Silence and Starlight

Questions, doubts. A chance, I fail. I’m out
of breath. My chest constricts, for breath is life,
and life is pain, and I don’t understand.
Healing, hope. A life forgotten, and
struggling still to breathe, I pray.
Silence of a heartbeat, frozen still.
Silence of an eagle’s cry, so far
overhead, it echoes only in
comfort I imagine. Chest constricts.
More remains to life. In silent prayer,
armor covers doubts, and stillness answers
questions. Silence grants a strength I
didn’t know I had. I have a light,
light that is my own, reflected still
by this silence, silent heartbeat, silent
lightning, silent answers, silent peace.

There’s something I realized I should let you all know: my instant messenger works in a rather weird way right now. I have my ordinary Yahoo IM, that I always keep turned on and me on invisible (at least if I’m not in Alaska). Normally I turn myself on “available” several nights a week, and when I do that, I’m usually prepared to just talk and to do nothing else. When I’m focused on something else (updating my livejournal, reading and responding on XOC, writing emails and answering comments), I generally leave IM off, unless I get another type of message that someone needs to talk to me (text, phone, email, etc). However, if for some reason my regular instant messenger isn’t logged on, when I sign into my Yahoo email (and I’m always on there – checking livejournal comments, deleting spam, and writing to my school), Yahoo signs me on to IM – it looks the same to you, but to me, the window’s not even maximized, so I don’t see you when you see me and write to me. I’ve “ignored” several of you several times that way, and I’m sorry for that. This is part of my new resolution regarding online commitments. I want to be available for my friends all the time – really, every time of the day or night – and I can’t count on only the times when I sign in to IM being the times when my friends need me, just like sometimes one of my friends might not be signed in when I need you. So there are a couple of different ways to let me know that you’d like to talk to me. One is to contact me in a different way (text message, email, etc.). But when I get home, LadyKate has a message: “Busy, but message me anyway,” that I think I’ll use when I’m doing other things rather than leaving my instant messenger off.

Online life is both strange and special, everyday and unusual, difficult and intensely rewarding. I think in that sense it’s no different than any other kind of community. But I do think – besides defending online life – that I want to have some clearer expectations for myself and my online life when I get home. Because it’s way too easy to get overwhelmed. A lot of my in-person friendships have online components, and I’ve had some of the best conversations of my life on instant messenger, and half the numbers in my phone wouldn’t be in there if it wasn’t for this livejournal, and the Xena Online Community is truly my family. But I also need to define the parameters so that I can still sleep once I get out of this very secluded, slow and reflective time in my life. See – the wonder of having time hasn’t grown old. I can remember my dreams, because for the first time in years I’m sleeping enough to have dreams. I can focus on each particular task until it’s done, I can feel myself coming in and out of fantasy realms, and I’ve rediscovered the pure wonder of being lost in stories. There has to be a way to keep this ability when I get home and get back to my regular routines.

I learned something important instant messaging in King Salmon. I had this list for myself before I left (Elsie is the Queen of list-making) of things that I wanted to get done online – stray things to look up, people to email, posts to make. When I turned on my computer and LadyKate and LadyChi wrote to me within moments (bless you both – I’d been about to message you, but the connection was slow and you beat me to it), I realized that was all I wanted to do. So for the next almost seven hours straight, I didn’t force myself to multitask. I just talked. I was on the XOC while I was talking with LadyKate, so I could see the different threads that she referred to and make a few posts and updates here and there. But I didn’t really even do that much of that. Melody and Xenasgrrl got on later, LadyChi went to bed, and I just held those three conversations. And that was enough…more than enough…and I didn’t want to do seventeen other things at the same time when there would be time to write emails the next day.

So that’s the pattern I’m resolved to keep when I get home: put IM on busy, do other things for an hour or so, then talk for an hour or so. What do you all think…and what are your typical online schedules?

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Summary: 6/13/09: I WENT UP DUMPLING TODAY. ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. BY MYSELF. IN THE RAIN. I can die happy now!

As I write this, I’m sitting on my top bunk in my cabin. I am blessedly warm all over, and I am also sitting down. I used up five band-aids covering the blisters on my feet (actually, band-aids are another good care package filler; I’m going through them at an alarming rate). Today did not go according to my plan for my day off. But I’m safe and happy, and I learned something today.

The Story:
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My Interpretation:
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Anyway, there’s no chance this will ever happen again, ‘cause I’m never hiking off the trails again. The only reason I left the trail at all was that leaving the trail is the only way to make it to the top of Dumpling, and now that I’ve done it once, I don’t need to do it ever again. I’m not going to hike by myself in the fog again (although I will try to take someone else along to enjoy the fog together!) and I’m not hiking at all tomorrow…I might actually use my split shift work break to take a nap, the way everyone’s been advising me to do in the meantime.

‘Till then, peace be with you all. And thank You, Lord. You didn’t answer my prayer the way I’d expected, but Your way was even better.