Soft Spoken Snow Days

 If you've never been to the the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.(Washington, Oregon, and Northern California), you may want to be informed of the bipolarity of our weather patterns. I've lived here for my whole 14 years and I'm still not entirely accustomed to it. Nobody is. All you really know is that if there's a chance of rain, there will be. The only trivial thing about our rain is how much will come down from the clouds.

 Yesterday when I was leaving my school it was sunny and probably 50 degrees outside. By the time the clock struck 10, there were flurries outside. And this morning at 5 AM, my sister woke me up and showed me there was an inch of accumulation outside. This was a wonderful surprise to me and the only downside is that I never got back to sleep. I'm one of those people that spend an hour falling asleep and can only do so once a night with lights off, little to no noise, and in a good position. This is why I don't get much sleep. I'll get back to the original subject.

 I spent most of my sleepless morning staring out the window and listening to my iPod, just sipping the sight of the snow. Sipsightsnow. Heehee. Later on a walk I discovered that most of the songs in Owl City's album "Maybe I'm Dreaming" are great soundtracks to the snow, namely "The Saltwater Room" and "The Technicolor Phase". Other than listening to music and eating snowflakes, my day was mostly empty and somehow blissfully so. The only way to spend my day that I like better than lazily rolling through is making an art of it, and since I've spilled my thoughts on my blog here, I feel like I've done a little bit of both today. Mostly the lazy part, though. I can live with that.

 Snow inspires me. Something in the way it floats down without a signal and absorbs all the sound is so graceful, it's almost like I see it dancing during its gentle descent. So... Flowing, magnificent, surpassing, amazing, astounding, arriving... I could think of adjectives all night. I've been thinking of writing a song of it, if only I was so artistically inclined. The lyrics come so naturally to me, it's the music I can't get from my head. Plus, I can't really play any instrument and I haven't a way to record it if I did. Sometimes I just want to spend a day with Adam and talk music. It seems like the only way of thinking for me. Music seems so unattainable.

 Snow days will have to speak for themselves for now.

O Sweet Nectar, Dark Nectar

  Saria loved the sweet nectar. His sweet nectar. She had never drank it before, but she saw such joy in the eyes of others receiving it. It was so golden, so crystal clear. So many times had she longingly watched him harvest the nectar from the beloved fruits that grew on his vines, his golden vines.  She thought her life would never be complete without the taste touching her tongue, just once.                                                               

 A day came along when the nectar boy passed her and after a moment came back with a smirk on his face. Without a word he placed a single drop of the sweet nectar on her palm. She could hardly believe it, and of course, touched the nectar to her mouth. The rich taste was worth the wait, she thought. Elegant and creamy, smooth and dreamy, nothing she had tasted could compare. 

  This happening became almost a routine, each time with the nectar boy placing one drop more in here palm than before. It just kept getting better and better and she could hardly stand being so glad with the new flavorful life she was living. And she grew ever more enchanted by the boy; feeling helpless when she happened to hear him in the orchards, woefully crying to the nothing there with him.

  Another day came where she had met another girl who had sipped over the nectar long before she herself had, and knew it so well. But this girl did not seem to savor the taste anymore and mocked it time to time, even as the girl still drank it.

 To Saria's partial dismay, she started receiving the nectar noticeably less and less. And as time went on, the other girl had told her of all the true darkness of the drink. "It's that rotten nectar boy. I love him and I hate him. I hope he dies." What is so wrong with the nectar boy?, Saria thought to herself. I am just happy I receive the nectar. But the bitter truth was not far from her.

  As Saria told the other girl of how she got nectar fewer and farther between, all was revealed. "That's what he does. He used to give me so much, he always came to me and gave me nectar. Now I have to beg for it because I just can't let it go. He did the same to all of my closest friends. Don't get hooked on it. He comes to you and gives you one taste, then does this again and leaves you aching for more. Soon you're trapped in a never-ending loop of pain."

 Suddenly it all made sense. That was why he had come to her when she was thirsty, not because he cared, but to trap her like he had done to so many others. A swirl of brokenness and betrayal overcame her and she cried all that night. The worst part was that she couldn't ever come close to him again when she had grown so fond of him. The nectar didn't even matter anymore. All she wanted was to show the nectar boy how much she cared and that he doesn't need to feel needed. He only needed her to show him the way.

