40 Locust St., Oberlin OH

I watched the sunset for the first time in years. After a run, I was walking by the construction site between Asia House and Keep and I ran into Dilshan. I spoke with him for a bit and started going home and the sunset caught me off guard. I just stopped and watched. It’s hard to believe. Sunsets are such a part of me, they strike something deep inside me. It’s been so long.

Such memories, such sad happiness of the fleeting nature of beauty. Whatever. After the sun set, I continued home and walking by the green of Tappan Square, I felt what I used to call bitterness, but I thought of it differently this time. It was an object for contemplation, a passive bitterness. All is fleeting, why must we hold on to certain things like a child who doesn’t want his toy taken away.

Holding onto something that is being taken away by a stronger force, knowing full well it’s a stronger force, doesn’t make sense. Things pass their moment, even friendships. Friendship is a two way circular energy between two people. That’s how it was between Rebecca and me, then she stopped feeling it. At that point when the energy is gone, the friendship has passed its moment. Why hold on when it’s not complete anymore, when there’s nothing left to grasp?

I didn’t let go suddenly once I got a sign that she might not be feeling it anymore. I held on for a while to make sure. She stopped feeling it before last October some time. I only let go recently when I realized she had gotten to a point of lying to convince me that the feeling was gone. So I watched the sun go down and accepted it.

40 Locust St., Oberlin OH

Less than a week until the program starts and I can move back into a dorm. I’ve got to finish my recording. I’ve been working on a re-write of “mother’s suicide” and it has been exasperating. That song is stubborn when it comes to accepting lyrics. By the time the program starts, I should have six songs definitely finished. After the program, I’m going to pack and get the hell outta Dodge and head East.

mother's suicide
Mother my dear, it's funny looking back now at all those memories
How we always used to fight and were so hard to please
Mother my dear, did you ever imagine one day we would care
That one day we would find how much we had to share

That day almost never came
One more day and everything would've been the same
Without having your aging palm read and explained
As if you wondered who was to blame

Lord knows how great it is to see how we
Have finally found something on which we both agree
I guess it must run in the family
The blood doesn't tie it coagulates
The hit isn't home when it comes too late
You left the laundry on the line outside it's much too cold to stand and wait

Mother my dear, it's been such a pleasure to see you grow
You learn so quick, there was so much you needed to know
Mother my dear, I hope that you won't mind if I just stand and stare
It blows my mind to think how you got here from there

The price was very high
It was the least I could do to see what money could buy
It was one to grow up on, would I ever lie to you?
You just did, can't you see how you just did?

The cards are finally all down at last
But your trigger finger got there too fast
It was just a trick of some romantic tale
Some lines in a poem from the 1950's 
To recall and revise the years of pity
Who told you to accept the match and mix
That went and sent you overseas?

Mother these moments last forever
For whatever that might mean
For what? Could it possibly mean anything?
Given somethings never die
And given there's no real answer why
And given life is give and take
In a photographic family break
Where the  only thing that can remain
Is the way we are said to relate

Mother, it wasn't me
I was trying to miss
I guess somehow my hand just slipped
I didn't mean it, what can I do?
I'm really sorry, oh please come through
There's still so much I have to say to you
You wouldn't listen anyway
What the hell is the point?
The point wasn't very sharp
And it didn't go too far
Nothing ever got too deep to threaten either you or me
Nothing ever got too close, too close to any critical zone
I really don't know what led to this
I swear I was trying to miss
It really was a kiss

I'm here again
Standing on this cliff, looking down
Tell me, where does it end?
Nothing has changed
Step by step the circle comes around
Just to re-make the chain

Mother my dear, everyone says it'll be alright
Don't be afraid to heal
Take as long as you want as long as
You begin to feel
But you never read a bedtime story
That was based on something real

God knows how great it is to see that we
Have finally found something on which we both agree
One after another the lines are drawn
And once the message is completely gone
Who finds the people it was written on?
And some lines in a poem from the 1950's
Go back to where they all belong

Mother my dear, it scares me so that if you died today
I would want to live and forget yesterday
Mother my dear, peace and happiness...

People get on my nerves. I get sick of people. I thrive on communication and I get impatient real quick if there is none, and then I’ll usually give what I get. It’s something I’m demanding out of my friendships and relationships at this point and I’m highly critical when there’s something wrong with the communication.

40 Locust St., Oberlin OH

It’s beautiful outside. The wind is blowing something fierce and the clouds are getting dark and rushing across the sky. Brewing storms. I love Summer’s violent weather with its solitude and mystery and refreshing breezes. This house has a huge front porch where I can sit out and just vibe with it all.

