vanilla raindrops

email: noreia@planet-save.com.

This is my blogchalk:
United States, California, sometimes Steiermark, Austria, something bored teenagers say when they speak useless words into brick walls of cotton candy, English, German, Noreia,creative writing, fiction, reading, college student, strange, cat power, mogwai, arap strap, dresden dolls, white oleander, the earth, my butt, and other big, round things, welcome to the dollhouse, fuckers.

body jewelry by bodyPUNKS!

body jewelry by bodyPUNKS!

body jewelry by BodyPUNKS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

strange day, yesterday. we drove over a winding road that seemed to last forever. then a fishing shop at a lake on the mountain, and outside sat a big, white dove. "friedenstaube," they said. peace dove. and it looked at me, so intelligent. it looked at me like it knew me. "are you the holy spirit?" i asked it in my mind. we were frozen, staring at each other, and i wanted to lift my arm, because i thought that if i did, the dove would fly over and land on it. i thought this so strongly, but i was too afraid to do it, because if the dove didn't come to me, i would have looked dumb, i would have been disappointed. i trusted the bird, yet i was afraid.

later, in quiet park with a gazebo, i looked up from our table and saw him sitting at a bench. i liked the back of his head, the little "v" of hair at the nape of his neck. i couldn't guess his age -- he could have been eighteen or thirty. walking back from the bathroom, i looked up at him and he was grinning to himself, at some secret thought, and i thought he was smiling at me. i looked away quickly because for an instant he looked like my first boyfriend. and i felt that old, familiar quickening, aware of my heartbeat, my shaky hands. because he used to give me that goofy grin. (i know where he works now, i've heard he's engaged. i feel nothing for him. i'm glad it ended. but when the guy at the park grinned toward me and sped up my heartbeat, i realized that, somewhere inside of me, there will always be that girl. young, naive, innocent spirit abandoned, tasting human dependence -- and then sorrow and solitude -- for the first time.) i watched park-guy until i could no longer see him from the back seat of the taurus. i'd wanted to ask him his name, to ask why he was sitting alone in the park, watching the falling flowers. i wondered if he was sad, if he'd loved and lost. as we drove away, some young hispanic guys on bikes gathered a few feet in front of him, slouching around, laughing as they slapped each other's hands. and i didn't like it. it was like loud talk in a cathedral. the park was so big, and they stood in his space and trampled upon his silence.

walking along the sidewalk, i saw a dead squirrel. he was big and grey, so beautiful, frozen stiff and staring, as ants feasted on his flesh. they laughed and talked as we walked, looking at a garden across the street. i was the only one who noticed.

Posted by: noreia at 13:09 | link | comments (1) |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i started the conversation. i actually did the right thing.

I. we went out for coffee so i could tell you i'm going to austria and denmark. you took it well because you were expecting worse news. the chairs there are so dark and smooth. i wanted to ask you, do you ever just stare at the sky? does the world ever freeze in your eyes, in snapshots, in stillframes of beauty?

II. i don't remember which of us started calling you Beautiful Guy. you sit there at the table against the brick wall, under your headphones, reading. you always wear black. your hair is black. you are so pale, your features so thin. it always disappoints me, somehow, to see you actually talking to people. it doesn't fit our view of you as Deep Dark Beautiful Guy. i thought of going there last night, i thought of writing you a note. because if someone thought i was beautiful, i'd like it if they told me.

III. i saw you first holding a candle to your nose. a green one, i think. you were so tall and thin, probably more so than anyone else in the store. worn grey skater shoes with no socks. tight jeans, ripped and written on at the back pockets. short-sleeved plaid shirt. messy brown hair all around your thin face. i caught your eye and let my mouth turn up in the hint of a smile. there was an undefinable emptiness there, in your eyes. you looked so young. you looked back at me a few times as you made your way to the cash register. looked into my eyes. we ended up behind you in line, watching you. what were you buying? i don't remember. only two items -- one practical and one other. a candle? i don't remember.

IV. it was strange, sitting there with him. you played guitar a table away. i wonder if you still have my story. i gave it to you and regretted it. after you told me how you felt, you asked if it made me uncomfortable. i said no. what did you expect me to say? you've had probably three of my lifetimes. seeing you brings back insecurities. i wonder if you realized that i was sitting with the man in my story. maybe you thought we were dating. that would have been funny. that would have been nice.

V. dear God.

VI. dear God, we are annoyed. we think it is annoying. we are annoyed.

VII. dear God, we are annoyed with the way you regulate our lives. you don't let us get out of line. we want what we want and you hinder us. what is it to you? no one cares what you think. "if there is anyone present who gives a damn what God thinks, please raise your hand."

VIII. dear God. we are so happy. you gave us more than we could ever have dreamed for ourselves. you created us to love each other.

IX. dear God, we need you. as soon as we start to leave you, the world gets dark and small. we need you to open our eyes and our minds. to help us, we are stupid humans. to help us, we tend to destroy. i have hated you and i need you.

if the water should cut my mind, set me free.

Posted by: noreia at 08:38 | link | comments (3) |

"Man becomes really close and dear to one when he ceases to be known by his official tags -- profession, surname, age. When he ceases to be called 'man' and turns out to be simply the first person one meets." -- Andrey Sinyavsky.

 

My new favorite poem:

Instructions For The Magic Frog

This product is sticky like the soft rubber.

Tongue is extendible, capable of sucking object at long distance.

Even though it is sticky, it unlike bubble gums and can be pulled up easily.

Wash it by soap in the event of stickiness decreased.

The insect picture on the cover can be cut off along the coarse lining and play upon by sticking onto it.

It is composed of oil and stain, if stick onto clothes, wall or other important matters, it may stain your goods.

Pull it backward using both hands then release, subsequently wrist movement must be wide enough.

Stretch as if it is fishing rod capable of extending far.

It will maintain its original shape no matter how you are going to treat it.

ATTENTION:               Don't throw it out onto people's face.

                                    Don't go to places nearby fire.

                                    Harmless, but do not eat.

                                    Don't pull out its tongue otherwise it would fall off.

-- A.L. Nielsen

Posted by: noreia at 11:52 | link | comments (2) |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to climb

Posted by: noreia at 16:38 | link | comments (4) |

from my journal, march 23 04, late afternoon.

Golden light and shadows. Cool wind paint my skin, surround me. Water drips from a hanging spider plant in slow motion, sometimes straight to the ground, other times splattering against a leaf, broken in all directions.

If I could change anything about myself right now, maybe I'd give myself Chan's voice.

Today we let a gopher go in a field near a lake. There were some boys there, tall, thin, muscular teenagers in cut-off shirt sleeves and baseball hats. They talked as they walked away, carrying their fishing poles, and I said, It's crazy to see that here, so close to the city. I thought it existed only in my dad's stories of childhood summers -- fishing, sandlot baseball, kick the can.

Tomorrow my uncle arrives and I think I'm not letting myself feel anything about that. He -- browns and greys and jeans, aftershave and coffee, mischievous humor, laugh, laugh, music. Guitar. Quick and agile, fingers on strings. I watched him play when I was fifteen, and everything me cried out, That's what I want. That music, that music, my heart. That fall I picked up a guitar.

The wind bites colder, fading golden sun.

