Tree

I've never been one to be afraid. No normal man feels terror at the tooth of bark beneath their fingers. This Tree bothers me though. Touching is seems like touching the hand of an unpleasant sort of fellow. It's like I'm giving Charon the fare for my journey. But instead of gold or promises, the price is my life. With a frown tweaking the corner of my mouth, I move my fingers. A sliver of breath  between my calloused flesh and the white bark. But it feels like an eternity away. My gray eyes cast themselves up, up towards the twisting, gnarled branches of this Tree. Nothing about them should be frightening. They've still got their leaves which rustle with the fall wind. Still green. It looks like they should be turning soon, but they don't. They never have. Green against that stark whiteness. It's not like the Tree of Gondor, though. It's as bright, but in it I find no hope. I don't seem to want to focus on the leaves. They shift in and out of focus, like they're trying to turn my head away from the fruit upon their branches. It's a pretty,  smooth fruit that I imagine has a pulpy texture. Maybe like a plum. I could have a plum if I wanted - it's just a little ways back in my orchard. But they aren't really in season, either. Still, that fruit in this Tree looks..good. Orangy purple with flecks of green and yellow. And smooth. 

I have to take my eyes off of it. It makes me dizzy to look too long at the leaves that want me to play hide and seek. So I lean against the trunk and my back grows cold. It brings an ache to the teeth in the back of my mouth. A tugging. I grind my teeth a little, but it doesn’t do any good. It’s a marriage of electricity and power. But the cold is what grips me. A few seconds longer and I may have gone mad – so I pull away. The gray falls from my eyes. Green again. I could not see my own eyes, of course, but I knew. They would be a dusky, pine-needle green for awhile. They’d get bright again. They always did, right?

The Tree whispered something, but I missed it. And I was glad. The voice was as cold as the bark, but it drilled into the soul instead of the skin. I left. I had to; the Tree would’ve harassed me.

I was told to stay away from it anyway.

Synthetics and Overtones

I had to write two sonnets for Creative Writing. One is about robots. The other has spiritual overtones, though I never try to be obvious about it. But I think it is kind of obvious. I don't claim to be a poet (to be honest, it's not my strong point. I can appreciate poetry and love it, but I'll stick to writing narratives.) These are potentially very rough drafts.

Synthesize numbers and strings in a line

Process with logic; no room for error

Inhumanity’s heavy; I its bearer

My heart does not beat in rhythm or time

 Point A and Point B, reason without rhyme

Impartial justice, what could be fairer?

Spectrums of gray breed nothing but terror

All is equation and every fact mine

Activate: wink into counterfeit life

Framed up in silicone and in plaster

I see flesh and call it a disaster

There’s no emotion, no cut of a knife

I could be happy, this data is key

When you are in the ground, I will be free.

 ________________________

Borrowed and Blue

Cast me away and drape me with wire

No hesitation: hide my heart in death

Broken in two and licked by the fire

Smother everything and misplace my breath

Life is not bought lacking a sacrifice

And death affords us no second chances

So kill the deadness and trap every vice

And crush this branch without second glances

But raise me with courtesy to forgive

Buy me; dress me in things borrowed and blue

Light the stars in my eyes starting to live

I am yours: your heart, your ransom, your dues

This’ no victory march; that title’s taken

I would not trade it, be not mistaken

Shell Station

Ghost town. That really what you could call it. Though “town” was kind of stretching it. It was really just a gas station on a long road of nothing that gave the vague impression that there was a dusty little backwoods town somewhere nearby. Daniela pulled up on her motorcycle. At one time in her life, it could have been a polished Ducati. Not now, no. It was a little Yamaha, a sporty black YZ6R. Her dirty fingers tore the helmet from her head, then wiped her forehead, beaded with sweat. It left a trail or dirt where she touched while the breeze twisted away at her dark curls.

Daniela peered at her surroundings first. Her time on the road had taught her caution. Behind her, the road, and a thick line of pine trees. Most of them looked dead or scorched, their branches looking sad and twisted like lame, reaching hands that begged for pity. Was she in Tennessee now? She thought she must be. Daniela snatched her keys protectively, jammed the kickstand down, and looked at the gas pump with acute irritation.

The whole station looked awful, like the sort of place a horror movie would be filmed. Dusty with flecking, dull paint and rust and grease. A bug-filled light flickered above her head. Daniela kicked the gas pump, which was either long dry or simply no longer functioning. She wasn’t going to last long without fuel.  

