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This is exactly what I wanted. Me, a laptop, and two warm, furry creatures twitching with softness and sleep on the landscape of our large bed. I could have found a coffee shop somewhere, but leave it to working in one for seven years to kill that impulse. No. This is much better. Much quieter. An atmosphere which will hopefully be still enough to not frighten the Thoughts. Lord knows I have not called them out enough to acclimate them to the pressures of being ordered on a page. So naturally, they scatter.

So naturally, they're sluggish.

It is because they are sluggish, these thoughts of mine, that I swallow them inside where they wont slow me down. Where they wont resist the winds that control my life. Because, obviously, I have to go where these winds are taking me, and I can't waist any time to see what the Thoughts have to say about any of it.

The thing about these Thoughts is that...they get heavy. And they get...bulky. And then they're. . . s t u c k. You'd think they'd be easier to ignore when they get stuck. At that point, they're not even trying to get out. And it's true, you do start to forget about them after a while. You go on relying on your ANS to do the work of putting the next brick down for you to step on and move forward. And true to it's name, it does this automatically, lighting quick, and systematically so that the path is set at least a half dozen steps ahead of you. Just don't look up. You don't have time. You have to keep up. One foot, then the other, fast, or the purpose that promises to dangle at the end of that path will simply get away from you.

And then the symptoms begin...

"My" mom, "my" dad...

There is clarity in this. In this love. There is a connection to something real and complete and lovely. And it goes well beyond the people who poses this love. There is a complete forgiveness and a complete knowing of how trivial anything is, anything but this love. I miss them so much. I miss them so much, but as I look to the sky to open my heart to the same infinite space above us all, I feel them. I FEEL them. I know they are there and they still possess their beautiful, complicated, subtle, giving souls...even if I can't see them, hear them, like I used to. I know what she looks like still in my mind. I still know the places where her face softens in her distress. Yes. I still know what that looks like.
I know what his smile looks like, full and brave, and especially sturdy. Yes. These are my parents. Especially sturdy, especially lovely...

Ethnic

The question sais, "What qualities, strengths, and experiences do you have in working in culturally/ethnically diverse learning environments?"

Ummm, none, none, and none. Well, that ought to do it, right? I think that will be my submission for this scholarship application. At least it will be honest, right? I'm having a big problem with this. It has something or other to do with a fading part of my identity. I am nothing more or less than what I am, but this question makes me think that I am very much limited to what I understand. Therefore, does that make me un-ethnic? Un-culturally diverse? And if I am un-these things, what does that mean in terms of what is expected of me reagarding the color of my skin? The place that my parents called home? In terms of what I can offer a culturally/ethnically diverse learning environment.

I just had this thought: I don't want to be so goddam ethereal in the conventional American way. I think about American boredom and the American search for meaning and truth and beauty and I can't help but think that as Americans, we are terribly disadvantaged at actually being able to connect with these things. There just seems to be too much noise, too much knowledge of the most trivial things, and not nearly enough wisdom to be drawn from quiet landscapes and ancestry. We as Americans quickly dispose of our tried and weathered ancestry to make room for the next youthful arrogance. I'm tired of this arrogance. My own, and that which I witness. I'm tired of it, of how solid and empty if makes me feel, makes me see the world. I long for something sincere and old and wise. Something un-American, something perhaps a little more...ethnic.

I really should be reading the Bible right now

You know, it's so funny, but I haven't thought ahout this blog, appearantly since November of 2008 ;p. But it just so happened that a long lost friend of mine pays attention to the margins of facebook and reminded me that I had a record I had long abandoned. Thanks Jon! PS, I am still going to write a science fiction novel :)

Anyway. So....ummm...right.....

Recording. That's right, I started this in order to record. Well, I have been in school for almost two full terms. I'm happy to report that, as predicted, I LOVE it!!! I am pushing myself more than I ever thought I would, yet it doesn't feel like work....

Work, now that feels like work. But today my district manager said (after I confessed to him that I am a nerd) that nerds make good managers. To this I very quickly and forcefully said, "Or good teachers." And you know what? It felt soooooo good and sooooo right to say that to him, to say, yeah, I could do this job, but I simply am not going to.

It only took 5 years for me to wake up and step outside the cacoon of delusion. And its taking me a little longer to wipe off the slimy residue, but I'm out! And I'm slowly realizing, "There is no spoon." ... Yes, I did just make a Matrix reference, and yes, my current and previous jobs were using me as a battery to fuel their fucked up machine. I'm still plugged in, but fuck if I'm gonna be their tool. At this point, their money is my tool, and with any luck I wont be dependent on it too much longer...Yes, I'm going to print my own money...or not.

I am, however, procrastinating right now...I have a major essay due on Monday where I have to compare the Wisdom books of the Bible and point out the contradictions and hypothesize why they are different. I'm excited to write this (because I'm a nerd, really), but do you know how effing heavy that book is! As in it has a lot of words, plus the meaning of the words themselves weight a ton. Which is exactly why this will be fun :) Pat, my boyfriend, always wants me to work out with him, I should start asking him to hold my Bible instead.

Ok, can I just say how hillarious that is to me. So hilarious that I actually do take my Bible to the gym and do about 30 minutes of cardio while Solomon is telling me that everyting is meaningless. I almost feel like this is somehow sacrilage, but to see the look on people's faces is nothing but fascinating. It is my own personal joke, I understand this, but that's exactly why this concept is so comforting and validating for me.

