M. Mellow’s week: 2/5/2005-2/15/2005

It’s just past midnight at the teahouse on 2/15/2005, the day after Valentine’s Day. The closing routine is underway, and having finished stacking the chairs on the tables, I’m sweeping the dust and crumbs of the day’s patronage into the dustpan. It’s been a most remarkable week – or rather, nine days or so, for so many reasons, both good and bad. For one thing, I haven’t done any studying for about four days now, which would probably shock a lot of my close friends. If they knew, they’d probably have me in a straitjacket being packed off to a padded cell. Just a few hours ago, I had been helping Moe close up his flower stand after one of the hardest days of the year. Buckets of long-stemmed roses, tulips, and stargazer lilies were being carried into the storage office while buckets laden with stray leaves and water were being poured into the strainers. While we munched on pizza and sushi, the drizzle pelted away at the sidewalk, drippy rain that colored the entire weekend and made work cold and left the fingers clammy after long days of work. I sipped my warm honeyed tea, trying to soothe the itch in my throat. I think running about in the rain these past few days has given me a cold. The cold and wet notwithstanding, I’ve been having an interesting time lately, to say the least, and while it hasn’t necessarily been brimming with happiness, I hope to remember it for a long time to come.

On 2/4/2005, I went home for the weekend… back to the South Bay to visit a friend’s wedding banquet on the fifth. I hate wedding banquets almost as much as I hate actual weddings, which is just flat-out wrong of me to begin with. These are happy occasions; I can only believe there’s something really wrong with me for feeling so resentful on days like these. As I’ve said before, I’m entirely aware that such days are about my friends’ happiness and I have no call to be feeling selfish or denied on days such as those. Nonetheless, I know that I’m headed for an occasion where I’ll be sitting at a table with a bunch of people I barely know, wearing attire in which I don’t feel comfortable, and generally feeling like a sullen lout. And the composition of the table made it even worse; I don’t want to say too much about it online, suffice it to say I was one of two single guys at a table with four other couples, and there was something (which I can’t mention here) about those four other couples that made me want to jump up on the lazy susan and spin about planting whirlwind kicks across the faces of all those present.

*THUDTHUDTHUDWHUDWHUDCRACKTHWACKTHWACK*

But restraint, as usual, wins out, though not without the aid of fortunate happenstance. I was flanked by a law student and a practicing attorney, so it wasn’t terribly hard to cloak my inward negativity by talking enthusiastic shop with them. The attorney practiced educational law, estates and trusts; his case work involved a lot of private schools and scholarship funds, and I had a good time listening to him describe the particulars of his calling while he asked me about oddities in computer science. (Honestly, the complexities of compilers make the much-dreaded Rule against Perpetuities look like child’s play.) And to my right, the sharp-witted, tough-cookie law student from UC Hastings (who happened to be a breathtakingly lovely korean girl) traded law school stories with me in between mutual klutziness at the crowded dinner table. (“Wow, this is some pretty strong tea. And that’s after you cut it with the shark’s fin soup.”) Her field of particular interest was criminal law – on the prosecutorial side, which is something I don’t get to see much at Boalt, but it’s the side to which I certainly gravitate myself. Criminal law was one of my best subjects at Boalt, and we had a great conversation that ranged back and forth between intellectual property law and the criminal justice system. Computer crimes, secret service, DOJ, international jurisdiction… this is a completely different kind of geek talk than that with which I grew up, and it’s a little scary to me just how deeply engaging these discussions can be for me now. I’ve got a job lined up, contingent on passing the bar exam, but she’s still looking. Positions at the local district attorney’s office are rare, and landing one would be a long shot, but I wished her luck on the bar exam and with the DA’s office on my way out. The dinner had been marked by a lot of smiling and laughing, trading professional jokes and sharing work and martial arts stories, but it all melted straight off my face as I crossed the street, headed for the Millbrae BART. It’s not that I can’t hide it in polite company if I really need to. It’s not like it feels like a monumental strain to be holding up the mask of the engrossed and enthusiastic professional. Sometimes I do get caught up in the moment, especially with a good conversation. The façade is not insincere; it’s just a little less sincere than the downcast eyes and tired slouch that take over on the train ride home.

That banquet ruined my week. Dejection was a constant companion for the next few days, but it’s also a pretty normal state of affairs, and it doesn’t keep me from getting my work done. On the contrary, I put in some pretty long days at the teahouse burning through my reading, and for good reason; I needed to free up my time for the weekend. I was setting time aside to help out at Moe’s. On Tuesday I had the good fortune to run into a visiting friend, who stopped by Scharffen Berger on the way back from lunch. Out comes the credit card for a dozen chocolate roses and tulips; cheekily platonic (but genuinely affectionate) gifts for the teahouse folk who put up with me here at Berkeley practically 24/7. I was going to be spending around an astonishing quantity of flowers and chocolates this Valentine’s Day weekend. And by Thursday, I was done with my studying, having read up through the next Tuesday’s assignment. I spent the rest of that evening getting back into my wushu groove, which had been gone since the end of the demo two weeks ago. (Apparently, my body had been working under the assumption that it would get a vacation after the demo, but I had promised it no such thing. It took the vacation anyway, and my sword hand hurt so much after weapons practice I had trouble picking things up for the next day.)

So ended my gloomy fit of self-absorption from the previous week. With the sunrise on 2/11/2005, I tried to remake myself as someone with any selfish cares, unburdened by my usual self-loathing and bitterness born of solitude. For the next few days, it was time to be a lifesaver, a guardian angel – the more selfless aspect of myself which I wish I could be every day of the year. It’s an exercise in necessitated self-denial of sorts, trying to get myself in the emotional state where I almost believe I don’t actually exist as anything more than a kind spirit. At 10am, I arrived at Moe’s flower stand.

People think that Valentine’s Day is the best business day of the year for a florist. They would be wrong – especially when you run an honest business the way that Moe does. The growers all gouge around Valentine’s day, wringing a few extra bucks out of every flower, riding on the predictable increase in demand. Not every florist merely passes the whole cost along to the consumer; Moe’s profit margin per sale isn’t that high, but as you might guess, most customers have no idea. (Some people even think of florists as pure middlemen who add nothing to the product. Enjy knows otherwise; she once described Moe as the Miles Davis of flower arranging.) The lines are long and people get impatient. It’s easy to get irritated at the overweening self-importance (and pressured urgency) that some customers bring with them, and even the anticipation of the tough weekend is enough to make even Moe, one of the sweetest florists in Berkeley’s competitive market for flowers, uncharacteristically irascible, even to some of the other volunteer helpers who were pulling for him over the weekend. We had a good crew though, and Moe’s exasperation dissolved quickly enough. No fewer than eight friends, some old like me, and some newer, chipped in for eight hours per day or more. With us handling the small or simple stuff, Moe could handle the special orders without overloading on stress. As I explained to a few customers over the weekend, “Depending on what you want, we can help you. We have a bunch of helpers here and one real artist; if you have a special or unusual request, you should talk to Moe. But if you need a rose or twelve in a hurry, we can get you turned around pretty quickly.” I’ve given Moe some token help around various holidays and events before, but never on a basis so resembling a full-time job.

We trimmed roses and snapped off thorns for hours on end. We wrapped long-stemmed roses, red, pink, white, peach, and fire-and-ice, in cellophane and ribbons. By the second morning, unfamiliarity and uncertainty had fully given way to efficiency and measured ease; I learned how to roll up a single rose and tie a good bow in less than a minute; I need two minutes if the rose needs to be dethorned and petaled first. We pull a few petals off most roses, I think for the same reason that one thins out the crop on fruit trees; the plant catches only so much sunlight and so much water. With fewer fruit to feed, each one gets more water and sugar, becoming sweeter and juicier than if the tree had to spread its resources thin. With the more ragged, outermost petals gone, the remaining petals on the rose stay fresher for longer. We also became quite practiced at processing hapless customers who don’t really know what they want. (It’s a pain in the ass, really, when you have a clueless know-nothing at the front of the line and a dozen customers in a real hurry backed up behind him). “Do you want something romantic, or friendly? Unconventional or traditional? Solid red roses? Mixed white and red? Something artistic? Impulsive? Loud and happy? Thoughtful and shy? What’s she like?” And then, of course, if all else fails, “I’ll pick it for you. It’ll be something nice, I promise. Just tell me what your price range is, and we’ll work with it.” Maybe by next year, I’ll have learned how to put together the more elaborate arrangements; I’d have a long way to go before I could begin to approximate Moe’s cultivated talents, but for now, being able to arrange a dozen roses or two in a take-home sheaf is helpful enough.

