Rorschach’s Reflection
Sometimes, at the end of the day when I’m lying in bed, I close my eyes and imagine being eaten alive by the darkness surrounding me. I imagine that the bed disappears and I begin to fall, forever approaching nowhere, faster and faster until I finally fall asleep. I like to think that I fall into sleep. I am endowed by a sense of solitude; a shooting star in slumberland en route to eternity. It’s a comforting thing. There are no distractions. There is nothing to keep me awake as relaxation spills over my body. To be honest, I haven’t felt comfort like that in a while.
I’ve been awake for a little over 24 hours now. The start of my day feels more like the end of last night. And now, it’s too late to be today but too early to be tomorrow. Time can really mess you up like that. I mean, why in God’s name am I writing at 3 in the morning?
Last year, I read that the Japanese think of time differently than we do here in the U.S. They think of time as a cycle – a circle with recurring seasons. Everything is just a matter of rhythm. Apparently, us westerners think of time as a straight line; a rope with knots periodically placed signifying specific events. When we die, we tie up the loose ends and that’s the end of our chapter. At least we try to tie up those ends.
What do I think of time? Graphically, it’s neither a circle nor a straight line. It’s a blotch of ink spattered on a blank piece of paper. It’s a Rorschach Test – but I can’t find the meaning in it. I feel like my life has been Jackson Pollocked.
So why is it, that the majority of the time I am awake I feel just as solitary as when I try to fall asleep on a good night? Solitude is a curious thing. The status is the same, but the feeling is different. Maybe this is the difference between day and night; the same difference between being awake and sleeping – the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness.
I think back to the days before I was self-aware and realize that I don’t remember a time where I was ever lonely. Now, I can think back to last night, the night before that, and… well, you get my point. Whoever said that art imitates life is absolutely right, because here I am, plagued by insomnia, realizing that I am talking to myself.
16.11.10
English Final
First Draft:
Shortly after moving for a second time, the message was loud and clear: I was going to move again. It took two tries for me to read the pattern, and the last time I fully understood it. My dad enlisted in the Air Force and served his country wherever the government sent him. My mom, my older brother Laurence and I followed him first from Utah, to Germany, and then to New Jersey. By New Jersey I finally learned how to make “fast-food friends”. I call them fast-food friends because you smile at them and they smile back; you each exchange conversation and experiences just enough to pass the time, enough to satisfy, but nothing is ever deeper than skin. I was going to pass through New Jersey like a ghost, without any connections or attachment. This way, I told myself, the next move was going to be easy.
We arrived in Millburn, New Jersey on the Halloween of 2003. While everyone was out trick-or-treating, I was sulking in the basement of our new townhouse apartment, lying on an overinflated air mattress, drowning my sorrows in rap CDs, reminiscing. I hated the pale yellow light and unfamiliar smell that surrounded me. This place felt like a hotel, a cold shell that should have been a home. I listened through the majority of Bubba Sparxxx’s album Deliverance and stared at the ceiling. Imagining the tiny shapes in the off-white paint to be countries and bodies of water, I could only wish to hop on a plane and travel from here back to Wiesbaden far away in the upper right hand corner above me. I would never see Wiesbaden again; it was in the outcast corner where not even the stupid lamp’s light could reach. There was a knock on the front door upstairs, and my parents smiled and dispensed candy. This wasn’t the New Jersey my parents told me about, but I wondered about the possibility of a hidden blessing rooted in New Jersey. For now, the move felt more like a trick than it did a treat.
By the time it hit winter, I hadn’t fully adjusted. Things were becoming a bit more familiar though, and I found an odd comfort in the claustrophobic urban landscape. Wiesbaden is one of the bigger cities in Germany, but there is a different sense of isolation: we usually didn’t talk to the Germans unless we needed to. Without a language barrier, the city streets of New Jersey felt more alive, more relatable. After the move, my mom’s subsequent search for jobs took us to Jersey City which became one of my favorite places to be. It was only a fifteen minute drive away and accommodated every constraint concerning a location for my mom’s work. It was a close driving distance, plus there was a PATH station situated perfectly to travel to Hoboken or New York. Frequent trips between there, Hoboken, and New York for my dad’s work allowed me to learn each place by heart.
Hoboken is a cleaner, more refined Jersey City. We took the Pulaski Skyway, a dangerous, old metal bridge, to either place. The difference between Jersey City and Hoboken is in the inhabitants of each city. Historically, Italian immigrants populated Hoboken. It also happens to be the birthplace of Frank Sinatra and baseball. Nowadays, there are just as many Italians with some Puerto Ricans. Red brick buildings still line the city streets. Since Hoboken is en route to Manhattan – just a few PATH stops away from either 33rd street or the World Trade Center – Hoboken became an intermediary along my dad’s commute. Rita’s Italian Ice is a local favorite for summer days and Carlo’s Bake Shop is always a good stop for top-of-the-line desserts.
Across the Hudson, New York was everything I imagined it to be. It seems to breathe a life of its own, and it has its own natural soundtrack if you listen. There’s a rhythm in the way people in the city move. Staccato footsteps punctuate the pavement; commuters rush to catch the next train, rattling off perfect eighth-notes. If you close your eyes, you can hear a distinct boom-bap beat created by the bouncing of basketballs and the back of cargo trucks crashing shut. Sliding gates are suspended cymbals punctuated by a ringing clap. Everything that Mos Def and Nas taught me about New York was true. I could see street narratives intimately play out before my eyes. Early job hunts for my parents led me away from the city seen in movies. Yet, no matter how easily accessible New York was, a commute to Manhattan was good enough for my dad. Across the Hudson, back in New Jersey is where I eventually spent most of my time.
