flux

It comes in waves. I have so much to say and then so little. I think everything is perfectly beautiful, and then I can hardly look at a flower or happy couple or our dog without getting angry. I think everything has worked itself out, and then a situation blows up. Do we ever have anything figured out? Is everything always just in flux?

I'm wondering today about whether I should make a separate, but related and linked, travel blog for my time in Thailand. I originally started this blog solely for that purpose, but in just a week or two it has morphed into a (rather public) journal of sorts. Clearly there are many things I don't say here that I might say in a more private forum, but writing on here has helped me work out some things that otherwise might have remained nascent in my mind, but which I might not want everyone who would be interested in the travel portion reading and knowing about me. I'm normally a fiercely private person, and this blog, as much as I adore it in certain ways as ones does their own creation, makes me feel exposed too. More exposed than I'm comfortable with, and definitely more exposed than I am on a day-to-day basis, even with those close to me. So I'm thinking about it. I think it would make the travel bit more accessible; people wouldn't need to wade through my random analyses and thoughts about whatever life topic I was obsessed with that day in order to see my pictures and read about the chronology of my time and travels in Southeast Asia.

A friend told me yesterday that when he has children, he won't allow them to watch TV but instead will make them play outside, learn the violin, read and talk and craft. As I've gotten older, I've realized that almost nothing in life lends itself to such a black-and-white, good-and-evil analysis; practically everything worth analyzing is nuanced and complex and ranges, from person to person, from day to day, from situation to situation. It got me thinking, though, about the relative worth of TV in my life, because I don't think it's all nonsense, or useless, or destructive. Certainly I wouldn't be the same person without all those years spent watching the Simpsons, and I can name at least two friendships in which our individual love for that show formed the foundation of our union. But aside from that, TV informs some aspect of our understanding of social dynamics, how people treat each other, how those different from us live, our roles in this society and in the world. Are these all susceptible to stereotyping and misinformation and hyperbole? Of course. My point isn't that TV is perfect, or even essential; just that, taking it with a grain of salt, I think that in moderation it can be beneficial. Kids should still be playing outside, of course; kids should be encouraged to read books and play instruments and learn to cook and sew and hammer and garden - basic life skills. But TV has taught me things; yes, it's biased. Yes, it's limited and doesn't do it all - nor should it. Reading the news doesn't either, though. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Progressive, Slate.com, the New Republic - all these sources are biased and limited. I believe TV should be one element - albeit a circumscribed one - of our lives and of children's lives. The problems really foment when TV is abused and used to babysit, or to substitute for a social life, or to be our sole source of news and media. I've learned many important things from TV that stick with me to this day, months or years after I first watched them, not the least of which included Kiva, the microloan program helping people in developing countries, who otherwise wouldn't be able to secure loans, start their own businesses; the One Laptop Per Child program, providing a better education to children in impoverished nations; or any of the super interesting stories around the globe on WHYY's World Focus series. Oh how wonderfully my life changed when I first saw the Jon Stewart show! And then again when Colbert launched his Report. What end is achieved by sheltering kids from this hilarious and valuable aspect of our culture?

In a sense, the value of television is a lesson in moderation. Too much of a good thing can be many different things: wonderful, according to Mae West; stifling, drowning, overwhelming; or just right. More than any one of those answers, I think it just depends. On what it is, on where you are, on who or what is giving it. Every good thing has an edge; nearly every bad thing seems to have a silver lining. Perhaps it all comes down to a matter of perspective.

Which reminds me of a lesson I learned today about perspective. Often I ride one of five or six elevators up to the 8th floor of a large 20-story building. Normally I take one of the middle ones, or if not, one left of the middle as you face them. Today, though, I rode in the one furthest to the right, and as the doors opened onto the hallway, I thought it was the wrong floor! I was so convinced I stepped back into the elevator to check which number was illuminated. It was 8, but it took me about 5 seconds of looking around to recognize it as the correct floor. I almost missed it because I had become so set in my viewpoint, my angle, my reference point that my brain literally couldn't acknowledge that, simply because I wasn't familiar with it, wasn't indicative of its wrongness. But, if something so minute and trivial can trip me up, will I be able to discern the situations in which the only thing real problem is my perspective? What if that is the source of most of the pain and suffering in life, in general? Our inability to accept and diverge from what's expected and familiar and previously vouched for. What's strange about that to me though is that we do it over and over in the course of our lives: we try something new, we take a leap, we challenge ourselves, only to find a new happy medium from which we then retreat into fear of the unknown again! Why do we never seem to learn, and internalize, that the unfamiliar isn't necessarily something to dread; that perhaps what's more frightening is the atrophying of our minds and hearts that results from staying the same, only confronting the habitual? I think on some level that is the case, and it's certainly more true in some situations than others. Perhaps, then, because the more minor trifles, the less serious snafus, are less apt to ruffle us, when a significant one comes, it appears smaller because our threshold is emptier; it hasn't been collecting slights all day, and this new perspective is able to transform such petty indignities into barely memorable affronts that are unable to stick to us.

I'm going to try to try this. This new lense, this different angle. We'll see how practicable it is when life gets stuck in my hair like gum, and I've just run out of peanut butter.

And to my babe, "giant proclamations are all very well, but our love is louder than words" - Sunday, by Bloc Party. I love you in the morning.

i'm trying

Trying to step back. Trying to get some perspective. Trying not to jump to conclusions. I'm trying to act from a place outside of my feelings, outside the emotions that are telling me to feel a certain way, a way that is not appropriate or deserved. I'm trying to trace back the steps of my assumptions, my leaps and emotional linkages and triggers.

Because I shouldn't feel this way. Or at least if I have to, if I'm stuck here for the time being, feeling uncomfortable and unsettled and disconnected, I can at least hover somewhere above the uncomfortableness in relative peace, knowing that a storm is brewing down below, my emotions all entangled and thorny and swollen.

Perhaps that's just it; was my ego bruised? I started out at a deficit from the moment I woke up, arising from a startling dream that was interrupted by the alarm. In it was an old friend, a person who is not longer a 'friend,' a person who, on multiple levels in our mutual past, betrayed me. She was so vivid, she was so real; I felt violated. She was there, we were talking and I was telling her how I felt, why she was wrong and how she had hurt me. Before she could respond we were split open by the incessant dinging of my alarm, and she vanished, forever emblazened in my memory as just another person who, yet again, will never be held accountable. As far as my subconscious knows, I'm permanently vulnerable, forever standing in front of her, wishing for consolation. Needing her to acknowledge my pain. Needing her to pick me over them.

