forst spirit / 11:31 am

The last thing I want to do today is homework, but there are still papers to write and chords to study and rhythms to be memorized. I may have Donkey-ed myself out this weekend. I feel like staying in my room all day and being a dirty bird. 

All morning I have been looking at other people's art on the internet. I could have been making my own or really doing something of some importance. This isn't to say other people's art isn't important... it's just that if I put as much time into making things as I do looking at other people's creations, I would probably feel more fulfilled. Anyway, here is some of the artwork I've looked at this morning:

Art by Damien Weighill. His artwork is featured here: http://damienweighill.com/

Two mixed media collages by Will Bryant whose artwork can be enjoyed here: http://www.will-bryant.com/ongoing/painting--collage/www.will-bryant.com.

And my favorites of the morning by artist Sarah McNeil. Her website is: http://sarahmcneil.blogspot.com/

Okay, I'll get to work now.

these are sounds / 9:33 am

Here are lyrics to a song I've been working on gradually for about a month. I think it's complete now.

"These Are Sounds"

These are sounds we can stir into

this endless night, this little room

where I can't tell the difference between

my thoughts and the crickets that sing.

These are words we'll learn to fold up

inside our mouths until they're ready 

to roll off the tips of our tongues,

to lead us back to where we came from.

Oh, open windows at night sing me lullabies

and motorbikes zoom on by

and, summer magnolia, you've watched over me...

you let me climb you, all bruises and scraped knees

These are the hands and feet I was born with,

limbs to feel and touch and see with,

but dear, dear body given to me...

oh, can't you see you're just temporary?

These are such lucky fingers and toes

to dig so deep so's up I grow,

and every speck of dirt in-between

speaks of every place and person I've seen.

Oh, open windows at night sing me lullabies

and motorbikes zoom on by

and, summer magnolia, you've watched over me...

you let me climb you, all bruises and scraped knees

how to build a fire, where to look for water / 9:06 am

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow.

But of course, without the top you can't have any sides. It's the top that defines the sides. So on we go... we have a long way... no hurry... just one step after the next... with a little Chautauqua for entertainment. ... Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV, it's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is."

This is an excerpt from Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the book I restarted and am currently reading. This passage is one of my favorites so far. Although my mountains are always climbed with desire of some sort, it is so important to not rush through everything. Otherwise you end up missing out on so much. To some degree, this is a difficulty I run into at school and in other aspects of life too. Everything depends on a deadline, a date, a timeframe... the only time I don't feel rushed is when I am enjoying the company of friends, but even then there is always something nagging at the back of my mind... some assignment or studying or meeting. And so the the question is: aren't the deadlines and the assignments and seemingly endless work part of the mountain journey? And, of course, the answer is yes. Accepting that is hard for me sometimes, but I'm glad I least recognize it. 

I also really like the line about mental reflection and TV. Television is not something I enjoy, with the exception of history and nature programs and "Lost," but at least that show makes me reflect to some degree... and I do enjoy watching movies but I don't consider that TV-watching. My plan is to own a TV for movie-watching only. Now if only I could free myself of facebook...

it just kept getting harder; had to see the moon rising on the water / 6:09 pm

 I want to write but I don't have time. I don't have time! I can't even begin to describe the horrible feeling growing inside of me. I want to be something other than human. I want to be four years old. I wish I were another sort of animal or a leaf or a butterfly. I wish I were still at home with my family. I want to be held. I need to be held. I wish Adam were here. 

a boat built for two / 12:04 am

I've been working on a new song for about a week or more. Today as I was trying to finish it, another song began forming and I actually finished this one, instead of the one I was originally working on. Funny how that happens... anyway, the new one is for Adam. For the rest of my life, most of my songs will probably be for Adam. He inspires me no matter where he is. It is a very simple song. I will admit that the melody is influenced/taken from Erik Satie's piano piece "Gymnopedie 1." It is a piece that makes me cry and really means something to me for reasons I can't explain. However, I don't consider it stealing. It is not the same song but is definitely colored by it... born in it.

"A Boat Built For Two"

Come with me on this boat

built for two

just me and you 

on this boat built for two

No need for a compass

no need for a map

we'll get where we need to

without suitcase or bag

Oh love, you are written inside

the cracks on my knuckles

every vein, every line

stay with me, stay with me

There's a place 

I could find in the dark

it never needs locking

I know it by heart

Take my hand

as we drift off to sea

I'll take care of you

and you'll take care of me

Oh love, you are written inside

the cracks on my knuckles

every vein, every line

stay with me, stay with me

you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away and the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget / 11:04 pm

I've been keeping a lot of feelings inside lately because I don't know how to express them or deal with them. The main issue is death. I find myself thinking about losing the people I love and I feel like my heart is breaking every time. It's becoming a problem for me because it takes over my thoughts when I least expect it and I feel like sobbing. It happens mostly when I'm alone, which is good because I'm able to cry... but when it happens in public, I suppress my feelings and I act like I'm fine. I don't even know what triggers it. My mind never turns off these days and I dig deeper and deeper until I end up hurting myself with difficult thoughts. I don't know what to do.