 For such a long time she had been terrified of rejection, mostly because she didn't want to care for someone and lose them. Her father had left her family and each time he saw her, he acted like nothing was wrong and told her he loved her. Someone she cared so much for had left her there, and now tried to win her with lies. Soon she was skeptical anytime someone showed that they cared.

 This was my worst fear come true, she thought. Why did he ever come to me? Why couldn't he just have left me alone?

Saria is I.

It's Just Like Riding a Bicycle

 Remember when you sat down on your first bicycle without the training wheels? When your pudgy little toes tiptoed across the blacktop while you were on the scariest vehicle you'd ever piloted? That moment where - for the first time in your life - your wide eyes boggled as you went way too fast and were flung headlong into the shrubs? Alright, maybe that last one was just me. But you get where I'm going with this.

 You felt so proud of yourself. You did it. You finally did it. It was all you. And never in the wildest dreams did you ever think a year before that you would. Even now I don't understand why riding a bike is so easy.

 Today I realized I'm much farther along with something than I ever thought I would be. Of course I dreamed of it, but it seemed so far fetched that even though technically it was perfectly possible, it could simply never be done. But lo and behold,

I did it.

 Then again, I may have had this itching right under my troublesome old nose all along, but if I did, I wouldn't let myself believe it. I am, after all, terribly doubting of myself. But once someone shows it to you, shows it and really means it, then you my friend have gotten yourself a lovely little package somewhere between dream and reality. The stuff inside tastes like rainbows and sunshine.

 And as I realized what I had finally obtained today, a sheer knowledge of my new placement in someone's life, a cascade of memories and dreams and heartaches and tears and fears and mountains and valleys and the so on came crashing over me before I had the chance to just say "WOAH."

 And the funny thing is, I didn't make a friend today. Today I realized I made a friend. Just to know someone cares, even though I already kind of knew they did, makes a huge difference to me. They may never know just how much this all means to me, but someday I hope I have a chance to show them. I've been surprising myself a lot lately, saying things I normally wouldn't and told people things I've kept secret for a long time. It's all collected enough dust in my mind that it deserved to finally show itself. I wonder if a year from now all my secrets will just become funny stories and I'll have a whole new set to deal with. It wouldn't be the first time.

After all, it's just like riding a bicycle.

The Revival of the Concertmate 470

 A few days ago I was in my garage when my eyes fell upon a sad mini-keyboard. It didn't seem to be of any use, with its back broken and a strange sound from the inside when I moved it ( I later discovered this was from an internal speaker dislodged and rattling around). Even when I put in the right size and amount of batteries, there was too much space and it did no good. But there was a certain sympathy I felt for this tiny instrument, and even though I've never had much luck with technology in the past, I was determined to do whatever I could to save the little guy.

 So I spent a good 45 minutes trying to remove the back from the front with no formal tool at my disposal other than a teeny screwdriver and my own unskilled, grubby old hands. I'll admit, at one point I had a deep desire to thrust the keyboard through the air with enough brute force to shatter it into a thousand pieces, but thankfully I suppressed this urge and continued sputtering angrily and yelling menacingly into the plastic.

 Once I'd accomplished my task and could see the internal organs of my patient, I tried diagnosing the problem, namely in the battery department. It turned out that the battery spring had been moved from home, which had caused the mishap of the batteries falling in too far. I put it back in place and put in the batteries again, and hoping for the best, I flicked the switch to ON and pressed a key.

And guess what.

IT.

WORKED.

 At first I was initially shocked at the miracle this had been, although only about half the keys actually worked (which isn't much considering there's literally only 32 keys, including the flats). Still, I was overjoyed, and sent myself to work discovering just what this little firecracker could do. Which, as it turns out, is more than you'd expect. 

 There's five different tone setting groups (of which two work) which contain five sounds each, and also three pattern groups (of which two work) which contain eight sounds each. It also features a three-setting tone editor (fully functioning), volume (works) and tempo (doesn't work) control, as well as a demo and lesson function that I don't understand yet. A lot in a little package. And even though it's feeble, broken, and has some bent keys, I feel a deep connection and a faint relation to its gentle sincerity when I play around on it.

 Now, if only I could really play a keyboard.

I'm naming him Chance.