I trudged downstairs alone to the dining hall, brooding over the paper I had (and still have) to write by tomorrow morning (so that’s 12 hours), feeling the subdued air that a vigil for Myanmar had left me with in the last hour, and starting to wave off the irrational feeling of being decidedly alone. A phone call to a friend went unanswered, and the selection at dinner was starting to look decidedly unappetizing. My trudging took me to the salad bar, where I threw together something typical-looking and then trudged, equally as cheerfully, to the grill to ask for a piece of grilled chicken.

The dining workers know me fairly well, as I still work in the dining hall on occasion, and the man on duty at the grill said something to me that didn’t register at first. I looked up blearily. “Huh?”

“Where you going, dressed up so nice?”

“Uh…” came my intelligent response. I looked down, slowly realizing that my choice of favorite swishy black skirt could be seen as only semi-casual by some. “…nowhere? I sorta just threw on whatever…” Oh, the eloquence.

“So you just look good normally, huh?”

I mustered up a smile and a mock-pose. “What can I say?”

We laughed, I thanked him for the chicken, and trudged off to sit in a window booth and watch the sunset. But I thought about it, and the mood-aware grill worker had lifted my spirits with just one passing comment. I’m grateful.

—

The vigil for Myanmar was beautiful, and bittersweet. On one hand, it was touching. A good handful of students came out, forty or so, and there were selections and presentations representing a wide swath of faiths. On the other hand, there were only forty students out of a student body of several thousand. Even though this is the weekend before final written work is due, I took one hour out (potentially dooming my grade in three classes) to attend. That’s sad. On that same hand, I felt mildly set-apart. I don’t belong to any faith, and it’s not to say that I’m lost or drifting for it; it is entirely by choice and one that I’m quite comfortable with. Yet I would have loved to sing for the vigil, and what of it? I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. There was a planned order of presentation, but even if I could have volunteered, I already knew what the answer would be. I don’t represent anything except for a sentiment, a connection to humanity, a song in my mind that rose when I thought of the thousands of children affected by the tragedy. I wanted to express my overwhelming sorrow and sympathy. But I couldn’t; not here, not now. I don’t represent an identity like the rest do.

I am an agnostic without any voice but my own, and I am made to feel somewhat inadequate because of it.

Oh well.

Maybe the inadequacy is all in my head, but it is representative of something more pervasive that makes me feel that way. I may approach the dean of religious life one day, just to make sure.

—

For whatever reason, I have a pet peeve about excessive shuffling. People who drag their feet when they walk drive me up the wall, and I personally try to make as little unnecessary noise as possible when I walk, save for the unavoidable clack of heels or impact tap of tennis shoes. So this possibly explains why I’ve had such an aversion to wearing flip-flops until this year, when I found them amazingly convenient to toss on and, well, trudge out of my room with. I can somehow walk in them without shuffling. But the flip, flop, flip against my heels may just drive me mad.

As I walked back down campus today, writing on a path caught my eye, and I looked down. Scribbled in white chalk were the words

“Live like you’re gonna die tomorrow
Dream like you’re gonna live forever”

and I smiled unconsciously, an upward curl of the lips that I only noticed when it stopped.

—

There is nothing quite like getting lost in the half-underground lower levels of the largest library on campus, all sounds and even silence itself muffled by shelves and shelves and volumes and volumes and the very air infused with histories upon tomes upon — if knowledge had an oppressive weight to it, this is how its atmosphere would feel.

—

“It’s the small things,” he said, “that make life happy.” And I agreed, and knew that this probably wasn’t one of them.

Consolation, aside:

I chose to set aside my misgivings and take a risk, and so far, it has been nothing but fascinating.

—

As for exhilaration, what else? The music that I love so, which raises me above my mind, if only for six-minute spans. (I follow the winds that bring the cold / I light a fire in your soul / The lightest touch of feathers falling) The presences that I revel in, friends who I can throw my arms around and laugh full-throatedly, head tossed back to gaze at the sky as joy wells up out of my very being.

