min

Poetry repost

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:53:37 GMT

I read this poem in baranoouji's LJ some months ago, and it's haunted me since, like some poems will do.

"Quarantine", from Against Love Poetry by Eavan Boland

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

sunburnt...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:23:44 GMT

Fell asleep on the beach at Sauvie, Saturday. The sun did a number on me, but I can't blame it. I'm just happy it's out.

Headed out in a couple days for SE Oregon for camping with mutants, gone till Sunday. Incidentally, looks like where we're headed this year is the same as where the '97 rainbow nationals were, a forest east of Prineville where I hitchhiked with Jane up from southern California in late June when we were 18 year old vagabonds. It was a beautiful place, and I'll be glad to revisit, exactly 11 years later.

Straight On Till Morning

Wed, 14 May 2008 07:39:24 GMT

A toast to timing. In my last post, I described a place we visited last Sunday called Never Never Land in Tacoma, WA. Today, we heard that this forgotten little park is scheduled to be demolished this Thursday. Goodbye, Neverland.

A few more pictures in memoriam:

All aboard the pirate ship:

What monster in the well?

PS. Two lucky finds today... I wandered by chance into a magic shop while at the hardware store picking up more pipe for hoops, and I walked out with a set of juggling balls. P. went to pick up a guitar off Craigslist on behalf of his mother and ended up getting a deal on a lovely Chinese hammered dulcimer called a yangqin. Our toy chest grows.

Never Never Land

Mon, 12 May 2008 21:25:12 GMT

Quick photo post. Some words.

P. and I were up in Tacoma and Seattle over this weekend. Sunday, before we left, we dropped by a huge, gorgeous forested park in Tacoma: Point Defiance Park with P.'s young nieces and nephew. Within its depths is a small and forgotten pocket called Never Never Land, populated with child-sized houses and figures from fairy tales and nursery rhymes. The houses are separated by narrow walking trails through the woods.

Built in the 60s and many of its previous structures lost over time, Never Never Land feels dilapidated and abandoned, but this I liked. This gives the place a wonderfully eerie Grimm ambience, as if the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood could truly leap out and devour you as you walk down the pathways. ("I'm scared!" P.'s 3-year old niece Anora cried out at one point. P. assured her that he was a monster who would eat any other monsters we came across, so she was safe.) Peeling paint, rusty nails, penned graffiti inside the tiny ramshackle houses from what I'd guess are teens who go there at night to drink and make out. From what P. says, it's similar to Enchanted Village closer to Seattle (and Enchanted Forest in southern Oregon), but Enchanted Village is much larger. We plan to take his nieces & nephew there sometime this summer, since neither they nor I have ever been there.

Playing with my hoop inside the entrance:

Entrance to Never Never Land:

The Hickory Dickory Dock house:

Candy house, probably the witch's from Hansel and Gretel:

Penned graffiti inside:

Another little house:

I've been taking fusion belly dance classes, and on the side, I've been teaching myself hula hooping. Dancing with a hula hoop is fun in its own right, but I find that it really helps me with muscle isolations, rhythm, and kinesthetic awareness for dancing in general.

I made the hoop I'm playing with below.

Spinning it up my sides/arms:

To my neck (one of the first tricks I learned):

Back to work with me.

Tue, 06 May 2008 23:01:55 GMT

I will be in Seattle Thurs-Sun. Paul is playing a show at Fuel in Seattle on Thursday night, and another show somewhere in Tacoma on Sunday night. I will likely be guest spotting on keyboards for one or both shows.

We're staying with his sister up there, and I'll be working from my laptop - any recommendations for good free wifi spots in Seattle or Tacoma?

Also, heads up people, Four Tet is playing a Portland show in June at Holocene!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:46:49 GMT

P. is a latecomer and entered the Radiohead 'Nude' remix contest with only a week of voting left. Voting ends May 1st. There's no prize other than exposure.

Please listen to his remix if you have some time and vote if you like it. Here's why I like it: he took the 'stems' that were provided and used them to craft a new song from the pieces. He didn't listen to the original while he was remaking it. If you listen to a lot of the other remixes that have been posted, you'll notice that many of them sound very much like the original, with just a few tweaks here and there. There aren't many that took the approach of, "Here are some sounds. What can I make from them?" But anyway, that's just my take. Listen and vote if you like.

PS. P. is playing a show at Fuel in Seattle on Thursday May 8th, and some other place in Tacoma on that Sunday. Hence, I will be up in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

music tonight

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:26:49 GMT

At Rererato, an art space in NE, Alberta district. All-ages early show, P.'s project Sad Music for Happy Humans plays at 7pm. Details here. Stop by, say hi. Dancing after, but where?

