where" question, shodo posited it as more of a thing/place that i was in relationship with (because that, essentially, is what the concept was). and, as a "place," "good" doesn't exist.
we assume (even viscerally assume) that "good" and "perfect" exist outside of ourselves. but aside from us, the ones who yoke ourselves beneath their fictitious weight, these concepts do not exist. why, then, do we continually persecute ourselves when we don't measure up to these (ill-defined) concepts?
...
i don't recall much from my college religion classes, and i definitely can't articulate with precision the statements and arguments of the many philosophers/writers we encountered. but one recurring theme, it seems, was that of an "original sin." this is, of course, a largely christian concept, but in many of our religion classes, we attempted to find resonance with this idea in philosophical texts.
i recall that we explored this topic through language. in a way, the subject who is "born into" a world of language is necessarily "indebted" to language. he initially hasn't the means to speak properly, and engage within the linguistic economy. there is thus a fundamental guilt in the subject. he must gradually (l)earn his words, so that he can participate in the exchange, and define himself (actually make himself from scratch) in the process...
there have been many other ways to express this notion of a fundamental guilt. freud once posited (in beyond the pleasure principle) that the original organism (a single cell) required part of itself to be "overwhelmed" by excesses of energy in the outside world, to, in essence, die, in order that the living and vulnerable processes within remain undisturbed. in a sense, then, at the CELLULAR level, there is this continual and necessary relationship to DEATH contained within LIFE, a death instinct, that is, an instinct towards self-disintegration and destruction. freud utilized this image to explain the compulsion to repeat found in post traumatic stress disorder...
on the skin of reality, we assume that everything should run hunkey-dorey smooth, so long as all our major concerns are addressed. but somehow, we in the modern age, who have every convenience at our disposal, we still feel uneasy. why? those who feel disturbed are often made to feel weak or otherwise defective: "what's wrong with you? why can't you love and appreciate yourself, your position in life?"
i think that there IS something wrong with me. but that wrongness is a necessary consequence and condition of existence. the people who believe in the "once upon a time" and "happily ever after" of existence, who are able to posit a peaceful baseline to existence, they are able to drown out the disturbance fundamental to existence through the continual retelling of fairy tales. but what if things were NEVER supposed to be "alright?" what if everything were always in play? death/life, and this fundamental guilt, what if they were always already supposed to have been there?
what if, instead of starting from those innocuous words, "once upon a time," our life were always starting from "scratch," from a mistake, a revisioning...
as i mentioned in previous postings: there are two ways to form a crystalline wave. you start with a supersaturated solution, pregnant with significance, in both instances. in one, the "gradual" approach, you slowly (or quickly) evaporate the solvent, such that the crystal solute precipitates out, through a kind of natural "stacking" process. in the other, the "sudden" approach, you "scratch" the surface of the container, creating an edge for crystals to swiftly and instantaneously adhere to.
does guilt come from this slow, pre-ordained stacking process? or is it from some fundamental but necessary error in processing?
is the origin of the universe yin or yang, even or odd?
Sunday, May 17, 2009
the agonist
i'll work for you
and sheathe the blade
shorten gaps
'tween felt and said
i'll prove this world is true
because you need it to
and in your wild
i'll clear the space
for you to write
and to erase
i'll make it up for you
to fashion all anew...
...ack. okay, i give up. i was trying to write something using the image of agonists. an agonist (in muscle terms) is a muscle that contracts; as it does so, its counter necessarily relaxes. for example, when the biceps contract, the tricepts must relax. i wanted to capture this reciprocal relationship in some silly poem, but it didn't quite work out...
and sheathe the blade
shorten gaps
'tween felt and said
i'll prove this world is true
because you need it to
and in your wild
i'll clear the space
for you to write
and to erase
i'll make it up for you
to fashion all anew...
...ack. okay, i give up. i was trying to write something using the image of agonists. an agonist (in muscle terms) is a muscle that contracts; as it does so, its counter necessarily relaxes. for example, when the biceps contract, the tricepts must relax. i wanted to capture this reciprocal relationship in some silly poem, but it didn't quite work out...
cut sky, time's passing
yesterday morning, a jet plane flew across the cold blue sky, bisecting it with its linear white wake. on the way, it nearly collided with the image of the melting-ice moon... with this marker drawn across the sky, it was possible to see the swift passage of time. as aiden and i looked up, we could literally see the moon edge across the line and push off. it was surprisingly quick...
the hour hand of a clock barely seems to move; the minute hand also. but in seconds, we can see motion, and hence, time's passing. the sky itself is a vast clock, but we somehow imagine a stillness in the heavens. certainly, it changes, and we are used to specific times looking and feeling a specific way. but we are not viscerally aware of its motion, we are careful not to stare too long at the sun, and the moon and stars are just for hanging wishes. it is scary to see how swiftly they all drift across our skies, and how time is always hurtling at break-neck speed, even as we are glued to the ground...
i thought of using the jet-plane image for a poem, or something. something about how a jet-plane (taking a friend or loved one away to a distant place) suddenly bisects the sky, and how the resultant line makes one painfully aware of the passage of time...
the hour hand of a clock barely seems to move; the minute hand also. but in seconds, we can see motion, and hence, time's passing. the sky itself is a vast clock, but we somehow imagine a stillness in the heavens. certainly, it changes, and we are used to specific times looking and feeling a specific way. but we are not viscerally aware of its motion, we are careful not to stare too long at the sun, and the moon and stars are just for hanging wishes. it is scary to see how swiftly they all drift across our skies, and how time is always hurtling at break-neck speed, even as we are glued to the ground...
i thought of using the jet-plane image for a poem, or something. something about how a jet-plane (taking a friend or loved one away to a distant place) suddenly bisects the sky, and how the resultant line makes one painfully aware of the passage of time...
