Jake.

There once was a golden retriever puppy that chewed on my pony tail, and when he was done moved on to attack my feet. The cutest thing. Somehow that was ten years ago.

Liver cancer is a silent and swift killer. Ironically I have been reading a book about the many ways the liver can kill. This book is full of fictional tales of people dysfunctionally, and yet all at once effortlessly achieving the win: despite themselves, consumed by last days and all, they find a truth that is unwavering- the end is the end, and everything else is fleeting.

Somehow, ten years have passed. Today, Jake's liver took him home for the long haul and left me a little breathless, teary-eyed and searching the sky for some noticeable change. There isn't any. Not that the death of a family pet should turn the sky green, but in the passing of an old friend I always seek a marked change, and can never find it. It is only years later, in some smaller moment, that I catch the significance of their passing. The last time I lost a friend it came to me in a cup of coffee in the middle of spring, spiraling out in waves of creamer. Slowly blending until the distinction of coffee from cream had vanished and all that was left was a cup of java, just like on the days before. I await the day when I can comprehend Jake's passing more completely. For now I'll try to run it off and hope that when I get home for Christmas I can find a way to say a belated, but proper goodbye.

Oh, dear friend, I know I'll see you again.
In the mean time, days will pass without you
I'll do my best, to let the sadness slide away
And relish in how good it is to have loved you.

Some thoughts on the first of December.

Swollen belly on account of an exceptionally successful Turkey Day. This has been added to and improved upon by an absurd amount of Mexican food provided by my job. Fabulous. It is already Wednesday, and last I checked, the week had just started. I dig this fact quite a bit.

Last night a dear friend absolutely killed-it at his company's launch party: Root Music is well on its way to being something epic. My high school love of hip hop was fully expressed last night via Del The Funkee Homosapien, Heiroglyphics, and some straight up dirty danncing: ass out; grindin'; cheesin'; feelin' it.

I have every intention of dressing up like Santa Claus in the midst of hundreds of other Santa Clausizzizzis(izisisis) and getting wasted this Saturday. Now if ever there has been a more professional sounding sentence, I beg of you to show it to me.

And now for a few bullet points:

• Made a new friend on the train this morning. Awesome.
  
• I live in San Francisco- still a very fun fact.
  
• Oh, Happinesses, I thank thee for joining me in my routine of these fine, unusually sunny days (Being grownded in Seattle has left its mark).

I leave you with a quote:

"Never take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway."

Landing.

Working for a living is inevitable, whether intentionally creative, or not. Understanding where I am and how I got here is like reading the cover of a fantasy novel. The desire to stand up and shout at the top of my lungs, finds me every morning. Without fail. Lacking surprise. Filled with purpose.

So far, I have had more than enough reason to scream in San Francisco. The Giants won the World Series and I enthusiastically lost my marbles with the rest of the city on Monday night. Dancing to “We Are The Champions” with a shit eating grin, surrounded by people that were smiling helplessly at the night, will most certainly be taken down as an optimal way to express my inherent, mildly subdued craziness. Climbing onto a moving fire truck and hugging a cop can also be comfortably added to that list. As they say, why the fuck not?

Thinking about where I was not even a month ago is like trying to tell a three year old that they are going to be fifty someday; it seems completely unlikely. But, despite what seems real or unreal, here I am sitting at a desk in a job that is paying me to write. Not too long ago I was ready to tear my boss apart, limb by limb, and throw coffee on the customers that forgot their brains at home and only brought their assholes: being a barista was a fun, but truthfully unfulfilling occupation.

Being fulfilled is the goal, but lately I prefer to carelessly forget that goal and just appreciate the abnormal amount of sunlight I have been experiencing. Or pay attention to the fantastic amount of smiling I have been accomplishing. Or how much I love the sound of trains in the morning, something that I had no concept of until I started riding one to work every day.

Really, the moral of the story at this point, is that it’s entirely up to me, or you, or some combination of the two. The hard side is ever present; it shows up in car break-ins, unexpected diseases, the loss of important ID cards, delayed trains, missing Ipods, and lack of clean underwear. Some are perhaps worse than others; on a rotating schedule of sorts, but the best part, the most fun part, is seeing how well everything fits into a day. Like a glove.

A New Perspective

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Soon to be employed and making my way towards something different. SEO brought me to Wordle. Oh, the things I am yet to know.

