A Speech I Once Heard

Happy Halloween everyone!

Now that I've said that, on to the real focus of this post. I was reminded today of a speech that was given at my high school.

Now I went to a Christian school and so quite typically, on chapel days, a band would play worship music before some pastor or presenter came up. But this time it  different. We were all dismissed from our classes to head to the theater. As we came in, there was silence from the stage.  The red main curtain closed. No music was being played. There was no spiritual life teacher waiting to introduce the guest. No student ready to say their pastor was there to talk. When we had al been seated, a man dressed in simply a simple suit walked on stage. His appearance slightly disheveled, but not unprofessional. As he walked on we quieted waiting to hear what he had to say.

He began with a story. A story about walking in a city on one side of the street avoiding the people on the other side. Ignoring the homeless, the insane, the altogether strange. But then he asked, what would we learn if we walked on the other side. If we stopped to talk to the people. An he gave examples, always in a story, beginning with a man. A man who painted what he saw, but wasn't very good at it. But little did we know, the man saw halos of color around objects. He was really excellent, but nobody quite knew it. The man was Van Gogh.

And the speaker continued to talk Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Again in a story. He spoke with such a passion. His voice echoed through the quiet theater. No one dared to make a sound, not even a whisper during his entrancing talk. He told his own story too. And then, he said he would not give his name because it was unimportant to his point. And then, he walked off the stage.

The spiritual life director came on very quietly, though every footstep was heard, we were all so shocked by the passionate man we had heard speak moments ago. The director quietly told us we were dismissed to brunch. And that was it. There were no special effects, no slide shows, nothing. No music, no introduction. And yet. It is the speech I remember the most. To this day, I have no idea who he was.

I wish I could send a thank you note find a video to share with other people I know, but at the same time, it would not be as powerful if I knew.

If you recognize this speech at all (whether you have heard him speak before) or you are that man, comment below about it. Have a great Halloween everyone.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

In Memorium

I haven't blogged in about a week and a half. And it wasn't for lack of things to say.

A friend of mine committed suicide at age 16 last Monday. And honestly, nothing feels like it could ever be the same. He was hit by a train. Today was his Memorial Service. I didn't want to blog about this until I knew more. And I didn't want to blog about anything else until I talked about this.

Walker was amazing. At his memorial, his father said of him, "He taught himself to read at age four. He then read every book in the house. One day I came home and he was holding a book upside down. I told him, 'You looking at it upside down'. He responded, 'No I already read it the right way, not I want to read it this way'". That's the kind of kid he was. He was brilliant. But he was also amazingly artistic. He had a love and fascination for music. I remember this one time, he was so excited. He came into Spanish class and was telling me how the door behind the theater squeaked at just the right pitch and note that he could tune himself to the door for the song. He told me that every day for a week. I didn't have the heart to tell him he'd mentioned it already. He was too excited. But it wasn't just the people who knew him somewhat well who were touched by him. He met my cousin backstage once. Literally, once. When I told her that a friend had passed, she didn't ask who, she just held me. When I mentioned his name offhand, she immediately knew exactly who I was talking about and was saddened. "It was Walker?" She asked. "Oh no! He was so sweet!" After random meeting. Others have said of him, he was able to capture everyone's hearts.

And then there were the spoons. He gave people spoons, just because. Often with faces on them. I wish I'd kept mine though it had no face. Because I know now, I won't get a spoon from him again. Unless he gives them out in heaven. Which honestly, would not surprise me if he did. I can see him now, passing them out to the angels with the biggest grin on his face.

And man did he annoy me sometimes. He was so innocent about it too. He was the kind of person that wanted to be where the people were. So he'd forget that he wasn't allowed in the sound booth. And we'd constantly have o remind him to get out of the sound booth. I'm going to miss that. When I met him four years ago, I don't know that I could have ever known the kind of impact he would have on my life.

I just keep picturing him turning to me and saying, "I'm okay now. Don't worry about me." I wish I could have said goodbye. I wish I could have had one last real conversation with him. But now I guess I'll just have to wait until it's my turn to get to heaven.

For someone my age, I've been to too many funerals and memorials. I don't like it. Not one bit. I know death is inevitable, but this was too early for him. I wish there were a way I could go back in time and do something. Anything. But I can't.

