To the point

Hello.

This is awkward, so I'm going to just say it.

You new types? I like hearing what you have to say about what I write. I appreciate it.

I do have a request, though. I do not use blogger like facebook. I hate facebook. I like blogging. Therefore, if and only if you think something you have read is interesting, by all means, tell me--but I don't want to have conversations on here. This is more of a private (mostly) way to share myself with friends (mostly) and I'd like to keep it that way (mostly).

Basically, I'm just asking that you keep comments to the point. That means more to me than an ongoing saga. Also, I'm probably not going to be expanding along with ya'll. Because while I just barely know most of you, I really don't know the newer people. And I don't really care much for complete strangers discussing my personal life at length. It's just not my style. Is that unreasonable? Meh, probably, but let's face it, I'm not going to be changing it in the near future.

I'm almost positive that there is a less rude way to put this. I've always favored being blunt, though, so this is what you're stuck with.

Canada day 1

My sleep had been uneasy to begin with. The couch wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, but it was unfamiliar, and the orange streetlight shining on my face was irritating. It also took a long time to fall asleep, because I knew I only had a few hours left before I had to be up and on the road. If I make up my mind, though, I can sleep through anything. I turned my eyes toward the wall and breathed my way into dreaming.

It came out of nowhere and tore into my dreams—a menacing crackle of sound followed by an explosion that continued to build on itself for a few seconds before dying away altogether, taking the flares of brilliant blue light with it.

When the aquamarine flashes faded, the room faded into pitch-black. I was up on my knees on the couch, mind still trying to make sense of the world, fingers splayed and hands in front of me. And—I found out later—Tara, in the next room, was also up and off her bed, back to the wall, before she truly knew what was going on. (At this point I find it something of amazing that our minds are so incredibly tuned that we were up and ready for action before we were really awake).

I didn’t figure out what had happened until, one by one, the lights outside began to flicker back on. All right, I thought to myself; power outage. No fire. I can sleep now. I shuddered once and laid back down, too tired to worry.

It happened again.

This time, it waited until we were loading up the cars, a few minutes after 4 am because Cassie’s alarm clock had also been affected by the outage. Tara was outside by the cars, and all of a sudden the lights started to flicker. I was so tired that I had almost forgotten about the night before, but I felt this strange shudder in the air and I remembered.

How can I describe the sound to you? I don't know how without sounding melodramatic. It was electric; somehow it brought to mind rushing rivers of power and death, and the menacing hum ran around under my skin. It was an instant feeling of danger in the air itself, and Cass and I darted to the door and threw it open.

Across the way, behind one of the southern village apartments, there was an absolute torrent of sparks, the most brilliant aquamarine color I have ever seen. They surged and roared in concert with the explosions. By their light we saw Tara coming quickly across the lawn toward the stairs, looking over her shoulder at the display.

It died as quickly as it had come, taking with it the lights as far as I could see, and leaving behind the angry shriek of a car alarm in the darkness and rain.

There's a way to tell this story better, if not bestest. But I'm just sticking in this journal entry because it was, by far, one of the stranger mornings I've had; not counting, of course, the Morning of the Angry Bear, and Dawn of the Infernal Din.

Oh, and I found a complete collection of every Sherlock Holmes story ever written. And I found it at McKay's. For $4. And I was SO FLIPPING EXCITED.

Seek

Another night of staring past the dark, waiting for something to happen. Maybe it was just that I didn't want to sleep yet, but for whatever reason, I found myself wandering. I ended up in my old spot, on the swivel piece at the end of the playground across from SV. I'd been going to visit friends there, but they were having an apartment-wide argument, so I left. And started walking.

I'd been slowly swinging back and forth for maybe fifteen minutes when I realized that I was doing it again. I was waiting. Expecting something. Looking for something.

Was I looking for a fight? A friend? A cessession of my restlessness? I'm not sure. I was just waiting. I didn't know who, or what for. I never do.

tirade

If nobody cares, that's ok. But if there is anybody out there who does have an opinion, I just want to state, loud and clear--

I am not selling out by going to Loma Linda.

