i think i drank too much caffeine tonight. two cans of coke. that, combined with the strange things illness can do to your adrenal glands.

it's 2 am, and i am still up. there is energy within me, but it has nowhere to go (or at least nowhere particularly appetizing).

the wind has started up again. it has a voice and a rhythmless rhythm. it surprises me sometimes with its ferocity, and then withdraws just as quickly. sometimes it speaks in multiple voices, or at least, it seems to, when the window to my right "hears" one aspect of it, while the window to my back seems to catch a discordant chorus.

on nights like this, i imagine creatures (like the wild pig that on occasion slips into my backyard) creeping about disguised by the storm. perhaps it skulks in the shadows and shelter of the snowbush on the left side of the house.

***

irresponsibility.

***

there are places and times and people in our lives, and then there are the hopes and fears and dreams we have about them. the two on occasion appear to coincide, but never entirely. the latter superimposes upon or submerges the former, burying it with shifting, swallowing waves beneath a restless sea.

what is real?

***

i remember the california grass field where the current mililani town post office now lies. my brother and i, and then later, my sister and i, we used to cross that field every day to go to and from japanese school on the far side of the mililani high school campus. i like to think (somewhat arrogantly) that it was solely the tread of our tires that maintained the pathway through all of that undergrowth. i can remember the landscape of that hidden field primarily as a series of hills and slopes, and particularly the last one, the one before the entrance to the track field, the one where you would run out of momentum just before cresting, and had to put it one last umph with the pedals to get your front tire catching the top and pulling you up.

***

the past seems so rich with details, evasive and irrelevant. the past seems so huge and long. and yet, as i watch my children (as if looking at them askance), i realize how swiftly it is all running away. the memories that i hold sacred, the memories that i (whether rightly or not) feel determined everything that i am today, the memories that i always return to, those memories are happening right now for my children. in the babble that i half-heartedly listen to, there are secrets that one day i will try to reach for but will always elude me.

this moment only happens once. everything after is just us. just me.

perhaps there is sentimentality in this, but i make a conscious effort to see my children, to really see them, not as what i would like them to become (although, of course, it is impossible for a parent to ignore this), but as who they are in their present wonderful moment of childhood. oddly enough, through the lens of the present, i can almost see the whole trajectory of their life's path. i see in willow the cheerful optimism that will push her through adversity; i see also the competitive edge and simple trust in fairness (and other myths) that could potentially break her heart. i see in aiden a gentle spirit, unafraid (and even eager) to play the fool, always looking for a way to be seen or heard, and always afraid to be left behind. in many ways, he is so like myself. i hope that his need for love and respect does not turn him away from the lonely path of independence that he must eventually forge for himself...

i hear one of them stirring... mumbling in sleep.

***

i watched a korean movie called "the host." it begins like a horror movie, but ends up being about so much more. i would strongly recommend it. it is full of surprises, not just in the sense of "horror" films (which i definitely would NOT characterize this movie as), but in the way it keeps stepping outside categorizations so that one can't clearly say what the movie is "about." watch it! it is viewable in its entirety on youtube.

well, i think i've killed some time and energy for tonight. i should sign off. wish i had something more interesting to write about...