(work it out for yourself)

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:35:03 GMT

pre-judgment: the illusion of thought. the abandonment of self-responsibility, a betrayal of self.

for example, as related to conversation and honesty: every time you think, "i can't talk to X about this because X would react in such-and-such a way/i can't be honest to X because X wouldn't understand" whether because X has not understood in the past, or because no one in a larger subset that X appears to be in has understood in the past, you have pre-judged qualities of X and have made that a part of a static worldview.

you have mistaken the map for the terrain.

the terrain is ever-changing, so wake up, look up, look at what's in front of you before you stumble into the abyss or get eaten by the lions or fail to realize you've been walking in circles for days and you're about to get sunstroke. the terrain does change, but not when you're walking in the same damn circles. your map has an expiration date of yesterday.

don't rob yourself of the chance to perceive for yourself, rather than dancing with ghosts of perceptions past. don't rob others of the chance to be perceived as they are now, not as ghosts. no, change isn't easy for anyone, so maybe you've become jaded to the thought that it ever truly happens, but when it does, you don't want to miss it for the world.

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:48:21 GMT

I read a thought-provoking reader review of the book 'The Selfish Gene' on Amazon.com some time ago. Excerpts below, and further thoughts from me further below :

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"The literal idea of 'The Selfish Gene' contains a mistake. The concept 'selfish' applies to entities possessed of a self - paradigmatically, humans. A gene has no self. To apply the term selfish to a gene is, thus, to make an error.

. . . Dawkins' concept . . . directly inspires ideas of the molecular level being the level of genuine agency. Consequently, it relegates the ordinary human level to one of passivity. We become slaves to the genes; in the words of his 1976 preface: 'We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.'

. . . There seems to be something innately appealing in the prospect of relinquishing our own personal responsibility. Dawkins plays on this, as do all forms of determinism . . . Forces beyond our control make our decisions for us. These forces might be physically larger than us, such as those posited by Marxist theories of economics and society, or those of religious determinism, or they might be physically smaller than us, such as subatomic or molecular interactions, as per DNA. In every case our capacity to act wilfully, to make decisions, to be responsible for ourselves, is made illusory and the locus of true control shifted to another deterministic realm. Suddenly, we are free of sin, and of blame, but we pay the cost of being incapable of controlling our destiny. There is the added consequence that these inhuman forces are not the sort of entities which can be held personally accountable for their actions - they are, after all, utterly impersonal - and so nobody, literally no person, exists who can take responsibility. The world becomes a mechanism.

Another way of approaching these issues is to say that the terms used in moral and evaluative discourse are established at the level of human interaction. This is their paradigm use, and all other usages are derivative. The meaning of a term such as `selfish' is established in the realm of human motivation and behaviour. This is where it makes literal sense. Elsewhere, it can be imported, but then it is in an important sense a metaphor - and this metaphor relies on its literal roots to secure its meaning. If we, as ordinary humans, are selfish, and at times we undoubtedly are, then we can tell a story about genes being selfish, or if we are at times sad, then clouds can be seen crying; however, if genes, or quarks, are found not to be literally selfish, or to lack all manner of moral judgement, this does not mean that we as humans are never selfish, or lack a moral schema. Is this what happens when readers become distressed by this book? Do they see that genes are not capable of selfishness, that what is being proposed is a mechanism, incapable of being considered either moral or immoral, and that since, according to Dawkins' fable, we humans are just 'robot vehicles' for our genes, we too are immune to morality? If so, the animistic story has mistakenly become more real than reality - it's important, although not always easy, to remember what is the story and what is the reality from which the story is derived." (Emphasis mine.)

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The full review is much longer, and worth a read. I italicized the last sentence above; there is a connection between the reviewer's exhortation there and my last post that made me recall this review.

I said in my last post: "It's something about the way our subconscious spins stories, and what seems to be the human impulse to create meaning, and about the strengths and weaknesses this brings..." Lately, I've been thinking about the weaknesses. The human craving for meaning can be inspiring and beautiful, but it can just as easily -- or even more easily -- be corrupted by our other weaknesses, become 'the opiate of the masses'. Fear, shame, anger, denial, greed, the need to be accepted and belong, blind lust, lust for power, et cetera.

Stories (...metaphors...allegories...) are sometimes seductive and powerful NOT because they are used to speak to a truth, but because they are used to speak to a weakness, to provide a justification for, and ultimately deliverance from (the responsibility for) a weakness. And because those 'weaknesses' are very strong, such stories trigger the same kind of emotive reaction in people that feels very much like "truth"... if you feel it strongly, it's right, right? That feeling of revelation, of epiphany... do not trust it. Question deeper. Often one may find that it's like that rush of new emotion at the beginning of a relationship that's so strong that eureka! you think it must be love. But wait: there's still work to do.

Conversations at home of late often touch upon/delve into the question of genetic/biological imperatives versus our thinking selves, and the importance of our own responsibility for our choices. So much around me I hear/see/read the kind of thinking described by the reviewer above: "In every case our capacity to act wilfully, to make decisions, to be responsible for ourselves, is made illusory and the locus of true control shifted to another deterministic realm."