That is exhilaration. The fact that i can even attempt to quantify it is testament itself to how much the season has made me happy. This spring has been the awakening of a new stage in my mind, and with any luck, the growth that I’ve experienced will tide me through the next winter, because now I know what it truly means to love winter; not to be awestruck by snowflakes, but rather to embrace weaknesses and soar past them.

And release from the past is sweeter than anything; letting go, grinning widely as I call: ghosts of the past, I summon you to me! four years ago, wide-eyed infection! three years ago, ill-gotten attention! two years ago, fleeting delusion! one year ago, mindless confusion! this year, a glimpse of possibilities. I can face each and every one of you and accept you as a learning experience; regrets are useless, wincing maybe, but above all something transcended and forgotten. You cannot hurt me anymore.

It all sounds well and good in theory, but for whatever reason, I’m simply happy with life.

—

gazing at handwriting across papers, listening to a song called ‘Time’, breathing heavily, it suddenly occurs, the thought: this is not four years, this will not last, there may be an end and it will come within the next eight, and you will be doomed to be tied to that.

Every truth is mutable, but nothing else is certain; and sometimes, there is such a thing as being too similar.

Every time one takes a step into the unknown, one will find themselves making one of a few choices; choosing to go on ahead with optimism, curious as to what the future will bring; choosing to linger on the past, fretting about mistakes made and the potential for repetition thereof; choosing to ignore or set aside misgivings and take a risk, knowing that the outcome could vary wildly; choosing to let hope spring eternal.

So what will the choice be?

—

Ten of wands. Reaching the end of an arduous journey, completing a difficult task. Being close to setting a burden down, but being left with no energy at the end. Cards can be twisted and angled to apply to anything and anyone, but I find irony in that this little one fell out of the deck on the last day of classes.

I trudged up campus on an overcast morning, lost in a whirl of conflicted thoughts about recent developments; and without warning, a cloud moved, and the sky exploded into brilliance.

Suddenly, colors were thrown into sharp focus, and I couldn’t help but grin more and more on my way up campus– a nod to a friend walking through the magnolia grove, a sunny grin received and returned to a former classmate walking past the dogwoods, smiles to acquaintances in the crossing paths across a hill, a high-five– “only two more days!” to a dormmate as I left the building I sought to run an errand in…

I woke with my mind in a muddle confusion but now, as I wait for my thrice-damned and ever-beloved camera battery to charge, and for the sun to come out once again, with salmon and avocado sushi in hand, I can only grin and love life.

Updated with pictures.

and suddenly all I want to do is drop everything I’m doing in life and be a singer. dancer. actress. all. something that will let me feel as if I’m expressing something directly instead of attempting to stuff my thoughts into words and stuff my words into a tedious, tedious bureaucratic bullshittastic college-system-formulaic way to toss my life into some semblance of order.

Then my mind clears, and I post this, and go on with my paper-writing. Ideally.

Interlude

The day before yesterday, I played tag with a spring robin.

But that’s another story.

The day before yesterday, I experienced the picture-perfect seminar, six of us in a loose semicircle around an enthusiastic professor on a comfortable green lawn by a tree on a stunning spring day; we all began cross-legged, attentive and formal, but as the three hours progressed the students began shifting, leaning back, and after a while most of us were sprawled out in one way or another, lying on our sides, stomachs, chins propped up on palms and folded hands. It was amazing. It was beautiful. Thick spring grass is more comfortable than any couch and, thanks to today’s especially marvelous weather, I’d chance to say that this time, it was more comfortable than any extra-long twin-sized college bed, no matter how richly furnished, because the beds had the disadvantages of being inside.

And with just enough of a cool breeze to counteract the ever-warming sun, I was in a state of supreme bliss.

Yesterday, I looked outside, looked at my errand list, looked at the assignment that I had barely just finished and the lecture that I was 20 minutes late to because of it, and said to myself, to heck with it, I’m going errand-running because I can be outside.