Jersey City became the b-rate equivalent of New York to me. It is infinitely smaller with just as much of a diverse population. The sights, sounds and smells are similar: car exhaust, deep bass tones humming from distant subwoofers, people playing basketball, and the jingling of chain-link fences. Depending on the location, whether it’s the Indian strip, Filipino strip, Portuguese or Spanish strip, you could smell anything from curry chicken to fried tilapia. It was the Filipino strip that smelled the closest to home. The aroma of adobo, sinigang and pancit filled my nostrils – and to me, that was the best. If we weren’t at Newport mall, we were on Manila Ave.
I remember a trip to Jersey City one day over Christmas break. I warmed my ears up to the sounds of Nas’ first album, Illmatic. I memorized every lyric from replaying it over and over, analyzing every rhyme to improve my own rhyme skills. I was infused with hip-hop ever since my friends in Germany introduced me to its culture. My friend Kahlil and I started rapping at about the same time, and my friends DJ and Dominique taught me about break dancing. I learned how to write graffiti from my cousin Richie. The exclusively urban culture became part of my being. Maybe that’s why I embraced the grittiness of the east coast.
During the drive, Illmatic became my reality. Nas’ narratives about young city bandits and five-percenters framed my existence. I admired the graffiti that stretched along the walls outside the car window. NARK and LOSER’s names decorated the walls on the Turnpike. I was surprised that Nas never actually referenced graffiti writers like them, but then again Nas is from Queens and I was in New Jersey. My overactive imagination took control. On the Pulaski Skyway I could envision police helicopters buzzing above the Hudson like mechanical mosquitoes searching for an outlaw. We were almost to Jersey City. “Represent, represent!” Nas said. His mantra was simple enough. Represent!
We were back on Manila Ave so that my Mom and I could make a routine stop for pandesal and other Filipino goodies. After a fifteen minute stop in Philippine Bread House, we walked back to the car with the fresh bag of soft bread rolls warm from the oven. I put the items in the trunk: the pandesal bread, pianono – a cake-like pastry, coconut juice, and puto which are rice cakes. We then instinctively went to Little Quiapo, a tiny family owned restaurant behind Philippine Bread House.
Little Quiapo is so small that it reminds me of our very own kitchen. As a matter of fact, you can see the kitchen just behind the counter and the scent of whatever is cooking permeates the single-room restaurant. Lunchtime meant that I would order my usual: mami. Mami is a unique Filipino chicken noodle soup. It has thick egg noodles, chicken, still on the bone, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic and hard boiled eggs. The eggs, neatly sliced into thin discs, sit on top of the disorganized mass of noodles, poultry and vegetables. In Germany, I never knew about mami. It wasn’t a meal that my mom cooked, but after Little Quiapo reintroduced it to her, she started making it. Mami became my favorite dish of the season. Now, there was an avenue available to me, dedicated to Filipino food so that enjoying it wasn’t its own special occasion. It comforted me with a sense of warmth that came from somewhere other than its temperature. Mami anchored me to sanity in a time of unbearable loneliness. Finally, I believed I could survive the winter. Maybe there was some good in New Jersey.
Mami wasn’t the only good thing that emerged from Jersey City. My next door neighbor, also a Filipino, moved from Jersey City to Millburn for its top-rated high school education. His name was J.R. and he was anything but a fast-food friend. Faithful would be the best way to describe him, and we were similar in more ways than we could have imagined. Both of us were hip-hop fanatics, hardcore basketball players and newcomers to the suburban township that we resided in. Millburn is comprised of mostly Jewish, Italian and Chinese residents. They were suburban rock lovers, but the guitar never spoke to me like the bass and snare or the smooth sample-based beats created by DJ Premier. With J.R., I relished in my identity as a Filipino possessed by the spirit of hip-hop.
As Laurence turned seventeen and got his driver’s license, J.R. and his family moved back to Jersey City. They were unable to afford living in Millburn and J.R. transferred back to Dickinson High School. Though the only other Filipinos besides me and my brother moved, an empowering sense of cultural heritage overcame us. It was almost like an outcry that my brother and I took pride in. We appreciated our differences and unique experiences that the majority of my Millburn counterparts didn’t have. Who, among my peers, could say that they lived in Germany for four years, taking daytrips to countries where couples have their honeymoons? Who could say that they spent their free time rapping and break dancing, backed by a family bound together by heritage instead of blood? Anywhere my brother and I went, we represented by blasting break beats and hanging a Philippine flag from the rearview mirror in our 1998 Dodge Durango.
Eventually, I realized that I wouldn’t leave New Jersey. Even today, my dad works for the Department of Justice at the city hall in Manhattan. I guess amidst the turmoil of my screwed up teenage emotions I had moving to Millburn, I forgot that my father retired as a master sergeant. My father retired, and the good school system in conjunction with a perfect commuter residence was the reason why we chose to settle on the east coast. I loosened up, adapted, but still kept the identity I found during the tough months of that winter in transition. As I grew older, there were no more fast-food friends for me, only pertinent connections and comfort in my own skin.
