a quiet room, lots of light, and a foggy view of the outside world. i sit in silence, such stillness is absolutely delightful. i take in the details of this scene, percisely for what they are, details. i try not to extrapolate by metaphor, instead, i consume, i consume this quiet. the light pushes softly on my retinas, intensifying and dimming in no particular pattern, and i match my breath to it, inhaling deeply at it's brightest. a fly moves in geometric pattern, cool, collected, methodical. i watch it for a while, like the hopeful watch the stars. i search for a story, then stop myself, and watch the text emerge from the carved out space behind its movement. there are artificial lights too, bright green and alien. they don't flicker or dim, they register as important points of endless energy i don't understand. a mass of crumpled blankets peak and valley like too many mountains i've seen before. i skirt the edges with my mind, imagine the lint slides and fallen hairs like trees decorating the landscape. i pick up my coffee cup only to be met with disappointment, when did it disappear? isn't that how it goes though? you go to sip and realize that all the anticipation and delight you imagined will not be fulfilled? don't think i'm being a pessimist, this isn't a metaphor for life. remember, no extrapolations, no calling one thing another in such grandiose sweeping terms, (ah, but i can't help it). a pessimist doesn't realize that the next cup of coffee is a mere few steps away. i pause.
where was i? i sip my coffee, ah Folgers...i'll spend my last dime on something with a bit more personality tomorrow, but i've had worse. oh the power of comparison, it can make anyone a pessimist or an optimist depending on how you pair (pare) things.
the rooster cuts in sure as the light and the fridge maintains the white noise of modern living. i let my back completely give into this coushioned chair, my baggy night-time clothes, still draping me in sleepy, seamless fluidity. it all feels like a dream. my mind wanders and bumps up against responsibility. i focus, bring myself back to the details. i am a tired warrior and i don't dare fight the dragon today.
a horse head looks at me from across this wide, open room. if i stare at it long enough it melts into the wall behind and i find myself living in a two dimensional world. i wonder if the ti leaf plant inside resents the plants outside? but resentment is a human emotion right? oh, i don't understand anything sometimes.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
a post from the field
Things are whispy and yet sharp. My eyes track easily over these edges. I know them well. It’s been some time since I’ve written anything purely for the sake of writing it. That is, besides letters, I haven’t just written. It feels strange and I worry about how this all sounds and who might discover me tapping away on this keyboard, talking to myself.
Perhaps I’ll be fearless, write this knowing that in the end I won’t save it. I will simply highlight it all and press the backspace. What if life were like that? What if we could all utilize the power of the backspace? Ah, but this has been thought before by much brighter thinkers than I and yet lull in this dream-like childish naivite. I mean, nothing can be taken back, truly, truly, as if didn’t exist, right? Yes, and even this writing as very boring as it is, cannot be taken back. Sure, I can swipe away the script, but the action, the minutes devoted to it will never return. So is there ever a truly fruitless effort? If effort involves energy there is always the energy spent, but is that fruit? Is fruit a product? Or perhaps more importantly, can fruit be a by-product? I scratch my head.
Another day, no dollar. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as I think it should. Perhaps I don’t think ahead, perhaps I’m too simple. I push my big bull head against the window and contemplate responsibilities. A chill, and I stop. Too complicated. So what is there to think about if not the direction of one’s life? I contemplate comfort. I contemplate the long drive, and what I want to listen to and where my mind will sail. My lips feel whispy and yet sharp. It’s dry out here in the desert, those idioms and metaphors were right. My fingers are starting to thaw unfortunately just at the moment where my mind has begun to slow.
I kick up dirt in my dreams, mulling over memories. I try to curl my toes, yup, still frozen. Where was i? Oh yes, my dreams. If this were my personal computer I would launch into a diatribe detailing every nook and cranny of my dream world, but seeing as this could be bearing to too much to…
Perhaps I’ll be fearless, write this knowing that in the end I won’t save it. I will simply highlight it all and press the backspace. What if life were like that? What if we could all utilize the power of the backspace? Ah, but this has been thought before by much brighter thinkers than I and yet lull in this dream-like childish naivite. I mean, nothing can be taken back, truly, truly, as if didn’t exist, right? Yes, and even this writing as very boring as it is, cannot be taken back. Sure, I can swipe away the script, but the action, the minutes devoted to it will never return. So is there ever a truly fruitless effort? If effort involves energy there is always the energy spent, but is that fruit? Is fruit a product? Or perhaps more importantly, can fruit be a by-product? I scratch my head.
