NYC III

Dual Citizen

went up to The City on thurs with mom and the two of us officially became US-Philippine dual citizens. It was quite a process but it's finished and I now I can stay there indefinitely if I choose. who knows.
On fri Bobbious Lee and I drove down to the River with all his boxes. sunshower and thunderstorm and rainbow filled the sky. it made for an epic flight from manhattan.
Just about a week left here. Shortly the pace of life will change beyond my control, as will the constructs and contexts which have conditioned and formed this thing called self. But grace, both transendent and immanent in circumstance, remains constant.

Sunday Insp.

Trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end
without delay.
We should like to skip
the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new,
and yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability --
and that it may take a very long time.

Your ideas mature gradually --
let them grow,
let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that His hand is leading you,
and accepting the anxiety
of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

- Pieere Telhard de Chardin, S.J. (palentologist and mystic)

slomo

It feels like life's been on pause or on slow motion for several days now. Not really much to do. Yesterday I sat on the dock for a while just watching and listening to the sea gulls. They seem to be making a lot of noise lately.. must be mating or something. There also seems to be some sort of feeding frenzy with them going on in the bay past discernable eyesight.. maybe they are eating remnants of the baitfish that are being eaten by schools of blue fish, or maybe they're feasting on the jellyfish that have proliferated in the bay the last couple of years. whatever.

I've been spending a considerable amount of time on the computer which is feeling more and more like my window to the world lately. Also learning some tunes on the guitar (new J.J. songs), putting pictures in albums, watching some videos from Blockbuster (The Life Aquatic, City of God, Elekra...), reading short stories from Tolstoy (quite rewarding). Going from activity to activity occupies most of the day with a level enjoyment, yet occasionally in the gaps there comes upon me a feeling of boredom which borderlines on dispair. When the present is so empty, and both past and future are faint projections shrouded in the mist of my own imperfect and limited recollection/imagination, I begin to doubt myself... to question what the hell I am doing here... to wonder if I am forgetting how to live. But after a few moments the fog is lifted, and I am able to pick up the guitar or book again as if nothing happened.

I don't know what to make of it. In such a controlled and comfortable and isolating environment, much of it I think has to do with my need for community and the dimension of unknown and otherness it brings. Yet why is it so hard for me to find the energy to call or email the friends I know I should want to?? I don't know. Laziness, or inertia perhaps.

Painting and the Tao

I finished painting my friend's parent's house today. It was just a job that fell into my lap, as do most things I guess. I was greatful to have the work, and Big Rod was greatful to have someone else do the job. Roofs and ladders aren't for everyone I guess. But they seem to suit me just fine. Many of my mental souveniers of Seattle are from rooftops--overlooking the Puget Sound or the Fremont brige or the strange folks of Capitol Hill. It's kind of a paradoxical experience being way up there for all the world to see, yet no one ever looks up. And there is deep peace, of fresh air and blue sky high above the goings-ons of the humanity below, when one little slip would lead to a broken mass of Mendoza on the asphalt.

And it is good to toil, to lose oneself in work. To most people it would seem that house painting is mindless blue-collar labor, but ta-da! with just small shift of perception it becomes Zen, very Zen. I'm not sure where the mind goes when it is just me, a paint brush, and a wall for hours and hours. It goes many places perhaps, but it always comes back to the brush, like the breath. And the body, how it moves and adjusts and coordinates to accomplish it's ever changing task! Perhaps it's a reminder of the Great Dance we are all part of but rarely are we aware. Perhaps.

Regardless it was nice to get a wad of cash.

Enyce

Mom and I went up to the Philippine consulate in the city on Friday in yet another failed attempt to get a Philippine passport. It turns out that I am a dual citizen which means I can stay the motherland indefintely and go back and forth freely. This is very cool. The beuracracy and paperwork, however, is turning out to be a pain in the butt. I'll have to go back up there in couple of weeks once we receive some documents from the Philippines. This all means my departure date will be pushed back one more week to the first week of June.

I stayed up there for the weekend with T & B (see pics). Many laughs, not much sleep. Friendship is a sweet thing. As this era comes to pass with Bobbi and I leaving, it will be with a certain fondness that I shall look upon these merry visits.

Right...

Empty Nest

Yesterday morning I woke up to find the duck nest empty. I've been so excited to see the cute little peepers peeping about. Could they have hatched so early in the spring? Afraid not... Next to the pot was an empty bag of hot dog buns, torn up, crumbs everywhere. I must have accidently left the bread out the day before! God knows what foul creature it lured into the yard during the night. There around me was the broken eggshell! the yolk! the tell-tale footprints of the nocturnal marauder (coon or O'possum I know not, that nasty, hateful thing)! Why!?! it was my fault... my friends, there was gnashing of teeth and beating of breast that fateful morning. This Spring on the banks of the Kettle Creek there is to be no peeping and picture-taking. Only broken eggshell and dried egg yolk.

Sigh.

And so it goes. This cruel drama that is life.