Tidal

today is ebb. it is the withdrawl. it is the pulling away from the coast and everything that stood solid in life. it is the precursor to the shitstorm waiting at the door.

you can feel the immensity of what's to come behind you. its shadow creeps across the ground engulfing yours. and it is silent.

and then it isn't anymore.

the end of ebb is the beginning of flow.

it is the rushing forward despite all attempts to slow down. it is the fearlessness of all obstacles in the way. and it is the courage in knowing that there is but one moment which will define it, and then it is over.

and so begins the cycle again.

it is knowing that there is no good and no bad, only halves that make sense of the other. it is knowing that without down there can be no up. it is the constant belief that everything happens for a reason, and even if we don't know what that is, it is the perseverance to keep this cycle going, no matter how dizzying the cycles can get.

for the love of words

we are creatures of expression. how lucky are we to live in this time where our forefathers made possible a world of art and dance, music and poetry, theatre and the printed page. all of these things avenues to realizing our thoughts, musings and ideas, and then communicating them. for me, it always begins with words.

they come to me. words. they come to me when i least expect it. it happens while watching a film, or riding a bus. they sneak in when i'm supposed to be listening to someone talking, or paying attention to what i'm reading. they line up perfectly whenever i don't have a pen nearby.

and it's frustrating. to have a passion that you do not have control over, and instead has control over you.

i cannot be alone in this feeling.

writing isn't easy. but not writing is even harder. i mean, how long can a person realistically go before needing to write something down?

.................................. not long.

A few of my favorite things

It's bumping into a friend on the street. It's waiting for the temperature of a hot drink to come down on a cold day. It's the way the sun reflects off your neighbor's window and shines across the way.

It's the days past, it's the fading memories, it's the reasons that you are who you are even though it's hard to recollect them sometimes.

It's the way things change without your noticing. It's the way hair grows longer and days grow shorter. It's the way that four different seasons flow into a year. It's the way that you grow wiser.

It's the way you felt yesterday and the way you feel today. It's the wishes you make and and the promises you break. It's the way sadness gets in the way of happiness, and not the other way around.

It's the way that life constantly proves to you that things can get much worse, but can also get much better. It's the constant reminder that you are alive and well and still not quite at where you want to be. It's the reason we do our best.

Starting from scratch

everything is being pushed to its limits.
and the environment is seemingly limitless these days.
how far can we realistically push,
before we find ourselves back at square one?
having come full circle, where has one to go from here?

how do you do something new?

1999 - 2009 / A Retrospective

I don't know the days of innocence.

I don't remember when I didn't know, when I was first discovering, when the world changed. It was always already changed.

Sex, drugs, my rebel ways, always a part of who I was, always a part of the romance of my life, always my calling, my poison, my cure.

And now I've gone cold turkey. I'm returning to the days that were supposed to be mine.

No more fighting. I want peace.

No more binging. I want stability.

No more selfishness. I have others to think of.

No regrets either though.

I still teeter on this seesaw, wondering who I am, where I'm supposed to go, what I'm supposed to do, how I'm supposed to do it.. and then I remember that I'm the only person who can answer these questions. Which means that I can be whoever I want to be, go wherever I choose to go, do whatever I want to do, and do it however I so feel.

Ignorance is bliss? Whatever. It is stupidity. Knowledge is bliss, innocence is divine, and life is a crazy roller coaster just waiting for you to take its ride...

I can't do what they do (but I can publish my 100th post)

It's job hunting season... I did this to myself. I had a job, and then I quit it two days later. I've brought this upon myself, like most things in this life....

The job boards are filled with positions for people vastly more qualified than me, for peope with skills I do not possess, for people who's interests are not the same as mine. Where's the job for me?

I am afraid that I know the answer to this question; I've known it all along. I'll never find my job out there because it's not a job that anyone can give me; it's a job I have to create myself.

Shit.

My happiness and success depends on motivating my lazy ass to get up and start making something happen.

Life never was as easy thing, but f*cking hell it's just become a hell of a lot harder...

It's been a year now...

One year. Three hundred and sixty five days. About 8765 hours, depending on who you ask.

