Day twenty

Today was the worst day since our break up. I'm not doing anything and have no direction, useless and alone. Wandering around my apartment, bad practice, going running for the sake of getting out. I feel pathetic and trapped. Monastery or death. Viable options. Part of me still hoping.

Day nineteen

Pasha called this evening. It was so refreshing talking to him. It's been a while. We stopped communicating because I felt that he was turning to the cloaks of Islam and traditionalism, instead of the person I knew who learned and progressed with experience and challenged me. I felt I couldn't talk to him anymore, but tonight I found that he's been finding the same things I have about life, and that they've had the same impact on him as they have had on me.

Amina and I weren't what I thought we were. She was not what I thought she was. Our paths weren't supposed to be the same. She was the world to me, life itself. I was just another boyfriend, and not a very good one at that. I will be just a faint memory to her and cross her mind every few months or less.

She was never a part of my life, she never existed. But she did. And she left a bitter taste in my mouth and a bitter outlook on my life and past, especially our time together. She was right, 1993 sucked. It was all bad and that was my part of her life.

Day eighteen

Reality kept shifting as I listened to Nobuko. A subtle phasing in and phasing out that no one else noticed.

The concept of three dimensions became arbitrary; one of many. Substance stopped being differentiated and the table, the coffee cups, the tea kettle, the wall behind Nobuko, the sculptures on the wall behind Nobuko, Nobuko, Elizabeth, and Linus, all the substance were the same thing, and I could have reached out and my hand would have gone right through Nobuko.

I hadn't seen Elizabeth for a year and half. We had dinner in the Richmond and ended up in a cafe near Nobuko's place.

I was thinking about Nobuko's life and her goals and Elizabeth starting a "real life" in a job that she wanted. Also Lisa trying to carve out her life direction.

People treat life so differently from how I treat life. I don't take these physical surroundings as reality. I exist in it and I am identifiable in it, but that identity has many contained, recognizable characteristics. I get into situations and react in a manner in accordance with those characteristics. That is me just for the moment.

Sometimes I get sucked in and treat my surroundings as real. I get wrapped up in negative things and the impact is so great that I have no choice but to involve myself into the fabric of the situation. But I never react in extremes to great fortunes or misfortunes. Things that should make me ecstatic or throw me into despair don't. The knowing that all things are impermanent is deeply ingrained in me for some reason.

I am at an age where people have goals, and people need a way to get to those goals - they have jobs. They go day to day inserting themselves into the wheels of society to make it turn. For their participation, they get paid. With the pay, they take care of sustenance, invest some for the future, and with the rest they do their best to keep themselves amused. Find friends, go to movies, go to dinners, have discussions. How mundane! Years go by, they age, soon enough they'll be thirty and looking at their lives against the scale of their expected lifetimes. And it all ends at some point. "Life" goes on.

I don't want to go through it. Not alone. Just for myself it would be a waste. Keep myself alive, amuse myself nightly. And now, I feel so alone. Death or monastery. I've learned all I need to in the material world and to continue living this life in this form would be fruitless.

The R&B band rehearsed this morning in a studio in San Francisco. I'm feeling less secure about my playing and my time, but I'm just doing what I can. I'm not thrilled about the bass player. She's not very good at leading a band, but it's her project and she's not going to relinquish control to anyone. I also feel no connection with the guitarist who is quiet and doesn't emote a whole lot.

Day seventeen

“Hello?”
“. . . Hello, Koji?”
“Yes”
“It’s me”
“I know . . .”
“Um, if you don’t want to hear from me, I guess you should tell me now.”
“No . . . no, it’s good to hear your voice.”

I got a lead on something to do. Wendell's sister, Karen, is quitting her job at Ohana Cultural Center and they need volunteers to pick up her projects until they decide whether they can afford to hire someone else and continue those programs. I met with Karen today and she briefed me on the projects I would be taking over. I was there to decide whether I wanted to do it, but as far as Karen was concerned, I already had. She's right, I had. It's just something in me. My fear of committing to anything.

