Warriors, Superheroes, Hope

So many thoughts running through my mind, running, racing, rumbling by: I’d planned on writing a memorial day piece, but spent little time on the train writing such things; I’d meant to write a piece on friendship, a piece on where I’m going, and why. But not tonight.
I’m thankful for the men and women who have died fighting for our freedom, for our peace, for our security and country. I’m thankful for the men and women who continue to fight for these values. Recently I read Iron John by Robert Bly, and a passage I’ve been thinking about is his passage on warriors. Our culture does its best to remove the warrior from boy-children as soon as possible. We medically diagnose rowdiness and antsy behavior with calming medications to stifle the warrior, the hero, the fighter in the child. If you’ve never seen a boy pretending he has a gun, shooting baddies, or wearing a mask and cape made of ribbon and a ratty blanket, or counting down the timer at a basketball court, making the shot that will win the greatest title in history, then you aren’t paying attention.  Boys gobble these heroics up.
In addition, until proven wrong, little boys often think their dads are superheroes, capable of astounding feats of strength and mechanical aptitude. Did my dad just chop down that tree? Did my dad just DUNK that basketball? The warrior mentality is strong in the younger children, but we lose it. Schooling squeezes us dry, proving we’re being trained for desks and computer screens, not battlefields, horses, sweat, victory, and flight. Never is gravity so profound as that holding a boy to an elementary school desk, teaching him he can’t fly and will never do so.
And it’s not like we’re doing things any better for women and girls in our culture.
So I respect those warriors, those people out there fighting for something. Sometimes they are fighting for something internal as much as external.
But tonight, no more on that.
I had a rough week, but the end struggled to rectify the pains. I’ve had friends praying for me, with me, and I know the Spirit intercedes on my behalf. Yet now and then, life is just tough. At least the skies are on my side, alternating between sunny blue and dark, brooding clouds to simulate my emotions on a heavenly canvas. The firmament understands, and the seas reflect the skies reflecting me, and even I’m reflected in the waters, so the circle goes.
And my week ended so spectacularly, I’ve nothing to complain about, I think: pickup soccer, beautiful sunsets, mountain driving, family coming to town, a hilarious DnD adventure, and hope. Only two weeks until my best friend in the world gets married. Only three until my best friend gets married. Last week was the one year anniversary of my good friends. I don’t think I got the memo – I just want to explore the world, read, write, play soccer, run, hike, find secret rivers and splash and play, and pick my way up mountains.
Oh hey, I love you. Don’t forget it. Rest well this night.


(Did I ever write about my superhero dream? It's my favorite dream. I'm a superhero, and my power is I can turn into an oil slick)


http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/warriors/ ‎

Tread Softly

I hate confrontation, even comprehending the necessity of it. There is a difference between a healthy argument and fighting, in the tones taken, the stances, the body language, the raising of voices, the use of ad hominem. My stomach churns contemplating this sort of debate. But there are times for actively fighting for your beliefs.

I recently finished Iron John, by Robert Bly, and he constructs an elaborate analogy of masculinity based off an ancient fable or folk story. In the story, at the beginning, a Wild Man is freed by the prince, a man hairy and primal. This is the opening step in the path of masculinity, according to Robert Bly: freeing the wild man within from the parental clutches. With this sort of confrontation, a wall is erected, an enmity, and I feel like the serpent biting the woman’s heel, with which she crushes my head.

I like competition, and enjoy the concept of debate and argument within healthy bounds. I just cringe whenever considering fighting those I cherish. And if I must, I don’t even want to win such a fight, not at the expense of those I love dearly.

Today, I knew such a debate was coming, a time where I must plant my feet and lose no ground. Even though the confrontation would not take place until evening, I considered it all day. I ate no breakfast, only a couple of crackers for lunch, and nothing for dinner. I’m still not hungry. Even now, the debate over and a reasonable agreement reached, my adrenaline beats in my blood like a bass, thrumming and humming with a particular distaste – my body is in fight and flight mode.

I’ve comforted myself with lines of poetry, and selections from Bly’s book on masculinity, though the analogy falters regarding my confrontation, the who and the what. But these lines of Yeats have always meant much to me in situations similar:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.       

(William Butler Yeats - Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven)

It’s the idea that I’m asking for little, but have no desire to budge on the particulars. I’m enjoying Robert Bly’s poetry more and more as late:

It is not our job to remain whole.

We came to lose our leaves

Like the trees, and be born again,

Drawing up from the great roots.

(Robert Bly)

I don’t want to fight; I’d rather love. 

Trains

The train: now I understand the buckling, the swaying beast of it; the whole train judders as the uncertain serpent. My legs are ocean forests beneath me, roiling at the whim of the railway waves. My hands, free, free though some force propels this dumb inertia through the forests whose hands are raised in praise, the eggheads, the fox-face pines staring up at the sky enduringly.

And now the pines whisper their slow, long goodbyes, a farewell a hundred miles wide, as green shifts into grey.

Not yet; I must not yet.

stolen, I know not when

jailbroken, as it were, from behind

bleached bars torn apart

though what they found, I know

I dream it even now, haunting;

a wooden circuit board, sundered

from its circuitry and liquid wiring

chisel and knife, carving into me

such beautiful things, whittling down

a face in ecstasy,

a bramble crown

the whole of sea echoing.

but enough is not found

they sandblast the image down

until nothing remains but memory

and less of me, a sawdust trail

remembering

The silhouettes of mountains approach as sleeping giants. Are we the snake beneath their heels? I cannot ignore their gravity. Hoodwinked, the tunnel, the wool drawn over my eyes and I am blind for moments before the curtain draws back and soaring over everything – nothing exists but – the snowcapped peak.

I’ve swallowed the heart of darkness, walked in the valley of shadows, and I’m through – a crooked path though the shepherd’s staff crooked my neck into greener pastures. I scarcely imagined such still waters.

