When I was younger I read voraciously everything and anything I could get my hands on. Imagine this: a ten year old girl reading "Love Story" by Erich Segal from the Reader's Digest copy that was donated to her family along with a box of clothes, old VHS tapes and other dusty knick-knacks. The story didn't make much sense to me at the time. But I read it and as with all written words, I immensely enjoyed it. Just the act of reading was so satisfying to me that it became necessary to pair it with all my meals.
My favorite memories are crisp November evenings, sitting in my parent's kitchen by the open window, feeling the cold snap of the breeze on one side and the hot humid fumes of delicious food cooking on the other. Then opening up a new book and digging into a huge bowl of Pho perfectly spiced and seasoned by my annoyed mother.
I read, therefore I eat, and thus I was full. Ahh. It was great.
As I got older, I started to imagine different endings, different story arcs for the books I was reading. If unsatisfied with the way a book ended, I would sit down and re-write the ending in order for me to be able to move on with life. Weird. Maybe I was obsessive compulsive without even knowing it!
But whatever it was, it grew into a love of writing that rivaled the love of reading.
"The Little Princess" - A Short Story by Anaximander-Redux 2009.
- Read it in the next Blog Entry. Peace out for now and enjoy this oddly, weirdly, wonderful crisp Autumn day. September 1st starts tomorrow. Officially the end of summer. Let us weep.
(P.S. A few years later I saw the movie "Love Story" on television with Ali McGraw and was stunned to find out that it was such a famous story, this obscure work of fiction that didn't even make sense to me as a child. It did this time around. And I cried when I realized how tragic the story was... How as a child, pain and suffering meant I didn't get any desert with my meal or didn't get my favorite spot on the couch to watch Thundercats on. And that as you grow older, pain got more complex and much harder to fix. So I understood it this time. But I won't lie, I miss the less complicated nature of my childhood understanding of life even as I understand that moving on means leaving the state of stasis behind to grow.)
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Fable
Deep and booming,
like a heartbeat trying to explode
these pangs in my gut,
longing for something that I cannot touch.
I can fill it with other things,
in hopes of sating it,
but it grows more violent
and starts devour itself
to devour me.
A thousand wishes,
Fables all.
Starved for happiness
before the table of plenty.
Suicide on My Birthday
What a cheerful title for a blog post eh?
On Saturday night, August 15th, it was my birthday. I was about 400 miles away from home and enjoying that very special, very selfish day that we call our birthday, and the world felt all right with me.
The day went well. Morning was spent hunting for a brunch place. On foot. What an unepectedly long jaunt! Due to the ratio of real distance versus the tiny distance seen on the GPS screen, the hunt lasted a bit longer then expected and brunch ended up being simply--lunch. I think the servers at the little Bretzel we went to must have giggled a little bit when they heard me asking for breakfast. My eyes followed their pointing fingers at the clock. I blushed to see that it was nearly 1pm in the afternoon. Far past breakfast time.
Not to digress but really, every food establishment should serve breakfast all day. Breakfast food is delicious and pretty damn easy to make (in my humble opinion).
The late afternoon found us in a huge Botanical Garden that consisted of English Gardens, Japanese Gardens, Bird Island, Spider Island, Fruit Trees, Vegetable Patches and a huge Cacti Farm of some sort. Meandering around the artfully placed foliage brought some peace to me. There is happiness and serenity in the chaos that is nature. I saw dead insects and living roses, side by side in a state that just was. Peaceful or violent, death or life, it just was.
Nighttime brought a different kind of energy out. It was time to get dressed up, put some sexy makeup on and sink into a party groove. I got ready rather quickly and before I knew it, we were out in the city laughing and letting the music blast all concern and thought from our brains.
My alchoholic limitations are pretty low. So after just a few drinks, I was numb and dancing.
Blurred hours later after a too-short nap of only 2 hours, I was woken up to get ready to drive to Madison where I was going to meet people of importance and go on a 2 hour long boat ride. The weekend which had been gloriously bright and sunny had taken a sour turn. The skies were a dank grey and the weather was similar. Damp, cold and uncomfortably unbearable against my too sensitve alcohol soaked skin.
Five minutes before I was to board the boat, I received a series of missed calls on my cell phone from my sister.
I wasn't alarmed. She was just probably calling to see how my birthday went.
