musings on a minute

Often, we think in increments of time.
It is only natural, as this is how we were born into the world.
I, for instance, was born at 8:48 pm, on the fifth day of the third week on the seventeenth day in the first month in the year of 1992.
That's a lot of numbers.

We act through what we know, and what we know is time: clocks, watches, sundials, programs, calendars, bells, schedules, alarms - these set the standard for our daily activity. We move in and out of action based on this thing called 'time'; in and out of days, in and out of weeks, in and out of years, in and out of lives...

But what does time profit a man?
A little order to chaos?
Oh, how 'little' that order may be; when we claim to lose time, claim to need time, claim to never have enough time...It's all foolishness really, for time was invented for structure and demand. Time was invented for mortal minds.

We cannot see this thing which is nothing.
So why let it cause so much pain?

If time is for man - a temporal purpose at best - then let us use it for such a cause.

Do not let impatience cloud God's work.
His clock runs different than ours.

Wet
(Sheep Falls on The Henry's Fork)

Battered, bruised, broken;
I cannot move for pain.
Thousands undivided:
Pressing down on my skin
Damp jaws devour my flesh,
Guiding bits on with their moist
Saliva and blood.
The torrential battle forever
Raging on: the force consumes me.
Those below scream for help,
For benevolence.
Friends now enemies and enemies
Friends as each tattered break
Moves us closer toward eternity's end.

Some call me endless -
A base, a foundation, a rock -
But here I am, wounded,
Water's oppressed foe.
Droplets a battalion
Ending my everlasting soul.

Time and pressure plague all.

11.11.11

Today I am thankful -

It may not be much -

But today

I am thankful

For love and such.

the most wonderful time

I love November. It is perhaps my favorite month of the year (next only to January and December). This three month span is by far the happiest for me, regardless of circumstances in life. It doesn't matter what's going on in the world, I am almost always found with a smile on my face. The crisp air is part of it, to be sure - but the wonderful music, happy people and addictive holiday spirit all play a part as well. And of course there's the food...
I don't necessarily have a specific reason for loving this season so much, but love it I do, and love it I will.

I embraced the designer in me the other day and redid my entire room - starting with the bed. Since I have no roommate I decided to push the extra bed next to mine, creating one huge, brightly colored and totally bounceable bed. It totally opened up the entire room, and for some reason seeing it look so pretty has motivated me to not only make my bed each morning (something I have never done in my life...ever), but to also keep things in their proper place. I've been getting better at the whole 'keeping your room clean' bit since college (partly because you can get thrown out to the streets for a messy room here) but now I actually want to be in a clean room! I know I'm a bit behind on this - but really, I've never felt so accomplished before - having such a clean and spacey room! It's spectacular.

I've also been cooking more: making homemade meals instead of eating frozen foods, and eating three meals a day! (That's a new one for me too - I hardly ever eat breakfast.) Even though I don't have class till 11, I've started waking up at 8 each day, and today I even did it with a smile on my face - no grumbling at all! I've been saying my morning and evening prayers without forgetting, running much more frequently than I used to, and I've even found time to practice - something I've been missing out on for a long while now. And I can't even feel my achy arm anymore because I'm just happy I can still play! It makes me wish I had a piano in my room - but I suppose the walk is good for me, even in this windy weather.

I'd like to credit these changes to my spectacular awesomeness as a human being, but I know it has got to be something in the air, because I've always wanted to be this person I've become and it hasn't happened till now. The desire was always there, but the action wasn't, you know? There's just something about this season that finally provoked me off my lazy butt - and boy am I grateful.

It's only the 2nd day of the month, but so far - November rocks.

Semi Indifference

I hear nothing as I step from the wreckage and glass, feel nothing as I scrape spent feet across the road, taste nothing but the linger of sleep in the air, and it’s as if I’m floating through time – time that does not exist.

There is no time here.

Family fragments the road – brothers here, a father there, my mother unmoving; small.

Confusion seeps through the air. Confusion I can’t breathe in, and a ringing fills my ears now – a ringing that won’t stop. It numbs the world and I fight back, screaming in my head for the sounds to be heard, screaming for feeling to penetrate those walls of nothing clouding my mind.

People are moving and words fills the air: air I cannot breathe –air I’ve replaced with vomit as the unmoving time spills from my empty lungs and the ruined meal hits the pavement.

I try to suck in something other than death, but it seems to thicken and dampen the sky. Unpleasant and dry, my damaged soles fumble to greener sides – to the patch of grass not far from here.

And then voices stream through my mind: People are talking again, fragmented words penetrate my lungs, replacing the air I’ve procured.

“Quick! Move!”

“There’s fire under the car! You need to get out of here!”

“What happened? What’s going on?”

“Are you alright?”

“Someone call for help!”

I want to breathe, all I want is to breathe, but the air will not come. I do not wish to speak, but I must before nothing reigns: I must be heard.

