the lone man

Today
I saw an old man, alone,
Outside the coffee shop
Waiting patiently for his ride
Wearing a scruffy white beard,
Hospital socks layered over
Compression socks, no shoes,
And a peaceful expression.

He was strange and beautiful.
He radiated contentment.
The tears welled in my eyes
As I realized

There are a thousand ways to be happy.

a thought on time

Don't always think of time as the bad guy. Time is kind to us. Time is the inescapable companion that we fail to appreciate because its synonymous with the familiarity of everyday life. It's always with us, beside us, around us, keeping pace with us, watching out for us, reminding us that this too shall pass. We will not be in one place forever. Time does not allow that. Time is shifting and changing and making us new over and over again, unceasingly, relentlessly, lovingly. And for that, I adore time. I love how faithful and merciful it is to us. I love its devotion to us. It's on an endless pursuit to heal us. And it has no distinct reasoning to do so. It just does.

Wild life

What are we?
What are we when we look up at the clouds?
What are we when we are in the clouds?
What are we when we sleep in the clouds - as I am tonight?

As for this moment,
as I write this,
I feel their wondrous, wispy wind
whip my back
as I sit and wait for the sun to retire
behind the mountain I observe.

Today
I am refreshed
with the realization
that it's a wild, wild life
that we live.

Who are you?
What are you becoming?

Who am I?
What am I becoming?

You can't question the
mystery of death
without questioning the
mystery of life.

What are we all becoming?
Is death the climax?
The peak at which
we have reached our destiny?
At which we have reached
what we will all become?

Or do we continue becoming,
continue shaping and changing,
always learning, even after
we have passed on?

If so, the question remains:
What are we becoming,
the living and the dead,
the total of all the beings
that are in (were in) existence?

Answer.
We are becoming beautiful.

you work is not
your work,

your life is
your work.

make it meaningful
and beautiful
and true.

My Becoming

Listen to your favorite song on repeat, over and over, until you are absolutely repulsed by the sound of it

Get really drunk on the porch of your childhood home with two of your best friends and speak true, kind words to one another, the ones that are hard to say

Look into the eyes of the old people you love so dearly, give them your love and feel their love in return, and do not question the origin of this love, just feel it

Read a book, about half the book, find the words that you needed to hear from it, the words that you were searching for in the first place, then find a new one

Kiss the cute boy that you know will never adore you as much as you adore him, and know this truth and be okay with it, but still kiss

Visit your dead father’s grave and lay and cry beside it as you watch the clouds, knowing his presence surrounds you, somehow, in some beautifully mysterious way

Dance, do not stop dancing, do not stop singing to yourself alone in your bedroom, and never turn the music down, only louder

Love God fully, not quite knowing how and why you love this God you feel so near to you, but love wholeheartedly, nonetheless

Sit on that beat-up lawn chair that you’ve so often sat before, and stare into the backyard, mind endlessly drifting, rejuvenating

Look at your teeny tiny dog, this small, gently creature, and know that it has a soul, and it holds some sort of truth that is overlooked by humans, which may be the simple truth of absolute loyalty

Fall madly in love with almost all people, with no explanation why, other than you just really, really like who they are

Hold your best friends hand during hard moments in your life, wordless, but saying so much, like how much you appreciate all the years of friendship and laughter and love

Write these absurd and true thoughts in your journal that maybe only make sense to you, but realize that this is okay, because they help you explain the world

Sit in the local coffee shop and watch boys, and wonder about boys and the kind of boys you like, and if you even like boys enough to potentially love one for the rest of your life

Cry over things and people that were lost until you’re left with absolute desperation that’s oddly infused with this peculiar feeling of hope and love that only accompanies brokenness

Observe modern art and realize that you indeed do not like modern art as much as you’d like to like to, because it’s what all the hip and misunderstood people like, just keep disliking it

Wear clothes that make you feel happy, style your hair in ways that express how you feel, and never, ever, stop standing in the mirror quoting Sylvia Plath, “…wondering always who am I? Who is this girl I hear talking?”

Live by the words of people that have once lived, or still live, these inspirational, heartbreaking, lovely words that you tape in your room, in your car and feel understood when you read them

Unceasingly strive to know yourself deeper, to be kinder, to feel alive and well and destroyed and in despair and beautiful and broken and whole and everything in between

And never stop being who you are.

