why don't you just say it?

people are frequently frustrated by circuitous talk. by poetry, by stories that (apparently) have nothing to say. part of the frustration, admittedly, is warranted, and (believe me) there is frustration bound up within the speaker/writer as well, that he or she cannot deliver the words with the same level of efficiency and pith that is expected by the eyes and ears that will consume it. perhaps a bit of spice would make it go down better, or perhaps turning it into a soup...

the vast majority of the time, however, there is a reason for obfuscating the message... everyone is (to repeat the sin i am trying to explain) an allied prisoner of war in a nazi camp, sending intel out via secret communications. everyone is (METAPHORICALLY!) jesus trying to express a radical truth to fishermen and clumsy sinners. everyone is a nine-holed pearl, or daedalus's labyrinth, and the words that eventually escape must snake through our bowels like a fishing line through a hook...

to put it more bluntly:
1) the truth can rarely be stated directly, because it is, by its very nature, shy and collapsible when pulled out of its depths.
2) the truth must pass the scrutiny of those who would destroy it, usually under the guise of irrelevance or innocence. (WHO?)
3) the truth must tunnel through walls to reach its intended audience, buried so deep within callouses and slumber that it is all but forgotten. (again, WHO?)

venting spleens

the curse of a certain kind of intelligence:
one's voice becomes muted by the awareness
of a myriad other eyes and ears
stacked up to the ceiling like a buddhist pantheon
all with secret drooling teeth
hidden beneath their faded robes.
how, to crawl up beneath that crushing weight
of exponentiated reflection
and speak in little more than
a hesitant mewling?

the curse of a certain kind of intelligence:
the double boiler of inspiration, insight and passion
may be set over high-licking flames
but the water's thin and near-evaporated,
and the second receptacle is insulated
by too-thick metal and layers of teflon.
most thoughts will never cook to completion,
half-baked and raw with shame
while the small remainder
burn holes through the pot
and all pleasant conversation.

i am writing to you from this side of tomorrow.
there's something i want you to know.
something i would like you to remember.
there is a feeling i have about your time,
and the life you will have.
knowing nothing of what that day will look like,
not knowing whether the sun will shine,
or there will be a harbinging comet eclipsing all light and warmth,
not knowing a thing,
i still have nothing better to do but hope.
the least of all i can feel right now.
that is the most i can offer to you.
try to remember this gift that i leave for you.
don't leave it forgotten and unopened,
even if, when you open your eyes,
everything is different, and my gift seems
irrelevant, useless.
the feeling i have left for you,
on my side of tomorrow,
is the blind pushing behind the sun
and the possibility for something better
and open skies, and a clear way forward,
and a home and heart that will be there for you.
maybe you don't see it,
but maybe you will.
so take what i have,
and sometimes, forget to believe only what you see,
and try to see what you have forgotten to believe.

http://www.youtube.com/user/allradwimps?blend=1&ob=4&rclk=cti#p/u/4/nda3VIp_1O0

(sorry, i can't embed the above video. please click on the link anyway. it's safe.)

i'm becoming a radwimps fan after slowly watching a few of their videos. the above song is the soundtrack playing in the back of my head this weekend...

on schedule, i wake up at between 2-4 am with feelings of anxiety/worry, sometimes mild, sometimes sharp and penetrative like the pinnacle of a mountain impaled within my gut. (tonight was relatively mild). i had, and still have, a mild headache after watching avatar in 3d with my brother. i think i ultimately prefer to watch movies sans 3d for the time being, at least until my brain can evolve to the point of painlessly reconstructing 3d images...

i recall passing out, waking up occasionally to struggle to participate in a discussion with my wife, something about how ardently and passionately graphic designers hate the font papyrus (used to death in the movie avatar). i recall mentioning, over and over, like a mantra, how much i loved my wife, as i slipped under. and perhaps, because i said the right words, or i focused on the right thoughts, last night seemed relatively dreamless, vague and warm. (i still woke up at 2 am though).

today, lynn and i meet to discuss aiden's situation. i am calm and resigned about it all, but lynn is mildly anxious. when the time comes, i will speak my piece (peace?), hopefully without hurting anyone. i have the right, every now and then, to do that.

