They found me in one of these at birth

 

Never Without Bleeding

    I am back home and just like I thought, this city had open arms for me. Just waiting for my return. All of my favorite faces met my own today, eager to hear about the last six days of my life. When the journey matters to them really, you'll see it in their eagerness and it'll touch you every time. When the the plane clumsily nudged through impervious clouds to uncover views of the city lights, I was met with a confirmative feeling I've felt before. A feeling that this is my home. How special that I got to choose it. 

    For fun sometimes, I imagine visions of the future in which I no longer reside here and I reflect on the memories behind me. The layout, the gluttony of flowers in Spring, the feeling feeling feeling. When I do this bit, I often experience genuine, visceral homesickness. All from a daydream. That's how I know this place is my own. 

    When I embarked on my morning walk to work today, the aloneness of my life here gushed against my face, paralleling the brisk wind that got there first. I took it all back in. Like I had been gone for much longer. The trip was emotional and compact. This felt like the initial inkling of coming home to myself. I meditated...

    Parts of my trip were precious, unforgettable. Etched forever into corners of remembrance. Moments like my mother and I sitting on the kitchen counters, feet hanging, talking until midnight. I felt an intense love for my mother that I have never truly felt before. For the entirety of my life, it seemed that she was invisible to me. Seeing her now was like seeing her for the first time. She appeared aged and confident. Comfortable in who she was. Like a spiritual seasoning had taken place. She's dorky and generous. She loves me so much I think it pains her deeply that I am not five years old playing with horses on my bedroom carpet anymore (if only she knew how close I am to that version of myself these days). 

    My mother told me countless times during my stay how proud she was of me. I have never heard her say this to me so often. Seeing my dad was healing in its own way. My relationship with him was a monster of its own back then and now it has morphed into something very casual but real. I can see how much he also deeply cares for our family. How hard he tries to be good and provide. He's a good man and I'm a good man's daughter.

    It makes me want to cry just thinking about all the alchemy that's gone on. Some things time heals, other things require intention. I wish I could tell past angrier versions of myself to not have my mind made up so concretely. To leave room for more empathy. It was never hard for me to grant strangers immediate compassion but this wasn't the case with my family. I'm starting to really witness the humanity in them. They exist as people, inside and outside of being my parents. They're just someone's coworker or customer in the grocery checkout. If only that cashier knew. 

    My brother. He is so intelligent. He reads often and has a general distaste for letting his phone distract him. When he speaks casually he uses words I do not understand. I want to ask him to pause his story and explain the meanings of all the words drawing blanks in my mind, words I want to comprehend on my own accord but can't. I hold my tongue instead of inquiring because sometimes I struggle with pride. And he isn't afraid to just be funny and do strange things for the sake of making people laugh. When a joke doesn't land, he often admits the defeat retroactively which then leads me to laugh anyway. So he wins regardless. I found that I missed him. We are so different and always have been. It didn't stand in the way of us enjoying each other this time. 

    He sees me as something very sensitive and strong but will openly chalk me up to being a "liberal eclectic barista". I know he actually sees me though. He looks like a good husband to his wife. That's always nice to see. 

    Seeing everyone was so up and down. It felt like I went to another planet and blinked, transporting me home; not knowing if all of it happened or not. It's a fogged up review mirror. It was the first time in a while that I felt like I was apart of that kind of family collective dynamic thing. I am the middle child and I live in the most contrasting environment compared to my family. I am broke and young and feeling excruciatingly confused and yet everyone is telling me how grown up I seem. I suppose it feels that way for me, too (not because I was recently interested in a fifty-one year old English/guitar teacher) (he looked much younger than he was) (and had very good taste in books so I don't know what to tell you). 

    The feeling now, after all that traveling and fitting into a box that's never quite felt so suited to me... I get to be home now. 

    When I returned, I flipped my place upside down, put all of my energy back into it, and now am writing in my self-fashioned lump of space. Writing here is what shifts it from a studio apartment to a wizard's mountain. This year was the most eventful year of my life. I mean it this time. It started with me moving in with someone I loved (love) and it is concluding with me living alone with someone I love (me). 

Bliss and Pain.

    I am a few pages shy of finishing Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart and if I had one genie's wish, it would be to never see the end of it. For it to go on infinitely so that I could steep into the yearning for eons. I will leave this entry with the sentence that has settled substantially into the part of my heart that exhales in knowing...

You'll never forget this...

    Sumire is in love with Miu and is falling apart keeping it all to herself. She knows she must confess no matter the outcome. Whether it be all hopes manifest or destruction in the face of transparency. 

"DID YOU EVER SEE ANYONE SHOT BY A GUN WITHOUT BLEEDING?"

    That's what I'm asking myself after a hurricane of a year, after a cyclone of love. Did you think you'd feel all that love and not bleed, too? I'm left applying the bandages and proper treatment, in agony but smiling. You know how it goes. 

whipped cream

    The timing of the gifts in life are completely and utterly out of my hands. It isn't up to me anymore. It never was. Is this not God's plan? Remember that silky, undeniable magic. Remember magic people. Keep them around. The sea will hold me if no one else can right now. The clouds will cradle me with God's signature on everything. I will get so high on the love inside of me. So high. It's hard work creating someone inside myself who knows but I'm going to be around anyway. Might as well.

