Thursday, May 31, 2007

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

pan-blog #1 Jacob Wrestles with God

Describe your most formative religious experience. I am assuming that most of us are, or have been, some form of a Christian (probably born-again), so what I have in mind is that sort of testimonial-type of event in your past that led you to, or closer to, God. If you are no longer a Christian, describe how you feel about that experience now.

Names have been omitted to protect identities.

Jacob Wrestles with God: Was it Jacob? It's been so long, I barely remember the details of Bible stories anymore.... Details are faaading....

We were out on our Tuesday date. I think it was Tuesday. We loved going out on Tuesday nights. She'd drive, I'd ride, bound inside our bodies and out by the conversationlessness of incredible music through the backroad cornfield country; darkness heavy as ink except for an occasional yellow lace-framed window streaming by or a flashing red light signalling a dangerous obsolete intersection. On our way to Muncie. Muncie was the closest thing we had to a city without we had to drive all the way into Indy. When we did Indy, it was an event. Fancy clothes tossed piles in the bedroom makeup scattered on sinks, anticipation and excitement brewing for the Big City. Muncie was our regular city. Walmart, restaurants that weren't cheap or small or sameold or Ivanhoes or Chinese buffets, parks bigger than backyards, people that weren't necessarily of the homogeneous make-up of our school, upper middle class midwestern.

When we made it out to Tuesdays in Muncie, we always did only two things. We stopped first at the Salvation Army thrift store and played our hands through forgotten, found, once-loved, worn, mildewy household items and clothes in search of treasures. And, after satisfying our thing lusts, we ate. We crossed the parking lot to Stake 'n Shake, where we both always got the same thing: Frisco Melts, fries, soda. Every time the same. Frisco melts top the list of foods I enjoyed most during my years at TU. But the best part of it all was our conversation. We always talked deep into the marrows of our lives. The heavy stuff, the deep stuff, the best stuff. She was the first person I told a lot of embarrassing things to. Things I thought maybe I should be ashamed of but wasn't sure. Things I feared, things I loved and things I hated about myself. And we always talked religion and spirituality. Religion had been the most important, the center, the beating heart, the fulcrum on which my life teetered for as long as I could think.

One Tuesday, I remember her telling me something that was painful for her but I don't remember details anymore (not that I'd tell you). Something heavy with sadness. I remember a moment, I was staring right into her soult. That's what it felt like. It was a quiet moment, like that exhausted staring into space effortless comfortable when you know there are people trying to communicate around you, but you can't bring yourself to focus your eyes or come forward into the present to acknowledge them and you don't care. In that moment, I heard words coming out of her chest that weren't the same as the ones coming out of her mouth. They sounded desperate; like they were asking for help. To God. To me to god. Or something. It wasn't rational or normal, I couldn't sort it out or explain it really. Intense and surreal. I don't know what I said back to her, but for the rest of our evening, I was quiet and brooding. And I knew what I had to do.

We got back to our dorms and I immediately ran up to my room and put on eleven more layers of clothes. It was probably February. Definitely winter, with snow on the ground, in Indiana, which, if you haven't experienced it, is frigid, icy, wet ripping through all your layers, unforgiving, windy. Plus it was already late at night. Maybe ten or eleven oclock by the time we got home and I was ready.

This was my first senior year. I still lived in the dorm. At this point in my spiritual journey, I was a  desperately clinging but dedicated born-again. I spent hours alone every morning in the cafeteria, at a quiet sunlit table near the windows facing T Lake, praying and reading the Bible and searching for clues, calling for Jesus to show me himself. I spent several evenings a week with my liberal cohorts, trying to call on tongues or at least little shivers, maybe? I searched for the extra super natural in my daily life. I longed for the God and the Jesus and the Holy Spirit I thought I had known in my youth. I made a lot of A's in my classes, writing and presenting topics on the Holy Spirit that year. I understood exactly who he should be to me but never found him. The harder I looked, the less satisfied I became. So this evening, this night, maybe, was a big test, I think. I was going to go all out. Maybe what I saw in her was my own reflection.

So, that night, I went down to T. Lake with my Bible in hand, wrapped in many s-waddling clothes, with the intention of staying up all night and calling on God and wrestling demons for my friend. I would change her life by the skin of my teeth that night. I honestly believed, on my walk through the thin, crunchy snow, that I would face the devil in the next six or seven hours.