I hear people saying/writing, over and over again, "This is how I am because of X, this is the way the world works because of Y, hence there is no use to struggle against it, we should instead just learn to accept things for how they are..." Sometimes, I do think it is optimal to accept instead of struggle, but let it be a real choice and not merely an excuse, an exercise in sophistry...

(Tangential thought here as I'm momentarily amused by how, often those who are seduced by deterministic worldviews, where we are ultimately not the ones in 'control', do so because of the predictability in such a worldview, and what does this predictability afford them? a sense of control... security.)

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:21:46 GMT

Our minds want to tell stories.

A couple nights ago, I had a bad dream. It involved a certain sound, like loud static, which would repeat twice at sustained intervals. Slowly something began to bother me. The dream was very lifelike; I was in bed, alone, and I was arguing with someone down the hall, the bedroom door cracked open. But certain details didn't make sense, and when I noticed this, I became aware slowly in my dream, something like lucid dreaming.

I came to notice that I was very warm, for example, and in the dream I was alone in my bed. I focused on the bed and found there was a figure there sleeping next to me. With this realization I awakened, and I realized that the warmth came from the one lying in bed next to me on his side, myself spooned against his back. He was snoring very lightly, and the loud static sound from my dream resolved into the soft sound of his breath, in and out. As my consciousness hovered between the dream-reality and awake, between the internal logic of my dream and the waking world, something very real about how my mind works came to me with startling clarity, like the clarion ring of a bell. Not something I hadn't thought before, but not understood so clearly. I lay half-awake for several hours, listening to P. as he made small sounds in his sleeping, musing in the blueness of the pre-dawn light, but I still haven't got the words to express it quite right.

It's something about the way our subconscious spins stories, and what seems to be the human impulse to create meaning, and about the strengths and weaknesses this brings; it has something to do with the name of this journal; it has something to do with why I'm fascinated by mythology and storytelling and metaphor. Someday I'll have the words, but not tonight. I'm off to bed. Good night.

change in others

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:09:51 GMT

I am learning more and more that one of the most important acts I can do for those around me is to allow them to change.

And by 'allow them', I mean 'allow my thoughts about them'.

That means not holding onto ideas of who they once were, at the cost of not seeing who they are now, here, in front of me, or who they might become. Whether the holding on is out of resentment, or fondness, or nostalgia, or fear, or pride, or whatever the reason may be.

When there are those around me trying to create personal change, the more I hold on to my ideas/associations/projections of who they have been in the past, the more difficult I make it for them. If I'm on their side, I need to support them; I need to fully believe in their ability and motivation to change. And that means not only letting go of past images, but refraining from forming new static ones.

We affect each other in so many subtle ways.

Internal, self-willed change/maturation isn't easy. It's unspeakably beautiful to me when I do see it happening in those around me. I don't want to close my eyes to it.

Tangentially, note to myself: no one is at their best all the time. Everyone has their moments. Forgive them, and care for them anyway. That includes yourself. Your upbringing told you that it was never okay to do less than the best at all times, that you could never let your guard down, or trust others to pull the slack, or trust others to forgive you when you didn't. Hey, high standards are cool; it's okay to continue to strive for the best, but it's not okay to have a stick up your ass about it.

Dancing tomorrow

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:06:07 GMT

Sad Music For Happy Humans is P.'s solo music project. He goes on at 10pm, and I will be there making the dance floor happen. Come join me. Egyptian Lover and Who Cares bring the hip hop, SMHH will be more trip-hop-ish, dancey sounds.

sing, songbird, sing

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:52:10 GMT

Two tales of a nightingale. One bargains with death for life with song for love, and the other trades its life to death with song for love.

1. "...And Death gave back these treasures for a song. The nightingale sang on. It sang of the quiet churchyard where white roses grow, where the elder flowers make the air sweet, and where the grass is always green, wet with the tears of those who are still alive. Death longed for his garden. Out through the windows drifted a cold gray mist, as Death departed..."

2. "...Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea..."

The two tales are strikingly similar to me, not merely thematically but in tone as well. Both contain resonances not only of an achingly strong and tender love of mythical proportions from a humble nightingale, so blatantly told in parts that they flirt along the lines of saccharine oversentimentality. It's the lacings of passages of more acerbic tone in regards to the superficiality of human interactions that draw each story back to more bittersweet ground:

"...'What a silly thing Love is,' said the Student as he walked away. 'It is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics.'..."

And in the more wry tone of Andersen: "...The music master wrote a twenty-five-volume book about the artificial bird. It was learned, long-winded, and full of hard Chinese words, yet everybody said they read and understood it, lest they show themselves stupid and would then have been punched in their stomachs..."

musings.

