What the hell are you talking about, Randall?
Well a geode is a rock that looks like a rock but when you break it open there are crystals lining the interior. A nodule is somewhat like a geode but whereas a geode is hollow on the inside, a nodule is solid crystal (or crystaline material) inside. Impressed? Don't be, I just stole that info from some website.
So...um...what the hell are you talking about, Randall?
Well for the past few weeks (months, years) I've been writing the kind of drab, pity-party crap that fills my blog thing here. I had always thought that I had lost the ability to hope, to dream, to love. But after an interesting conversation with the talented Rocky Green, I realized that I didn't lose those things, they're still with me - it's just that all that good stuff has been hidden, trapped beneath this hard shell. It's like I'm one of those nodules, just waiting to be split open. There's all this beauty and goodness that wants to get out but the crust is thick and gross.
To me, that's a comforting thought. I used to think that I had lost my ability to be vulnerable, open, hopefull even. But it's not lost, it's just trapped in this shell. The good news is fissures are beginning to open up and every once in a while I catch glimpses of the old me. It wants to get out but fact is, I can't make it happen (well, maybe I could but I can't afford the therapy). This requires an act of God but it's begun. I get weepy at freaking Fannie May commercials - that's how bad the inside wants out. It's beginning but I'm not going to force it. One of these days, God's going to break me wide open and it's going to hurt like a mutha-fucker but it will also heal and renew.
Wait and seek.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
19. love=science fiction
The thought that person A could so give him/herself to person B in an unselfish way for no other reason than to make person B happy is understandable. That's the story of my (love) life. The thought that person A could give him/herself to person B, who simultaneously gives of him/herself back to person A seems like so much science fiction to me - plausable perhaps but not anywhere in the near future.
Friday, November 12, 2004
18. ready or not
I remember when I graduated from high school. I thought I was all ready to find the girl of my dreams and we'd date and everything would be amazing. I would sweep her off her feet and she'd be so impressed with my sweetness and my intelligence and my originality and her belief in me would strengthen and inspire me to greatness and we would be unstopable. I thought I was so ready for that relationship. But then something changed, probably somewhere around the mid to late 20s. The older I got and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was no where near ready for a relationship.
Why not? Well there are the physical and fiscal things - I still live at home, I have a steady job but it doesn't pay well (although if I wanted to and if I knew I was staying in Hawaii I could probably get promoted), I don't have a savings account and my checking account balance is laughable. But the more important reasons why I'm not ready are emotional/spiritual. In those areas I don't have issues, I have a subscription (yuk, yuk, yuk).
See but it's kind of a catch 22 thing - I've become this wreck because I got tired of waiting and looking and waiting and looking. I used to be a full blown, nut case romantic. Here's a sample of some of the crazy shit I used to write in my journal:
"8/19/97
She turns her head away and smiles. The smile breaks out into laughter that escalates to the point where the laugh is actually laughing her. She pauses for a second, opens her eyes, looks at me and begins laughing again - this time with her hand trying to cover her mouth. The laughter goes into overdrive and her shoulders start to convulse up and down. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen - not the laughter but her, laughing."
"9/5/97
Strikingly beautiful, that's the way to describe it - her presence. Not a beauty that wafts at you from across the room like a deep blue perfume, but one that slaps you in the face reminding you that you're alive and in dire need of some aesthetic in your crude singular life.
Fate and luck and a foolhardy courage later, you are together. Both unbelieving, both grateful for this little shelter from the world; a little island of understanding and trust. She is steady and you are shelter. She is warmth and you are cool."
"12/30/97
She's close. She's so close I can almost reach out in front of me and run my fingers through her lovely short hair. I can almost feel the way she tilts her head, pressing into my palm. My small finger bends itself around the curve of her ear and I trace the line of her chin and she...
And she's so close."
And I while looking through my old journals I ran across this one. I don't remember writing it but the specificity scares me:
"6/11/96
Where do you end and where do I begin? What spaces are ours and which are our own? Drawers and shelves are sectioned off but what of our inner places? Like the decision to buy the Subaru and the choice of chicken over stew."
