"dear you"

dear christopher or christina,

i've always loved names with Christ in them. it's funny because i was never very religious, which you could've guessed by now, but the way the word "Christ" looked on a page was beautiful, i thought. i still do. it has an archaic feel to it; i always imagine it in faded script, the name of the Son of God who died for our sins. i guess i'm more religious now than i ever was or at least more aware of my sins.

the window in front of me is streaked with drops of rain and has been for the past three days. perhaps, that's why i'm writing now. because of the rain and how it reminds me of you.

"you." if i knew who you'd turn out to be or knew you were actually a "you" when i conceived you in my womb, then i imagine "you'd" be sitting on the empty blue, fabric couch in the living room, watching television drowning out the pitter, patter of rain drizzling the windows with your sitcoms, reality shows, or baseball games. or perhaps you'd be practicing an instrument. guitar. i like guys who play guitar. i also like girls who are musical. girls are better suited for the piano. my mother thought so too, or maybe she conditioned me to believe it by forcing me to take lessons. i can still remember being bent over the mahogany piano that my mother had bought brand new, stretching my little fingers as far as i could to hit the right notes at the right time to produce something mellifluous. but my best practices echoed through the air with cacophonous intensity into my mother's disappointed ears. i wouldn't have wanted that for you.

but who knows. you could've been talented. you could've been good at everything i was bad at. i didn't understand my mother's incessant nagging that i take up another instrument after i gave up on the piano. i was only nine years old, but mother panicked, afraid the window for discovering my talents was rapidly closing.

i tried my hand at stringed instruments: the violin, cello, even the harp. but i wasn't fit for music, so my mother imagined that i was harboring some secret artistic ability in my hands. so she hired an art tutor, a poor art school student, who would guide my left hand with hers to draw a fat elephant with cylindrical legs and feet, big, flappy ears, and a snake-like trunk. she hoped that by guiding my hands along, i'd learn to draw like her. her hands were like training wheels waiting to be taken off when i learned to balance the pencil by myself, drawing the same smooth curves, and shading in the dark and light lines of the elephant to show depth. i never did. i liked how easy it was to just let her guide my pencil and effortlessly produce such pretty drawings.   

i never did find my talent. but i found your father when i was 15, who last i heard was working as a mechanic back in our hometown. he was a handsome boy with light brown hair and green eyes, a high bridged nose and thin lips that he liked to constantly keep moist with his tongue. i called him by his middle name, Chris, even though everyone else called him by his first, Pete. that was special to me. he made me feel like the talent i didn't have. our relationship felt so natural. when he swept my hair back and told me he loved me, i wanted to give him everything. and i thought that it would be enough.

i thought that it would be enough that one, wet afternoon, he climbed up and through my window drenched in the summer downpour. as he looked at me with piercing, green eyes he told me that he wanted all of me and that he would make me feel special. because i was. peeling off his soaked shirt, i gave him my all.

his last words to me were, "i'll see you around." and he left, climbing out the same window that he had crept in through. the next few weeks were a blur of tears and confusion as i wondered where he had gone, why he hadn't bothered to talk to me since that rainy day. then the nausea came. and the vomiting. i had to look for him when i suspected that there was life inside of me. i even harbored a secret hope that this would yoke me and your father together. when i told him i was pregnant with you, he denied that you were his. he denied me and told me to stay away because he didn't know me. i should've known then. i should've known that you  weren't just a mistake. maybe you weren't his, but you were mine. 

but i was blind.

i didn't see you as anything, just a violation of me, not a part of me, so i let you go. i let you go before you took one breath and i let you go before i could know you.

i'm sorry.

even if i've said it a thousand times, it wouldn't be enough, but i need you to know that i am truly and completely sorry.

i'm sorry that you couldn't hear your name called by your own mother, that you never uttered any words, that you never fully came to be.

forgive me, please. i know i don't deserve it, but i need your forgiveness. i need you.

this apartment is empty without you. my closets overflow with pairs of designer shoes, my kitchen with pots and pans that i don't even use, my bedroom where i sleep alone. i wonder where all this time has gone and i wonder if the greatest punishment is having never gotten to have you or no longer having the opportunity to grow a life inside me. it seems that the window has closed.

i like to think that my greatest talent was yet to be discovered in your birth, in being a mother.

Christopher. Christina.