On Maturing; and starting over

Reaching the end
Is like
Achieving a win
This time,
I don’t know what I have gained, or
What triumph I have felt
But something is culminating
Spinning endlessly
Into
And out of
Focus
Tangible, but for one moment
Then disintegrating into a new form
A new day
A new train of thought
A dream.
I have learned something valuable
Something cherished
Steadying myself after a steep climb
And at this end
I have found another beginning
And so
Here I go

Again.

The River Will Provide

Tubing down a river is an element of summer that is gracelessly human, and utterly worth the sun-beaten, dehydrated, and freckled aftermath. If ever you find yourself in a panic because your tube has been beached, or your entire crew has gotten caught in a whirl pool that is slowly, but surely keeping you off track- fear not, because the river will provide. It will provide beaches of molten river stones, and deliciously sticky sand. It will provide cold water, and elements of quiet that are so pure I scarcely realized they were missing. And it will provide opportunities to laugh, pee uncomfortably, and fearlessly subject your whole self to premature aging (with a shit-eating grin on your face the entire time).

A journey of misfitting chaos. In awe of rolling hills, hawks, trout, and crystal clear water; we sat in rubber tubes, covered in sunscreen, drinking beer from tin cans. We were thrilled like five-year-olds to be in the river, but we clashed with the serenity that rose around us on all sides. Mountains, hawks, and bending river banks. Beer, sunglasses, and hopelessly wandering thoughts. We were free. We were outside. We were just as clueless as the day before (and the one that followed, too), but it didn't matter so much with the sun shining like that- blatantly devouring the day in gold, summer light.

Amen.

The river, so boldly carving an age-old, familiar snake into the land, once again provides for us the perfect metaphor for lost souls. This metaphor is up for interpretation, but I took it as a dose of common sense that has,as of late, been severely lacking in the day-to-day:

May we experience the days like the flow of a river. Sometimes hasty and riddled with bumps, sometimes slow, nearly stagnant. But always, no matter the color of the sky, or the ache of the heart, may we feel ourselves constantly moving forward; past the beaches, past the trees, and through the mountains. Believing whole heartedly in the beauty of the day and the reality of the journey (with all its views and its stubborn commitment to keeping going).

Home.

This is an interesting term. Used by millions- in marketing, in conversation, in journals, etched into tables, when talking about love, even used when talking about the planet as a whole. Thrown around and celebrated, battered, charmed, this word, this home that we all know so well (in one way or another), is the greatest and most showcased scar of our existence. How we make it, how we say it, who we say it with, the products we produce in our homes, all of these create the strongest thread of our existence. Our comfort, or lack there of, our humanity, our mistakes, joys, and triumphs: home is important all year long and present, in some way, always.

This has become a focal point of mine lately. It has been brought to my attention that my "home" exists in many places. Part of it is with the people that I love. Part of it is connected to the land I grew up on. Part of it is where I want to be, the places that I see myself (hopefully) going to. Part of it is in music. And there is a decent portion still up for interpretation, still not spoken for.

I go through cycles of sanity. I coast out on the tails of whatever challenge I overcame last time, and then something stirs me up again. This time it is because someone I love is moving away indefinitely, and I am scrambling around in all other areas of my life trying to collect the meaning, the purpose, that used to be held so comfortably within the bounds of this love. The love is not leaving, but its material form is flying away on Monday. I only have a few days. I can't sleep, I am writing more (likely good, but inspired by an ache), and I am frequently looking out at the life I have created, and wondering what I am supposed to do with it all. I like it. I even love it at times, but there is just no particular destination in sight. Physically, yes- I want to move to San Francisco, but i have a sneaking suspicion that even in the event of moving, this search for something that grounds me, will only continue. And likely with a greater ferocity.

I am grateful that it is sunny. I am grateful for smiles. This sounds cliche, but I mean it with the greatest sincerity. Every time that I catch myself smiling unintentionally, I am thrilled. The good news, is that despite the overall feeling of hovering (like I am not quite anywhere, really), I seem to smile a lot. Even when I am pissed. Even when I am trying to learn to like the latest asshole that walked into my life. Even when work becomes a shit show. Even when I am afraid that my account balances are going to slam down on nothing. Even when I have to say goodbye to friends, release my little sister into the craziness that I still haven't managed to get a hold of, or when I am up early enough to know that the daylight is shrinking and the darkness is speeding back towards us. It feels like some terrible secret that I have the privilege of knowing early, just like I have the privilege of being an adult and making my own decisions.

