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 MIRRORSOUL | JOURNAL ARCHIVE . 001
Time is slowly dwindling down, days get longer, and the pile of college stuff grows larger by the day. Ten more days, a decade of twenty-four hour periods, and I'll be eighteen. Of course, I feel no differently about the world or myself than I ever did. But I am tired. I could literally start counting down the weeks before I leave for college. And with my classes and schedule chosen, it just makes the whole string of events more realistic. Also, even if I am not sure exactly what I want to do in the future since I am not certain what an English major will lead me to later on in life, I do honestly relish the opportunity to discover all the possibilities out there. I do think people who are rushing through set schedules for the next four to six years, in order to capture some kind of degree, are lucky to have a passion in something. Still, I get to have a rather lax requirement scheme, and I can take classes ranging from art to astronomy to linguistics to philosophy. I think I'm beginning to understand how college is always such a blast. I feel as if I have gotten caught in some kind of backdraft. This week has been longer than any I have ever experienced. All the many events and happenings run together, and I can not even piece together what happened today, yesterday or the day before that. It must have been last night that a saw the flat red tortilla moon. Or maybe it had shone bright and luminous this morning . . . or during the day after tomorrow. Not to mention the strange, surrealistic stories Haruki Murakami writes in The Elephant Vanishes. So far, I cannot say that it one of my favorite books or short story collections, but it has been extremely readable and infectious in a fun, funny, biting way. I suppose some people just have lots of ideas and material to write about. I find myself lacking it much of the time. Yes, I live awaiting the next obstacle, couting the minutes or forgetting them. Or urging the clock on with my mind, push, push, PUSH. As I sit here gazing at the imperfections of my quick-bitten fingernails, I have decided that my inadequacies could start here. Then, suddenly, - The tag on my T-shirt with its washing direction and materials in Spanish and French - It struck me for some reason. I like reading them aloud and pretending my mastery over all spoken language. I sometimes gain satisfaction from reading an especially good piece of poetry or prose aloud. Or perhaps I will create nonsensical lyrics to a tune I have never heard before. A similar feeling strikes me to describe simple scenes - like fans on the ceiling or a window looking out into the pitch darkness of midnight - in my mind, writing them down and watching the words appear on a blank page. And when the desire to just BE outside builds up, I can almost imagine what space must look like. And the sun rising from the behind the trees becomes a glowing fluorescent molten burst, I see it creeping over the rotating globe. It illuminates the now Braille-like mountain ranges, and the suddenly still oceans. The blue must be breathtaking, such clarity without contamination of anything. Maybe those men and women who have traveled outside the bounds of the atmosphere and the reach of tactile destruction can extract themselves from their consciousness for a moment and view the world as it can only be viewed. From above and all around. Outside, Cherry Hill has entered the phase of rotation commonly known as summer. Personally, I prefer cold weather to the heat, but summer has its benefits... Like my birthday which is coming up next month. Frightful. I'll be 18, and then getting ready to go off for college and all that jazz. I have realized that random people keep on questioning my choice for college, for my major, for my interests. Not my family, because that's understandable, but passing commentators who think they are authorities on my life. I'm not angry, but it confuses me that some of them get angry. I guess I find their interest in my future kind of interesting and amusing. Anyways, I also found out last night, that I am a horrible bowler. But considering my lack of coordination and physical abilities, I suppose my failing expertise in the world of bowling should not be surprising. Well, all I can say is that, at least I served as a source of amusement to my friends... With the school year drawing to a close and all the senior activities well underway, I cannot help but to stop and think about how quickly the year has gone by. Besides, I basically have no more work to do, and the summer and college rise rapidly over the horizon. Seriously though, I have to stop writing such cheesy pieces and get down to some half-decent poetry and prose, which has managed to elude me for quite some time now. At any rate, at least I get some time to enjoy myself and read some books. First up? Jack Kerouac: On the Road. It's good stuff so far. After the deafening roar, a