all in all, no matter what, i am comforted by accepting who my son is fully and unconditionally. sometimes if you listen to "other parties" too much, or if you think only about what "other people think" or introduce the virus-word "should" into your software, then you lose sight of things. i look at my son, and i love what i see. he has a very kind and gentle heart. he tries very hard when he feels good about himself; he is very aware of unfairness and injustice, and is kind and friendly to other children (especially those younger and more vulnerable than himself), and protective and loyal to those that he loves (his sister). in many ways, i wish i were more like my son.

i think i am sometimes unduly stern with him, when i think about where i would like him to be. i think it is common for parents to justify (sometimes rightly) this sort of sternness or cruelty by saying that the world is ultimately unforgiving, and it is the role of the parent to prepare the child for that... to "train." but there's a danger in falling into that "corrective" mindset, if you fail to see who and what it is you are trying to correct.

my son is a gentle soul, and i hope and pray that he retains that as he grows up. ultimately, we don't need more "capable" and battle-hardened gear parts in this world; we need people who can feel and reflect upon everything, to make sure we don't lose track of ourselves...

***

"free speech" shouldn't include "bought speech."

thought of that myself, on the fly, regarding the supreme court decision...

regarding politics... it is getting so dangerous to say anything about anything nowadays. people are so strongly partisan; they walk around with daggers behind their flat-topped teeth. what is particularly problematic is the mindset that a partisan view (from either side) is not partisan, but "common sense." claims to "common sense" should not be divisive in the least, i think/hope... hopefully, if the sense were so common, there would be no debate about it...

i DO think that there are differences in fundamental perspectives. and these perspectives are so entrenched within people's hearts and minds that they define reality/common sense for them... not the other way around.

i despair of "discourse" with people on anything. you cannot convince anyone of anything political nowadays. of this i'm sure. bringing up facts/evidence will accomplish nothing. reason is not, ultimately, what rules the heart, which nowadays rules most people (definitely not cool heads). in this, political affiliation is akin to religion; only, politics is an incessantly relevant, real-time "religion", with divine intervention and miracles and blasphemers occurring all the time.

this is one reason why i (who am decidedly standoffish regarding politics) feel the recent supreme court decision only complicates matters. as things are, there's a lot of hostility and irrationality out there. allowing corporate interests to throw money into the colliseum of ideas will hardly improve matters...

***

well, g'night, all you nonexistent and disembodied spirits.

apologies for not posting regularly. things have been somewhat hectic, what with the start of school and all.

i went to an ayso center referee training last week (5 hours), and got a crash course in reffing an under 8 game. so today, at my daughter willow's game, i practiced being a linesperson, and at the next game, watched as another parent reffed. to be honest, i'm terrible at keeping track of things... i had to verbally catalog in my head who touched the ball last ("pink", "purple"), along with an accompanying little gesture to associate the touches with a direction... and i still got things wrong sometimes. i also had a hard time NOT cheering for our team, especially when i wanted to give willow a heads up when the ball was coming her way... i eavesdropped on the conversation of the opposing team's coach, which i did not really appreciate; a bit too aggressive/competitive, if you ask me, particularly comments about willow's lack of skill and motivation...

after the whole soccer thing, we (the kids and i) went to aunty joan and uncle ferman's house in pearl city. willow's teacher had expressed an interest in learning how to carve narcissus bulbs, and uncle ferman is a true expert at it. so we invited her to come over to ferman's house to learn; she said she would, on the condition that we be there as well. so, while the kids were in the house, uncle ferman patiently taught willow's teacher and i how to carve the bulbs in the crabclaw style.

for those of you who are not familiar with narcissus bulbs... well, they start off looking like cloves of garlic, only whiter, and without the smell. it's possible to carve individual "cloves," and that's what we did at first. first, we peel off the skin, just as you would a clove of garlic. then, ferman showed us how to pay attention to the direction/orientation of the bulb to determine what sections were best to cut. he drew lines on the bulbs to show us where to cut: a line about half an inch above the roots, drawn "halfway" around the circumference of the bulb, joined to lines drawn along either side of the bulb all the way to the tip of the emerging bulb shoot. we used ferman's specialized exacto-knives to gently cut away layer by layer along these lines, until we exposed the green budding shoot...