In a moment of compassion I reached to pet the dog and she was surprisingly soft and smooth. Her deep brown eyes searched mine with such longing; that's all she wanted, just to be touched. I know that, I know. Your touch is my lifeblood. Your touch is my warmth.

"It's cold out here, huh?" I say to the hybrid-shepherd, and Chan wails and sings like I wish I could. "I want to have sex with his voice," he said. Hmm.

I shake this wobbly chair to the beat, then I shake my head, fast, waving, hair slapping my cheeks. If I ever really danced, it would be nonsense. It would be for no one, just the music. I've done it at times, but never completely, for fear of hitting something. Give me a padded room of music, I will shake turn stomp, my limbs traveling long distances with each beat of the universe. It will be like my flying dreams. Let me dance in skies over fields of grain, under purple sunsets, in warm rain. I will be free.

Yeah, drink the music, let it be your flight.

Posted by: noreia at 01:36 | link | comments (2) |

"losing the star without a sky. losing the reasons why. you're losing the calling that you've been faking. and i'm not kidding."

I've felt it, the pressure. The drab empty everything. Wondering if you're there, wondering if I even want you. And I didn't want to go tonight, to see the girls, the laughter, the food, the light. I wanted to dig deeper into a forged identity, and I wanted her to stay with me. But I knew she wanted to go, and I didn't not want to go that much. I didn't really want anything. I didn't know what I wanted.

So we went, listening to nothing on the way there, our headlights floating over black paved streets. And we got to the house of young girls and chocolate cookies and soft brown walls. Sat around, started talking, and Dee looked upset and I thought it was because we weren't being "Christian" enough, "Bible-study" enough. But then she started crying, because we were talking about depression, and she knew that, she understood it. I said I'd hated God and she said, "Yeah!" and I was surprised. I said I'd decided not to believe and she'd done the same and I was surprised.

People surprise me all the time. I have them nicely categorized, without even realizing it, and then Katie does something crazy-teenager-sarcastic, or Dee Dee says something so real and desperate and not-perfect-Christian, and I just kind of stand there and blink, because, as Denise says, "I don't know what to do with that." I don't.

I find myself in tiny spurts of awe, sometimes, throughout the day, at people, or at the way the dining room light reflects off of Kema's silver fridge, making wavy glowing snake lines, and how they instantly become darker and more vibrant as she turns off the kitchen light. Or at the plants illuminated glowing green, looking at them from the bottom, sunlight through big round leaves, under a bridge. At babies' callous-free feet. At cats -- little people -- "little dwarfs" as Denise said.

So tonight. We all talked, flowing words of humanity and pain and questioning. And somehow, slowly, I started to feel okay again, that small fire of deep okayness in me was there again, and I was trying to explain it to Spike later as a rightness feeling -- about the future, everything -- a feeling that it's all going to be okay. And as I was saying this I realized, maybe that's hope. Funny how one word can re-reveal itself to you over and over.

I want to feel okay, I want to be okay. That's what everyone wants, right?

Later we were sitting on the couch together, watching them play guitar and sing, their voices blending together in color, in liquid, "Abba Father . . ." I was stroking her hair away from her face, feeling so . . . protective. So much love. I want her to be okay forever. I want everything good for her. If that has to do with me leaving, in a crazy God-way that I may never understand, then so be it. Beautiful soul, know your Creator, let me not get in the way of that, no matter how much I may want to sometimes. No matter how lost I may get. You're growing in a way that no longer depends on me, which was hard to deal with, but it's right. Like a plant that I rescued outgrowing its pot -- it has to have soil, the real earth, which, no matter how much I try, I can't create for it -- I can only put it there and let it be there.

We're going to be okay, right dude? We're going to be okay.

Posted by: noreia at 00:45 | link | comments (3) |

right now my counter says "3333 visits."

Posted by: noreia at 14:51 | link | comments |

Dear David,

It's been two-and-a-half years now, just about, and still I think of you more than you'd probably guess.  I don't know why, or even what I think, but often in my mind, you're there.  I was seventeen, you were -- 19?  20? -- and you showed me a world that scared and enlivened me. 

They rushed by me, floured aprons, floured hair, grinding pepper, checking the oven.  I asked you a question, and suddenly time slowed down for me, while they continued their frenzied cooking.  Your words came.  We didn't know why.  You opened a door for me into your mind, and I don't think I've ever quite come back out of it. 

I sat across from you over the stained wooden table, trying to figure out where to look -- your eyes?  around the room? -- as you talked.  "How do you know you're right?" you said.  "I talked to a Muslim and a Buddhist the other day," you said.  "We're in a house where we think we have everything," you said, "but then we see a window, and the world outside of it frightens and fascinates us.  And maybe, if we keep searching, we'll find a door."

At first I tried to think of clever responses, to show you that, yes, I understood what you were talking about, yes, I was deep.  I soon gave up on that, because it was like you saw through me.  Me, in my world of sunlight and pink petals, holy love and rightness.  Me, young, a girl with all she ever needed, certain this was all anyone ever needed.  Certain I was right.  Certain I'd never be shaken.

But you did, even then.  You managed to crack that certainty.  Not that the certainty was a bad thing, or your cracking it a bad thing.  It was as it was, but somehow, in ways I can't label or categorize, something about the words you spoke that night has been woven into my world since then, my time, my experience, this beauty, this sadness, this love.  Your words have been there, under the surface, connecting with other words, and I don't know why, but they're always there.

I wonder about you now.  Am I the age you were then?  What had you gone through, to make you see things differently than all the other people who never seemed to question, never seemed to think that maybe their view of reality wasn't the objective and real one?  I want to know if it was personal for you, if you'd fallen.  Or was it just mental, a way of seeing things?

And then there was that other day, soon before I left them and their family world of ritual and "dynamic power" and "vision for your life."  I knew I was going to leave, I knew it was no longer me, and I came to you without fully knowing why, but something made me think you might understand.

I said I could read nothing but the Psalms, and there was a light in your eyes as you said you understood.  I remember fragments of what you said -- sin, questions, a certain U2 song I'd never heard of.  We sat on the steps as people walked past, some glancing toward me, worried.  Maybe I was trying to grab the last of the rope.  I guess I've always thought I failed.  Maybe I didn't.

I think of you, David.  I imagine talking to you again, telling you how crazy it's been, how alive.  I want you to know and understand; I think you would.  I think you guarded yourself, even in those hours of talk, because I was younger and more naive, I was in high school, I was in hope without fully realizing the depth of what hope meant.  Maybe you saw me like I see some of them now.  I understand that.  I understand not telling me everything.

But still I wonder.  What you'd been through.  Who you really were.  Who you are now. 

Thank you for giving me a glimpse of a bigger world.

Posted by: noreia at 14:18 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

homosexual flower, i love him.

Posted by: noreia at 16:36 | link | comments |

"you could chase that bird up into the sky if you want . . ." -- spike.

Posted by: noreia at 20:56 | link | comments |

willow tree branches hang

over the entrance to this tomb

I push them aside and try to look through the crack in the stone door

but there is only darkness and dust inside

 

living eyes that cannot see death

living breath that cannot be still

 

we walk between these rows of graves

she captures time in black and white

an angel statue with no head

dead leaves and eucalyptus trees

 

my inadequate camera

how did your photos turn out?

