Travels? Well yes, definitely. Thank you.

So San Diego, huh?
Yep. Freaking wonderful. I came home with my heart full, but unsatiated. My compulsion to travel carried me still (carries me still) and I had another trip already planned.
I had originally intended to travel to Europe with my friend, George, in September.

I JUST REALIZED I HAVEN’T WRITTEN ABOUT EUROPE! HOLY CRAP!
Oh geez… I’m so behind… I can’t believe how negligent I’ve been in writing and keeping this blog up to date. Wow. Okay. I have my work cut out for me. We’ll come back to Europe then, I suppose, and move on to this story. I’ll tell you about it soon, though.

Okay. So I originally intended to travel to Europe with my friend, George, in September. And when this was our plan, I was going to quit my job and drive to Florida in the middle of August with all of my possessions in tow. I’d store my things away at my parents’ house or in a storage unit in town and then jet off with Georgeo after spending a week or two in Orlando finalizing our plans and seeing my folks. Back when we were establishing this timeline, I told Niki, my bestest buddy from California, about it and invited her to fly out to Florida to meet me for the couple of weeks I would be there. She jumped at the chance and I was stunned. I had invited her copious times before and each time she had seemed enthusiastic but had never followed through. I understand, she isn’t a traveler at heart, and her parents are protective of their baby. I was never disappointed really… I think I knew she would make it eventually. So there she was on the other side of the telephone line, telling me she was going to buy her plane ticket in just a few weeks and I was floored!
Over the weeks a few things happened. Mainly two: George’s sister got sick and my Citizenship Application went through.
George’s sister was diagnosed with cancer of the everything, basically, and had to undergo surgery and all sorts of different treatments and George wasn’t sure if she’d be able to pull through. We decided together that he should stay with her, to support her and be with her as much as he could. We decided to postpone our trip until April 2012.
I applied for my American citizenship a few months ago. I figured it was easier to leave the country for a long period of time if I had an American passport to come back with. I didn’t want to run into any hassle at the border pertaining to my residency. Frankly, I never wanted to have to dispute my right to live in the US. Having been raised in the US, I’m more American than Canadian anyway, and I felt that it was time. It was past due, really. So I applied, with no reservations. With both my father and brother being naturalized citizens, I had no doubt my application would be accepted, and I submitted it hoping that my oath appointment would be scheduled before our original departure date in September. It was. They sent me my letter with my appointment set for August 18th. I was thrilled with only one exception. Now that we were postponing Europe, I no longer was going to be driving to Florida that month… and the appointment was in Orlando. So I had to go anyway- might as well make the best of it! I told Niki we were still on and bought myself a plane ticket to save some time and money. I flew out to Florida the day before my appointment, hung out with my brother and his friend Kevin from our childhoods (kind of an unplanned reunion of sorts), got myself naturalized, waved a flag, sang a song, then went on as if nothing had happened save for the almost uncontrollable urge to greet everyone as Citizen. (“Good afternoon, Citizen,” “Excuse me, Citizen,” etc.) I spent about a week lounging around being a good for nothing bum and borrowing my mom’s car to go to see friends in faraway places, and waiting for Niki.
And then there was Niki! We did all the usual tourist type things. We went to Gatorland and SeaWorld. My friend Malyssa, from high school, works at Disney, so she took a group of us, me, Niki, my brother Joseph, and his girlfriend, Jen, and we all did joyous gallivanting in the happiest place on earth all day long. Niki and I did photo booths and Rocky Horror Picture Show and hookah and swimming and exploring and getting drenched in classic Florida torrential downpours and all sorts of other wonderful together things. We spent ourselves utterly and had the most amazing time. She spent only five days or so, and this left just me and my family for the rest of the time. It was fine, we had fun.
My mom has been really well, and it was nice to hang out with her when she was free. My father is still too skinny… thinner now than ever, with hollow cheeks and stick arms. It’s hard for him to drive a lot, and he hadn’t ridden his motorcycle in a long time. He played me an audio track of a story he wrote about me for his Spanish class. We were both sobbing by the end. He was translating as it went along, it was a beautiful story about him talking to the moon about the growing distance between himself and me, his daughter. The moon’s reply was comfort with allusion to the moon’s relationship with her own child, the sun. “Look for me in the morning sky and you’ll understand.” I have the Spanish words. I need to translate them. It was beautiful, and I’m afraid it was some sort of epitaph on our relationship, like he wants me to know that’s how he feels before he dies. It was a nice moment, but was really hard.
My brother… well… he tried, I think. He got cruel toward the end of my stay. He said some really low things that put me out of my mood entirely. I don’t even know if he realizes when he does it. He must. Saying thing like, “you’re so obsessed with yourself,” and “oh well, at least I’m better than you,” can’t be done entirely without awareness, can they?
It doesn’t matter. He’s three thousand or so miles away again, and I don’t have to try to make excuses for him. I love him and I’m proud of him, but I can’t be around him and stay happy so I stay away and I stay happy.
Someone said something to Gretchen the other day, and she told me this yesterday. They said “Auggie only cares about Auggie.” Or something to that effect. That kind of stung a bit. Gretchen replied something like “Auggie takes care of Auggie because no one else will.” And it’s true. But still. I don’t think I’m uncaring toward others in my effort to care for myself. I don’t want to go into some great list of all the things I do for me and what I do for others and try to search for balance… I know I’m a caring person. Just because I don’t fall in love with and marry and have children with any of the guys I hang out with doesn’t mean I’m some sort of bad person. I’m single. I’m dating. That’s not a crime.
I can’t seem to think of any other part of who I am and how I act that what that person said could be referring to… I’m a good person.
Oh well. I’m a good person.
So Florida was beautiful and fun, but when it was over I was ready to leave. Coming back to the cool summer was a huge relief (did I mention it had been AUGUST when I went to FLORIDA!?!?) and I spent the next month trying to save for my trip the next month.
September showed up and brought with it my opportunity to go to Virginia for Spaghettifest and some Jason Mraz goodness. It was a super adventure of wonder and joy, and I think it’s a story for next time.
My friends, I believe we’ve established here some fine points:
I’m a good person (I think)
Niki is soooooooooo great
Myssa rocks my Disney socks
Joseph can be a bit of a prat
I’m trying to be a good person (trying)
I love my Babbo more than he can possibly imagine
FLORIDA SUCKS IN AUGUST
etc.
And also, I love you.

