lessons

we're children all our lives.

not in age, milestones left to reach, or our obsessive need to eat, poo, sleep, and cry.

god, every day is a fucking learning experience.

your ego gets away from you, and you think you've learned enough from life to go through the rest of it with minimal missteps.

you trust.

you get comfortable.

and you fall back into that young naiveté.

and you make mistakes. and you become obsessed by them because you feel as if you should have known better.

you get sucked into the mistakes of others and your pride wants them to admit their wrongs.

not just to accept your own.

so you accomplish a fail.

and my god, does it seem as if failure surrounds you and the missteps multiply. and all you can hope for is that there is truth behind forgive and forget.

not just for that other person toward you.

but you toward that other person.

and most importantly, you toward yourself.

i know that at the end of the day, i am hardest on myself. i become obsessive about my own mistakes.


but i have to remember.

life was once worse than this silly recent mistake.

and they can be worse still.

so buck up kiddo.

it's not a big deal.

take a trembling step forward to forgiving yourself for falling into the trap of feeling secure.

be ever vigilant.

and go forth and do good.

november 2, 2005

this is an ironic sort of hate...
...but not an uncommon one.

where i am filled with equal parts hate and love.
each a product of each other, a conjoined monstrosity.
(if one dies, will the other?)

where is the sense in this?
i hate you
(i hate myself)
for still having love for you

and it is this presence of love
that clears the way for hate.

you broke my heart.

degraded history and friendship.

without coherent explanation or forethought

am i worth so little?

this self-induced depression
(how else can one really write so plainly?)
is a fist thrust in my throat
so painfully stretching the esophagus in unnatural
(yet, imaginable) ways.

a groping of heart strings,
threads of memory and feeling,
to be woven into something articulate and explainable
and inevitably pulled apart to be forgotten

where does this leave me?

heart broken,
tugged in the opposing directions of love and hate.
a division even king solomon would not undertake

in the end, i am left to ask:
who are you to deserve my hate (and love)?

but then, who am i to give it to you?

november 6, 2005

an intense desire to run away
manifested in midnight miles
shin splints
bursting lungs
and tears disguised as raindrops

this is a recycled enlightenment

a continental journey traveled
and permanently i stayed
haphazardly homeless
fueled on impulse
an unexpected marriage of coincidence and desire

i left heartbreak at home (but not the potential stowaway)

[speaks] a stranded thread of soul:
build walls
brace for the perfect storm
embrace the emotion starter package (version 3.1)
and weather this unfortunate attraction

this is a heart-sponsored marathon

please, won't you come sit on my wall?
break it down
cry for the photo finish
and keep this silly girl from running
soon, there will be little left to run to

and i've only just got here.

a bad dream.

it began with a push and a burn.

how and why i don't remember, but for some reason the main cook pushed me and my arm fell into that vat of boiling grease.

i don't remember the pain. i remember looking forward to the future and talking about it in the past tense. pointing to the bubbled skin that marks my arm.

now we're back to the present, a few hours later. it's winter and it's dark.

i'm walking home and about to approach the apartment building behind the restaurant. i see a tenant, in this dream, he is an old high school friend who lives on the east coast. in real life, his name is brian and his wife is expecting their first child. but in dream life, he lives on the third floor and he's sipping a beer in the dark, watching the street. and for some reason, i sit down in an artificial snowbank, man-made from a plow, and watch him.

i remember that i don't live here anymore (in real life, when did i ever?) and i'm content sitting in the snow bank. i somehow doze, watching my tenant who is watching the street, while i nod off sitting in that artificial snow bank.

and then snow. i'm being hit with snow. i wake with a jolt, not sure where i am, scared and disoriented. i look behind me, and too close behind me is a man throwing snow at me. i stumble away from his closeness, panicked, and disturbed by his smile.

i back into somehow else. his look is less disturbing, but his proximity solidifies my panic. i feel surrounded, i feel unsafe, and the scream that i want to scream is bubbling in my throat like a feeble baking soda volcano.

i walk quickly to the back door to the restaurant and scurry in. except he's followed me, the one who disturbed my fanciful sleep, and now i'm backing up slowly in the hall, scared for dear life as he creeps up to me, in time with my backward shuffle, that smile on his face.

i scream:

AJASHI!

i call for my cooks whom i've known for so long that i call them uncle in korean.

AJASHI!

my panic rises quickly as no one comes to my rescue.

AJASHI!!!

the omnipotent self who is witnessing this dream sees that the restaurant is near closing and the cooks are in the back, jackets on, shooting the shit, the ashes of their cigarettes falling into the dishwater. but no one cares, as it is unlikely that no one hears, about me and my panic.

i give up on my rescue. i am still dancing the slow backward shuffle, and he is still matching my pace. my screams and my panic do not faze him. i focus on him and scream over and over, "BACK OFF."