wave of calm washes up. A calm of tired, edginess and pale gray translucent color. The world gives way to a Surrealist landscape, spreading out to such infinities that if one looks upon it - this terrain scattered with familiar, yet unsettling, objects - makes a man want to give up. He can't even scream because gravity here has multiplied; his limbs and eyes droop and close on their own accord. He finds himself, somehow, lying horizontally on the floor of the seabed, looking up to see the clear gray sky through skewed crests and troughs, calm rolling sine waves of life. And such calm can only give way to sleep. Thinking about what "reality" actually constitutes of these past few days has left me dazed. Synthesis of dream and reality, bondage of rationality, a surreal existence? But it has to all be worth it, despite the awful scary, scary things. I think that fear is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome. And it always will be. If I were a little more forward I would call someone to talk right now. About what? I have no idea. I just really do not want to be sitting in front of some computer or television right now. I was reading "Surreal Lives" by Ruth Brandon for my English research paper (which is going so slowly and painful, by the way), and there is this one passage about Luis Bunuel when he was at the screening of his film, Un Chien andalou that just made me crack up for some reason. Sometimes I just start laughing out loud when reading if something tickles me just right. . . . "Bunuel was of course terrified. He liked to tell the story of how he stood with the gramophone behind the screen, his pockets filled with stones which he intended to hurl at the audience in true Surrealist style if they booed."Haha. Okay, maybe, upon looking at it like the fifth time, it seems less funny. But, I can so imagine some pissed off director doing that. Oh Bunuel, you character, you. I can't breathe. There is a thick balloon blown up in my chest, emitting such pressure upon the cavity and the back of my throat that I cannot breathe. I am choking, simply choking with unswallowable emotions. I do not want to deal with this anymore. I just need a little silence and peace. If only for a moment. I was tearing down the street in a packed old-timey car with Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and some Surrealist philosophers. Picasso was driving like a mad man, weaving between cars, bicycles, and women with baby carriages. Eventually, despite the quickly departing crowd, we manage to hit someone. A man on the street sees us and points at Pablo and yells "FRAUD! FRAUD!" So, at that point we decided to escape on foot, and a narrator takes over as we each make our way, diverging at small angles from one another into the glaringly green glen adjoining the city. The narrator commends us for our . . . escape expertise? O.K., so I have strange dreams. I'll bet y'all do too. I spent yesterday watching Surrealist films, and now I have to come up with a thesis about the impact of this movement on culture. Definitely not what I feel up to right now. Instead I think I will aimlessly surf the internet for pretty anime pictures. Oh, by the way, Happy Memorial Day, everybody. Little pieces of the world slip away from me lately. Control over the smallest of things just starts to pull away. Or perhaps I am only beginning to notice the world not revolving around me or even around an axis anywhere near me. I keep on hoping that maturity will really answer these burgeoning questions. Yet, as I look around, some people, adults as we call them, never really get so close to the peace I hope to find someday. Oh, does everything really have to be so vague? I wish I could just feel everything in sync with me. It is as if I am half a period ahead or behind everything and never exactly lined up. The remedy is to let go and feel it naturally. Let Go. Easier said than done. But I think I am beginning to understand what is important in life. The next step is to achieve those aspects in my own life. Yes, success and happiness, "simple" and necessary as they may be, are extraordinarily hard to attain. Sigh. Either that or most of us are going about it the wrong way. Aren't we always? Sometimes, simplicity can strike the greatest cord of beauty. Even the word "simple" sounds like two small words uttered by children who are merely fascinated by the noises their mouths can make. The "S" slithers through their teeth, a puff of air forms the "P," and the tip of the tongue in back of their teeth completes the word. Simple. So, is ignorance bliss? I have no doubt that knowledge and even genius brings a considerable amount of suffering, but understanding how complex and integrated every speck of an aspect is seems to complete the world more smoothly. Still, I believe the meaning of life could not be anything but something simple. Not simple as in arbitrary or meaningless, but simple as in archetype, as in innate, as in natural. Simple. | ||||||