Thursday, May 14, 2009
depressed; waiting
i have my last final exam for the spring this afternoon. in, like 45 minutes. i think i'm prepared for it already. so i'm just hanging around the cec lab, killing time.
i think people are composed of two layers: the thinking self, and the feeling self. the thinking self is concerned with the coherence and consistency of ideas, including the idea of the self. the feeling self is far more amorphous, and its signals (aside from spikes) are far more subtle. the feeling self is affected by both the physical self (sensations of pain and pleasure, etc.) and by "ambient" (or spiking) signals in the environment...
here's the thing. the two selves rarely have to communicate with each other. i, personally, think i am almost always identifying with the thinking self. the thinking self is far more optimistic, even when it is being negative/critical. that's because it only deals with the consistency of arguments, logic, whatever. it only deals with patterns of ideas. it is like a juggler, deftly manipulating the surfaces, tossing them up in the air, catching them again, attempting to maintain this illusion of control.
the feeling self could be screaming or crying, and the thinking self wouldn't hear a thing. the thinking self might feel its functions mysteriously impaired; sort of like someone studying in a room where the lights have ever so gradually dimmed. but it will not understand, or deal directly, with the feeling self.
the reason i am conceiving of the self in this simple bipartite structure is that i think i am depressed (so what else is new?) for quite some time, and yet, because i am identified with the thinking self so much, i hardly feel or recognize it. i have been tired A LOT of the time, and have very little will to do much of anything. i conceptually know that it is completely logical for me to be depressed: my grandma has passed (something which i still feel i haven't fully come to terms with), two kittens in my care passed, and my adviser and observer both agreed that i shouldn't pass (i have big issues with that, but i promised not to bitch about people)... the world has dimmed around me, or within me, and my thinking self is sitting in the dark, and wondering why i'm not feeling more happy.
depression (as i conceive it) is something i've dealt with before. perhaps i haven't had a clinical diagnosis, but i think i've operated on a baseline of depression for extended periods of time, even getting "comfortable" with it (senior year of college was an example). i've just kinda trudged along during those times. i think it helps that i have never been particularly sociable, and, while there were brief periods when i felt i connected with people, and felt happy in the company of others (forgetting myself), i always knew that i would have to return home alone. i think if you begin from aloneness, then you aren't deceived so much by the promise of company (that it will remove all your problems, etc.), and when you go back to yourself, you don't feel quite so sad.
but still. but still.
i think i need a big rest sometime soon. i think i need to spring clean my life, and find some new inspirations. i need to spend more quality time with the kids, appreciate them (actually, my kids have ALWAYS been a buoyant force for me; whereas my wife grounds me, keeps me sane). i think hope is always out there, if you just give yourself time and space to find it. i suppose that that's what keeps me going, even when i feel (unrecognized) sadness and despair. maybe i just believe, as orphan annie sings, that there is still tomorrow. and all things must pass. even me.
i think people are composed of two layers: the thinking self, and the feeling self. the thinking self is concerned with the coherence and consistency of ideas, including the idea of the self. the feeling self is far more amorphous, and its signals (aside from spikes) are far more subtle. the feeling self is affected by both the physical self (sensations of pain and pleasure, etc.) and by "ambient" (or spiking) signals in the environment...
here's the thing. the two selves rarely have to communicate with each other. i, personally, think i am almost always identifying with the thinking self. the thinking self is far more optimistic, even when it is being negative/critical. that's because it only deals with the consistency of arguments, logic, whatever. it only deals with patterns of ideas. it is like a juggler, deftly manipulating the surfaces, tossing them up in the air, catching them again, attempting to maintain this illusion of control.
the feeling self could be screaming or crying, and the thinking self wouldn't hear a thing. the thinking self might feel its functions mysteriously impaired; sort of like someone studying in a room where the lights have ever so gradually dimmed. but it will not understand, or deal directly, with the feeling self.
the reason i am conceiving of the self in this simple bipartite structure is that i think i am depressed (so what else is new?) for quite some time, and yet, because i am identified with the thinking self so much, i hardly feel or recognize it. i have been tired A LOT of the time, and have very little will to do much of anything. i conceptually know that it is completely logical for me to be depressed: my grandma has passed (something which i still feel i haven't fully come to terms with), two kittens in my care passed, and my adviser and observer both agreed that i shouldn't pass (i have big issues with that, but i promised not to bitch about people)... the world has dimmed around me, or within me, and my thinking self is sitting in the dark, and wondering why i'm not feeling more happy.
depression (as i conceive it) is something i've dealt with before. perhaps i haven't had a clinical diagnosis, but i think i've operated on a baseline of depression for extended periods of time, even getting "comfortable" with it (senior year of college was an example). i've just kinda trudged along during those times. i think it helps that i have never been particularly sociable, and, while there were brief periods when i felt i connected with people, and felt happy in the company of others (forgetting myself), i always knew that i would have to return home alone. i think if you begin from aloneness, then you aren't deceived so much by the promise of company (that it will remove all your problems, etc.), and when you go back to yourself, you don't feel quite so sad.
but still. but still.
i think i need a big rest sometime soon. i think i need to spring clean my life, and find some new inspirations. i need to spend more quality time with the kids, appreciate them (actually, my kids have ALWAYS been a buoyant force for me; whereas my wife grounds me, keeps me sane). i think hope is always out there, if you just give yourself time and space to find it. i suppose that that's what keeps me going, even when i feel (unrecognized) sadness and despair. maybe i just believe, as orphan annie sings, that there is still tomorrow. and all things must pass. even me.
waikiki
last night, we (lynn and i, and the kids) went to waikiki to congratulate taryn (one of lynn's workers) on her graduation from hpu. the graduation took place at the waikiki shell. apparently, they had a graduating class of about 700, and if you calculate 10 seconds per person (calling up, accepting diploma), then that still comes out to over 2 hours or so. so basically, we had some time to kill.
haven't been to waikiki in a while. a lot's changed. i noticed the trump tower was all finished. lynn also pointed out all the places that were closed (out-of-business), or closing (nike town, etc.). kind of depressing. we parked in the old waikiki theatres parking lot. back in the day, i think the waikiki theatres were probably one of the biggest draws for kama'aina to even be in the waikiki neighborhood. and the theatre parking structure (back then) had few open stalls, if any. last night, there were a lot of open stalls, and pretty much all the people that parked there looked like they were working in waikiki (dressed as waiters, hotel employees, etc.). the theatre parking lot has a $7 flat rate, which in waikiki is a great deal.
