To Serve a Higher Cause

One would think after six months of intense mental, spiritual, and intellectual workouts the fat would all just fall off. All that strain, all that labor, pressured into a blade that just slices all the undesirable stuff right off.

And yet for some reason the enigmatic paper proposal goes half written. I waded through all of my collections of knowledge. I purged it forth, supporting my ideas purely with legitimate quotes and about seventeen opening lines later I come to the real Maleficent, enchantingly beautiful despite the green skin. Why in the world am I writing a paper proposal for a cause that can be answered with one drawing?

How, in the light of the Restored Gospel, do we portray the Divine? With respect, in its purest form. Points. Lines. Planes.

So give me something to believe 'cause I am living just to breathe. And I need something more than what I'm breathing for, so give me something to believe.*

While sitting here in my sweats, channeling Carrie Bradshaw with an unblocked writers block, one has to wonder: when will the believing really kick in.

Then I realize that it already has. And while I may not really care to finish the paper proposal, I do care to find out exactly what prompted me to begin one in the first place. The girl working the graveyard shift at the local McDonalds would not care to deal with a subject so obscure. Kandinsky. Human Bodies. Why would anyone care about one or the other?

But the girl who will not settle for the lesser attentions of a man, the girl who shows up to work five minutes early, the girl who will give anything for what real relationships she has created her entire life. That girl I shake my finger at, for she is trouble. Man-eater, heart-breaker, untouchable copy of what has been, will be, and simply is somewhere other than here. I sigh at her, at the notion of extreme cost. Breaking, broken, raw. Raw in its pinkness, bloodiness. Raw in an open wound gaping in expression of pain, joy, ecstasy.

She is waiting impatiently for me to retch my guts out and return, water bottles, Tylenol, blankets and all. More, more, always more. There will always be something more. Is it enough to breathe? Never did anything require such a high price. For what must give for a single shallow breath? How many people lie in beds selling their souls for just one more? How many hoarde it in anticipation, fear, selfishness?

In, out, one two three four, in, out, one two three four.

It will not be wasted, not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

*From "Believe" as performed by The Bravery

Housekeeping Notes

There are now two blogs. This particular blog is for writing exercises. The other, found at http://jakofalltrades.wordpress.com, is for academic thoughts ranging from classes to other projects that make me seem entirely precocious, like paper proposals, etc. There will not be any posted assignments, such as papers...because I feel like that will do nothing good for me.

Happy reading. And better yet, happy thinking.

Thoughts to my Counter

The new extension is the embodiment of the corporate world, and I have never felt more out of place. Which, if you think about it, is an odd sensation for me, since I usually love open space. But the granite. The geometric leather sofas. The mountings for plasma tv screens that haven't yet arrived and hung on the walls for NASDAQ scores. There is no paper.

And it is my world all the same. The part that I do not belong in. Because it is her space. Her chosen space.

We've been paired for so long, that hate of our own togetherness festered into all-out brawls. And yet, in my dismal hours, since I was five, I cried for her, for her company. And she came and rolled her eyes. What? What? Emma, I want to go play.

And I reluctantly let her go. And I harbored my pain, mooring it while the storm passed. Her and her gap toothed smile. Her good grades. Her charm, her work ethic, her good behavior. Everything I was not. And yet her space was my space. We were the same.

One birthday I remember the fights. At that point, all you want is for it to stop. We hid in our rooms, with the lights off, the doors closed, hoping that if we closed our eyes, if we held our ears, it would end. The pain washed over me, the embarrassment. Then it happened on hers.

Rage filled me for the first time at them, they who would dare mar her happy day. My happy day was gone, ruined. But hers, hers could be, couldn't it? Why would you have to hurt her too? Isn't my pain enough? I gave my day so that it would pass. I stripped myself of hopes for well wishing, the joy that a birthday should be. But why would she need to as well.

I remember her tears and my own bitter despair at seeing them.

I forgot them soon.

Years later I found myself in the granite space, staring at a row of flags and a stair case. Her granite space, that meant nothing else to me other than something that was not mine. And I thought of her and her black cardigans and her pearls. I thought of her goofy grin when she told a really dumb joke.

I thought of myself, displaced. My university hoodie and jeans, trainers that would be threadbare and showing sock before they were replaced. The books that lined my walls, the ink stains that appeared on everything I would ever own. Never would I walk these granite halls for an hour lunch break between meetings about numbers. I would probably never wear real pearls.

I smile and wonder, after all these years, are we really the same? I am bound for a university lifestyle, a profession to which calls to my ambition like a siren. But are you not as well? Everything I am, you are not, and everything you are not, I am. Were we not meant to be exactly as we are?

Saussure says that words only have meaning in the context of other words. One could then extend that idea to value, which is another definition of meaning. What then would be my meaning, without you? I am, because you are.

We will never be the same. We push apart from each other even as we cling to our sisterhood, our bond. And we will forever be a pair, as we always have been, as we always are, from one eternity to the other, eternally anti. Mirroring. Parallel. Opposites. Bonded.

Rivalry is a petty description for emulation.