Shortly after moving for a second time, the message was loud and clear: I was going to move again. It took two tries for me to read the pattern, and the last time I fully understood it. My dad enlisted in the Air Force and served his country wherever the government sent him. My mom, my older brother Laurence and I followed him first from Utah, to Germany, and then to New Jersey. By New Jersey I finally learned how to make “fast-food friends”. I call them fast-food friends because you smile at them and they smile back; you each exchange conversation and experiences just enough to pass the time, enough to satisfy, but nothing is ever deeper than skin. I was going to pass through New Jersey like a ghost, without any connections or attachment. This way, I told myself, the next move was going to be easy.
We arrived in Millburn, New Jersey on the Halloween of 2003. While everyone was out trick-or-treating, I was sulking in the basement of our new townhouse apartment, lying on an overinflated air mattress, drowning my sorrows in rap CDs, reminiscing. I hated the pale yellow light and unfamiliar smell that surrounded me. This place felt like a hotel, a cold shell that should have been a home. I listened through the majority of Bubba Sparxxx’s album Deliverance and stared at the ceiling. Imagining the tiny shapes in the off-white paint to be countries and bodies of water, I could only wish to hop on a plane and travel from here back to Wiesbaden far away in the upper right hand corner above me. I would never see Wiesbaden again; it was in the outcast corner where not even the stupid lamp’s light could reach. There was a knock on the front door upstairs, and my parents smiled and dispensed candy. This wasn’t the New Jersey my parents told me about, but I wondered about the possibility of a hidden blessing rooted in New Jersey. For now, the move felt more like a trick than it did a treat.
By the time it hit winter, I hadn’t fully adjusted. Things were becoming a bit more familiar though, and I found an odd comfort in the claustrophobic urban landscape. Wiesbaden is one of the bigger cities in Germany, but there is a different sense of isolation: we usually didn’t talk to the Germans unless we needed to. Without a language barrier, the city streets of New Jersey felt more alive, more relatable. After the move, my mom’s subsequent search for jobs took us to Jersey City which became one of my favorite places to be. It was only a fifteen minute drive away and accommodated every constraint concerning a location for my mom’s work. It was a close driving distance, plus there was a PATH station situated perfectly to travel to Hoboken or New York. Frequent trips between there, Hoboken, and New York for my dad’s work allowed me to learn each place by heart.
Hoboken is a cleaner, more refined Jersey City. We took the Pulaski Skyway, a dangerous, old metal bridge, to either place. The difference between Jersey City and Hoboken is in the inhabitants of each city. Historically, Italian immigrants populated Hoboken. It also happens to be the birthplace of Frank Sinatra and baseball. Nowadays, there are just as many Italians with some Puerto Ricans. Red brick buildings still line the city streets. Since Hoboken is en route to Manhattan – just a few PATH stops away from either 33rd street or the World Trade Center – Hoboken became an intermediary along my dad’s commute. Rita’s Italian Ice is a local favorite for summer days and Carlo’s Bake Shop is always a good stop for top-of-the-line desserts.
Across the Hudson, New York was everything I imagined it to be. It seems to breathe a life of its own, and it has its own natural soundtrack if you listen. There’s a rhythm in the way people in the city move. Staccato footsteps punctuate the pavement; commuters rush to catch the next train, rattling off perfect eighth-notes. If you close your eyes, you can hear a distinct boom-bap beat created by the bouncing of basketballs and the back of cargo trucks crashing shut. Sliding gates are suspended cymbals punctuated by a ringing clap. Everything that Mos Def and Nas taught me about New York was true. I could see street narratives intimately play out before my eyes. Early job hunts for my parents led me away from the city seen in movies. Yet, no matter how easily accessible New York was, a commute to Manhattan was good enough for my dad. Across the Hudson, back in New Jersey is where I eventually spent most of my time.
Jersey City became the b-rate equivalent of New York to me. It is infinitely smaller with just as much of a diverse population. The sights, sounds and smells are similar: car exhaust, deep bass tones humming from distant subwoofers, people playing basketball, and the jingling of chain-link fences. Depending on the location, whether it’s the Indian strip, Filipino strip, Portuguese or Spanish strip, you could smell anything from curry chicken to fried tilapia. It was the Filipino strip that smelled the closest to home. The aroma of adobo, sinigang and pancit filled my nostrils – and to me, that was the best. If we weren’t at Newport mall, we were on Manila Ave.
I remember a trip to Jersey City one day over Christmas break. I warmed my ears up to the sounds of Nas’ first album, Illmatic. I memorized every lyric from replaying it over and over, analyzing every rhyme to improve my own rhyme skills. I was infused with hip-hop ever since my friends in Germany introduced me to its culture. My friend Kahlil and I started rapping at about the same time, and my friends DJ and Dominique taught me about break dancing. I learned how to write graffiti from my cousin Richie. The exclusively urban culture became part of my being. Maybe that’s why I embraced the grittiness of the east coast.
During the drive, Illmatic became my reality. Nas’ narratives about young city bandits and five-percenters framed my existence. I admired the graffiti that stretched along the walls outside the car window. NARK and LOSER’s names decorated the walls on the Turnpike. I was surprised that Nas never actually referenced graffiti writers like them, but then again Nas is from Queens and I was in New Jersey. My overactive imagination took control. On the Pulaski Skyway I could envision police helicopters buzzing above the Hudson like mechanical mosquitoes searching for an outlaw. We were almost to Jersey City. “Represent, represent!” Nas said. His mantra was simple enough. Represent!
