It's funny, this life

It's funny, this life
Interests run in cycles
Morning sun, evening stars
A world in a raindrop
A world in one word

Weariness and pain
Clash with the impulse to produce
Weariness wins in the end
Should we not savor this minute, this sensation, this space,
While sensations and spaces can yet be savoured?

Angst, and awe
The tearing up of old calendars
Old phonebooks, old greeting cards
Only the weary mind, the mind deprived of sleep,
Can see unhindered by thought

Poetry and Clarity

I am in one of my rare, delectable, melancholy, poetic frames of mind. I am physically weary - spent the day walking around looking at kick scooters (like Razors and Xootrs), then scooting about. I am not sure how much convenience I gained in choosing one, as it weighs 10 pounds and leaves me perspiring when I carry it about. But O, the sweet downhills.

Then I immersed myself in a DVD: the anime Metropolis. Reminded me a bit of the romance of youth, which is always sweet; and also, the ending was slightly tart, slightly bitter. Fortunately I had a bag of Tostitos and a jar of salsa con queso to console me.

There are times when a person needs poetry to make sense of things. It comes in cycles - for weeks, you can't bear to open a book of poetry, and then one evening, when perhaps you are tired, you read the words of a poet and you need those words at that moment. Things remain obscure, but - for a moment at least - you know what clarity is. And then the artist steps back into the shadows.

What kind of person do I want to be when I'm 40?

Out for an evening walk. The question I'll be pondering is, what kind of person do I want to be when I'm 40 - this will be in ten years. I expect to grow as much over the next ten years as much as I have in the past ten: in knowlege, steadily increasing; in the arts, more productive; in daily activity, more specialized and efficient. In religion, my image of God is changing from a stern one to a compassionate one. And I am tending toward fewer close friends and more acquaintances, and more intense family relationships.

And what of character - what kind do I wish to have at the age of 40? Contemplative, joyful, and with a sense of my place in history, culture, and the arts. Ready to meet death bravely; not to rage against the dying of the light, but to watch its slow fade in silence and reverence.

Small anxieties

Mother's Day, St. Andrew's Cathedral. Funny how a day can be spoiled by small worries. I'd like to enjoy this time with my mother at church, and to focus on the mass, but alas I have nagging anxieties - a software bug I discovered leaving the house, and thoughts about other things I need to take care of when I get home.

But I shall not worry about what I cannot change right now. "Consider the lilies. They neither sow nor spin. Yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

Exhausted

I am so exhausted - so exhausted that I can barely write. I have plumbed the depths of code I had never seen. I have explored where function calls led; I have traced urlencodings and urldecodings. I have rammed my skull against the clanging bars of logic and reason. And I have emerged with scars. Such is the work of a computer programmer.

Feeling happy

It is Sunday again, and again I am at St. Andrew's Cathedral with my mother. The organist is playing a wistful piece, with a touch of melancholy but ending on a note of hope. Today I feel glad, with a smile on my face. Perhaps it is because I am warm and well fed. Maybe it is because the week's work is done. Or maybe it's just this weekly time with my mother - how wonderful it is to spend this time with her each week.