Another day, no dollar. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as I think it should. Perhaps I don’t think ahead, perhaps I’m too simple. I push my big bull head against the window and contemplate responsibilities. A chill, and I stop. Too complicated. So what is there to think about if not the direction of one’s life? I contemplate comfort. I contemplate the long drive, and what I want to listen to and where my mind will sail. My lips feel whispy and yet sharp. It’s dry out here in the desert, those idioms and metaphors were right. My fingers are starting to thaw unfortunately just at the moment where my mind has begun to slow.
I kick up dirt in my dreams, mulling over memories. I try to curl my toes, yup, still frozen. Where was i? Oh yes, my dreams. If this were my personal computer I would launch into a diatribe detailing every nook and cranny of my dream world, but seeing as this could be bearing to too much to…
Thursday, January 28, 2010
a thank you note
dear friends and family,
i got up this notion to write everyone at once, to dramatically indulge in the entry line "dear friends and family" and to take this moment to say thank you for everything each of you are to me. now, i cannot promise that this email will be grand or poetic, it won't be the sort of stuff that has Renee Zelwiegger saying "you had me at hello", BUT it comes from the heart and i mean every word.
some of you i've known for about a year (BB represent!) and some of you i've known my entire life. i have been so fortunate in my few years to have the most sincere and good people surrounding me. the love that i feel from each of you, in your own way, is well beyond any of my words. i cannot thank you all enough for the support you've given me in our time together, especially during these rocky few months. i want to tell you, that your talks in person, on the phone, in emails and facebook, in spirit, have made a huge difference in my life and my happiness. for all the advice and the laughs, silly photos and heart-to-hearts, for the hugs when i really needed to be touched, for the SOUL RECOGNITION, i thank you.
this saturday night, jan 30th, i'll be boarding a plane to ontario, CA (california that is :) ). i will be spending 6 weeks learning how to better conserve our natural lands. i'm nervous, excited and eager to be learning new things. i'll be back in Hawaii by mid-march. i don't have a physical address yet, but as soon as i get one you'll all be the first to know :)
the world seems to be splitting all the time, trying to balance the light and the dark. we live here like trees, our life bifurcating like branches, growing ever closer to a beautiful sun. my friends, my family, i carry you in my boughs, you encompass my heart in rings...we grow with each other, ever upward, ever outward, ever inward, forever.
with love
bre
i got up this notion to write everyone at once, to dramatically indulge in the entry line "dear friends and family" and to take this moment to say thank you for everything each of you are to me. now, i cannot promise that this email will be grand or poetic, it won't be the sort of stuff that has Renee Zelwiegger saying "you had me at hello", BUT it comes from the heart and i mean every word.
some of you i've known for about a year (BB represent!) and some of you i've known my entire life. i have been so fortunate in my few years to have the most sincere and good people surrounding me. the love that i feel from each of you, in your own way, is well beyond any of my words. i cannot thank you all enough for the support you've given me in our time together, especially during these rocky few months. i want to tell you, that your talks in person, on the phone, in emails and facebook, in spirit, have made a huge difference in my life and my happiness. for all the advice and the laughs, silly photos and heart-to-hearts, for the hugs when i really needed to be touched, for the SOUL RECOGNITION, i thank you.
this saturday night, jan 30th, i'll be boarding a plane to ontario, CA (california that is :) ). i will be spending 6 weeks learning how to better conserve our natural lands. i'm nervous, excited and eager to be learning new things. i'll be back in Hawaii by mid-march. i don't have a physical address yet, but as soon as i get one you'll all be the first to know :)
the world seems to be splitting all the time, trying to balance the light and the dark. we live here like trees, our life bifurcating like branches, growing ever closer to a beautiful sun. my friends, my family, i carry you in my boughs, you encompass my heart in rings...we grow with each other, ever upward, ever outward, ever inward, forever.
with love
bre
Friday, January 22, 2010
seed 1
i gasp in this waking life, thrown ashore, my chest heaving in this consciousness. but once i've calm myself, i'll see that i have legs and a little imagination to get me through this. i run open chested into the wind, taking in and releasing in equal measure, images of you sprouting in catatonic and psychadelic beauty in front of my mind, in the fore front of my mind. i run open chested into you, heart first, i've never felt so free, i've never felt so vunerable. i hear my heart, familar, soothing, a stabile and safe place to lay your head.
