Category: nature

where my eyes cease to look

icaruswithwarmwingsLeave a comment

If I may,

through ye rivers

through ye trees

it is you who have suffered

by the hand of me

with starlets faded

and trumpets drowned

ye murky streams

stood idle

held fast in winter sounds

– you’re a river –

ancient winnings left unsung

you’re my peer, my equal

yet you still leave me stung 

ye valley, ye hillside, ye marbled dismay

covered in oleander

onward ye May

ye gargling, ye moving, ye ponderous brook 

(struck through me!)

a center it took

“Tear me to pieces

cut out where my eyes cease to look”

and just then will they open to see

the face of summer laughing at me

with eyes open wide 

my love it did wander

for bitter I was

my heart it did squander:

ye forest, ye mountain, ye breeze

ye sunglass driving, ye proliferate bees.

Suppose I am the offspring of thine shepherd:

you are the hunt,

that which I am after.

and with the fall comes the rapid convergence:

mine sweet love’s resurgence

But once again the autumn leaves took

to a different stream or babbling brook

and forevermore I am wandering in a forest ever stranger

of perilous rot

and cavernous danger

All that which a summer could bring!

but once again I am searching for a longer sting

and what of the prospect? What this winter will bring!

while more I could say might strengthen the pressure 

I leave with you no words, no rhyme, no measure

that might contrast mine song of May

it tingles, it trickles, and just may delight

in telling a story of our precarious plight

with the sincerest intentions on an immeasurable scale,

all that you’re left with is a tacky email

and no words, no sermons, no divine light

could bring you back the way it would 

into my life.

minutes later you answer:

true love is true love’s killer

Credit: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1992.5112/

homecoming…

unicornownerLeave a comment

After three months wandering around back home, we went back to campus for a brand new school year. 

After more than one year recovering from the Thomas fire, we finally had an all-school camping trip in the first week.

After the protracted and exhausting travel from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the busy packing unpacking and packing back, putting everything in order, meeting new people, I got so tired but still tried to make myself look energetic.

An opportunity came up, a chance I could escape from all of this. 

Then I was on the bus with my day pack which had my lunch sandwich in it sitting beside me, my huge camping bag with a sleeping pad, bag, clothes and almost everything I need sitting under me in the luggage hold. 

3 days without my phone, what a challenge. My phone became a part of me, like an external organ, it stayed with me every single moment during the summertime. 

“I will be fine,” I kept telling myself before we departed. 

But as it turned out, I was really more than fine without it. I really enjoyed the time spent with my friends. We played card games, went to the tide pools, played volleyball on the beach, watched the sunset, ate s’ mores, brushed our teeth in the dark and so on. 

These days, with no phone, feeling isolated from the rest of the world, but closer to what is really around me. 

photo credit: trailhead.gsnorcal.org

Goodbye Now

localdreamerwithapenLeave a comment

OVS, I will miss you.

I can’t wait to leave you behind and move on and climb a new mountain, make a new place my new home. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t miss you.

It’s crazy to think that a couple years ago you were nothing to me but three letters. Just another place in another country in another town that I had never even heard of. Now, your little green campus means the whole world to me.

You taught me to be happy on my own, you taught me to be sad and to think. You taught me English, you taught me how to write. You taught me how to love and to hate and how to cut people out of my life for my own good and how hard and nearly impossible that can be. You taught me to speak up and to find my voice, just like you taught me how to listen and be there for the people around me.

Photo Credit: i1.wp.com

You’ve also taken a lot from me. You’ve taken my last four years of living at home. You’ve nearly taken one of the best friendships I’ve ever had and you’ve taken a part of my home country from me. You’ve taken my feeling of absolutely belonging anywhere at all.

But, then again, maybe that is just a part of growing up, a process that you so conveniently sped up for me and now I can move along with that advantage. I thank you for that.

I am ready to keep going and keep moving just like you’ve been telling me to do. But I’ll miss you.