The lines were long, but we had six people. Twice as many as any of the other flower stands around, and oh, what a difference swift service makes. With Moe taking up the special orders, the rest of us busied ourselves with processing the line, filling preorders, handling small or simple orders, and preparing or shuttling stock. Constant activity for long hours, especially in the afternoons and evenings. I’m just really glad we were able to keep Moe rested and relatively unharried, and Moe seemed equally happy keeping us all fed for our trouble. The lines may have been long, but nobody had to wait long before being helped. Some of the customers got the sense that they were in a really special place when they learned that the five extra students or ex-students moving with the apparent speed and attention of professionals were volunteering their time for free. Moe proudly announced to an incredulous long-time customer: “This girl’s a doctor, and married – and she’s spending her Valentine’s Day here, can you believe? And this guy has four degrees. You couldn’t hire him for less than a hundred dollars an hour!”

It was busy, but fun. But the part that made me happiest was being able to help out a few other friends who had taken very good care of me these past two years, namely, the teahouse folk. People who notice when I’m glum, who hand me piping hot tea sometimes for no reason at all, who listen to me when I need to talk or let me be silent when I have a lot of my mind, and who tell me with what seems to be genuine sincerity that they think I’m a pretty amazing guy. A little flattery, now and again, does feel good. The occasional freebies are fun, but it’s really about the warmth of acknowledgement. I let them all know I wasn’t studying this weekend, but was working at Moe’s – and that if they needed flowers, they should drop by so I could give them a hand.

On Saturday, I took some of the casualty stock – formerly long-stemmed flowers snapped or broken in transit, but with pristine blooms – back to the teahouse and popped them into a teacup. We can’t sell casualty stock that’s too short to hold a place, but they can still enhance a holiday mood in the teahouse, and when I returned that evening, I had to laugh with (not at) Sharpie Goddess, who had taken to wearing the tulips in her hair in her own wacky fashion. I filled an order for Bandannaboy, who the first of my teahouse friends to come to the flower stand looking for help that weekend. We picked out an artsy pink and purple singles’ bouquet for his Valentine’s Single’s party on Sunday, which I can only hope was met with approval (though it was perhaps a bit extravagant for a singles’ party. It ended up being big enough to be a dinner table centerpiece).

On Sunday, I dropped off the Scharffen Bergers behind the counter at the teahouse on the way to Moe’s, and passing by on the way to dinner was surprised that no one had taken one. “No, really – these are for you guys. I’m not just using this place as my walk-in closet.” Silly people. Late in the evening, once my shift for the day had ended, ‘Thusiasm called and asked whether it would be better to pick up flowers Sunday night or Monday morning. “Sunday night, unquestionably. Keep them in water at home, and they’ll be good for the next day. Pick them today, and you’ll have more options in stock.” Three stargazers, three callas, six red and one pink later, the judgment call was complete.

“Wow, you are good at this, aren’t you?”

“Well, you did ask for something more creative than the standard dozen red.”

“Yeah, but this is art!”

“heh… that’s Moe’s work. I just picked them. I hope she likes them.”

Of course, it’s not all about catering to friends, young lovers, and beautiful couples. There are a few spoilers, and if anything, I’m glad it’s not Moe who has to deal face-to-face with all of them. It’s part and parcel of any job that entails customer service, but the volume on Valentine’s Day increases, by sheer probability and statistics, that the frequency of spoiler customers increases a dozenfold. Like the distinguished-looking gentleman with the commanding air, who seemed insulted when I asked for his money up front while attending to his request.

“Sorry, sir. You look eminently trustworthy, but this is Berkeley and it’s just good general policy.”

“All right, but if I don’t get my flowers, it’s your ass.”

He says it somewhat jokingly. I return it jokingly, with raised eyebrow: “Yeah, actually, that’s probably true.” I don’t tell him that my darker half is silently intimating what kind of mess it would like to make out of his anatomy. In a few minutes, I return with his sheaf of red carnations and white roses, send him off on his hurried way, and look over the line for the next customer needing attention. The nearest one holds up a yellow customer’s receipt in the commotion, and I distract my vicious side’s raised hackles by moving to fetch the next pickup.

“A preorder? I’ll get that for you.”

And then, Valentine’s Day itself. I’d have put in more hours if it were possible, but Mondays are my long class days. All told, I would rather have spent more time at the flower shop, but Antitrust, Legislation, and Trade Secrets called. Oh, well. I let my friends know I was working from 1pm to 5pm, lift my jacket from the back of the chair, and sprint through the rain back to Moe’s. Three days in the rain is a little rough, but I quickly forgot about any physical discomfort after throwing myself into the frenetic activity of the day’s constant business. The thing about Valentine’s Day is that you know you’re not going to run out of red roses; you buy enough to make sure that you can meet the day’s most basic (and fundamental) need. It’s everything else that starts to run out after a while, other random demands being a little harder to anticipate. Hairguy and Jet the Cook dropped by in the afternoon and I picked them out of the line. There’s something really fun about making flower arrangements for someone when you know who it’s for; Hairguy’s girlfriend is something of a party girl and social butterfly. She’s also into ballroom dancing. I like her a lot, actually – she’s really caring. Hairguy lands in the category of the clueless customer – so I took his order the way he takes orders from hopelessly undecided customers at the teahouse; executive decisionmaking. Two callas, one iris, two red, one stargazer, a stalk of Peruvian lilies, and some creative dressing. Probably the most notable thing about the order, though, was that it was my first real attempt at approximating Moe’s style. That guy makes it look so easy… I managed to get it looking about right on the fourth try, and handed them over to Hairguy, my mind’s eye imagining their actual delivery. I walk to the other side of the table to fetch an armload of orchids and gerber daises for Moe’s queue of special requests.

Jet the Cook was looking for something purple. His girlfriend (who I’ll call Sweetfob for the time being, ‘til I think of a more suitable nickname) used to work at the teahouse also, before going back to school – but it’s been two years, and I still didn’t know her favorite color was purple. Learn something new every day. Eleven purple glittered roses and two stargazer lilies. “That’s beautiful, Jet. Uh… that’s also sixty-five dollars.” “?!?” “”Uh…. We’ll figure something out…” Expensive, and different – and worth an entry in the teahouse journal. A few days later, I spent part of my study reprieve sketching purple roses into the page reserved for Valentine’s Day.

Though the prevailing feelings throughout the days were those of excitement, love, and artistic indulgence, the darker side did manage to slip in a moment of bitterness here and there; one can only banish it so thoroughly. I wish it hadn’t; there were times it made me feel bad for feeling bad. I know there’s something wrong with me when a compliment makes me feel bad. The best kind of customer one could ask for on a day like this fits the following mold: a clueless, simple-minded boyfriend in a hurry, with fifty bucks. Weaving around the bins of premades and tulips, I pick the next customer out of the line and ask him if he knows what he’d like. “I don’t know – a dozen red? But it’s so common. What should I get?” He fit the clueless-about-flowers profile, and I offered a few options:

“There’s nothing wrong with a dozen red, especially here. If you want, I could put together a dozen red with something extra, or find you something more original.”

I ask him his budget, and start picking out flowers. Red roses, and fire-and-ice. Magenta stargazer lilies, the rare ones in the stock. A quartet of deep violet irises, not yet opened, and finished with purple wax flowers instead of the usual babies’ breath.

“Wow. Thanks, man, you’re a lifesaver. Now I need candies… do you know a good place to find chocolate in Berkeley?” I direct him to the Scharffen Berger.

“Cool. Thanks again. You know so much about all this stuff, your girlfriend must love you!” I feel my face tighten as my conscious self narrowly staves off a reflexive face-fault. I wave goodbye with a thin smile and a nod, trying to lose myself again as I gather gladiolas for the next order, a huge dinner-table arrangement.

