OPineJournal

Are words important? I noted to a fellow bus rider today that, though we were at the end of a two hour journey that normally takes one, that we were, nevertheless, getting home. I had heard the complaints, grunts, curses from people claiming the metro people didn't care, the declarations that they didn't know what they were doing, the suggestions that the metro was always late. I told my fellow rider that it was sometimes difficult to not absorb some of the negativity around me, but that no matter the length of the trip, I do always get home. He nodded, seeming to be in agreement. We then talked about recycled building materials for our houses.

When the wind howls, its mournful, wild, willful and dramatic at the same time. When it whistles in the eves, I hear music, sprites, play. It rattles my metal roof some nights, and recently, I've noticed that it's comforting, like the clock ticking down stairs, the sun rising in the morning. I like reminders that I am not alone, and that I am not lone. The poems written around me, in the sand, soil, shimmering water, leaves, wind, rain, snow, summer haze, are more real than the words I might use to conjure my own. Wouldn't it be a good thing to keep balance, to stop pushing these so often gentle reminders of our coexistence to angrier and angrier expressions of stress? Snow is horizontal now, heavy, warm flakes falling fast, transforming again the already beautiful landscape, no inconvenience at all.

The same way a river flows, so to can love. A book I read many years ago is entitled, Don't Push the River (by Barry Stevens). I've forgotten how important that command is, and have been pushing the river now, for some time. Writing this is how I organize realizations - it's how I know, what I do not need to 'know'. Peace. AF.

II Shining sharp, bright, cold, the comfort of the moon, a constant cycle keeping me from being too much day to day, and reminding me how short the lifespan of such drama can be. I see her every 2 weeks, waxing, waning or hanging full 'above'. As my day started last Wednesday, the moon's was setting in this hemisphere. She accompanied me to work, giving me more than the day ahead, the people snoozing around me on the bus, and my own fatigue, to ponder. I've been pondering happiness, and how simple the pleasure of looking at the moon is. I found that one of the countries/regions in Asia claiming to be the inspiration behind Shangri-la, has been moving toward's happiness as a primary goal in governance. Bhutan's ruler was a monarch until a few years ago, and peacefully and willingly converted the country to a democracy. They are known to be the happiest people on the planet, and their happiness was planned. As I think about this, I find it terribly difficu...

The Book of the Living: I Crystal encasement, the dual beauty and hazard of ice, sheathing, magnifying, distorting, transporting everything to another place and time, a mummification of the beautiful bark and bud of our time. A look, perhaps a second look, out the door, window, and the landscape floods into me like the rush of fresh air taken when I've forgotten to breath. When I am open, it floods in, emotional and more real, perhaps, than the other drama, the conversations, the news, the tits and tats of moving through a day's routine, of schedules, of unmissables. And so, there are two dramas, the one defined in part by television, by necessity, by blind ambition, and there is this other one, the one that I must have presence enough to be absent enough to feel. Today, in a conversation, I spoke of the heirlooms that define us (we're family), and voiced the question, 'what of them?' Even if I had children, what is that object that my grandmother's mother to...