year three: Right Speech

2011 was my year of Right Intention, the second of the Noble Eightfold Path. Right Intention was a tough one: mostly residing within my head. i set myself to commit to abstaining from attachments, preventing ill-will, and stopping harm. i found myself indulging attachments often, and often caught feelings of ill-will even when i did not act on them. in these moments, i reminded myself the connection between Right Intention and Right View--remembering that the intention of ethical conduct can only be built upon seeing what is actually happening in the world, rather than skewing my view to my attachments or fears.

as with Right View, i feel as though i could spend a lifetime devoted only to Right Intention. however, since i have set myself to the task of covering the each of the Noble Eightfold Path, i must move on while also keeping in mind the power and necessity of Right Intention (and, with Right View, both elements of Wisdom) as i move on to Ethnical Conduct.

2012 is devoted to Right Speech. as i reiterate, the Noble Eightfold Path is not a sequence, it is one path with eight elements. however, i hope that through concentrating on one element per year, it will ease pursuing my ultimate goal of deeper mindfulness, true compassion, and working toward the liberation of all beings.

Right Speech is extremely important in the core beliefs of Buddhism. not only is it the first aspect of ethical conduct in the Noble Eightfold Path, it is one of the five precepts, along with abstention from taking life, abstention from stealing, abstention from sexual misconduct, and abstention from drunkenness or intoxication to the point of heedlessness. as with many spiritual traditions, Buddhism apparently puts much stock in the importance and power of speech.

in short, Right Speech comprises four main points: abstention from false speech or lying, abstention from divisive speech, abstention from harsh or abusive speech, and abstention from idle chatter. put positively, right speech means telling the truth, speaking toward concord, speaking pleasantly, and only speaking necessarily.

in more detail, the abhaya sutta states that according to Gotama:

In the case of words that [are] unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial (or: not connected with the goal), unendearing and disagreeable to others, do not say them.

In the case of words that [are] factual, true, unbeneficial, unendearing and disagreeable to others, do not say them.

In the case of words that [are] factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing and disagreeable to others, have a sense of the proper time for saying them.

In the case of words that [are] unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but endearing and agreeable to others, do not say them.

In the case of words that [are] factual, true, unbeneficial, but endearing and agreeable to others, do not say them.

In the case of words that [are] factual, true, beneficial, and endearing and agreeable to others, have a sense of the proper time for saying them.

in order for things to be said, they must be both true and beneficial. if they are disagreeable, they timeliness is of utmost importance. finally, even if something is true, if it is not beneficial, it need not be said.

if we desire to admonish others, we must then also consider the following:

[1] Do I speak at the right time, or not?

[2] Do I speak of facts, or not?

[3] Do I speak gently or harshly?

[4] Do I speak profitable words or not?

[5] Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?

only upon considering these five can we admonish another.

i also interpret Right Speech as encompassing the written word as well, and it incorporates what many have termed as Right Listening--especially for the "timeliness" aspect of Right Speech.

as my community, i report this to you to ask for support and mutual respect in the continued search for the path forward. and if you find solace in the Noble Eightfold Path, that we can walk it together:

1. Right View (wisdom)

2. Right Intention (wisdom)

3. Right Speech (ethical conduct)

4. Right Action (ethical conduct)

5. Right Livelihood (ethical conduct)

6. Right Effort (mental development)

7. Right Mindfulness (mental development)

8. Right Concentration (mental development)

As with last year, I close with a quote about Right Speech from here.

Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

i look forward to working on this year of Right Speech.

sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Precepts

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.058.than.html

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-vaca/index.html

http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html

http://www.chzc.org/pat28.htm

http://www.tricycle.com/web-exclusive/family-dharma-right-speech-reconsidered

year two: Right Intention

as you may know, 2010 was my year of Right View (see my note from dec 2009), the first of the Noble Eightfold Path. i spent the year reflecting on what it means to see the world "exactly as it is," and to remind myself to stay close to reality: to see suffering for suffering and joy for joy; to not over-complicate what is simple, and to not simplify what is complicated; to remember what has been, to live in what is, and to not to make up what has not yet become; to move through the day-to-day seeing myself and other beings as living in the same space, occupying the same time, and breathing the same air

it was an immense challenge. i am quite certain that i have absolutely no mastery over Right View. but i did notice some times when i had quite Wrong View: when i obsessed over things, people and events that were symbols of what i really needed to address; when i did not see my actions causing dis-ease for others; when i did not see my own dis-ease that might have been caused by something/someone else; when i could not feel loving toward those i loved and when i could not feel joyous when surrounded by joy. that was the movement: the first step toward Right View is noticing Wrong View.

i feel like i could spend my whole life devoted only to Right View but that was not the task i set myself. besides, to move on in the Noble Eightfold Path, i must keep addressing and aspiring to Right View, always.

2011 is devoted to Right Intention. as i mentioned last year, the Noble Eightfold Path is not a sequence of steps. it is one path to wisdom broken down into eight elements. my hope, though, is that through spending one year devoted to Right Intention, i can continue my resolve and dedication toward deeper mindfulness, compassion, and hope for the liberation of all beings.

Right Intention is the second aspect of wisdom, and is positioned between the perceptive/receiving skill required of Right View and the kinetic/doing skill required of the three ethical conducts beginning with Right Speech. it is the breath between knowing suffering and doing something to end suffering. it is the fulcrum between decision and discipline. without Right Intention, all efforts toward liberation are mere exercises, leading either to more suffering or to sisyphean cycles of fruitlessness. perhaps noticing my Wrong Views last year that involved obsession, joylessness, and lovelessness can help point me toward the three aspects of Right Intention: letting go of attachments, releasing rage, and resisting destruction.

as my community, i report this to you to ask for support and mutual respect in the continued search for the path forward. and if you find solace in the Noble Eightfold Path, that we can walk it together:

1. Right View (wisdom)

2. Right Intention (wisdom)

3. Right Speech (ethical conduct)

4. Right Action (ethical conduct)

5. Right Livelihood (ethical conduct)

6. Right Effort (mental development)

7. Right Mindfulness (mental development)

8. Right Concentration (mental development)

As with last year, I close with a quote about Right Intention from here.