And I don't think that any of this is ever really going to stop. It is just going to shift, twist, meander, and leave me. Just like a love that is flying away, far to the east. Just like me, flying away to the south. And so, with the most amount of dignity I can manage, I will try to wear my heart on my sleeve, not to be foolish, but rather to be seen as a person. A real one. That is painstakingly trying to pick up the pieces, make the appropriate next step, and get on with it.

Getting it off my chest

Since the age of twenty-one, there has been a permanent resident in my chest. She is vague, painfully consistent, and nearly impossible to describe. I often wake to find her eagerly awaiting my first thoughts; meticulously devouring the mornings, and brining me to my feet to gaze out the window and wonder how, exactly, did we all get here and what in God’s name, am I doing?

The logical piece of me knows that she is a common resident in most any human, except for maybe Buddha, or the Dalai Lama, but maybe even they suffered from the same kind of confusion-induced resident. That is what she is- she is my confusion, or the result of it, not quite sure which (only proving my point). She wreaks havoc on my decision-making and seems to only let me rest as long as I am temporarily occupied (by relatively meaningless tasks). And I am convinced that she grows stronger in my brief hiatuses of debatably meaningful things- at work, at the gym, at the movies, at the bar, on a date. She grows stronger so that come the next morning she raises my heart rate and brings on a mild panic. This panic is not overwhelming, but it is always there; it is rooted in the fact that I am young, don’t know what I am doing, nearly convinced that I don’t know how to live my life (inevitably true, I presume), and terrified that I may never get out of here. Only problem is I don’t really know where here is. Yet.

Figuring out where I am is step one. Simple, and yet at the age of twenty-four, three years into this silly dance, I am not noticeably closer to finding the answer. In a physical sense, I am here in my apartment, or here in Seattle, but what I want to know is where am I in that existential sense. Where are all the pieces of me? What exactly is the sum of all my parts? Why do streaks of sunlight through my window on a July afternoon cause a tinge of heartache? Why does time feel all at once fleeting and stagnant? Is that even possible?

I want so badly to make the right choices and be able to calculate the results of each output so as to cultivate the least amount of heartache as is humanly possible. And maximize the amount of smiling and laughing. This too, is not solely related to my own wants. In fact, these wishes are what will most likely bond me to all my fellow sufferers, rejoicers, refugees, mothers, fathers, homeless, etc. This is what makes me human. This is why I bleed the same. And yet, the slightly different shade of all of this is what also, inevitably, makes me, me. This and the intricately confusing presence of my mysterious chest-resident; she won’t leave. I am going to have to learn to deal with her. I am beginning to suspect that I need her desperately, like maybe she knows best. But the only way to find an understanding of her is by climbing up some impossibly steep psychological mountain, so that when I reach the top I can jump. And fall. Insanely fast, and with the greatest purpose, only to crash, explode all over the earthy floor, and discover that somewhere in the peak of the chaos is the calm of the fall- the feeling of flying. And this mountain is huge. Like massive. And I don’t even know where to begin looking. But this woman in my chest, for three straight years has told me every morning that it is out there. I am just not looking hard enough or high enough. And here I was thinking that the sky was the limit.

Impeccable Moment

Will I ever find you?
impeccable moment
Of quiet song
Of silent breeze
With abundant, casual tones of love.
Passing through, as if by routine.

I am convinced, somehow
That I knew you once.
Briefly, truly
I knew you.
evenly, you brought me to life
Guided me ever so gently into an abyss:
Unknown,
Bright, and
Transient.

Now
Piano songs reach out through speaker boxes
Only to convince me, still
That you exist.

What a shame to spend an entire life in search of you.
Only to ache with a distant comfort, that
One day, I will find you
And it will be for a second time;
a familiar encounter with a perfect day.
Of sun and a healthy garden
Of books and lush linens
Dripping with crimson shades of real, undeniable contentment.
Rooms soaked with evening sun,
Smiles coated with laughter,
And a steady, needless passing of time.
Children, a history, a woman
Carefully collected, added together, and brilliantly attached to being alive.

When I sleep at night,
I dream of you.
I wait for you
With a sharpened mind
Carefully cataloguing the days
Believing with the greatest purpose, that all of this
-this world, this randomness -
is merely a colorful, meandering stroll
to and from
the mysterious place where you are.

Until we meet again,
I resign to know you well,
Flawless moment.