I called her back and when she answered, I happily and a bit groggily went into an explanation of the night before. She listened quietly, then said in a low voice:
"Did you hear? Our cousin shot himself in the head last night. He's in critical condition at the Eau Claire Hospital."
Those words are probably not exact.
It didn't matter. The information was there.
I found my voice.
"What are you talking about? Who?"
I asked in confusion.
"Tou. Der's little brother. Tou. He shot himself. Can you give me her phone number so that I can see if she's okay?"
I nodded dumbly.
"No, no. I'll call her. Oh my god. She must be destroyed."
We said our goodbyes. My sour stomach took a dive and I stared in shell shocked confusion at the person standing next to me. He quickly hugged me and quietly told the rest of the guests that I had received some terrible news. Thank god for that. I could barely talk.
My little cousin?
Happy, smiley, always willing and ready to lend a hand with a cheerful laugh...Tou. He had tried to kill himself? Or what was going on?
I quickly excused myself from the rest of the party. I called Der only to find her sobbing on the other line. She was on her way to see her brother. I offered what comfort I could knowing that it wasn't enough. What could possibly comfort her when she was losing her baby brother?
The water was choppy.
I stood at the side of the boat and let the wind blow into me, my hair, my dress, my mind.
I tried to reconcile the happy birthday night with what happened. And I couldn't. Nothing made sense to me any more.
I am not done processing it. I am not done trying to figure out what this means. Whether it means anything. How many hits can I take before I fall down and just stay down? Is Mars in retrograde? With so much darkness surrounding me...I wonder if I will ever be clear of it.
Some days I believe so.
Some days...otherwise.
I apologize for the choppy nature of this posting. Until things make sense in my head, I suppose things won't make sense here. But writing it has been a catharsis. Thank you for visiting and until next time, Anaximander is signing out.
On Saturday night, August 15th, it was my birthday. I was about 400 miles away from home and enjoying that very special, very selfish day that we call our birthday, and the world felt all right with me.
The day went well. Morning was spent hunting for a brunch place. On foot. What an unepectedly long jaunt! Due to the ratio of real distance versus the tiny distance seen on the GPS screen, the hunt lasted a bit longer then expected and brunch ended up being simply--lunch. I think the servers at the little Bretzel we went to must have giggled a little bit when they heard me asking for breakfast. My eyes followed their pointing fingers at the clock. I blushed to see that it was nearly 1pm in the afternoon. Far past breakfast time.
Not to digress but really, every food establishment should serve breakfast all day. Breakfast food is delicious and pretty damn easy to make (in my humble opinion).
The late afternoon found us in a huge Botanical Garden that consisted of English Gardens, Japanese Gardens, Bird Island, Spider Island, Fruit Trees, Vegetable Patches and a huge Cacti Farm of some sort. Meandering around the artfully placed foliage brought some peace to me. There is happiness and serenity in the chaos that is nature. I saw dead insects and living roses, side by side in a state that just was. Peaceful or violent, death or life, it just was.
Nighttime brought a different kind of energy out. It was time to get dressed up, put some sexy makeup on and sink into a party groove. I got ready rather quickly and before I knew it, we were out in the city laughing and letting the music blast all concern and thought from our brains.
My alchoholic limitations are pretty low. So after just a few drinks, I was numb and dancing.
Blurred hours later after a too-short nap of only 2 hours, I was woken up to get ready to drive to Madison where I was going to meet people of importance and go on a 2 hour long boat ride. The weekend which had been gloriously bright and sunny had taken a sour turn. The skies were a dank grey and the weather was similar. Damp, cold and uncomfortably unbearable against my too sensitve alcohol soaked skin.
Five minutes before I was to board the boat, I received a series of missed calls on my cell phone from my sister.
I wasn't alarmed. She was just probably calling to see how my birthday went.
I called her back and when she answered, I happily and a bit groggily went into an explanation of the night before. She listened quietly, then said in a low voice:
"Did you hear? Our cousin shot himself in the head last night. He's in critical condition at the Eau Claire Hospital."
Those words are probably not exact.
It didn't matter. The information was there.
I found my voice.
"What are you talking about? Who?"
I asked in confusion.
"Tou. Der's little brother. Tou. He shot himself. Can you give me her phone number so that I can see if she's okay?"
I nodded dumbly.
"No, no. I'll call her. Oh my god. She must be destroyed."