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 20:05:44 GMT

I have found worthwhile teachings and practices in many religions and disciplines, but I cannot bring myself to subscribe personally to one, nor participate in the mix-and-match patchwork pseudo-mysticism prevalent in our age. I will admit to such indulgences as a youth while experimenting, but I can respect that no longer as an adult. As an aside, I've been thinking much the same about the emotional/relational practices of our present age. I think that one does harm to oneself and to those from which one takes, whether that's religions or people, when taking the approach of "A little of what I like from this, a little of what I like from that." As a musical group I like has said: constant shallowness leads to evil.

I also dislike when people say "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual". I wouldn't call myself religious or spiritual, but I do believe there's more than what we generally perceive or can perceive. Worlds beyond and in worlds. I'm drawn more by the subtle liftings of the veil, however, than seeking for the full frontal.

I strive to be awake and alive and aware as much as I am capable. I strive to find balances between extremes, but not to the point of shunning the extremes - balance does not mean stagnation at a single point, because change is a constant and the centre is always shifting, so movement and adjustment matters. I strive to experience without becoming lost in experience. With others, I personally strive to inspire rather than command or control, and respond best to a similar approach.

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:22:11 GMT

Listen to my fiance live on KBOO tonight (http://kboo.fm - 90.7 fm in Portland) between 11pm and midnight PST. They'll be playing his music and interviewing him. Aside from music, he'll be playing sound samples he recorded in New Orleans and talking about our experiences there, amongst other subjects. You can listen to the webcast from their website if you're not in Portland/don't have an fm radio. He makes amazing music, you should listen to it anyway.

One year of my life was spent as a rare and antiquarian book dealer.

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:41:58 GMT

Naftali was his given first name, but he went by Simon. The name suited him. He was short and gnomish, with wiry tufts of grey hair, spectacles, shiny black orthopedic shoes. You expected him to have a secret workshop where he cut, sewed, and hammered together leather shoes by hand. I favored black combat boots, and my hair was cut spiky-short and dyed pink. He was 87 years old when we met, and I was 20. We hit it off famously, of course.

I had recently moved back to Phoenix after a year's stint in Seattle. Simon had recently moved to Phoenix from New York City. His wife had died the year before; he had a painted portrait of her in her white wedding dress, dark-haired with lovely laughing dark eyes. He had loved her deeply. His elder son lived in Phoenix with his wife and their newborn son; worried about his father living alone so far away, he had coaxed Simon to come live there, near them. I never warmed up to his son and daughter-in-law, especially the latter; she seemed shrewish and impatient, and I don't think she understood Simon well. She was a new mother of course, and very busy, but I never got the sense she had the proper appreciation for him.

Simon had owned a small and respected rare & antiquarian bookstore in New York for many years. Well-crafted books were his passion. He came to Phoenix and rented a fine 2-bedroom townhouse. Simon was not the type to sit around doing nothing. The first thing he did was hire a carpenter to line every single possible wall of his house with custom-built tall bookshelves, which were immediately crammed end to end with books. Then he got to work setting himself up on the internet as an online rare bookseller, with the help of a 30-something man he hired to handle the computer end of things.

Simon was like that. He was nearing 90, but he was never afraid to embrace new technology. The possibilities excited him; he wanted to see what would next unfold. He had difficulty reading the screen, and his rheumatism made his hand shake too much to control the mouse, but he never stopped trying. I loved that so much about him.

Simon was a German Jew in WWII. He told me about his escape from Germany, the hundreds of miles he walked. Shortly before his escape, he was once in a cafe when Nazis burst in and began arresting people. He was there with another Jew. Thinking fast, he stood up and immediately pretended that he was with the authorities; taking his friend "under custody", Simon marched him out of the cafe and to safety.

He went to medical school after his escape and became a doctor, but later turned to book publishing in England, becoming a small publisher of quality books. One of the books he published was an early limited edition novel by William Burroughs. He consorted with many of the famous and infamous literary figures of that time. Much later, he moved to New York City and began selling books.

At first I was only entering books into an online database for him. I met him by luck; a friend of mine did data entry for him for a day through a temp agency and really liked him, but she was moving to Portland. She recommended me to him. I went to his house and was immediately captivated by the wall-to-wall books.

The used bookstores around town all came to know him well. He'd take cabs, peruse their aisles for hours, and come home with boxes stuffed with books he'd picked up for cheap. For Simon, it was a treasure hunt, finding those castoffs that no one else could recognize. That worn, dusty book he snatched out of the $1 bin? Rare limited edition first printing, worth hundreds to the right buyer. It was never about the money, of course.

We'd research and decide together how to price these treasures, and I would enter them into the online database. He taught me the terminology, how to describe book conditions accurately. Folio, quarto, foxed, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, vellum binding. How to recognize first editions, first printings. The differences between the grades of good, very good, near fine, fine.

After a short while, I took over all parts of the business, from customer service to shipping to accounting to managing the online aspects. The other guy Simon had originally hired went on to something else, so it was just Simon and me for a while. Later, I brought in my then-boyfriend to help with book-sorting, shipping, data entry, and be an all-around extra hand. Most of the time, though, Simon and I would sit and look through old books and talk, argue, tell stories. He was tremendously well-read, sharp, opinionated, broad-minded, and eloquent, with an endless supply of anecdotes drawn from personal experience.