Train trip to San Francisco was a success. There is a peace aboard trains, and a community that isn’t present in aircraft trips. People walked to other tables to participate in games with strangers, and as we played bananagrams, our neighbors leaned over and offered helpful definitions of words we didn’t know (had made up, Matthew), or asked us about the game.

Now, I’m sunburned (I’m actually rather shocked I got sunburned. I almost never get sunburned), exhausted, and pleased. Mostly, I think I’m a bit resurrected and ready for everything. Life’s a train, and at every stop, things are exchanged – but not everything. And the views are magnificent if you are willing to look out and see.

Spinning on a Dime; Tea Time

Spinning on a dime, friends, our tiny-toothed edges augmenting our rotation with wobbles. Love used to be a function of chemistry, a mingling of elementary romance; now it’s interdisciplinary, a little messy geometry mixed with theatre. Oh, such a masquerade, with such interesting shapes, distinctions made on circles and squares. Sit back, mon ami, soon drama and entertainment will ensue, and an interlude before the comic end, or tragic, depending on your view.

Today, I went on a long walk. The sun was out and the weather sat perfectly at eighty. Is it sad that only as I went outside I put shorts on? I’m always cold: how is that? The orchards smelled of newness and spring, and I walked past roses, hydrangeas, poppies, daisies, geraniums, nasturtiums, and dozens of flowers whose names I don’t know. Will someone tell me the names of flowers, please? I want to know the names of all of the flowers, and their stories, but I have no one to tell me.

I wrote this as a bit of silly poetry, and though it’s a tad lousy, it was fun. Someday, I’ll even edit things like this and they won’t be so completely ugly. I actually cringed a bit re-reading it, but figured any changes I made tonight would only be undone tomorrow if I look at it again. For now, here it is: Tea Time.

The Mad Hatter another tea party holds:

Psyche arrives in formal attire,

Bacchus, bearing a barrel of beer,

Pan appears in a flourish, theatrical,

piping a tune; a boy shuffles in tow.

Ah, tea time, as always, the Hatter sighs,

but Bacchus pays no mind, and starts

on wine, while Pan guffaws.

Psyche’s eyes are lost with love,

beautiful, sad, and demure.

The boy, however, with thoughtful eyes

asks what is the matter with tea time?

Nothing’s wrong, but it is ever the matter,

the Mad Hatter brusquely replies,

and never time for love or wine -

Bacchus, though, begged to differ.

What, my boy, begins the Hatter,

have a faun, a madman, a god,

woman and boy in common?

Drunkenness, remarks Bacchus.

Why yes, mused the faun, it is

what a tea party is for.

Love, mumbles Psyche.

Everything else, as this god, is a boor.

Bacchus, asinine, paid her no mind.

Only he is here, the rest are who

here is for, said the faun.

Ah, things have come to a tee,

The Hatter clapped with glee.

What may we do you for?

I don’t know, what do you mean?

Asks the boy, sipping his tea.
Mean? Mad, perhaps, not mean.

Psyche answered: a gift each

will bring, to guide you

to wherever it is you dream.

Bacchus began with a blessing:

be not an ass, revel and sing,

who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Psyche gave the boy a golden apple.

Choose what your heart desires

and pay dearly the cost for love.

Pan piped a ditty and passed over

a song and flower; remember

my boy, the earth and the water,

and the path the moon takes over sea.

The Mad Hatter, last, asked:

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

The boy, for this, had no answer.

And so it is with love, boy,

The impossible is possible if

You believe impossible things.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/spinning-on-a-dime-tea-time/

Floral Arrangements: My Compost Bin is Full

I met my new neighbors last night, as the sun set over the orchards and I returned from my walk past the hazelnuts. They were planting new flowers in the hopes of beautifying their front-yard landscaping, though they admitted to little knowledge in the horticulture or floral department. As I walked past my neighbor’s house, they were lamenting that they’d done a good amount of work, but could not finish because their compost bin was filled to the brim, and they couldn’t just leave the extras lying in their yard for two weeks.

I offered them my compost bin, seeing as we’d failed to fill it in our recent two weeks, and found the opportunity to discuss lives with my neighbors, learning about their church, their gardening naiveté, and their excitement about trying something new with flowers. I sensed, too, their relief at the opportunity to finish what they’d begun, and I understood their sentiment.

For me, this is how life is in everything. I’m terrible with endings and embrace them too soon, and understand the necessity of beginnings, and rush towards them the moment I see an ending in sight. I also struggle starting projects without knowing I’ll have time for finishing.

My entire childhood, and mostly in high school, I focused my entire night around dinner time. This wasn’t because I was constantly starving, but because I didn’t want to begin projects or homework before dinner unless I had enough time for finishing it before dinner as well. So I’d often find myself meandering around the kitchen, munching on chips or cookies, waiting for dinner so that I could get on with my life. Often, by dinner I wasn’t even hungry anymore due to all the snacking I’d done (this still happens).

But this is how I am. I want to devote myself fully, to grasp the horns of problems and wrestle them to the ground without any time-outs or ‘hold on, Mr. Bull, while I wipe the dust out of my eyes and take a short siesta’. I never understood the intuitive individuals who tackled so many projects simultaneously, and often finished few of them. I focused like a laser and picked off projects with precision and planning.

The problem is, I never liked transitions. If I knew that a project in school was worth nothing, there wasn’t a reason for me to lose blood and tears over it; knowing high school was ending and I was already accepted into college, what did it matter if I got a few A- grades or even B+’s perhaps? These are tame examples, and the real problem is that I carry these over into matters with greater gravity: social interactions, friendships, dreams, loves.

I remember that as I neared my end in high school, I stopped hanging out with some of my friends, knowing I’d never see them again. And I haven’t, but perhaps I might have maintained closer connections if I hadn’t severed contact with them so neatly, even when we still saw each other daily?  I see the endings drawing closer, and I think to myself: “this will be painful, won’t it? Maybe I’ll embrace the pain now so it ends sooner. That way, I can begin the next phase of life without having to wait for it.” And with this attitude, I truncate the ending and swallow the pain immediately, while floundering for the nearest beginning, any beginning really, as long as it has something tenable to latch onto.

