the alyssum is growing, hesitantly. i go out to the planter box, and to the garden path, frequently, even in the nighttime, to check on them, to scrutinize their peeking double-leaved stalks breaking the soil. it has become exciting for me. in my head, i see the future, where the dark loamy earth will grow color and life, and draw the eyes to it like tired butterflies to a field of wildflowers... which, i suppose, is what an "alyssum field" is...

***

i have been bad today. no work done for my upcoming job next week. just a brief perusal of the curriculum, a walk-through in my head, and only in my head, because i didn't have a working pen at the time. i believe the secret to success in almost anything is front-end loading, but at the moment, i haven't the drive to do it systematically. as always, time or some mysterious internal process divorced from it will fuel my momentum, and i will drive myself bodily forth into what i need to do. i believe that i can only do what i need to do (and, regardless of whether i believe in it or not, it seems to be my reality).

i am anxious about my kids, my own kids i mean. i am no longer always there to tell them what to do. and besides, i cannot mold them in my image. they were born fully shaped. the love i provide is, of course, indiscriminate, and goes to fuel the growth of their own outlandish individualities and idiosyncracies. love is, after all is said and done, unconditional... (but we're not quite to the point of saying and doing everything, so in the meantime... i've some occasional pruning to do...)

***

i wonder about people sometimes.

***

i believe in ghosts. i don't understand how they exist, or what purpose they serve, or whether they are repetitions/echoes/shadows, or conscious entities that can learn and grow. i believe that ghosts are somehow clothed in/shaped by the beliefs of the host culture, which makes me wonder at the reality of/nature of culture itself, and its enduring "end game" religion. is there an objective "true" religion, or is religion merely a way for human consciousness to structure reality, even beyond death? silly question, i'm sure. but it seems to me that, with regards to ghosts, anyway, there are ways to appease them or communicate with them, but they all involve some kind of interaction clothed within a specific culture/religion. it's not as though you can use some all-purpose ghost-away repellant ritual; in japan, you'd use a buddhist ritual (depending, it seems, upon the beliefs of the ghost involved), whereas here in hawaii, i suppose they depend upon kahunas...

i don't know. stupid thing to think about, but i have been really fascinated/obsessed with ghostie things of late...

the liver's for planning, and kidneys give you skills, and follow-through. the spleen is the rhythm of thoughts, thoughtful thoughts that arise of themselves (like clouds condensing) and drift through transmutations effortlessly. the lungs are learning with each breath the lessons of holding in and letting go. and the heart sits in the center, keeping the time and reposing in the sightless palace.

life is carrying a kingdom around, swimming within you... without jarring it too much like waterbells, without overindulgence or starvation. somehow, taoism (in its truest sense) works for this inner kingdom, so long as we are not ridiculous in our search for the extremes of its capabilities. somehow everything goes without saying...

***

the trick in life is to find the right amount of force to apply to it. too much, and we leave our own imprint upon things, breaking the nature of what we touch. too little, and the weeds and the wildness take their mile and acre from our own cared-for territory. we are, and we are not, apart from/a part of our world. we must exercise gentleness (or at least be sensitive in our violence) or we destroy the thin skin holding everything in its right place...

***

i am re-learning how to be a gardener. gardening is patience. it is the holding onto a vision of what is as yet unseen. it is the love that patiently endures the seed's slow growth and the stem's unseemly directions and strayings.

some day, when the time is right, the investment of soil and water and sun (and, sometimes, attention) will reveal itself in a form that is lovable (and that loves you back) with each full leaf and shy blossom.

some day, when the moment is full, a plant will find its shape, somewhere in the interface between its own wild and blind seeking for the light, and the gardener's corrective pruning. no one knows the final shape; it is found, and lost again, and refound, with each passing season.

gardening is like parenting is like teaching is like life. it is patience. it is holding onto a vision of something as yet unseen. it is the love that is faith, for faith and love, in their essence, are one and the same thing.

deep within the seed, and beyond the straying stems, the gardener will find his garden.

today began well. i woke up early, and kind of flowed into my activities. cleaned up a bit, and then was drawn into gardening, and its interminable chores. i weeded some of the front sections, planted the last of the portulacas, raked and cleared the next 10 feet or so of the planter box beside the house, and did a LOT of pruning, particularly on the umbrella tree in the rear corner of the house. willow popped her head over the rim of the second floor window and called out, "i love you daddy!" about then, i stopped the gardening and went in. washed up a bit, and lynn made a great, simple breakfast of two eggs sunny side up + rice + spam + hot cocoa. i laid down after that, reading a bit of john loupos's book on taijiquan (as i am thinking of creating a formal curriculum on taijiquan for my niece and nephew). then, somehow, i got drawn into cleaning out the pantry closet: consolidating, throwing stuff out, stacking cans and boxes...

