Petals

The bleak white and grey winter and slow spring was like punishment.  And yet  I committed no crime.  I looked around for my circumstance to change, for warmth to arrive.  Purgatory was the background of a plot written by someone else.  I was also an imagined character of another person's plot.  And could not change the weather. 

Then, I changed the background setting of my computer, the moment of a minor hope when the sun showed itself and the weather broke above 40.  Of tulips.  A wild luscious innocent thick scattering of color on the most massive scale exploding in my 360 world of snow.  Safely positioned in the background setting of my 3 dimensional world.  I dare not bring a single red rose into my 360 dimensional life.  My life did not justify the 7 dollars.  Window dressing was good enough. 

Everything else takes precedence, and those did not include a frivolity of a colorful petal.  Nor a hair cut.  Nor the painting of my nails.  Not even a worthy carrot at the end of the stick.  Just reward in the form of the smile of my loved ones from the flavor of food that I cooked, purchased from the money that I had made from the work I slaved over, that took precedence over the color of a flower petal meant only for me. 

I find myself in the inverse, placed there very carefully for many ages of years ago.  Never motivated to leave my corner.  Even now.  I wonder why.  And wonder if it would be better if I should.  Partly fearing the error of my ways if I do.  For the potential waste of time.  Recalling failed ventures and guilty feelings of lost virtue from wasted effort.  Self indulgence in the form of a fruitless type of beauty.  I stare at my screen, wishing I could own a single colorful petal.  Unsure what to do next.     
   

Seasons

The summer had been tough but thankfully, fall has been nice.  A matter of chain of events, a brutal season leading to a pleasant transition.  The quantitative mind may contest that it doesn't add up and find the situation unnerving from seemingly unrelated contrasting sequence of events.  A mind open to the natural evolution of things born from cause and affect would say, it is as it should have been and fated to be, still evolving. 

I have become a greater student of nature.  Afterall, everything we own including our own mind and body are products of nature and therefore, subject to her rules.  As such, if we are too close to the center of a forceful path, we will naturally be swept away.  If we are too far off beyond its fringe, we may find ourselves left behind, vulnerable to unfamiliar elements, in limbo.  Decisions in life cannot exclude the rules of nature that dictate our survival.  Our survival which leads to the experience of long term survival, which upon reflection at a later stage in life could be qualified in terms of happiness and lack of regret.  Life has a way of moving forward, with or without us.  The force of life is the sum of all things within it.  Fighting against the current of life alone is daunting.  Practical people would consider it a waste of energy.  Successful moments in history have pointed towards compromise as a means of steering the current.  The question to be asked at heart for an honest answer that will hopefully justify the act of opposition is "why".  For what reason?  To what end?  And is that reason a noble one?  With how much casualty?  The quantifying mind may be able to justify with an answer that cancels out where the natural mind struggles to conceive where the rippling affect will end. 

Our instinct, stemming from our heart where heart is abundant, will connect us to the natural law of things.  Is there enough heart within us to find our way to the natural path.  Are we brave enough with the heart we have to admit and submit to the natural rule?               

Peddler on the Roof

Life is slow.  When we work, we dream of play.  When we play, we regret not working.  The weather in Wisconsin is a daily reminder that time is never wisely utilized.  I should be at the beach this very moment, etching out claims to two pending applications.  And yet, I am watching reality t.v. online, watching the gecko watching me, finishing up a beer and looking out at my clear blue fading sky.  One thing my Asian parents taught me well was to always work before play.  And now, many times, my heart and spirit is paralyzed with the indecision between what's more important. Time, or health and spirit?  Which will put me further ahead faster?  Which will make me stronger in the long run and not get me in trouble in the short term?  When my girls are here, there is always the good reason that it's for them.  Purely unselfish unadultered good fun and memories.  And time off is time to make up for lost time.

Quietness to me, feels like wasted time.  Particularly unplanned quietness.  And sunlight is always a wasted moment in Wisconsin as long as I am inside an enclosed building.  I cry in my heart over every summer day gone.  If only I could light a bonfire to celebrate the end of every warm day passed.  Quietness without children's laughter, for a parent is lonely solitude.  I understand some people's desires to fill loneliness with false joys.  But the high of something real is always better.  It is now 6:31pm, the sky is grey and perhaps, Lake Michigan is green with bacterial algae.  Perhaps, despite the creeping fall coolness I should pack a notebook and a pen and head to the sand for an hour of patent claim meditation.  Save the 6 pack for later when I feel more accomplished and can waste away bad calories over guiltless pleasures of baking apple tartlets for smiling faces tomorrow.  Not that I am some Prairie Home Housewife.  Just that, even when life is good, the endorphin tank is always a challenge to fill.  Riding a bicycle requires that we never stop peddling.      