While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

I think 2011 will be awesome.

love and light,

kt

oil

that turpentine stench first
filled my nostrils very young. she
stood with an apron in the laundry
room; pausing, standing back, knitting her brow

each of us sitting for at least
one portrait. she tried water,
then charcoal, but really loved
oil. burnt umber, prussian blue, sap green

viridian. she said, we try not to use too much
black or white. those colors don't really
exist in the world. try to show the hues using
different colors; it's more interesting and true

she was jealous of those pastes.
watching pbs, sucking her teeth: that's
an expensive color! so much that
christmas memories are filled

with small boxes holding tubes
cadmium yellow, light; van dyck brown; payne's gray
each year, more tubes and tubes
it felt like she never had enough.

in my house, over the piano she made me keep playing as a child
hangs her last oil
the boldest, most dynamic piece of landscape
she'd ever painted

subtle, muted, green mixed with violet, the trees almost
mourn with me, the loss of their maker
when we cleaned out her things
a whole room filled with easels

sketchbooks, unused yarn, fabric scraps, calligraphy brushes
ink stones, rice paper, photographs
and a green tackle box filled with
paint tubes

no one else wanted the supplies
so i took them. sullen.
i don't know how to paint with oils
i've kept them in this house for almost nine years

meanwhile, i take a job in an art department
where every other person is a painter
longing for more supplies
i remain jealous of those tubes just like her

but then, three weeks ago my not-supervisor's
sister drops dead suddenly
no one knows why
she flies across the country

to tend to body and mind
arrives at work three days later
red-eyed with smokey hair, says:
where else am i going to go?

not-supervisor is a painter
a very successful one, until life happened
and she had to support kids; family
she specializes in a certain symmetry; she's not

picky about paint. but she uses
a lot of it
today, i sort through my work space
find that green tackle box

smelling of the turpentine that
wafts through laundry room memories
i will never sit a portrait for mom again.
so i find a clean bag

place each paint tube in it
write down the name of each color
wrap them up, nice and neat
for transport in the morning

i hope not-supervisor will use every one
to remember her sister
so i can let go of my mother
and more things can be made

again, and again, and again.

私こんな夢を見た。

london was near a beach.

i was walking along this beach with a flamboyant man of chinese descent who was apparently my father.

the beach was strewn with detritus.

but that didn't matter; i was searching for something. what it was, i cannot recall.

upon a hill, we saw a structure. it was old, and at first, seemed abandoned. we passed by the structure, arguing. but something about the structure brought us back--maybe we heard a sound or i needed to use the toilet.

we walked up the hill, my "father" swishing behind me. when we arrived at the building, we quickly recognized it was a church. i looked into the main chapel and scoffed: why build the pulpit facing the sea? the congregation should face the ocean, so the sermon will feel like it is rising from the blue deep!

we walked through the rest of the church and found it was, in fact, full.

we turned the corner and there were many elderly people, almost entirely afro-caribbean, desi, or chinese. my "father" began to smile widely and spoke with a man who had a heavy jamaican accent. everyone was smiling at me.

he said: yes, yes. we welcome all kinds here. well. every church will say that. but look here--we have every shade of black and brown here; some with arthritis, some not. the young ones, they are upstairs. some of them are confused, searching for something. and some of them have pink hair.

i understood that pink hair meant queer.

he continued: but the reason all shades of black and brown and confused and pink-haired come here is because we know--it is a tough thing to be brown in this world--

the man and my "father" looked directly into my eyes--

but some of the people who are brown also have pink hair--

his eyes were full of pathos, and my "father" replied--

and that's even tougher.

amen.

i woke up.

this was the first time in a few weeks that i woke up and did not feel depressed. i felt loved. and determined. as if the ancestors understood the struggle i am facing as they were looking on with loving eyes.

my house

in manila
there is a building
built for an international festival
by the over zealous wife of a dictator

in their haste, they
built too fast
sealing bodies of builders
in the too-wet foundation of the edifice

now, the building lies empty
ignored, forgotten
a tomb commemorating
the hubris of megalomaniacs

in my city where
tech boom meets econo-bust
whole neighborhoods are built
in weeks

they look prim, proper, perfectly
middle class. humming with the rhythms
of aspiration and need.
only during harsh weather

do their owners listen carefully
to the paper-thin walls
and the winds threatening to pull up
the homes from the earth

when the two towers fell
and they took away the rubble
what was left was a mammoth of a
hole

whole structures
never stand
without deep roots
routes to strength and certainty

but digging is hard; it takes
strong backs, persistence
sometimes we can guess map what veins of dirt we will hit
but mostly, everything is a surprise

sand, rock, loam, old refrigerators
brick, shale, the skeleton of a long-lost possom
gas pockets, pipes, geysers,
gold

the deeper we dig those holes
the stronger the house becomes
but the more we must unearth
the more secrets and surprises we must witness

for with height comes depth
just like how we don't listen through the chatter
but the strongest voices are borne
out of the stillest silence

so is the gentlest love
borne sometimes from solitude
or the ripest fruit
borne from rot and decay

my house, so loyal, so warm
has had cracks in its walls from the day
i moved in
the foundation sits on sand

in this house, though, i have built a home
with tenderness and thought
that has weathered many storms
i take those cracks as testament

to the hope i hold in my heart
and now, i must dig deep
to build, to rebuild, to withstand the ever-coming wind
the digging can be rough

lasting until the wee hours
full of tears and whispered screams
refuse of the past
that can still bear us fruit

i see those suburban houses
prim and sweet; sometimes
they seem to be perfect
but i know

i would rather get my hands dirty
in the soil beneath my feet
to build and rebuild with purpose
than watch perceived perfection

blow away with the slightest
breeze; my house
will always be strong
digging deep

into the depths of the soul

practice

sometimes i miss myself
talking past the horizon
i think if i can look far enough
something will become clearer

i wonder if in this habit
i've become unable to
see what lies
closer than anything else

