where now

it is now the last week of internship, and i am snatching the last moments of being alone in the room.

I'm not so sure how to feel about these few last days. today is the last monday here, i thought to myself yesterday. it feels like i am ending in the way which i always have been here: a transient presence. so this week i slowly cease to exist, even less than i have the past few months, like a breath of air slowly dissipating on frosted glass, the wilt of a flower, the shy escape of a mimosa. work is carefully planned and spread throughout these 5 days, and ironically it feels that i will be able to achieve more being free of the clutches of this desk and chair, perhaps in ways more personally defined.

the transition into a new lifestyle is already underway: new tuition kids, more time and investment in moving in, saturday nights in the west, quieting of the heart in certain ways, and newness wrapping the old. wwdc as well, for a new macbook air and personal/working portable space.

books

the story of edgar sawtelle:
I'm not sure if i accept the ending well, and whether it is a befitting one...and if that even matters. i can't decide on both ends. but this book brought me into and through an entirely new world...an experience lost to me for quite some time. the ability of words to absorb and transport, to form and create and wipe away the present and memories. achingly apt descriptions that seem so right, that seem to have flowed from the author so naturally because it is the truth of the world. the process of formation can be so twistedly beautiful.

am now reading the lake by banana yoshimoto:
i am surprised by the depth of resonance with the characters, and yes, like you said, it is a very subtle book, the pull is slow and powerful and quiet, and before i know it i am more than halfway through and can't put it down. when human emotions or nature enter in this book, words rise up in a whirl -

"When that happens, I feel like I've been dancing, perfectly in time, with the world. / That sense of having partnered with the environment, the land, of moving, entranced..."

"Most people are constantly perpetrating little acts of violence on others, even when they don't mean to. You almost never do that, Chihiro."

"Even the greenest branches were dotted, here and there, with sensuous, round buds, clenched but swelling, vibrant in the haze of fresh growth. The air was clear; I could feel it coursing through my body. Soon we left behind the kernel of activity around the small-town station, and after that it was just Nakajima and me ambling along nondescript streets. The mountains in the distance were still capped with snow. That white and the brown of the trees rolled on and on under the blue sky, a dry pairing of colors."

"The wind was beautiful, racing through the sky."

"I'd fill in the area around that harsh sleeping beauty with lovely, lovely colors."

-

i still can't help but wonder at the dichotomy of preferences, how someone may need hours of angry ranting and phone calls, whilst all i will want is to retreat into a quiet corner, and just be that - quiet.

does a tree fall really not happen if there is no one around to witness it?