Pushing my limits

I just got Blogger to start working again. It's been having some loading issues that have been stopping me from posting. I don't even know what that's all about. 


The last few days have been pretty full. My husband's birthday was Monday and we decided to do a hike in Hong Kong. We underestimated the hike by quite a bit and found ourselves up a certain creek without a certain paddle to help us. It ended up being a 4 hour hike up and down set of mountain peaks. There were three main peaks, the highest of which was over 800 meters high (and we pretty much started at sea level). NUTS STUFF. I've never done anything that difficult in my life. Ever. 


We did make it to the world's largest sitting Buddha at the end of it all. It was a lovely afternoon. It's good that we could still enjoy it after four hours of hiking and what turned out to be some pretty bad sunburns. 


I did learn something about myself. There was no way of getting out of there once we'd gotten in, except to turn back or go forward. There were a few times where I felt like giving up, but since there's no other real option but moving on, there was no giving up to be had. It was a tough struggle for both of us. I can barely move today and we're both nursing the sunburn on our arms, but we did it. I wasn't sure I could do it. I really wasn't. There was a high ridge that we thought was the last, but when we arrived at the top we realized we were only just over halfway through. I had already had to stop and have two significant resting periods to deal with my breathing. I didn't think my body could handle it, but I pushed myself to a new psychological and physical limit. I was overly ambitious in picking a hike I knew my husband would enjoy and most of the planning sites did not indicate the length of this hike. Maps can be deceiving. 


Things I learned:
- Approximately 1280m of vertical climbing is A LOT.
- My husband and I make a good team. 
- I can push my body through a lot more than I realize if I can pace myself. 


That last one is huge. I've been an asthmatic since I was a child. I couldn't run the mile and I get winded climbing to the fifth floor of our building to get into the apartment. We climbed about 5km worth of distance (not including the vertical). It was a long, hard slog of a hike. But we did it. 


I gotta say - I impressed myself. 

Getting My Write On and Proud of It

This week's RemembeRED was to write about something that you're proud of.


I've got to say, the things that I've done on this blog - my little bits of writing and art - are things I am proud of. 


In college, I had an abusive boyfriend that I stuck with for way too long. I developed severe depression and went almost two years before I sought any professional help (which didn't really help, but there you are). I had always been a writer, just as I had always been a reader. I really started coming into some better poetry just as I got into college, but then the depression and the suppressing of emotions and experiences. It was all I could do to hang on for the ride.


Needless to say, my writing dried up. Even when I tried to use it as a creative and therapeutic outlet, nothing came. I used to joke with my (genius, novel-writing) roommate that I had the longest bout of writer's block in the history of man: four years. 


It hasn't been until recently that I've found my way back to writing. Two years ago, I started kicking around an idea for a novel, but nothing much has come of it - a little world building and some random notes and doodles. It wasn't until March, after reading the writing/literary blog of a friend of mine that I started really pushing myself to write and express. I may have started the ball rolling a few months earlier, but pushing myself to write everyday and post to the blog a few times a week has really gotten me expressing in a way I haven't in years. Not only that, but it's taken me back to a way of seeing the world that I haven't in a long time. It's nice to start to see things with an artist's eye again. Pushing to express and finding new creativity where I suspected that it might have dried up forever is something I am proud of. I am proud to have pushed and found myself capable of getting there again. 


Fruits of my labors:
Found in the Sea off Cape Artemision, ca. 1920
Thai Fare
Vapid Aphrodite
Heaven Bent
Orphic Mission

Thai Fare

Today's poem comes from a memory of my recent honeymoon in Bangkok. A wonderful city to visit in the Land of Smiles. 

Thai Fare

The wind of the traffic blows my hair back

as the tuk-tuk driver nervously smiles and nods,

hoping we don’t notice a different face on the license.

A night, previously too hot to walk so far is now

cool with gusts of wind on our sweating brows.

A hand squeezes mine and I look left to see

my new husband smiling like a child at the fair,

whooping with laughter at the roller coaster of Thai traffic.

A skyward glance gifts me with the strangeness of spiderman

decorating ceiling, the red seating piped with blue

sticking to my legs in the heat. At a stop, I point up

and am rewarded with a broad grin, the child-like quality

renewed. All thoughts of “over-priced” transport

and smile-negotiated fares disappear as joy blossoms

on his face in the glow of the city lights. 

On Feeling Guilty

When we do something wrong, we often feel guilt.


