The Darkest Disease

Some of my favorite artists are the Cranberries, Ingrid Michaelson, and Company of Thieves. I grew up to the tunes of Enya, Jewel, and Lisa Loeb. The edgiest thing I listened to for a long time was Alanis Morissette. It’s not much a surprise really: I’m a generally gentle guy, calm and peaceful, quiet and contemplative.

But I’m also a Gemini.

The irony is that my first love of song that breached this facade itself means to fade away–and yet they have remained a staple of my soundtrack to life ever since.

Spoken Word Syndrome

This weekend I attended the National Association of Campus Activities South conference, a weekend of educational sessions, showcases, and networking to bring activities to colleges across the South. I will no doubt draw upon this experience for a number of posts (so much happened in such a short span of time that I can easily foresee two or three other topics already), but today I’d like to talk about the end.

For all who know me, and especially for those who have just met me or don’t know me very well, it may come as a surprise to hear that I am the biggest introvert you will ever know. You may imagine me speaking in front of a group, or casually carrying on friendly a conversation, or introducing myself with poise and purpose, and surely then, surely then I must be lying.

But I’m not.

If I Could Tell the World Just One Thing

Ten years ago I was twelve. It was a Tuesday. We were already up, had gone about the day as usual. We were turning on the TV to watch MacGyver like we did every day. My mom was taking a shower before we had to leave. The only problem was, all the TV channels were interrupted by a live newscast each showing the same thing.

The scene was this: Two towers, a billowing cloud of smoke from the second.

My brother told me to go tell our mom, so I ran down the hall, banged on the bathroom door, and shouted the news to her. I didn’t know what it all meant, though: I was twelve, what did I know of World Trade Centers and terrorist attacks? To me a plane had flown into a building. It was tragic, maybe in those first few moments scary and exciting, but what did it mean to me–a twelve-year-old boy a thousand miles away?

White Noise / Death in Silence

This will be a simple story, spawned from a simple prompt of a simple word called snow.

I set my pen down, turn to the window.

Snow is falling.

Is falling.

Fallen.

I open the windows, the white-framed blocks of glass spreading like angel wings into the cold air, and step into the silent storm beyond. The wind catches me from nowhere as holly drips onto the snow beneath me. I remember: glass is not solid. Glass is liquid. Over centuries the windows cry, sagging and wilting in the sunlight, holding out the snow, keeping warm a house uninhabited except for ghosts and phantoms long since remembered by anyone.

Blood and Bone and Beautiful

There I was, sitting lakeside, when I first heard the rustle of leaves from the nearby trees. We had been warned dangerous things lurked in the dark forest, had been told many times that it was far worse than forbidden, so I was rather taken aback to have heard something so close to the edge. After all, a wise friend of mine had once made it plainly clear that anything inside the forest was as likely afraid of what was outside of it as we were of what was inside, and it was precisely for this fear that it was so dangerous to trespass.

On the contrary, I’d only ever heard a single fascinating story of this forest in my life: A man had entered on the night before his wedding, and when he emerged, he had vanished, entered a world in which he had gone missing forever, and no matter who he spoke with, no one knew who he was. He’d even met his brother at a pub, one version of the story said, but even he had no idea who this stranger was! So he returned to the forest where he would live forever until all the trees had gone.

So I looked up, bending my knees at an angle beneath me in case I had to spring up and run away, but right when I moved, a twig snapped and I looked to my right–and there I saw him, standing twixt two trees, half bathed in shadows, statuesque, but soft and supple: The torso of a man, barely fledgling with the hair beginning to bristle over his heart region, his neck long and sturdy, his face curious and marked with broad bones and framed by dark black locks. He caught my gaze with his pearlescent blue eyes and then darted back into the forest at once.

It’s the End as We Know It

Should the world end today, there is no God.

It’s not often that I speak specifically of my beliefs (mostly on account of not truly knowing the words to speak of them rightly most of the time), but today warrants it. I considered letting this day pass lightly, not saying anything but perhaps passing a shrug and a snicker, but as I was doing dishes tonight (please review A is for Action) it occurred to me that not speaking is, in the end, being silent.

And as my contemporaries would say, “You can’t make me silent with violence” (Anna Nalick, “Break Me Open”) and “I will not go quietly! I will not be silenced! I will not go quiet! I will not stay silent” (Company of Thieves, “Won’t Go Quietly”). In their footsteps I follow: No threats will stop me. No words will weaken me. I will not stand silent. I will not stand still.

Those saying the world will end. Well, I’ll take that as a threat.

An End to the Silence

Time escapes me. I’ve started about half a dozen posts since my last one (please don’t make me admit how long it’s been–quite sadly, I’d be too ashamed to look myself), but I’ve finished none of them. I’ve had weekend events, weekday events, homework to keep up with–and every time the outlook looks good, my teachers announce a test and the cycle begins again.

