on powerful habits

In the past, I was weak, and let people harness and usurp my fledgling powers. After FYFTT, however, I appreciate my gifts and have gained awareness of my challenges; I can now tell when I am slipping into self-mutilating behaviors and toxic interactions; now, I stop myself, breathe, and remove myself as quickly as possible from the sticky situation. Holding a pouch of salt helps me stay calm, as I can dump anyt negativity into it and cleanse my aura of stickiness – be it anger, jealousy, contempt, or hatred. Oh how much better this is to the old days when I would simmer and steep within the strong emotional states picked up from others, reaching for drugs to numb myself out but in the process making myself more susceptible to reinfection with the debilitating emotions I seem to pick up so easily. I am watchful of my old ways, mindful to not slip back into old habits, and trusting of my intution (which some would call Spirit) enough that I move when I feel it is time to move, shield when I feel it is time to shield, and breathe when no other option seems right. Praise be unto the ancestors, for it is their coding that I bring to bear. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

fast bus found

As part of the ceremony honoring the time I spent in Houston, Texas, I went for a nice long bike ride through her bowels last night. The city she rewarded me, and honored my honoring, by revealing a shortcut to Hobby. And so, this morning, instead of taking the light rail to one bus and then switching to another, I simply walked from the 6th Ward to the Downtown Transportation Center (following the route I had pioneered the night before) and mounted #88 ltd., a direct bus to the airport. This is a hot and foul but beautiful and corrupt city, and I shall miss her eternal flatness and unpredictable weather, her friendly pedestrians and shimmering heat, her grinding grit and broken sidewalks, her lounging transients and steaming-hot phở. Fare thee well, fine city of Houston, until we mingle again.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on getting fancy

This morning, on the way to anatomy class, I jumped onto a Jersey barrier upon my (loaned) bicycle in an attempt to avoid having to ride in the busy street around a bit of construction blocking the pedestrian path. Immediately upon mounting the concrete structure I lost my balance, fell over onto a spot of muddy grass to the right (i.e. not into vehicular traffic), tore open a finger-knuckle on my right hand, and badly bent the front wheel of the purple-and-blue women's bicycle I have been riding for the past week. Undaunted, I turned around and walked the mangled velocipede back to my hostel, turned back around, and walked the 2.3 miles to class.

Oh the plans I had to repair the front wheel, to tune the spokes by hand, myself, whilst sitting in a nice park and whistling away my sorrows. Anyone who has ever attempted to tune the spokes of a badly-bent bicycle wheel will know how frustrating, infuriating, and all but hopeless it is to try and do this type of work freehand, by eye and feel alone; I spent more than three hours trying to do it myself as well as trying to find a bicycle shop in Houston Texas open past six in the evening, both to no avail. Now, it is after ten p.m., the wheel is still bent (thought not nearly as badly as it was this morning,) I am exhausted in will, spirit, and body, and not only is my time gone but I will be out roughly $35 for a new wheel or a few bucks less for a quick tuning job, adding those to the 3+ hours I already spent (at $20/hr, ), and I'm almost out a c-note with nothing to show for it but my all-too-apparent frustration. One of these times I'll remember to just take the bike to a shop and pay someone else to tune the spokes rather than working myself into a lather trying to do it myself. Oh brother, phew, and mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on honoring legacy

My blood runs thick on this Land of Libertie, since before its self-liberation. Furthermore, my siblings and I carry a name 600 years old, a German/Latin hybrid as rich and deep as the soil my forebears once worked. We are the last few of a waning ken, the remaining three who can pass along this name, this heritage, to future generations. We are Daugher and Sons of the American revolution, quiet and stoic and wise and brave, fragile and tender and giving and kind. We are worthy mutts, fringe-beings obliged to greatness, to glory, to godliness. With this in mind, I clawed myself out and away from the grasp of addiction and sadness and fear, undergoing one of the greatest journeys that a person can undertake, the process of self-discovery, self-evalutaion, self-healing, self-mastery; I did this because I owe it to the generations that laid the bricks of the path I now walk to be the best and brightest man I can be, to live the good and the virtuous life. If, by example, I inspire a few other souls to save themselves from destitution, darkness, and despair, I might then find time to rejoice, but, the focus now and forever more shall be on my own mind, my own feelings, my own thoughts, my own time, my own majesty, and not on that of others. So be it. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on building breezes

With a light rain falling and thunderheads building in the east, miles-high clouds blowing in off the Gulf, he collected the pieces for a new sculpture. Walking through streets bathed in a greenish, all-pervading light, he gathered them one by one from gutters and traintracks, from torn asphalt and cracked cement, bits of metal flung out of work vans as they bumped along over the tracks, rusted relics forgotten and abandoned, neither missed nor pined for. Sliver, nail, and washer found new homes his rear pocket, jangling softly with each step, each one informing him of the greater configuration of the overall piece, of its outline, shape, and composition. After much searching and with dark clouds grumbling loudly overhead, he found the stick he had been looking for, but only after he truly stopped looking for it and finally just let it find him. Now the piece lies waiting, potent and brooding, a raw little thing but something he can be proud of, a manifestation of common progress, trash recycled, recombined, and remade anew.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

a quaking soul

Oh how my body doth quake, and shiver, with the effort required to reprogramme the soul. This shaking was a mystery to me until this morning, when my yoga instructor reminded me that parts of the body shake when its muscles and tendons are learning new ways to move, new parameters to their existence. What is true for the body is also true for one's spirit: once one begins to shake off the shackles of habit and addiction, of blindness and woe, of fear and self-repression, the soul begins to vibrate anew. Freed from its tight and stifling embrace, it soon shatters the remaining bonds, soaring out from the very Inner Core with such exuberance as to make a person quake. Oh, what wonderful mystery is life on this plane.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

hostel refugees reconvene

Having fled the dusky confines of a poorly-run and overpriced shitbag of a hostel in in the Museum District of Houston, Texas, two relieved travelers chanced upon one another in friendlier digs located in that city's 6th ward. Upon remembering having seen and walked past each other in the under-lit and cluttered common area of their former place of lodging, the Japanese college student tittered into her hands, and the U.S.-born budding yogi chuckled most disarmingly. Then, after a brief shower, he bid the brightly-attired lass goodnight, and settled onto yet another mattress sheathed in plastic.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