Love,

Mom

xxx

an O after our first date,

another O, maybe a X on a cheek after,

the latter depending on your comfort.

i don't want to force it. or force you.

i want to earn your X and swear an

oath to you, so that all our days

will be spent XOXOing in love

and intimacy to the glory of God.

why don't we seal our oath with an X?

i'm afraid that my XXX obsession will

rear its head to tempt me, to rip me from

from your O.

but i pray that God will change me, that i

will fight for you. the only XXX i want is

with you on our marriage bed. i want to

X you everywhere, my lips scaling every

inch of skin on your body, to O you in my

arms as you fall asleep. i hope these X's

and O's will be the overflow of love from

God to us and from us to our children.

i will keep these X's and O's to myself until

we are bound together and i pray that our lives

together will be like pi, 3.14..., and be filled with

endless

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOs...

roller coasters

"are you afraid of roller coasters?"

i am.

"why? you think you're going to fall off and die or something?"

maybe. that's part of the reason, i guess.

"well, it has happened, i'm sure. so that fear is validated, but the chances of that happening are slim to none."

to be honest, i don't know why i am scared of roller coasters. i'm not sure if it's a fear more than a dislike or even hatred for a roller coaster.

"elaborate."

well, a roller coaster is essentially a joy ride. people enjoy riding them, but some people hate them. and most of them are scared of falling off and dying, but i've ridden enough coasters to know that i don't like them. i don't like them because they're not fun at all. people that love them find them thrilling for different reasons. the screaming, the laughing, and the blood pumping through your veins faster than it normally would, but there's no real risk in a roller coaster.

"i mean there are risks in riding it like everything else. like riding a car is a risk, but it's not as fun as a roller coaster."

that's very true, but people ride the coaster for that risk. no one rides a car just for pleasure, it gets you places and the risk you take riding it is a risk you take because you have to. but people that ride roller coasters want to take the risk of riding a roller coaster because it's the closest you can get to almost dying.

"i think there are a lot of ways that you can almost die without riding a roller coaster."

right, like bungee jumping, sky diving. i'm not saying that people who ride roller coasters have a death wish, but they want to feel the thrill and climax of almost dying when they ride. it's evident in most roller coasters. they all have a big, slow climb up to a top of a peak and slowly go over that peak to drop hard and fast downwards. the anticipation of the climb and the slow agonizing tip over the edge until you plunge down into the depths.

"yeah, but that's part of the fun. it's like you think you might die, but you know you won't. there are a lot of people like you that think they're going to die, but they're not sure. that's why you're afraid."

maybe. but remember, it's more of a dislike for me than fear. my problem with roller coasters are that they're not what they appear to be.

"what do they appear to be?"

roller coasters market themselves as joy rides that feature big drops, sharp twists and turns, and super speeds in hopes that people will be full of fear, but at the same time full of courage to face it when they ride it.

"so?"

so, that's not real courage at all. it's a fake. a phony courage that's made up by a fake fear.

"what fake fear?"

the fake fear of death. roller coasters strike fear into a lot of people's hearts, but it's not a real fear at all because there's no real intended risk for those who are going to ride it. all roller coasters are designed to a tee to be the safest possible ride that people can enjoy. there's no risk of dying or falling off because they're designed to be that way.

"they'd be out of a job if they didn't."

yeah, but imagine a roller coaster with none of the safety precautions and all of the risks.

"no one would want to ride it."

most people wouldn't want to ride it because they would really be afraid. that fear that they thought they experienced before, when the roller coaster was safe, would be exposed for what it really is.

"which is..."

nothing. it's nothing, but take away the safety, make the most dangerous roller coaster and some people would ride it. they would ride it with real fear, but real courage and if they survived they'd experience a thrill and joy that no other roller coaster could give them.

"so you don't like roller coasters because they're not really dangerous?"

i don't like them because what roller coasters really are are fake joy rides for fake people who think they harbor a real courage and conquering spirit when it's really just a glorified test drive. roller coasters are an equivocated contortion of safe danger.

"so i'm riding this one alone."

i'll ride with you, but don't expect me to scream.

paper

people throw it away, some recycle, some keep papers to remember or document or perhaps for sentimental value, but at the end of the day it's still paper. thinly, cheaply produced paper only as good as the writing that's on it. some words are holier than others. some words are meant to entertain or to inform, but they are only temporary. there are timeless classics, however. books. the Holy Bible. original manuscripts, maybe. first editions. of course now everything is digital. digitally archived, saved, published, retweeted, blogged, posted. some will defend paperbacks and hardbacks against kindles. but the only thing that matters are the words on the page and as i was looking through the pages and pages of random Christmas and birthday cards, elementary school achievement certificates, college essays, and interesting newspaper bits i thought were interesting, i found that i couldn't bring myself to throw away certain bits of paper.