I remember thinking once, in my last days of college, why make new friends now, or interact with people now, knowing we’re about to split off in a thousand directions?

This has definitely brought me trouble in the recent past, as I’m writing and forging paths for different projects, wondering whether I’ll finish them properly or hurry on to the next beginning; or in friendships, and in the phase of my life where everyone is getting married and starting new paths while I pursue different dreams that those espoused seem not to understand (for reasonable reasons, I suspect, but I’ve never had occasion to find out).

So I’m truncating strings right and left, chopping off the yarn before the sweater’s done, and I’ll be showing midriff all winter long, with a mighty cold belly, I suspect, and only because I didn’t have the heart to finish what was begun.

By dawn’s first light, it’s already night

to my eyes, and to my eyes

your every hello echoes goodbye

goodbye as the fawn born begins to die

as the summer arrives, the days shorten

as the birds rise, gravity reminds them

how soon everything must fall;

the universe expands, Alvie,

so don’t hold onto it all

the apple ripens the moment

it’s time on the branch is no more

and the core dreams already rotten things

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/floral-arrangements-my-compost-bin-is-full/

Sidereal Stories

You’re hurting, Olwen, I know, and the glass is empty though it’s full. You’ll find little hope there; at the barrel bottom only dregs reside. And you might cower under the bed, shirking in shadows whose shapes you know; you shiver, under blankets piled high though the night is warm, and the wind stumbles against the shutters with drunken abandon, a sound you know and yet it frightens. This is it, you know this fear, this comfortable sickness whose poisons slyly sit near, known since the drugs of depression took hold.

I see it in your eyes, and remember mine as distant things.

It’s not only in dreams you can fly; it’s only in flight you may dream.

So leap with me, out the window into the night, past the breeze blowing across the waters where the lady waits, garbed in silver stars and moonlight, her fingers reaching through the ripples whose grasp we’ll evade like a whisper.

Trapped in the mirror of the waters, look down, we’re dancing on reflected stars.

Beneath the shadow of the mountain where the dragon sleeps, tiptoeing over his hoard of melted gold, our fleet figures bent in gilt reflections – linger not here, dear, roads await.

Into a thick and grasping wood, whose long-limbed mysteries and webs do collect uncertain travelers, we are not caught. Two roads, and no return, a cottage, a hovel, candle-lit faces in a bog – choose, Olwen, with love not fear.

Tell me you still yearn, you still burn with pain; tell me you must return beneath the covers, to Harold before the world, and I’ll let you go. Or follow me beneath the sea, where kelp forests wiggle like green worms, and orcas sing of the ocean’s melancholy weight and depth of being, and everything hears and agrees.

Little lasts forever; most worries are tomorrow – let’s glide across stars lupus and orion tonight, the bear lumbering over the pre-dawn sky whose tail is not yet lost to fear’s unknown, and leo and the little old lady whose rocking chair groans with eternity. I’ll tell you their stories, if you’ve lost yours in the struggle for hope, and Olwen, you’ll find the universe is not always whole, but it’s ready. Let it be, and let your heart soar, string-less as the bird over the storm, for there’s a time for rain and a time to be reborn, in red, in white, in black.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/sidereal-stories/

The King, the Warrior

the warrior survives, hides,

between the pillars

of low and high tides.

the sea rages denial

inside an empty shell –

iron red-hot courses

in martian veins,

with quicksilver wings

its mercurial elements

shift, love, engage;

and who, eros, are thee?

to force atlas over

my shoulders

the wolf father hearkens

the ocean mother beckons

howling in waves the earth

my warrior’s garden,

and prays his king’s alive

Everything is words now. I see them scrolling down the walls like the matrix. Every flower efflorescing; every bird swooping into the eaves and chirping before sunrise; every smile and touch; each fragile-as-glass moment, mercurial as the Oregon spring, translates into a babel-spring of kaleidoscope diction that twists as I shift the scene.

And nothing is plain, the world sings a chorus of curious words, like the opening scene of the Silmarillion. I understand little of this logos. Brent Weeks, a bestselling author wrote (tweeted):

If, while puking, you consider what words would properly describe what you're feeling... you're a writer.

Sometime this is me, though my skill can leave the descriptions wanting. I still want to write all the words, and fill my journal with meaningless swaths of them. While washing my hands just now, I contemplating how rubbing a bar of soap was like rubbing a religious icon, hoping the relic will impart its healing through its, and our, touch. I also contemplated the ill-advised pun using the word “lye” and dredging up some iconography wit, but decided against it.

Listening to the sermon this morning, I’m balancing each sentence spoken, tasting it as a delicacy – does it have the right sauces, spices, panache? The message was moving, and well spoken, this morning, and also of great importance. EM is an acupuncturist of words, needling the nerves with wisdom, wit, and an eagle’s eye for uncomfortable Biblical passages worth disassembling and putting back together.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

We tackled 1 John 4, and among the verses of love, so customary we blithely read them now, there is this barb, like glass in the cake. And hearing this, we scramble for a way out, as a mouse hearing the shrieking owl, knowing our falling short.

We’ve all been hurt, at some point or another. Some numb the darkness down, tying it like Loki into our guts where it rumbles with hurt as our growing shame drips acid on the face of our fears and pains. Some explode – it’s fight or flight – and erupt in the face of offense, ever prepared for a fight. Internalize or externalize, at the end, we must still love.

I’m still reading Iron John, a book about the masculine and the mythical journey of masculine holistic life through the fable called, unsurprisingly, Iron John. Today, the passage was on the warrior, and I’m trying to bind everything I discover into a coherent whole, but as with the words, sometimes it seems like shattered stained-glass windows scattered across the hole of night.

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashipn the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.