Motivational speakers talk about the need to visualize the things you want. There was a time when I had no problem doing that. It took a while for me to find those entries because I didn't think they were that old. Those were written over five years ago. It's been longer than I thought since I stopped writing like that. If I let myself, could I do so again? I don't know but I dobut it.
There was a time when I thought she was just around the corner. I haven't felt that sense of anticipation in a long, long time. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life," (Proverbs 13:12). Word up, I hear that. I think about that conversation between Red and Andy in the movie Shawshank Redemption where they're talking about hope. Andy (Tim Robbins) sees hope as the thing that keeps him going - Red (Morgan Freeman) calls hope "a dangerous thing." When I wrote those journal entries I was with Andy but now I'm with Red. Hope deferred has made my heart sick.
God is immaterial, other, spirit. He is here now as I type but at the same time I have no physical acces to him. I have a theory (and if I spent the time, I'm pretty sure I could find the scripture to back this up) and it goes like this. When Jesus talks about the church being the Body of Christ, what he means is that other Christians make up the part of Christ that is accessible to us. Because what is the church? It's not the building, it's the people inside. That's the church and if those people make up the Body of Christ, then I can communicate with God by talking to them (not perfectly, because we are all fallen representations). By extension, I learn about love through being loved by them.
If this theory holds up, then perhaps the reason I don't know how to love God (or how to experience God's love) because the only love I know is a kind of polite, surface, social love. I mean I have some amazing friends but even with them, the love between us is of a social, brotherly sort not the two-become-one, eros kind of love. And so that's the only kind of love I understand from God.
I don't know. I didn't get much sleep last night and my allergies have been acting up and the Allegra I took this morning is still giving me a bit of a buzz. Maybe thats why I can write this much. Maybe I'll look at this tomorrow and it will read like an alien abduction. I don't know. See how hard it is for me to write about love these days?
Am I ready? Is anyone ever ready?
I don't know.
Why not? Well there are the physical and fiscal things - I still live at home, I have a steady job but it doesn't pay well (although if I wanted to and if I knew I was staying in Hawaii I could probably get promoted), I don't have a savings account and my checking account balance is laughable. But the more important reasons why I'm not ready are emotional/spiritual. In those areas I don't have issues, I have a subscription (yuk, yuk, yuk).
See but it's kind of a catch 22 thing - I've become this wreck because I got tired of waiting and looking and waiting and looking. I used to be a full blown, nut case romantic. Here's a sample of some of the crazy shit I used to write in my journal:
"8/19/97
She turns her head away and smiles. The smile breaks out into laughter that escalates to the point where the laugh is actually laughing her. She pauses for a second, opens her eyes, looks at me and begins laughing again - this time with her hand trying to cover her mouth. The laughter goes into overdrive and her shoulders start to convulse up and down. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen - not the laughter but her, laughing."
"9/5/97
Strikingly beautiful, that's the way to describe it - her presence. Not a beauty that wafts at you from across the room like a deep blue perfume, but one that slaps you in the face reminding you that you're alive and in dire need of some aesthetic in your crude singular life.
Fate and luck and a foolhardy courage later, you are together. Both unbelieving, both grateful for this little shelter from the world; a little island of understanding and trust. She is steady and you are shelter. She is warmth and you are cool."
"12/30/97
She's close. She's so close I can almost reach out in front of me and run my fingers through her lovely short hair. I can almost feel the way she tilts her head, pressing into my palm. My small finger bends itself around the curve of her ear and I trace the line of her chin and she...
And she's so close."
And I while looking through my old journals I ran across this one. I don't remember writing it but the specificity scares me:
"6/11/96
Where do you end and where do I begin? What spaces are ours and which are our own? Drawers and shelves are sectioned off but what of our inner places? Like the decision to buy the Subaru and the choice of chicken over stew."