I never knew

how your photos turned out

Posted by: noreia at 20:52 | link | comments |

dance over pigeons when they're not looking. you never know -- you might find a talking one. one that talks to you and tells you the future. the future of our nation that we don't have. sometimes it's hard to be a pigeon these days. teenagers laughing at the way you move your neck. i mean, what's the use? just because i can see right through you, doesn't mean you can't sleep. what's the use? number 4. this is worldy, this is ethereal. oh.

Posted by: noreia at 19:38 | link | comments |

Spike: "Do you have a screen?"

Kema: "No, we had one, but we had a dog go through the screen hole on it."

Posted by: noreia at 01:32 | link | comments |

"I paid seventeen dollars for the game and I gotta apply my own feet?  ... Sheesh." -- spike

Posted by: noreia at 01:31 | link | comments |

from journal, march 16, 2004, in darcy's coffee shop

It's cool and dark in here and I like the smooth darkness of the table and chairs. On the way here I walked over the greenest grass, and I could feel its softness even through my sneakers.

Random ramblings -- maybe will turn into something?

Drinking iced tea, sugar's on the bottom, grainy, I like crunching it.

A lot of old women in here. Funny, those labels -- old, and it's so much of who you are. Old, and it's not your fault. Young, and it's who I am, and it's not my fault.

          When this frame fails me, will I trust ou to carry me through?

          I know there's no such thing as safety, but I know what a promise can do.

It's over already; already I miss it, and I'm still here. I miss meeting her, getting to know her. Realizing she's so beautiful, smart, she can understand. Clinging to her as a lifeline. Alice in Chains. Stockton. Punk. No security. Those letters. Oh God, please let it never end, let the beauty last forever. Let us last forever.

How can I presume to know what you have in store? ...

I love these chairs.

I hope she's writing in our journal.

Posted by: noreia at 01:30 | link | comments |

when did you last dance in the rain?

Posted by: noreia at 01:15 | link | comments |

who else but you would see beauty in brown and small metal objects and gay people and strange music and guys singing with cracking voices?  remember the night of the eclipse, on the hill -- wrapped in a blanket under the moon?  remember me walking around corners of brick buildings, in that huge grey sweater?  (who else would cling to that spelling of "grey"?)  we hoped to cross paths by the k building but pretended we didn't try.

oh God, i remember alice in chains in an incense-filled room full of shelves and books and posters.  the "rocker-ball" necklace you used to wear.  your grin.  your laugh.

who else would wear unmatching socks every day, but prefer to go barefoot anyway?  and remember Captain Edelweiss Hook and Blackie Schmee and Hair Pegleg and Preston Court?  you once said in a letter i saved your life.  that summer day in benicia, you saved mine.  as you have so many times.  as you do now.

Posted by: noreia at 00:31 | link | comments (1) |

why do you look at the stars?

Posted by: noreia at 18:55 | link | comments (4) |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

now all we want to do is go to red places . . .

Posted by: noreia at 15:42 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

broken skateboard spike found for me.

Posted by: noreia at 08:08 | link | comments |

it's dark outside and where are my thoughts going? want to wander with no purpose, ten-dollar fake birkenstocks over cooling-off sidewalks, under streetlights and stars. my music would be the distant hum of traffic, my nourishment the electrifying night air. in my dreams, since i was a child, i would travel great distances, over houses and trees -- i could fly or jump or climb over anything. sometimes i was running from something bad, which always came from the same direction. i'd escape through my backyard, over the fence and tree, past the trailor park, along the street until it turned into wide open land, a plain. sometimes i'd be with hundreds of other travelers, all trying to escape whatever huge terrible thing was coming.

other times i could just fly. i know the feeling of flying from my dreams, the speed of it, air rushing over your face. once, ian drove 80 or 90 miles an hour on the freeway, and i realized the reason it felt so familiar was because i always flew that fast in my dreams, i always could.

that is such a deep part of me, the feeling of flight. you could say it isn't real, it's only a dream. i could say this life is only a dream, and this is real.

finally got the cat power cd today, moon pix, and it's wonderful.

Posted by: noreia at 22:36 | link | comments (1) |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you can see that at the end, we got creative.  godarn moanqey.

Posted by: noreia at 11:30 | link | comments (6) |

due to my 8-year-old brother's obsession with pokemon and other japanese anime, i had this freaky nightmare about having to "duel" with this big yellow cartoon monster, and if i refused, he'd beat me up. this happened once a month, in my dream. so i was constantly dreading it.

weird, unnerving dreams.

yeah, i don't know, that's all.

Posted by: noreia at 11:10 | link | comments |

do you realize how small we are?

how can i realize i am small?  does an ant know it's small?  is it even small, when, compared with the whole universe, an ant and i might as well be the same size?

tonight i sat on a sidewalk with a small old nylon-string guitar, while they, inside, debated over whether we should be strict or casual, governed or creatively-directed.  i sat outside because even my own opinions on the matter, though strong and able to be explained just as fervently, seemed small and unimportant compared to the warmth riding in the night air, all around me, hugging my body, filling my lungs.  and the sky that stretched from concrete to concrete, over treetops and rooftops and houses with closed doors.  i sat and played "time of your life" and "wonderwall" to the stars, and i had the feeling that he was listening, he was all around me, and i kind of felt like he was smiling, because we're okay, he and i.  and even though i started to think maybe i was better than all of them, with all of that debating and arguing and passion (for what?), and i knew that in thinking that, i was being exactly the same -- still there was this . . . everything, bigger than all of that, out there.  i sang in a quiet falsetto and the stars twinkled in dance.  it is so beautiful to be imperfect but accepted, to know that you're really okay, just as you are.

"kid's wearin' purple pants and there's nothing you can do about it.  that's just the way things are . . ." -- spike.

hmm, i thought i had anger and confused feelings over tonight and other things to blog about.  weird how you take all that and make it beautiful.  out of all the dirt and mud, you take thoughts i don't even realize i have, and put them on this screen before me, and show me the real beauty that mattered.

let me be open.  i realize that i very subtly try to be, be, be, for other people, for myself.  what if i let it all go?  what would that mean?  but this time it feels like a melting, rather than a tearing and throwing away.  it feels like water and air and music.

lights over this dark city.  what does it look like, right now, twenty feet above this spot where i'm sitting?  if i could fly up there and be suspended, and spin around to see in all directions, what would i see?  "what would you do if you saw spaceships over glasgow?"

i like this phase.  so much time spent longing for phases past, or half-longing, half fearing change.  so much time dry, trying trying trying, forging this identy for myself out of rough stone, hitting and hammering it until my nails chipped and my knuckles bled.  and now i just breathe, and listen to the everything music.

why do i then sometimes still think like that, that my identity can be stolen, that my self can be attacked?  there is no need.

i like this time.  "just relax and enjoy now," i hear you say.  it won't always be like this.  destiny . . .

"And I wonder . . . if everything could ever feel this real forever . . . if anything could ever be this good again."

Posted by: noreia at 23:39 | link | comments (1) |

change wavelength

swim the wave.

-- mogwai

Posted by: noreia at 10:49 | link | comments |

Conversations with people who are half asleep are funny.

(She stirs from sleep and pats the bed next to her.)  "Emily . . . Emily . . ."

Me: "Dude, what?  Am I bothering you?"

Her: "No . . . Hey."

