The Whistle

I heard it today. The whistle. I was just coming up the stairs to go to bed and I heard it... it wasn't the right tune of course, but I was curious. Who else would whistle on my street, outside my window loud enough that I could hear it half-way down my stairs? Silly single-paned windows. But even though I looked outside with half-hearted earnest (I was prepared for no one to be standing there), a twinge twisted in the sinews of my heart for just a moment and I remembered my little bird, and I missed him.

My little bird... but you are always everywhere. The chasm of everything we don't say to each other keeps filling up because words... words are too small for what we're feeling right now. Most of the time I can  hold in all the words: the moments I wanted to tell you about, the thoughts I had about the book, the film, the smile, the strange encounter - it's been months, but I still have the urge to tell you everything. When I don't think I can take it anymore, and I feel like all the words I'm holding back are going to burst out of me like emotional bulimia, I come here to twist my purging into some weird art.

My little bird... I still see your smile, hear your laugh; I still wonder what you would think about things, the recipe I'm trying, the outfit I'm wearing... would I see a crinkled nose? Would you throw your head back in your enthusiastic way and laugh heartily - I do miss your laugh... it was just like you: genuine and straight from the heart.

Please don't think I don't understand... I do. You see, my heart is lying to me... she's telling me that you could be the most important person in my life, and me to you... she's telling me that we're wasting so much time being apart - if we really love each other, we'll never get these moments back. But she's wrong - what's happening now in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives - these things are important right now. These things are forming us, even this terrible distance, even imagining my little bird outside my window, even understanding that we need this time apart... these things are important. I have to believe this, even if it turns out not to be true, I'm going to believe it because it's terrifying to think that one person not being in my life could ruin my life. Could I give anyone that much power? Not that I'm impervious - oh no - you have power, influence... a lot of it, my dear, but even you won't leave my life a ruin. How could you? You've only done positive things in my heart; only tore down ruins and rebuilt encouragement and love... these edifices stand intact: no ruin here, I assure you.

So I tell myself over and over: you will have all the time you need. And I believe it. And I hope.

So please hope too... the words aren't coming because I'm afraid I'd drown you in the deluge and right now prudence is needed. One day will be a day for words; for now, silence and hope and heart-wrenching little whistles that are not my bird outside my window.  

I am afraid of you now ...

Yes, you... I guess I always have been, somewhere. People always seem terrified of the ones they love best. The ones who have nuzzled down into your heart and you know if they came out you would bleed to death. Wow. That sounds dramatic.

I am afraid of you so I sit in silence and listen to your silence and the space of everything we're not saying and yet I cannot feel that you do not love me.

All of the actions, inactions, nonactions... the nothing that is between us now: most people would say let go - it's clear he's gone. He doesn't want anything to do with you. He doesn't love you anymore. But there is this heart string attaching us... a tiny wire made of ether running straight from the tip of my aorta to yours... and it says to hold on. This little voice inside me whispers to me "Don't let go."

So I can't manage to cut the string.

But I am afraid of you when I see you online. Afraid of it's instantaneousness. I would reach out and you would KNOW and I would know that you knew, and you would know that I knew that you knew... and in that moment of too much knowing, the string might snap.

No. No. It's better this way. I will send you letters very seldom. There's so much safety in letters. They can get lost in the mail. They can be misplaced. I cannot know that you got them, or aren't sleeping with them under your pillow, or aren't crying into them with devotion... I can't know, and because I can't know...

hope can exist there in that space - the space between everything we feel, everything we want to say and the nothing that we communicate.

I can't tell you how long I will have hope... you see, the string is there, and I can feel your heart still thumping even if the connection is bad - it's there.

I can't tell you if the string will be pulled out, if the wind will whip it suddenly, if birds will nest on it and weigh it down, if in a fiery rage I'll rip my own chest open and dislodge you from my heart where you've nested.