we walked out of the parking lot, and one of the first things we saw, in the alleyway leading out to kalakaua, was this skinny guy putting white powder all over his face and body. i think he was one of those stay-perfectly-still silver or gold guys, and the powder was a kind of foundation or primer for the paint...
walking through the international marketplace was pretty depressing. i always find little shops like that depressing; there's no innovation in those places, and if i were a tourist, i don't think i'd very much have reason to buy any of the things that they offered... t-shirts (that you could probably buy anywhere), keychains, other trinkets...
kalakaua was also depressing, but in a slightly different way. there were a lot of street performers out, and most of them weren't all that great. i think the best were the artists. willow, in particular, seemed fascinated to see the drawing techniques of one street artist. but most of the other street performers seemed to be poor and homeless transplants from somewhere else, struggling to make a buck. there was a guy who dressed in a big elmo suit... and that's it. i suppose he wanted people to pay to have their kids take pictures with him or something. there was a steel drum performer, and a group of hippies playing liberation music (not very good), and people doing hand or foot or shoulder massages, and a group of young goths who were painting henna tattoos. i feel somewhat sad when i see people in desperation.
we bought a pair of crocs for willow, got dinner (overpriced) over at this food court within the royal hawaiian shopping center, spent some time in the borders express book store (which, lynn noted, is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy; or maybe it's just the mega-stores)... eventually, we started to walk down to the far edge of waikiki. since it was such a trek, at certain points i had to carry aiden. eventually, we got to the shell, which was really crowded. miraculously, we managed to find taryn (buried beneath a mountain of leis), and gave our brief congrats. then, the long trek back.
i used to think waikiki was so great, even when i did a couple of unglamorous jobs there (i was a busboy for restaurant furusato [which has been replaced by a red lion], and a bellman for waikiki joy hotel). i used to wish i could just hang out in waikiki, and watch all the people go by. and perhaps be watched myself. but i've come to see places like waikiki as very lonely. reminiscent of santa monica, at least for me...
i had a thought. people are all so very alone. places like waikiki have the illusion of life and motion, in that you have an aggregate of atoms bouncing around- not unlike air molecules in an inflated balloon... but there is no significance or pattern to the spectacle. some people like this sort of environment, but i suppose as i get older, i get a bit more cantankerous and selfish. i think about the "end of the day," and "what's in it for me?" i think the only thing that makes a place like waikiki redeeming for me now (and last night) is the fact that i'm no longer viewing it alone. i find it interesting to see how my kids react to things, or to bouncing comments back and forth with my wife.
the world is always a lonely place. but it is made tolerable if you are with people you love...
haven't been to waikiki in a while. a lot's changed. i noticed the trump tower was all finished. lynn also pointed out all the places that were closed (out-of-business), or closing (nike town, etc.). kind of depressing. we parked in the old waikiki theatres parking lot. back in the day, i think the waikiki theatres were probably one of the biggest draws for kama'aina to even be in the waikiki neighborhood. and the theatre parking structure (back then) had few open stalls, if any. last night, there were a lot of open stalls, and pretty much all the people that parked there looked like they were working in waikiki (dressed as waiters, hotel employees, etc.). the theatre parking lot has a $7 flat rate, which in waikiki is a great deal.
we walked out of the parking lot, and one of the first things we saw, in the alleyway leading out to kalakaua, was this skinny guy putting white powder all over his face and body. i think he was one of those stay-perfectly-still silver or gold guys, and the powder was a kind of foundation or primer for the paint...
walking through the international marketplace was pretty depressing. i always find little shops like that depressing; there's no innovation in those places, and if i were a tourist, i don't think i'd very much have reason to buy any of the things that they offered... t-shirts (that you could probably buy anywhere), keychains, other trinkets...
kalakaua was also depressing, but in a slightly different way. there were a lot of street performers out, and most of them weren't all that great. i think the best were the artists. willow, in particular, seemed fascinated to see the drawing techniques of one street artist. but most of the other street performers seemed to be poor and homeless transplants from somewhere else, struggling to make a buck. there was a guy who dressed in a big elmo suit... and that's it. i suppose he wanted people to pay to have their kids take pictures with him or something. there was a steel drum performer, and a group of hippies playing liberation music (not very good), and people doing hand or foot or shoulder massages, and a group of young goths who were painting henna tattoos. i feel somewhat sad when i see people in desperation.
we bought a pair of crocs for willow, got dinner (overpriced) over at this food court within the royal hawaiian shopping center, spent some time in the borders express book store (which, lynn noted, is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy; or maybe it's just the mega-stores)... eventually, we started to walk down to the far edge of waikiki. since it was such a trek, at certain points i had to carry aiden. eventually, we got to the shell, which was really crowded. miraculously, we managed to find taryn (buried beneath a mountain of leis), and gave our brief congrats. then, the long trek back.
i used to think waikiki was so great, even when i did a couple of unglamorous jobs there (i was a busboy for restaurant furusato [which has been replaced by a red lion], and a bellman for waikiki joy hotel). i used to wish i could just hang out in waikiki, and watch all the people go by. and perhaps be watched myself. but i've come to see places like waikiki as very lonely. reminiscent of santa monica, at least for me...
i had a thought. people are all so very alone. places like waikiki have the illusion of life and motion, in that you have an aggregate of atoms bouncing around- not unlike air molecules in an inflated balloon... but there is no significance or pattern to the spectacle. some people like this sort of environment, but i suppose as i get older, i get a bit more cantankerous and selfish. i think about the "end of the day," and "what's in it for me?" i think the only thing that makes a place like waikiki redeeming for me now (and last night) is the fact that i'm no longer viewing it alone. i find it interesting to see how my kids react to things, or to bouncing comments back and forth with my wife.
the world is always a lonely place. but it is made tolerable if you are with people you love...