32 years
and still
i'm learning to be a better roomate
with myself

we fight sometimes
but mostly
we turn up the noise
shut our doors

and wait. no
maybe that's not it at
all these days i don't quite
recall youth

smiling softly,
patient like nursing
a chronic wound
nagging yet healing

yes. that might have been me
young shoots across
fertile land
fleeting and going

on and on. this morning
i woke with little left
but the dew on my finger tips
reminding me

of her. i am
waiting and healing
and remembering what
warmth of other

warmth of self feels
like. never ending
softness splayed across
wisps of freedom.

release

letting go is not letting go it is returning to turn and turn to return and skies filled with marbles that rain rain reign the heart of head of heart of heading to the place where i held you tight but loose too tight to let you go too loose to keep you there the sprinkling lights reflecting off the imagined mirror ball on the new hampshire red road turning turning turning around around a round headed kid like me wanted to keep holding on to your now wrinkled yet somehow young hand that once stroked my hair in the moonlit darkness the night after a typhoon-swept tree had fallen on the house in the mountains where we took care of the woman of a womb that bore you so late not too late but still late like you bore me in the warmth of that late summer air when we both looked forward as i confessed i'd gone and fallen in love and what a time to fall in love and you said love is good love is great you should fall in love and what you didn't say was because you will need the love soon because even though i will love you forever i won't always be around to remind you that i do.

incense fragrant
a loss fragrant in sense
incensed at loss

release is everyday now with and without you when you left i thought no mistook no wondered no assumed no forgot yes forgot that releasing your body was not releasing you yes forgot that you were still existing still in my pores still wafting on the breeze in my ears on the memories i still tell and recall in stillness of light yes still body racing mind i must yes to seeing you everywhere yes to light raining down yes to releasing more and more to listening with confusion yes to confusion yes to a car ride back from a mall in a tiny car you know you no more false pride not saying yes but yes to saying i want your child your queer child you just need to find a random asian man i want yes an asian grandchild your child yes you would raise yes and smiling at knowing not quite yet but maybe future yes embarrassed at boldness no regrets when you said those words i knew you finally saw me yes me yes meet me half of the way to the altar of sight you had let me go and then you saw and now i let you go and maybe see you back lit seeing to see the sunsets and storms and soft finger tips at edges end blue baby glory of the once.

yes

untitled

she always leaves pieces of herself as if to insure i won't ever forget her.

it's affective. because i never do.

this time, she dropped a pair of gloves next to the dog's cushions. as always, when i find these pieces, i immediately text: do you want me to send them to you? even when i know her phone is off and her plane is either in the air or preparing to go there.

some people, you watch them and they make this all seem too easy. too glamorous, too practiced. for me, it never gets that way. we've been together eight and a half years, and this is the fifteenth month we've spent apart. each visit through our distance changes. each month we are apart, we change. every time is laced with pain.

sometimes, it's easy to lull oneself into accepting this as normalcy. to think: my solitude is the fabric of life now, the fact that i don't care for my thoughts, my body, my space, my surroundings--this is all a part of the daily routine. i begin to forget that once, with her, i would take care, i would seek comfort in every aspect of my living. now, a patina of sorrow covers each square inch of my being, and when my conscience recalls the warmth for a split second, i feel as though i will break.

my friend told me, you've been through this before, it means you can get through it again. then he added: that may not be much of a comfort.

it's not, really.

every time we see each other again, i'm reminded of what i've been missing. that reminder makes me petulant, resentful. i'm reminded again of my humanity. of loving things i once took for granted, of the fact that i don't need to merely survive an emotional subsistence, but that we are meant to flourish, together--struggling, negotiating, forward looking, arm-in-arm.

i sit under the covers of the bed we just shared: where i wept just minutes ago in a primal scream, where the sheets still smell of her, where we laughed this morning enjoying each other, where we fought savagely two nights ago.

each time she comes and goes, i worry sickly during her flight. a contracting sensation in my belly keeps me still like waiting for a predator to pass. i hate missing her.

i wish she'd come home.

miscegenate

if you wanna know what happens late at night in the middle of the blue-green l.e.d. lights of sanyo and sony and moonshadows falling across the spread never never is the stillness still enough for too long into the gloaming of the after where in a waiting room she has a gown tattered from too many launderings that faded puce with faded navy with faded mauve-maroon maroon marooned on the little pad of never-ending transfusing to come back and late at night i listen carefully to see if i can hear the youth of them plea and conquer and not-stillness wanting and wanting and wanting to a point that when the fucking may or may not stop something inside me says that we're fucked not completely but to a holding stand still not fucked and empty is form is void is wanting is slow is never filled to the hums of what wasn't but what might and the rain on her lashes looks too much like tears like scrubbing my back in the shower until it drains and falls and bits of me enter the sewer go to processing come out the aerator into the air and up to the clouds to the sky to the sun to the moon and come come come down down down falling on her lashes in the middle of the street where apologies were meant but unsaid and the gravel was new hampshire red and the flowing was form was empty was fucking and yet we knew the difference.

i want i want i want to see you here right here before me naked and whole and young and old and when did it matter which she was her like we could tell them apart in the first place racing blood through bare breast it's still warm warm whether it is her or her or even the forbidden her we drank from her and with her and through her i want i want i want to never have that taste of metal come through my cheeks and out through my lips that forgiving never offered and youth missed not forgotten not even wanted anymore because who wants to be 30 25 20 18 anymore anyway my greys her greys our greys are medals are talismans and fuck the fuck the fuck the want want want.

