The Longest Night
A Last Entry Before I Leave...
The Longest Night is over, and with it the sadness fades.

Yesterday I went up to the mountains and snowshoed up an old logging road with my dad. we walked up the road for a few miles and gained 2200 feet until the snow was thick and deep and we overlooked the cascades. I came down soaked in sweat and cold at once, glorying at nature and happy for a chance to reflect in silence. A fitting way to spend the solstice.

I've spent most of the last few days wrapped in a deep depression, paralyzed by frustration, incapacitated by noise, and overcome by memory. I feel fine in the mornings, even after being harrased by my subconscious mind but as the days wear on and get darker, I fall into some sort of shadow. I've felt that I can't move for all the sadness in the world.

This has not been a very uplifting week. My family has been anything but comforting. They are a mass of hectic energy, stress, and anger. I don't know if I've seen a single happy face all week.

I went back to the high school to find out that one of my Cisco teacher's daughter was murdered in September by a drunk man in Tacoma. She told him to be quiet and stop harrasing her friends so he got in his truck, backed through two traffic lights, ran her over and dragged her body for four city blocks until he was arrested by a police officer who witnessed the whole thing.

Justin stayed at his old roomate's parents' house. Rather, it's her mom's house now... her dad suddenly dropped dead last summer of a heart attack while jogging over in Europe.

Justin went to visit his other ex-roomate and HER father spent the evening at a bar. He says he's an alcoholic.

Last night we dropped a christmas card by Toyoda's after hours. When Helen came to the door, she had just gotten off the phone. Her eyes were filled with tears. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up; this was NOT the happy woman we know. She gave us each a hug and I could tell she was touched and happy we visited but could barely refrain from crying for whatever reason was hurting her. It was a brief visit and we left.

I probably looked pretty haggard, too, after the way I've been feeling. Justin and I had a rather terse discussion about our mutual life goals and the lack of understanding between our respective philosophies. I think we're both astute people but we can't change each other and we can't understand the other's particular method of living. I think we've been pretty good at acceptance so far-- we still love each other very much and bring each other great comfort and stability.

It's this damn city that brings me down so much. I HATE it here. I thank god I'm leaving tonight. I believe with every fibre of my being that Bellevue is the seventh level of HELL. That it is a suburban, capitalistic NIGHTMARE. I hate it and I wish it would be wiped off the face of the planet.

I'm saying this, of course, because we made the mistake of going to the mall (which has DOUBLED in size since I moved here) today to make a small purchase. It was a fiasco. I would have been able to give a million and one justifications for opening fire on every shallow freak in that mall in a murderous rage. I hated them all, especially the over-groomed 13 year-olds on their cell phones with mommy's credit card and daddy's beamer. I wished them each a miserable demise.

Trite of me, I know. But you haven't SEEN it, you haven't BEEN here. It's sickening in the worst way. I swear to god it makes me want to move into a yert somewhere and gather yak wool for a living.

Bah, but I'm leaving now and I'm going to the edges of civilzation (luckily they make considerations for tourists there) to sit in sun and silence for ten days. Belize will stand in stark contrast to Bellevue. Starving mouths and wont for the bare goods of consumption... not this gross over-indulgence, this sick gluttony. And there will be Time there, Time to enjoy things. Time for more contemplation.... this time, not depressed.

Time to wonder at the sky and sea and to become, for a few weeks, golden brown and crispylicious. I won't be back until after the second... perhaps not until the 5th or 6th.

Merry Holidays!!