BACK OFF.

BACK OFF.

BACK OFF.

BACK OFF.

BACK OFF.

BACK OFF.

i am red in the face. i am crying scared tears. my heart is lead thumping in my chest. my real self imagines what my dream self wants to happen: an ajashi on each side, grabbing the maniac at the elbow, marching him down the hall, his toes dragging on the floor, and throwing him out. even in this daydream within the dream, the maniac still has that smile plastered on his face.

somehow, it must have worked. my real self returns to my dream self's present situation and it's all over. but no one cares about how scared i am, or who these men were, or what they were going to do to me. my mom laughs at me for overreacting. she makes fun of my red face, my disheveled appearance. the only person who cares is dan, who takes my mom aside and whispers,

don't you think that something was about to happen to her?

i'm consumed with tears, convulsing with anger, and sink into a pile on the floor.

it's the next day and they are there in the restaurant. but it's the smiling maniac that causes me to freeze. i whisper to dan, "dad..."

my real self pauses mid-dream. why did i call him dad? what kind of daughter am i to call another man something so intimate when my own father is decomposing quietly, cold in the ground, gone for just eight months? except my real self realizes that dan has been a rock in her life since dad passed away, and if anyone was to mistakenly be called dad in a dream, on a boat, as we are docking in petersburg (my eyes flutter open long enough to mistake the lights of port for a very bright moon), it would be dan.

"...dan, that's him, second on the left. in the white shirt and black leather jacket"

dan ambles away from me in the direction of the smiling maniac. he lifts him out of his seat, but in a way that is quiet, stern, and gentle, and tells him to pay and go.

somehow, i am at the cashier counter, looking for that damn receipt book when i smell his leather and lift my eyes above the countertop to see that freakish smile. my real self relives the dream, and i am turning in my bunk full of panic and distress.

i'm floating to the top of consciousness, emerging from the dream. i'm in between worlds now, as i hear the ferry's purser making her port announcement and watching myself look the maniac in the eye and telling him to leave.

but even after i broken through the dream surface, i lay in bed soaking in the aftershock of such deep fear, thinking to myself, a few times over

oh, that was such a bad dream. a bad, bad dream.

we're leaving petersburg. and i'm going back to sleep.

down time

on a plane to portland

a moment of peace

there is something about flying--perhaps

that idea that you have so little control in that seat, 17E.

and the fleeting calm is interrupted by a thought:

that i was so lost in my own grief and in a fury of busy this last week that it just now occured to me to be sad about what happened between me and you.

despite that moment of unadultered clarity, the tears that began to well in my sockets surprised me.

summer mileage

may 24, bird ridge: 12 miles

june 6-8, resurrection pass (north end): 38 miles

july 11-12, crow pass: 26 miles

august 9-10, caine's head: 13 miles (plus exploring)

august 16, flattop: 3 miles

august 16-17, reed lakes: 9 miles (plus exploring)

august 23, johnson's pass: 23 miles

august 30-september 1, unit 29-31 denali nat'l park: approx. 20 miles

september 13-14, lost lake: 14 miles

plus winner creek (8 miles), and an attempt at pioneer peak (6 miles)

total summer mileage thus far: 172

still want to tackle...

resurrection south: 32 miles
gull rock: 10 miles
williwaw traverse: 18 miles
wolverine: 11 miles

first sentences

don't ask me why or where this came from, but it precipitated in my mind as the first sentence of something not yet written:

"our last night together was an exercise in expanding the definition of rape."

thirty before thirty

idea taken from my beautiful friend lisa who is now attempting to finish 25 things before her 25th birthday this november. since i've already hit that milestone, i figure i should put together thirty things i want to accomplish before i turn thirty...

learn how to...
1. ski/snowboard (one will do)
2. rock climb
3. ride a motorcycle
4. ride a bike daily without fear (i have weird fears)
5. scuba dive
6. play the guitar reasonably well
7. scull in a single
8. ice climb
9. drive a manual

speak...
10. korean conversationally with my mother and know what i'm saying/hearing
11. arabic

travel to (somewhere in)...
12. africa
13. middle east
14. south america
15. the boat race on the thames to see oxford beat cambridge with my own eyes

backpack...
16. units 1-43 of denali national park
17. moab
18. john muir trail

complete...
19. a quilt
20. a marathon
21. a solo sky dive
22. a novel for nanowrimo

learn how to cook:
23. korean food as well as mom
24. indian food
25. thai food

miscellaneous:
26. shear a sheep
27. play a good hand of poker
28. see jin-joo's grave
29. go hanggliding
30. tony stepp or someone jewish