This blog was intended to facilitate the writing of a book. One year later, I'm no closer now than I was then. But how the world around me has otherwise moved on.

America inaugurated a black president. The economy crashed. The swine flu continues to spread. And I am now a married woman.

All these things happen around me, yet daily life hasn't really changed much. Babies still cry on airplanes, people still drunkenly sing their way home down my street on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday nights, and restaurants all over are still looking for serveuses. Movies are still being made, music is still influencing the youth, and drinking a coffee in a cafe seems to never go out of style. Organic is still more expensive than edible crap, the polar ice caps are still melting at record speeds, and Sarkozy is still painfully shorter than his amazonian wife. In fact, the only real tangible difference I can see these days is this ring I wear on my finger.

Funny how that little difference is what is going to make all of the difference.

I don't want my daily life to change, unless it is I who changes it. Perhaps that is why I sit content with my blog for now; for fear that taking that next big step into bookdom might spin my life into a direction I do not know the footing for. But did I not just marry? Did I not just do something new and scary and embark into a world I've never been in before? If I can do that with a man, why can I not find that same courage and do that with myself? For myself?

One year ago I would have never guessed that the world would change as it has, but it did regardless. I'm beginning to believe that anything is truly possible. Perhaps in one year, three hundred and sixty five days, about 8765 hours, depending on who you ask, I'll have written a book, the kind of book I have always dreamt of writing.

God knows, I'm a married woman now. Anything, anything is possible....

The Truth Behind These Words

I have made many mistakes in my life. I have taken many risks. I have taken steps when the path wasn't necessarily clear, and I have gotten into cars with strangers. And I feel that life has only rewarded me for it.

Every mistake has become a lesson learned. Every risk proved my fear inutile. Paths have laid themselves out for me, and is it not strangers who eventually become our friends?

I write this blog to share my experiences and my thoughts. I try to keep it short because we're all busy people, with busy lives and busy friends. Hell, I'm even a bit busy from time to time. But regardless of the time that does inherently slip by, this blog is my way of reminding myself that life's not for nothing.

Life's moments and experiences, good and bad, are worth sharing. Amazing the number of people on this earth, and each of their individual stories... mine is but one. And just like every other one, it is unique, and so I choose to pop in from time to time, and put in my two cents.

These past two months since I last posted have been filled with joy and discovery; I have met my future husband, a wonderful man with whom I cannot wait to spend the rest of my days, and am due to marry in exactly one month.

The name will change but the person will not. Life is what it is, and I will always want to tell about it. So I extend my gratitude to those of you who have been following along with me this past year; your company is well appreciated.

I will make an effort to post again on a bit more of a regular basis; even once a week is better than every two months... so until I post again, enjoy the summer -rainy, hot or dry as it may be- and don't forget to embrace life once a day. Does a body good.

;)

Oops

How?

How has it been two months since my last post? I remember writing it like it was just yesterday...

I wonder, what does that then say about the time since then?

It is time lost? wasted? spent? Ha. No.

Far from it.

We are all on drugs

It’s halfway through 2009. The world is in a state of financial crisis. There is a health epidemic spreading from Mexico that has every country up in arms. The global climate is worsening everyday as the environment’s final hours are ignored. And we are all on drugs; and then we ask ourselves why.

We live in societies that have maintained their strict rules over centuries, despite the changing times. We are raised in families whose traditions are outdated by the now daily new technologies that alter and supposedly ameliorate our existences. We’re bombarded by a mass media that is controlled by people who have their own agendas. And war brims on all horizons.

So pick your poison.

You can drink. You can go to a doctor and get a prescription for something that will come in a little orange bottle with a childproof cap. Or you can just go to the pharmacy and get pills that’ll help you sleep it all away.

You can also smoke a joint, snort some yeyo, or shoot some smack. There’s also always crack, fake sugar, and coffee.

Who’s not dosed with something?

The question of why is almost rhetoric. We know why.

We work hard (in life, love, and everything else) and most of us see very little in reward.

The world has become depressing. So we need every little thing we can find to put a smile on our faces or at the very least to ease our soul a little bit.

It is a hard thing to be sober in this already sobering existence.

Rain rain go away

The room isn't filled with sunlight, but there is still light. The kind of filtered light that reaches a room after passing through thick clouds and millions of raindrops.

