Bed time story

I am driving home following the river on 99E its one in the morning its dark and I've only seen one other car my destination is clothe less in my bed but there are several worlds to move through before I reach it yet I've left the woods as lights of Canby sway in time steady with all things of the information age though for all their inanimate nature they still fall short lightbulbs someday die and the little hairs inside the glass bulb sway around without a beat at all but now the 7-11 shines like a beacon like a lighthouse like a reminder to turn left and so I do a girl sitting outside looks up takes a drag off her virginia slim she knows she remembers but the visions gone again my car will forever slide along I think I forget all the money it takes to move it places movement isn't science it is economics until I roll up the hill past the herb farm and my old summer job everyone always wanted the dill in great big bushels of yellow flowers too beautiful to smell like pickles I would say no laughs and I laugh now at the absurdity of things even though I'm so wrapped up in the lives of my friends do they even know because when do I admit it in the end its selfish wheres my portion of blame wheres my honesty bravery I could of lost it here under the hazelnut trees along with that journal I wrote in for two years about them him I which now is just mulch how environmentally friendly of me but don't tell my dad he will think I'm swinging far too left when in truth I'm just swinging in the spirit of reminiscing and childhood remember back when you could ask questions and the answers weren't always masquerading worries but the stars aren't worried look up there in the same place you left them three years ago look back down ever since I was sixteen I've driven this road at night and believed this part would last forever this part with the hazelnut orchard and pavement and stars but it always ends by the time I reach Lone Elder Store "little tijuana" we named it that for the way they keep their cigars on the outside of register within the subtle reach of any tall third grader and then I am pulling into our long driveway where I learned to drive stick and love and leave I guess its not that much of a stretch I turn the keys and grab my coat out of the passenger seat walking around to the back door the light clicks on but sight stretches only to where the ivy starts and then continually beats itself against the wall of dark that is the little valley and creek where anything everything is hiding all nature on the cusp of horrific glory and simple authority but just in time I'm through the door through the kitchen through the hallway to my room and my bed smells like nothing except clean what a comfort I'm tired of everything having to smell I don't care about lemon fresh and ocean breeze and then

the silence hangs

until the rain starts again pushy and haphazard not comforting at all.

A Toast to the Gods

Here's to

conversations in the middle of the night

stamped obsolete by more rational minds

but kept in secret

pockets and boxes only to be opened, coaxed out into the

dark car interior,

the blue light from the stereo casting shadows

across the words as they sit in the air between our mouths

the Shadows playing with the Light

on our faces

and we wince and smile because they will only play for so much longer,

until either sleep or dawn will call them their own.

and once Shadow and Light are summoned from

their child hood haunts in the curve of my lip

and their hide-and-seek games in the space between your eye,

and your nose,

we will return our thoughts to our pockets until 2 am comes again.

because daylight has no room for

years and the quiet keeping emotion carried therein.

oh the little lives and little deaths of those.

listening: Iron&Wine - Judgement.

Beyonce Knowles probably changes her own flat tires

I got a call from Switzerland this morning.

I was outside looking at my car, which 24 hours ago had been a normal piece of driving equipment, but by that point a flat tire on the passenger side had led me to self-medicate the situation. So I picked up the proverbial and bejewelled title of Independent Woman and changed the flat myself.

I was rather proud of this acheivment, seeing that it was four years since the last time I changed a tire (and that time really just consisted of my dad telling me which wrench to hand him as he changed it for me.) However something was obviously wrong.

The tire stuck out about two inches from the edge of the wheel well, I couldnt screw the little screw things (I'm not the most technical mechanic..) on right, and well I was just nervous.

I had to wave the white flag.

When Brian Field came home after my phone call he laughed. "Lyndsay, honey, it's just on backwards." Blast. All the efforts of Alice Paul, Oprah Winfrey, and Joan of Arc wasted on a little failed geometry and engineering.

Then I really did mean to change it myself but at that point my sister ran out of the house holding the home phone. It may have well been another four years since I've had an actual conversation on that thing, so I was a little perplexed, bemused, intrigued.

