remember--

when the flies don't exist yet-
when the ice cubes at home always taste like the freshly cut grass-
when napping next to someone else-
when alone-
when i can't stop listening to this song-
when i see you in everything-
when kissing someone new-
when dreaming-
when finding an old photo-
when nostalgia sets in-
when it is always there-
when you miss it already and it's not even gone-
when you graduate from college-
when you move away-
this is when-
then will be when-
got to savor all your-
                                        remember when-

ramblings.

i still miss my cat, who stayed at another house for a short amount of time, then ran away.  sometimes i think she (who was really a he) will still come around someday and snuggle my neck during an afternoon nap, windows open.

an older friend of mine tells me things don't always turn out how you thought they would, doors close and the body slows down. the people and the things you counted on aren't there.

one of my closest companions spends less time with me because it's easier.

i'm spending a considerably less amount of time with one of my best friends because it's healthier.

i helped my dad pick out a (somewhat) fashionable hat today because he is losing all of his hair and feels stupid wearing the same hats or no hats at all.

new friends and possible lovers are lifting my spirits and my confidence.

old friends are encouraging me in pursuing my dreams and moving to new places in life.

yesterday i cleaned my house and did yoga (all while listening to lil' wayne).

i'm learning how important it is for me to have meaningful interactions, sincere goodbyes and physical touch.

my mother is my very best friend, but sometimes we are so cold to each other.

tomorrow i leave for san francisco to visit my brother and see a new place.

"we need the tonic of wildness...

at the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.  we can never have enough of nature... we need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander."  --henry david thoreau

i am currently reading "the art of the commonplace" written by wendall berry, who writes about agrarian alternatives to dominant urban culture.

as i sink further and further into my program of becoming a pastry chef, i write lists about bucket-list goals and where i want to be in 5 years.  i've decided to focus my current attention on the importance of local and fresh, which has led me to the agrarian essays of wendall berry.

berry discusses our testifying of the "intransigent destructiveness" within us, that prompts us to place our well-being in contention with the well-being of others and the earth.  we assume that we know what is best for ourselves, disregarding the needs of communities (natural and human) that are sustaining us! 

the destructiveness has become clearer than ever, considering most of the world's habitats are in a crisis, with toxification, contamination, pollution, extinction, deforestation and an overall hopelessness.  while at the same time, more of us than ever live lives of luxury and ease.  "the frantic, stressful striving going on all around us indicates that we are profoundly lost."

berry concludes that "it is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are."  we are isolated, left wondering how what we are doing matters.  rather than be judged by our intelligence in terms of the mastery of specialized information, berry suggests we be judged by "the good order or harmoniousness of his or her surroundings."  this is encouragement for me and for you, if we can just step back and relaaaax ourselves!  then maybe we'll be on the road to discovering and grasping the way of life that berry suggests.  we must recognize and find harmony in the interdependence between the earth and us.

i met and transported into my 4, maybe 5-year-old self and brain in my dreams last night.  i was old and i was young.  it felt like i had 2 bodies but 1 mind, each functioning a little differently depending on what body my mind was spending time in.

i stood across the room from me and watched as i pranced around my dad's seemingly ginormous dress shoes (from baby's point of view they were, anyway).

before i knew it, preemie me disappeared.

as if it was the most normal thing in the world, my parents asked where i might've run off to.  right when i needed my 5-year-old brain to function simultaneously with the other, it couldn't.  i was gone, lost.  IIII couldn't find MYSELF!  my parents were devastated.

i'm taking it as a sign.  revival of youth.  for as soon as the world seems familiar, i'm gone.  we've got to remember to let EVERYTHING in the world amaze us, or we'll be lost.

endless satisfaction, friends.

this week i think i may have experienced what so many of us are looking for.  true love.

i've been touched in all the right places.  i've received a healthy balance of the wild side and tenderness.

my very bones have been manipulated and my lover's duty is to make my vulnerable body perfect.  it is his duty to make me feel good.

i am my lover's sculpture and my body is his open book.

i leave my lover with confidence, knowing that he wants to see me twice more this week.

who needs men?  who needs FOOD?

so long as i have my chiropractor, i have endless satisfaction.

where would YOU wish to wake up tomorrow?

  

making breakfast in the middle of nowhere but really in the middle of everywhere.

with someone i love.

whatever any of that means.

SOON.

soon our bodies will be golden from the sun-
and your ARM will be wARM when i put my hand on it-
and even though i used to never know sad or lonely-
and then had both-
i know that soon-
i will forget one and the other-
and there will be a place for us to thaw our brittle winter bones-
and we will dance-
and we will play-
and we will riiiiiiiiide away!