The air is chilly and there is no sound save for the pitter-patter on the windows.

Hard to tell that it's springtime in Paris.

Or is it?

The old man in the subway

Everyday I take the same metro to work, from the same stop to the same stop. I ride the same car, at the same time, and not once have I ever seen the same face. Except for the old man in the subway.

He sits on the steps of the station I exit out of. Everyday he wears the same beige pants, the same tweed jacket, the same blood-red scarf, and the same bowler's cap. And they are always pristine.

Sometimes I think that he's just a normal guy, sitting on the steps to take a break from his day. But then I notice the little pan by his side for people's spare change.

I always want to give him something, but I rarely have anything to give. Except for today.

I saw him from a distance and instantly reached into my purse. I pulled out my wallet and from it I withdrew a 2 euro coin. I held it in my hand as I approached him, and politely bent down to put it in his change pan once I reached him. I looked up to his face, and he just stared at the ground, oblivious to the fact that I was there, or that I had just placed 2 euros into his pan that had only up until then held 30 centimes.

I wanted to give him a hug.

But I didn't. I just stood up, and headed up the stairs...

Several hours later, he was gone. I looked for him around the station, but he was nowhere to be found. I wonder how the rest of his day went. I wonder if he got himself something good to eat, perhaps drink. I wonder if I made any difference in his day...

Men

you are such strange creatures
i can never tell if you're for real or not
i ignore you,
and you pursue me.
i hold out my hand,
and you turn away.
you come
and you go
and you turn into a dream.
a dream i want to realize at first,
and then you only become the faint memory of another later on.

the kind of dream that you forget.

Medellin

You stood there and looked at me
as I looked out at you.
Your beauty mesmerized me.
Your pain touched me.
Your history pulled me in
and your rains flooded me out.
Your life I felt in my veins.
Your world I was a part of.

But now you're there,
and I'm here.

Until I close my eyes.
And the two then meet in the middle.

And that's good enough for now...

The night I met the neighbors

This evening, I had my late night smoke in the courtyard of my building.

As I stooped in the shadows, a young woman came in and saw me, and walked towards me asking if I had any alcohol that I could sell her; she was heading to friend's party up on the 3rd floor and seeing that it was 2am, nothing in the neighborhood was open to buy anything.

I told her I had nothing to give her, and apologized for not even having a bottle of shit wine to offer. Truth was, I did have alcohol up in my kitchen, but it is a bottle of bourbon, and I keep it for those wonderfully random sporadic hot-toddy nights. Can't be giving that away.

Anyway, not much later on, as I was finishing off my smoke, a group of people came down, amongst them the woman I had met earlier. She quickly introduced me to my neighbors above, as well as the rest of their group, and as quickly as they had showed up, they were out the door and onto the street, drunk and looking to continue their evening.

That 's now two neighbors in the building who I know. (Three if counting the neighbor below me whose door I had to knock on to retrieve my kitchen-mat, which had fallen from my window sill down onto his.)

So far, everyone I'm meeting and seeing are around my age. And so far, everyone seems cool. I've lived here for four months now... funny that all of a sudden now I'm meeting the people who live so close to me...

Hunger

I'm a different person when I'm hungry.

I think differently. I act differently. I move differently.

Priorities are quickly rearranged. Time is made. Certain obligations cease to exist.

And when I speak of hunger, I speak of hunger as if it was but a desire. A desire for food, for love, for affection, for solitude, for happiness, or perhaps to just be creative.

Hunger drives us, if only for short spurts throughout the day, it does so each and every day of our lives.

There's no ignoring it.

Hunger only grows, and not feeding it can kill a person, in body, heart, and soul.

And feeding that hunger is the best feeling in the world.

Not for nothing

Weeks go by, with each day passing quicker than the previous one. Is it because the sun is staying up longer, the days are getting warmer, winter's finally ending? Or is it because perhaps the worst of life is finally over?

It feels like time can once again resume its normal pace.

How slow the days can drag on when things are so hard and so sad. How difficult it was to imagine not feeling heavy with those thoughts. How hard it was to smile.

