“…And two years later, I’ve stopped crying. Not because I don’t want to cry anymore, well, not just because I don’t want to cry anymore, but because my tear ducts physically can’t take it anymore. See these dark circles?” she pointed to the shadowy patches under her eyes, “these are the result of rubbing tears from my eyes too hard. My doctor said if I kept going the way I was I might actually go blind from popping too many vessels around my eyes.”
She said it all so casually over her pad thai, as she balanced her chopsticks between her index and ring fingers. She watched her hands carefully as they fidgeted, eventually giving up and resorting to the fork rested on her plate (just in case).
For some reason I wasn’t uncomfortable the way I usually am when someone is so honest about her pain, especially someone I’m supposed to look at as a sort of caretaker. Her candor was somehow humbling, somehow made her more human to me, somehow made me more human to myself

Her raw sores were beginning to callous, slowly. The things she was telling me about so coolly, I’m sure were the things that brought such poisonous tears to her eyes just a few months ago.

How brave she must be, I thought, to still be sitting in front of me, after losing a life she had loved so much. Not just a man, or a house, or a weekend routine, but an entire life…
To lose the life you had, and halfway through, have to start over, and rebuild from empty scraps—an old couch, dusty carpets, unused china. The thought was almost unbearable. It still is.

It only bends


She said, The mourning never ends,
it never stops hurting
but over time,
you change.
And because of that, the way you mourn changes.
The sadness doesn’t end,
it only bends.

But I just couldn’t get over the thought
of knowing a face so intimately,
so unbearably close,
Remembering what it was like to hold it in your lap,
rested between your palms,
and to know every hair on it.

And even more,
To know that you’d never see that face again,
Never feel that head in your lap,
It was almost unthinkable.

Old memories would be changed
Somehow,
because every sensation would be veiled
by a pang of loss,
like it was now.

I saw her eyes glaze over a little bit,
And I knew in that moment,
She could see her
Feel her near
and I knew that her lap was weighed down a little,
her palms rested at two cheeks.

In that moment, I felt her
Bruised spirit molding
around an instant of utter happiness,
Bending.
Behind those sad
doe eyes
was this enormous
Looming Love
of what had been.

Her love was so vocal, so real,
so alive.
And maybe by feeling it so vividly,
so desperately,
she was proving that she hadn’t lost
anything at all.

“Just go,” she said, so resolutely. “Don’t think about it, because when you think too hard you stop doing. Do while you can, and then think about it later.” Two hours into our coffee, we were jumping from place to place in her life, from her time in Tibet to South Africa to India to New Zealand to Portland back to New York City. She spoke effortlessly about each adventure, not hesitating between locations, hardly taking a breath. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t wrap my head around each place, I couldn’t fathom breathing in such different air, hearing such different languages, being so far away from everything, alone. Only not.
Having the courage to leave is something I’ve been holding onto so tightly, something I held so close to me, to think that now I’m struggling with it all over again is both frustrating and exciting. It’s a familiar anxiety, but one that reminds me that I’m growing. This is when the stretching happens.
I am astonished with how easy it seems. Maybe it is that easy, when you stop thinking so much.
She sounded so sure that I could do it, that it was right. After so much skepticism and disbelief I thought I was asking too much of myself, too much of the world. But she made it so real. I feel like she’s someone I’m supposed to know. Dad says that’s because she is.
There was a moment when we were talking, maybe it lasted longer than a moment, I don’t know, where I realized that this was a turning point. This moment, this meeting, this person collected, was a catalyst. She was placed in front of me, with her “to go” cup rested next to my “for here” mug, to remind me of the beauty in uprooting myself, of letting go of what you know and holding on for dear life to what you don’t. Some moment of clarity reminded me that there never was a choice…what a familiar, overwhelming feeling.
It was like someone just woke me up, like someone just told me the truth. It reminded me of what it was like for my life to change—for it to mold and bend in and around an instant, without excuse or warning. I am so excited about my life.

