From the depths of the sea

the starting of the action is most difficult. inertia, opposite of momentum. i know i cannot start alone, yet why try? i don't understand the reluctance to compact and package. i do prefer to leave things open, to leave threads hanging, but i know there needs a guide. cannot i? without it i remain mired, gasping for air in a place i chose to step. but overcoming does not necessarily lead to life, not adversity to deliverance and growth. there is life in overcoming, deliverance and growth in adversity. learn, internalize, remember.

some things that seem harmless can be actually the opposite if not utilized well. for example, the past few weeks i've been spending time browsing through items of lesser importance, rather than focusing on higher goals that ultimately mean so much more. i realize that i am sinking, and i know i can grab onto a life vest, or even just start paddling, flailing my arms around widely, something. i know i can be rescued if only i cry out.

but 我開不了口。我真的開不了口。想開口的時候，i feel like, why bother? and i really mean that in the literal sense of the word. why bother Him, who must/could be so exasperated with a volitional failing such as mine? even though He's patient. i know.

perhaps the flaw here is in the "i know," the claim that supposedly affirms i was of compos mentis while making such decisions, or while allowing such things to happen. obviously.. i wasn't, right? at least, not in the highest and purest sense of the word. otherwise, all this wouldn't have occured, would it?

and so we begin.

Tamen per fidelitas, He continues to show grace, though. just about every time i look at RBC's My Utmost for His Highest, it's just what i need. it really is...just what i need.

Traffic.

Courtesy of Flickr's *patrick

As much pride and glee as I took in my having been able to configure the Domokun template just the way I wanted, to keep the blogger toolbar while getting the headers to still match up, I have decided to temporarily (or at least it seems for now, har) restore the default template, as such manages better with sentiments of unrest.

Edit (7/8/09, 0122): New layout up. Not completely done working out all the snags, but have gotten a few things I wanted working, so yay.

Splotches of Ink

ink over Bic. should've realized long time ago. chromatography. calligraphy? perhaps shall revisit. brushes speak. will i hear more this time?

not meant to drive? har. we'll see. and triumph. soon, God willing. I've never really held the desire to drive or otherwise operate an engine-powered vehicle simply for driving's sake (I would like to learn how to drive stick-shift because it seems cool and more utilizing of brains and effort). Driving has always been more about getting somewheres, doing somethings, seeing someones, or in cases that involve none of those three, roaming out wherever, breathing in the life that is nature.

U.S. date of independence yesterday. have noticed (the obvious fact) that no country is perfect. Even the U.S. used local children for translation purposes during the Vietnam War, which for some of these informal conscripts led to lifelong injuries. But then what, in this life?

love like rain

I've been home a month already. It's certainly not quite what I'd expected/wanted, in some ways. There's been good and bad, internal and external. Some of it's a matter of perception, but all of it's an active struggle. We'll see how His plans change me.

- - -

I've become conscious recently that I dream in both 1st and 3rd person. When details stand in my mind most distinct, I may more often say with conviction that those dreams were in 1st person. But otherwise, when immediate apperception becomes obsolete, when my remembrances of the particulars are wrenched away, and my mind struggles to fill in the gaps -- the color of a shirt, one's posture, position, even specific facial features -- it is then that things turn fuzzy, and I grow the sense that I had dreamt in 3rd person.

Whether this is to mitigate the blurriness, or whether I had actually dreamt in the 3rd person, I do not know, but I would very much like to be able to compare what I had actually dreamt with what I thought I dreamt, just to see what and how much of it "actually happened," and what and how much my mind construed on its own. To be able to see inside one's mind so, what the mind does and to what degree, would allow one to better examine one's heart, I believe. And from such stems my curiosity.

^Writing it out like that has helped me see a piece of the why in why I've tentatively chosen the secondary that I have. Hah. Appreciated.

Clearly

Flummoxed. A sapling in its original environment develops naturally with all the bends and slashes inherent in its makeup, but is strangely more comfortable in a bleak and icy locale thousands of miles away. Transplanting always does the weirdest things to our friendly green organisms, fellow inhabitants of the earth.

I somewhat miss the "old days" in which I naturally produced cryptic vagueness describing my feelings at the moment. I think it's part of a process of opening up. Does such lead to dust trodden into kéramos? Such a beautiful poem Longfellow did write.

The tulip rests on a mirror reflecting the sky.

Courtesy of Flickr's California Grandma K

"Fall to Fly"

Teeter-totter on the playground swings? Even in the air, where the skylark sings?

Occasionally the crafted panache betrays itself,
with symptoms that can be cured by a spoonful of sugar.

It is in such moments that we realize within ourselves
frozen shadows or desired projections of the original.

