be with me
when the moon turns black
and conceals the way forward
through the tumbled lands.

hold my hand.

tell me:

"there is nothing to fear.
you've tried your best.
i've known your heart
was in the right place
regardless of what the blind
daylight may have, will have,
seen."

the ground may fall away
and pitch us into pitch
but as long as you hold me
i'll be alright,
everything will be
alright.

moon over
tumbled down
shadow drowned
happy lovers.

today, i visited my grandmother's grave for the first time. sad, isn't it, but i hadn't made time to visit her in all this time. then, today, after picking up my wife from work, and having a bit of time to kill on the drive from waikele to mililani, i just decided to visit the grave at mililani mortuary.

i had to search a bit for it. after i spotted umahichi uyeno (my great grandfather), i knew i was in the vicinity, and not long after, my wife spotted my grandmother's grave. while the kids walked around and my wife told some stories about grandma, i sat in prayer, speaking to her. it was somewhat cathartic.

time passes relentlessly, without pause or remorse. the death of someone so significant happens, and the calendar pages still flip, time passes "like clockwork," with no allowances, with no dispensations, with no evaluation. i suppose that's my excuse for not coming sooner. "i've been so busy." isn't that modern life? so busy stuffing our time with emptiness. not taking a moment for the true things, the things that really matter...

***

today, willow performed for a second time, this time at the neil blaisdell, for some holiday craft show. unfortunately, the pueo strings and the choir sang in a separate room, on a separate stage, so i'm afraid there wasn't much real "exposure" (the only people in the audience were probably mililani ike parents). it's okay...

i saw a face from the past, and had thoughts about adolescence, about illusions. although i do entertain many fantasies, in my working, every day life, i am a pretty efficient dream-killer. i can edit away any "missed opportunities" with the brilliant reality of my present. i can trace the false story lines to their necessary dead ends and inconsequential consequences... but for the empty moments, it's nice to remember fragments of when i was young.

isn't that what people are preoccupied with these days? trying to hold on to a fragment of some mythical apex of life... i too am caught in that preoccupation. maybe life is by definition a holding onto the living moment that is long gone, or is yet to be... some people, whether aware of it or not, use such false illusions as the sustenance for real accomplishments. what's the harm in that? maybe i see too well, or too darkly, for anything living to arise out of my dreams. and perhaps that is why i am starving for new dreams to dream.

so i guess i'm depressed.

you've probably known all along, what with my obsession with radiohead (you're supposed to laugh). but lately, i've been having inexplicable and sudden drops in energy, like all the time. and all the things that i used to love doing have been soured by this feeling of guilt. it's not so much that i am disinterested in the things i used to love. it's that they no longer protect me from this feeling of hate and recrimination that has pursued me since god knows when.

i am able to establish a facade (as with all things) for the people that i love, primarily my wife and children, and secondarily my students, but deep down, it's becoming an intractable, even impossible, situation. when something in you loses the capacity to appreciate life, then everything is relentlessly gnawed away by this huge beetle... it isn't as though the world is left alone to "hang out," without life, without love, it is actively destroyed, from within or from without, it hardly matters.

all of my machinations, to organize or to let go, they hardly matter. i feel i can no longer control the power switch. and, at some level, i feel that i no longer care about my own life. i only care about it to the extent that it touches upon the lives of others, most notably the lives of my children. i am staying up above for their sake, trying to address their deficiencies, trying to keep them happy. they are wonderful, beautiful beings, and i want them to feel happy and strong and capable- unlike myself.

i have prayed and spoken (a one-sided conversation) to god to help me. i have asked for counsel with my grandmother. i have reprieves sometimes. this morning felt good, when i was called early to come teach a tai chi class. the movements seemed to flow and carry me, even if i didn't feel buoyant or particularly joyful. and, after returning home, i was able to do a bit of weeding in the dew-ridden grass, musing about the work of bodhisattvas, to maintain equanimity and care in each moment, even though the task set about is impossible and endless. it is the peace that one holds that, possibly, changes the world, not what one actually accomplishes. it was a nice insight/feeling...

at home after dropping my wife off to work at the crazy mall, and unable to take the kids to capoeira because their uniform pants were dirty, i felt my energy drop off suddenly and sharply. i kept resurfacing briefly to give the kids instructions on the next task, oh so briefly... the rest of the day didn't go so well...