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
marsilani 4 - retrograde motion - publish!
i've got the okay to publish marsilani 4. i will do a few quick edits, rewrite a bit to reflect the present, then put it to press. i will post the ordering info when it is ready to go (it will be through lulu.com). if you would like to write comments or a review, then i may be willing to send you a free copy. i may print your comments/reviews in a later edition... but only if it's positive, glowing... just joking. i would value any HONEST feedback from this, my first self-publishing gig.
gmail me at mid.error@gmail.com if you are interested in reviewing the book.
gmail me at mid.error@gmail.com if you are interested in reviewing the book.
to sleep
yesterday, mother's day, we had a late b-day party for marcus at this boxcar racing place in kunia. i dropped off the kitten at aunty joan's. this was the "daycare center" we would bring the kittens to when we had to work. at 5:00 or so, aunty joan called me and told me that she was bringing the kitten in to the vet, because it wasn't drinking well, just like the first one had prior to its passing. i didn't want aunty joan to spend any money, because, quite frankly, the odds had been stacked against us from the beginning, and any investment would more than likely not lead to any improved chances of survival. but she did, and she got it examined...
after the whole boxcar racing thing, the kids and i headed over to the vet, which was actually pretty busy, considering it was a sunday evening. it was a long wait. finally, they called us into a separate room, and informed us that the kitten was heavily anemic (normal level=25, her blood count was somewhere like 11). the vet said that the most likely cause were fleas, which (i didn't know this) can overwhelm a kitten by sucking out vitally needed blood. lynn and i had been trying to pick out fleas whenever we could; we had wanted to bathe the kittens, but had read that this was inadvisable during very early stages... if we had known, maybe we would've taken better precautions... the vet also said it was possible that the kitten had a virus, and that a $500 blood transfusion wouldn't guarantee any improvement in the kitten's condition.
so we decided to put the kitten to sleep.
aunty joan was pretty broken up. the kids seemed fine with it, although i do know that death is a heavy topic, with secret consequences... i myself, i had cared for the kitten a lot, but all i could feel was this cold practicality. like, i kept thinking that we had tried our best, but maybe we had been fighting a losing battle. or, the next time, i'm going to try harder to get rid of those stinking fleas...
i would've liked to at least have had the kitten live until it could open its eyes. i had just begun to see his eyes breaking open, a kind of bluish cornea peeking through. it must have been terrible for the kitten, to not see this world, to only know it as a withdrawing of warmth, first from its mother, and then with the death of its sister... and finally, from its own fragile body.
***
we had dinner later, over at i-hop. (i know, terrible mother's day- but lynn had been working and i couldn't make reservations contingent on her schedule). service was pretty bad in that it took forever for us to get our food, but we understood. it's hard to work mother's day with a skeleton crew. anyway, at one point, these two guys left the restaurant, and on their way out, they slammed all the silverware and stuff off the counter so it all went crashing down. their girlfriends/wives followed, explaining (angrily) to the staff that they had waited one hour for their food.
yeah, maybe they had a right to be angry, but they shouldn't have taken it out like that. we were pretty much done with dinner by then, so all of us, aunty joan, lynn, me and the kids, went over to help pick up the silverware. i was really proud of willow and aiden, who did this without question, and helped out pretty enthusiastically. one of the staff looked like a grandmother herself, and we mentioned that it must have been hard to work on mother's day. the i-hop staff were appreciative, albeit stressed/frazzled. i could tell it had been a difficult day for them.
***
listening to my wife recount her work-day stress, it amazes me. my wife has a real sense about people. when people are a-holes, she can somehow push back in a cute way so that the a-holes are somehow ameliorated, happy even. i don't know if it's a girl thing. i actually don't think it has to be. unfortunately, when i push back, it seems like i've nudged the bottom piece of a jenga tower, and everything, EVERYONE comes crashing down on me. i guess i don't know how to be "assertive," whatever that means. i suppose i only say things when i really feel i need to, and by then, there's an edge to my words (even when i attempt to NOT be blunt). i wish i had my wife's power to turn a situation into a win-win for everyone.
grandpa hashimoto and nana offered to watch the kids last night, actually have them sleepover till tomorrow, and the kids seemed excited at the prospect. so last night, it was just lynn and i. i worked on her back and legs, which were really tired from all the hours she's been having to put in. then, we just talked about a lot of things, and nothing in particular. i mentioned to lynn about how lucky i am to have her. when things get tough, the two of us both sort of naturally fall in and take care of things, no complaints, and i'm glad of that. lynn has a real strength, a giving-ness. i always feel like we try to do the right thing, when it comes down to it, together. i never have to worry that lynn's "unhappy," or whatever; i never have to worry that, when there's trouble, i will have to fight a war on "two fronts", so to speak. i think we both derive our happiness from being given opportunities to do what's right; we're united in this.
i also told her that she grounds me (in many senses). i always have hidden anxieties about a lot of things, even (or especially) when i am outwardly calm. lynn, with her no-nonsense but caring personality, hears me out and manages to "cut the chaff from the wheat."
i honestly don't know what i would do without her.
after the whole boxcar racing thing, the kids and i headed over to the vet, which was actually pretty busy, considering it was a sunday evening. it was a long wait. finally, they called us into a separate room, and informed us that the kitten was heavily anemic (normal level=25, her blood count was somewhere like 11). the vet said that the most likely cause were fleas, which (i didn't know this) can overwhelm a kitten by sucking out vitally needed blood. lynn and i had been trying to pick out fleas whenever we could; we had wanted to bathe the kittens, but had read that this was inadvisable during very early stages... if we had known, maybe we would've taken better precautions... the vet also said it was possible that the kitten had a virus, and that a $500 blood transfusion wouldn't guarantee any improvement in the kitten's condition.
so we decided to put the kitten to sleep.
aunty joan was pretty broken up. the kids seemed fine with it, although i do know that death is a heavy topic, with secret consequences... i myself, i had cared for the kitten a lot, but all i could feel was this cold practicality. like, i kept thinking that we had tried our best, but maybe we had been fighting a losing battle. or, the next time, i'm going to try harder to get rid of those stinking fleas...
i would've liked to at least have had the kitten live until it could open its eyes. i had just begun to see his eyes breaking open, a kind of bluish cornea peeking through. it must have been terrible for the kitten, to not see this world, to only know it as a withdrawing of warmth, first from its mother, and then with the death of its sister... and finally, from its own fragile body.
