A Leigh house story

Today I walked into Jackson’s room and was overcome with the indoor heat, so I took my shirt off and opened the window. He came out of the bathroom and neglected to button his pants and he let them fall to his ankles while he tidied his room. We saw Sam passing by outside and Jackson called to him: “Sam! I’m not wearing pants.” He smiled and walked toward the window while undoing his own pants and letting them fall. Jeremy barged in the room and followed suit, discovering the airy freedom of pantslessness. Sam came inside and after a comfortable, content silence, we agreed that “this is Vermont, we don’t wear pants.”

“ Any owner of cats will know of what I speak. Cats come at dawn to sit on your bed. They may not nip your nose or inhale your breath or make a sound. They simply sit there and stare at you until you open one eyelid and spy them there about to drop dead for need of feeding. So it is with ideas. They come silently in the hour of trying to wake up and remember my name. The notions and fancies sit on the edge of my wits, whisper in my ears and then, if I don’t rouse, give more than cats give: a good knock in the head, which gets me out and down to my typewriter before the ideas flee or die or both. In any event, I make the ideas come to me. I do not go to them. I provoke their patience by pretending disregard. This infuriates the latent creature until it is almost raving to be born and once born, nourished.
— Ray Bradbury

» ☟: The Art of Experience

colliculus:

malma:

The feeling crept on me like the high tide rolling in, and I welcomed it with serene acquiescence. The constant flow of arid, lukewarm air from the valley lulled me as it infiltrated the desolate California coastline. I had surrendered my efforts to discern my dark surroundings with such grainy vision, so I rested my gaze on the parade of airplanes destined for the slightest sliver of moon. I witnessed the slow majestic movements of celestial beings projected onto the domed ceiling. The sea roared onto the earth and back again, hypnotic like some eternal Indian Raga, accentuating the long, deep silence. My mind put a roadblock on the Pacific Coast Highway to bar me from the absent-minded decay of my life in LA: the blur of pending worries and chaotic routines. I smiled into the void, for I knew I was lost in the moment. There was nothing more in our world but the night and the stars and the sea. My greatest fear is that I will forget these ephemeral moments of sheer bliss, and to a greater extent that the sensation will fade and never resurface. I used to spend my best moments trying frantically to record them with pictures, detailed journals, or drawings. These habits in and of themselves are productive and an indispensable part of my life, but I realized that my compulsion to remember every detail prevented me from something more important: my presence. The habit transformed me into a spectator instead of a participant. While I desperately documented a remarkable event, it was passing me by. I learned to simply relax and enjoy pure felicity whenever it emerges; after all it is an elusive feeling and transient in nature. I stopped resisting the passing of time and learned to be present.

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The Art of Experience

The feeling crept on me like the high tide rolling in, and I welcomed it with serene acquiescence. The constant flow of arid, lukewarm air from the valley lulled me as it infiltrated the desolate California coastline. I had surrendered my efforts to discern my dark surroundings with such grainy vision, so I rested my gaze on the parade of airplanes destined for the slightest sliver of moon. I witnessed the slow majestic movements of celestial beings projected onto the domed ceiling. The sea roared onto the earth and back again, hypnotic like some eternal Indian Raga, accentuating the long, deep silence. My mind put a roadblock on the Pacific Coast Highway to bar me from the absent-minded decay of my life in LA: the blur of pending worries and chaotic routines. I smiled into the void, for I knew I was lost in the moment. There was nothing more in our world but the night and the stars and the sea.
My greatest fear is that I will forget these ephemeral moments of sheer bliss, and to a greater extent that the sensation will fade and never resurface. I used to spend my best moments trying frantically to record them with pictures, detailed journals, or drawings. These habits in and of themselves are productive and an indispensable part of my life, but I realized that my compulsion to remember every detail prevented me from something more important: my presence. The habit transformed me into a spectator instead of a participant. While I desperately documented a remarkable event, it was passing me by. I learned to simply relax and enjoy pure felicity whenever it emerges; after all it is an elusive feeling and transient in nature. I stopped resisting the passing of time and learned to be present.