***

i am so very tired.

i see pictures of faces twisted into disgust and anger (their true forms?). yes, the world is always teetering towards a fundamental impatience. they want people to be a certain way, they are impatient when you don't adopt the right shape immediately. they are always looking for something wrong, and once they find it, they will pick at it and pick at it endlessly.

i could care less about the regard of most of the world. my interest lies primarily in those i serve directly. they are, literally, my salvation. they keep me awake. the rest of the world, with its shifting alliances and uncertainty, they are akin to the dream: immaterial, insubstantial, inconsequential.

***

it is raining right now. i woke after yet another unexpected nap, to find myself on the shore of midnight. i feel sad/guilty to have not taken advantage of the night, but then again, i would have felt paralyzed by my recriminations to have done anything much anyway. i woke to feel this dull fear and insight, that i had perhaps finally crossed over into the domain of depression... with the understanding that, in depression, it is not so much a dull disinterest, but a quiet desperation, a feeling that life is slipping away... no one wants to feel this way.

i wish the rain would last forever. i wish it would erode this conundrum from me.

when the rain falls, it unites the world. and it unites all those moments when we were huddled indoors, alone and high and dry from the storm. all those moments of promise and rest. all those moments i loved and hated. they are the same moment as now, mulling over the same undigested problems.

please, god, liberate me. if rain is your blessing, let it fall upon me tonight. let me feel alive, let me feel that is okay to be alive, that i have a right and a purpose to be alive, that i have a place in this world. i am tired of feeling like i haven't got a way to be, a way to go...

as shodo said, "michi ga mayottara, sagashite kure."

if you lose your way, find it.

i've lost my way tonight. please, help me find the ground beneath my feet.

i have been searching for a feeling.

there are certain actions that seem to approximate it. when i interact with others, and address their immediate needs (i.e., those needs which are immediately obvious, and do not require a leap of faith in my capabilities, nor reference to some overarching viewpoint of anything), then i feel as though i am fulfilling my purpose (at least, for the time being), and i do not feel so empty and haunted inside. but afterwards, when i am left to my own devices, and drift on my own inertia/momentum, that lack of a feeling comes back, gnawing away at me.

i attempt to address it in various ways. one aspect of me attempts to organize the emptiness by constructing lists, and then prioritizing from among the items on the list those which may either make me "happy" or at the very least get at an approximate heart of the problem. another aspect of myself has considered this attempt fruitless and impossible, and instead seeks to "drift" and appreciate the aesthetic surface of reality, in a kind of meandering, "thrown" way. there is no happy medium between the two perspectives, and i have a tendency to oscillate between these two needs, one for order and the other for freedom.

i suppose that, as i get older, the illusions i once constructed, and could sustain me, they become threadbare and worn out, and they can no longer fulfill the function they once had. what peeks through, or what slips in (i'm not so sure which) is the hatred which i have sought so hard to contain/push out. i am left vulnerable to its blows, to its incessant questioning...

i know that practically all of my entries reference this conundrum of mine, but i suppose that we always return to the problem that makes us. this is my hurt, my heart, my art. it is everything i know (against my wishes).

***

who am i writing to anyway? i have addressed this question as well. in the past, it was written in a more or less positivistic sense, an apologetic for what is either self-aggrandizement, or some shoddy, secular confessional. this is a central question, it turns out, because perhaps on some level, the blog, and indeed, everything i do, is in some sense a performance. who it is for, and who it saves, these questions are tied into everything that i am. they are, in essence, the "whole point."

why do we do anything? (notice how i include the reader into this problem, as though it is shared by him or her. this is a rhetorical turn, perhaps to make me feel as though i am not alone in this, ashamed and exposed.)

if i say nothing, then what is the harm? if i say too much, then what is the harm? something, someone inside of me is itching to get out. at the same time, something, someone inside of me is itching to out me. there is something of salvation and self-destruction in everything i write. i just wish i could piece apart the two, and figure out whose side i am on...

and whose side you are on.

***

of my life, i may say this, that despite the end results, i have always loved those that i came in contact with: my patients, my students, my children, my lovers, my friends, my family... but then again, what compels me to reveal this? is it because this is my last bastion, the anchor for all the falsity and denial that is who i am? is it because, without this one illusion, which i claim that is undeniably true, there will be nothing that i have left to hold onto?

because there are always limits, contradictions, hypocrisies, that i have committed. if i claim to love the world as much as i say i do, then why the gap between my good intentions and the results obtained? why?

