Why I Stopped

Since that one Monday morning, not that long ago, really, maybe 2 weeks, 3 weeks? I've been wondering what happened to me. Why I stopped. Functioning.

Somehow my mind has been caught in a frame that it cannot escape, like a frozen picture pond but underneath with all kinds of things whirling, dark things in waters trapped so that it can never see the sunlight.

I woke up one morning not knowing who I was or where I was, in fact not knowing who or where or what anything was. All I could see were the windows lit with white sunlight like clear gems stucked upon opaque white walls. And I woke up with white sheets wrinkled around me, a frail body and a mad mind. 

Accidental Minor Crisis

February 7, Midhour -- the day I crashed my spanking new motorcycle scooter...

Surprisingly, I've reached a kind of equilibrium.

At the edge of my bed, my left shin is swollen like the skin of a bruised grapefruit, underneath the ice pack interchanged every 1.5 hours, once again evidence to my being sick. And that, insignificant evidence has proved another seemingly irrelated point. Heartsick. My body of restless energy has been brought down from its physical high, to the utter reality of another reality. I don't even know how it started. What day it began. This heartsick. It's so beguiling. And I always self-diagnose late. I feel baka; bakayaro. That means fool. As if my life was just being swept along with the tide, never knowing where I was going to or from. I'm not the wind that moves the waves, but the shell in the waves. The ebbing tide... I forgot how I was ever found, and how I am lost again. Time is lost to me. The tide is ebbing, I must catch it before it returns.

Art and Faith

 I was simply struck by this:



ThinkFwd: EP002-Makoto Fujimura

TheOOZE | MySpace Video

"God wants us to experience life deeply, and art is one way to help us do that."
--painter Makoto Fujimura


Mako at his New York City art studio.

Working on what he calls a "hybrid" painting--a collision of heaven and earth with a luscious clay red pigment from Kyoto (*Joy chan swoons*), Mako describes how his painting explores what it might look and feel like for heaven to invade earth, just like we--as earthly beings--are invaded by the heavenly, by God.

We are trained NOT to see and experience things. The world is unreal through our imperfect eyes. And an artist desires to draw people to see, to see that what is true on canvass is more true in life, and the tension or conflict we feel through art--whether paintings or plays or other media--is strangely good.

If we allow ourselves to feel this tension, and to know conflict or sorrow or joy--then art can take us somewhere; it can mean something. Tension from the fact that we all are consumers of culture. Because we live in this world. And that we have not exhausted knowledge. I want to wade into places I've never been before, to take friends with me, together, living more deeply as spiritual beings where heaven can invade our earth.

Unresolutioned

January 2, 2010

I could not dare to open anything on the first, not knowing what my heart would unveil. Something about the heart that frightens me. Dreadfully. God, I’m not sensible. Or perhaps because reason tells me I ought to govern myself, the heart, which is precisely the tug of war that the self has been torn. Irrevocably. God, I’m irrevocable..

And above that, I cannot even pare life down into one Freudian paradigm against another. What good does it do to say that the the id is the passionate side of who I am, longing for love and desires untold—the part that is called the Shakespeare, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth—the literary romantic, and pagan. What I’m am majoring in because that’s the only thing that continually makes me know I’m alive. The part that Kierkegaard plays to such utter anguish because he stood on the verge of something unspeakable. He could not have possibly reconciled the duality of such dark abyssmal anguish with Christian charity. Or is this a mere glorified version of my little sister demanding incessantly the next piece of cake. I can’t determine what or if such a thing as “noble passion” exists. What makes something actually noble, just because it’s been advertised by society? And whatever this propriety thing is, I’m sure it has nothing, only if inversely, to do with nobility. Sure, we’ve argued about whether or not only a genetically noble character such as Prince Hamlet were entitled to tragedy versus Miller’s vision of the common man at the center of a universal overthrow of reason. Cease to love, cease to love at least passionately what is unreachable, in which case what’s the difference between hedonism and martydom anyway.

I have never ceased to ask such blasphemous questions. It’s selfish, immature, and youthful at core, but I guess I’m at least honest, right? I’m not masking any sort of I’ve-got-this-world-figured-out,-it-sucks, mentality. It just is. I can’t figure it out. They say I’m postmodern. Or at least I’ve pegged myself postmodern. Because that gives me the comfort of actually being something. To ease my insufferable sense of not knowing who I am..