at about 12:30, willow, aiden and i headed out to taiko practice. we have a performance coming up this friday. we have a small group performing (us included), and that means that some of us (me) have to step it up a bit and play songs that we're not really familiar with. in particular, i've got to work on kansha and the taiko aerobics moves. hope i can do a decent job by this friday, but, if not, it's all in the spirit of fun.

returned home. kathy, marcus and kara stopped by, and we played for a bit with some water balloon grenades that i filled up. then, we (willow, aiden, lynn and i) headed to a party for lynn's friend kat. it was at the nichiren temple in nuuanu valley, a really pretty temple with a small fish pond with live koi in it, and a pretty large downstairs meeting room with a stage and a slightly off tune piano. as always, i kinda got drawn away from the "adults" and "peers" having their conversations, and instead watched the kids. at one point, kat's daughter meadow pulled me by the hand to the stage, where she insisted alternately that i sing at the mike or play at the piano. between hackneyed versions of twinkle twinkle little star, i tried my hand at "true love waits" and "spinning plates." somehow, the piano sounded off.

we just returned home, with aiden passed out and willow fighting sleep (she's still awake, flipping pages of some book in bed). an altogether nice day.

cup o' noodle.

his father poured the water, still whistling, into the styrofoam bowl, over the dessicated noodles and vegetable bits. the boy wanted to peek, to see the transformation from dry to wet and palatable, but the father unfurled the raised edge of the paper-foil cover and pressed the edges flat, concealing everything. as if to prevent the boy's intrusive curiosity, the father laid his chopsticks lengthwise across it, like a bolt in a lock.

as the boy stared hungrily and intently at the styrofoam bowl with its hidden contents, strange thoughts seemed to bubble in his head: how his own haircut was a bowl, not unlike the flat hemisphere of the styrofoam before him; and how noodle was another word for brain, probably because the brain inside of his head was just like a bunch of noodles, all tangled up. the boy had a strange thought just then: were his "noodles" cooked, or were they still dried up and frozen, waiting for someone to pour boiling water into his skull? and, if so, who? who would want to eat his boring, miserable noodles?

the boy's dreams were magnifications or exaggerations of his waking life. in a sense, they were truer versions, because they were the potentialities of his waking life realized, in brilliant and horrific detail. in his dreams, the boy was surrounded by a forest of giants, with faces hidden in the distant sky. the boy was not noticed by those terrible giants, and he darted hither and thither in the shadows of their dangerous thundering strides to avoid being stepped on. the ambiguity of the dream lay in the fact that, at one and the same time, he felt in danger of being seen by the fierce and burning star-like eyes of the giants, and in danger of NOT being seen by them. to be seen would have reduced him to nothingness beneath a withering gaze, but to not have been seen would have also reduced him, like a far flung and forgotten planet in the distant cold blackness of oblivion.

his brother was one among the many giants, perhaps the largest of them all. from a distance, he could see him (for it was only from a distance that his eyes could encompass his terrible height). he could see him look the other giants in the eye. he could see his brother converse with the other giants as equals, with a blithe and casual air that the boy found disconcerting. in shadows he gathered around himself, the younger, smaller boy pretended he were like his brother, that his eyes could dare to meet another's, that his voice could dare to speak. but, even in his dreams, his eyes wandered like water to the cracks in the earth, and his voice faltered, without enough air to lift it, and with nothing to say in any case.

the only words that passed his lips, mumbled almost unconsciously, were words of deprication. "how i hate myself," he whispered. shocked at the words, but more than this, shocked at the vehemence, the living FEELING that surged in them, he whispered them again. "how i hate myself." it seemed so true, in fact, the only truth. and as he spoke it yet again, this time with more strength and power, he discovered that he was unafraid to be overheard by the giants, for likely, it was something they already would have muttered, had their glowing eyes chanced upon his miserable, huddled form. and so, he chanted it again and again, like a mantra, and the words seemed to build with an intensity and force all their own, growing louder and louder. before long, he was practically shouting it, pounding his chest with clenched fists, feeling in the pain of the impacts a small measure of excitement...

on this side of the night, things were safe. wrapped snugly around by the sweet smell of an old blanket the color and texture of milky oatmeal, and surrounded by his twin avian companions, owlie and duckie, the boy felt a measure of belonging. it was the kind of feeling he imagined someone or something cherished by the world must feel, held within a gentle embrace. it was a good feeling, if inauthentic and fleeting.

shadows already cast themselves haphazardly across his room. he was somewhat ambivalent to them. on the one hand, he was still young, and lacked the cognitive machinations to convince himself that nothing monstrous hid within their black edges. on the other hand, he knew how liberating it was to dwell in darkness; after all, the shadows never ridiculed or rejected him.