three-nine-seven
Hey,
It's okay
if the answers, they lay
a couple more steps away.
Try to wait.
The coldest of nights just a break of a beautiful day.
We're lost and we can't find our way.
No, we won't change who we are.
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
You're going too far;
you're making your problems
bigger than they really are.
You will drown.
You will soon be forgotten,
and people, they always move on.
But it's okay,
because the answers, they lay a couple more steps away.
Try to wait.
The coldest of nights just a break of a beautiful day.
We're lost and we can't find our way.
No, we won't change who we are.
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
We moved on, we are stronger than ever now!
We moved on!
We are stronger than ever now!
We're lost and we can't find our way.
No, we won't change who we are.
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
We're lost and we can't find our way.
(Lost and we can't find our way)
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
-----"Lost" by Against the Wall.
Video. Go listen.
☼♫♥☺☼♫♥☺☼♫♥☺
So, it's officially summer. Today was my very last day as a sophomore in high school, and now I've hit that weird limbo of summer where sometimes you call yourself the grade you were, and sometimes the grade you will be, but most often you don't want to think about grades and school at all.
I think everything that has happened in the last few weeks is finally truly hitting me; all the bad, yeah, but mostly the good. God, how good it's been. I've had Beloved over to my house and nothing's gone wrong; emotions were shared but we all pulled our own weight. There was a hell of a lot of laughter and swimming and fireworks of sparking light and melting raspberry ice cream shared on the curb.
I made up with Manashi last week. I think that was the final straw, the greatest of all good omens for this summer, which somehow already feels bloated with things so infinite and touching that I can't picture them. Not the smiles and laughs and hugs and sadness as the seniors graduated, but the fist-sized clay turtle given as a birthday gift, and the sound of broken ties reknitting. It's all hitting me like the drops of rain drizzling outside, and I'm smiling and crying all at once; this great weight I didn't know I'd been carrying has lifted.
It was his birthday last Thursday, and I spent three or four hours making a turtle out of white clay and painting it in shimmering tones of aqua, silver, and navy nail polish--the sparkliest, turtley-est, Manashi-est thing I could find. The Blink 182 lyrics (his favorite band, always and ever) were carved around the rim of the shell, and the inscription made in color-coordinated Sharpie on the bottom. "You're already a voice inside my head / I Miss You. // Kame o kashite kudasai. Happy 16th, ani. 6.4.2009" The Japanese says, "Let me borrow your turtle," something we said in Japanese last year, all the time. A simple line with no obvious meaning that spoke more than any English phrase I could ever write.
The more I think of it, the more I wonder why the hell I was so worried that he'd turn me away with insults and cold glares full of old grudges. He took the turtle and my apologies without anger, he told me it didn't matter, and he hugged me. For the first time since this fall, certainly, and maybe the first time since last June really meaning it, Manashi hugged me. And in that second he was my ani again, my Older Brother, he was the Nashi that made me paper wristbands when I couldn't find anything else , the one who played Enya double-speed on the piano in the recesses of the dismal junior high, the one who chased me through the mud at the river-bottoms laughing, and then helped me wash it all off. And today it was final, it was sure. We made promises for the summer, and as we exclaimed over the passing years, I think we both simultaneously rejoiced that we had made it through and lamented over the year so lost to us with each other. And we embraced around all of that, through all of that. And I can see that maybe, just maybe, he was missing a piece without me, too.
God, I missed him. I missed him like I've never missed anybody in my life, and I didn't really feel it until I didn't have to miss him anymore. Like not noticing a hole until it's refilled. I'd never realized how often he came into my thoughts just to be shoved away, leaving the ghost of a song or the fading hues of a memory. Now... now there's this overflowing happiness that I can't explain, because we were meant to be like this, connected in ties like family, but stronger. Because somehow he is a missing piece of me, and I knew it, I've always known it.
And my God, I have Kai and Sayuri walking with me wherever this path leads; the two most wonderful girls that have ever existed in this world. The ones who will literally walk with me three miles home from school, splitting a Chipotle chicken burrito and a gallon of Minute Maid Berry Punch. The ones who will clean my room and record me stupidly sweet songs in the hour when I'm gone for something else and leave them home. The ones who rejoice with me over the Beloved's triumphs and lament with me when they fall. And I admit sometimes I forget, sometimes I think that what we have is the normal teenage friendship, but then I look at them and I wonder how I could ever truly be jealous, or angry, or live without them, ever, when all we are is three parts to a bigger whole? Not only the Beloved, but the rest of the web we call our world, our life. We are all part of this, and at the same time we are so much more than this, because there is something here beyond the high school friendships, ties to make and break and change. This is bugger, this is better, this is more.
This is the purest feeling of love and peace and contentment I have ever known. Right now, in this moment, I don't care what else happens. This is all I need, and all I ever have--my Beloved ones, connected, to me, through me. Completing me.
Selah.