I haven't given up on you, blog! Don't give up on me, either!

I haven't been posting... I am a loozur.
That's not true.
Well... it's true that I haven't been posting. But I'm not so much a loser. I've actually been doing a lot of winning recently. There has been so much going on in my life and it's hard for me to know if it's me or if it's just Bellingham that's building me so.

Well let's start at a good starting point. I've been travelling. A lot. I drove down the coast to San Diego in July. I met my best and longest standing friend, Niki, at her home in San Mateo, and we journeyed down together. I was pressed for time, having been able to take only a week off work, so we only got to spend a day there. But it was an incredible day. I got to spend another perfect day at Twiggs on Park and Madison. I saw Mike. He's one of the people in the world I love so very much. He lives in an apartment above the coffeehouse and spends his days sitting out front, drinking and playing sultry-like on the guitar. He's so careworn and mellow, he inspires me to slow down more often. I wrote him a letter the morning Niki and I left. I told him that I love him. I've never done that before. I've shared love with a lot of people and I've loved a few deeply, but I've never looked someone in the eye and said them in their slightly cliche "three little words" type way. Technically I still haven't, since it was in letter form. But I wrote it. And I meant it. So it counts.
I know I'll never actually be with him, but I don't care. I know it's nice to have love shared with you, and I know how incredible it feels to give love, so I give it freely. I love a lot.
I love San Diego. The corner of Park and Madison, across the street from Mueller College, with painted city fixtures and wholly beautiful people strolling by, stopping to talk, sharing smiles, that corner is my favourite place in the world and it's what heaven must feel like.
I also got to see Chanti and Johnny and I had a fantastic time singing at Mueller after a show there finished and a great group of people gave me some really positive feedback and inspired me to start work on a CD. I got to meet some new friends, particularly Running Cloud, or Dwain, who sends me neverending hugs and pokes on Facebook. It's nice to know someone's thinking of me.
Along the drive home I left some long-distance love messages for some beautiful people from my friend Julz in Maryland. She and I were originally planning on making the west coast trip together; unfortunately her health took a turn for the worse again and she was laying up with some blood clotting problems and needing to focus on some healing, so I made my other plans and decided to work as her love ambassador instead. I went to the Gratitude Cafe in Los Angeles and left love notes for her friend Nikki (("Julz Manlapaz sends you a humongous high-five, via her friend and love messenger, Carolyn, all the way from Maryland xoxoxoxoxo")) and Jon. (("Dear Jon, Your soul sister, Julz Manlapaz, one of the most amazing people I know, sends her love via her gypsy-type friend, Carolyn Della Malva. We love you and everything you are. <3 Julz and Carolyn p.s. I drive the country with love in my heart & blend apparel stickers on my car.")) (Jon is the owner of Blend Apparel, and is another lovely and extraordinary person whom I am looking forward to meeting someday).
Niki and I also stopped in at Jitters in Solana Beach to send a love message to a barista there, Vallie, who was there when we stopped in, so hugs were given in person. Also there for in person hugging was, none other than, Billy! It was so fantstic to run into him. He's such a joy and I love him so! We got to juggle together for a few minutes and he taught me some cool new tricks (none of them I've been able to pull off... but that will come in time, I know) and, when we were leaving, quoted some "red-round pound" from my "I like you, Billy" poem from back in D.C., so that was a huge affirmation for me. Niki and I headed from there to the beach where I wrote a song and she and I forgot about the absence of the ozone layer and found ourselves later turning into walking tomatos. It was definitely worth it.
All in all, San Diego was FREAKING MARVELOUS!
I have a million other things to write about, but for right now I'm giving the computer over to Gretchen, who needs to find a storage unit and an apartment (which is another story in of itself) so I'm closing for now. But I promise, now that I'm not travelling, I'll have more time to write, and write I shall.

