in the mind of a pheebs

A few Haikus

2008-09-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

Leaves falling slowly

The cold wind bites me gently

My heart longs for heat.

Oh child, be not dumb!

Hear what I have to speak:

Do not look back ever.

There is more than this

I promise and guarantee

Just keep pressing on.

To be warm, I am

To be safe, I know I am

Can't you see I am?

2007-12-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

i sit curled up in blankets with my guinea pig as the pale red sunrays rise illuminating the horizon. quiet sounds of a few cars break the early morning silence. pipo is snuggled against my neck, asleep. his mother and sister crowded the cardboard tube in the white wired cage across the room. as i gently stroke his head and stare at the dew covered green grass outside, i breathe. the silence that surrounds seems impenetrable, but i know that in ten minutes this tranquility will be a fleeting memory as the schedules of my day command presence of mind. i close my eyes and just breathe. if i don't breathe now, when, in this chaotic jungle, will i find the time to remember: life is for living.

alone in the dark

2007-09-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

These days are strange, not my usual routine it seems. Yet when I look at my datebook, nothing is out of place. Long/short days of being aware, simultaniously unconscious, I watch as time walks past without a care for me or mine. I can't sleep, not for the life of me. I'm tired, yet still it seems to escape my body's realization. I'm running close to empty and I know it; I can feel this in my bones. Except, here I am: sitting at my computer at two in the morning. I suppose (to myself of course since there is no one around) that this is going to be one of those semesters: the ones you don't really see pass by, yet years down the road you realize the toll it has taken on you is far more serious than you'd ever imagined.

I've oft wondered what it will be like. I suppose it will hurt a little. Maybe even break me a little. Perhaps I'll cry. Perhaps I'll laugh. I don't know. I'm not sure. I've resigned myself to not being able to know what's coming or how I'm going to retaliate. Though, if i were to hazard a guess on past experiences and reactions, what would I do? I'd do what I've done for the past nineteen years. I'd do what I've always done. I'd do what is routine and familiar. I'd be

Silent: that was what I was hoping my life would be. Needless to say, life isn't silent. It's full of sounds, of noises, of commotion and clamor. Big rigs are always rummbling, sounding alarms as they pass by, shaking things up, confusing drivers. Nature is always chirping away letting everyone know there's still some places that are peaceful. Cities are always rushing past--people chatting on mobiles, families fighting over the last serving of turkey at Thanksgiving only to end up laughing, friends singing "Love is all we need" at the funeral of one of their own--keeping an eye on how many days are passing us by, careful to let us know that we haven't got too many of them left, so no wasting. Children are always asking questions, or actually only one question: why? It's what you're secretly wondering as well, only you think you should know the answer so you never ask. It's ok. We all do that. We all keep silent when we're dying inside to do the opposite, to ask and tell and learn and teach. We all keep silent when we shouldn't. We all say things we've never meant. We've all been

Stupid, I know what I did was stupid. There was nothing i could do. Nothing I could say. But now I'm beginning to understand that all I had to do was just say it. There was nothing to be afraid of. There was nothing to tremble at. Yet I did. I paused, hesitated, afraid. And now, all I can do is put one foot in front of the other and hope I don't make the same mistake again, and if I do...well, I'll know that I just need some more time to learn that it's ok to trust. It's ok to lean on someone else for a little while. I don't have to be the rock all the time. I don't have to be life buoy for all time. I can reach out my hand and say, "Hi, I need a hand to help me up."

So with that thought, I think I've just heard an answer: "Here, I can help."

My bed calls.

Good Sleep

2007-05-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

i stood at the back of the darkened room watching picture after picture fade on and off the white screen. voices described the life of the people who's faces we were staring at, but i'm not paying attention to what's being said. i'm wondering why? why didn't anyone ever slow down? why didn't anyone ever take time, even five minutes, to ask these kids, "hey, what's up? how's it going?" and from there perhaps get to know them. we move so fast we somtimes forget that in order to see what's going on around us, we can't be moving at 190 mph. we have to stop. we have to just stop, look around, see what's going on. maybe then we can understand why even though we long to be understood by others, they can't understand us and we can't understand them. because neither of us are willing to slow down and say, "hi, my name is ______. what's yours?" and really mean it. not one of us are willing to take time to know another person. and that's why we're always wondering, "how could something like this happen? what made a person do something like this?" if we want to stop wondering, we have to start paying attention. to pay attention we have to slow down our pace of life.