Valentine’s Day at the florist ended around 11pm. There are always a few stragglers here and there - frankly, if you’re picking up your Vday flowers that late in the day, I can’t help but wonder if your timing couldn’t have been better for your own sake, let alone everyone else’s. But no matter – with everyone still present, the rhythm of the closing routine isn’t disturbed by a latecomer or three. Usually, latecomers are a bit of a problem; when Moe’s working alone, he’ll tend to the requests of late customers but they do interrupt closing, and it’s not uncommon for him to start closing at 6pm, and still not get home until midnight. The profit margin is pretty tight, though, and paid help isn’t something that fits easily into the operational budget. But late or not, we were all glad to see Moe upbeat rather than beat, and jovial rather than merely relieved.

That’s the reason we were there… caring for a longtime friend. Moe was thanking everyone for their help and trouble, but everyone had their reasons for volunteering. R just wanted to help because she loves flowers and it looked like fun. P, just to do something “totally different from his everyday.” E insisted that she was just repaying a favor, though everyone smiled and figured it to be a white lie – Moe couldn’t remember any specific favor that would need repaying, and he’s got a phenomenal memory. Friendship was probably the better explanation. For J, it was tradition – as a longstanding friend, she’s been helping with Valentine’s day for the past five years straight, and it’s something she looks forward to. (It’s obvious – she knows her way around absolutely everything.) And while Moe tells everyone I’m helping out of the goodness of my heart, the truth is probably more that he’s doing me a favor by letting me help, because I need this to get through the weekend. I need to feel like I’ve been doing some good for my friends, and even complete strangers. I need to have the glowing warmth of generosity outshine that disingenuous sense of forced civility that I get at weddings and wedding banquets.

At about 1am, the last of the flowers have been watered and put away for the night. The tables have been brought inside and the sidewalk is clear of debris and foot traffic. With a snap of the padlock and a flick of the light switch, the day is at long last done. After one last round of smiles and handshakes to everyone I’d been working with for the past four days, I turn toward the street and begin the short walk home, suddenly aware of the damp and cold. I pull my jacket closer around me, trying to keep the rain from soaking into my shirt. I come home, pull off my waterlogged shoes, and take a warm shower before settling in for the night, soothing music playing from the computer as I curl up under the covers and try to get warm again.

I woke up the next morning with a sore throat and congested sinuses. I caught a cold. It’s been more than a week now, and I still have it. Oh, well. Happy Valentine’s Day.

A Conversation with the Past

(The nature of this post springs from an old comment I posted back on an entry from The Last Embassy, titled “Conversations with the Past.” before I started blogging. Most of my conversations with the past involve some amount of self-loathing introspection.)

I’m doing some schoolwork… research while out on a Hawaiian cruise on New Year’s Eve. Such is the way of things with me. I do it because I need to, but I’m none too happy about spending precious vacation time this way. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone I haven’t seen in a while. He had been sitting there, waiting for me to turn around and notice him, because he was too shy to talk. I turned to regard him… he seemed to be about eleven years old this time. I knew he wouldn’t be the first to say something, so I broke the ice.

“Hello, there.”

“Hi.”

“Happy New Year.”

*silence*

“What’s on your mind?”

“You’ve been feeling bad lately.”

*nod*

“Bad about still being me.”

I smile sadly, but say nothing. I don’t want to put it on his/our shoulders any more. I’ve been actively trying to get over it, and poor little mellow has done his share of crying.

“You have nice friends. They talk to you and make you feel better.”

“Yeah. They’re sweet, aren’t they…?”

At this point I notice a certain look in his eyes. Young m. mellow never smiled. At school, he was always too busy hiding, sulking, and nursing bruises to learn how to smile. But I remember that we always got a certain earnest look in our eyes when we were anticipating something good. The mouth didn’t know how to react, though the spirit certainly felt the intensity.

“You have a secret to share, don’t you? I can tell.”

*nod* “Yeah. Your friends are trying to make you feel better, and I want to try too. I’ll show you something.”

eleven mellow brings us back to art class, somewhere around the fifth or sixth grade. I always dreaded art class… I was never any good at it. I never did figure out how it came so easily to everyone else. My clumsy fingers could never sculpt anything that looked right. I couldn’t draw straight, sure lines, couldn’t figure out how to shade, couldn't draw proper perspective, and didn’t have an artistic imagination. I didn’t even have a sense of humor that the others could recognize. The paints, the pencils, the chalk, the clay – all of them were fascinating for their novelty, but I never figured out when and where all the other kids learned how to use them. I was asked to pick these things up and do something with them, time and time again, and I never knew how to use them. Art class was just like recess, and just like P.E. … I was always the runt who never had a handle on the game.

Today, it’s pastels. We were supposed to sketch a daytime tropical island vantage… a coconut tree growing from off the side of the frame, a sandy dune in the foreground giving way to a beach in the near distance, and beyond that, a deep blue ocean beneath an azure sky. Some of the other children had added a bright yellow sun high in the sky or beautiful renditions of clouds in gray and white. I was having an awful time. My tree looked cartoony, flat, and unreal. Downright ugly. I had never seen a real coconut tree; I only had the vaguest guess as to what one really looked like. I just knew that it looked like some kind of palm tree. I didn’t know where to draw bands of alternating dark and light, didn’t know the proportions, and my sky looked boringly blue, with no gradation of color, and I was scared, deathly scared of adding a sun because the way everything else was turning out, it would look bad too.

In a moment of desperate frustration, I grabbed the black pastel and started blacking out the tree, blacking out the sand, the dunes, everything. If it were all totally black, there would be no need for detail, no agonizing over shading and colors and depth, no challenge of the three-dimensional. Everyone else was almost done with theirs but I had little progress to show, and I hurriedly traced the black pastel across the paper until no hint of brown or green or beige showed through.

I grabbed the two darkest blue pastels and used them to wipe out the sky, wipe out the clouds, and turn the sea a deep midnight blue. With fifteen minutes to go, I nervously grabbed the unused orange, yellow, and red pastels from my box and started to work on adding the sun. I added the sun near the horizon, a great, warm, reddish-orange half-circle, already half-sunk into the sea. I traced the sun’s colors into the ocean, hoping that the effect would look as if the warm colors of the sunset were reflecting their last rays upon waves already settling into the night. The black tree, dune, and beach were not mistakes. They were cover-ups for my artistic ineptitude, but now they would also be the silhouettes left by the waning light of dusk. The art teacher walked by my table, and I froze in fright. It was wrong, all wrong. Everyone’s picture was of the daytime. Light blue skies, well-detailed coconut trees, bright blues… mine was sleepy and dark, and completely the wrong time of day. Theirs suggested warm breezes and the calling of sea birds. Mine suggested stillness, and the quiet rustling of palm trees at the end of the day. Theirs were awake and mine was asleep. I was in trouble again, I knew it.

“That’s good!”

I didn’t dare to look up any more than I dared to believe hearing it. Everyone knew I was bad at everything. Softball, volleyball, flag football, art, jokes, everything. I was bad at tetherball too, but I felt less bad about that, since we all know that tetherball’s just the dumbest damn game ever; the taller person always wins.

A few of the other kids came over to look at my sketch, and I shrank from the scrutiny, but much to my surprise everyone liked it because it was so different, because it really did manage to convey that sense of tropical paradise that we were all supposedly going after. I was so used to obsessing over the technical challenges of art that I had never really known that there was something more to it than trying so hard to draw properly. It was the one good day I had in art class.

“See? You’re no good at it, but you still did something right. They liked it, they all did. It was almost perfect, you know. They were all better at it than you, and then you went and did something crazy to try to fix it. And you didn’t even know how. You just got there somehow. You just did something nobody else thought of, that’s all.”

I’m still drinking in the memory, a little too stunned to answer forthwith, but I turn to eleven mellow and smile.

“We’re not perfect. We never will be. We’re too small, too weak, and too shy. But we’re not really that bad, you know?”

We look at each other. I can see the tears on my own face reflected in his.

“I thought of it because… well, we saw this picture last week, didn’t we? We’re in Hawaii now. We saw it for real. And with the way you’ve been feeling lately, I know you’ve been thinking a lot about me, and…”

I just turn around and grab eleven mellow in a big hug, which he returns in his own awkward and unsure way.

"Happy New Year."

“Happy New Year.”