Me: "Dude, what?"

Her: "Hi.  . . .Why was I calling you Emily?"

Me: "What?"

Her: "I was patting the bed and calling you Emily.  Because I thought you were here with the covers over your head, and I wanted to tell you because there was a storm and I could fix your teeth.  Because I can fix teeth."

Me: (laughing) "Okay, dude."

Her: (stirring for a few minutes, then . . .) "You can turn the TV off whenever you want."

(The TV wasn't on.)

Me: "What?"

Her: "You can turn the TV off whenever you want."

Me: "Okay, dude."

Her: "Okay . . ." (and back to sleep)

Posted by: noreia at 10:44 | link | comments (1) |

oh oh oh, is there anybody out there?  (a comment or two would be appreciated.)  :)

Posted by: noreia at 00:14 | link | comments (3) |

ironic that only God can understand the depth of the beauty of what i couldn't give him.

everything converging. down to this sleep-deprived, charged little moment, computer bright humming, dripping fish water, street lights and early-summer night air, her breathing. i feel so alive, in my hands, in my lips tingling with new "burt's beeswax" gloss, in this breath in and out, which i'd maybe forgotten to do for a while. this cramped sitting on this brown plastic chair, and i am in these typing fingers, i am behind these tired eyes.

this is how i find you, now. this everything is so certain reality permeates everything else, even sermons in big, wood-roofed churches with cars speeding by on the freeway outside. i sat-stood-sat in the pew, and kept looking to the side of the front where the pastors were standing in front of those windows, and cars sped by behind them, or people walked bicycles along the road. how strange, i thought, this reality and that one, and, i wonder how many of the people in those cars went to church this morning?

uh oh, she's stirring. am i typing too loudly?

oh God, everything is so real and i'm loving it now, i'm on this hazy high, but it's vivid. maybe it's just the absence of all those things, despair, desperation, longing, such deep longing, sapped dry -- all those months. maybe it's that everything does seem to be "okay" now, but i thought that before, and then i broke through my veil and broke and broke. so i am hesitant to label anything as anything. but in this moment, we are okay.

i want to keep typing and typing. today we sat in barnes & noble in stockton and played upwords and drank iced coffee and banana-something jones juice and water. i should have bought a book, astonish yourself . . ., but i didn't. it was twelve dollars.

earlier we'd sat at a small booth in a mexican restaurant with a name starting with an 'x' that nobody can pronounce (ha, the name, not the 'x'), and we passed around a napkin and wrote on it with a thin sharpie, with her parents, and i was delighted and surprised that they participated -- normally "adults" (technically i am one of those, but spike insists otherwise) think it's dumb or immature, the word games we play -- stories, passed around, one word at a time. (*bertha* -- spike grins)

this evening (okay so this was all yesterday because it's after midnight, but i haven't been to sleep yet so to me it's this evening), i sat in the front passenger seat of a big white SUV and watched the road go from wide to narrow in front of me like through a fish-eye lense, stretching through pastel, hazy green fields under cotton candy pink sunsets. her dad said, "look at the sunset God's given us," and i thought, yeah yeah. that's true. and i took lots of photos.

this world is a lot bigger than any of us can imagine.  is that cheesy and cliched? rumble rumble thunder.

i love you.

Posted by: noreia at 00:13 | link | comments |

12:24 am and we're back from stockton.  she's sleeping, and sometimes i miss her already.  i'm just starting to get glimpses of what it will really be like to leave for a year, but i can't comprehend it.  can't imagine it.  we're always together.  i feel like i should be appreciating this so much more.  every moment should be pure bliss.

oh God, the irony and beauty and sadness and change of life.  i am ever on the brink, now.  i can't see two steps ahead of me.  but that's okay.  i don't even want that to change.  may it never change, because uncertainty, i think, is safer than safety. 

in church this morning (hers, not mine), i learned that The Runaway Bunny is the story of my life.

oh this choking bleeding laughing crazy world.  only you know what's in store.  i feel so helpless, but that's okay.  we're all right, we're all right.

she's sleeping and i love her.

Posted by: noreia at 23:29 | link | comments |

nice to meet you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

five-finger kiss trout.

Posted by: noreia at 11:50 | link | comments |

this is also normal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we believe in this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

feathers and dusters.

Posted by: noreia at 11:46 | link | comments |

we're going to stockton again tomorrow.  this time i'll have my camera, but i'll still have to wait to get the photos develerpied.  anyone want to buy me a digital camera?  seriously.

serious.  you're so serious.  who's serious?  has anyone ever said that to me, you're so serious?  probably.  they probably said, smile, girl, and i probably did flash an insincere smile, although it probably annoyed me.  you know the french . . . something about them that i can't quite remember.  like they don't smile at you if they don't feel like it.  like americans end up thinking they're rood (like that spelling) but really they're just being honest.  and maybe they'd think you were a freak if you went around smiling at everyone all the time.  they'd be like, "what's up with you, you smiling american freak?"  (en francais, of course.)  and sometimes -- no, i think all the time, i agree with them.  be real.  you shouldn't smile at someone if you don't mean it -- they can probably tell, anyway.  never mind, do whatever you want.  smile as phony as you want.  i guess if you're a politician, it's part of the job description.

"ello, govnah!"

who do you want to be?  i can be anything.  we are ten years old.  we are holding our breath underwater.  ear drums bursting from the pressure.  we can touch the bottom.  won't you come away with me?  i like myself.

today in front of walgreens we found a really nice cell phone.  the address book on it was full of ghetto-slang nicknames.  "g-dawg," things of that sort.  i called the safest-sounding one: "mom."  then, while i waited for the owner to come get his phone back, i fielded what seemed like calls from all of his family members -- nephew, cousin, daughter.  all wondering what the (a-hem) i was doing with his phone.  they drove up in a tan car and i gave the phone back.  i had never seen a phone that nice.  (that's not saying much, i'm not quite tech-savvy.)

books on spike's bookshelf: white oleander, brave new world, war and peace, utopia.  the bell jar.  diary of a teenage girl.  the bathroom book.  backroads.

i'm hearing water plinking in the fish tank, the hum of the computer, my clack-typing. 

i'm blogging because it's 12:42 in the morning and i don't feel tired at all and she's been sleeping for a while.

but let's learn something, shall we?  off to search the web.

don't forget the porchlight glowing yellow-orange through the window above her.  today she chipped her tooth and got it fixed.  baby fish and bubbles in the water.  the absence of poetry.

Posted by: noreia at 23:45 | link | comments |

reading her blog makes me not want to blog anymore.  i have nothing to say because there is no vacuum inside of me.  and that's not interesting.  but hey, i'm blogging.

aliens and black tea with milk.  i feel empty in this early summer.  she says radiohead -- yes, i have radiohead too.  it's of two years ago, walking to the library because i couldn't yet drive, walking in black t-shirt, the heat, the heat.  randomly choosing a cd i'd never heard of, and at home in my slightly cooler bedroom, throwing myself into the beauty of true love waits, like spinning plates.