I've been getting that reaction from everyone over the past few days. They hear I'm accepted, they ask if I'm going to go, and when I say "probably", they all look surprised and then say, "Oh, I thought you were going to West Virginia? I guess you couldn't stand up to the peer pressure after all." (Ok, maybe they just think that part. But they do think it. Trust me).

And part of this is my fault, I know. Because over the past two years, I've said, Well, everybody wants to go to Loma Linda, but there's a DO school really near home, and it makes more financial sense, so I'd rather go there. And in this, I have now realized, I lied. I, who hate dishonesty more than anything else I can think of.

I suppose I thought it made sense. Because I didn't think I could get in--and I didn't think I could afford to go, financially, even if I did. Because mom and dad didn't want me to have to take out loans, and who can afford to pay for an out-of-state med school without loans? And I love them for that. But I don't window shop--if I can't have something, I don't even consider it. And so my damn pride and fatalism won out, and I stopped assuming I would go there, shrugged, and made a play for WV whenever anybody asked me. And in this I lied, and I am sorry.

But if I'm not going to be family practice, then I need as much exposure to variety as I can get--and WV doesn't offer that. My dad told me he thinks I should go to Loma Linda, and since he's the financial backer and he came over to that side, well, that's pretty wild. And I liked it out there. And I got in, and I'm willing to take out loans to go. And I'm not going out there to look for a husband, and I refuse to feel guilty because that's even a factor. I am quite self-sufficient, thank you very much.

And there are so many factors, and there are so many good schools. And LLUSM just happened to have a few more things going for it. Trust me, I thought about it long enough. I should know. So there's my reasoning. If you don't care, that's fine. If you do, I didn't "sell out." I just thought my life was taking a detour that it wasn't. So don't assume.

(Thia, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking about people who know much less and say much more. I should just be saying it to their faces, but I think some passive-aggressiveness might have worn off on me. *snorts in a most unladylike fashion*).

(Family, I'm not talking to you either. You know who you are.)

holmes

Post. Mine. March 5, 2010.

You newcomer types that like Sherlock Holmes might be interested in this one. I recently discovered that Sir Arthur brought Holmes back after he killed him off, and I was so darn excited.

a running haiku on spring nights

A long slow shiver
Seeking a spine to run down
Anticipation
Every scent--and sight--and sound
Run by the river
The moon lights a path for us
Illumination
Forest sighs--and stretches--stirs
Winter has left us
The night is waking up now
Celebration

night of spring songs

Full moon rising
Darkness pressing
Leaking backwards
Light surprising
Night wind questing
Cold suppressing
New things stirring
Softly guessing
Improvising
Shadows chasing
Dark trees speaking
Warmth erasing
Ever seeking
Easing inward
Full moon lighting
Night wind greeting
Shadows showing
Low clouds glowing
Kindred meeting

Heartbeats chasing

Swift feet racing

Excitement rising

Dark eyes gleaming

Joyous growing

Forests calling

Onward going

No caution knowing

Springtime falling

Lifesong singing.

Pixie dust

Acceptance...

From Loma Linda...

Yeah. That's what I thought, too. :)

C minor

I blushed today. Haven't done that in a long, long time. I was in my piano lesson with Mrs. Janzen, going over Beethoven's Sonata in C minor Op. 13, which I'm playing for recital in two months, and I was having a hard time counting the notes. I was trying to explain my frustration without actually explaining it--but today it didn't work.

In the course of the conversation, she asked me a direct question I have always dreaded, especially since I started lessons again--"How many counts is a sixteenth note?"

The silence stretched out. Her eyebrows raised and she repeated the question that any student who has had more than 6 months of piano ought to know. This time she added, "And what does 4/4 time mean in relation to that?"

I felt my face flush. I was so embarrassed and angry and ashamed, and so I almost yelled, "I don't know! I don't know how to count or what the different note values are or what the heck it means when something is written in 6/8 time! I just don't know!"

Well, there it was. The secret I'd managed to hide for almost six months. She sat back and looked at me, like she'd suddenly discovered she had on two left shoes. Not disgusted or irritated or anything, more just like she was trying to understand a perplexing dilemma that she hadn't anticipated. I started to calm down, and when she carefully reiterated her question, I managed to convince her that, yes, my lack of knowledge is indeed appallingly vast.