We doted on each other from the beginning, with simple and unreserved affection and mutual respect. Simon could be cranky and querulous at times, but this was more often than not with my boyfriend, towards whom he never quite warmed. That wasn't my boyfriend's fault; if Simon had been my grandfather and felt that he had a right to give his opinion, he would have thought no one was good enough for me.

A part of him tried to hang on to living, to keep that flame burning, after his wife died. But a greater part of him was slipping away, and I knew it wouldn't be long. It was a year or so after I began working for him that his heart began to fail. He was 88, and he lived a long, rich life.

Good night, Simon. I am fortunate and glad to have known you. I loved you like a grandfather. I hope I brought some measure of brightness into your life in your last year, as you brought to mine.

mementos

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:14:00 GMT

I rode my bike to a store earlier for cigarettes. A couple blocks from there, I passed an old man with long grey hair on a bicycle. He turned and said something about his slow speed; I flashed him a smile and sped by. When I emerged from the store, he was there with a red rose he'd picked for me, saying "You have a pretty smile. You seem like a nice person." He headed inside, I biked away. It pleases old men often to flirt this way with young women; I find such encounters usually harmless and sweet, intended simply to brighten the days of both parties. I biked home and hung the rose on my mailbox. When it's withered, I'll throw it away.

When I was half the years I am now, I kept mementos of everything. From concert ticket stubs to birthday cards, to flowers dried and pressed between pages of books, whether from small encounters or grand escapades. I liked having them there to remind me, and it gave me a twinge to ever throw such mementos away, as if I was somehow betraying the reality of the events, somehow erasing their value. (Keeping a journal is different: I write to figure things out, not to remember.)

This kind of sentimentality is something else that's gradually fallen away over the years. On the last night that I was in New Orleans, a friend strung Mardi Gras beads around my neck. When I left the following morning, I deliberately left them on the bathroom sink. I don't need or wish for keepsakes; that it happened is enough. I do homage to the moment by being present within it.

When I am dead, scatter my ashes to the wind.

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:21:31 GMT

I have literally never done one of these chain Q&A things before. These questions are from pk00101. Sorry, having limited time, I'm going to only answer a couple in full length for now...

1. As a virtual God, which aspect of being a deity is the most rewarding to you?

Tough one. There's so much that is rewarding in being an omniscient, omnipotent virtual deity, from world-creation to setting major events in motion and watching them play out. What I typically enjoy the most are the brief, spontaneous interactions when I'm playing an anonymous "ghost in the machine" and bringing the virtual world to life around the "mortals" in a way that builds upon and responds to their actions, mythopoetically.

For one small example, the players in my virtual world once held a funeral for an important character who had died, a very sad affair. Unbeknownst to them, I was watching invisibly, and at the close of the ceremony I spontaneously caused vines to erupt from the ground and twine around the tombstone, then flower, and a rain of petals to fall down around them. Little touches like this... the kind of thing that would never happen in real life, but is more real than real, more true than true: the logic of dreams.

2. If you were asked to gather a general consensus for the state of the "human spirit", how would you go about it? Could you do it in real time?

I'm not sure how a general consensus would be possible. I may return to this later. :)

3. What aspects of a relationship help it remain long term? Thinking of other relationships you may have been in, and seen others in, what similarities have you witnessed?

Apathy, cowardice, and deception can help a relationship remain long term, heh. But I'm guessing what you're asking is what aspects of a relationship help it remain healthy and fulfilling in the long term? :)

What has helped that in my present relationship is the striving to share ourselves completely with each other - without pretenses, sugarcoating, white lies, sweeping things under the rug - regardless what fears, hurts, insecurities, or defenses we may have or may result - no matter how uncomfortable or how painful or how difficult, how minor or how major. We may not (and do not) always succeed at first, but we strive on... and we do often succeed.

Sharing of course is only the beginning... one must also consider and work on how to present and how to respond to what is being shared. It doesn't help if you are sharing what you think, but you are doing so in an angry, accusatory fashion, or with contempt, or sharing only in order to provoke a reaction, for example. Or if you respond with anger, or defensiveness, or hurt, or just to prove your rightness on something.

But I'm not talking about blind acceptance... not some mindstate of "everything you think or feel is perfect"... you have to critically think about and question what you think and feel, but together, not as warring parties. Then it becomes not only about sharing what is already known but a joint exploration of the less-than-conscious frontiers of mind and emotion, uncovering not only ourselves to each other, but ourselves to ourselves.

Nor am I saying it's wrong to ever be angry, or feel hurt, or defensive... shit happens... you just can't cling to it, or respond only from that. Excuse me while I sound like a total hippie, but it seems to me that such communion can only come from a state of love; the ego needs to be discarded. And I'm afraid I'm not great at this, but I keep learning, and I feel that this is the most important lesson I've learned or could learn from and with another person.