***

perhaps (as i have stated so often elsewhere) my love has as much to do with self-effacement as it has to do with loving someone else. at the very least, loving the other draws attention away from my lowly self...

***

nowadays, i can feel the pressure building up in my chest. there is some kind of stagnation there, and soon, i sense, i hope, i fear, it will burst...

***

today, i took my children to the beautiful park. i pushed them on the swings as i used to, back in the earlier days; we went to the courts and played some soccer, and then i practiced throwing the football to them (underhanded, of course), calling my son "knuckles" and my daughter "yoshi". we went to the birthing stones below, which the kids wanted to scale, and i practiced through the motions of the second taijiquan form in that empty and tranquil looking clearing at the bottom of the park.

the happiest times in my life are when i am able to forget.

to let go.

i love the happiness of children. i think there is something of god and rightness in the true, kindhearted, oblivious laughter of children. i think i understand this as a miracle, and thus, children relate to me (or at least, used to). i think, i hope, that in my heart, i too retain the possibility of a child within me. it is this which can keep a person young and unsullied by the world, at least if they keep a piece of this in their heart.

i am so proud of my children. despite all my correctives, despite all of my "guidance," both gentle and harsh, i am so proud of them. they are kind-hearted children, the both of them, and i can say, without hesitation, that they are "good." no matter what happens, or where life takes them, in this moment, i know that they are the most beautiful things in this world...

***

i remember one morning when i stood on the roof of the temple, feet buried in snow. and shodo instructed me on how to shovel the snow off the burdened roof. i remember feeling so very tired, my arms heavy. i wasn't just physically tired. i was spiritually empty. i was filled with such despair and self-loathing. i had been there at the temple for three months by then, and i was no closer to enlightenment and peace than i had been at the beginning. if anything, i was further away, and lost.

where is enlightenment? where is peace?

in the winter, everything was smothered in white. the path to anywhere, much less some mythical place as enlightenment, was hidden. here, in the trackless white, there was nowhere to go, everything frozen and freezing. and like the cold, my heart was being turned to ice and stone.

i wanted to tell shodo this, but what was i going to get? sympathy? a quick rap on the head? what was it that i wanted? i wanted all of my burdens, all of my self-hatred, to fall away, just as shodo wanted all of that snow off the roof...

i did not appreciate how fortunate i was to be on that roof, to be in the company of a bodhisattva. i regret this now, wrestling with that same despair, that same feeling of weariness, that i had those many years ago...

"i think we've got a floater..."

***

it is in the things that people think are nothing, or what's worse, close to nothing. i believe in, i care for these things.

have you ever stopped to wonder why you do that?

he became sheepish.

isn't it because they never talk back. not with their own independent words. it is always please and thank yous. yes, a lot of thank yous. it is because nothing, or close to nothing, ever hurts you. because you don't want to be hurt, ever again.

he looks up, his eyes suddenly afraid. then suddenly, he clutches his head, and his gut clutches his body, so he looks like something wounded, doubly folded over.

***

and thus it was that the boy looked upon his life with different eyes. he saw all of the things he had collected, all of the things he had talked to, with different eyes. he put all of those things in a dark plastic bag, all of the words he had written, all of the memories, and with tears blurring his eyes, he threw it all away.

and last of all, he lifted owlie and donald duck from their vaunted thrones on his bed, and, carrying them under his arm one secret night (walking very gingerly so as not to sound owlie's water bells), he took them to the high canal, the one at the very top of the weedelia field, and he dropped them one by one off the bridge, into the cold, dark flow of the waters. you are better this way, he whispered to their invisible, disappearing forms.

and then he sat on the bridge crying for a moment, but only for a moment, because he now hated everything he was, and hate was a cruel master that didn't allow you a moment of rest; it was waiting to throw a rubber slipper at your head if you weren't always treading the water.