From the American Heritage Dictionary:


(gĭlt)  n.

1. 1. The fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense. See synonyms at blame.
   2. Law. The fact of having been found to have violated a criminal law; legal culpability.
   3. Responsibility for a mistake or error.
2. 1. Remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.
   2. Self-reproach for supposed inadequacy or wrongdoing.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/guilt#ixzz1KmK8WLRz


The dictionary gives us the two different meanings of guilt: 1) moral responsibility and 2) the feeling of self-reproach that we feel after a wrongdoing. The thing about these definitions is that there is a WORLD of difference between the two. Being morally responsible for something is not always a bad thing, but guilt is used to describe the specific moral responsibility for some wrongdoing. So guilty people - they are the ones that have actually committed wrongdoings. We're square there, but the psychological state of guilt is where the real problems lay:


Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation.

"Guilt." Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2nd ed. Ed. Bonnie R. Strickland. Gale Group, Inc., 2001. eNotes.com. 2006. 31 December 2007


The self-reproach version of guilt is not always felt by those who are morally responsible for the wrong. Also, self-reproach is often felt by those who have not deviated from a moral standard, but perhaps merely a particular person or group's SOCIAL standard. It is not morally wrong to wear white after labor day, but a fashionista might claim this to be a cardinal sin.The confusion of some guilt-feeling parties is that they have broken a moral code. Sometimes social matters do yield morally charged situations:  


For example, it may be in poor taste and not socially appropriate for me to tell someone that I don't like their haircut or that I am so bluntly honest with them in general, but that does not constitute me as a morally bad person. If I am saying such things with the intention to cause them mental or emotional harm, THEN I am a morally guilty person, but not for merely being honest with a person. 


Now, the party that feels wronged (and not just by their hairstylist) may view me as a guilty party - I am "to blame" for their poor attitude or sadness. It would be quite rude of me to have told them how crappy their haircut was, which might be worthy of an apology. I am assuming that I did not intend this person harm, and therefore upon realization that I did cause them harm, I might go through the appropriate guilt sequence (my action caused them harm, I am morally against the mental, emotional, and physical harming of others, therefore I am and feel guilty of causing such harm and need to make amends). That being said, harm was not intended but was caused. Consequences have actions - understand that good intentions do not absolve you from responsibility.




Real problems come in with true conflation of  expectations/social standards that do not have moral force. I think many people feel guilt over behavior that is not particularly a matter of morals, so much as social behavior and manipulation. The fashionista example was one, but a reaction of resentment and vengefulness on the part of the "wronged" party often results in the feeling of guilt beyond the call of morality.


For example, it may be in poor taste for me to tell someone that their method of washing dishes is ineffective. I might have been trying to help them improve their method in order to promote my acquiring clean dishes in a timely fashion. The dishwasher might take offence to this. Rather than having been caused emotional or mental harm, this person has instead taken damage to their ego (they were a dishwasher for many years in a fine dining establishment! how dare I suggest that using bleach was better than just soap for things that have held raw meat! they know how to clean the damn dishes - the nerve!)


Now, the party feels wronged. One could argue that I HAVE emotionally damaged this person in that their feelings were hurt and I should go through the above sequence of guilt and amends-making. Good. We're square.


BUT (you knew there would be a but) this does not require me to feel guilty every time this person washes dishes, pointing out how appropriately they were handled and cleaned from now until the day I die. That feeling of guilt does not come doing moral wrong - it comes from being punished or the fear of being punished cruelly and unusually for one (or very few) altercations. Killing someone might make you suspect for life, but a comment about dish washing or any other trivial matter such as this should be dealt with and dismissed. 


In fact, I'd like to posit that the dealing out of incommensurate punishment on the part of the "wronged party" constitutes a wrongdoing. They are behaving in a way that intentionally inflicts harm on another party - which is morally wrong. 


The point is that the person who is continuing to be punished and made to feel guilt ought not to feel guilty. The psychological presence of the guilt feeling does not indicate that a moral wrong has been done in this situation. This makes guilt a particular and nefarious feeling to deal with.


The moral of the story, here, is to be aware of yourself: own up to moral responsibility and feel remorse for that guilt, but know that feeling guilty is not always the same as being morally responsible. Protect yourself from the emotional damage of inappropriate guilt-feeling and punishment.