Monday, January 18, 2010
life's questions
there are many things i'll never understand. i could innumerate them here, but who wants to read a list of unexplainables. we spend our lives trying to answer questions that don't have answers, to solve the insolvable and we die still wondering. once you've stopped wondering then you might as well stop living. but this is a bold statement isn't it?
i am told to write stories, to put down the events of my day, to inject a little humor into the mundane, to hold the obvious up to scutiny's light. but my days are unremarkable, and perhaps entirely boring, but they are above all, mine. i work at a hospital. i catalogue and deal out pills. you could say i'm a drug dealer, but the hospital doesn't like the connotation of such diction and so i work in the "pharmacy". i wear really white shoes, my clothes are ironed and my hair is neat. don't you trust me now? my white shoes squeak when i walk, squeak with all the things i want to say, but keep locked away, carefully guarded, even more so than the psychotic protection of the narcotics. i make my rounds, run the same pattern day in and day out. same room first, same room last. not much changes, well besides the drugs and the patient, but my job is the same. one tray of drugs out, and a new one goes in. sounds easy enough. it's easy to get lost when you first start, the drug names are more esoteric than breeds of unicorns and of course, these letter combinations (i wouldn't call them "words") make no sense to me, that is, they have no meaning. i might as well be dealing with hyloglephics. i let my eyes take a beating, i match up the curved and straight lines that denote the powerful substances i hold in my hands. vials and pills and solutions and powders, am i an alchemist? if so, tell me where the syrrum of happiness lies or the elixer of love. but i don't find any of these. i see only medications for insomnia, for tremors, for constipation, for nausea, for hypertention, for rash, for fever, for pain. i don't make the coctails either. not in my job description. i just fill what some invisible source tells me to fill then i go a knocking on doors. "pharmacy" i say, my shoes squeak, i try a smile, but i'm not even fooling the patient. if i can't fool a dope, who can i fool? perhaps i'm the dope or i'm the fool? i haven't decided if these are mutually exclusive terms quite yet. just another of the questions i ponder in the long list of questions i ponder. i switch out the trays and try not look at the patients, whether this is for my sake or theirs i haven't quite ascertained. it's difficult, i'll admit, to see such sickness everyday. to see people at their weakest and most vunerable. the smell of death fills me and all i can offer are some white tablets no bigger than the head of a thump nail. it's a crazy business, drugs; i feel i might be too soft for this sort of thing. my heart sinks when i see you, mouth open, barely breathing. what are you thinking? or are you? what do your dreams look like, can you remember? to feel so disconnected from the content of the cure and yet so accutely connected to those who rely on those cures, is a very strange middle ground. nothing seems to happen as you expect it. i can honestly say, i never thought i would be working at a hospital, i never thought i would be seeing people the way i've been seeing people, to be in charge of all that i'm in charge of, to belong to a system that i begrudgingly believe it. and so i'm left wondering, the same questions that i started with at the beginning of this entry, the same questions that i have always been wondering. the human quest for reason, for meaning. why are we? who are we? why this path? why here? why now? where does this go? where does this go? where does this go?
