maybe the lyrics are greater than the song

ah, the depth.

love it.

you're my heaven, and my feet the only sound

you're the shadow in my mind

i am hollow all the time

- leigh nash, along the wall

and i wake up happy.

glory, glory, glory.

on a pillow

is it possible, for the heart to fall in love more than once?

not free love
but hard love
because what is in me is hard love.
fear of God, and not of man.

for lee-shing

:)

but its not about you. haha. related to you.

blessed are those who hunger and thirst
i was reading a series of beatitudes in a random reflection book the other day. and for some reason, it was this part of the justice and righteousness one that struck me deeply.
those who hunger and thirst.
i think i got really frightened. because this semester, i began to lose that hunger and thirst, for something better. i do not know if i have ever felt that, in quite that serious and insidious of a manner. how is it even possible to strive for something if you do not desire it? and how it is possible to desire something if you do not remember it?
a recognition of the reality that ... this world is strong, and it can dissolve your ideals and your beliefs. it can. in goodness, and love, and mercy, and kindness, and forgiveness, and self-sacrifice. how it is that children and people lose the sense of what is supposed to be and who they are supposed to be.
how the self becomes inured to what is less. and settles more and more deeply in it, because it is too hard to desire what is more.
hunger and thirst. i think i will have lost everything if i lose those two.
i need to be reminded every day. because i know, to let go of what i dream of and know to be right, would be to give up on anything of value.
i think- to give up on the world as it should be and could be.
...because when you feel the weight and truth of goodness, and do not have it, its a hurt your heart, down to the bones kind of ache for something that is not there. and you will work at it with your all, to taste it. to make others see it.

and so, the terror, really: what if i lose it?

o fickle heart of mine

i am writing for no reason in particular, but for the fact that it helps me understand.

i had a beautiful conversation with a freshman the other night, and it made me realize how much good conversations make my day. make my life, really, in turning me into the person i will become.

i've been thinking lately about art, and artists.
what is it that distinguishes a soul of an artist?
maybe there is no distinction or separation i can actually make between those who love art, and those who do not.  because maybe everyone is inclined towards beauty, but it is simply that their ideals of beauty are different.  in a form other than one i can recognize.  ...yet still there.

art
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

of what is more than ordinary significance.

the head ache

when she had been married a little while, she concluded that love was half a longing of a kind that possession did nothing to mitigate.
- marilynne robinson, housekeeping

i am unmarried. but i think: probably true.

books boys should read to understand girls:
1. anne of green gables
2. little women
3. pride and prejudice? i guess. i liked this book, but some girls love this book.
4.

and there must be more. but mostly: anne of green gables. prompted by kp [katherinejina.wordpress.com]

kevo

"Indiana"

I'm glad i never lived next to the water
So I could never get used to the beach
And I'm glad I never grew up on a mountain
To figure out how high the world could reach
I love the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street
And I'm glad I'm only picturing the moment
I'm glad she never fell in love with me

For some the world's a treasure to discover
And your scenery should never stay the same
And they're trading in their dreams for Explanations
All in an attempt to entertain
But I love the miles between me and the city
Where I quietly imagine every street
And I'm glad I'm only picturing the moment

I'm glad she never fell in love with me

The trick of love is to never let it find you
It's easy to get over missing out
I know the how's and whens, but now and then,
She's all I think about

I wonder how it feels to be famous
But wonder is as far as I will go
Because I'd probably lose myself in all the Pictures
And end up being someone I don't know.
So it's probably best I stay in Indiana
Just dreaming of the world as it should be
Where every day is a battle to convince myself
I'm glad she never fell in love with me

- jon mclaughlin

i dislike, the finitude of my own mind and the capacity to love.
but i <3 kevo

late nights = no work nights

so it is 3.13 am.
.15 of 1 lesson plan out of 4.0 whole lesson plans.
haha. as usual. i suck.

i just spent a good hour or more on remembrances from the past...
a retreat i went to a long time ago...
i found a card from the pastor that i used to despise so much but that contained so much simple truth,
"May God give you joy and happiness as you experience more and more how much He values you."
i don't know if i noticed back then, but he has pretty handwriting. i am grateful to you. how funny that it is the lesson i have been trying to learn all year.
and i found another secret that i will save until the future. one that i will hopefully be able to give to my brother, in a moment with much joy in my hands and understanding in his eyes.