We were back on Manila Ave so that my Mom and I could make a routine stop for pandesal and other Filipino goodies. After a fifteen minute stop in Philippine Bread House, we walked back to the car with the fresh bag of soft bread rolls warm from the oven. I put the items in the trunk: the pandesal bread, pianono – a cake-like pastry, coconut juice, and puto which are rice cakes. We then instinctively went to Little Quiapo, a tiny family owned restaurant behind Philippine Bread House.
Little Quiapo is so small that it reminds me of our very own kitchen. As a matter of fact, you can see the kitchen just behind the counter and the scent of whatever is cooking permeates the single-room restaurant. Lunchtime meant that I would order my usual: mami. Mami is a unique Filipino chicken noodle soup. It has thick egg noodles, chicken, still on the bone, cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic and hard boiled eggs. The eggs, neatly sliced into thin discs, sit on top of the disorganized mass of noodles, poultry and vegetables. In Germany, I never knew about mami. It wasn’t a meal that my mom cooked, but after Little Quiapo reintroduced it to her, she started making it. Mami became my favorite dish of the season. Now, there was an avenue available to me, dedicated to Filipino food so that enjoying it wasn’t its own special occasion. It comforted me with a sense of warmth that came from somewhere other than its temperature. Mami anchored me to sanity in a time of unbearable loneliness. Finally, I believed I could survive the winter. Maybe there was some good in New Jersey.
Mami wasn’t the only good thing that emerged from Jersey City. My next door neighbor, also a Filipino, moved from Jersey City to Millburn for its top-rated high school education. His name was J.R. and he was anything but a fast-food friend. Faithful would be the best way to describe him, and we were similar in more ways than we could have imagined. Both of us were hip-hop fanatics, hardcore basketball players and newcomers to the suburban township that we resided in. Millburn is comprised of mostly Jewish, Italian and Chinese residents. They were suburban rock lovers, but the guitar never spoke to me like the bass and snare or the smooth sample-based beats created by DJ Premier. With J.R., I relished in my identity as a Filipino possessed by the spirit of hip-hop.
As Laurence turned seventeen and got his driver’s license, J.R. and his family moved back to Jersey City. They were unable to afford living in Millburn and J.R. transferred back to Dickinson High School. Though the only other Filipinos besides me and my brother moved, an empowering sense of cultural heritage overcame us. It was almost like an outcry that my brother and I took pride in. We appreciated our differences and unique experiences that the majority of my Millburn counterparts didn’t have. Who, among my peers, could say that they lived in Germany for four years, taking daytrips to countries where couples have their honeymoons? Who could say that they spent their free time rapping and break dancing, backed by a family bound together by heritage instead of blood? Anywhere my brother and I went, we represented by blasting break beats and hanging a Philippine flag from the rearview mirror in our 1998 Dodge Durango.
Eventually, I realized that I wouldn’t leave New Jersey. Even today, my dad works for the Department of Justice at the city hall in Manhattan. I guess amidst the turmoil of my screwed up teenage emotions I had moving to Millburn, I forgot that my father retired as a master sergeant. My father retired, and the good school system in conjunction with a perfect commuter residence was the reason why we chose to settle on the east coast. I loosened up, adapted, but still kept the identity I found during the tough months of that winter in transition. As I grew older, there were no more fast-food friends for me, only pertinent connections and comfort in my own skin.
8.11.10
erin
erin
Your eyes change color depending on the day
like the bottom of a CD
reflecting blue, green and sometimes gray.
It's when you look at me
with those glassy eyes like mirrors
- iridescent irises do away with all disguises
and I'm left like an infant.
In an instant, a minute becomes infinity,
with you looking into me
in perfect symmetry
To answer the "Why?"
refined or uncouth:
You're Every Reason I Need
to say that I love you.
Your eyes change color depending on the day
like the bottom of a CD
reflecting blue, green and sometimes gray.
It's when you look at me
with those glassy eyes like mirrors
- iridescent irises do away with all disguises
and I'm left like an infant.
In an instant, a minute becomes infinity,
with you looking into me
in perfect symmetry
To answer the "Why?"
refined or uncouth:
You're Every Reason I Need
to say that I love you.
7.11.10
swing
your love is the silence
i hear between the notes
the syncopated rhythm
that swings me left and right
the lullaby
that hums me to sleep
nodding, nodding
falling into your arms
into a dream
i hear between the notes
the syncopated rhythm
that swings me left and right
the lullaby
that hums me to sleep
nodding, nodding
falling into your arms
into a dream
30.7.10
Vignettes: IV
IV.
We were in Combat Survival Training, in the Rocky Mountains. Me, JT and Brandon in a fire team, evading, sneaking, playing a massive game of hide and seek.
We holed up the first day between a few rocks, surrounded by trees on either side. We’d be there for hours. I never really know how beautiful the wilderness was.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the vastness of the world. I try to keep that perspective; remember that in my hectic life and self-conscious ways that there are so many other people out there just like me. I put my ruck down next to me, slanting it against the rock to blend in more and laid back for a view of the clear sky.
It was a perfect blue, and there were no clouds anywhere I looked. The pine trees surrounding me all pointed into the center of whatever I was looking at. Here I was, in between two moss covered rocks, laid out like a child in combat gear, staring at the sky.
I thought that I was staring right into God’s eyes: pine trees circling a blue iris that was the sky. God, it was beautiful.
I imagined what fall must be like there. Fiery red and orange leaves contrasting the pure blue sky. Spring would have golden yellow flowers speckling the bright green grassy backdrop like a Van Gogh painting.
