071110

"It's not like you're dying," said my ex-wife to me. I can't tell you how everyday I wonder why I just keep pushing on. Pretty soon, I won't even be able to feed myself!

--Adam on Facebook

*OPP*

If You Forget Me

by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

*Quotations*

If we don’t teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence.

--Colman McCarthy

The life that awaits you is not that of the happy couples you see strolling along before you in Westerland, no lighthearted chatter arm in arm, but a monastic life at the side of a man who is peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly.

--Franz Kafka

I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.

--Walt Whitman

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. This allows us to discover that, "There is no way to happiness--happiness is the way."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

To laugh often, to win the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of fake friends, to appreicate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

--Emerson

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.

--Gandhi

There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.

--Goethe

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.

--Einstein

The life and love we create is the life and love we live.

--Leo Buscaglia

*Poem*

The Storm

The biggest storm in 40 years hit Hualien

and the two-story apartment I had just

rented near the river was drowned

in water so deep it reached well above

the second floor. I'd just moved in

and every last one of my possessions

on earth was lying on the first floor. I

waited as long as I could. When the river

got close to the back door, huge roaches

started invading; I tried madly to

stop them with a hammer before realizing

it was pointless and that I needed to head

for higher ground to save my life. Being

that there were only a handful of white

people in town at that time, during

the storm, I fled to my friend Andrew's,

dodging tree branches and falling

telephone poles on my small motor bike.

The day after the storm was a hot day.

A couple from New Zealand, Carole

and Peter (she was born in Holland

actually) had also come to flee the storm.

All of us tinkered around the house all

day, sweating and waiting for news

about the town being cleaned up and

back to normal. So hot and humid

we could hardly breathe. A tank top

and shorts felt like a three-piece suit.

Carole's husband left the house for a

while, to get some groceries. I checked

on the river at some point, and my

apartment house still drowning in it.

I remember nothing very remarkable

about that day. I do remember

Carole telling me that she'd married

when she was 18 and had never

been with a man other than Peter.

"That's very sweet," I'd said, biting

my tongue about my pity. But,

the following day, when I returned to

find my life of papers and photos and

cassettes and clothes had become so

much trash in a matter of minutes, I

got a phone call. Andrew was

calling to warn me frantically that

I needed to leave town as quickly

as I could. "What are you talking

about?" I demanded. "Well, it's

about, ah...you and Carole."

"Me and Carole? What about me

and Carole?" "She told her husband

about you two." "What two? What

the hell did she say?" "She said you two,

you know, had a thing. And Peter is

so pissed he said if he sees you he'll

shoot you." "We had a what? I have

never even so much as glanced

sideways at that woman." "She seems

to think you all had a few moments

yesterday while Peter was away." I

thought for a moment. "Oh my God."

"Oh my God what?" "I was so hot

I took off my shirt and I was walking

around in my boxers." "So?" "So

she said something, you know,

kind of off color for a married woman

to say. I didn't think anything of it;

I didn't even quite hear what she said."

"She said, 'If you don't put your clothes

back on my husband is going to know

about us.'" "About us? What the fuck?

And how would you know what she

said?" "She told her husband that she

said you should put your clothes on."

"And because I didn't, that means I

was coming on to the woman? Peter

didn't even bat an eye when he got

home." "He didn't care until Carole

talked to him later. Said you were

coming on to her and she didn't mind."

"And now Peter wants to shoot me?"

"You know as well as I do how crazy

some of those Kiwis are. If I were you,

I'd catch the next train out." "Well,

we'll just see about fucking that. But

thanks for the heads up." "He knows

where you live. I wouldn't stay."

I hung up the phone and looked

around me, at my muddy clothes, my

ancient journals stuck together with

brackish water, my pile of photos which

had become a pile of glue. I realized

that if the cosmos were ever trying to give

me a sign, this must be it. Even if

Peter doesn't shoot me, I'm leaving,

I thought. I carefully picked through

what little I could salvage from my

sodden, soaking life. Still wearing the same

t-shirt and shorts as three days before,

no sign of a shave in sight, no particular

long-term destination in mind, I hurried

to the train station and managed just barely

to catch the 6:00 train headed for Taipei.

I watched the coastline roll by, as we

scurried along the tracks, so dangerously

close to the Pacific it was like the engineers

wanted to tempt fate. I wondered what would

happen if we fell in, just as I had wondered

dozens of times before on this same trip.

Decades later, I still wonder what

will happen when I finally let myself

fall in, re-appear suddenly in the middle

of my own life, like The Man Who Fell

to Earth. What will happen if I wake up

one day and find I've fallen in love with

everything? I'm pretty sure I already have,

actually. I mean, everything makes me

cry, everything makes me want to be

a better person, everything makes me

want to lay down and fuck off all day

instead and anyway, everything makes

me want to wait out the storm just

to see if I'm still standing. Isn't that love?

Peace love and ATOM jazz