one dare not disobey

when a mystery
is too overpowering,
one dare not disobey.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

i taste oceans

head tilted
i taste oceans
i have never seen

turquoise waves
caress
thighs & arms

floating
towards oblivion

you whisper
my name
softly, sweetly
with a kiss

and i am revived

fallen blossoms

fallen blossoms do not return to branches;
a broken mirror does not again reflect.
Japanese Proverb

Sometimes there is the desire to move backwards. Perhaps to correct it somehow. As if it is in my power to improve the past, to make it manageable, to make it pretty.

Is it guilt?
Is it faithlessness?

The past cannot save you.
It need not condemn you either.

Move forward.
Let the petals lay where they fall.

despite the hunger

Despite the hunger
we cannot possess
more than this:
Peace
in a garden
of our own.
Alice Walker

like the numbers of a small child

"The only thing that makes me truly happy is mathematics, snow, ice, numbers. To me, the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers, the ones that are whole and positive, like the numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands, and the child discovers longing.

Do you know the mathematical expression for longing?

Negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you're missing something. Then the child discovers the in-between spaces, between stones, between people, between numbers, and that produces fractions. But it's like a kind of madness, because it doesn't even stop there. It never stops. There are numbers that we can't even begin to comprehend. Mathematics is a vast open landscape. You head towards the horizon that is always receding... like Greenland.

And that's... that's what I can't live without."

Smilla's Sense of Snow

crisis is an opportunity

it surprises me,
those who are here
checking on me
praying for me
holding my hand
during this misery
and those who have
disappeared - entirely.

i get it though.

i am almost a stranger
even to myself.
it seems part of me is lost.
i doubt she will ever come back again.

change isn't always a disaster

por ejemplo

a friend that i talked to
every month or so
in a casual kind of way
has become this rock
for me.

she has just asserted herself
in my life
in this pleasant and deeply concerned
way

i knew we were friends
but i didn't think we
could be friends
in the
i-know-you-need-me
and-don't-know-how-to-ask
but-that's-ok-because-you
don't-have-to
kind of way

crisis
is an opportunity
to really love
someone

and you either
take it
or you don't

the bandaged heart

the slightest thing can move me
one way or the other.

life has been divided
into before and after.

i lived with my grandmother
almost my entire life
she was a second mother.

how does one let that go?

she was a friend
a dear friend
and now we're separated

i miss her wink
the way she called my name
how she would tilt her head
and laugh - eyes closed

and i am so
fucking pissed
that she is not here
for me to love
anymore

but i am trying
very hard
to get over it.

kindness & sympathy

there has just been an outpouring of kindness and sympathy
from family, from friends, from strangers.

thank you.

any kindness i can show

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
William Penn

my grandmother has died.

Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion
Dylan Thomas

i feel she has been ripped from my breast.
snatched so quickly.

yet i know she was suffering.
i know this is a blessing.

but i am only human
and i can't understand that.

i can't believe
that she belongs
where i am not.

does god really expect for me to get that?

it will be one week tomorrow.

a week ago tonight was the last time i saw her breathing.
she was sleeping so heavily, not to be roused, but breathing.

i left work and raced to the house.
the undertaker was in the kitchen,

in her bed, she appeared to be sleeping.
i didn't want them to take her.
i didn't believe she was dead.
i didn't believe it.

i watched them wheel her
in a bag
down the deck.

it is that image that
haunts me now.

the bag was only zipped to her neck.
it was brown.

all the flowers have wilted

all the flowers have wilted
and i don't know when the sun will come again.

my grandmother is dying.

she went to the hospital in the middle of the week.
she was there for three days.
there's nothing that can be done.
she came home on friday.

all we can do is make her comfortable.

she needs care almost around the clock.

i spent the weekend at my mother's trying to help.
feeling so horribly inadequate.

when i first saw her she looked like a corpse.
a morphine induced sleep.
her body so still. so pale. i didn't think she was breathing.

cancer has just shrunk her.
she is barely clinging to 100lbs.
her lips, her eyes, everything seems so small.

a storm in my heart.

i see myself disappearing.

i spent the entire day in bed.
half-crying and half-sleeping.

i haven't eaten.
i haven't been outdoors.

i'm not hungry. i'm not sleepy.
i'm not even tired.

my eyes are just leaking.

it seems everyday - i get closer to losing all that is dear to me.
it all seems to be disappearing.

it is my own passion that will be my very undoing.
i want to be indifferent.

death is here.
and he won't let me go.

and my greatest failure
is that i cannot make myself
care less.

to seek God unencumbered

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

my uncle has died.

i put this fact aside. so that i could survive the day. it meant nothing to me. i didn't feel it. it didn't connect.

until it did.

i was at my desk, analyzing a client portfolio. 12 asian currencies.
and i felt it - like an icicle through my chest.
a panic.

i wanted my sister. i needed to see her.
i wanted the dearest of my life close to me.
i thought of my parents, my grandparents.
my lovers, my friends..

and how all of it is so
tentative.

my silly puppy. the grass so green.
a warm & sunny day with a slight breeze.
all of my favorite things.

