Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Waves

Waves are regenerative, destructive. They refuse to bend and be at the mercy of a vast, still ocean, yet they are who they are because of the will of the moon and wind, heat and not-heat. They dash rocks upon rocks, carving slowly away at cliffs and caves. They can smooth away jagged edges of glass.

The waves in the Mediterranean glimmer with flecks of golden sand. I've seen it myself. The wealth - and desire - of nations have sunk in the waves, finding a quiet berth in still caverns at the bottom of the sea.

How many dreams drowned in the sea? How many were born amidst the waves? How many of them lived in the crests and the foam?

They arch their backs, fulminating and growing, bending always upward in a steady unshakable, intensity before ultimately rejoining the sea it so ardently had tried to flee. To be a wave is to be forever yearning, never to reach and touch, and always to return to its formative substance.

Does a wave move forward, then? Or does it doom itself to never leave the sea?

For brief lapses of time, a wave turns to vapor to cloud to rain that touches my upturned face, but we all return to the Earth in a cycle of life and death, so too will this water come back to Earth and be invested back to the sea, all cycles touching and moving each other like gears.

Touching and moving each other like waves, particle to particle, droplet to droplet.

Waves are stories. Regenerative, destructive, always building after germinating, striving and cresting, only to ultimately return to the material of its making. I make, create, while the "me" within you, our shared humanity, sees my story, hears it, reads and absorbs it, an organic osmosis. So the story ultimately reaches its own substance, my story, which was striving for a unique distinction from the sea of me's and you's around me.

So we touch and move each other, particle to particle, droplet to droplet.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A Perfect Summer's Day

I always felt like summer was my month, my kind of season. But I find myself missing the cold like a dear friend. The cold I wore like a mask to hide me as I would walk to class bundled into a million fuzzy warm things. I could peel off the layers inside cozy cafes, made all the warmer by gusty froths of snow outside. Chai never tastes better than those moments after traversing the cold-hot barrier of a mid-winter's cafe. 

I miss my scarves, and my reasons - or excuses - to wear them. I touched the corner of one yesterday...pashmina with gold threaded designs, perceptible only if you tilt the fabric. But it's much too warm, I have to remind myself. Too hot, too sticky, too much. Just too much. 

Missing someone is not about missing a physical body, but an essence. The essence of cold brings delight to the warmth, and vice-versa. It brings angel-feather snowflakes, wispy and delicate as cotton buds. I would hardly complain if the sky yawned widely, tiring of this heat, and graced us with a bounty of snowflakes. I want to feel my boots crunching snow, my sweater freshly laundered in my insular armor of jacket, gloves, jeans, and scarf.

People vacation for hot weather. I hear Australia has winter right now, as does Chile. I would vacation for winter. Winter is seemingly universally unpopular. People would rather have summer, that time of iced drinks, no school, shorts, and swimsuits. But summer brings the boredom of the summer job, the school-less hours of tedious Facebook time. Summer has few holidays - winter brings the season of joy and cheer, hot chocolate and egg nogg, family and friends. Winter glows as golden for me as a hot summer sun. 

Here I am, on a perfect summer's day.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

"oh boy" (uttered with a sigh)

my mother has been invading my house
with her "oh boy's"
and her determination that you clean your plate
sometimes I see her
watching me from my mirror
determined still to see it through
pushing at my mind with her
questions, doubts and fears
and I say, go away
but she just stares
and from her lips slip the words,
"oh boy"

written during a David Lee cello concert at the Sheldon

are you keeping it a secret?
how, in your nakedness, can you hide it?
can you wrap it in paper napkins and store it in your heart?
can you write it between your thighs or under your arms?
How about an esoteric tattoo to fool the angels?
would Michael revolt, Beelzebub sigh
how could you expect to hide it from god?

slinking out of Eden with your mother begging you not to go
you couldn't tear it loose from your burning hands, your pounding heart

Jesus only wanted us, both you and I, to utter yes.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

First Meeting - Summer Edition!

Hello everyone!

This is our first official "Summer Edition" meeting. It will be taking place at the Gelateria on South Grand (directions can be found if click on this link here) on Tuesday, June 12th. The meeting time is tentatively 6:30pm. Please RSVP by e-mail so we know who to expect and if that time works for you!

Thanks everyone!

Best,
~Priya

Friday, June 1, 2012

coming together

each of us in our own world
the brain perceiving its individual reality
pausing only for fireflies on a summer's night
or the whispering leaves of November.
how can we even begin to communicate?
Can I hold your hand?
wipe your brow?
Can we come together when there is so much that pulls us apart -
you hurt, I cannot help you
I feel disenfranchised
sitting on a rock high in the Black Hills,
wondering,
if Crazy Horse ever rode through here.