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

Tl;dr: Micah, mountains

I feel so full of ideas tonight that I'm not even certain where to begin. Full, and empty, like hands holding butterflies, so light you peek to make certain they are cupped within your hands.
I wanted to write about so much: Micah; roommate dialogues; poetry reading (ee cummings); a beautiful truth I read today in a fiction novel; relationships; frustrating goings on; a fancy poem I wrote; mountains; the fact that I'm reading fifteen (15) books right now, and I may be going insane.. etc.

But instead of writing, I watched a lousy movie (read: without plot) nearly twice, and ended up having a good conversation on the phone while walking outside in the cold (I forgot to put on gloves or a hat, and my hands were quite sad, and blue, by the end of the conversation. It was a good convo). So, worthwhile, but for the second night in a row, I'm getting nothing done. Maybe that is what weekends are about? The problem is, this week is extraordinarily busy, and I have to finish 6 books before the university library's winter break so I can get new books and return my current batch, and I get to celebrate birthday's (hooray!), and work. Writing will suffer.

I read Micah today. A certain passage caught my interest, and it isn't even the most-often-quoted section of Micah (Micah 6:8, another of my favorite passages). What I love about Micah is his consistent use of puns and irony to make statements. Right from the beginning, statements like "At Beth-le-aphrah roll yourself in the dust" - at the house of dust, roll yourself in the dust. But it is an actual city name, so it's twice as clever. Or even, "Because a calamity has come down from the Lord, to the gate of Jerusalem" (Jerusalem is city of peace, dwelling of peace etc). He's quite a poetic prophet, and though the passages in this book are not necessarily sequential - they tend to be organized by theme - he's got a poetry in his prophecy that I appreciate, even though I don't speak Hebrew.
And it will come about in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of mountains. It will be raised above the hills and people will stream to it....
Each of them (nations, peoples) will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
(Micah 4:1,4)

I think this passage struck me for at least two reasons: 1. it has some similarities to possibly my favorite verse in the bible, Philippians 4:5 (Let your gentle spirit be made known to all men. The Lord is near); and 2. I really appreciate the peaceful imagery it suggests and the strength of God. It brings to mind the God who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) with the God who gave Jonah a restful plant under which he might find shade. But I've also been contemplating mountains a great deal lately. I like hiking, backpacking, or just walking through nature, but there is something extra magnificent about mountains. Every time I visit my house, if the weather permits, I try and take a day to climb a mountain nearby.
Matthew introduced us, and we are fast friends now, my mountain and I.
As I drove home for thanksgiving, the sky was perfectly blue, a blue of an eternal peace, deep and dark as can only been seen when the sun is oblique to the world, and cold. Never have I so clearly seen the mountains: St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson to the south, Rainier, the cascades, the olympics, mount si, and the ridges surrounding issaquah. They were glossy white with their caps of snow, and I could understand why so many ancient cultures think of gods as living on top of the tallest of mountains.
There is something primal, domineering, majestic, intimidating, and demanding of our respect about the tallest of peaks, and even in summiting, we are not conquerors, but merely ants atop the pinnacle of nature, having picked our way up the glaciers, we have not ascended to the domain of gods, but, somehow, I feel closer to God every time I am in the mountains.
I really appreciate the motif in Micah regarding mountains, as I find mountains to be a place of peace and importance in my life.