No Horizon

It’s still sprinkling here off the coast of Maui. Our ship set sail late at night, several hours past sundown, and, as I have done on cruises before, I walked to one of the forward observation decks to watch what I could of our departure.

Hawaii’s population is fairly small compared to that of my home region. The lights speckling the shore looked cozily sparse compared to the crowded lights of the city, and they swung across and past my vision over the fifteen minutes it took for the ship to leave its moorings and settle into its course around the island. As the white and orange lights of the city swept from the field of vision, only a few points of light were left hovering here and there; the cloud cover meant that there were no stars or moon to light the waves, and all that could still be seen were the bright green beacons of the buoys marking the extremes of the harbor. Beyond that: waves and night.

Our ship’s not particularly big by present-day cruise ship standards, weighing in at something just under 48,000 tons, and as such, its motion is more subject to the movements of the sea than some of the other passengers might like. The rocking isn’t violent… for that, try cruising the Atlantic just east of the Caribbean… here in the Pacific it's gentle enough to be calming while still requiring you to be awake enough to maintain your own sense of balance while standing at the prow. I look over the forward railing as the last of the buoys passes quietly by the port side… the buoys were the last bright indicators of where heaven met earth or sea. Now I stare into near total darkness, with no real knowledge of where the horizon lies, or where it meets the darkness of the overcast sky. For a few minutes, all I can feel is the rolling of the ship and the wind blowing warmly into my face.

But after those few moments, my eyes adjust enough to let me see the waves. At least I think I see them… they loom out of the darkness in front of me, hundreds of feet in front and several stories below my vantage point. I sense them but I’m not really sure that I see them; they seem to take forms of darkness more solid than the rest of the unlit expanse. Maybe I’m guessing at their presence by the sounds of the sea, the low roar of the wind, and the otherworldly feeling of the ground moving beneath my feet. Maybe my mind is just filling in the blanks, conjuring inky swells within the sensory blind spot, too used to seeing order or too uncomfortable with the unknown to leave the space so visually empty.

Hints of great but gentle shapes against a black background. This is not the kind of darkness that engenders fear. Rather, I scan the night earnestly, trying to make out the waves, trying to get even the most illusory sense of the implied majesty. For a moment I forget myself, imagining that I can reach out across that great expanse and feel for the waves with my hands, or hover over the empty expanse like a lonely spirit searching for a long-lost home.

Why isn’t this scary? Why doesn’t the looming unknown make me afraid? Because this darkness is more like the mystery that lies behind hope. Not the ominous penumbra of some tenebrous predator. I can’t see where the unreachable sky meets the navigable horizon. I don’t know what’s possible and what’s not. It makes me want to try to reach out, to grasp for something that I hope is there, whether it’s just a trick of the imagination or a warm and gentle surge of tropical waters. Sometimes hope can be so much more bearable than the light of reality, where I wake up hoping to see a forested paradise teeming with water and sun situated off the railing, only to find a vast, empty expanse of overcast ocean with no inviting shores to be found in any direction.

In My Element

Actually, I probably couldn’t be more out of my element in such a beautiful place surrounded by nature. I’m very much a suburban boy. But standing in a waterfall is something I’ve always wanted to do. I mean, really – it’s like an orgy of rain, and you know how I am about rainfall. (When I go back and re-read some of my previous entries, it amazes me how preoccupied I seem to be with rainfall and its imagery.)

Our visit to Kauai was far too short. While my family went to play golf, I opted for a hike out to Princeville Ranch, a parcel of privately-owned land where the proprietors offer, amongst other things, hiking excursions through the rainforest-like terrain, through muddy gulches and groves of palms and walking trees too thick to see through. No wood I’ve ever walked through on the mainland ever looked so lively. All the gaudy mockups or scenic mimicry of jungle paradises in the themed vacation spots I’ve been to fall far short through no real fault of their own, for who could really duplicate something like this? You can recreate some of the look, but the moisture in the air and the rich but clean fragrance that permeates the air can’t quite be approximated. We hiked through winding trails too narrow to be called paths, through mud made of volcanic soil laden with water to the consistency of cake batter, over stones lit by rays of light threading their way through a canopy made of splaying palms, ferns and fruit trees.

The hike itself was supposed to be a difficult one by tourist standards, but it was barely enough to make a former resident of Berkeley’s Unit 4 Foothill break a sweat. My folks were off at the Kauai Marriott golf course, so I didn’t have to keep together with anyone in particular. I had a great time playing Wood Elf, standing easily on slippery terrain, walking lightly so as not to sink into the mud, and striding assuredly between the boulders and rocks rising from the currents of small rivers and streams. A constant exercise of poise and balance amongst lovely environs.

Of course, I suppose one of Tolkien’s wood elves would never have been bitten by so many mosquitoes. I react pretty badly to mosquito bites… no little bites for me, no sir. Every bite erupts into a huge swollen catastrophe, hard and red and anywhere from one to three inches across. One on my right forearm went so far as to hijack the entire range from wrist to elbow. I had a similar reaction to a mosquito bite a few years ago, which I showed to a classmate:

“Where is it? I don’t see it?”

“You’re looking too close. Stand back.”

“Whoa.”

I held up the forearm bite upon noticing it and showed it to my fellow hikers who had been complaining of bug bites of their own. Cue understated deadpan: “Well, here’s a pretty decent bug bite, no?” Astonished reactions ensued.

“Oh my god, are you allergic or something?”

“Not really, I just don’t get many bug bites back home, so I think my body’s just unused to them, that’s all. Oh, my virgin blood!”

“Does it itch?”

“Not as much as you’d think.”

*laughter* “Maybe it’ll itch more if we keep reminding him of it!”

“Well, the guide in Hilo did say that the locals tend to prefer Chinese food over the traditional fare…”

We reached the private waterfall after about two hours of hiking. The stream, clear and cold, poured down from fifty feet up to crash upon an array of smoothed rocks. Some of the older hikers waded right into the pool for a swim in waters that could only be described as brisk… we must have a few members of the Polar Bear Club in our group. Far too cold for me… I walked around the edge of the rockface to stand on the worn and pounded stones, letting the cold waters drench me from above. I looked out in front of me, a curtain of rushing water draped over the scenery like a passageway hung with strands of crystalline beads reflecting the sun. White mist lay suspended in the air, and the churning splash of the water dancing atop the rocks added a feeling of energy that mixed oddly with the cold. The trees framed pooling waters which fed another stream headed away from the falls, while ferns perched on the rock face unfurled their foliage in their ancient and curious manner. And over the roar of the water crashing down upon the rocks, I could hear the cheers and see the thumbs-ups offered by the other hikers for the guy crazy enough to stand straight and upright in a freezing waterfall.

What, Me Surf?

I stepped off the pier into Lahaina, Maui at about ten in the morning. Lahaina strikes me as something of a tourist trap, but hey – this occasion finds me a vacationing tourist in dire need of a break, and I’m more than willing to be captive here for a while. The day starts with a little shopping, a little bumbling amateur photography (I do hope something halfway tolerable comes out; I’ve been busy trying to burn the images of this place into my mind’s eye as a permanent memory). I took one picture of a shipwrecked sailboat perhaps four hundred feet off shore… the previous day, a guide pointed it out and said, “if you’re wondering what the deal is with that eyesore of an old boat, here’s the story: this past Halloween, a local went out on his boat, partied, got very drunk, and wrecked it in the shallows. He didn’t have the money to have it removed or dismantled, so he left it there… and the county of Maui has been fining him $5000 per day since then.” I wonder whose inertia is going to win out on this issue. Either way, it’s a bit of a shame to leave such an ugly wreck out in such a beautiful location.

I took lunch at the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant along Front Street. Not a bad cheeseburger, too – a tad pricey, at $7.95, but add a slice of roasted pineapple and a glass of cold guava juice, mix in the shorefront view and there you have it: a recipe for sigh-inducing happiness. A few hours to digest, and then it’s off to my first (and only) surfing lesson.

Surfing. A sport that, at least stereotypically, lends itself to two kinds of practitioners: vacuous stoners and slackers who really have nothing better to do with their lives, and bronzed, ripped, beautiful islanders who induce instant urges of infidelity in the hearts of vacationing spouses.