my brain hurts a lot / 12:19 pm

something new. something i used to do. stream of consciousness and subconsciousness. stream of conscience. oh honesty, honestly... a million reasons to cry and smile a million reasons to weep to die to be born to be reborn to think and why? for missing, for loneliness, for blood, for dissatisfaction and unfulfilled dreams, for lost time and movies books music i will never see read hear, for moments i will never share, gut-wrenching heart-aching spill me out on the floor and you will never see the end of it, never see the end of it. these green beans fancy yogurt names coffee and synthetic hazelnut synthetic maple flavors synthetic clothing synthetic emotions i wear on my face i put on my face i put on i put on nothing. i could make antlers, i could make ears, i could put miles between myself and this roundabout room, i could make things to escape escape but it would never do because i am always me and that is who i want to be anyway but for goodnesssakes! it's not enough. there's a whole in me pocket large enough to fit my little big heart into, my struggling butterfly lungs into, my bound but soaring soul into... "you'll be free if you truly wish to be... there is no life i know to compare with pure imagination" but where did it go? it's there but where did it go? oh tears, tears. and the sun comes out but how can i play when i'm not supposed to be playing? they give me grass and dirt and trees. they give me bugs and squirrels and birds. they give me hills to climb and brick roads to roughly tumble down but no time no time no time. didn't anyone tell them not to put a puppy in glass and then tap on the window? didn't anyone ever say don't feed the bears? didn't anyone ever tell them sunlight and a bigger pot is essential for growth? "oh my, how the world still dearly loves a cage..." dear maude, dear maude. you make it look so easy. i want myself back again.

a comfortable music in the mouth / 9:10 am

Listening to Dvořák, avoiding homework, reading... here is a poem for the day.

"When Death Comes" by Mary Oliver

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

go back / 6:26 pm

Every time I do anything other than schoolwork, I feel guilty. I feel like I am neglecting my scholarly duties and, that by doing anything remotely enjoyable or carefree, I will fall behind or fall down or fall off... fall fall fail. Nevertheless, I am writing now because I need to. 

I was looking through some of my old books earlier and I remembered a wonderful piece by Jack Kerouac, one of his earlier writings. I began reading Kerouac about five years ago. I read Dharma Bums before I ever read On the Road, and I must say I enjoyed Dharma Bums much more. Anyway, in general, I find Kerouac's writing thought-provoking and I find that many of his writings reflect what I am feeling at different times. I am posting the early piece I remembered below. It was written in the summer of 1940 and, in reference to it, Kerouac was quoted: "[...] I should have been told to stay home, in the sandbank, in the woods, praising Nothingness as I had done that Summer layin around the grass with dogs and Walt Whitman and grass 'tween my teeth, and I guarantee you there would have been no torrent of suffering--Everything I did as a kid was instinctively right--[...]" So finally... here's the story:

"Go Back"

One night I sat on the curbstone of a street in the city and looked across the road at a little rose-covered cottage which was rickety, like the fence around it, and it looked old, not Colonial, but old. That's where I used to live, I said aloud t myself in a tone of yearning. I tried to sigh like they do in plays, but it was a fake one. I didn't want to sigh, but I tried. The thing I really wanted to do was weep, but I couldn't do that either.

The city was all about me, and the electric lamp above me, and the house was there and my memories flashed through my head and the scene before me supplemented them. I, small and dreamy, dashing about--over that banister, up that old tree of mine, around the yard, through the back fences...... and the shed with the old organ in it, and the sounds I used to hear and now they are dissolved, their scientific sound waves far away.

I saw a man walking toward his destination and I felt bad. He was hurrying, and I was sitting thinking about the past. The dream I used to have...... snow, tinkling icicles, laughter, sunshine, sleighs...... and the nightmares too. And the man was hurrying and I was sitting quietly, staring at my old home.

The old cat, I thought, a bundle of bones now, somewhere. The cat who used to sit right there on the porch, placidly enjoying his digestion.

Later on, I left and I went toward the house before that, where my brother had died. Here, the memories were now vague and childish. I was three and four there, three and four years old.

I remembered the high snow, my sandwich, calling for my mother, weeping, all. Myself..... at the church..... unabashed, they burying my brother. Why do you cry, I ask my mother and sister. Why do you cry? Why?

Now a man comes up the street and walks right into my old house.

Zounds, I say. Zounds! You hurry while I stand here, trying to recapture the past. And here you are, brushing it aside, the past of tomorrow, which is the present of today, you are brushing it aside as you stride along, intent on your cheap present practical and physical desires and comfort. You fool! Wait, don't hurry.

Get out of my old house!

And then on the way home, I think about the fool and the other fools, and myself a fool. Hurrying away the past of tomorrow, like I had hurried away the past of today, in the past.

Fools, I think. Myself a fool. I must take it slow now and look at the present and say to myself: Look, John, hold the present now because someday it will be very precious. Hug it, and hold it.

And just yesterday I was sauntering home thinking about the future. The future! What a fool, I, myself, a fool, hurrying.

everything in its right place / 9:32 am

The last few days have been full of ups and downs. I need to ride the wave, as Boaz has said. School is beginning to stress me out. I had high hopes that this quarter would be somewhat easier and it is in certain ways, but that doesn't mean it's actually easy... just better, which is something after all. Last quarter was happier because I was with Adam but the school part stressed me out more. Now I'm caught up with missing Adam, dealing with school, and getting too wrapped up in the future, rather than thinking in the present.

Today is my first dictation test and I know I am not going to do well. I'm not being negative; I'm simply accepting that it will not be the best test I've ever taken... and that's okay. It still stresses me out though and, essentially, it is what has been making me sad all week. I've been dreading it but it will be over with in a few hours and then I can move on.

Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place" came on my pandora station today and I realized it's been a long time since I've listened to them. The song really pertained to the way I've felt lately: "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon... there are two colors in my head.... everything, everything in its right place." I've gone from being very bitter about school to battling two different feelings of hope and hopelessness, but pretty soon everything will clear up again. Everything that is happening is supposed to be happening, and I really do believe that. It's just hard to constantly keep this in mind.

This photo is of the magnolia tree that grows right outside my window at home. It is a symbol of hope, of childhood, of growth for me. It makes me both happy and sad... happy for memories and sad for missing out on its blooming. Since I've been at college, I haven't really been able to enjoy seeing the flowers bud and bloom.