(Tolkien : Silmarillion)

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/the-king-the-warrior/

the path of the moon over water

Every journey I remember passes there, whether the trail is unswerving or shy: the lake vista. I always imagine mine as Walden pond, a small rise overlooking the night-still waters. No mosquitos, no crickets or cicadas, even, chitter in the night, though some fireflies spark moments like shooting stars over the milky-way waters. She’s female, isn’t she? The phase, the surges of light followed by hiding in shadows, the tidal forces – I, too, am drawn by her primal sway.

But I’m not even glancing her way, so entrancing is her image on the waters, almost more beautiful, I’d say. Atop my little knoll, I watch her stroll, dance, shimmer, glide across the velvet lake, as an ephemeral swan of light, a gossamer boat, the lady under the water in wedding whites, diamonds, pearls, the white footsteps of the divine and sacred goddess. With a smile, she beams with every wave, and waterskippers flounder in her wake, nipped by hungry fish whose leaps send ripples down her argentine gown.

Olwen – her slippers never even touch the lake, so light her dance and elegant, the wind is enough. I’m there now, watching the lake carefully, wondering whether I’m here to stay, or destined to return ever again. The dreams are there, my earth soul is bound to this place, but it’s lacking, and I am. A myth runs through my veins, but this one?          I fear I’ll soon be trapped in a tree, under a stone, without any wizardly cunning to set me free.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/the-path-of-the-moon-over-water/

Barefoot Soccer

This, this is not beautiful, not good; I cannot believe that. As God glanced over creation, a day of rest was deserved, but these scribblings on tortured wood are none such, not the perfect world. They are refined silver, not even gold, not yet. And it’s the first day, and five remain before I rest, before the coup de grâce following the fall from cleverness. Then is Sabbath, if I flood the world not, nor destroy it in fire, and I deem it worthy to breathe life up from dusty pages into my own.

oh, the doe, how graceful in motion

across the grasses, I envy your blur

of elegant, tangible wind

and the kite, swooping low,

up again, swimming in sky,

I jealously admire every dive -

and what of I?

barefoot in spotty grasses,

a long-limbed fawn

with wobbly legs,

existential mud between my toes -

when the spirit moves,

I imagine it thus: lovely

and untouchable, I feel it

tugging every string of me

asking me to run

as it brushes by with eyes

bluer than the heavens can be

melting my heart, my being,

by someone I cannot

imagine leaving I’ll never see again

Schrodinger, why me?

I crave what’s killing me

because it’s keeping me alive

holy spirit, have mercy on me

Where are you going, where do you go?

Are you looking for answers, to questions under the stars? (Dave Matthews)

Playing soccer as evening drew to a close, the sunset lighting the tips of the evergreens with slow fireworks, ribbons of red, streamers of purple cloud, golden sparks flying between the branches, roman candles celebrating the end of day. And the short green grass; the goals like the pearly gates of heaven: nothing can stop me entering; the laughing voices and comraderie, ah, it is everything.

If this is not heaven, what can it be? I’m just thankful Yeshua is on my team, because I’d hate to lose when everything is drawn so exquisitely.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/barefoot-soccer/

Magician's Trick, Ash and Glass

There is a thrush in the brush, startled to silence. Am I that soulful bird, hidden in the mash of high grasses, frightened of the titans that stroll beside my nestled world? Brambles and briars, eerie and homely compared to the lofty eagle’s nest. I did not soar, but found myself among the ashes, white and brittle, transmuting my fingers into silver foxes, little albatross waving over the seas of grasses.  I’m an ash child, will o’ the wisp, treat me to the hearth fires and chimney bliss.

Puppeteer, without you, I’m a deaf marionette, I pirouette in the brush of wind. So guide me, deaf and blind, and I will dance as you cannot, for the night is ever so dark and much quicker than light. And here I am, in the night, fearing everything that is of twilight, the monster’s time. But, miss, I must dazzle and mystify, and appear not terrified, and the show must go on.

It’s my magic show, please watch close or you’ll miss how clever it isn’t when I pluck a rose from a bouquet and tears from a kerchief; when I place all my love in a wooden box and saw it in twain, and it suddenly disappears, transforming into a lovely bunny, white as this ash between my fingers.

Though the audience has already disappeared, which means I don’t have to explain my final trick isn’t all smoke and mirrors. I don’t have to explain anything at all.

 http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/magicians-trick-ash-and-glass/

Anon

Dawn of a new journal, this morning, always one of my favorite times of the year. I love penning those last words and flipping back over the pages, nodding at the poignant passages, smiling at the triumphs and joys, and musing on the thoughts expressed over months of reflection. I often flip to random entries and read snippets, shaking my head at my ugly writing habits, and remember the days leading into these inked emotions.

Before I put a journal to rest on my shelf, eight since college ended, I flip through it quickly, not bothering to read any sentences, but just gathering in the pages like a flip book, watching time pass in a moment and creating a story I cannot understand at that pace, but seems somehow beautiful, in all the illegible characters flying by.

Finally, with a theatrical sigh and something like reverence, I pull out the descendent, and pen the first words: May 14th, 2014. Beginnings are just as tough as endings, because I want everything to be just so. I wrote a poem about that recently, like a romantic dinner (though I’ve not experienced said occasion, in my head I’ve romanticized the concept of romanticism, romantically), everything organized to a nuanced degree, showing care in preparation of love.

First words are important, and definitely my favorite things to write in longer works. I agonize for days over what the words should be; this is the hook, this hauls people on board and carries, drags them into a new world. But for a journal? This is just for me, and so the hook is simple.

There are a lot of beginnings, lately, and a lot of endings. I think there always are, if you know how to see each. I think this year’s journal is going to be exemplary, filled with some of the greatest moments of my life, captured in celebratory moments with my dearest friends. There will be associated sorrows, but this, too, is time’s prerequisite it seems.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

But I have plans, oh such plans, and adventures waiting in the wings. But like a magician, I redirect the vision until only I am seen, and not the things moving in the darkness on cue, waiting to spring into view magnificently. A magical year awaits – let the games begin, ladies and gentlemen, for when it comes to these, I’ll win or break trying.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/anon/

Night Swings

I wonder if I could see statistics on how often my opinions, arguments, thoughts, and beliefs were wrong, how humble would I be? And then, if I could walk the paths each person tread to reach the present and see their trails not only in passing, but in their entirety, how ashamed would I find myself of my own response to tiny, trivial things?

