fear, freeagency and the future

The doors have opened. 
The Grand Councilor takes you by the hand and leads you down the velvet red spiral of stairs, down from your home into a strange place, a strange land. 
It's not what you were expecting, despite the rumors, and you want to run, you want to return home. 
This place isn't like your home at all; assemblies of faces you don't remember look down at you, though you came from higher then the sky. 

The sky. All you can remember is sky; everything now is cloudy, fogs of fresh experience woven with mists of forgotten memories. 

The lights are bright here; not the brightest you've seen, but of course your eyes are different now: to them, the light is only pain. 

And voices. The air--so cold, who knew there existed such a cold?--is filled with voices you cannot name, names if you knew you could not speak.
Help! you want to cry, but all you utter is a helpless sound; a child's sob, a nervous, fearful disaster of emotion.
Where is your father? He would know what to do.

This May Sound Crazy

but it's the Truth. Capital T.
When I was a little girl (about nine  to eleven-ish), I was obsessed with the world of J.K. Rowling. Obsessed. Or perhaps the right word has a closer connection with confused. Externally, I denied affiliation with any sort of fanhood related to Harry Potter, but internally, I desperately wanted this childish fantasy to be reality. I wanted it all to be true; I wanted witches and wizards and broomsticks and wands. Most of all, I wanted magic. I wanted to say Wingardium Leviosa and have a feather float through the air as a result of it.
For some reason, in my nine-ish-year-old mind, this desire transformed itself into a desire to be an actress in the Harry Potter movies. You see, I had the thought that if one were to act in these movies, the world of Harry Potter would, at least for the time that one was on set, feel completely real. (It didn't occur to me that being a Harry Potter character would probably take away the magical otherworldliness of it, since it would inevitably be part of my world.)
Of course, seeing as I never told anyone about this fantasy, it hardly had the opportunity to fulfill itself in reality, and thus, over the course of months and years, my hypothetical Harry Potter career faded to nothing.
It's like that saying about the tree falling in a forest; if no one heard it fall, who's to say it did?
Well, now you've heard my tree falling.
Don't you dare laugh.

Mind Over Matter

So. Let it be known that the fruit and vegetable detox was an absolute FAIL.
Sorry to disappoint. I really wanted it to work. Unfortunately I discovered that I have no will power with that diet. Which is why I have to try this new thing! (But Rachel, you whine,if it didn't work last time, what's going to change this time?)
Well, I have decided to get to the root of the problem. Will Power.
Yes, will power. That's the basis of any addiction extermination plan, isn't it? alcoholism, drug addiction, sugar addiction? Thank my lucky stars I don't drink coffee; if I'm already addicted to chocolate, (I literally haven't gone a day without it in the last month) then the coffee demon would probably have possessed my body by now.
No mattah.
Starting fresh.
I am now embarking on a peppermint fast that will end after three days. Yes. a peppermint fast. As in, all I consume is water and peppermint tea. And, if I feel faint, I eat a cube of cheese.
Haha. Not.
That is, the cube of cheese part. I am not breaking down to that level. Nosiree, not me. If I feel that I cannot go another minute without some sort of sugar, I'll eat an apple. Got it covered.