The woman brushed her dark curls over her shoulder, bundled her jacket that much closer to her body, and headed from the entrance. A flashlight came from her pocket as she reached the broken glass that heralded the entrance. Careful not to cut herself, she slipped in. The flashlight illuminated dust more than anything, filtering across the beam intrusively. Most shelves were long empty. Looted, most likely. Money was useless now anyway. At least there were no people here, hunching in the darkness and hissing like feral cats at anyone who invaded their haven.

Daniela snatched the few remaining Slim Jims from the floor. Gallon of water. She was surprised they were there at all, but considering the distance from civilization, perhaps she shouldn’t have been. It wouldn’t have been the first place people fled to when the end came. It was kind of lonely. An unloved gas station, left to rot. Gutted. Forgotten. Alone.

But they were all alone.

The Mine

Day One

I don’t recall the events that landed me in this world. I don’t understand why it was me. Perhaps I’d have a better idea as to why if I remembered who I was. But, here I am. The coastal waters lap against the sand in a deceptively peaceful way, but I have the feel I shouldn’t be lulled into complacency. Something is very, very wrong. From the sea and thin strip of white sand, the terrain towers. Mountains, cliffs, peppered and punctuated with flourishing trees. It looked like the perfect vacationing spot.  But I don’t feel like I can stay here. So I walk. Uphill. Before I know it, the walking turns into climbing. The dirt gets packed beneath my nails and sweat forms on my back, my brow. But I don’t stop. No, I only pause once when it looked like the tree just below me moved in a way it shouldn’t have.

It was satisfactory to reach the top, though my lungs stung and my throat went dry. At the peak, it took my breath away anyway. An endless expanse unfurled beyond the horizon, hazed in the furthest of distances. Seas shimmering, mountains and plains and gently sloping hills. Clouds drifted in rolling pulses, the sun winking behind. I found it utterly breathtaking – such a beautiful world! I could not, however, ignore that lack of towns or buildings, or any sign of my kind. Where were the people? Below, sheep milled around in the grasses. No shepherd tending them. I wait in my spot on the mountain top; letting the wind ruffle my hair. It felt like one of those pleasant spring days that left you wishing every day matched it. My stomach growled, rousing me from the enjoyment of my surroundings. I became increasingly aware of my need for the necessities, the ones they also told us about in survival classes. Shelter, water, food. But where could I possibly start? I had no tools and this was not the jungles of South America. There were no banana leaves for roofing. Start small, I suppose.

I picked up a big, flat rock and I started to dig a shelter into the side of my mountain. Dirt would do for now. The sun started to set behind me as I dug. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.

Subtlety

I've noticed something about people at MC. Not "people" as in "everyone" but "people" as in several in different classes in different subjects. Actually, it's less of people at MC and more of college-age Christians. No matter what happens, no matter what they talk or write about, it somehow turns into a very literal vision of Christ or biblical stories.

Now, there's nothing wrong with seeing Christ and the influence of your faith in everything. I do that. Every time I see or drink water, I think of Jesus because He planned it that way. 

But there's something to be said for the art of subtlety. 

I'm glad you're open and honest about your faith, but you really didn't need to turn writing about those lines on the ceiling to the Crucifixion. You don't need to get in people's faces and preach to them in every given situation. If there's one thing I think Christians need to learn, it's subtlety and timing. You can speak volumes of truth and say so much about God without recounting the New Testament. It's how you act, what you do, and how you treat other people that ultimately says the most about the God you claim to follow. And you can write, and you can be thinking of Christ when you write, but being subtle about it, to me, is always more powerful. Read some Ted Dekker. He's a master of revealing Truth and God without preaching. He shows the dark side of life and of religion and of people and the Truth is never compromised in the process. 

We are to bring redemption and truth to every facet of our lives. But for the outsider, preaching isn't going to do that most of the time. Loving them and revealing inherent truth about life and bringing hope while not shying from the sin and the reality of evil will. Be the body of Christ for them.

I'm glad you're a Christian, I'm glad you want to tell people. I'm one too. But just because we're a Christian university doesn't mean you need to turn everything into a shameless pulpit. A blind date is not something to muse about as being a grand spiritual experience (or proselytizing on said blind date); nor does all of your writing have to spell out the Bible for me. But subtle. Reveal truth. Be love. Bring redemption. 