and writing, writing. stumbled across some things i had written...i realized, with a jolt. what if writing comes to be "one of those things i did" back in high school? a faded memory, activity; a part of me no longer possible or capable. if i do not start again, that is what will happen...and i will be sad at having lost yet another one of the precious few interests/semi-skills i possess.
or i will look back, muse, and think, 'ah, that was what i once did...'. knowing that it was a giving up on, of what might have been honed, or valuable.
but perhaps we all have to choose.

it is difficult,
to write a story.

i wonder if i have ever read a short story with a real ending. they're more like real life, perhaps. they end with a feeling, a mood- a moment. a waiting.

or maybe that is just raymond carver.

and along those lines, two short stories that everyone should read:
1. "bullet in the brain", tobias wolff
2. "what we talk about when we talk about love", raymond carver

i liked when garrett said that. more interested in the pure beauty to be found, or crafted in words. it made me think of someone mining for something in those words, searching for a hard jewel of ruby or sapphire in them. something solid, concrete, and to be held onto.

life is perty sweet when you hit upon a note of truth. like hitting one of those colorful notes on the xylophone. that happens rarely, or by accident.
but maybe its better to roam and get out of your range to try to find others, than to hit the same note over and over again.
or maybe the trick is to hit that note again, deeper and deeper.

love

got owned this year. haha.

that questioning of love. is it real? can it ever be selfless?
im believing again, though...in love, and in sincerity. and service.
and allowing the best in people to shine.

so my heart: in reparation and restoration.
but joyous because of God.
...and good things, the here and now. and the things to come.

today was a gorgeous day, with kev/sam/sean's uncles, or more accurately, sookmo's younger brothers. they are wack. and bright. and hilarious.

thoughts to remember from the day,
1. how strong people appear on the outside [how much they can hide]
2. eastcoast.westcoast. // acceptance. // christianity, as it applies to everyone.
think i have been working in narrow confines, in terms of jesus and life. but want to expand things real wide.
3. i think i have found another mystery.

i love the people who can make me laugh,
and talking about the people i love.

a series of quotes

which i just read, and would not like to forget.

"To know a primrose is higher thing than to know all the botany of it-just as to know Christ is an infinitely higher thing than to know all theology, all that is said about his person, or babbled about his work."
- george macdonald

"I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."
- thomas merton

"The darkest of dark cannot extinguish the light of a single flame."
- dietrich bonhoeffer [ a man i hope to read ]

sleepay

don't wake me
i plan on sleeping in
- the postal service

i don't know what i want to say in particular, except that i would like to be quiet.
and be filled, like a tall glass of cool water.

watched forest gump tonight.
...it was good. so, friends.
why is it difficult to accept love?
how does our past mess us up?
how is it that this man holds on to his simple and uncomplicated love, and his promises?
- is it enough for us?
the last scenes were beautiful, tom hanks and the son reading, fishing.
and the boy getting on the bus.

ah, so little love this year.
...it breaks my heart.
i would like to quietly shut the door on people,
maybe in reaction to that.

but then God brings people back into my life, and says,
no.
haha.

i think i have to, to some extent.

can you give me a reason to care?
was drifting off before i slept last night, turning over possibilities in my mind of a person who would listen. who would understand.
and then i came to the great realization that the person i wanted to talk to is God.
har har, God.
=) thanks.

death has come in the form of allergies.
but so much sunshine in the spring and pale green leaves.

hm

things are strange.
i want to be sure.

a memory, a remembrance

because i'm papering and because g.o.d.'s "road" just came on...
a vision of that small motel room my mom, ray, and i stayed in during the first or second night of my grandmother's funeral in korea-
the tv, with the starcraft channel on, the pinup calendar on the wall, the feel of the scratchy and netlike cloth, the bathroom with a showerhead and no curtain, and the faucet that didn't work unless you knew how to turn it...
the feeling of night and not knowing what was next, but staying in this room for the time being, and simply thinking on what had happened, and the day to come. the three of us in close proximity.
there is something about the countryside, that countryside in korea, and the small inconveniences or oddities or quirks i can remember- the very everdayness of it, the rustic and simple, and perhaps the reminder and feeling that i am not so far away from nature, that there is no gap provided by technology and solid walls and central air-conditioning to allow me to forget the nearness of the earth, and my own frailty-
that make it very, very dear to me.