Reflections

To love you
Is to know the winter
With an intimacy
That cannot be escaped.
Dark skies
Heavy with clouds
And drops of rain,
Rain that tumbles
With a calculated carelessness
And crashes
With a faint and broken sound
That streaks my windows
And further darkens the night
So that when I look outside
All I can see
Is me
Looking out at myself
With sadness

New music, new ideas; same girl, same season...

Red paint on the vandals. Chocolate on the keyboard. Sun on the face, finally. Spring is merely around the corner at this point, and needless to say my cold hands and feet are rejoicing. All hail seasonal change in Seattle! It is almost time to recharge on vitamin D, and become so intoxicated by it that I will likely, conveniently forget how crappy the winters are. And all in a days work I suppose. At this point my list of wants has diminished to a sincere hope that I can walk around under cherry blossoms and blue skies with an increased regularity. A-l-m-o-s-t there.

It seems like not too long ago I returned from my second epic-life-adventure, I.E. my roadtrip cross country and back again http://roadtrip2k9.blogspot.com/. It is amazing how long the mind can stay in transition mode. In fact, I think I finally acknowledged that I am back to real life a few weeks ago. My dreams are big, and in between each one I can often forget that whatever I am doing still counts, no matter how mundane. Ironically, my inability to acknowledge the importance of the in between days was my primary source of dissatisfaction this winter season. Good news, I actually get this now. Bad news, it took me a solid four months to grasp it. But life is about focusing on the positives, right? Damn right it is. Any other alternative is bleak and hopeless, and in the end I am all too happy to be here.

I live, I breathe, I speak, I write, I run, I laugh, I eat chocolate.

The term "growing pains" is no joke. When I was a kid it related to the aches I would get in my heals from growing in height so fast (for a tragically short while, of course), and now it relates to the nearly devastating (but actually breathtaking) rate of substantial change in my life. Here I am at 23, and so far every year since the age of 18 has been drastically different than the last. This trend is going to continue until I "settle down," but I still don't totally get what this means and the primary motivating factor of this life truth is that each year I am just itching to do something different. To seize my youth, if you will. I am only 23 once, and I'll be damned if it is going to look anything like 24.

so here I am, finally awake again since my last big trip and beginning to cultivate the next jump, while still appreciating the here and now (lesson learned). Where will I go? What will I do? Who will I know? So many ideas, trillions of options, and lots of sun to look forward to for the time being :)

The Challenges of Young Love: Volume I.

No matter the man, the same challenges of communication seek out my relationships and proceed to bomb all that is well, or at least all that seemed well. Men are (I am quite nearly convinced) incapable of perceiving the point when it comes to the most basic of courtesies. They can be charming, thoughtful, handsome, intelligent, funny, acrobatic- it matters not, because there will come a time when they will not meet me at the half way mark, or the quarter mark, or anywhere remotely near it. This I refer to as “dropping the ball.” This phrase has a wide range of uses in the English language, but I feel that it is ironically poetic when describing this particular relationship related mishap.

Imagine that the relationship is the ball, which is delicately passed back and forth between partners in a beautiful dance of love and affection. When one partner mis-communicates or misunderstands, there is a fumble. When one partner simply ignores prior conversations to instead entertain fruitless nights of drinking with pals, the ball is dropped all together. Example:


Boyfriend: You want to hang out later?
Me: Yes, I would.
Boyfriend: I am going to go the gym, but I’ll call you after.
Me: Ok.
Kisses goodbye, etc.

Later that same day…

Phone Rings
Me: Hello?
Boyfriend: Hey, just got done at the gym. I think me and the guys are going to the Bar to play a few rounds of pool, you can come over after if you want. I might be drunk though, because it’s hard not to get drunk at the bar.
Me: He said might be drunk, I will foolishly think that this means he won’t and thus will still honor our plans... Ok, just call me later.
Boyfriend: Ok. Have fun.
Me: You too.

Later that same day…
Text received one full hour after expected phone call-

Text from Boyfriend: Fight at the bar!
I don’t respond because I am immediately irritated. I call twice with no answer, so I decide to send a text…
My text: So I guess this means that you are not done yet and so we won’t be hanging out tonight.
Phone immediately rings.
Boyfriend: Hey! Acts like nothing is wrong
Me: Hi.
Boyfriend: Sorry that things didn’t work out tonight, but we’re still here and…
Me: Don’t say that we are going to hang out if we aren’t.
Boyfriend: You’re right, I’m sorry, but…
This is simply not enough so I say goodbye and hang up the phone immediately. Mother &^%$#@$!!!!

The End.