Until next time,
I'll be having the best days EVER!
love love love love love Auggie <3

He's so thin these days.
He's so thin.
He sits with his head down on the kitchen table to catch his breath, waiting for strength that hasn't come for years.
When I was a little girl I'd run to him with my arms up. 'Uppy, Babbo uppy!' and he was the strongest man in the world then.
He lies, pale on the sofa, hand on his forehead, fighting nausea and dizziness and the urge to let the rest of his life slip away like it's trying to.
It's trying to.
And it was late once and I had a fever and his cool hand was on my cheek. 'Oh, Honey Bunny' he said.
And now he's leaving me.
This man who made my world. This man who jumped from airplanes he'd later fly, who solved the Rubik's cube
this man who knows every single question to the answers on Jeopardy.
This man, who taught me to turn off lights when I leave rooms and who introduced me to Inigo Montoya for the first time. My Babbo. My Babbo, who can play the boogie woogie song on our baby grand Cary Grant once touched like no one else on earth...
He's leaving me.
Now, I don't really know my grandmothers, though I vow to make that change, and I didn't hear my grandfathers' stories before they passed away
But my babies, one day, will know my daddy's name
They'll know his stupid jokes, they'll know his stories, he's always got a story, they'll know he was the smartest man, I swear he's the smartest man.
I never saw it this way when I was a little girl and everything was possible, expected. I never thought that, IF he's there,
If? What is this word? If he's there, since he limps now, maybe he'll limp me down the aisle one day.
If he's around, since he's getting weaker, maybe he'll be sitting when he first holds his grandbaby.
I told him once, I did, and he nearly spat his soup out his nose, but if I hear he's winding down, I'm getting pregnant THAT DAY because he's meeting his grandchild, DAMN IT, before he leaves me.
But his voice is weaker on the phone
And this distance
Not seeing him
is killing me.

It's like I've been un-stoppered. I'm unstoppable, now.

1
Carolyn was broken
Pieces scattered around her bedroom,
Her bedroom filled so with things
So many things that you couldn't see the bits of her
And she would sit in the piles of the things,
and for hours, cut herself smaller
Smaller, like to disappear.
She had a long name, like in a story, and it felt important
and she wondered if she could be a story like her name
And so she wanted
And so she wanted
And so she was.

2
Emily had a great day once
It started with a nervous breath
and ended in secret,
like a slipping away.
She found colour this day
like it had never existed before
She found autumn leaves on long winding country roads
and fresh salty breezes from snow
over the ocean!
and it bursted
like red from black on white
and she was overwhelmed to say the least
"Throw open your doors," she said "and greet the dawn!"

3
Joan moved away to Colorado
looking for God and the mountains as well
flat tires, coincidence, and lilies in tow
and there's a lot to learn about Joan.
She swam in Karma
she did
and she took it down
and she loved so hard
so hard that it hurt
but it saved her.
And when she would lie at night
and stare at the stars
making wishes
and find herself fraying at the edges
her heart, heavy,
like a water balloon dangling in her chest
she would trace the lines on her skin
and find
pride
and being robbed blind
was nothing
nothing
to tarnish being given a life to live gloriously free.
And so all of her dreams came true.

