Twilight, Nighttime, and Dawn

"Have you lost your faith?"

"Lost implies I am searching."

"You used to breath life into me"

"Not all things are as they used to be"

You Asked for a Love Song but I Chose a Breakup Instead

You almost made it this time love
Almost made it through
What made you say?
Say maybe
Maybe it’s tomorrow maybe it never
Was
It was almost May
Not everything fact is true
True to the fact of you
You
Say
Maybe
May I be the last to hear you say:
Maybe
Say
You
What made you say?
Almost made it through
You almost made it this time love
Almost made it through

Happy Thursday

Today is Valentine's Day. I am not a fan of the holiday personally. After the binge on commercialism and sappy hearts that is Christmas and New Year's, Valentine's Day seems forced and unnecessary. Do I really need a day to tell those whom I love that I do? This day also produces another reaction without fail. It always calls for reflection. Today, 14 February 2008, I am sitting in an airport in Liverpool waiting for the morning bus to Lancaster. My body aches from the cold floor that was my bed and my stomach longs for a hot meal yet I am happier this year than I have been in a long time. Things in my life seem to be heading in a direction that makes sense and I do have someone to keep today from being "Single Awareness Day". Maybe its the sleep deprivation, or the constant distraction from the smell of a full English Breakfast, but I can't think of any great revelations that this year brings, and though pride cometh before the fall, I am going to pat myself on the back anyways...and go buy some beans on toast!*


(beans on toast is part of the full English breakfast which comprises of eggs, bacon, tomatoes, beans, mushrooms and toast)

Who has ever heard of "un-British" or "un-French" activities? The United States has often been called a "melting pot" because of the many different nationality groups it comprises, but before each generation of immigrants has been fully accepted into American society, it has had to be "Americanized." Few Americans have ever accepted diversity as a value. American society has,in fact, taken great pride in destroying diversity through assimilation.

---The American Approach to Foreign Policy by John Spanier

Chapter 9

Any Less Real

My hand expands and contracts, sending the water pulsing over my bare chest. It occurs to me that I am giving myself CPR as though my heart has stopped. Maybe it has.

