The Work: a story

Paper. Finally, clean paper. Or at least, the back of it is clean. The front is…well, if you’re reading this, you can flip it over and see. I managed to steal this from the hallway between my cell and the bathroom. I doubt anyone will miss it; there are hundreds of them, posted haphazardly all over that hallway, the building – everywhere, I wouldn’t be surprised to know.
Haphazardly. I like that word. I wonder why no one uses it. You see the word “hazard” everywhere, mostly on these obnoxious posters: “Copy is safe. Creation is hazard. Please report all instances of creation and spontaneity to the Department.”
The Department. Not the Department of Normalcy. Not the Department of Equality. Not even the Department of Copy. Just the Department. Everyone knows what they mean, anyway.
Obnoxious. There’s another good word. He taught me that word, “obnoxious.” Used it to describe the posters before I ever did. He-
 This is rubbish. Wasting paper recording every thought that runs through my head – I’m going insane, aren’t I? Well, what should they expect, putting me in a blank, empty cell with nothing to do all day but mull things over in my brain until it explodes… Out of all the ways I could die, I never considered boredom. Now there’s a thought…I apologize, reader. If there is a reader. They may burn this, you know. Like they did so much else. Maybe you’re the one tasked to burn it. Maybe this paper is crinkling and curling and blackening as you read. If so, please, if you read nothing else on this page, read this: CREATION IS LIFE. DO NOT TRUST THE DEPARTMENT. And if, by some lucky chance, this paper is not in imminent danger of becoming ash, perhaps you would be so kind as to make sure it stays that way. Hide it, if you must. Protect it, if you can. And read it, if you please. Because this is my story.