I wasn't even committed to college. I went to college riding a flow, and it turned out to be a five year current I floated on. It never entered my mind to push my potential and apply my talents and positive attributes to some productive end. It was the same attitude with which I entered law school: this won't last, I'll just do it to see what I find. I didn't find anything and it was only at the end that I realized what a wealth of opportunity I had squandered.

I'm out of school with no responsibilities and no structure to my days. I don't have to be anywhere at any time and no one depends on me for anything. I like it like that. I look for volunteer opportunities and nothing jobs, but my mind freezes every time I think about making the call and giving the impression that I want to do something. I can't seem to get it through to myself that it will be necessary to commit if I want to do something. It will be necessary for me to stop living my life my own way and as I please.

Day sixteen

Uneventful days, no ads in the newspaper for bands have caught my eye. Clutching at straws, trying to find something happening. Something to occupy my mind, and take my mind off her. I checked out Kevin's neighborhood a few days ago. Nice neighborhood, I wouldn't mind living in the Richmond District. The kind of place I can step out at night to just take a walk around the block if I wanted to.

Day fifteen

How cold and cruel she was. Merciless. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe that's why I think this is just a phase and that we'll get back together again. It is so unlike her that maybe it is all a result of her current situation and circumstance. If she does come back . . . She is my analogy to God. Rumi:

Listen to the reed-flute, as it tells its story
As it complains of separations:

Ever since they tore me from the reed-bed
Man and woman have wailed at my cry

I want a heart torn, rent by separation
So that I can set up the pain of love’s longing;

Whoever has remained far from their source
Seeks to return to the day of their reunion

My secret isn’t far from my wailing
But that is not a light for eyes and ears

Soul and body, body and soul, aren’t veiled from one another
Yet no one can see the soul

The sound of the reed is fire, not wind
Whoever lacks this fire is nothing

The fire is love that has fallen in the reed
It is the bubbling of Love that’s fallen in the wine

I can't believe that any of what we went through was real. I don't believe we even existed. The things she said, her hypocrisy. Letting her back? Let what back? None of it was real. So selfish, so self-interested. It overwhelms me that she was able to get so close to me. Lies filtered through teeth. She didn't care enough to even try to protect my trust, she didn't even try to leave me with a good image of her, that there was a higher reason for what she was doing. She did it all for herself and that is all she presented it as being.

But I don't believe it, I don't think this is permanent and it will only be a matter of time before we get back together and work this through. Very slowly. I just need to put on my waiting shoes and wait. And when she comes back I won't have my defenses up, she won't have to prove or justify anything. If she comes back, her coming back is all the proof I need for anything.

Analogy to God? But she's only an analogy, the love is mine.

Day fourteen

If Amina came back, I like to think that I would take her back without hesitation; that what happened between us was all the result of divine interactions and that the sea of love would overcome this river.

Reacting any differently would be betraying my own love. With a true love, it doesn't matter what she does or what she says, the love just is and anything is justifiable and excusable. If she comes back, that in itself would affirm the spirituality in the love.

So the question for me until she does, and I think she will, is whether I truly love her or if she has merely appropriated love meant for something else.

But if I have no doubts, why am I even thinking about it, why is it even a thought.

Day thirteen

It's hard to get up in the morning. There's nothing to look forward to anymore. Not even the stress of school to bum me out. At least it was something. But no, if I were in school I'd really be hard-pressed. I wouldn't have seen Nobuko almost every day for a week and I wouldn't have gotten together with Kevin to perform at the coffeehouse.

The days have no meaning and the world around me has no substance. I don't care about anything anymore. I still have my humanity and I still feel, but nothing has relevant essence anymore. Anything could happen in my life and I don't think I would care.

Diem, Luyen, Shiho, Madoka, Valerie. It feels like they've all gone away with Amina. As if the meaning they had in my life were attached to her being in my life. Now that she's gone, so are all of them. All gone to do their own thing and go their own way. I wonder if I could have kept Shiho if I had tried.