The voice on the other end started laughing, finally managing a lovely and slightly accented "Lynnnn!"

Vanja Gudalo, the true incarnation of the Independent Woman. I'm sick and sound like a 13 year old boy on a date, so who knows if she really recognizes my voice at first. It has been over nine months since I've last heard her speak! Nine months since home-made Croatian treats, girl talks in my car, pronunciation corrections, (remember wagina at the Montage?) and the excitement only a Swiss can create over American high school. We start to talk, and my mind is reeling over the fact that she is calling me from thousands of miles away. She is so removed from Canby, Oregon, that Google maps can't even calculate the miles between here and Switzerland. (Don't judge me, I did try.)

Does Switzerland really exist, then? Does anything outside of America? Probably not, given my small range of experience. Except for Jamaica, Canada and Mexico, the three places I have traveled internationally. I have touched their dirt, eaten their food, purchased their own cheap keychains from trashy tourist hot-spots. Vanja, however, has been here; where I am sitting right now. She has touched my dirt and eaten my food. Our conversation is like a shaded window. She can see all of me but all I can do is dream about what she sees and feels and tastes as she sits by the window in her room and shares about her boyfriend and school and European summer plans.

Something in this distance merits awe. My dad says, "Well shoot! All the way from Switzerland! Tell the gal we miss her." and proceeds to fix my tire. I don't even have to pass wrenches.

What is it? I want to pinpoint the source of the magic in this distance. The magic isn't me, nor is it Vanja (Though she comes as close to magic as any person I know, V and her Swiss morals and sayings.) It is something between us and around us and could at any point in time connect any person on this earth. And it is all relative to each of those persons.

Mmmm distance.

Well somewhere in the time-distance of next summer and the summer after that her and I will exchange the miles for minutes and be in the presence of each other's voices again. Without a phone acting as middle-man between us. I have some moneys put away deep in my pocket, and you don't have to be too much of an Independent Woman to track down plane ticket prices from PDX to Switzerland. You see, I really miss her and I'm in dire need of experiences.

I'm tired of shaded windows.

Some love from Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

circa 1940. DT, in reference to his father, who was going blind. He only rhymes with two words in the whole thing: night and day. Such powerful simplicity.

But here is a promise: over spring break I am going to read Cold Mountain, (Madi, be proud!)and finish Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and The Cost of Discipleship. Que Chido!

God exists during Finals Week, too.

Yesterday I met a woman named Ruth. I learned a lot of things about her during our conversation under the bridge as cars carved out their own little pathways home. She kept moving her hands as she told me about montana and vendor wars and her daughter's college scholarship. She is writing about these things too, or at least in the midst of doing so. She wants to be a writer; I told her she already is one: "You have a story and you can't help but share it, can't help but write it down."

"And I have empathy," She said, "Do you know the difference between sympathy and empathy?"

" I don't know, tell me."

"Sympathy... sympathy is feeling sorry for somebody. Feeling pity. It is a very distant emotion.... it sets you apart from whoever is struggling... whoever is having a hard time. Empathy, that's different. My roommate has no empathy, he's a narcissist, ha. But when you have empathy you enter into another's suffering - you bring yourself back down (or up) to their level. you know?"

"yeah, I understand. I think your right, Ruth."

"I am... Did I tell you I've been to Montana? ...."

At the close of our conversation she handed me something from her white plastic bag. "For the writer," she said. A small wooden journal with a cross etched on the cover, the name Jesus written in cheesy cursive on the outside. The pages were blank.

"I got it as a gift from my friend when I broke my back last year. Take it."

"No, no thank you I can't take this journal from you." I stuttered the words.

"Yes you will because I'm a Native American! and we believe in giving - you gave to me now I'm giving to you. You have to take it."

