Nightswimming

Here I am. In Hokkaido. Sapporo. Kiyota ku. Hiraoka Koen Higashi. I'm home. I'm home. It's my home, and the only one I've got. Unfortunately, I don't live in my home. I don't really know where I live, but it doesn't matter right now, because I'm home.

I just spent about an hour laying in my dad's arms. Yes, I'm 18. No, I'm not ashamed that I still sit in my parents laps, and spend hours talking to them while lying on their bed.

I laid there feeling warm and happy, but you know what? I cried. Silent tears. Painful tears. For a moment, an hour, a mere speck in the grand scheme of my life, things were calm and known. Everybody hurts. I'm an everybody.

I'm homeless (or not really, but I've just moved one day before going to Thailand, so I can't really say I know what my new house is like. It's the third time I've moved this one senior year. I can't wait for stability). And time is moving too fast, considering I have Senior Compositions coming up, a room to pack, another room to unpack, homework to do, life to live, people to say goodbye to, and others to keep in contact with, while still others to spend time hanging out with, getting my eyes checked so that I can get new glasses, go to the orhtodontist so that he can do nothing to my retainer and tell me what a horrible job I've been doing taking care of my gums and the calcium that is built up on my teeth (not that anyone notices unless they've got their head in my mouth, which only happens at the ortho). Did I leave anything out? Oh yeah. College to get ready for, the States will be even worse, but I must be ready for that, too, and sometime in there, I have to find a life that I can call my own.

I guess all that is my life though, come to think of it. If I think of it that way, will I feel any better? Will it become easier? Probably not. It's a cruel irony.

For now, I'll sit here on my bed, listening to R.E.M.'s slow songs (R.E.M. is the most meaningful band in the world...), and look at my desktop, the picture on which reminds me a lot of how I feel. I don't want to think anymore. But wait... That leads to thought, doesn' t it?

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Life, ladies and gentlemen. Life.

Trying...

I'm trying.... I'm trying so hard at so many things, but everytime I get close to completing my "trying", change occurs.

It's almost scary... I was trying to write a paper on Frankenstein.

A couple of tears from downstairs... My life changes. Drastically. Either I face living the next week or two completely alone, or I face moving. Again. To what could be my third house this senior year.

Now, there are too many thoughts going through my head. I don't know where to begin, and most frighteningly, I don't know where to end.

It all starts tomorrow.

Now

11:33 P.M.

I'm sitting here in my room. My candles are lit...four small pin points of light in an enormous expanse of blackness. The only other light is that of my computer screen, which I purposefully dimmed so as not to destroy the only two eyes that God has given me.

This is my haven. My safe port. My peace in a load of turmoil.

I was thinking tonight about life. About how you can never have exactly what you want. If you give up one thing for another, sooner or later, you will find something dispicable about the new choice. It's that way with everything...even love. Especially love. The more time one spends with another, the more one will find that they hate about that person. It's happened many times to me. I'm sure it has happened to you, also. What the difference, then, between love and apathy? Love perserveres and loves despite the short comings. This is all really a very odd conversation, but it's helping me. Through my own thinking mixed with my belief in God, the doubts in my mind are going... going... going... I hope some day they go away, but I am only human, and not a very good one at that.

That's another thing special about life. We are all flawed, and therefore we all have the chance to better ourselves.

New revelation: I love dark chocolate. There is something awesome about it... sinful. When I eat it, I feel as though I'm doing something wrong, but right at the same time. It's a great feeling.

I was reading Naomi's blog the other day (which is incredible, by the way), and as I read her reflection on what she'll miss in Japan, it got me thinking...

What am I going to miss? Will I miss anything?

Absolutely.

I'm going to miss jumping on the bus, and the trains and being able to go everywhere and anywhere I want. I'm going to miss Tower Records shopping sprees, and now, more recently, GAP shopping sprees with Jesse. I'll miss getting lost in Inokashira Koen, and sipping coffee at Starbucks.