They say love is a choice - but honestly, I don't feel very choosy right now. There was the cute guy on the train - witty, helpful - there was the cute, new guy at church, the man making eyes at me on the train - my eyes glazed over with boredom... I'm sure they're lovely men, but my string is attached only to you. I considered the possibilities, I reasoned with myself "It's been months... why not try something new? You don't seem sad - this could be great for you!" And yet, I don't want them. I don't want them... If love is a choice, I feel like I've already signed my name. I'm sitting here quietly living my truth.

If you never come back perhaps my name will fade and I'll feel free again - but oddly I never felt more free than in the prison we built together. And true freedom is terrifyingly lonely.

And I'm not angry... I'm not bitter... I'm not desperate... I'm quite calm - the string, I'm letting slack out, giving you plenty of space, giving the string room for you to wander around - if you detached your end I might not even know for a while, but the occasional twitch tells me you're still there.

Others... I'm also afraid of others - but only sometimes. If I saw myself I would think I am pathetic. It's only because I don't see myself, I feel myself, that I can feel the iron core deep within me, that heart full of love pumping strongly. I'm not wasting away - my cheek isn't wan, my muscles not weak, my conversation not droll, my ideas haven't gone flack - loving you silently isn't taking it's toll on me. It's not a weakness, this vulnerable, strange, silent love - no.

I am terrified of you, but part of me has also never felt so sure. I'm terrified of myself, of what will happen, of everything in the future, yet I only see one path among a labyrinth of choices and I keep plonking one foot right in front of the other one - taking ground into the impalpable mist.

I keep moving forward, and yet all my choices are seeming to lead towards you but they are for me... they are not choices motivated by you, but by me, but this string in my heart... the attachment never lets me forget. Would that I could settle into a harmony with myself... like fingers of the same hand that work together seemlessly - my heart and I - alas, no, I must move forward, seemingly toward you, but not for you, but for these big things ... one step plonked in front of another... and I can't let go, and I can't forget, and I can't turn or I'm no longer in truth.

I am afraid of you, the way all people are terrified of the ones they love best. 

Packing: Emotions and Suitcases

So it's after midnight and I'm staring at my suitcase across the room. There are some things I've bought, some gifts, clothes, etc., piled around it. I've spent today gathering up all the bits of my life that I've scattered across the house as I've been home this Christmas. The random sock, the phone charger... these are the things that get forgotten.

Even more difficult is picking up the scattered emotions of a whirlwind trip. The 5 second moments that you brushed off but now think about at 2am when you're chatting to Mr. Insomnia. The hugs you didn't give your nephew, the harsh words you said to your mom, the smiles you accepted but didn't understand; these things also have been swept into a pile in my mind marked "sort out later"...

Already London comes knocking with emails and coffee dates and appointments and to-do lists--transatlantic living is like trying to mix oil and water. I want it to be oil and balsamic, so at least it tastes better.

The funny thing is I can never fit everything in my suitcase on the way back to London. There are always items sent later, for weight limits must be met. Take the essentials. I don't even know what that means sometimes. I want to stuff it all in and just drag my suitcase through the train stations bumping people out of my way. Talk about burdens. But just like my Christmas presents, I need to decide which memories I'm going to discard and regift and pack away to rethink in London, staring at my ceiling at 2am, wide awake, chatting to Mr. Jetlag.

I really need some sleep. 

Words to Live By...

This is a HORRID pic of Kant...  

The moral philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote some pretty cool stuff I debated in my moral philosophy class a few years ago... though we couldn't rest with surety on everything he said, I did come away with a pretty good idea of his categorical imperative... 

A categorical imperative is basically a mantra which you should live by morally IF and ONLY IF it could be followed in EVERY circumstance. 

Philosophers LOVE to think about every possible circumstance, and they like breaking the rules of physics to do so... 

On a slight tangent, my favorite question, which hasn't been answered, was posed by both Mel Gibson, and  my philosophy of religion teacher... Why is BLOOD the vehicle by which God forgives sins? He could have chosen ANYTHING, and He chose BlOOD... 

Anyway, I am a word collector in many ways... whether it's old words that should come back into play, or what I consider words to live by, whether or not they may classify as a categorical imperative, here are some people and sayings that get me going in a good way. 

