There are days

There are days when life is cold
no matter the heat outside

days when life is sickening
no matter the taste

days when life is desert-parched
no matter how long you linger at oases

There are days when the music plays
and never once do you feel like dancing;

when the neat pictures on the wall
seem slanted;

when the rain falls and doesn't wash away
the exhaustion
in your eyes

or the copper taste
on your tongue

or the flames
in your skin

or the broken glass case
around your heart;

days when life is crushing
no matter your armor

or the walls you have built in desperation

and you think of surrender

and it seems like you might fall

before sleep flutters forth
on angel-wings

and you fly away
in dreams of
greater things

floating
to another
tomorrow

Editing...

The speech is done...

And now I'm editing...

And then my edits do not result in shortening the speech, even though I've cut pretty ruthlessly...

WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT?

I FOUND A SOURCE!

THE SOURCE

THE SOURCE TO END ALL SOURCES

(Still talking about the Oratory here. Assume that I am until I'm done with a draft of this thing.)

That Oratory I'm talking about

Well, funny thing.

So I was doing Camp NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo: noun.
1. Intense masochism.
2. National Novel Writing Month, November; one must set a word count and reach it by the end of the month. For adults, the target word count is always 50,000.
Camp NaNoWriMo: noun.
NaNoWriMo during other months, generally April and either July or August. Everyone can set their own word count goal.

Anyway, so I did Camp NaNoWriMo, with a goal of 40,000 words - I reached it, at 40,089 words on 2 pm on July 31st. My prize? Bragging rights! Which I'm obviously using.

And then I realized that I did actually sign up for the Yale speech tournament and it is on September 22nd and I do have to get my original oratory done. And guess when it was originally due? August 1st.

Anyhow, I tried to get typing but frankly, I had just come out of a three-day word marathon. I had practically lived on the living room couch with my laptop. I had written 20,000 words in three days. I didn't particularly want to do it.

I ended up sending my coach an email asking for more time. She let me have a week. But I was still in a post-NaNo haze for much of that time, so it didn't get done then either.

By now I was pretty sure this wasn't going to happen, so I told my coach I wasn't going to go. Then my other coach jumped in and said he did want me to go to this tournament as originally planned and was willing to give me five more days.

Therefore, I am writing again now.

Speechin' the summer away

When I'm writing my Original Oratory and I have a kickass topic and so many things that I want to say but

HELP I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THE THINGS

Memories, Stories, Lives, and Years

Today I woke up tired (aka after a sleepover). I went to visit the Museum of Fine Arts with my friend and every time I heard the date, I knew there was something I should be remembering.

And when I came home, I realized.

A year ago today, I came back to America from Israel.

That's it, now it's been more than a year, more distance between me and that past. I don't know why the concept of the year is so significant to me in this respect. I don't know.

Part of me is a little bit sad. Part of me is just confused. It's odd - I gave my friend a notebook of mine to read, a notebook that included a chronology of the last months in Israel, and I haven't read it in a while, and I don't remember much from that part. Time goes by and I don't remember.

But looking back, perhaps Israel's changes were just as great in magnitude as the changes I went through this past year. A lot happened. I just - yeah. It's been a really weirdly crazy and wonderful year.

Really, I suppose I shouldn't try to attach additional meaning to certain parts of my life, because all of it is important. And sometimes I wonder - what if the events I don't remember too well affected me more than the times that are replayed in my mind?

A life, in my not-so-long experience, is like matter. Comprised of tiny bits that can be dissected into even smaller and smaller ones - and mostly empty space. The space between the molecules, the atoms, the hadrons, the quarks. And that space is important. It's what makes the matter hold its shape, what defines it. Because really, matter is just an exception to the vacuum (it goes the other way too - the vacuum is an exception to matter). A life is not just the memories. A life is all the spaces in between too. All the short, sweet moments saved deep inside a mind and all the stories.

We are little bits of improbability, floating in space, wanting understanding. I am not one to say what is or isn't in the spaces between. Perhaps it's things I don't believe in. I don't know. But that's what I try to find out.

Sad

I am feeling sad now, and I don't know why. I had a good day. I am okay, honestly I am. But it is one of those times when the sadness tastes metallic in my mouth and I feel like I'm floating in the worst possible way.

It's a time when I look on the world and I am so worried that other people are not happy. I am so worried that there is something I should be doing for them that I am not. I am so, so worried that someone else has the metal-taste and the floating and that they need someone to talk to, someone to make them feel better.

I'm okay, it's just that the world overwhelms me sometimes.

I'm scared. I don't know what I'm scared of and I don't know why I'm scared and I shouldn't be stressed at all.

But I'm still okay.

I saw a picture today that said something about "Feeling is from the brain. Leave the heart alone - it just pumps blood." And that is true. But where do you feel it? Your heart. Your chest. You don't get headaches when you're sad, or at least, not as much. You feel your chest.

Read that as you may. I hope your mouth tastes sweet and that you feel firmly rooted to the ground.