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.” These compelling words by Nelson Mandela will always be relevant to us, yet they take on even greater meaning now in some of the most formative years of our lives. And as we approach the end of a school year that has battered and bruised us, bothered and bewildered us, intimidated and inspired us, we are now faced with something even more daunting than the past: the future.
For soon-to-be sophomores, juniors, seniors, and high school graduates, the cycle continues; as time slowly charms us into moving forward, we continue to move, learning that letting go is a necessary aspect of surging onward. Releasing ourselves from our own securities- our friends, our families, our favorite restaurants- we are forced to be alone with ourselves. Perhaps what scares us so much about being alone is the idea that we might be better off that way. That maybe, despite all outside influences, we are extraordinary individuals. Because, really, once you realize you’re extraordinary, you can’t let it go to waste; you’ve got to realize your potential. Thus, we are thrust into the spotlight of our imaginations: fearful of failure, but even more fearful of mediocrity. It’s easy to get lost in that light.
But the exciting thing about getting lost is that it is when we are alone searching for something that life gets interesting. And it is the fact that we are never truly certain what we are searching for so constantly, so endlessly, so painfully, that keeps us discovering ourselves.
So as the year ends, embrace all of the things you have learned and take them with you as you brace yourself for the knowledge to come.
We are chameleons, extraordinary magicians, who continually surprise ourselves, and have “power beyond measure,” if we allow ourselves to see it.
We know no boundaries, only those we set upon ourselves that desperately need to be stretched in order to prevail. So as we pack our things and head off for vacation, or school, or work, I hope that after all this time waiting for your departure from home, you are more excited about your arrival into the world.

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force. Tell us about an external influence (a person, an event, etc.) that affected you and how it caused you to change direction.

I was born with a curse; his name is Deep- my overbearing, overprotective, over-everything older brother. Of course, my brother has always toyed with my thoughts. Growing up, he told me that having brown hair meant it was made of beans, that squinting was a fashion statement, and that showers were actually completely unnecessary and only adult rituals. He so heavily influenced my thought, that as his impressionable kid sister, I was at his mercy. And he knew it.
I was raised by boys, and by the tender age of seven, I could out-wrestle, out-curse, and outwit any boy in my second grade class. I was a competitive video game player among my boy cousins, and insisted on playing ghost busters over tea party. My brother relished in my being a tomboy; he’d always wanted a little brother. But by being more of a little brother than a little sister, I never got a chance to be myself.
This insecurity grew with me over time. I constantly second-guessed my decisions because I was afraid of making the wrong one. I didn’t have the confidence to believe that I could reach my goals. I was afraid of letting my loved ones down and I was afraid that I would never fulfill my potential. All these stigmas inhibited my actions- I didn’t feel like I could do anything as well as my brother could.
Becoming close to my brother was something I had never anticipated. As similar as we were in interest and age, our differences made it impossible for us to understand one another. As I grew and became more of a girl, he grew and became more of a boy, and we went our separate ways.
Somewhere along the line, something changed and some mystical, unmistakable, undeniable force brought us together. Perhaps it was a shift in the cosmos or a new balance between good and evil. Maybe it was something we had eaten that morning. Whatever the cause, my brother began to reach out to me. Whether it was by inviting me to watch television with him, or simply asking for my advice on what to wear, my brother slowly emerged as a friend: my best friend, in fact.
We are still incredibly different; everything about us- our humor, our style, our opinions, our personalities- seems to conflict and complement simultaneously. While he watches football games we discuss the latest celebrity gossip; while I shop at the mall he tags along and looks for video games. He has managed to be the most supportive yet most grounding source in my everyday life: he’ll readily admit how proud he is of me, but will just as quickly belittle my confidence. I think only a big brother can do that - only my big brother can do that.
His moments of support linger in my mind when I’m riddled with insecurity; I simply say to myself, “If Deep thinks I can do it, I bet I can.” When I’m racked with guilt, I hear his words of approval. And when I think that I’m the best I can be, I always remember that there’s someone waiting for me to be better.
Somehow we find a balance between brother-sister and best friends. We fight, we argue, we quarrel, we give each other the silent treatment. And along the way, we learn from each other. From him, I’ve learned one of the greatest lessons of all: that some curses can be blessings.

so here i am, grateful to feel anything because for some reason theres this overwhelming numbness that i cant seem to get away from. i've dubbed it my 1/5 life crisis. ripe ol' age of 17 and 11 months, ive let the rain start to fall a little. a little more than a light drizzle- a few puddles here and there, and occasionally a little blue in the sky. i cant seem to do anything but dream but dreaming is what scares me most right now. i dont know. theres something so terrifying about "laying all your cards out on the table"- its a strange feeling of triumph just for having the courage for doing it at all. even if it hurts a little. the strange thing is, the things i love, the things that are so deeply embedded in my blood, pumping through my veins, are making me hurt. but something about the hurt is comforting, because i know that hurt is better than nothing at all. and the hurt is only temporary, i hope. i hope that soon i wont have to close my eyes to smile.