the actual crabclaw carving is just an extension of this process onto a fully grown bulb/root system, with one big "bulb," and several lesser "bulbs" branching off... even if the narcissus doesn't grow naturally into the crabclaw formation that you want, you can use toothpicks to attach individual cloves to the sides of a big bulb...

ferman also made comments about the importance of sunlight/shade in growing the bulbs out. the narcissus, like many plants, will grow in whatever direction it needs to to get to light. so, it's important, once you carve the bulbs, to expose them to direct sunlight as much as possible. shade will cause the emerging bulbs to wind and wend their way to sunlight, creating an inelegant tangle...

i would like to learn so much more (so did willow's teacher), but you can't learn everything about this art in a few hours. i vow to videotape ferman doing a bulb carving for posterity's sake. he really is a cultural treasure, and a patient and meticulous teacher to boot...

***

had a dream about going back to williams, this time with my family, giving them a tour of my alma mater... funny, but having lived there for four years, i really seem to have sketchy memories of the place. i think that first month or so seemed to last forever, as the newness of it all started to burn in. i remember the sunlight being different, sort of liquid-y on those cold winter days, and with a beautiful sort of haze in even the sunniest days... the feeling of a stillness, full of potential... i remember the lonely parts, when i would try to explore the region by little misadventures by bus, into the nearby towns, usually to search for a place to buy music or videogames... the towns, i recall, had a lot of brick, red brick... department stores in the old style... and music stores that looked like they were from the 70's... i found edie brickell's new (then) album and recall listening to the songs intently as i rode in buses, surveying the territory... as a result, the scenery of those old rural towns of hardily constructed churches and glass-fronted nobody stores interspersed by trees and fields, all beneath that swimming sunlight, it is all associated with edie brickell songs, and in particular, the one about the 10,000 angels:

"10,000 angels, swimming through my heart
whispering secrets and tearing me apart...
and i say, 'come to me,
cause i need you now.
come to me,
i really want you.
come to me,
and i will go
anywhere with you.' "

i think there is something about being alone in a new place that is both beautiful and terribly lonely and sad... there have been many times in my life when i have been thrown/thrown myself into situations where i was alone in a new place, and each of these "opportunities," i recall, were both liberating and filled with a kind of longing. it was as though i were seeing beautiful secrets of the world, but having no one to share them with, it seemed as though it were all going to waste... i think that beauty has that dizzying effect at times, of putting you on a pinnacle of experience, and without someone to share it with, it can seem as though you have no way to reach anyone, to explain the things you have seen/experienced. in a way, then, beauty (and any solitary experience) distances you from others...

there were stairs behind my dormitory, passing nearby the gym, and this notable feature of architecture, a couple of columns with gaps near the top, dubbed the "ironic pillars," and beyond that, some kind of sandwich shop (can't recall the name). funny, but after buying the obligatory williams sweatshirt, i remember spending mornings trying to train myself, running up and down the stairs. in hindsight, i could have explored the town more fully, finding all of its borders, and where the college started to bleed into the surrounding countryside... but instead, i created small concentric circles in which to acquaint myself.

i think i am a man of religion. i create rituals. i trap myself in ruts in order to "deepen" my experience by wearing trenches into the soil... i find small enclaves of comfort, where i can hide myself...

like constantine's pizza, with the attractive greek girl deedee, who always gave me an extra slice and a smile, when i walked in with my outlandishly colored sweaters...

i am not sociable by nature, even though i often feel a desperate need for others, if only to serve as tethers so that i don't drift off into irresponsibility or madness...

well, enough of this rambling for tonight. i have a full day tomorrow (today); kids have violin at 9 (after a month long hiatus), and taiko at 1... maybe a swim lesson at 2:30... i think sometimes that we have overcommitted our kids, but then again, this is the phase when we should expose them to everything and anything... later, life will pare them down to the core of their hearts, just like the narcissus bulbs we carved today...