Much nicer... he has kind eyes... or he's checking you out ;)

• "I am most myself when I am loving others." - Pastor Greg Hill 
• "The universe is so vast and so ageless that the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice." 
• "Your spiritual life is never just for you...but for the healing of the nations...that we might be part of God's world." - Archie Coates (Pastor at HTB)
• "The opposite of love isn't hatred, it's the using of another as a means to an end." --Christopher West 
• "It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness." - Leo Tolstoy
• "Step back and decide how important your opinions are verses the people you claim to love." ~ Bill Johnson
• "Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value." ~ Arthur Miller
• ‘You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the amount that it is attacked.’--Gustave Flaubert
• "Christians need to have soft hearts and hard feet" ~ Jackie Pullinger
• "Safety isn't found in the absence of danger, but in the presence of God" - Simon Guillebaud
• "The language of Friendship is not words but meanings. It is an intelligence above language." - Henry David Thoreau
• "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Elliot
• "Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
• "Anything less than this complete trust...would not be love, anything less than pure trust would be a kind of careful negotiation. A careful negotiation isn't love. A person must be willing to be dashed on the rocks or made the fool in exchange for a relationship in order for pure love to take place." Donald Miller "Searching for God Knows What" 
• "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." ~ from "Ulysses," A.L. Tennyson 
• "What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?" ~ George Eliot
• The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life: In himself, nothing; In God, everything. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.-- A.W. Tozer
• "Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day that simply says 'I will try again tomorrow.'" ~ Pope Benedict XVI
• "It is not our abilities that show who we truly are. It is our choices." - Albus Dumbledore
• "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”-- Anais Nin
• "If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to believe that no one was ever improved by a book (or a play or a movie). You have to believe ... that all art is morally trivial and that all education is morally irrelevant." ~ Irving Kristol
• "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

These amazing words, full of courage, stamina, grace and truth... these words were set into contexts which I've forgotten. And context, I think adds power and meaning to these words, not the other way around. The Jackie Pullinger quote, for example, comes from over 40 years of missionary work in Hong Kong's tough heroine/prostitution rings... talk about hard feet living there! Somehow working in East London doesn't seem so bad. 

I've been in a season of reading lately. My life seems to come in seasons... never finding the balance, something always takes the majority of my attention, whether it's writing, reading, dancing, working, meeting with friends, praying, etc... right now it's reading. (soon I'll be editing, I promise). There are so many books that I want to read, books I want to re-read, books I think I should have read when I was a child... lifetimes of books! Sometimes it's maddeningly depressing, other times, I stare at the wonder of my goodreads to-read list, or my amazon wishlist, and just think it's a miracle that so many awesome sounding books have been published. 

It gives me hope and utter despair. 

Sorry for the tangent... 

But getting back to context, these words, from other worlds and societies and contexts... they speak to my context... they meet me here and breathe life into me here. 

And I think to myself, I hope anything that I write or say does the same to others... 

Hope. Despair. Caught in an unbearable tension... So I hope they do you some good. 

Unfinished Business

So a month since I turned in my 90+ pages, 50,000+ word manuscript to nanowrimo... the rough and tumble, barely chaptered, barely sectioned manuscript lies in a word document on my desktop, mocking me, taunting me, daring me to open it. It dares me to print it off and attempt to read it. It knows how much I struggle with my own heart as a writer, my skill, my voice, my everything.

I am awesome at starting creative projects, whether it's an afghan, the new fingerless gloves I'm crocheting (finished 1!), or a long piece of writing. I have 3 novella's/novels which I am now working on, and a complete manuscript which needs loads of editing.

I have about 6 books which I began reading (some years ago) and have not finished. I am an expert at unfinished business... sigh.

I don't know if this implies failure, per se. It just means my distractibility level is quite high. As I begin chipping away at the dull hunk of wood that I now see my novel as, I will need encouragement to keep going with it. While writing the manuscript itself was a battle in perseverance, I actually think the editing process will be the real work. Plunking out 3,000 words in an evening, regardless of quality just seemed normal after a few weeks, but battling to find the perfect words, images, descriptions... I might die before I complete this piece of work. But I don't want to give up on it.