So Walker, I'm so sorry that you're gone, but I hope to see you again someday.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Forgiveness

NOTE: For all of the cosplayers that are looking for photos I took from the NorCal Gathering, I'll be posting them on my 500px page soon. The link is in the sidebar, check it out. The pics should be up by Tuesday.

And now, onto the actual post.

Forgiveness is a powerful thing. I know I seem to talk about this topic a lot, but it's true. Forgiveness is powerful. You may be asking, what is prompting this post? Well, I spoke with someone who I once considered a friend today, and in theory, would like to call them a friend again. We haven't spoken in almost two years because of a huge fight that we had. Things were said and done that can't be taken back. But over the summer, I sent him an email telling him I forgave him. Which was true. I had at that point. Apparently, he never got it. And so he emailed me earlier this week asking to talk and I agreed. So we've been talking this week about various things, when he asked why I forgave him. Even now, I don't know that I can really explain it in the right way, but the important part was that I did and that my anger had totally subsided (as had his). I attempted an explanation, but he still couldn't quite get it. And I realized just how powerful it is. But what I realized is that you have to be able to forgive yourself for both the big and little mistakes to be able to understand why someone else would do it. Maybe that's not always true. But it seems to happen that way a lot in situations I've been in.

I guess that's all.

Hope y'all are having a great weekend!

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3

Rocky Horror

So yesterday, I was invited to go see Rocky Horror at Psycho Donuts in San Jose. At first, I was hesitant to go, especially as a "virgin" to seeing it in theaters. But, I had to drop Lauren off and was taking cosplay pictures for her (she was meeting a Homestuck group).  Since I already had to pay for parking that night, I figured, why the heck not, and decided to stay for the movie. We arrived way too early in order to grab dinner at Pizza My Heart down the street and take pictures while there was still some light. Lauren's friend Raz joined us around 5:30 ish and we all chilled outside the Psycho Donuts. But it got really creepy, really quickly. All of a sudden, three guys came up and started chatting us up, which was fine, except that at least two of them were clearly high on something. Lauren and Raz are both gay, so the most attention they got was asking questions about why they were gay, which they were pretty much chill about answering, though they were still just as creeped out by the fact that the three guys wouldn't leave. I on the other hand, answered honestly that I was not. I feel like I should've lied though. Clearly these men were trying to flirt, or something, but none of us were interested at all. At one point, one of the guys (who was still slightly coherent) asked me if I smoked or drank. I answered very honestly that no, I am a Christian and it goes against my morals to do so especially under the age of 21. He being the only one who seemed to understand that none of us were interested, replied, "I respect that, I'll leave you alone now" and walked away. One down, two to go. But these guys would not let up. They were asking about random things like our favorite colors and would we dye our hair crazy colors. I ended up being called "Turquoise" because of this. These guys were suave, certainly in their comments, but still, none of us were interested at all. Finally, more of the cosplayers that Lauren was meeting showed up and we were able to escape the remaining two. We walked inside the Psycho Donuts and stayed there til we knew they had left. Eventually, the whole group walked to a Safeway where I happened to notice that one of the two that wouldn't quit was being escorted out by security. When we made it outside, the security guard was just coming back and commented, "We get tired of being threatened sometimes". And that just made Lauren and I even more wigged out by these guys. It made me happy that I was there with a group of people, cause I honestly don't know what I'd have done had I been by myself.

Back to Rocky though!

After another hour or so, much more people arrived. Including a Brony group! I had been basically dragged along for the most part on this trip and so didn't know anyone in the Homestuck group. And because I don't read Homestuck, I didn't have anything in common with these folks. I did, however, bond with the Bronies. Because I actually follow that fandom, I could relate a bit more to that group. I actually ended up sitting with them instead of the Homestuck group for the movie. Shoutout to Craig who apparently for Fanime goes as Dr. Whooves. In other words, 10th Doctor, but with a cutie mark on his trench coat, and ears and a tail. Best pony. No questions asked. Thanks for being more relatable with an awesome pony doctor shirt!

I hope all you had a less creepy Saturday than I did. Seriously.

With Love,
PolarBearMoose <3