Sometimes a bird would cross the sky from such a great height that it looked like an ant. Here I was, the whole world upside down, a giant bird observing me from a distance, and God staring at me from the infinite depths above.
***
We woke up at 0400 before sunrise and got ready to move out of our nights resting point. We were on the move for about an hour until we were in drainage at the bottom of a ridge with a jeep trail on top of it. This was our checkpoint, and we were well ahead on time, so we holed up in a patch of rocks and trees. Brandon usually napped and JT always read his Bible. Again, all I could do was look up and watch night turn to day and light fill the sky.
I could not see the sun, but it had finally risen and cast a glorious glow over the tops of the trees around me. They looked like paint brushes with a yellowish luster on their tips. I watched them paint the sky a gradient hue of red, purple, blue, and orange. Soon, the brushes were fully dabbed in yellow-green and the sky slowly turned to a clear blue.
I looked over at JT who had set his Bible down. “You like writing, huh?” He said. I replied “I don’t like writing as much as I do painting pictures.” Then, we got up and moved out.
***
In the woods, you might get hungry enough to believe that MRE’s are God’s gift to man. We get 2 MRE’s for 8 days, so you have to ration them out over 4 days each.
It’s funny to think of MRE’s as if they were people. The popular ones are pasta type meals like ravioli and spaghetti because they taste just like Chef Boy Ardee. The chicken with noodles isn’t bad either. No matter which MRE you get stuck with, you have to deal with it just like the people around you.
In MRE’s the directions are as clear as possible; the Army needs to able to understand how to use them. In the heating pack, a chemical reaction between water and some other stuff takes place releasing a great amount of heat and steam. The heater simply says: fill with water up to here, fold top, lean on rock or something. I laugh at the simplistic and generic nature of the whole idea – I mean the military is taking the lowest seller to manufacture these on-the-go processed meals with no shelf life.
I heard one of my buddies once got a pack of Skittles (awesome!) with a contest to win tickets to the 1996 World Series baseball game. I mean, if I was an MRE, I might be the one with that Skittles pack: an old soul wrapped up, maybe, just maybe, being discovered. If I was an MRE I couldn’t be anything extravagant like vegetarian pesto pasta or chicken fajita or enchilada. My packaging would simply read: kid growing up…
Scratch that out, let me start this again.
In the woods, you might get hungry enough to believe that MRE’s are God’s gift to man. We get 2 MRE’s for 8 days, so you have to ration them out over 4 days each. Because of this, you might resort to other means of procuring nutrients – like eating plants, or bugs.
Yesterday I ate a live grasshopper. I took its soul. No really, I took that damn bugs soul. It kind of kicked a little; a futile attempt to break free from my jaws, escape my mouth and happily hop away to live its bugs life. But it couldn’t, and soon I swallowed it and it burned in my stomach acid’s abyss. It was grass flavored protein, and ultimately all it lived for was to fuel my body.
For a split second, I thought it was cruel and that I was some sort of evil for eating it, but I reasoned that it served its only purpose in life; it fulfilled what it was meant to do.
When I was holed up this morning, I came to debate what the more dreadful scenario was: starving in the woods for 8 days or being that little grasshopper. To tell you the truth, I don’t know, but I know that there’s a grasshopper inside all of us, trying to break free, and whether we swallow it or not is the only decision we have.
***
My favorite phrase in the English language is “the truth is,” because it means absolutely nothing. Nobody really knows what “the truth” is. It holds too much power sometimes and I think that using it insincerely is one of the worst things that could ever be done. It’s lying.
The truth is, I write all the time about the struggles of growing up, how much I don’t want to and end up questioning if I ever make the right decisions, fearful of regret. And in the end, no matter what, I look down on a lap full of regret either for something I’ve done, but usually for what I failed to do. It sounds depressing, and I used to convince myself that it was.
Then, I realized that my regret was never really regret at all. I looked back, not in sorrow, but in shock, awe, sometimes disgust, but usually amazement at my life.
I think about it, and honestly I hate life. But the truth is, life is so damn beautiful that it’s impossible not to love it.
We were in Combat Survival Training, in the Rocky Mountains. Me, JT and Brandon in a fire team, evading, sneaking, playing a massive game of hide and seek.
We holed up the first day between a few rocks, surrounded by trees on either side. We’d be there for hours. I never really know how beautiful the wilderness was.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the vastness of the world. I try to keep that perspective; remember that in my hectic life and self-conscious ways that there are so many other people out there just like me. I put my ruck down next to me, slanting it against the rock to blend in more and laid back for a view of the clear sky.
It was a perfect blue, and there were no clouds anywhere I looked. The pine trees surrounding me all pointed into the center of whatever I was looking at. Here I was, in between two moss covered rocks, laid out like a child in combat gear, staring at the sky.
I thought that I was staring right into God’s eyes: pine trees circling a blue iris that was the sky. God, it was beautiful.
I imagined what fall must be like there. Fiery red and orange leaves contrasting the pure blue sky. Spring would have golden yellow flowers speckling the bright green grassy backdrop like a Van Gogh painting.
Sometimes a bird would cross the sky from such a great height that it looked like an ant. Here I was, the whole world upside down, a giant bird observing me from a distance, and God staring at me from the infinite depths above.