4
Heather dances always in gypsy dresses at the edges of your vision.
Someone you long to love
she remains elusive
and wonderful
and bright.
Just knowing she's there
makes it irritatingly impossible
to have a bad day.
She lives
in a long distance relationship with the world
and it's appropriate-
she might make unintentional shadows
if she brought her light too close.

5
Augustana dreams of breaking hearts like summer winds
but settles for sculpting love
and edging her toe into the door to music instead.
Dabbler in everything,
master of nothing
and loving every minute of it,
she remembered a girl she knew once,
and meditated on it for a moment

...

6
Carolyn is better
pieces in place
only slightly precarious
like a puzzle you've memorized
it wouldn't take too long to put the pieces back together
should some great earthquake cause it
to fall apart in front of you.
Calm,
save for fits of indescribable joy
which occasionally plague her
she feels love
she is love
and a long name
like honey on a hungry tongue.



Maybe I'll write two songs tomorrow. I think it's possible. If I do then I might just be able to record a CD that's all original music. How freaking fantastic would that be?! It would be rough, really rough. But it's a start. I'm living it up here.
Here:

'Adventure beckons, so they say. "They" merely being me, really. But it does, so I say it. Florida! Despisable swamp, bane of my high school career, accursed wasteland of infestation and traffic hysteria! Oh! How I long to walk your squelching grounds once more! Irony, maybe, that I'm excited to return to a place which once nearly sucked the life out of me through slow, humid suffocation? Perhaps. Mostly just excitement over the anticipated reunion with family and friends I left behind. I'm even excited and hopeful about seeing my brother... curious how a constant stream of indescribable joy can make a person infallibly optimistic.'

There are so many things I want to write about right now.
Like, I want to write about how I finally found the perfect way to hold my hands to give the best applause. But I always forget to take my rings off.
Enthusiastically, I'm getting blisters.
I want to write about how, when I come to poetry night, I watch people's hands as they rustle and tremble, and I wonder if it's palsy or nervousness and, if either, if they'll deny it -- kind of like how my dad won't get hearing aids; but more like how, the first time my brother was behind the wheel with the whole family in the car and we were on our way to the sailboat for the weekend and, when we got to the one-lane bridge and found oncoming traffic, I could have sworn my brother's hands shook the steering wheel, though he insists the steering wheel shook his hands.
I want to write about the boy on Tuesday nights who sings of love and who may just be too young to know that, when he sings about love he creates love and he is love and I love him when he sings.
I want to write about the homeless man who gives me orange things because they make me smile, and how he knows exactly where his children are, but he can't hold them anymore.
I want to write about how I miss the highways, though I love it here, and about that road trip I took and about that night when I made a simple wish for a rest stop and the chance to look at all these stars strewn like diamonds across the sky.
I want to write about how that wish was granted instantly with a point of interest .5 miles: a speech bubble on the road of life bearing a sign which read "On July 16th"... my birthday ... "On July 16th, 1988"...the DAY I was born... "a lighting caused wildfire decimated 15,000 acres of publically and privately owned land HERE..." Imagine, my wish granted by a wildfire which had raged it's first hot breaths even as I had sucked in the firsts of my own: a coincidence so spectacular, I'm still trying to get my breath back. I especially want to write about how I called my mother the next day to tell her she gave birth to a wildfire and her only response was "I know."
I want to write about how my lack of writing these days is due, not to a lack of things to write about, but simply to my lack of things to write on. There is a shortage of paper in my world. I've found my poems won't fit on post-its.
So late the other night I dug through my glove compartment before getting ready to make my bed and found, dusty and abandoned, this scrap of paper, having lain untouched for ten thousand miles, it holds the promise of catharsis...
But then, there are just so many things I want to write about right now...

Higher Dimensions of Love

I feel sorry that other people know my family so much better than I do. I know that all I would really have to do is be close to them in order to be closer to them, yet I find that so difficult to manage. I wish we had never moved to Los Angeles. I wonder what my life may have been like had we lived in Canada my entire life.