Not too long ago even looking at the Bible would stirr up chaos in my soul. "Why does anyone have to go to hell?!" I would ask. God would answer, "Let me deal with that question."
"Why are you so fucking scary, God?" He would answer, "Don't worry Darling, I know you." "God, is it wrong that I'm in love?" God: no answer.

This suspended me in such a state of distrust that I became an alien to the landscape of my own soul. I did not feel safe there. I felt like such a stranger and for a long time I failed to recognize the fact that I existed, and that existing was sometimes enough. I lost the courage to live in the freedom that this optomistic existentialist perspective can facilitate. I lost the courage to believe just because it is simply human to believe. I forgot the validity in the contradiction between believing and existing.

I believe and I exist....Now, I feel valid again. I feel legitimate as a lover, a companion, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a student, a human being, a believer, and a non-believer. I am, therefore I am...and because I am, I have been and can be. Now, the CAN BE part, that is why I am here. Next to this window. With my Bible at my side.

PS. My "Bible as Literature" teacher is an atheist...just FYI :)

Beauty. 

I never knew you could feel this good. 

Didn't know you could reach this far. 

Didn't know you could fill this deep.

Didn't know. Now I know

That you are.

Can be.

Will be.

Must be.

Within me. 

Now knowing craves your smooth touch.

Your sweet taste.

Your soft tide.

On my skin. 

Where I now wear your scent.

When I knew you inside me. 

When you knew me undone. 

Rising then falling.

Rising and falling.

Deeper I've gone. 

Quivers in softness.

Suspended in this.

Laces and spirals

Surround me with ease. 

Now I know lightness. 

Now I know sound. 

Now I know beauty

Is without bounds.

 

"How am I not myself.

How am I not myself?"

I love hearing Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin in my head repeating this question. It makes the unfathomableness of the question condense into a little bit of joy that rises into a smile on my face. 

How am I not myself?

I wish I knew. How I am not myself. I want to be something else. I want to feel something more. I want to be nothing at all. 

When I younger I would sit and think about how absolutely blissful it would be for me to crack and dissipate into the atmosphere. I still carry that desire. And it is locked up in self-awareness and time. 

As I get older, I have become more curious about what happens when this desire to transcend time and self has to push it's way out of a human being into reality. How does the world change? What effects are left behind?

I believe in the power of this effect. I believe in the potential of its beauty. I believe in the beauty of the desire to not be myself, but to reach outside of myself towards the calling of the world. I believe in the struggle and the pain that comes from tearing yourself open and living inside out. 

Inside out. 

What have we done to ourselves?

Inside out. 

What have we done to each other?

How can we learn not to wear so much fear? 

So much fear on the outside. So much need for warmth and love within? 

But who has the time to untangle the knotted mess of chainlinks. How does the desire to not be ourselves stand a chance with a casing made of steal? And how safe is the world for those who live with their soft insides out when at every turn, every triumph, the soft insides are bruised and ripped open by the friction of steel and soft flesh? 

Do not cause others to stumble, I think is the phrase. Do not cause others to struggle to live inside out by pressing your hard armor against their already traumatized being. Instead live with your insides out and reach with a warmth towards others to help them live outside of themselves with you.

Doctor's appointment. Note to self: I need to make a doctor's appointment. 

And a Dentist appointment. 

And a lobotomy appointment. 

And a self-discovery appointment. 

I'm over this wait. I'm just over this. 

Attention deficit. A disorder. 

Would the order be attention abundance? Where you can pay attention to all of it at the same time? 

No more. I don't want to pay attention to any of it. It's just so overwhelming. 

I am overwhelmed. I am tense and anxious. I don't know what to do about any of it. I can't shake the feeling. 

I keep thinking I need to go back to church, but this has become a problem for me because I no longer know where I fit and I no longer know what to believe. 

Not knowing what to believe. Is that a sin? Like the one that will drop you straight into hell? 

I've become more and more afraid of being wrong. 

On the "Ticket to Heaven" the man handed me it said that God never lets you down. I'm sure God didn't, but my belief in Him did. My belief of Him didn't hold up in the sun. 

As I'm grabbing at anything to make sense anymore, I went back to those Buddhist theories that kept me at peace through those teenage years. some of it aligns to what I sense to be true in my world, but some of it I really wonder if it really is an accurate picture of human beings and what our purpose is in our existence. From what I understand we are supposed to try to see everything AS IT IS. Bypassing our imaginations and our "perceptions" to touch the 'reality' that is underneath it all. And when (after many many years in a monastary) we do (if we do) we will see that nothing is anything and everything is everything. That there is really no you and really no me. Just we and all and all and we. This is kind of the motivation for you to have compassion and love for everything around you. Because everything is you, and if you hurt other beings, you really are hurting yourself. 

I get it. But i just don't think this is all of it. 

In this book I am reading on Buddhist psychology he talks about perceptions and images as enemies of our minds, at best neutral aspects of it. But I can't help but think that there is a missing part of the explanation where it says that beings with perceptions and imaginations are just the way we were intended to be. That these are not troublesome functions we were meant to overcome, but precious parts of our machinery we were meant to be with. 

That we exist wasn't an accident, and yet we certainly did not "think" ourselves into existence. We are rogue children who refuse the love of our creator simply because we are afraid and have wandered so far from what was our intended way of being that goodness and belonging are nothing we recognize as safe and right any longer. 

Yet we want it. We crave it. We misguidedly set out in search of it. But we search for it in the dark, without a light, without a guide. And the Guide is where the controversy comes from.