What I have learned of friendship.

I have been showered in a love that did not let up. My painted face repelled the warm water for awhile. But you did not let up. You pried. Your fingers were streams that ran over my heart, widening cracks in cemented walls and smoothing sharp edges meant to defend and protect. The paint began to wear under the shower as well. It is running down my face now, and my bright colors and intricate designs are mostly gone, only remembered by the faint tracks left behind. I have been showered in a love that would not let go. I fought its grips with indifferent smiles and shifty eyes, but you held me with a steady gaze. Poured coffee into my endless cup and asked me questions that widened cracks. Spoke to me of life and beauty. Of purpose and wholeness. Told me that I could be whole. I have been showered in a love that does not end. You challenged my forgetfulness and showed me how to remember. Showed me that beauty does not end. That good things will not all fall to pieces if you try to cherish them forever. Walked me to the edge and asked if I was willing to jump into a friendship that would not end with a new chapter in my life. I was shaking at the thought. But I see now, it was worth the leap. It was worth the leap.

College 101

Step by step. Little by little. I'm sitting in class right now. I'm being productive by blogging. It makes me a little bit sad that I am paying ALOT of money for this education and that productivity in the midst of a class is my ability to blog. Because I am not getting much out of my class right now. Even though I am paying A LOT. Shoot. Now I don't know what I want to blog about. Stream of consiousness here we go have a lot on my mind these days been thinking about the webs that I am tangled in. I feel like God has just finished unravelling me has cut chords that were binding me and like a moth to a lamp I was drawn immediately back in I wonder if that is a problem with my self control my sense of self worth or lack thereof I don't like being tangled although being busy is better than being nothing I'm going to have lunch with Sanj today work on my paper going to meet a spider later they used to bite me in my sleep now I'm wide awake and expect the venom pitiless predators are they sometimes smiling often not even aware of my screams what is this darkness and where is it coming from I have flashes of good moments on bridges coffee shop laughter arm as my life preserver arm as my life preserver I'm in a strange place always rocks hard places I live in those situations and wonder what I would do in a green field sit and cry and wonder where the cliffs were bit by bit I am unraveling your back talk secret speech you love surprising me no you don't you just can't make up your mind either well that makes two of us that makes two of us no it doesn't because nothing could make two of us and I still have the heaviness of the stage in my mouth still have questions and nightmares because it was the first time in a long time that I've let myself so completely fall into darkness and that place was close to home it wasn't so far and the blood stung my nose and the invocations were not that much different than my prayers but I could never follow through there is something that holds me that keeps there from being two of us and I look in awe on the words of truth and the power that they have and wonder why do I run from them into the darkness that I fell so deeply into and am climbing out slowly molasses and my lungs are filled with liquid that lets movement slowly and is he still teaching my mind is on lunch on chords that bind me and I'm ready to tell Delilah my secret just get it over with pluck out my eyes but no there is something much stronger that holds me reminds me and that is my thought stream right now and class is over

Friday Night

Last night I had to get out. It was Friday night and I had to get out. Wanted loud music and sweaty bodies around me. Wanted to let go of inhibitions, hold fast to steady rhythms and move until the sun came up and all of my energy was gone. It didn't happen. One place was having a concert. No one would call back with directions for the other place. I felt nervous. I came home to reconnect, make some calls. Nothing. I couldn't stay though. I wanted to take beautiful things and fling them from my rooftop. Scream until there was no sound left unmade from a raw expended throat. It was no use. I changed clothes. Exchanged a satin halter and heels for nikes and sweats. Walked. It wasn't really the dancing. The dancing was just an outlet, a faucet that would release what it was really about. There were lots of lights on my way. Graffiti on trucks. People who had found their forgetting. Where was mine. Walked further. Heard music overflowing from brick buildings. Too late, I had already traded my halter and heels. Walked on. Where was my forgetting? Hiding from me. That much I know. Ask me if I found it. It's a temporary forgetting I know, but it's something. A night of it is something. I found other things on my walk. My New York by night. I wasn't impressed. It's just home. Plastic garbage bags are mountains, the pavement is my valley. But I had to get out. Give my obscure frustrations names, and curse those names. There aren't walls when you are out. There is no sitting with stale frustrations. Things are moving at least, not bouncing off of walls ten feet away and mocking you. It's hard to find your forgetting when your obscurities must be contained in the same square room all the time. So I got out. And although I didn't find my forgetting, I at least found my New York. It's just home. But it's home without walls. That's something.