2007-03-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

"my advice for obtaining pearls: shuck some oysters. you may find a treasure that lies therein." no one thing worth the world's weight in gold ever came without a price, even a sacrifice. and sometimes, it's the person we least expect who holds the biggest pearl of all. every person, every circumstance has a grain of sand in its center. if we rub hard enough and long enough, something will come of it. we just have to stick with it.
find the pearl.

2007-02-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it takes a long time for friends to get to the point where they consider themselves family. Sometimes, they have to know each other for years and years before they’ll consider really letting each other into their lives. Sometimes, under certain circumstances and with certain people, what bonds are usually formed in a lifetime of acquaintance are formed in a matter of days. What everyone thought needs time, well, doesn’t. It never has needed time, though time does seem to help. Rather, in our opinion, the thing that matters the most is willingness to let them become family. In other words, trust. Trusting others with the very truth of who we are isn't the easiest thing to do. Though, there are the few anomalies that give us hope; hope that we don't have to be alone, well, only if we choose to be; since after all, isn't man's greatest power the power of timshel?

2007-01-27T15:14:00.000-08:00

sometimes i get surprised. and it's not the bad, shocking surprised. it's the "hesitate right now, just for a moment, and just soak it in, don't you just love your life" surprised. sometimes i love being surprised.

Ah, bliss

2007-01-25T15:35:00.000-08:00

"Do anything, but let it produce joy." --Henry Miller

Joy for whom? Not all of our actions will produce joy for us. I would not find joy in being the employer who must let go a man who has given forty long years of hard, loyal labor. I would not find joy in being the mother who must watch as the daughter she tried so hard to raise properly is taken away in the backseat of a police car because she was dealing drugs. I would not gain joy from choosing to eat with the people who "promise" me great things, and in so doing, leave the friend who will always be there for me standing alone in the rain. Joy for whom?

A man walks through his front door at the end of a long day at work. He is carrying a box filled with the things that used to litter his small office at the company he has worked at for the past forty years. Today was his last day. He is greeted by his youngest great-grand-daughter who runs straight into her granddad's arms with shrieks of joy. He settles down on the couch in the family room with her on his lap. His family one by one wanders in and join them to watch a movie together. At dinner, the man looks around and realizes he doesn't know his children or his grandchildren as well as he should. Well, he thinks with a sudden surge of joy, I've got time now to learn who they are. And maybe...i might even be able to show them who i am. A smile no one has seen in years forms on his lips.

A daughter shifts the heavy dufflebag on her shoulder. She stands at the end of the driveway of a house she has not seen in over a year. A moment passes before she gains the courage to walk up to the door and knock. Her mother opens the door only to stand there shocked and speechless. Dropping her bag, the girl pulls her mother into a hug. "Thanks, mom," she whispers. "I never realized how much I was hurting you. I am so very sorry." As she pulls away from her daughter, the woman wonders if it could be possible, and as she looked into her daughter's eyes she knew that it was. Her daughter had finally come home to her, in all meanings of the phrase. Ten minutes later, as her mom gets her a cold soda, the girl looks around the house and wonders how she could have ever taken it all for granted. Now, she thinks as she fingers a picture of her mother, now I think I will be able to stand with the strength she always wanted me to have. Maybe I can love, to love with even half the love she loves me with, because here I will always be loved.

"Matthew! I'm so sorry for leaving you standing in the rain," he apologizes. "I meant to call you to cancel. I had a job interview. I know we had this planned for months. I'm so sorry."

"Georgie, it's ok. I've not thought of it." Matthew sighs.

"But I totally left you standing in the rain."

"Yeah," Matthew pauses. "But if you hadn't, I wouldn't have meet my wife. She saved me with her umbrella ya know." Matthew stretches his neck to fix the black bow tie. He sees Georgie fumbling with his. "I would have thought the groom would have learned how to tie his bowtie," Matthew teases.

An hour later, Matthew stands beside his best friend since kindergarten. He is Georgie's best man. But Matthew can't see what's going on during the ceremony because all he can do is stare at his wife sitting in the third row. Ah, bliss.