And as I strolled up campus, down campus, along the main street off-campus and got my errands done, black skirt billowing silkily in the beautiful spring breeze and feeling the wind curl around my ears, I didn’t regret a minute of it.

Today, I write this sitting in front of the university’s main Fountain, on the extended stone bench along the wall that borders the plaza, sitting under the row of magnificent flowering trees and typing while pear-shaped petals waft down to perch on my head. Delicate pink streaks up from the base of the petal’s convex side to white at the tip, sturdy and thick petals with a tinge of brown suggesting why they fell in the first place; the inside is white as bleached paper. and somehow whiter in its naturalness.

There is such incomprehensible beauty here that photographs cannot do even a fraction of one aspect any justice.

In the face of the changing seasons, how can I not hold nature in reverence?

As if in agreement, a petal fell onto my laptop and clung– pointing directly down at the sentence I was typing and perpendicular to the keyboard– onto the screen.

For some reason I have no urge to fall into the depression of past days. Around Thursday or so, something in my mind simply switched on (or off?) and a seven-month cycle of evening breakdowns began drawing to a halt.

Even though there are matters pressing on my mind, academics, my future, I am less inclined toward the typical self-pity and more toward turning music up to ridiculous volumes and doing something. Now is the time to feel numb about my direction in life and confused about my summer plans, but it is also the time that I will take action. I suddenly recognize things I want to learn and do. I’ve sworn to get even more involved and hopefully join dance, get involved in more groups… that I simply don’t have time to fall into this rut again. I want to master the guitar and learn how to glowstring. And I’m unhappier when totally idle. Which is a great thing to be unhappy with, considering my to-do list.

Almost as if overcompensating for the tendency I’m beginning to let go of– that lingering in the past, wistfully remembering superficial attention– I realized that I have a slight revulsion toward those worlds I was once interested in. Anime fan? Not anymore. My skin crawls a bit. Losing interest in most Internet-based activities has made me turn to real life. Which is a great turn of events, considering my to-do list.

For some reason? Realizing all this? I feel really mentally free.

And content.

(Except for when I turn to my to-do list.)

I’m also realizing, belatedly, that the friend I acquired is neither one I need nor one I want after understanding some behavior, and he’s starting to make like a leech and suck. Excessively harsh? Probably. But the more I understand him, the more I find myself fed up with his inability to overcome certain things. It all rings reminiscent of the very characteristics that drove me away from others in the past. For a platonic interest, he’s latched onto me with highly unnerving strength. E-mails, phone calls, unexpected visits when before he would never go out of his way to emerge from his room for anyone. It’s almost stalkerish.

There is a distinct symbolism in the fact that, when we went photo-spreeing, I took panoramic scenic shots of countless blossoms comprising a whole while he took shots of single flowers against a blurry background.

—

“So you don’t want to hear it?”
“…There’s so many wrong ways you could take ‘it only lasted for ten seconds.’”
“…”
“…”
“Bye, love!”
“Bye, dear! Take care! Have a safe trip! Don’t perv!”

-my roommate and I. First sentence is hers, second is mine, and alternating.

—

Rise above, part 1: the tarot question

After a cracked-up reading for my roommate on Thursday, my deck was thoroughly shuffled. As I waited, bored, for work to step up during my shift at the university newspaper, I started putting the deck back in order, but stopped and picked up one pile of cards I’d made. Considering, I decided to begin my study of the major arcana- the 22 trump cards of a tarot deck. There’s an interesting symbolism attached to each card, and heaps of occult references (numerology, astrology, pagan elements), of course, but more enchantingly, there’s a story narrated.

As I shuffled the thin stack of 22 cards, occasionally drawing and spreading them, the Hanging Man kept emerging. Traditionally titled the Hanged Man, one interpretation of the card particular to this deck is that “hanged” implies an outside force whereas “hanging” means he’s hanging of his own accord. Yet no matter the deck, the Hanged Man is at peace, dangling upside-down by his ankle.

