Goings On

I spent two nights with my cousin and her daughters in Santa Cruz. All I have to say is that I am definitely not equipped at the moment with enough energy for children. Even as cute as they are.

[Insert Oliver Twist caption here]

Last night I all but forced my sister to go to the symphony with me to hear Beethoven's 9th. She (and two other people who turned me down for the date) was afraid she'd fall asleep. Who falls asleep during Beethoven's 9th?! The orchestra & chorale played to a standing ovation.

Afterwards we did something that my sister was into - visiting a gelato/shaved ice shop. Here is my ice bowl in all its glory.

That's frozen yogurt on top of fruit, with mochi pieces, on top of red bean and shaved ice.

So Your Tiny Black Heart Is Broken

Back on Valentine's Day I found this article on NPR. Somehow it suits my mood today. Go and have a listen, if you need to be pulled down into a whirlpool of dark, pathetic thoughts.

"These five songs - all great, all released in the past five years - are for those wishing to wallow in the holiday's sheer, soul-wrecking brutality. Each is carefully selected to provide a vivid soundtrack for those moments when alcohol isn't even necessary, so drunk is the listener on his or her own misery. Enjoy!" - Stephen Thompson

Aloha

Please don't dismiss me as a spoiled brat when I write that I've been in Kaua'i for the last week. Especially when I admit that most of me did NOT want to go at first. It was a last ditch effort by my parents to stop my downward spiral. And it worked. Hawai'i can be a very healing place - laid back, friendly locals, island breezes, etc. - or a place packed full of tourists and kitsch, depending on where you go. Here are some highlights from the trip.

The view from my hotel room balcony. There's a little sandy path between
those pine trees, right by the beach.

Requisite luau picture. This was a night of the requisite kalua pork and poi (I actually like poi) and haupia.

Horseback riding inland. My horse's name was Nick. He was pretty well behaved.

The Na Pali coast. This was taken on a boat ride along the east side of the island,
which is inaccessible except by water or air.

We saw a baby whale breaching, along with two huge adult escorts. I distinctly remember this moment as the first time I felt really quite calm and happy all alone in a long time. The captain was playing some awful music over the loud speaker ("Celebration") and I was alone on the top deck, munching on a cookie and watching the whales and feeling very amused by the whole scenario. I felt quite content with my own company then, which is saying a lot.

One last picture, also from our boat trip.
An auspicious way to end our last evening.

Easter

In the last few weeks I have often been asked the question below: why are you weeping? So I found this exchange between Mary Magdalene and Jesus particularly moving today. It was the text for the sermon this morning, and I was struck anew by the power of the moment of recognition, full of both a certain kind of awful terror and tender love.

John 20:11-16

Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω κλαίουσα. ὡς οὖν ἔκλαιεν παρέκυψεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ θεωρεῖ δύο ἀγγέλους ἐν λευκοῖς καθεζομένους, ἕνα πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἕνα πρὸς τοῖς ποσίν, ὅπου ἔκειτο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῇ ἐκεῖνοι, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὅτι 'Hηραν τὸν κύριόν μου, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. ταῦτα εἰποῦσα ἐστράφη εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, καὶ θεωρεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἑστῶτα, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν. λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; τίνα ζητεῖς; ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν λέγει αὐτῷ, Κύριε, εἰ σὺ ἐβάστασας αὐτόν, εἰπέ μοι ποῦ ἔθηκας αὐτόν, κἀγὼ αὐτὸν ἀρῶ. λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μαριάμ. στραφεῖσα ἐκείνη λέγει αὐτῷ Ἑβραϊστί, Ραββουνι {ὃ λέγεται Διδάσκαλε}.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). (NRSV)

Good Friday

How deep the Father's love for us,

How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give his only son,
To make a wretch his treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the chosen one,
Bring many sons to glory.

- Stuart Townend

Salve, caput cruentatum,
Totum spinis coronatum,
Conquassatum, vulneratum,
Arundine sic verberatum
Facie sputis illita
Salve, cuius dulcis vultus,
Immutatus et incultus
Immutavit suum florem
Totus versus in pallorem
Quem coeli tremit curia.

- Attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux

A Conversation With God

Even when kidnapped by my parents and flown to an island, I can still find web access. Which is a blessing and a curse. At any rate, maybe divine vibes are stronger here. As I tried to nap this afternoon, I had this very vivid dialogue with God. This almost never happens with me.

ME: I'm trying to nap, and I have this burning pain in my heart. Can you take it away so I can have some peace to sleep in?
G: Just hand it over to me. [I put an armful of something in God's hands.] I'll go set this down and we can have a talk. How does that sound?
ME: Yes, please.
G: Tell me what you're thinking.
[long dialogue]
ME: Can you please just do everything for me?
G: I'm not here to make your life easier.
ME: What? What about "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" and all that jazz? Are you just some sadistic voice in my head?
G: Life is not easy.
ME: [on my knees, in a pathetic voice] Please, please, please, just this once wave a magic wand.
G: Do you think I would alter the principles of this universe just to make your life easy, when all other people go through the difficulties of their lives?
ME: Maybe?
G: I'm not here to make your life easier. I'm here to make you stronger.
ME: Are you?
G: I am making you stronger all the time. Here, let's list all the people who love you.
[We create a list of names together.]
G: And best of all . . .
ME: You love me?
G: I love you. There is enough power in my love to make you fearless. You can always be confident because you will never stray from my love.
[Things are quiet for a while.]
ME: Wait, don't leave.
G: I'm not leaving. I am here. I am always here.
ME: It's just that we were kind of quiet.
G: I thought you wanted to nap.

"Consciousness itself was becoming the supreme evil; sleep, the prime good. To lie down . . . that was the object of all desire - if only there were not another morning ahead - if only sleep could last for ever!"

- C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

"There remained to her, as she had told him, the uplifting memory of his faith in her; but she had not reached the age when a woman can live on her memories. . . . Yes - it was happiness she still wanted, and the glimpse she had caught of it made everything else of no account. One by one she had detached herself from the baser possibilities, and she saw that nothing now remained to her but the emptiness of renunciation.

She knew the strength of the opposing impulses - she could feel the countless hands of habit dragging her back into some fresh compromise with fate. . . . She felt so profoundly tired that she thought she must fall asleep at once; but as soon as she had lain down every nerve started once more into separate wakefulness. It was as though a great blaze of electric light had been turned on in her head, and her poor little anguished self shrank and cowered in it, without knowing where to take refuge.

Perspective had disappeared - the next day pressed close upon her, and on its heels came the days that were to follow - they swarmed about her like a shrieking mob. She must shut them out for a few hours; she must take a brief bath of oblivion. Her mind shrank from the glare of thought as instinctively as eyes contract in a blaze of light - darkness, darkness was what she must have at any cost."

- Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

Trying

My silly elf of a niece is one of the things that can still make me smile.

Near sunset, by my parents' house. Taken during a walk with my mom.

Noverim Me

Hello, long lost friends - those of you who might still be around. I know that following my story off-line has been a rather dramatic ride, sometimes even screenplay worthy. The sequence of events in the last week alone have been so devastatingly ironic that I've been, in turns, tempted to take a baseball bat to everything around me or run to sleep in my parents' room.

And, yet, here I am. Trying to care. That's what I think the most horrific symptom of depression is: losing interest in everything that once gave life zest and flavor. My sister made me inquire about a job at a decadent bakery this week - I actually ended up talking to the Chef about a part time job. But most of me was dying inside from Not Caring and Wanting to Curl Up and Cry. Maybe, just maybe if Martha turned up at the door with a meringue and a blow torch I would get out of bed and change out of my pajamas. Still.

But this is pathetic. I am willing myself to post, as an exercise in creativity and accountability, about the things I am trying to care about. Because, as painful as my situation may seem when read in one light, interpreted another way it is also a very unique time I can choose to take for myself. In the end, I'm the one that I want, as Margaret Cho says. And, as Augustine prayed, "Domine Iesu, noverim me, noverim te."

Tonight I go with my mum & sister to hear Chinese drumming. I love Japanese Taiko drumming, so this should be interesting. And I might drop by the bakery again, to bug the Chef into letting me apprentice.