Fasting and It's not Ending

I'm still fasting. I feel very, very, very hungry. And yes, yes, I know I shouldn't complain. Look what Dan has to go through. About 36 hours of fasting. And look at all of those poor people in the world who have to steal for food. But the fast is doing it's job. I'm starving and sad like I'm supposed to be and everytime I think that, I think: T'sha B'av--mourn for Jerusalem.

The sad thing is, I probably mourn for Jerusalem just about every day. I literally cry, too. Now, every bout of crying does not entail tear-shedding, but I do cry for Jerusalem. But right now I can't think because of lack of nutrition and there's absolutely no real reason for my adrenalin to kick in and make it start happening, so I'm going to stop writing and come back later after I've stuffed my starving face.

"How Lonely Sits the City Once Great With People..."

Someone once told me that you build your life around your love and not the other way around. That person is probably reading this right now and you know who you are. On all accounts, you're right--at least for me, or any person who wishes to be human.

Tonight is the Ninth of Av--the saddest day of the Jewish year. Eicha was chanted, and for the first time, I could chant along. It's amazing what self-motivation can accomplish. At the end, a mourner broke down and cried for more than Jerusalem. I cried with her. There were seven of us in the room listening to her cry, waiting for the silence to fill up the sobs so we would no longer have to lament the sobs filling the silence.

So I began to think. Not only do you build your life around your love, but your death, as well. I have a gift that I deem curse more often and it is the gift of empathy. I could hear her thoughts; how she would go home this night and every night for the rest of her life and he would never be there anymore. I thought, what would I do? I would die, inadvertently, of an empty life. Because eventually, the life you build around around your love sheds away and it's only the love. Without it, there's no life left, save for the ghost--and memories, most often, simply do not suffice.

I have hope:
The kindness of the Lord has not ended
His mercies are not spent.
They are renewed every morning--
Ample is Your grace!
"The Lord is my portion," I say with full heart;
Therefore I will hope in Him. -Eicha (by Yerumiah aka Jeremiah) 3:21-24 (Lamentations)

Post Euphoria

The euphoric high ended. That's not so bad, I'm just not floating around on the stars anymore. It's funny how I'd really like to, literally, though. I didn't get to see Jason yesterday because I got caught up in running errands and writing that song. And today I don't know what exactly happened, but he ended up not calling me back and he's with Matt Judd (the guy I run into everywhere).

Anyhow, I have that haftarah to read in eicha trope tomorrow morning (gag me now) and I guess it'll go well. I learned the stuff, at least and once I learn it, everyone knows I'm more than good at it, but I'll be shaking like a ship being wrecked in a hurricane when I'm up there, nevertheless.

About 85% of my friends move into UGA tomorrow. This includes Kelly, Mark, Lindsay, and just about everyone else in my world. A few are going to Kennesaw but not many, considering I know literally about 3000 people. Probably more. Of those 3000, about 300 are kids I refer to as "friends" and that's where the 85% comes from. I can't do math at all, even with a calculator, so someone else figure out what number that is. Emma's going to Mary Washington in Virginia, so she's escaping Georgia like I am.

I'll miss it though. I really like it here. Yeah, yeah. I hated Savannah, still do, always will. But here is great. Here, I got everything I ever wanted. Here, I became myself again and because of that I'll miss it...and even though it's Georgia, I'll call it home. And occasionally I'll say that I'm from Marietta or Atlanta.

Dad and I went to my last acoustic jam session at Dreamcatcher's today. It was only us and this new guy, Lance. A 22-year-old proffessional guitarist who is absolutely incredible. He made my songs and Dad's awesome. He's not much of a singer at all, so he only sang 2 songs, but he's amazing at guitar...mainly does lead in studio and other things proffessionally. Too bad I'll never see him again. It sucks how you're in a place for so long and you finally start finding the cool things around--your niche just as you leave. I remember it used to be like that when I was really little with playdates. I'd be over at the house or vice versa for hours and hours and we'd hate each other the entire time until about 10 minutes before the doorbell rang and one of us had to go home.

That's how it is with all good things, though. Time runs out because we're fools and waste the rest of it. And even if we didn't, it would still be too short.

Well, good evening, because the sun is about to set and I must be off. Shabbat Shalom.

Extra-Ordinary Piece (If You'd Be)

This is the day I'll find my own
When you'll laugh at the answers I give
for the joy of hearing them at last

Now you're going out to find yourself
and I'll be with you always
because you showed me the way to everlasting love

And if you'd be that extra-ordinary
piece of the usual
I'll find my peace

Tonight I'll dream of you again
Because there's hope for tomorrow
and not just a chance

So swear again and again like you did that day
that you'll remain my friend
and love me forever

And if you'd be that extra-ordinary
piece of the usual
I'll find my peace

And if you'll let me be yours
I'll say "I love you" every morning
and the wonderful will never cease

And if you'd be that extra-ordinary
piece of the usual
I'll find my peace

And if you'd be that extra-ordinary
piece of my usual
I really think we'd both find our peace
Find our peace

From a Brink to Nowhere

It's nice to know that someone loves you. Right now I can't really say anything else. But it's all I can think about because my entire life has been shattered and built up again and shattered and built up again, over and over for as long as I can remember--and never once has anyone let me know definitively before. Even though I had to start it myself, I still know. Considering that, also, I've never wanted to do that before and never thought it was very important,but I have never agonized over saying something for so long, either.

