Choices

Sometimes, I feel like I am training myself out of what I want to be. There is this vague idea in the back of my head of a ‘dream,’ and so forth, but reality then hits, and it hits hard: what if the dream, when realized, becomes a nightmare?

A doctor or a writer. These have been my converging dreams ever since I can remember. Since my sister was diagnosed with cancer at the age of two, since I was diagnosed with a rare disease at the same age—I have been fascinated with the power of physicians. The secret knowledge they seemed to possess, the magical powers of healing. I envied them their minds, their ability to be called upon in emergencies and know how to act.

A quote by the author of A House on Mango Street details the young child’s awe at her friend’s face being stitched back together after being split open, and notes that ‘this is what one person can do for another.’ This idea still intrigues me, interests me to no end.

Yet, here I am. Two courses away from being able to attend medical school! Yet, despite the allure of the career—constant learning, a tangible skill set desperately in need, fulfilling that ever-so-apparent potential: I am not sure if it the life I want. The career yes, the perfect job. The life…

Perhaps I remain too much of a romantic. I still want to travel the world. Cook in Paris, and drink wine in Italy. Live in London perhaps, drift down the Nile once again. The taste for adventure has not left me, the desire for newness and excitement and dancing! A career in medicine will not give me this. I am desperately afraid that whatever in me yearns for art and magic and a life filled with surprises will be squelched by a job that requires everything.

I am torn between the lives—perfect job, perfect family-life, or perfect life? Medicine will give me one, marriage will give me another, but maybe it will always be writing that gives me the third. Which to choose?

Black and White (Makes Grey)

I am so angry.

This confession takes me by complete surprise, because generally I am not. But I will be discussing God or people or the wrongs in the world, and I find myself fighting back tears spontaneously. Because, you see, there is so much injustice, and you see, if anyone decided to step back and not fight,

if anyone had the means of stopping the murders, the rapes, the hunger, the genocides, the destruction of spirit and religion and culture, the deaths of children and the pride of men, if anyone could watch eight to ten people cram into houses with no food, no medication, no access to education, if anyone could have complete power to change this, who would not? 

What kind of God would not? There is so much that needs to be interceded, so much suffering. "suffering" do we even know this word? The physical, spiritual implications of the inhumane beating that a birthplace could assign? The hundreds of ignored people, sleeping on packed dirt, and rationing the last pieces of bread to family members. The burning, the drowning, the homeless, the starving-- who is watching these? 

What is the reason? "Sin"? I feel set up. Because, you see-- here we are. Born human. (And, really what is it to be human? To mess up, to discover, to apologize, to learn and try again and live!) Born 'sinful'. Do I really think the crime matches the punishment? I don't think so.

Yet, I see the beauty as well, so I know that God-- whoever he is, this God that I claim to love and whom claims to love me, has the propensity for mercy. That he is good. 

But what I don't quite understand is how I am supposed to see myself as 'evil' for simply being the way I was created and born to be-- human. Imperfect. 

What I don't understand is how to claim the immovable love of God when so many are waiting to be loved.

Grey (Anecdote to Bitterness)

so it has come to this.

remember this. you cannot take all the sadness away.

you are not strong enough.

no matter how strong you are (and I believe, you are, ever so strong)

so now, as a writer, I am supposed to write the words to tell you this, to show you really.

so when you, future reader, see this and feel the odd combination of guilt and hope that comes with wanting to fix the broken things: you cannot.

this is not something I am telling you to discourage, but to free you. Be happy. Remove as much pain as you can from this world, from those who are hurting, but don't be so overwhelmed that their sadnesses melt into you and you are consumed by it.

Be happy. Add joy in every way you can, paint and shout and be deliriously happy. Take care of your soul, don't let it shrivel in anger, don't let it become bitter with all the pain you see. Because all those hurting need you to stay hopeful, to cling to whatever is idealistic if they will have hope of change.