i am told to write stories, to put down the events of my day, to inject a little humor into the mundane, to hold the obvious up to scutiny's light. but my days are unremarkable, and perhaps entirely boring, but they are above all, mine. i work at a hospital. i catalogue and deal out pills. you could say i'm a drug dealer, but the hospital doesn't like the connotation of such diction and so i work in the "pharmacy". i wear really white shoes, my clothes are ironed and my hair is neat. don't you trust me now? my white shoes squeak when i walk, squeak with all the things i want to say, but keep locked away, carefully guarded, even more so than the psychotic protection of the narcotics. i make my rounds, run the same pattern day in and day out. same room first, same room last. not much changes, well besides the drugs and the patient, but my job is the same. one tray of drugs out, and a new one goes in. sounds easy enough. it's easy to get lost when you first start, the drug names are more esoteric than breeds of unicorns and of course, these letter combinations (i wouldn't call them "words") make no sense to me, that is, they have no meaning. i might as well be dealing with hyloglephics. i let my eyes take a beating, i match up the curved and straight lines that denote the powerful substances i hold in my hands. vials and pills and solutions and powders, am i an alchemist? if so, tell me where the syrrum of happiness lies or the elixer of love. but i don't find any of these. i see only medications for insomnia, for tremors, for constipation, for nausea, for hypertention, for rash, for fever, for pain. i don't make the coctails either. not in my job description. i just fill what some invisible source tells me to fill then i go a knocking on doors. "pharmacy" i say, my shoes squeak, i try a smile, but i'm not even fooling the patient. if i can't fool a dope, who can i fool? perhaps i'm the dope or i'm the fool? i haven't decided if these are mutually exclusive terms quite yet. just another of the questions i ponder in the long list of questions i ponder. i switch out the trays and try not look at the patients, whether this is for my sake or theirs i haven't quite ascertained. it's difficult, i'll admit, to see such sickness everyday. to see people at their weakest and most vunerable. the smell of death fills me and all i can offer are some white tablets no bigger than the head of a thump nail. it's a crazy business, drugs; i feel i might be too soft for this sort of thing. my heart sinks when i see you, mouth open, barely breathing. what are you thinking? or are you? what do your dreams look like, can you remember? to feel so disconnected from the content of the cure and yet so accutely connected to those who rely on those cures, is a very strange middle ground. nothing seems to happen as you expect it. i can honestly say, i never thought i would be working at a hospital, i never thought i would be seeing people the way i've been seeing people, to be in charge of all that i'm in charge of, to belong to a system that i begrudgingly believe it. and so i'm left wondering, the same questions that i started with at the beginning of this entry, the same questions that i have always been wondering. the human quest for reason, for meaning. why are we? who are we? why this path? why here? why now? where does this go? where does this go? where does this go?
morning thoughts/mourning thoughts
it's 5:45 am and i am getting ready for work. i arm myself with discontent and clothes that make me look old, at least i think so. the day comes into view shortly and the way it looks always depends one the agenda behind my eyes. today, work, from the morning to the evening. i may see the sky for a half hour if i'm lucky. but of course, i'm dramatic, making my situation seem dire. the situation in haiti is dire. world povery and world hunger is dire. my job and my thoughts for the morning are irritants, uncomfortable friction against my soul's desire. this is in no way a dire situation. sometimes i need to remind myself of this fact, yes, things are what you make them and honestly i have it too good to be any sort of martyr. everyone deals with things they don't really enjoy in order to set themselves up for greater success in the future. keep your eye on the prize sort of mentality. and yet, i think, when do these adages and chiceed sayings become inadecate? yes, like Rocky, i need to remember never to give up kid. and i think, well, i don't like this very much and things about my current state bother me. however, do i put up with it? delay gratification? we cannot be content all the time. this is true. and so what do we strive for then if not the prize, or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, if not a delicious cake that we not only have but also consume? and so i sit, drinking my coffee and feeling perfectly content to stab at this keyboard with my sleepy fingers. where does the time go? well, if there is one thing i am sure about, it's the uselessness of bemoaning the loss of time. time, time, never promised to stay, never gave the illusion of permanence. and here i am, spending time...
Sunday, January 17, 2010
sunday morning and i am sitting in bed with a cup of coffee hoping to drive out the best prose anyone in this small corner of this virtual world has ever seen. whether or not will truly happen, is of course, up to my environment. i am finding more and more that my ability to write is very directly affected by my environment. today my father is home. he's a loud individual whose steps can be heard through even the deepest sleep. and of course, he thinks it acceptable to open the door to this room and walk in and immediately start talking. if i had to describe this feeling, i would say it's like having a very expansive presence, perhaps not unlike a giant in a small space. that presence takes much of the air, and it's sheer volume and mass alters the flow of the energies around it. i'm not trying to be negative, rather, i'm stating exactly what i feel. i can never write well when my father's around. his presence preoccupies my mind...ah, but there is always times for challenges and herein this premise i begin to write while a giant looms above me.
