Nature of Friendship

I dropped a friend off at the train station this morning. It was my pleasure to do so, and I felt glad to help him. He was leaving for a short trip over New Years, but seemed ambivalent to go.

In this wide world, with people being widely dispersed from family, our friends become a new surrogate family. Holidays with them become a shared time that reminds me of the many times I have worked on Christmas or Thanksgiving... One may not be at the workplace with family, but there is a feeling of shared camaraderie and closeness. Perhaps this is something that comes from being overseas too.

Anyway, I am glad to be useful.

Poem for Today

Playing

Play me like your red tinged scarf,

Twirling in the sticks of your fingers,

Insensate.

But I am not,

And you hurt me.

Remembering Last Year...

I have been thinking a lot about this same day last year...I do remember some events of the day. I remember the damp coolness of the morning and the whiteness of sky and earth...
I think I may even have pondered where I would be a year hence...and here I am...

I remember riding in a helicopter and looking out at the desert, with the wind blowing hard; and I remember spending time in a small wood-paneled library reading. Waiting.

As time moves we seem to only mark it by its passage. We are always behind any instant that has occurred.
The flow of time does seem like a bright glistening stream; we may dip our hand in to stem its flow, but the water passes us by, only chilling our hands.

Poem for Today

Perfection

Loving someone-
It makes me want to achieve goodness,
It drives me to be like a child,
Eager to share everything I have,
But then becoming afraid for doing so.

I want to be so perfect for her,
But even that won't make her stay.

November 2009

6 British Films I like

In no order...just came to mind as I was watching number 1.

1. The 39 Steps

2. The Killing Fields

3. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

4. This Sporting Life

5. The Remains of the Day

Real Food...

I had an orange to eat today, but not the cosmetically perfect oranges that we get in the larger grocery stores...These were thick skinned, with a coarse pebble rind. They were partially tinged with a vivid green like spilled absinthe.

Thin and woody stems were attached to the oranges, and the fruit reminded me in some way of naughty children...full of promise, but unkempt and a little rascally.

The fruit was delicious and tasted alive. Perhaps it is just that the fruit seemed - visually - on the fringes of respectability, and that made me enjoy it more.

Finding a cure...

Trying to find a cure for not missing someone...

I walk in the cool grey with the drizzle coming down... Definitely could be colder though, because I am not even shivering. The world is damp green, and mud brown. The sky seems bored and is the color of an over-washed white t-shirt.
In the sun, it would all seem verdant.

The leaves are mashed into the ground and are forming sort of a murky yellow carpet of slush. There is some faint color though. Some sort of strange red berries are all over the ground. They are small, but are a glistening hard scarlet against the mud.

What does missing someone feel like? It seems like a loss; a sense of grief... But if you feel the other person may be thinking of you also, then there is a sweetness there too...A lingering pleasant taste, like the kind you get from the cheap spice cake that they sell here.
It almost feels like there is something to come home too...A warmth - a joy underneath the fabric of sadness that makes it bearable...

Too many words here, and I feel that no description is good enough for any human emotion.