***

i- i thought you were a healer or something. that's what my dad said. but all you've taught me is to- to hate myself. and i think, i think that's how i was already sick.

look, you misunderstand me. you seem to think that i am some kind of caring, benevolent creature. i'm sure your dad told you other things about me: about how i drown children, or rape women, or steal their innards (particularly their livers, yum!) through their anuses, and eat them fresh and bloody while the victims watched... how i would steal a person's very soul, their shiki-dama, just so i could have it, and just so a person couldn't... why, pray tell, would i ever heal you? why would i ever care to heal you?

people are funny.

if you walk around carrying your own personal distance and innocence, eventually (most) people start to reveal an impatience and distaste. there is only a small window of time, a season, for a person to open themselves to the world like a flower or a bomb. if that season passes, then you're considered a bud or a dud. nothing revealed is nothing concealed as far as the general populace is concerned.

i carry good intentions, and a smiling yellow face painted on my head. but it isn't enough. i have a disarming slouch and a genetic bow, and i always make self-deprecating statements and apologies. but it isn't enough. people want something else. people want a person who sets them at ease, not through withdrawing, but through showing up a complaint or an insult or a joke. they want you to give by taking...

at this point, i don't care. a person who knows himself to be just a bumbling fool, somehow i believe that that sort of person has the secret to turning the world around himself into "what it is in itself." in the process of being oneself, there is the possibility, the allowance, that others will be themselves... somehow, i think that not responding to the "games and fictions" reveals the emptiness of most social machinations. people don't know what to say when their words aren't echoed back to them...

yes, i'm falling into the adolescent stand-apart trap. i'm still very immature in that sense. but what's worse is i'm jaded, and have come up with a whole slew of justifications for the way that i am. and yet... honestly, i'm fine with the way i am, quiet and awkward. i just wish the rest of the world were fine with me too.

***

i hope to sleep soon, and that sleep will kill me off completely so that i am born as someone else, motivated and relevant, like that quantum leap guy. i hope i become someone else, so i can run me in a better, optimistic light... we all need, at times, to be someone else being ourselves.

today i watched as the kids "played" at their last capoeira practice for the time being. i laughed as they did a version of "duck duck goose", using some sort of rattle to indicate who was the "goose." i noticed aiden practicing a couple of cartwheels in between the games. i intend to have the kids continue capoeira; they have a besoura (sp?) or batizda (sp?), some kind of ceremony where they get to meet and work with mestre kinha, the teacher of the kids' teacher...

i wish i were a kid again. i could have the chance to learn capoeira, with all the flips and kicks...

as i helped the kids with their homework afterwords, i couldn't help but start to pass out. after a while, i just sprawled out flat on the floor, falling asleep for a few minutes. it felt inevitable, like gravity.

i haven't been getting much sleep lately. there are a lot of things i have to do overnight, so much so that i at times despair of ever getting it done. and yet, i can't just sleep; my obligations prevent me from fully relaxing... it's hard. this morning, i was kind of "zombie-ing" through everything, going through the motions...

i took the kids over to my parents, and then drove over to icaom, where i taught the acupoints class. i enjoy teaching acupuncture point location; it's something that is somewhat precise; i like introducing people to the topography of the human body, finding all of its secret points...

***

now i'm back after the long drive back home... i want to take a shower to wash off the world, and then collapse into bed... at least for a few hours, before i wake to prep for tomorrow.

the monster i've become

i am discovering the monster within me...

***

today, we visited the psychologist to receive a formal diagnosis re: my son. and, with some relief, i learned that he is add-combined type (due to inattention and impulsivity issues) with some aspects of pervasive developmental disorder (another, newer label for autism spectrum disorders, i suppose). his iq is average in most aspects, except for processing time, which may be attributable to attention deficits... with the diagnosis, there is a name for my son's issues, and perhaps a way forwards.

***

but i am still wrestling with a newfound temper. i think i am a demon in secret. every now and then, when i least suspect, i show my true colors...

i want to stop caring sometimes, because it is the "caring," or the attachment borne of caring, that causes me to embody a demon (or a demon to embody me). there are all manner of evils committed in the name of caring. many shades of violence.

i am still figuring out how to care passionately about something, and yet not get drawn into fighting violently for it. i want to maintain some equanimity and peace, while still being involved... how to do it?

i love my children SO much. so much. and yet, i feel myself slowly (?) falling apart. i need time and order, i need things to fall and settle into place. but everything is going so fast, and demanding so much...

i would very much like to disappear for a time...

