Enough to Make Tears

Throughout the ages, people from all walks of life and manner of cultures have held onto a “notion” (for the lack of a better word), that they can provide happiness to some significant other or another out there or some nonsense likewise similar. Barring gold diggers, two-three-four-timers, cheats, sluts, bastards, bitches, assholes, smuttiness and similarly uncongenial types “out there,” those who remain, do so in ignorance that such a thing as love really exists when it is nothing more than a gateway towards self-serving behaviors, deeds, actions, and aspirations that drive general needs.

There are those who believe (stupidly) that they love, and they are convinced of their love – these idle people who have nothing better to do with their time and energy. They’d rather see their own demise than to witness “their S.O.” in a state of disarray, and would sacrifice life and limb to ensure said “other’s” happiness. Further, if the usual and more primitive means of reciprocity are removed (sex, that is), then there is little likelihood that no expression can be achieved to satisfaction. Hold out for nothing; it ain’t coming true like the fairy tales tell it; such stories should be banned from the libraries and in every medium because hope and love are far too painful to hope to want – or at least the reception of it is, because human beings are forgetful and selfish entities – all human beings.

In truth, without the words and then the actions, nothing one does makes a damned bit of difference towards making another happy because most people walk around with gaping holes in their souls where their hearts used to be and from lost nuggets of time in which they have been hurt in past lives. The nature of the beast is that humans insist on carrying the luggage of pain and angst around with them wherever they go, despite all evidence to the contrary. And the older people get, the tighter they hold on to their baggage and insist upon misery over happiness as the rule and not the exception. There are no solutions; one tries, one adapts, one works, one hopes, one goes out of one’s way, one wishes to feel the hand of a lover gently placed upon a shoulder, or to receive a kiss, or to be seduced, or to be desirable, or even to be touched by accident, if that is the only form of affection to be gained. One hopes for hellos and farewells, good mornings, and good nights, but one never wishes to change the object of one’s love, so the choice is engrained deeply to embrace desolation in the face of love because fear is the stronger emotion more often than not. So, humans have learned the metaphorical act of “running away” from the light, and into the damp safety of their dark nights.

Such a world is devoid of expectations because there is no recourse to expectations – they are fleeting and have no meaning except to fulfill a deep need to be happy again – even if momentarily, and if momentarily, they why any at all? Why not just do away with it completely because is that the stuff of disappointment – and wouldn’t life just be better without disappointments, even if it means preventing the fleeting joy that accompanies a form of fulfilled hope? That would be the irony, paradox, and oxymoron in a nutshell. The light is bright, even if the world is at its darkest. Being blinded by love is sweeter than honey, and dumbstruck better than stupid, and hurt better than having missed out – then one can open one’s eyes and see the world for its glorious beauty.

Crushed
The brain oozes
Tears
Falling
Down its face
Pouring out thoughts
Racing with feelings
Then ebbing
No thoughts
No feelings
Gone
Sweet sleep
Denied
Artificially induced
Organic reprieve
~J. L. Tornquist

Prolepsis Analepsis

I am at the same café I started my Oxford journey on, a little over a year ago in March, 2009, during my first week’s exploration of my new surroundings. I’m sipping away at my cappuccino outside (though it’s still a bit chilly), enjoying the blue skies above. The airplanes are still grounded due to the Icelandic volcano so there are no jet streams traversing the clear blue.

I just made my first visit to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau on St. Aldate’s Street in City Center to explore my options for establishing residency in England. I am going to try to work part-time, volunteer, and study on my own time next year; I need a respite from all the radical changes I’ve undergone during this past year. What future holds – I am not certain. It has all been a little overwhelming and I need to pull the reigns in a bit so I can make sense of the choices I have made, am making, and will continue to make.

I really love Oxford – and the greater England – it’s like a home to me, and I can’t imagine returning to the sterility of Los Angeles with all the cars and distances between places. I can’t imagine not hearing the many permutations of the English accent that I hear daily, nor can I imagine not seeing the numerous friends I’ve made here. I also can’t imagine not walking or taking a familiar bus to places that are now mapped out in my head.

