They say it’s a river, circles the earth
A beam of light shining to the edge of the universe
It conquers all
It changes everything

thoughts of love have been on my mind quite a bit recently. not that i’m in love now, but just the whole notion of whether or not i believe in true love, how one can attain such a thing, and what it is that i’m looking for when i seek this thing called love. despite all of my experiences so far, the belief in true love still resonates strongly in every beat of my weathered heart. i still have a strong conviction that true love is out there and i’m unwilling to close the door to that path of happiness, just yet.

They say it’s a blessing
They say it’s a gift
They say it’s a miracle and I believe that it is
It conquers all
but it’s a mystery

i never really thought that i would be one to be so caught up with love. to be loved, to love, to know why so much has been written, sung, and acted about…it’s such a powerful force that can consume one’s spirit. it can occupy their entire philosophy, paint their world, and change their life.

i have been thinking lately about what it is that might lead me to find this kind of love. the kind of love that endures through the ages. the kind of love that i think i’m looking for knows no bounds, it hesitates for no one, it is just there to be given and received, equally, whole-heartedly, and freely. that’s the kind of love that i seek.

Love breaks your heart
Love takes no less than everything
Love makes it hard

And it fades away
So easily

recognizing this kind of love can be difficult and painful. the problem with love is that though you can give it freely, having it returned to you may not come as easily. it’s one of the most challenging things about love. the challenge is finding someone who will return your love as freely and genuinely as you give it unto them.

one of the most powerful gifts one can give to another is all of their love…their affections…their passion. in this we leave ourselves open to the possibility of great, great pain. we allow ourselves to be turned away. to know that though we feel that we can gives ourselves completely to them…they can stand there seeing this great gift and passing it by. the depths of such pain are excrutiating at the least…yet every day we see people throw themselves into the tangled web of love, hoping to be caught.

In this world we’ve created
In this place that we live
In the blink of an eye babe, the darkness slips in
Love lights the world
Unites the lovers for eternity

Love breaks the chains
Love aches for every one of us
Love takes the tears and the pain
And then turns it into the beauty that remains

the thing about love is once you have gotten caught up in it, its effects are intoxicating.

i think that i used to be quite eager to be in love. i wanted to be in love, i wanted to be loved. i wanted to be a part of that whole loving thing.

it isn’t that i don’t want to be in love, i still do, but i think that these days i’m a little more selective about how it is that i’m going to go about this love thing. before i used to just wear my heart on my sleeve and follow it wherever it may lead me. the problem with that is that i just followed too blindly, without thinking, where my heart would take me. and sometimes the heart just doesn’t know what’s best for me.

that isn’t to say that i will now sit and think about every decision i make in this arena, but i think that i’m definitely a little more cautious about what i do these days.

besides, whenever i’ve tried to look for love, it has always eluded me…but it’s when i stop looking that something just happens to come my way. life has a funny way of doing that.

—–

this weekend was a pretty busy one for me. no idle sitting waiting for the cows to come home this weekend. no siree, bob.

it all started with shirley’s hawaiian bbq. it was pretty fun to go out and meet new people and just have a good time. i had a few drinks at the constant behest of trang and shirley. shirley’s first challenge was “you aren’t going to let a little girl outdrink you, are you?” to which my reply could only have been, “i have no problem with that.”

but still, between her and trang, i knew that it was going to be a bit of a drinking night. not too bad though, i got a little warm, quite flushed, and a little silly, but not to the point where i got sleepy. alcohol for me is much like a sleeping pill. if taken in excess, i start to get quite drowsy and mellow. it does none of that liquid fearlessness that i hear about. it doesn’t do anything to make me less uninhibited. no, it just makes me sleepy.

one of the things that i told myself long, long ago was that i would never drink myself to the point where i would not be able to remember what it was that i was doing. my college roommate used to go booze it up all the time. apparently he was quite the character when he was drunk, but otherwise was a pretty mellow guy. but to have fun, he needed to drink. and i think that’s where i draw the line. i don’t want to have to drink to have fun, but i can definitely have fun while having drinks.

but anyway, the party was a lot of fun, i was able to meet some people and i learned some new things about some people that i already knew. it seems that i’m meeting more and more of the berkeley aphio gang through these parties. it’s almost as if i knew them with all the connections drawn out here and there.

because of the hawaiian theme, i made spam musubi for the party. i was afraid that it might not have been met with as much excitement as i had hoped, but it seemed that people ate it up and one guy seemed to really enjoy it quite a bit. i also made miso salmon which i don’t think was finished up, so that must clearly mean something about spam musubi and how good it is.

sunday was spent playing volleyball. first in the park and then later in the evening at JACL. i’m not sure if i will do the double volleyball play thing. it’s a lot of volleyball and i’m not sure if my ankle is really ready to take that kind of wear just yet.

there’s a big break for JACL now. i think it’s something like 3 weekends off, so i think that i’m going to have to find something to do on those sundays now. maybe i’ll have a sunday dinner. i haven’t had one of those in a long while.

—–