Neither of which includes me. I’m so far removed from either extreme that I feel decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of undertaking it myself – discomfort that’s only magnified by my squirming insecurity over my native klutziness and my academic paleness. I’m not fair-skinned amongst my usual crowd, but I feel conspicuously… uh, “albino” on this warm sunlit beach. I’m much relieved when the instructional staff hands us wetsuit tops to keep us from getting sunburnt. The sight of me with my shirt off isn’t anything that anyone, least of all me, wants to be seeing.

A few minutes (!) of instruction and friendly admonitions on land and then it’s off into the water we go. The water is a little chillier than I had expected here in bright, warm Maui, but things start out okay. Surfing’s at once slightly easier and slightly harder than you’d think. For instance, paddling on the surfboard isn’t as tiring as it seems; you actually move pretty well across the water without putting in as much effort as swimming. (Must be the board’s low drag coefficient – that, and you’re not trying to propel an awkwardly-shaped, wildly-thrashing, hilariously non-aerodynamic human body through the water) Even standing on the board and keeping your balance isn’t too taxing.

The hard part is the timing. In nine attempts, I managed to catch maybe three waves somewhat decently. Wiped out twice. The other four times, I took too long to stand up on the board, and by the time I managed it, the wave had passed beneath me completely, leaving me standing out in the middle of nice, calm water standing on top of a becalmed surfboard and looking like a complete idiot. Note to self: if you’re ever going to try this in the future, do your best to get up on that surfboard as soon as the wave reaches you; if you don’t start riding it, you don’t catch it.

Oh – and watch out for traffic. Getting rammed by another surfboarder is not fun. Took one in the left leg, and never did get a good look at whoever it was that steered that nine-foot-long torpedo-shaped raft directly into my left thigh. Ow. And not so much as a shouted apology. I need to give that guy a serious talking to. With my right foot.

There was also the matter of those dry heaves. The bobbing of my surfboard, combined with the bright tropical sun, had given me a headache and quite possibly my first real case of seasickness. My fellow computer science classmates and I used to joke about contracting vampirism through chronic sun deprivation, but this time the light sensitivity seemed very real, and I was squinting through almost the entire three-hour lesson. The taste of seawater really didn’t help either. It’s one thing to harbor philosophical, ideological, or metaphysical laments about an ivory tower existence; it’s another to be given physiological symptoms for it. Between the squinting, the salt, and the swaying of the surf, I developed a big headache, some queasiness, and then – about three times (or was it four?) – I had to throw up. Fortunately, they were just dry heaves – I know enough about exercise to know better than to eat directly before doing something strenuous, and I was very glad that I had given myself sufficient time to digest lunch before coming out here. Didn’t particularly want to be donating my Cheeseburger back into Paradise, not because it would have been embarrassing (which it certainly would have been), but moreso because of the thought that it would have been horribly sacrilegious to puke into Maui’s lovely waters. Tsk Tsk. For shame.

But all told, it was quite fun, and entertainment value aside, it was very worth it: I made myself go out and do this for the express purpose of doing something contrary to my habits and nature. Nothing ventured, nothing gained; if I don’t like who I am or the way that my life has been going, I pretty much have to change it myself, after all.

Hawaiian Trivia

Poi: A Hawaiian dish made of breadfruit or taro root, beaten to a thick paste and mixed with a few other ingredients that I can’t remember. It had a taste somewhat reminiscent of refried beans, slightly sweetened and flavored with dates. One of the guides said, “Actually, it’s wallpaper paste. We just like to tell tourists that it’s food, and then watch them try to eat it.” Another, more charitable description: “Eating poi by itself is kinda like eating straight mayo. It’s much better when you eat it with something else.” My dad’s pronouncement: “It’s revolting.”

The Sleeping Giant: A mountain formation on gorgeous, wild Kauai is said to have the profile of an immense Polynesian warrior lying on his back. Local mythology include several stories about the sleeping giant, one of which is that he was a mighty warrior who went to an especially good luau, ate far too much poi, fell asleep, and never got back up.

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. Hawaii’s state fish. In English, we’d identify it as a species of Triggerfish. Hawaiians also called it the “sea pig” (because the profile of its head resembles that of a boar, though at least one person claimed that it was because the fish smelled like a pig, which I have a hard time believing, even as a gullible tourist), and it served as an acceptable substitute for land pigs in ceremonial sacrifices when regular pigs were scarce. Name’s fun to say. Take a shot and say it three times fast. Lather, Rinse, Repeat until you can’t take it anymore and snort your rum out the wrong pipe.

Fresh Water

Our ship stopped at Hilo, Hawaii, but not for very long… the ship moored at about ten this morning and set sail to leave at six. That was one of the things about this trip that bothered me the most, upon reading the itinerary – we wouldn’t have much time to explore much of anything. But it was a good day; the short trip inland brought us to Akaka Falls. We didn’t stay very long, but there are times when actual time matters little; the nature of waking consciousness makes the passage of time relative, and I’m glad that somehow or other, I managed to make the most of it.

It was overcast and raining slightly the whole day. Not surprising, given that we’d been told it rains for two-thirds of the year on the Big Island. Most of the passengers were somewhat disappointed, though if you know me well enough by now, you’d have guessed it didn’t bother me at all. The intermittent on-and-off drizzle came unaccompanied by fog or haze, leaving my sightseeing relatively unspoiled, and I smiled as the warm Hawaiian rain dappled my face while never quite soaking through my clothes.

Hawaii’s a green place, full of accidental beauty. Nothing at Akaka falls seemed out of place, the entire region looking as though some inspired but inebriated landscaper had haphazardly planted the most beautiful trees and flowers and left them to grow out of control. Back home, our golden hills, when viewed up close, are revealed to be vast expanses of dead weeds, full of burrs and thorns and crackling with the ominous latent potential of a massive fire hazard. But here in Hawaii, no glance anywhere revealed anything that one would have wished to remove. The banyan trees cast their roots downward towards the rich soil, creating a sort of one-tree jungle, hanging with moisture and inviting the imagination, branches and roots and limbs so numerous and confused that the brain has trouble processing it all. Huge red and purple flowers crane their way through moist ferns and between stalks of cane, each one a reflection of the regal but tropical beauty instantly suggestive of so many things Hawaiian.

The trail led to a vantage point looking across a great gorge to Akaka Falls, where the water of a small river takes a plunge four-hundred feet down a cliff face of black rock to land in the lagoon below. I’ve seen bigger, taller falls from a distance in Yosemite. And Akaka Falls is but a trickle compared to Niagara, of course… but these falls were rendered uncommonly lovely by the landscape and by the view. In nature, the grandiose and the unique each have a claim to beauty, and why not? The same is true of people; the stately and the flamboyant are attractive in obvious ways, while the demure and the unassuming may be equally lovely.

The waters that leapt from the top of the falls didn’t cascade downwards as a steady torrent of roaring vertical rapids, too thick to be seen through. The flow wasn’t quite generous enough to generate that particular kind of spectacle. Rather, the water flowed evenly from the top but quickly separated into nearly-distinct quantities of water whipped into white mist by the descent. It tumbled in layers over itself, sometimes reaching terminal velocity and sometimes not, buffeted by breeze and air resistance that caused parts of it to blow backwards against gravity. This created clouds of mist that billowed and drifted away from other, larger masses of water that continued the plunge to the lagoon. The splash of the falls entering the lagoon itself could be heard, gentle and distant, but was obscured by spreading clouds of mist that washed away from the entry point like insubstantial waves breaking upon the shore.

No expert in fluid mechanics, I stopped trying to think about the interplay of gravity and aerodynamics that made the sight of Akaka falls what it was. I watched a sheet of water take flight from the top of the falls, watched as it took the shape of a phoenix diving headfirst for the bottom in a revivifying death plunge worthy of the bird’s mythical destiny. The breeze and wind teased the phoenix’s wings outward from its body, rippling in flight, being consumed and created anew as the winds blasted them into hanging clouds of white fire and ephemeral sprays of silvery ash that evaporated instantly and erratically into the warm Hawaiian air. Even as the phoenix’s wings disappeared into the air, they unfurled over and over again, pulled and drawn from its body, flickering back into life, a miniature version of the phoenix’s own greater life cycle. Its descent was traced by a series of angular inscriptions carved naturally into the rock face, rectangular geometric patterns outlined by the splash and trickle of smaller waters that make their way down the rock face instead of leaping over it. These runes and the water gushing within were too distant to be seen in detail; rather, they seemed to shine as though intermittently illuminated by a silver searchlight in the rain, cryptically heralding the phoenix’s mighty passage. As a symbol of rebirth, it wreaked no devastation in its wake; the black rocks of the falls were covered in greenery, and all the surroundings were green and full of life. This phoenix brings life, not death… a symbol of the power to nurture and create, of sustaining sacrifices instead of fire and destruction. I begin to wonder if the true phoenix is indeed a creature of water, not fire – a mirage born of the burning sands of the desert, made real by some natural miracle.

