Musings From the Shower

There's something greatly stimulating I find from the flaccid punches of water on my head. I like my shower time, partly because I can sing when I'm not thinking about stuff; and think when I'm not butchering some poor artiste's number.

How do you know that you're on the wrong path? When do you stop? How do you know that your ladder ain't leaned up on the wrong tree in the forest?

I've been told that there is a truth, while I remember most of my life being spent in pursuit of the truth. Now that I know some truths, I'm inclined to hold onto truths that have been proven in one way or another, while pursuing the truths of the other truths that I'm not sure about.

Confusing? Not really... Perhaps the simplest summary of my disposition is that I understand things are dynamic (or never fixed for long, rather) and that there are very few things that are and will remain certain. And as such, I hold onto little, and try to expand my heart to accomodate more.

That being said, I find that life puts your in these 'catch 22' situations sometimes. Like how it's hard to tell if you're taking the first step in what would eventually be a series of wrong steps, Given that so many things are circumstantial, and that in our attempt to understand everything, we in fact misunderstand more because we can't escape the mistaking of our own value judgements as facts or guidelines. On the other hand, it would not do to simplify things for the obvious risk of over or understating certain aspects of an issue, especially since the simplified answer is but a projection of an iceberg of complex emotional and intellectual interactions.

So when should we start to change course or stop our current potentially self-destructive path? Frankly, I don't know... While it's easy for self-help books or spectators in life to issue nuggets of canned wisdom, I find it hard to take these various opinions, suggestions and prescribed truths as biblical-type markers. After several rounds of eliminative self-mediated arguments, I've narrowed down my course of action in life to some simple ones.

I will try my best to consider all factors within my ability. I will be mindful of what I know and what I don't know -- seeking out the unknown where the opportunities avail. I will also seek to modify my perceptions of truths and established opinions. Where will it end? I have set no boundaries on knowledge, for I seek only to be wise. Alternatively, I have chosen to acknowledge the magic of chance, and thus life, in terms of having my knowledge modified, established, broken down or reaffirmed by the complex network of interactions with life over which I have limited control. Within this framework of consciousness lies the keystone of choice. Knowledge affords me choice, and results in action. I shall learn to accept all the results of my actions regardless of their true nature. And I shall learn to choose my actions, with knowledge of both my available choices and their results.

Take relationships for example: when do you know that things aren't working out? When you decide so? When your friends tell you so? When do you say that you want to work things out? How do you do it? I believe in giving and taking. As far as I have control over my mental faculties and have influence over my spiritual ones, I shall endeavour to explore, embrace, give and grow love. Of particular concern is how I would like to and believe that people ought to get along with one another.

Don't mistake me for a hippie tree-hugger simply because I'm conflict-avoidant. I value the presence of stresses and conflict, and I'm quite sure that we already receive enough of both positive and negative forms from our environments. Most importantly, my approach simply focuses on the things within my control and influence -- me, and my immediate surroundings. If I can make a choice to be happy, or to influence a situation to relief some tension, I will. If I can make a choice to suffer a temporary loss of statisfaction or comfort to sustain a moment of growth, I will. Again, the trick is to find a balance, because I do not have a confident answer as yet to what makes an adequate choice. Perhaps what rings most clearly in my mind is that I shall not allow myself to again choose to cause hurt, to myself or the people around me -- especially not to the people I love. I shall not allow myself to cause hurt for the temporary relief of my ill reasoned discomforts, my short-sighted pride or my disgruntled sense of justice. It is because I have made and suffered under such mistakes, that I do not wish to be part of them again.

Now that the lenses of my machinery are set, I would seek to move. Moving on is another matter of both the mind, body and soul. Here, I've only begun opening up a small part of my mind, for the consciousness of a social soul will forever be as vast as the oceans as long as it remains open.

There are very much more thoughts, arguments an opinions that I have on the tip of my fingers tonight, but this is all the time my shower affords me. For both opportunities and time for thoughts are a luxury to me, I treasure their passing and have faith that I shall behold them once again.

-------------------------------------

YOU

You don't need to apologise for being who you are with me. We are both free spirits in our own ways, and along our paths we dance. Sometimes we collide, sometimes we fly. Sometimes we cross, and sometimes we pass alongside one another. Know this: I have chosen a path that moves closely beside yours. Where you will go, I shall venture too, now or eventually. I still share in and with you the leaves and tress in my enchanted trail. I look upon your forest and marvel at your enchanted garden.

But know this, that I will bend under your breath if you wish and I will hold my pace along the trail edge, just so that you be comfortable and we be able to grow. I do not know all that your playful feet try to tell me in their intricat dance, I will still rely on your eyes and lips to lift my deafness and numbness.