I sat by a dimly lit shed and cursed the busy-ness of this newmoon night. Apparently two or three other students had had the same idea, I couldn't believe it. I wanted to be alone in this battle. I sang hymns but couldn't remember very many. I tried to make up my own but they didn't sound very eloquent or meaningful, not like David's lyrics or Solomon's. I read passages I thought were appropriate over and over but couldn't hold the water. I begged God to come to me or at least open my eyes to the spiritual war going on around me and this whole university, the war I knew about from everything I had learned, good angels and God and saved people fighting demons, demons demons demons. I prayed and prayed. I tried to force emotion and maybe catch the window to the spiritual that way, I tried to cry but I couldn't so I forced out strange sounds from my throat. I hoped the cold would at least make me go a little insane, so I froze my ass for as long as I could stand it. Around three or four, I was finally alone. And fully miserable. I'd seen no angels, no demons, hadn't felt Jesus, hadn't felt God. Hadn't heard anything or sensed anything. Was being a failure at everything I tried. I was a failure. This was stupid.

What the hell was I doing? What a f%$ing stupid idea? Who the hell am I to think I can save someone. I hate this place. I hate this religion. I don't hate God but I sure as hell feel hatred. I hate. And then, silently, a little black and white kitten snuggled up against my limp cold hand. Of all the animals in the world, to me there is none as special as a cat. Kittens, we don't even have to talk about kittens. (Growing up, with the everyday confusions of living in a foreign country and in a big, passionate family, our cats were always our emotional bean bags or blankies or shag rugs, the animals on whom we relied for unconditional love. We also found so so so much humor in their shenanigans and personalities. We found much relief in the connecting place of laughter as a family.)

So, little oreo-kitty and I hung out. I got up and wandered around. Paced. I walked half the perimeter of the lake and came back. I walked in circles in the little woods. I made my way to the prayer deck where I didn't pray. And, if you were standing on the hill above the lake and there was even a sliver of a moon, you would have seen a tiny black and white shadow following me, leading me, asking me to rescue it when it climbed too high. Dancing around me. Bringing me solace and distraction and a jab of happy. We hung out for the next few hours together, me and oreo-kitty. I gave her a name but don't remember it anymore. We eventually settled back by the shed. I really wanted something spiritual to come of this. I really wanted it. 

Kitty eventually fell asleep in my lap, snuggling her teeny paws slightly shivering between my belly and my jacket. I was much warmer now. This was probably around five thirty in the morning by now. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't stay awake any longer. I had to go to bed. I had to go get warm. Dammit, dammit dammit. Why didn't you let me do what I came to do, God? Why didn't you let me wrestle you? I want to help. I want to truly, wholly be a follower. I'm willing. Where the hell are you? My eyes got sleepy. I had to go in.

Then, I saw a man sitting in front of me, as if in a dream. His profile facing me. Detailless. Just the shape of a man. And I heard distinctly in my brain, "This is not yours to carry. Let it go. I will take care of her. I love her. She is mine."

************

That was Jesus. I knew it. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. A test, maybe, for me. I never really placed it. Because it wasn't long after, a few months, a year at the most, that I walked away from the religion and from the Trinity as I'd understood it for good. But on my way out, I told him something like this, "I'm not throwing you away because of hurt or pain or confusion, not entirely anyway. I'm just done with what I've been doing. It's not working for me. I can't chase after you because I've never truly felt you on the other side. I've felt sad and inadequate and not enough for as long as I can remember and it's all tied in to my identity which has till now been all tied in to the religious aspects of being Christian. It feels so completely confining to me right now. And I feel inauthentic too often to speak. And I hate that feeling. So here I go, off to find out who I am outside of this frame. If you want me, if you are everything so many people tell me you are, then you will come and take me, hold me in your arms so tight that even if I fight and scream and swear, you won't let go and eventually I'll fall asleep, exhausted, and I will be yours. If not, that's okay."

That was a really intense night. That was the most intense searching I ever did, completely alone, with no goal of an audience or a story (teehee). I thought that I needed to fight with the supernatural world. And I suppose I did.

One thing I know, four years and going since I posted my challenge to the heavens, I don't really regret my days as a born-again Christian. They helped me to value my spiritual journey, to hear smaller voices. Anyway, they made me who I am. Christianity provided a very distinct frame for my childhood and my relationships and my youth, up to the age of 22. Christianity, in some form, is a deep part of my roots and my inheritance. I'm glad for all I went through. I came out a bit off-balance with some embarrassing habits, damaged a few friendships along the way (inside or out) but I might have done that anyway. But I'm more often than not at peace with it all these days. (Still see red sometimes, though, but I think that might last the rest of this life.)

Saturday, May 26, 2007

what do you say

they will see us waving from such great heights, come down now they'll say, but everything looks perfect from far away, come down now, but we'll stay...