Strike

"Yes."
"Yes, what?" I ask Jimmie after she's rolled her eyes enough times for me to forget that they aren't bright green bowling balls, like the one in my hand.
"Yes. My answer to the question you asked last week. At Keisha's wedding, you remember?"
I look down, spinning the hard, heavy bowling ball while contriving a facade of confusion.
Keisha's wedding last week. Jimmie and I sitting at the foot of the long, extravagant mahogany table, laughing at the fact that Keisha had asked me to be the best man, because, as her delicacy would have her put it, all of her husband's male friends were "unavailable."
"It's obvious he has no friends." I'd said, chewing the salmon carefully
"Well, he don't need no friends. The only reason Keisha fell for him is 'cause he's a playaaaaah..." Jimmie had drawled, giggling as she reached to hold my arm for support, slightly tipsy from the reception hall's "ooooh, free refills?" wine bar. Her violent red curls had brushed against my jaw as she laid her head on my shoulder, and for a moment, there was nothing in the world I feared more than the next moment, when she pulled away.
Yes, I know what the question was. No one knows better than I.
"What question?" I wrinkle one eyebrow, perhaps a little too purposefully.
Her lips purse.
"The one about my love life. Whether or not I have plans for it." She pauses. "I do, you know. My boyfriend and I are very much in love."
"Oh? I didn't even know you were dating anyone." My nonchalant tone is a carefully constructed house of cards.
"You do now."
"Interesting." They may be cards, but they're as good as bricks.
"Interesting? That's all?"
"What did you want me to say?" I focus on the lime swirls that spin like a heroin trip on the surface of my bowling ball.
"For heaven's sake, Danny, you're my best friend. Don't you want to know about him?"
"Nah. Maybe later. Frankly, I'd rather take my turn now." Of course I want to know about him. There hasn't been a him in her life for the last year. Other than me, anyway.
"Well. Then. Nobody's stopping you." Her eyes are dimming, but I don't know where the light switch is.
I turn around toward the bowling lane, truthfully confused.
I had been so careful these past months, determined not to be a mere rebound from her three year relationship with my old roommate.
Out of nowhere, my foot pivots and I turn around to face her.
"And why haven't I heard about this...uh, fellow...before now? I'm your best friend, aren't I?" It's possible there's a puff of wind blowing on the house of cards now.
She smiles, a wry, smug affair that burns down the whole house. The light is back on.
"Why the sudden interest, detective?"
"No interest. Mere curiosity. Very different than interest, my dear Watson. Curiosity. And a very vague, superficial curiosity at that, seeing as it doesn't really involve me anyhow." I'm spinning the ball between both hands without thinking, an expression of anxiety. Stop it, I tell myself. I'm not nervous.
"Or does it?" I force myself to look at her, into her laughing eyes.
She holds my gaze as the edges of her smile deepen, picks up a ball and moves toward the lane. I watch, unsure how to form the words that need to be said. How do you admit cowardice, how do you confess that you always wanted to say it, but couldn't? How do you force yourself to sudden speech when you are already realizing it is probably too late, you waited too long, that even now, the longer you wait, the worse it becomes, until finally it reaches the point of impossibility?
"Well, it should. Since it's you."

Forget Science! I'm Donating My Body to Magic.

What: Fruit and Vegetable Detox Week

Where:  A Small College Town

Why: Because I Feel Like It, Gosh

Why #2: Because I'm Sick of Being Controlled by Junk Food Habits

Why #3: Because I Have the Consumptive Mentality of an Obese Person

.

Why #4: Really? Four reaons? That's just overkill. I think three is the standard amount for number of reasons. Not to mention number of tries, spells, years to wait until your destined lover shows up and such. pretty much anything magical. okay, also everything else under the sun. third time's the charm and all, you know.

When: From October 11th to October 17th. Mm hm. A full week. 

I'm almost positive there's something magical about a week. And hey, if it works, I may even go a full month, just so I can get the the power of the Moon involved. 

Yes, I did just capitalize the word Moon. Watch me, I'm italicizing the term Supernatural Lunar Forces as well. oohhoooh. it's a craaaaaaazy world.

Of Jean Back-Pockets and Jamais Vu

I slept in this morning. Which, really, is not that drastic, since I made it to my 8 o'clock Spanish class a mere two minutes late--howbeit frazzled and disoriented--but is still significant because of this: as I frantically yanked clothes out of my closet--delicate pink oxford shirt, light teal camisole, crop jeans and turquoise shoes-- I noticed something about my jeans that I had never before noticed: the back pockets. Now, these back pockets were nothing huge or special or weird, but as I looked at the design in the folds of denim, they looked utterly unfamiliar. The metal studs in the corners were bronze-ish, when I was expecting... well, actually, I don't know what I was expecting. Definitely anything other than what was there.

Now, this all may seem very inconsequential to you, but the fact that I was seriously taken aback (no pun intended) by my jean pockets insomuch that I began to wonder whether or not these jeans were my jeans was a rather strange feeling to be experiencing first thing this morning.

This feeling actually has a name, you--may not--know. It's called jamais vu, (doesn't it seem like the French have a word for everything?) which means "never seen" in English. You're probably more familiar with its sister term, deja vu. Whereas a sense of deja vu strikes you as something you've "already seen" (surprised? that's the literal english translation), in a case of jamais vu you will experience a sense of unfamiliarity with something you have already encountered. 

The thing is, I'm not really sure if what I felt this morning was jamais vu, or if I really had  never even looked at the back of my jeans. Which is kind of scary. Because, these days, the back of your jeans could easily look like this:

Which is awesome, you know, if you wanted to tattoo your bum.

oh, wait, don't some people do that?

Muahahaha much worse yet: 

The Slipperyness of Summer

Here I am now in Provo, in the third week of school, sipping anxiously away at the dregs in the bottom of the mint julep of Summer. (Pardon the metaphor.) Just a few days ago, I was looking around at the world, at the sincerity of warmth's ubiquitous green-and-yellow luminosity, and suddenly felt this tug of nostalgia that it will all be gone, so soon. It felt like a cancer patient's spouse probably--possibly--feels; aware that the time won't last, meanwhile never wanting to let it go.