I’m happy these days and I’m not sure why. I saw the movie “Field of Dreams” playing at the Apollo. It was about believing and dreams coming true in outrageous terms. Talk about resonating! It invoked such a huge feeling in me, I can’t describe it. After seeing the movie, I took off on my bike to the remote edge of Oberlin by the big reservoir and stared up at the sky for a while, feeling close to the stars and very refreshed. I love the stars so much. I was reading about the Apollo landings in “Astronomy”, the first one’s 20th anniversary is coming up in 10 days. I just imagine as each of them climbed up the ladder for the last time up to the lunar module and maybe they thought, take a good look, this is the last time you’ll be here.” No one’s been there for seventeen years.

I’ve started running again. I’m not sure why or how long it will last. Of all times, this is the most unusual to start. It’s so unnecessary, almost illogical. Again the memories of Summer running. It’s different here because Oberlin is so white and I’m always anxious and have my guard up.

Recording has been going pretty well. I hope I can finish on time. What I’ve been doing has been sounding satisfactory. In 12 days, the Meeting Japan at Oberlin program starts and I’ve been asked to be a counselor. A life saver, I’ve been going stir crazy and I don’t know how I would have filled the rest of the Summer.

40 Locust St., Oberlin OH

I had two horrible dreams. The first one was in the first house in which I lived in Englewood Cliffs and it took place in the master bedroom. Cindy was there as my wife and she was delirious with pneumonia. I started panicking thinking she might die and I fumbled for the phone, then I realized the first question the hospital would ask would be for her temperature and so I fumbled for a thermometer and nearly dropped it a couple of times. Then I had trouble getting it into her mouth because she kept on becoming invisible. Finally I felt for her mouth and got it in. I saw it floating there because she was invisible. I kissed her and woke up. The second dream was about Rebecca. She was back in Senior year, I was in the first year of college, a small nothing college in which I was proud to be. I don’t want to go into it.

40 Locust St., Oberlin OH

Gods. Who is to tell me what form my gods take? Gods to whom we pray and in whom we place devotion and faith, gods to whom we be?

No matter what denomination, beliefs vary between individuals, even in the slightest way. I think it’s true that we’re not born into a religion, we’re born into cultures which may have co-opted religious components, but true religion is about who we are and what we be. Basic beliefs cover the general ideas, but when you break it down further and further, everyone differs on some point or another.

I think all through our lives, our senses are bombarded with stimuli, we receive the information and options. We listen to ourselves to find our truth and that’s what we be and that determines what we worship. Otherwise we listen to someone else and are fed what we believe and go through life as slaves to someone else’s ideas.

I remember going to Sunday school, but it said nothing to me, nothing resonated. It didn’t inspire awe or devotion or the desire to live under Christian tenets. An anthropomorphic God, a white man with a flowing beard sitting on a throne just didn’t jive with the idea of an almighty force that is dominant in the universe.

The idea of Jesus dying for all humanity’s sins made absolutely no sense whatsoever and the meaning behind it made even less sense. Heaven and Hell also had no resonance as did the idea of standing in Judgment on the Last Day. When I learned about these things, there was no familiarity in me, no awakening. I’m sure that for many people, there is that sort of awakening. They are the Christians and I’m sure that someday they will stand in Judgment on the Last Day. Maybe I will, but not in the way they envision it.

The same goes with all other religions and beliefs, you’re born into it or you’re exposed to it and there’s an awakening or recognition. And if I’m wrong, which isn’t really a thought I entertain, it boils down to one thing. If that God didn’t resonate with me while alive, I doubt that He will resonate with me on Judgment Day and His teleporting me off to Hell was pretty much a given. His sending me to Hell won’t make me respect him or hold him in awe. I would most likely despise and disrespect Him and consider Him and His Bastard Son, Jesus, petty and personally insignificant.

A God with no forgiveness, a God with no understanding, a God who isn’t guided by absolute truth is an evil God. A God that hinges everything on whether or not I say I believe in Him or “place my faith”, even though I don’t know what that means, in Jesus Christ . . . isn’t God. If hell is to eternity, fine. My pain comes from knowing there’s something better. If I had no hope, that invokes a wholly different attitude. What is so awful that it can’t be overshadowed by Eternity? I don’t doubt the existence of the Christian God, it just has no say about the destiny or the condition of my soul.

My Gods are many, similar to Shinto kami. They manifest themselves in nature and nature’s beauty. Harmless Gods in that they only bring good, they have earned my devotion and inspire much awe. They also manifest themselves conceptually, impossible to describe accurately in words. Morality, Justice, Forgiveness, Discipline. Something along those lines. My devils are in the forms of Anger and Fear and so on.

My God, the main one, created me in His image. “His” because I’m a guy. I am the best corporeal interpretation of Him. My Individuality is the most sacred to me, because that is what defines God. That which is most sacred is the reason I exist, my Being. The landmarker, the body, is nothing, it’s just a vehicle that translates my being.