Why do I need her, though? What is it about my last memories of her that compel me to seek and desire her acceptance, even now? For various reasons I shall not explicate here, I cannot contact her; it would be dangerous, it would be threatening and terrifying. But she (as a metaphor for many) is holding hostage such an important and instrumental part of my mind, a part that gets accessed and sparked daily as a result of my current friendships. She needs to be uprooted.

In summation, I'm trying to step back. Release and breathe. It's so much harder to do than it should be. I'm trying to remember that my thoughts and my feelings aren't necessarily reality; that I don't have to succumb to them if I don't want to. I'm trying to be mindful about it.

I'm not a religious person, and generally I'm okay with that. Sometimes, though, I find myself wanting something. I want a community, I want to believe in something bigger than me, I want to make self-improvements guided by some larger philosophy that is logical, and plausible, and which doesn't denigrate me or anyone else in the process. A practice that doesn't influence political groups; a practice that truly and inherently advocates for peace and unity, and doesn't just preach it and then spend its efforts causing strife and hostility.

I had a practice for a while, a certain Buddhist group. It just never quite struck me, I could never allow myself to
siiiink
into it,
the way everyone else seemed to. The way I was expected to. There was always an edge, there was always a cognizable air of superiority, indoctrination, and prosthelytization that warned me against fully submitting to its teachings. On its face it was practically perfect, based on my parameters and desires for a spiritual practice. It spoke repeatedly about the value of world peace, about a culture and a world of collaboration and determination and working through personal and shared struggles. It seemed to stress egalitarianism, community, study and mutual appreciation between leader and follower. I kept getting stuck though, on why there was a living leader at all? Isn't that why I navigated away from Christianity, these fellow humans relegating themselves to be above everyone else, one step (or a quite a few) closer to god than I? My question was always, how does he (because aren't they, 99% of the time, male?) know any better than me what god wants? Why do I need to worship through someone else, another regular person (because under the garb and ritual and incense and self-aggrandizement, that's what they are) to get to god? So it lost me. It's not my truth, and it was never a positive force in my life.

I shed it, I denounced it and I went floating down the streams of agnosticism, philosophy, atheism, and my own belief system, a collection of observations and conclusions about human behavior, hopes about humanity and about what any sort of god would be like. And, if I never find another suitable practice, I'll be okay with that. But because I feel like I want something there, something more than there is, and because I haven't exhausted the possibilities, I think I'll go searching. I'm hoping my summer in Thailand will inform this part of my life, will expose me to otherwise unknown and unknowable practices, will teach me whatever lesson(s) it is I'm yearning for, whatever I've yet to figure out, and will be positive. And will help me be positive. Because, ultimately, isn't that why we all, on some fundamental level, ascribe to a certain religion? Isn't that what each deity sought to convey - that this way, that this practice, is the right one, the one that lifts you up to sainthood by encouraging best human practices? I'm not sure; perhaps many would disagree with this analysis, but I think that's what its ultimate purpose should be.

So I'm searching. Yearning maybe, a little. I feel like my heart is opening up in anticipation of my upcoming experience, my three month hiatus from the life I've built here. It's trying to be positive, trying not to focus on what I'm leaving, but on what I'll be gaining and on making it as good as possible. See, my fear of being stagnant and resigned to my place compelled me to take this leap, this risk and adventure, and I'm doing my best to embrace it and keep my mind on the positive, rather than ruin what hasn't even begun by letting the sadness and fear shade and color what I hope will be one of the most important and memorable experiences of my life. What will open doors for me and my sweet, in our careers and our lives, what will create a new baseline in my life about what's normal, what's acceptable, and what ultimately will make me happy. Feeling conflicted is the worst; I'm trying to head-off the bad and revel in the wonderful.

Because it's just so apropos: Lives, by Modest Mouse, recently touted as one of six songs that best embody our humanness.

stuck in the good

It surprises me.

People do good things. They give you a boost. They act unselfishly. They smile as they pass you on the street. They do you favors and they keep your secrets.

At this point in my life, in the midst of trying to establish my embryonic career and falling back sometimes, feeling overcome by hopelessness, the best it gets is being respected. As a professional; as a professional woman. Not a girl (I'm wearing a suit, dammit!) and not just a student (almost 2/3 of the way through law school) but as an equal. An adult. Because before law school, no one had ever treated me like an adult; and to be fair, I didn't really consider myself one. I never wanted to be. Paying rent sucks; being responsible, planning and cleaning and signing up for electricity made me feel like I was doomed for a life of suburbia, a philandering husband and a boring office job, kids I didn't want, a mortgage ball and chain I'd spend the next 30 years unhappily paying off when I'd rather be funding a travel account. That's not me; that has never been me. If I have anything to do with it, it will never be me.

IT'S NOT ME!

And some of the most difficult, painful, and darkest times have been the fruit of my efforts to try to be a certain somebody, to fit into a role I thought I wanted, to be a source of pride to my parents or to be better than I used to be. To rise above the ghosts of my naysayers, the ones who spent our youth belittling me and sucking the vibrance from my life. I spent almost ten years trying to 'show them' I was someone not to be meddled with. I wasn't who they thought I was. I didn't deserve their ostracization, their collective poison. Eventually I emerged; I don't know exactly why. I couldn't tell a teenager in a similar position how to do it, how to believe against all evidence and depression and after all remnants of hope and desire have abandoned you, how to keep going. You just have to. Luckily, I did. I extricated myself from the various situations (friends, boyfriends) I'd recreated out of the model of my tormented past, and I left it. I left them. I escaped. I was so badly burned, I had worked so hard to release myself of its and their grip on me, those memories, the trauma and the faces and the degrading comments that clung to, tainted, every.fucking.thing.I.did. since I was 15. In the way that a marshmallow, if you alight it and let it burn until the outside is pure charcoal, will uncloak so easily, leaving just the ooey, gooey, yummy middle that spreads and sticks and melts the s'more chocolate to perfection.


The self that I knew when I was 15 years old, the person that I was, my inclinations and habits and lenses, were charred so completely, all I had to do was, slowly and carefully, shed the skin, erase the scars of then, to reveal this butterfly-like being.

Yes, I'm fragile sometimes. For some things, I hope I always will be (I'm sensitive). Being vulnerable allows you to be closer to other humans; it strips away some barriers and boundaries and gets rid of motes and Great Walls and booby traps. Once in a while, it'll be a mistake. By definition, when we are more open to the good, we are more open to be wounded, too.

I lost where I was going. I made a misstep. I didn't think I would talk about it here.