 I first met Adam out on the streets near my apartment block. He wasn’t hard to notice - a messy mop of red easily stands out among the masses of neat, black haircuts. The Department, at that time (was it only seventeen years ago?), had already begun encouraging parents to genetically tailor their babies to “desired” specifications. Even if they hadn’t, the parents would have, anyway, to “protect” their children from social ridicule. You were stared at if you were too different.
 I had been born almost perfect - straight, thin, black hair; smooth, unmarked, pale skin; average height, average weight, average build. The only things that hadn’t worked out as planned were my eyes. To my parents’ horror and the doctor’s shame, the eye color gene had failed to switch on properly, and I was born with green-grey eyes, instead of brown. The government issued my family free colored contact lenses as compensation, but by the time I was old enough to wear them, the damage had already been done. The other kids were already calling me “Green Girl,” instead of my government-issued name, Mary (parent-given names insinuated that parents had created their children, and were thus quickly outlawed early on). “ “Green Girl”…not a clever nickname, but then again, I cannot blame them. They weren’t brought up to be clever - cleverness was a sign of creation. And that was bad. It hadn’t been outlawed at the time, but it was still bad.
Adam was indeed very bad. His hair - bright red and curly - screamed of badness. All the instructors were afraid of him. He would stand in front of the equality class and, instead of reading out our assigned essays on about the wonders of equality, would illuminate the vast history of inequality and the struggle for equal rights. He brought to life the Civil War, the Holocaust, and the suffragists - things that the teachers had never taught and sometimes things that they themselves had never heard of. And he never read these from his document processor - not that our document processors held anything other than the pre-written, pre-approved essays that we were told to read aloud each week. He simply spoke out of his own head. None of us knew how to do that. None of us knew how to produce a single non-conversational sentence from our own heads without long, arduous thought, never mind entire lectures on history. We weren’t taught history at school - at least, not the kind that Adam knew. The school’s job wasn’t to teach new things - it was to instruct us in old ways. We only knew as much history as we needed to know, to reinforce our beliefs in Copy. And Adam was most definitely not Copy.
All the other students - and the teachers - would watch him with fascination and fear. Make no mistake, no one interrupted him whenever he was talking, but no one talked back, either. Teachers never spoke of him, not even to complain to higher-ups – perhaps they were afraid that this would be seen as their fault. Or perhaps, like me, some secret part of them was not repulsed like the rest, but fascinated. Maybe having non-Copy eyes made you sympathize more with other non-Copys - when one is fourteen years old, one will make odd connections.
Either way, one evening, when I saw him in the empty street outside my home intently studying stray rocks, I worked up the courage to step outside and ask, “What are you doing?”
He looked up at me, and then glanced up and down the street before whispering, “Looking for something to write with.” His voice echoed harshly in the empty street, bouncing off the poster-covered alleyways.
“To what with?” I asked, stepping closer and lowering my voice. Whatever it was he had been doing, it was definitely non-Copy.
“To write with.” He continued to pick up rocks for examination, as if I didn’t exist.
“What is ‘write’? You mean, to turn to the right with, or what?”
He finally turned his eyes on me, with a look of irritation. “Keep your voice down, will you?”
“I will, I will.” I was directly in front of him now; I bent to pick up a rock, and asked, “So what is this ‘write’?”
He looked into my eyes questioningly, guardedly. Always my eyes. They were what everyone stared at. But he was looking into them, not at them. It was something altogether new – and uncomfortable.
 Without warning, he dropped his rocks and grabbed my face with both hands. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked me, in the most intense fourteen-year-old voice I had ever heard.
“Well...yes, I suppose so.”
“Because if you tell, I’m doomed. My whole family is doomed. Perhaps the whole town will be doomed. And you’ll be doomed - they’ll lock us all up in a place where we’ll never be allowed anything to do or make or be, and all we’ll do is sit there and rot and die. You understand?”
I tried nodding, but he held my head too tightly for that. So I whispered, “Yes.”
That first evening was the beginning of my lessons in creation. He had me help him find rocks - there was a specific kind he had been looking for, one that left dark traces on anything they were rubbed against. After we had gathered a handful of these, we took them back to his house, and he introduced me to his parents - both of whom looked very non-Copy, too. They seemed surprised to see me. And they were even more surprised when he asked them if I could learn to write. They looked at each other, and then at me, then at Adam, and then back at each other. Adam’s father asked him, “Adam, may I have a talk with you about this in the other room?” They walked out silently and closed the door behind them. His mother stayed behind and talked to me. I can’t remember what exactly we talked about, but looking back, I think it was some kind of test. And I passed.
The first few months were sheer bliss - Adam taught me to write the letters I had read all my life without knowing where they came from, and words that I had never read, words like “radiant,” “imaginative,” and “leapfrog.” Beautiful words that rolled off your tongue like water, and tasted sweeter than fresh air. He taught me to string the letters into words, and words into sentences. And he taught me to form those sentences to express my thoughts and feelings, as he did so easily. He even gave me a notebook in which to write them down - a small booklet he had made from ripped-up posters and a piece of string. And soon, we were writing stories - first biographical, describing our lives, and parables, and eventually, epic adventures in which the two of us battled the demons and dragons of the school, Copy, the Department, whatever we felt like.
We found an abandoned housing facility on the quiet side of town, papered up the broken windows, and made it our hideout - our “home for stories,” he called it - filling it with stacks and stacks of torn posters, napkins, boxes, anything we could scrawl on. We even wrote on the walls. And always, always, there was a steadily growing pile of rocks that we collected to write with. Adam called them pencils, for some reason – I thought the name was silly. And one day, when we were both fifteen, I found, tacked to a part of my corner of the room, a shred of paper which read, “I love you.” I stared at it for a long, long time before taking it down and putting it into the folds of my notebook.
I never learned what that word, “love,” meant...and I didn’t want to ask. I knew, from the way it had been written, from the care with which the scrap had been ripped into a neat rectangle, from the way Adam smiled at me that day, that it was something sacred.