“Can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

I think someone hears but I shut off my mind and focus on the air around me: focus on the struggle to let it in; to allow it to break through the iron clad shell that has sprung up around my chest.

Someone is shouting: words are spoiling the air, but I stop them as they turn toward me; stop them from colliding with my already damaged body.

Then I see it – the looming giant. A shadow of a childhood dream; the nightmarish monster cloaked in dark. It’s the cause of my heaving chest and blackened soles: the cause of the pain I wish to feel, pain masked by the echo of youthful fright.

Memories and fears from a childish brain seal my leaking lungs and trap the hungry search for air inside.

I feel the dark shadow begin to extend – see it flowing from the monster like a whispered spell of night. Everything it touches turns to silence. Everything it clouds turns to death. I turn back toward the giant, unmoving and still. Indifferent, hardhearted, cold – he does not care for our fear. He does not care for our suffering.

I’m struggling for air, struggling to pull breathe from the hellish nightmare before me when the words come once more:

“B-breathe! I can’t breathe!”

It comes as a croak, the darkness filling my lungs like smoke from a cigarette, slowly eroding my life from within.

Will no one hear? Will no one stop the night from coming?

The unfeeling shadow is near me now. I see its fingers reach toward my unguarded soles, grasping my feet and the clasp of death dragging me down…down…

And then light fills the silence of fear! Light breaks the firm hold on my soles and I’m standing once more!

A man appears in my sight and lowers me to the ground. He’s strapping something around my neck and I feel the cold plastic harden my resolve. Something is placed in my mouth, then my nose, then round my arm and finally I breathe! I feel the cold life seep through every pore; through every crack in my shell and shatter the remains of death. My body is lifted on the bed of defense and we speed away from the threatening nightmare – away into the morning light.

Breathing in normal again, familiar, as if it never left. The tubes flow round me like an encompassing blanket, a comforter of hope. For a moment I’m peaceful, for a moment I’m calm.

A small voice brings me back, lost and confused.

I see my brother, Jim, on a bed like mine: his neck braced in a protective glove of plastic. Questions fill the air once more.

“Where am I?”

“An ambulance.”
“Why am I here? What happened?”

“You crashed.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

He seems to be asking the same questions over and over again. Unsure of where we are or what has occurred. I respond this time.

“We crashed Jim. We crashed. We were hit by a semi.”

No comprehension floods his face, as it so often does when a jokes been explained. He seems to be grasping for the punch-line, waiting patiently for a sensible man to answer his query with logic. Searching for reason as I searched for air.

The man begins to speak again, and this time he’s filling the questioned silence with stories and I smile, listening to the hopes of life fill the air. But then I’m gone and he’s smiling in the distance as they roll me through the welcoming doors, and an acrid smell fills my lungs – the smell of vinegar and cotton swabs and death and I’m scared for a moment that I’ve forgotten how to breathe. And even though the machine pumping air into me is still whirling with life I hear death, think death, see death, feel death…

A scream.

A dreadful scream punctures the air as they wheel me into a room and I see my mother, shattering the sky with more fear than a lifetime can procure and her echoing sounds of pain reverberate off my momentary resolve and extinguish the light.

Before I find time – before I can panic I’m surrounded by faces in coats and they’re poking and prodding me, removing my layers of comfort and restraint, replacing them with thin layers of nothing and then wheeling me out to begin their tests: wheeling me into a dark closet of a room.

There’s another monster in here, filling the dark space in a huddling mass. I know it will tell me nothing good, so I squirm a little as they wheel me toward it. It whispers words in my ear as it fills my eyes with light…The words grow louder and louder, the lights faster and faster until I can no longer distinguish sounds from sights and sights from sounds. I feel my heart turn to living muscle and it’s beats synchronize those from above as I close my eyes to the noise. Colorful dots cross my lids and I hear them eat through my body like a parasitic bug.

Finally my heart slows, turning back to dust as the monster calms and I’m pulled away, back into the room with Mom. There’s silence in the air.

Silence.

She’s quiet now.

No time passes once more till the coats are back, telling me I’ll have to leave, telling me I’ll have to go north for help and they’re wheeling me away before the answers come and I see a line of brothers in the hall, waving goodbye as we flock through the exiting doors and into the back of yet another car.

I feel nothing, until we move.

This ride is bumpy and shoots pain through my lungs. A woman is speaking to me and I find myself longing for the nice man and his stories, longing for someone other than this irritating coat. She keeps asking me how I feel and I can’t seem to make her understand that I don’t. These pains aren’t the problem, I think as she quiets, and I look again for something to fill the emptiness inside.

Time is still missing, and before I can find it I’m on a ground floor of another hospital – in a temporary room filled with indifference. I think momentarily of the still monster on the road as they place me on a bed now, a real bed. I see the remote placed next to my head. Eyes finding the screen, I click it on and see tennis. I watch the ball move back and forth…back and forth…back and forth…and then the nurse is back, and finally I know why I’m here.

Internal bleeding. Damage to your spleen. A tear – weeks of recovery.