don't go.

dishes stacked on each other in a precarious heap slowly making a long low sustained stench like the faint echo of her breath in the unit where the nurse said they call it neuro breath hard breath breathe again breathe more come here to breathe by me with the warmth of fragrance only you had she had even the forbidden she had that time when we couldn't quite say the words because words felt like nails felt like stones felt too much like hurt even words of love of want of good luck when we could not even for a second think to say it back and instead we walk out to ask the nurse a question and when we come back she's asleep again not yet forever but for the last time.

i want her i want her i want her back and back and now and here and here and closer and never again in the same way but whispers of memories held close and never shared i want her near i want her in me i want inside her and her and her and her and fuck and fuck and fuck and not the same difference same different will she hear me does she hear me if she hears me will she say and if say say truth or lie lie lie with me once again and again and just once if we suffered enough when was the war won?

i want want want again
no more
more and more
not loss
the same
to change
to forever
for never
i want want want the her and the her and the her
a trinity of never and again and not ever

treyf. treyf. treyf.

come back
return
don't go
just once
forever
not ever
now go

go forth
go into the emptiness and beyond

preparing for the new year

as i was composting today, i realized that the new year would come soon. i wasn't sure what my resolution would be.

i usually don't like resolutions, i find that they are often self-indulgent and strange performances of mixed virtue and vice. but something about the smell of the compost made me pursue the thought deeper.

seriously, it was the compost.

because on my left was a beautiful pile of black gold--fertile and supple, ready to be returned to the earth to grow new things. on my left and in my hands was a stinking heap of decay--refuse from meals past. the stink was the metaphor of larger things. of cycles, of death, of birth.

i'm a buddhist, see. if yer not interested in that, you might wanna stop reading here.

it's nothing new, the buddhism. growing up, it was the only form of organized religion i ever took part in, usually through sporadic visits to temple when our family visited my mother's family. really, though, i came to know my buddhism through funerals. now, lovely partner, a born catholic, is converting to buddhism.

she shares with me the precepts and concepts and ideas behind what i have been practicing all along. at first, there was a bit of disconnect. her sources were theravada (my mother was part of a vajrayana sect, and most japanese buddhisms are mahayana), and filtered through american sources. what lovely partner said actually meant something, whereas what i knew made no "sense." but i've been listening. and i've been moved. and i've slowly come to a place where what she talks about and what i have known my whole life are beginning to make sense together.

and so, while smelling the compost, i came upon an idea. i'm still feeling it out, but i think it might take.

i will begin 2010 as a meditation on the noble eightfold path. each year, i will dedicate to one aspect of the path. at the end of the eight years, i will re-assess and perhaps begin the cycle again. 2010 will be my year of "Right View."

incidentally, the noble eightfold path consists of the following:
1. Right View (wisdom)
2. Right Intention (wisdom)
3. Right Speech (ethical conduct)
4. Right Action (ethical conduct)
5. Right Livelihood (ethical conduct)
6. Right Effort (mental development)
7. Right Mindfulness (mental development)
8. Right Concentration (mental development)

i recognize that the eightfold path is not a series of steps, to be done in succession. but i wanted to see what would happen if i pay particular attention to one aspect of the path for an extended period of time. i'm choosing this order because, well, that's how it's always presented.

in thinking about this journey, i'm particularly influenced by linda montano and her seven years of living art, based on the chakras. my exploration will be less public, i think, and being that i'm a theatre artist, and less of a performance/conceptual artist these days, i hesitate to call this endeavor a "piece" anymore than i would call living my life a "piece," which i don't often do. even though i think it sometimes.

i've come to a place where i accept that my creative process is undeniably linked to my spiritual practice. in the past year, i have met several creators who practice their craft as an extension of their spirituality. i've been humbled by observing their rigor and general posture toward life. perhaps this eight-year journey is my attempt to join them.

i share this here to hail, to incorporate. maybe you can help me with my meditation on "Right View." or maybe you can join me. i will see the world for what it is: nothing more, nothing less. neither better nor worse than it actually is. so i leave this post with a short note on what right view is from here.

Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truth. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.

and so, on 01/01/2010, it begins.

sublimate

i wanted to tell you that this was not the end that this was not the last time i would see you that somehow we would find each other and you would be well and i would feel whole and the things that surround us and keep us far apart would go away that the secret you needed to tell me could stay a secret rather than spill out into the summer ohio air on a green metal bench after a day spent wandering in hopes that we could forget that the end was probably even closer than we thought that even when you began to tell me what you needed to confess that even when i had offered absolution that even when your anger and confusion had transformed into resignation and then wisdom that i wanted to tell you the end would never come and i would make a room in the house i had just bought put your name on a wooden plaque and hang it in above the bed where you would stay when you would come visit on some whirlwind trip that would include every city and country you had ever dreamt of seeing but never got to see that even though everything had said end and end and end this was really and truly and nothing other than the beginning.

the question i wanted to ask you as you lay there in that beanie that you wore after chemo but that i couldn’t because i saw where i was the question after all those nights we talked about things that you can’t tell many people those nights where you were the straight one and i was the queer one and you were the black one and i was the asian one and we had too many reasons why we were never meant to care but then we did anyway because that’s what people do after all those nights where i knew we saw the wholeness in one another i wanted to ask you if this was the redemption you wanted and wished for and did that redemption include or exclude me and peace is something that i knew you would find and did you find it at a cost or a gain because when you went to see the father of all and the father of you at the same time i wanted to ask you does your heaven allow visitors from mine because i will try to find you again in the lightness and darkness and the after glow of the once and if there’s a bouncer i don’t wanna be rude because even though the beginning was an end it doesn’t meant i wont keep looking.