Our group, which had started out as just the two of us, grew into five, and then twelve. Most of them were children and teenagers, like us, but a few of them were older. Caleb, for example, was a twenty-seven-year old man with long, braided hair and a penchant for sketching. When he was seventeen, he had overheard his teachers discussing putting him in the Institution, so he ran away from home and eventually found us. We, after a heated debate, had agreed to offer him temporary asylum – a spare mattress in the corner of our hideout. When we returned the next morning, he had filled the corner – and the entire length of an adjacent wall – with a swirling, eye-defying mural. Needless to say, we decided to keep him.
Caleb was the only one who lived in the house, although any one of us would gladly have taken that position as well. We all knew that doing so would raise suspicion, so none of us said anything about it, beyond a longing glance back into the room before we left each night. We never missed a chance to be there – straight after school, we would arrive secretively in twos and threes, set our things down, and get to work. Some of us were artists, others writers, and still others were performers. We had been cautious about the amount of noise we made at first, but as time went on, we allowed ourselves more and more volume in our speech and song and laughter.
And, maybe, that’s what got us caught.
I remember it was late afternoon. I was sitting in my corner, writing some frivolous what-if stories. Well, I had always considered them frivolous, but Adam liked what-ifs. He said they gave hope. Anyway, I was writing. Adam was across the room, doing the same. Caleb was beginning yet another mural on the wall behind me; he had already finished covering the majority of the house’s other walls with sketches. Some of the other kids - Preston, May, and John – were in a huddle in the middle of the floor, working on some project together, and giggling. In another room, I could hear someone reading out loud, in clear, ringing tones. But beyond that, it was quiet.
Suddenly, Caleb stiffened. “Someone’s coming.” A quick glance out the crack in the door confirmed his words: a group of men, striding purposefully towards our haven. They were carrying things in their hands – but I didn’t wait to find out what.
“Everyone out the back door, now!”
The room became a scuffle of shouts, cries, and papers. Somewhere, I could hear Adam’s voice, yelling, “Don’t take anything with you, just go!” Loose scraps of paper and posters were fluttering about like frightened birds, disturbed by the rushing and shoving and pushing.
And then I was outside, ushering people out the back door, pushing them out, in some cases. “Go, go, go!” I counted their receding backs. Eight, nine, ten, and Adam standing beside me. That left one. “Who’s still in there?”
And suddenly, amidst the noise and the chaos, I heard the long, thin scratching sound of a pencil against plaster. Adam and I turned as one and ran to the window looking into the main room, scrabbling at the paper we had used to board the empty hole up against the wind. Caleb was inside, standing alone amongst the scattered pages in the abandoned room. He had a pencil in his hand, and was making long, sweeping curves on the wall perpendicular to the window.
“Caleb! Get out of there now!” Adam yelled harshly.
He turned to look at us briefly, his eyes sad. And then he returned to his drawing.
“Caleb! Please! We’ll find somewhere else, I promise!” I pleaded.
His voice was quiet, resigned. “I’m done running.”
We weren’t given a chance to respond – a loud gunshot cut through the silence. I heard a loud ringing in my ears as I stumbled and fell backwards, but I didn’t feel any pain. Then I turned my head and realized why. Adam lay next to me, a dark mass spreading across his chest. He touched it slowly, and his fingers came away red, as red as his hair. All I could do was stare at him, as he stared at me. His lips moved, trying to form words, but all I could hear was a slow exhalation, followed by a low, guttural sound.
And I realized he was no longer staring at me.
I couldn’t move, not for the longest time. Everything was numb, and my mind drew nothing but a blank. Time slowed. It was only instinct that caused me to jump at the touch of a hand on my shoulder. I don’t remember if that touch was friendly or not, whether it was the soft brush of commiseration, or the harsh grip of arrest. I only remember running – to somewhere, anywhere, I didn’t care.
I hadn’t run more than twelve steps when I fell to my knees, all the air knocked out of my lungs by a fist to the stomach. I was dragged to my feet, and then dragged some more back to where I had been before. I didn’t look at Adam’s body.
And then a man was in front of me, asking questions about the house, the papers, the people. I didn’t speak – just kept shaking my head, more out of numbness than defiance. The man seemed to give up after a while, and then knelt down to examine Adam’s body. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it; he cursed, kicked the body, and then stood up again. He looked at me for a reaction. I gave him none.
And then someone came up to him, asking if they should enter the house. My eyes sluggishly wandered to the hole we had ripped in the paper window. There was movement inside – Caleb, still at his work, no doubt. I could hear the insistent scratching, loud in my ears. I wondered what he was doing. Why couldn’t they hear him, too?
And then the man was asking me something again, only this time, he looked as though he cared less about the answer. I shook my head again. And then he said something to the man next to him. The man nodded.
And then I heard a wooshing sound, like the wind through an abandoned building. And then the roof of the house went up in flames.
Time suddenly returned to normal (or was it too fast), and suddenly I was tearing myself from their grip, crying, screaming, fighting, and running all at the same time trying to stop the building from burning, trying to stop the stories from burning, trying to stop Caleb from burning, burning my hands and my arms as I fruitlessly beat against the fiery walls that refused to let me in but I didn’t care, I was going to get in, I needed to save our stories, our pictures, our lives, save Caleb –
The fire had eaten up the paper in the windows; like butterflies made of flame, they fluttered around me as I walked slowly to the window frame. Inside, Caleb was still drawing, his back to me, the corner of his sleeve starting to catch fire – no longer in huge sweeps, but just filling in the details, details I could not see for the tears. His final mural was surrounded by a living, breathing frame of reds and yellows, which cast a flickering light on his work. The work…
As I stared, he finished the last line, and turned to see me. And there, framed by his work, framed by the flames, framed by the window, framed by the house, framed by my eyes…he smiled.
And then a giant piece of the ceiling caved in, and I was pulled away. I dimly recall being put in a car, driven somewhere, and being put into a cell. And I remember sitting down and not doing anything for a long time, with nothing but that final image in front me. That final work.
The picture was of Freedom.