I get the point, I thought, and drew the card out of the deck. Setting it aside, I replaced the other 21 cards in their bag with the rest, and tucked the Hanging Man away in my bookbag.

Much like a dear friend oft-mentioned majoring in religion, I am fascinated completely and awed. But I do not believe wholly.

After all, I believe in tarot as an introspective aid. I believe that, like any other purported form of divination, each card and each interpreted reading can be twisted to fit one aspect or another of anyone’s life, and that tarot doesn’t actually tell the future. What it does do is perhaps encourage a viewpoint that hadn’t been considered before; the twist to fit one’s life to a card also opens up one’s mind. For those who seek readings, they seek an outside authority to justify the introspection that they themselves are capable of but shy away from, fearful of what they might have to admit to themselves. And it’s such an elegant mechanism to do it through.

Conversely, people wish to make excuses to themselves that the cards say this, it was inevitable. or the cards say that, my suspicions are correct. These are often those who truly, sincerely believe in the divinatory powers of tarot– because in doing so, they either give up control, as querents seeking readings and reassurance, or take control, as readers believing they have foresight beyond that of a common human.

I still think that the most practical purpose of tarot is the ability to study it and discover more things about one’s own mind in the process. The Hanging Man accompanied me this the weekend, something to consider; if it so happened to always show up when I was shuffling that night and ultimately fall out of my deck, it was probably more statistical coincidence than supernatural intervention, but it’s fortuitous nonetheless. A symbol of the peace and understanding gained through having successfully faced trials, one willing to dangle upside-down awkwardly and perhaps be inconsistent with society in order to learn more about or be true to oneself. It symbolizes knowing a balance in life, knowing what to sacrifice and what to hold fast to and above all, knowing yourself. In short, it was the perfect card to accompany my return to the world of the living, crawling out from under my nightly depressions.

And who can deny the sentiments behind that?

[to be continued]

I felt like twirling.

“I am mentally twirling,” I wrote to a new friend, “and I am not sure why.”

I really am not. But it’s past 11 PM and some little bit of me is still elated over the handful of things that have gone well in the past few utterly hellish days.

I hope this sustains me, because the next week is going to be hellish as well.

This weekend, I attended the most fantastic social dance I’ve ever gotten to experience in my life. Put one trio of dolled-up friends with one hilarious entryway of guys and no alcohol whatsoever into a freshman formal with amazing turnout and good music for four hours. Cue antics, cue happiness, cue dancing and screaming, cue best exhaustion possible. (All I needed were glowsticks.)

Last week, I was devastated when my internship contact told me that his contact, in turn, had changed his mind and was not interested in my skill set- today, after I sent my (shiny, revised, forceful) résumé and presented a rather blunt argument as to why my skill set was, indeed, viable, my contact not only promised to forward both on, but asserted that if this contact were to fall through, he would be more than glad to offer me other internships open, not only because I was so adamant on working with a non-profit in the area, but also because I apparently made a very lasting impression at my interview two months ago.

Far be it from me to complain.

On top of it all, a tarot deck that I had ordered from Amazon.com and feared was only a book because it was used and half-price– was the entire box set, thankfully, and the beating the outer box had taken that incurred its price cut only made me happier in its uniqueness. And the deck was immaculate, unopened. I walked back from the package room clutching the box to my chest and positively beaming. And though I ordered it with regular shipping on Thursday and it didn’t ship until Friday, it somehow arrived today. This will be the last major (read: over $15. it was $16) purchase I will make for myself until September, after my summer, during which I will be pinching pennies like no other. I already have been. No bubble tea or superfluous food treats!

(I find myself unconsciously editing small things per journalistic style guide [use though, not although!]. My executive editor would be proud. I am not.)