it feels like real life. something i can cup in my hands.

school on break

i wish school was always this:
sitting on my bed, with cool and light coming through the window,
thinking about what i want to think about, learning deeply,
marveling at what has been done, and what will be done
wanting to talk to my professors
having time, now, and tomorrow, with no thought of busyness or schedules to come and press in on your day.

but no papers, no.

if each student just sat in his bedroom and thought, and did something great, or meaningful, or beautiful, how much more we would have.

i'd like to read right now, and eat an apple, or perhaps watch a movie or listen to music. mm.
papel time.

whats real

i'm reading this book about students
who aren't the best-
who eventually become dropouts, sell drugs, get pregnant

and what they say, feel, and believe
and just know, so incisively
so intelligent, so insightful
so much heart and dream.

it just makes me think.
maybe it's what wright wrote about in american hunger...that there was depth to him because he had known pain and hurt and injustice.

what am i learning, and what do i want to learn?
what do i think about, and what is there out in the world to think about?
so much, dazzling array.

like when i woke up this morning and wished i didnt have to go to class so i could think about something else.

it's like a dream of something bigger
and when you grow up it gets smaller and smaller, that dream
dries up

i want so much for things to be perfect
when i'm listening to something beautiful, seeing something beautiful
i want a continuation of that from people, no interruption but synchronization.
i understand when people say that sometimes no words are better than words
and yet it's not that-
i just want something else, a better language, that is higher than that of this earth. or captures that deepest sense of the beautiful found in the earth. because there is much. sort of like light pouring forth from the mouth

and just thinking about,
man, when do you figure out who you are? apart from circumstances?
when you're stripped and punched and pulled at
and you see what you're made of, or what's at the core, mass of shining and burning metal and star, that's at the center of you
think most people are too scared to find out.

this craziness

what is this life?

be true.

think ive realized

a life lived in love is a life in which you can be broken or hurt.
and trying not to be hurt, to be cold feels so good.
but think it's already happened- lots can get to me, and cut.

to be full of You,
your joyful and unceasing love,
to delight in
and to give away, freely.

...i am grateful for late nights, and conversation.

it is yearning that makes the heart deep.
- augustine

figuring out where i'm supposed to be-
my heavenly

i wonder

if we were to take everyone's hearts,
how beautiful or ugly a person's would be.

i wonder what mine really looks like.

tonight

my depravity makes me sad.
really, really sad.

i think God is gracious though.
lets things be better than they ought to be.

but it still makes me sad.
i hate it.
very much.
but most of the time: not enough.

esther's adventures in manhattan

makes a date with someone
is happy
wakes up late
looks at her phone, groans
missed calls
sometimes is ashamed
and tries to go to sleep again
thinks about not calling back/copping out.
i hope this will not happen tomorrow.
i also hope this is not the person i will be.

on another note,
i would like to fill my life with decent people. mm.
good to see a high school friend today, and to talk with an elementary school friend.
they are, decent people. more than that, kind, make me think, people.
i feel rich- very much so.

who'd be your desert island five? woah. hard. maybe not something to think about.
good night,

prolific writing-

i've been looking for this poem all my life.
okay, on and off, for about three years.


this gentleman came to the iowa writing workshop when i was there [junior year of high school], talked about writing and poetry, and read this poem. i remember thinking that he was extremely intelligent, and precise, and softspoken. a bit metaphysical, but very human.
i wish i had written to him and asked him for this, because it hadn't been published yet-
but here. i think i listened to it, and was electrified. it has to be spoken out loud, perhaps only in his timbre- reading it now to myself, i can't quite get the same effect. and this may be hallucination, but i think he said this originated from an image, or another poem, of two men in a holocaust camp, looking up at a wire, a bird dancing upon it.
______

Twittering Machine
by dan beachy-quick

I see I must rewire the Twittering Machine
Whose song was lightning
when lightning-struck—
And then sang singe, sang smoke: elect

-ric elegy, perpetual elegy, the fuse
That fused syllable to
sound is blown, is
Blown, and now the dry-throat on noting