***
We woke up at 0400 before sunrise and got ready to move out of our nights resting point. We were on the move for about an hour until we were in drainage at the bottom of a ridge with a jeep trail on top of it. This was our checkpoint, and we were well ahead on time, so we holed up in a patch of rocks and trees. Brandon usually napped and JT always read his Bible. Again, all I could do was look up and watch night turn to day and light fill the sky.
I could not see the sun, but it had finally risen and cast a glorious glow over the tops of the trees around me. They looked like paint brushes with a yellowish luster on their tips. I watched them paint the sky a gradient hue of red, purple, blue, and orange. Soon, the brushes were fully dabbed in yellow-green and the sky slowly turned to a clear blue.
I looked over at JT who had set his Bible down. “You like writing, huh?” He said. I replied “I don’t like writing as much as I do painting pictures.” Then, we got up and moved out.
***
In the woods, you might get hungry enough to believe that MRE’s are God’s gift to man. We get 2 MRE’s for 8 days, so you have to ration them out over 4 days each.
It’s funny to think of MRE’s as if they were people. The popular ones are pasta type meals like ravioli and spaghetti because they taste just like Chef Boy Ardee. The chicken with noodles isn’t bad either. No matter which MRE you get stuck with, you have to deal with it just like the people around you.
In MRE’s the directions are as clear as possible; the Army needs to able to understand how to use them. In the heating pack, a chemical reaction between water and some other stuff takes place releasing a great amount of heat and steam. The heater simply says: fill with water up to here, fold top, lean on rock or something. I laugh at the simplistic and generic nature of the whole idea – I mean the military is taking the lowest seller to manufacture these on-the-go processed meals with no shelf life.
I heard one of my buddies once got a pack of Skittles (awesome!) with a contest to win tickets to the 1996 World Series baseball game. I mean, if I was an MRE, I might be the one with that Skittles pack: an old soul wrapped up, maybe, just maybe, being discovered. If I was an MRE I couldn’t be anything extravagant like vegetarian pesto pasta or chicken fajita or enchilada. My packaging would simply read: kid growing up…
Scratch that out, let me start this again.
In the woods, you might get hungry enough to believe that MRE’s are God’s gift to man. We get 2 MRE’s for 8 days, so you have to ration them out over 4 days each. Because of this, you might resort to other means of procuring nutrients – like eating plants, or bugs.
Yesterday I ate a live grasshopper. I took its soul. No really, I took that damn bugs soul. It kind of kicked a little; a futile attempt to break free from my jaws, escape my mouth and happily hop away to live its bugs life. But it couldn’t, and soon I swallowed it and it burned in my stomach acid’s abyss. It was grass flavored protein, and ultimately all it lived for was to fuel my body.
For a split second, I thought it was cruel and that I was some sort of evil for eating it, but I reasoned that it served its only purpose in life; it fulfilled what it was meant to do.
When I was holed up this morning, I came to debate what the more dreadful scenario was: starving in the woods for 8 days or being that little grasshopper. To tell you the truth, I don’t know, but I know that there’s a grasshopper inside all of us, trying to break free, and whether we swallow it or not is the only decision we have.
***
My favorite phrase in the English language is “the truth is,” because it means absolutely nothing. Nobody really knows what “the truth” is. It holds too much power sometimes and I think that using it insincerely is one of the worst things that could ever be done. It’s lying.
The truth is, I write all the time about the struggles of growing up, how much I don’t want to and end up questioning if I ever make the right decisions, fearful of regret. And in the end, no matter what, I look down on a lap full of regret either for something I’ve done, but usually for what I failed to do. It sounds depressing, and I used to convince myself that it was.
Then, I realized that my regret was never really regret at all. I looked back, not in sorrow, but in shock, awe, sometimes disgust, but usually amazement at my life.
I think about it, and honestly I hate life. But the truth is, life is so damn beautiful that it’s impossible not to love it.
21.7.10
Vignettes: III
III.
June 5th 2009.
After a morning of half-assing a physics project and running some errands, I finally called Cynthia and Sueminn. The plan was to go to the city and watch some indie films on a New York City rooftop. The time came, and I left the house for the train station.
Light drizzling rain dotted the windshield as I drove to the train station to pick my dad up and catch the next train. The rain picked up as I sat at the mouth of the train station’s exit. My dad emerged from the underground tunnel at 6:20 just as he always did. I got out of the car as he approached, handed him the keys and gave him a quick hug. Be safe, if you need anything, call. Love you, he said, and got into the Durango and took off.
I caught the next train going to New York Penn Station – our meeting point. Travel delays meant that I had an extra hour to grab a slice of pizza for dinner before they’d arrive at New York Penn. We were running late, and so we sped walked through the saturated city to a public school’s lobby. After paying the $2 admission ticket, sat in the school’s auditorium fronted by a huge white projection screen. The set was moved indoors because of the incessant rain. I forgot how, but along the way we acquired a few Qdoba burrito’s, and Cynthia and Sueminn brought along some home-made cupcakes which got smashed in transit.
The night started with some pretty bad live music. Then, we got right into the short films. I don’t remember much about them; like anything else in life some were good, and some weren’t. After the films, we travelled back to New York Penn, and prepared to catch our respective trains back home. Cynthia and I were off to Millburn, and Sueminn headed back to Montclair.
It felt like a dream: sitting on a train coming back from New York in hours that were too early to be morning but too late to be night. Cynthia sat across from me, eyes staring into the wild darkness beyond the train’s window. It was the first time I rode one of these double-deckers. The additional height made me feel as if I were in space, flying through the deep dark nothingness with time stopped. And time did stop. Cynthia and I talked about this and that, shared some laughs and enjoyed each other’s presence. By now our conversation faded as we both silently reflected on whatever events awaited after this train ride.
