why do people like twilight?
because two people love each other without any explanation. do things for each other for no reason. meet for a day and are instantly connected. would die for each other. would blame themselves rather than the person they love. because he would change his monster heart, and she would change her entire being, for love. for the fact of divorced families of normal everyday people, and happy and loving families of outcasts. because of white lies aimed to protect.
because of the moment we anticipate and wait for patiently until it happens and it is two people in embrace, when all is laid bare, with sneaky sniffs of and shaky fingers through the hair, the kissing of noses and cheeks, of the weak knees and butterflies in the stomach, because in those moments it doesn't matter if the love doesn't make sense, or is intellectual, thoughtful, provoking, meaningful, logical, sensical.
because love is none of those things. because love does not, will not ever, make much sense, at all.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
SLOW EDUCATION
A loud clank sounded off Margeurite’s marquis-cut diamond as her hand slapped the glass which covered our black wicker table at dinner; a small bit of mashed-up blueberries and soft, brown crust squished out her mouth. She made a shield with both her hands in front of her face – mush spewing out – her cheeks bright vermillion; she could not stop laughing. I chuckled, took my eyes off of her for a moment, and watched a frumpy woman with subtle facial hair walking her miniature poodle down the road.
The day started off unusually considering that Margeurite, who typically sleeps far longer than I do, was already up and about early. A hazy light came in through the cracks of our lace curtains; she slid about on the hardwood floors in knee-high socks singing Hey when she sings, when she sings when she sings like she runs moves like she runs with her wet hair wrapped in a blue towel turban-style, cuddled in her Princeton literary society sweat-shirt, sleeves rolled up, taking whispering sips of a cup of fresh decaf Sumatra while I migrated and awoke, abruptly and literally, on her side – the wrong side of the bed.
We spent that evening at a cozy restaurant under a wide red and white umbrella when the sun slathered the sky with a Clementine coat; fat, pregnant pigeons parachuted from the flat tops of tall plane trees which lined the sidewalks every fifteen feet or so, swooping down, causing a loud commotion, eager for a free meal.
While I watched Margeurite eat the remainder of her croustade aux bleu, pausing every few seconds to pat her belly with a satisfied look, I felt that I could picture in my mind with clarity the revolution that took place here hundreds of years ago; the women in Parisian markets demanding that they have their bread; men with garden tools, makeshift weapons and pots for helmets marching through these very streets on the way to Versailles; the birth of a new modern age conceived by the purging of God’s sons and daughters.
Well, that pleasant Bastille Day evening the air was warm and wrapped around my body like a flannel blanket on a cold winter’s day. While we waited to pay for our dinner Margeurite, whose eyes were large and wide, put her hand on top of mine lovingly as we watched two pigeons peck at a piece of old crust, politely, together. Her hair, a mix of burnt rust and sunny blonde, flowed gently like a thick liquid, levitating on the currents of a light summer breeze. She wrote “I love you” in the condensation of her glass and took a sip of her water.
“Going to have a cigarette?” she asked, scooting her chair back so as to recline, “I can wait here for the check. Besides, I don’t think I can get up and walk at this point.”
I said yes and offered her the rest of my crème Brule. She gladly accepted. Taking the last gulp of my glass of Chianti I stepped away from the table and walked towards the front doors, away from the patrons, to smoke a cigarette.
I happened upon an elderly Asian man sitting on the street on top of a bamboo mat with sunglasses on, humming what sounded like the Time’s Are-a-Changin’, shaking the loose change in his cup as if it were a tambourine. When he saw me he stopped altogether and stared up.
“THIS IS WATER!” he exclaimed, in a amalgamation of accents, French, Chinese(?), English.
“Excuse me?”
The man began to rock back and forth violently, pointing at random objects around us (a fire hydrant, a piece of old gum on the sidewalk).
“THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER!”
