about your dress

right now i'm listening to the maccabees, thinking about riding bikes, and christmas trees, and funny boys with silly hats. i need to straighten out my mind and get my priorities in order.... as soon as this song's over with.

bee stings and such

today has been pretty busy and i am thankful for that. days like this i aspire to be occupied. idle minds tend to reminisce. OH GOD PLEASE KEEP ME BUSY!

surprisingly work has been pretty good. i'm finally getting some legit assignments, such as developing an outreach project for elementary art students. i had a really good lunch break too. i walked across the street to loch haven park and ate an apple and read a chapter in 13 moons. i sat under this huge oak tree and got stung by a bee on my arm. i wasn't even mad about it. in fact, i didn't even know what it was at first. i just rubbed the tiny bump and thought to myself "i've felt this feeling before but what is it?" then it got me thinking about when i was last stung by a bee, which i've figured out to be 12 yrs! on my walk back to the museum i decided that nostalgia isn't always a waste of time.

i got a 2nd job at ten thousand villages. they promote fare trade and support artists and rural communities all over the world. my heart tells me to stay in nonprofit. there's just no greater feeling then knowing that what you do every single day makes a difference in someone's life. plus, the people who work there are incredible. they are nearly saints and you can't help but to want to be around them all the time. hopefully all this goodness will overshadow the fact that i will be working 7 days a week now.

it's no secret that time's are tough for me right now. i'm struggling to support myself, to pay bills on time, to buy groceries more than once a month, and to be able to afford enough gas to get me back home for the holidays. it's actually really depressing if i think about it for too long. it could be worse though, or at least i keep telling myself that. i am thankful and am trying to find the blessings in this struggle. either way, i'll push through it somehow. i always do.

alive in NYC

i've been in new york city for about a week now, visiting annie, and just sorta living aimlessly in the best possible way ever. we are in the upper east side of the city, in a 3 room apartment with 4 other girls. you do the math. space is limited, just like money, and time... but i don't think i could be happier.

today we woke up around 9 am, we threw our sneakers on and hastily made our way down the hall and five flights of stairs to the outside world. since all 5 of us share 2 keys, we leave one copy with ed- the shoe repair guy, whenever we go out. his shop neighbors our apartment and is cluttered with tools, and shoe laces, and all the other odds and ends that a shoe repairman could acquire over 25 years of dependable service. i feel enormous whenever i'm in his shop, and i always come out smelling like polished leather. ed gladly assumes the responsibility of key holder, and it is my belief that he looks forward to the small talk encounters we share whenever one of us needs to be let back into the building.

once annie and i hit the streets we breathed in the heavy city air and jogged our way through the masses of people. like a complex maze, i thoughtfully lead the way from lex and 72nd, past maddison avenue, crossing over the met's jeffersonian steps, and stopping only for oncoming traffic and the occasional artist's booth.

only a little winded, we finally reached central park. my eyes were instantly overwhelmed by the miles and miles of open green space. straight ahead of us was a vast clearing that could have easily held up to 3 or 4 football fields. the green was paralyzing. atop the emerald terrain and its rolling hills, were random clusters of people lying on blankets, and bathing in the sun. they reminded me of drifters at sea, floating on colorful rafts, and were the only absence of green in this central city acreage. i felt at home.

our run was amazing, and i've run in a lot of cool places before: the grand canyon, the english coast, up a mountain in the forgotten city of bergamo italy, but this was much different. it felt familiar and comfortable, and as an outsider that is really something. i felt like a runner here, which must sound idiotic - since i am one and have been for over 5 years. what i mean to say is that in the middle of all the life here, i felt, in my bones, as though i was achieving a purpose effortlessly. so often i set out to live deliberately and i'm left feeling like a fraud. inadvertency is not as easy as it looks.

the reason i love new york city is this: life is always happening. it buzzes around me like an atmosphere of possibility, and despite it's greatness, and history - it includes me. i am a vital part of what makes this city alive. and it doesn't matter if you're a shoe repairman or a scientist researching the cure for cancer - your life has value here and just as importantly, it feels valuable.

i have only a few more days in the city and then i am off to the west indies, followed by 2 months in europe. the summer is half spent and i still haven't even begun my great adventure. but that is yet to come. right now i'm here and i intend on living in the now.

**** i've been listening to the weepies. they make me feel like i should be wearing a scarf.

FACT: there are more links in your brain, than atoms in the universe.

i remember

last october when my then-boyfriend and i broke up and the weather got cold, and then colder, i woke up and the temperature inside my bedroom was fifty degrees. leo and i stayed under the covers until our bladders were bursting, i vowed never to forget, and never again to take heat for granted. but i did forget.

and now its nearly a year later and the electricity is out. my paisley slip covers are soaking in the washing machine, while my mattress sits around in its underwear. i can't run the vacuum, or finish my wash, or even make toast. one minute i was doing laundry, blasting the stereo, leo circling my feet like a hungry shark, and the next minute everything went still, and suddenly i felt a loss for a man i can't even recall.

i have not gotten to the point where i vow to remember this. but we don't get to choose what sticks- do we? how many times i have run my fingers along a picket fence and thought, "this! i will remember this moment always!" and all that remains is the memory of a desire to hold on to a memory.

my dad once told me that every fall the dragonflies in brazil return to the lake where they were first born to touch down one more time again before they dye. i have taken it on myself to remember this for him.

i especially don't like it when somebody remembers something that i love, better than i can. there are places i don't often mention, incase someone else may remember it more. like seminole lake park, where my parents used to take my sisiter and i as little girls- where our imaginations gave way to wild adventures, where i learned the true worth of childhood, where our unbridled freedoms were claimed, and secrets were told under the ancient oaks, who to this very day have faithfully kept every single one.

heather was always better at making new friends and she has a better memory than me. even now her reminisce is a shining spectacle to witness. when she turns on those brights i stand exposed, stripped of every detail, unworthy to have ever played there at all.

but i do remember streams we followed downhill to the lake, and where we once searched for a plant with a silver leaf and thick juicy stems which cured poison ivy. what its name was, whether we found any, and who had poison ivy i can't recall.

i remember big, soft, rolling hills and the way we'd run down them, letting our legs move faster than our bodies ever thought possible. i remember barrel rolling our way to the bottom and how the tiny twigs and leaves would cling to my hair and pants. i remember how i would never brush them off, as they were small badges proving my bravery.

i remember the lake in drought season and finding treasures in the smelly mud - once a smooth piece of carved jade and lots of broken china. i remember lying on a jetty that extended off somebody's front lawn and listening to the water and realizing that an airplane's drone had become a sound as natural as rain or crickets.

the ancient wisteria plant that grew by my windows is forever the smell of hot summer, and carries with it the memory of Chris Whitaker, who taught me how to french kiss as we sat on his roof overlooking manatee avenue.

if my sister said she loves wisteria, and that wisteria is her favorite flower, part of me would want to scream "but it grew outside my window!"

but i don't. because deep down i know the truth; i know that none of it belongs to me.