I thought about the city, how it seemed to breathe a life of its own. I thought about the subways that we rode that night and how teens just like me were riding them, on their way home from a night of adventure. I imagined the eerie feeling of a nearly-silent subway car filled with a somber ambience. I could live in the city forever, intoxicated by the night lights and sounds that only locals could fall asleep to. I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to dream of the city that I could only wish to live in.
Somewhere along the way back home, three kids from our town panicked a few rows behind me and Cynthia. They were wondering where Todd was. Apparently, he got lost in a crowd and missed the train that his three other friends were able to catch. I listened to their frantic conversation, immediately considering which option to retrieve their lost friend. I laughed to myself, only wishing in that instant that I was Todd, left in the city, without ever having to face the reality that at the end of the month I would be joining the United States Air Force. I sighed; this was the life that I would be missing out on. It felt like a dream.
June 5th 2009.
After a morning of half-assing a physics project and running some errands, I finally called Cynthia and Sueminn. The plan was to go to the city and watch some indie films on a New York City rooftop. The time came, and I left the house for the train station.
Light drizzling rain dotted the windshield as I drove to the train station to pick my dad up and catch the next train. The rain picked up as I sat at the mouth of the train station’s exit. My dad emerged from the underground tunnel at 6:20 just as he always did. I got out of the car as he approached, handed him the keys and gave him a quick hug. Be safe, if you need anything, call. Love you, he said, and got into the Durango and took off.
I caught the next train going to New York Penn Station – our meeting point. Travel delays meant that I had an extra hour to grab a slice of pizza for dinner before they’d arrive at New York Penn. We were running late, and so we sped walked through the saturated city to a public school’s lobby. After paying the $2 admission ticket, sat in the school’s auditorium fronted by a huge white projection screen. The set was moved indoors because of the incessant rain. I forgot how, but along the way we acquired a few Qdoba burrito’s, and Cynthia and Sueminn brought along some home-made cupcakes which got smashed in transit.
The night started with some pretty bad live music. Then, we got right into the short films. I don’t remember much about them; like anything else in life some were good, and some weren’t. After the films, we travelled back to New York Penn, and prepared to catch our respective trains back home. Cynthia and I were off to Millburn, and Sueminn headed back to Montclair.
It felt like a dream: sitting on a train coming back from New York in hours that were too early to be morning but too late to be night. Cynthia sat across from me, eyes staring into the wild darkness beyond the train’s window. It was the first time I rode one of these double-deckers. The additional height made me feel as if I were in space, flying through the deep dark nothingness with time stopped. And time did stop. Cynthia and I talked about this and that, shared some laughs and enjoyed each other’s presence. By now our conversation faded as we both silently reflected on whatever events awaited after this train ride.
I thought about the city, how it seemed to breathe a life of its own. I thought about the subways that we rode that night and how teens just like me were riding them, on their way home from a night of adventure. I imagined the eerie feeling of a nearly-silent subway car filled with a somber ambience. I could live in the city forever, intoxicated by the night lights and sounds that only locals could fall asleep to. I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to dream of the city that I could only wish to live in.
Somewhere along the way back home, three kids from our town panicked a few rows behind me and Cynthia. They were wondering where Todd was. Apparently, he got lost in a crowd and missed the train that his three other friends were able to catch. I listened to their frantic conversation, immediately considering which option to retrieve their lost friend. I laughed to myself, only wishing in that instant that I was Todd, left in the city, without ever having to face the reality that at the end of the month I would be joining the United States Air Force. I sighed; this was the life that I would be missing out on. It felt like a dream.
Vignettes I
Vignettes
I.
It was the first time I had seen her in a year. April was looking just as gorgeous as ever. I was back from the Academy for the first time since last June, and we decided to see each other over a lazy afternoon lunch break.
It was a typical day, overcast and not too hot. Still, the humidity on the East Coast was on the opposite end of the dry air that I was used to from the Colorado Mountains. We got some deli sandwiches: I got the J-Ray, my favorite, and she got a number 8 Griller. I was unsure how to approach her, so much had changed during this last year, our first year of college. Nonetheless, we walked to the park and ate at the picnic tables.
As I walked to a set of picnic tables just outside of the children’s baseball field, I looked around. To my left was the park bench where I once took Chloe on a date. It was the same bench where, in June 2007 I would pen a particular set of words in my journal that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Then, later that August, I would be back at that same bench, penning the beginning of Shades of Gray – a punching bag album that I used to address every little insecurity I had in my life. A year later I finished writing that album at the tables that we were about to sit at.
April walked delicately; she didn’t match my pace but she also didn’t dwindle behind me. We made small talk like we had just seen each other yesterday, but deep inside there had to be an overwhelming urge to spill everything: the who’s what’s when’s where’s and why’s of every event that had happened in the past year where we had virtually no communication. There had to be at least a tickle of this urge. At least it was in me, but I restrained myself in fear of making things awkward and becoming someone so different that we could no longer connect.
We started to eat, but I did most of the talking. After about 15 minutes of sitting, my J-Ray was almost untouched, with a few bites perforating the outer edges of the sandwich. As I spoke I watched April eat and the way she used her napkin after every bite. It was almost a one way conversation, April mhm’ing and nodding. Sometimes she would put her sandwich down to comment on my stories. Even when she did this though, it was as if she was dancing around landmines, afraid that if she pried too deeply into my stories that I would become offended or bored of explaining the same things to her that I did to everyone else. We were playing a game of limbo; there was a line that she refused to cross, a line that I unwillingly restrained from crossing.