San Diego in Retrospect

The West Coast tasted like salsa fresca and American Spirit to me. It was laying outside and talking for hours about life and men, and food, and choices, and change. It was hands in soil and conserving water by keeping a bucket in the shower and watering flowers and vegetables with it, and it was picking snap peas. It was new bathing suits that just barely fit and coconut oil instead of sunscreen. It was down comforters and a warm puppy at night and puffy eyes and wild hair in the morning. California was San Diego for me. It was the zoo and the beach, and crumbling cliffs and late night lounges with wooden floors that pulsed with bass and heels. It was all woman, feminine and strong, more leisurely than I'm used to and I loved it. It was shorter dresses and no makeup. Pride in being a female and forgetting about what I was supposed to be. It was unemployed hipsters with prominent hip bones and bodies that wrestled waves and kind eyes and unassuming curiosities. Herbs from the garden and wine with dinner, San Diego was windows rolled down and arms singing along and sunglassed eyes. It was Lemon Grove and adobe houses and it was dancing with the doors open and shedding layers of clothing, layers of pain, layers of what was and what would have been. It was being a woman and being young and feeling every second of every day of every year that I've lived and not doing anything about it but feeling it. I felt it all. I felt everything that I could and then I slept. I slept and I woke, but not to bells or nudging, not to agendas and foot tapping. I woke to every day and was alive and stretched my body like the cat that I often am, and San Diego was not cell phones or computers. It was being there and nowhere else, because I was there, and not anywhere else. It was finishing Kerouac’s On the Road and knowing that I had my own stories to tell. San Diego made me wonder why purpose and productivity instead of simplicity and survival? It reminded me of the me that loves water and sunshine and let me forget for awhile about the me that thrives on change. It smelled like salt water and cooled the skin at night that it had warmed so well in the day. It begged for balance and I yielded and promised fulfillment and I found it. Because San Diego was God’s gentle hand and His easy gait and I rested in the yellow comforter and purple sheets of His goodness and walked in His gardens filled with tomatoes and cilantro and knew that He was good. He must have been to make oceans so big and stones so smooth and conversation so rich. I knew that He was good, and that San Diego was where I needed to be when I was there. Knew that I would return. Know that I will return.

San Diego

I'm going to San Diego for Spring Break. I will be there tomorrow morning. I don't think I could be more excited. I have all of these ideas of what California will look like, and what I will do when I'm there. I want to swim. Even if the water is freezing. I have to swim in the ocean. Walk in the sand. Get a sunburn. Put coconut oil on. Go to the zoo. Dance. Maybe go to Mexico?! Talk with Shay about everything under the sun. Get advice. Read in the sun. Wear flip flops. Shorts. Eat guacamole, made from avocados from Mexico. Just be there. Let myself be all there and love all of it. Plus it means flying alone again. Traveling alone is exciting to me. Even just in the U.S. And it's somewhere new. Warm. With different people and different smells and foods and soon it will have me. I'm going to San Diego

The night was a mosaic. Broken pieces of glass not all of them beautiful. Some jagged and sharp, some smooth and polished from crashing waves and gentle waters lapping over and over against the glass. We talked in rhyme and words and hands and hugs. We walked bridges and glued shards of ourselves to it on the way. Left red drops of blood trailing from our chest so we could always find our way back. Back to the mosaic of night and music and depths of souls and shards of glass that cut and smoothed. It was our night. It was our mosaic.

Rooftops

I have a deep appreciation for rooftops. It's almost an infatuation actually. And to be barefoot on a cold rooftop at night? Few things are better. I'm not sure why I they make me so happy. I suppose it isn't unlike the comforting feeling that some people get from having their bed made perfectly, hospital corners all tucked neatly, no wrinkles. Or the excitement that others get when they win a prize out of a claw machine. Even if the prize isn't worth fifty cents, let alone the five dollars in change spent to win it. But neatly made beds and claw machine treasures don't do it for me. No, I'll take my rooftops, best reached from fire escapes with bare feet. Preferably when the sky is lit up with the bridge, and the Chrysler building and the only visible stars shine from overpriced apartments. I recommend cherry cigars for the occasion, although silence is sometimes enough.