songs
beats
dog-eared books of richly colored heroines
this line was crossed so many times
and in the warmth of solitude
we could hear each other’s breath
the relief of sleep
only i wish to rise

inhale

this is a fragment of writing i started to write almost a year ago today. it helps me remember that this time of year is always layered with solemn thoughts, fear, and melancholia:

somewhere in the breath between autumn and winter, i learned to fear from the core of my bones. earlier that i wish to remember, but late enough that i do, i began to find myself in open waters without a buoy, and there they were, each thing that i had pushed out of pre-pubescent dreams, finding their way from slumber to wakefulness.

may i one day find solace in the depths of november.

converge

we were always hungry never full trying to nourish and the belly always slender when we traveled taking junk food and remembering the days when we'd queue up beside a fry pan next to arm-chair activists and queer girls who only flirted with girls but really slept with men whose last words were you need to read more books always hungry until we stopped tasting stopped chewing not knowing when to stop or pause or wipe our mouth or say excuse me after a burp or take a sip of water going back up the line for one more plate we were always hungry so that when she couldn't eat so thin and pale and peering through crusted lashes saying i can't oh no i can't not today will you bring me what you've made not this stuff you eat it so it can't go to waste please it will just be thrown away we can't help but pick up the beige tray start to chew the food that never seems to fail to make the whole ward smell more like sick like our appetite can't be turned like we were never fed properly like eating with our mouth will somehow feed her spirit.

and that week she first started to bleed without stopping when the fluid would leak and leak into her cranial cavity when she was diagnosed with meningitis that we distinctly thought was an incurable disease reserved only for unhygenic college kids when she developed bruises just from sitting when her blood would secretly gush just not where it could be seen we stopped bleeding entirely like a stone setting right next to jesus but unnoticed and neglected into silence we stopped bleeding as women bodies do as the moon waxes red as the tide becomes still as the night invites those that must drink blood to have it flow through them the font of life flowing only through a dying body but not through the surviving one when the blood carried revived love spilling out to all around her despite the stoicism and the denial and the queer lover brought home on holiday flowing just because it was impossible to stop all while her daughter's blood ran stiller and stiller perhaps in hopes that if it just stopped altogether it could hide from the feelings of chaos and lividity could stop time in its tracks from moving forward to the inevitable stopping of blood that could not be stopped because really it ran dry too dry to live that months after her blood and the vessel carrying it had been transformed to ash her daughter had to visit a doctor just to have her blood flow once more.

the man who saw her in new york said to us she is connected to god in heaven so she needn't fear and if you want i can do a special healing for her from afar but that will take $3000 and that's very expensive isn't it that we looked at her and told her the news and seriously considered withdrawing the $3000 from our money we were never to touch but $3000 is a bargain if it means her getting up and walking but she looks through bleary eyes in that way that says it's confirmed he's a quack and besides i'm ready to die because i cried through it all these months and i've made sure to tell you the important stuff and i know it will take you long to cry through it yourself because i had to cry through the same thing at age seven but you'll do alright let's practice now so we lie down on her sterile bed and curl up with our head right next to her hand and she comforts us even though she's the sick one stroking our hair and telling us stories through dreams we share as she falls into a bleeding-brain-induced slumber and we fall into a grief-induced one.

we sleep. we walk together, with a purple horizon warm at our backs. her hair is thick and long. she puts her arm through mine. she wears white shoes. i look at her face. she looks at mine. she nods forward and i see a bright reflection of yellow light in her eyes. i look forward. i see no light. she smiles. she's a pixie. she knows more than the rest of us, even though she has always played the part of the family dunce. i understand this at last. she nods.

i wake up.

10/12 freewrite--koi

she told me to look at her pictures, that they actually came out pretty good. they did. i clicked through them and waited for my slow connection. then, it's there. a tight shot of a bright orange koi, peaking through a reflection of the sky.

"remind me to tell you about the mythology when you call," i write in the comments.

every may--less now than before, and always more in the countryside than in the city--childbearing homes will fly flags. tubular ones, shaped like the bright orange wind detectors at airports. the homes erect flag poles lined with three or five flags, each one but the bottom-most printed in the image of a koi.

the myth goes, a highly determined koi swam upstream continuously, underwent much hardship. finally, the koi swam up a gigantic waterfall and upon reaching the top, it turned into a dragon.

that's why koi are so auspicious. they represent pure potential. something so humble as a bottom-feeding, water forager could eventually transform into a mighty and mystical dragon.

it was no accident that she took that picture. she needed that koi.

***
in many ways, we were meant to be a scholar. high school was filled with music teachers who wanted me to just stop. i took ear-training classes with eight year olds and i couldn't seem to make it through a piano lesson without my piano teacher laughing at me. i know now, without malace, that my piano teacher was not very gifted. the problem was, i am. just not at playing the piano. but even though my piano teacher laughed at me, and i stayed in the elementary school ear-training class, the head of the prep school loved me. she always got me free tickets for concerts, arranged for me to take off-the-books composition training, asked me philosophical questions abaout performance and new music. she always wrote back to me and insisted i call her periodically. she knew my thinking was way ahead of my playing.

first semester of conservatory, i was utterly confused. but my piano-playing had improved immensely. some piano performance majors were trying to get me to audition to join a studio supervised by a faculty member. i remember that fondly--i might have studied with lydia rutstein.

eight years later, in waterloo records, i was staring at lydia's face on the cover of a used LP. i didn't have the heart not to buy it. i have never listened to it.

i sometimes wonder whether i was the last one admitted into my cohort. but it didn't end up mattering. i caught on. i wasn't the best, but i was better than average. i was a good thinker. that made up for my lack in musicality, talent, or whimsy. in hinsight, it was really only one professor who didn't treat me like he thought i could go far. he was a drunk who hated undergrads. and his music was boring.