Motivational speakers talk about the need to visualize the things you want. There was a time when I had no problem doing that. It took a while for me to find those entries because I didn't think they were that old. Those were written over five years ago. It's been longer than I thought since I stopped writing like that. If I let myself, could I do so again? I don't know but I dobut it.
There was a time when I thought she was just around the corner. I haven't felt that sense of anticipation in a long, long time. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life," (Proverbs 13:12). Word up, I hear that. I think about that conversation between Red and Andy in the movie Shawshank Redemption where they're talking about hope. Andy (Tim Robbins) sees hope as the thing that keeps him going - Red (Morgan Freeman) calls hope "a dangerous thing." When I wrote those journal entries I was with Andy but now I'm with Red. Hope deferred has made my heart sick.
God is immaterial, other, spirit. He is here now as I type but at the same time I have no physical acces to him. I have a theory (and if I spent the time, I'm pretty sure I could find the scripture to back this up) and it goes like this. When Jesus talks about the church being the Body of Christ, what he means is that other Christians make up the part of Christ that is accessible to us. Because what is the church? It's not the building, it's the people inside. That's the church and if those people make up the Body of Christ, then I can communicate with God by talking to them (not perfectly, because we are all fallen representations). By extension, I learn about love through being loved by them.
If this theory holds up, then perhaps the reason I don't know how to love God (or how to experience God's love) because the only love I know is a kind of polite, surface, social love. I mean I have some amazing friends but even with them, the love between us is of a social, brotherly sort not the two-become-one, eros kind of love. And so that's the only kind of love I understand from God.
I don't know. I didn't get much sleep last night and my allergies have been acting up and the Allegra I took this morning is still giving me a bit of a buzz. Maybe thats why I can write this much. Maybe I'll look at this tomorrow and it will read like an alien abduction. I don't know. See how hard it is for me to write about love these days?
Am I ready? Is anyone ever ready?
I don't know.
Monday, November 08, 2004
17. unloved
A good friend of mine asked me recently if I had ever felt loved. I have to admit the question stopped me cold and has been haunting me this whole week. It's hard to understand and I can't explain but it seems such an arrogant thing to say that I have not. Even now as I write the words it seems a sorry thing to say because I don't want pity or consolation or even undue attention because of it. But it's more than that - I have a good life: I live at home and my parents leave me alone, they've given me a lot of what I've ever asked for and I don't mind admitting that they've spoiled me, I have a car, I play in a cool band, I have a college degree that my parents paid for...in short, I've got all the stuff I need. How can I say that I've never felt loved?
But love isn't about stuff. I guess giving me things is how my parents express their love for me - I know they've tried to give me all the opportunities that they never had - but (and I'm sorry to say this) it never felt like love to me. Saying that makes me feel like a greedy, ungrateful bastard, and I suppose that's true. And I suppose that's also why it's so hard to admit.
What about God? Now that I think about it, the way I've tried to love God was to try and give him stuff. By extension, the love I expected from God was to get stuff. But that's not how love works, it's not what love is. As I understand it, love is a kind of unselfish generosity that seeks out the best for the one loved - a generosity that is not a transaction (a trade, an exchange) but rather an unselfish kind of giving that expects nothing in return except the joy of the other.
Anyway, if I can discipline myself (and don't run out of balls), I'll be tring to flesh out these ideas here.
But love isn't about stuff. I guess giving me things is how my parents express their love for me - I know they've tried to give me all the opportunities that they never had - but (and I'm sorry to say this) it never felt like love to me. Saying that makes me feel like a greedy, ungrateful bastard, and I suppose that's true. And I suppose that's also why it's so hard to admit.
What about God? Now that I think about it, the way I've tried to love God was to try and give him stuff. By extension, the love I expected from God was to get stuff. But that's not how love works, it's not what love is. As I understand it, love is a kind of unselfish generosity that seeks out the best for the one loved - a generosity that is not a transaction (a trade, an exchange) but rather an unselfish kind of giving that expects nothing in return except the joy of the other.
Anyway, if I can discipline myself (and don't run out of balls), I'll be tring to flesh out these ideas here.
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