Listening to the freakonomics podcast, an episode talked about failing fast--knowing when a business (or other) venture wouldn't work and quitting quickly so as to use a little energy as possible before throwing in the towel.

While this attitude might work well in business, I'm not sure how well it applies to art. I'm not sure if the market demand for an anger bar  matches the struggle Van Gogh had with his artistic ventures in his life. I'm in no way comparing myself to Van Gogh or my despicable manuscript to Starry Night--I doubt my novels and stories and poems will ever be considered art.

I think the point is that these horrid thoughts that I will fail as an author keep me procrastinating from working on my texts when, I'm not sure I can fail or succeed (at writing them anyway). I may fail at selling or marketing my stories one day, but if I work desperately hard with them, how can I fail to write them?

In my mind, it isn't me who has written the story... no. The stories choose me, pick me out of the sky and  plop into my brain, fizzle around in there with the images and emotions, and then beg me to squeeze them out into the world in my notebooks and type them on my laptop. I feel as though my stories choose me... not the other way around. I should hope that I do not give up on them, leaving the characters and plots half-formed, afraid to do them justice. I hope I am brave enough to make them shine, even if the world spits them back out at me.

I hope I have the gumption to see them through to the end, for their own sake, not mine. 

Of Grandmother (blurb from my book of tales)

“There are many tales and legends of Grandmother. Some say she is a witch, some say a fallen angel sent to guard the Forbidden Forest, but what is sure is that she is the Guardian of the Sacred Waters of Mariners’ Nook. Many seek her and do not find her, for she lives hidden in the Forbidden Forest north of the Royal City..."

The Tomb of Juliet

The museum and tomb of Juliet is a conglomeration of Roman pottery in the basement, a garden entrance to the tomb with a stunningly rusted 'wishing' well. The collection of frescoes, paintings and statues range from some mythology to nativity and crucifixion scenes of Christ and Mary, and soem cherubs. Some portraits also show the themes of death and innocence and violence--several statues depict both men and women being tempted--including innocence--a young girl with a serpent clutched to her chest, it's tail curling around her neck. Her left hand grips it lightly, trusting it implicitly, steadying it as if afraid it might fall--oh the naievity of innocence--what danger and what bliss!

Lowering yourself into the tomb, you walk down a few stone steps. The antechamber and the tome are covered in lovers' declarations to each other. In different languages, love is proclaimed to shared beloveds--everyone wanting to share in the tragedy of Juliet. Only one naysayer proclaimed in bright red --LOVE KILLS--over other lovers' names. Ever practical--the story of Romeo and Juliet, which Queen Elizabeth I had attributed as a true depicition of love--throws caution to the wind--love doesn't have to create babies or families or build community. Only God knew of Romeo and Juliet's holy union-proving that sacred bonds can be made outside of paternal blessings. What Romeo and Juliet had could not last--they had to die of their furnace of passion, driven by hate and secrecy. Elizabeth similarly lived passionately, but murdered any desire or hope of family-perhaps it had been killed long before by how she witnessed family life by her father and sister--surely noone would want to give raising a child a go with such a family history. Either way the effect is the same, whether quickly and fiery or slowly and smouderingly--LOVE KILLS. Love kills, but only the body--a whole different kind of annihilation occurs wen we ignore the fires inside of us. A whole other kind of death occurs when we push ourselves outside the possibility of love, tombing outselves in a bastion of ice, ever practicle we remind ourselves, LOVE KILLS, but alas, another kind of death has left us in soulless bodies, mechanically spouting practicalities. Even if we don't know this, somehow, deep inside, we know. This human need, this loving hate, this crystal clear madness is the reason so many lovers will write their names, sign their love on the tomb of Juliet, and all the sacrifices of love she represents.