Cyberman: a poem

Some days, I feel like a Cyberman. Like when I'm facebook-friend-culling.
Delete (you are no longer in my life anyway).
Delete (I find your posts annoying).
Delete (how on earth do I even know you?).
Delete.
Delete.
Delete.
Or when I'm on chat, choosing to ignore people.
X (no I don't want to "guess what").
X (that's the third time today you've tried to chat with me about nothing at all).
X (I'm sorry, I just don't care all that much).
X.
X.
Goes invisible.
These are the days when I wonder how on earth all these people know me, and why on earth I know all these people. And then I realize I don't, and they don't.

Nothing to See Here: a poem

Dim bars of blue and red
Dance across my ceiling
Play across the sheer curtains
Gyrate on the walls
And strobe like a disco through my windows.

Rhythmic, pulsating, like the beating of a heart.

The lights dance quietly to the hum of engines, and the chatter of neighbors.

Some of them are walking towards them,
But are stopped by the neon yellow coats and ruby hats.
Most of them wander aimlessly on the sidewalks, making small talk.
The teens have gathered in little groups on the lawns. They're laughing.
Some of the adults are smiling, too.
Steam rises from the hot pavement. The air is humid.
The dancing reds and blues make it a block party.

One girl, maybe seven or eight, turns to her mother.
"It smells like camp! It's like camp!"
She starts jumping up and down, pounding the sidewalk with her little feet.
"Camp! Camp! Camp! Camp!"
The lights dance in rhythm to her chants, exciting her like a strobe would an epileptic.

The lights skips across the neighbor's roof. They flicker in the attic window. Smoke wreathes around the chimney in a seductive scarf dance. It promenades down the shingles.
This light is orange.

Things end. And things begin.

So Tanglewood is over.

Somehow, after six weeks of rushing from class to class, my life has plunged back into...what.

I'm not sure.

Life has gotten back to its usual rise and fall of action and inaction, emotion and nonemotion, music and silence and noise. I've missed it. And some parts...some parts of it I really really don't miss.

But hey, life goes on. My life is moving on, with a greater appreciation for classical music (blasting Tchaikovsky 4 over every speaker in the room? YES.), and there are new emotional troubles and joys to get over and get into.

I miss everyone, though. I miss my life back there. I miss the me back there. The me that was freer with music, the me that was freer with expression, the me that was unafraid.

Here there are many things to fear.

Like college apps, for instance.

A denouement

Look at me. I can't wallow in anguish, joy, or any other deep feeling without forming it into an applicable situation for a story character. My world is crashing down on me, and I'm wondering how to make a bestseller out of it.

How do I feel now? Surprisingly, not that bad. A sense of relief, now that it's over. Resolve, now that I know what to do. Renewal, making a fresh start. Regret? Perhaps.

There's a strange euphoria to being free. Light as a bird, light as a feather, light-headed? I went around the house this morning singing the Olympics theme at the top of my lungs, and then "They're Coming to Take Me Away." Triumph, and still going mad.

There's an odd peace in having a plan. I know to not trust myself as much, and examine myself more thoroughly. I know the world better now - nothing is innocent. I've dealt with a riptide, and thus know the ocean. It's big, blue, beautiful, and dangerous.

There's a funny excitement to starting over. The pleasure of seeing a chalky slate wiped clean, or waking up in the morning, or seeing the rain wash off the dust and dirt of the past week.

And there's an explicable twinge when I remember what had happened, that necessitated all this. The journey we've taken. The journey I now take. The journey that cannot be taken again.

Confusion

So after a few days of beautiful clarity (when an argument was won, you got an award for it and moved up to the next round), I've returned to a life of confusion again.

Two Prayers

To Our King, who lovest His subjects as His children,
May your name be praised above all names, glorified above all the unworthy idols in my life.
May Your mighty works never be forgotten or diminished.
May Your words remain forever in the most hallowed places of my heart.
May Your love be the defining element of my character.
May Your holiness be the one source of reverence and fear, the one thing that brings me to my knees.
May Your grace be my joy and my song.
And may You be the center, aim, and love of my life.

God, give me a heart of compassion and sacrifice. Teach me to desire the good of those I love over my own good. Let me endure pain, knowing that through it, I benefit those I love dearly, hence making such pain no pain at all, but joy. Teach me not to be selfish in feeling, but generous in acts, not self-serving in thought, but loving in deeds. And may my mind mold itself to my actions, that I may glorify and serve You in both.

Amen.

Innocents

We were such innocents. The world, for us, held nothing but schoolwork, play, and the occasional spat with mom or dad.
And then the changes came. We no longer trusted, no longer believed, and no longer felt truly safe.
We had begun to ask, "Why?"
Schoolwork was either evaluated in the light of our future hoped-for careers, or carelessly dumped. Playtime became full of duplicitous motives - and play for the sake of play abandoned as childish. Every argument became a life-or-death battle for truth, justice, and that little thing called personal pride. We entered into the politics of our people, the detective work of our own design, everything analyzed for some hidden motive.
We second-guessed one another, third-guessed, fourth-guessed ourselves into breakups and divorces, battles and wars.
Idealism crashed and raged against the cliffs of reality, and broke upon the shores of various non-realities and secondary half-realities. And although emotion, everyone claimed, had been left on the roadside, replaced by logic, logic was in fact out to lunch, and emotion manned the counter against its return. No one really noticed the difference, anyway.
And no one remembered what a soul looked like, because no one saw anyone else's, and most doubted that they had even existed in the first place.

What happens in the overflow room...

...doesn't necessarily stay in the overflow room.

Some descriptions I wrote in moments of inspiration (or boredom)

Friday 03/04/11. FEE. The long, arduous talk before debate breaks.



Someone's already fallen asleep. Aaron's managing to multitask - text, look like he doesn't care, and provide running commentary on how the speaker has just offended all the Armenians and Catholics in the room.

There's a game of cards being played by the young TPers and a timer, going on in very loud whispers, which often gain the disapproving glares of one of the homeschool moms.

Three of the "cool," disinterested debaters are, from the way that they are staring at Parry's laptop, watching a video of some kind. Benjamin with-the-long-last-name-that-sounds-like-Casablanca is on his laptop as well.