Summer

When the breeze passes through
Unsettled feelings flutter their wings
Flattering each other with casual brushes
Having an end effect of comforting caresses
Because there is no other emotion to compare.

Blue turns to pink,
Pink turns violet,
Violet becomes dark
and sunset fades to night.

Sand hill cranes dance to mate,
We light fires in the  night to stay warm,
Lovers hold each other to make a point,
A home is where love is warm. 

Brave Heart

It is Easter Sunday.  And you are by your father's.  Probably enjoying a good morning breakfast with plans to see a rabbit or two today.  I am taking a moment's breath, having coffee and catching up on a few online t.v. dramas.  My heart is a little low on the inside because I miss both your smiles.  So I write you because the thought today has to do with Bravery.  How to be brave and what does it mean. 

It does not mean doing what others tell you or what others think is brave.  It does not mean doing the contrary of what should be done and challenging your sense of fear.  It means, doing what is right when the time comes that needs to be done, even if you are afraid.  Even if the fear has nothing to do with anyone else in the world but yourself.  But knowing that it must be done because the alternative would be untrue and that there is no other way to overcome the circumstance.  Bravery comes usually when you have exhausted most of your options and you must take the choices remaining.  And in the process, you are creative enough to still navigate through it in your own style, peacefully and thoughtfully.  Bravery comes from your heart and therefore, is and should always be driven by love.  The love for life.  The love for others.  The love for family.  And the love for all good things.  Because good things are what makes our lives worth while.  Even bad people who do things that seem evil do so because they believe in something that is good....at least to them that is their value and estimation of it.  But we don't live in a vacuum.  So bravery, as oppose to cowardice, means sacrificing and facing your fears to guide your self and those whom you love and those who love you and those who support all of these things together in a hot air balloon carefully navigated over open ocean with you in the center carrying all that weight.  Because bravery comes from the heart and it is based on love and should always carry other people through to safety.  Cowardice is based from the mind with a lack of the heart and cares only about your own interest and self.  Cowardice saves no one.  At the end of cowardice, you have left your heart behind and all the people that has loved you.  You are on an air balloon on your own because you were not brave enough to take the people who loves you with you.  In the end, you are on an island alone without love even though you thought that was originally what you were fighting for.  You just didn't have enough heart and bravery to do it the right way.  You see, my darlings, there is no short cut around bravery.  As there is no shortcut around love.  If you listen to your heart, and listen very hard, you will know what to do at the right time.  Be brave my love.  We can try to be brave together for each other. 

Pure Wisconsin

Spring has been slow to arrive this winter.  But the grass beneath buried snow surprisingly has maintained some of its greenness and only part of the lawn had died from the cold.  How is that possible?  I don't ask why anymore.  Why am I here in this cold forsaken place, when there are opportunities for year round warm weather.  Even the brown and white contrast of bare earth and snow feels like home these days.  No different than the stark brown dirt of the desert in my past life.
The pureness of nature in Wisconsin is the same pureness I find in my daughters' spirit.  When I feel melancholy on occasion, the land here gives me solace.  Not confusion like the traffic of California highways.  I use to have to drive for hours in circle around the 405 and 55 to find my way always to the open quiet beach and sunset.  Here, the quiet is in my backyard.  In being with my daughters, who seem so happy despite the commotion that's been brought into their lives.  They derive their strength from their home, rooted and durable.   

Hope Springs

Quietness.  Peacefulness.  Burnt ashes.  The house taken to the ground.  I came back to say goodbye.  Touched your skin, you've been painted over.  As though we never met.  In my mind, I see only what you were to me.  Pink walls, pink curtains.  You were the heart, if the heart makes the home.  All I can do is cry for the both of us, all the love and hopes and dreams.  Every inch of you, I say good bye and hold you one last time.  Ask for your forgiveness.  Walking away, letting things go.  Hoping for the best, taking a gamble.  Hope springs from ashes.