***
we had dinner later, over at i-hop. (i know, terrible mother's day- but lynn had been working and i couldn't make reservations contingent on her schedule). service was pretty bad in that it took forever for us to get our food, but we understood. it's hard to work mother's day with a skeleton crew. anyway, at one point, these two guys left the restaurant, and on their way out, they slammed all the silverware and stuff off the counter so it all went crashing down. their girlfriends/wives followed, explaining (angrily) to the staff that they had waited one hour for their food.
yeah, maybe they had a right to be angry, but they shouldn't have taken it out like that. we were pretty much done with dinner by then, so all of us, aunty joan, lynn, me and the kids, went over to help pick up the silverware. i was really proud of willow and aiden, who did this without question, and helped out pretty enthusiastically. one of the staff looked like a grandmother herself, and we mentioned that it must have been hard to work on mother's day. the i-hop staff were appreciative, albeit stressed/frazzled. i could tell it had been a difficult day for them.
***
listening to my wife recount her work-day stress, it amazes me. my wife has a real sense about people. when people are a-holes, she can somehow push back in a cute way so that the a-holes are somehow ameliorated, happy even. i don't know if it's a girl thing. i actually don't think it has to be. unfortunately, when i push back, it seems like i've nudged the bottom piece of a jenga tower, and everything, EVERYONE comes crashing down on me. i guess i don't know how to be "assertive," whatever that means. i suppose i only say things when i really feel i need to, and by then, there's an edge to my words (even when i attempt to NOT be blunt). i wish i had my wife's power to turn a situation into a win-win for everyone.
grandpa hashimoto and nana offered to watch the kids last night, actually have them sleepover till tomorrow, and the kids seemed excited at the prospect. so last night, it was just lynn and i. i worked on her back and legs, which were really tired from all the hours she's been having to put in. then, we just talked about a lot of things, and nothing in particular. i mentioned to lynn about how lucky i am to have her. when things get tough, the two of us both sort of naturally fall in and take care of things, no complaints, and i'm glad of that. lynn has a real strength, a giving-ness. i always feel like we try to do the right thing, when it comes down to it, together. i never have to worry that lynn's "unhappy," or whatever; i never have to worry that, when there's trouble, i will have to fight a war on "two fronts", so to speak. i think we both derive our happiness from being given opportunities to do what's right; we're united in this.
i also told her that she grounds me (in many senses). i always have hidden anxieties about a lot of things, even (or especially) when i am outwardly calm. lynn, with her no-nonsense but caring personality, hears me out and manages to "cut the chaff from the wheat."
i honestly don't know what i would do without her.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
death again
i may have mentioned that we took two kittens back from aunty joan's house, to see if we could raise them out of their dangerous infant stage. well, one of them died this afternoon. it was the girl kitten, the one that was thinner and softer, and didn't feed well. she didn't seem to have a natural suckling reflex, so when we would try to feed her, she would maybe take a couple of swallows and then turn away and try to struggle free... as the days passed, her mewling grew quieter and quieter, while her brother's grew louder and clearer... this afternoon, i noticed that she was barely making a sound when she opened her mouth. i gave her one last feeding. and a bit later, she could barely move. i held her in my hands and to my chest. at a certain point, her breathing became labored, and came in isolated gasps that involved her whole body, right down to her tail. the gasps came once every five seconds, then once every ten seconds... at several points, i was sure she had passed, and then she would gasp again. her face, as i looked at it, seemed old. i think all creatures who suffer on the verge of death take on a look of maturation... i thought about life and bodies, and how the approach of death crystallizes things, so that what was once a fluid and smooth motion, animated by and ordered by some intelligence, slowly but inevitably turns into moving parts, and then into a still form: like salt crystals frozen by the sun.
when it was apparent that she wasn't breathing anymore, i laid her on a white paper towel. i wet another sheet with warm water, and began to wipe her down. then, aiden picked a flower (a tiny weed flower, yellow), and willow drew a picture of her, as a cat angel looking down from heaven. i wrapped the kitten in a paper towel, then put her in a large ziploc bag (i told the kids that it was to protect her from the rain on the way to heaven). we packed our offerings to her into her shoebox coffin.
when the girl kitten passed, it seemed as though her as-yet brother knew. he suddenly began mewing (up until that point, he had been sleeping), and stumbled about the box, looking for her. the two of them, brother and sister, had always sought each other out after the trauma of feeding and urinating/defecating, and would always be found sleeping, wrapped around each other for warmth...
this was the first time something died within my hands. it was strange. at one point, i could feel it (and myself) go vague, as though it were suddenly forgetting how to be a kitten. it felt like smoke. with each gasp, things would clarify once again, as though life were a painful reminder. but when the gasps stopped, it felt like everything were floating away.
i recall my grandma being on the ventilator. she too had these full-body gasps, as the machine mechanically filled and emptied her lungs. i wasn't there for her final passing (i had decided to pick up my sister so that she could be present, and on the way back, got caught in the afternoon traffic). that's something i kind of regret, even though i think i did the right thing. but the same feeling was there. the same thought. how a body after living looks so "real," but how it is just a crystal. a pattern, after the living waters have left... i remember touching my grandma's shoulder; it was the same skin, the same arm, that would always reach to me, to gain my attention. i remember leaning in close. and that was the first time i really could cry, next to that crystal remnant of her, next to the shell that, just a few days earlier, was the greatest source of comfort in my world.
i feel tired. i notice i've been sleeping a lot today. i've not been good with my kids, not been very attentive. i feel bad for them.