The plank itches today, it’s heavy. Every time I try sawing it out, I quit because I’m getting sawdust in my mouth. One thing I’ve realized about my life is that tomorrow is never the time for fixing myself – it must happen now and always. It’s so easy to enter into the mindset of: “when I have free time after this x” or “after I finish y, I’ll focus on myself”. Maybe in some instances, that is plausible, but when it comes to spirituality, the time must be now.

I’m like a lump of clay in the kiln, and every moment I stay in the inferno, I’m less malleable, more resistant to change. That would be fine, except I’m unfinished. A finished piece is ready for the bisque, the wood fire, the salt kilns, but I’m riddled with flaws still.

But today I realized life is moving, consistently and fully. Right now I feel about to an irrevocable fate, and its overwhelming gravitas keeps me on my knees. I’m an unbalanced equation, still prodded by the pencil of uncertainty, and things are subtracted from my being, added, multiplied and divided out from under me. I’ve got no feet to stand on, some days, but I’m almost certainly being carried.

Like Abraham climbing the mountain to sacrifice Isaac, I see only pain in exchange for faith, but I keep praying the faith will stand – perhaps God provides a ram. But there is still a sacrifice; there is always a sacrifice, the ugly necessity of our disobedience.

And swinging in the park after dark I’m singing with the air brushing past me. I am like this swing, these days, the false force of centrifuge, the faux wind brushing the moisture from my cheeks, the pendulaic rhythm, and the pretend motion that carries me nowhere – that’s what I am. But even so, I’m a smile of geometry, and there is laughter in the squeaking of chain links, even if they are only existential.

Old Man and the Sea?

At first, I imagined I was swimming in words. I don’t remember when I realized I was drowning. An old man leans heavy against a lamppost, buzzing flies circle him like electron predators on a harried atom, and every passerby keeps distance, fearing covalence. His cheeks were sandpaper, heavy black bundles sandbagged his hawkish nose; with mottled hands he clasped a message in a bottle of rum, a memory of sea, shipwreck, and a hail mary tossed into the sea’s hungry maw.

Every description saves the eyes for last, finding some magic in the stare, but there was no boy in his eyes anywhere, not anymore. These eyes, they’ve seen war, and sickness and death knocking at every door, young and old. With indiscriminate injustice, death trampled them all, and if you looked closely, the shadows in his eyes was a phantasmagoria pantomime of their lives, played over and over.

Beside him, the boy, tugging his tattered sleeve. Hey mister, here’s my loaf of bread to eat, will you share?

Even touch, even words barely drag those ancient bones back from memory hell.

But they do.

I’m a cheap mimicry, a muddled mime, a messy mirror layered in grime and webbed with a thousand silver cracks. I’m a silver child, a blueblood fae with wild hair and forgotten name, I speak in song and sing in terran-sway; my muscles are harp strings the music plays, and the sky is a gunshot every morning I awake. Tonight, I’m out of words, because everything I open my mouth to say drowns me in intransigent immobility. I’m a ghost of a riddle trapped in a puddle on the most arid halcyon day. How long can you hold your breath beneath the magnificent waves – or do I even want to try?

This was the best Monday I’ve had in a long time, even if work was impossible, and I didn’t get any ice cream. I’m excited for Wednesday.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/old-man-and-the-sea/

Unexamined Life

No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

(1 John 3:9)

1 John 3 is a bit of a roller coaster, from statements such as: no one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

and statements like: Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

But the first, as I read it, frightens me a bit. How easy is it to fall  into a pattern? It's like the Veggie Tales episode with the Rumorweed that grows with every consecutive lie. What began as a "white lie" must be fed until it's larger than life, and this is sometimes true of our other spiritual failings. 

Somehow, it's easy to hear what Paul says and choose which passages I like better based on how they make me feel:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

and then:

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

It's pretty obvious: now that we are under grace, our lives should not practice that of sinfulness, but that of righteousness and faith. And how shall we live that? In love, grace, generosity, understanding, and opening our eyes to the needs of the world and those around us. Yet, often enough I find myself using Paul's words as a hidden subliminal justification for wrongdoing. If Paul struggles with sin similar to how I do, and Paul was such a fantastic apostle, then how bad am I doing, really?

But that kind of thinking is backwards. I'm not trying to follow Paul's example, but Christ's, and even listening to Paul's words, I shouldn't be trying to match his level of sinfulness, but his dedication to service and love. And I don't believe I'm the only one justifying my actions with obscure logic.

I had a roommate in college who told me a story once about what he named "morning illogic". He said that after a long night of homework - and this roommate was certainly not a morning person - he'd hear his alarm in the morning for going to class and, reaching over to shut it off, would think to himself, "I didn't eat lunch yesterday so I can't go to class" or, "I forgot to shave yesterday, so I won't make it to class" and without actually following through on these ephemeral musings, he'd roll over and fall back asleep.

This is what we do, I think. Having chosen a peculiar path, we make justifications for our actions which make a semblance of sense, or carry a grain of truth. It's like a rotten apple with a healthy skin, and as long as we only look at the skin and don't examine the fruit closely, we don't have to swallow our logic when it's thrown back at us. 

The terrible portion about this is, once this rickety scaffolding is constructed, we go on living our lives wallowing in sinfulness like pigs, far too anxious about reexamining our faults. Often, we alter our religious axioms to fit God into our beliefs rather than fixating our faith on God. 

If God doesn't love me for who I am, he wouldn't be God, because God is love. So, God must support what I am doing, if he loves me.

