15 June 2002 (Saturday)
jan garbarek/hilliard ensemble: officium
Soren has a most remarkable CD collection. Listening to this last night, I felt as though windows were opening within me.
posted by enjelani @ 10:58 PM PST [ link ]
technicolor has inspired me to brevity
Maybe I'm not supposed to solve the puzzle at all. Maybe I'm just supposed to live within it.
posted by enjelani @ 10:43 PM PST [ link ]
14 June 2002 (Friday)
priorities
at this particular juncture (in order of increasing importance, more or less):
- eating my vegetables (this is difficult, dammit);
- running and jumping and climbing and generally getting out of breath on a regular basis;
- drafting the game plan for job #3;
- drinking more water;
- becoming a less horrendous driver;
- being a good friend to those I love;
- kicking the drug habit (NO WEBSURFING FOR YOU TODAY, YOUNG LADY);
- quitting job #1;
- having fun with job #2 despite my nascent reliance on it to pay the bills;
- loving Soren; and
- figuring out how to live each day truly -- as though it were the greatest gift ever given me.
posted by enjelani @ 03:16 PM PST [ link ]
13 June 2002 (Thursday)
in someone else's words
Clippings from other people's journals. To some I can really relate; to others I think a loved one would really relate; with others I just stare in awe for a while. Sometimes all three.
I continue to believe that there is no art without pain.
>> more...
posted by enjelani @ 02:17 PM PST [ link ]
12 June 2002 (Wednesday)
that which cannot be named
Nothing like a week in Alaska to make one a complete snob about mountains. Lawd, lawd, lawd.
I could attempt some flowery descriptions of the scenery, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. Countless times I raised my camera and lowered it again without taking the shot -- it's so hard to capture the scale of the place, the vast silence of it, the stillness of thought that it inspires. Within the square boundaries of a photograph or a paragraph, it just seems like so much mere prettiness.
Ava is simply marvelous. Not that I'd forgotten what a joy it was to room with her, but it was good to be reminded. A friendship like hers is rare: the connection is instantaneous, and never changes with distance or closeness.
I've realized what it is. I need to be dwarfed by my landscape.
Hmm. I like that.
It gives me perspective, somehow. I'm not sure why.
Reminds you of your place in things, maybe? Where you belong in the big picture?
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it.
At some point we joked that Zach should have dated Ava, not me. There were moments I had to smile, watching her notice the same things Zach would have noticed, voicing the same thoughts that might have been tumbling in his head. They've always understood one another in a way that none of the rest of us could. But there was never any romantic attraction between them, so.
In Anchorage I bought a $2 hematite ring and slipped it on the fourth finger of my right hand. I took Soren with me to Denali that way, close against my skin as I slept, glinting in the sun as I walked through a dry riverbed. Next time he'll be with me in person, I hope, and we'll just jump off the bus when the moment feels right, and wander off into the wilderness together.
One disturbing thing about taking vacations as a working adult: the way life moves hurriedly on without me while I'm gone. When I was a student, vacations fell between phases of life -- between fall and winter quarter, between high school graduation and college. I am not so fond of this frantic game of catch-up that follows a week of PTO. Ah well.
It's good to be home. Back to work.
posted by enjelani @ 09:44 AM PST [ link ]