as i was driving home tonight from the hospital after visiting with my dad, i saw a little girl around six years old in a bright pink fuzzy coat clutching her father's hand tightly as they ran across irving park road on lincoln ave. the two of them were laughing as they continued down lincoln, hand in hand. and i saw the father's face, and on it i saw written a look of delight and pure affection. and i thought back to my own childhood, searching for the memory of when i clutched my own father's hand as we walked down some street, back when i believed that i was safe from all the dangers of the world and of this life as long as i held onto my father's hand. i missed my childhood sorely, and i wished i could be that little girl again so that i could sit in my dad's lap and feel what it's like to be held and surrounded by unconditional love and total safety. the memories have faded over the years. i wish i'd known how much the memories would mean to me now, so that i would have preserved them better, filed them better.

tonight i finished douglas coupland's life after god for the 2nd time. i almost didn't get through it, and as expected by the end of the book, i was sobbing. i can't believe how much i relate to the narrator's feelings of loneliness and longing and anxiety and neediness and emptiness and restlessness. here's a passage in which the narrator's friend todd shares some thoughts...

"i think about this...i think about how hard it is--even with the desire, and even with the will and the time--i think of how hard it is to reach that spot inside us that remains pure that we never manage to touch but which we know exists--and i try to touch that spot...what is you, scout? what is the you of you? what is the link? where do you begin and end? this you thing--is it an invisible silk woven from your memories? is it a spirit? is it electric? what exactly is it?...oh, i know you guys think my life is some big joke--that it's going nowhere. but i'm happy. and it's not like i'm lost or anything. we're all too fucking middle class to ever be lost. lost means you had faith or something to begin with and the middle class never really had any of that. so we can never be lost. and you tell me, scout--what is it we end up being, then--what exactly is it we end up being then--instead of being lost?"

lately i have been feeling so tainted and diluted that i find myself yearning for purity. i'm not talking about doing all the morally right things externally or following a bunch of rules. i believe that there is something about purity that inherently goes beyond rules and beyond morality. and as cloudy and foggy as i feel these days, i know that in me somewhere is that purity that i am longing for. i know it must be so, or else i wouldn't care about it. the way i envision this purity to be is like that little girl clutching her father's hand. i think it has something to do with putting all my hope, trust and devotion in something beyond myself, something i simply know and believe without a doubt to be my ultimate protector and my source of thoroughly complete happiness and unconditional love.

some people think that if they only find that one person to fall in love with for the rest of their lives, that would be the ultimate happiness. i don't buy that though. i was telling josh b. last night that i am now skeptical of romantic love, that i don't believe it's the end that i'm looking for. there has to be more. frankly, i have come to doubt my ability to love someone in such a way unless i first find that purity and soak myself in it. i'm not saying this out of being jaded. i'm saying this because i know that without this purity, i am only capable of being a selfish spoiled brat manifesting all sorts of symptoms of brokenness. i don't expect to become perfect. i just hope to be whole, to love purely and entirely, and to receive love purely and entirely.

recent soundtrack:
s/t - the ocean blue
see the ocean blue - tob
from the nest of idea - scientific
it's hard to find a friend - pedro the lion
ghost of david - damien jurado
i break chairs - damien jurado
misc. mp3s including:
will you find me - american music club
whole - ptl
invention - ptl
nightswimming - r.e.m.
talk about the passion - r.e.m.
perfect circle - r.e.m.
summer dress - red house painters
have you forgotten - red house painters
kyrie eleison - sinead oconnor
but not tonight - depeche mode
we walk the same line - everything but the girl
25 december - ebtg
notebook - the innocence mission
failure - kings of convenience
when all the stars were falling - lisa loeb
yesterday, tomorrow - denison witmer
everybody knows - denison witmer
you're beautiful - mojave 3
prayer for the paranoid - mojave 3
2 stones in my pocket - neil halstead
dreamed i saw soldiers - neil halstead
high hopes - neil halstead
a bunch of other stuff...