On Ingratitude, Birds, and Wires

Today was a long day. The professional phrase "What are you talking about?" almost escaped my lips several times. You would think I'd learned more self control by now. OK. Tomorrow I will do better. I have decided that I have an interesting character flaw. That is, that I am a guilt ridden human being. I mean, is it really necessary to put myself through months of torture? I'm worried about work most of the time I'm at home, about what's going to happen with this or that client. You would think I would be past that by now. Today I think I only heard about every tenth word for each phone call I was on. I guess that some days are better than others. At least that's what reason tells me, per experience. I suppose that Life, liberty and the pursuit of Social Security benefits has me frustrated. I should just give up. My poor clients, they really don't comprehend all that they put me through. But, you know, that is how life goes. That's the very reason why it is important to put yourself in another's shoes. You're positive you have it hard, then someone who does not have what you have crosses your path, and then in that small moment you hate yourself, simply because their trouble is so horrific-- and then you cry, because you are so supremely grateful for your own misery, and then you vow to never complain again, and you vow that if you do God may smite you for ingratitude. Yet I always go back to that ingratitude. If only we could always remember--now and forever turn our heads and fix our eyes on what we have, and forget about everything that we don't need, and remember that so often "I" is unimportant. Oh what a bright, blessed day that would be. But for now, we go on. It's just you and me, dear reader. Pressing forward under all that must be accomplished each and every day. I want to believe that one day I'll get it right. That the "me" and "I" will stop meaning so much.
For now hopefully only comprehending every tenth word is good enough, and you might think you'd do better. If so, you don't get it. That's the point of life--the point of this.

On the same subject, but a different note, I have long since found a connection to my job in a song from an inventive, little-known artist. Radical Face's song "Glory" was written for me and my job, I am self-center-edly sure of it.

"A bird, caught in the wires
Pleading for help I can't provide, I'm not that big
I hope for the best but nothing changes, I'm sorry"

So, to all of my client's who will never read this. I am sorry. I wish I could change things. I wish I could fix things.

But that's another purpose of life. To see all of the big things we are too little to fix. To see all of the thousands of reasons that we need God.

Tens of thousands.
May He forgive me my constant, daily ingratitude.

New Places, New Faces- Starting Over

Do you ever feel like you want different things than other people want? Perhaps it's more that feeling of wanting different things than other people want for you.
No, that's not it. Both of these thoughts play a strong role in this emotion, but it is more even than a mere synthesis of the two.
I just want something and I'm not sure I have the courage to get it. Or the luck. Or probably the faith.
I think this is the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld: a massive expanse of pine and other greenery lightly dampened with a drizzle from the heavy-laden heavens. Looking out across the Puget Sound in all its grey, dull loneliness and feeling my heart will break for the love of this view. It is as if in this moment, nothing that I do not like need exist, I can forget about all of the ugly in the world, and concentrate for a moment on this new thing.
Speaking of new things, I have made a new friend. His name is Owen, and he has this sweet, simple way of looking at the world as though he's never seen it before. And, well, he hasn't. Owen is 5 months old, and the dearest thing. I feel as though he has quietly taught me a great deal in the past few days as I have had the blessed opportunity to watch him watch the world. This morning I took him out on the balcony to calm a bout of atypical fussiness and watched as little droplets of rain fell gently on his light brown hair. As we stood there on that balcony, together, with that view, I thought to myself, "If I were to have this to look upon every day for the rest of my life, I hope I'd never damn myself enough to stop wondering at its elegant majesty."
Looking into the brilliantly wise eyes of that child as he takes in the world, bit by bit, beauty by beauty, I wonder if that is how I felt at his age. I wonder if in my heart I felt the same way about everything else as I do now about this new place. I wonder if I had somehow promised myself that I'd never stop looking at the world as though I had never seen it before. Then, I hadn't seen it before. Lately, I have been tired; I have "seen enough". But as I watch him, I realize that I needed this new place to remind myself of how much I love living. Maybe I don't have what it takes to get what I want, so I will make up what it takes and then I will have it. Will it take courage? I guess. So I will make that up as I go too. On Monday it will be twenty-two years since I started living, and I am making myself a promise now to start living again.
Happy birthday to me.

In Dependence

Streams of colored sparks;
children scream in mock terror.
Where are you tonight?

Flaws.

I keep on trying to write, but nothing comes out.
This is the only thing on my mind.