We said our goodbyes. My sour stomach took a dive and I stared in shell shocked confusion at the person standing next to me. He quickly hugged me and quietly told the rest of the guests that I had received some terrible news. Thank god for that. I could barely talk.
My little cousin?
Happy, smiley, always willing and ready to lend a hand with a cheerful laugh...Tou. He had tried to kill himself? Or what was going on?
I quickly excused myself from the rest of the party. I called Der only to find her sobbing on the other line. She was on her way to see her brother. I offered what comfort I could knowing that it wasn't enough. What could possibly comfort her when she was losing her baby brother?
The water was choppy.
I stood at the side of the boat and let the wind blow into me, my hair, my dress, my mind.
I tried to reconcile the happy birthday night with what happened. And I couldn't. Nothing made sense to me any more.
I am not done processing it. I am not done trying to figure out what this means. Whether it means anything. How many hits can I take before I fall down and just stay down? Is Mars in retrograde? With so much darkness surrounding me...I wonder if I will ever be clear of it.
Some days I believe so.
Some days...otherwise.
I apologize for the choppy nature of this posting. Until things make sense in my head, I suppose things won't make sense here. But writing it has been a catharsis. Thank you for visiting and until next time, Anaximander is signing out.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Silly Girl
Her little nose crinkles when she invites me to laugh at her antics,
a button nose for sure, small perfect and slightly round.
Large dark eyes search me,
how odd this tiny mirror that holds
the many portions of my soul.
Her giggle is contagious,
it bursts out of her like uncontrollable bubbles
light, airy and incandescent.
All that she asks,
is that I laugh with her.
Her communication is one of joy,
and a shared understanding.
of the silliness of us,
and the perfection of happiness unannounced.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Complexities of love/hate
Why is it that hate has to be such a bossy and overwhelming twin sibling to love? That it is easy not to hate when you don't quite care so much for someone, but the stronger love becomes, the closer heat boils to the surface and what was passion can burn as painfully as any acid. I believe that it is fear, experience and expectations of failure that lead us to feel hate where once there was only love.
Or that has always been my experience before.
Now I'm a relatively new mother. My child is barely 3 years old yet. But the moment she was born I knew finally what real, unselfish love was. That is not to say that I didn't get cranky, or tired, or frustrated, but for once I was humbled in my love for her. That I didn't expect anything from her other to be alive, happy and healthy. That truly her existence was all that I needed to be happy. I love her so completely, so quickly and without any conditions or terms other then that she simply exists and is happy.
That love was so different from what I had experienced before. Before that I believed love was an emotion to be bartered, earned, taken away, given all with the intent to own and possess. Perhaps it was what my parents taught me. Love was given when you do as they want. Love is taken away and hate put in it's place wen you don't do what they want. It made me want to be the one who held the cards. The one with the power to give and take away love. The controller.
And so I did become that person.
And it felt like the sweet ugly mixture that it truly was. I never had to fear not having the love of my husband. But in return, I used his love for me like a weapon. Love me and do this for me. Love me and agree to this. Love me and.... Over and over again, I used love to prove my worth to myself and to him. And he was strong enough to do so. Like tempered steel or some yet undiscovered metal, he bent when he had to, supported me when I needed it and taught me the fathomless well of love that should never have been bought for any price.
But the more I searched, the more I wanted. I became unhappy with what I had. I could sense the growing resentment in him. I could sense the growing ugliness within our relationship. And instead of facing my part in this, I put all the blame on him.
Sigh...why all of this regurgatation of my thoughts? My faults?
Because on this warm summer night, when autumn feels like an eon ago, I am facing myself for the first time. Looking past the warm, hot blaze of anger that has cauterized so many a wounded pride and forcing myself to really see what it is that I truly feel. What I truly am.
Am I a monster of my own creating?
Perhaps.
It is my ego that is hurt. It was my pride that demanded a price. What my husband tried to teach me all those years is that when you love someone, you heal them. You take their pain away. But I discounted his strength and looked at it as if it was a weakness. The ability to absorb pain and let it go is a vastly underated power.
Now I'm faced with a dilema. Who am I? Am I a different person? Or am I the same?
Imagine that the person you love has hurt you unbearably. That through the selfishness of their actions, they have intruded upon your life and tore a hole in it. In the whole scheme of things, the hole is pretty tiny. But it is still there. And in ratio to your body, it feels pretty damned big.