I think the scariest thing is believing that you have some sort of perfect approximation of your own capabilities. Some people take comfort in it- i think i did too- but lately i've been hoping more and more to prove myself wrong. Maybe theres some sort of deep-rooted self-deprecation that we all take part in by imposing our own understandings of our limitations; by setting a sort of barrier between what is possible and impossible, there's no way we can get hurt, right? No harm, no foul. But the thing is, having these sort of barriers kind of freaks me out- it's probably the same reason organized religion kind of freaks me out- because it's almost like slapping a post-it on your forehead that says, "you can dream as much as you want, just dont pass this line: _____." and every morning when you look in that mirror, you see that invisible post-it in your reflection and though part of you takes comfort in knowing something for certain in an all too uncertain world, the other part is secretly dying, just hoping that you're wrong about who you think you are.
i think i'm beginning to rediscover that internal struggle that everyone talks so fondly about- i want so badly to be bigger than i actually am, i can almost feel myself on proverbial tippy-toes. and i almost feel like a spectator in my own life, taking part in a sort of audience-interactive play, where i can tell the characters what to do, and occasionally take part in the performance, but for the most part, i know that i'm pretty much helpless when it comes to the outcome. i just wish someone would let me in on the secret, you know? what an awful feeling it is to expect rejection.
so i'll take one day at a time (i dont have much of a choice), and try to take the advice i've been giving to everyone else for far too long. i'll just keep doing what i love, and hope that the people that hold my future in the palm of their hands see in me what ive always seen in my reflection, sans that bloody post-it.

been a long time. sorry. this summer has been the worst, but im starting to ease back into myself, slowly
dancing is really helping me do that

around this time last summer, i heard sarma sir hum a little tune to my teacher, an idea he had for a thilana. i remember so vividly listening to him and not blinking. i know i didnt blink because the second i took my eyes off him the rest of the room was dark. i also think i must have been smiling, only because whenever i think about it now i smile.
we learned the dance in about a week. i say about because i think it was more like 5 or 6 days of intense, exciting, exhausting 4 hour classes where all i thought about was dancing. im pretty sure thats all that was running through my mind, i was happy that way. i still wonder how we did it, not just myself and my fellow dancers, but sarma sir. how did he create something like that in such a short time? not only that, but literally in front of our eyes. he would take small breaks from us, i could tell, he would close his eyes and sing to himself and i knew that his mind was racing with numbers and counts and rhythms and hand gestures and all we could do was stand quietly and wait. and then he would come back to us with another piece of creation.
and then he went back to india, just as swiftly as he came and left us with the dance
he came back this summer and made a few changes, which was expected. he made it harder, which was expected. and yesterday we did it again, in its entirety, for the first time in a long time, and for some reason it felt like we had never taken a break at all, as if he was in front of us, with his eyes closed, nodding with approval at our sloppy aramandis, as we desperately tried to remember the intricate rhythms again.
and all i could do was smile at the fact that we had watched this baby being born, experienced this art being created. for as long as i live, as many times as i watch different dancers bring this piece to life, i will be able to say that i was among the first. it gives me goosebumps

A few months ago, in a sincere attempt to take initiative and bond, I promised my father that I would soon join him on his evening walks. This evening, when he returned home from work, he entered my room and asked me to walk. With his laces already tied, I was bound to my word, so I grabbed my shoes.
Heading down the street, the heat was almost unbearable and my father began to chat about his priestly endeavors, discussing the significance of a marriage license. I smiled and nodded, concentrating mostly on the designs of the cracks in the sidewalk. Before I knew it, there was a small dog at my feet; a short-legged Jack Russell Terrier, stout and rambunctious. One of those small dogs that’s born convinced she is bigger than she looks. Though we couldn’t help but laugh, I couldn’t help but admire her.
She passed us, and we walked on. My father said to me, “Up the street you’ll see Anju and Manju, they’re dying to meet you. Every day they ask for you.”