there are other issues i'm dealing with. my third observed lesson did not go well. or rather, i thought it went really well, but my observer didn't like it. i don't understand how there could be such a huge difference of opinion. as with previous observed lessons, i came away feeling an immense doubt in my abilities as a teacher. i wrote a lengthy reflection piece to the observed lesson early this morning, and basically vented. i tried to be methodical and rational. i addressed each of the observer's criticisms, clarifying my perspective, or my rationale. but in the end, i suppose it may have come off as being pretty arrogant and recalcitrant.
i will have my final observation on tuesday, and for this next lesson, she's bringing additional support, my advisor. i don't know if i should be happy or worried about this. at least with two observers, there may be the possibility of a more objective and fair assessment. but then again, you never know. i don't know what relationship my advisor and observer have. maybe they're great friends. i'm not sure. in any case, i've said my peace, and i'm sure that my observer will be looking for blood (if she hadn't already been before). to make matters worse, apparently, she will be my instructor for my online class this summer. way to make a great impression...
i suppose i'm not content to just "suck things up," even if it is politic or prudent to do so. if i feel like i don't understand someone's critique or position, then i usually have to voice it sometime or other. if i don't, it just bothers me, and turns me into a bitter, disillusioned person who doesn't believe in himself (i've seen a fair share of teachers fall into this mentality). don't get me wrong. i can take criticism, if it is specific and if i feel it is valid. such criticism gives me a clear vision of how to improve. but if criticism is either vague or "wrong," then all it serves to do is make me doubt my abilities and my thinking, which is terrible. we as teachers shouldn't do this to our kids; it's counterproductive and damaging. why then should i as a student-teacher be subjected to similar damaging critiques?
well, here i go again. i promised i wouldn't write entries that hurt the feelings or interests of others. but this really did bother me, and, to be fair, i haven't revealed details about this individual. if you read this, just be aware that it is only my side of the story. i'm sure my observer has her own take of things...
i remain a positively oriented teacher. i love the kids that i work with, and the teachers/educational assistants that i work with as well. it's a tough job, being a teacher. while i don't agree with all of the things some teachers do, i can see that they care, or they wouldn't be where they are. there's a lot of pressure on teachers, to do this or do that. there's a lot of criticism about how teachers do things. well, i think i just have to focus on the kids, on the mission to help them; that's the heart of the job, anyway. that's what'll keep me focused and inspired.
when it was apparent that she wasn't breathing anymore, i laid her on a white paper towel. i wet another sheet with warm water, and began to wipe her down. then, aiden picked a flower (a tiny weed flower, yellow), and willow drew a picture of her, as a cat angel looking down from heaven. i wrapped the kitten in a paper towel, then put her in a large ziploc bag (i told the kids that it was to protect her from the rain on the way to heaven). we packed our offerings to her into her shoebox coffin.
when the girl kitten passed, it seemed as though her as-yet brother knew. he suddenly began mewing (up until that point, he had been sleeping), and stumbled about the box, looking for her. the two of them, brother and sister, had always sought each other out after the trauma of feeding and urinating/defecating, and would always be found sleeping, wrapped around each other for warmth...
this was the first time something died within my hands. it was strange. at one point, i could feel it (and myself) go vague, as though it were suddenly forgetting how to be a kitten. it felt like smoke. with each gasp, things would clarify once again, as though life were a painful reminder. but when the gasps stopped, it felt like everything were floating away.
i recall my grandma being on the ventilator. she too had these full-body gasps, as the machine mechanically filled and emptied her lungs. i wasn't there for her final passing (i had decided to pick up my sister so that she could be present, and on the way back, got caught in the afternoon traffic). that's something i kind of regret, even though i think i did the right thing. but the same feeling was there. the same thought. how a body after living looks so "real," but how it is just a crystal. a pattern, after the living waters have left... i remember touching my grandma's shoulder; it was the same skin, the same arm, that would always reach to me, to gain my attention. i remember leaning in close. and that was the first time i really could cry, next to that crystal remnant of her, next to the shell that, just a few days earlier, was the greatest source of comfort in my world.
i feel tired. i notice i've been sleeping a lot today. i've not been good with my kids, not been very attentive. i feel bad for them.
there are other issues i'm dealing with. my third observed lesson did not go well. or rather, i thought it went really well, but my observer didn't like it. i don't understand how there could be such a huge difference of opinion. as with previous observed lessons, i came away feeling an immense doubt in my abilities as a teacher. i wrote a lengthy reflection piece to the observed lesson early this morning, and basically vented. i tried to be methodical and rational. i addressed each of the observer's criticisms, clarifying my perspective, or my rationale. but in the end, i suppose it may have come off as being pretty arrogant and recalcitrant.
i will have my final observation on tuesday, and for this next lesson, she's bringing additional support, my advisor. i don't know if i should be happy or worried about this. at least with two observers, there may be the possibility of a more objective and fair assessment. but then again, you never know. i don't know what relationship my advisor and observer have. maybe they're great friends. i'm not sure. in any case, i've said my peace, and i'm sure that my observer will be looking for blood (if she hadn't already been before). to make matters worse, apparently, she will be my instructor for my online class this summer. way to make a great impression...
i suppose i'm not content to just "suck things up," even if it is politic or prudent to do so. if i feel like i don't understand someone's critique or position, then i usually have to voice it sometime or other. if i don't, it just bothers me, and turns me into a bitter, disillusioned person who doesn't believe in himself (i've seen a fair share of teachers fall into this mentality). don't get me wrong. i can take criticism, if it is specific and if i feel it is valid. such criticism gives me a clear vision of how to improve. but if criticism is either vague or "wrong," then all it serves to do is make me doubt my abilities and my thinking, which is terrible. we as teachers shouldn't do this to our kids; it's counterproductive and damaging. why then should i as a student-teacher be subjected to similar damaging critiques?
well, here i go again. i promised i wouldn't write entries that hurt the feelings or interests of others. but this really did bother me, and, to be fair, i haven't revealed details about this individual. if you read this, just be aware that it is only my side of the story. i'm sure my observer has her own take of things...
i remain a positively oriented teacher. i love the kids that i work with, and the teachers/educational assistants that i work with as well. it's a tough job, being a teacher. while i don't agree with all of the things some teachers do, i can see that they care, or they wouldn't be where they are. there's a lot of pressure on teachers, to do this or do that. there's a lot of criticism about how teachers do things. well, i think i just have to focus on the kids, on the mission to help them; that's the heart of the job, anyway. that's what'll keep me focused and inspired.
highlights from mililani ike may day
these are highlights from Mililani Ike's May Day program. i wasn't there :( ... so don't blame me for the camerawork!
introductory stuff: flag waving dance.
willow dances to "tahiti tahiti"
kathy does the poi balls!
introductory stuff: flag waving dance.
willow dances to "tahiti tahiti"
kathy does the poi balls!
