dreams of cobblestone roads

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone…

Perhaps the time of revelations is over – at least for now. Thoughts seem sparse between groups of moments of day to day life. One step after another, and silence and calm are embraced more than lofty thoughts and surges of the heart.

Why worry

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery for none but ourselves can free our minds”. – Bob Marley

Now logically I should include a clip of Redemption Song but, hey, I’m in the mood for Dire Straits.

“For a long while I have believed, this is perhaps my version of Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsidedness, that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race, that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers perhaps, that in some, the phenomenon may be as natural a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that, for those who value stability, who fear resistance, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform. we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skin of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams, alone in our beds (because we are alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our art, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment, tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the artist, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask. If we did not recongnize in them our least-fulfilled needs we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.”

-Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

befuddled muddled huddled and perhaps need to be cuddled

I don’t know what to write anymore. Excuse me but I’m confused. I work in cubicle hell but the people are great. I have words in my body which may perhaps form an ugly and gnarly book (I’m thinking of calling it Don’t Touch Me). The beauty in the ugly and ugly in what I love is making me speechless. All I know is I know nothing. And when I walk to my cubicle, I take long strides and pretend I’m still backpacking, marching with determination. Because it’s still a pilgrimage of some sort. I’m sure of it. I think.

Ready

It’s been so long since I’ve written, I was almost scared to come back. I feel like that about the piano as well… “sorry I left you for so long and please don’t punish me for it”. Does that make sense? Are they jealous lovers?

I need to stumble back into the room, wash my hands, smooth down the crinkles of my skirt (ok, I rarely wear skirts), and take a deeeeep breathe.

The daily grind for me just became so…. um… daily grinding (?) to the point that I became completely drained. Or, you know, maybe I didn’t want to see any beauty anymore. Because sometimes it’s hard to see beauty and feel like it’s so outside of your own life, so far away from what you are experiencing.

But then I realized that the only thing worse for me than seeing beauty off in the distance is to push it away altogether and walk around with blinders – like some sort of robot marching through a dark monochromatic landscape. I have some sort of need to stir and swirl and see what serene or whimsical or fantastical shapes will appear. Maybe my life is the same. It’s still hard. I’m still tired. There are still so many responsibilities. The same ingredients floating around… but the stirring of the cauldron is what makes life magical for me. I’m counting on it.

Guaranteed by Eddie Vedder

On bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup, I ask silently
All my destinations will accept the one that’s me
So I can breathe…

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they’ll never know
A mind full of questions, and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes…

Don’t come closer or I’ll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you…

Everyone I come across, in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering, but I’m never what they thought
I’ve got my indignation, but I’m pure in all my thoughts
I’m alive…

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees, they’re singing with the dead
Overhead…

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed

and on we go…

I can’t believe the summer’s almost over. We’ve been staying up until midnight watching videos in bed, waking up late, sharing huge plates of food, building fleece blanket forts (ok, I just clean up afterwards), and leaving the house with mismatched clothes and beehived knotted hairdos (or rather, non-hairdos (ok, i just cover mine up with a hat)) – typical unstructured, unscheduled summer life. Now it’s time to emotionally prepare myself for the fall. It’s not just about going back to school, it’s more than that – so many changes ahead and many big changes for my parents as well. Sometimes I think it’s harder for me to look at my parents go through life changes than to navigate through my own ebbs and flows. I suppose it’s the same feeling I have when I see my girls go through tough times. There is only so much I can do, and that’s a hard lesson but a good one. Reminds me of Kahlil Gibran’s thoughts on children…

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Oh. Another thing the kids have been doing is making up their own fashionable designs. Although they have not been showered with textiles and other designer goodies, they’ve come up with some quite silly and fabulous results. I get a good chuckle out of the fact that they make forts and dresses with the same fleece blankets. If I were to create a TV program out of this, I’d call it: Survivor Fashion Designer Junior.

I’ve included some photos of these fab designs. The first dresses are skirts and hairbands (my poor son – although… he sure seemed to enjoy both the dressing up and the dance party afterwards), and the second elaborate dress is made from fleece and hula hoops. Chuckle, chuckle. This is why I shouldn’t worry so much – look at the innovation. My kids will make a great life for themselves out of whatever I can give them.

very intense concentration required

ok. this is funny. part genius, part deranged idea.

visceral emotions

Not much going on these days. I think I needed a break from writing after finishing my last paper – just to be with the kids and go to sleep before 1am (wow. that’s all i can say about sleeping 7 hours/night. wow.).

I read a beautiful post the other day from Wylie Kat (note: still need to learn to do the links when I get bored of sleeping 7 hours/night) about camping and seeing the night sky. It brought me back to those weekends when we used to stay in our rustic little home in Mineral de Pozos, Guanajuato. Pozos used to be a wealthy mining town decades ago until the flooding of the mines and the fighting of the revolution drove out most of its inhabitants. Nowadays, this small desert town is beginning to draw an artist community as San Miguel de Allende becomes more and more commercialized. It was still pretty wild when we were there a few years back. Sometimes we’d wake up and open the front door (we always opened the front door during the day because, well, our yard was the desert!!) to be greeted by a stray horse or goat munching away at a tiny spot of dry grass in our “yard”. During the rainy season there, the endless desert fields of dry corn patches, ruinas and cacti transform from a dusty pale yellow to a vibrant green, speckled with wildflowers and fragrant herbs. Talk about seasons and drastic changes, from daily dust storms to lush and pungent greenery…. everything begins to smell so good, one almost expects to see thin scent clouds wafting about the desert. But regardless of season, the night sky there is always breathtaking. There is something about seeing all those constellations and shooting stars, it’s like Wylie Kat says – you almost want to whisper. I wonder why that is – why does such beauty make us whisper… in respect, in awe, in wonder? Maybe it’s a reminder that there is so much more to this life than we usually see or fathom. I feel small and I’m amazed. The universe (or the little that I’ve seen from a little cabin in Pozos) is gorgeous. And, somehow, remembering that sky makes me think of a baby’s fingerprint. Isn’t that a weird connection to make? Or is it? A stirring of the spirit perhaps.

This isn’t my video but I found it on Youtube and enjoyed seeing those ruinas again:

groove: busy but funky

I’m having one of those hectic weeks. Well, when is it not hectic to be a mom of three young kids, job hunting and trying to study late at night/early in the morning? Things are good though – not rich good or fun good or even peaceful good, but deep and rooted good. After so many years in the dark, wallowing in murk, and then crawling up that slippery slope, I’m starting to feel myself coast a little – it’s like that fun part of the roller coaster when you’ve gone up that huge hill and plunged down the drop, and now you get to enjoy the little dips and turns for a while.

Here’s a song I love… and it’s kind of a good anthem for this busy week. Busy but feeling funky… I think I’m a little too Asian to actually walk around groovin’ like this, but hey, it’s what my soul’s doing in Soul Land (that parallel world where our souls are free in flight).

“groove holmes” by beastie boys