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La noche es buena para decir adiós
Caballo que se desboca
Y da pasos de sangre hacia la noche
Rompiendo las hojas del clavel

Caballo que se desboca
Salta montes de plomo
Rompiendo las hojas del clavel

Ya es hora de empezar a morir
Caballo que se desboca
Compadre, vengo sangrando

Salta montes de plomo
En tierra, en humo, en polvo, en sombra, en nada
La noche es buena para decir adiós

Compadre, vengo sangrando
En tierra, en humo, en polvo, en sombra, en nada
Y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche

- ACM, abril 2011 

Since I can’t say it to your face -

I’ve brainwashed myself into being “nice” so much that when I have something to say that sounds insensitive or just isn’t easy to hear, I mask it in a web of partial lies or just avoid it completely. Recent events have made me really think through this logic when applied to touchy circumstances. In short, it sucks. So now I guess I’ve decided to come clean and take responsibility for my selfish (in every sense of the word) actions. But since I’m still me, and thus I unavoidably will still censor myself, I’ll leave it to you to fish out what you want to believe.



You helped to through one of the most difficult times in my life. I haven’t forgotten that. You showed me what it was like to be treated with respect in everyday situations. I had been putting up with too much disrespect form Alex at my own expense out of love. I wasn’t stable enough to say, “you’re being insensitive and selfish and I won’t stand for that.” 

I wanted to love you because your actions directly reflected how you felt about me. It felt uncorrupted and pure, and I didn’t want to mess that up by acting the way Alex did with me. I felt safe knowing you wouldn’t have sudden bouts of selfishness.



Once my resentment of Alex wore off, I realized that I was so caught up in telling myself that you didn’t have Alex’s faults, that I didn’t really see you. That’s what I meant when I told you I wasn’t ready for relationship. I realized it wasn’t healthy to compare one relationship with another. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I wasn’t physically attracted to you, and if I tried hard enough, I would be. This effort eventually led to the opposite, and I began to resent you because I had tried to force myself to change something that was out of my control.



It frustrated me endlessly that even though Alex had put me in so much avoidable pain, I was still attracted to him. I really tried to deny it and it made me angry that my subconscious in the past hasn’t allowed me to be attracted to nice people. I guess it is because I can’t tell nice people nasty truths without feeling guilty about it. It’s easier to be brutally honest to mean people, and thus I feel closer to them after they know the truth. It still infuriates me and I will have this battle with myself for the rest of my life.



The more I tried to suppress all of this, the more I thought about it and the harder it became to talk to you. I thought that if we became friends again maybe we would restore that openness that we had before. I didn’t feel like you really knew me.

So I pushed you away in fear of my resentment and real thoughts erupting unintentionally. I wanted you to be mad at me and tell me I was selfish and figure that we just wouldn’t work out. That would’ve just made it easier on me and I wouldn’t have had to confront you with this. In hindsight, it’s probably better this way.



I didn’t respond to your praise and niceties the way I should have in the past few weeks because I felt like it was ill gotten. I knew I had lied to you and my conscience didn’t allow me to accept them. I didn’t want to emit a false hope that I wanted to get back together.



It’s not like me to say hurtful things. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is one of the major reasons why you were attracted to me. So I tried not to let you down and keep my image of being a nice person, at the expense of being genuine. Sometimes it’s much more hurtful when I don’t say what I’m really thinking. I lied to you, and for this, I’m sorry.

If you still have no intention on having any contact with me whatsoever, I’ll respect that. It’s up to you. I just think you ultimately deserve to know the truth.

The Tragic Voyage of the Rashly Weaned Valkyrie

With oleander paintbrush to attest
The poet’s slaughter of the goat exposed
That woeful day of my safeguard’s arrest
Succinct duress my erring mom supposed

So I was flung into the briny cold
A wild tide swept me from home to home
The buoys all sunk down as I grabbed hold
My abject shipwreck filled my soul with loam

I’d go outdoors to wish on restless nights
For my dear mother’s liberty in vein
“Shes here for life,” my “mamas roomayt” writes
I’d hope, though my desires were inane

Confounded sailor rested unprepared
For life’s tempestuous battle with despair

Senses Journal (final edit)