I strongly wanted to write a post about the Day of Silence, which was Friday the fifteenth. Our GSA got t-shirts to wear, and I didn’t say a word to my friends all day. (Sadly my vow was broken for the period during which I was conducting interviews for the new student ambassadors, but otherwise, I was remarkably silent all day.) And I think I touched a few people. I think I spread my message to a few people that just didn’t know of it beforehand. And it was progress. A first step of a greater change that could come.

But of course, with more tests and more homework than I’ve ever had to fathom before, time ran away with the spoon and the stopwatch leapt over the moon.

Another Thursday, Another Thank You

Today was Thursday, wasn’t it?

Honestly, it slipped my mind. It always happens like this: I get so accustomed to the day-to-day of the school year that, when it abruptly ends about this time, I forget what day it is. Every day feels like Saturday, or Friday afternoon, or some Sundays… You get the picture. There are two things I notoriously admit to lacking: The first is depth perception. The second is a sense of time.

Neither of which has anything to do with anything being thankful. In fact, I almost don’t feel much to be thankful for today–to put it lightly, I’ve been in one of those moods. Yesterday I went to the used book store, hoping to find one movie I really wanted…and instead, they had almost nothing I wanted to buy. I was very disappointed. I finished watching the entire first season of my favorite TV show on Tuesday. I spent most of today cleaning. And every guy I start to talk to, either ends up not talking, or becoming friends with no hope of becoming more than that.

It’s depressing, the encroaching New Year. I’ll probably speak of that some other time.

Today I need something to be thankful for.

I choose… silence.

A Few Words Less

1.17 His son, Shimon, taught:

Throughout my life, I was raised among the scholars, and I discovered that there is nothing more becoming a person than silence; not study, but doing mitzvot is the essence of virtue; excess in speech leads to sin.

There was a person I knew some time ago whom I was quite fond of. I enjoyed the time we spent together and always found our conversations stimulating and provocative, our words always well-chosen and intense for the occasion: We must have spoken of politics, religion, sexuality, music, art, and any other number of fascinating topics. The moments I cherished most, however, were not these. The moments I cherished most were those when we had no conversation, when the only thing we shared was mutual silence.

Day of Silence 2010

Yesterday, the sixteenth, was not just another calendar day, was not just any old Friday. Yesterday was the Day of Silence, a national youth movement to raise awareness about anti-GLBT bullying, name calling, and harassment in schools. Usually it’s done by mostly by high school groups, but college groups also participate, and ergo, I participated for the first time this year.

It wasn’t hard being silent. Let’s face it, until about a year ago, silent was my usual state of being. What was difficult, however, was what being silent entailed: When people held the door for me, I could not say “Thank you,” and if I were to hold the door for them, I’d be unable to say “You’re welcome” (a fact that unconsciously kept me from holding the door all day). Furthermore, this warranted impoliteness created an impasse when people asked me for help: I’m usually inclined to be helpful, but how could I respond?

My only option, at least the only one I could justify over the course of the day, was to communicate nontraditionally. When a classmate asked me if we had class that day, I passed him a Day of Silence card I’d printed, explaining why I wasn’t talking, then typed on the computer screen that we had an out-of-class assignment for the day. When the woman sitting next to me (I was in the library working on research) asked me how to find her student ID, I passed her the card and then showed her how to do it without talking.

The oddest part, and perhaps the funniest as well, was responding to others who were also participating in the Day of Silence. The GSA’s Vice-President and a few other members had created shirts saying “Day of Silence 4-16-2010″ on them, but due to the amount we had to make and the time we had to make them, some of them had to picked up on Friday morning. Mine was one of those (by request, of course; as the GSA’s president, I felt the other members should receive their shirts before I received mine). In any case, when I went into her classroom to get it, the moment was completely surreal. I could not talk, she could not talk, and we both knew the other certainly couldn’t talk. So she handed me my shirt, I used heart-shaped hand gestures to say I loved it, and then we hugged and were on our way. Later in the day, I ran into another member with her shirt on: I was behind her, and I knew I couldn’t call her, so I walked a little bit faster and waved to her. She smiled, we gave each other a thumbs-up, and a few minutes later when we parted ways, we waved once more. It was like a scene out of movie or something, so natural, yet completely unreal.

Not many people tried to talk to me over the course of the day, but I passed around the card nonetheless. Mostly I received good responses, an approving nod, or even an admission of having participated in the past. Only once did I seem to garner anything negative, but even then, it wasn’t as blatantly hateful as it could have been, so perhaps, beneath that seeming disapproval, some change could be seeded, yet to grow into something greater…tolerance at least, acceptance if we’re lucky.

That’s the theme of the day, in the end. To raise awareness, to spread the word. People can’t change what they can’t see, and they don’t see what they don’t want to see. So they have to be shown. Or in this case, silently told. It’s a small process, change for the better, but like anything worthwhile, it is, indeed, a process. Perhaps it’ll take years (and trust me, it already has) to make much change, but change it will, if only we keep at it and keep going. Soon enough then, change won’t be necessary, but will have already come.