I took it and set it down on the seat of my car as I drove away. In the rearview I saw her heading for Mo's. She was going to buy beer with the five dollars I had given her for the newspaper, she had already told me so. Oh well, that is what happens. People don't change on the basis of one conversation. At least not Real Change. A friendship, thats where the meaningful part of things kicks in.

And you know what? Beer isn't the worst thing to spend five dollars on, anyways.

The most unexpected people give you Jesus. It always happens this way.

On rainy days..

We think of the sun, sometimes.

If one were to ride a light beam, where would it take you?

All is not Lost

Energy is relative.

It takes energy to move my fingers across this keyboard. It would take energy if I were to get up and throw this laptop across the room. It would take a considerable more amount of energy to locate my professor in order to tell him that I simply could not complete that essay, my computer had unfortunately crashed in a bout with gravity. Ah the kinetic dragon can be a nasty one.

But I digress.

I missed a question on my reading quiz for Chem 1110. Chapter 7a. I said energy is released in the breaking of a chemical bond. But no way girl! the correct answer was B: energy is lost. It always takes energy to break a chemical bond. At least thats what it said in the corrective notes. And I totally agree. Though here is the thing - Prof is only asking the question from one side of the story. He isn't being fair to the recipients of the break up's energy rolling around out there in the big, big world.

Im still losing chemical energy right now as my hand beats across these keys. My heart is beating in my chest (I've always hated the word pumping in reference to heart pulsations.) and my stomach is breaking down that lovely cashew chicken stir fry from Gwinn. I'm losing it all - slowly.

But around me things are gaining. I move my glass from the floor to the bedpost and my loss is kept as potential energy in the very being of the cup and its distance from the floor. My body is releasing heat (While I myself stay at homeostasis, nice and comfy) down down into the floor. Maybe first floor Emmerson is somehow benefiting from my very being. Yes, that would be nice - I would love to be such the philanthropist that even my heat benefits those around me.

That is a joke.

Anyways. Sure, Mr. Professor, energy is "lost" in the breaking of a bond. Yet the term fits to loosely. A size nine show on a size six foot. It's not lost because whatever is around that microscopic relationship at the time will absorb said energy. It's all give and take. It's beautiful. When my heat leaves my body, I lose it. But my bed that I sit on, its gaining energy. Thermal energy. So really, the inverse of the situation proves my answer right. Yeah energy is lost in the break-up. But there is also energy gained.

(I know, I know. Anti-climactic ending. I've just been arguing the semantics of a test question this whole time. Maybe the next post will be more juicy and personal, we'll see.)

Anyways speaking of LOST, it's that time of night again. We're almost done with season 1, and I just can't get over Sayid and Shannon's relationship. I mean c'mon, really?

1 in 25 people are psychopaths

There have been several things I have been meaning to say lately.

Every time one idea seeps in, ready for posting (on this blog adored by hundreds, right?) another starts making its way through. It's a passive aggressive system, forced by gravity.

Like water in a drain.

This is the picture in my mind: Thousands of eggs, dropping from the sky. White, glossy, and farm fresh from Trader Joe's. Whatever they chance to break on they seep into, expending the energies of their fall into the ground - all our now and future thoughts hidden inside their cognitive yolks. They fall on the grass, on the pavement, in the trees - and if your lucky - onto your own head. Thats when you get to keep the thought all to yourself.

We're all just living under falling eggs. We're all just walking on eggshells.

Does that put the hens in the sky?

"No, honey. Clouds aren't a combination of condensed moisture and water vapor in a high energy state, they're a home for chickens."

The metaphor has gone too far by this point, but the picture was nice when it happened.

Now I'm together with my people in this little nook in the corner of Emmerson. Fabs is reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, saying out loud the parts that strike him. Quoting the eggs that fall directly overhead. "The only real smiles are the smile's of dreamers..."

Maybe you are right, Goethe, maybe. But everyone knows your quite the cynic, too, and I believe that I can trust you no more than I can the optimistic kitten.

However, the longer I sit here the more I enjoy Werther's statement. In the company of friends in a secret place. I am looking around and I am thinking that I

see dreamers, too.