I've reached minor levels of this in other relationships, but the level of intimacy where we are is entirely new ground to me, and we continuously seem to uncover more layers. I'm not sure I understood the meaning of honesty before. I don't know about relationships I've seen others in, because I don't know the extent of what goes on in others' private relationships.

4. Think of a different time and place in time, if given the option, you would go live in. If you could choose to be male, would it change the answer? Why?

The future, and no. I may return to this later. :)

5. When you hitchhiked around, did your independence highlight any aspect of your relationships with the people of your life?

I don't know if I'd call hitchhiking independence, since you are traveling at the mercy of strangers. I suppose it is an independence from structure, since you wake up every day not knowing where you are going, how you are getting there, and who you're going to meet. I don't feel that's changed in more than pace though... I still wake up every day feeling as if I don't know where I'm going, how I am getting there, and who I'm going to meet. Though life moves at a slower pace now than then, and I'm content with that. I may return to this later.

To continue the meme, you can ask me 5 questions or ask me to ask you 5 questions. If the latter, you can answer here or copy and paste the questions into your own journal to answer. Patience though... it may take me a while to get back to you.

you are beautiful

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:13:35 GMT

(My (non-blurred, non-human) favorite of photos taken in New Orleans.)

a circle of quiet.

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:30:57 GMT

"Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody--away from all these people I love most in the world--in order to regain a sense of proportion...My special place is a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings...The brook wanders through a tunnel of foliage, and the birds sing more sweetly there than anywhere else; or perhaps it is just that when I am at the brook I have time to be aware of them, and I move slowly into a kind of peace that is marvelous, 'annihilating all that's made to a green thought in a green shade.' If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns."
- M. L'Engle, from A Circle of Quiet

This is my twelfth day in New Orleans, and the first real length of time I've had to myself in that time. I didn't manage to fall asleep until 9am this morning. By the time I awaken at 11am, all eight of my cohort have departed, a sweet note left on a table to say goodbye. I shower, dress, pack, leave a generous tip for the maid in apology for the ruinous state of the suite, and turn in the suite keys.

I have over six hours of time to myself before a metal-winged bird is scheduled to return me to Portland, and I'm glad to have this.

Oregon sits at the other end of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which began on the Mississippi River with the primary goal to find an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean; the expedition found its destination at the mouth of the Columbia River, the river that defines the border of Oregon and Washington. So hello to you, those in Portland, from the other end of that all-water route.

With no particular destination of my own in mind, I walk out of the hotel, my feet turning with aimless certainty towards water: the mighty, muddy Mississippi. My instinct is always to head towards water, towards ocean. (Going away, away towards the sea/River deep, can you lift up and carry me.) First down Conti to Decatur, then down nearly the entire length of the French Quarter to the French Market area near Esplanade. Turn into Cafe Envie, a previously unexplored cafe. A deep red leather couch presses close to a windowed wall; from speakers set high, the lilting voice of Bjork drifts down; the setting seems to have been patiently awaiting me to wander in.

I engage in a brief bit of interaction with the friendly barista: they serve Oregon Chai here, and we commiserate on its inferior quality; I point him towards my favorite blend, Dragonfly; we exchange stories on the best chai we've ever had, both home-made concoctions with plenty of cardamom; he fixes me up a chai, extra strong. By the time I pay and turn away, the long red leather couch has been vacated, and I situate myself at one end of it. A guy sitting at the other end of the cafe not-so-surreptitiously relocates himself directly next to me and casts sideways glances; I note his attention but ignore it. My knapsack is positioned strategically next to me; the chatter of voices and the near presence of strangers only intensifies my willful alone-ness rather than distracting from it.

I pull my book out of my knapsack - Madeleine L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet, a mostly nonfiction autobiographical novel I've been meaning to read for a while. She is mainly known for her "juvenile" series, A Wrinkle In Time, which I have long loved; her adult nonfiction is quite different, but at the same time, not. I found the book serendipitously at a charming bookstore on Dauphine Street here, a narrow one-man operation crammed to capacity with books of quality. The shopowner was eager to converse about his stock. I peppered him with questions, and he trailed me around his small shop, helpfully pointing out and presenting me with books he thought I would enjoy. I was delighted to find this book, used, and he shared in that delight in the way of an authentic bibliophile. And I've been delighting in reading it in the snatches of time I've had to do so here; she writes with a frank and perceptive thoughtfulness I deeply appreciate, and I think I would love to have a conversation with her if I could.

I begin reading again from the beginning, marking out passages I want to return to later, or with which I feel present resonance or harmony:

"The concentration of a small child at play is analogous to the concentration of the artist of any discipline. In real play, which is real concentration, the child is not only outside time, he is outside himself. He has thrown himself completely into whatever it is that he is doing. A child playing a game, building a sand castle, painting a picture, is completely in what he is doing. His self-consciousness is gone; his consciousness is wholly focused outside himself."