One guy, stretched out in the middle of the room like Cleopatra, only significantly less dignified, is doodling dragons.

Josh is standing, spastically wiggling the foot that's asleep - it would be discreet, if I wasn't right next to his foot.

Almost everyone has earbuds on, or is playing around with some handheld device, or both.

Several studious girls are...not paying attention to the lecture. They're studying.

One community judge is handing out brochures for Nyack College.

And I'm sitting here, writing scathing descriptions of them all. Obviously, no one's interested.



And here's a not-so-scathing description I wrote just before the final LD Round. Saturday. 03/05/11.

The excitement in the air is palpable.

Aaron, negative, sits at a table far too long for him, frowning and fiddling with his pen as he goes over his papers, which cover a meager third of the space. His eyes dart about the audience every few minutes.

Andrew, affirmative, has, in contrast, a thick white folder decorated liberally with neon sticky notes, a book (also with sticky notes), three waterbottles, and his case papers strewn across the entire table. He sits leaning back, his fingers steepled and his eyes staring forward into nowhere.

Now they are both standing in the middle, slightly closer to Aaron's table than Andrew's, discussing with animated faces, and hands in pockets. Andrew, with his mouth in a perpetual easygoing smile, nods energetically every few sentences, in concurrence with his striped dress shirt and hot pink tie - which is, in my opinion, a rather deplorable fashion decision.

Aaron doesn't smile. Despite the vibrant discussion, his eyes hold an intensity and worry not normal of a casual conversation. Except for his dress shirt, which is storm-cloud color, he is dressed entirely in black. The only bright point in his outfit is his collar-stay.

They're sitting again, now, Andrew in his Sherlock-style pose, and Aaron in nearly the same position, but with folded hands and closed eyes.

The judges have now entered the room, filing in behind the long, white table, into the row of identical dark wood chairs.

Behind them sit the eager and expectant audience, most of them debaters themselves, and many of them with notepads at the ready.

Everyone is now sitting, expecting, waiting. Soon they will be writing down, quoting, and hanging on to the every word of these two. And why?


Because we're debaters, that's why. And while we never come to a final conclusion, we always make getting there seem very interesting.

Loss: a poem

I had a balloon,
a lovely balloon, big and blue and buoyant, but
I loosened my grip
and felt the string start to slip, slipping, slipped
Through my fingers
away to the big, blue sky as it hastened to rise, to soar, to ride the current
Flying away from me.

Several poems

Hello, y'all

I have to submit a one-sentence poem for my AP Literature class, for a contest. I would like to know, which one of these one-sentence poems do you prefer. Your opinions, votes, and constructive criticism please.

The hedgehog is safe
but he cannot hug,
While the rabbit loves freely,
and watches her children die
and die
and die.

So much for depressing poem number one.
Here is semi-depressing poem number two.

I gamble my heart at a casino called love,
where the rich bring their diamonds,
the strong bring their clubs,
and the spades dig the graves of those fools, much like me, who had only their hearts;

outside, the abstainers call us all enslaved,
and yet I have no diamonds,
and I have no clubs,
but I hold to the hope that I will find a love, before spade comes to bury my bankrupt old soul.

Last one.

Eyes ablaze,
the revolutionary youth and life and spirit march to meet the status quo in glorious battle;
Eyes of glaze,
they're dead.

So yes, most of these are depressing. Don't ask. I just came up with them on the spot. They reflect nothing of my character or current mood...I think. So your comments please. Thanks!

A reflection on Valentine's Day

For all those who saw the video in my last blog post...that's not really how I feel about Valentine's Day. I should certainly hope it's not.

A lot of strange and wonderful things have happened lately, some of which may have something to do with Valentine's Day.

And no, people, I have not fallen in love. Sorry to disappoint you.

This past weekend, I was at a high school retreat with some of my very good friends, and some friends that I am only just getting to know.
The retreat itself was a very different experience from the norm. Rather than have a very emotional speaker, who would get everyone in tears, and then live on an emotional high for a week, after which we would all drop into the depths of depression...rather than that, the speaker and the messages in general were a much quieter affair. The entire atmosphere was one of peace, and respect, and reverence. It was a lot less about feelings, and a lot more about God.

This, I feel, is how any relationship, romantic or otherwise, ought to be. A relationship is not made of feelings. It does not subsist solely on that fluttery feeling in your chest, the heady sense of well-being, or even the joyous excitement. All these are only symptoms, not source. In fact, in many cases, a relationship must subsist on sheer will power, and it flourishes in the very absence of its feelings. Humans, dependent on emotion as we are, often let our feelings get in the way of a truly fulfilling relationship.

Also at retreat, I learned a great deal about my friends. I saw some of them in a new light, in a more vulnerable state. I see them flawed, and broken, and not the put-together, everything-under-control person they normally are. And somehow, my love for them is increased.