In any case, I'm trying to be good. Good at what I do; good to my friends and family; good to strangers and waitresses and maintenance people. Good to the mailman. Good to the checkers at the grocery store. And it's okay to make declarations like those when it's unseasonably warm and millions of pink petals are blowing in the city's corridors and you've gotten a pat on the back for your work. It worked out today. Sometimes life goes our way for a bit. Sometimes things go better than expected, sometimes people treat us better than we deserve, sometimes we get on a good karma roll that seems to have come from nowhere.

I had this person once, he was mine for a long time, and he would always tell me, somewhat annoyed at my usurpation, not to use other people's quotes to convey something to him. Like from songs or poems, I would use others' words to say what I wanted to say to him. I never understood, I still don't really, why he hated this practice with such ferocity. My counter-argument was always, if they say it as good or better than I ever could, why wouldn't I use their language? Some of my most utilized appropriations come from E.E. Cummings, others from song lyrics or books, a good number from the Simpsons. Because there is not, within this universe or cosmos or lifetime, any way that I could say these sentiments better. Any attempt would lack the layers and layers of meaning, enigmatic significance, and pure emotion that belies their configurations of words, but which is conspicuously absent from mine. Even Bloc Party used Cummings' "i carry your heart with me" as the chorus of 'Ion Square', and they make their living being creative! My sweet words are cliched, they're trite and they're thin and wrinkly and have the consistency of a dried leaf that crumbles with touch. Even some of the most famous and influential musicians cover others' music - Johnny Cash covering NIN's 'Hurt'; Elliott Smith's various Beatles covers; Ben Harper's cover of Marvin Gaye; Eddie Vedder playing Neil Young - so I see it as nothing more than reverence for those who do it better. I don't agree that it takes away from the overall message if I use someone else's words. If I'm saying them as if they came from me, in the exact same way I would had I authored them, aren't they just as meaningful?

As far as I'm concerned, in many different contexts, there's no need to reinvent the wheel, especially when you're first starting out. Learn what you can from those who did it before you, ingest their collective knowledge and the fruits of their research and mistakes, and build off of that. There's no shame in not starting from the bottom if you don't have to; it doesn't detract from the legitimacy of where you are or what you've done (as long as there is no cheating, plagiarizing, taking credit for others' work, or other ethically questionable actions involved).

That seems to be all for the day.

where did it go?

It's raining today. It's dreary and hard to smile and stay awake.

I've been thinking lately about the value of writing down your life, documenting it, in pictures, and words, and oral volumes told to friends or family or strangers even. Strangers, in the right context, will listen to much more than your partner or your biff or your mom. Those people tire of our point of view, our memories, our analysis and recitations of what happened today. Which, admittedly, can be boring. Do we have to ask each other the requisite, "How was your day?" upon seeing or talking to each other for the first time? Many times I ask knowing I don't much care to hear the answer, unless something out of the ordinary happened, and I'm sure most people don't either. That's not really what we're getting at I think, when we say it; "what's up," or "how's it going," is really more like a universal "hello," and rather than requiring a response appropriate for the question, it's more of an acknowledgment of the other person. Which makes me feel better about not being especially interested in hearing that nothing of consequence happened at your work today. Maybe, though, this ritual is important; not so much for the asker, but for the one being asked. Kind of a "namaste" to their lives, their beings and existences, outside the context of us, and the action of extending our time and effort to (at least pretend to) listen to their voices, to them. It, less than the literal meaning of what we're saying, conveys the message that they are important enough, they are real enough to us, and thus we are interested in making their life part of ours for the short time it takes to hear about their day, or how they're doing, or what the fuck is new.


Multiple times today I've been reminded of something that happened in the past, a memory I've forgotten, an image or an experience that is not at the fore when I recall that time. Which is bizarre. Things that occurred within the last year, many of them, seem gone. Outside the reach of my mind. And I wonder, warily, what about everything I felt and smelled and saw and did and laughed at more than a year ago? Where is all that? Particularly in the context of traveling, which seems to take up more space in my brain and my life as the day quickly approaches when I will depart from my city and my loves, people's names (I can always remember faces), names of small towns, dates and places I went, things I did, even big things, I can't remember! I feel lost, I feel without context, I feel like I'm floating on an ocean with no land or physicality at all within sight. Gone. Nothing to hold onto. Nothing with which to give today, or then, or this person, any meaning. Which must be somewhat similar to what Alzheimer's does - it destroys the short term memory so that the present becomes an island from our past, so that our brains can't put current information into the complex network of triggers and memories and boxes and thus it just floats around, lost. Alone. Void of meaning. Without a hook to reclaim it, if possible.

And though I do not have Alzheimer's, it seems like I'm already, at the relatively dapper age of 24, missing large chunks of my past, as recorded in memories. Which is why I'm appreciating the points in my life when I've been a journaler (as opposed to keeping diaries) because I have a record, a real, hard, incontrovertible record, of what happened. Of what I did, and most importantly, what I felt when I was doing it. If you ever want a gauge of how much you've matured and grown as a person, or, I suppose, withered and wilted and immatured, read something you wrote about your life/feelings/relationships a year or two, five or ten, or decades ago, and notice how your analyses have changed, how ridiculous you sound, how you can't imagine that you ever took yourself seriously. For real? I thought that? Some things I've written are so, hmmm, little girl who thinks she's grown up, I'm almost even embarrassed to reread for fear that, because these words exist as discoverable matter, someone, at some point, might read them. I think I might explode if that happened. I wouldn't even need to know foreign eyes were perusing my journals; the force of the invasion and attendant embarrassment would be so strong it would reach me wherever I was, and my body would burst into pieces.

I'm reaching. Yesterday and the day before I physically couldn't stop writing to you, my beloved blog. Today, I all I want to do is shrug and nap.

Last night I picked up my guitar, my beautiful man was playing when I came home and ooohhhhh how I could
listen
to
that
for
years.

But at the same time I was anxious, it was heavy, because IknowIshouldbepracticingbutIhaventinsolongandnowIvelostitIllneverbeabletoplayagain. Phewww, breathe, breathe, breathe. It was a set up for failure, this reunion between me and her (my guitar), I put too much pressure on her and me and my recollection of how good I was before the hiatus, and as I put her neck in my hands and tried to hold C and strum, it felt foreign. It wasn't right. I lost it. What will happen this summer, when three months will separate my fingers (and my hard-earned callouses) and hands and arms and upper thighs from cradling the guitar, from moving with her to create glorious sound, the elixir of my life: music. Three months! It's been three weeks and already there is emotional separation between me and her, so much so that playing feels like a violation. What will I come home to? Will she be happy to have me? Am I enough for her? Perhaps she's given up on her musician and would rather be pawned, would rather live with - sing for - someone else. Or maybe I was sitting awkwardly and need to say hello to her again tonight.

