inches of skin
millimeters of hair
miles of agony
footsteps of pain
arcs of betrayal
years of sunshines
and of moons

now

taking those measures
measure for measure
bundle it up

pieces of
the oldest tact,
apartheid,
in the mix

today, all of that
spilling into this
oakland
and everywhere else miserly bullets
reign, and rip

he is the master of this ceremony, today

long live oscar grant

NY Times:  Spider-Man is the Among the Most Wanted

i had a good visit from bad texas recently, and now i realize that i need to write some more.  went to the law school for a nice reunion with people i had not seen in some time and i come back here, trying to dig myself back up.

i made up that word because its easy but writing, really writing and really doing this thing is a task.  i respect my many friends who do their art and do it always.  i’ve always known writing is somewhere in my fingers, but bringing it back out is the tough part.

it hides, and i need to seek.

maybe it likes to be called by a different name, a different face, a new smell.  a piece of heart ripped and mashed into digestible bite-size pellets.  so it seems.

only time will tell.

And the thickness comes in slow. Probably because I have been away so long.

This used to be a swamp. All of it. Back at college, you could run your finger up and down a strip of stone on the architecture school to imitate the frog songs that used to pepper this place. A crude honor. They say Houston was built on top of a swamp, not in place of it. In my neighborhood there are alligator warning signs and no alligators. I did see a mutilated animal carcass on one of my walks near where the alligators supposedly reside. Maggots and flies was all that I saw of the alligators.

The air continues as I open the window in my room. The smell is the best now, when I am not concerned about getting anywhere, but more about staying somewhere.

Songs I miss come up in conversations with people, memories I have forgotten because they are associated with place, with the placement of my feet in relation to the placement of my mother’s feet. Where I sit on the sofa and where my sister sits. Where I type and where my dad’s glasses are propped on his nose. The timing of the air in relation to every other piece of me. These are the structures that help me remember.

They help me remember what they were feeling and how I was feeling, what went on in our minds, hearts at those times when we were together.

This is what I miss, this memory that I am remembering. When these structures are no longer there, when they change, I am afraid these memories will be gone forever. These triggers make me think twice about a lot of things, about change, about the immense ramifications of where and what I am living now in LA, and about the kind of air I have chosen to breathe, and wade through.

“Pillow Fight in San Francisco!”

Um, OK. I look at the pictures and it was exactly as I feared – hundreds of people bringing pillows out to a public place in SF to do something usually reserved for the privacy of bedrooms across the world. On first brush, I’m mildly disgusted – not only is it a big waste of pillow-related resources but its seems to bespeak of a massive deprivation of intimacy that moves people to spend their evening hitting other people with fluff.

Not to say that its not fun. I’ve participated in many a pillow fight and they are, indeed, quite fun and satisfying.

On second brush, I see that most of the folks in the picture are white. That what reigns in this situation might be an expression of white privilege – the flippant way of creating a hugely public event out of something private signifies the peculiarity of white privilege. It reminds me of cuddle parties, where people pay to cuddle with each other in private spaces, but its become such a phenomena, that it speaks of putting things public.

And to boot, this event happens on Valentine’s Day. Is it a singles event? I wonder whether one could find their soulmate after smacking their face with white goose down. Does love strike on first fluff smack?

And then I went to my good friend JP’s site to see what poetry he’s put up of late. He participated in the 3:15 experiment – wake up for a month at 3:15 am, write poetry, and then go back to sleep. I’m usually a ridiculous bundle of ridiculous at that time, which would probably make things easier to write (the theory being that when I’m not a ridiculous bundle of ridiculous, then I have some equally arbitrary divisions between my creativity and my pen). But since I love my sleep, I would probably not participate in such an experiment.

Anyway, I was reading some of his great poetry. And then I went back to my contracts. And that started to read like poetry. It was the weirdest paradigm shift-lag. I suddenly realize that I’m not supposed to do that. That somehow it was wrong; I wasn’t meeting my internal normalized expectations. When I realized I’m not supposed to take contracts in the way I take poetry in, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and thought briefly – Why am I doing this?

Like going to the movies with my sister, not staying overnight at friends’ places so I can wake up and eat breakfast with the family, running late to any appointments involving my sister, brother in law, and myself in some combination, playing badminton with my mom, spending hours in front of the television which spits out a combination of Hindi and English in unlike amounts.

And infalliably, participating in various Hindu-related prayers and rituals. New Years Day provides the perfect occasion for reminding ourselves that we are Hindu, or maybe a time to re-evaluate my own Hindu-ness. We start the day late – all the sons and daughters are slow in waking. But the parents are punctually shuffling through papers for any department or grocery store sales, for coupons. This ritual seems to prepare them for later prayers.