Some people, when they see that someone is not as perfect as they once thought, would abandon him or her, and find someone else to attach themselves to. After all, it is only logical to connect yourself with someone who is stronger. However, the love of the Father defies logic. And the love of the Father dwells in the hearts of His children. Thus, we too can defy the logic.

Another thing that struck me was my own inability to help those who are hurting. Those of you who know me will know that I have led a charmed (I guess I should say "blessed") life. I have not had very major crises in my life, and if I have, I am probably refusing to acknowledge them. Thus, when I see other people hurting, I want so much to help and comfort, and yet have trouble finding the words to do so. I spent a good ten minutes staring out a window, praying about this.

And I have realized, not without some pain, that I am unable to love people as they should be loved. I am unable to speak their love language so that they can understand completely, and I am incapable of showing them the love that they deserve from me. Only Christ can truly commiserate, in the truest sense of the word, (look it up in a Latin roots dictionary), with people. I am helpless to sympathize or empathize. Only by letting Christ love through me, will I be able to show the love my friends and family deserve.

Ultimately, we, as fallen humans, are incapable of showing complete and perfect love for another, and thus, we should not expect perfect love from another human being, either. We are terrible communicators, easily distracted, and very, very selfish. Human love will always be marred with imperfection, never mind what the poets say. However, love, imperfect or not, is still love - hence, it is a reflection of God's nature. Our love is God's love, reflected through a broken mirror.

And one day, that mirror will be repaired.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day. The day where people all over the world celebrate romantic love - and, if they can't celebrate that, the stoning of nauseatingly happy couples.

Annual Valentine's Day Stoning Of Happy Couple Held

I have more to say, but I am currently on urgent business (meaning a voice lesson), so I must be off. I'll post again sometime later today. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Love

Love is not...
a fancy birthday cake from Carlo's.
Love is...
your mom waiting in line for half an hour to buy you a cake from Carlo's, and then keeping the whole thing a secret so she can surprise you with it.

Love is not...
reading Jurassic Park together.
Love is...
reading Jurassic Park with your dad, and then discussing how to fix their security system flaws.

Love is not...
a secret handshake.
Love is...
You and your sister designing a secret handshake together, to be performed every evening before bed.

Love is not...
a hug.
Love is...
your brother insisting on giving you a hug at least once a day.

Love is not...
sharing your friend's fascination with Doctor Who.
Love is...
discussing and sharing Biblical applications of Doctor Who with your friend.

Love is not...
109 facebook notifications telling you "happy birthday."
Love is...
1 facebook notification telling you that your friend is praying for you.

Love is not...
a church building.
Love is...
the people of the church.

Love is not...
being in the same debate club together.
Love is...
having detailed discussions, both in and out of club, concerning both club-related and non-club-related tangents.

Love is not...
a story you wrote with a friend.
Love is...
your friend talking with you on voice chat for seven hours straight, as you write.

Love is not...
the adult who helps you with youth group.
Love is...
the adult who goes out of her way to help you and mentor you as you start the youth group.

Love is not...
complaining about the problems of Christianity with your friend.
Love is...
carefully dissecting and going through each problem with your friend, and then trying to apply to them to life.

Love is not...
the person who "follows" you on deviantart.
Love is...
the person who asks you why you stopped drawing, and encourages you to continue.

Love is not...
debating Protestantism vs. Orthodoxy.
Love is...
debating Protestantism vs. Orthodoxy, and then praying for one another afterward.

Love is not...
hanging out during speech and debate tournaments.
Love is...
watching each others' speeches and debate rounds, and giving one another detailed feedback and encouragement.

Love is not...
going skiing with your friends.
Love is...
your friend escorting you back to the lodge when you twist your knee, and then staying there to keep you company for the rest of the day.


Love is not...
a distant deity.
Love is...
a man on a cross, saying, "It is finished."

Thank you, Mom, Dad, Jiajia, PJ, Michael, Grace, Markian, Josh and Aaron, my church, Mrs. Sandy, Priscilla, Joel, Brandon, Chad, Ryan, and God. 16 people, or groups of people, that have made my 16th year of life the adventure that it has been.

Seeing Stars

All the people in the universe. All of them, each with his own soul and personality, loves and hates, hurts and joys. Six billion points of light, six billion unique stars, each radiating, to some degree or other, the beauty and majesty of his Creator. Six billion people, all worth knowing, all worth loving. When did we lose the wonder of it all?

I made a new friend recently. And it's funny, but the first time I met her (a month ago), I was convinced that we would never be very close - she seemed very different from me, with a completely different life, different background, different school, different sorrows, different culture, different everything.

The ironic thing is...we are now close friends, and are constantly discovering more things that we have in common every day.

And I've realized something that I'm pretty sure is true: It is possible to connect with anyone, anyone in the universe. For when we truly see people as they are, we realize that they are us, and we are them, no matter how different we may be.

Understanding someone is mysterious and wondrous. And it is so rare, so very rare. If only we could see with eyes unclouded, if only we could hear with attention, if only we could speak with thought, if only we could act with compassion.
O God, give us eyes that see beyond the face, ears that hear beyond the words, and hearts that reach beyond, into the soul.