What? I looked at him like he was crazy.

Before he could answer any questions, I was greeted by a girl on a scooter, Anju, or maybe it was Manju, one of the eleven year old Sri Lankan twins adopted just two years ago by a kind suburban family living in Kansas. They moved here recently and since then my father had apparently developed with them a relationship of sorts.
I saw the girl run to her mother and say my name, pointing at me. I walked to the girls and introduced myself.

“Today is my birthday,” one of them said, “I’m eleven”
Happy birthday, I said to one, I forgot to mention it to the other.
As I walked down their driveway, a strange sensation came over me; I can only believe it is the feeling of being loved by strangers. My father saw my face, unchanged, still utterly confused
“See how much love they have?”
I didn’t answer
“That’s the way love is.”
And all my questions vanished.

We turned the corner, and Sir Geoffrey greeted us. He was knighted by my father not long ago, this crazy old man. Every evening he asks my father if he can walk with him for 100 steps (“no more, no less, I promise”), and chat. The trouble is, every time he joins my dad, he becomes so occupied with counting his steps that all conversation is lost. I walked a little behind the two of them, two crazy old men in different ways, and mused at the humanity of it all. There was Sir Geoffrey, my father’s knight, who would occasionally turn to me and call me princess. And there was my dad, laughing with a man most would turn away from.
Geoffrey had headed back a few paces ago, and my father spent the last quarter of a mile droning on about the art of shoe insoles. As I absentmindedly nodded, I looked at the neighborhood I had spent my entire life in, a neighborhood I knew nothing about, a neighborhood made up of different worlds, different universes. I looked at my father, my tour guide through this vast place, and saw his chest swell with pride. Had I done that? Had my mere presence on this Monday evening ignited that glimmer in his eye?
I wondered if he felt my love in my silence. I knew he did. I guess that’s just the way love is.

after too long away from my sari, i put it on today, trying to remember the perfect number of pleats that always made it fall just the right way, and the perfect length it needed to be to tie around my waist. i started to get nervous as i wrapped myself up in this sort of inherited wrapping paper, worrying that i had been out of practice for too long, that maybe it would be easier to just miss one more class. but as i willed myself into the yards of fabric, still embedded with the familiar scent of washed-out sweat stains mixed with scented fabric softener, i began to feel a little more like myself.

when the dancing started, i stopped thinking. i forgot how beautiful that is; how my spine tingles when the music starts to play, and how my toes begin to twitch as they remember the movements to the dances i thought i had forgotten.

by the end of class, my back was sore, my face was red, and my feet were throbbing, the way a baby feels when she is born. maybe the way we all feel when we're born again, in different ways.
it's funny to think that i almost forgot about this part of me; it's scary to think that i almost wanted to forget about this part of me. it's comforting to know that regardless of how far i get away from it, i'll always come back.

i think if, for one solitary second, i ever thought that i was in over my head, i proved myself wrong. and im so happy i did. its funny that going into something thinking "if i can do this, i can do anything", i never thought what it would be like afterward. i didnt even consider what it would feel like to actually do it. its incredible. i've still got a lot to do, but i feel so comfortable with the challenges ahead of me. they dont scare me as much as they did before, and that feels good-- to feel just a little bit taller after so much work, so little sleep, so many challenges. i like that this feeling isn't wearing off, and i hope it never does. this is cool.
and it doesnt hurt that after nine months of no real social life, i finally get it back

so, i just watched garden state for the second time in two days-- i've found that when im not watching it, i'm thinking about it. not because it changed me, or because it affected the way i see or think, but because it told me what ive been thinking. it told me exactly what i posted about before (which is kind of weird)(see 10/2/04). the thing is, whether you're 17, or 27, or 57, we all have this common link-- we're all searching for something, constantly, endlessly, painfully. but theres this beautiful mutual understanding that we all have with one another and with ourselves: we know that in order to find home, we've got to get a little lost. and being lost is where life gets interesting; its where we make the stories we tell our kids about, its what we think about right before we go to sleep in our safe, comfortable beds. and its the fact that we change our definitions of what is security and what is uncertainty so often that proves that we're growing.
i guess this movie did that for me.
there's no "between the lines" crap to think about. it's all there, sincerely, wholly, candidly.and before i knew it, i found the best and worst parts of myself in each character, and i connected on an entirely knew stage: i connected with myself.

