I Wish I Was More of a Genius

When I watch shows like Sherlock or Numb3rs, I'm constantly sitting there asking myself: why can't I be smarter? Not to say that I'm not already smart - I have an IQ at around 140 points (the only reason I know this is because of my tendency to take IQ tests when I'm drunk, so it may not be a completely credible statement). But I yearn to be more intelligent, to understand more, to be able to look at something, to glance at a problem and have the answer ready. I love a good challenge.

I've been told that, due to my love of a challenge, that I have a very combative personality. I love a good argument, some intelligent banter, and, above all, verbal sparring. It isn't precisely an adrenaline rush when I can stump someone with a witty remark, but it comes pretty damn close. Maybe there's something wrong with me; maybe I'm poorly socialized. I prefer to look at it as pushing my limits. I am constantly seeking to prove myself, constantly trying to better my life.

And, like all people who strive to be more intelligent, I neglect my social niceties. I'm awkward and, in my pursuit to exchange knowledge, I forgo finesse for facts. For those who know me, if ever I have offended, please understand that I am not a malicious person. I'm not a snob. I'm simply just too caught up in how the world works to understand how to apply grace to the workings of the world.

That's really all I have today. I just want to make it known that I really love being smart, and I hope that I will somehow, someday, figure out how to be a more tactful person. In the interim, I will sit here and write about  how I'd rather talk about the evolution of aquatic mammals than the latest trend of TV shows. You can revel in the invincibility of a Tyrannosaurus rex with grabber sticks.

It's Raining Again...

As of late, I've been doing a lot of self psychoanalysis. It's not that I've ever taken any psychology courses - God knows I would become the world's biggest pain in the ass as I attempted to diagnose everyone's behavior. I've simply just been asking myself why I do the things that I do.

There are a lot of things in my life that have become unnecessary. Certain places that I used to love to go to, certain habits that I've had, and certain friends are all getting axed, simply because they are no longer relevant. It isn't because I don't cherish the time I have had in those places, doing those things with those people. It is simply that I've gotten to a point in my life where they no longer have a role in shaping my person. They've served their purpose, and it is time to move on. And as I come to that realization that they are no longer relevant, I catch myself wondering: why do I even bother with them anymore?

It is a part of growing up. I have accepted that. But what I cannot accept is that is has to happen so suddenly, and yet so painstakingly slow. Why must it be this way? I suppose it is a part of being human. We must feel pain in order to understand the weight of our decisions.

The Merits of an Adhesive Bandage

Blood red like crimson poppies, the tear in my flesh
drips fresh and warm, passion's ink marks my skin.
A fresh wound in my heart, life's black clouds lingering,
smoking out the fire in my eyes.

Then there you came, and you stuck to me, staunched the flow.
A finger for the crack in the dyke, you slipped in and made a vow to stay
until the flood had been dammed.

Years and years pass on, the stone turns to moss and rubble, and skin
turns anew, pale and nubile, and the world is becoming around me.
The small meek child is transformed, and head held high, I find
I can walk on my own two feet. My confidence is restored.

It is time to pull the bandage off, but it's been a lifetime for me.
The colors have blended, and it has merged into unison,
yet the crust of two differing substances has emerged, sickly and green.
It is time to release, time to pull away the aching finger. Time
to put the bedtime story back in the cupboard, for childhood
has vanished.

I pull on the edge of the strip, knowing its uses,
knowing that it has done so much, knowing that in that time,
it would come to find an end.
The glue bonds to the hairs on my skin, and so stinging is the pain
that erupts from pulling away.
It is slow at first. Slowly comes the first millimeter, and then the next.
Then it picks up speed. All of a sudden, there's a rip - a cursing rush,
why, why did ever I attach you there?
In what world did you ever serve me any purpose?

It is done now. The dam is blocked. The door is closed.
And the scab has fallen away, healed and intact.
All there is left now is a red mark and a few bits of adhesive
that soon shall fade.

My New Year: Putting Things into Perspective

It always amazes me how much we can learn from nature. I've mentioned Rudyard Kipling before when I talked about Bagheera from The Jungle Book, and I truly am quite a fan of the book. It involves so many stories of animals in the wild, to include Mowgli and his friends, but also Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and other famous animals. These stories teach us of bravery, of wisdom, and of kindness, virtues we as humans should not neglect to attend to.

Among the stories in The Jungle Book is The White Seal, a story about a Northern fur seal looking for a new home for his family, a place where they will be safe from hunters. In the beginning of his tale, Kipling starts off with a lullaby, one from a mother seal to her baby.

The Seal Lullaby
by Rudyard Kipling


Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

This poem in itself is very endearing, and one can imagine how beautiful such a lullaby could be. In fact, one of my favorite composers, Eric Whitacre, did just that. In the year of 2007, Whitacre composed a choral piece with his wife, titled "The Seal Lullaby", and when I heard it for the first time, I felt my heart break. I will admit: I was a big ball of mushy, sappy goo, all teary eyed and simpering for how much the song touched my heart. It was the poem, but so much more. No longer was it simple endearment. It was a mother's desperate love for her child, a calling and a hushing. It was pure and unadulterated devotion. If ever I had doubted the existence of altruism, all doubt was gone with the song.