Have answers ready for the faith that you have - when the questions get asked. Overbearing doesn't get you anywhere, especially when it comes to faith. Pounding the Bible at someone gets you no where. 

And frankly, when someone who isn't a Christian KNOWS the Bible and knows the teachings of Christ, and still rejects it, it is not ever going to help to continue to try and "save their souls". It's their choice, the ball is in their court, and if they reject Jesus, then they reject Jesus. Continue to love them regardless, as we are called  - but if anything will hurt your cause, it's pounding your Bible at them. Being love will go a lot farther.

Fire for Val Jester, A Room for Your Love

Last night I found myself seeking meaning. I had intended to finish a commission and do character designs for the graphic novel I'm going to be doing (another story in itself; I meet a writer at Free Comic Book Day and now I'm penciling ha). I ended up listening to The National on Pandora Radio and browsing Listverse. (I also found out that Cracked isn't blocked in College Plaza). For a long while I didn't feel like I was actually doing anything. Yes, I was reading, yes I was listening to music. But I found an emptiness in what I was doing. I didn't want to sleep, I'd become frustrated with artblock, and my will to do what I needed to do was gone. I suppose I should've pushed through it, but in truth, it was almost two in the morning and I needed to be asleep above all things. I finally forced myself to go, but my head wouldn't shut up. 

I feel like I'm just biding my time, going through the motions of school and my activities. One more class then one more hour then eat then sleep then try to be productive until I can just pretend I made progress enough to allow myself to waste more time. I want this and that, and the childish part of me doesn't want to wait for the right time. I'm counting the days until this and the months until that and the years until I find myself married and working on what I love. It's really an awful feeling - limbo. I shouldn't be in limbo - aren't your college years supposed to be the best?

Instead I have my eyes on other things. I know what I want to do but I can't do it until I finish this. 

And really, singleness is starting to weigh on my heart. I don't have room to complain, I guess. I was in a relationship with my best friend and is lasted for four years. Of course, now that I can look at it without my heart messing with it, I know it wasn't right. It just wasn't. And I have dear friends who deserve for people to love them in that romantic sense; men and women who truly seek God's heart that go unnoticed by potential suitors. But I think maybe I'm in that place too. I don't feel like anyone looks at me with promise in their hearts; and at the end of the day, I do want to be desired and chased. I don't want a game. I've never wanted a game. I've been single for over a year now. It's messing with my self-esteem and my image and I'm trying to do all these things to make myself 'better' so maybe a boy will like me then. If I'm skinnier, if my hair looks better, if only I could change these little things about myself. Maybe then. 

What a horrible way to live.

I know this mindset is absolutely horrible. I know it's wrong and screwed up and but here I am thinking like that. The end of my last relationship really made me feel inadequate as a woman. Maybe I've been faltering since then, I don't know. 

But I do know I'm sick of it. And I'm sick of going through the motions to get to the next thing. 80% of my classes I feel like I'm sleepwalking through them. I don't enjoy them. I've got one art class (which is slowly turning into more of a chore. I skipped it this morning.) and my Creative Writing class that I like. I'm sick of trying to superficially fit myself into images other than who I am.

I'm writing a narrative about Minecraft. Sounds silly, but playing Minecraft in singleplayer brings out an interesting emotion after time. Utter loneliness. No matter if you build sprawling mansions or temples or grandiose libraries or an underwater secret base; cities and towns - you'll always be alone. An idle king. No one will see your great monuments to human ingenuity. You are utterly alone in your world. All of your achievements become ultimately meaningless because you are alone. 

So Minecraft has retaught and reinforced this in me. Without people, without love, without God, we are alone. And everything becomes worthless. Life is meaningless without Love. 

So now I play Minecraft in a multiplayer server. 

And then I've been worrying about money and my future because that's just what I do. I know my goals, I know what I want to do with my life, it's the getting there that's such a challenge. Where do I go for graduate school? How will I afford it? Should I just wait or take the leap and just..go. 

Point is, I'm not content.

Sometimes I particularly love Pauley Perrette. Sunday, she tweeted "Be kind & forgiving of yourself today. You matter."

I think I need to pay attention to that.

I'm going to keep listening to The National while I do something productive. It's time to move forward.

[Note: Apologies for the moodiness/sulkiness/sappiness of this post. Also for how random it is. What up stream of consciousness.]  