Friday, May 8, 2009
the best offense
tumbling through days
in a myopic haze
you'll understand if i've no few words
to spare for a change
small talk's not my bag
unless it's to mention how tired i sag
that's what passes for my sincerity.
it's not that i don't care
(or maybe it is)
but i've a moment to get to
and it's far over there
where the people and things that
depend on me want me to suspend
so time and words can hang out to dry
and maybe our friendship will die.
i wish you wouldn't
wouldn't turn away.
but every good turn deserves another.
and that's what makes this world go round.
the facts of this frenzy
what i've come to expect.
and all i've to say is
while i never meant to offend,
it was always just
my best defense.
in a myopic haze
you'll understand if i've no few words
to spare for a change
small talk's not my bag
unless it's to mention how tired i sag
that's what passes for my sincerity.
it's not that i don't care
(or maybe it is)
but i've a moment to get to
and it's far over there
where the people and things that
depend on me want me to suspend
so time and words can hang out to dry
and maybe our friendship will die.
i wish you wouldn't
wouldn't turn away.
but every good turn deserves another.
and that's what makes this world go round.
the facts of this frenzy
what i've come to expect.
and all i've to say is
while i never meant to offend,
it was always just
my best defense.
one day
you can forget a face
your own that you brought with you
their own that they painted over you.
left in the drawer,
wrapped in briefs
practicing tired expressions
to no one.
and the world looks at you,
and the face you forgot
and they don't know what to make of you.
absorbed in the world
and apparently self-absorbed you.
peripherally aware of the awareness on you.
there's danger on you:
if you forget your face
maybe you could be nobody
and anybody at all.
and maybe, if everybody saw that
then everybody could be nobody too.
so
someone will shake you down
if you don't hide it
"face reality," he'll say,
"you can never
forget a face."
a statement of
the power of memory,
or its necessity?
you can forget a face
your own that you brought with you
their own that they painted over you.
left in the drawer,
wrapped in briefs
practicing tired expressions
to no one.
and the world looks at you,
and the face you forgot
and they don't know what to make of you.
absorbed in the world
and apparently self-absorbed you.
peripherally aware of the awareness on you.
there's danger on you:
if you forget your face
maybe you could be nobody
and anybody at all.
and maybe, if everybody saw that
then everybody could be nobody too.
so
someone will shake you down
if you don't hide it
"face reality," he'll say,
"you can never
forget a face."
a statement of
the power of memory,
or its necessity?
Thursday, May 7, 2009
kittens!
so yesterday, when i went to pick up the kids, i happened to hear this mewling coming from somewhere outside aunty joan's house. i mentioned this to her, and she said that, yes, some cat had given birth the night before, and her kittens were keeping her up at night. aunty joan was thinking about calling the humane society. after a quick hunt in the backyard, i found a kitten (and later, two kittens) under a metal grate propped on hollow tile. they were nearly buried beneath the detritus of an old mango tree...
to make a long story short, lynn and i decided to try to care for the kittens. whether they had been abandoned by their mother or not, aunty joan was going to call the humane society on them, and that would spell certain doom for them (apparently, kittens below a certain age or weight are usually euthanized; it takes too much effort to individually nurse very young kittens to health). we put them in a large box with an old t-shirt lining the bottom, went to the pet store to pick up formula (and some tips), and took the kittens home.
since i was struggling to work on my final project for my sped class, it was kind of fortuitous to have the kittens keep my company as i pulled an allnighter. roughly every two or three hours, i would hear the two of them mewing in the garage, and have to feed them, and get them to eliminate (by using a paper towel or rag to rub their genitalia; apparently, cat mothers lick that area with their rough tongues to get their kittens to piss or s**t - now that's motherhood!). usually, after this, the two of them would near instantly fall asleep, after crawling on top of each other.
i will attempt to post a video of the two of them. we haven't named them yet; it's far too soon, we're not out of the woodworks. but they do seem very healthy, and plumper...
i passed out relatively early this evening (like 9 or 10 pm), and had to get up at roughly 1 am for their feeding/grooming/bathroom break. as i posted on my facebook account: "feeding them, combing out their fleas, stimulating their genitalia, at all hours of the night... reminds me of dating!"
to make a long story short, lynn and i decided to try to care for the kittens. whether they had been abandoned by their mother or not, aunty joan was going to call the humane society on them, and that would spell certain doom for them (apparently, kittens below a certain age or weight are usually euthanized; it takes too much effort to individually nurse very young kittens to health). we put them in a large box with an old t-shirt lining the bottom, went to the pet store to pick up formula (and some tips), and took the kittens home.
since i was struggling to work on my final project for my sped class, it was kind of fortuitous to have the kittens keep my company as i pulled an allnighter. roughly every two or three hours, i would hear the two of them mewing in the garage, and have to feed them, and get them to eliminate (by using a paper towel or rag to rub their genitalia; apparently, cat mothers lick that area with their rough tongues to get their kittens to piss or s**t - now that's motherhood!). usually, after this, the two of them would near instantly fall asleep, after crawling on top of each other.
i will attempt to post a video of the two of them. we haven't named them yet; it's far too soon, we're not out of the woodworks. but they do seem very healthy, and plumper...
i passed out relatively early this evening (like 9 or 10 pm), and had to get up at roughly 1 am for their feeding/grooming/bathroom break. as i posted on my facebook account: "feeding them, combing out their fleas, stimulating their genitalia, at all hours of the night... reminds me of dating!"