I wake to discussions of the sale of an air-conditioning unit at Best Buy. I know whats in store and prepare my mind and body for a day of feet falling asleep from hours of sitting and palms together fingertips towards the sky. I’m ready to do pooja.

First stop, our temple at home. We sit, waiting for my sister and brother-in-law, and we start when they take too long. Books and pamphlets with lamp oil stains and tears and gods and goddesses are held again and their contents recited. Cushions are sat on, flames are lit, incense optional. Framed pictures of different avatars of gods and goddesses are gazed at. I sit in back, my parents rock back and forth as they pray, I fiddle with my cushion and my seating position.

Next stop, Meenakshi temple in Pearland, TX. A miniature of the beautiful Sri Meenakshi temple in Madurai, India. We visit deity upon deity, taking turns walking around the deity. There are throngs of people around so we wait in lines to pray, to give alms, to get blessed by the priest. It is dark by now, but there are plenty of lights and lamps. Inside the main temple complex, we wait in more lines, but we are strategic and travel together, ensuring that our turns come together. And we take prasad and sit down for a moment before leaving.

My brother-in-law was ahead of us in all of this; he was always one deity ahead. When I was at Ganesh, he was at Meenakshi. Of course, I tried to keep up, but couldn’t. He even laid prostrated in front of some deities. But he drove all of us in and out of the temple; he epitomized speed pooja-ing. I was familiar with this technique, having done it myself on many occasions. The image that most pops into my head from that day now is my brother-in-law’s laced fingers accompanying his shoeless feet moving across brick and stone, eyeing the next deity to worship and preparing to convert his fingers to point to the sky, from laced to parallel.

Babies crawling, mothers brooding, sisters weeping, fathers running. Firecrackers and snowshoes. Bicycles, tricycles. Some old. Some never known. Marches and protests and banners and slogans and fists and hookups and sweet mango juice. Vietnamese sandwiches and smiles and secret looks and mild stares and bad jokes and pimples and trucks with big ass wheels and changing channels and running up and down the stairs and driving everywhere and hunger and tears and eating alone and annoying parties and math problems and bike riding. Law books, new friends, old friends, missed opportunities, isolation, simple breaks, communities of ambition, awkward moments, the smell of the sun, a new start.

Nostalgia wrinkles into us those times that we least expect.

I think history is the primary reason why meeting new people is not easy. Personal histories. I’m so used to living in Houston and in the Bay Area, where everyone knows what I’m about, what I’ve done, who I’ve hung out with, what my various facial hair configurations have been. People there know me and I know them. I know their histories and their ways of living. They know my way of living.

This builds up over time, this kind of unique, intimate history. We tell stories to each other everyday, we build on these stories the following days, and we continue on until we build relationships and other human to human things. We are story tellers, whether we like it or not.

Which brings me to my current quandary. There’s been a so-called whirlwind of activity in my social sphere lately – I say so-called because for me, going from near zero (having only one or two good friends in LA) to more than zero (having more than five friends here) is a mathematical jump of near infinity (try it, its true!) and I choose to classify this as a flurry of the winds. This whirlwind involves meeting new people, people who have no sense of my history nor I theirs. We meet, introduce our names and where we are from, and share similar dissenting interests (’Man, there are tons of people fresh out of college here aren’t there? Yeah, I know – its weird!’).

From there, I am not always compelled to share the rest of my story. This is where I don’t like being a storyteller. I have to explain the work I’ve done, where I’ve lived, what I hope to do, etc. etc. The list of possible stories to share is endless, and that is not the critical point. The critical point is that I haven’t had to share these stories in a LONG time; for at least 3 years or so.

Maybe I feel rusty; I’m just out of practice, that’s all. Or maybe I just miss my good friends and family. Everytime I have to open my history vault to share with someone new, the images of my good friends and family are stamped on the container, reminding me that there are people that will always know you and will always remember how ridiculous you are.

Edit:  I made a spelling error that I fixed with this edit.  Thanks aw.

Slowly, nostalgia is building up. Strange, its revealing itself and its funny way before I even leave. Maybe its because I’ve left home so many times before.

An ounce of me is not wanting to go, not take further responsibilities via law school and all the things it comes with. I live a semi-charmed life at the moment, doing mostly what I want to do whenever I want.

My trip west is this frail reality ripping itself to shreds. I can already feel the process starting, obligations and money issues poke holes in this nice little world. Uncovering so much more, of everything.

In a way, though, its nice. I am moving across my world, from one reality to another. Transitioning into something interesting – hopefully – perhaps even stunning.

Haven’t packed a thing. I’m still deciding whether its best to leave it to the last week, or the last hour. I’ve made some lists, of course, but they sit next to me, staring at me, waiting for further instructions or commands.

Maybe I’m the one thats waiting.