The Ball

The Ball

The ball
plummets to the field and men ravage at it,
prodding at the ball across perfect white lines
like a fierce fencing match.
The players drafted, mechanical, they lead a war
twisting their minions for forceful kicks towards opposite ends of the plastic green field.
No progress.
They fight hard, and then, the ball rolls lazily to the corner, slows,
and with God’s gentle hand eases past the legless goalie.
It‘s game.
Another recess of foosball and the college students slip away from the table with
a lingering of friendship behind their slaps of high fives.
They leave and a new game starts.
And the ball begins to roll around the stadium like goldfish around castles, guided by the hand of God.
The fresh players at point ready to spear the life before them.

The Arrival

There was at least one church every mile in Crossville, TN. Huge churches with neat geometric architecture. Small churches with simplistic crosses in the front yard. Others naked and bare with only a welcome sign out front. Still, some with elaborate stained glass windows and towering steeples. These churches compelled me to write this overtly religious piece. Enjoy.

The Arrival

You come into this world,
as brilliant as your birth.

To see you,
I crumble.
Fall to my knees,
this mighty power
crushing sin without effort.

You swallow me in your arms;
pure skin warm to the touch.
I’m consumed by this love.

You’ve come.

Slumber

I never realized how much of a break I needed from Emory. Waking up at 9 am, I showered and dressed to spend the next four hours sleeping in a car. We had a wine vineyard , Jake’s Sports Bar, a grocery store, and an outlet mall on the agenda. I slept through the morning along miles of smooth interstate and backwoods highway, recovering from my slumber long enough to eat a Titan Melt at Jake’s. The Swiss cheese and mushrooms saturated my stomach, but this only made me more tired. After the meal, I zombied to the car and hit the leather seats as if going into a coma.

My eyes opened to sunlight and a cold wind. The side door had been opened by my dad, and we were at the mall. I crawled from the car, hiding my eyes in the shadow of my hands. One store and two pairs of jeans later, I was done shopping. (Why do we call them pairs anyway?) We left the mall, and returned home. This brings me to where I am now.

A Saturday evening, I’m preparing myself to return the real world. Part-time jobs of library assistant and math tutor await my return. Homework rests in neat piles on my desk waiting to be ruffled through. But for now, I can rest easy in this warm bed. Three pillows and shifted blankets, I’ll lose myself in them before I go back. This is the night where I sleep peacefully. Like superheroes without villains, I’m going to forget about my work for the night and drift quietly to sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving

Emory has been a pressure cooker these past weeks, and the thought of breathing air outside of academia calmed me. I rolled down the window of my Dad’s Bonneville and began to smell the countryside. The smell of wet wood, rustled leaves, and chimney smoke met my nose, that calm smell of fall. A burnt quality resided in the air, suggesting every inhabitant was nestled in blankets around a fireplace. White smoke billowing from the interspersed houses told me this was true. My dad and I were somewhere in the rolling hills of Tennessee en route to visit my grandparents.

I’ve come to expect certain things when visiting my grandparents. My grandpa makes at least one racial joke, my grandma is taunted for her short height, and the fridge is undoubtedly stocked with coke and snack pack pudding. I’ve yet to be disappointed. A couple neighborhood friends came over for Thanksgiving. The same jokes and stories are blurted among the family. We all laugh anyway. I must say, I am thankful to laugh.

Balloon Drifter

I read my Bible today. It was tucked away with several other religious books. I pulled them out of my backpack anticipating to commence the hour or so of reading and researching to pump out an effective final paper. The Bible slipped out with the other books, and I was compelled to read it. Its pages had a familiar tone to them, one that I had missed. Final papers, GPA, medical school, and my so called "life's works" subsided. Those things didn't seem to matter so much.

I watched television tonight. I must say, I felt old. I became the adult who waits for the Monday night episode of Law and Order and the Tuesday night CSI. The adult whose nine to five job isn't quite satisfying, whose hope lies in others stories and fictitious characters. I've become this adult. Excelling in classes has become programmed. I'm expected to do well, and for the most part I do. I exceed my expectations so that's good enough.

I sat with my girlfriend. I felt normal. The kind of normal that is the antithesis of my family. We sat next to each other on the futon. She was reading, and I was mindlessly absorbed in the television and random thoughts from the day. I wrapped up next to her, and I was calmed. It's good to have this relationship.

With all this, I feel above the world. I feel like a shiny red balloon released to float the skies. But, I'm still anchored with a thin string in this case. It is a surreal feeling. A strange feeling that I'm close to God, have nothing in the world figured out, and love every bit that I see.