My name is Carolyn Emily Della Malva and I am 22 years old. I started to play the violin when I was a child, like my cousins did. I am an artist and a musician, although I focus my attention more than anything on my education. I have my bachelor's degree in Biology and am studying to become a veterinarian. I have a boyfriend and our relationship is strong and healthy. We are talking about getting married one day. I want to be married in the church where my parents were married.
My closest two friends are my cousins Calan and Leila. Although we cannot be together as often as when we were younger, we still see each other at special events, like when Leila sang at her recital, and every chance we get to see The Lucky Machetes in action.
I'm very close with my Aunts, Paola on my Father's side, and Catherine on my Mother's side. They've helped to shape me into the strong and confident woman that I am. I see them and my other extended family as often as I possibly can. I never forget a birthday.
In my future, I forsee myself getting my PH.D. in Veterinary Medicine and getting a job as a vet in the clinic where I already work as a tech. I see myself getting married to the man I love and taking our mentioned honeymoon around Europe and Asia together. We are both in love with India, and we have my Auntie Catherine's advice on when and where to go when we get the time. I've already travelled to Africa with my cousin Sara to aid the children in Burkina Fasso, and we're planning a trip back again within the next few years.
My brother and I get along. He is supportive of my art and my work. We write songs together sometimes when we have the time to get together.
I'm happy and stable and, to be honest, a bit sheltered and naive. I have never had to worry about where I would be sleeping or where I would find food. I believe that people are good, and I have high expectations. I respect myself in every way and I'm proud to be where I am.
I hope to someday go skydiving.

I typed the sentence "I have a pet dog, a maltese." and that's where I stopped myself. I couldn't go on. I know that, even if we had never moved, we probably would have ended up with a maltese because of my persistent love of animals, and my brother's and my own allergies to dander. But I realized that we would have gone to a different breeder, and wouldn't have ever had our Prince. And when we went to get a companion for this dog, we would have gone to yet another different breeder and wouldn't have ever had our Duchess. No Duchess. That would mean that Duchess would have been adopted by someone else. I can't deal with the thought of it. Maybe, yes, she may have gone to someone who would have loved her as much as I love her... but maybe, just maybe she wouldn't have. I can't bear to imagine someone hurting her or ignoring her or anything of the like. I can't.
So my little fantasy world blinked out of existence that quickly.

I know that my life has been, and will continue to be, less than perfect; but it has led me to where I am today. My life has brought to me the friends and the loved ones that are in my life and who have helped to shape me into the person that I am. Who am I to say what my life would be like had we never left Canada. I have no way of knowing that it would be so much better. I watched the explanation of the ten dimensions on YouTube again yesterday night. Today I saw a short video about a man who claims to have gone briefly to the future and pleasantly met himself. Maybe, in one of the infinite possible parallel universes which could exist, mirrorring our own, my character lives a pristine life. However, I know there are probably a million scenarios of an equal or lesser fate for my parallel self for every one positive or seemingly perfect selfs I can imagine. I am here, now, with this past and this present, ever enclosing on my influenced future, because that is where I was meant to be.
I
I am here now, and for all the horrors of this world, to have suffered as comparably little as I have; for that I am lucky and I am grateful... and I am proud.

My name is Carolyn Emily Joan Heather Augustana Della Malva, and I hope, one day, to be closer to my extended family. In the meantime, I am living my life to the best of my ability. I am stubborn and I am strong and I refuse to let myself be unhappy. I therefore do whatever I have to do to make sure that I live with no regrets and with no unfulfilled ambitions. So when I say that I hope to one day be closer to my extended family, I mean that one day, it will happen. It will happen.

I love copiously, and I strive to spread that feeling.

Maiyana said "Thank you." today, and hugged me. And I could feel that she meant it. And the hugs of Mason and Imani were just as genuine. I made a difference here. A small one, maybe, but a difference nonetheless.
I reached out and gave encouragement.
I was love.
I still am.
I always will be
<3

Acceptance and Moving On

You know, I think we had a good talk just now. You think that I'm broken and that you know how to fix me. You give me tips.
I know that I'm broken, but I'm happy anyway, and I've already done everything that you suggest. You refuse to admit that what I've done is the same as what you suggested I should do.
I think, after having our conversation, and you ending it with the simple dismissal that I wasn't ready to have that talk yet, you really just showed me that you're broken, too. But you're unhappy. So you're trying to fix me in hopes of fixing yourself, however subconsciously.
I know that I can't move around forever, but moving around is what I want to do right now. I even made a list. And I'm not going to stop until I've checked off every item on that list. Not just because it's something to do, either, but to prove to myself that I can finish a task I've started.
You said I have to face my fears, but I have so many fears, I have to face them one at a time. There's no possible way I could face them all at once.
I was afraid to be away from home.
Now I'm not even afraid to be homeless.
I was afraid to fall.
Now I'm not even afraid to jump.
I was afraid to be lost.
Now I'm not even afraid to have no destination.
I was afraid to be alone.
Now I'm not even afraid to pick up and leave.