is heaven really better than what i've got
right this very minute?

for everyone i've ever loved
that has crossed that divide
i sure hope so.

as fucked as my life is -
and trust, it is a very fucked up thing.

i'm grateful for it's beauty
it's magic
it's wonders

and i'm sad that my uncle
doesn't have those things anymore.

heaven is probably much simpler than that.

it's just God
and nothing else.

the presence of God
and the absence of everything else.

that must be it.

birds in cages

"if only i could live and so serve the world that after me there should never again be birds in cages."
-Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen)

no winter

there is no winter like death

i watch him labor to breathe, his face no longer his own, he has become almost a stranger to me now. perhaps, most certainly a stranger to himself.

lifelessness grows stronger in his body everyday. everyday we pray for a miracle and everyday that miracle does not come.

my aunt is a wife. she is at his side everyday. she is fighting with doctors and nurses and administrators to get them to do something, anything to save him. her love is fierce. i've never seen such passion. and she will not acquiesce.

it hurts to witness because there is nothing to be done. i cannot save him. i cannot soothe him. i cannot ease this transition.

if death is relief and transcendence to a painless realm, why does it wear such an unhappy mask?

and this is how i spend my lunch: teary eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. walking back to the office, i take a deep breath and realize spring is here. the bradford pear trees are in full bloom and the cherry blossoms are close behind.

just when i feel completely forlorn, god sends me spring.

the juicy fruit effect

most things are great for about 30 seconds and then the taste is gone. for me, this tends to be the rule and not the exception.. people, places, ideas become tedious.

so, when you find someone, someplace, or something whose flavor is self-renewing it is indeed a beautiful thing. the juicy fruit effect in reverse - the more you chew, the better it tastes.

it's funny to me - so unexpected. to find that prolonged exposure can actually heighten curiosity and desire as opposed to extinguish it.

9. Cari Lynn: Leg the Spread

Leg the Spread: A Woman's Adventures Inside the Trillion-Dollar Boys' Club of Commodities Trading was a heady, intoxicating rush of a read. It details the author's flirtation with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, more affectionately known as the 'Merc' ("If you don't know who you are, this is an expensive place to find out"). She details technical terms and theories while sharing stories of women and men she met during her two years as a clerk. Most books addressing male-dominated arenas are written by men and focus on men. Lynn reports how it felt to be working there as a woman, and gives several intimate testimonies from women who have worked at the Merc.

"If your position is really going against you, you get to this level where you know you're fucked, then you start to realize you're double-fucked. But you also know everyone else in the pit is fucked, too, so it becomes all about how long you can withstand the pain. How long can you wait it out? Can you wait until everyone else says mercy? Because if you can, then you can rape 'em. That's what Bev does best. When the last Fed number came out, Bev lost $1.4 million in thirty seconds. Everyone panicked, but Bev turned around and let the all have it. She ended up making two million off it all.. She has the highest tolerance of pain I have ever seen. Even when everyone else is puking, she can hold out."

8. Anya Kamenetz: Generation Debt

This is grim but necessary reading.

Kamenetz reveals America to be the homicidal mother who drowns her own children in the bathtub. She dissects the policies and trends that financially depress our generation as a class.

I found the sections on education and employment of particular interest. She discusses the outrageous cost of higher education, how it is funded and asks the dangerous question of whether or not it is worth it. Especially considering that jobs are increasingly entry-level: the largest private employer in the 70's was General Motors with an average wage of $17.50 per hour, the largest private employer is now Wal-Mart and their average wage is $8 per hour.

"With the decline in need-based financial aid, academic competition is becoming a game that the ruling class plays largely against itself, like tennis."

Only 10% of college students come from the 'bottom half of the economic spectrum.' Diversity efforts have increasingly focused on race and less on class. Joining the military has become the defacto choice for ambitious working class kids.

This is the first book I have read addressing the economics of my generation. I highly recommend it.

I. Will. Not. Lose. Ever.

a piercing blue, cloudless sky is draped above the coliseum.

her lacerated hands and knees press into the earth. dirt cakes weary arms and legs. a rivulet of blood snakes her anguished countenance.

her opponent has turned his back and raised his arms in premature victory. a swarm of faces smirk and roar at the indication of her defeat.

but the beast inside of her, though weary, will not sleep. a zephyr blows through the amphitheatre, cooling her face, stirring the dust.

tears speed down her cheeks. her eyes close. she sees herself, a tiny girl in braids, bright eyes, wide smile.

this is not her destiny. this is not what has been written.

she rises from her untimely grave and moves toward he who has underestimated. the cheering has become a cacophony of laughter. she is their joke and this fortifies her.

she appraises her nemesis. his face twisted in an arrogant sneer.
she has one opportunity. and it is sufficient.

fury forces her fist through his jaw. his neck snaps and his lifeless body tumbles to the ground.

the coliseum is silent.

dear friend,
if the score is not in your favor then the game is not over.

I. Will. Not. Lose. Ever. Fucka.
Jay-Z, U Don't Know

The Color of Genocide