Cooking

You have been given the materials to bake cookies. There is the slightly bitter chocolate, gooey eggs, dry flour and salty butter; there is even an oven burning at 450F. Now the question remains, are you going to reject each of these ingredients based upon their individual taste, or will you endure it all and bake a wonderful pan of cookies for your friends.

Everyday we are given lots of crap by those around us and by circumstances surrounding us. It is only natural to feel downtrodden, and disappointed when we are confronted with such unpleasantness. But should we throw down our shovels, saying "to hell with it all" and forgo the chance of planting a beautiful garden? Or can we step back and realize that everything that is seemingly bad is in fact an ingredient to making something better?

The past few days, I have been cooking and cleaning compulsively as means to avoid certain pressing issues in my life. Cooking and cleaning has a calming affect upon me, and for a long time I don't quite know why. Friends have often joked that they are convinced that I am gay whenever they see me cooking and later cleaning away in the kitchen. I don't know, there is much simple pleasures working away in the kitchen. I love it when the chemistry works, and the ingredients blend together to emanate delectable aroma. I love the heat radiating off the stoves, soup boiling in the pot, the bubbling steam as ebullient as my heart. I like the squeaky noises that dishes make when they are cleaned. I love the feel of warm water upon my skin, and the sense of accomplishment that goes with cooking a great meal and cleaning everything up afterwards. 

Perhaps it is because the kitchen allow me to practice that controlling side of me that few has come to know. I may be easy going on the most part, but there is nothing I like better than feeling like I am in control somewhat, and the kitchen offers me that security. In it, I can guide the destiny of each dish I prepared, I have the ability to wreck chaos and later restore order. I am a sorcerer given the power to turn the most bland or foul ingredients into a delicious meal. Onions, olive oil, eggs and various herbs are thrown into a cooking ware to bring out the best in nearly tasteless vegetables and bloody meat. From fermented yeast and lots of gas I can rise dough to make bread. Give me a pinch of salt, a clove of garlic and some intense heat, and I can cook you a dish you will not soon forget. It is a wonder to see new recipes at work, to learn new ways to complement ingredients so that they produce amazing results.

The kitchen becomes my little fiefdom where I can learn about the facts of life under a controlled environment. Through it I have learned that you don't always need intense heat to cook something, but rather let things slowly boil at decent temperatures (often on a back burner) until the right taste is coaxed out. I have learned to be patient, to acknowledge that when the recipe says it takes 10 minutes, it will probably take me 30 minutes to get it right. I have learned to be experimental, to understand that what is written in cookbook are merely guidelines. They are somebody else's rendition, and that if I are take some poetic license, trusting in my intuition, chances are I will be surprised by awesome results. When I step back, I realize what is important about cooking is not just the final product but the process itself. It is a great plus if there is a well cooked dish at the end of all the preparation and hard work, but by the time I am done cooking, I realized that part of my hunger is satisfied just by the smell alone. Later on, when I go ahead to wash the dishes, it is the same. There is not a whole lot that you can not wash away with detergent, a good sponge and healthy does of elbow grease. The strong smell of garlic can be easily washed away using salt and hot water. That is also true in life, there are ways to rid yourself of the stink that life's garlics clung onto you. 

In many regards, life's lessons can be learned by spending time in the kitchen. Having hide in it the past few days, I have come to a couple of revelations on how to deal with several of the problems that affronts me in life. The reality is I may have been handed some awful standalone ingredients. They are not all that pretty, but it is up to me to find a way to utilize them to bring out the best. Who knows, out of all that is fishy, stinky and seemingly fermented I may perhaps dish out some grand concoction. So bring it on, give me heat, give me burning ginger, stinging onions and malodorous garlic; I will strive to make them work. Just remember, we are always handed the right ingredients, it is up to us to concoct something great or throw it all down and quit the kitchen. 

Late Night Ramblings

 should be sleeping, but alas I am not. Pacing about the room like a caged animal at the zoo, I stare out into the night. No moonlight this night to bathe my room in a milky glow, left alone in ambient darkness do I sulk. A mind that refuses to rest, a heart that continues to beat nonetheless, I seem to have lost control over my own body. I will my self to sleep to no avail. Counting sheep, looking for the shepherd, none of the usual remedies seem to work. 

I should be tired, I should be drained, yet restless I remain. Where is the battle? What keeps me awake? What am I holding onto? Why can't I seem to let go? I read the Psalters over and over, yet the words flow meaningless to me. All about me is serenity, the night is tranquil after the storm. But instead of being at peace, in stillness brings sharp contrast my unrest. 