Errr... no. That's not how it works, and that's not how any parent would think. But too often we are molding God into imago a'dam, rather than molding ourselves into imago dei. Every time we begin our internal arguments with "God must" or "If God doesn't", we are refashioning God in our likeness, and that's no longer God at all.  

And then it's easy to continue living lies; living in sexual immorality; pushing others down to elevate oneself; stealing; boasting; committing idolatry with ourselves and materials. After all, the image of God I manufactured supports this, so it must be right. Too often, we never even get close to examining our actions, rather preferring to continue in the status quo.

But as Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. I'd go one step further and say that the unexamined life is wrong living, and falling far, far short.

she painted pieta's every night

finding hope in the love 

between mother and child

and every eve before falling to sleep

she left just one piece incomplete -

tonight it was Mary's eyes

unseeing as Jesus reached his tiny

hands up beneath her empty face -

tomorrow, it will be Yeshua's lips

agape in a shocking vacuum of space

despite Mary's loving embrace,

what does he see?

and each careful illustration found

some lurker in the backdrop, lost

hamlet with a ghost behind;

nietzsche closing his eyes, seeing nothing;

or archimedes, wondering

if he'd found all the answers

Toothy Poetry

my tongue is a record player

covered in sandpaper, rubbing raw

over a mysterious hole in the wall –

can loss of tooth be prepared for?

what of two teeth, four

a swift horse jab to the jaw

and no more little white warriors

entrenched, as it were,

in their little red coats

stamping at whatever ventures close –

am I an adult?

will these, too, regrow no more?

small alpine huts, tiny white-capped

men clapping heels and heads

with seismic groans – how

will you endure, so few in number?

canine mutts with little pallid tufts
and sanguine bottoms, the sled
you drag behind grows heavier
by the mile, as you carry phantoms
through heavy snows,
how can one forget what one tows
tied tight behind, black hole memories,
the tongue scratches, leaving tracks behind


(http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/toothy-poetry/ ‎)

Existentialism

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/existentialism/

There are a lot of words running around in my head, and little that’s cohesive. I’ve been contemplating what life is, means, and the purpose thereof. The words of Solomon rush to the forefront first:

Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few. For the dream comes through much effort and the voice of a fool through many words.

When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow! It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?  For in many dreams and in many words there is emptiness. Rather, fear God.

 (Ecclesiastes)

I’m not sure why these words immediately overwhelm me, but that there is a despondence in Solomon’s voice that is never far when walking the path of existentialism. That road is long, and not wrong, though precipitous at points – what road is not?

This passage isn’t as popular as the more poetic Ecclesiastes 3, with a dichotomous sequence of times for everything, but I think it speaks of the oddness of this experience we’ve suddenly discovered ourselves mired in. It’s a territory of emotions as wide as the world, with mountains as tall as the depths of the seas, and even though we dream of flying, we forget what the secret was on waking.

-Chloe- “When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly. So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?"

-Sandman- "When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget."

-Chloe- "But that's not fair!"

-Sandman- "No."

(Brief Lives – Neil Gaiman)

Then my existential journey wanders. I start wondering whether I’m stepping in the right places, or following in Christ’s footsteps properly. I used to play a philosophical game with myself, wondering whether I’d ever lived any “perfect” days. It was a common Sunday School understanding that no one, save Yeshua, is perfect. But how many days could I go without sinning? And is simply “not sinning” good enough? Or does “living perfectly” require a significant motion in the other direction?

Could I fail to live perfectly simply by not living at all? If I locked myself into a room and prevented myself from engaging in any negative thoughts, or lying, or behaving cruelly to those around me, does that day fall short of perfection simply by virtue of having not moved?

Paul said that walk of Christianity was a race – so simply standing still isn’t wandering down the wrong path, but it’s making no headway towards the finish line, either. Does that make it… sinful? If sin is simply falling short, motionlessness might be falling short also, right?

And this thinking goes round and round.

Next, I contemplate Micah, the famous words:

He has told you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justice, to love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God?

To love kindness; to do justice; to walk humbly with my God.  This, too, I’ve contemplated over these last weeks, days, hours. Christianity today is a puzzle of beliefs, with everything hinging on a “God is relationship; God is love” factor that suddenly implies that God “must love everyone” and so anything that makes up a person must be “good”.

This concept stuffs God into a small box of “if God doesn’t appreciate what I’m doing, he must not be Love because My God would love what I was doing”. And this sort of thinking is such obvious bullshit that I’d immediately dismiss it if it weren’t so prevalent in our culture. And the second aspect of this is, one we fail on one portion, we assume that we’ve permanently failed, and if God can forgive us for the beginning, why should we stop now?

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

(Romans)

Yet there are those consistently making concessions to their “God image” they’ve designed imago adam, until there is nothing respectable, nothing fearful, nothing remotely righteous about the God of dust we’ve breathed ourselves into. Whenever you start saying, “this is who I am so God must be satisfied with that” then you are fooling only yourself.

God destroyed whole cities of unrighteousness with nary the bat of an eye; God opened up the earth and swallowed countless Israelites for their faithlessness; God killed two people in the new Church just for lying about money. Our God is a consuming fire, not a penpal writing little hearts on Bible leaflets and hallmark cards with cute verses to cheer you up.

I was also contemplating community, and our world. The culture of our day is an unbelievable mess. The convenience of technology has eliminated the need for community, because your friends can talk to you in video conversation from forever away, or email eliminates the need of heartfelt letters sent in slow-haste along postal lines (though I love letters dearly, and would prefer to long-distance communicate this way).

But there is no staying, no holding force that knits a community together. Churches have become businesses, linked on Sundays in a single building as a concession for community, but the personal nature of communion has been eviscerated from our services, and the raising of voices beside everyone you love is lost in a crowded vacuum of who, who are you?

This may just be me, an introvert stuck in a great emptiness, and no hands or inertia moving me.

