"how much do you love me?"
"do you want that in gigaseconds? i'm not sure how to measure that."
as a child, we are taught to clean up the messes we've made. scattered lego all over the living room rug, the jump rope laying prostate in the afternoon sun, the barbie dolls, trying to find solace in the cracks between cushions. and if we ever learnt anything from this, we carry it with us through our preteen years, our tween years, our teen years - and so on and so forth into adulthood.
even now, i grab a paper towel to soak up the coke spilt on counters. i wipe up the tomato slice fallen from my hamburger. clumsy? haha, yeah, maybe. but that's not the point. the point is, we clean and restore the order of things.
order.
what is it, precisely? or, rather: what is it - precisely. with precision and detail, our lives are complex, yet have their own time, space, place, purpose. even decorations have purposes. everything is placed wherever it is for a reason. order is regularity, order is structure. order makes sense. and even in times when order cannot be found, there is a cause. the end, the final, the absolute - it does not waver.
i like to still, somehow, believe in the human race.
i see it every day - the liars, the homeless, the drunkards, the superficial. and then, once in a while, i see the true. the old bus driver who has been smiling at countless faces for centuries now - he still has strength to laugh with strangers and enquire about their day; to charm the older women and entertain the kids. he made my day, that demure thursday morning. or the child with the floppy blonde curls and misshapen mouth - with buck teeth and eyes too innocent. he held a rose with one hand and continued on his way, with acceptance. the chinese immigrant who limps into the university more days than not, wrinkled and determined to fulfill his own dream of education; the woman with such a funny smile that she throws at all sorts of people. it is this diversity, this... this odd light in the strangest places, that gives me the most uncanny sense of hope. i do believe in beauty, i do believe in truth. and hey, guess what?
i do believe in getting up.
for me - well, let's just say i have more faith in others than i do for myself. "hello, this is i, and i have been sinning for a very long time." yes, i do have my own cell phone, cosmetic set, sea of shoes and bags, and sense of right and wrong. i do feel when i've cheated myself and others, and i do grin when i've made somebody's day. but it's like i told a boy trying to find his reflection: there's no price great enough to pay for loss of truth.
doing wrong? it gives you that. ironic, that all you should gain is loss. please - there is no such thing as waiting for the right time when all that cries out is for you to be honest. if you have pain to inevitably inflict on somebody, it only grows as time perculates. and i? i screw up continuously. you know, i don't know when i'll stop. i'll be honest here: beyond the content and the flimsy thoughts of life ending, the warmth in love's words and the music that grates at the beating within my lungs, is so much uncertainty. certainty, uncertainty - it may not matter, but if any two things were completely different, they'd definitely make it to the list. i don't know, i don't know, i don't know when the hell i'll stop screwing up. i don't know when i'll stop being selfish, i just don't know. we are our greatest critic, our most passionate enemy, our most silent friend. i suppose i should trace over my own words with this paper-cut hand of mine, and realize that beating myself up will do nothing unless i act, but it's such a long night. i love, i love.
"did you ever have any.. huge dreams, when you were younger? like something you really wanted to do, when you were "all grown up"?" he told me that he always wanted to be a superhero. i told him, when i was five, i really, really wanted to be a mermaid. "it was the first thing i ever wanted to be, apart from being six, because i was five." he chuckled and when i asked him which superhero, replied with the x-men. "they came on saturday mornings", he informed me. haha. or the ninja turtles. and then as i pressed my cheek against the plush of my seat, and wished that he were so much closer, he said:
the problem with superheros, is that they're either tragic or mutant.
hahaha.
on page one hundred and - yes, three - i quoted yesterday. bennett and royle said:
tragedy resists simple explanation.
"it involves - as aristotle suggestes, more than 2,300 years ago - a paradoxical combination of emotions, at once pity and fear or (as sidney says) 'admiration and commiseratiion.'"
nineteen past midnight, and my salad has been poked and prodded. i woke up so thirsty from dreams of nostalgia, but i can't classify that as a bad thing. in some way, i know we are all connected. i am sorry. i am loved. i love.
yes.
again?
i love.
get up, i guess. due for a miracle, the choice still comes back down to us.
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