And little by little, and day by day, just as I had hoped, I began to forget. New memories made to push the others away from the spotlight. New friends and new laughs. New days and new nights and so much of the old released.

But not all.

Some has stayed; and it has changed me. Like everything else in life, these experiences have changed the way I look at things, at the world, at people, and at me.

Everything is never for nothing.

Life is a never-ending series of lessons to learn... it's our choice to accept or reject them.

Personally, I'm a fan of acceptance; I like to learn new things every day...

My heart named Tyler

One more week under my belt, and again, another lifetime led for a hot minute.

Where have the days gone where I could count on tomorrow?

I'm scared of what tomorrow brings now. Scared that it's to bring more disappointment, more let-down, more emptiness.

The hardest part is realizing that my feelings are borne of my hidden hopes and my sanguine expectations... this is all my doing.

And it's all I try to avoid.

But my heart won't stop making an effort to love, no matter how much I try to stand in its way.

I feel like I'm Edward Norton in Fight Club, and my heart is Tyler Durden. Oh how it sometimes fills me with confidence and make me feel invincible, but when it's not, my heart is my worst adversary.

I'm not about to shoot myself to make my heart named Tyler go away though.

I guess I'll just have to keep letting the weeks come and go, and hope that someday, well, hope that someday my crazy heart will calm down and just be content with me...

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I was last myself....

Two short weeks, and in awe of how little can happen and yet alter so much.

... I'm changed forever.

Two short weeks ago, I tested positive five times to take-home pregnancy tests. With each package I opened I desperately hoped that in five minutes I wouldn't see that second blue line or pink positive sign appear in that second little window. They were always there.

I took blood and urine tests. The results said I had the hormones.

I even had an ultrasound. And there it was. And I couldn't deny it any longer.

And I wanted to keep it... him.. her...

But I didn't. For reasons I accepted, but didn't agree with...

I know it's going to be okay... life is good to me that way... but I just wish that none of this had ever happened...

I am not happy to have had to make the kind of decision I had to make.

Nobody Knows (words by Oren Lavie)

Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in its case

Soon she's down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up

And she fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And she goes...
Nobody knows

Sun been down for days
A winter melody she plays
The thunder makes her contemplate
She hears a noise behind the gate
Perhaps a letter with a dove
Perhaps a stranger she could love

And she fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And she goes...
Nobody knows

And she fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
Where people are pleasantly strange
And counting the change
And she goes...
Nobody knows.

Sweeping up the pieces

I could not help but notice the hairs and socks left round my apartment. Today became the day to clean: the apartment, the mind, the soul.

Hobbling on one foot as I worked my way slowly around the room, picking up memories of these past weeks, I found that it got easier and easier to let go; to let go of the ideas, the hopes, the wild imaginings of a girl who fell in love.

Funny that today is today.

It is my three month anniversary of my return to Paris. Three months, the same exact amount of time he'll be gone. And so much much has happened since my arrival, and I can not even begin to imagine what lies in store for me ahead... Three months. Such a long time. Such an awesomely long time, just enough time to forget about all of this....

Heart and Ankle: Broken

I'm not sure which pain is worse, or which crack was louder, but I do know that I wish I could numb myself from head to toe.

I wish I could erase my memory. Delete the words. Shake the hell out of the fucking etch-a-sketch of life. I want a new path. I need a new direction.

I am stupid when I am in love. And stupidity always leads to getting hurt. Apparently stupidity and taking risks are not greeted by life in the same manner.

We are seemingly rewarded when we take risks; the rewards of traveling to new places, meeting new people, eating new foods, listening and dancing to new music... you take these things away and your live is enriched with their memories. But you do this with love, and you reward yourself with discovering a new person, touching a new body, falling in love with new eyes, becoming vulnerable again... you take these things away, and you're left empty.

And its horrible, how a person can carve out a space like that in a heart, and be thoughtless enough to then vacate it.

Anger is now following the sadness I felt earlier. Later tonight I'm sure to move onto loneliness. In the morning I'll be groggy, and probably put on some music to try to motivate me a little bit.

I know this pain will pass, and this wound will heal. But what I'm not looking forward to in the end is the scar.

On Being a Lover

I am afraid that I have lost track of myself.