Vapid Aphrodite

A post I got to via lovelinks, by Patricia over at Contemplating Happiness about people watching pushed me over the edge this morning. I went on one of the most lovely Easter Sunday walks to a zoological/botanical garden this year and along the way I picked up (in my writer's mind) a woman, whom I've charmingly named the "Vapid Aphrodite". 

Vapid Aphrodite

We walked through the gardens with spring all abloom

Our fingers meeting in between camera captures, lovely

and bright, the flowers, cranes and flamingos strutting

their best jeweled plumage in the afternoon warmth

We hold the camera at arms’ length, heads together

faces smiling with a light that is not all from above

A sheer mist from the fountain cools our faces, frenzies

of children splash and give chase in the delight

The clicking of another camera comes to our ears

from a fellow being directed by a tall and fair woman

She presents an orange-flowered tree for the camera

as a showcase showgirl presenting her latest wares

The sun illuminates her sun-bleached mop, her lips

too pink, painted as though she could be done up better,

Nature’s beauty undone, she holds her lover’s smile

too long, telling tales of perspiration and aching feet

The corners of her mouth fall with the camera lens,

gone until the photographer glances back up grinning

He leans in for her lips, but she presents a rouged cheek,

looking determinedly for her next ware to showcase.

Comments welcome.  :)

Autumn

Autumn 

It just happens one day, I wake up

and I can breathe in a deep breath

the air is different, heavy and moist

with the smell of dying leaves

never do humans find death so beautiful

as they do each autumn

the earth slowly shutting itself down

for the hibernation months ahead

this – this is when I come alive,

when all else is veiled in tragic beauty




Comments welcome.


Photo by author.

An Idea

I threw an idea over to my friend Erica at free fringes that she might start a small bloggers community. What I didn't expect is for her to throw that proposal right back at me. 


The thing is... I don't know anything about how to go about doing such a thing... but I have started looking into the process. 


Thoughts anyone?

Please excuse the silence

The last few days have been a hectic, emotional whirlwind. Lots of things involving governmental forms, bureaucratic tedium and major thesis revision have fallen into my lap suddenly. I promise a response by the end of the week to the Red Writing Hood and at least one more post before next week, at which point I am hoping to be back to a(n almost) daily schedule.

Filling Water Balloons

So this weekend's RemembeRED prompt is up:


This week, we're giving you a photo to take you back in time.
In 700 or fewer words, show us where your memory takes you. 

Remember that this image is merely inspiration. Your piece needn't have a hose in your piece, but we need to easily see how you were inspired by it.

 I don't so much have a hose story as a brief memory about water balloons. The hose makes little appearance.

Filling Water Balloons

The water was cold on my toes as I tried to fit an empty water balloon over the end of the leaky hose nozzle. It was my birthday and we were a good half an hour into a water fight.

“We always take my car ‘cause it’s never been beat,                                                                                                  and we never miss IT with the girls we meet.”

It was Dan singing. I was only 8 and had yet to discover the meaning behind the lines, but there was something about the way he sang it that made it stick in my mind. He was a few years older and had a much more worldly view of that song that I. He helped me fill up my balloons – it was so much easier with four hands – and we jumped back into the crowd of kids running around the front yard.

Carefully avoiding the red ant piles, I ducked around the Dogwood branches and nailed James right in the chest with a wobbly balloon.

“Arhh! I’m gonna get you for that!” he yelled. The fresh balloons were cold.

Comments welcome.

Dear Blogger...

So I'm new to all of this blogging stuff and I've been working hard on trying to get this blog to look its best for when friendly internet-neighborhood readers come by to see it, but I've got to say...

I hate the composition box options. 

The text is either way too big or way too small for anyone to read and none of the fonts change size at ratios that make sense when you're trying to blend several fonts into one post. I generally try to leave things big enough to be readable - but there's not subtlety to this thing at all. Perhaps I'm doing it all wrong, perhaps I just don't know my way around html, etc enough yet. It all just feels so limiting. 

Suggestions welcome. 

Stolen

Someone has stolen something from you (or your character). Something of tremendous value. What will you do to get it back? Or will you give up?

Write a post - fiction or non - and tell us about it. Word limit is 600.

Today's prompt comes from Red Writing Hood. I had a pretty hard time coming up with an idea for this one, which I found strange. Shouldn’t this be one of the easiest things to come up with? Maybe…

Stolen

I sat up in the night, not from a dream or a nightmare, but from the sound of the door of the apartment opening. I listened for a moment, breath held tight. The door shut and someone giggled, another voice shushing the first.  Another late night out for the flat mates then…

I lay back down, closing my eyes but not to sleep. What was it that was happening before I woke? It felt like there should have been something going on. I was asleep and… I reached out in my mind, willing myself to find anything there, but no. Just darkness. Emptiness.