"When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creating. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves."

"It can't be done unless you have that special kind of creative courage which is unself-conscious: the moment you wonder whether or not you can do it, you can't."

"Creativity is an act of discovering."

"When we can play with the unself-conscious concentration of a child, this is: art: prayer: love."

I mark the above passages because they resonate strongly with something that's been much on my mind since my California camping trip late last June: the nature of joyful creative focus and explorative modes of thought/being. Like Mrs. L'Engle, I've been thinking about these things in the context of play. While rambling around the forests and streams of northeastern California, I was piercingly reminded of the kind of fearless, playful/adventurous focus I've fallen into naturally since a child wandering the streets of Seoul alone, and at (too many) times lost along the way. That unself-conscious focus has had tremendous value in development; I recognize it as what has allowed me to grow in the ways I have, and also what brings me, personally, the feeling of simplest joy and aliveness.

To forge forward into unknown territory, you can afford little attention to what or who's behind, or doubts about whether you are going the right way, or what those behind or alongside you are thinking about what you are doing -- at least, beyond what is necessary for safety and awareness of the overall intent of the forging, however nebulous that intent might be. One cannot afford doubt or fear; awareness of potential consequences or harm, yes, but not fear. Awareness that one is fallible and not omniscient, acceptance that one's perceptions and thoughts may be wrong, and the flexibility to take in and incorporate new information and change course as necessary, yes, but not the kind of doubt that cripples you and leaves you unable to move in any direction. That such doubt and fear will be there sometimes is granted, and only human, but to indulge, to make an eternity of what should be a passing moment to move beyond, is a special self-created hell.

I struggle sometimes with the fact that currently and for several years now, outside of my job which is inherently creative, I have been producing no creative output externally. I have always considered myself an intrinsically creative person and do not doubt that I am. Regardless, that what I feel is intrinsic has no recent external reflection that can be immediately perceived by the senses sometimes feels like an invalidation. But I'm mostly at peace with that, and any small part of me that isn't generally has to do with ego and requires no attention. I don't think of creativity as something that necessarily creates a tangible product, though it often does and should find such expression, not to mention that is can be found via/through expression. Continued growth and shifting of awareness and self is in itself a creative act, just as the child at play is creative. Creativity is an act of discovering. Expression will have its time.

I am rambling, but I mean to.

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:17:08 GMT

One of the many reasons I love P.:

He talks to me about what he wants, rather than what he is lacking, or what I am lacking. There's a subtle but important difference there: we set targets to hit, not obstacles to avoid. He assumes that I'm able and willing to see his perspective, and if there's something I can point out that he hasn't taken into consideration, he will honestly consider it and change his perspective if necessary. He doesn't complain to me about any of my weaknesses, nor harbour secret resentments about them; he tells me what he thinks strength is, and why, and is receptive to my thoughts on the same. He sees my strengths and my weaknesses, and he will call me on the latter in a way that that shows me he's interested not in criticizing or laying blame but in having me grow and evolve, and that he believes that I can, and will. And that he can, and will. Instead of feeling dragged down, in the end I feel empowered, and inspired.

For this reason and so many others, this has been and continues to be the most enriching relationship in which I have ever been a part. I feel utterly fortunate to have met P.

That "other news to come" I mentioned in my previous post? We've decided to wed next year. This decision is along the lines of a formality; we'd discussed and committed to a lifetime relationship long before this.

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:01:26 GMT

P. and I returned from our camping trip earlier this month, on the eve of the 4th. We were otherwise occupied our time in the forests, so no pictures from there, but we took a few on the other legs of our journey (San Francisco, then up the coast).

We stopped by this old wonderful wooden fortress along the northern Pacific Coast Highway...

The gates were locked and no one was home, so we peeked through the slats at their cannons:

Tried knocking:

Decided to storm the fortress:

Oops!

A rather surreal roadside attraction in the redwoods:

And a completely surreal miniature red train ride through the redwoods:

There's no knowing where we're going or which way the wind is blowing. Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing?

Then camping on a peaceful but windy beach, where our tent wanted to believe it was a sail:

P. built us a driftwood wind buffer:

Our home for the night:

Since, I have mainly been catching up with work and continuing my endeavors to balance love and life with work. Our house lease is up in early September, and we've been tentatively looking around at other less expensive places to live. Ideally, a 2-4 bedroom house that's close-in SE. We live in the Hawthorne area currently and like the general area of Hawthorne-Belmont-Clinton-Laurelhurst-Mt Tabor. If you know any places that fit the bill, we wouldn't mind a heads-up.

Other news to share, but not just yet...

Road trip!

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 05:05:31 GMT

We are leaving Thursday on a week-long road/camping trip down the Pacific Coast Highway, towards California and the redwoods of the Lost Coast, swerving inland to spend a few days in the woods, then towards San Francisco and then back north.