Today is glorious. I have my window open to the island behind me. Clear blue skies, perfectly sunny, wind washing through my apartment, gently, peacefully blowing our floor-to-ceiling beige-white curtains in and out. Sweet Jane just made me laugh and I'm feeling exhilarated because life can be so good. Sometimes so good. I feel like that song. The bouncing intense driven positive energy. 123scum, what's our first project? tell me. What say you? Give me the word, and I'm off.

I'm working on a name and logo for my new business. I'm feeling a bit blank and nervous. its funny, when I'm not feeling sad or depressed or confused or lonely or, it's harder to create.

hmm.

well, I hope we are all jumping up and down and singing and spinning and falling and diving and breathing and happy and screaming and happy.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

yesterday's bitches

Wednesday May 23, 2007
Just finished Beautiful Girls. B shared it with me. It was great! We laughed a lot; I felt nervous, awkward, embarrassed with them. It’s a pretty funny idea. Plus I really love the Factotum guy, what’s his name, Matt Dillon. But, it left an unpeeled-banana-in-my-belly-heavier-than-a-soggy-wool-blanket feeling afterward. Brooding. I can’t put my finger on why exactly. I like the experience of watching movies or reading books that have absolutely zero physical contact or apparent connection with my own life but leave me in an altered emotional state.

*******

A cup of warm tea at night is nice. Warm tea that I know is regulating my hormones so that three or four or five or six months from now, if I keep drinking my cozy warm tea every day, my face will clear up. That's the hope. Hormones are a long-time family excuse. For physical discomforts and mostly fights and bitchiness and out-of-control psychotic episodes. Obviously of the female orientation. Most of us spend 25% of our young lives, at least, on some emotional acid trip. No wonder women are strong. I tell you what, but sometimes I can be a bitch. I watch myself acting like a child feeling powerless, throwing a tantrum and don’t stop myself. And then, when the person on the other end reacts to me in kind, I go off and cry by myself. What the f%@#. This charlie foxtrot squeezing your brain all up in this small birthday package wrapped in swear words and maybe cunt and angry bees and a soft red velvet ribbon. It’s embarrassing and also there's something of value in it all. Something I'm still puzzling out.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I walked 10 miles on Sunday zbog cira.

I was all ruffled up with wrong downside up energy and aloneness on Sunday. So I got dressed for the beach; I put on my green flipflops, a candycane skirt that looks fall and heavy but is actually pretty light all cotton, and a red-vermillion husbandbeater with one motheaten hole just to the right of my belly button. I put a hari wrap in my bag and my journal and took off for our beach, Kaimana beach. Who wants to drive, anyway. I needed to exert myself, to move, to marinate in sunlight, and to brush up against the energies of strangers, let stimuli distract me from myself.

I live on one of the western-most streets of Waikiki, just at the edge, just at the threshold where Waikiki-ness fades and real life materializes. The real Waikiki feels like what I imagine Disney World might. Pristine, tiki-torched, dotted with historical Hawaiian monuments but rather void of authentic Hawaiian. Streets and beaches are lined with swaying clapping palms, abundantly flowering shower trees, towering royal palms, climbing bougainvilleas, the occasional giant viney banyan, and the stately, soft, rustling Australian pines. The main drags are narcissistically manicured, from the top of the themed-facade hotels down to the spotless real-stone sidewalks, void of lingering trash (yesterday I even saw some union guys scraping gum off the sidewalk). The side streets and back alleys tell grittier, less sparkly stories but are still bustling, still rich in Waikiki life, with run down walkups and paint-chipped hotel-apartments wearing their age, with hole-in-the-wall bars and restaurants whose less visible back-ends, corners, edges, and secret spaces are full of the skeletons of roaches and rats sunk in indistinguishable must and mold and black grime. But everywhere in Waikiki, you'll find jacked-up prices, and everywhere you look, you'll see people with bags of bought goods and carry out containers and hotel towels thrown over shoulders.

It must be magical here, when you first arrive from somewhere else. The weather is perfect, but perfect - tanktop temperatures, azure blue skies or pocket-raincloud skies with rainbows, always, just over your shoulder. So many noises and sights and street performers and beggars and bums and people from all over the entire world mingling together.

But crowded too, especially on the weekend, especially on the first weekend of summer.

We have a beach we like to go to, on the far hem of Waikiki (Diamond Head side), almost past it and a little less handled. If you are walking along the paved path that follows the water's edge, as you leave the heart of Waikiki, and you pass the intersection of Kapahulu and Kalakaua Aves, to your right the shore becomes reefier and the sandy beach narrows. To your left, beautiful green parks stretch out, with manicured lawns bordered by ironwood pines. If you walk just past these green spaces where you'll often see men in speedos collected, lounging on blankets in the grass, sunbathing, or splashing in the bluegreen waters. And then, if you walk past the Waikiki Aquarium and past the dilapidated, abandoned, no-trespassing Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium, a now-defunct ocean water public swimming pool built to honor the 10,000 men from the Territory of Hawai‘i lost during WWI. If you get that far, then you've found Kaimana beach.