I have explained my love for music - well enough anyways, I hope. And listening to any of Whitacre's pieces will make me think. But the existence of something as fundamental and untainted as a mother's love even in something as simple as a fur seal - it catches you by surprise. It makes you wonder. It gives you hope.

I would give you one of my own pieces, but this lullaby is what is in my heart as of now. It is what I hope to bear throughout the rest of the year, this feeling of reassurance. There is so much wrong with the world, but there is still so much good to be had, and to let ourselves forget that is to forget ourselves. There is so little now that is appreciated.

Merry Christmas!

When I was much younger, the tradition at Christmas was to listen to John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, and more than any other song, it was a lullaby that Mr. Denver sings with Kermit's little nephew, Robin, that I remember most. When the River Meets the Sea is my most treasured song. I sang it to little kids when I was a camp counselor, trying desperately to get them to sleep. I sang it to my baby sister, born when I was fifteen years old. I plan on singing it to my children, whenever it is I end up having them.

The point I'd like to make about this particular song is that it, unlike many of contemporary Christmas music, is about the true joy of Christmas. It is about having that wide-eyed awe of the world that children always seem to have, of looking at the world as if everything in it that is good and beautiful is a miracle. It is about us and about our future, and not the dim, ominous future that we all predict for ourselves, but for the opportunities, for the potential that we all have. Like the rapture we see on our small ones' faces right before they open their presents, the song advocates that we treat our future as a slowly unfolding gift: something that could be anything and everything, something that could make the world a brighter place.

Christmas is about light, and about love, and I do hope you all have a little light in your eyes and a little love in your hearts this Christmas Day. I shall leave you with Robin and John, may he rest in peace, and I do most heartily wish you a very merry Christmas.

Much Love,
Ellie


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOoXTggzoFk

Calling All Musicians!

Music is so incredibly important in our lives. Some might underestimate just how special it is, and they wouldn't be incorrect in assuming that we don't need to be constantly blaring Bieber and Miley Cyrus and whatever else the recording business has cursed us with. The music industry has, as of the last decade, taken our music and turned it into a farce. We no longer hear the music of people who've been working at their art for years and years before we ever heard of them. We are listening to a few lucky morons who either had a lucky break or had enough money to buy their way in to force their whiny, off-key, nasal bullshit on us. Some of us are dumb enough to think, because it is on the radio, that it is actually well produced.

I've been singing since I could read (that's the age of three, for those of you who were wondering), and I've almost dedicated my life to music. Since I was eight, I did every talent show I could, participated in every choir in my school, and I've even been a lead in a musical, though I'm sure few of you have heard of or seen Damn Yankees, so I won't expect you to be too impressed. Regardless, music is a considerable part of my life. You almost never see me go anywhere without my Zune on me, and if I'm in the car, and I'm not in the company of someone I really would rather be talking to, I will have it plugged in to my stereo at full blast. Music is possibly the most liberating outlet I've ever had.

My first sister, called such because I'm the oldest, and she's the next oldest of three sisters I have, had a choir concert last night. She is, unfortunately, not in the show choir, which I had been two years in a row, and neither was she in the jazz choir, but it was still pretty exciting. I was underwhelmed by the soloists, and could have gotten along without much of the jazz choir. But when I got called up as an alumna to sing, both for the jazz choir and for the show choir, as is tradition, I didn't expect it to hit me so hard. For four years, I've waited patiently in the shadows. I haven't even seen a stage since I was seventeen. I figured that if a career in music was what was waiting for me after I left, it would happen to find me. So I didn't pursue it. But singing up there and being a member again of something so big...I've been bitten. I thought I'd never want that again. Yet here I am, wondering and searching for maybe a chance to get out there again, and feel the spotlight.


Curtain Call

Dark before ascension, and there is tension,
anxious thrumming, and wishing for straight thought,
instead of such frantic spurts of worry. Asking why I crave these moments
of strung-out adrenaline is like asking where the Loch Ness monster holds
her court in the waters of Scottish highlands, so I don't.
I shut my eyes, I count to three, and
I take a tender step towards the light, a beacon above me.

Bright, searing, and where it falls makes my destination clear.
The timid child within me pulls me away, to hide in the shadows -
the shadows that conceal my darkest flaws - but the brazen minx
who rears her head in my heart of hearts yearns to prove
she is the dauntless blood-kin of ancient kings.
She feels no fear, and I succumb to my pride.
I enter the limelight.

My voice is the Siren's call, and the thrumming of anxiety
turns into a new thrumming in my song,
a sound of reverence, of love older than the skies.
And slowly, surely as a river, the people below turn from foes
to devotees, and even as they do, they disappear as my heart crescendos.
And as the thunderous crashing of waves comes down on a rocky shore,
the curtain falls as appreciation sounds its last.
Satisfaction comes, a blanket around my shoulders, and after all that,
I feel free.

