Do I sound like a cracked up hippie right now?

~ Me, after expounding on my ideas of community and restoration to J.

If it came from anyone else, I'd think that they were a cracked up hippie. But because its coming from you, it's novel.

~ J. Always has something endearing to say.

But I think I'm experiencing a slight disconnect right now, with my sense of self and reality. It is a little scary. I sometimes wonder what is it that compels me to drag myself into contorting states where I do nothing, all day, but wrestle with nothing in particular.

One day I'll get over it all. But till then, I'll just keep breathing.

Kite Runner

Story of redemption. There is always a way to make it good.

Kiss on the collarbone

What's the point of having an iPod, when there's only one song on repeat?

3 am. It's dark, but not quite. Light from the neighbour's widow spills carelessly through mine, casting indifferent oblong shapes onto my wall.

Hello.

A trolley bus drags through the night, whistling. I've stopped worrying about the sleep that evades me, secretly enjoying the time to myself: a warm bed, a cozy comforter, and all the time in the world. After all, I can sneak a quick nap during constitutional. A mile a minute - thoughts with neither head nor tail come racing in. Barely looking me in the face, they take up space in my already crowded spirit, occasionally possessing an arm or a leg to direct a toss or deal a turn. I can't tell if my eyes are open or shut, or trapped somewhere in the world between worlds - feels like it. Feels like I've been lying here forever.

I wonder why I try so hard to find meaning, or to keep a hold on myself. I am afraid that all this here will be my undoing. Maybe one day I'll wake up, and see with eyes that are no longer mine and find my mouth filled with strange words. Why do I care so much? I come from a region that has not known substantive freedom for over four centuries.

A prayer rumbles meaninglessly from the hollow in my pillow. And somehow, it's morning. And it's a beautiful day. Glen's right. I heal fast.

Soulmate

—People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at that time. There was much more strength, spirit and passion, desire, curiosity, ambition and opinion that was not allowed in a small space designed for consumer mass appeal and dictated by very limited standards. I had to step away when I realized that for the sake of the machine, I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable about having to smile in someone’s face when I really didn’t like them or even know them well enough to like them.

—I had to fight for an identity that doesn’t fit in one of their boxes. I’m a whole woman. And when I can’t be whole, I have a problem. By the end I was like, I’ve got to get out of here.

~ LH

Keep Breathing.

Dear Glen, I know we'll always walk through life together holding each other up. With the weight of our mutual ambitions to love and be good, we need it. Please dance through India, I'll meet you in Nepal and dance with you.

Argh.

Ms Poon once told me that I never get gritty on myself. Now that's true, but I don't want that to be true anymore.

My only, problem, is that I don't know how.

Do I simply attempt to justify, what I really ought to be conquering? Is my choice of a particular path less of a choice then I would like it to be? Which was is which?

水

I was 15 when I decided that my element was water. Of course, I was embarrassed to have such significant information bestowed upon me by Amy Tan. I am unfortunately so Anglo that the best of my cultural heritage is bestowed upon me by an Asian-American. But that is a gripe for another day. I am Asian - Canadian anyway.

Anyway. my element is water. I've known that full well. Sitting with Thi by the Tadlo falls in Laos - or rather, I was floating in the stream and he was pawing the shore like a finicky cat - I found a smug sense of belonging in the fluid flesh of the falls. And what was it that I said? That I, as liquid (and protean) in my footsteps as I am, am apt to take the path of least resistance. What else do we expect of water? "Ah! But it doing so, I carve canyons out of stone!" I defended myself against the apparent notion that I am, in my watery ways, intrinsically weak. In great weakness there is great strength, and in strength - weakness.

Then I discover that water is as violent as she is soft. Her rage in all its tsunamic blindness calls all others to beg pointlessly for mercy. And she takes, and crushes, and destroys everything beneath her indiscriminate thumb, leaving behind numb bodies and uncomprehending minds.

And this is where I am. Perhaps. Being driven unwittingly by my blind surges of intensity, I find myself rolling on forward, through time and tasks, spaces and people. I keep moving keep pushing keep racing ahead running on breath so hard it hurts to breathe.

The crest of my wave breaks and after the crash subsides, I lie still and silent. Stunned by my journey - too hard and fast. I realise that I have been blinded by my perceived importance of being, such that I ceased to find my harmonious part in anything else. My world was flooded by my immense wave of unbridled severity that I have destroyed most everything else.

有山有水 － Balance! Balance!
I ought to know. Or at least, ought to learn.
In my insistence in being who I am, please don't let me destroy everything that otherwise validates me.

So here, in my strongest of strengths, lies my most fragile weakness.
~ Thursday, July 19, 2007

So that's that, huh?

Eh, this is reality Hannah, now what would you like to do with it?

I'd like my reality in technicolour, please.

Like a true emo-kid, I let my wounds fester happily in the imagination that I will never die to this.

Boo-ya.