dream; 9/17/2022

running around in a five story japanese styled mansion, with a real (?) sword sheathed at my side, admiring the dark wood floors and the detailed stylings, all the while pursued by a set of other players (?) intent upon killing me... on one floor, "slaying" someone with a set of fans. and an another, the last, stabbing someone through with his own kodachi...

there are flashes of the previous dream, in which my friends and i were wondering through the rain drainage canals, perhaps with a few other people (girls) who were relative strangers. at one point, we saw what looked like water keys duct taped to a rusty support pipe. upon closer examination, they seemed to be skeleton keys. i made a comment about how, on previous trips, i had encountered combination locks with no apparent purpose... there were places where i or my comrades slipped... places with apparent railings, to assist in keeping balance, but the curved submerged floors were so slippery that they took people down anyway... and then we started to notice fish and coral in the waters, and i came to the strange realization that maybe this entire rain drainage system communicated with the sea. and as soon as i thought it, we saw and could feel the thundering of water through old pipes, carrying water in the rhythm of breathing, as though somewhere, waves were pounding, and pushing things through to where we were. and i recall us seeing some of those ocean water pipes, and slipping on one of them...

my reading for "backwards carp"

 reading for "backwards carp"

this was a reading that we did for Jason Fong's writing workshop.

the actors: Greg Watanabe, Emily Locke, Janet Song, and James Lontayao.

dream: 8/29/2022

nothing long today (as i don't have time).

ever had a dream where you are feeling quiet despair because you know you have already failed, and are not taking steps to address the problem? that's what happened to me last night. i was apparently taking a few courses, but the ones that were sticking into my side were a calculus test, and another unidentified written test. i believe the calculus test had some sort of time deadline (11:00?) that was already past. i recall thinking that i'd done part of it, but for some reason, i wasn't actively completing it. and the other written thing, well, that was an additional coffin sealer... anyway, i was at some random lot in the middle of nowhere. i apparently had acquired some ownership rights to the lot, and was thinking about how to dig a massive hole in it. i thought it wouldn't be good to dig it too close to the entrance to the lot, or cars driving into it would immediately fall in. i dug up a little of it (it was sandy and full of worn out asphalt), and had a thought of bringing what i had dug up to the grow beds at home, where i could use it as "garden soil." but that was it...

when i woke up, i had to convince myself that i didn't have those double deadlines looming over me... the liberation kind of buoyed my spirits a bit, even though there was (IS) a lot of work i have to do in preparation for school this morning.

just as a bit of context, we dropped off aiden last night at my sister's place, where he will be staying as he takes courses over at uh manoa. it was a bit sad, a bit exciting. from here on out, the house will be that much emptier during the week (he still plans to come home during the weekends)...

OH YES. i did see someone when we walked over in kaimuki to get dinner. i recall her name right now, but in the moment, i couldn't. in fact, when i saw her, i almost didn't recognize her, and didn't call out to her. i feel guilty for that. i am thinking of seeking her out if she's still there. there are some people who are incredibly kind and giving, and yet may be in desperate need. i feel it's my obligation to reach out and provide some kind of assistance...

dream: 8/14/2022

there were several fragments to this dream. initially, we seemed to be in this house or restaurant. it was a group of workers, eating or meeting together, teachers from my new school. the spirit was at first jovial. then one of the teachers offered to cut people's hair for a low price ($11 and some change). everyone was joking around, until one of the spouses of the teachers saw a little fragment of a bang on the front of his head... and when everyone imagined what it would look like if it were symmetrical (since only one side was cut at the time), this man suddenly became irate. he threw down his money, and mentioned something about it being the worst $11 he'd ever spent, and then he tried to get out of the place.

the "place," by the way, suddenly transformed into this large almost palatial building, filled with large, red curtained ballrooms, and connected by wide staircases. in the ballrooms were a series of almost animatronic entertainment, featuring vignettes from the beatles and other shows. in fact, there was a kind of pattern to things: 2 mini rooms devoted to beatles in laser holograph animated style, 2 rooms devoted to something else, etc... in any case, it seemed as though everything was closing (maybe the catalyst was that irate spouse), and there were workers shutting it all down. they were even rolling up the staircases, or at least putting some kind of pink plastic sheet over them- i almost got caught beneath one of them, the workers were so eager to leave...

i'm not sure when, but at some point i was trying to get from one building (the one we were in) to an adjacent building (the dormitories). supposedly, the way i was supposed to go involved getting on this plastic ladder that was suspended from one narrow window in this building to a window in the dormitory. in between, it was suspended i don't know how many stories above the ground between the buildings. on this side, the ladder was at the top of a heap of plastic storage bins, so it didn't inspire confidence in terms of being secure. the other issue was- strangely- that i could change the angle of the building just by putting my weight on the floor... in any case, despite people saying that this was the only way to the dorm, i opted to go the normal way- find the ground level and walk across...