    I don't know what trickster spirit implanted the lie in everyone's minds that this life was gonna be a free ride. No, I don't expect things to be whipped cream in every moment but I also don't anticipate constant flat tires. When the density makes a clearing, I look it up and down and let it walk with me. When the sky opens up and God themselves say to me, "You're my favorite", I bow in acknowledgment and keep going down the line. Heart as open as ever. That's what I do.

    The real work lately has been owning my miracles in a humble way. Where's the good in blessings that aren't trusted in their entirety? 

    What's more, my brain has the inflation and wiggle room of one thousand puffer fish so you can be sure that I'll mull things over for quite some immodest time. That gets tiresome, though. It doesn't sound much like whipped cream. So no more thinking. No more mulling it over. I am trusting it all so deeply. I'm destined for miracles. Flat tires, too. You know? 

The day I was born

I milked a cow

My mother sat in a corner wondering how

I haven't yet grown into my forehead

You may think me smart but

myself,

I'm not so sure yet

The day I was born

The sun was out

You may meet me

You might listen and think

To that, there's no doubt

Before this all

Maybe I was a farmer

Years go by

I am different now

Still a good man's daughter

Mid-air

There have been a basketful of moments this Autumn where I walk the sidewalk in loss.

Each step recalls a memory shared, a future compromised. The word "failure" encircles me. 

I think it's not quite the right word for what took place.

"Hurricane" or "vertigo" feel more equipped to carry the weight of all that was. 

And these moments on pavement are not ones of presence or observation.

The cars pass me by and they could be ambulances, gritty New York cabs with giant rats in the front seat, or my mother's silver Acura all the same. 

I don't notice them because I'm remembering you.

Every so often (so stupidly seldom), I will catch a leaf mid-air. 

Traveling, spiraling, dancing, singing down towards the sidewalk I'm barely on.

These moments jolt me into paralysis and there I stand- linked into the witnessing of a three-second free fall. An angelic and equally slutty flirting with the wind. The crazy trip from branch to rain-smothered sidewalk. 

It really only takes a quick glance to catch it but sometimes watching the drama start to finish feels like watching an entire lifetime go by. Time feels different on my body and within my heart lately and this process, however momentary, in actuality, is a lengthy and euphoric one. 

The falling leaves invite me to meditate on other blips of natural occurrences. I will never get to see them all. But I'm not so bitter about this. The ones I catch are well worth all that I'll miss.

A thunderbolt of lightning piercing a southern sky.

 It's a second for me but how long is it for the cloud?

This life is a wave crashing against sand, only to come back again. It's a leaf on a trip returning home. 

It's me starting over and the sadness taking forever. 

It's so it good it hurts sometimes. 

Dear every Hindu God ever,

I know desire will bring me unimaginable suffering in this life but I just really feel like 

-some blue mascara

-a guitar amp

-a massively large poster of PJ Harvey 

-all of Tom Robbins' books

-a pair of bunny slippers

might actually expedite my spiritual development. 

I can't entirely justify why but I think I could be on to something.

Artichoke

A friend I would have never made if I hadn't teleported into this city and I were drinking wine by candlelight, sitting across from each other, holding toes, laying down all the sweetness and density of this moment in time. It was the kind of night I used to daydream of getting to experience firsthand. A coworker earlier that day had explained to me that my friend and I are oddly very similar, although our differences stand blatant most times. She told me that she and I had a certain "purity" about us. A "child-like curiosity". 

Giggling and airy as we are, I shared with her our coworker's insightful perception of the parallels between us. Charmed by this, as I was upon hearing it, my dear friend added,

"You know what I find most similar between the two of us? You and I are easily excited people. When there's good news, when someone's got plans they care about, we are happy for them. We show enthusiasm and I don't think everyone's like that."

This conversation has been sitting at the same single chaired table as me this week. What does it mean to be a person who feels the same excitement for others as for their own good fortunes? Does that imply a sense of curious purity or innocence? This was insight that I hadn't myself fully become aware of. But it's really sweet to know that people see me that way. My friend and I are those kinds of people and that adds tenderness to us but it also provides us with a special understanding of one another. When I see her expressive and curious, I feel that kinship. I, too, relate to the feeling of hopefulness and anticipation for my life and for those who surround me.

A few nights later, another close friend of mine and I were eating rice and crying about this life (pretty typical girl hang out). We were discussing how uncompromising it is to have deep friendships so that you can be mirrors to one another. You may not start off "knowing" yourself but friendship can allow you to see parts of yourself that you may be blind to. She was telling me that she admires my ability to view my troubling situation with a broader scope of why it is happening. My ability to see the big picture rather than zooming in on my emotional reactions alone. I wasn't entirely aware that I had this ability until she recognized it in me. Until she showed it to me.

The idea of those who know and love you being able to help you meet parts of yourself is so touching to me the longer I linger on it. 

And then I think about all the people I will meet in this life, all the countries I will travel to, all the strangers who I will only get one chance conversation with- this even happened today on the bus- and I see how all these things will allow me to meet myself. And God, I just want to know.

I want to know what it is like to be completely embodied. Without weariness of character, absent of second guessing. Even now, I wouldn't say that this is a condition I am plagued by but you know, I'm young....it's weird. It's all learning but also creating and  discovering and also DESTROYING but mostly accepting. And it's all so so so so so so juicy and vital and like the center of an artichoke.