The second thing I was thinking about today was relationships. I'm quite old-fashioned when it comes to many things. Well, I don't know if that is exactly true, because I'm a feminist, among other things, and that certainly isn't a traditional belief. But I generally prefer to follow the rules, and when I was a child I couldn't even understand how people could break them. When my mother said "no punching" I actually believed for quite some time that punching wasn't just against the rules of the household, but against the rules of nature. I could just as easily punch someone as I could fly. It wasn't until I was punched for the first time that I realized punching wasn't just a fake television event (like in the old batman movies: kapowie!), and could actually happen.
So if a friend of mine tells me they've had sex before marriage, I cringe. I don't believe in sex before marriage - it's very much against my rules. Then they spend an hour trying to explain how they believe that what they are doing is right and biblical even, and my stomach is turning. Now, I haven't experienced this point in a relationship myself, so I'm no authority. I've never been in a relationship nearing sexual anything, nor have I ever been in a relationship period. I've actually never even held a girl's hand outside of prayer, and I don't even have any good-single-female friends. (by next year, I don't think I'll have any good friends who aren't married). I'm not authoritative on the subject, but I have rules, and that people I know can so blithely stride past them with boasting confidence makes me feel quite uncomfortable. I really wish right now I had my own vines to sit under and my own fig tree, and that I could sit on top of the tallest mountain and stare out over a sea of clouds, contemplating such things. I want to think and write and pray and walk and stare into the stones of mountains letting water slip through their fingertips in waterfalls and rivulets, and clamber over stones into the snow-tipped peaks of the world's highest peaks. I want to walk through forests whose branches are bare, and sunlight streams obliquely through a glade, striking the sheathes of ice on each branch and blooming the forest into a fire of golden light that drips and sings like chimes, with the earth cracking beneath my feet and rabbits wrinkling their noses as dawn lights the southeastern sky, and the birds sing their sorrow-songs at not having migrated south until spring.


Well, that was a mess of words that went nowhere. A bunch of raw thoughts spewed out everywhere.



somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
 by E. E. Cummings

-----
The last stanza of this poem is one of my favorites of all ee cummings work.

A day in the hills

I climbed my little mount yesterday, and meandered through the hills. I took a few lousy pictures. Turns out, I may be the lousiest photographer. I also completely forgot my pen, so I could not make any sketches or write any stories. Maybe I'll climb again Wednesday, weather permitting.
Even if these are not the best of pictures, it was the most beautiful of days (even with a grey-ish haze to the sky that made it, at times, more faded than blue)

The birds that stole my sandwich when I recently went were not as prevalent.  The chipmunks, however, were out in force. Nearing the top, it was readily apparent that the plants thrived on short seasons, and the trees were all stinted pines, though near the top, there were actually a surprising amount of mountain raspberries. I saw no mountain blue jays, and only a few camp robbers (grey jays) on the mountain top.

New Shoes and Clicking Heels - I'm Home.

A rather shoddily shot picture of my parent's backyard. Yeah, we live in a forest. The maples look positively gorgeous in the late afternoon sunlight. We also live in a valley (which makes running tricky, since I have to go somewhere so I'm not constantly running at 30 degrees up) I'd blame the camera for this shot, but it was actually my fault. I got excited and took the picture as I walked under a fir and quickly scrambled to capture the moment. I did not capture the moment, but at least I captured - for me anyway - something. The apple trees are looking splendid, the pines, firs, maples, birches, all the trees in the backyard are so amazingly beautiful. I needed this vacation. I went and bought running shoes with the mother, had dinner with the family, and then we started playing bananagrams. Turns out, my dad is a secret champ, mother is a bit slow, Sam makes up words, and Phil gets to be a combination of Sam and mother. I think my dad is also siphoning me terrible letters every game (or just not mixing them). Then we played quiddler (rummy with words), and Mother won the first game, Phil the second. It's so good to be home, almost moves me to poetry. I can wait until sunny-tomorrow for that, though. I really wish I had come home earlier in the summer season for more of this. I miss the Redmond (Carnation) country-scape so very much: the valleys, the mountains, the rich greens, the smells of pine and rich soil, the bears trampling our apple trees (just once I think. But he knocked over the whole tree to get apples. Gluttonous bear), the windy hills leading home, the waterfalls and mountains less than an hour away, the half-price books. I admit, the first place I went to was not home, but in fact the bookstore. And half-price books was having a 20% off sale! (2/5's price books?)

It all makes me want to weep with joy, write stories all night long, drink all the apple juice and chips and salsa and oatmeal raisin cookies that my parents treated me. And I want to climb that mountain. I also have a strong desire to see mount rainier.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Mount_Rainier_from_west.jpg

I have a feeling the clouds are rolling in. By Wednesday (my mid-week fun day), I think it might even be too rainy for a good view of the mountain. We'll see.