Day twelve

I saw "Schindler's List" with Bonita and her housemate at the Grand Lake Theater.

We had our first rehearsal for the Asian American R&B band. I held my own. No where near perfect, I made tons of mistakes and I never felt like I was really "on", but I had fun playing with other people. We ran through a bunch of R&B standards, and after the singers and the horns left, the rest of us just jammed. My feelings are mixed. I don't feel like a drummer, I completely lack the technical skills, but it was still fun.

Day eleven

The Bay Area needs the rain that today's clouds and gloom brought. I didn't need the gloom that today's clouds and rain brought. It brought down my energy levels way low, so I went shopping and saw an awful movie. I stayed in this evening. I guess I needed a break after going out just about every night or doing something every day for the past week and more.

Day ten

There was a coffeehouse at Ohana tonight. Kevin and I had talked about doing something for it last week, and he decided he wanted to do it. He came over this afternoon to work on something. I had been stuck coming up with bass lines, but I got several ideas this morning that I thought could accompany a rap.

We used a beat from my sequencer and he liked the bass lines that I had, so we rehearsed the rap several times, grabbed some burritos from Estrellita, and headed over to Ohana. It went OK. I'm terrible on stage, but it was alright being in a support role. I'm terrible in the spotlight.

After the coffeehouse, I hung out with Dong, Ed, and a woman named Rachel who already graduated from law school. Ed really wanted food, so we decided to go to Fenton's on Piedmont, but the grill was closed. He had to settle for dessert.

It turned out that Rachel is from Bridgewater, N.J. and lived on Rector Road, almost on the way to Uncle Aki's house. I only know the four roads that go to Uncle Aki's house, I know nothing else about Bridgewater. I couldn't even remember the name of one of those roads until Rachel said it. It just so happens she used to live in the only area of Bridgewater I knew. It was a fun, free-feeling evening. Dong and Ed are just hilarious together. I truly had a good time.

Day nine

So much for staying away from the Starry Plough. I went to see a band called "Jungular Grooves" because the description in the paper said that they had a pan player. Unfortunately the pan player wasn't with them tonight.

Still, the bands there were really good. There was a band called "D'verse" playing when I got there, and they were a high energy, soul/funk band, with a kick ass drummer. They were the kind of band I imagine Sakura being in.

But if the drummer for D'verse was amazing, the drummer for Jungular Grooves was out of this world. He had a conga to the left of his hi-hat and he did this thing where, without missing a beat, he would tuck his left stick under his right arm, and start playing a conga line with his left hand while his right hand continued playing the full set. It was unreal.

Day eight

Out of school, out of work, out of luck. Days are lazy. No hope for a future in the material world, less and less desire to be in it. Society, life, and living, concepts that confound. All these images, all these symbols, all to be rejected from being considered real. It's a game to pretend that it's all real, and it all really ends at death. And if death really is the end, why hasten it? The game can stop being fun. The game can stop having meaning. It can stop having meaning that is brought on by living it.

Earning a salary, going day by day, doing what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. No more exploration brought on by the time on my hands spent alone.

It confounds me so to live life accepting its symbols while walking on a path that only leads to the end of those symbols as I had come to accept them by just living life.

It confounds me so to be wrapped in this skin, having all the objects and people on the outside and me on the inside. To see, feel, sense, and have everything individualized with separate identities. Objects, the sound of rain, the brightness of light, the secrets of darkness.

I went with Nobuko this evening to check out a band called "Alphabet Soup" at a bar in San Francisco called "Café DuNord", on Market Street near Church. We got there about 8:30 and they didn't come on until 10:00, so we drank beer. I, of course, had been drinking all day with nothing else to do. We discussed our lives and apprehensions about the future. What we usually talk about, it seems.

Day seven

I picked up a tape for an Asian American R&B band that I'm going to try out for on drums. I'm nervous and intimidated by the thought of playing drums in an R&B band, but at least they're Asian American. If it was a white band, forget it.