i left music, for my own good, really. and the thing is, i have perfect pitch now. it's not very fast, and not so flashy. but if you hum a note, i can usually tell what it is. and if i hear a song, i can sing it back, several days later, in the same key and with the same precision as the original. if i went back to ear-training school, i would kill on their exams.

the one thing conservatory taught me was: talent helps, but you can really make up for in in old-fashioned hard work.

it's been a blessing and a curse, this realization. i left music just as i matered it enough to take elite classes but tnot enough to make a career of it. i could have stayed. i'd have a phd in music composition by now and would be collecting occasional checks from ascap for my obscure compositions that would get aired on local npr or college radio stations. gross.

teachers often love me. because i go from just acceptable to pretty damn good in a short amount of time. it's after that where i run into problems.

i was an academic for a bit. my writing was only so-so. and i hated reading. but i showed up and listened and pretty soon, faculty kept trying to convince me to get a phd, telling me i'm writing dissertation-quality work, that academia needed "people like me."

that was nice.

i took a production cllass and the professor told me i had made one of the best pieces of book art she had seen in a long time.

i'm a little more settled now. but still thoroughly confused. i only recently realized that i want to work on theatre that is physical, that treats the text as no more important than the movement or the set or the sound or the lights. and i'm taking a writing class?

did i mention i was once a crappy writer? not crappy--humble, but crappy--why should words even matter?

i don't really know why i'm writing. there are plenty of things that need to get written. but it feels like a distraction. i don't even know what theatre is like, really. the fact is, when i don't write, i become depressed, then nothing else happens well. i kept myself alive at SITI writing morning pages, taking copious notes, blogging about each revelation.

when i was about eight, mom told me a story. i was playing outside and obaachama watched. suddenly, she turned to my mother and said, "be careful of that one, she's smart."

10/5 freewrite--"i miss her so much every day"

second year of college, during the experimental composition module, corey wrote a piece called "closing statement." the score was just: "Improvise music and song using the following text, 'i miss her so much every day.'" a handful of us played it together--green chalkboards as witness, randy's prune-eyes shut in feigned interest.

a year later, at a composition recital, corey took the same piece but set it to five chords he scrawled with crayon--his counter-tenor pushing into the grey stone of fairchild chapel. playing the chords on the decrepit upright, rather than the well-tuned steinway grand, with his back to us singing up rather than forward--stretching out the prosody as far as possible. "i... i... i miss... i miss her..."

that might have been 1998. kim would have been living in chicago at that point. my parents still lived in tokyo. i was dating--probably--becky. or was it 1999? kim would have been in baltimore, my parents would have just moved to groton, and i would have been dating clara-who-had-not-yet-changed-her-name-to-hiroshi.

chicago and baltimore or tokyo and groton. it's hard to tell whether they would have been departures or returns.

when i first performed "closing statement," i thought i knew what it was about. corey probably thought he knew what it was about, too. i was most likely very indulgent. 20/21-year-olds often are. of course, 31/32-year-olds can be, too. i forgot about that piece. probably on purpose, like how you forget the water is cold when you've been swimming in it long enough.

corey wrote another song. he used yvan's words. "your absence has done my hands a favor. i now know every fold and wrinkle of my body." i think that song used toy pianos and accordions.

prosody.

when i played my thesis for mom, she gasped. it was for full orchestra. a full semester's worth of meetings with the only faculty member who could bare to look at me. she said, "wow. it's real music." i guess she didn't think any of the other recordings i brought home were. that's what four years of conservatory training are meant to do--create real music. i didn't tell her about the mathematical charts i taped to my wall. or the fact that i really had no idea what it would sound like until the day the chamber orchestra played it. the string players hated it--no vibrato and notes sustained over several measures. they don't like counting measures. i hated string players.

mom was always confused about my admission to a conservatory. "i never thought you were very... well... i knew you LIKED music."

i remember standing up from the table and spitting, "but you put it in my head! 'be the first female conductor, you have such careful hands. you're so sensitive.'"

i was the one who took a hobby too far.

kim still has much of my music in her itunes. every time the one recording of me singing plays, she says, "kt's on the radio!" i still blush.

it was one of my first gifts to her. a cd of corey's music with a guest appearance by me. it wasn't even a gift, really. she saw a stack of them and said, "can i have one?" and even though i barely knew her, i couldn't think of a reason why not. she was being so nice and attentive. i told her, "i wrote the song and words for my mom." she looked at her shoes. i'm still glad she has that song.

eight years later, on a stage in saratoga springs, i squinted at the limelights and looked down at julieta sitting on the edge of the thrust. the only words that came from my mouth were:

let me hold your small hand
let me hold stroke your thin hair
let me carry you in my arms
let me see you

julieta's abuela had died a couple weeks before. and most of our conversations were about our filipino american girlfriends. julieta looked up at me dewy-eyed and we fled to the wings as the viewpoints session moved on.

kim and i had been coming off a fight that day. the training was coming to a close. i was reluctant to part with my new friends. but i couldn't wait to come home.

that last thanksgiving, kim came up to groton to visit. mom had pulled me aside and said, "thank you for coming up separately, leaving me time to have with just you." it was a week after my birthday. we were in the living room when mom decided to give me my belated present. it was a men's dress shirt from land's end and a red tie. kim and mom sat close to each other on the couch, both beaming as i modeled my new duds.

kim said, "doesn't she look so pretty?"
and mom replied, "she does. yes, she does."

