The impulse felt childish and foolish. She tried to ignore it and reminded herself that she was a big girl. Abba had taught her so much already–

Then she would remember how more often than not, Abba would find her with a scraped knee, crying in the dirt and he wouldn’t just hold her hand, he would pick her up.

“Abba, you’re so strong,” she would say.

He’d smile at her and reply, “Yes, and you know that I’m always here for you.”

She would close her eyes and bury her face into his shoulder.

.

.

.

Abba, once again I’ve fallen and sit in the dirt. It’s cold and raining and no matter how many times I try to stand up and make everything right, I’m slipping and falling. My body aches and the cold of the elements are seeping into the very core of my bones.

Abba, please come save me.

******

The months flew by like the snow in the frigid Edo air. And I was trapped in the perpetual winter of it.

My body languished away in the pleasure quarters, in that small, damp room. I clutched his letter to my chest, strands of my black hair sticking to my face because of the tears. And the extensions of the black are seen on the pages where tears have made the ink run into thin webs, still extending their thin fingers along the page.

And I wonder how he does it, that Tamasaburo. How he can make his whole life a performance. To endure the pain of breaking the natural connectivity in his body so that he can accommodate to those plays that had been adapted from bunraku puppet theater.

How does he ignore that pain? The protesting of his weak leg as he breaks its natural form, squeezing his legs together tighter as he glides across the stage. The perpetual ache in his neck as he maneuvers his head slowly and carefully, ignoring the pain that the wig inflicts on him. And the pain in his knees as his roles often call him be to kneeling for long periods.

I can only imagine how he copes with the pain. And I wish that he would tell me. So that I, too, could somehow cope with the pain. The perpetual, inevitable pain of it. But then the roles of Tamasaburo and my life begin to merge into one and I find myself becoming the characters, moving along with him.

I was directed to a place to sit and as I took the time to look around, I was disappointed. It was a lot smaller than I had seen in the pictures, a lot less glamorous. The ferris wheel, though large and impressive, was slowly spinning in its gaudy flashes of colored lights, making patterns that I had seen from the Tokyo Tower. It had looked more beautiful miles away in the observatory of the Tower. In the cold night, it looked menacing, towering over me, slowly spinning. Kuruma, kuruma.

He came trailing behind and I mustered up a smile and said hello. He took a seat across from me and we began to talk about our days.

“Shigoto ga isogashikatta yo,” he said.  It would be another one of these conversations, the mundane hum of another day gone by.

I listened as attentively as I could yet my mind wandered. A hot cup of tea was placed in front of me and I immediately took it and wrapped my shaking hands around it. My icy fingers felt a sharp pain as the hot ceramic cup came in contact with them.

As the night progressed, as the ferris wheel spun around as it did, I found fear rising in my stomach. There were a lot of false starts and I wasn’t sure of what to say, how to say it– so I let him continue with the conversation.

I walked away from Yokohama that evening, hitoride. I looked up at the mountains ahead and smiled at them, the future that awaited me. I wondered if it were necessary, if there was no other way, and I knew in my bones, in my core, my innermost being, that this is what had to be done.

The winter cold bit at my cheeks and feet and I knew that I probably couldn’t get very far, but wrapping my jacket around my small frame tighter, I took the first step toward the mountains, alone.

She shuffled her feet along as she walked down the alleyway to her small apartment. He had been difficult to find but Madeline was determined. She had to see Rochester. She had to bring him home.

Now that I’ve been born again, now that I proclaim Christ as my Savior and as my Lord, I want to use this gift that I was given in a way that can encourage others and ultimately, bring glory to him.

It’s a struggle, I will admit. But I’m starting to see how he’s opening up avenues for it.

Hopefully, I’ll make it more of a habit to write down my ideas. : ) I do think of them, they just never make it into words. D;

The dust had settled now. It made my nose itchy but I didn’t feel like I had any life or energy to scratch at it.

Silently, I laid there, watching the activity around me. People were walking about, talking, laughing. There were hors d’oeuvres being passed from platter to plate, drink orders taken and fulfilled. Then there was my blazer, draped across the back of my empty chair. The chair across from it was also empty, now.

The occupant had gone by now.

I stayed there a little longer before I slowly stood up. The anonymity of being in a large group helped– no one noticed.

I brushed the dust off of myself and walked nonchalantly to my blazer. I grabbed it off the chair and walked out.

That’s all. Bye.

Cloudy weather, cold room, aching shoulders, a cup of lukewarm tea. Usual writing conditions.

One needs to always be lowered into a different state of mind when writing. The creative process, for me at least, needs to borrow from a part of the mind that’s been compartementalized and reserved only for writing. This part of the mind has been untouched by the worries of the day, the stresses of the moment, and gets things added to when appropriate circumstances or thoughts arise.

Some of the things thrown in sink down to the bottom of the pool and are rarely retrieved, if retrieved at all. There are many things floating at the top, ready to be grabbed out as soon as time is made for it. Some of the things floating never make it out– they sink to the bottom.

I can write about writing and that alone serves as a kind of release. It’s a process, place in my mind, that’s so special and unique to me that I feel like I need to share it.

My identity as a Christian, as a science major, and as a writer– the first coloring the two following. Yet I find that my science is colored more by my faith than my writing is. The habit of writing sorrowful things has trained my hands too much that it’s difficult to break out of it.

Writing is my baby. You can take science away from me, albeit with a lot of force, but you can’t take writing away from me. Don’t do it. I’ll turn into a mess.

Or perhaps the effect doesn’t need to be singular. Perhaps Edgar Allen Poe was being too narrow-minded.

Isn’t the wrenching of words, the melding of thoughts into the alphabet a way of art as well?

But there are so many times when I stare, write a few things, delete them, stare, attempt writing some more, then close the window in frustration. At least when I’m writing it down to tangible existence, I’ve already commited the pen to the paper. I must continue. But the transient nature of the words that are in a text box such as this makes me view everything in the box lackadaisically.

Being a perfectionist is sometimes nothing but a hindrance. Sure, it gives an eye for detail which is so crucial for writing but it’s often too frustrating to write something that doesn’t meet up to my standard, a standard that rests with the likes of literary masterminds. How can I join their ranks?

There is so much that moves through this mind, too much jittering, too much aching to be made tangible, comprehensible to people. Yet in an attempt to make it all interesting and worth reading, I put a thin layer of enigma, mystery, and ambiguity. It’s pathetic, sometimes. I want the reader to know exactly what I’m thinking and feeling yet that bit that I’ve purposely shrouded makes it feel as though it’s a secret only to me, making me somewhat giddy at the thought.

There’s no way to describe how I feel when I write. It’s a long, arduous process and often times, I want to give up, feeling as though I’m not good enough to even call myself a writer. Only in moments when unhappy thoughts or emotions are further exacerbated by circumstances, or one circumstance is further fueled by yet another one do I find enough raging and uncontrollable energy to write without thinking or editing. Or, as Anne Bronte brilliantly put it:

“When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which, yet, we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often, naturally, seek relief in poetry.”

[I would also add writing along with the poetry bit.] So this is all to explain my long absence from this writing journal. This one is different from the other one I have– the other one is unapologetically candid, something that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing and others wouldn’t feel comfortable reading. It’s my sifting-through-my-thoughts writing journal. This one was created in hopes of fostering more refined writing from me but it seems as though I’m still too undisciplined.

We’ll see.