I Couldn't Buy a Mask

I couldn't buy a mask--silver, gold, glitter, black lace, beaded fringe, feathers, headdresses, ceramic, glass, moulded leather, carved wood, painted with glitter, with historic scenery, full masks, masks with plague noses, with long noses, with cat ears, with bat wings, masks with butterflies, as white as snow, as smooth as glass, as delicate as porcelaine, as sturdy as oak--manufactured masks, handpainted, patterened and asymmetrical--a million faces ased me to be theirs--to take on their identity, to fill them with my full-of-lifeness--to flaunt and prace and strut, to smile and scowl and let their glorious face melt into mine--to give me winds and them a pluse, to concede to that glorious one-ness between a costume and the costumee--slowly letting the character in the mask takeover--feeding into you the wonderful otherness, the strengeness, the me-but-not-me-ness masks bring. If i had one, i would have to have them all feeding their personalities like a drug--them feeing on my life--making them alive--no, these masks could not be relegated to table tops or wall hooks, wooden panels or even hung from ceilings--swaying on invisible breezes scanning the room. These masks wanted a life--they preyed on me from the shop windows. I knoew I had to say no, turning defiantly from their eyeless gaze. masks would only lead to harder things, dyed and curled wigs, staffs, satin capes in black and pink and red, wands wrapped in glittery raffia, earrings the size of saucers. The spirit of carnavale lives deeply in these masks and those who try them on donàt know what they ask until it is too late. 

Venetian

The sun hits my face in the quiet breeze of the cool morning. the rays dance on the canal water like sardines in the bottom of the ship. The sea weed is like the hair of Triton's daughters. I pull my sunglasses down and settle into my boat, tossing the damp rope, soaked with dew, into the bottom as I push off. In front of my boat the water parts silently--I don't want to disturb the silence of the morning--the birds hush themselves, the men at the market are smoking cigarrettes, soaking in the morning stillness before jumping into their day. I lean back--the cool breeze rustles my hair, and the sun beams down on my face. Can't hold out anymore or I'm just a man sitting in a boat. I pull the engine cord and hear the monster growl to life, like a grizzly after hibernation. The seabirds answer by cackling back and the men in the market have begun shouting their cooperative cries as they heave goods from stocked ships to bridges and docks. Venetians are born with sealegs--feeling the palpitations of prairies and mountains like a drumroll--Venetians live the syncopated rhythm of the water, building the swelling, uneven rhythms into our speec, our meandering streets, out arched bridges, and feeling the sharp, militant rhythms of life ever else. 

On my way home... 1

I just want to get home -- God it's freezing. She wrapped her scarf around her righter, hands in pockets dug deeper, shoulders scrunched, her slight frame full of the tension of cold and the extreme exhaustion of staying warm. The sway of her bodykeaning into the wind steadied her; she plowed forward like a locomotive desperately seeking a station.

His eyes met hers for the slightest second, 100 metres away, hood up, his shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, negotiating the cold. His broad shoulders swaying as he walked quickly, decidedly towards her.

His eyes vacant, a dark fire burning deep underneath, his mouth a simple scowl, a nonchalant afterthought, while he closed the proximity between.

Just a few inches away, his shoulder grazed hers as he passed--tweed coat on cotton hoody, her eyes perusing her playlist, the blue light of the screen illuminating her dark eyes.

Like a cobra, calm before a strike, the tingle of tweed on cotton ignited him with a shock of electricity, and he struck, fangs at the ready.

The 6-inch blade in his sleeve permeated her lower shoulder blade to the hilt--he struck as if pushing through her--like a shark fin through water, like a F16 through clear sky.

The blue screen fell from her hand like a star from heaven. A thick gurgling escaped from her parted lips--her blood foaming in her pierced lung.

Her blood seeped through her coat and onto his hand still at the hilt, still deep inside her.

She wavered on her feet and he released his weapon, easing her to her knees, then face down on the damp, uneven path.

The light on her ipod went out. A street lamp flickered. Hoody flipped up, he wiped his blade on her calf and carried on his way, leaving her gurgling under the cloudy night sky.