Falling Is Like This; Studying, Studying, Studying

Above: Moonrise on my evening bike ride yesterday. Sunlight on tomotoes, apples and a single hot pepper from the farmer's market in the kitchen this morning.

I've watched several of my friends fall in love recently. And I've had my fair share of crushes this summer and fall, some even on single gay women (!) but I've chosen not to act on any of them because it is simply more convenient to be single at this point in my life....

Still, watching that passionate roller coaster (studies show that being in love activates the same centers of your brain that are activated with a drug addiction!), makes me think of Ani Difranco's song "Falling Is Like This:"

You give me that look that's like laughing
with liquid in your mouth
like you're choosing between choking
and spitting it all out
like you're trying to fight gravity
on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this

Feels like reckless driving when we're talking
It's fun while it lasts, and it's faster than walking
But no one's going to sympathize when we crash
They'll say "you hit what you head for, you get what you ask"
and we'll say we didn't know, we didn't even try
one minute there was road beneath us, the next just sky

I'm sorry I can't help you, I cannot keep you safe
I'm sorry I can't help myself, so don't look at me that way
we can't fight gravity on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this.

I really hope that none of my friends crash and find that there is no road beneath them, just sky, as Ani sings. That is one of the perils of dating I am happy to avoid:)

I've also been listening to Mercedes Sosa while studying, especially "A Dios Le Pido."
Tranlation that I like by Ryan Rodrick Beiler:

All I ask of God
Is that the pain not make me indifferent
that parched death not find me
empty and alone, not having done enough

All I ask of God
Is that injustice not make me indifferent
That I’m not struck on the other cheek
After a claw has torn my destiny

Chorus:
All I ask of God
Is that the war not make me indifferent
It’s a beast whose heavy steps grind
All that’s poor and innocent in people

All I ask of God
Is that deception not make me indifferent
If a single traitor can do more than many
May the many not forget easily

All I ask of God
Is that the future not make me indifferent
Helpless is the person who must flee
to live in a different culture

Although it has been almost half a lifetime since I lived in a country that didn't have secure borders, almost half a lifetime since I slept with an AK-47 next to my bed and ammunition stacked against the door (and no, I didn't live in the occupied territories, that would have been against my ethics), almost half a lifetime since I walked out of a bus station only to have it blow up behind me minutes later... I've been thinking about that time lately more than usual. It's the combination of a lecture that I heard that referenced a different war, listening to some music I haven't listened to in awhile and wanting to go back and visit this spring or summer.

And of course I've been studying a ton, almost all day yesterday except for an evening bike ride. But I don't feel like writing about it somehow. Perhaps later.