yesterday while walking to the parking lot, trying to avoid the puddles (because the rain had just stopped), i was looking at the ground around me reflecting the parking lot lights, and all of a sudden i saw heavy rain drops start to fall into the puddles just a few feet ahead of me, while i was standing, dry, rain-free. it lasted for a split second, and within moments i was drenched, but it was long enough for me to tell myself to remember that instant forever, because for some reason, after that, it didn't feel so bad to be in the rain

colin hay- i just dont think ill ever get over you

god this song is beautiful. it makes you feel like when you hit your funny bone or fall on your ass; it hurts and part of you wants to cry and the other part wants to laugh, and at the same time that your eyes tear up, you smile. its happy sadness, or, im okay sadness
i think it feels like that

its number 5 on the garden state soundtrack- if you have the cd and havent listened to this song, do-- if you dont have the cd, find some way to listen to the song.

few things feel better than feeling capable.
capable of doing anything, really, from climbing mountains, to aceing that test, to running a marathon, to living your dreams. and i think thats what i've taken away from this experience. not just confidence (because confidence can easily screw you over) (i already had confidence), but the sensation of feeling that i can do this. i think its something we love to hear ourselve say, and love even more to believe, but nothing can replace what its like to feel it. and i think its such an integral part of my life and how i want to live, that im surprised i've gone on this long without it, or at least without acknowledging it. i think that now i can always remind myself that im capable-- even if im not, i can try to bullshit my way through it-- and i can really try to move, not just forward, but in all sorts of directions, and see beauty in both my triumphs and my failures.

Now i appreciate days when the sky is so clear you feel like you can look through it, when it feels like the sun is patting your shoulders, when the clouds are moving faster than your breath, when you can lie on your back in the grass and forget yourself and hear nothing but a song playing in your head, and when a run-on doesn't feel like a run-on at all.

i really have to get a new calendar, i desperately need the perspective

in an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

when the phone rings, i put it
to my ear without saying hello.
in the restaurant, i point
at chicken noodle soup. i am
adjusting well to the new way.

late at night, i call my long-
distance lover and proudly say:
"i only used fifty-nine today.
i saved the rest for you.

"when she doesn't respond, i know
she's used up all her words,
so i slowly whisper i love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
after that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

-jeffrey mcdaniel, the quiet world

stole the air from my lungs

this is my year

The buzz has begun again as it has every year, arriving with the changing leaves of the numerable deciduous trees on our campus: college applications. As an insider looking around, I’ve noticed the pressure mounting for quite some time; for about as long as we’ve been in high school. It’s a frightening process: trying to condense four years of your academic and extracurricular achievement on an 8 1/2x 11 sheet of paper; and even worse, trying to sum up your intellectual, personal, and social being in 500 words or less. Perhaps what makes us most nervous is the fact that we might not be who those college admissions officers want us to be, that maybe we’ve wasted our years in high school taking the wrong classes, joining the wrong sports, or focusing on the wrong subjects. There are countless things wrong with the application process- from the unbalanced emphasis of test scores over personality to the limitations we put on ourselves trying to be the “well-rounded” student we hope they’re looking for. It is in this twisted form of prostitution that we try to sell ourselves, wrapped up in the perfect package, ready and willing to be molded into the leaders of tomorrow. But what if we’re leaders now? What if all this talk about needing to be chosen is just another way of learning to choose ourselves over everything else; what if it’s about putting ourselves first, and not allowing a letter to determine just how worthy we are of greatness. Regardless of where you start, more important is the journey you take to end up where you want to be. College is just part of that journey, part of our never-ending quest to make a difference; and while it may change our lives, may alter our futures, may even change us as people, it is only as big and bad as we make it. College is like any other test- it can make us or break us. But it cannot measure how capable we are of fulfilling our potential. It’s alright if an admission’s officer doesn’t see it, as long as you do.