She shook her head, finally. "I find it hard to believe that someone who can play this," she gestured to the music scattered across the piano, "can't tell the difference between a sixteenth note in 6/8 and 4/4 time. Or what a 64th note is."

At this point, having spent an hour with her reviewing all the things I've forgotten in the 12 intervening years of piano-lessness, I can't believe it either. At least I don't feel quite as stupid as I did this morning. I think that's a lot of what life is, sometimes--running through it and hoping nobody realizes how little you really know. I should have just told her a long time ago.

Remember

"You argue that there is no choice. But love, there is always a choice. Always. They may not all be pretty, or black and white, and they are sometimes heartbreaking and they always change you. They can be instinctive, or painful, or the most difficult decision you have ever brought to bear; and it can be easy to think that fate has put you in an impossible situation where you are powerless and trapped. It may seem easy, then, to throw up your hands and say, 'I can do nothing. This is where life has thrown me and I could not change it no matter how hard I struggled.'

"And this may be true. And there will always be some circumstances beyond your control. But remember, dearest, that you are never, ever without a choice in how you live in these times, in what sort of face you turn to the world when your back is against the wall. When you have two hands and a mind and a will, there is always a way to walk that is uniquely your own, a way to take the circumstances and shape your own destiny by them.

"And sometimes, you can decide to forge your own path, even when the direction is forced upon you.

"And sometimes, this changes everything.

"Don't forget."

deja vu

"Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium."
--T.S. Eliot

This sounds familiar. Real familiar.

Murder.

She clung to the thin ledge, sweating, hands trembling and fingers grimly clenching the slender rim of rock.

There were only a few heartbeats to decide if she would trust the rock, and her own hands and her head.

She couldn't see where she was going now--climbing blind.

There was so much at stake, so much to lose.

She took a deep breath and lunged.


I guess that's my creative writing bit the for day. If there was any way I could abandon the cadavers and just go climbing for hours and hours, I would, in a heartbeat. But I can't. I don't feel like failing this test. And I can't find the palmaris brevis, and it's killing me. On that note, "cadaver" just sounds terrible. Is it a breach of ethics to refer to them as simply "dead people?" I call ours "Lady."

And while I'm on the subject of death, this weekend is our Murder Mystery dinner. I'm pretty excited. It's '20's themed, and we all have character legends to learn, and flapper outfits to put together, and food to make, and dances to practice...and at some point, somebody will die. I don't particularly want to die, but I don't think there's an option to "fight off the attacker," because...that would ruin the game? Guess I'll just have to stay in well-lit areas. :-D

Streetlamp

A passing shadow on an alley wall

Silent tread of barefoot feet

Midnight wanderer skirts the fall

Of a pool of light on a lonely street

No memory lingers to show the way

To whisper the tale of this passerby

Who left no trace but a shadow to play

Beneath the quiet seething sky

hello/goodbye

She wasn't sure if she wanted it--if she wanted him--and so she said no.

As soon as the word took shape and form in the hazy autumn afternoon, she felt a sudden movement and vertigo as the world shifted, and readjusted; and it was then that she realized for the first time in her life the power a single word has to change everything, to alter the future irrevocably.

She stared over her shoulder at the boy as he walked away, and fought the sudden pang of curiosity and regret. Yes.

*

Five miles high, listening to silence. The stars are so much closer here, and when you turn away from the world below and look up, space leaps out--there is nothing else. It makes me dizzy. I can't do it for more than a moment, or everything starts to drift away, and I can't afford to lose myself for too long.

I love this point of view. I love tracing the dark spaces between the rifts and rill of tiny lights below, scattered like bright souls from the hand of a careless goddess, and wondering what they hide. Mountains, or lakes, or desert, perhaps. They remind me about the constellations that are formed from the darkness between the stars, the ones that nobody ever sees because they don't think about them. But I watch them with interest.

There is something beguiling about those empty spaces below, with no lights, no people, no cars or engines or jarring rhythms. As always, I feel the strongest urge to drop, shoot straight into the middle of the darkness and see where I find myself when the morning splits the world open. I wonder if anyone would look up and think it was a shooting star coming to rest.