I’ll miss your oak trees and pink afternoon hills. I’ll miss your lunch lines and movie nights, your encouraging words and worthless meetings. I’ll miss the people you’ve brought into my life. I’ll miss the rooms that we’ve lived in and the road up the hill we all hate. I’ll miss your flaming hot skies and succulents and I’ll miss your stars, your beautiful stars. I’ll miss your tired breakfast conversations, your van rides and the songs we’ve belted on them. It’s really been a wild couple of years.

Goodbye now, I will miss you ❤

Maybe they will bloom once more

faithfulomnivoreLeave a comment

Of course it had to be raining when they told me. It’s called pathetic fallacy.

I felt like I wanted to cry or wretch or go to sleep for a long time.

I suppose I could sit around and be angry for a while, but, at this point, I’ve resolved just to move on. This is much more of a quiet kind of feeling.

I have to be okay with things just being how they are.

But it was never a matter of being over her or having enough time, was it? It was always just a matter of me and you that would never exist.

I always talk about how seasons change and how that’s the way it is supposed to be, but I never thought it would be so drastic.

Image via Pinterest.com

Summer is almost here, but, though it may be peaceful, it will still be hot, so I’ll have to stay busy. And while I’d love to have citrus all year, I know that pixie season has come and gone.

Maybe next year, after the rains come and when the sun starts shining again, they will bloom once more and I will be okay.

A reflection on past reflections

faithfulomnivoreLeave a comment

Photo Credit: Pinterest.com

If anyone was wondering, I made the sun come up faster.

I’m not sure how or why or exactly when it happened, I just know that a few weeks ago I was running in the dark at 6am and now I am running in the light at 6am.

I don’t have the time or energy right now to figure out how to read the stars or alter the path of the sun or anything like that, but if anyone out there has any insight to offer, I would love to hear it.

Looking back on my past thoughts, it’s funny to see how much changes and how much stays the same.

A few months ago, it seems as though I was fascinated by time and weather and all sorts of things. I still am now, of course, but I guess that I just already got it out sort of artistically, so it’s not as much of a pressing issue anymore.

It’s cloudy today and it rained a little bit in the morning. It feels like everything is clean. I still miss the sun, though.

And I think I will always be fascinated by the weather and the sky. I just always will be.

 

Another List

localdreamerwithapenLeave a comment

Usually when I don’t know what to write about, I make some sort of list of things that make me happy, things that calm me down, things that remind me of home. But it seems like I’ve run out of ideas for positive lists like that, so here’s a list of things I hate:

  1. trash in nature
  2. when people are rude to the cashier
  3. math
  4. losing
  5. watching cocky people win
  6. watching pretty much anyone other than my team win
  7. public speaking
  8. not having any socks left
  9. being left on read
  10. artichokes
  11. being disliked
  12. feeling like you have to sneeze but not being able to sneeze
  13. racists
  14. ignorant people
  15. my bad communication skills

  16. Photo Credit: i.pinimg.com

    change

  17. blisters
  18. nightmares
  19. bad actors
  20. feeling left out
  21. walking on the street alone at night
  22. clowns
  23. loneliness
  24. self doubt
  25. jet lag
  26. assigned seating
  27. OVS wifi
  28. jacob sartorius
  29. fun killers
  30. heights
  31. not being respected
  32. swarms of insects
  33. overcooked pasta
  34. people in mascot costumes
  35. dress code
  36. overpriced clothes
  37. snoring
  38. loud chewing
  39. plastic straws
  40. running out of time

Interstellar

mypetlobster1Leave a comment

I like space and planets and the stars. It amazes me and it’s its nice to know that there are some things that no one understands. I think it’s humbling in a way.

I get caught up in my own life; my problems seem so big and overwhelming. When I’m trapped focusing on my life, I forget that I am one person out of eight billion. I forget how small I really am.

It bothers me so much seeing people who think they are better than everyone: better than other people, better than animals, better than everything. People destroy nature, kill animals, and hurt others all because they think they can. They think that they’re above everything.