After picking up the tape, I went to a bar in Berkeley called "Starry Plough" for open mike night to check out the local talent and perhaps meet people and network. Networking is good. Going to "Starry Plough" for open mike night is not. Lots of white people with acoustic guitars.

Day six

I was supposed to be at Nobuko's place at 9:00 this morning. MLK day. It was really hard to get out of bed, probably because of football. I got there late. I figured we wouldn't be ready to go at 9:00 sharp. We weren't.

Shortly after I got to Nobuko's, Ansje called to say she was on her way to pick us up. Then we were on our way to Monterey Bay for whale-watching. Another bright, sunny, warm day. It couldn't have been more perfect to go out into the ocean on a boat.

It was several hours away by car. We made one stop after I made a comment that my brain wasn't functioning because I hadn't had coffee. The roads weren't particularly scenic; Rte 101 most of the way. Rte 1 is the supposedly the scenic one. Someday.

A strip of shops and restaurants crowded with tourists and visitors led to the dock where the boats left. Nobuko had the foresight to reserve tickets before we left. We picked them up at a place called "Sam's" and bummed around until our boat came in.

From the boat, we could see starfish because the water was so clear. Sea-lions swam and floated about, co- habitation with humans being a natural order for their lives. I let myself get mesmerized by the water and just stared at it. I continued to stare at the water when the boat headed out. I get these meditative fixations when confronted by things that overwhelm me beyond comprehension.

Endless sea, endless sky, clear horizons, moving fast and not seeming to get anywhere. I don't think I would like being on the sea, the distances would baffle me so. I couldn't adjust quickly enough, to maintain my sanity, between dealing with the far away things, like land in the distance, the horizon and the water stretching out, and simultaneously dealing with being on a boat with people right there.

We did see whales. During the drive home I kept wondering where the whales were and where they went after our encounter with them.

Day five

Football today in San Francisco in a park near Kevin's place. We were supposed to play softball, but the fields were out of service and we ended up organizing a game of touch football. There were a bunch of people I didn't know, a bunch of people I'd met before, and people I knew.

Nobuko, Amita, and Ansje were there and they had a lot of fun playing football for the first time in their lives. Dong, Ed, and Wendell showed up late and we re-chose teams to accommodate them and it looked like it was going to be a good game.

But as it happened, after a certain kick-off, Kevin got the ball and started zooming single-mindedly as he does. And Ed, I don't know, he gets in these unshakable mindsets, and this time it was apparently to stop Kevin. I remember it all in slow-motion, Kevin and Ed colliding at full speed. Both of them were in the air on impact, and then the two of them falling to the ground.

Ed ended up going to the hospital, but he's OK, no broken nose as we feared. Just hideously swollen. Kevin ended up with a minor concussion. He was almost knocked out and had a headache when I left him later. It's all kind of amusing in retrospect. In retrospect.

Day four

A late start to such a wonderful warm and sunny day. A late start to a day after coming home from Amita's so late. Linus had given me a ride.

It wasn't until after 2:00 p.m. today that Anh-thu, Linus, Nobuko, and I headed off to Napa Valley, wine country.

I had already been to the Ashby flea market, and then I was to meet Nobuko and Anh-thu at the Lake Merritt BART station. Nobuko was on time, but Anh-thu? Sometimes we expect too much. Nobuko and I headed towards another flea market not far from the Lake Merritt BART station. After looking around briefly, we went back to the BART station and Anh-thu had just arrived. We left to pick up Linus and headed off on the hour-plus drive to Napa Valley.

We knew we were pressed for time since we started off so late. We had to choose our wineries carefully. Beringer was a name we all knew, so we went there. We were too late for the tours, but we were able to do some tasting. The sun was well in the west and the air was getting ever so slightly chilly. I don't know if it was the wine or just the atmosphere, but there was a certain joy and serenity in the air.

The second winery we went to was Krügs and that was more interesting. Only Nobuko and I did the round of tasting and the bartender was informative. It developed in me a new appreciation for wine. A return for a full round of wineries is definitely called for.