No matter how we may trip or tumble, dance or fly, it's with you that my soul is exclusively intertwined. And it's also for you that this spring won't dry.

How can I survive with so little sleep? Simple... I embrace you in my sleep, and I wake up to you again. That's how.


JKLM

Waking From A Dream; That Old Familiar Feeling

Seldom do we come across moments in your life when a single incident can launch you from a murky wallowing confusion into the clarity of a piercing darkness. It's like flying upwards into a hole. You feel certain of your movement and clear of your intentions, but you can't be sure of your destination. For that matter, you never were sure of it. In flight, before the hole, you find a confidence and strength you never knew you had -- the pieces are in place, the moves are set and you think you're ready. And just when you enter the hole, that dreaded phantom whispers a curdling beat through your heart: are you sure?

Genius of the hole: the moment you step in you don't stop falling, no matter what you do and how long and hard you try to climb out. Like a bullet lodged in your mind, slowly spinning and grinding its way through yout synapses, the hole doesn't take a generous bite of your enegy but drains you slowly instead, one crimson drop at a time.

There's probably a timebomb ticking in our heads. At least I'm sure that there's one in mine. The trigger is under someone's finger, waiting and ready to perform its deadly assignment. Regardless of its intention, the trigger was never at fault, even if it were responsible for setting that bomb off. For that matter, the finger on the trigger couldn't be held entirely responsible for it. Like a set of steel rings linked up to one another end to end, these isolated factors link up in their weary burden, going round and round. Round and round, back to you. You were responsible. You were always responsible; and by that understanding, you were also irresponsible.

There are no happy endings in sacrifices. Who truely knows what price people pay for the outcomes we see? Who truely knows how it feels to feel trapped, helpless and wanting? When has there been a cost that really "didn't matter"?

I had jumped on the chances I had to search for answers, answers to the questions that I had asked. People read my commitment as confusion, and perceived my search as an obsession. It might have been, if I didn't know what I was doing. It might have seemed so because of my inadequate communication. Conversely, it would have been equally likely that my exisitence was a complicated product of your own consciousness and circumstantial conditions.

This isn't the first time, but wont' be a last time such a transaction has befallen me. There are no simple situations, at least none that my eyes can see. I wish I were wiser. And more patient. Are there simple answers? Perhaps simple ideals more than simple answers.

It was supposed to be simple.

It still is. We're just a few steps away. Cummon kid, think!



JKLM

Questions

Where is the concerto
That used to play
Upon my parched beach
With dancers of pure white clay?

Where burns that soul fire
Within your comet gems
That sparkle with
Such subtle desire?

When cometh the wind
Of Autumn spice
Thou Winter cold
Should suffice?

Perhaps today
We shall find
Perhaps in here
Behind those eyes...


JKLM

Martini

Shaken, not stirred. With a few bruises too, if you might.

"Dry, please," you would have said instead.

I feel shaken -- physically tossed around, bruised and raw. Twilight hours that flowed with such spirit now crank in mechanical labour. Marching on through the communism of events management offered me a reward at dawn-break. Fleeting as a promise, I was offered a peek at the phantom glory of an impending golden hope.

The Sunday that followed was much like an youthful party: a continuous flurry of mindless activities for the sole purpose of fulfilling your mental massage quota. I didn't want to stop moving, knowing that chasing a high from all that activity was at any time better than clawing my way through douldrums of sober fatigue.

Just as I began falling later in the day, the chatter of excited preoccupation and excited clatter of steel on ceremics ceased my waning attention in a slingshot sweep. With a palate of green, orange, black and white, an artist and her apprentice presented a selection of simple tates and well-bodied goodness. They made me miss my mother's cooking; they made me miss home too.

On the note of food and drink, my vagabond imagination teased me of the chatter and clatter with an old friend. An old friend who wore her spaghetti on her head, her heart on her face, and her soul in her eyes. Through her, a cocktail flowed; from her, a heart-aches were grown and bestowed; with her, a mind was opened.

Wordsmith, welcome back. Few things can move us like your words: some move me close to tears while others move us all closer to you. We missed you.

Despite the lyrical puzzle that I find so intriguing, the patchwork of autumn style still offer a home for my stirred-up heart. For your colours are still the ones that paint my horizon, and the bricks my bare-feet follow. Where to? To tomorrow, my dear; to tomorrow, starting from yesterday and today.


JKLM

Puzzle

Isn't it neat
When you find
That there's a fit
Unlike any kind

A nook
For a chin
A neck
To hide in

Wraggly knuckles
A lock and key
A natural buckle
Between you and me

Two feet apair
One size apart
Vanity fair
Of a beating hearts


JKLM