the ticket stubs to The Dark Knight in Imax, which i saw twice.

a piece of construction paper with random bits of encouragement written by my classmates during my freshmen year of college, whom i really didn't know at the time.

cards that my grandfather had hand drawn on pictures of birds and other creatures.

at the same time, i found it really easy to throw away other papers that had no meaning to me now.

bank statements, random notes of encouragement from people that i served with at a retreat, none of whom i really talk to now. certificates of achievements from elementary school, what achievements? i don't know.

there's so much paper in this world, let alone my room, and i wonder what the point of it all is.

my friend wes was cleaning out his old room, which he just moved back into, and all of these bits and pieces of paper, photos, memories were being resurrected for a moment before being tossed to never be thought about or looked at again.

i'll look back again someday and look at all these papers that i have accumulated over the years and wonder why i've kept them. why i've held onto these things that don't have the same meaning as it once did. maybe i'll look back on these blog posts and wonder if they've all been a waste of digital space. it makes me want to matter. not me, but my words. not the words itself, but what they're about, who they point to. will i point to Jesus and the Kingdom or myself and how great i am, i was, i used to be. what will the value of these words be?

will these words be remembered? will they encourage? will they help at all? or will it all be tossed into a fire, ink fading, creases crumbling, paper to ashes.

the tree of life

i've just come back from an abstract night. i decided to wash out the filth transformers 3 that infected my eyes and brain with a thinking movie, the tree of life. i bought the ticket an hour before showing, so i walked over to best buy, used their bathroom, and bought the king of limbs for $6 to listen to on the ride home. i walked into the theater expecting no one to be there, but there was an older asian couple sitting, talking, eating popcorn. i sat down in the 3rd row, dead center, best seat in the house, at least to me and began to ponder about my own life. my sins, my need for Christ, how i've been dealing with my problems and how i've been stuck in this rut of sin, confess, sin, cry out, sin, etc. as i thought, more and more people started walking in and i couldn't help but notice the kind of people that walked in. another couple walked in, younger, white, and seemed to enjoy kissing each other. a father and son walked in, talking about the film they were about to watch, enjoying one another's company and this time they had together as father and son. some other couples walked in, a group of middle aged friends, a group of high school/college friends, a group of girls who kept whispering and giggling, tempting me to turn around and to tell them to shut up (i didn't).

the movie started and although i knew that the visuals would be good, i didn't realize how beautiful each shot would be. every scene had a sense of elevation, a sense of awe and wonder invoked by the camera angles. the scenes with the actors were so natural and intimate, the camera was almost like a spirit or ghost in which we could peer into the lives of these characters. but the tree of life went beyond these characters' stories, it went into our own lives and how every person, action, and event shapes who we are.

the visuals are amazing, the acting is great, but this film will divide audiences. i know that most people that i know would hate this movie. "nothing happened," "what just happened," "this movie sucks," "i don't get it" are all responses that i would expect to hear and i would disagree because most people walk in with a certain expectation and when the film doesn't meet that expectation, it's all downhill from there. i walked in expecting a visually compelling film that dared to ask and answer life's hardest questions: "what's the meaning of it all?" "is there a God?" "why do people die?"

the film doesn't answer these questions definitively and i don't think anyone was expecting it to, but at times the film does drag on and seems out of focus. it seems to tackle too much and answer too little. at worst, the tree of life seems like sequences of abstractions and existentialism, but at best, the tree of life seems to have glimmers of hope, redemption, and the power of unfailing love.

during the film, i witnessed some people getting up and leaving. i was trying to be patient with the film and with the group of girls behind me who kept whispering and giggling. but i know that the tree of life has something for everyone. that somehow that we are connected with one another, that God has created us for relationship and fellowship, that as we were watching this film, we, as an audience, were connected on a deeper, human level. that like the characters in the film, we have known pain, love, rebellion, and forgiveness.

to those who want to watch this film, or are at least willing to, i would say this: be patient and don't be quick to anger. the film is far from perfect, but it dares to be great and perhaps some will dare to say that it is.

how about that novel you've been working on...

so how about it?

i don't know.

i don't know why i can't seem to focus. i want to do so many things, but i can't seem to be disciplined enough or self-controlled to complete anything.

this is due to my lack of patience.

impatient to work hard, impatient to go through the stress, impatient to sit down and think.

like guns n roses, i could use a little patience.

1 + 1 = 1