I started teaching myself last June (2009), although I've had her since, ooooh, my 21st birthday (2006). I overcame an ocean of frustration with her, all the normal beginner complaints: sore fingers; inability to reach certain chords; switching chords too slowly; bar chords and power chords, ugh. I recently mastered F, but my fingers spend their time resisting B minor like dogs resist baths. B itself is an entirely different dilemma. I always ask my person, "how do your fingers do that? See! See! Mine don't reach that far! I'll never be able to play this chord. I suck I suck I suck," and he says, "no, that's just not true. I've given up before too when I got frustrated. I didn't start out knowing how to do this; it takes time and it takes practice. You just have to practice." And then, the best part: "you sound amazing. You're improving so much babe. You've learned so fast." And then I pick her up again and begin all over. The basics. My pride and joy, the F chord that sounds like it's supposed to sound. Maybe even hammering on and off the B string, if I'm feeling frisky. It's slow and fast, it's unpredictable, it's like sprinting, jogging, and walking, but you go in blind, not knowing at what pace you'll be moving when you play. Sometimes I begin and, feeling similar to the way I often do about my writing, I wonder when, and how, I got good at this one thing. Other times I wonder whether all my pride is earned, whether my memory has a glitch in it, as I stumble clumsily through my warm-up songs glad no one can hear but me.

This is the song that got me over the hump with F; it's soooooo wonderful I couldn't stop listening, I was addicted. I looked it up, happily realizing I could play (almost) all of the chords. I didn't stop practicing until I could (I was sprinting!): Forgive me by Missy Higgins.

today I'm Czech

This is my city of late:


Love Park in bloom! Tulips and daffodils and pink trees, baby lupine even? I don't know what those purple things are. It's sad, these pictures from my phone simply don't capture even a fraction of the beauty of this day and those flowers and colors and the strange juxtaposition of nature and human development.


I think I sound smarter in my writing than I actually am. It's weird, often I'll write something, something random, part of an assignment, or an email, thinking it's just terrible, absolutely atrocious and unreadable, and then I'll wait a bit, go back in that mindset to re-read, and find that it sounds as if the words I know to be mine came from someone else. My reaction is always, I don't think those things, I didn't know I was capable of thinking those things, where did this come from? And especially in the context of trying to sound lawyerly, as I often do in emails for my internship, after some time away I read it over and think, wtf? Where did that come from? Did I...me?! really compose that? In a good way! But if put on the spot, or forced to write something that was immediately worthwhile, I could never do it. I feel like writing is more like a game of yahtzee: you shake it up and roll the dice, never knowing what's going to come out on the board. Often the roll starts out looking good, only to end up being unremarkable; likewise, right before the dice settle, they can make one last turn and come out absolutely stellar.

Ultimately, it might all be a matter of perspective, like when you go into something assuming it's going to be super great or fun or totally boring and terrible, and it ends up being the opposite. It's almost inevitable that when you look forward to something, an event or a certain date or a trip, and you build it up with all the attendant excitement and anticipation, it's difficult for it to actually end up, or more accurately, for you to remember it, as fun or exciting or memorable as you thought it would be. The opposite is also true; if your expectations are small, or generally negative, about something, a person, a visit, a party, then almost anything beyond a low threshold our brains will remember as so much better than, maybe, it actually was. And, in a sense, isn't that what matters? It's less important exactly how we felt, or the time we had, doing something, and so much more meaningful how we remember that time we had. I suppose it's similar to being in love, when all your initial interactions and feelings and thoughts are cloaked in rosiness and congeniality, when in reality during that time you were in constant agony about how he was feeling, or what a brief touch meant, or why it always takes him so damn long to text back! My friends and I always remind each other about law school: "Let us never think back on this time as something fun! This is absolute misery." But I think we probably will remember it fondly. Not because we're actually having fun, or enjoying ourselves, but because, for some reason when hard times get more distant, they take on that taint of that rosiness themselves. It's strange; perhaps a coping mechanism for our brains not to become overridden and sluggish with grief and annoyance and just the sheer mundane of day to day living.

I wonder often why we don't pursue the things in life we know, for sure, beyond a doubt, will make us happy. Why instead do we give our time to the TV, the internet, movies and driving and shopping, instead of sitting in a coffee shop with friends; laying outside in the sun and the air and the green, reading a favorite novel; playing an instrument of choice, or learning to do it; teaching ourselves to cook or speak Thai or knit or grow things. A friend recently posted on his facebook page that he spent all Sunday (the holy day of law student study-cramming) practicing bass, his instrument, which he hadn't done in a very long time, and which he missed but wouldn't let himself do because of the pressingnatureofeverythingelse. I can't forget his comment about it either; he said, don't neglect your loves. Don't neglect your loves! Simple, simple, simple.

It's easy to make excuses not to take care of ourselves; it might be a case of not knowing what your needs are. My biff is going through the rather painstaking process of learning how to take care of herself, and she says to me, "I don't know what my needs are. What do I need? How can I care for myself and attend to my needs when I have no idea, literally not the slightest inclination, what that means?" We have to start small I think; that's what I try to do. Identify the basics. Healthy food, tea, good company. Check. Ability to access free music. Check (youtube is one of my great new loves, it is serving as my comprehensive jukebox, so much so that I hate when I have to be away from my computer because my ipod doesn't have any of my current songs on it!). Some, even attenuated and simple, inkling of what you might want to be, or do, when you grow up (refer back to fake-Vonnegut speech) (to give you any indication of how basic I mean, mine is "I want to help people, not rich people, who can't help themselves for whatever reason. Preferably abroad.") (which reminds me of Michael Pollan's advice to Americans on modifying our repulsive food habits: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.) Aaaaahhhh my brain and its incessant connections. (My guy's response to his first reading of this blog is: "I like when you ramble." Which, to me, says: "The whole thing is a digression.") And, while amusing and therapeutic for me, is very likely perturbing and difficult for you dear reader! (of which there are the two - the two I bribed by telling them they made guest appearances. Which was true, they did. I'm no liar, just an embellisher. And in all honesty, isn't that better than being an omitter?)

So, ok back to it, the basics. Goals, I like having goals; or, rather, dreams, because they're certainly less plausible than my goals generally are. I guess I have two categories, maybe more, of future plans. The more grounded, doable, and believable goals; and the more exciting, inspiring, bigger and grander but more difficult dreams. And that is number four.