Several summers ago, when I worked at camp, I was not given much warning or information on what to bring (I only knew I was working at camp for a day before I flew out). One of the (many) things I forgot was a good pair of shoes. I brought old shoes that were almost worn out, and camp destroyed them. Because I did not have time for a lifeguard certification, I did only field activities for the kids: baseball, archery, soccer, running around, and so on. My shoes almost immediately fell apart. Especially since at the start of summer there was still quite a bit of snow (7000 feet up in the mountains?), and it shortly switched to over 100 degree days, I'm fairly certain my shoes just gave up on life. Shoes falling apart was a big deal. The second biggest problem I faced was that there was no cell service for an hour in any direction. Everyone brought calling cards with them so they could use the camp phone. I didn't know about the calling card setup, and had no calling card. I thought about writing a letter - no stamps. That was the easier of the problems, but writing a letter to ask the parents to ship you shoes? (because it was 3 hours to a location that sold shoes as far as I could find out. I had no car). The turn-around time on that is intimidating.

Instead, I borrowed a calling card, and quickly called my parents and asked them to send me shoes. This is where I made another mistake. I forgot to tell them my shoe size. I simply stated, as quickly as possible, that basketball shoes should work just fine. Apparently my parents believe me a clown, and they bought me 10.5 men's shoes. I'm not a short person, but I'm a bit below the national average for males (a little over 5'9"). My foot size, however, is not 10.5. When I got home, I bought some 9.5 sambas, which turned out to be too big also, but lasted me almost 4 years. Two years ago, I bought my current pair of shoes, another pair of sambas that are 8.5s. Today, I finally bought the first pair of shoes that I think truly fits my feet. They are 8s. Yep, 2.5 sizes smaller than my parents believed. I even have some extra wiggle room at the end for my toes.

Blackberry Season

(Ignore the tea, even though the birthday mug is delightful. Also, ignore the waterbottle and the computer cords, and the "everything-that-is-not-a-bowl-of-blackberries")




One of my favorite times of summer is fruit season. Just outside my doors, ripe plums hang from darkly violet (plum-colored, if you will) trees; grapes dangle from vines laced around wires; pear and apple trees lining the streets and in the fields sag under the weight of their ripening loads; figs, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, each bush or tree laden with juicy antioxidants and vitamins (I mean fruit!) bundled in the sweetest of packages. And now blackberries.
Blackberries are my favorite. I think it is the competition with the brier requisite in retrieving the fruit. This morning, sunlight barely peaking over Rex Hill, I snatched the largest bowls I could find (optimistic), and wandered around town to find blackberry plants. First, I tried near the North Valley Friend's Church. Not much luck. The location I'd tried last year was mostly poisoned down (why, Newberg, why?) and after hopping my way between islands of thorny vines, I eventually find myself trapped in a prison of angry blackberries with berries tantalizingly out of grasp. And even the berries I found were dried out, or laced with angry spiders. I managed my escape with only a few handfuls of berries and some bloody ankles. Worth it. I ate most of these.
Next, I tried the river. The entire valley is fertile, but the river region is more so, for obvious reasons. These berries were by no means short on water. The best part was, a private, fenced off region with a barbed wire fence bordered some land, and the blackberries blithely climbed over the fence, allowing for a large quantity of freely given berries that did not require platemail and a broadsword to collect (which is good, because they don't make broadswords like they used to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwibf6t7Scc)

Ta-da, blackberries! I then made a cobbler, went to a wedding, and another. Now, of course, I'm ready to see A and S tomorrow, with gluten free dessert (the cobbler used magic not-flour flour).

Blackberry Poetry Section:
Sylvia Plath: (she always has a... dark side to her poetry. I appreciate it, but if I had been friends with her, I think I would have been worried. Still, it is about blackberries. You're welcome)
I cut off the last portion of the poem because Sylvia Plath got sidetracked from blackberries, and it just would not do. Next time, Plath, stay on the topic of delicious berries. Though, it is actually an interesting end to the poem. So I suggest you go read it anyway (I think here they have it: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178965)

Blackberrying

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

Fields, Fruit, and Valleys Full - Dreamy Thursdays

The day started as a Fleet Foxes morning, wobbled its way into a Sufjan Stevens afternoon, and collapsed into a Sigur Ros denouement.  After work it was smiles and Mumford and Sons babbling with me on the drive to drop off A's stuff and pick up my prodigal pillow.