***

intermittent fuse
arc shaped flash, liberation!
moment satori

***

missing inaction

overflow
laughter and television
and the drawl of days too long

i prune abrupt
with bladed lids
and short words and shrift

i think
something waits for me
adrift
in drink
within some hidden sea

i'll weigh anchor with the broken chain
anchor with a broken chain
until a wake will
bring me back again

flotsam on familiar shore
broken, sick and sore

not wanting
wanting
more.

the past couple days have been pretty hectic. i am learning the finer points of my job, and trying to keep up with the responsibilities that accompany being a parent. it's been a bit overwhelming, so this afternoon, i just kind of cut the tether and let myself drift. i played a bit of piano (my latest preoccupation is a "kid a" cover i found on youtube), strummed the guitar that one of my acupoints students restrung (it's out of tune, or tuned in an unconventional way), and then felt the compulsion to do taijiquan (although i'm seriously out of practice). i think my energy wants to build and move... not in a compulsive way, but in a manner of fullness and heaviness, and in a manner which discovers the path of ease through its own gravity and weight...

my son mentioned to the persnickety neighbor that i am a mean dad; not sure if the idea was planted or not, but irregardless, it was kind of a blow to me. never imagined that i would be in this position, concerned about being thought of as "mean." but parenthood makes strangers of us all. the whole weight of concern over the well-being of a child and his future, well, it is impossible to address that in a balanced, "unmoved" way... i think that if parenthood does NOT change you in some way, then you either aren't being a good parent, or you're some kind of kangaroo, with a built in pouch for rearing... nevertheless, at present, i'm trying to approach things from a distance, floating like some unconcerned satellite. there is so little i can do from up here. and it is so easy to love and appreciate my son through the lens of the stratosphere...

i am really tired inside...

***

i was thinking about a day once when i drove over to queen emma park (nuuanu park), and it was a rainy, slightly windy day. i walked over to the basketball/volleyball courts, with the rock wall to my back, and performed all of the forms in my repertoire on the semi-slick asphalt. every now the wind would stir a fleet of raindrops from the branches of the banyan tree above, and there would be the slapping sound of their collective impact... i recall a peace in that place, but as with all such feelings, it was accompanied by a kind of loneliness, a kind of sadness...

this day was reminiscent of a thousand other days. i recall living in santa monica, and how, in the early days, i would drive alone to redondo beach, and try to rollerblade down the walk, just like all the other golden people. and i remember going to the pier at redondo beach (hermosa???) and feeling the sunshine and the grey green waves surging beneath my feet, and thinking how alone i was...

now that i am married with children, i realize the center, the heart that i was missing. i think i was always meant to be an accompaniment of some sort, the background to someone else's melody. i provide the structure and the undertones to bring the figures out and to life, in striking contrast to everything else... without my wife, without my children, i am nothing special to see. i am something that is slippery, that slides eyes away...

***

there is an eye and an ear that accompanies all art. but whose eye and ear is it? in the performance of art, the awareness of attention can be distracting and destructive, and it often becomes a practical necessity to "kill the buddha" (i.e., ignore the observers) in order to be true to an art. and yet, what purpose is art other than to be something worthy of an eye and an ear?

so again, whose?

art is a disappearing act. it is done, ostensibly for the ego of the artist and his vision, but in reality, for the purpose of killing the self as imperfection. it is to become lost in a process and an image and a sound that is larger than oneself...

is there really something to talk about? or are you just stirring the waters of a stagnant pond, picturing shapes and shadows in the outlines of ripples that you yourself invented? ...nothing speaks for itself... and when there is little feeling hiding within this empty receptacle, when the words cower before the gate of expression, shivering and naked under the scrutiny of the unseen eyes, there is no reason to believe that anything worth saying will be said, and convince anyone of anything...

maybe it is better to be quiet.

this is the way of the rat, to sniff the air for signs and portents, but trace the small shadows for crumbs and leavings. there is no overarching vision of the world, only hints and promises of a meal of refuse. there is no singing voice lifted up and uplifting, only the quiet of someone who has nothing important to say, and who does not really want to be heard in any case... mumbles and subterfuge.

folds, textures, details. the dimension of the small, microscopic, idiosyncratic. and prose and plotlines that are caught in the rut of a rat's haunting grounds, not daring to venture forth beyond the known and the long-since conquered...

i have nothing new to say today, tonight.

***