To recap, which is necessary based on that hairy paragraph, the basics are:

(1) good food, tea, good company
(2) free music, the food of the soul
(3) some sort of life direction
(4) (a) goals, and (b) dreams

Plus a few more:

(5) friends that are family
(6) a hobby, or nine (an instrument, gardening, crafts, reading, painting, exploring, writing, etc.etc.etc.)
(7) an open mind

And if you pick up a few along the way, all the more rich and meaningful your life. I realize I've lost track of my point with all this list-making, but my basic point is that these are things that serve as guideposts when one seeks to take care of herself. These are like sunlight and water to a plant - you nurture yourself with healthy food and drink, good friends, and doing something you love love or care deeply about. Try to have something you are working toward, so that you are never stagnant or more lost than necessary. Of course, love of my heart/life/soul, some sort of mother to us all, according to me, we must have music. Life would be empty without music. (On a side note, I recently read a quote that said "music is what feelings sound like,” which I realize now that I’m saying it out loud to the webosphere, is maybe trifling, but sometimes, when I hear a song I love [and by love I mean, makes my heart grow and pump and smile] it makes sense [try it!]) and there is no greater truth. No greater truth. All you need is love, if you have a broad definition of love, and love is music/music is love. It's food and water. It's the sun and the moon and the oceans and the trees and the sea anemones. Lastly, my belief is that if you approach life with an open mind, as open as you can stand, and try not to attach to things, try not to attach meaning that's not there to people and happenings and accidents and frustrations, there will be less hardship. It will be easier.

Anyway, in reference to both being Czech and letting my writing represent to others that I am more intelligent and know more stuff than I actually do, tonight I will present an international, multilateral treaty that I wrote as an authorized representative of the Czech Republic, on saving a forest. And goddamn, I sound pretty good. But if I had to write it again, I guarantee it would be nowhere as good or professional-sounding as it is. Perhaps I've hit my peak. I think it was likely just a lucky yahtzee roll. Which leaves me wondering: isn't it all?

Also, WHAT THE FUCK, this song is so delicious. I know it's already been a song of the day, but, as is my tendency when I hear a song of this caliber, I just become consumed with it; thus, I'm still listening to What You Want by John Butler Trio. It reminds me of my upcoming time away from my love, and what I'll do to get through it.

goal goal goals

At the moment, I’m thinking of all the things I’d better do (Homer Simpson shaking fist) before I die, or my life just won’t be complete, I won’t be done.

In no particular order:

–learn to beekeep
–raise a seeing-eye dog
–write, nay, publish a book (on what? that still remains to be seen. i have some ideas in the chute)
–live abroad, work abroad, volunteer abroad
–become fluent in Spanish, and maybe French
–travel to Africa
–get a PhD (this is no surprise to those who know me but, I’m not sure in what yet)
–compose not-shitty lyrics to my songs
–marry my love
–learn to brew beer
–accomplish my BFF’s and my secret goal (you know who you are)
–do something worthwhile with my law degree (that’s a biggie, a BIGGIE!)
–learn to play more instruments
–get a sweet tattoo I won’t regret
–make a mark! do something worthwhile and lasting, help people
–find my niche, be really fucking awesome at something, instead of just ok at lots of things
–adopt two or three little girls from countries where they won’t be afforded any opportunity, raise them with my honey to be strong, independent, successful women who will raise strong girls of their own

I think they’re all pretty down-to-earth and doable. I try not to ask for more than my fair share of life’s good graces.

Cayenne, Black Bean, and Shrimp Sopes

So, last night my guy and I made these delish mexican-influenced shrimp things for dinner. We’re pretty poor at the moment so we were confined to what was left in the cupboard and fridge; luckily during our flush period we had the foresight to buy shrimp, so on this occasion we had just enough to make these babies (because life is plentiful).

We used:
–2 flour tortillas
–TJ’s vegetarian refried black beans
–sliced banana peppers (my new love)
–sliced black olives
–diced red bell pepper
–goat cheese
–frozen corn
–12 medium shrimp, tail-off (6 per)
–sprinkle of cayenne pepper
–Tapatio


Basically, they’re Mexican pizzas. We baked ‘em at about 375 for 8-10 minutes and they were ready to eat. Super quick and easy, relatively healthy and filling.

sunny on a cloudy day

How can things go wrong when the day is so beautiful? The sun is shining. It’s warm enough to wear shorts and totally appropriate sunglasses weather. One could even be comfortable sitting on the grass somewhere and watching children play or the rowers row on the Schuchyll.

I don’t know about other people, everyone but me seems to have this figured out, but I always(!) have trouble thinking up and creating a sweet Halloween costume. I consistently come up short and have to make due with what I can put together that night or in the frantic days leading up to some epic party. It’s like the death knell to hear, over and over again, and when everyone else’s costume is perfectly creative and obvious, ‘what are you?’ Come on! Clearly I’m this! I want to say. I guess it comes down to a perspective problem, which I seem to have in almost all situations and contexts. Once I had a friend say to me, ‘did I miss something? where the fuck did that come from?’ and I thought back, I tried not to react from anger, but instead to consider why he wouldn’t understand what I was saying. And then I realized that in the midst of our conversation I had thought about 4 things in between what he said and what I eventually said, I leapt, and what came out of me almost was completely unrelated, logically, to what I was responding to. Our minds are amazing and frustrating that way. Always trying to piece things together and box them up and organize the constant information that would otherwise drown out logical or rational thinking, but in doing so, they necessarily have to make leaps and connections that may or may not be there. You know when someone repeats back to you what they think you said or meant, and your reaction is one of ‘huh? what? how would you ever get that from what I just said?’ But it’s all really about the mental roads in their brains that have pieced together the information you just gave them in such a way; it’s really a wonder we ever communicate with each other at all, if you think about it. We all have so many filters, so many layers and such complex roads and defaults and presuppositions, that when people try to communicate with us, we basically and necessarily don’t, and can’t, know exactly what they mean. I think that is so unbelievably interesting, and begs the question: well, are the people we call friends or lovers just those with whom we have similar mental tracks, such that we must misunderstand each other less than those we think of as enemies, or annoyances, or mere acquaintances? Do we only think we’re as close to those people as we are, but really we all just go through life misunderstood and misunderstanding everyone else? Has anyone, ever, in the history of language, truly heard what someone else said, and knew precisely what she meant? And if so, how is that possible? How would we ever know? All of that to say my costumes always make sense to me; I don’t understand why everyone else can’t seem to see what I am!