It disappears into the roiling clouds of billowing vapor below and is no more. Transformed into a cool, comforting mist of fresh water, it hangs in the air, looking comforting, cool, and reinvigorating. I’m wishing I could go down to the lagoon and wade through those waters. I look upwards, back to the top of the falls, where the phoenix is reborn, one amongst many, gathering speed for another great dive past the runes of the rockface.

We only stayed at the falls for about ten minutes. It seemed so much longer. Thank goodness for that.

Happy Birthday, Jesus

Seasons greetings to the Savior from an agnostic.

I’ve always been a little standoffish towards religion, and I suspect that’s largely because I feel like I haven’t been exposed to its better face. Though at times I’ve been intellectually in love with the scientific, I’ve never quite been able or willing to abandon the idea that there is a supreme being out there. If anything, I’ve wondered to myself about the possible nature of such a being, mostly because all the religious conceptions of God that I’ve heard sound suspiciously like someone else’s mind control tool. Though I don’t believe that my own theories and apprehension of what He/She is have much title to accuracy or truth, I often find it impossible for me to believe that the Almighty would be so self-absorbed and petty as some of the religious doctrine out there would insist.

If I were to associate myself with any religion at all, it would be Christianity, mostly by upbringing and association. Most Christians wouldn’t consider me Christian because I have too many doubts. Or, to put it another way, I lack “faith.” And honestly, I don’t deny that I experience a lack of faith. If you don’t mind the peculiar comparison, I liken my attitude towards religion to my attitude towards martial arts: I love the art, but I hate the sport. Similarly, I love the spirituality but I despise the institution.

I actually went to a Christmas service last Sunday. I had been hoping to hear a warm, uplifting message about the Savior’s compassion and sacrifice. There’s a lot that I do love about Jesus and what he stands for; unconditional love, the power of loyalty, the willingness for forgive well-meaning but flawed people, his brave and selfless sacrifice… in this holiday season, these are the messages I hope to hear. The tenets of Christianity embrace so many wonderful things.

But what did I hear? An expository on the genealogy of Christ. A declaration that God planned everything from the time of Adam, that the Savior be born unto a very particular bloodline – that if you didn’t know who Christ really was, you’re not revering the real Christ. And about half the time, the pastor was busy lambasting “enemies of the faith” – liberal scholars and the educated class. The hedonistic youth. Anyone with a PhD. I’m serious – he termed the enemies of the faith in such broad terms. He called them sinners. He called them despicable. He said that they sought to tarnish and corrupt the purity of Christ by inquiring into the details of his life, as though the revelation of any detail that admitted that he was a human being was to be unfaithful to his glory. He dismissed the theory of evolution as scientific nonsense. In fact, anything scientific was sinful. There were so many metaphysical inconsistencies in the message that the sermon was downright painful to hear, and I sat in the pew with arms crossed and eyes narrowed, irritated at the preacher’s choice of messages on a day of holy remembrance.

He noted that the message of Christ was delivered first unto the lowest of the low, the uneducated, and not to the priests or scholars or politicians of the time. He said this was to emphasize that the worthiness of a human being as we humans measure it is nothing under the eyes of God. Right, no argument there – why would mere human accomplishments, mere human power mean anything to an omnipotent being? If the message is one of humility, that I appreciate and wholeheartedly believe in. But he takes it too far. Surely human worth as measured in material terms means little in the eyes of God… but engaging in human endeavors is not sinful. It is not sinful to be an academic. It is not sinful to ask scientific questions, or to contribute to the body of knowledge. The pastor’s blanket statements damning all human endeavor were absurd and overbroad. Why should the theory of evolution be inherently corrupt and sinful? If planning the birth of Christ from the days of Adam and Eve is proof of the Lord’s ultimate ability to orchestrate anything flawlessly, why could it not be possible for this omniscient, omnipotent being flawlessly to orchestrate something as complex as evolution? Why couldn’t evolution in all its improbable complexity merely be a divinely engineered coincidence? Shouldn’t it be equally blasphemous to suggest that the coincidence is so impossible, it would be beyond the power of the divine to achieve? And as a staunch conservative, the preacher labeled all liberals as the enemies of Christ as well, as people who seek only to twist and pollute Christ’s image to justify their nefarious and sacrilegious ends (as though standing up for the wretched and the oppressed and the disadvantaged was something of which Christ would categorically disapprove). Conservatives aren’t categorically bigots any more than liberals are categorically immoral, and I don’t like it when people in a position to dispense wisdom distort the world to fit convenient oversimplifications. I think they do it more to convince and comfort themselves of their absolute knowledge of the real “truth” than to bring any real healing to the troubled spirits of our times.

But enough of my dissatisfaction with the details of the preacher’s textualist dogma. Even as an agnostic, what bothered me most was that he chose to deliver this animosity-laden diatribe on a day that even a doubter like me wanted to remember the goodness, selflessness, justice, love, and courage that the Savior stands for. If I believe in a God at all, it is these things that I believe about Him or Her.

Disconcerting sermons aside, a very Happy Birthday to you, Savior. Whatever ideological and doctrinal difference this preacher and I might have should really be pretty irrelevant on this day. On this day, I remember the purity of all the principles you stand for, ignoring all the petty differences of our world’s obscenely warring religions. Joy and happiness to you and the Big Daddy. We down here on earth spend too much time worrying about our own souls and our own politics. We glorify you and fight wars over you because we think you want our loyalty and our faith. Well, as an agnostic, I don’t know about that… but despite the appalling imperfection of my faith, as it were – I offer You my love, and my thanks for making me what I am, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and all.

Third of Fourth, thanks and goodbye

It’s been a while, but I’ve done this many times since then. A soft landing, and then a quick snap into a broad, stable stance, left arm stretched far, right hand holding the broadsword in the hidden ready position. A moment’s pause precedes a coil and a whipping, guarded turn, sword and empty hand flanking me. A split second of rotation is followed by the familiar metallic ring of a sharp sword thrust.

Some things have changed, but this art is still with me. The blade I hold is heavier, sturdier, having taken its place in my right hand, a replacement for a sword that I had worn out earlier this fall. The blade is heavier, as is my heart, but still I practice. I hope my heart proves sturdier also.

I cut widely to my right side. Muscle memory drives careful footwork, the successive steps lost to my conscious mind. A clearing block in midair sweeps past my right leg and I wind back in the other direction, a smooth vertical cut tracing forwards in the second dizzying change in direction. A moment of poise, and then a fast chamber followed by a low stab, then a launch into the air. My facing again changes, with the edge tracing a twirling arc ending in a swift chop straight to the floor as I land in a drop stance, empty hand at the ready. Poised over my shoulder, the blade traces past the side of my head, occupying a guarded post in my peripheral vision.

Finals are over. They hold little peril now. Prior to this last set, I’ve taken eighteen sets of college- or higher-level level finals and quite an array of standardized tests, and taking them becomes easier each passing time, each time less stressful because I know what to expect. It doesn’t change the generally unpleasant nature of the trial, by any means, but practice makes everything easier. Perhaps this even includes being rejected. It involves, amongst other things, the simple task of staying focused on the goals you still have. They were there before this, and they will be there after this. The important part is to stay strong even as your heart wants to duck under the covers and cry.

Stepping forward into a second low stab, I lunge and slash to my left in a full circle, prelude to a butterfly kick. Body lowered over my right leg, I swing myself across my center of balance and launch off my left leg as hard as I can. The broadsword turns a full circle beneath my body, now horizontal off the ground. Both legs trace sweeping aerial kicks above the line of my body. Hand, blade, and legs trace the air, one after the other like spinning knives hurled sideways, instruments of vengeance orbiting the eye of the storm.

