The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day - blind stars waiting for their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- Wendell Berry

Oh, you poor abandoned blog.

Sometimes I think the only times I would write in here, is when there's somethings I need to get off my chest, and it's something I can't imagine talking to anyone specific about it. How more depressing can drivel get.

I hate gossip. I'll admit that there are many times when I gleefully indulge in it, and even enjoy the sense of relief to my self-esteem that accompanies a judgement over someone else. But while I think a little gossip can be harmless and fun, too much of it just hurtful. Why does it matter to rate how good someone looks, or how apparently desperate you think he or she is. It particularly scares me when I wonder how much of my affairs are being discussed by a gossipy friend.

I have some trouble restraining comparisons between myself with others lately as well. I am well-aware I am being over-sensitive and insecure, but sometimes it's just easier to look down on yourself then find something you can be proud of. I can't run triathlons, my academic results are not noteworthy, I am not on scolarship, no I am not taking law, I can't drive. It particularly gets to me when people assume, based on who I am friends with, I am someone equally impressive. I am not. My laundry is an unfolded mess on my bed and I have not intention in the short-term to tidy it, I am typing this in the com lab because I somehow killed my laptop again, my health insurance expired for three months before I could be bothered to renew it, I can't remember the last time I exercised, I ate chips for lunch, I've been walking around blind or with red eyes because I lost my glasses and refuse to replace them in Aus. I have never been particularly intelligent or pretty or friendly and it was always okay. It's just that... when the people around you are so especially well put together, it makes it seem, by comparison, your life is falling apart at the seams.

On a few happier notes, I am hooked on a new tv show, I see Eggtart everyday, I am preparing for a vacation in NZ with the family, and the pimple on my nose is disappearing.

Hope a lovely, sunny Sunday!

being to timelessness as it's to time

being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end:
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

— do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools,all's well

e. e. cummings

I have made multiple stabs at writing a semi-coherent and vaguely interesting entry the past two months, but each attempt has ended with a "hmmm..." and "nah". Reflecting on my boring life has always ended with me pressing on the delete key, obliterating everything I had written over the past hour, as if I would upset this rare and delicate balance by serious contemplation. After which I would stare idly at the blank page of my laptop and wonder what the hell actually goes through that thick skull of mine (little else but food, apparently).

But I’m here now, so here goes.

Life is good, in an unsettling way. I recall how ZY chides me gently over the phone about getting over my neuroses, and just appreciating what I have. But it still feels as if my center of gravity is off, that I am in a perpetual crouch position before a race that never starts, and having thoughts that I should have already understood since long before. See, there I go again. I am graduating soon though (next year, but still) and there's that voice in my head that perpetually screams for everything to slow down! AAHHHHHH SLOW DOWN!! But things never do. The days fly by very fast, and it seems that I get by more on luck than good sense, but the time that slips by string together a life that I can never quite fully believe is mine.

Also, I've read Love in the Time of Cholera yet again. Ironically, finishing a Marquez or Rushdie book always sobers me up to reality. They may be fiction, but sometimes it feels like these books are more relevant and enlightening to me than any textbook (which probably also says how far detached from reality I am).



By the way, meet Eggtart. Life has been significantly brighter and more restful these days because of it.

Have a good week! :)