The Evolution of Writing

When I was younger, I tried to write a lot. I started roleplaying when I was twelve, and I hardly knew what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to write stories. And so I did. Granted, they were not in my own universe. But I still wrote. And now I've been doing that for eight years! It's strange see the evolution of my writing. I'm the type to be swaying by authors I enjoy. I was guilty of purple prose. Perhaps not to the degree I've seen, but without looking back at my own writing (thankfully not many of those early posts are around).

Agh I just found some from 2003. I thought about posting snippets to actually SHOW how I've changed, but it's too painful for me to read. At least by this point I was capitalizing my "I"s. But oh my gosh I was like everything I currently hate in a roleplayer. Well, maybe not everything. But a lot of things. (All of my characters, especially NPCs, had really terrible names)

My writing tended to be clunky. It tried too hard to be what it was, and, granted, I was just trying to be a better writer. I learned from reading and from not wanting to suck in face of a lot of other writers on the various role-plays I participated in. Granted, the evidence says I still sucked. And maybe I still do, I'm not sure.

But I'm learning that less is more. Flowery language works sometimes, but I find that you don't always need it. I found this especially true in reading my the essays of my classmates! Not to put any of them down, but for some..it was painfully obvious that they're trying too hard. Micah and I were simpatico, I think, which helped grandly. I still felt bad for giving an honest critique. But there was no real poetry, no real feeling, in that essay. It felt empty and pretentious like the man who studies the thesaurus to impress his 'smart' friends, but doesn't know what any of the words are, and so no one understands him. 

Or maybe I'm just reading too much Ted Dekker. I feel like my writing has slanted in his style lately. I actually found this when I wrote a (don't laugh) fanfiction this month. Yes, I wrote a fanfiction. I never write them, simply because I never like the stories I come up with enough to put them out, or I don't feel like I can convincingly write the characters. But this time, I did. So I wrote. And I like the end product, and apparently a lot of other people did, too. Encouraging.

Gray or Blue

I'll put the link there, but you know. If you don't know much about NCIS you aren't going to find it interesting, I don't think. I feel like a Class A dork for writing it, but eh. Don't care. I've always been that kid, so why stop?

I think my writing has become a little less about describing everything and more..internalized. Even in narrative, it's more like I'm writing the character's thoughts and questions and reactions that merely detailing the blueberries on the muffin, and how the sit in the muffin and the color that they taint the muffin with. That all well and good, since everyone likes muffins, but writing like that all the time turns into fluff and purple prose that never says anything. I'd rather make an impact in few words that give someone ten lines of ultimately pointless descriptions. My policy has always been to write how much I feel I need to write. Never write more than you need to for the sake of length. Anyway, here's a bit of something I wrote for roleplay yesterday.

Rain turned into mud. A miracle of nature to behold. Daniela was tired. It had been enough traveling from the coast of Florida up through the states, up to Illinois. She had driven her car until it couldn't be driven. Then she biked until it couldn't be ridden. And now she would walk until her feet gave way and crumbled like worn plaster.

She'd tucked away anger and turned it into determination. Her family was gone, she knew. She knew that. Her hand brushed her dark, matted curls off of her dirty face. Raindrops dribbled from her brow into her eyes and from her chin to her chest. She was just glad her duffel bag was of waterproof canvas. It was a small blessing jammed into the nooks and crannies of an existence that had been characterized by avoiding people like the plague and running for cover when strange ships zipped overhead. Sleeping in dead cars and picking out the healthiest foods she could find in dilapidated, unsanitary gas stations. Sometimes they had people in them. Sometimes there were dirty and scared and ran, other times they tried to take advantage of her, and sometimes they had guns that looked like flashlights and Daniela would run with burning lungs that wouldn't let her catch her breath. Sometimes she chose to fight, but most times she just ran.

And now she was in Chicago, where the burdened clouds dropped their heaviness. Mud wasn't around as Daniela got further in. The buildings she knew must have been grand once. Their gleaming windows were duller than they should have been, even under the deluge. Broken in places. Mostly broken, in fact. God, all Daniela wanted was a place of relative safety to stay. Sure there would be someone, something here..

Her toes were wet and chilled. Why did she ever leave the sunny warmth of Florida? She wasn't made for the cold. Daniela pulled her damp cardigan a little closed to her body and only felt colder.