I wish I could tell them. I wish they could just understand that they are just one letter in a thousand page essay, one raindrop in a ten hour storm, one frame in a five hour documentary, one out of 8 billion tiny insignificant people.

The stars are a good reminder. As big as you think you are, as big as you think your problems are, there is always something bigger.

 

Photo Credit: Festim Kelmendi

Little Things

maydaygaskarthLeave a comment

I’ve started to realize it’s the little things I change about my day that make me feel so much better.

I’ve started studying outside during my free blocks. Even when I’m not doing work, I just sit outside on my phone instead of inside my dimly lit, stuffy dorm room. It feels so much better having both the sun and light breeze against my skin, keeping me warm and cool at the same time. It’s more refreshing, though I’m not doing anything more than sitting outside.

I’ve started getting up early again. I get up around six a.m. now and, despite sleeping less hours, I feel more awake than when I’d sleep in until 7:40. I get up and force myself to go running because even if I’m tired in the moment, I feel wide awake for the rest of the day. I have time to go to breakfast, less time to rush to get ready for classes, and more time to hang out with friends in the morning. I’m no longer starving by the third class of the day or falling asleep by the fourth.

It’s a good feeling finally being motivated to do the small things that make drastic changes to how my days turn out for me and I’m appreciating every day so much more because of it.

Photo Credit: Lifehacker.com

“The God who made the world and all things in it”

faithfulomnivoreLeave a comment

photo credit: jdboggs.blogspot.com

For quite some time now, I’ve been trying to find God.

It’s not that I feel I’m lacking something without being a member of a religion, I just find it fascinating how people feel so empowered by so many different faiths.

In some ways I’m jealous of those people, the ones who know whole-heartedly that there is some higher power out there to guide them.

I know a lot of people who are skeptical of religion and, in some ways, I am too.

But, I’ve come to the conclusion that good people don’t use the Bible or anything else to justify hate or harm. The people who make excuses in the name of God are hypocrites in the truest sense and are ignorant by thinking that just by adhering to a faith will guarantee a better life or afterlife.

I think there is so much we can learn from religious texts. Even if you don’t interpret them in a spiritual sense, I think that anyone of any faith or background can gain something from the lessons in them.

From my perspective, the main purpose of a religion is to give people a sense of purpose or fulfillment and to help them live the best life possible.

So if this is true, then I’ve found my god.

I find my religion in the wilderness. I find god in the trees and in rivers and mountains and the sunshine.

My god makes up everything that is natural and wild. It teaches me to live the best, most fulfilled, and positive life that I can.

And that’s all I could really ask for.

 

The Other Night

localdreamerwithapenLeave a comment

I woke up under the stars the other night. There were so many and, though I couldn’t nearly see all of them, it reminded me of how pretty, plain beautiful our universe is.

I woke up on a slick rock in a canyon in Utah. I woke up a couple times that night, the rock was pretty slanted and not that comfortable, but I didn’t mind. Everything around me was too beautiful to mind being awake.

I woke up and my nose was cold. Aside from that, I was cozy in my sleeping bag, but the breezy fresh air made my face all cold. But, once again, I didn’t mind.

Photo Credit: farm3.staticflickr.com

I always forget how much I love camping. But then, when I go, I fall in love with it entirely. I love hiking for hours and watching the landscape change around you. I love having nothing to worry about other than making a good fire and finding water to filter. I love to not set foot into a building for days and I love waking up at night underneath the stars, being reminded of how pretty our universe is.

Of course camping can be stressful sometimes, like when the blisters on your feet are burning and you know you still have miles left to go or when you’re wearing all the layers you can possibly wear, but you’re still freezing in your sleeping bag. But, again, I don’t really mind those things all too much. The freeze-dried food, the soaked shoes, the farmer’s tan, it was all worth it once again. Because, the other night, I got to wake up underneath the stars in Utah and it was so beautiful.