Poem: Adrenaline

I caught his face.
Inhale sharply, look away
Nerves on end
Adrenaline. Relentless.

Green light, not for me.
Green light, he goes and is off, forever maybe.
It’s what I told him—
to go and be off, forever maybe.

But a change of heart, a change of mind, or lack of it.
Lack of it all.
I go, I go and fly off, off after him.
I should have said no, no to the flying;
no to the off after him.

But I fly. I fly and fly,
Speed is mine, the wind rushes by.
A curb of cement.
An aim for sidewalk, an aim, shoot, and miss
I truly fly. The snap of a second.

And the second snapped, I feel the hard stone
A baked gray ground.
It is in my hands, against my breast,
jarred left hip, burning left knee.
Crash.

Crash.
I crash, am crashing, crashed.
Down and down and down.

I rise, adrenaline to ravish my body
Screaming at me, No pain, no pain
But pain, it came, it comes nonetheless
Nonetheless adrenaline always fades.

And he is out of sight, gone, has gone off, forever maybe.
Because it’s what I told him—
to go and be off, forever maybe.
Road rash scarring my knee.

Ninja longboarder

I don’t have anything against skateboarders. Skateboarders are cool. They manage to slide around in a concrete bowl like something in a pinball machine without ruining themselves. Very ninja.

Longboarders are ninja too, but in a different way. We can travel faster. Cracks in the road are not a major concern. And hill bombing is great–as long as the speed wobble doesn’t get too sketchy.

We’re creative. We don’t need a skatepark; any old (empty) school complex will do nicely. Grind-stoppers (those plastic things screwed on concrete ledges to prevent skaters from grinding) can’t stop us. In fact, we prefer to ride up alongside the concrete, jump off the board, run on the ledge, and jump back on.

I went longboarding with my brother and another guy friend the other day. We totally shredded up an elementary school a block or so from my house. Did stuff like skating up to metal rails to vault over. You could say it was “totes awes.”

I wish I had more pictures, but this one shall suffice:
 Longboarding is so ninja.

Longboarding fail #4

Does getting a rotting-food-colored bruise on my knee and road rash on my foot in the EXACT SAME PLACES as I did when I first rode my longboard last summer make for an exponentially increasing fail?

If that sentence doesn’t make any sense, feel free to comment “Fail.”

The fallacy of independence

Where do we humans get such notions in our heads like “I don’t need anyone, I can do it on my own…I am an independent person!”? And I know people think like this, whether they know it or not, because I often have this mindset.

While I know that humans are “interdependent” and whatnot, I find avoiding an independent mindset a difficult task for me. Yesterday, though, I decided that the notion of independence is rather silly.

As I was riding my longboard back to my dorm, I began to fancy it was my “modern-day” horse, since longboarding is this car-less college kid’s method of travel these days. Anyhow, that thought turned into the realization of how dependent I was on this piece of wood with wheels under it. See, I’m the type of person who looks at the clock and says, “25 minutes until my next class on West Campus? Sweet, I’ve got time,” and then says 15 minutes later, “Oh, I better get movin’!” Therefore, the expedience of the longboard is rather important to me.

Everyone is dependent on something, especially in this age of technology. Just stop and think about the fact that when we flip a switch we expect a light to instantly destroy the surrounding darkness, or that we don’t even think twice about drinking water from the tap. Think about what your life would look like if your car broke down, if your cell phone fell into a deep body of water, if your refrigerator stopped working, if your house burned down, if your laptop got stolen, if the internet everywhere crashed, if you lost your key to your dorm room (for some of us, that’s a constant reality), if the microwave stopped working, if the local supermarkets closed down, if you lost all of your prescription eye-wear, if your roommate ate all of your pencils and pens, if cows ceased to exist, if every printer in your vicinity ran out of ink, if all of our purses and handbags were raptured, if someone sang so high that mirrors everywhere shattered…and the list goes on.

And, of course, those are just material entities. What about people? Say everyone you were even slightly acquainted with died, then see if you can tell me you don’t need help from anyone.

What about what is intangible? Like justice? Or hope? Or kindness? I don’t even want to think about what the world would be like without the human instinct that drives us to try to love.

The truth is, the average human is a dependent mess. So why is it so hard to admit that we need a God to depend on, too? “I don’t need God as a crutch”–why, because you can’t fit one more crutch under your arm?

Longboarding Fail #3

After about 3 months of longboarding almost every day at college, I feel like I’m starting to feel pretty comfortable on my nice lil’ silver surfer.

Pride comes before a fall very often, though.

Last week, I was FLYIN’ as I boarded over to the gym. Goin’ oh so smooth, sun on my face, wind in my hair. Halfway there, some sassy dude shouted out of a car window as he and his buddy drove past:

“Skater girls rock!”

Now I was really flyin’.

Until I made it in front of the entrance of the west campus, caught my foot on my back wheel, and that “flyin’” turned into literal flying.

And then gravity kicked in. By God’s grace, I peeled myself off of the asphalt with only a few scrapes on my elbows, a minor road rash on my knee (with bruising on the way), and burning but not raw palms. My pride had already run off and hid in the bushes, and I didn’t feel like going to find her, so I continued riding on to the gym without her.

Fail of the Day.

 

Why you should come to Azusa Pacific…

Last Friday, my Greek professor looked at the back wall of the room and said:

“I could open a skateboard shop.”

Trust me, you would never hear such a thing at Biola.

 

Tuxedo longboarding Ninja

I haven’t quite yet decided whether this is Ninja or simply awesome, but I’m willing to err on the Ninja side.

Anyhow, the other day, I saw a guy dressed up in a tuxedo-lookin’-suit-type outfit, holding a briefcase…and longboarding down the campus walkway.

It’s like James Bond turned college-skater-dude.

I’m willing to say that makes a Ninja Move of the Day.

Longboarding Fail #2

Today I longboarded to my West Campus classes again. This time, I made it quite smoothly ALL the way to the parking lot!

Unfortunately, I made it quite smoothly just to the parking lot.

Not long past the entrance to the lot, I ran over some sort of crack/bump/obstacle/thing that I wasn’t prepared for and slipped off my board. No, I did not fall and die, and neither were there that many people around.

I was fine, and simply landed on my two feet. But my board? She decided to run off and play hide-and-go-seek under the rows of parked cars.

I think I searched for, mmmm, about 10 minutes until I finally found her concealed behind a compact car’s front wheel.

Thankfully, I wasn’t late to class, but I didn’t have any time to wash off my black knees either.

And that is my Fail of the Day.