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
today someone lost a black cat in minnesota.
this evening in hawaii, a girl and her father
saved two blind mewling kittens
from beneath a grate and dead leaves.
they were black.
this morning in mexico, an infant died of swine flu.
meanwhile, across the pacific,
a twenty-something year old
listened to fitter, happier for the first time
wondering at the last line of lyrics.
he ate a pizza laced with bacon,
char shiu and pork rinds.
it all evens out in the end.
the universe is only apparently chaotic.
all the random number generators
tied to the vibrations of subatomic particles
or frequencies of subtle radiation,
they are speaking a pattern
that is symmetrically predictable.
if you listen
closely, and long enough.
or, failing that, if you've
a habit of faith and
a preference for
complacency.
it all evens out in the end.
this evening in hawaii, a girl and her father
saved two blind mewling kittens
from beneath a grate and dead leaves.
they were black.
this morning in mexico, an infant died of swine flu.
meanwhile, across the pacific,
a twenty-something year old
listened to fitter, happier for the first time
wondering at the last line of lyrics.
he ate a pizza laced with bacon,
char shiu and pork rinds.
it all evens out in the end.
the universe is only apparently chaotic.
all the random number generators
tied to the vibrations of subatomic particles
or frequencies of subtle radiation,
they are speaking a pattern
that is symmetrically predictable.
if you listen
closely, and long enough.
or, failing that, if you've
a habit of faith and
a preference for
complacency.
it all evens out in the end.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
insight explosion
it's weird how creativity and insight works.
i've been writing this story about brothers and kappas. the way i got to incorporating the kappa is itself kinda interesting. but i've had a few other insights that keep fleshing the story out. whether i decide to make the following symbols explicit or not, there is a further resonance for the story through their incorporation.
a lot of the story has to do with water, and with swimming. my brother was an excellent swimmer. now, something happens to swimmers who swim a lot in hyperchlorinated pools; their hair turns the color of copper... aside from almost being a homophone for kappa, there is a play i'm doing with copper pennies. copper pennies are almost worthless, so when people drop them, they hardly care to put in the effort to pick them up again. copper pennies serve as a symbol for near worthless people, who can imagine that, through accumulation, they may "add up to something"; but, sadly, no matter how many pennies one may assemble, one won't amount to much...
if you read the ending of amphibious, you know that there is this strange bowl made out of rusted-together copper pennies... you probably already know that this bowl was molded from the "bowl" of the kappa yagoro's head...
now, swimmers wear swim-caps to protect their hair and to improve their "hydrodynamics." swim-caps resemble bowls... which takes us back to the kappa.
swim-caps also resemble jellyfish, boneless bags that imbibe and squirt out water to propel themselves... that is, propel themselves without really propelling themselves, since jellyfish are at the mercy of larger currents. jellyfish are another symbol for the "worthless" protagonist, who has no backbone, and no internal motivation/direction.
and, returning to the kappa... the reason why i call the kappa yagoro is because it is a legendary kappa who has a saying associated with it. yagoro supposedly partied and played so much one night, that in the morning, he was unable to swim, and thus drifted with the current. this is the origin of the saying: "kappa no kawa nagare," or, the kappa who flows downstream. it's supposed to be an ironic statement, because kappa are supposedly excellent swimmers... but this saying resonates with the jellyfish, with its will-less floating...
the name yagoro is interesting in itself. apparently, yagoro can be an archery term, and is that moment aftere the "strength"/tension reaches its fullness, and before the arrow is released. there is thus an "almost" sense to the name; asymptotic.
this resonates with the feeling of the protagonist, who feels "almost" human, but not quite...
the choice of symbols is rarely "intentional" (in the sense of deliberate). many times, i choose to utilize symbols blindly, or because of dim associations. it is only later that the "wisdom" of the symbol becomes apparent...
i've been writing this story about brothers and kappas. the way i got to incorporating the kappa is itself kinda interesting. but i've had a few other insights that keep fleshing the story out. whether i decide to make the following symbols explicit or not, there is a further resonance for the story through their incorporation.
a lot of the story has to do with water, and with swimming. my brother was an excellent swimmer. now, something happens to swimmers who swim a lot in hyperchlorinated pools; their hair turns the color of copper... aside from almost being a homophone for kappa, there is a play i'm doing with copper pennies. copper pennies are almost worthless, so when people drop them, they hardly care to put in the effort to pick them up again. copper pennies serve as a symbol for near worthless people, who can imagine that, through accumulation, they may "add up to something"; but, sadly, no matter how many pennies one may assemble, one won't amount to much...
if you read the ending of amphibious, you know that there is this strange bowl made out of rusted-together copper pennies... you probably already know that this bowl was molded from the "bowl" of the kappa yagoro's head...
now, swimmers wear swim-caps to protect their hair and to improve their "hydrodynamics." swim-caps resemble bowls... which takes us back to the kappa.
swim-caps also resemble jellyfish, boneless bags that imbibe and squirt out water to propel themselves... that is, propel themselves without really propelling themselves, since jellyfish are at the mercy of larger currents. jellyfish are another symbol for the "worthless" protagonist, who has no backbone, and no internal motivation/direction.
and, returning to the kappa... the reason why i call the kappa yagoro is because it is a legendary kappa who has a saying associated with it. yagoro supposedly partied and played so much one night, that in the morning, he was unable to swim, and thus drifted with the current. this is the origin of the saying: "kappa no kawa nagare," or, the kappa who flows downstream. it's supposed to be an ironic statement, because kappa are supposedly excellent swimmers... but this saying resonates with the jellyfish, with its will-less floating...
the name yagoro is interesting in itself. apparently, yagoro can be an archery term, and is that moment aftere the "strength"/tension reaches its fullness, and before the arrow is released. there is thus an "almost" sense to the name; asymptotic.
this resonates with the feeling of the protagonist, who feels "almost" human, but not quite...
the choice of symbols is rarely "intentional" (in the sense of deliberate). many times, i choose to utilize symbols blindly, or because of dim associations. it is only later that the "wisdom" of the symbol becomes apparent...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)