Nothing drowns. The gold-sheathed wire
Soldered to star
sang both the star
’s celestial thread that fretting through

The night kept the night a needle-width
Undone, and sang
yellow the yellow
Thread unmending the sundress wife kept

In closet December-long. And longer:
Through darker months
none could name, none
Name—since, ever since, that star whose light

Powered the Twittering Machine’s ever-song
Died, was always dead,
though nightly seen,
Is still seen, cold but brilliant overhead. The gold

-sheathed wire withered, tangent to the moon.
Now a fungal-wire aches
down cemeteries
To find a decaying song. Earth-battery—

It winds the dynamo by a ceaseless, clock-
Work turn, clock-
wise turn,
But the Twittering Machine refuses song.

No, no—not refuse, not refuse. We’ve rewired
The mechanism. Stars
are silent, trustless:
They lock the dark vault they seem to pierce.

Music of the spheres? buzz, no test-pattern,
Program cancelled, shut.
Now one dark talon
Sheathed in darkness drops unseen from sky

And scratches the earth as the earth turns.
Do you hear that sound
of gravel on gravel
Grinding? That music is our music now.

________

more, i like reading his writing, the way he articulates his thoughts. he loves philosophy, and i think it shows. from an interview:

4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why?

...Another influence, though quite different, was in studying the Blues tradition in America, from slaves’ field hollers to juke joints of the Mississippi Delta to the City Blues of Chicago. I love the way in which one musician would hear another play, take a lyric or a lick from him, and incorporate that into another song. That expanding voice of Anonymity unfolding in each individual mouth moves me greatly, and seems, in my mind, to parallel how tradition functions in poetry. This ties back, actually, to the question about philosophy—for it’s just as Seneca said when writing letters to his young Stoic. He’d often end a letter with a quote from his philosophic nemesis Epicurus, and say something to the effect of: “You ask me why I mention his words? Because what is true is everyone’s.”

HEY,

LIFE. haha.

there is a singular joy in being near one who feels loved, completely and fully, with nothing more to ask. ...that is how i felt last night, watching my grandmother as she drifted off to sleep, coming awake now and then to ask funny, sporadic questions, but finally, sleeping, a smile playing on her lips, and forehead smooth and free from anxiety at last. it was from the deep knowledge and assurance that she was loved by her children and grandchildren, and how rich and lucky she felt because of that. but more than that, like a child, she took with complete and unfailing trust our love and that we would be there when she woke up. ....she was giving herself up to us, asking her to take care of her, with perfect confidence that we wouldn't let her down.

it sounds trite and oversentimental, because i cannot do it justice, but i think it was one of the best moments of my life. sitting there by her side, just taking it in. it was pure feeling. i think i caught a bit of that swelling a parent must feel in his heart when he looks at his child, as he is going to sleep. how big it makes you feel- and how small, at the same time. and perhaps of what God desires us so much to do, in relation to him.

for perfect love casts out fear.

i guess

that post down there would be a lot more normal if it had been about the boy of my dreams.
...yeah, i doubt if i could have had another dream make me so deeply content.

my brain hurts right now, but i want to do something worthy and beautiful. sort of realizing now the ways in which i'm so unequipped, unskilled to do anything, really, or even, what i actually want to do- but...i'll try now.
yup.
20 years. maybe i should start capitalizing. a smattering of interests and experiences, with a lot of undeveloped leads. ...a lot of undeveloped leads. all i can think is, i should have taken more time, and care. but 'tis okay, cause it's never too late.
dude, writing makes me happy.
the minutes and hours after 11 or 12 make me feel like its filler time til reality starts again: hazy, slow time that doesn't actually count as part of my life: so i think i don't really need to be responsible or think about what i'm doing. truth? false.

and, great hair. more importantly, a great person: jay. president of SYG


(he saw the picture: "woah! that's crazier than i thought.")

last night,

i had a beautiful dream about this young boy i met, and was supposed to take care of for some reason. i think, he loved the Lord, even though he was not yet grown, or maybe it was just that when we spoke, we understood each other. and we each listened. he was very good, i think, and sweet, and that made me happy inside. i remember sunlight and yellow school buses, like it was a summer camp. i hope i meet a kid like that in real life one day. and when i do, because i've written it down here, i'll remember and tell him that i've finally met the boy in my dream.