I long for an Amish-type community where everyone lives, labors, and loves in a small place, understanding the depths of happiness that derive from hard work beside friendly souls and the gatherings of those you know every day in a small town.

We’ve created a crowded room if individuals instead of a family, and that’s what our media and culture create also.

The real problem, of course, is me. Why engage in existential and philosophical musings, anyway? If a problem exists in every friendship, it’s likely the reason is yourself. I should have known that – what was I thinking? There was once a study which resulted in the naming of an effect called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where individuals vastly overrate their own abilities and fail to recognize genuine skill in others. I see this in myself, knowing my weaknesses are many.

I was asked, once, what my love languages are, and though  I think the question is a bit of a silly one – because what occasion have I had, as yet, to love like that? – I realized that my language of love with friends is that of quantity time.

Quantity time? Not even one of the original list – what a psychological hipster. (quality time; service; words of affirmation; touch; gift-giving) None of the others apply to me. I don’t find myself desperately trying to serve others to express my love, or effusively thanking those who offer their service for me. The same is true of gifts: I hate giving gifts, because I’m always self-conscious, so I avoid it. And I always try to return gifts I’ve been given, because “things” don’t matter to me. Touch is important, but not something I overemphasize to a great degree in my friendships; words of affirmation are important to me, and perhaps this is a close second in my love languages. Quality time is fine, but I really don’t care what is being done, as long as the duration is sufficient.

I’d rather spend five days with someone doing nothing than one day with someone doing everything, every time.

This makes the long distance relationships in my life nearly impossible to maintain. With Matthew, we talk every day, sometimes twice, sometimes more. With other examples, generally I find that I grow less and less attached to the people the less we communicate. Eventually, I don’t consider them at all – they are nonentities in the timing of my life.

See? It’s definitely a personal problem.

I remember when I used to play games with my older brother, I’d always get frustrated whenever he started over before beating a game. I didn’t understand the waste of struggle, the waste of playtime, in “trying something new for fun” instead of “beating the game”. To me, beating the game was the only source of fun. In a way, this personality quick carried over into my interaction with life. I hate starting over – I hate moving somewhere without finishing everything in the previous place.

This is a very ambiguous state, because how can you “finish everything” in a particular place? I think the real truth of it is, I don’t make friends easily, because I don’t understand the purpose of “half-way” friends. Why have acquaintances at all? What use are they to me? The sort of people you say, “hi how’s the weather” to, and then move past them to grab your tea or coffee or whatever – this isn’t relationship. So why have it at all?

I only want deep, lasting friendships, and so the very idea of starting over pains me, because I hate to see everything I’ve invested in get burned away to chaff. People assume the technological inventions we’ve made circumvent that necessity, the necessity of removing that which you love in a place, but it doesn’t. It slows the poisonous decay, but only barely, and probably makes it harder in the end.

That’s my existential crisis of the day. What do I do? Where am I? What should I be doing? And how is it so easy for everyone else to say goodbyes? I think because they don’t realize that to me, it’s actually a goodbye. 

Goodbyes, Deadlines

(http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/goodbyes-deadlines/)

I'm still recovering from people weekend. I had a fantastic time, I enjoyed every minute, and still at the end of the weekend, I'm left exhausted for days. Last night, I fell asleep at eight, and slept straight until 5am. The sun hadn't even set yet, nor yet for half an hour, and already I was collapsing in a heap, desperate for sleep. And as bad as that sounds, I really enjoy the peace of the morning. There is something sanctified about the silence of dawn and pre-dawn.

The moon hasn't fallen beneath the horizon and the stars are glittering still in the heavens, like an eye and freckles of the sky. Walking in such a morning is perfect prayer time, and I think, of late, there are plenty of things to pray about - maybe there always are. 

Today I did plenty of thinking on a number of topics. I'm moving soon, likely to just another portion of the same town. When I was checking out in Fred Meyer, I asked the cashier what his plans for the day were, and he said he was packing up and moving to McMinnville, and he was already exhausted from the moving process. It can be difficult packing up and moving, because we tend to accumulate. 

Glancing over my life today, I asked myself: what would break my heart to lose? What things would I not want to live without? 

I'm the present owner of a couple hundred books (maybe up to 600), and I admit to a certain sadness of losing those. My computer? There are millions of replacements. Clothes? Meh. I don't even own more than 5 shirts I regularly wear, and I think I have four pairs of pants, three of which look exactly the same. The only thing I'd actually really lament losing would be my journals. Everything else is replaceable, but those are history. 

It's like what Clooney said in the monuments men:

Lt. Frank Stokes: You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground, and somehow they’ll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements, then it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants, and that’s exactly what we’re fighting for. (Monuments Men - Movie)

Wiping out my writings over the past years would be removing my history, and that's the only thing I wouldn't want to live without. Even though I don't often pore over those notebooks, I like knowing they are there. I enjoy glancing back at my bookshelf and seeing  my section of journals, and knowing that my past heart is bled out on those pages.

It's like the legend of how a man arrived at a large expanse of water, and knowing of no way to cross it with his treasures in tow, he set out to build a raft. Upon building his raft, he set his possessions on the raft and rowed out into the waters. Through various storms and hard waters, by the time the man reaches his destination, he's had to jettison every last possession he'd originally placed on the raft. But that's the truth of nirvana, of heaven, anyway. Everything but who you are cannot be taken into eternity.

I'm reading Iron John, and Bly digs into what it means to be a holistic man in our present culture which diminishes the masculine.  As I read it, I can't help but imagine living as a pastoralist or a nomad - of remember what the wildman living is like in actuality. The mere thought is tranquil, reminiscent of Tehillim 23, lying beside still waters or roaming the abundant grasses of the hillsides. Even wandering through the shadows of the valley of death I imagine as more fulfilling than getting stuck in a life of stuff.

I've been thinking about all of these things because I'm reaching a deadline. A similar deadline has forced me to consider goodbyes. As I was drawing, today, I was contemplating the receding hills and imagining them as the crests and troughs of life.