This is what I would tell my twenty-year old self.

This is my becoming. 

just another thought

the beach

I spent today at the beach. And I found that there's something beautifully refreshing about lying in the sun too long and thinking too much. Here are a few of my thoughts that I felt were noteworthy enough to write down. They are scattered, simple, and straightforward... And they mean a great deal to me.


*Random kindness. Is there anything greater than random kindness? I think not.

*We are so much a product of everything that it becomes easy to believe that we're nothing... irrelevant, unimportant..
But you, my dear, you have been made up of beautiful virtues, you are a completely unique contribution to human existence,
and you must always, always remember how important you are.

*When did it become so important to look beautiful?
Do you feel beautiful?
If so, you are.

*My strivation to know God has taken me on a new path.
The path is neither right nor wrong.
It is simply necessary.

*Some things we learn.
Some things we just know.

just another soap box

When I sit and ponder, I realize that life truly does not require much. We make it about a whole bunch of things that it doesn't have to be about. Is the whole premise of life not to simply love and be loved? To feel beloved, to feel down, to feel alone, afraid, beautiful, full of light. to feel full of everything life has to offer?
When did the purpose of feeling ever defer from feeling purely to feel?- To feel to know we're alive and we're here, existing? Because life boils down to simple concepts. And a whole bunch of other shit gets unnecessarily thrown into the mix,, like money, like acceptance, like how society says we have to be a certain way. Life does not say we have to adhere to these things. The world and its inhabitants say we have to.
Have you ever thought that maybe we live to live, love to love, and felt to feel? With no hidden agenda?  No secret, selfish reasoning up your sleeve, no hidden plot devised to get what you want? That we lived for clear reasons, clear intentions? But society seems to get in the way of this.
And, yes, I can preach and preach, and think and think, and give myself the mental satisfaction of believing that I have this life thing figured out, but the key is implementation,
A driving, important thought that is not implemented is a sad thought. Where does it go besides hover in the mind of the thinker, constantly nagging, daring to be exposed, to change the world, yet we push these daring thoughts back, afraid of what the world will say?
Well, sweetie, what does it matter what the world and its inhabitants say? We surrender to life and life only, not this world, Because life is daring, And the world is cowardly.

So, give in to life, let it take you where it takes you. And live.


*semi-inspired by the following quote by Cheryl Strayed:
“You have to pay your own electric bill. 
You have to be kind. 
You have to give it all you got. 
You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. 

But that's all.”

memorable quote by Cheryl Strayed

here's a quote that I once loved, forgot about, & then fell in love with it again upon rediscovering it: 

"You don't have a right to the cards you believe

you should have been dealt with. 

You have an obligation to play the hell

out of the ones you're holding 

and my dear one, you and I have been granted a 

mighty and generous one." 

I'll ask you a question

a challenging, perplexing,
absurd question...

Do you like yourself?

and if the answer rings "no",
what can you do to change that?

Words worth sharing:

Flight

I looked over and we were in the clouds-

249 others sat with me.   

And we were floating, ascending,

keeping pace with the fluffy masses,

billowing white and brilliant and beautiful. 

And we were together but apart.

And we were everything but nothing.

And we were frail and human, 

peering down upon the rows of

civilization that we humans have created,

with eyes entranced by the blue, 

the blue everywhere! shimmering 

a bright, brilliant hue, this seemingly 

endless blue, boastful and bewildering,

a proud blue, a true blue, 

the truest blue that the eye can see,

all the while, a mind filled with wonder,

wondering about the peculiarity of 

this transparent gas that we deem "air" 

that keeps us alive and afloat,

this substance unseen, yet sustaining,

essential, accessible, monumental..

thoughts racing wildly, thinking, the overarching theme:

We Are So Very Tiny. 

the someone I'd like to meet

someone who lives a little life 

and is content with their little life 

yet they also know

that their little life 

makes a big impact 

on others' little lives 

thus creating this intertwined,

little-big world in which we are

constantly giving and taking,

walking and talking, making a 

bigger impact than any of us

could have imagined...

someone like that. 

Is this what it's like to be enlightened?

I am so very full of life today..

so very full of everything,

of everyone, of everything

that has been, is, and will be. 

I am floating. 

I am apart from myself. 

I am disembodied,

but so very connected. 