But as compelling as the unknown is, there is work to be done among the patterns of light that shimmer so far below. It is a choice to be made, every day, every night. And for now, at least, it is a choice I will make again.

And I know that as soon as I drop back down into the obscene, chaotic mess that hides behind those lights at my feet, no matter the strength of the reasons, I will wish I'd chosen differently.

Someday I will.

Oh so fluffy

I was listening to a song on the radio today that went something like, "Dum, dum dumdumdum dum, gotta get through the valleys, dum dum, before you can climb the mountains, dumdummitydumdum etc, etc." You get the picture. And I started thinking, all right, that's all well and good. I get the sentiment. But what if you like the valleys? What if the valleys are beautiful and safe, with the low mist hanging on the rivers in the morning and lines of trees dividing the fields like moon-silvered sentinels? What if the valleys are comfortable and quiet, and peaceful?

Of course, I love the mountains the most. I love standing at the top of the world with the wind whipping around me, daring me to step off, daring me to fly. I love the danger, and the challenge, and even the climb, muscles straining and breath forced into lungs that ache and burn. It's hard, but you grow in the hard times. Sometimes the mountains are tricky and other times they are dangerous, but they are always interesting.

So I started thinking, okay, I know where my own mountains and valleys are. And I like them both. So where's the fear that trickles down your spine when you read about the valley of the shadow of death? The valleys are a sanctuary. Where's the fear for me?

Ask that misbegotten question, and you'll always get an answer. Mine was, fog.

I was in the Hulsey Wellness Center's steam room the other day. I stepped in the door and was instantly enveloped in whiteness, so thick I could barely see my hand stretched out at arm's length, trying to find the bench. I sat down, and I was in there for several moments before a figure rose off the seat at the other end and walked out. I hadn't seen her, hadn't heard her, didn't know she was there at all. I couldn't see. I HATE that.

My mind correlated that with the whole mountains-and-valleys question. It doesn't matter what point I'm at, in my life. I can be on a hard trail upwards, or walking beside a valley lake, or even on the summit where the rocks kiss the sky. But if there's fog, and I can't see--that's my valley. That's my very-very-unhappy place. It's a blind stepping forward and the startling coalescing of shapes in the corner of your eyes, and ghosts that appears and then vanish before you're sure they are there. If there is fog, I am lost. At least until it clears and I can be sure of where I am.

I did have a point to this monologue. Not to make obscure hints about my fears, which are already discussed far too much. Or to wax eloquent about life's basic metaphors. No. All I was trying to say was that I think that song is unfairly prejudiced against valleys, and I like them.

Reminds me of Weird Al and the song Albuquerque, and a little Germanized rotten cabbage.

Woman

I'm flying out to Cali on Thursday for my LLUSM interviews. I'm nervous on so many levels! First and foremost being that we're going to fly through a massive, nationwide snowstorm. The rest just follows as a matter of course.

So, I woke up on Saturday morning, and sometime while I slept, my mind had made itself up. What a cessession of misery! It's usually a 30-second process. Having it stretch for weeks was wild, let me tell you. But anyway, I woke up with everything laid out transparently.

I'm accepted to WVSOM. At this point, there is nothing else to discuss. However, if I fly out to Cali and fall in love with it, and they accept me, then I will take out loans and head west for medical school. Which is what I want. Which is what I have always wanted, even though I buried it because I thought it wasn't possible.

But, maybe it is.

I also realized that pretty much every checkpoint for the last few weeks has been full of angst and waffling and irritating annoyance. And I thought, dang, what am I doing to my senior year? Where'd the joy go?

So here's my joy for the day--an awesome voicemail from an awesome friend. We played phone tag for hours, and this was just one of the messages she left.

"Woman! Woman, you are--you are killing me inside. You are absolutely killing me. Call me back, woman. Call me back."

Bec only calls me woman when she can't decide whether to be exasperated or affectionate. I imagine God calls me woman too. Maybe that's what woman actually means and that's why God gifted our gender with the name.