Conscious I may be, but even as I write I am frustrated by exhaustion's affect upon my ability to express. There is something I feel I need to profess, a goal that requires attainment before I can goo to bed. But what? Oh what? This is torture, this is bad, I am up in madness, in fatigue's false rush. Curse be upon the devil in me who denies me rest, for in the morning when God bade me I shall be weary and laden with tiring dread. 

Ah Lord, have mercy upon me this night. Help me to surrender and cast asunder all needless worries and thoughts. If you will not smite me, at least grant me these little moments of death. If the angles be silent, at least allow me to hear the lullabies in my own head. I know not what to ask of you, nor do I feel I am of sound mind to even ask you what I should ask. But if you will, be still my whole being. The devil is near this night, it taunts me to curse you. It deprives me, it tempts me, but I will not be moved with your help, so please send help before I am so weakened that I denounce you as Job did once.

May You Know That You Are Loved

Shed no more tears for me little one, for in truth you have not lost all that much. Aye, it may seems more limitations have been placed upon you unjustly. But without them you will never know just how far you can go. Your wings may be tied, but that should not prevent your soul from touching the skies. Besides, what we have is beyond what others can confine. Our souls have touched, and while we must drift apart as people often do, never are my thoughts far from you. 

What you have no one else can take; your memories, your heart, your mind, your soul are yours to keep. Therefore be not sad, but savor these moments as much as you can. We may not walk hand in hand, we may not travel side by side, but ours has never been physical but spiritual. I take joy in your companionship, but I delight even more in your mental well being. Therefore, be happy, be hopeful, and pray He who sits high above may have pity on this folly of ours. To each should be allowed one folly, let this be mine as it may be yours. 

The multitude may have spoken, but in the end it is between you and I by and by. Fret not upon the tomorrows for in reality we only have today. Therefore don't let the burden of guilt ruin your day, nor despair block your way. This bothersome pair only exist because we try too hard to care what we cannot. In the end,your heart shall steer you clear. 

Be willing to surrender control to what was not yours to control. Let go of guilt, seek not to hold, but live and remember. Today, we may face forks in the path. Who knows? Down the road those forks may meet and conjoin once again. And if indeed must we part ways, there is always the moon, the stars and the sun to relay our mutual bond. 

Regardless, you are loved. Loved by those who were chosen for you, and by him whom you have chose. These are not conflicting loves for love is love. Thus I urge you dearly to step back and just enjoy being loved. You are worth it, seek no more to please, but just acknowledge you are loved.

The beginning or the end?

Have the curtains truly fallen?
Has the music really stopped playing?
Or is it in the silence still, the melodies ring even more salient
Can you really not hear the lyrics to every song that has been played? 

You said to me that this cannot be.
There is after all no real life romantic comedy
But is that truly from your heart, or from a script poorly written?
Who’s to say ours must be a clique tragedy? 

You told me to let it be, and perhaps I may,
For I have learned the hard way that
Love should never be means to hold one hostage,
As the ransom is often not what we are ready to pay.

While I shall fight against all others for your affection,
Never will I place myself in direct contention against blood of your blood.
That is one burden that I will not place upon you,
But it should never have come to this, a decision of me or them.

Love should never be a competition. Love is sacred, love is holy.
Who are we to measure God’s gift to all human kind?
Who are we to deem unholy what He has made holy?
Did He not create you and I in His likeness? 

Who is to say that this is not His love that beats fervently within our hearts?
Is it because our ardor is so great, so absolute that it frightens them?
That they would resolve to all means to contain it, define it, control it, condemn it?
If you must love as they will it, then that is not true love is it?

Alas, I can ask no more of you than what you have given me.
Neither can I take back the things which have been bestowed you so willingly.
Forever you shall hold my soul, my whole in your hands;
Until that day when you find me loathsome because of my person. 

You said for me to forget. That can not be and will never be.
For everywhere I go, I shall smell the scent of lemongrass and berries lingering.
I can not forget that which has made me the happiest in my known memory
When the world has turned cold, and I have grown old, this is all I have left -
The warm glow of you and I side by side these few months.

Has the play truly stopped?
Did you quit the stage on your own accord?
Even so, I shall remain; I hear the piano playing
Of feathers slowly flutter by, of butterfly lovers who never die.

Then let these be my parting lines for now
"Since my love cannot love me, I will love for love's sake. 
I will love no other as I have you - nor should you wish that upon me. 
It is inconsequential what shall happen to me, 
as I shall find my cocoon to morph into someday. 
Be far from me if you must, for I shall not make you choose. 
Yet, even in absence shall not my feelings for you ever dampened. 
I love you, I love you, I love you."


Je t'aime, tu est tout qui j'adore. Je ne regretterai jamais, ni vous vous lamentez sur il. Pendant que vos yeux sont desséchés, sont ainsi les miens.