Tomorrow I embark upon a new adventure: the west coast of America for 3 weeks! I will be attending/volunteering at the BeDo Social Intrapreneurs event as well as the SoCap 2009 conference in San Francisco, traveling up to Seattle to visit the sister of my heart, and visiting the rural parts of China at the very end with my sweetest companion and comrade.
addiction
I’d become addicted.
Forevermore was I destined to search for the high that came with an unpredictable tomorrow, a fleeting friendship, an ever changing path to happiness. My roots stayed grounded in the comfort of home, while my pallid branches craved for sunlight. The energy I found in the unknown guided my capricious path towards a destiny of solitude. But it was a solitude filled with understanding, truth, reality, and deep down wholeness- a solitude worth whatever sacrifices had to be made to attain one more fix.
naked
How often do we mean exactly what we say and say exactly what we mean?
expecting
Why, then, do we set our goals and expectations together on a tiny floating cloud, forcing ourselves into a dark corner of everlasting disappointment and dulled happiness as we squint into the sky searching for misplaced desires, when we could open our eyes, breathe in each heartbeat shed of weight, and accept the world for all of its bright, beautiful stolen moments of unabashed bliss?
breathe
I feel like an air bubble that’s been searching for surface water, years passed as if minutes underwater, bouncing about the ocean waves fiending for where I fit in. I’ve steered my little bubble a certain path for many years, leeching on to bigger stronger ones, in hopes of being swallowed up into their prosperous air of success or of reaping their benefits by mirroring their motions.
in transit
I asked her when I could come by the shelter and she smiled her big warm smile, slapped my knee, and exclaimed, “We want you now!” The next day I went to meet 15 of the sweetest young women. As Jaya walked me through the house, we discussed the girls’ stories while they joined us in the hallways, a façade of oblivion and bliss painted across their tortured faces. It is near impossible for me to comprehend how a girl, not yet woman, could have endured such pain and struggle, and still smile as brightly as they do. Jaya made me feel so at ease, I left my inhibitions to the wind and asked all my questions.
storytime
Well. It’s just that time in the show, folks. I want to hear you. I want to understand you and feel you and be near you. Who are you? Do you read my pieces out of desire? Necessity? Boredom, intrigue, curiosity? Do you visit often or peruse once in a blue moon, hoping to read something that makes your skin tickle and eyes bulge? My handy dandy Wordpress Statistics tell me there are at least a handful of you out there who actually pull up this site once in a while. You cant hide!
water
The glee continued to surprise and delight me as its honesty and unfiltered exhilaration persisted throughout the following few days. Seeing someone so absolutely thrilled with the mere sight of water is like watching a baby take her first steps. Trepidation, sincerity, discovery, euphoria. I tried to capture a moment in which I had felt that way in the near past and was left empty handed. Had my maturity washed away my innocence and unabashed appreciation for the simplest of things in life, abandoning me for what I like to call ‘wit and class’?