Best, I have gained a new friend who is unafraid of being a close friend– which is something of an honor since he’s normally a bit reclusive. Selective, he says. I’ve seen him in our hall since the beginning of the year and have been curious but we never really talked up until last week, and I’m hard-pressed to remember just how we so quickly transformed into fast friends. He reminds me of my best male friend, though they are not similar in the least aside from being Internet-realm-and-gaming-savvy.

For the last seven months I have always become unreasonably depressed in the evenings; it’s been bordering on something chronic, beginning to scare me, causing a cycle of depression-not getting anything done-hating self for lack of activity-depression. Visiting my friend on the other side of the building, though, brightened up my evening today. And I hope beyond hope that I’ll start being able to pull myself out of this cycle, also to follow the example of another friend and classmate who’s following an academic path I’d like to take. She’s an inspiration.

…but I have my beautiful tarot deck now, which I will study thoroughly with a ravenous scholarly appetite.

Scholarly? Scholarly. And emotional, and mental, but not religious. A two-part in-depth discussion of my interest in the tarot, non-interest in its religious connotations, and views on religion again will follow during the course of the next two weeks- i.e., whenever I actually have time to spare or am in the mood to write.

I don’t even feel like writing extensively about the trainwrecks of the past week- family is no longer moving, academics are no longer really moving, internship is on the rocks. Life goes on because now, I shall will it to be so and not be so depressed about it.

Ideally. I think I might have to stop by my friend’s room for cookies more.

Nighttime is a cruel mistress, and still a mood-killer.

Despite it being, of all days, April 1, this post is still truthful. The thoughts began coalescing on March 31, regardless. It is my cousin’s birthday (love!) and it is, unfortunately, a normal class day, but there is no foolery.

…Time to avoid my roommate.

I digress; in the culmination of the mental return to being single (which is a welcome stability, this culmination, after two weeks of flailing to regain balance) comes the unclouded, comfortable cynicism I held so staunchly four days before the last train wreck began. I have been finding that while I will implicitly accept people for who they are, I will mercilessly scorn those in whom I perceive certain emotional weaknesses. Perhaps because I scorn seeing them in myself; perhaps because I hold people I am interested in to a high standard. Mostly, though, this applies to the revelation that I have not been able to completely respect someone who’s ever expressed an unrealistic non-platonic interest in me if I do not return said interest.

For all my empathy, I have a distinct lack of sympathy here, often to malicious and ghastly effect. The empath in me wishes I had some; aforementioned scorn often causes me to giggle inwardly, plot ways to toy around, and wish to spin around in sadistic amusement. It did earlier this evening when I observed, with cynical eye, a whimsical and utterly idealized account of something romantic, and suppressed the mental image of a gleeful deity pointing and cackling, “foolish mortals!”

(Oh, cynicism, how I have missed you so. It’s not even bitter spinster cynicism; it’s simple “…you’re an idiot.” cynicism. Joy and skies! It is biased and not totally reasonable but I love it all the same. Even though it runs counter to the not-causing-pain I usually advocate. The cynic insists that they deserve it.)

Which is why I am completely baffled by the admission that a flame I thought long dead is still being held, albeit mutedly, for me by someone I known of for several years but have not, er, met.

…What?

Er, hello, Internet?

Moreover, this is a person I do respect to some extent, as a friend who I am not willing to trample on delightedly, and so we have established that this flame will not be acted upon for, if it still exists after this time period, a long while.

…But what?

…I mean, what?

There are those days I hate males, and am glad to have had the privilege to experience having a male friend whom I loved wholeheartedly and he in return– utterly platonically. (Nowadays his girlfriend and I mutually gripe about his chronic inability to keep in touch.)

Then there are those days when I throw my hands up in exasperation and go to bed at 3 a.m. This would be one of those.

—

It is 8:20 a.m.;  I have half a muffin and a class in 10 minutes; and I know my dream was tumultuous and dramatic but I can’t remember a whit of it save for the phrase “You’re seeking it in the wrong places” and I have no idea who or what it’s referring to.

…Well, I might, but I have a feeling that’s more my brain than the dream. Bah.