9/20 freewrite--spring

i had forgotten what spring was like
water flowing from a mouth
somewhere, in the twilight
an eleven-year-old girl-boy
eats ding-dongs for dinner

so the blossoms never bloomed
and the air stayed metal
smelling like
licking the jungle gym
in sub-zero weather

grass the color of
goose shit
greybluechartreusebrown
not dewy
just vague

once, on a morning meant for flight
just six months after getting my license
i tried to turn a slushy corner
and skid into a ditch

dad got out of the car in front of me
said: don't brake in the snow
guess i'll wait another day to go back
to ohio

someone lent us a cell phone
it was before i had one
before dad used mine so much
to update us from the hospital
before he said:

i think i'll get your mom a cell phone for christmas
and i said: you really think
that's waht she wants? sounds
more like what you want

what would mom do with
a cell phone anyway?
she's always at home
or the hospital
or if she's out, she's with you

the tow-truck came
and so did the cops
nothing damaged
but my northeast ego
exiled in midwest doldrums

forgetting
is when you live now
i means you're never bored
because you just
don't know any better

every march, the whole city
would sit in a palpable tension
we'd watch the news
and the branches
jealously peeking at
clips from southwesterly climes

then,
often overnight
they would burst in pink and magenta
foaming with colors
so indiscreet, you couldn't
walk the street without at least once
wondering if you, yourself, were a street walker

this was spring

for three years
i actually knew what it was
she had talked about it
all through my childhood
held it with such anticipation

i'll buy you a new doll set
for spring
i'll buy you a kimono
for spring
we'll make sakura mochi
for spring
you'll start new school
in spring

how have we sprung from spring?

on discipline

i return to the work force in just under an hour. i'm ambivalent. i worry that returning to the workforce, a relatively steady income, and that crazy place called the university of texas will undo me, will somehow take away all the progress, soul-searching, and craft-building i have done both in this past summer and over the last two years.

despite this ambivalence, i know i can actually continue, maybe even accelerate my work. the key is discipline.

discipline has been on the mind a lot. sometimes, i'll find myself saying, "when i start earning this much," or "when i get this resource." but this is just an excuse to put off discipline. anne bogart talks said during a podcast, "work the way you want to work now." she also wrote in her chapter on "resistance" that we must always commit to where we are now, or else what we need will never come.

excuses. that's what makes us avoid discipline. it's not easy to pursue discipline, that's why it's called discipline--it's hard.

sometimes, conditions will foster discipline, sometimes discipline comes at extreme cost. and sometimes, it's important to let go of discipline. we also need to be gentle when we fall off-punishing ourselves and therefore taking the joy out of what we do. being too disciplined--inhuman, in many ways--makes the discipline rigid, totalitarian, and dead.

the thing is, discipline is a gift. it is a way we tell ourselves: this is the time to do that thing that is what we want. it is a vehicle for joy, even if we need convincing every time.

i have a friend who wakes early every morning to take care of his orchids. i've heard his partner tease him about this, and i would giggle at his hobby. even though this daily care would drive me crazy with its idiosyncracies and pretty demanding schedule, the occasional parasites, my friend makes it look so easy. the teasing rolls off his back. but i imagine, it's not easy all the time. i imagine, he must undergo constant negotiation. but it's so clear by the way he goes about his morning chores: it gives him absolute joy. what a gift that is, to wake up every morning to joy, even if the extent of that joy might fluctuate daily.

this friend of mine has always struck me as very disciplined. thinking back on what i've known about him for over a decade, his discipline seems to be at the core of him. and he's far from a robot--there are many things he is not so disciplined about. and he is generally pretty laid back.

i think that part of my difficulty is that i'm too ambitious about my discipline. i want to be disciplined about everything all at once--my creative production, my creative consumption, my relationships, my politics, my economic wealth, my physical fitness, my public persona, my spiritual growth. i try to turn over too many new leaves at once.

i can hold that kind of discipline for everything for maybe 10 days, tops. then, inevitably, my discipline will falter--i'll oversleep or miscalculate. then i throw up my hands and give up, at least for a little while. so i get things done in emotionally taxing jags of 10 days followed by weeks of procrastination.

when i was at siti, i only needed to be disciplined about a few things. i let go of my looks, my "life style, food preparation. but i spent a full four weeks extremely disciplined about my creative production and consumption, my relationship to the world, my physicality and my spiritual growth. then, a curious thing happened. i found that i felt attractive, i began to be careful about the food i ate, and my political compass was becoming clearer and brighter. because i focused on certain types of discipline, i became more disciplined in other ways, too.

i must commit to what and where i am right now. and that happens to be someone who is returning to being an administrator. but more importantly, an artist who now has access to a new resource.

on SITI summer-part nine OR reflections

i'm now back in austin, lying in the bed i've missed for four weeks, petting my dog and remembering the smells of my own house. i've yearned for this. i've missed this. i've needed this.

all is changed, though. my body is very different. i didn't notice it morphing while i was in training, but being around familiar objects now has shown me how i've become denser and faster. and the connection between my body and my mind has become so much clearer. my body tells my mind more things, and my body listens, too.

i am melancholy. i am worried i will forget.

the last few days happened at breakneck pace. i was directing while also training. we were sewing performative "buttons" on all the work we did. it felt like we were all thinking: pack in the last of the information and hope to god it will stick. and now on this side, i'm nervous.

will i lose it? what will happen if i do? how do we integrate our undeniably changed selves back into the life that we worked so hard to forge?

lovely partner had to remind me that rest requires it own rigor. i need to reflect seriously, give space to my transition, recognize that i'm more prepared than i thought for many, many things. and still be gentle with my fears, my insecurities, my obstacles.

today, though, my body is strange. it wants to train. and i am not quite sure how to assuage it. it's 107 degrees and our AC barely works. and then the every day things that i had forgotten about: dishes, sweeping, driving, the post office--they all return. i am a bit confused about who i am, what to do with myself. i still haven't sat down with a good half hour to write out my thoughts for myself. i'm too busy adjusting to actively notice my adjustments.