In a way, I'm going to miss this year...

This year, I've realized that the more I sit back and relax...watching things, listening to people, not focusing at school... I've had the best, most relaxing year I've ever had. My grades are not bad. Sure, I've stayed up late finishing homework, but those nights quickly redeem themselves as at look at the bigger picture.

I'm going to miss taking tests in the afternoon with Ms. Pettit, and listening to Icelandic ambient music. I'm going to miss swearing with Naomi about all the work that we have to do at 3:00 in the morning.

I'm going to miss...a lot.

A Poem for a Friend

It was within the dark blanket of night

Where I lay my thoughts,

Unfathomable like needles driven deep inside.

Inside the blackness of despair,

The closed eyes blocking thoughts of passion

From breaking through like hideous light.

What were these thoughts,

So plaguing like a shade’s song coursing its way

Through the darkness of my mind?

The rhythmic bliss of contact

Melding two into one form too early

Bringing forth an eternal spot.

These tears I cry for you dear child,

These tears staining clothes, face, and soul.

Let Vestal’s purity once again touch your heart,

Your body, your soul, awaking

True form, God’s original masterpiece,

Blameless, clean, and mild.

Feeling Eternal Sunhine of a Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;
"Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.

- Alexander Pope (From "Eloisa to Abelard")

A Ritual To Read To Each Other...

This poem is truly beautiful...

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

—William Stafford

In this moment.

It's hot in the house... The heat must be on. Or maybe it's just me. I've been sitting here staring at the computer screen...thinking. Putting some music on the computer. Classics. Cat Stevens. Spoon. The Postal Service. Random assortments, I know, but good music just the same.

I've been thinking a lot about evil. (Yeah... the paper I have to write for English and the other for Bible are both evil). What is evil? Any remarks or help would be grateful. I'm racking my brains thinking about it. Naomi's paper was really good. I like reading personal papers like hers. It makes things easy and just really nice...

Evil is many things. It is the little boy in Africa. Belly bulging with the pains of hunger... It is the little girl in Iraq. Covered in her parent's blood. It is the boy in South Carolina. Molested Repeatedly by his "best friend." It is the young woman in California. Threatened with her life, then raped and left alone...exposed. It is the unborn child safe in the womb. The womb it cut open. The baby is sucked out and crushed. There ends life.

Is this evil? Are the acts evil? Are the people who commit these acts evil?

Maybe I don't know. I'll sit here in this warm house thinking about these things while out in the world, the little, hungry African boy dies. The little Iraqi girl grows without a home and becomes a prostitute. The boy becomes disturbed without help and ends up being a porn addict, feeling sick to himself at what he does. The woman commits suicide: two lives ended.

And still I sit. How many people have died because of evil in the time I've written this? How many in the time you've taken to read? And still I think. More died.

I'm hot. It's time to stop. I'll go study, or create art about what I havew written, or even sleep in my comfortable bed.

More died. Every word I write (Death) in a sentence (Death) kills someone innocent. Death, death, death. Does God care? Of course. I've been taught that all my life. What is He doing? Watching us to see what we're doing. Death. He sheds a tear in Heaven. Somewhere it rains.

I'm getting hotter. Too hot to bear.

Everything in transit.

Hello reader, friend, myself, and whoever else comes across this journal. This is everything in transit. This is my life. My story, and how I view the world around me through my thoughts... Perhaps thoughts for school, perhaps thoughts for life. Whatever they may be, this is me. Cheers all, and grab at life like it's sand slipping through your fingers... that is what it is after all.
-Ben

Pigeon 

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow I leave for Hokkaido. I can't wait to see my family. It'll be the first time in 2 months!
In other news, I have a lot of homework to do, but don't feel like doing any of it. I love senioritus... All I ever do anymore is draw. Yippee! Of course, at CAJ, that is the only thing worth doing for me, because Bible (the only other class with homework) is a complete joke. Vunderbar...