find me, will you?

she shifts her weight,

first on one foot and then the other,

pauses and breathes again.

the floors are mustard.

with little stone chips embedded. 

yellow like mustard

someone moved our toys,

she whispers.

fairies?

yes, fairies.

and the komodo dragon?

among the bamboo?

near the river?

with poisonous saliva?

he wont bite will he?

run! she shouts. run!

so they run and run 

until they cant breathe

and they tumble and squeal and laugh

with gravel crunching

and the smell of cookies and nutmeg

of nutmeg skin

a hint of happiness

of holding on 

to a swollen river

not this one, not now, but then.

far and long ago. 

fortune cookies.

i live to open fortune cookies.
i hate the taste of the cookies. i also hate chinese-american food.
i live by the fortunes.

last week, i went with my family.
i went to open my fortune cookie.
so when the time came i was ecstatic.
i ate dessert for dinner.
tapioca pudding. chocolate chip cookies. jello.
crushed and mixed and pounded in a bowl.
then when the fortunes arrived,
i picked mine with a confidence, with a knowing.
you always know which is yours.
everyone picked the fortune that was destined for them.
rightfully theirs.
and alan picked one that said:
a cookie is everything to the hungry man.
which when i read i burst out laughing.
alan is always hungry. always looking to make the perfect meal.
it was
destiny.
fate.
it was
the magic of the fortune cookie.

to pause. is to breathe. is to make known.

i have one month until finals and it scares me. i have so much work to get done until then. to list all of it would scare me more, but i have a plan and im going to work with that.

heres a list of what is keeping me motivated:

1. being able to read. everything and anything. my list of summer reading includes, but is in no way limited to:

crime and punishment

the gambler, fyodor dostoevsky

the national geographics i've amassed at home (from the 1930s until present day)

the old man and the sea, hemingway

2. taking classes - i'd love to do history, lit, art, and photography. one or all. and maybe a spanish class.

3. the trip i'm taking with my family. right now its either manali and agra or Africa. either would be splendid.

4. a solo road trip somewhere. i'd welcome company but when or where i'm not sure. i have some ideas.

5. rock climbing. i've missed it so.

6. running, maybe some tennis. i have this weird love hate relationship. i love to hit but getting out on the court takes an effort. i've missed it more than anything but i'm scared in some ways to get back into it.

7. taekwondo. i've been doing kyokushin karate for a while here but i've had so much fun with taekwondo. 

and now i absolutely have to get back to anatomy. 

i go back to the bobby kennedy speech (from an earlier post) quite frequently. truth is, as powerful as his speech is, there are parts so simple, so straightforward that we quite often overlook them. 

"The victims of the violence are... most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed.

...whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded."


when my mom was younger she thought that the people around her were more of a background than anything. that their purpose in life (as they had no other) was to fill the spaces. 
it's a five year old's thought, you say. but it's more than that. it is the state of mind we're in. it is the mentality and the attitude that we have toward others.
i see bloodshed in the news; life goes on for me. 
behind the scenes, after the film crews have left, well, there's a family that has to pick up the broken shards and try to move on with life. if they are able. 


so often we say things to people not realizing that they may go home and ponder over these hurtful words, maybe for a day, maybe for years. and violence, well what has it ever achieved? apart from ripping apart the lives of those who have to stay behind?


until i lost someone, and even for a while after, i always thought that those who die, those who leave, are the ones we are to feel sad for. but its not so. they're the ones who get off lucky. the people who stay behind as mortals and succumb to feeling are the ones who truly suffer.


robert kennedy talks about "the fabric of life which another man has so painfully and clumsily woven" and isn't that so? isn't that the way our lives are? that we work for something to give us a bit of purpose, to ensure the bit of happiness that is rightfully ours. that in a heartbeat what we've put up can come tumbling down. it may be fate. it may be the "mindless menace of violence". but if it is something that we can control, why don't we? why don't we try, for once, to be nicer, more polite but more sincere. why don't we help what we can save?