walk it out

I haven't been feeling completely awesome lately. yesterday I decided I would take a walk and see if that would help. it did. a lot.

strange new flowers

the words we spoke
were living things
our breathy exchanges
resuscitations
each departure a death
each hello a wet birth
learning language like a child
I bury the words I used before
strange new flowers burst from the grave
I seek new names for each bright blossom

my island

Life is never easy for those who dream. -Robert James Waller

I used to hear music and ache. I felt the gape like a wound. I want that was the thought burning through my veins. but now, I hear music and sing. I feel its presence like a warm blanket wrapped around my dancing skin. I am that is now the thought that hums in my brain.

it takes so long sometimes, to arrive at ourselves. if I think about it, I guess it takes a lifetime, some people getting closer than others, some never even taking the first step. lately I have had a heightened awareness of the struggle to just be. I am surrounding by people begging the question how. how do I ignore what I'm told and hear what I know? how can I become unafraid to follow my fear? how will I know if I am making the right decision? all these questions that we ask ourselves as means of delaying action. the distractions from the actions that will free us from all the dissatisfaction. if it were easy, we would lose interest. it's supposed to be hard. it's supposed to be terrifying. it's supposed to seem nearly impossible. how else would we know what is possible? how else would we find ourselves?

I by no means am done discovering, but I have seen the outlines of my shore. it took me so long just to arrive at the knowledge that the destination I seek is in fact there -- but it's not some distant island I'm sloshing at sea to reach. it is in me. so close. so far. slowly I add a new coordinate to my map. x moves around marking a different spot each day. some days I am courageous enough and patient enough and strong enough to unearth the treasure, and some days I stay anchored in the boat, shivering in the cold of my own fog. I let myself have those days. I am learning to let myself have all the days, the glittering gold and ruby days, the gray and unfriendly days too. they are all my days. I am all my days. what matters is that I believe in my island, and it's not even about reaching it, it's about knowing it's there.

don't take it personally if I punch you in the face

soooooo much to catch you up on. I got my belly button pierced. ok, so maybe not. but I did do a lot of other super talk aboutable things that I am drawing a complete blank on right now. I think I believe if I simply sit down and type, they will all spill out and then the events of the past few days, weeks, months, whatever, will in fact have happened because they have been historically cataloged in my blog. the only reason I have this blog is so sometimes, when I forget that I am living, I can go and scroll through all the posts and reconfirm what I already knew, I am indeed alive and living. I have thoughts and feelings and I share them with whoever it is that happens to stumble across this thing (and which google analytics tells me, is either an incredible speed reader or doesn't read this at all, given that 83.59% of my visitors spend less than 10 seconds on this site). a fact that I do not take personally.

I am in the habit lately of not taking anything personally. like when I get towed and have to pay the city of los angeles $300 dollars (which I would have rather spent on a plane ticket to spain) to get my car back. these things happen. I will be honest, there was a moment (and I let myself have that moment), where I thought, poooooor me. boo to the hoo. but then I thought, well, so to the what? I had to cough up some cash I don't really have. I'm still alive and mostly well. I still get to laugh about this in a couple of years when I'm laying poolside at my hillside estate. just another thing to slop into my bucket loads of character I've been collecting in all my odd jobs and various life "experiences" (a nice word used to describe those indescribably difficult times we always manage to somehow pull through). we all rule. because we are living, and continue doing so.

well, it seems I can't think of all the things that have transpired since I last thought to write any of them down. fortunately I have photographs. I will let them express what my words are lacking.