The Triangle Lego: a story

There once was a lego piece that was a triangle, instead of a square.

She knew that she had intentionally been made a triangle for some purpose, but no one had told her what. And she had never seen any other triangles around the brick box.

And every day, the kids would come and play with the legos. And every day, she would watch all the square and rectangular pieces get put together, to make beautiful houses and ships, models and skyscrapers. And all those special pieces, the ones that created slopes or curves, would be put on top of them to make them even more beautiful. But she...she would never fit - she couldn't be put next to another piece without creating an ugly gap.

Every once in a while, some kid would pick her up and try to fit her in. But she never did, not quite - no matter how hard the kid shoved, and how hard she tried to help, no other piece could sit comfortably next to her. Sometimes they would fit her on the top of a tower or a boat, and for a few moments, she thought she finally belonged. But it was always on the top. All the other pieces were nestled closely together, enjoying each others' company. She, because of the way she had been made, never could.

Gradually, she began wondering if she hadn't been placed in the wrong set. Maybe she was in the wrong box. Or maybe she had just been made wrong - a faulty piece.

Eventually, she stopped trying to fit in. She sat in the box, avoided the hands of the kids reaching in for pieces. She stopped trying to grow an extra corner and become a square - she knew she never would be. Instead, she amused herself with other activities - creating her own ideas for projects made of squares, and building huge skyscrapers in her mind. They were beautiful skyscrapers.

And sometimes, at night, when none of the kids were around, she would tell the squares of her ideas. And they were willing to follow them, at times. Every night, they would make real the skyscrapers of her dreams, and she regarded them with pride as her projects, her ideas. But she was never a part of those skyscrapers. She could only direct them.

And she wanted so badly to be part of one herself.

It was hard, not to consider herself a failure, a factory mistake. But every time she looked at the box she had come from, she saw a picture of her, right along with the pictures of all the other pieces. And so she knew that she was not a mistake. She had been made this way for a purpose. She was intentional. She just had to find out what her purpose was.

Her picture, along with the symbol "x2." That had always puzzled her. She had searched and searched for the other triangle, and had never found it. But she knew that there was one. Someone just like her. Someone she could click with. And somehow, she knew that they would eventually meet. And she looked forward to that meeting, with all her heart.