Now I'm afraid to get too close to people,
but I have friends all over the country whom I love and who love me. I have boundaries now which I never had before. I once let people walk all over me and mistook it for affection. I'm wiser now- and so with that wisdom came distance.
This distance is the phase I know I'll get over one day. One day I'll fall in love with someone who loves me back and I'll open my heart- but not before I've found a person who can truly compliment everything I am. One day I'll find a place where I feel at home again; where driving the same streets to work everyday won't get boring and I'll no longer feel burning curiosity as to what lies beyond the horizon. When I've seen the world and found the place where I belong, then and only then will I stop moving around. You know why? Because I finally discovered my own worth, and I'm worth the best of everything. I deserve to live in the perfect place. I deserve to have the best friends. I deserve to be loved wholly and entirely. I will not settle for less.
This is my fear: to settle for less than I am worth.
I feel like it's a decent fear to have, and one which everyone should embrace. If there's one thing I feel people should be terrified of, it's leaving life un-lived.

So far, I am proud of what I have accomplished. I've battled and beaten down depression without the numbing facade of pills. I've overcome addiction and have fought through cravings and won. I've broken bad habits. I've made plans and stuck to them. I've been through hard times and come out stronger. I've made new best friends in every corner of the country. I've fallen in love too many times to count. Most importantly, I've learned how to love mySELF.

I'm sorry that you feel as though you are fighting a losing battle to "fix" me. The thing you must realize is that you cannot fix anyone but yourself. I may be broken, but I've been piecing myself back together for so long that it won't be too long until I'm all together and shining like new. My cracked frame in the mirror does not scare me.
Like I said, I love myself, even broken as I am.

I'm sorry that you feel as though I have to fix her, too. I can't do that. Only she can. I tried to fix her for a long time and I only ended up hurting both of us. All you can do is let go. Move on.

You think I ignore the worse sides of me, that I cover my scars or am ashamed of them. I wish I could tell you just how wrong you are. There is a conversation I must have with our parents first, I wouldn't want them to hear any other way. Perhaps this is incentive. My scars are the foundation of my life. They helped to shape me into the beautiful, wonderful person I am today, and I am so proud to bear them.

I wish you were easier to talk to. I wish you wouldn't judge me so much. You don't think that you do... but you do. I think there's a lot you deny about yourself. I hope that you find yourself. I want you to be happy. I want that even more than I want you to be proud of me. I realize now that I want you to love and accept yourself so much more than I want you to love and accept me.

Unfortunately, this is a conversation that you're not ready to have with me. You get so defensive and angry so fast- so quick to point blame and boast superior knowledge. Your ego gets in the way of our relationship.
It's okay.
One day maybe you'll read this and realize that I don't need you to help me find myself. I know who I am. Like I said. I know exactly who I am, I just don't know where I'm going.

And I'm okay with that. You should be, too.
But you won't be, not yet. You'll read this a shake your head. You'll click your tongue and think to yourself how naive I am, how lost- and without even realizing it. You'll want to shake me, you'll be so frustrated. You'll want to yell that I'm destroying my life, that I'll end up just like Nonna, lost and hopeless.

What you can't understand is that I'm happier than I've ever been. I've found the secret to sustainable personal happiness. You think it'll end and I'll be miserable, but I've already been miserable and pulled myself out of it once, I can do it again. I have faith in myself. I intend to be happy until the day I die, whenever that may be. I think I finally have my priorities just right, and with every word I type, I grow more confident in that fact. I move around the country because I want to see it, and a few years ago I decided that you can't get the feel for an area in a day or a week. You have to live there, experience the day to day and get to know people in order to truly understand it. So instead of a road trip in which I would visit every state, I devised a longer trip. At least three months in each area. So that's what I'm doing, and it's been the adventure of a lifetime. I'm almost finished, too:
Washington, New Hampshire, Canada, and Italy. These are the places I want to live, now, while I'm young.
I'll drive a truck to save up money to get across the ocean. I'll live in our house in Italy, figuring something out for work, I'll know Italian by then so it'll be easier. I'll travel Europe from there on week-long trips or something. From there, if I choose to, I'll make my way East to India and Bangladesh. Maybe I'll end up in Japan and Australia. But I have my whole life to visit those places... I'm not too desperate to get there immediately.
Canada will be beautiful. I'll probably be there for at least a year. I want to experience every season. Something in me tells me I might end up there in the long run. That doesn't scare me at all. And at the same time, my whole life is open to rapid change and random planning, which makes me even happier.