The words are foreign to me. She talks more, speaking the words as if she’s rehearsed them a hundred times and I shut her out as I search again for that hole inside.

I find I’m looking for emotion, some kind of relief or dread; fear or joy…but find nothing instead, nothing slowly carving out my organs, destroying my heart – hollowing my body and eating everything inside.

I stop the search. There’s no reason to look anymore.

The hardest emotion is the feel of indifference.

I turn back toward the screen, my unfilled shell sinking into the folds of the bed and I watch as the ball moves once more.

write away, I say!

"There are moments when time stands still: Breath halts in the air, wind ceases to blow, emotion dies in the heart....Right now is one of these moments. Right now I feel nothing."

I've been working on my creative non-fiction story for next weeks assignment. We've been asked to submit something to the pre-professional conference next month, and rather than be creative and come up with something completely new I've decided to submit an edited version of the story I wrote for last weeks assignment. I've just found I don't have the time to come up with something completely new, seeing as I spend all my free time working on a novel that is nowhere near ready for submission, or staring off idly into space thinking about things also non-submission worthy...
But last week we were asked to tell a story of a difficult experience we've endured, something painful that we find hard to talk about. The first thing that popped into my mind was the car wreck 5 years ago, so I decided to write about that. Truth be told, it wasn't very difficult to write. I found the details of that even come back to me with surprising detail and a sad lack of emotion, so I was able to write everything down just as I remembered it - doing my best not to embellish. 

It probably took me a total of twenty minutes to fill 8 pages. It was the editing down and refining that took longer. I spent hours weeding out unnecessary details and pruning ugly words until it flowed to my liking. I still have to have a few people peer edit it for me before I turn it in, but when I'm done I'll post it here for you all to read, if you'd like. I'm not usually one to post my personal work - but I guess I need to get over that fear sometime if I ever want to be published in anything...

While I was writing however, I was struck, as often occurs during the pursuit of a creative tale, by the ideas and thoughts of others. Thousands of stories I've heard and read and pursued over the past few weeks seemed to all come crashing together in the same shocking moment, and I found myself struggling to get them all down before they escaped from my memory. I've never typed so fast in my life!

I made major headway on my novel today, the one I've been working on for a few years now. It was wonderful to have all those half formed ideas come into sharper focus and lay themselves out before me in such a neat and orderly fashion. Usually I find myself struggling to fit together the pieces of my puzzled mind, but today the words seemed to simply fly from my finger tips and onto the page! It was awesome!

The only downside to having your creative juices fly on overload is that you tend to forget everything else happening in life at that current moment, and sometimes you miss important events because of it - like school, or homework, or sleep...

Luckily today I found my mind only wandering during one class - and my homework just happened to be my creative writing assignment, so no harm done! Now if I can only remember to eat some dinner and go to bed on time...

the middle

Life passes: sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

Presently I find myself in a stage of uncertanity. I cannot decide whether I would like thing to speed up or slow down. I desire what lies ahead, enormously - desperately, even. I want it beyond any dream at all. And yet I feel unprepared and frightened: frightened that without proper concentration and experience, my future will not be the future I desire. This uncertainty has left my brain in a jumbled mess.

In the morning I'm staring at a blank wall, seeing everything while seeing nothing: my imagination bumbling around in my head. Then I realized there are things to be done in the world, so I go out and I do them, and suddenly time stands still. A second is an hour, and an hour a day - and there's a never ending supply of things to be done, and never an end to each day. Hours spent in action with no correlation to my thoughts, which usually leads to even longer hours of correction and 're-action'. With my mind ten light years beyond my current position, more mistakes are made than not.

And then I find myself back in bed, and it begins again. Hours spent not in sleep, but in transfixed contemplation: again staring at the wall, again not seeing the wall...

My mind will not shut off. It runs day and night. I feel there are thing to be thought, things to be learned, things to discover, things to read: things that cannot happen in the hours of the day nor when chaos subsides...I feel and see and think and hear all these jumbled mismatched thoughts and I try desperately to put them aside. To place them in files or bags: to write them down, to scribble a note, to do anything and everything to keep them for later - to lay them down before the thought subsides: for it is foolish to think it will linger for long.

To find the balance between hours of creative thought and hours of actual labor has become my greatest challenge.

I tell people I'll be an author; spending a life publishing books. I tell people I'll be a wanderer; never laying rest to the world. I tell people I'll be an aider; helping those I can, and those I can't. I tell people I'll be a mother; 5 girls and a man by my side. I tell people I am a Latter-Day Saint; a Child of God, a Mormon.

I tell people over and over again all my hopes and dreams, all my wishes and desires...and then I go off and become those things.

But sometimes I forget the future. Sometimes I think in the now.
And sometimes I forget the now. Sometimes I think in the future.

Over and over and over again I find myself struggling for that happy medium, seeking for that equilibrium, searching for that peaceful middle.

So here I am, pondering away...looking for the beginning, yearning for an end, and getting lost in the middle.