A friend recently told me she feels universally misunderstood. I don’t exactly know how to reply to that. If it’s something she’s feeling, clearly there are missed signals and miscommunications and wedges of isolation that only she feels or sees there. I didn’t think I misunderstood her. I don’t know why she would feel misunderstood in general, by me or anyone else. But therein lies the aforementioned problem; all this time I thought I ‘got’ her, meanwhile she was thinking the exact opposite. We communicated in ways that I found relatable. It seemed like we were, at one time, close friends. I don’t have the easiest time making such friendships, so that I thought we were relatively close, compared to other people with whom we coexist in the world, meant both that I misread her and she misread me. On some level though, doesn’t the fact that we were simultaneously missing one another’s signals seem that we were, in one way, on the same page? The bottom line for me though is that I truly believe all the people we consider close in life are those who just have the most similar interpretations of words and looks and tones and feelings and actions as we do. Basically, we just have more like lenses through which we view the world than those with whom we are less close, those we just totally don’t get on with, those with whom there always seems to be a disconnect in any interaction.

Fickle. That’s just it; the epitome of life, summed up in a funny word. Life is fickle. People are fickle. Weather, plants, animals and cars. Appliances and wine. All of it. Friends and loves. Maybe we’re all like etch-a-sketches: once we have ourselves drawn to our liking, and things somewhat figured out and acceptable, we get shaken up and have to start all over again. I suppose that’s why Buddhism says that inherent suffering in life is trying to hold onto things, trying to keep life static, because that is one thing it can never be. There are just too many moving parts to stay still; besides, what kind of life is that, anyway? Have you ever felt stuck somewhere, with someone, in a job or a an apartment or a friendship? It’s just the worst. That’s not life. That can’t be life. I vacillate between thinking existence is totally random and pointless and knowing that we’re all here to do something, to have some effect, that’s meaningful. Maybe it’s both. Could it be both? Enter Taoism. It is and it isn’t! Could we combine all the good parts of all religions and philosophies, distill it into a few universal truths, and operate knowing those?

One of my favorite of these random tenets is “Nothing is Personal.” Everything everyone does is really about them, not you. We all just trigger reactions and emotions and feelings and thoughts in other people that have little or nothing to do with us, personally, and everything to do, AGAIN, with their mental roads and predispositions and synapses. Things that were nurtured and natured into them and compel action based on self-preservation, whatever that person’s method of self-preserving is. Sometimes it’s to pounce and hurt; sometimes it’s to spread themselves out, sexually or emotionally or socially, among as many people as possible; sometimes it’s to renounce humanity or seclude themselves to keep from relating to others. After all, it’s people that love us and hurt us; make us laugh and make us ache; force us to appreciate life and or make us despise existing altogether. It’s natural to think that the best reaction after being attacked or hurt or disemboweled by someone else, especially someone we care about or have let in, is to withdraw and close up. The way flowers close up when the sun doesn’t come out. The way animals give you the silent treatment after you leave them home alone for a day. The way sea coral dies when you touch it. As if we need another struggle, it seems like that’s a fundamental one – to stay open and loving and compassionate after the ones closest to you have wounded you inside, intentionally or not. Have deflated your sense of security in them and humans in general. It’s all about keeping it in perspective and not taking it personally. Everything seems personal though; could it be and not be all at once?

I wonder if anyone else wonders why all they have is questions and never answers.

Song of the day: Seeing Angels, John Butler Trio

ok, so.....

So last night I lay awake, limbs entangled and entwined and resting on my love, breathing shallow and eyes closed, while my mind buzzed with everything I wanted to say and write today to the world on my new blog. I can’t even explain how exciting this is to me…there’s really no reason for the elation that over takes me when I remember that I finally went through with it and WROTE something. Because this isn’t my first blog. I started one before but couldn’t write a word, I couldn’t think of anything to say, I think because I was initially befuddled as my seemingly clever title and punch line had already been taken. Guess I’m not so clever after all! But I suppose it just took the wind out of me and I felt deflated, I lost the confidence to say anything and so I didn’t. I let the world beat me. Which happens more than I’d like to admit, unfortunately, but I’m trying to be better about getting back up. That’s what winners are made of, right? You reinforce the faith you have in yourself when you act in ways you don’t believe possible. And for me, rising again and getting back into whatever it was I was doing when I was knocked down, was something that I wasn’t prepared to do.

My new plan is to have a ’song of the day,’ some new song I’ve recently fallen head over heels for, or a familiar one that’s reignited my original love for it but that I routinely pass over as I’m browsing for songs on my ipod. To be fair, I think yesterday’s song would have to be Good Woman by Cat Power, which is not an old song, although I’ve had it on my beloved ipod for years now! You can listen to it here. Sooo damn beautiful. Simple. Like most beautiful things, I think. Pure love, love in its most basic form, like watching people reunite or say goodbye at the airport, seeing children hug one another, witnessing a grandmother kiss her granddaughter’s forehead. Or daffodils, which are my most favoritist flower in the world. They rest peacefully, smiling out at the world with their big beaks, saying hello and swaying with the wind.

But I digress. Back to my point, the song of the day. I know I’m cheating, but I think I’ll have to have two songs for yesterday, because one of my good friends brought to my intention the genius of John Butler and his Trio, and I listened to his solo work and the band’s music yesterday, all day, while at work (luckily we’re allowed to wear headphones and listen to whatever, or else I quite possibly might have gone insane and denounced lawyering altogether). Because I think I’ll be listening to this song ad nauseum when I’m abroad, away from my partner and my best friend, John Butler’s song of the day will be…you know what. No. There are three songs of his/theirs that must be mentioned. Oh my gosh, just unbelievable. Doesn’t music make life worth living? Maybe that’s why I love my person so much: (among other reasons) he is an extraordinary musician. I should link to his music; pending, when I figure out how to do it!

So, John Butler:

Far away/What you want (about missing your partner): here

Peaches and Cream (about his wife and baby girl): here

Daniella (about his ‘queen of a wife’): here

Seeing a theme? Yep, I’m a sucker for lyrics. Because I want that! I want someone to write lyrics for me that say, clearly or covertly, I loveyouloveyouloveyou there’s nothing betterthanyouandme and wherewouldIbewhatwouldIdo without youme? I challenge anyone to name something better in this world than unconditional love and recognition of your being, genuine acceptance. Also, I think that’s the way people should be loved. We all deserve that kind of love, we all deserve someone to call us their king or queen, to say we make their lives worth living, to tell us things just aren’t as good without us. If all people received that kind of love, that acknowledgment of their worth and dignity as humans, the world wouldn’t be as violent or mean or sick as it is. Things would be better, people would be happier, money would mean less, there would be less suffering.