As I listen, I mourn the fact that I do not produce such beauty; and, yet, I can't help but feel that stirring that causes me to suspect that somewhere in me--in the most personal part of my being-- is where these musicians found this song in the first place, as though it somehow belongs to me, and is mine to post here.

I know it sounds crazy, but this song moves me beyond all reason. So I leave reason behind, yet again. The scholar within me will have something to say later, hopefully sometime soon. For now, bear with the mystic in me.

Taking the second plan,
Begging to understand,
Life of a selfless man.
‘Cos out of all the flaws I’ve stumbled upon;
It’s the hardest one to focus on
It’s the hardest one to focus on.
Why are you calling up?
Isn’t one enough?
Giving up all she’s got.
Out of all the flaws I’ve stumbled upon.
It’s the hardest one to focus on.
It’s the hardest one to focus on.

Father Time

"And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time."
- "What Sarah Said" Death Cab for Cutie Plans

I'm feeling a little angst-y tonight-- a bit restless. I (deep breath) am leaving Eagle Mountain this week--in a few days. Trouble is (hoping to save face) when asked to produce a reason for doing so by a friend at church today, I could only shrug, look her in the eye and (forgive me) state simply, "because I'm 21 years old."
So I will go back to Provo. Nine months ago I left Provo, for seemingly no reason, now I return with seemingly no reason... Plans.
Sometimes, life produces a day that demands an inventory. That was yesterday for me. June 18, 2011. It marked two years since the day that I flew back to the US after my Study Abroad in Spain. I was a different person that day than I am now, which is so obvious a statement I am blushing for the stupidity of having typed the words, and the further-felt stupidity and embarrassment for not changing them now.
I remember it well, returning back to Eagle Mountain for a quick two-month visit. I remember many things, but much of it is a blur. Just water under the bridge. A whole string of events that, "Are what they are, do not blame [insert here anything we try to blame the past on]".
You know, there is no point in trying to change things. It's the "if we had cake we could have cake and ice cream... if we had ice cream" way of thinking. Sometimes something just isn't meant to be. When something has found turned up with enough missing parts that a favorable resolution is not even in the cards, wishing never does anything but make one sound desperately ridiculous.
Speaking of "meant to be" things... I was laughing today at a fortune from a restaurant that I have stuck in the corner of a big picture frame in my room. The fortune reads as follows:
"Like the river flow into the sea. Something are just meant to be."
Clearly good Asian to English translations are not one of those things that are meant to be. In defense of the Asians... these translations do lead to some truly good laughs over here in the Western Hemisphere.
I'm being sassy tonight. There is nothing flip about wanting so badly to change something you would give everything you were to change it.... if you had anything left to give. I sound like I have it all together, like I have it all figured out. Really I am writing for myself. Really, this is all deeply, personally, horrifically resonant. Really, I just keep mentally looping another line from the above-mentioned song:

"It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds."

For the record, the lucky numbers on that fortune are 10, 13, 19, 23, 28 and 56.
So there you have it. Something are just meant to be. And Something are not. And off to bed with me--faulty memories, angst-y Plans, and all.

Soundtrack of the evening:
"What Sarah Said" -Death Cab
"Such Great Heights--Cover" -Iron and Wine
"Different Names for the Same Thing" -Death Cab
"Rebellion (Lies)"- Arcade Fire

Haunted

I think one of the couches in my parent's front room is haunted.
I do not know what they want, or why they will not go away.
I just know they're in trouble.
This girl keeps crying. I wish she'd stop. I don't want to listen to it anymore.
Though there is something artistic about being haunted.

Behold: an exercise in abstract poetry:

If
My inexperience should speak
And, nothing doubting,
Long-- openly vowing--effortlessly
You'd open up.
Justifiably, our shibboleth: hurrying up and
Dying, asserts value is depleted,
Near exhausted. Lo! somethingness offends nothingness.

I don't know why people are so offended by the abstract. There is so much meaning to be pulled out of the abstract when one is willing to put in the time. From whence cometh this offense anyway? As if everything did not start at as abstract as can be. Those First Letters that we learned as children. Did they mean anything to us then? Just symbols on a page. It was not until we applied ourselves that we unlocked the secret, and we were immensely gratified. We have just forgotten how to look at the basics, take it one letter at a time.
But then, who has time?
Besides myself.

I assure you, if they do not stop their haunting, they are going to make me lose my mind.

True Wisdom

"To see in all directions at the same time is the privilege of God. It is our privilege to ask what he sees."
-JDN