"i'm not living . . . i'm just killing time . . ."

two days ago, spike and i lay on towels on the grass and listened to the tape i'd made two years ago, of that album from the library, through my scratchy, small tape recorder.  she learned about "cells doing the nasty," as we uneducatedly enjoy saying instead of "cell division."  i read a book.  i lay on my back and stared at the blueness blueness blue sky everywhere above me, everywhere.  "and true love waits . . . in haunted attics . . ."

she said, "this hecka reminds me of last summer.  radiohead, and the weather . . ."  i didn't want to think about last summer.  i thought about the summer before.  "just . . . don't leave . . . don't leave . . ."

i smell clean laundry.  it smells nice.  camellolly flollypops.  (or something.)

dorian.  mogwai.  just don't leave.

Posted by: noreia at 12:52 | link | comments |

from my journal yesterday, 3-10-04, 12:52 pm

Jesus is about being human, and help for that. I think I'm finally learning that, kind of in spite of myself. I'm learning it from this guy -- that you can be fully God's and fully human at once. I'm learning from Walter Wangerin that it's okay to say "damnable." I'm learning from Spike that it's okay to like Incubus and Nirvana, and that all I have to do is just breathe.

I remember when she first told me that. She'd realized it; God had shown it to her. She'd told me and I hadn't grasped the significance of it. I didn't understand how much she was right.

Yesterday a homeless man with spacey, smiling eyes asked my dad for money in the Costco parking lot, and my dad gave him ten dollars . . . The man was really grateful . . .

Gnat on my finger.

1 PM.

------------------------------------------------------

listening to Mogwai

2:02 PM

"Simon, everything the man does has a strange, calm power."

-- Andrew, about Jesus, The Book of God, by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

Posted by: noreia at 12:34 | link | comments |

"i don't take mmms, i take toilets." -- spike

Posted by: noreia at 12:26 | link | comments |

why is it so much easier to smile at the chicken boy than to get along with my own mother today?

Posted by: noreia at 12:26 | link | comments |

Oh God inspire in me that calmness joy strange.  open my eyes and show me how much more there is to this.  show me who you are to me.  laughing Jesus, we listen to mogwai.  we hold hands and yours are bigger than mine.  everything beautiful, everything beautiful.  there is that fire in your eyes.  show me who you've been all along.  how real.  everything's okay.  everything's good.

2:10 PM

march 10, 04

Posted by: noreia at 12:10 | link | comments |

passed the 3,000 mark, baby.

Posted by: noreia at 12:08 | link | comments |

so this is a blogging day. yesterday spike and i went to costco with my dad, and he told us to go wait in line for a chicken. there was a counter where a young guy was taking baked chickens off the rack and packaging them, and there were all these people waiting to get one. so we went over there, and when the guy put the chickens down, i kind of stepped back and let everyone else get one, because they'd been there first. people looked surprised, that i did that.

and then when i did take the chicken, i looked the young guy who was packaging them in the eyes and said, "thank you." nobody else did that, that i could see.

as we were walking away, spike said, "i love you. you're such a nice person."

and i'm not saying hey, i'm great. but why don't we do things like that? why don't we look the people who serve us in the eyes? haven't you ever had a fast food job? don't you remember how stressful it was? or any job, for that matter. i used to work at a roundtable pizza, and one night i was so busy and tired, and i answered the phone and there were two girls on the line at the same time. they ordered from me, and they were just laughing and talking and were so friendly to me, and it was such a relief -- until then, i hadn't even realized how dealing with so many people so impersonally had affected me.

i don't understand how people can do things that are just mean, without thinking twice about what their actions or words do to people. daggers and glass that stick in souls, while you walk on, stone, ice. but you made them bleed.

smile at your pizza delivery man. wish the mailman a good day. and look in the eyes of the guy who hands you your chicken.

Posted by: noreia at 11:26 | link | comments (2) |

man, i forgot how good ritz crackers are!  with brie cheese . . . mmm . . . (i actually just got up and went back to the kitchen so i could check what this cheese is called, so i could tell you about it.  how lame is that?)  (that, and the fact that i'm writing about ritz crackers.  and that i keep posting because i just like making different colors and words show up on this here blog, yuh.)  note to self: next time you sit at the computer with a plate full of cheesy crackers on your lap, make sure two of them don't slide off onto the floor.  note to reader: that's what happened, and you know i ate them anyway, baby!

steep.

Posted by: noreia at 11:11 | link | comments |

a

 

 

 

 

 

 

.....

Posted by: noreia at 10:18 | link | comments |

mad lib by me:

fill in the blanks

1. body part

2. girl's name

3. verb (past tense)

4. noun

5. boy's name

6. emotion

7. adjective

8. same body part as number 1

9. verb (past tense)

10. noun

11. animal

12. same girl's name as number 2

13. noun

14. noun

now, fill in the blanks in my story with your words.

"My 1 hurts," said 2 , as she 3 down the 4 . 5 gave her a(n) 6 look and said, "Nobody cares about your 7 8 ." Then he 9 her 10 right out the window. "You 11 !" 12 cried, and hit him with her 13 . Then they both fell asleep on the 14 .

My story results (I promise I didn't remember most of the story when I chose the words. I chose the words randomly, but it turned out pretty good.)

"My leg hurts," said Anne, as she kicked down the bucket. Tom gave her a scary look and said, "Nobody cares about your stupid leg." Then he smooched her face right out the window. "You cat!" Anne cried, and hit him with her dumpling. Then they both fell asleep on the pig.

Comment and let me know how yours turned out.

*P.S. From last post, because I don't feel like updating it -- "steep" means cool.

Posted by: noreia at 09:00 | link | comments (3) |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bloggedy bloggedy blog. on monday night, after Bible study, we all somehow ended up in kema (the leader)'s hot tub -- some of us just putting our feet in, others swimming in their underwear. the moon glowed orange over the sparkling city down the hill. the night air had that new, warm, sweet feeling to it. a bunch of girls in a hot tub, talking and laughing on a "summer" night -- it was steep.

i'm looking for plane tickets to austria for this summer. i'm actually finding some relatively cheap ones.

i had a crazy nightmare last night, but i don't feel like thinking about it enough to write it all down.

Danish Haiku, for Ian:

I'm a Danish man

I am not Canadian

I live in Denmark.

Danish people rock

Kind of like Canadians

They all have big butts.

Hey, let's be Danish

What do Danish people speak?

It must be Dana.

Little Danish kids

frolick in a summer breeze

saying, "Schmorgen-flor!"

Danish Danish Dan-

ish Danish Danish Danish

Danish Danish Dan-

Look! It's a big Dane!

Why not call him a Great Dane?

He is pretty great.

I love the Danish

It calls to me from my fridge

I will eat it now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doofus-door densk? Yeah, Yai fus-door lit densk.

Posted by: noreia at 08:38 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

confused ducks?

i'm learning danish. "do you understand danish?" the way you ask, "do you understand?" sounds like "doofus-door."

"you rainbowed your bangs." -- kema

"you're my underwear guru." -- dee dee

"fuzz my chest." -- spike

"after i laugh, my eyes stay squinched up, so i have to put my eyes down." -- spike

"so that baby's going to have a lot of classic pooh." -- me

"i was trying to save you and keep you away from my butt at the same time." -- spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the legal drinking age has been lowered.