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you are no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow.

(Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig)

I'm seeing my own walks among the mountains and the travelers I meet. I hate wandering around the edges of hills and losing sight of people; I hate knowing I might be saying goodbye to everyone I see - but I will. The things that I hate leaving behind, along every stage of life, are people, not materials. Every goodbye breaks my heart, because I know every bird must fly - I just wish it didn't have to always be so far.

I have amazing news for you. Man is not alone on this planet. He is part of a community, upon which he depends absolutely. (Daniel Quinn - Ishmael)

I love the idea of community, though we've manufactured, assembly-lined, overproduced, and made a mcdonalds of our community until there is nothing left, the original idea appeals to me. But we live in a world where it's easier to leave a community than to invest in one for a long period of time. We develop these communities that last only a couple of years, and expect to be filled and then pushed out of that nest into our next. Life is one bird's nest to the next, never learning how to fly because we never stay long enough to earn our wings. 

Truly, Mr. Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow. 

(Langston Hughes - Dreams)

soon goodbyes crucify but spring belief redeems
cottonseed blowing and even with
the grasses and tiny trees green,
I've forgotten spring, for the worries
lay heavy on my heart, more
than I let the light relieve,
and as the hills recede beneath
the clouds and setting evening -
I remember

http://benjaminwblog.com/?p=313

Another Place

I started another blog at: http://benjaminwblog.com/

Or, rather, I started a new place for the same blog. I've still got a lot of work to go on that, and it also is spread out over two domains - but I'm enjoying the project so far. It's also easier to remember a url like benjaminwblog.

I'm still recovering from my marvelous weekend. It's difficult spending time at the beach with friends, and then finding yourself back at work, programming android devices and wishing you could hear the waves, the storms flattening the salty grasses, the voices laughing in every room. I wish I'd had more time for writing this weekend past. When I find myself richer than Smaug, I'm going to purchase a nice castle on the cliffs of Scotland, and write whenever I can drag myself away from the scenery.

One thing that struck me as strange this weekend was a comment made by the host: "I'm thinking next time, because of the stage of life so many are in, I'm going to have to ask that we try and find sitters for dogs and babysitters for children." (paraphrased - may have been speaking particularly of dogs) Fifteen people at a beach house, four dogs and one child consumed an unsurprising amount of attention. What did we expect?

It's strange to think that I may be one of the oldest at the event, and I'm nowhere near that stage of life. Yet, even I've noticed responsibilities resting heavy on my shoulders as I move towards house ownership, some financial decision making, and the organization of my own time. I want to have adventures, be a child, run around in the fields and smell each of the different flowers - but does one balance the requisite responsibilities of adulthood and a youthful outlook and joy?

Some of it is found here: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"  (Matthew 6) You can see it in the eyes of the president, the weight on the shoulders of the exhausted, and the greying hair of the stressed. Worry adds age, and in all this I'm doing my best to avoid worrying about how everything will turn out, and am simply enjoying the process of looking at houses, of writing, drawing, and building a website, and of loving those around me. Life is just the rim of an ocean, rising and receding at the draw of the moon.

Abstract Oceans or Dervish dance of sand

Abstraction is wisdom for a writer - the metamorphosis of knowledge into poetry. Water dripping from trees transforms into a metaphor for weeping, and the willow's long, emotional tresses make it the somberest of trees. Without abstraction, clouds stay as only-clouds; sunsets are simply light passing beneath the horizon, eight minutes old; magic is poorly explained science; and love is a collection of complicated hormones and obfuscated neural connections.
Abstraction separates the mind from the historical algorithm. Show a computer a bicycle, then a different picture of a different bicycle, and the base composition of pixels, hues, saturations, and even backdrops prevent the computer from understanding both objects as the same, though any three-year-old child instantly grasps the connection, though his feet aren't ready for the pedaling. Tell a computer: "time flies like the wind, fruit flies like bananas", and logical paradox, or ask it to divine by zero, and computer's reply with explosive incomprehension.  But dividing by zero, that's as wide as the universe, and logical paradox is another weapon of the proficient storyteller.
BW has it down, but perhaps that's what separates the bestseller from the novice blogger. You can understand persons, and really know, love, and care for persons, but unless you know people, your writing scope is limited. An author must know everything, so each facet of reality may face its abstraction and carve light into a prism of possibilities.

when the wind of many bites your eyes,
and the sea-spray-gray surges
up the beach to clasp at your ankles,
while the blinding sand stings and fleas
gnaw at your knees for a little respite -
surrounded on all sides, an island sinking
in a sea of hungry eyes -
though I hear the starving shriek of storm
pounding at the windows with its tears,
I'm in a corner, pooled in a blanket of quiet
denial and puzzle pieces, wondering whether
they're even all there, or the picture matches
the box, or even if the night cares.
and time is tired, but smiling, and by my watch
trying to tell me something.
I'm climbing trees, ophelia, look
I've found pretty stones, virginia,
so why are you crying?
is it because you could not stop for anything, emily?
collige virga rosas, do not drop them
in a hurry down the styx
the wildflowers only transform hillsides
after a long and frozen winter
all our names are writ as keats'
but it's elegant, look, watch the ocean breathe
watch the storm sing
and watch the dervish dance of the sands
in a world whimpering

Desert Threads

It is better to live in the desert, and when pieces of your heart leave, they travel to wetter lands, where your heart might stay moist and alive, blooming like a plucked flower in sugar water. But me? I live where the sky is damp and dewdrops glisten on the grasses, and when my heart leaves in pieces to the deserted lands, it dries and dies, withered and cracked as weathered stones and the under-eyes of souls in windy lands.

And the arid heat grants no leave, for no heart survives to thrive in these sands. The bleeding heart dries, cauterized by the searing heat and the dust devils who’ve whisked away life. Lizards crawl into the cracks and crevices, scorpions scuttle along the empty passageways.

One day, two threads may meet; then will they recognize the seams the days have made?