There is so much life here – people from all over the world come here to see Oxford; I was one of those tourists with cameras once-upon-a-time, and now I look to the newcomers and smile to myself with some quaint sense of satisfaction. Students from various European countries regularly cluster together, speaking their respective languages, and there is a flow to life now, here.

A boutique in the Covered Market caught my eye today; there was a part-time job offering posted on their front door. I went in and inquired as to the nature of the job, and indicated my interest. The couple who owned the store seemed nice enough, and we joked about my “Americanness.” I’ll bring a CV to them soon. It would fit in with my 20-hour a week mandate, and though I wouldn’t make much money, it’s a start. I just want to be a regular person here – not a student, and I want to receive a little moral support for trying.

My “sensitivity” is the whack-a-mole hammer that reduces me to nothing and makes me out to be an idiot, so I now tell myself that I’m on my own – this is between me and myself; no one outside will or can do a thing to help me or offer their comfort. Next stop: Job search. I might have to go back to the U.S. to renew my visa, but I don’t really care anymore. I’m on my own, and this is the life I chose way-back-when, last year. I wish I were strong. Instead, I’m realizing how weak I actually am, and how foolishly I act.

In this world, one is on his/her own; battles aren’t played out with others holding your hands or helping. Battles are fought on lonely fields, and in times of uncertainty, one’s word means nothing; actions speak for themselves and words are cheap. So I press on, hoping that I will be able to resolve matters on my own – all strings severed. Expect nothing, and everything else will be a surprise.

The Hardest Thing...

Forgive me ye anonymous readers out there for my need to rant a bit… my ego requires it. I think the hardest thing for me in this first year of study here in Oxford has been my inability to understand the objectives of the coursework and assignments that have been given for each class. I understand the material reasonably well, participate, show up, and don’t have a problem incorporating the terms and concepts into the literature I read; however I have failed to pin down what the task(s) is/are with specificity. There is much discussion about what to consider for our essays, and I take careful notes of the advice given, but in executing the work, I seem to be missing a huge piece of the puzzle: the picture.

If my task is to rearrange information, then I must know what I am to apply to the work I do. What is the analysis that is being asked? If I know what is expected, I can then put something reasonable together that meets all the requirements of a task-at-hand. How was I supposed to know that the title was the question, and that I was not to interpret the question through a title? As it was, I read the question carefully, selected a title that reflected the question, and then wrote according to that interpretation. I did not know, and now I do – that titles are not an option. “Literary studies” is as black and white as the rest of academia (apart from reading literature as opposed to textbooks), and creativity is not part of the process unless it advances the theoretical and definitional parameters of the field. I am learning this the hard way.

Still an egocentric voice cries out from within: What is the purpose of understanding, if it is not allowed to express itself? If the task is to simply apply “x,” “y,” and “z” to “a,” “b,” and “c,” then I see this as simple mathematics comprised of variables to be solved and/or cancelled out. The same formulations can be applied to the essay: there needs to be a solid thesis – the main argument of an essay – and the thesis must be distributed to each paragraph of the essay, with an introduction, the body, and the conclusion clearly laid out. Each of the body paragraphs must have a point to support the thesis (or refute it to show contrast), and in this, is the simple structure of the essay. I sometimes feel like Langston Hughes from English 1B: I’m worlds apart from the flow, with the tension of similarities and differences imposing itself onto the scene. This is still me ranting and trying to sort out my head so I can properly pass the finish line towards the next start. This is my interior protest that foolishly exclaims, “I need to be right about something!”

My questions have always been as follows: What new things will I discover? What new things can I compose or create? What form will I metamorphose into once I have met the overall requirements and objectives at-hand? Will I be more learned? Will I have knowledge that I didn’t possess a priori? Will I make it through the gauntlet? Am I strong enough? Smart enough? I have wrestled with these issues for as far back as I can recall. To simply regurgitate information is to reassemble words without soul – without the “self” infused into the translation of something. I cannot be a carbon copy of another’s mind, or sets of ideas. However, as a student, it is my responsibility to tear down preexisting “knowledge” and replace it with foundational knowledge – this is the basis for becoming educated and enlightened – the process of humiliation, removal of said “self” and its reconstruction based on sound premises. Alas, as stated, I must quell these unreasonable protestations, stop distracting myself with deflective ideas, and learn to abide by what is required of me – not by what I want. After all, what we want and what we get are very separate matters; the gods of fate have their own agenda for what unfolds… but we have a hand in what is created. Who doesn’t have a crisis of identity now and again?!