It had been this way for months. I didn’t remember when it had started, but no those are the wrong words too. I didn’t remember when they had stopped – my dreams. From an age before I was cognizant of such things, I had dreamed – vivid dreams, subtle dreams.

“Why don’t you write them down and make them a novel?” he once asked, “You have more ridiculous junk happen in your dreams than these silly vampire novelists have all put together.”

Ridiculous junk. He had always thought so. Other people called them “strange” or even, in my mother’s words, “nightmarish”, but not to me. To me they were just something that another part of my being was trying to tell me.

I sometimes used to wake up with a sense of urgency – the need to remember, to know what had happened in the dream, because it was real and meaningful. Other times I would awake confused – how did that end up in my head, where did it come from? Only once or twice did I wake up in fear. Dreams that frightened others at the thought were no source of terror to me. On the few occasions I did have a nightmare, they were memorable, but thankfully not re-livable.

But this seemed all in the past to me. What had once remained in my waking life had now invaded my dreamscape – a pressure, a dampening. As my daily self lost its vigor, its intention, its vitality, so did my dreams. I could manage the day to day, but the loss of my nightly reflections was unbearable. I mourned.

The doctors called it depression. My friends called it “a damn shame that someone like that could hurt someone like you.” I didn’t really call it anything – not until it was much too late.

The life that I had been living and pursuing had become a confused muddle of daily routine and wandering. I had dealt with this before – losing my way, but then I had my dreams to ground me, to help me reflect, to turn to for understanding. Now they were gone too. Stolen. 

There's nothing like anxiety in the spring

I'm not sure why, but every spring my anxiety kicks up a few notches. I've been trying to figure out what might cause this sudden upswing. I've come up with a calendar of theories, but they may not stand up to the test of applicability:


1) January: New Year's resolutions


Everyone seems to make this list of things that they're going to do in the New Year that they didn't do before. This is one of those cultural rituals that is an expression of our continuous search for perfection and designed to make those with high blood pressure or anxiety worsen their conditions. Instead of relaxing and doing small things to help ourselves change, like adding a 15 minute walk to our day, we feel the need to set a goal of hitting the gym an hour everyday when we don't believe we have enough time anyway. What's worse is when we've done well for the first week of January, we think "I'm getting the hang of this" and then promptly stop going to the gym and/or start eating more calories (because we worked it all off, right?). When we suddenly notice that we're not meeting the completely unreasonable goals, we start worrying - which only stops us in our tracks to good health more. 


2) February: Valentine's Day


Another holiday for those who are exceedingly happy in their romantic relationships. It tends to make everyone else just feel worse that they're 30 and not married, or remind them that their mother wants to know when they're going to produce come grandchildren and also worry about how there are too many curves in their silhouette.  Luckily, I don't have either of those problems, but then I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day either. 


3) March Madness


This is usually a term that is reserved for those of our country that are already diagnosed with a serious disease (Basketball Fanaticism), but it doesn't make it untrue for the rest of us. There's something about March that it's just the time when things start picking up and you feel even busier than usual. When you're a student, your midterms are coming around and the papers are due. If you watch television, then all of your normal relaxing me-time shows are being cancelled for someone's basketball obsession. Maybe you share the basketball obsession and have decided that gambling money is a good way to exercise that obsession. This means that you'll spend an entire month worrying about something that is in no way dependent upon your behavior that you're most likely going to lose your hard earned money on. It also seems to be a month for evaluation. You have to start doing the self-assessments that are required for ...


4) April: Tax Season


Everyone that has spent the last two months ignoring the W-2s that reside in the growing pile of mail at the end of the table, on the kitchen counter or in that corner of the office starts to sweat. It's time. You've got to pay your taxes. But to do that you have to go through the most confusing and often unintelligibly meaningless jargon of tax law. If you have any idea what most of that junk they ask you about in your tax forms means, then you're ahead of the game. I usually look for keywords like GI, military, train, miner and disability to help me decide whether or not I am required to fill in one of the boxes. At any rate, you've got the first two weeks to get all of your finances straightened out and make sure that you're accurately representing (and certainly not over-representing) yourself on paper to people in the government who won't think twice about rubber stamping your tax return, unless they see something fishy. And something fishy can be as complicated as not paying taxes on all of the money that you're taking off the top of your multi-million dollar corporate income or as simple as not understanding the language in which your accumulation of assets (otherwise known as your bank account) in being described to you. After the taxes have finally been filed, envelope licked, stamp attached and placed in your local letter carrier's trusty bag - you have two more miserable weeks (at least) to wait to see if they have been received, accepted and (if you're lucky) you'll actually get the return your state owes you or (if you're not lucky) they've removed the funds from your account. 