Death would be a great adventure

Yet, Fall--and all instances of Natural Death--seems to me an obviously necessary ingredient of life. Change, itself, is a sort of Death, isn't it? a death that comes and goes even without our realization, leaving twists and turns in our paths as we step, oblivious, until we reach a place of retrospect?

Then perhaps death itself is only just another one of the million instances of change. On a larger scale, of course. (I think we all realize it's a bit more consequential than switching from Oprah to Dr. Oz.) After all, Peter Pan says that "To die would be a great adventure," (to which Captain Hook replies "Death is the only adventure you have left") although, ironically, Peter Pan's character abhors change enough to live in Neverland.

And I guess there lies the difference in Death's version of change. Through all the sheer bravado with which one may face death, it has an inexorable sense of finality, a sense of a deep chord that signals the end of the concerto. It's like the feeling you get when you leave a place you're never coming back to.

Regardless, isn't the sun shining, isn't the grass green? Isn't life good?

That'll be a yes.

Yes, life is good. What else can it be when I have brains in my head and feet in my shoes, and can steer myself any direction I choose?

Not much else, I'd say. 

"So be sure when you step

step with care and great tact

and remember that Life's

a Great Balancing Act." -Dr. Seuss

'Cause I'm a Visual Comedian

It's been months since I've seen her, yet she still won't talk. Sometimes--if I'm lucky--she'll squeak out an awkward "hi," on Skype, but that's only when the person on the other end of my internet conversation happens to be sitting next to her, and, seeing her uneasy silence, nudges her to "say something!". (Don't think I don't realize it, Tina.)
Of course, when I return home for the summer, things swiftly become comfortable, and the conversation ebbs and flows effortlessly again. As expected, but it still comes as a relief.
So, naturally, I approach the subject with her, the subject of Why Tina Is Terrible at Talking to Me When I Am at College. Let me give you a blow-by-blow account. No, no, no, really, I must insist.


We are eating lunch at the oversized cherry wood dining table, but Tina and I are the only ones sitting down so far. The house is somewhat quieter than usual, what with my dad and brother gone, but then, then, the phone rings. My mother picks up, saying hello to my newly married older sister--Jessica-- who now lives across the country and has recently sprung the news on us that she is pregnant. I eavesdrop half-heartedly on their exchange, but don't really take part in the conversation, until Mami holds up the phone toward us and says "D'you want to say hi?"
Me: "Hi Jessica!" okay, I guess it's more of a "Hi Jessica."
Sanni: "Hi Jessica!!!" For real. That's not a retrospective exaggeration. Rather, pure fact.
Tina: "Hi Jessica..." Said while inching away from the phone.
Mami takes the phone back and resumes the convo, but Tina's obvious discomfort has stirred something in me. Past phone conversations-- involving dorm rooms and hiding from roommates so they won't hear the private and personals--flood my memory, and suddenly I have to ask.
"Tina, why don't you like talking on the phone?"
She looks at me, and then her mouth stretches into a forced-looking yawn. (This is a sure sign that she is uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. Just so you know. In case you ever encounter a dangerous animal like her.)
"Or, I should say, why do you hate talking on the phone?" I prod, almost insensitively. The ironic thing about this is that I quite dislike phone conversations myself, often avoiding them at almost any cost.
She pauses to think about it, grabbing a bright, fresh-looking carrot from the salad bowl. As she munches on it, she says thoughtfully--but obviously trying to be funny, because she gestures with her hands, and puts on her nasal voice as she says it--"well, I mean, it's obviously 'cause I'm a visual comedian."

One of Those Poems I Love without Knowing Why

The Second Coming

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.
    Surely some revelation is at hand; 
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

This is only just part of the poem, but it's the part I like. And, interestingly enough, Yeats wrote this in the aftershock of World War I, the War (that was supposed) to End All Wars. 
How long will the Second Coming be "at hand"?

The Great Arrogant

yes. i am now one of those people with a blog.

blog. what a strange, un-english-y word. it sounds much more like German-- blaaach-- you know, coughing up phlegm at the end of the word. naturally.

short for web log, i guess?

still, it sounds like the noise toddlers make when their mothers say "come on, honey, open wide for some green pea soup, or no dessert."

but the child of course doesn't want the mucky yucky stuff, so as the mother forces his mouth open, he says "bleuoaaaargh."
the ultimate form of self-expression.
and that, dear reader, is how the blog came to be.