But does that make you any different of a person? Does that weaken you in any way truly?
I used to believe that it did. That the actions of someone else could weaken you. And that the only way to regain strength and your own power back was to hurt that person back in threefold. Once they have felt your pain, you would be vindicated.
Looking deeper, it was a type of forcefeeding. To SHOW them that they were wrong. That would salve the ego, pamper the pride and give me back a measure of the control I had temporarily lost.
But in the end. That is the wrong path to take.
As a complete and whole person, you should not allow yourself to be lessened by the actions of another. Even if you love them or they love you. Their mistakes are their own. It hurts because it affects you, but it shouldn't destroy you.
Does that mean that no person will ever mean that much to you? That you should never allow yourself to feel that deeply for someone because they will always be a part from you?
Perhaps in a perfect world, two people would be together, without walls, without hate, without pride or ego. That both people would be able to hold each other's souls in their hands and keep it safe. But the truth is that people are self cannibals. How can we protect each other's souls when we so easily rip apart our own?
A time machine would be a grand thing.
Give us time to make mistakes. And fix them.
Let us love and not hurt the ones we love.
Let us be brave and not let fear lead our way.
New age sounding stuff huh? But sometimes we need it. We need to have hope in order to move on.
This is Anaximander on the discussion of love and hate. And although I probably didn't have a conclusion either way, I have put these thoughts out there for you to come to your own conclusion. We were all born different. And we will come to different ends. Let's chart our journeys carefully and make sure to enjoy the scenery along the way.
Peace out tonight.
Anaximander Redux
Or that has always been my experience before.
Now I'm a relatively new mother. My child is barely 3 years old yet. But the moment she was born I knew finally what real, unselfish love was. That is not to say that I didn't get cranky, or tired, or frustrated, but for once I was humbled in my love for her. That I didn't expect anything from her other to be alive, happy and healthy. That truly her existence was all that I needed to be happy. I love her so completely, so quickly and without any conditions or terms other then that she simply exists and is happy.
That love was so different from what I had experienced before. Before that I believed love was an emotion to be bartered, earned, taken away, given all with the intent to own and possess. Perhaps it was what my parents taught me. Love was given when you do as they want. Love is taken away and hate put in it's place wen you don't do what they want. It made me want to be the one who held the cards. The one with the power to give and take away love. The controller.
And so I did become that person.
And it felt like the sweet ugly mixture that it truly was. I never had to fear not having the love of my husband. But in return, I used his love for me like a weapon. Love me and do this for me. Love me and agree to this. Love me and.... Over and over again, I used love to prove my worth to myself and to him. And he was strong enough to do so. Like tempered steel or some yet undiscovered metal, he bent when he had to, supported me when I needed it and taught me the fathomless well of love that should never have been bought for any price.
But the more I searched, the more I wanted. I became unhappy with what I had. I could sense the growing resentment in him. I could sense the growing ugliness within our relationship. And instead of facing my part in this, I put all the blame on him.
Sigh...why all of this regurgatation of my thoughts? My faults?
Because on this warm summer night, when autumn feels like an eon ago, I am facing myself for the first time. Looking past the warm, hot blaze of anger that has cauterized so many a wounded pride and forcing myself to really see what it is that I truly feel. What I truly am.
Am I a monster of my own creating?
Perhaps.
It is my ego that is hurt. It was my pride that demanded a price. What my husband tried to teach me all those years is that when you love someone, you heal them. You take their pain away. But I discounted his strength and looked at it as if it was a weakness. The ability to absorb pain and let it go is a vastly underated power.
Now I'm faced with a dilema. Who am I? Am I a different person? Or am I the same?
Imagine that the person you love has hurt you unbearably. That through the selfishness of their actions, they have intruded upon your life and tore a hole in it. In the whole scheme of things, the hole is pretty tiny. But it is still there. And in ratio to your body, it feels pretty damned big.
But does that make you any different of a person? Does that weaken you in any way truly?
I used to believe that it did. That the actions of someone else could weaken you. And that the only way to regain strength and your own power back was to hurt that person back in threefold. Once they have felt your pain, you would be vindicated.
Looking deeper, it was a type of forcefeeding. To SHOW them that they were wrong. That would salve the ego, pamper the pride and give me back a measure of the control I had temporarily lost.