and i'm also a bit loath to finish this post right now. it's been sitting open on my computer screen for over a day. i'm sure it's no surprise why. because this is my last SITI post. and that gives me profound pains and fears. just as i had to remember to take pieces of my community here to SITI with me--just so i could make it through the solitude, i am remembering to take pieces of people and lessons i learned while training, back into my home, with the fervor and passion i finally learned was always within me.

it's confusing, yes. but i realize that it's more than just my own brow that becomes knit in this process. i am now the suture that connects one space to another, and though those spaces serve different purposes and functions in the larger sense of the world, they are interdependent and woven together. how completely messy. how completely complicated. how completely delightful.

and now, we begin.

on SITI summer-part eight OR our bodies, our selves

on wednesday, i had yet another breakthrough about my body. i realized that the reason i "don't dance" is not because i'm afraid to look the fool (i look the fool all the time!), but because i have fundamentally hated the body i was given at birth. it's beyond "body issues" of wanting to be thin or attractive or sexy. somehow, since a very very early age, i learned that to have a girl body meant weakness, meant danger, meant potential violation. when barney o'hanlon said to me during a movement class, "kt, you're so good at folding, try more extending," i knew the reason i had so much trouble was because of my body hatred. extending my limbs meant showing my female body; showing my female body has always made me very, very afraid.

so i wept. and wept. and wept. and freaked out. and wept. and rehearsed. and freaked out again.

it's no small problem to deal with. afterall, i have hated being a girl since i was about four years old. yes, part of this is just my own gender identity and expression. and it's murky water around the line between gender expression and body image. the fact is, i have had a chance--many, in fact--to change my body. to take hormones, to do surgery. but i haven't. i respect those who do. but i resolved to keep my body as i was born with--vulnerable, flawed, and unmistakeably female. now i know why.

i see on the horizon the hope that one day, i will recognize my body as my own and as a finely-honed tool of expression and creativity. as something wholly connected to my mind and soul. as with any gender expression, i will continue containing it, pushing it, pulling it. but i will also choose to expose it. and revel in that vulnerability. someday, i will be that butch who loves her body as part of herself, rather than as something that could go nice on someone else.

the days after i wept, many things happened to reinforce my resolve around my body. all these different people kept calling me "gorgeous." and ellen lauren told me i "know how to move." i just need to continue exploring my limits and my possibilities, and embrace that fear as best i can.

on SITI summer-part seven OR depression, doubt and determination

they warned us last friday that this would be the week. the week when everyone would break down. when the entropy of fatigue would hit the wall of impossibility. when almost everyone would sit and say to themselves, "what the FUCK do i think i'm doing?"

actually, though, i was euphoric for the first half of the week. because i realized that the thing i semi-wrote about last post was actually acute depression trying to take away my life. and by realizing i was teetering on the edge of depression, i made the decision to fight it. i was the bouncer outside the door to the interior of my mind, stiff palm outstretched and telling depression that it couldn't come in. sadness, i let pass. loneliness, i let pass. confusion, i let pass. but i dug in deep to get depression out of my mind. i've had low-level depression since i was about 8 years old. it wasn't diagnosed until the year my mother died. up until february, i had been on anti-depressants for five years. it's been a struggle, especially off the meds.

on top of my decision to fight depression, rather than let it take over, i received several compliments in rapid succession. anne bogart said that i have a certain charisma that makes people trust me ("and i don't say that to many people..."), a fabulous new york director seems almost hell-bent on casting me in one of her productions, and i was receiving general affection from people i have begun to respect very deeply. i tried to give back. i listened and witnessed some of the most confident seeming people go through intense moments of self-doubt. i held people as they wept. i radiated warmth whenever i encountered anyone from the program. really, i did.

that was great. and lovely partner wisely told me to write down things people told me and sensations i experienced in these days of euphoria: "people here have begun to show a deep respect for me. people have said that they want to work with me. other actors and siti company members have said i have a 'great voice.' anne seems to enjoy me. people wish me well." i actually thought i was done with my "breakdown."

not quite.

the doubt began creeping in on wednesday. and thursday, after a very grueling viewpoints session, i actually heard myself saying, "what the fuck are you doing?!" today, it intensified. i kept shaking my head after every exercise i stood up to do. i felt ashamed that i couldn't do suzuki with full energy because my foot was in pain. and after i sat down from a short viewpoints exercise, a siti company member very gently reminded me release tension in my shoulders. i felt so discouraged that during the next exercise, i was completely terrified to be performing in front of my peers. the afternoon was a grueling suzuki session followed by a viewpoints session that i had been looking forward to: doing viewpoints in the big theater, with the sounds and light designers improvising with us. but all i could do was think "i'm such a shit actor. i'm such a self-indulgent sonovabitch." so i spent my whole time actually trying to dodge the light.

when i left the theater, i cried in silent wails slouched over a chair. embarrassed and hoping no one would find me.

it sucks. it really sucks. thing is. i know this doubt is temporary. and that's the difference. that is what tells me that i am keeping depression out of the interiors of my mind. after this week, i have a renewed determination toward the future. i decided to practice something anne talks about: speaking something into existence. the act of saying something makes it true, even if you have doubts.

and this is what i've been saying: i have a talent for directing and a strong presence on stage. i am not a dilettante. i am in this and good at it. i will find funding. this will be how i live.

i have begun sharing my work with the people here. my solo work as well as the work i've done with stamp lab. i feel like i'm speaking that into existence, too. by talking about "una corda," it will happen, and it will happen well. and by talking about my work with stamp lab, i will continue finding community around performance and theatre. even as i write this, the doubt creeps into the peripheries of my consciousness. and i think of advice i would give to someone saying the same things: that the doubt is a sign of change, and that we must have faith that the change goes in the right direction. i have to keep believing that.

i am determined.