2007-01-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

We grow up with such hopes, such dreams. We spend so much time reaching for them. We spend so much energy pursuing our shooting star. We are willing to expend everything we have and then some just to obtain that one thing that has possessed our dreams since our childhood. We push and push to grab it. But do we realize what we are pushing at? Do we know at what price we gain this thing? There are times when we should press forward; it is not in us to be without a goal and a destination. But in this pursuit, we can not forget where we are, or who is around us. We are never alone. And the choices we make do not affect us only. Sometimes it takes us awhile to realize exactly what it is that we are pursuing. Sometimes we think that we are going after this one thing, when in reality we want something else entirely. Sometimes we think that we are pursuing our goal, our shooting star, but we aren't. We are striving to please someone by climbing their ladder for them. Some goals weren't made to be met, at least not by us. Some dreams weren't supposed to be obtained. Yet, we grow up with such hopes, such dreams, such aspirations to be a better person, or at least half the person our parents were. And some dreams...some dreams are like real stars...their light takes millions of years to reach us, so long, in fact, that the star could already be dead and yet its light would still be traveling towards us. We may think that we should be a certain person, striving to be that perfect child our parents always wanted. We may think that we should try to be everything we can be because they did. In our eyes, there is no worthier aspiration: to be half the man our father was, to have half the strength our mothers had. And yet, we grow up with such hopes, such dreams of stars that shine though they be long dead. There is nothing to be gained in pretending to be someone you aren't. There is nothing to be lost in striving to be someone you know you can be: yourself, no matter who that may be. Despite everything that happens, or everything that may happen, we grow up, and we pass our hopes, our dreams, and a little sliver of who we are to the next generation. But most importantly, we grow up.

2007-01-19T11:31:00.000-08:00

When did we stop caring? When did what happens to us in our lives become water on our oiled raincoats? Why doesn't it matter to us anymore? Why don't we cry over the pain? Why don't we smile at the contentment? Instead, when we hurt someone we loved more than anything in the world, we shrug our shoulders saying, "what? life is life. you've just gotta get strong enough to face it. you can't bend every time the wind blows." Instead, when something that would have caused us to run to our safeplace, we shrug our shoulders saying, "what? life is life. i've gotten strong enough to face it. i won't bend every time the wind blows." we distance ourselves from...everything. we tell ourselves that we don't care because we shouldn't care. this is the way life is supposed to be, this is the way life is we tell ourselves. and before we know it we're standing alone. isn't this what we wanted? nothing and no one to care about? we didn't want the noise and disturbance that comes from being in a family that loves us. we didn't want the pain that comes the occasional friction with people who care about us and don't agree with how we're destroying our lives. we ran away from the chaos, the pain, the disagreements, the noise, the anguish, the sorrow, to a place we thought was safe. it was a place we thought we would thrive in. but here there is no peace for there is no chaos. There is no contentment for pain does not exist. There is no forgiveness for there are no arguments. There is no silence for the only noise here is silence. There is no happiness for who knows what happiness is when they have not expereienced anguish? There is no love for who can love who has not felt sorrow? it takes us awhile to realize we are the only ones drowning in our own misery. self-inflicted misery.

sometimes, most times, to have peace there needs to be a little strife first. to experience contentment, we have to hurt a little first. to gain forgiveness, we must err. to be silent is for us to stop making whatever rucaus we were making. to obtain happiness is to know that the anguish experienced now will end. to be able to love is think we have lost everything, everyone, and then realize that we were never in danger of losing them because they would never give up on us despite everything we had said or done.

we might have to accept our lives for what they are. but we never have to accept life as something we can't change. and never as something we don't have to care about.

Pepsi and Daisies

2007-01-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

Life is not all wine and roses. There are days of incomprehensible pain, of inexplicable sorrow, of undeniable loneliness. And then there are the days that aren't like the others. The days that aren't filled with questions and answers. The days that aren't forcing you to run from everything you know and love. The days that don't cocoon you in a blanket of contentment. They are the ordinary days. The days that are Pepsi and daisies. Those are the days that nobody notices. No one takes notice of an ordinary day. They're the days that you decide to walk to work since it's only three blocks away. They're the days that you rent a movie because it's Wednesday night and the library has a rent one get one free policy for Wednesdays. They're the days you go to dinner with your closest friends, and decide to split a steak dinner with a girl you've known since the first grade and whom you consider to be a sister. They are the days you choose to make an ordinary day. You choose not to make a big deal out of this thing that frightens so many; this thing called life. You choose pepsi and daisies.