“One Hundred and one ways to satisfy your man.”
I awaken to Sarah’s voice.
“What?”
“The cover of Cosmo…101 ways to satisfy your man. Interested? There is also a quiz on how to find your true love, sounds promising.” Sarah ends her last words with a full grin. She knows how ridiculous I find her magazines.
“I do not believe in true love.” I look her squarely in the eye expressing that I am more than just kidding around. Sarah rolls her eyes knowingly; I have said this statement one too many times.
My eyes drift back to the passing countryside. I have always loved riding by train, it gives you the ability to either be engrossed in your surroundings or relax and forget that you are traveling at all.
“I do not believe in true love.” My statement comes back to me but in a different voice. I remember my friend Christine from college. She had been that girl that always had a man in love with her and after each relationship fell apart she would proudly proclaim that there was always another fish in the sea, but that was before she met Timothy. He had been quiet and introspective. Whereas before she had been caught in the violent throes of relationships, she found herself studying and analyzing this gentle man. She had always been the girl that held the power in her various relationships and now she had met someone that she was helpless with. “I do not believe in true love.” She had said the statement plainly but with too much force. Her declaration was like those enlightened friends you find in college that proudly assert they do not believe in God- like their words could make him any less real. She wasn’t telling me her disbelief, she was telling the cosmos; it had been her last protection against the soul shattering that was falling in love.
I missed her and wanted to know if her last stand had been like the Alamo, a failure in front of a force larger than her, but I had lost contact with all of my old friends. The past two years of my life had been a roller coaster of change and most people found it hard to keep up. I eyed Sarah again; she was engrossed in a story about a girl that had fallen in love with the wrong twin brother. Her friendship had come at the right time in my life; it was easy and required minimal effort. It was the kind of relationship that made you realize how imperfect your past ones had been. I couldn’t blame my old friends for their slow desertion. I couldn’t expect them to know me when I did not even know myself. They had known the caricature of me, the simplified version that I presented to the world. No, there was no blame to be doled out to each and according to their measure. We had all known as much about life as one does before it happens: nothing at all.
I will call Christine when I get home. The last thing I need is another casualty in a life I am just beginning to live.
The train suddenly shuddered as if it had been privy to my thoughts. Christine’s memory led me back to that night in the church. I still had not been able to shake the priest’s words. Sometimes I would read my old friend’s blogs and see them having another fight over theology. They would argue various points of eternal damnation and the Eucharist. It seemed all so pointless now. I could not begin to understand the little things about God, how could I approach the finer points of belief? I think we all need something to argue with or maybe argue for. It is part of human nature. I felt like a child pondering the life of a butterfly while they argued over the consequences of chaos theory. Sarah had decided that I was a closet Christian- whatever that meant. It seemed to me to be such an important thing, a decision that should not be taken lightly. Not to be taken wholly as I had when I was a child, when I went on mission trips to Mexico to pass out tracks and save the world. We passed out Jesus like food stamps, the bread of life in a neat package. Maybe I helped save some people. What if I had? What did that say about my life now?
The train shuddered again, and this time I knew it was because of my thoughts. I could be such a heretic at times.
I hear the familiar beeping of Sarah’s phone signaling that she has received a text message. Her phone had been doing that a lot lately and I was starting to wonder where all the messages were coming from. She opened up her phone and read the message; stealing a subdued smile at the text and placing it quickly back in her pocket. Now she had my full attention.
“Sarah”
“Hmm.” Her eyes are glued to her magazine.
“You have been receiving a lot of texts lately, is there something I need to know?” I ask her in a motherly tone, adding a bit of humor to water down my honest earnestness.
“Nope.”
“Nothing? You know you can’t hide things from me.”
“You won’t like it.” She finally looks up from her magazine and I can see in her face that she is about to tell me no matter what her words belie.
“Spill”
“Ok. Well I know that I have a boyfriend and that we are only going to be here for seven more months but…I met someone.”
“What?!?” I had resigned myself to being supportive to whatever she said but this had caught me off guard. She had met someone? How could I have missed this? I look at her injured face and know that she was afraid of my reaction.
“I am sorry. How long has this been going on? What are you going to do about it? Does Anthony know?” My questions firing at her like a machine gun.
“I met him two weeks ago, nothing has happened yet so Anthony does not know and I have no idea where this is going.”
“Nowhere good.” Uh-oh I am in mother mode full on now and there is no stopping me. “Really Sarah, please think about this. You have been with Anthony for a year and he is coming to visit for Spring Break. I thought you were happy with him. Whatever happens here, you still have to go home and live with the consequences. Being on another continent does not give you a free pass.” The truth was that I thought Anthony sounded like a complete dumb-ass but I was never a supporter of cheating. I had learned the hard way that if you want to break away from something you should just do it, but do not give the other person reason to believe it had anything to do with something other than the fact that your relationship was not working out. If you cheat on someone then they only focus on that point instead of all the trouble that lead up to you being able to commit the act.
Sarah’s eyes were back on her magazine but she was not reading. She was angry at me for not indulging her fantasies and being the voice of reason. Maybe I should have listened to her but if there was one thing I needed two years ago, it was someone to lift me up and shake the crazy ideas out of my head. Her phone went off again but this time she reached into her coat pocket and silenced it. I took this as a good sign but I would have to do some damage control tonight. Maybe buy her a beer and tell her I was sorry for coming down so hard on her.
I looked up to see that we had arrived at the airport and people were beginning to collect their luggage. Yes, Sarah would forgive me because I had saved her from having to forgive herself.

"Que déjà le monde qui l'entourait n'avait plus aucune importance et que chaque nouvelle journée était comme un poids impossible à soulever. Alors, elle pleurait. Non pas qu'elle fût triste, mais pour faire passer tout ça. Les larmes, ce liquide finalement, l'aident à digérer sa caillasse et lui permettaient de respirer à nouveau"-- Ensemble, c'est tout by Anna Gavalda

That already the world which surrounded her did not have importance at all and that each new day was like a impossible weight to lift. So, she cried. No, not that she was sad, but to pass it all away. These tears, this final liquid, helped her to process her ruin and permitted her to breath anew. -- Together, this is all by Anna Gavalda

I was given this book for christmas by one of my colleagues. As you can see, the writing is beautiful but incredibly sad.

Mediated Medium

Sitting down, waiting to begin. Starting slow and picking speed. A first glance, where to begin. Stepping dance without end. Patient waltz of information. A look, a laugh, a turn of head. Did you like that line? I’ll say it again. Careful clicking, keys in time. Drifting sideways glances: careful look again. Two strokes and I amend. A clock of lies, salut Mon Cheri. A last thing forgotten. A look, a laugh, a dance at end. Reaching over and pressing send.