although, perhaps, i could try again

i’ve been choosing not to write for awhile, but something happened today that made me think that i could take up the pen, again, so to speak.

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i don’t have many words. there are few things that call to me these days. the gentleness of His love, the warmth of fellowship, cloudy gray rain mists black tree-shaped holes standing about in the Universe. maybe forgotten sunlight filtering through. is filter filter, or fliter? they look the same to me.

in a makeshift list, then, today i saw a blue baby shoe waiting by itself in the center of a path, silently whiling time away till it got reclaimed. i thought of baby, watching from his mother’s back, seeing his shoe grow smaller into the distance, mutely.

i could also count time: now we/i am in the last week of school, a few more days, a couple more lessons, one more test and it will be over. sometimes i think in syntax, where it is an anaphor and the thing about anaphors is that they refer back to the original thing/phrase/word/statement.
i have headphones over my ears, although nothing is playing. i think i would prefer it if my ears were completely immune to soundwaves, people walking about, voices, laundry hanging, discordance. selective hearing, i only want to accept the sound of the fan, comforting, repetitive, lulling.

ice cream, time with girlfriends i grew up with, sitting by the window watching the rain fall clumsily, elbows on ledge drinking in the night sky finishing korean olived seaweed, trudging through conrad’s introduction, reflecting on life, holding priorities up to the light, nail painting, bathing in golden light by a stove- remembering gers atop a valley, an ox-bow lake we used to slip out to in the mornings, the loveliness of it all.

nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere – we do not know where – a sheep we have never met has or has not eaten a rose

march 05, 2007
I’ve been folding paper cranes a whole lot recently. and eating dried [with copious amounts of sugar] logan, and now the shirt I’m wearing- I lower my head and take a generous whiff. good. It smells nice. glad I changed my laundry detergent. The air around me is heavy with anticipation. Not just the onset of evening and the noisy chorous the above birds make. It’s going to rain, I believe. Every southeastasian can sense rainy weather, I think. It hangs in the air, and it could be one of perhaps two things. One: it’s a conscious action to scoop and taste [figuratively] the nearest moisture tapestry hanging somewhere close to your ledge. Two: an unconscious recognition so that if your fellow southeastasian neighbour goes ‘looks like rain’, you don’t think, you nod your head. Either way: it’s an innate mystery much akin to the wonder an urban man would give to the mythical abilities of the red indian.
Eskimo girls blow on each other’s vocal chords, producing an unearthly sound. Southeastasians foretell rain.
and while this paragraph was forming, the rains did come.

all my senses revel in the rains this season, now i am smelling the rain, now i am hearing the drops, the clamour, the drumming from countless pieces hitting various objects countless times, cars, floors, roof, my mother’s nightdress that i didn’t notice until it was too late. seeing the mist of many waters communing, now i am breathing it in, now my skin is drinking in the sensations of rain, the cold, the stillness, and the rainwind is drafting in, bumping the right side of my body, the back of my arm, going up my nose. it’s been two years since i had these rains; i am so glad it rains everyday, and rains heavily, too; i hope it never stops.

i have been listening to lifehouse recently; their lyrics make me a little wistful, there are lines that call my name and hold out unspoken things. last night i dreamt someone telling me a line, the unbearable lightness of being. but the rain. on friday i walked in heavy rain under the shelter of an umbrella, the pavements and roads were flooded and my borrowed slippers were constantly under water. but i was happy, the way i am now, sitting here with my purple korean air blanket wrapped around me. perhaps i should make myself a hot cup of honey crysanthemum tea, and consider myself remarkably well-off.

the semester, the year itself, is drawing to a close. already it is november, which startles me somewhat because november is the month that signals the end. november means the year has entered its last lap. it is for sure now, what once seemed only a possibility. this year will end, this year is on its way to the end. wow.
there is so much that could be said about it all, but i’m still holding my breath; it is not time yet.

i think i shall end this post with a marvellous meme i found, yes i shall. here it is:

Reply to this meme by yelling “Words!” and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ/WordPress/Blog and explain what they mean to you. (And if I feel inspired I might write what they mean to me to you, too.)

shining eyes

#1 hello, i wanted more colour.
#2 the photo is an echo of another, a week short of a year, when we went to the beach.

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#3 i liked this reflection from an old man, about growing old.

#4 i was thinking recently about emotional masochism, as defined by mayboo when she called on sunday. why do we take the pain and press it against our hearts, even as we think we might burst from the ache? what is the call, how is the act justified. and and. in the light of His forgiveness, and promise to give the strength of His grace day after day.. never to forget this; there is joy in the walk.

#5 here’s something that’s worth its time- shining eyes. a short transcript of the last minute or so:
(zander, on sharing a story an auschwitz survivor told him, about her and her little brother)

“she told me this, she said we were on the train, on the way to auschwitz, and i looked down and i saw my brother’s shoes were missing, and i said, why are you so stupid! can’t you keep your things together! for goodness’ sake!, the way an elder sister might speak to her younger brother. unfortuntely that was the last thing she ever said to him, she never saw him again. he did not survive auschwitz. … she said, i made a vow. i would never say something that could not stand if it was the last thing i said. can we do that, no. it would make us wrong, it would make others wrong. but it is a possibility we can live into. … shining eyes, shining eyes.”

i love my daddy so much it hurts

my daddy is the most innocent, nicest, sweetest and cutest ever. my 8 year old tution kid brandon broke his super yoyo on the way to my place tonight, and daddy spent the entire hour figuring out how to fix it, the glue he had to buy, etc. what he didn’t know, was that brandon has multiple super yoyos. daddy thought every kid was like the boy he had been, who had only one toy, who would only ever have one toy.