Zero Sum

Today I am not a student, although I’ll find my way back hopefully soon. I guess I haven’t been one for a while now. It’s funny how things turn on a slow dime sometimes. When I first came to Oxford, I was an enthusiastic student who had some kind of academic horizon before me, but by the time I returned to “pursue my studies,” I became more of something else, and less of another: I fell in love and found joy through it. My life is a zero sum game: my A-student column has been subtraced from, and the results have been added to another column. Now I am somewhere in the middle of the deep end, being pulled away from my original aspirations, away from being strictly in my head, and I love feeling again.

My father warned me not to forget why I came, and I didn’t: love brought me back, and school was the means to achieve it. I just didn’t know any better at the time, and now I’m quite ashamed of myself. I’ve painted myself into a corner for denying the real reason I returned. When you’re my age – I’m at the half-way point right now – and when life has been loveless and barren – when love happens, it takes precedence because of the connection that is made with someone as opposed to something. I am facing the problematic question of knowing what my limits are. Today, I am less of a student than a lover, and surely not all that I can be in either arena. I am good at doing one thing thoroughly well, but rarely succeed at doing more than one thing at a time; multitasking is not my strong suit. I have known academic excellence, and have hit a bump in the road which has undermined my confidence and highlighted my long-perceived ineptitudes.

In the last communiqué to me, my father said, “Try really hard.” I’m not sure if I can (try harder) right now – more than I already am. But life isn’t fair, and all my choices have led me here to a strange crossroad that I’ve faintly seen before. If I could talk to him about it, I sometimes think it would help, but I’ve burned that bridge (with strong consternations as proof before I came back). If I could share with my parents what love has been like for me, I think I would feel less guilty about being in love and trying to make it all work for everyone. But an old warning they faced now faces me: "you made your bed, and now you must sleep in it." I wouldn’t take anything back; circumstances are such that the only way to keep love is to continue my education. I would pay that price again and again for what I have now; unfortunately the financial price has been paid by my family and I have to find my own way to make it work in the long-run.

* * * * *

There is boredom in the routine of doing something for too long; patterns set in, the picture gets muddied if not too clear, and joy gets stripped away from what could have otherwise been beautiful. Producing something in the image of something else or in others’ preconceived ideas of the world is boring, though no excuse for doing poorly in anything. Creating something for the purpose of art is joy; I must muddle my way through that boredom and proceed, as I always have, although I desperately want a respite. I am sure such notice will bring heartache to my family because they are depending on me to do well, and counting on me not to be whisked away by petty things such as love.

What happens when the original premise is weakened, and something unexpected grows into the stuff of dreams? I cannot stay here without the original premise for I am merely a guest, and therefore unable to remain with the one I love without it. What a fool I am! I have spent the better part of four years depending on my academic excellence to define me, and today, I don’t have that crutch to lean on; today I am just a person who is struggling to make it in this strange and foreign land. My heart is not easily divided. I have built up a wonderful academic resume, and gotten this far, and life has now presented me with the most unknown element known to humankind. I am no longer “smart” or “clever,” but just average, if not below average, and my star does not burn as bright as it once did. On the other front, however, I am greatly rewarded and blessed. I know that someone loves me; I have many wonderful friends who I cherish and wish to keep.

For this, I have lost my own family in a sense, and sometimes, that burden is more than I can bear for they are no longer a part of the goings-on in my life. I have failed them and hurt them by coming here as I did for I am their only child. I expect no forgiveness on that front for they have given me so much and I have given back far too little to balance the equation. I can see that from their perspective, there is a point where happiness is an irrelevant pursuit if it serves no physical purpose. There is no one to blame but myself, and only I can rescue myself from what lies ahead. I wish I wasn’t so alone right now… Things will come to pass as they will.