Posted by: noreia at 20:25 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this morning soon after waking up, i thought, why do i supposedly let my life be dictated by God, when there is no God? it's ridiculous. then i thought, of course there is a God. all of it just seems so ridiculous sometimes. like those 3-D, magic eye pictures. when i was a kid, i stared at the books one day until i learned how to see them. i did it all day long, and when i woke up the next morning, it seemed really unreal, like something that couldn't possibly actually exist, because it was such a ridiculous concept. i thought for sure i'd dreamt it.

"i'm not living . . . i'm just killing time."

i had a dream story here, but never mind, it was boring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is really happening, happening . . .

Posted by: noreia at 12:55 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"But if all that's left is duty, I'm falling on my sword. At least then, I would not serve an unseen, distant lord." -- Pedro the Lion.

Last night, Spike's alarm clock was blinking random numbers, so she had to reset it. Her watch said it was eleven, but my cell phone and the clock on her computer said it was midnight. So we figured her watch was an hour slow and set the clock for midnight.

This morning, the alarm went off at six. It was completely dark outside, and the 78.3% full moon was glowing bright yellow in the middle of the sky outside her window, sending down a cone of dusty yellow light. In between lapses back into sleep, I kept telling her she had to get up for school. Finally, she got up and took a shower. When she came back after that, waking me up, she said, "Dude, I think it's only six." The red numbers on her clock glowed 7:00.

So we checked her watch, my cell phone, and the computer, and strangely, all of those now said six. But her alarm clock said seven.

In our drowsy state -- you should have seen us trying to figure out how this had happened.

"Did they do daylight savings time without us knowing?"

"But I thought that happens on the solstice."

"What?"

"And it was darker this morning than it usually is at six."

"But that wouldn't make sense unless you knew it was daylight savings time and set your clock to it."

"Yeah, you're right, because seven today is like seven yesterday."

"What?!?"

It was confusing. It's like one of those two-minute mysteries. I still can't figure it out. I tried for a long time this morning, but all the clocks and times kept swirling around in my head. If anyone can explain this to me so that I actually get it (and there's no guarantee of that even if you explain it perfectly, knowing me with logical problems), I will personally send you a thank you card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 girls, 1 alien.

Posted by: noreia at 10:47 | link | comments (3) |

 

she's listening to cat power: "cross bones style." i just handed it to her. she's rubbing my neck. she's smiling me.

"oh how time flies, with crystal clear eyes." this girl, singing, makes me think that all my favorite musicians don't have to be guys. most of them are from glasgow. but they don't have to be that either.

a sudden, inexplicable loneliness. we scare ourselves and strangle ourselves. it's like the changing of the seasons -- that first warm, sweet-smelling night, the onset of winter. all my life, there have been fleeting moments of sweet sadness, a sense of time flowing by, flowing like water and air. out of my grasp. things changing, and how small we are, things will never be the same. how beautiful that is. how tragic that is. all of this without words.

"oh how time flies." "die jungen san oit g'wur'n, und die oiten san g'sturbn." the young ones have gotten old, and the old ones have died. can't you hear how the time goes by?

sitting on the cool sidewalk, staring at the moon. waning* gibbous, 82.3% of full, sun 7 mar, 2004. 'cause you have seen some unbelievable things. melancholy, long, withdrawing roar. how could jesus understand everything about being human when he never felt his heart growing cold toward God, never felt that hardness? or did he? taken on the sins of the world.

pray your gods who ask you for your blood. or lay upon my altar now your love.

what are you afraid of? despair. Christianity. losing you.

i pierced my ear late last night and when the headphones cover it, it stings, and it's lovely. this large grey hoodie and these jeans and brown knee socks feel so perfect. i feel good in my body. have you ever looked down at your hand and thought, that's my hand, and it's so beautiful ? skin and veins and the fluid movement, swishing a part of yourself through the air. i'm floating, our bodies float down the muddy river. you have seen some unbelievable things.

my sweatshirt is almost the color of this grey background. almost.

happy birthday skreech.

*almost wrote "wanging gibbous." oops.

Posted by: noreia at 20:23 | link | comments (1) |

A year ago today was the day the "spider incident" occurred, which I blogged about on October 25th. I just figured this out by reading an instant message from March 6 of last year that I'd saved. A whole year, hard to believe. Hi Sam. I'm off to the farmer's market.

Posted by: noreia at 10:08 | link | comments |

"I have no bird, I have no bush! God's taken my bird and my bush!" -- Jim Carey, "Bruce Almighty"

Posted by: noreia at 13:52 | link | comments |

I dreamt last night that I was pregnant. In my dream I thought, how did I forget to consider this when I applied to go to Denmark? I woke up still feeling so protective of my stomach.

"Theory! Theory! We chirp theories like chickadees, because ignorance is a terrifying thing and we need the noise. But when I can with courage know I do not know; when I admit that I stand with my back to a void, that I am indeed blind to the beginning of things, then I am silenced. Then I am chilled by my own triviality -- some dust at the edge of a desert. Nevertheless, you kneel down, and find me, and tell me that you love me." -- Walter Wangerin, Jr., Ragman and Other Cries of Faith.

Once, when I was maybe twelve, I went to the zoo with my family, San Francisco I think. We were walking near some benches and I saw a folded piece of paper on the ground. Curious, I picked it up and unfolded it. It had writing all over it, in heavy black ink. And it was the strangest thing -- I couldn't figure out if it was English or not. Some of the words looked familiar, and I'd be on the verge of reading, understanding them -- but then there'd be some illegible character, some letter that could have been English or something else -- I couldn't even guess at the meanings. And other words looked entirely unfamiliar. But I couldn't even figure out the alphabet, the language. It was perhaps the strangest piece of writing I'd ever seen, just in that I kept thinking I was about to understand it, and then it all got confused and jumbled again.

Like in my "physics phase" of two years ago. I'd be reading about atoms stretching and time slowing down as something approached the speed of light, some analogy about light and mirrors in a train going that fast, and it would all make so much sense in my head, in a wordless, jam-packed way, it was all just there and so sensical . . . And then suddenly I would lose my grasp, and it would all be jumbled nonsense again, and I'd think, These people are so crazy. Reality doesn't exist. None of this makes any sense.

I still have that paper from the zoo, somewhere. I kept it in my wallet for years. I don't know why it interested me so much. Maybe just the fascination with something that was so . . . unknown to me. I should find it, post it on here. Maybe someone would understand it.

Posted by: noreia at 10:43 | link | comments |

You know what else I wonder? How many things I write, that somebody out there reads and goes, "Hey, I understand that!" Yeah, deep and vague and general things, but also little details about my life.

Like how I've been reading the archive of Jonathan Hartsaw's blog, and I see things like a line from the Paul Simon record my mom always played when I was a kid ("kodachrome . . . give us the nice, bright colors . . ."), or that radiohead reminds him of a certain summer (me too), or . . . geez, what else? There was a lot more. Just stuff he mentions. It's not like my deepest thoughts and feelings, but still it's deep because something that means something -- even something small -- to him, also means something (even if it's very different) to me. And it's kind of funny because I'm nineteen now and I'm reading his old posts from when he was nineteen. I don't know, weird world. Jonathan, I don't know you (although I may someday if you end up staying in Denmark another year), and I'm sorry I'm talking about you so much here.