Just around the corner from my apartment, I bought a liter of water and a cookies-n-cream hershey's bar at the ABC store (one of the biggest franchises, more common in Waikiki than starbucks in American suburbs, i'd wager). On my way, I weaved in and out of people and cars and noise and heat from the searing summer sun filling a crystal blue sky along the magnificent Pacific, past an art fair, booths set up in a skinny long triangular park between two tree-lined avenues. The "Glorious!!" kind of day that you want to exclaim about aloud with your arms raised above your head, palms to the sky. I was looking forward to the muted quiet of Kaimana. But when I arrived, I saw that the weekend crowds were collecting the same vibes as me from the Universe: "Today is a day for the beach!" The local crowds were out in numbers and the tourist beaches must have been so crowded that the overflow gushed right up and over into Kaimana. Writhing with life and colors and rainbow umbrellas, towel to towel, happy people, music and smells of barbecue wafting out from under big tents, so many noises they come at me in one single indistinguishable aoieranaogienoriuoaoiern (kind of like the whir of an engine).

I'm walking and thinking, who's gonna stop here when just over the rise, I can sit alone on a cliff and watch, 200 feet below me, the tiny surfers smaller than ants, and feel the wind whip my hair (which is getting long, by the way), and become void of thought and emotion, which is exactly what I needed, let the elements wash this clinging negative energy right off my chest and shoulders, out of my gut, up over Diamond Head mountain, and away. It'd blow full of air, like a plastic bag caught in the wind, dash up over the island on a draft, and land somewhere with a slight slap, in the middle of the Pacific. Or better yet, as it rises and falls, rushing along in the wind, bits and pieces fall away, neutralized in the loss of identity, until it all just fades into the beautiful chi of this planet.

So I kept walking. And I was speed walking by now. Today, I asked B if he wanted to see how fast I was walking. He said yes. We were in our parking garage and I walked out ahead of him, fast, the way I was walking on Sunday. He said people probably thought I was a crazy. Ha. I huffed and puffed my way up to the top of the rise (even passed a jogger--that was awkward) where the cliffs are lined with rock walls to sit on. But I couldn't stop; I was on a roll. My movement was mechanical by now. So I kept walking and walking and walking and walking.

Other side of Diamond Head was empty. The very opposite of Waikiki. Desolate. Creepy quiet. I walked to another neighborhood, another zip code. I walked around a mountain, really but not technically. I walked and walked till I realized all at once and three miles from home that my feet were hurting. That flip flops aren't the best speed walking boots. I started to hobble and practiced a meditation in moving through pain. I felt like I was on an adventure doing something pretty cool. I hobbled fast as I could down the mountain, down the hills, to the ocean, and to my house. On the way, a good-looking teacher tried to sell me huli-huli chicken (edit: at the school that, 9 years later, my son has just begun attending for kindergarten). They had about 70 chickens roasting on spits in the school's parking lot. Smelled sooooooo good. But I was unstoppable. I felt a bit like forrest gump. I felt like I could go on all day. Maybe even walk across a country. If it wasn't for my feet.

What a relief to get home almost three hours later. Sore and sweaty and better.

It has just turned midnight, so I suppose everything's in order.
(Edited 11/10/15)

Monday, May 21, 2007

Monday afternoon

I'm just gonna bullshit the beginning of this blogsite till i have an idea of how i want these things to go. Sitting at Glazers Coffee (best coffee in Honolulu and reaaaally nice people behind the counter and free wifi) on King Street. B's at home waiting for me to get the hell back with the car so we can do something before the days' out. Car parked illegally in a shopping market lot...gggggg. that's making me nervous. I'd better get the hell out of here and go save my car and my man. WEEEEEEEEe swish and with a stunning blinding explosion she's outttt.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

This one's for you

Hi Lauren,

This one's for you. It's 1:46 am and i'm kicking myself for not sleeping but computers have this way of keeping your chest buzzed and your brain inactively active and on top of that relative unemployment makes one feel unresponsible for tomorrow and so, here i am. I told you I'd join so i can keep up with you this way. I've never felt comfortable with the idea of blogging. I'm afraid if I write something original in this tube it will be irretrievably lost and become immediately innane, trite, and obsolete. This is my fear. By the way, I read through your blogsies. You are eloquent and secretly comedic. I like that part the most, the secret funny--when you said your mother always says something about going to the pod when she's off to peeshkee and that's why you don't like that word.

so here i am.