Our itinerary is flexible, and any hints you wish to drop about lovely spots along the southern Oregon/northern California coast that should not be missed are welcome. I hope to return sun-kissed and vivified. It's been too long since I've been lulled to slumber by the sound of crashing waves, or woken to the scent of fir and fire. I'm so looking forward to this.

Compromise, change, love, sacrifice, obligations, freedom, growth.

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 23:18:47 GMT

In the past I've held a cynical viewpoint of compromise: that it's just a nice word to cover up a mutually agreed-upon delusion that everyone is satisfied with only getting a part of what they want. Beneath the surface, I assumed that compromise means someone is getting shortchanged, that one or both are making a sacrifice and accepting less than what they really wanted. Each accepting half the cake, half of what was desired, half of the infant to each instead of the living whole. The viewpoint that something must be given up, rather than that something else is being taken or transformed. That change not only comes at the cost of something else, but that cost must be accounted for in the future somehow by the other party. I'm learning different.

When I was a child, I wanted nothing so much as to be free of being indebted to others, being a burden because I was a child, was small and weak, could not earn my own way, could not take care of myself. My parents' misery and their attribution of it towards giving my sisters and myself a better life, sacrificing their happiness for our supposed future one, were sour in my mouth. My instincts to be revolted by and reject the game of sacrifice and guilt as substitution for genuine love were on target, but I went to an extreme, as children do, deciding that I never wanted to ask anyone for anything they did not offer to give of their own volition. ("Fine! If it's going to be a burden on you, then I don't want it. In fact, I don't want anything from anyone, ever, unless it's an equal exchange.") Fast forward to a future me who, when it comes to anything that's not trivial, finds it immensely difficult to even express any desire for anything that is not offered. I wanted to be free in the sense that no one would feel any obligations to me, nor me for them, or strangle me with expectations or disappointments based on those obligations. "No ropes, no strings, no obligations." That's a child's view of freedom. I'm growing up.

And this is a child's conception of an ideal mate: Someone who's so in tune with you that you never have to tell them what you're feeling because they already know. Someone with whom there's never any differences to discuss or resolve because the only differences are already harmonious ones. The reality is that we don't come pre-tuned for other people, and others' lack of ability to pick up on signals I send doesn't necessarily mean they aren't listening, or that our frequencies can't match up; perhaps my signal strength is weak and I need to bump it up a notch.

The views and opinions and desires and feelings one forms in childhood bear re-evaluation after the benefit of experience. Perhaps no less than the ones formed a year ago or five minutes ago, but they've had that much longer to crystallize and become ingrained in your psyche while you were less experienced and thus more impressionable. What are some of your ideals, concepts, and convictions that you formed in childhood or youth, how did you come to form them, and how have they changed, if at all?

Question to everyone.

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:15:03 GMT

Comments are screened and won't be un-screened unless you explicitly state in your comment that I can unscreen it.

Tell me this about yourself. What is the thing you would most love, right now, to be doing as a living, something from which you could feasibly gain income? Putting aside practical and financial considerations (like "But if everyone did what they wanted to do, who would clean the sewers?" and "I can't make enough money doing that"), and expectations from and responsibilities to others (like "I really want to please my community and be a doctor" and "I have a family to support, I can't take chances on failure"); assume that success is guaranteed. Making art, raising horses, exploring space, cooking, writing, acting, sex, raising children, teaching, dancing, experimenting with quantum physics, directing TV shows, inventing new flavors of jellybeans, whatever. Not just what's tolerable enough that you can live with it, but what you would dream of being able to do above all else for a living. Perhaps something you would not normally voice because you feel silly for even wanting it. Maybe you don't know and you're still looking, or you don't know and you're not looking; I'd like to hear about that too.

No answers like "traveling over the world" please, unless it's "traveling over the world as a photojournalist" or "traveling over the world to make ecological surveys" -- not asking what you would LIKE to do purely for yourself, but what you would most love to contribute to the world and receive sustenance from it in return for your efforts.

Expand if you wish. Some further questions to start: Has this changed for you over the years, and if so, why and how? Are you doing that thing for a living right now, or making any efforts towards it? If not, what are you doing instead, and is it related? If so, was it something you wanted to do and sought out, or something that you were doing and came to love?

I'll start. I would most love to write fiction for a living. Since I could read and write, I've been thrilled by and interested in language and stories, both the form and the substance; I find the art of translating thoughts to language and back, and that art's potential for inspiration, stimulation, and communication, to be exhilarating and magical at its best. My efforts towards writing are abysmal at the moment, but I'm committed to improve. What I'm doing now IS related -- my current job provides me with a massive outlet for creative thinking and writing (not to mention a flexible schedule and work-from-home), and I don't devalue the amazing nature of my job just because it's not my single most "ideal". Perhaps I merely need to think more about how I can bring more of what I want into my job, but I know I also want to be pursuing writing endeavors that are separate.