But it's nice to know. It lets you know (it lets me know) that I really am someone to someone else. It's even better because the someone else is the most important someone in my life. Right now is strange, because we're all on the brink of ---Who Knows? Life is changing, just beginning. And ending in every way we've ever known.

(Side note...Sam just walked in and says "If you take music, you don't have to take PE. I think I'll be taking music and playing the flute." I say: "What if you can't make a sound on the flute...like me?" And he says "You don't practice wind instruments" and whips out a whoopi cushion. HAHAHA. It was HILARIOUS.)

Anyhow, if this end is the beginning of the rest of it, I'm absolutely in love with it. I'm absolutely in love with it. Here are promises, swears, dreams--all made possible, and all made probable by no other than impossibility:
I will never lose the wonder of a child.
I will always have hope, because the thing you've lost faith in is just around the corner and most likely better than you've been dreaming.
Things work out in the little ways and that's what counts.
Humanity will never transcend its beast, but the individual can. Be one. (Not all.)
Life is beautiful even with its hell.

Life beautiful, because even in the night, there are stars; and if the night is cloudy, sometimes clouds bring rain and the morning will be green; and if the clouds don't bring rain and only overcast, imagine what's beyond it and it will sustain you...because it's better than reality. But when the wind blows the clouds away and the stars shine again and you find yourself longing for them, know they'll be there for the human eternity--if one is destroyed, it's death is beautiful, too, just like creation. And when night fades away and the stars disappear, the day comes with the brightest star of all. And if the clouds come then, too, just remember, they'll either bring more life--or remember that they can't stay forever.

But if you're stuck inside and can't see any of this because you have no windows...go further into yourself, to when you were a child, to when you were an infant. For the infant sees the world with more clarity than anyone else: everything is miraculous and new. Nothing surprises the infant because every single thing is astounding. Be the infant. Be the eye that blinks.

I am the eye that blinks.

Aaah

Not going into too much tonight. But life is good. Life is beautiful. And maybe, just maybe, it'll stay that way.

That's me, by the way. I hope I always look that good. I love this picture.

Thinking of the Closest Berekiah Freid I Know

Berekiah Freid came about from nothing, like all people, but he wasn't concieved of sperm and egg, exactly...more of imaginative seed and a lonely little girl who had nothing to do but dream of future children who could never be. I never thought I'd meet anyone remotely Berekiah. And in the end, Berekiah wasn't my son, but Sibyl Freid's. And Sibyl Freid was the lonely little girl who tossed away her present and her past for a future that never would exist.

I guess I lied. Sibyl is me in a way. Not in most, but in the most fundamental. Caught up in dreams, living them with false hope, loving everyone and no one...but mostly loving specific people in the ways in which they can never love me back. Anyhow, I transcended the part of me that would shut out reality. Sibyl Freid took that on and I wrote her and her children as if there would be no tomorrow in hope that yesterday will never be forgotten. So I made Sibyl Freid fall in love with her children, like any mother should, but I made her children fall in love with each other in too many ways so that they drive each other mad and into oblivion.

The funny thing is, I did meet a Berekiah. No, he didn't fall in love with his sister, but he is like him in so many ways. When I speak to him, it's as if I'm speaking to that child of my creation. Someone who is only supposed to exist on the page and in my mind. I can't explain it. It's almost as if he's a character from In Pursuit of Wind. It's almost as if he's Berekiah, the kind of person who shouldn't be real and usually isn't. But the creator (who would be me) should always preceed the created, and this is not the case. Which is even more Berekiah-like. Because Time is irrelevant to him.

Does the world fall upon his shoulders, unwarranted, just as it does for Berekiah? I don't know. But it seems to. And he chooses it. And intrigues me, just because of this--how life passes into his hands and out, and how he writes it down and goes on and turns off and turns on according to nothing. But the nothing is something and it doesn't make sense. In the end, Berekiah is everywhere...nowhere, except where he's always been: on the uncatchable wind of the fragments in the kaleidoscope of figments of the imagination.

"Will I ever catch it?" I asked.
"Catch what?"
"The wind? Will I ever catch the wind, Doctor?"
"No. It can only catch you."
"How do I break away?"
"Go inside."
I laughed as the clouds shifted and a sunbeam fell on me.
"I'm in the doorway," I said. "And all I see is the World."