August 2010
38 posts
Sunday afternoons see me in my room among the dread of Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Trapped inside raspberry stained walls and the light from cloudy windows longing for a change of pace. but it is my punishment, for being ambitious, for procrastinating creativity, and inducing the schoolwork plague.
doesnt this just sound stupid? poo.
people are naturally attracted to you
says a moth to a butterfly
i was so preoccupied i barely noticed your absence.
any of your absences.
The most amazing opportunity and blessing has happened to our band: The most incredible Japanese band is touring the United States, and they are staying with us in our homes and practicing at our school, etc. They are on their way to Washington DC to play a concert with the US Air Force Band!!(!!!!!!!!!) They are the Anjo Gaukwen Band (sp), but they are so darling and sweet and so polite.
I’m seeing my world through whole new eyes, and i wish so badly that we could communicate on the same level, to know eachother better in the short time we have, but they are trying so hard, and I know, from my side, how difficult it is.
Anyway, i’m just tying this because i am so excited, and a hundred other adjectives, and I don’t want to forget this
- The sweetest gifts, presentos, they gave me japanese sweets, stickers, cute sushi erasers, paper decorations
- Later, we tried to communicate via laptop translator. One of the girls taught me some Japanese sayings
- Then another present, Tomomi brought out some origami paper, and we made (they mostly made mine) beautiful origami cranes - she told us how Japanese people have memorized how to do it. well, they sure did make it look easy!
- We gave them each a tshirt, picture frame and a keychain. I’m trying to think of some more American stuff I can give them.
Overall, I’m so curious as to their culture as i know they are about ours.
I cant even think properly about writing, communicating with them at the simplest level is a difficulty, and combined with my excitement this sounds like it’s been written by a sixth grader.
Anyway anyway anyway. carry on <3
It would have been great catching up with you over coffee if you would have rememebered I don’t like coffee.
but you did remember, and you offered. but i’m a year stronger, a year out of the way, and i do believe myself when i said i never wanted to see you again.
i am Trying.
to write, to study, to practice, to be to be to be everything i have to be to everyone else.
I am Trying.
i belong here. with mountains that keep out the things i’ve finally learned to stop wanting, gardens with flowers that break your heart, the color of the sky right before you realize that the sun is about to leave you. the pennsylvanian sun will always leave you but it’ll come back before you know it. the light will flood in the screens of the porch just when you start to feel as if you’ll fall through the gaping holes in the sky, gaping at you and how pretty you look in that sundress and how much you still have left to learn from the creeks and boulders. and sitting on that screen porch hearing the rain paint the concrete and listening to older women tell you all that they wish they knew before now. my uncle is dancing with my mother in the kitchen to frank sinatra and then my father cries out the lyrics to every beatles songs he remembers. “mrs. robinson” is sinking into the wood of the walls when i lay down, heavy with light. cousins falling asleep on your lap in a reclining chair to the hum of country game shows. eating chocolate covered pretzels and hugging the old man who made them.
there are stone buildings that speak to you, that have kept time still since before you knew how to ride a bike with two wheels or cry when you needed to. staying still, never moving, always being there to bare your carved initals from atop their white, wooden balcony. but the bikes turn to cars and the thoughts that you release into the mountain air always change. these tears will clean your watercolor cheeks time and time again. and learning about a hawks wingspan and slipping in waterfalls that make you fall in love. sneaking out to stargaze on the golf course fairway. running barefoot through the woods at night to sit by the fire. pretending to listen to a blue grass band while actually just being there for sticky marshmallows and melted chocolate but wanting to stay when the smoke from the logs stain your hair and fills your body with ash and banjo notes.
i belong here. where something small makes me feel big like i’ve always wanted to be. the lake is the same shape as my heart and the water is thick with what i’ve always needed to sweat.
kiki, yes, yes, yes. i have some of this, and i want more. i need more.
a year ago today
a year ago today
a year ago today
now we are so far away.
i’m grappling for the words, all of a sudden i’ve become so scared.
i have one more year to watch and wait, and work and worry. and soon, it will be my turn to take your place. i get lost in the day to day, i pray that i survive the week.
go on your way, go take that path. i will wish you all that i can. but am i hurt and i am jealous and i am scared in your place, the paths you lead do not come back.
some of you used to be my best friends. or friends simply by happenstance, simply because we landed nearby. usually both.
i know it’s easy to have your eyes fixed on the future, but i am not that type of person. while you are leaving, i will stumble around in these gaps for a while, until my roots grow more solid. soon it will be my time to go.
i do not know how to say this. there are not many words inside me anymore, i fear.
if even one person in my life could live up to their plans.
why is it that every plan involving me is the easiest to break? where i’ll bend over backwards to make things happen, my “friends” wait until the last minute, drop engagements and exchange excuses. rain checks, putting it off, new promises to replace the old.
i resolve, i am no longer willing to be the second plan.
believe me
believe me.
this is finally true -
i never want to see you again.