I am so happy.

I'm happy to the point that, even when I get sad, I'm happy about it, because I love my ability to feel emotion. I feel so strongly and it's one of my best qualities.

I feel such love for you, and I feel such sorrow that you can't be happy for me in my happiness because you can't understand it.

I hope so strongly that changes, but even if it doesn't I'll still love you

and be happy.

Slow Down Feel Love

My Lily-face made it through sugery splendidly. I am so ridiculously relieved. It will be a long two weeks of healing now, and hoping she doesn't pick out any of her stitches, but I am so hopeful. : )

Tomorrow will be another day for writing. I intend to send out a package to my parents and one to my friends in North Carolina, both including love notes. I also intend to write a belated birthday letter to my sponsored child, Mostakin, congratulating him on turning nine years old.

I’m hoping to be able to finish my yoga sculpture tomorrow, and to be able to do more studying of the Italian language. I’ll be working on the chapter about introducing yourself and talking about where you come from. I’ve mastered everything up to there, I just need to take time out to proceed. I’ll be spending all day listening to the Makepeace Brothers, and soaking in their love and sincerity.

I also plan on donating blood and cleaning my room… but we’ll see where that goes, haha.

In the mean time, I’ll be writing.


Last night I had a sudden revelation, spurred by Stumble Upon, my latest resource for inspiration and beauty. I can spend hours stumbling from webpage to webpage, finding everything- ingenuity, music, art, beauty, community, and culture. Last night, Stumble Upon showed me something that wrenched me open, and let everything I didn’t know I was holding in way out into the open. It was a video, set to emotional music, of a cat trying to revive its dead friend. You could clearly see its confusion and distress, and from the moment it started, my heart began to break. I thought about stumbling away, but I couldn’t. It would have been wrong to. You can’t just look away from the suffering in the world and pretend it doesn’t exist, then walk around like you understand it all… you have to let it in, you have to experience it; otherwise you’re just numb and naive. A minute into the video I was crying. By the end, I was sobbing uncontrollably. The worry of the past few days for the comfort and health of my rat, Lily, which I had assumed I had overcome, came bubbling back to the surface, bringing with it all of the loss I had ever felt in my life. I relived the deaths of every single person and animal I had loved with emotion just as raw, feeling the desperation, the misery, and the hopelessness to help. The guilt. Then, beyond that, I felt the loss and devastation of the whole world. I felt every person affected by death, starvation, humiliation, and suffering; and I wept for all of it.

Then, suddenly, gasping for breath and wracked with sobs, tears soaking my face and shirt, I sat up. A realization struck me. This, that I was feeling, was love. Not romantic, heart-fluttery, butterfly-stomached love. No, this was unabashed, untainted, pure, all-encompassing LOVE. This was the love of the entire universe that I was feeling. It is impossible to feel grief without first feeling love, and in that moment I could feel the underlying magnitude of all the love existing within every single living thing all over the world. And my capacity to embrace this love, I then realized, was the evidence of my connection to all of it.

There is a type of tree, a Quaking Aspen called Pando, which appears on the surface to be a forest of trees. However, if you look under the line of soil, there is, in fact, only one root system. These trees that look as though they are simply standing near to each other, are actually just appendages of one SINGLE plant. They are all connected.

They are ONE.



As are WE. Our root system is LOVE. We may appear to be alone in our lives, moving from one place to another, unaffected by those around us, but in reality we are surrounded by love. And like that plant, if one of us is affected, it can be felt by others very far away.

Yesterday I felt all of it, and it was a beautiful and affirming thing. It was the exact experience that I needed to help me cope with feelings I’ve been holding onto. Sorrow is such a tricky thing, it can follow you at such a distance that you believe it to be gone entirely, until the day it pops up out of nowhere to overwhelm you. My guilt, over so much of the loss in my past, is one of those types of sorrow. But now I know that the only thing that keeps it tethered to me, following so resolutely, is love.