I know that’s four songs of the day. But really, it’s my blog! If I want to post four songs, I damn well can. Plus, I want to share music, I love sharing music because, as I’ve mentioned and will continue to point out, music is one of my great loves and absolutely makes life worth it.

On a completely separate note, I’ve been thinking a lot about something my mom says, quite often actually. Which will seem strange to anyone who knows my mom because she’s basically the nicest human alive. To quiet my sister and I when we’re feeling wronged, or violated, she says, “If you wait long enough, you’ll see the bodies of you enemies float by.” And I know that’s not her saying; clearly it’s a cultural idiom, but still. In my life, she’s pretty much appropriated it and I will forever think of my mom when I hear the phrase, which, again, is odd. When your parents give you advice, though, it’s easy to just brush it off, let it pass through the air without really acknowledging the wisdom of their words, because for most of your life they’ve been talking at you. And so I tend to do this. I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older, though, that I see my parents more as equals, as human beings, rather than as these ethereal beings who exist for the sole purpose of being my parents, and have no history or life outside of their relation to me, and as a corollary of that, I’ve started listening to them. And I’ve noticed that she’s right. She’s right!

Two very recent situations have suddenly resolved themselves, without provocation, when my ‘enemies’ (although not enemies at all, but for purposes of the saying, people who were causing me grief) admitted, to themselves and to me (one to me through another friend) that they were wrong. Which is, sometimes, all that one needs to put the matter to rest. And there it is. One in the form of an apology, a comprehensive apology that admittedly took self-reflection and a good deal of honesty with herself; another in a simple statement that he made the wrong choice. In my mind’s eye, I see it this way: I’m sitting in the jungle (for anyone who is an avid Simpsons fan like myself, I’m actually picturing the jungle in Africa when Homer wins a trip there after he snaps himself in the eye with the cord from an animal crackers box: “Africa?! There’s bound to be food there!”) and they are all Sleeping Beauty-ish, kind of in a trance, floating down this river on a bed of bamboo, about to go over the waterfall. The girl, the one who apologized, wakes up as she is about to pass me, she stands up on the bamboo raft and hops onto the river bank next to me, and we walk off together into the jungle talking and laughing, arms around one another’s waist. The other, the fellow who has found himself in an unfortunate position now after he sort of betrayed me, saves himself from falling over the waterfall but instead gets off on the other bank and walks in the opposite direction. Which is what I would prefer he do. It’s a strange but good feeling when someone has wronged you and, acknowledging their humanness and imperfections, you can release the situation and the person without holding a grudge, but still wishing they would just disappear. What baffles and amazes me, I suppose, is how quickly these enemies floated by, how little I had to wait. In the grand scheme of things, sure, neither situation was that dire or emotionally exhausting, and there are certainly other enemies, real enemies whose corpses I would like to see topple over the edge, who have yet to make an appearance on the other side. But I’ll take what I can get, and I see too that my mom is right, she is wise, and sometimes all you can do is wait it out. So try it maybe. Be patient. Take an extended breath and see what falls out when you remove yourself and shed the baggage of the past. (Sorry for the long paragraph! I always have trouble splitting them; the words give each other meaning, so how to part them?)

Another thing on my nighttime mental list: I need to make a shoutout to my friend, a new friend, a pseudo-mentor in the legal world; but really less there, more of a life coach, although I’m sure she doesn’t see it that way. I’ll call her K. First, a mini-explanation: because I didn’t have any older siblings, I’ve always kind of attached myself to older people, upperclassmen in high school, older siblings of my boyfriends, and generally those older than me in work and school situations, because I like the feeling of being taken under someone’s wing. I never had that, so I guess I go about creating it in my life whenever the possibility arises. In any case, K gave me a much needed boost of confidence, without even trying, just filling me in on her philosophy of life, her work ethic, her approach to assignments and legal writing (which happens to be my nemesis) and things in general. What amuses me too, looking back on that conversation, is her nonchalance about it all. Our conversation went something like this:

K (and I’m paraphrasing): I do things, everything, 100%. I always know I tried my best and then I leave it. If I fail, so what? I’ll try again. Me failing doesn’t mean that I am a failure, or that I’m unworthy, or that I’m bad at what I do. It just means I have to try again. But I always walk away knowing that tried as much as I could. And I’ll keep trying as much as I can, at everything I do, and then I’ll leave it there.

Me: But, if you fail at something, doesn’t that mean, by definition, you’re not worth it? You’re not good enough?

K: No, it just means you have to get back up and try again. It means that you’re learning, it means that you didn’t start out knowing everything. But if you try your best, how can you be a failure?

Me: I guess I just feel like, if you give something everything you’ve got, and you’re still not good enough, you still fail, then that is a signal that you are not worthy.

K: When I try 100% and give something my absolute best effort, which I do with everything I do, than how can I be a failure? Failure is only when you don’t try again, when you let it beat you and you stop trying.

Me: Hmmmm. Interesting.

And I realize to other people this conversation may not seem so enlightening or striking or meaningful, I’m sure to many it’s common sensical and so blatantly obvious you would wonder why I would repeat it, but to me, it was everything. It was a complete paradigm shift from my normal, which is, I always try a little (or a lot) less than 100% because I never want to give something everything, everything I’ve got, only to come up short. I always want to have the fallback of, well, I didn’t try my best, so I really don’t know if I truly failed, because I didn’t test out my full abilities. But I’ve been trying to incorporate K’s philosophy into my life and, goddamn, it seems to be paying off. Honestly, that might have been the push I needed to start my blog; it has certainly contributed to the peacefulness that comes over me when I’m resting (i.e., not doing homework) because I know that, when I was studying, I did everything I could, and so now I can rest. Really rest. Not rest while stressing about everything I didn’t get done (because I was fucking off on the internet or talking on the phone or washing dishes – really any distraction will do while I’m supposed to be studying), but truly sink into the feeling of “ok” about doing and being whatever I’m doing and am at that moment. Peace. Maybe we only get short bursts of it, but man, are they nice. Anyway, I’d recommend it, K’s strategy. Probably many people already do that, or think they do. Maybe I’m in the minority. But it sure has made me feel better, trying to do things fully, completely, with everything behind it.