            Evenly distributed droplets refracted the overcast light to reveal previously unseen spider webs, a series of bridges across abandoned gopher holes and between the thick leaves of the aloe plants. A gray and orange dragonfly caught my eye as I climbed up the mountain behind my house. She crashed into the dry yellow brush, wings heavy with rain. Regaining her composure, she fluttered her wings to shake off the liquid shackles. She stood there on the damp dirt for a moment to allow me to observe her, and when she deemed it appropriate buzzed away as swiftly as she had come. I continued on my way, spotting splashes of yellow blossoms, suns against the gloomy sky and muddy gravel. A tiny yellow-chested bird frantically swiveled its head and launched off its perch, the branch swaying under the mighty push of flight. I collected multitudes of empty white snail shells that littered the hills and could not help but wonder how many were buried beneath the topsoil. I admired the swirled shells in my palm and was jolted into alertness by a great white wolf leaping up the hill and coming directly at me. I froze, blood pounding in my head as he quickly changed direction and bounded back down the hill. After careful consideration, I decided to follow him. After stumbling down the slippery brush, I found him playfully chasing wild rabbits. His majestic supernatural image as a lone white wolf evaporated and I realized he was merely an escaped domestic dog. He panted and scampered about like a child full of life and excitement.
            Distance filtered the quieter sounds of society but the roar of an airplane and a faint siren reached me in my patch of wilderness surrounded by miles of urban development. Then there was the constant incomprehensible jumble of distinct chattering bird noises, like a crowd in an auditorium with high ceilings. The steady crescendo began with the two-toned calls of a solitary feathered creature perched on some unseen branch. A distant caged rooster somewhere in the net of streets below periodically accompanied the solo. Later still the escaped turkeys joined in, celebrating their newfound freedom. A plethora of wild winged beasts called loudly to each other in strange dialects of clicks and whistles. The rhythm of wet leaves and gravel crunching under my steps provided the percussion for their melodies.
            The damp, cool air invigorated my bare hands and face like a potent mint. Slowly, the wind chill crept into the tiny fibers of my layers of clothing, through my goosebumped skin, and seeped right through me. I felt my fire combusting last night’s dinner as I hiked up the mountain for warmth. Moist brush gave my legs their dew as I passed. I felt the faint tickle of a fruit fly brushing my cheek, which in my state of mind felt more like a caress than an annoyance. The rain made the dead twigs strewn about the floor turn from brittle to rubbery, their bark like cold decomposing skin. I climbed a tree. I gripped its cool, mossy trunk and hoisted myself onto its cradling branches. The leaves cried on my face as I shook them with my weight.
            I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my mouth. The air tasted of singed bark after a forest fire. Dust caked every stray water vapor particle that landed on a taste bud in my mouth. It was moist and stale like the moss on a rock in a tempestuous Arctic ocean. The frigid atmosphere dried and cracked my lips, a razor finely flaking chalk. The warm carbon dioxide I exhaled moistened and restored them, only to split once more with my next sharp breath. The cold stung and stuck to my tongue as if I had licked a frozen pole.
            I smelled the plants around me. Stimulated by moisture, their pungent aromas readily entered my receptors and overwhelmed my ability to distinguish them. I smelled my surroundings individually. I pressed close to the muddy water collected on the edge of a leaf. It smelled like my hands after I touched my mother’s garden hose.
            I learned in my four hours with nature that animals grow uneasy in the rain. It possesses them and flings them over fences of captivity to seek a new life or simply be able to dance in the rain. This desire unites all living things. Something in the electricity surrounding a storm captures living beings and sweeps us into charming insanity.

Slumber Sound

Satin sheets envelop skin
Protect from frights and nightmares
Shield against the cosmos frostbite
Outside our solar system

An ensemble of glass eyes
Stuffed and sewn they peer at me
From exotic blank faces
Silently bid me goodnight

Silence swirls about my head
The pinkish walls now shadow
Soothing scent of dusty air
Warming cozy oasis

I rest my heavy eyelids
Unfurl my glistening veil
Brightly-colored starry beads
Caress my delicate dreams

- ACM

The Well

Just something I wrote about a year ago for a writing assignment. Directions: Write a 5-page story using figurative language.

Rain found herself floating in a vacant pool, with nothing but her wooden headboard on her mind. With heavy eyelids, she felt her listless body explode into miniscule crystalline droplets. They all drifted slightly upwards, paused, and then zoomed earthward faster than free fall speed. Inches away from the ground, she jolted upright and rigid with a sharp gasp of air, eyes bulging and mattress springs yelping with her sudden movement. She saw her father’s silhouette standing in the doorway. If she had not been mute, she would have surely screamed. Instead, she held her breath and shut her eyes tight, heartbeat pounding in her ears. After a moment, Rain opened her young hazel eyes and was relieved to find an empty doorway. Her attention meandered around her ghostly room and her own thin mauve nightgown. She took a deep breath and listened to the night. There was a sporadic drizzle outside and her mother’s soft snore down the hall was barely audible. The old Victorian house was still and Rain was securely planted into her bed. Recognizing the illusion, she flopped back onto her scratchy sheets. As she tried to rid her mind of consciousness once more, she remembered the well.