Moving, again

December 16, Night: The biggest problem now comes from when to move. Of course I wish to, desire it with every ounce of my heart, at least I thought so.

December 17

I would somehow attempt to transport the vivid compactness of my window-side white bed and dresser underneath, the faithful floor lamp, desk neatly arranged with books, stray sticky notes, a clear bowl of water with a flower petal, and other random memorabilia.

How can I possibly find a substitute for the marble ledge on the bedside for my snowman cup of hot water, just enough room besides the blinds-turner rod? How can I ever dare to think of endowing my bed with teddy bears and cheerio box, chocolate wrappers and a roll of tissue paper? Or strewn over the desk remnants of a seeming massive hurricane attack of notes, books, photos, and assorted pens of multi-suspicious origins? All in their own place. Each according to its kind. The art pencil has to go into the black writing utensil holder beside the Popsicle stick. R. H. Blyth’s Haiku must permanently reside by Yauznari’s collection headed by Snow Country. The perfectly vertical list of books overdue printed on the recycled paper always ends my long row of pastel-colored sticky notes, with crooked handwriting layered on top of one another. And the blasted calendar that would never stay put for more than 11 hours (due to residence’s insistence on only using sticky tack for securing the vulnerability of cheaply-pasted walls), that too must be re-arranged. I seem to have a slight problem here. Not too serious, I hope.

I don’t even know how to begin…

Perhaps first by consciously removing my presence from the place. For I’ve imbued it with a strange silence that rarely exists in conjunction with the consistent blaring of reality TV shows just a few feet away. I didn’t think I’d find it hard to demand myself this, that I must extract the essence that was once mine and take it away, to elsewhere. I will pack up the intentional randomness, the bowl drained of water and petal of color, pack the stray quotations from Shakespearean sonnets and stacks of incomprehensible ancient poetry. I will pack the few articles of clothing once intimately worn and innocently displayed on these campus grounds. I will pack the place I’ve once said goodnight to. And good morning, now to a new day.

Belief

December 4, Night

Lord, is it really true that I will be living off campus next semester? I can hardly believe it. The joy, the disbelief, the utter amazement—what a laugh! I hardly know how to think or speak. Mai as my oneechan, Colin my “brother-in-law,” and I’ll be back at the little house on the road past Valencia Dr. by the great Lake Parker. What a miracle! So I didn’t even know what I meant when I said to Jenn Neechan, miracles do happen. That means no more early morning classes, no more chapel required, no more stomaching westernized meals, running laundry marathons, or pining for a hot bath. It does mean, however, spiritual nourishment would come directly from church and friendship, less dependent on campus-fostered atmosphere.

I have no one here. I would only have Mish and Rebecca and Ryan. And they can all come visit me anytime they want, there would be plenty of food to share. Was I ever miserable there? I’m sure, yes. I was tired of riding back and forth every day, it tired me. I hated work, too, a drudgery. Endless phonecalls and monotony. It was just for survival—the paycheck spoke volumes. When I came home, there was some other random movie I couldn’t resist watching. :P I’d want to be an introvert. And the quiet, too, at times strangely lacking. I remember escaping to Michael’s house, a wood cabin tucked away in silence. The opaque dim-lit room had a certain coziness against the open-windowed kitchen, and that, I didn’t have. But over Thanksgiving, the livingroom had been painted a deep green, the house feels luxurious, comfortable. The sushi and rice cakes gave me thrills beyond words. And the hot tea. I felt my bones soaking up the warmth, melting away stress, grief, sorrow….

Wondering

December 4, Evening

Sometimes, I just wonder if he looks as hard as I do, for me, if he actually seaches at all as I wander, aimlessly, wander along the beach shoreline, counting the sand and seagulls flying by. I want to know if he cares. I want him to care, but not just to care; I want him to want to care. Because if he did, he would notice; I would not have to say, would I? And my heart would not break so hard into pieces of glass, piercingly. If only I knew he is journeying, to find the hidden me, it would hold me together…. I want him to sing softly,

There we sat among the thousand, fools just like us, but not so in love like us.

There we spoke of all our feelings, and dreams were born like that, and we hope for love like that.

Now your dreams have changed and we are far apart.

I don't know when or where to start, leading you from my mind.

I want to stand with you again. I hope to find you here again.

Then the eternal sunshine.

I'll search for the orange moon that