2006-12-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

We sit there in silence for some moments after she leaves the stage. Some would say later after they leave the hall, that the woman had an ethereal beauty; others would disagree. Nevertheless, the simple fact of the matter is, the woman is beautiful. Except, her beauty is different from our natural concept of beauty. Her beauty is nothing that we can describe with words.... She looks to be barely older than twenty-one. Her hair and clothes, though no one can say they are out-of-date or un-stylish, are simple. All right, she has jeans and a fitted tee shirt on. A ponytail keeps her long black hair from falling across her face, though she constantly reached up to tuck a few errant strays behind her ear. She carries herself with a grace permeated with confidence. Her eyes perceive more than they let on. Behind their infinite black depth lies a wisdom few people possess. It is a wisdom that cannot be bought, learned, or gained. It doesn’t come with the slow passing of years in one’s life. It doesn’t come with experiences that accumulate with life. This wisdom that lay deep in her eyes, beyond all human understanding, compassion, sympathy or empathy, came from one simple thing: acceptance that she was loved, so therefore, she also could love.

two poems

2006-12-15T07:39:00.000-08:00

It rained this morning.
Tear drops from the sky.
The grey lingers forlornly,
Coldness I cannot deny.

Something changed this day,
Continuity shattered in place.
The shrill of the wind hurts no one
But those who munch on gum.

Goodbye old life, my childhood.
Goodbye old choices, my regrets.
I’ve looked ahead to see all I could,
But greyness is all my eyes met.

If you’ve ever wondered
If I’ve made a blunder
In this song with no tune
Perhaps you haven’t seen the moon.

there is nothing to see me through
The coldness that is in my bones
no outside force makes me blue-
The pain inside marks me a loner.

I’ve often wondered what makes a life,
Is it the choices we decide, or what?
Is it the regrets we don’t have or twice
made mistakes that aren’t worth a nut.

2006-12-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

Can time ever heal these wounds? Can time heal everything for that matter? Perhaps, if we had the time, but that has not been my experience. Some things reach too far into us, so far that time loses its touch and cannot heal. Some things we don't let time heal, instead, choosing to hold onto the inexplicable pain we have grown familiar with. And some things are forgotten with time. Rather than being properly healed, we cover them with a layer of "forget", allowing it to become that scars on our souls. It is these, perhaps, that hurt us the most. They disappear in our memory for awhile. We forget the pain caused and inflicted. We forget the tears shed in agony, the harsh words spoken out-of-turn. But most of all, we forget the reason why there is such pain in our lives, why we are crying rivers, why we are hanging our heads in shame The memory of these things are forcibly pushed from our consciousness. But that doesn't mean that the wound isn't there anymore. It doesn't mean that the scar doesn't stretch and pull sometimes. It doesn't mean that the pain is gone forever. Time doesn't heal all things. Time doesn't forgive and forget. It does let us go on in the hope that one day we will have the strength to face that pain, and in one act of quiet desperation, let everything go. Time passes, and it is necessary. No one is strong enough to face pain and forgive it immediately, not when the wound goes so deep, so far within us so even to scar our soul. Time does not heal, but it does give us hope.

thoughts--Dec. 3

2006-12-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

The sea is dark, the wind is cold.
The sunset brings feelings untold,
Awe and wonder at the simple earth,
A realization at the tiny berth
Man holds in the universe.

As darkness prevails
Over the wide expanse,
Hope, undying, unveils
A just cause to dance,
With Joy, for the unheard of,
With Peace, for the unchallenged,
With Happiness, for the unknown,
And most of all, with Love,
Not for those who need it,
But those who seek it.

This is the call I follow:
The call of the crashing sea.
The Unheard find joy in
It’s crashing form.
The Unchallenged find peace in
The eye of a storm.
The Unknown find happiness in
The sea’s anonymity.
And those who seek Love, find it
In the sea’s simplicity.

questions

2006-11-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

do you ever wonder if it isn't that we have the right to love, but rather we do not possess the capacity to love? is it that we do not want to be a hero in a heroic situation, but rather we do not have the ability to be heros? and what if we say we cannot change who we are because people should not change for others, but when we say that we are in reality hiding the fact that we simply can not change. what will the world come to if we do not realize our faults and mistakes? can we ever understand this?