on the way- here, i started getting tenrikyo vibes- i realized that, despite my feelings of exhaustion, that i needed to "grin and bear it"- and i remembered feeling/thinking this as i walked up some stairs over red carpet- that i had to be some kind of role model, simply in order to get through this ordeal... in any case, i eventually reached the dormitories, and to my room, meeting a couple of the dorm workers on the ground office, one of whom looked awfully familiar from my tenrikyo days (he was a somewhat awkward guy whom i'd initially considered my senior, but who- it turns out- examined my academic and spiritual path, and tried to copy it- perhaps imagining that i'd found some kind of "answer" to life that he desperately needed...). there was some comment from the dorm workers- which at the moment eludes me- and then... i don't remember.

odd dream...

in any case, i woke (or worked out) an insight into the story i'm writing... something about how two people are falling asleep, and want to share the same dream, so they hold hands. but this is a fantasy. they actually end up dreaming of other people, significant people in their own separate lives.

7/10/2022

things were a bit busy. i was working for the gen cyber camp about a week after the regular school year ended... and then immediately after that, i started the 4 week summer hub. i put a lot of time and energy and planning into all of these things, because i really want to make the learning experiences (and i emphasize that they are experiences) fun and rewarding and profitable. on top of that, i have been preparing for my new position at the middle school, where i will be teaching (as of now) 7th graders in all subjects for resource... it always takes me a while to get back into taking care of myself, and taking care of my passions. as i've said before, life is complex, because you are straddling an infinite number of infinities. your role is to decide and structure life in a way that makes sense to you- otherwise, the world tears you apart- or at the very least, leaves you with this nagging dissatisfaction (did i leave the water running?). if you don't impose some structure upon the world, then you will always worry about it. because there are always things to worry about...

today, i decided that i would devote some time to "projects" (things that must or should be done). in particular, i fixed a bike that's been upside down in the yard for (i am not exaggerating) years. and i started my seedling factory. there were a few more things that i could've done, a few other impossibles or difficults, but i felt i had done enough to warrant me passing to another phase of my day. so the rest of the day, i've been working on my self. it's a routine that i employed, most effectively about a couple of years ago at the start of the pandemic. i just go over some things that i think make me stronger or smarter, or which i simply enjoy. when i "fall off the wagon," as i did last year- due in large part to a significant amount of external responsibilities, so i don't particularly feel guilty about it- then i tend to neglect myself, and i become like this untended yard, that starts to develop its own jungle of weeds... if i don't want that to happen, if i don't want entropy to creep into my life, then i have to keep on top of things. take care of myself. so in this moment, i am.

the wind is blowing. i love the sound of the wind... except when it starts to drag the branches of the nearby bottlebrush tree against the eaves of the house... but other than that, i like the sound of the wind. it makes everything seem clean. motion. current. flow... life is, or ideally is, flow. when we are disconnected from flow, in any way, then we are left with our own inertia and stillness, and resistance. and we wonder what disconnects us from ourselves and from life? because in stillness (which is a fiction?) we start to fall apart. we start to analyze. the glue that once held us to love and life is suddenly absent... maybe we are on different parts of this spectrum in life. and at different moments, with different challenges, we must learn to appreciate our position, understand it, in order to reconnect to it. old age. the loss of possibilities...

yes, that reminds me. about a week ago, i went to a dance party with my wife. it was a "new wave" party (meaning they were supposed to play music like the cure and depeche mode). i looked at the people around me, and found most of them looked tired and old- has beens. and yet, they were hungry for life. they were moving their bodies, in unexpected and sometimes unappetizing ways. i wasn't sure how to react to that. like should i join them in this unappealing frenzy? or should i be dignified as the grave? i kept my eyes, for the most part during the dances, on my wife- her happiness, her cute dances... and that saved me. as long as i have her as a partner, no matter how the world changes, how we change, we can see joy and find joy in each other... but it still left me with this question, which i suppose will repeat with greater and greater insistence as i grow older- how do appreciate life when less and less of it seems relevant or beautiful to you, or from you? will i still have a voice to sing or speak soon? would the world even hear my words from beneath the croaking of my voice? things like that.

in any case, i have no choice but to keep writing, to keep singing, to keep playing music, to keep doing art. it's not "therapeutic." it's existential.

dream: 6/13/2022

first off, apologies for not writing in some time. things have been hectic, yada yada yada.