But in the end. That is the wrong path to take.
As a complete and whole person, you should not allow yourself to be lessened by the actions of another. Even if you love them or they love you. Their mistakes are their own. It hurts because it affects you, but it shouldn't destroy you.
Does that mean that no person will ever mean that much to you? That you should never allow yourself to feel that deeply for someone because they will always be a part from you?
Perhaps in a perfect world, two people would be together, without walls, without hate, without pride or ego. That both people would be able to hold each other's souls in their hands and keep it safe. But the truth is that people are self cannibals. How can we protect each other's souls when we so easily rip apart our own?
A time machine would be a grand thing.
Give us time to make mistakes. And fix them.
Let us love and not hurt the ones we love.
Let us be brave and not let fear lead our way.
New age sounding stuff huh? But sometimes we need it. We need to have hope in order to move on.
This is Anaximander on the discussion of love and hate. And although I probably didn't have a conclusion either way, I have put these thoughts out there for you to come to your own conclusion. We were all born different. And we will come to different ends. Let's chart our journeys carefully and make sure to enjoy the scenery along the way.
Peace out tonight.
Anaximander Redux
Friday, August 7, 2009
Welcome to the Imaginarium
August 7, 2009
Welcome to the Imaginarium. Under the alias of Anaximander I shall post real life and imaginary life stories, comments, news and other blog worthy items. Is my life that exciting you might wonder? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But all human endeavours, trials, triumphs or failures are interesting to me. It's the human condition. It's where our faults and our greatest gifts lie.
So.
Here the characters may sometimes belong only to a fable and their actions are those that I imagine would happen if I were that heroic, or stupid, or in love, or ridiculous. But they are all me and in my mind, in the Imaginarium, all things are possible. It's the Apeiron. The chaos. The contradiction and the stuff from which other stuff is born.
Welcome to my world. Leave changed. Or leave the same. It is your call.
Yours Sincerely,
Anaximander Redux
Welcome to the Imaginarium. Under the alias of Anaximander I shall post real life and imaginary life stories, comments, news and other blog worthy items. Is my life that exciting you might wonder? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But all human endeavours, trials, triumphs or failures are interesting to me. It's the human condition. It's where our faults and our greatest gifts lie.
So.
Here the characters may sometimes belong only to a fable and their actions are those that I imagine would happen if I were that heroic, or stupid, or in love, or ridiculous. But they are all me and in my mind, in the Imaginarium, all things are possible. It's the Apeiron. The chaos. The contradiction and the stuff from which other stuff is born.
Welcome to my world. Leave changed. Or leave the same. It is your call.
Yours Sincerely,
Anaximander Redux
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Painful Lovely Things
Painful Lovely Things
It felt like autumn again yesterday evening.
I thought I could hear the whisper of dry and crackling leaves chasing each other across the cement pavement . When I stepped outside of my apartment, the sound beckoned me.
Night had long fallen.
It is the middle of summer. We are barely yet into August, how could it feel so cold?
It was too dark to see if the rustling of leaves was due more then just to my imagination. But it didn't matter. The scents, sounds and feel of last night brought back a wave of lost dreams and self-inflicted wounds.
My friend walked next to me and spoke casually about some plans for the upcoming weekend. I suppose I responded in kind, externally attentive and committed to what we were discussing.
Inside of me though I was wildly unstrung.
I wanted to strip away my heels and run barefoot across the sidewalk, to feel if those leaves were truly there, to feel the painful lovely things break and crush underneath my own flesh.
Meteorites burst across the sky.
It froze me into stillness. Silly tails of dust were the images left behind as those star rocks fell into our atmosphere. And disinigrated. I wondered how old those pieces of the galaxies were. How long ago did they live and what things they had seen before they died upon some distant planet?
The wind is blowing strongly. But it is not enough to bend me. Not yet.
Giving in slightly to the chaotic urges inside of me, I raised my arms up and thought about all the things that I am. That I love. That I hold tightly inside my own personal tornado of chaos.
The heat of blood on lips when touched upon my cold skin. It is the catalyst to memories of joy and happiness. And when I lower my arms and smile at my puzzled companion, I remember that I am not lost traveling through the universe. That though my lifespan is a flicker in the universe, long gone before its light will ever reach another being across that dark dream stretch, I am merely on my way home.
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