dear world

thanks for the sunshine and that the sand on the beach was packed hard enough to run on this morning without killing my calves.

thanks for clean rain.

thanks for cute japanese boys to tutor in grammar. the ones who actually want to learn about past progressive vs subjunctive.

thanks for music. and that the piano in the ballroom was unoccupied when i needed it.

thanks for cilantro.

thanks for stray dogs who lay dead but still alive on the curbs. it was hot and muggy today.

honestly, all you need is love

to be alive

choked up sobs for joy, japanese voices outside my window, a piano and violin's duet, paddling the ocean till my arms give out, a pink and blue and yellow sunset over palm trees, throwing the shaka, taking stiff laundry off the line smelling of ocean, hukilau cafe, stray cats with no tails, praying to God, narrow streets and brown children running, the couple smoking weed by laie elementary, morning runs to the ocean,"auntie! auntie!" subject verb agreement, having two desk hours in a row, holding your hand, being the only white woman in class, chili and rice for lunch, a circle of flags colors so bright, "no can" bambo under my bare feet, sadness you can touch, cane spiders as big as my face, tracing the moon's footsteps, salt water stinging my bloody knees, getting dressed dance parties, stolen kisses in the parking lot at tamuras, wishing, acai bowls and sweaty faces, whitemom blackdad brownchild, loving, letters and smiles, fresh pineapple so prickly, screaming to the wide open sky, following sirius, saying yes and no, shuffle, laughing the same in every language.

held in the arms

possibly the best thing in the world is when i go to scratch my ear, and sand falls out. or when i crawl into bed and my feet are greeted with the scratch of sand in my sheets. or when i put my hands into the pockets of my jeans and a clump of sand says "hello. you should do laundry more often."

maybe the best thing in the world is when keola and i go kayaking. we push the one-man kayak in to the water at hukilau, feeling so important and cool with our boat. then we try to fit the both of us on the little blue seat. two brown, built men are watching us.

"have you girls done this before?" they inquire carefully.

"oh of course. plenty of times." we reply, not looking at their smiles.

just as we say this, i jump aboard and knock the kayak over, banging keola's foot, making her bleed, and come up spitting salt water. the men wade over and hold the kayak for us. we only capsize five more times before finding our balance, amid much laughter and humiliation. the good kind, though.

actually, the best thing in the world is probably having an entire day to yourself, to think and remember and ponder. to cook dinner for yourself, and be happy to eat alone. it's like conor o. says, "when everything is lonely, i can be my own best friend. I get a coffee and the paper, have my own converstion. with the sidewalk and the pidgeons, and my window relflection."

ok, let's be honest. the best thing in the world is to re-read harry potter seven. :)

he told me

"kill that side of your mind cause im tired of it and i sure as hell know you are

use your heart for once and stop fearing what could be great

lose the armor"

first hit when i googled "beauty"

pretty sure i don't deserve such a great life.

-great workout
-cutest roommates ever
-productive voice lesson and belting :)
-talked to alyssa
-heart to hearts with erika
-epic failure of making dinner and then resorting to black beans and potstickers
-excellent work night. teaching grammar and things. oh transitive and intransitive
-cute boy
-talked to my mom
-fit into some jeans that haven't fit yet this year
-sunshine and fresh air

oh yes, life is beautiful

A night in Hauula

Three men sat beneath a bright moon,

their tongue a foreign sound

to my young ears.

Two guitars and an ukulele spoke

a language I could identify.

And we four sat beneath

a bright moon

and communed without

words, for music goes far beyond

any human noise.

a security blanket obsolete

the nights are not so cold now,
winter's reign is almost through.
with shock and surprise, i find
i have no need for you.

there was a time, i will admit
i craved your slightest glance.
in every word and deed and thought
i watched you for my chance.

the night is not so long now
springtime rains have soaked me through
with no regret and less remorse
this is goodbye to you.

how fitting. and how cheesy

so three years ago on may 6 i woke up early, on my own, with no alarm. for the first time in ages. and the terrible depression i had been experiencing was gone. just like that. i woke up and thought oh i'll go outside and walk in the grass. i went outside and walked around and noticed how fresh the air smelled and how nice the dew on my bare feet felt. every may 6 since then i celebrate the anniversary of my depression being gone. and this may 6, (yes this is where it gets cheesy) scrubs finished off an amazing 8 seasons of pure delight with their finale. just check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP8A2Fbj9dY

yes, yes life is good.

to you

so as i was standing in the line at the grocery store today, i got scared. nadine, the smiley cashier at foodland, was ringing up my yogurt, raisinets, and spaghettios. (yeah, i'm in college.) she asked "do you have a maikai card?", the grocery points card used in foodlands in hawaii, and maybe other places, that's a good question... but anyway, i was punching in my phone number to get free groceries, and i got really scared. i thought, wow, there are so many little things you'll never know about. so many tiny pieces of life that don't seem to matter, but really make up the big picture. the little things like maikai cards, and the cute couple that reminds me of us except brown and aisan, the funny airbass guy at The Bus stop, the color of the carpet, the sticky low D key on the grand piano in the practice rooms, etc. etc. etc. it's terrifying to me that you'll never see all those things, that i'll forget them and you'll never know. and then i started thinking about life. and how maybe we will never really know anyone. and no one will ever really know me. i can't remember what it's like anymore, you know?