That butterfly kick seems to come more naturally to some people than others. I’m not athletically talented, so the only way I can get it down is to practice it until my body figures it out. Even then, some days I’ve got it, and some days I don’t. I wish I knew what made it tick, what factors make it easier to pull off on some days than others. I sure wish I knew what makes it easier on any given day to get over someone you loved. Part of it is sticking to the things you know. Some part of my subconscious knows of a life before this person was even present in my thoughts. I will have to remember that life and return to it. She’s not going to be missing me the way I’m missing her. But much of it is made easier by having good friends, thoughtful, wise friends who’ll speak to you straight, who won’t belittle your intelligence while trying to comfort you. Had dinner with Druidess the day I finished my finals. She was kind enough to answer a forlornly short-notice request for companionship on a working weekday. “Oh, it’s all right. Complain to me if you want. At least you can be witty about it. Not everyone can.” Druidess is a kindred spirit. Fond of psychology, the written word, wrath, and black roses, she’s wise, cynical, understanding, and caring, proof that good-heartedness is as often as not found in prickly places, rightfully guarding itself from the thoughtless with an array of thorns and talons. Delicate wisdom framed by a sharp exterior. Tuesday was largely spent at an extended tea with Enji, one gifted with, amongst other things, a remarkable talent for giving voice to life’s stories with timeless eloquence. We talked of many things, but looking back on it, I confess that much of the time was spent talking about my own problems and the subjects of my academic thoughts. I had not realized until now how selfish of me that must have been. But then, if it bothered her at all, she didn’t let on. I’m quite grateful for that; it was a wonderful day, filled with the tastes of tea sandwiches, cider, and scones, chili-flavored chocolate, indulgently heady discourse, and the cold December crispness of a clear night’s chill. Blushingest compliment of the evening: “You have many of the qualities of a superhero. But no cape. That’s from The Incredibles, by the way.” “Really? I’ll be watching for that”

A smooth landing, and thank goodness for that. A retreating step, guarded by another one of those smooth and measured upward cuts. More backpedaling, shielded by a vicious forward stab, and then a swirling deflection guarding the flank and overhead.

Though I must eventually leave my sentiments for my crush behind, perhaps the sooner the better, I still learned some things from her that I hope to keep with me forever. She has a remarkably agile wit and a genuine joy for life. I couldn’t keep up with her remarkably random sense of humor; mine centers itself on dark irony, dry delivery, and insight adulterated with ruefulness. Hers, by comparison, draws from the droll spontaneity of the moment, unsullied by any lurking bitterness, mixed with her unabashed enthusiasm for life and her shining self-confidence. She manages this in the face of a multitude of responsibilities, the demands of two jobs, her classwork, and the pain of knowing that her father left her, her mother, and her siblings in search of another life for himself. I deal with my problems through a peculiar blend of motherly kindness and merciless rancor, but I have never been as comfortable in my own skin as she is in hers. I admire her wit and her strength; she’s been sorely tested in her life, but she continues to be her own champion, and even if my friends think me strong in the face of adversity, I have to wonder how it would measure up against her phenomenal resilience. I have no place in her life, but if nothing else, I should learn this from her.

The section ends with a slash right that settles into a light and relaxed stance, finally springing into a standing guard position, stock-still on the right foot. The last stance ends regal and tall, but forbidding and poised. The section is finished, but the set remains.

Time to move on. It’s been painful, but informative. Another life’s lesson learned. I wasn’t good enough for her, but if I can learn how to cultivate her kind of strength and claim that quality as my own, maybe I’ll be more ready the next time I fall for someone. I may be the better for it in the end. This may be the first time I’ve learned a positive lesson from heartbreak.

Kind Gift

I got a gift yesterday from Shysmile and Chivalrous... a daily 2005 calendar full of legal anecdotes and lawyer jokes. It might seem like the kind of throwaway gift to get a law student, knowing little else about him... something you might expect from a distant aunt or other family member only peripherally aware of what you're up to in life.

But not so. It was chosen quite thoughtfully... I had been having an emotionally bad day several weeks back, which came up while Shysmile and I were discussing the content of her legal studies paper. Half an hour into an academic conversation mostly occupied with utilitarianism, religion, nonviolence, and Kantism, Shysmile suddenly asked me if I was alright. She noted that my face had lately betrayed a certain desolate sadness... I told her what had been on my mind, and she asked me what it was I wanted most in a girlfriend.

I typed without much conscious thought. The first thing that came to mind: the ability to make me laugh. I've not done enough of that in my life. Sometimes I don't even know if I know how to laugh - sometimes, when I hear the sound of my own laughter, I wonder if I did it correctly. I don't do it often enough to know what the sound of my laughter is supposed to be like, or how it's supposed to feel. I find myself wondering if it sounds forced, artificial, awkward, or insincere. Yesterday, something happened at the teahouse that made me laugh, and a few of my recent and newfound friends looked up and said, "Wow, I've never heard you laugh before!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

"No, it's nice. I've never heard you laugh!"

*laughs* "Am I really so morose all the time?"

"No, we've seen you smile - but never laugh. It's cute!"

I was talking to Moe, a friend of eleven years, today about Shysmile's Christmas gift to me. A short and simple rhyme found its way into my speech regarding Shysmile's understanding of my feelings.


and I don't live the life I want.
I want to smile instead of sigh,
I want to laugh instead of cry


I stared off into the flowers of his shop after saying that, gaze straying over and past buckets of stargazer lilies and freesias. My speech is prone to a certain ludicrous verbosity, overlapping layers of linguistic redundancy, haphazardly pounding certain thoughts into shape with a multi-pronged attack of artlessly arranged brute spoken force. I'm not a poet, and certainly not a spontaneous one. For the desire to be spoken so simply, circumventing the wanton affectations of my usual speech, it must lie close to the soul indeed.

I had just finished unwrapping the gift, reading the sampled courtroom excerpt on the back with geeky glee. As Chivalrous fixed up a few snacks for the evening's slacking, Shysmile reminded me of our previous conversation... said she wanted to get something funny and intellectual for me... that neither she nor Chivalrous really got many of the jokes within, that you'd probably have to be a law student to catch most of the punchlines... but she and Chivalrous wanted to get me something that reflected their view of me, particularly what they graciously view as my sophisticated wit, as well as their hopes for the happiness - or at least laughter - that they knew to be so elusive. As she continued to explain, I felt very touched... she'd spent a lot of time picking the calendar out from a number of alternatives, hoping to find something that embodied the sentiments she was trying to convey. Part of the fun in receiving a gift thoughtfully chosen is trying to puzzle out the symbolic meanings and subtexts, guessing at phantom messages that might or might not be there. But this time, it was nice having it all spelled out, given the compromised state of my rational thought processes. I vaguely remember some sort of apology from Shysmile about not being very eloquent, but it got somewhat drowned out by the background noise of my thoughts, like the placid sound of the sea meeting the shore... Shysmile's good with people's feelings. As much as I love the interplay of words, I'm more touched by being understood.

We spent the rest of the evening watching the Two Towers. From time to time I glanced over at them, the loveliest couple upon whom I've ever laid eyes. Couples are often hard for me to look at, usually being painful reminders of all the betrayals, rejections, and disdain I've been subject to in the past. I usually turn away even from talk of couples, not out of spite, but out of self-preservation. I don't begrudge them what they have, but I must avert my attention lest the stabbing pains of the past and present dominate my thoughts.

But not Shysmile and Chivalrous. They're beyond beautiful to me, and I am again reminded of how thankful I am that they have found one another.

There is at least one thing right in this world.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being…

just about anyone, really. Getting back into life, one day at a time, degree by degree. I’ve been having a bad time lately, but I’m no solipsist, and the sorrows of loneliness certainly aren’t mine alone to bear. Relationship trouble abounds in just about every neck of the woods. A little slice of the twentysomethings demographic, a cross-section of people and situations that could have come from just about anyone’s life.

One friend has been having a hard time letting go of a less-than-perfect relationship, with a less-than perfect person – desirable, even admirable, in most every way save that of maturity. But boy, what a stickler. It’s not a small thing. I told her the story of the genie and the amnesiac over an IM conversation this morning. Good for a laugh, good for a pause… good for understanding, but not solving. They are, after all, two different things much of the time. There are times we wish life had more to do with fate and less to do with luck… or maybe not. The problem with denying fate and luck and believing in free will in cases like this is the understanding that, to the extent your free will matters, so does everyone else’s. Hence your own initiative or bravery will not provide all the happy endings you hope for.