To conclude, people mean a lot. People mean everything. Which is why, when we look back on our lives, we seem moments punctuated by our people, the ones who were there, the ones who told the hilarious stories, the ones that said hurtful things that took us aback, the ones who loved us or failed to love us the way we needed. It’s all about people, life is people. People at work, people at home, family and friends, enemies and strangers. Everything is people. Oddly, it seems like we all forget that a lot of the time. We get locked in our minds and our viewpoints and our egos and let our feelings of being solo vessels in the world take hostage of our behavior. And we treat people shittily. We hurt people. We take advantage or act passive aggressively or purposely make others feel small. So, I want to say, even to no one, to the universe, to this whirl-winding topsy flopsy complicated techy hole, that I love and appreciate my people. My family, my love, my good friends, my old friends, my passing friends and my recurring friends, work friends and school friends. I love you all, you have helped me grow and thrive, even the worst of you, even on your worst days, even when you did crappy things. I thank you, and you, universe, for bringing them to me and me to them. It’s hard.

The problem is, they can be mean, people. They can abuse you because they were hurt or stepped on or belittled. And they pass that poison onto you. It happens, every day; it’s hard to stay positive and confident and loving and open. Mostly open. The challenge is, for me, to burst through their negativity and emerge even more open, in the face of their abuse (and I use abuse loosely, meaning meanness, or sniping, or cutting words, words that cut, looks that hurt, because they’re intended to). Again, it’s hard. I haven’t found a way to transition between the two, between feeling free and light and loving and open, and then being belittled, or not included, or fractured by someone’s hurtful words. They haven’t a right to, but they do it regardless. It’s learning to give it back, let it slide off, deflect and stay yourself, without succumbing to their negativity. People are mean because people are mean to them. It’s difficult to be strong without being rude or pushy or demeaning to others.

I’m sorry, this entry got a little muddled. It’s too long and convoluted and I’m not happy with it as it is. I let other people get to me and what’s resulted is this, nonsense. Grrrrr! I have to remember that nothing is personal, that people are mean because of their own shit, and that it has nothing to do with me. But, again, it’s hard. See? I always forget: whenever life gets easy, it gets hard.

bloomin'

There’s so much to say. Do you find that too? And then, when you have a chance to speak, or write, or think about these things, the things that, when you were busy, just seemed sooooo pressssssing, all that’s left is nothing.

And every time I try to start a blog, that happens. I’m bursting with thoughts and observations and things I’m annoyed at, things to treasure and celebrate, things to quietly rest in ecstasy about and I just can’t wait to share/talk/yell and then…gone. The problem is knowing people might, at some point (although it seems quite remote at the moment) read this. Even though you don’t know who I am and I don’t know who you are. It’s strange to share a part of oneself with others; it’s hard enough with people you know, at least on a surface level. I suppose it should be easier sending my words semi-anonymously into the universe, the blogosphere, the tangly interweb gluttonous with information, with a veil of secrecy and anonymity. It just isn’t! It just isn’t. I’ve had a similar experience posting videos to youtube. Just amateur, short videos of me and the guitar and my shaky voice covering some of my favorite songs. I try to fade the lighting, or angle the camera to the side, or obscure my voice to avoid any sort of recognition. I think it’s worked; but I still can’t post them. Perhaps that’s not the point though. Maybe the point is I’m doing it in the first place.

I’m often amazed at my city. Sometimes I pace the streets, smiling at people and appreciating their presence and the generations of work, families, hardship, birth and death, and human creativity that created the wonder I now live in, and I am simply amazed. People are capable of wonderful and destructive things. The breadth of human capacity to figure things out, explore and hypothesize and test and fail, and recover and do it again is, quite simply, unfathomable and breathtaking. It’s inspiring and defeating all at the same time. The weight of those who came before us and all their accomplishments and advancements, flouderings and mistakes and quagmires, is heavy.

See, maybe my writer’s block comes from the failure to really find a theme. Interestingly and perhaps ironically, that’s a common thread that runs through most of my life. I seem to bounce around, I seem to always be en route. Between places and people, goals and abilities, confidence and retreat. Feelings of having it figured it out and then realizing that as I get older, I seem to know less and less. At so many points during my day-to-day life I return to parts of the graduation speech purportedly written and given by Kurt Vonnegut, but actually written by a female reporter named Mary Scmich whose words were poached by a ‘prankster’ and distributed around attributed to Vonnegut (you can read the whole story here). Anyway, the speech packs so much wisdom into so few words, it impresses me every time I read it.

Here are a few of my favorite snippets:

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded.”

“Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.” (because I want to BE this!)

“Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.”

“Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.”

“Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.”

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

It’s so simple, and yet elegant and beautiful and meaningful at the same time. It’s kind of advice; I mean, it is, I suppose. But it’s also just reiteration of common sense truths that I think strikes a lot of people because these truths are intuitive and universal, they transcend culture and generation and sex/class/race or any other difference we seek to put forward. For instance, we all know we should be wearing sunscreen, and that we should take care of our bodies, and that we should leave those who treat us badly and disrespect us. No one would argue those as falsehoods. And yet, for some reason, when I read that speech and hear those words, I feel calm. It makes me feel ok. And sometimes, all we need is just to feel ok (or, like that Ingrid Michaelson song, “keep breathing”). Amazing stuff, if you haven’t heard it.

Plus, I think the impetus to do something that scares us keeps us alive. It keeps our blood pumping and our brains thinking and our hearts feeling. It’s the what that makes life worth living – challenging ourselves to do things we prior wouldn’t believe we could do. And I suppose, ultimately, that’s why this blog was born: to be a friend to me through one of those times where I challenged myself to do something I was insanely scared to do. This summer I’ll be leaving my home in this wonderful city, saying goodbye to the love of my life, my very best friend (my Biff, as she says), and all of my plans and truths and sureties, to live in northern Thailand for 3 months while I complete a legal internship focusing on local public interest issues. I don’t speak Thai; I know not a soul. I feel free and light and scared and sad but I knew I had to do it from the moment I first heard of it. The universe opened up for me and illuminated this path, it showed me that this is what I am meant to be doing. I feel like someone just blew me off a dandelion, the ones you blow on after you make a wish to get all the little umbrella pods off so you know your wish will come true. That’s me. I am a that seed pod. Off I go.


I’m not ready to settle yet, I still have so much movement and exploration and learning to do. I suppose this is my effort to do something I’m afraid of, to keep my momentum up, and my heart full and open, and my wisdom blooming. I hope I can embrace this experience without denigrating my life back home or my time away. I’m worried that I can’t, but I’m willing to try.

So, it is here that I feel find solace on lonely nights and confused days, after troubling situations and sad observations, during the time I’ve carved out in which I will know only me. And you.