creating moments of hope

growing up, i always loved making things on my own...i had those make-your-own-sand-bottle kits, god knows how many lisa frank kits, a make-your-own-paper-roses kit, and one of my favorites, make-your-own-jewelry kit. it came with all these colorful beads and jewel-like peices, and you could glue different combinations together and make earrings and necklaces and bracelets and all kinds of fun stuff.

growing up, i never had many friends since i was moving around so much, so each little bead i thread into a bracelet or necklace was a new friend i was going to make and give them this oh-so-cool piece of jewelry i was making for them. i would lay out each item carefully, spreading them out and keeping everything in order and spend hours trying to perfect my artwork. each colorful piece was like a kernel of hope, differents shades of dreams, the variety of my imagination.

my relationships now are like strands of beads adorning my soul, with so many emotional ties and memories and conflicts and strange moments of hysteria, chao, confusion, color, love and acceptance. as i walk my path(s), these strands chink and click and klunk together, reminding me of their presence...and i guess this is why life refuses to let me stand still.

Scarred

i hope today you will have the courage you found two years ago.

i hope everything that has happened since then will make sense, somehow.

i hope that i can do whatever you need me to in order to make things a little better for you.

i hope that you can trust me enough to let me in.

i hope that you can see how magnificent and wonderful and amazing you are for being so brave.

i hope the memories of that nightmare don't haunt you today, or for the rest of your life.

i hope it's ok to remember this day as a day of miracle rather than tragedy.

i hope it's ok to cry and shed tears as i can't seem to control them.

i hope the scars heal, for you and for us.

i hope you know how much i love you. and pray for u each day, thanking god and life and everything in between that you are here with me today.

i promise to try my best to do everything i possibly can to keep you safe from harm.

wedged

my mental processes are not so much disrupted as they are re-routed. some cultures have linear thought processes and others have a more circular modality...me, i seem to be caught in the middle and yet no where, i process in every which direction. there's something to be said about being stuck in a moment that you can't get out of...infact, i think there's even a song or two about that.

but this is more than just about being stuck in a moment, this is about just being plain stuck...stuck your whole life, across situations, in every day activities, in earth shattering matters. you're walking, but you're standing still. you're talking but there's nothing to be heard. and because you're stuck, because you can't go anywhere, the movement starts from within and stays there. it's kind of like gnawing your teeth...there's friction that keeps on growing, becoming more and more painful. you are driven to a battle with forces within you due to the dual push-and-pull from external forces.

i remember several years ago in a computer science class we had to design our very first program, which basically consisted of a single object (some kind of bird or something, i forget what it was exactly) and plane it could move on, and the movement was based upon the code we wrote. i think back to it now because the terminology comes back to me...writing a command to get the object facing in the correct direction, moving in the direction you want it to move in, avoiding errors in syntax, etc. such eloquent commands indeed.

there's something to be said about my processes, my connections (external and internal), and my fecundity for life.

1963

1963

Baby, I'm stuck in the middle, and I don't know why
Find the words you sing to be
Sweeter than the words of the bird in the sky
Oh, the days you came around
I feel so good for me
I can take most anything
Cause what you bring

I find it to be magical
I feel like I'm loving you in 1963
Flowers in my hair
Little bitty hearts upon my cheek
Baby, you'll be on my mind
'Til I kiss you next time

Baby, come on, take a ride in my little blue bug
Keep the windows down
Don't forget to celebrate the radio's up
Oh, the way you hold my hand
There is no other way
We could take a thousand walks
And laugh all day

I find it to be magical
I feel like I'm loving you in 1963
Flowers in my hair now
Little bitty hearts upon my cheek
Baby, you'll be on my mind
'Til I kiss you next time

~Rachael Yamagata

at the end of the full circle

the fallen leaves crunch beneath my feet as i walk down the street. the parked cars on the sides are surrounded by a river of yellow, almost like gold dust, and the cold gusts of wind rock them silently. bare trees remind me of stick-figure drawings, their long and empty branches jutting out like thin arms. old houses lined up against the block, surrounding the neighborhood with their sense of history and time, each have a different story playing out inside. i can only see through the windows, where perhaps someone forgot to draw the curtain. it's almost like walking through an art gallery...here's a house where people just love to read since all you can see are wooden shelves lined with volumes and volumes of books...and there's another house where someone has decided to throw every single picture they ever took up on their wall...if there is a wall to begin with, it's kind of hard to tell with the plethora of framed memories. there's also the house that keeps changing their living room color...one week it's a sunny yellow, the next week it's a deep red, and another 2 weeks later it's a repulsive magenta. some of the houses have little garden gnomes, perhaps a bird bath, and maybe a small bicycle parked in the walkway. i can hear the sirens of the ambulence in the distant from the near-by hospital...but people go about their usual way undisturbed...it's a common phenomenon here, so i guess no one notices much. the sun playes a deceptive game in the cloudless sky, the wind taking the warmth away before it reaches your up-turned face. most people don't take leisurely walks at this time; they're all in a hurry to get some place warm before they get frostbite. i wonder how contruction workers survive in this weather, between frozen fingers and all the noise, i would just call it a day and go home. there's something in my reflection today as i glance at the shop windows...something altered. perhaps my sense of self-awareness, or my sense of significance. i cock my head to the side as i gaze at my face, the lines around my mouth and my eyes, the shape of my nose, the way my hair curls back from my forehead. the salesperson inside is staring back at me. i walk away as the last yellow leaf sways its way down to the ground.