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/update: daddy’s still tinkering with that yoyo! i heard him in the kitchen, and called out. he says he isn’t trying to fix it anymore, but at least brandon learnt a few things from him tonight “that every boy should know”, how yoyos work, and how to repair them. nyeh nyeh. i LOVE my daddy.

happy to be on the Rock of Ages

“I chose you . . .” ( John 15:16 ). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose— that He may be able to say, “This is My man, and this is My woman.”

(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest)

pointing feet

last night, on the way home i overslept so badly i woke up on a road surrounded by forests and was frightened. turns out they rerouted the stretch after my stop, because there was an accident and they closed both roads. the passenger beside me had been there since nus so after debating between calling daddy and getting him to rescue me, and poking the shoulder of this perfect stranger, i decided it would be more practical to poke the shoulder because he would be able to tell me where i was, as opposed to announcing to my daddy that his daughter was lost, and she was in a forest. in the end, we got down in the middle of nowhere and walked along lonely streets, him accompanying me while i retraced my steps to the building “with the giant frog” (i recognised the road along sakae sushi’s headquarters). i waved goodbye after getting up 28; i think we were both bemused.

safely home, daddy came and massaged the rest of my headache away before i fell asleep. i feel like i’ve been sedated these days.

look hard

if you know how, you find hearts shining out of our eyes.

as opposed to beating selves up…

God: or better, the Lord Jesus. I tremble lest I should in any way offend my Eternal Lover. And whatever passes between us take note of this: All shall be revoked at His command. I am such a great, cumbersome boor to be “dove driven.” Oh, how delicate are the tuggings of my Beloved, and how calloused my responses. Above all else I will that He might find in me the travail of His soul and be satisfied. But this is a hard thing when I speak to you, for somehow, the pleasing Him and the getting you are in conflict. I don’t pretend to explain it; I can only describe what I feel- and that not very adequately.

Since you left it has been as if a film has been over my soul. My genuine fervour in prayer was gone for two days. Too much rubble so that I couldn’t get to building the wall. See Nehemiah 4:10 for this. Notice, it was not the outward opposers that hindered the work so much as the inward clutter. Not “destruction” from outside forces so much as “decay” within. But the proof of God’s hand comes in the affirmative answer to Sanballat’s mocking in verse 2. “Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burned?” The zealous Jews did. Apply this to us and imagine a little while. Are we willing to build with a trowel in one hand while our other hand grasps the sword? The building (God’s work) must go on, and if there is to be battle as we build, very well, let us strengthen the “lower places” (v. 13). And I say to you the words of Nehemiah to the nobles, “The work is great… we are separated. … God shall fight for us” (vv. 19,20).

I must confess to you, Bett, that I have had regrets about going even as far as we did in physical contact, and that was very little as most judge. We must guard against this if we are ever together again, for it gave me a whetted appetite for your body that I have found to be “rubble” in getting to the work. You must be hard on me in this; I know we do not have the same mind or makeup, and I feel that I need more of yours than you need of mine. Nietzsche has a word for us here: “One must discontinue being feasted upon when one tasteth best; that is known by all who want to be long loved.” Do you get what he means by this: “Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. On that account woman is not capable of friendship: she knoweth only love”? … Fear not to hurt me with the Living Sword, yea, strike to this purpose. Be more than a lover- be a friend. We spoke of this at the moonrising tryst. “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Remember?

But how shall I praise the Lord for removing the film this very morning? Confession is good for the soul; it was imperative for mine this morning. I cast it all upon him and John’s truth about “cleansing from all sin” was very precious. Oh, how sweetly He “preached peace” to one that was far off (Ephesians 2:13, 17)… Nearness was the theme of my song and the thoughts seem well expressed in #136, Little Flock hymnal. The vail is rent, our souls draw near- / Unto a throne of grace; /The merits of the Lord appear,/ They fill the holy place.

Oh, Bets, let us ‘undistracted be’ in our following.

Just to show you what a poor journalist I am, I will quote my time in composition of this leter: two hours. Part of it due to typing, I’m sure.

Have you been delivered after the fashion of Psalm 116:8, “Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling”?

Tenderly,
JIM

(Chapter 26, A Letter At Last, Passion and Purity, emphasis mine)

hurray for misty endless path

this post is solely put here as a marker, that here. at this point week 8 of school has ended. i didn’t like it at all, it was heavy and a struggle to get through.

IT’S OVER.

so。for now,
wednesday = happy(:

the problems of post brownie baking

are numerous, chieftest of which is dealing with the baking tray. chewy brownie batch#2 solidified to the point of becoming rocky brownie after i had to leave the house for daddy’s birthday dinner with the family whilst it was still baking, so only setting the timer and crossing my fingers. my mom, bless her heart, now labours under the impression that her daughter baked cookies yesterday.

but anyway, it was all very, very worth it. every single bit of choosing, making, travelling, waiting. hm yes.