I am either extremely caffeinated 

or extremely enlightened. 

I am sitting here, contemplating..

how can I keep this feeling 

from escaping me?

Because it will escape,

it always does,

moments like these are fleeting. 

Life gets in the way,

always, because it's obligated 

to go on,

the same way we're obligated

to shift and change with it.

But, now,

here in the present,

in this time of my existence,

this feeling is mine.

And I will hold on to it

for as long as 

God has permitted. 

humans

we're humans.
how can we not
relate to one another?

we share primitive traits,
primal traits.
we are all one another-
inevitably interlaced
by our frail humanity.

we all exist.
we all take in air, expel air.
our food is digesting,
our hearts are pumping,
our eyes are wandering,
our minds are racing,
our hands are discovering,

and we're all searching,
searching, unceasingly searching
for the place we exist fully,
for the place we breathe most freely.
for the place we belong.

so let us humans
attune ourselves to the
homogeneity among us

and let us create this place
that we're searching for
together.

To feel

You don't have to think deep, philosophical thoughts to feel.

Sometimes you just feel. 

You just feel because you're a human,

And us humans are gifted with this frail, beautiful humanity that cannot be spoken of, only felt. 

And just feeling is the truest form of feeling.

It comes from within, from a place where language is irrelevant.  

It comes from the heart. 

This may be ridiculously simplified and equally naive, but it makes sense in my mind. 

We are fully loved, 

fully known,

and fully understood 

by only One Power.

That Power is Love. 

Now, Love can take on many forms;

Love presents itself to us in

mysterious ways,

beautiful ways...

Love puts on skin in 8 billion different life forms. 

Love walks the Earth with four legs.

Love ruffles our hair when we step outside. 

Love blooms bright in the Spring, and neutral in the Fall.

But amidst all the various ways in which this Power, Love, reveals itself to us, 

we must remember the source from which it came...

This source is inexplicable, but it manifests itself so fully in our hearts. At the core of our being, in the very essence of ourselves, lies this Love. Even if we don't consciously recognize it residing in us, Love is always there within us, guiding us, fighting for us, cheering for us... 

And just because no human can explain the transcendence of this Love (although we try), does that make it any less real? Do we feel it any less because we can't explain it? 

So it is with my understanding of God. 

You mustn't forget

that you are on your own journey.

Please don't let yourself be consumed

by the weight of The World. 

"But there's so much to be done." 

Yes, this is true,

but it is necessary to make space

for the serendipitous moments - 

the unplanned meetings, laughs, conversations 

that change the course of our day

(the course of our lifetime). 

So,

allow yourself to be carried away 

by the uplifting breeze 

of the unexpected. 

I recently rediscovered Sylvia Plath's journal, which I had begun to read last year but never finished (because sometimes life gets in the way like that). But I love when this happens.. I love when I forget about something that I once enjoyed. It gives me the opportunity to fall in love with it all over again.

I deeply admire Sylvia Plath. This woman had beautiful, meaningful, intellectual, and introspective thoughts. 

Here's one:

"God, how I love it all. And who am I, God-whom-I-don't-believe-in? God-who-is-my-alter-ego? Suddenly the turn table switches to a higher speed, and in the whizzing that ensues I lose track of my identity. I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, "Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago?... What would she think of me now?" And I remember vaguely Tolstoy's argument about fate and inevitability and free will. As an act recedes into the past and becomes imbedded in the network of one's individuality it seems more and more a product of fate -- inevitable. However, an act in the immediate present seems to be more a product of free will."

Beautiful quote in the Indianapolis Public Library 

How many times
have I sat here,
alive,
and wondered
what it would feel like
to not be alive?

Why do I waste my aliveness,
as limited as it is,
in this way?
Why do I waste this precious breath,
this precious, continuous
beating of the heart,
pondering what I will be like
without it?

Answer.