For one example, I still feel so guilty for what happened to my little kitten, Eve- something that I know deep down was just an unfortunate accident. I realize now that the reason this guilt will never leave me is that I still love her. I will always love her, even though she has been gone for longer than she was ever here, I loved her as much today as I loved her when I held her in my hands the day she died. And now, despite the pain I may occasionally feel, I am so immensely grateful for my capacity to love so enduringly, and my grief and my guilt and my sorrow are all constant reminders of my beautiful capacity to LOVE.

I love with such a passion, it sometimes takes my breath away. Last night, I realized that I love so much more strongly than I thought possible. Today I love even more. My heart bursts with it, and I give it freely. Take as much as you need. I love you, so.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)

Love for My Lily-Face

I’m on the verge of tears tonight, weighed down with worry and memory. Just less than two and a half years ago, my sweet baby Delilah was lost to a battle with a facial tumor. She was just a rat.

No.

She was a friend, a comfort, a confidant, a companion, a ceaseless fountain on love and support. She loved me unconditionally and she was torn from me violently over a three week period after a three year friendship. She suffered and I can’t help but blame myself. I feel like I let her down. I have let down so many…

It was a tornado of events even before she got sick. I was homeless for the first time. Ashamed and beaten, I was already planning on going home. I then lost my store as well as I discovered that my manager didn’t like me and was transferring me out. During a nearly shattering blow to my recently built up image of my own self-worth, then a careful period of reinforcement, both at subsequent music venues, I also had to deal with the falseness of a supposed good friend, and the heavenly appearance of a new friend. Then- tragedy, my Delilah was torn from me unceremoniously. I didn’t even have anywhere to bury her. And, as if I didn’t have enough on my plate, just days later, the car accident that sent me packing, spirit broken, tail between my legs. I’ve never been as shaken as I was that night in the Arby’s parking lot with my bags over my shoulders, tow-truck disappearing in the distance, and no one answering on the other line of my desperately punched phone numbers. I couldn’t stop myself from letting go the wrenching sobs born in my chest. I have never been so low.

Now, two and a half years later, the scars still run deep. I don’t notice them until moments like these. When I brought my Delilah into the vet after first noticing the tumor on her cheek, they were confident that surgery to remove the mass would be a successful solution to our problem. They were very very wrong.

I have to bring my sweet Lily-face, dear friend for the past year and a half, to the vet in eight hours. She has a mammary tumor larger than a tangerine and the vet said she was confident that surgery to remove the mass will be successful. Logically she’s right. The tumor is run of the mill. It is most likely benign, as most rats’ mammary tumors are, and there is no evidence of any other tumors growing in any other region of her body. The tumor does not seem to have infiltrated her chest cavity, and will most likely take half an hour to remove at most.

Nevertheless, I feel a deep seeded sense of impending doom. I am terrified to the pit of my being. I can’t sleep, my stomach churns, my hands shake. I am reliving every single moment of those months I spent in Phoenix, the rollercoaster ride of emotions, the loss. I miss Delilah too much to express, and I worry even more for the safety of my baby, Lily. There are so many things that can go wrong, and there are so many loved ones that I have lost tragically and unexpectedly: My Nonno, My Grandpa, Prince, Eve, Tulip, Spunky, Delilah, Thumper, Shamu, Steve. There is no line for me that separates family from friends from animals from strangers. For me, love is love, and I love with undeniable, undying passion.

I love Lily.

I am so scared.

Like Language

Music is like a language that I can understand perfectly, but that I cannot speak. It is so frustrating to hear a wonderful conversation that I cannot join. The language I speak is one of a different dimension. I speak the language of subtle curves in the fabric of space. I speak a language of patient silence and aching back muscles, of frustration and repetition and bandaged fingertips. I speak the language of sculpture, and for this I am grateful.
But the only language I have ever truly wanted to know has always been music. I want so badly to let beautiful sounds erupt from my throat and melodies to strum their way from my fingertips. I’ve wanted to add bits of myself to a drum circle or an open mic night, to make people’s toes tap and lips curl upward as their voices rise alongside my own. I have always wanted to stand alone before ten thousand people and to share a melody with each and every one of them, as personal as if we were soul mates.
The language of sculpture has the ability to tell beautiful stories and to withstand the tests of time; even to affect the masses among the best of us- yet it is quite a solitary song, to be sung alone and viewed alone and interpreted alone. It is a wonderful thing that I have and I want so badly to appreciate it fully, but I cannot help but feel as though I am missing one of my senses, and the world is incomplete.
Maybe I’ll learn to sculpt music, and then I’ll be whole. Until then I’ll listen and dream.