We ended the trip shopping for a briefcase for Anh-thu at an outlet she heard about in Napa Valley, and then we had dinner at an A&W's that we were fortunate to spot on the way back. We drove back through Marin County, straight into San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Day three

I put on that sob-story drama for Dean Hughes, making it sound like my life was completely falling apart, and then what do I go do? I go out and see John Woo's "Hard-Boiled" with Kevin and Ed. It feels good to have time, and that's precisely what I bought for myself. Time to get on my bike after dark and ride down to the BART station and to move with the night crowds. To wander city streets under arc lamp and avoid the seedy people and criticize the yuppies and pseudo-bohos.

There was a party tonight at Amita's place in the Mission District, not far from Nobuko. The Mission doesn't have a reputation of being the safest neighborhood, yet there I was, finding myself there at night doing things I wouldn't be doing if I was still in school. Ooh, exciting. Time that I've bought.

There is an electricity to the city at night, compared to suburban New Jersey or Ohio. Even Oakland. The San Francisco air feeling like there's something happening, unlike New York which was either hostile or too big (and boring) in its own self-importance. Although there was that one evening in high school with Olga, which became the topic of my college essay. Reminiscence. All very reminiscent of walking around Osaka for hours at two in the morning with Madoka and Sakura.

More than half the people at Amita's were Obies. Less than half were not. It's been so long since I've met people. I don't know if I can or want to start again now. I'm a loner. I like to do things alone. Going out and doing things and meeting people is so very incongruous to how I live my life; to how I want to live my life. Contrary to contrary opinion.

I prefer being withdrawn. That's what's real. Meeting people isn't bad, and going out and doing things isn't bad, but it's bad to think that there's more meaning to those encounters beyond superficial contact. It's distracting to my concentration. People aren't real. Going out and doing things and meeting people are only shadows, exercises in movement, facades.

My entire life has been withdrawn. It's all been about withdrawal. Otherwise, leave of absence. Going out and doing things has only reinforced my sensibilities about how superficial life is. I'm finding through experience now what I had known cognitively for years. Books aren't enough.

Day two

As I hung up the phone, I thought I felt an angel blow across my temple and remove the weight and intensity of what had just happened. Everything would be alright. Something will guide me to my truth, as long as I remain sensitive to the guidance and not let myself be clouded by emotions and impulse. In the sea of love, there are no shores, all there is to do is drown.

The decision to withdraw from law school was probably one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make about my life. I was making it final, setting it in stone. I was leaving law school, going completely against the 'rents, saying goodbye to my safety net, climbing out of a deeply cut family groove. As much as I hate the 'rents, I found the ties that bind to be chains.

I walked into Dean Hughes's office after waiting in the lobby for half an hour contemplating my resolve. She wasn't the hard-nosed bitch that l perceived her to be previously. She was down-right professional.

"How may I help you?" she asked as she closed the door.

"I would like to withdraw," I answered without sitting down. I could tell she was taken off-guard, leaning over to push the door shut. She regained her posture and hesitated to fully take in the meaning of what I said.

"You're a . . . first year student?" she asked, having an idea but not the fact.

"That's right," I replied. I had already broken from my script in which I was supposed to inform her of my name and year immediately. At least I made an impression walking into her office announcing that I wanted to withdraw.

"Well," she began as she moved behind her desk, "is there a reason, or is it something you want to discuss, or . . . have you made your final decision?".

My brain almost froze. I struggled to rise to the occasion. I run important encounters through my mind a zillion times beforehand because I'm never good at them when they happen. It never helps.

"Well, I...", I diverted my eyes to the right and recovered, "I'm going through some serious family problems," I said quietly, "and I'm also having a lot of trouble in a relationship. I just know that if I have to deal with those problems and to have school work on top of that, it would just be too distracting for me to do as well as I would...require of myself." Standards? Why did I bring standards into this? Idiot. "I just know that the stress of juggling and balancing everything would be too much to handle. I don't want to leave school, but..."