Don't let anger turn into bitterness. It sounds so easy, I know. How does one go about keeping their soul from bitterness? 

add as much joy as you can, take away as much sadness as you can. And hopefully, in the end, someone somewhere will have lived a little more, with a little more dignity.

the ships are burning

and somehow along the way

you couldn't be saved

how must that be

seeing the flames from so far away

and knowing that there would be nothing

left of this life 

the ships are burning but there is no turning back now,

how gracious you were.

little by little by bit

this humming grows swelters 

wanting to be fed, demanding

a response.

so when the wise have been questioned

by the idealistic

on how to live well, on how to conquer a good life

they begin to sing softly

under their breath,

their heartsongs

in response.

confused the students of the wise stumble away

angered at the perceived silence and unconvinced.

They scowl and feed the growing buzzings and hummings

meeting its demands for knowledge and wealth

and filling their faces and voices with the expressions and words

that the hummings require.

They live like this for awhile, tossing late at night, turning, and tossing

and wondering if tomorrow they will have enough left to devote to 

satiating the hunger.

Then the idealistic, after time, if fortunate, become wise. 

They realize nothing can satisfy, nothing can fulfill or cover the emptiness that loudly demands to be filled.

and instead they begin to fight.

They let the other sounds, the ones so easily ignored and overwhelmed by the distractors

slowly come forth

their time is now filled with observation and joy, the quietness of integrity and truth in living,

and this, as is only learned by experience, is what they do when asked by the idealistic how to live well.

they smile softly, and sing their heartsongs, the only ones that can quiet all of the noise that tries to take over. nothing can conquer life, but the heartsongs,

these are the life. 

Mr. Summertime Love

well, hello mr. summertime love

why don't you take me 

to a dance

and toast the cicada songs and firefly rumblings

the burst of heat against cool skin, the smacking of sweaty skin

and the shavings of cut grass flipped sideways and forward

mr. summertime,

show me the embers of freedom celebrations

wayward diamond fire beams sizzling in the heat

quiet men you adore more for their silence

children in braids and shimmery eyes entranced 

with the displays of firecolors in the July sky

afternoon lunches with cool breezes and sweepings of hair

against our cheeks, secrets and joys and laughings and 

the slippings of love that so easily are given

a quick squeeze on the shoulder, a lingering hand.

mr. summertime love,

love these; with me.

somehow, once maybe, or more

I decided,

that all the cities and experiences and exotic tastings

of exotic lives

do not match the warmth and filling and completion of

laughing at our own nonsense here.

our clothes smell of burnt charcoal and soggy marshmallows,

small nats and nighttime creatures dart in and around and on top of the skin of my arms--

we pull the blanket closer

there is laughter and banter and the subtle sighs of late night stars, content with their bedtime whisperings of our joys. 

we do not know, that this: 

the bantering, the marshmallows, the stories of volcanoes and stars, 

the thick and thin flames quietly bursting from the ground, flickers and reds, blues, oranges--

these:

are our great joys.

I see you with your old skin

the way your hand should be leathery but

is soft and downy like the feathers lining a nest

the way your eyes are satin, and shift between remembered youth 

and the dullness of remembered aging

This is my apology, for never knowing you as young.

For not remembering with you your childhood, your sister, your dearest friends.

Your time has not been forgotten.

irrelevance is

not participating in the 

small details surrounding you

not delighting in seemingly insignificant accomplishments

not delighting in yourself any longer.

Tomorrow is the last day.

I have been missing India greatly. I feel like my heart is split in two, three, tens. These people I adore with all myself, I feel like I have to shove it to the back of me in order to survive emotionally. But I deeply care about these people. 

recognition of needing

the pressing of warmth and emptiness 

the familiar slow burst of yearnings

the anticipation of continuation without 

a great joy.

leave,

and unexpectedly

there is tearing 

the left behind is 

too apparent.

you are me.

we were,

goodbye, dear friend.

please be us soon.

When the Rich are Dying and Buy Organs From Nowhere

putting the perpetrators of 

greed,

ease of life, and ease of infliction

-- put the pain in the arms of the other.

no eyes, no mourning breaths, no pleading.

a simple transaction to save the wealthy

the inconvenience of a guilty conscience.

How You are Responsible

it becomes harder to ignore the ugliness and

tepid yearnings

when the nameless are Named 

so they want the luxuries you have dangled.

the vacant words become their lifelines.