i hate people who post sad things :)

tuesdays with hawaii

how come every night at 1130 i am suddenly filled with endless energy? good grief! it's time for bed.

today was a great day though. one of those days where the ordinary things are more enjoyable than usual.

also. my best friend morgan got me all pumped for this bluegrass/country music festival in south carolina this summer. it's a competition i guess, and the winner gets 100,000 dollars and a record deal. annnd this has been our dream for years. so she is mailing our app tomorrow!

also- the weather was gorgeous, (besides the vog) voice lessons were amazing, tutoring was hilarious, and i got to talk to both of my parents today. oh and my rommate erika dick became rich.

great day. :) love you

The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople-- it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings;mostpeople are snobs. Take the matter of being born. What does being born mean to mostpeople? Catastrophe unmitigated. Socialrevolution. The cultured aristocrat yanked out of his hyperexclusively ultravoluptuous superpalazzo,and dumped into an incredibly vulgar detentioncamp swarming with every conceivable species of undesirable organism. Mostpeople fancy a guaranteed birthproof safetysuit of nondestructible selflessness. If mostpeople were to be born twice they'd improbably call it dying--

you and I are not snobs. We can never be born enough. We are human beings;for whom birth is a supremely welcome mystery,the mystery of growing:which happens only and whenever we are faithful to ourselves. You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life,for eternal us,is now'and now is much to busy being a little more than everything to seem anything,catastrophic included.

Life,for mostpeople,simply isn't. Take the socalled standardofliving. What do mostpeople mean by "living"? They don't mean living. They mean the latest and closest plural approximation to singular prenatal passivity which science,in its finite but unbounded wisdom,has succeeded in selling their wives. If science could fail,a mountain's a mammal. Mostpeople's wives could spot a genuine delusion of embryonic omnipotence immediately and will accept no substitutes.

-luckily for us,a mountain is a mammal. The plusorminus movie to end moving,the strictly scientific parlourgame of real unreality,the tyranny conceived in misconception and dedicated to the proposition that every man is a woman and any woman is a king,hasn't a wheel to stand on. What their synthetic not to mention transparent majesty, mrsandmr collective foetus,would improbably call a ghost is walking. He isn't a undream of anaesthetized impersons, or a cosmic comfortstation,or a transcedentally sterilized lookiesoundiefeelietastiesmellie. He is a healthily complex,a naturally homogenous,citizen of immorality. The now of his each pitying free imperfect gesture,his any birth of breathing,insults perfected inframortally milleniums of slavishness. He is a little more than everything,he is democracy;he is alive:he is ourselves.

Miracles are to come. With you I leave a remembrance of miracles: they are somebody who can love and who shall be continually reborn,a human being;somebody who said to those near him,when his fingers would not hold a brush "tie it to my hand"--

nothing proving or sick or partial. Nothing false,nothing difficult or easy or small or colossal. Nothing ordinary or extraordinary,nothing emptied or filled,real or unreal;nothing feeble and known or clumsy and guessed. Everywhere tints childrening,innocent spontaneaous,true. Nowhere possibly what flesh and impossibly such a garden,but actually flowers which breasts are amoung the very mouths of light. Nothing believed or doubted;brain over heart, surface:nowhere hating or to fear;shadow,mind without soul. Only how measureless cool flames of making;only each other building always distinct selves of mutual entirely opening;only alive. Never the murdered finalities of wherewhen and yesno,impotent nongames of wrongright and rightwrong;never to gain or pause,never the soft adventure of undoom,greedy anguishes and cringing ecstasies of inexistence;never to rest and never to have;only to grow.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question

       E.E. CUMMINGS

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter

very little--somebody who is obsessed by Making. Like all obsessions,
the Making obsession has disadvantages; for instance, my only interest
in making money would be to make it. Fortunately, however, I should
prefer to make almost anything else, including locomotives and roses.

                                             E.E. CUMMINGS

a breakthrough?

tonight i was getting ready for bed. washing my face, brushing my teeth, that whole bit. that image in the mirror glared at me, wondering "why aren't you perfect yet?"

all day every day i look at women around me and compare myself. she's thinner, she's got nicer hair, her skin is flawless, look at her long legs- etc etc. i should use all those minutes focusing on school, or music, or serving my fellow men, or anything else.

in my woman's studies class this week we have been talking about body image. i actually taught the class about it. about how it's evolved over the centuries and become the monster it is today. how technology starting clear back with mass printing to now with computers and photoshop has impacted the way human beings think women should be. yes yes yes. we all know this. too bad knowing this doesn't make it easier to like our imperfect selves.

so as i was getting ready for bed, i was having one of those fake conversations we all have. (i hope) like where we are just talking to ourselves but we pretend that the other person is there. i was pretending to talk to my women's studies teacher, dr. christiansen. i was arguing with her about being able to like myself.

dc: you know that perfection is unattainable. stop beating yourself up about it.
me: i'm just so tired of never being happy with myself. i feel like i'll never be enough.

and then dc said something that really shocked me.

dc: guess what? you won't. you'll never be enough to satisfy what the world thinks you should look like. no one will. and that's ok.

and even though i was alone in that bathroom and i knew that, sorta, it shocked me. shocked me to think that she would say ill never be enough. and that it's ok to never be enough for the world.

then i realized that i had said that, not my teacher. possibly the most shocking part of all.