rose in midair

waking life

“We’ve already become completely different people several times over,
and yet we always remain quintessentially ourselves.
Hmm.
Our critique began as all critiques begin:
with doubt.
Doubt became our narrative.
Ours was a quest for a new story, our own.
And we grasp toward this new history driven by the suspicion…
that ordinary language couldn’t tell it.
Our past appeared frozen in the distance,
and our every gesture and accent…
signified the negation of the old world and the reach for a new one.
The way we lived created a new situation,
one of exuberance and friendship,
that of a subversive microsociety…
in the heart of a society which ignored it.
Art was not the goal but the occasion and the method…
for locating our specific rhythm…
and buried possibilities of our time.
The discovery of a true communication was what it was about,
or at least the quest for such a communication.
The adventure of finding it and losing it.
We the unappeased, the unaccepting continued looking,
filling in the silences with our own wishes, fears and fantasies.
Driven forward by the fact that no matter how empty the world seemed,
no matter how degraded and used up the world appeared to us,
we knew that anything was still possible.
And, given the right circumstances,
a new world was just as likely as an old one.
There are two kinds of sufferers in this world:
those who suffer from a lack of life…
and those who suffer from an overabundance of life.
I’ve always found myself in the second category.”

Posted in observations |

i’ve been thinking a lot about internal conflict. about how to have less of it, and how to manage the excess analysis we tend to perform on each other’s hearts.

i feel like i’m going through this intense turning point, a magnification of the self. both physically and emotionally.

i’m not sure if that makes sense. i write myself into circles, and i talk myself in strings. i over-amplify characteristics and conversations at the risk of my own downfall.

i’m just mulling over it some more. like apple cider. mulling.

Posted in daily, observations |

i keep hearing all this talk about being the best.
the best tango follow, the best tango lead. the best salsa dancer, the best photographer, the best writer, the best singer.

i’ll lay it out now for you. i’ve never really thought about being the “best.” i don’t think you have to be the best at any one thing for you to live your life to the fullest. in fact, i think if you expend less energy on trying to be the best, you’ll have more time to just live. i’ll try anything. i’ll learn anything in my own way, just give me my space. i’ve dabbled in the most random things, from handbells to chinese folk dancing to pottery to hip hop to having a black thumb around plants. i’m not the best at any of those things. but i’m okay with that. because i have a lot more fun thinking about the different things i’m going to do next than about perfecting the same thing as you are trying to perfect.

just a rant of sorts. not that i am not a perfectionist in some ways. but hey, i don’t have to be the best. i’m here to dance.

Posted in daily |

three sixty

i name you precarious as you use the entire country of panama to blindfold my eyes and trip my feet because you are all i see. arms holding arms and hands reaching out for hands, i’m not sure or aware or strong enough to really pretend to be

it’s okay though because your spanish comes raining down like sheets of hail and i’m wondering when i can return the favor of your heat.

it’s okay because i’m recovering,
it’s okay because i need to learn the taste of defeat,
and to chew it and swallow it without butter or cheese

hey kids it’s time for justice but
trials are conditional and
we compare notes on survival, and i’m numbering my scars
it’s for future reference, you see.

we’re in denver and these roads are treacherous, the trees are like aching melodies that nod in satisfaction that we are so lost
but the sheets and couch mattress were worse, a jungle of springs, the tequila marinates in my head and i thought i was swimming to shore when really i’m swimming to sea

you’re lovely in sleep, your mouth gaping open and silent as a storm
you’re lovely in sleep. when i know where you are, and your vulnerability lies with me.

Posted in poetry |

i have to figure out how to edit photos on my computer so that they don’t look too dark on others. i always tend to have a less contrasty monitor, for some reason.

Posted in photography |

i strum

i’m dancing unconsciously again, to whatever music they are playing in the Starbucks downstairs.

my god, she says.
i wonder what your mother was doing when she was pregnant with you, because music courses through your veins like this unstoppable force.

–

i think about the one a lot.

he’s probably a poet, throwing verbal tantrums and spreading it across pages of moleskines like peanut butter on bread. he probably has a bit of money tucked away in various tattered pants pockets so that at any moment’s notice, he will suggest that we run away to a different continent and experience each other in a different context of life. he’s probably an amateur chef who loves to cook simple breakfasts, and he will let me photograph him in colorful aprons even if he forgets to wash the dishes most of the time. he’s probably a photographer who finds his muse in my eyes and composition in my unruly hair. he gives me piggy back rides. he lets me stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. he kisses me in the rain. he’s probably a musician, who is fascinated with the bandoneon and the piano and plays the djembe. he only snores when he’s very tired, or has a cold. he’s probably a computer nerd who used to play computer games, but has converted to being well-read instead. he looks good shirtless and he drinks dos equis with lime. his dark hair is curly and untamed in the mornings. he knows his current events, and has strong political opinions. he is fiercely loyal, too pragmatic for my taste, but he still loves me for who i am, and listens with sincerity when i have romantic volcanic catharses. and damn, he can move his hips on the dance floor, and he doesn’t care who sees. he sings in the shower, and is more successful at folding laundry than i am. he forgets to put the toilet seat down and i work on biting my tongue. he is a swimmer, and when he swims, he carries me with him.

–
 i don’t have time to feel, so in turn i have nothing to process.
but i will say that last night i had the window down, and i was driving to the yoga studio, and i was singing alanis morisette or jason mraz or something that falls between those genres, and i smiled and felt good again.

–

in austin, tu and i studied the art of a heart on a fork.
our hearts are little strawberries, roots stretched across the soil, feeling deep, delicate and they can get cold and sick so easily but when they finally come through, oh, how sweet they are. and we have festivals to celebrate them, and it’s a cycle, you know, one day again after the frost, they’ll ripen again.

Posted in daily |

“I must learn to love the fool in me-the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.”

Posted in daily |

hopeful luxuries of growing older

things i do now that (or because) i didn’t have access to them before:

- use matching shampoo and conditioner
- sprawl clothes-less on the bed after a shower
- eat sugary cereal for breakfast
- read trashy girly magazines
- buy jelly beans
- apply nail polish at the kitchen table
- read at the kitchen table
- light lots of candles
- play music that i like. really loudly
- eat sugary cereal for lunch
- go somewhere other than my mom’s kitchen for a haircut
- buy my own clothes
- eat sushi whenever i want to
- bring boys home
- be really messy
- neglect my laundry for three weeks
- eat sugary cereal for dinner

Posted in daily |

i am tenor and trembling, and if i could build you this city with my bare hands you would understand the density of the hollow between my shoulder blades

Posted in vignettes |

“we spend too long thinking about tomorrow when we could be learning from the yesterday we wanted to be today. ”

“No no, dreams don’t just happen. Dreams can be nightmares, too. But they have to start somewhere. And that somewhere should be now.”

i took the high road last night, it took my pride along with it.

Posted in daily |