deep thoughts for a deeper night

Not actually mine, of course.

* * * * *

I don't require you to fall in love
with my boy, but please help him.
If only one could stop him from brooding.
And on what? The things of the universe.
I don't believe in this world sorrow. Do you?

No, I don't. Not at all, Mr. Emerson.

Well, there you are.
Make my boy realize that,
at the side of the everlasting "why",
there is a "yes," and a "yes," and a "yes"!

* * * * *

For hours' worth of conversation you would think there would be more
to be said, and yet I find it all summed up quite nicely in the words of
Room With A View's Mr. Emerson. It's a truth, and a simple one---and
in it, the answers to that vast universe, the echoes of the silver chair, the
rush of stepping into nineteen.

Why?

Yes.

entropy (it always increases)

Outside it is snowing and I write by the wan light only a dorm room can offer and the drone of a tired vacuum hums in the halls and for every reason I should be absolutely destroyed. Winter is back.

Instead I am leaping about the small carpet space, fluttering between desk and closet, bookshelf and bed. I typed the final work cited on a research paper, studied enthusiastically (enthusiastically!) for physics. I sang along with Earth Wind & Fire, I hummed to Chinese rap. I ate an apple while sitting lazily against my metal bed post, reading aloud my finished paper in a British accent. And suddenly, in that moment of long "a" and r'ed "idea," I remembered what this is: it's me! I'm back! I'm talking to myself in a British accent, an accent culled from years of Austen and mornings of Charlie & Lola, an accent that can only mean I am at complete peace with myself. I am happy! Ridiculously happy! And entirely out of my mind! Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah!

I remember something Mrs. Slighting always said, something about low air pressure brought on by bad weather brings out the silliness in young children. Ha. I don't know about that exactly, but I am rather silly at the moment. Especially when you consider the snow.

I am basking in the randomness of today.

And you know what? You're right. Blogging is insanely self-centered and does no good for the outside world. But . . . it makes me happy. And I love the easy-access of it, the instant gratification of seeing your words in "print." And though I may have nothing of great importance to say, or unbelievable wisdom with which to grace this world, there are some moments where a ruled journal page just doesn't do it. And you are left with this, wasting another five minutes of your life, wondering what in the world you're ever to do with me.

Posing a Sup

Last night was the sort of night that has you pacing up and down the room for lack of anything better to do. Okay, I could have been doing homework. But truthfully, I didn't have the attention span for that. I was so bloody fidgety, constantly sitting down at my desk only to jump up and stare at my art easel before finally resorting to shoe sorting and then mindlessly opening and closing the fridge. Yeah. One of those nights.

It was getting on to about two, then, when I finally collapsed on my bed, letting my thoughts careen and collide as they would. This is not the brightest of ideas, and I'll tell you why---I start doing this:

"I'm forever using the word "suppose." It's a funny word, that. I like it. Suppose suppose suppose.
suh-pose
seh-pose
soo-pose
saw-pose
sup-ose
sup-pose
pose-sup
pose a sup! Is that what it is? Posing a sup? "I'd like to pose a sup that she truly does love him . . ." What then, is a sup? Sup sup sup. Whenever I think of the word, I imagine Oliver Twist. Then again, that's just me. And what would supping on soup have to do with assuming and speculation?"

I pose a sup that's where I left off, finally lulling myself to sleep.

* * * * *

In other news, as a 'huzzah' for love week, we're going pink and red. Shocking, I know. I figured my spring green wouldn't mind a reprieve; he's working overtime down here in Provo.

nyt: gem of the day

Okay, so it's more like gem of the month, seeing as I scribbled this down sometime in early January. But I'm in a dust-and-file mode at the moment, and can't afford to lose this bit of wisdom amidst the papers stacked on my desk. It's from some book review or other (New York Times), author unknown.

"Time passes, and what it passes through is people — though people believe that they are passing through time, and even, at certain euphoric moments, directing time. It’s a delusion, but it’s where memoirs come from, or at least the very best ones. They tell how destiny presses on desire and how desire pushes back, sometimes heroically, always poignantly, but never quite victoriously. Life is an upstream, not an uphill, battle, and it results in just one story: how, and alongside whom, one used his paddle."

wo ai ni

Xinyi's at work and I am here, alone, trying to get used to the change. We geared up for this, spent the entire weekend together eating noodles and watching Taiwanese teledrama from episode one to the grand finale. We screamed at Xiang Qin together, laughed at Ah Jin together, swooned over Zhi Shu together. . .and now there's only silence. Every night from six to eleven, silence.
I'm tempted to watch episode nineteen again, the one where Zhi Shu realises his True Love. I'm tempted, but I don't understand Chinese, written or spoken.
And my translator's at work.

spider solitaire

I am looking inward; that may be my problem.

I am content in myself, happy with who I am and who I am working to become. I am alone but never lonely, solitary but not yet isolated.

Most of a month ago we sat about the round table, the traditional Christmas Eve fondue at our center, swapping stories of the highs and lows of 2006. We shared the silly, the solemn, the momentous and the momentary. Dad had been silent a good while, listening to the banter of family. When time came for his turn he only stated, "This is the high. To have worried and watched over you all these long years, only to watch you become the beautiful people you are now, knowing you will all be okay, knowing you will make a difference."

I am waiting. Hoping that I am not disillusioned, that I truly am someone worth knowing. I am reminding myself that friendships, the very best of them, take time. I would not be so overparticular if not for the friendships I have amassed, each so intricate and eloquent in their own way. How cruel it is that, no matter how secure in our selves we may be, we need to be seen by others to be sure of our own existence.

I am looking inward; that is my strength.

shadowfeet

Walking, stumbling
On these shadowfeet
Toward home, a land that I've never seen

I am changing
Less and less asleep
Made of different stuff than when I began

And I have sensed it all along
Fast approaching is the day

[Chorus]
When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standin'
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

There's distraction
Buzzing in my head
Saying in the shadows it's easier to stay

But I've heard rumours
Of true reality
Whispers of a well-lit way

When the world has fallen out from under me
I'll be found in you, still standin'
When the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
When time and space are through
I'll be found in you

*****

Albertine arrived this past Sunday. Brooke's been on repeat ever since. I did not realise how much she means to me, how far-reaching her impact was in my life, until we held the small package, reverently, at her arrival. Olivia did the honors and we stood in silence as she pulled the bubble wrap from the slim jewel case, nodded in agreement when she motioned to the stereo.

The first hushed steps of "shadowfeet" brought me to tears. You know there is something bigger, something better here that we can ever fathom.