At first, I thought what most people in this situation would think to themselves, This guy is absolutely bat-shit crazy. I remembered, right then, my graduation ceremony at Kenyon in 05’. David Foster Wallace spoke and I remembered vividly his opening remarks, a story. It goes: “There are two young fish swimming, and they meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”
Everything is water; this is water, all of this – it’s water.
I highly doubted that this French-Asian man had heard of David Foster Wallace, let alone a commencement speech he gave at a tiny liberal arts college in Ohio, and assumed that Foster Wallace had stolen the idea from this mystical Eastern French Asian man.
Leaning against the brick of the building I made a wreck of my cigarette and pondered the morning, the uneasy and unfamiliar feeling which crept into my spirit from deep within my depths, the sudden transformation that occurred to me as I confronted a history not my own, but still partly my own. Taking time to be mindful, I began to imagine all the wide-eyed precocious young American students filing into the Louvre with backpacks and marble black notebooks and red pens behind their ears; tasted the beef and potato stew that was being boiled in a tiny tenement home while young black children wrestled one another; felt the reverberations of waves crashing against the bank of the Seine; and, could even hear the whipping cast of a fisherman’s line as it flung out towards some innocent fish.
I sat cross-legged in a lotus position and chanted with him in a perfect language: “THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER, THIS IS WATER …”
The day started off unusually considering that Margeurite, who typically sleeps far longer than I do, was already up and about early. A hazy light came in through the cracks of our lace curtains; she slid about on the hardwood floors in knee-high socks singing Hey when she sings, when she sings when she sings like she runs moves like she runs with her wet hair wrapped in a blue towel turban-style, cuddled in her Princeton literary society sweat-shirt, sleeves rolled up, taking whispering sips of a cup of fresh decaf Sumatra while I migrated and awoke, abruptly and literally, on her side – the wrong side of the bed.
We spent that evening at a cozy restaurant under a wide red and white umbrella when the sun slathered the sky with a Clementine coat; fat, pregnant pigeons parachuted from the flat tops of tall plane trees which lined the sidewalks every fifteen feet or so, swooping down, causing a loud commotion, eager for a free meal.
While I watched Margeurite eat the remainder of her croustade aux bleu, pausing every few seconds to pat her belly with a satisfied look, I felt that I could picture in my mind with clarity the revolution that took place here hundreds of years ago; the women in Parisian markets demanding that they have their bread; men with garden tools, makeshift weapons and pots for helmets marching through these very streets on the way to Versailles; the birth of a new modern age conceived by the purging of God’s sons and daughters.
Well, that pleasant Bastille Day evening the air was warm and wrapped around my body like a flannel blanket on a cold winter’s day. While we waited to pay for our dinner Margeurite, whose eyes were large and wide, put her hand on top of mine lovingly as we watched two pigeons peck at a piece of old crust, politely, together. Her hair, a mix of burnt rust and sunny blonde, flowed gently like a thick liquid, levitating on the currents of a light summer breeze. She wrote “I love you” in the condensation of her glass and took a sip of her water.
“Going to have a cigarette?” she asked, scooting her chair back so as to recline, “I can wait here for the check. Besides, I don’t think I can get up and walk at this point.”
I said yes and offered her the rest of my crème Brule. She gladly accepted. Taking the last gulp of my glass of Chianti I stepped away from the table and walked towards the front doors, away from the patrons, to smoke a cigarette.
I happened upon an elderly Asian man sitting on the street on top of a bamboo mat with sunglasses on, humming what sounded like the Time’s Are-a-Changin’, shaking the loose change in his cup as if it were a tambourine. When he saw me he stopped altogether and stared up.
“THIS IS WATER!” he exclaimed, in a amalgamation of accents, French, Chinese(?), English.
“Excuse me?”
The man began to rock back and forth violently, pointing at random objects around us (a fire hydrant, a piece of old gum on the sidewalk).
“THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER! THIS IS WATER!”