I used to be someone led by her heart; a romantic thru and thru. But skepticism seems to have crept up into my veins.

I am fearful of letting myself loose, knowing how far I can go, how much I can bend, how long I can wait, how patient I can be.

I have fallen in love again, and I hate myself for it.

Where have the days gone where I let love cover my eyes and lead me by my hand? So wary of falling down...

As if I loved everything in this world, except for love itself.

The Danger of Withholding Truth

To withhold a certain truth is to play with the 'what if' of life.

It is a dangerous game.

Because truths always surface. And reality can be a bitch.

... such a f*cking bitch.

Time

Time can be nothing, or it can be everything.

Some things thrive with time, others whither and die.

I imagine this is why they call it a test.. the 'test of time'...

And it is a test.

It's like holding your breath
Under water
Whilst swimming laps.

But then, you come up for air. And you look around, and check out how far it is exactly that you've gotten... And no matter the distance, you're usually glad to have at least gotten this far...

I think that in the end, time is most definitely a blessing in disguise.

No matter how much it sucks to hold your breath.

Saint Sulpice

Saint Sulpice is an area in Paris where the unexpected happens.

Scaffoldings have been climbed, Jesus has surfed, and last night I drank with a homeless man.

Rather, he sat at our table as two friends and I shared a bottle of wine. He told us that he was Spanish and an artist.

Neither was true.

He took the waiter's tip from the table, interested himself in the 5 euro bill also sitting on the table, and smoked all three of the cigarettes that we offered him at the get-go. He pretended to cry, told us his life story, sang a song, and by the end of the hour that we all shared the table and drinks, we all hugged goodbye.

Expect the unexpected, and when it comes knocking at your door, greet it with smile, and then let it in.

...Last night was an excellent night.

;)

The Human Condition - Chapter 14

The rain falls lightly outdoors. Not enough for an umbrella, but just enough for the bottom of my pantlegs to find themselves wet.

And here I am in love, but no one knows.

My actions speak louder than my words though, and I know that someday soon the man of my affections will know for sure, if he hasn't figured it out already.

We've agreed to not fully disclose our affections, as he is leaving soon; albeit his return is inevitable, we're still willing to wait until there are no more reasons to say goodbye.

I've never felt so sure of anything, and I know nothing.

We have only our actions, our caresses, our soft words and kisses. And right now, that's all I need.

Gone are the days of constant reassurance, instability, and doubt. Today, and forever more, is for trust, confidence, and belief.

I've spent many a day, month, and year waiting. Time is nothing.

Love is everything.

Three months

What is three months?

A job can be lost, a job can be found.
A book can be read, a movie watched, a long path taken.
A friend can be made, a lover discovered, perhaps a heart that gets broken.
A plant can be grown, an animal born, a clock that keeps on ticking.
People unite, worlds fall apart, spring brings leaves to the trees.
My hair grows longer, a feeling grows stronger, and a heart that only grows fonder.

Lonely nights, they come and go.
They never last forever.

I can wait.
(For you.)

Day 16

Everyday has its little moments.

And each of those moments add up to their days.

This is how time goes by.

In the good moments, when you know you're in the midst of a moment you want to remember forever, how do you make sure you're making the most of it?

The way time slips by these days scares me. So much time, gone. And so much time to come, true, but nothing is guaranteed.

I just hope I can look back someday and be happy with all of the decisions I made along the way, and know that I did my best to make the most of everything, good and bad.

Please, life, don't let me end with any regrets...

Day 5

Expect the unexpected.

Because that is what will always come knocking on your door.

In life, in just one day, people will come and go, circumstances will shift, environments can change...

It's hard sometimes to trust any of it; constantly wondering where it will all lead.

I'm on that path now... feeling a little lost, feeling a little weary...

Ah well, I guess things can only go back up from here...

Happy next 365 days

January first is like a blank page, a clean slate, a 00:00.

It's also a time when we often ask ourselves, "Where have these past 365 taken me, and what's in store now with these upcoming ones?"

We'll know by New Year's Eve 2010.

So until then, I'm just going to keep taking things day by day. (I highly recommend it.)

I hate to plan ahead... it's so much better when life just surprises you along the way....