Strange Late-night Obsession

Every now and then, something reminds me that Rorschach is dead and that Dr. Manhattan killed him. It's nothing personal, but I detest Dr. Manhattan for that. Would that he were not imaginary and/or immortal... !

Spencers Butte?

A couple of days ago a group from the house went hiking up Spencer's Butte. I believe that is the right name of the thing we hiked. I am now awed by the length of the thin and ghost like thing passing for existence that I've have in this town without hiking said Butte.

There were six who went altogether- Kari, the Alaskan girl, and a couple of guys she knew, Emily(a Freshman) and me, and Pavan(a guy who lives at the house). It was so warm that Kari wore shorts. I have it in my mind now that she was skipping alot, but that is probably just an impression. Most of the way Emily, Pavan, and I were together going more slowly, and Kari and the guys were ahead someplace. We went through the belly of the woods at first. The trail was a bright brown mud, and the rest of the world was dark green and pillars. Higher up, the trail was still coated with snow. Those bits were a little bit scary going up, because the snow was neither melted nor solid, and there was absolutely no traction(and it was quite steep). Pavan and I helped Emily, because she was freaking out a little. Just after that, we got above the trees, and the trail disappeared in piles of big rocks and slopes of short grass. All around was wind going through empty space. I think we went even slower then, because we kept stopping to look and/or take pictures. The horizon finally opened out- a ring of hill tops, and the white peaks of mountains jutting through here and there. As we went up, the view got wider and deeper. It was so lovely- you could see so far... At the very top was a peak of rocks, and on it a concrete triangle where the others were sitting. We all sat up there and basked in the wind and open space for a long time.

"distance has a way, of making life, understandable"

In case anyone is wondering, Noah is right, or nearly so. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, by Wilco, is one of the best albums ever. Why this is or what its about, I can't say just yet, though. I need to listen to it at least eight or nine more times, but I will get back to you.

In other news, I think I've spent too much time in my room with only music for company lately. I've been getting to the point that the lives of the people around me seem kind of far away and unreal. Then in a natural progression, I too feel like I'm living in a dream.

Yay for reality. Yay for pain.

but also Yay for waking up from dreams, when ever that happens.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

This is by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Appearently, he wrote it during the Civil War, after his son was badly wounded in the fighting.

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth,' I said,'
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Sea of Glass

There were ice storms the day I flew home. It didn't stop the planes, thankfully, but it did create delays. First there was a small hour's delay at Pheonix, then in the air over O'hare (and they kept telling us, we may get to land within twenty minutes. twenty minutes would go by and they'd say the same thing) then on the runway at O'hare (becuase they didn't have a gate free. and they kept telling us twenty more minutes. ten more minutes.). But it was all not objectively very long, and the politely chatty wife of a businessman was sitting next to me and we chatted. After that was a couple hours waiting for the bus, a couple hours of bus ride, and about an hour of white knuckled driving over roads like long skating rinks.

At some point, on the runway, it occured to me that there really is no use in waiting for anything. Everything that we hope will bring us relief from our problems, when we get it, creates another set of problems.
-When we're kids, we think growing up will make our lives easier (maybe?) becuase we'll have power, but it doesn't; it puts us in a position to have to deal with a lot of crap. Because we have the power to.
-When we're single, we think that Finding Someone, or Getting Married will solve all our problems, but it really just seals us into dealing with our problems and their consequences in one particular situation. We hope it will grant us all our desires, but it only traps us with the fact that our desires often can't be fulfilled.
-When mothers have young children, they think their lives will be easier when the children grow older and they don't have to lull them to sleep at night and wipe their rear ends. When the kids grow older though, they start doing terrible risky and/or stupid things, and the mothers are wracked by worry that they can do nothing about. And they look back fondly on the days when they could solve all their children's problems by lulling them to sleep.
-When men have bad jobs, or bad bosses, or are just bored with working, they wish they could retire, relax, and enjoy life. But they forget that the other term for Retirement Home is Nursing Home. And a nursing home is a place where people who are no longer able to work sit around, pretend that Bingo is important because its distracting, and if they're lucky, get visited by their children for a few hours every other weekend.

I don't mean to paint a gloomy picture. I think that all of these troubles have a point, and provide chances to trust God in ways that we would get nowhere else. But it doesn't seem worthwhile to wait for the situation to change. That won't solve anything. We deal with the problems we have, and if we can do that, good. If we make a habit of just dealing with what we're given, we stand a chance of dealing with what we're given, and getting the good out of it. If we continually evade our problems, to chase after some bright future, we wind up at the end of our lives having done nothing. Isn't there a fairy tale about that? A boy with a silver ball and a golden thread? It would allow him to skip forward in time through anything he felt was unpleasent, but at the end of his life, he begged the fairy with tears to take the magic thing back and let him start his life again. Fairy tales aren't stupid, you know.

And I suppose by all those 'we' s just now, I can only mean 'I'.

At any rate. My grampa appears to be dying. He has been in a slow decline for years now, and has thought that he was dying, but in the last week he has taken a turn for the worst, and this looks like the last turn. He had cancer years ago, and it relapsed? came back? It is now spread in his bones all across his back. They have given him enough morphine to dope him up and let him sleep for the moment. My mum is helping my granma take care of him (she and he still live at home together) as much as she (my mum) can, and my sisters (and me) take care of our younger brothers as much as is needed. Which is not even different than normal. Nothing on the surface is really different. Except that he's dying- and it's kind of odd. I have spent my whole life, for the most part, in and out of his house, and, for the most part, with him.

I don't know how to explain the importance of this exactly. For the past few days since I got home the fields have been smoothed with ice. Whenever the sun comes out, it pours into them, till they become a sea of molten glass. Every tree and every dead weed looks like its made out of transparent fire.

That was the end result of all the delays. That was why I secretly didn't mind having to sit in the plane, on the runway.

Nonsense

Is this entertainment for you Gentlemen? This spectacle which arises before your very eyes, fools and wolves, diamonds pretending to be jades, and meres imagining themselves to be firm yet tender earth, avoided by all except the gullible. The real flask of character is yet unpoured, the real trial undrunk in its full. For time will crack the jar of the world and unleash meaning- which flows by various streams through air and earth, running, and pooling at last in the cup of the soul. This change has never been complete, and never, never will be. The jar is never as broken as we thought it was. The wolf becomes a jade to a diamond is a fish, and out of the strong, Gentlemen, out of the strong. We will ring in every change until the last, and even then. There are things that haven't tried us yet.

Notes of a Wandering Mind II

Our kingdom is eternally incomplete. Its borders are never certain, the capitol never settled. Go West today, go East tomorrow. This city is a pilgrim city. You live in it by packing your knapsack and leaving.