Another has been returning like a moth to the flame to a relationship that could be called abusive. It’s been two years and she keeps going back to the same guy, pining away at every parting, always hoping that the next time will be like the most miraculous of Christmas mornings, a gift worth waiting for sitting happily under the tree just waiting to be unwrapped and enjoyed forever, only to be greeted every time with disappointment and pain. “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” It would be easy for anyone to tell her she’s being self-destructive and pathetically drawn to an undeserving cad, but there’s no courage in unsympathetic advice… not when we all know, if we’d admit it, that we ourselves might be no stronger.

And another enjoys a wonderful relationship full of understanding and insight and joy. Happiness that would be complete, perhaps, if not for the price imposed from without – in this case, paternal disapproval. She won’t be spending Christmas at home… but it will be a happy holiday season, still, surrounded by love and friends and approval, from every corner save one. She’s strong enough – or at least willful enough – to get by in circumstances that would have broken plenty of other people. She may not have quite everything, perhaps, but she has what she needs. Or so it seems to me, but I only know what she tells me.

A fourth was going to get married earlier this year, but in what seems to have been an inexplicable turn of events, the groom called off the wedding less than two weeks to the date. To say that she was heartbroken would be an appalling understatement, but she’s recovering. I know that, from time to time, she probably still cries about it, outward strength and assertions of independence notwithstanding. I’ve known her too long for the signs to escape me. She’s mostly back to her old self, though a little wiser and a little more bitter for the experience… and I must say, if even only to be tongue-in-cheek, that it’s the next guy who’ll be paying the price for it.

A fifth is getting married. I’ve been invited to the wedding, and I’ll probably go – she was nice enough to me, back in the day, for me to feel obligated to attend despite my three-year policy of boycotting weddings. Weddings do me no good. I rent a tux (which I hate wearing), I feel stiff and uncomfortable, and I have dinner with a bunch of people I barely know. The bitterness cranks up the resentment on every little tribulation that comes with the day, and the worst part about the whole experience is that I’ll be spending the whole day thinking miserably about myself on a day that’s emphatically not supposed to be about me at all (As though any day is), and the sheer self-absorption of the entire experience not only can’t be blocked out, but makes me feel weak and disappointed in myself for succumbing to it. The whole point behind the boycott is to avoid situations like that, to keep myself in a state where I can at least maintain my composure, smile at my friends, and reinforce the bursting seams of old wounds with frail strands of principle. I’ve had a problem, lately, where around good friends, I can smile and laugh, try to be witty, and stay collected, but around others, who don’t know me well enough to care about me, I can’t even bring myself to try anymore. Reflexively, I meet the rhetorical greeting of “how’s it going?” with a glum stare and a pause, unable even to summon the incredibly simple, if insincere, response of “fine.”

We all talk, sometimes… to peel away the thin layer of false civility that keeps us sane around polite company (or at least keeps polite company from wondering what unhinged sociopath now walks amongst them). To get at what’s really bothering us, to explore those weaknesses of the self that bind us to things that make us unhappy. If trust is allowing someone close enough to hurt you, then that’s what we have… we talk about the things that hurt us, we talk about our helplessness… we ask why we lack the will to do what’s best for ourselves in the long run, why the allure of romance and the spectre of solitude defy the instinct of self-preservation. We allow the other to speak those blunt truths about our strengths and weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, all the mixed blessings in our personal makeups that make us too caring to be honest, too infatuated to be selfless, too feeling to be rational, or too analytical to be wise. Speaking these things inflicts pain. We listen despite the discomfort because we know it is in our best interest to understand ourselves, sometimes in the way that only a third person can. Introspection’s a tricky process, full of traps and pitfalls laid by the subconscious. It can be so hard to face yourself, especially when you want to blame the world for being unfair and when you want to believe that if there is fault to be had anywhere, it’s not to be found within yourself. Self-doubt leads us down dark corridors into the dead end of denial. Cowardice drives us into bottomless pits of despair. Uncertainty makes us detour from the silvered pathways of virtue, thinking it a mirage, that something this pure and noble could never exist in a heart so tortured… and self-pity stops us in our tracks, leaving us to rot in desolate places despite the obvious fact that going almost anywhere would be better than staying here. We never really know whether we’re seeing ourselves for what we are, or whether we’re just deluding ourselves. But with more voices searching for the harmony, we have a better chance of picking out the melody of the song that emanates from our spirits, too faint and distant to be heard against the background hiss.

“I hate platitudes. You know it’s said that ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but whoever said that forgot about unrequited love. If all you’ve ever had is unrequited love, then you have loved for but a moment before the loss sets in forever. Now that’s a raw deal.”

“The hardest part about being heartbroken is not showing it, because when let yourself look sad, you look pathetic. And I can’t think of anyone I know who was ever attracted to someone else for being pathetic. Tragic, how the worst thing you can do for your love life, when you’re at your loneliest, is to let it show on the outside.”

“You need to take him off your buddy list. Every time he logs on, his name appears and you think about him. You’re watching the screen, just waiting for him… no wonder you can’t forget him, you’re never giving yourself the chance! Every time he comes online, you sit and watch, hoping for him to talk to you, to say what it is you’re hoping to hear. You’re wondering if he’s thinking about you, whether he’s working up the courage to talk, whether you’re still in his daydreams. But you said it yourself – if he cared about you, he wouldn’t treat you this way. No, when he’s online, he’s just online. You don’t hold the space in his life you wish you did. You’re not in his dreams, you’re not in his thoughts. You sit and stare at the screen for hours with these false hopes. I can’t tell you what to do… I can’t make you do it, but please, at least consider it… if you take him off your buddy list, you at least give yourself the chance to forget, to stop reopening the wounds. He’s blown up his half of the bridge already, the only way you can keep yourself from going off the deep end now is to scuttle your half, because you’re hanging off the edge now, and he doesn’t care.”

“You’re a million wonderful things, you know. You’re brilliant and humble and just… you’re talented and accomplished and wise… you’re compassionate and selfless and strong… and it’s not fair that you’re alone. I wish I could tell you it’ll be all right some day, but after all this time, I’m sure there are no words that ring more hollow in the echoes of your soul, so I won’t feed you that tired lie. I just hope that someday, life will be as fair to you as you are to it. I know that when life is at its lows, the last thing you want to hear is some chipper idiot telling you that someday things will be good, that you’ll find your soulmate, or that someone out there will see and appreciate you for what you are… what you really want is someone understanding enough to acknowledge your perspective – to admit that life simply sucks, that things have been unfair… because only then can you begin to believe that that someone has any handle on the truth.”

“You get over it when you get over it. Who knows when that happens… one day you wake up, and the heartache’s gone. It heals in the night when you’re not expecting it, but there’s no telling when that’s going to be. You can try all sorts of things to distract yourself from the sadness – tea, therapy, long walks in the darkness, clubbing like crazy, getting sympathy from friends, dating, travel, working like a maniac, getting drunk off your ass… maybe they’ll help, and maybe they won’t. There are no guarantees. Until then, it’s going to be hard… and I’ll help in every way that I can, but you know that, as much as I want it to be true, I can’t make it go away any more than you can just by willing it. But I’ve known you for a long time. I know how strong you are, even if you don’t know it yourself. I can tell you with certainty that you’re going to be all right. I just can’t tell you exactly when it’ll happen. But I love you… you’re my friend, and I love you because I know you’re far too strong to collapse under the strain. I have been disappointed by so many people, but never you.”

I’m not saying who said what. These are all paraphrases anyway, of things more than one of us have said to another at different times, and sometimes back and forth between the same people separated by forgotten intervals of time and emotion. Lessons relearned by human beings throughout time, wheels spun and turned and reinvented over and over again. To the world, it’s nothing new. Cliches and platitudes, bits of folk wisdom, parables and novels and poems and songs have all been written about these little observations arising out of the life journey from naivete to maturity. It’s all been done before – but perhaps not yet by you. But that’s the important part, isn’t it? When it comes down to it, help or no help, love or no love, you have to learn it for yourself.