I Hate Petty Thieves

I was going to write about friendship this week, mostly due to the fact that my Air Force best friend (he currently goes by my best friend from South Korea) is coming home this week, and I'm very excited to see him and hang out with him and get into general shenanigans with him. It is going to be amazing.

However, this morning, I woke up to find that my car had been busted into while I was house-sitting, and all the contents were strewn about the front two seats. I also discovered that a bag of clothing I had saved for doing laundry was gone, and I'm feeling the need to talk about my feelings about the morning I've had. I also realize this post is two days late, but I'm more focused on the fact that I now have something to talk about.

As I've said in the past, I am a notorious cynic. I believe that everyone is out for themselves, that we are all motivated by self-interest. While this may not be true, it is what I believe. My experience in the past, in dealing with people in my personal and professional life, have led me to this conclusion, and, so far, I have not been given any sign that this is any different.

I say that I believe this. I don't have to like what I believe. In fact, it disgusts me. Why we have to be so focused on our own problems when there are people out there who suffer much worse than we do is frankly beyond me. The world is so much bigger than one person's problems. I will admit, I was very upset this morning, and I did rant for a long time about how selfish the people who took my things are. How dare these people inconvenience me so? How dare they think their problems are so big that they can take advantage of me? But I soon sat down and thought for a while. Perhaps they really are that troubled. Perhaps they are desperate for clothes. Of course, they would have to find a washing machine to wash said clothes, for they were plenty dirty from working and sweating and running and whatever other activities I get into that generate filth on my clothes. However, that isn't the point. Perhaps they really need those things more than me. I was, after all, able to replenish half of what I lost within three hours of discovering my things were gone. Not everyone has that luxury.

And then I thought about it more. Even if they thought their problems were bigger than mine, even if they really were that desperate, where does the right to steal and violate other people's space come from? In almost every species we see that has evolved into a successful species that can sustain itself, altruism is one of their founding behavior patterns. Looking out for each other propels the success of the species. Human kind routinely abandons this philosophy, calling for an "every man for himself" dogma that would theoretically destroy us. There is such a thing as being able to ask for help, and we let pride and suspicion prevent us from seeking solace in our fellow human. We get in the way of ourselves, and so we fail our altruistic instinct, falling prey to the temptation of over-analysis.

Of course, I could take this tangent so many places. I could talk about universal health care. I could talk about gay rights. I could talk about the corruption of the modern corporations. I could even talk about religion. I won't. But I will say this: Selfish impulses, however strong, will be the undoing of our infrastructure, and, in the end, desperation is only our weaknesses getting the better of us.

The Futility of Invincibility

I'm all for adrenaline rushes. I am the first person to respond to a drum riff in a song I'm playing in the car by revving up the engine. I'll accelerate to up to fifteen miles over the speed limit, while in the middle of a sharp turn, and I'll be feeling the thrill like nothing else. There is nothing like the feeling of being chased. I will be hiking on a trail in the middle of the woods, and suddenly take off, just to pretend I'm being pursued - or pursuing. And I love the feeling of danger, of the unknown. But all too often, I am confronted with how fragile it all can be, and how mortal I am.

I learned a long time ago that I am not invincible. My mortality is the same as the person next to me, or the person next to you. It's always so amusing to me how old I sound when I say things like this, but I developed a good understanding of the world very early on in my life. My mother calls me her "cynical daughter" for this very reason: I made my mind up about the workings of the universe long before anyone else my age did, and not much has changed my perception. All it took for me to realize how mortal I really am was looking at the wasting away of my friends as they delved into dangerous waters: drugs, meaningless sex, and adventures into darker, raunchier places. When few of them made it out the same as before - and I do mean they were mere husks of who they were before - I knew that not only are we physically mortal, but we are also mentally mortal. They played with fire and found an addiction in getting burnt. Sometimes getting a rush is not worth the risks we take.

This is one I wrote when I was undergoing that passage from naivete to cynicism.

Bridge from Childhood


The most beautiful place that I've ever walked
was a bridge, stony, weathered and laced with ivy.
Bracing waters that it shadowed, it held a century of love and war,
childhood play and adult tears. And I walked there with you, so long ago.
In your arms, I stayed and watched the moon rise up and kiss your face, and danced between streetlight and fenced trees.
And in my darkest hour, I'd sob into the stone, which would hold me up
when I felt like falling apart.

And that beauty I know to be true is a monument to the teenage ruin
that came to pass and fall with each flirting child who lost their virgin tongues
to a night as black and velvet as their cloaks of secrets given in tribute to the obsidian river.
Begotten lies and trades that would eventually be harvested in the incest,
and all their hopes to be grown-up drown as they realize that they lost their identities
trying to be someone else.

In the reflection of an empty wine bottle left from the frivolities of two lovers,
I saw my heart burst, wishing I could be the river.
Wishing I could pass by the darkness in my heart, that while shining
like a jewel in the eyes I once dared to gaze in, was not to be lingered on.
I wished to be a river, to be carried away into the sea
where nothing is left to meaningless dreams.
And no more would I linger on this stony bridge, where I passed over
a chance to be ever changing.