This morning, the early mountain mists sifting into the valley quickly burned off in the summer blaze, droplets tumbling to the ground and turning the grass into opals on the early harp strings of sunlight. Turtledoves chortled, starlings shrieked and dove between the homes before gliding into roof slats, and high above, the hawks soared on the valley's warm updrafts. Plums now sit ripe on trees of like color, and blackberries sneak tendrils across streets, burdened with berries and bees. And figs, even figs, gather along snaking limbs. It's like Tantalus' wonderland, full of fruits within reach, and the river slouching through town. Lazy summer days, even filled with work, are marvel-filled.

I dreamed last night of a cabin in the woods, old-parchment moonlight piercing the canopy and sparkling against the windows. A bubbling burn trickled through the glade, and low rows of herbs and vegetables in the garden behind the home wavered in the gentle breeze. A hart nibbled at the grass at creek's edge, head lowered without fear, while an owl hroo'ed in the branches above, gold-ringed eyes watching the forest entire, hunting instincts prepared.

The door opened into a cool abode, lightly furnished. A rug covered a cedar floor, and paintings of icons covered the walls, replete with halos. A small twin bed built of beech wood occupied the corner opposite the fireplace in which an ember-red fire sparked its last. Books littered the floor, old tomes filled with burnt-marshmallow parchment sitting atop crumbling scrolls. Knobbly, white, wax candles dribbling into bronze saucers were strewn about the floor. The scroll anchored to the floor by piles of tomes read, "There and Back Again... A Hobbit's Tale".
I think the scroll beneath it was a Virginia Woolf (a room of one's own. go figure what that says about my psyche)

Well, sounds pretty idyllic to me. I'd live there.

I want to climb (see) mountains again, mountains, Gandalf

I'm not one for favorites, generally. What's my favorite color? All the greens of the trees and blues of the seas, the oranges, crimsons, violets of summer sunsets, the first daisies, trilliums and snowdrops come spring, the color of distant mountains, each season of sky from icy winter blue to gentian summer, coffee and spring-sky eyes, emeralds, amethyst and precious jewels, the color of twilight filled with countless stars and an archaic, fae moon.
What's my favorite number? Number of what?
Favorite time? 1224, 1248, 1111, 1234, 248, 1144, 1122, 1236, 1020. I don't know. What is a favorite time, anyway? My favorite time is time with people, time with everyone I love dearly.
Favorite pair of pants? Shirt? Shoes? I have 1 pair of shoes, a few pairs of pants, and as many shirts as P last gave me because he felt like I needed more clothing.

There are some things I do have favorites for, though, things over which my partiality gets the better of me. The one greatest example that's been stuck on my mind all day is mountains. I have a favorite mountain. It also is one of my favorite Sabbath locations, places of prayer, and a place I climb whenever possible. Matthew knows of it - he probably introduced us, Si and I. Oh, I so desperately want to visit, to scamper up its steep incline, racing towards the summit, and seeing everything stretched out below from Seattle, to the Olympics, to Mount Rainier, to the Cascades, and the entire valley in between, with the Snoqualmie river and each tiny town stretched along its course.

One of the beauties of this land is that I'm surrounded by mountains. Less than an hour drive probably brings me to the mountains on either side. So at least I don't suffer as Bilbo does. I'm already seeing mountains. Now I just want to reverently scale them.

Tolkein
The wind was on the withered heath,
But in the forest stirred no leaf:
There shadows lay be night or day,
And dark things silent crept beneath.

The wind came down from mountains cold,
And like a tide it roared and rolled.
The branches groaned, the forest moaned,
And leaves were laid upon the mould.

The wind went on from West to East;
All movement in the forest ceased.
But shrill and harsh across the marsh,
Its whistling voices were released.

The grasses hissed, their tassels bent,
The reeds were rattling—on it went.
O'er shaken pool under heavens cool,
Where racing clouds were torn and rent.



“Ah, Teneriffe!”
By Emily Dickinson

Ah, Teneriffe!
Retreating Mountain!
Purples of Ages — pause for you —
Sunset — reviews her Sapphire Regiment –
Day — drops you her Red Adieu!

Still — Clad in your Mail of ices –
Thigh of Granite — and thew — of Steel –
Heedless — alike — of pomp — or parting

Ah, Teneriffe!
I’m kneeling — still –