Bananas in the Trees

I left lab passing by the Dobbs University Center on my usual route back to the dorm. There are a few trees scattered in the grass on either side of the brick sidewalk. These trees are relatively small, and their branches point upward and a sort of tulip formation. Bananas dangled from some of the limbs. The yellow rotting fruit hung from the trees. A thin piece of string and a patch of silver metallic duct tape served as its lifeline from the ground below. Strolling along thinking about sleeping, and BAM! bananas. I just thought the world should know bananas are in the trees.

Quick Clips

What exactly happened today? I can't remember all of it, but I know it was good. Here are the scenes:

I strolled into Differential Equations forty five minutes late and grinned at the class as I took my seat. My tardiness has happened before, and everyone knows it. Benzi continued to lecture then wrapped it up quickly. The quizzes came out, and I made do with what I understood to hopefully get a fifty versus the zero had I not shown. I zipped out of class not caring about the lecture or the homework he assigned. That was my favorite class today.

Biology, enjoyable? Oh yes, this lab was. The lab was simple, just scoring plates by filling out a chart with letters, pluses, and minuses. A review session followed lab for our test on Monday, and I seem more prepared for the test than I expected. But, the biggest suprise came from my TA. She suggested I work in the lab with her, possibly expanding it into research over the summer. I'm taken aback. I'm humbled. The work is paying off. I may just land the internships, the research, and the connections that I've missed my whole life.

I haven't forgotten how to write. I can still twist and forge words together to form the paragraphs that compile the perfect pieces we dive in to read. The perfect pieces just so revised like a blacksmith tempering swords. There is a perfected product.

I want to talk to my parents. Give them the details of my life that have been missing for months. They should know about the classes I skip, the grades I get, the mishaps of the weekend, and the success of what they would call "their precious child." ]I owe them that, right? Let's be honest, Emory's isn't cheap.

Salt Water Vaccine

The world apparently is really a sick patient. We can deny that disease plagues this world. Most diseases provide physical discomfort for the infected person. Small African villages without water filtration, for example, have infestations of ginny worms. The worms when digested, grow inside the body and then pierce through the skin to crawl out. They carry puss and blood out with them while leaving what looks like bullet holes behind. Why this disgusting imagery and pain?
The world isn't perfect. We suffer from physical pain, certainly. But worse, we all suffer from inner turmoil. The highs and lows stick out in our mind and would easily be slapped down into a photo album if our memory could become colorful pages.
This depression, sad thoughts, bad times, low times, or whatever word we apply to it is a critical part of life. I watch my friends sit silent in chairs, unresponsive and contemplative. They remind me of myself. How the world doesn't understand me, and I don't understand it. A solution would be good now, but none comes so soon. I'm hit by this pain and lay down as if in a hospital bed to recover.

Below are the photographic diseases that afflict me and come without solutions in my life.

1. baseball gloves
2. arguments
3. awards/trophies
4. photo albums
5. certainty
6. golf
7. materialism
8. forts
9. playgrounds
10. safes

It may seem like a random list, but yes these things remind me of those low points in life. Most come from childhood or depression, but its important that I at least mention them. Life has this oral tradition, a story-telling phenomena to it. We are drained by the telling of stories, and in return the stories heal us and others.
It calls to A Place Where the Sea Remembers... where we listen to the stories of the Mexican villagers. We are consumed in their depths, as the characters mirror our own strife. We think of our lives, our experiences, and most importantly our diseases. Listening or reading, then, becomes a cathartic dip into a salty sea that burns and heals our wounds.

Enemy Teachings

The following paragraph was written in religion class on this day. We have been studying practices and teachers in Buddhism. This writing focuses on an enemy in our life that has taught us a valuable life lesson. The words are a free form of expression. The pencil did not leave the page.

We were young, and from what I do remember we did not care for one another. I was the smart, over-achieving, and hardworking son. He was an athlete and cared little for school. He was my brother. We would spend our time arguing about who was right. Nothing else seemed to matter but being right. I'd lash out with words, he with fists. We'd resolve nothing. I'd lock myself in my room for lengths of time hiding behind piles of homework and headphones with music. But, he taught me how to love. I couldn't abandon my brother. We were of the same blood. Fight after fight, I learned to be silent, to listen, and to love him after my anger had subsided. I was a Christian growing up with him, and he had no belief in God. To him, it meant giving up the things he liked that might condemn him in the light of religion. Yet, he taught me how to love God and how to love him. Patrick, he was my spiritual leader, devoid of the religion he instilled in me.

Yes, my brother has been the most religious influence on my life to this point, and I owe him much. I'll start with saying thank you.