i have been working at the hospital for three days now. i will try to describe it a little for you all as you're so kind as to be curious about my new job. things have been really rough in spots and tolerable in others. it's a difficult position to be in, mostly because i'm in no way trained or really prepared for this sort of work. i have no knowledge about pharmacutials save the brief social and medical theory research i did for my thesis. but i have no practical experience. i know what pain meds are, but i'm not even allowed to touch those and so, i'm still at a loss. the position is temporary and they are treating me like that. this isn't to say that my department isn't nice, in fact, they are very nice, but they are not taking the time necessarily to train me as one would do for a more permenant employee. but the good thing is the feeling is mutual. i don't like working at the pharmacy so i don't mind that it's temporary.
the work is tedious and daunting. anytime you're dealing with drugs you really don't want to make a mistake, but that's why there are so many eyes to check and see what you're doing. so that's good. the people more or less responsible for training me is mike. it's an ex-navy man who was trained as a pharmacy tech. he's very knowledgable but doesn't always explain things, he just kinda does it. but yesterday i worked with asheley and she's really nice. she explains a lot more.
so my job is pretty much to make the pharamists job easier. i fill all the meds i can (these do not include the narcotics) and i make the rounds delivering them to the patients. i put in one tray of drugs and take out the other. it's definately nerve racking especially since i don't exactly know my way around the hospital yet. but i'm learning. seeing the patients is difficult, and really paying attention to what sorts of drugs they're on makes it even harder. i don't think i could work in this field for long and see all that sickness all the time.
it's exhausting work, not physically but mentally. i miss my freedom that's for sure. but i know money is money and i need to get it. i got offered a chance to do a 1 1/2 month long training program for trail work in CA but it started Feb 1st and i knew i wouldn't be able to make it by then. part of me wonders though, how things may have changed if i went. who knows how long this pharmacy job will last and who knows how long i'll be living in HI. it's all a mystery. i'm just glad to be sitting in my bed instead of working in the austere office of pharmacy.
sorry this wasn't funny or incredibly poetic or even enlightening. i do really have a difficult time spitting things out sometimes. but i hope this at least gave you a small idea of what i've been doing. hopefully, if things go as i hope they will, i'll be able to write another breedom today, perhaps with a bit more solace.
love all my readers!
i have been working at the hospital for three days now. i will try to describe it a little for you all as you're so kind as to be curious about my new job. things have been really rough in spots and tolerable in others. it's a difficult position to be in, mostly because i'm in no way trained or really prepared for this sort of work. i have no knowledge about pharmacutials save the brief social and medical theory research i did for my thesis. but i have no practical experience. i know what pain meds are, but i'm not even allowed to touch those and so, i'm still at a loss. the position is temporary and they are treating me like that. this isn't to say that my department isn't nice, in fact, they are very nice, but they are not taking the time necessarily to train me as one would do for a more permenant employee. but the good thing is the feeling is mutual. i don't like working at the pharmacy so i don't mind that it's temporary.
the work is tedious and daunting. anytime you're dealing with drugs you really don't want to make a mistake, but that's why there are so many eyes to check and see what you're doing. so that's good. the people more or less responsible for training me is mike. it's an ex-navy man who was trained as a pharmacy tech. he's very knowledgable but doesn't always explain things, he just kinda does it. but yesterday i worked with asheley and she's really nice. she explains a lot more.
so my job is pretty much to make the pharamists job easier. i fill all the meds i can (these do not include the narcotics) and i make the rounds delivering them to the patients. i put in one tray of drugs and take out the other. it's definately nerve racking especially since i don't exactly know my way around the hospital yet. but i'm learning. seeing the patients is difficult, and really paying attention to what sorts of drugs they're on makes it even harder. i don't think i could work in this field for long and see all that sickness all the time.
it's exhausting work, not physically but mentally. i miss my freedom that's for sure. but i know money is money and i need to get it. i got offered a chance to do a 1 1/2 month long training program for trail work in CA but it started Feb 1st and i knew i wouldn't be able to make it by then. part of me wonders though, how things may have changed if i went. who knows how long this pharmacy job will last and who knows how long i'll be living in HI. it's all a mystery. i'm just glad to be sitting in my bed instead of working in the austere office of pharmacy.
sorry this wasn't funny or incredibly poetic or even enlightening. i do really have a difficult time spitting things out sometimes. but i hope this at least gave you a small idea of what i've been doing. hopefully, if things go as i hope they will, i'll be able to write another breedom today, perhaps with a bit more solace.
love all my readers!
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