5) May: Light at the end of the tunnel


Perhaps I've been a student too long, but this seems to be the point at which spring just can't be spring anymore - it has got to start heading toward summer. All that worrying you did in April led to binge eating that is now starting to show around your thighs and the bathing suit season is creeping up faster than you'd like. Everyone's back in workout mode a little too late to get into the shape they want to be in on the beaches, but hey - at least it's almost time for a little vacation - a little R&R time right? 


In my family, all the birthdays have come around and by mine (mid-month) the anxiety has started to break up and leave me again until January.


So here's the thing... none of these things really apply to me. I didn't set New Year's resolutions this year - I was adjusting to being newly married and living in Hong Kong. I didn't celebrate Valentine's Day other than to eat some chocolate sent to us by my father-in-law and to say to my husband "Happy Valentine's Day" once. Also - not sad and alone, so no worries there. I don't care about basketball, nor do I own a television, nor did I gamble any money in the month of March. As I am abroad, I didn't even do my own taxes this year and they're already filed and I've already received my return (yay!). As for May, I'm just looking forward to going home for the summer. So how is it that all the things that usually give people anxiety don't apply to me and yet, here I am feeling it?


Sometimes life doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I am currently trying to apply Daoism liberally to the affected area to see if I get any results. Thus far there has been no increased inflammation, but no reduction of what's already there either. 


Advice welcome. 

P&W Prompt 4 (Originally 6)

Prompt from P&W (and Angelspeak):

Choose a poem that you've written and rewrite it in its reverse, making the last line first, etc. Revise this version, creating a new poem.

So I chose a poem that I wrote in October of 2009. It was about a girl who was "secretly" involved with a guy I very briefly dated. She had a tendency to try to only treat me nicely when there was no one else to talk to and it annoyed me greatly. I was always nice, but found her flaky, shallow tendencies too much for me one day. Here's the original:

You look down upon me

and I wish

I could sit so high in the world

You whisper quiet conversations

enticing him in slowly

with otherwise mundane

complained efforts

You word yourself out

The chip on your shoulder

growing to my eyes

Showing you sheltered privilege 

you talk about money

then brushing it away

and unneeded endowment offered

Only when our eyes meet

do you shrink away, false modesty

your downward sneer again

Your clicking heels 

The hallway echoes widely

it shares my contempt

rejoicing the abating sound

The prompt is to reverse the lines and compose a new poem. Here's the reverse:

Rejoicing the abating sound

it shares my contempt

the hallway echoes widely

your clicking heels

Your downward sneer again

do you shrink away, false modesty

only when our eyes meet

An unneeded endowment offered

then brushing it away

you talk about money

showing your sheltered privilege

Growing to my eyes

the chip on your shoulder

you word yourself out

Complained efforts

with otherwise mundane

enticing him in slowly

you whisper quiet conversations

I could sit so high in the world

and I wish

You look down upon me

Then I revised and rewrote my (now long abandoned) contempt Again it is untitled – suggested titles are welcome. Here is the final product:

I rejoice the abating sound of clicking heels

in the echoing hallways that share my contempt

for your attitude - your presence, one moment

sniveling and sweet, another condescending

Your downward sneer is spotted so

you shrink away, false modesty appearing

in your shoulders, in the arch of your neck

but your eyes flash and give you away

From abroad, an unneeded endowment offered

You brush it away, your talk of money clearly

exhibiting the sheltered privilege

from which you look down at me, at all

Now growing, to my eyes, is the chip

on your shoulder, in conversation

your word yourself out, pretension only

a short stroll from your misused vernacular

Performing your cheap woes, your seduction

no more than mundane complaints, aloof

and apathetic, you try to entice him

with whispered words and quiet conversations

I could sit so high in the world, looking down

such a slender nose at every human connection, 

but I do not find the presence of others

to be abhorrent - just yours. 

As always, comments are welcome.