To revitalize the core, with blessed
fire blazing through my veins
static charges shocking rain
to meet or flee the forlorn sheep --
such a choice not mine to keep.

But the charge, the charge is mine.

Mine with which to make reply,
Mine with which to reason why,
Mine with which to do or die,
Mine with which to soar on high.

We must fall, first
to fly.

--EHC

Absence

Sometimes I wonder. Too much? I just got another juice box from the garage after not finding the one on the dining table where I'd thought I had placed it. Then I bring the new one up to my room only to find that the old one was sitting on my desk. Observant of me, isn't it?

Unnerving when others around me have solidified their footsteps onto the soil upon which they step. Mudcakes forming. Layers of sand, pas igneous rock? Sticks and firewood to be torched by ignes fatui? Or have they been already? Still searching...

Tortoise and the hare? 1 Peter 1. For His praise, honor, glory. Lilly. Lilies that point to Jessica. Nilly-willy willy-nilly.

"가다."

Silence that is grey. Silence that is golden.

Necessary rebuke. Almost a reprimand. Not quite. Kick my senses back into functioning and whirling mode. Nike. Just do it.

Can't claim you've nary a clue now, can you? <-- Not directing that at anyone; simply felt like saying it.

I know there's a problem when my sleep schedule is so off. It's 3 in the morning and I feel hardly droopy-eyed.. I've been back in California for a while now, so I know it can't be jet-lag. And if it were, I would be feeling sleepy around 10 pm, or some other time before midnight.. not several hours after. Within is restless. Must tame the beast.

I say I do but I don't. I say I don't but I do. Which is worse? Father with two sons, loved whom?

Suspended

View of HDB flats from MRT station

"dots & brushstrokes of grey and gray"

porcelain tile
dotted white depressions
gritty grout blue-grey
high-rise flats

damp grayness settling over chattering town
lime green leaves whose fingers grab at and tickle the air

coils of warm perfume engulf me
rays of sunshine curve upward from side to side
要跟你告白了。要跟你告別了。

--EHC

- - -

Won't be visiting [the first one] this summer. Grandma says not to risk it, swine flu and all. Interesting that I said "visiting" and not "going back."

Stopover halfway around the world, a few years ago --

Looking out from inside the Boh tea farm

Ocean by Langkawi? I think.

Hahaha, yes, this was for real.

There we go.

Got Hang Tuah's name, so must take!

Back to kopi tiam now.

Courtesy of Flickr's nahcnivek

The other, became more familiar with during reading period, har. Window view from 30 feet above ground. No photos here, though.

Home now. Fam, friends, reading, resting, relaxing. Learning left-hand options for worship/praise songs. Job-searching too. And we'll do "everything we've always wanted to do" this summer, says Rica.

"The clarity of water and the radiance of jade." I know I've switched the two phrases around, but it sounds better that way in English. I'll type the original when I learn it.

And a diversion,

Random hawker centre. I miss these.

courtesy of Reuters

Once in a while, I get cravings for Takopachi.

Isn't the logo cute?

Mm.. yummy goodness.

The above three photos courtesy of Flickr's DiLow333

Celadon Prunus Vase

courtesy of Antique Alive

There was a period of time not too long ago when I wished that people didn't have to leave. It's not that I wished they would stay so I could have them near me, for such wasn't something I could ask. It was that I feared.. feared for the hurt and pain they would encounter as they continued on, feared for the difficulties they would have to face, feared for all the different ways in which they would experience brokenness of spirit, and feared they would not be able to recover.

I guess that was short-sighted of me, for I've come to realize and actively believe that their departures are part of God's desires, for He has plans to mold them into what pleases Him. My self still struggles with the ideas of the hardships these people will meet, but I hope they may obtain the growth they need in God and that they'll be all the better for it. The sad/wistful feeling no longer remains, or.. most of it no longer has gone, at least, and I guess that's a good thing too. In the end, it's all for His glory.

- - -

I realized recently at least one reason why people bring laptops to class -- to stay awake. This holds for me, at least, and curiously, it shows that I almost "need" distractions to stay awake. What does that demonstrate? Could be several things, whether about my low sleep levels, or my lack of love for the class, or my insensitivity?

My fingernails have been slicing the neck recently. I hadn't realized such until I looked down and saw the slashes across the mustard wood. It disturbs me that the marks are so fresh and noticeable, such a large contrast to the dullness of desire I sense toward my studies and other entities that used to constitute me. This chronic lack of inspiration and direction has permeated itself into my writing as well, I can see. I can't whip up sentences of visionary hopefulness naturally as I used to. It troubles me.

Even Aja Tiger on my iGoogle page has big boxy red glasses on and is studying hard. =\