Because my mind has an
unquenchable desire
to know
what is can not know..

and this is my demise.

a rant on a sunny day

We mustn't forget about the little things.. The small bouts that bring joy, bliss, contentment: glancing up at the clouds and filling with wonder, a warm, fresh spring breeze emerging from a long winter, the tender touch of a caring friend, a lover...
But we do inevitably forget the little things. We're human - we get caught up and worked up in the sweep of the day. But, when we do forget the little things, when we are preoccupied with our countless, stressful thoughts and endless to-do lists, we can remember the big things, the indispensable things: we have working  lungs that are receiving air and keeping us alive, we are existing and moving, and we can make it through this day with the promise of a new sunrise tomorrow.
Gratitude for the big things is indeed just as important as gratitude for the little things.
And some days, when both the big and little things have bypassed our minds, when we're having "one of those days" with no rest, no true breath, no stopping and recognizing the day as a gift, we can hang on to the ultimate hope, the greatest thing of them all...
That we are here, we are aware, and we are beloved to the earth. And nothing can take that from us.

TRUST

I desire to understand people. I desire to know why people do what they do (why I do what I do). I desire to know the origin of people: why we were placed here in this allotted time in history, surrounded by certain people, carrying out individual plans, goals...
I desire to understand the meaning, the purpose, of my two feet upon earth. Where were they meant to take me? Will I make any sort of a difference?

I desire to understand all the facets of life that I can never understand, the ones that only God understands - and this is where trust plays in,..

To trust in the unknown, to surrender to the power of fate, and to be madly in love with the mystery of it all.

I am

in love

with the 

idea of

being free.

Now,

I must be. 

Have you seen the film Dead Poets Society?
This beautiful & inspiring film introduced me
to this following poem by Walt Whitman:


O Me! O Life!

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.


(And what will your verse be?)

you can gain all the knowledge

you desire,

but what good is knowledge 

of you do not apply?

and what good is applying

if you do not feel?

and what good is feeling

if you do not love? 

"Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic."
- Norman Cousins


Tell me - how is it logical for the human being to live with joy, with fervor, with whimsy, and to simultaneously know that we will one day be ripped from the only home we've ever known by death?

Is this not an incredibly somber and discouraging thought? What the hell sense does that make? What's the point? If, on an unforeseen day, we will all be gone, why work toward anything? Why ask the big questions if the end result is always the same? Why spend time loving and knowing others if we will be heartbroken when they're gone?

Insert hope.

Hope dispels logic. Hope tells logic, "no - you're the concept that doesn't make any sense, and if you did make sense, who would even care about making sense?" Hope is perplexing and wild. Hope is present in the morning sun, in the smile of the passerby, in taking a breath and knowing that your lungs are still providing your body with existence.

Hope resides in a realm separate from logic. Why? Logic attempts to explain, hope succeeds in disproving. Hope, time and time again, has guided the human out of desperate and tragic circumstances. Hope indeed disproves us - when we are so very convinced that we can not go on, hope is the gentle nudge, the faint reminder that there's still a lot of life yet to be known, and so much more to discover; and yes, we can go on because hope reminds us of our inertly curious will to exist, to be alive.

Hope can not be explained with words, only felt. Hope has no equation, nor fancy theories. Hope has no end, no beginning, and no limit.

Hope simply is
and always will be.

I am me -
the only me
that will ever be.

and to be me
is to be free
and to be free
is to be me,

so let yourself be,
embrace your me,
and set yourself free.


*this poem was semi-inspired by these words by Oliver Sacks:

"There will be no one like us when we are gone,
but then there is no one like anyone else, ever.
When people die, they cannot be replaced.
They leave holes that cannot be filled,
for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate -
of every human being to be a unique individual,
to find his own path, to live his own life,
to die how own death,"

Leo

Learn your limitations as a human

And then push past them.

You won't get far, it's true, 

But you make magnificent gains

When you muster the courage to question 

The origins of your being. 

We can only know

That we know nothing. 

And in knowing nothing, 

We really know something. 

And in knowing something, 

We indeed know everything.

To admit that you know nothing

Is to discover everything-

And this is the highest degree 

Of human wisdom.

time

it's becoming easier to think of you, now.
 time does something beautiful like that -

while we're constantly concerning ourselves
with the tedious tasks of everyday living,
time never stops moving.
and what's funny is that we forget
that time is indeed moving along with us
as we walk the path of our day, our week.
and then we have these breakthrough moments
in which we remember:
"has it really been a month, a year, a decade?"
and we realize that the hard things
have become a little less burdensome.

that's what I love about time.
It heals without us even knowing.

Today is new.
There is no other like today -

this day, this blank slate,
this unwritten page in the book
of my existence, this breath of
fresh air, this 7,489th day
of breath, of movement, of life...

And today,
I will live.