A word or two

I apologise to those of you who've stopped by for words from me, but I've just not had it in me the last two weeks.
They really should have been two great weeks, and on the surface they were, but I've come out feeling confused and weary.
The last two weeks saw a wedding, beautiful but sad; going to a real live premier league football match; the consuming of a breathtaking book; time wonderfully spent with someone who makes me feel alive again; a job interview for a job I'll never get and an unexplainable heavyness thats settled slowly but ever so surely.
So, forgive me for not writing and for my rudeness in not contacting you. Its all I can do to just make it through the day.
Here's to lightness.

I am a Bird Now

...Wonderful...

Across the sea.

I know you can't read this because of a paranoid government's mind control games, but I wanted to tell you that thinking of you still makes me happy.

Despite my good life here I always feel like I've left something wonderful behind.

I miss China.

Photo Credit - Donovan Richards.

Bitoey

Bitoey is one of my favourite students. She's popular, talented, and pretty, and despite all these shortcomings she's still a sensitive girl who tries hard to include people.
Om im is new to the English Programme and speaks barely any English at all, making her studies very difficult.
Bitoey sits next to her in class and over the weeks I've watched with an ever increasing respect, her resolve to help Om im without letting on that she's helping her, or making her feel stupid in the progress. She has a keen sensitivity to people and as a teacher its inspiring.

Ok, I know I'm gushing, but I think that if there is one subject about which gushing is forgivable, its children.
Ok, I'm done.
Bitoey is on the right, and Om im on the left.

Transcontinental

when staring out of an airplane
window
the horizon never lets you see
it moving

homes with people you know and
like
approach and recede but never
settle

into time like children into
bed
at night with milk and cold
pillows

softly remind me of those
winters
in our few habit forming
years

of trying to figure
it
all of it
out
and still i
lean

across oceans and continents
and
families and friends we dream of
daily

almost never let us see them moving.

In class I've been taking photos of my students for their projects. I asked them to make journals and the photos were to be put on the front page. They loved having their photos taken and I managed to get some really sweet photos. I posted this on photosig and didn't receive much response. Feel free to comment on this photo. *grin*
As a side note, thank you for the encouragement some of you given me about my writing. I appreciate it, and like to hear what you think.

Even if I don't always show it.

The roots beneath my feet

Friday again and I'm not sure what week we're in.

One year ago, I was home with big eyes and a displaced heart, trying desperately to figure out what the hell I wanted.
She was there with me, but I remember well that I wasn't there with her, choosing almost unwittingly instead to be elsewhere.
Time should have taught me by now that it doesn't matter, but my stomach still knots when the memories inevitably come floating back, like oil on the surface of my brain.

Moving on isn't as easy as I first imagined it would be. The weeks roll over each other like the ocean pulling me relentlessly towards the open future with no hope of escape. People come and go, days are good and bad, girls faces change, and it all melts into a blurred landscape that I'm not sure is even real.

I've tried finding the key to loosen this whole affair from me, without much success. I've tried the usual suspects; beer, women and drugs (no not really drugs) without relief; although perhaps relief is not the most appropriate word here - I'm not really afflicted by anything so grandiose that I'm in need of relief, but I would like to be a little more convinced that I have something to look forward to other than what I have now.

There is a girl in my life, who, despite only having known for a short time, is quite special to me, and has the promise of actually being a significant person in my life, a stark contrast to all the other girls I've spent time with this past year or so. I don't wish to jinx this or anything, its not even really that newsworthy, but I think it deserves a mention for the simple purpose of providing some perspective on the situation.

The "situation".
Ha.
My life is once again a "situation".

Perhaps this is part of the reason this has floated to the surface again, although the memories seem to work in a tidal fashion, coming and going with the regularity of a menstruating adolescent.
And they are wearing down.
Not the importance I place in them, but in the amount of pain they bring me. Now its mostly a dull recognition that I don't have what I really want, and I'm afraid that I'll never have what I really want.

Because buried at the base of my dreams lie the fairy tales and the irrepressable hope for true love, and it is from the roots that the discontent flows, seeping into every relationship I try to form.

But worry not.
Its Friday.
And that means jeans, beer and long nights, my only respite from the irrepressable thoughts that hammer me day in and day out.

Monday is two hangovers away.