Middleton was an ancient tiny town built around a crumbling abandoned highway. It was once a charming sunny east coast village stirring with life, up until the new highway was built. With no one using the old highway, many citizens fled to cities, almost instantly turning Middleton into a ghost town. Most of the remainders were old folks who refused to leave the town they were raised in.

It was said that the sun left with the people. Year round, there was no sky to be seen: only clouds and an eerie breeze. July was always cool and rainy with habitual thunder storms. Rain’s mother, Janice, tended her flowers obsessively. She was a tall, slender woman always clad in a long black dress. She tied her straight brown hair back in a loose bun every morning to reveal skull-like cheekbones and a cataract in one of her sullen eyes. Beneath her gardening gloves, her hands were withered and callused.

Rain’s father, Peter, was irregularly tall with a clean-shaven chin. He was once an insightful and inspired young man. The day Rain was born, the new highway opened, marking the death of Middleton as it used to be. As his neighbors and friends left, the light left Peter’s eyes to match the sky. He repeatedly told Janice that they had to leave also, but her will to stay in Middleton was as persistent as the elders. As Rain grew into girlhood, Peter became more and more unhappy. The town’s emptiness filled his soul and body like the mid-winter chill.

Janice used gardening as a distraction rather than a pastime. It appeared as though she gardened because her flowers were the only truly beautiful and flawless things left in her life. Although only Janice had a cataract, neither Peter nor Janice could see their daughter’s youthful glow of human curiosity and excitement.

Rain liked to sit on the edge of the old stone well. She would constantly sing, regardless of whether or not she had an audience. When Rain sang, Middleton’s somber silence vanished and everything was illuminated. When Rain sang, she saw her mother smile like she meant it.

One especially grim rainy morning, Peter was near Rain’s well fetching water for breakfast. As he looked down the well to lower the bucket, he watched the rain droplets plunge in, becoming smaller and smaller until they disappeared. They then created small explosions as they assimilated into the well water. Peter was amazed that the drops were so free and carelessly falling to their doom. It was as though they were beckoning him, showing him that the bottom of the well was something to look forward to. Peter complied and lifted himself onto the stone wall of the well. He stepped off and instantly became one of the droplets. He relaxed as he fell and for the first time in a long time, he smiled. To him, the splash that he made was no bigger than the rest of the raindrops.

Rain’s discovery of her father’s death stopped her from singing. In fact, she did not even speak. Janice had become almost blind in one eye, and her other eye was veiled by grief. Because Rain was now mute and no longer sang, Janice soon seemed like she had forgotten her daughter.

Rain could not rest her mind. Thoughts of her father acted like the clogged gutters outside: they filled her head to the brim and overflowed, spilling all over her soft face and onto her covers. She opened her eyes and saw her father sitting on the foot of her bed. This time she was unafraid, as he was smiling and told her to come to the well with him. Rain made her way outside and floated across the highway to the well. She climbed onto the cold, slippery stones surrounding the well and watched the individual droplets fall in, summoning her. Rain felt the wind try to push her in, causing her to almost lose her balance. Alarmed, she grabbed hold of the wooden post onto which the bucket was fastened.

Inside, a booming thunder clap awoke Janice. She peered out of her window to watch the storm, and a flash of lightning illuminated Rain, standing on the well’s edge. She feared that her daughter would meet the same fate as Peter. She knew it was too late and did nothing but hang her head in sorrow.

Also startled by the thunderclap, Rain turned her head up to the dark clouds. She looked over her shoulder towards the horizon to see splotches of color against the blue sky. She felt the last small drops playfully splash her face. Everything around her reflected the light from the rising sun. She breathed in the crisp morning air and felt the despair inside her melt away. Something bright and new surged though her fragile body, warming her soul and lifting her heart. Peeking into the well, she whispered, “Hi Daddy.” Rain shut her eyes and raindrops merged with her tears as she burst into song.