Posted by: noreia at 00:33 | link | comments (1) |

Oh yeah. (Yes, I'm still awake.) I voted for the first time today. I felt all good about it, because I checked out the Rock the Vote site, and I knew something about these propositions . . . But when I got to the high school with my dad and was staring at the touch-tone screen, I realized that I probably should have learned a bit more about the list of presidential candidates that was taking up a lot of the screen in front of me. Like, say, learning anything about them at all, besides their names!

I panicked and told my dad, "I don't know anything about any of these people!" So he whispered some names to me under his breath, and that is how I chose who I would like to run for our president.

I did cast an informed vote on the five propositions, though. So that's okay.

Some of this excitement about "having a voice" and all that is actually getting to me and making me maybe not quite so sickened by everything "American." But then I think about the way I voted for the presidential candidate, and wonder how many others were even less informed than I was. And I sigh mentally for the future of "our" country.

Hey, it's not my fault. I tried. I spent a good hour or so researching the propositions this morning. Nobody really told me there'd be a bunch of names on the screen along with the propositions, with these little boxes next to them waiting for me to put my finger over them and leave a black X there.

How come nobody teaches us these things?

A lot of my growing up has been finding out how things really work in the world, and being amazed and disillusioned. Politics just seems to me to be a bunch of biased arguments. There should be a third party who didn't care at all one way or the other, who was very intelligent, and who could explain all the pros and cons of each issue to everyone.

I wonder if God would answer me if I asked him who/what I should vote for.

It scares me to think that anyone over 18 can vote. I think of some of the people I graduated with and I shudder.

"It scares me to think . . . that you could . . . choose takers . . . other than me . . . better than me . . ." That's one of the prettiest parts on this Emery CD.

Man, I should go to sleep. I just wonder if I'm going to be lying there in the darkness for a long time, thinking I should have stayed online. My eyes don't feel tired.

Let's ramble. We love you.

Posted by: noreia at 00:24 | link | comments (3) |

Without really meaning to, I just read through almost all of this blog, my old posts. It is 12:48 AM and I am at spike's house. She's sleeping and Emery is playing guitar and the water from spike's fish tank is plunking soothingly. Spike just moved in her sleep and groaned, and each time she does that i freeze because i don't want to wake her up, i don't want to type too loudly.

a car went by maybe half an hour ago, outside. don't remember if i heard it or just saw the headlights out of the corner of my eye. i looked to the window and saw the light bent, reflecting through a glass of water, and for a moment i was really confused, trying to see around the glass, trying to see the car. i really wanted to see the car. then it was gone.

i like cars at night, rumbling on quiet streets. cool night air -- i need to open the window. what i need to do is go to bed.

i'm okay. i'm okay. wish i had more poetry for you. wish i could give you calm. for once the world is not extreme -- it isn't a desperate thing i have to deal with. i am learning this. i am living this. i am just living, and i love it.

goodnight.

Posted by: noreia at 23:53 | link | comments |

Posted by: noreia at 22:53 | link | comments |

"Perhaps on the rare occasion that pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself can be the right course." -- "Pirates of the Carribean."

We were talking at Bible study about a video a guy at our church had made, in which he put his camera under the railroad tracks and filmed the train actually going over the camera. And in the middle of the conversation, Febe bursts out with, "Now we know how those people feel who got their legs broken!" We all just kind of looked at her and burst out laughing, because she's so random. Then she explained about some people in some historical context that I can't rightly recall, trying to run over the tracks before the train got there but some of them didn't quite make it over all the way in time, or they fell or something. And this is what she thought of with the camera on the tracks story.

At another point that night, we were talking about how you can be driving for a long time, and all of a sudden you're at your destination and you realize you don't even remember having driven there, anything along the way, it was all so automatic it scares you. And Febe (again) bursts out with, "Yeah, it's like when you're spending the night at your friends house and you don't remember where you are." We all thought that was extremely funny until I realized she meant, when you wake up in the middle of the night and don't realize where you are. Before that we just kind of thought she meant, you're sitting around in your friend's room playing cards, and suddenly you're like, "Where am I? Who the heck are you?" Febe. She's great.

I'm at spike's house. This is spike's computer.

Adding a link on the side . . . I found this blog because I was messing around, looking for info on CIMC, which is where I'm going next year (in Denmark) if all goes well. And I found this guy's blog. So it'll be the first blog over there that's by someone I don't know personally, besides "Letters from home," which you should also read, by the way. Because he's my evil twin.

"Thank you everybody. Goodnight." -- Radiohead, after "True Love Waits" on the live recordings album.

Posted by: noreia at 22:40 | link | comments |

listening to: emery

weekend in stockton

i went to stockton with spike this past weekend, to see her dad and stepmom's house, where she lived before she moved here and i met her. she warned me that they'd preach at me. but i didn't want to think about staying here without her for another weekend -- i'd done that the weekend before and ended up under a bridge crying. and last week was spent mainly walking around and staring at things and trying not to break. so i went.

her dad picked us up in a white SUV, and one of the first things he said was, "there's a CD i want you to hear" (to me), and he popped in sonicflood. now nothing against sonicflood (sonic flood?). i'm sure they're great. it's just that (1) i wasn't in the exact "mood" for worship music, being that the past week was spent telling God that i hated him or that i didn't believe in him anymore, and (2) just about every song on the CD, i knew from my first church, which is a phase in my life i've still not fully "dealt with," if there's anything to deal with. it's just a big blur of superficiality and happy Christianity in my memory, it lacks depth and real-ness and me.

so we're riding in the backseat and i'm looking out the window at the black fields and hills spotted with lights in the distance, the blue-greying sky, and i'm trying to ignore the repeat phrases of all the songs that keep running through my head because i still know all the words. i'm wishing i was listening to my headphones and the "happy mix" spike made me that week(jimmy eat world, jason mraz, green day, etc. -- stuff i didn't much picture myself listening to before), which, along with being in her bedroom and hearing her repeatedly tell me that we're going to be okay, was what kept me alive. but i don't want to put on my headphones because that's rude. so i'm sitting there just trying to accept my surroundings, be okay no matter what goes on around me, and trying to resist feeling pressured by all this Christianity that i know is going to attack me this weekend, that is already beginning to with these repeating choruses of mercy mercy mercy.

the weekdays before this: we'd tried. we'd tried to take ourselves back. i missed our connection in darkness, our desperation together, our thinking we'd be okay in us. i denied it for three months and then i broke and broke, and we tried to walk backwards half-blind, tried to write our own rules. and then she was bigger than me and bolder than me, and i knew we were wrong in our trying, i knew i knew i knew, and i said, "okay. okay. okay. okay." okay.

and i felt so alone, like God had taken her from me, taken our connection and our soul.