i had one of those "i'm not authentic" kind of dreams. this time, it had something to do with me teaching a class related to chinese medicine, and realized that i was out of practice as an herbalist. i was constructing an herbal formula, something written by someone else, and i was gathering the ingredients. one of them looked like some origami star folded out of some red paper coated with some iridescent substance. i thought it odd, until, as i was trying to measure everything out, i realized that the paper origami itself contained the actual herb, which started to tumble out... anyway, as i was doing this, another intern was constructing his formula, and seeing a lot of my blatant transgressions, seemed about to say something. i felt ashamed, being some sort of instructor, and gathered all of my herbs, leaving quite a mess of the place... as i wandered through the chaotic school, i passed a column or wall of books- most meaningless to me- and heard a student voice a question, something about how to read a passage in chinese- to which some teacher out of view replied, in clear mandarin, the sentence, emphasizing the 4 tones... i felt even more out of my element, and wished that i were not there- a fake, a charlatan, etc.

that left me here. i'm about to start teaching summer hub. i'm not fake or a charlatan here. i actually think in this context that i am a very capable teacher. but the feeling, that of being inauthentic, stuck with me. then i was thinking of my story, which i have to write (i have a weekly homework assignment now). and i was thinking of a situation of living someone else's dream, and feeling out of control. i was thinking of this being either the protagonist's situation, or a surrogate's situation. in the dream, there are many characters, and some represent, not necessarily different people, but more accurately different strategies or energies latent within one individual. the strongest voiced is, of course, kappa-chino, who acts out of selfish anger, and tries to convert every dream into "proper gander" to fuel his war against all humans- mainly because he does not wish to confront the evil within himself. but yagoro is a character who doesn't have much of a voice, but is inherently one of the wisest in the pantheon of the dream. he isn't the "wise man," necessarily, but is closest to the protagonist in spirit, because he is a humble seeker, tortured by "waters beyond his making," and questioning what his place is in the universe if he is caught in a current that he does not agree with, and never chose... this is similar to the feeling i just had, that of being caught up in a dream or a situation that you did not make or choose, but you have to make the best of it, and somehow "be authentic."

we'll see how that goes. it's going to be a busy day, because after my summer hub (which itself is kind of a gamble), then i will have to go to my future school to attempt to "unpack" a few things... i'm nervous about starting at a new school.

dream: 3/21/2022

i had that nightmare yet again... the recurring nightmare, modified in some respects, about coming to school completely unprepared... here, i thought i was going to class to have some prep for a final, only to realize that it WAS the final. the professor was passing out those little blue books, and i could see that students were seating themselves apart from each other. i reluctantly took my book and found my seat... ostensibly, it was a calculus exam; i could hear the professor mention to the class something about the final problem. i took a quick glance at that problem: #29 or something, and heard from a distance about how a lengthy proof was required... even though it was supposed to be on calculus, the initial questions had more to do with history or religion. the last problem that i eventually woke up in the middle of had to do with a special class of ritualists known as the sword makers or sword builders (i even saw a made up japanese name for them, something like "ogori no ..."). the question was asking why, among all ritualists, they were forgiven for such things as tardiness and other violations, even when precision was required in some ceremonies. i was slowly writing my response in sloppy, panicked handwriting, something about how these "sword makers" were so vital to various ceremonies and rites and so specialized, that they were afforded some liberties that other ceremonial professionals were not. in the middle of my response, supposedly in these untampered blue books, i noticed that my friend had put a big colorful sticker on the bottom of one of the pages. in desperation, i spent some time scratching it out, and then putting some sort of tape over it, trying to decide which looked more "professional." in the end, i scratched it out, and wrote a lame "sorry" next to it, before proceeding to the next page.

i remember seeing my roommates calmly talking about something completely unrelated (apparently, in this final, people could still talk once they were done). i asked them if they were done. they both replied, "of course." i was incredulous. it still seemed like the beginning of the final period, and i was writing my hand off, and it seemed impossible, just from the sheer volume of writing that was required, that anyone would finish that early. but they were done. in fact, it seemed that most people were done. everyone was calmly going about their business as though this- all of it- were a piece of cake... and i felt alone, struggling, desperate... as i have felt at many instances throughout my life.

i rolled over in my sleep and awoke, eyes still closed, to the darkness. i remember that i had to struggle, and stop myself from continuing my dream's train of thought, to write, to come up with the ending of that particular sentence... there was this thing i had to do, wrapped up in fear... and outside of it, in this empty darkness, was a sort of relaxed oblivion... which, actually, was the true remembering. of course, i "evaporated" from the one to the other, taking me here.

[maybe: this is like death.]