"Would you consider taking a leave of absence?" she asked. Bingo!

"Is that an option? Yea, I would definitely do that if possible." She reached over into a drawer and pulled out a form. From that point, I didn't care what she said. She was going to give me a leave of absence and she was going to process it herself on the spot. I figure in retrospect that if I went in asking for a leave of absence, she would have asked more questions and required more proof to justify it. But announcing that I wanted to withdraw, I guess, was all the justification she needed. Students are money, and if not this semester, there's always next.

I don't know what she may have thought about my reasons. What are the worst possible scenarios that she could have imagined to fit the descriptions of "family problems" and "troubled relationship"? I didn't lie, I feel the crises justified leaving school, but if she knew the actual details of what was going on, I doubt that she would have authorized a leave of absence. Who doesn't go through these problems? But if they were serious enough for me to want to withdraw, they were enough for her to give me a leave of absence.

She left the office several times while I filled out forms for a leave of absence and to drop all my classes. She signed all the forms to make them official and to have my tuition refunded, and she told me what I had to do to get back in next Fall.

"I hope you are able to work out all the problems and I hope to hear from you later," she said sincerely.

"Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. I know the problems are resolvable, they just need time," I replied.

"I understand."

I left the building floating and in disbelief. I had a safety net under me. If nothing worked out, I could always return to law school in the Fall. Amina criticized me for always having a safety net, and said it was about time for me to not have it. Sometimes it's better not to have one. She may be right, but what the hell does she know about my life?

Day one

Best thing that ever could have happened.

She lost faith. She's the one who lost faith. Faith in who knows what. I don't, she never told me enough during our relationship or about our break-up for me to assess where her faith lied.
Her faith lied. Whatever she had faith in, she lost it.
Was there magic in that relationship?
Was there spirituality in that love?
Was there a deeper meaning in what we were?
Was there a dream there?
A symbolic hope?
What just happened?
It's official, we've broken up. The end had to be reached, and we reached it. The love of my life is no more and the shock is impossible to face.
I came home to a house with all the locks changed I rang the doorbell and she answered the door with the chain and told me I wasn't welcome anymore. It wasn't my home anymore, everything had changed.
What had changed? - she had rearranged the furniture and painted the walls a different color.

She said our love and our future plans were deluded and unrealistic. And of course, the path she has chosen, the safe, risk-free path, is undeluded and realistic. She said I'm afraid of taking risks. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. It was something she used to push me away. She accused me of failing to mature and grow with society as a part of society. Suddenly this great impulse on her part to be a part of society. With all rights and privileges pertaining thereto.

She erects hazy images around herself, steadfastly calling them her "new reality". What a stupid idea. Her "new reality" just means cutting me out of her life. How much of our relationship was a lie? I may never know now. All of it was deluded.

She has exchanged one delusion for another. So she to her deluded life, me to mine. Her without the concern or care to tell me about this revelation of deluded lives. She stood firmly on her ultimatum, with no need to explain herself, no need to justify, no need to acknowledge the past three years of our lives. The past three years of my life, it couldn't have been at all hers.

Who was this person these past three years? This person who I wanted to build my life around. This person who was the ground, the meaning and breath of life, who made me want more than I ever wanted before out of life. In a moment, all of it disappeared and none of it really existed. It was just good-bye, go.

The last year was hard. I guess there was a warning sign over Fall Break when she said she wasn't happy with our relationship. I never reached a breakthrough after that. Nothing really ever got better. Through this entire year that we went out, she continued to distance herself. It wasn't a good year, it wasn't a good relationship. But she was the love of my life. I always had hope that circumstances would present themselves for us to work things out. She never gave it a chance.

I am emptied. It leaves me with little left. The shell of my body is emptied.

God gives and gives and gives. God is forever giving, always and everywhere. And always and everywhere, people turn their backs on god. Death, disease, violence, crime, and people turn their backs on god without any regard for what god had given them all along until that point, rejecting any further teaching god is giving through their experience. What am I to learn through all this?