God was everywhere, huge, heavy, pounding, whispering, i was screaming silently "shut up! leave me alone! i don't believe in you, i'm brainwashed by my past. i can be normal and well-adjusted without you! you control everything, you take everything away, i hate you!" God in everything, lack of God in everything, each one equally draining and all-consuming and unbearable. just wanted to not believe, wanted to walk through life blind and oblivious and live in physical tangible personal my own world, wanted what i wanted, wanted what was already gone, he'd already stolen.

and it's probably like when someone dies, and the world tells you you have to move on, and everything inside of you rages against that -- no! you move on! i will never stop grieving for what was lost. i cannot change it, trying to go back is futile, and i cannot make myself deal with that. i will not ever be okay, and i don't want to be okay with this change, this loss, this absence vacuum ruin. all i want is to go back, and now that i understand that i can't, i will never be happy again.

but she got me through it. i borrowed her faith. she said, "all i have to do is keep walking around, keep breathing in and out, and try to keep that part of me that is open to God, open." she said, "it's not what we do for God, but what we let God do in us." i didn't want to let God do anything. i wanted to fight God. i knew i would lose but i could not worship someone who stole everything i wanted. i knew i had prayed before for him to do just that, to come and change everything and let us find him, but now i resented him for it and i hated him for it. why one or the other? why did the road divide? why did we have to choose our way? and it wasn't even a choice anymore. i don't make "right" spiritual choices. i make "wrong" ones, but they're mine and i cling to them and even love them in a masochistic way, and then God comes anyway and fixes them right out from under me. and then i'm angry because as she said months ago, "what kind of free will is that?" i wanted to die. i'd rather have been dead. (but not really fully that's not what i wanted, what i wanted was in my mind forever gone and so i couldn't deal and just wanted death, but it would have fixed nothing solved nothing lived nothing breathed nothing.)

and so i borrowed her faith because i'd prayed in spite of myself. because i'd prayed when the only other option was death and explosion. i'd prayed for healing when everything inside me raged against that, bloody throwing tearing rage, death death death! "please heal my heart."

and i'd gone on. like she said. clinging to her reassurances: "we're going to be okay, we're going to be so great. we'll always be together. God is going to take care of us. he wants us to be happy. he's going to work everything out." i'd gone on breathing and walking and eating a little bit. i'd gone through sobbing and shaking and imploding in tears, but i'd gone on in the miniscule hope spark glow that she was right.

so there we were in the SUV, "mercy mercy mercy" people clapping and cheering "Jesus!" and i'm looking out at the calm dark speeding world, trying to breathe, trying not to lose myself, trying not to close myself off in anger and bitterness and "i hate you i hate you, you take everything away, you ask too much" again. trying not to choke at the sickening "Christianness" of the music and the thought of the weekend ahead. trying to just exist, let's just exist exist exist.

and we got to the house. in the second before the SUV turned into the driveway, it struck me that it could have been any one of the three houses we were kind of facing. in an instant i would know. i would know where she'd grown up. i would see what it looked like, the house of preaching, of arguments and strictness. i would know where she felt what i knew so well, that "leave me alone with your God." i would know where she'd felt in second place. where she wanted to be real. where she wanted to be loved. "i'm battling within myself between insanity and states otherwise," she wrote a few months after leaving there. "i'm tired of being numb. i want to feel, i want to see beauty and light and death and hurt, and gasp and be moved and recoil myself for fear of the world and scream and cry and writhe and laugh and be soothed and do you understand?" such a beautiful soul, how do i deserve such a beautiful soul around me all the time?

and then the car turned and there we were in the driveway, and there we were in the living room with celtic crosses every two feet on the walls, and Bible verses and Christian radio and TV and the two dogs you have to step over cautiously to walk around.

and her bedroom. "it used to have posters everywhere," she explained. photos of her at seven, ten, confirmation. she let me look through her stuff while she was in the shower -- old CDs (Christian from her dad, along with her own punk and rock etc.).

and we were there. for two days three nights. and i just breathed in and out and kept walking around, looking at the world with eyes wide open, trying not to close myself off to God or anything that felt threatening. i wanted to be okay, no matter what my surroundings, and ironically it seemed to be just what i needed, being surrounded by Christian culture all the time, "mercy mercy mercy" and "dynamic kindgom power vision motivation" all those words that sickened me, all the seeming superficiality of it. in it i found the real, myself and the world and spike and God. and everything is big and beautiful, and we're going to be okay.

lying awake for an hour before she woke up, having spiritual revelations. like i want to love her completely, but God said, "now is when you learn to love by self-sacrifice -- giving up all your old dreams for the sake of her, and you." and like how the three-month Christian period we went through, in which we kind of went our own ways and i clung to Christianity and didn't let myself feel, was maybe even necessary because if i would have broke at the beginning when she was broken, we might not have made it. but those three months gave her time to walk and breathe and be open, and by the time i broke she was strong and held me together and i borrowed her light.

sitting at the levy at Stagg, her old high school, eating KFC (first time eating that for me, i think) and watching the long grass dance in the wind, the bright sunlight through the trees. or below that alongside the street, she on the phone to her dad and me looking up at this perfect moment, this teenage boy riding by on his bicycle and all i can see is the sky and sun behind him, his beautiful silhouette.

helping at the mentally challenged adult bingo game at her dad's church, meeting james there, who is really really great -- one of the nicest people you can meet. going to the church service the next day, my first time in a lutheran church. first sunday in lent, so more humble fashionings -- burlap altar cover, wooden offering plates and candlesticks. the bright sunlight through the blue and white glass cross window behind the young, friendly pastor who talked about "The Passion." and the first hymn we sang, i recognized from the catholic churches in austria -- i'd sung it in german before.

letting spike drive me around a lot for the first time, to Stagg or the mall or the Caffein Den, listening to incubus or jimmy eat world in the car, screaming, "are you listening? whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!"

the caffein den with its spacious blue-green-brown-black colors, sadistic-Jesus paintings on the walls, two levels, stairs blue edged in metal. imagining spike and her friends here two years ago, drinking sodas and watching a Crypt Orchid show.

even the Christian bookstore, where someone who worked there started talking about gay people ("well i'm not going to go out there and hold up signs that say, 'fags go to hell,' you know, but . . .") and i walked away because i couldn't handle it, i didn't want to hear anyone else's judgments. even the book called "dynamic dads," and i thought, that's so typical. and buying the emery cd, which i'm listening to now and i like a lot. the lyrics are poetic and personal, i relate.

going out to eat with her dad and stepmom. her stepmom's obsession with a white Christian folk-gospel group, one of those you see on TV and wonder, does anyone actually like this stuff? well, someone does. and it was really cute. i love her stepmom's sarcastically humourous expressions, her dad's quiet politeness. playing Life on spike's bed, but we decided to go through it together as one player rather than compete, because life's not about competition and money. (we had fun naming our kids ian and ian, and living in a farmhouse or country cottage.)

seeing the place at the university where spike and her friend were locked into this underground furnace-thing room by two of their friends, where they bonded and claimed they "almost died," and they had to yell up through the wire grating at a woman walking by, asking her to come let them out. seeing "pebbles"' home (he's a big metal . . . something . . . that they found at the high school, and we went and found his brothers and sisters -- one of whom i seriously debated taking with me because he was just lying there all rusty on the grass, but i figured her dad wouldn't go for that too much).

just seeing this city that i'd never seen before, each hour, each moment new to me. a different life. this world is so big, so many lives in such close proximity, never touching, forgetting there are so many others.

it was all beautiful. and, ironically, just what i needed. we're okay, we're going to be okay. we're going to be great. we want to go to Austria. i'm going to Denmark next year. and we're going to be together. and we're going to be great.

it was beautiful.

Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disapointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won't suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back -- and at some point everyone looks back -- she will hear her heart saying, "What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life."

Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life's magic moments will have already passed them by.

-- Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.

It's all beautiful.

"I thought that I could change you . . . but you've changed me" -- Emery.

Posted by: noreia at 14:29 | link | comments |