Musings on Friendship

There is a line in the musical Les Miserables: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” I never really understood that line until recently.
I have had very many people in my life, and a great deal of friends. Most of them are the results of shared interests or activities, like singing (or shared tribulations or trials, like Sunday school class). I speak to them only about that one shared activity, and rarely delve into other matters. After the class ends, when the show is over, once we lose interest in that particular TV show…the relationship slowly dies. Most of my friendships have been like that. Short-term, happy friendships, that do not hurt too badly when severed - I can always find another.
But then there are those few –so very few, but one never minds the number. Like W, and sometimes D, and especially M. People with whom you have formed a special bond that goes beyond shared interests and shared time.
I hardly ever see or speak with W anymore, but when we do, it is as old friends do – about anything and everything. Somehow the time lapse between conversations doesn’t seem to make a difference. We disagree on quite a few subjects, but we have an understanding between us – we can agree to disagree, as long as we can agree to understand one another.
D cares about me too much to allow me to disagree with him unchallenged. Although we never see one another in person any longer, he and I share both a passion for music and a passion for truth – it is not simply a shared interest, but a character trait. My relationship with D exists on a deeper level than with W, because we can relate to one another on a spiritual plane – we share certain beliefs, and there are some that he has that I do not share, and vice versa. And because this is important to the both of us, we spend much of our time together debating our differing beliefs. But we do not see each other as enemies – rather, we are closer because of our disagreements. Each of us wants to convince the other not for bragging rights or because of pride, but because we care about each other too deeply to let one of us fall behind in our searching for truth.
A side note: D is often the one who is leading me forward, and I am usually the one falling behind. Thus, our relationship is uneven – he is the older brother, and I the younger sister. But both of us know that in God’s eyes we are equals, and so both of us will pray for one another, offer spiritual encouragement, and ask for prayer when we need it, without embarrassment.
I will mention P briefly, although he is not one of my closest friends, because he in some ways is similar to D. P and I share a common interest in writing, which is how we came to know one another, through co-writing stories. Doing so forces you, in a way, to share part of your soul with someone – by revealing your characters to him, you reveal part your own character. And this mutual knowledge of one another, I believe, may lead to what people call a “close” friendship.
Which leads me to M. M must be put in a completely different category than all the rest, and he is one of the reasons why I believe that mutual knowledge may be a key component to a close friendship. Somewhere early on in our relationship, we made a pact never to hide anything from one another – I’m not sure if it was a solid pact, or simply an unspoken understanding between the two of us. I nearly broke the pact once, but to my knowledge, following it has never led either of us to any shame or hurt. In fact, knowing the faults and hurts of one another has only made us more able to sympathize with one another – in a sense, I love him more because of how broken he is.
I’m not sure how that works, but it works nonetheless. We know and feel each other’s pain and joys, likes and dislikes, loves and hates. I often know what he is going to say before he says it. But never do I grow bored of talking to him, even when I do know. In fact, knowing him well only makes me want to know even more. The more we converse, the more we hunger for conversation.
It’s like a drug, come to think of it.
(M and I have both been told that such a relationship is too close for a boy and a girl who are not a couple. However, at a time where romantic relationships are taken so casually, that is hardly a major feat.)
Never have I known someone so closely, or shared with someone so openly. And part of that is because when we are with each other, we know we are not being judged. I accept him the way he is, the beautiful and the broken both, and know that he is doing the same. This knowledge that the person at the other end of the conversation is not judging you, but simply accepting and loving you is immensely freeing.
It is false that we accept each other because we are very similar. True, M and I have our similarities, but we are also very different on many levels. M has gone through much more, and has much more experience than I have – compared to him, my life is extremely sheltered. I have certain skills and interests that he does not share, and he has his own skills and interests of a completely different nature that I lack entirely. And it puzzles me, why this does not drive us apart. We do not try to hide our diverse interests from one another when we speak – in fact, we are completely open with one another concerning our diverging interests and pasts. Our differences do not cause us to judge one another, either.
You are free to be yourself, as broken and messed up as you are, and yet simply being with this person who is not judging you makes you want to be something better than just yourself. You want to make yourself better and more whole, for his sake and for yours, because you know that he sees the best in you, and wants the best for you. It feels rather ridiculous to say that being with someone makes you want to be a better person, but it is true.
And that is another aspect of love that is interesting (notice how I went from talking about close friendships to talking of love, for truly, where lies the difference?). Knowing that someone loves you causes you to love yourself a little more as well – not in a selfish sense, but in a self-appreciative sense. M once told me I was beautiful, to which I responded with various evasions and awkward sentences. After that conversation, my face was still the same. No physical aspect of me had changed. But I began to see myself as beautiful – not as a hopeless mess, but as something worth polishing up a bit and smiling for the camera. Knowing that someone thinks you worthy of love, and says so, makes you feel lovely, for lack of a better word.
I have a memory of when I was twelve or thirteen years old. I and my family had been staying in Taiwan for two weeks, with some friends who lived in a narrow building with four floors and an open area on the roof that served as a place to dry laundry, enjoy the rare cool breeze, or just chill. I went out there early one morning, just as the sun started to come up, to have some prayer and alone time with God. Back at home in the U.S., my youth group leader had told us that each of us needed to find an accountability partner, someone with whom we could share everything, someone who would help us and whom we could help in our walks with God. And I remember asking God – many times, in different ways, for at least fifteen minutes – to find me such a person. Up ‘til then, I had never had a very close friend, and at that point, after two weeks in a country that spoke a completely different language than the one I was used to, I was lonely. And I remember, after about half an hour of sitting out there in the cold (yes, it is cold in Taiwan sometimes), waiting for God knows what, this tiny bird came and sat out on one of the laundry lines.
To this day I have never discovered the species of the bird, but I like to think it was a sparrow. Because when I saw it, I recalled: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.” And I felt a sense or reassurance at that moment (corny, I know, but it’s true).
And I realized just now, as I was writing, that my prayer from so long ago was answered, in more ways than one.

Pass It On: a poem

I used to look in the mirror, and see glaring faults.
A bump, a mark. A lack of symmetry and things out of place.

After you spoke two words, my reflection changed.

I look in the mirror, and see a brilliant smile.
A glow, a spark. A charming unevenness, and lopsided grace.

I used to look in the mirror, and criticize my reflection.
"What happened to you?" Frown, fuss.

After you spoke two words, my tongue switched gears.

I look in the mirror, and simply grin.
"Lookin' good there." Strike a pose.

I used to look in the mirror. I still do. But now all I see are the two words you spoke: "Hey, beautiful."

Pass it on.

I Could Have Danced All Night...

What I wrote last night:

It's 3 in the morning.
I should go to bed.
But I can't sleep. I am exhausted, but I cannot sleep.
I'm far too happy to sleep - I feel as though my heart might explode, my smile might split my face in two, my spirit go soaring into the skies and never come back.
I danced tonight. I have blisters on my heels and aching in my legs.
But I have music on my mind.

What I wrote this morning:
Last night my dreams were filled with half-imagined, half-remembered dances and music. I wandered in and out of dream and memory, making no distinction between the two, and fully enjoying both. And then I woke up this morning, with blistering ankles and aching feet, and the reality of it all hit me. And yet, the true events were no worse than the dreamed ones.
And I can still remember vividly all the best (and worst) moments of the evening; all of which are too many and too precious to write into a mere list. It is the kind of thing that can only be captured in the best poetry or music, the sufficient skills for either of which I have none.

Is this what the perfect evening feels like?