"Darlin'"

I’ve been in the U.K. for nearly a year, and people regularly ask me why I love England so much. I can only answer with innuendos and with subtle references: it’s not a single place or point or the ancient histories and buildings, for it is all of these in various doses; it’s not merely the culture or community or lifestyle; and, it’s not just a romantic notion I’ve carried with me my entire life through English childhood books and multitudinous collection of pictures. There exists an intoxicating atmosphere of observing and partaking of life daily in this place, amongst the people, within the groups, of listening to the intellectual banter over game shows such as University Challenge – at a pub; it is the rhythm of living, the predictable safety of watching friends religiously saving crossword puzzles for each other towards completing them; and, it is the experience of my proud self being humbled into the often frightening realization that I know invariably much less than what I thought I knew. I came here for a study-abroad program that should have ended last May, but the tides of change and the unknown have pulled me mightily back here in every way – I, also unstoppable in every way, fought to remain upon this land. My dream is not solely the “education within the ivory towers,” but that of many simultaneous realizations that include my education as a subset of the larger picture. In my quest for new experiences, I ended up falling in love with one who I now call “love” and “lover.”

I have a fondness for words, and my favorite word here is “darling.” “Darling” is a regularly used word amongst friends (women use this word when addressing either gender, and men often use it to address women friends). I love the terms of endearment here: “How’r ya doin’ love?” or “Y’alright my lovely/darlin’?” There is a charming quality to these words, sentences, and greetings. Maybe these are English terms used less in the United States than in the United Kingdom, but to be referred to as “darlin’” in terms of endearment is a word like none other I have known, and it softens all the rough edges of being in a foreign land, a million miles from all things familiar. Said with the right tenor, pitch, and tone of love, it removes traces of alienation and doubt, and pulls me into this new world without reservation. “Darling” is synonymous with long bygone words such as, “dearest,” “beloved,” and “sweetheart” and when my love addresses me with this singular word of many facets, I feel safe; those fears possessed in the moment melt away in rapid succession, and most importantly, I know I am loved. It is perhaps the smallest great joy I know, for the greater joys contain him, and more to the point, us.

I write with certain naïveté because it is in my nature to try and capture the world in different ways -- apart from the pervasive cynicism and exhaustion of what ought to be, in my estimation, fresh and filled with wonder. My story, which is now a shared story with my love, is a story that unfolds page-by-page, plot-by-plot, and in chapters and subchapters, like a poetic novel filled with conflicts and resolutions that keep the kindling sparked, and the embers glowing, even on the coldest and most tumultuous days and nights. In the instance of the utterance of the word “darlin’”, I know that I am loved and that all will be well without so much as another utterance. Whereas, words like “love” must be tempered, and its placement in discourse carefully chosen whilst maintaining spontaneity because an overused word is an abused one if misplaced or worn down with frequency, “darlin’” is the title I bear with great joy and pride and I can endure its repetitive use.

Regardless of my interpretation of these words, I think that one of the reasons I’m continuously drawn here, at the end of the day, is that I am a romantic at heart, and here, I am free to find that self who sees the world through a prism of possibilities, as opposed to the singular lens that I once wore that I outgrew to a degree. I have a possible future of many futures, and the brightest one is here, now, today, and shared with my love. A thousand worlds ago, I might never have ventured to such a land filled with uncertainties, but today I stand here with hope that the next thousand worlds will be far more adventurous and filled with wonders than the former; for that, I will die a happier person because I will have lived.

On Nature...

While I love visiting cities of all places for all their uniqueness and history – whether modern or ancient, I have to say that my favorite places to seek refuge is in unfettered areas where man has not overly populated or altered the areas within which such beauty lies. Nature is my melody and muse, and its lack of intrusive modernity is my music. But if I were to choose a “modern” place to be, it would be in a place such as Oxford – a large town, but not quite a city – where one can spot a familiar face wherever one goes whilst witnessing the glorious “ancient” buildings that frame many bygone and present stories within the cushion of green and trees within which they exist.

The most glorious of places is in the solitude of nature: water, land, trees, plants, birds, animals, and mountainous cathedrals etched out through time, weather, and the ever-shifting earth. Man cannot create such beauty, but can merely stand in awe of what he sees, allowing his imagination to formulate art based on such majesty. In my mind, nature will always triumph, and we will always strive to outwit her design, only to be dwarfed by the sheer scale of her creation.