There was one landmine that she stepped on. Without a caveat, April looked at me and stated, without the slightest bit of emotion: You have a girlfriend now. And then a grin peeled across her face, and gave a quick disclaimer: Not that I’ve been facebook stalking you or anything. I laughed and told her all about my girlfriend and our situation during the summer. How we met, where she’s from, and the general run down. After I gave my spiel, I fired back at April – What about you? She said that she was in a “thing” with a guy. She explained how they had been seeing each other on and off throughout the year. That brief instance where there was no taboo topic between us disappeared just as quickly as it had left, and ended with just as much emotion. “That’s cool…”
By this time, I had managed to eat only half of my lunch, and I wrapped up the rest and put it back in the brown paper bag. For a moment, I was fearful that I had sent the wrong social cue; I didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want the conversation to end. I don’t think April did either because she just sat there, both of us still talking about life in general, but not life itself. For some reason I thought about the time a few years ago when we were hanging out at the playground a little further into the park. That night, my friends Angelo and Donald were with me. We were just hanging out and talking after a day of rapping and making music. At some point, April said “Why don’t you just ever say what you want to say?” I thought about what she said, but didn’t reply.
Years later, we were in the same park. This time it was just me and her, but we were two completely different people. There was a time when we could talk openly, about anything deep inside our growing souls. Throughout our lunch together I noticed that she seldom looked into my eyes. It was as if she was looking beyond me, at the memories, at the person that I used to be to her. I walked her back to her car, and our goodbye was brief, punctuated by a hug. She still came out to see me, a gesture that suggested more than any of the words exchanged between us.
I.
It was the first time I had seen her in a year. April was looking just as gorgeous as ever. I was back from the Academy for the first time since last June, and we decided to see each other over a lazy afternoon lunch break.
It was a typical day, overcast and not too hot. Still, the humidity on the East Coast was on the opposite end of the dry air that I was used to from the Colorado Mountains. We got some deli sandwiches: I got the J-Ray, my favorite, and she got a number 8 Griller. I was unsure how to approach her, so much had changed during this last year, our first year of college. Nonetheless, we walked to the park and ate at the picnic tables.
As I walked to a set of picnic tables just outside of the children’s baseball field, I looked around. To my left was the park bench where I once took Chloe on a date. It was the same bench where, in June 2007 I would pen a particular set of words in my journal that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Then, later that August, I would be back at that same bench, penning the beginning of Shades of Gray – a punching bag album that I used to address every little insecurity I had in my life. A year later I finished writing that album at the tables that we were about to sit at.
April walked delicately; she didn’t match my pace but she also didn’t dwindle behind me. We made small talk like we had just seen each other yesterday, but deep inside there had to be an overwhelming urge to spill everything: the who’s what’s when’s where’s and why’s of every event that had happened in the past year where we had virtually no communication. There had to be at least a tickle of this urge. At least it was in me, but I restrained myself in fear of making things awkward and becoming someone so different that we could no longer connect.
We started to eat, but I did most of the talking. After about 15 minutes of sitting, my J-Ray was almost untouched, with a few bites perforating the outer edges of the sandwich. As I spoke I watched April eat and the way she used her napkin after every bite. It was almost a one way conversation, April mhm’ing and nodding. Sometimes she would put her sandwich down to comment on my stories. Even when she did this though, it was as if she was dancing around landmines, afraid that if she pried too deeply into my stories that I would become offended or bored of explaining the same things to her that I did to everyone else. We were playing a game of limbo; there was a line that she refused to cross, a line that I unwillingly restrained from crossing.
There was one landmine that she stepped on. Without a caveat, April looked at me and stated, without the slightest bit of emotion: You have a girlfriend now. And then a grin peeled across her face, and gave a quick disclaimer: Not that I’ve been facebook stalking you or anything. I laughed and told her all about my girlfriend and our situation during the summer. How we met, where she’s from, and the general run down. After I gave my spiel, I fired back at April – What about you? She said that she was in a “thing” with a guy. She explained how they had been seeing each other on and off throughout the year. That brief instance where there was no taboo topic between us disappeared just as quickly as it had left, and ended with just as much emotion. “That’s cool…”
By this time, I had managed to eat only half of my lunch, and I wrapped up the rest and put it back in the brown paper bag. For a moment, I was fearful that I had sent the wrong social cue; I didn’t want to leave and I didn’t want the conversation to end. I don’t think April did either because she just sat there, both of us still talking about life in general, but not life itself. For some reason I thought about the time a few years ago when we were hanging out at the playground a little further into the park. That night, my friends Angelo and Donald were with me. We were just hanging out and talking after a day of rapping and making music. At some point, April said “Why don’t you just ever say what you want to say?” I thought about what she said, but didn’t reply.
Years later, we were in the same park. This time it was just me and her, but we were two completely different people. There was a time when we could talk openly, about anything deep inside our growing souls. Throughout our lunch together I noticed that she seldom looked into my eyes. It was as if she was looking beyond me, at the memories, at the person that I used to be to her. I walked her back to her car, and our goodbye was brief, punctuated by a hug. She still came out to see me, a gesture that suggested more than any of the words exchanged between us.
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