At first, I thought what most people in this situation would think to themselves, This guy is absolutely bat-shit crazy. I remembered, right then, my graduation ceremony at Kenyon in 05’. David Foster Wallace spoke and I remembered vividly his opening remarks, a story. It goes: “There are two young fish swimming, and they meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how's the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”
Everything is water; this is water, all of this – it’s water.
I highly doubted that this French-Asian man had heard of David Foster Wallace, let alone a commencement speech he gave at a tiny liberal arts college in Ohio, and assumed that Foster Wallace had stolen the idea from this mystical Eastern French Asian man.
Leaning against the brick of the building I made a wreck of my cigarette and pondered the morning, the uneasy and unfamiliar feeling which crept into my spirit from deep within my depths, the sudden transformation that occurred to me as I confronted a history not my own, but still partly my own. Taking time to be mindful, I began to imagine all the wide-eyed precocious young American students filing into the Louvre with backpacks and marble black notebooks and red pens behind their ears; tasted the beef and potato stew that was being boiled in a tiny tenement home while young black children wrestled one another; felt the reverberations of waves crashing against the bank of the Seine; and, could even hear the whipping cast of a fisherman’s line as it flung out towards some innocent fish.
I sat cross-legged in a lotus position and chanted with him in a perfect language: “THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER THIS IS WATER, THIS IS WATER …”
SUNRISE, SUNSET
wake up in the morning and tell yourself that life is beautiful and it is a new day and although it is a cliche remember that the potential for new things to happen is always around us so take advantage of it, tell someone you think their hair looks nice or that their shoes are cute or that you like their laugh or just smile and let your eyes do the talking. it is good to simply wake up and smell the coffee and know with full confidence that the day you are about to experience has never been experienced by anyone, and has not been planned, and cannot be predicted or determined - at least not wholly and completely. so, who knows, perhaps you will meet someone today who will change your life, or read a poem that makes you feel more than you've ever felt before, or simply find yourself lost for a second or two in the most peaceful state you've ever been in. all that is possible because life is not over at all, it has just begun.
UNTITLED
families are minor keys like Ramadan and honesty is powerful it crumbles like rusks
it sticks like hitchhiker skin just having some laughs during backlit dinners
dusty flat feet deserted and hiding thin wrists under medium weight jackets
lagging speech hesitating in ritardandos which are just that beautiful
letters are pieces peeling tumbling like pumpkins and bobbing like puppets
last year I saw you sit in filtered sunshine the room was like a cave but you
inspired it with flowers once I exchanged email addresses with a complete stranger
who intimidated me I didn’t like it and wished he was still bent and blooming
conviction it settles in an instant in the time it takes hangnails to bleed
in the time it takes to try honesty in the time it takes to go to school and come home
arched eyebrows like bird feathers from the rump while Satchmo’s lips buzz
anxious and psycho just please no more lists or anger or any of that teeth clenching business
only when we are alone and leaning real far away from yellow clouds
I didn’t miss it when you moved away just scratched my chin and slouched a little in my chair
JANE SHIM, UPenn 11'
it sticks like hitchhiker skin just having some laughs during backlit dinners
dusty flat feet deserted and hiding thin wrists under medium weight jackets
lagging speech hesitating in ritardandos which are just that beautiful
letters are pieces peeling tumbling like pumpkins and bobbing like puppets
last year I saw you sit in filtered sunshine the room was like a cave but you
inspired it with flowers once I exchanged email addresses with a complete stranger
who intimidated me I didn’t like it and wished he was still bent and blooming
conviction it settles in an instant in the time it takes hangnails to bleed
in the time it takes to try honesty in the time it takes to go to school and come home
arched eyebrows like bird feathers from the rump while Satchmo’s lips buzz
anxious and psycho just please no more lists or anger or any of that teeth clenching business
only when we are alone and leaning real far away from yellow clouds
I didn’t miss it when you moved away just scratched my chin and slouched a little in my chair
JANE SHIM, UPenn 11'
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