☼Estrella Morona Chai
It's okay
if the answers, they lay
a couple more steps away.
Try to wait.
The coldest of nights just a break of a beautiful day.
We're lost and we can't find our way.
No, we won't change who we are.
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
You're going too far;
you're making your problems
bigger than they really are.
You will drown.
You will soon be forgotten,
and people, they always move on.
But it's okay,
because the answers, they lay a couple more steps away.
Try to wait.
The coldest of nights just a break of a beautiful day.
We're lost and we can't find our way.
No, we won't change who we are.
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
We moved on, we are stronger than ever now!
We moved on!
We are stronger than ever now!
We're lost and we can't find our way.
No, we won't change who we are.
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
We're lost and we can't find our way.
(Lost and we can't find our way)
But still we are here to stay.
No, we won't change who we are!
-----"Lost" by Against the Wall.
Video. Go listen.
☼♫♥☺☼♫♥☺☼♫♥☺
So, it's officially summer. Today was my very last day as a sophomore in high school, and now I've hit that weird limbo of summer where sometimes you call yourself the grade you were, and sometimes the grade you will be, but most often you don't want to think about grades and school at all.
I think everything that has happened in the last few weeks is finally truly hitting me; all the bad, yeah, but mostly the good. God, how good it's been. I've had Beloved over to my house and nothing's gone wrong; emotions were shared but we all pulled our own weight. There was a hell of a lot of laughter and swimming and fireworks of sparking light and melting raspberry ice cream shared on the curb.
I made up with Manashi last week. I think that was the final straw, the greatest of all good omens for this summer, which somehow already feels bloated with things so infinite and touching that I can't picture them. Not the smiles and laughs and hugs and sadness as the seniors graduated, but the fist-sized clay turtle given as a birthday gift, and the sound of broken ties reknitting. It's all hitting me like the drops of rain drizzling outside, and I'm smiling and crying all at once; this great weight I didn't know I'd been carrying has lifted.
It was his birthday last Thursday, and I spent three or four hours making a turtle out of white clay and painting it in shimmering tones of aqua, silver, and navy nail polish--the sparkliest, turtley-est, Manashi-est thing I could find. The Blink 182 lyrics (his favorite band, always and ever) were carved around the rim of the shell, and the inscription made in color-coordinated Sharpie on the bottom. "You're already a voice inside my head / I Miss You. // Kame o kashite kudasai. Happy 16th, ani. 6.4.2009" The Japanese says, "Let me borrow your turtle," something we said in Japanese last year, all the time. A simple line with no obvious meaning that spoke more than any English phrase I could ever write.
The more I think of it, the more I wonder why the hell I was so worried that he'd turn me away with insults and cold glares full of old grudges. He took the turtle and my apologies without anger, he told me it didn't matter, and he hugged me. For the first time since this fall, certainly, and maybe the first time since last June really meaning it, Manashi hugged me. And in that second he was my ani again, my Older Brother, he was the Nashi that made me paper wristbands when I couldn't find anything else , the one who played Enya double-speed on the piano in the recesses of the dismal junior high, the one who chased me through the mud at the river-bottoms laughing, and then helped me wash it all off. And today it was final, it was sure. We made promises for the summer, and as we exclaimed over the passing years, I think we both simultaneously rejoiced that we had made it through and lamented over the year so lost to us with each other. And we embraced around all of that, through all of that. And I can see that maybe, just maybe, he was missing a piece without me, too.
God, I missed him. I missed him like I've never missed anybody in my life, and I didn't really feel it until I didn't have to miss him anymore. Like not noticing a hole until it's refilled. I'd never realized how often he came into my thoughts just to be shoved away, leaving the ghost of a song or the fading hues of a memory. Now... now there's this overflowing happiness that I can't explain, because we were meant to be like this, connected in ties like family, but stronger. Because somehow he is a missing piece of me, and I knew it, I've always known it.
And my God, I have Kai and Sayuri walking with me wherever this path leads; the two most wonderful girls that have ever existed in this world. The ones who will literally walk with me three miles home from school, splitting a Chipotle chicken burrito and a gallon of Minute Maid Berry Punch. The ones who will clean my room and record me stupidly sweet songs in the hour when I'm gone for something else and leave them home. The ones who rejoice with me over the Beloved's triumphs and lament with me when they fall. And I admit sometimes I forget, sometimes I think that what we have is the normal teenage friendship, but then I look at them and I wonder how I could ever truly be jealous, or angry, or live without them, ever, when all we are is three parts to a bigger whole? Not only the Beloved, but the rest of the web we call our world, our life. We are all part of this, and at the same time we are so much more than this, because there is something here beyond the high school friendships, ties to make and break and change. This is bugger, this is better, this is more.
This is the purest feeling of love and peace and contentment I have ever known. Right now, in this moment, I don't care what else happens. This is all I need, and all I ever have--my Beloved ones, connected, to me, through me. Completing me.
Selah.
☼Estrella Morona Chai