avatar

lynn and i had a pleasant afternoon yesterday. we ate lunch at nordstrom's cafe. i had pan-seared lamb with mash potatoes and spinach (all exquisitely prepared), and lynn had some kind of tomato fetuccini (sp?). i think eating good food in a peaceful atmosphere can sometimes make you feel all zenned out, like everything is perfect, and you can always operate from this calm state.

we then went to see "avatar" over at the ward theaters. it was a monday, and, what's more, it was a monday afternoon, so the theaters were next to empty. the movie was awesome, the visuals were stunning, the storyline was mildly compelling. as i've heard it reviewed, it's a lot like "dances like wolves," set on an alien world. the two sides are painted with clear, unambiguous strokes; the "sky people" and the "navi" (?). i just hope some of us in the american audience felt a little bit of chagrin at the portrayal of the overzealous military forces and the greedy corporate interest, because that's EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE DONE AND CONTINUE TO DO in the world...

i'm going off on a tangent here, but earlier in the day, while driving, i heard a piece on "fresh air." terry gross was interviewing bob sullivan, author of "gotcha capitalism," about the many pitfalls people fall into with their credit cards, their banks, their cellphone companies, and car dealerships... this was all pertinent and poignantly relevant, because of all the credit card debt i (and many americans) have amassed over the past month to "pretend we're in the christmas spirit" (perhaps the christmas spirit should be synonymous with "in s**thole debt to holy capitalism").

sullivan looked at banks and other institutions in a matter-of-fact way, as businesses (which, of course, they are) who have a fundamental motivation, not to provide a quality service to their customers in an honest and forthright manner, but to MAKE MONEY in whatever means allowed (and sometimes not allowed) by the law. in the past, banks primarily made money by making loans. but because the margin of profit from loan-making was diminishing over time, and because this arena was heavily regulated, banks and credit card companies decided to use various charges and service fees... under threat of regulation by the obama administration, the credit card companies of late have been exerting their muscle to squeeze every last cent out of consumers before some of their practices become illegal; arbitrarily upping the minimum monthly payments, or dropping credit limits... again, the banks/credit card co's are not in it to provide quality service to consumers; they just want to MAKE MONEY. and they'll do anything to accomplish that end.

i don't want to go on a tirade (i'm tired), but it really makes me question the basic tenets of the capitalist system. certainly, it generates wealth, and that wealth has made us a leading nation. but unregulated growth

happy new year

happy new year to everyone!

i sincerely hope that you find 2010 to be a "vintage year," one that you'd be happy to revisit later and drink up the memories, which by then will have aged and grown rich with flavor... what's more, i hope you are able to appreciate the events of this year right when you "pick them off the vine." everything, everything, only comes once. i hope you can see this, and instead of feeling sad or regretful (as i'm wont to do), i hope that the fullness of the moment fills you up, and makes you love or laugh, brimful of appreciation...

***

am i out of touch?
did the pain of what i didn't do
hurt too much?

i'm so tired of hating me
and passing that off as sincerity.
i want to cut the lag
between tonight's hopes
and tomorrow's reality.

there's so much i want to say
there's so much i want to do
so give me a moment
to be perfectly clear
give me an open shot
to your heart's ear:

i want you to understand
all the vague but well-meaning things that i am.

***

please, god, of all resolutions i make, help me keep the following:

1) teach me to be patient and gentle in all things. help me to always be aware that a tool is only a tool; instrumentality and an eye only on the ends oftentimes only causes one to "trip on a rake."

2) help me to appreciate everything and everyone. i want all the people that have ever touched my heart to live again through me, informing my contact with the world, shaping the force of my kindness like the funnel of absence in a whirlwind.

3) help me find a way to express kindness.

4) despair is heavy within me; it always has been and always will be. i am not certain if it can or should be removed from me. in the uncertainty of the struggle with it, help me to not give up. help me to remember those times when i have been able to understand others because of my struggle with the fragility and irrationality and self-destructiveness within myself. help me to remember that sometimes a too-quick redemption will only make for a shallow heart.