2

2, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

I'm going to be dramatic tonight and post my blog with a picture of mud. Take that artistic representation of my emotions. haha. ahh..shit man. Seriously though things are pretty much exactly where they have been at the last time I had a bad night and wrote something on here. I suppose there is a bit of a pattern here - I only write when I am down and I need an outlet. It isn't a fair representation of my life, I suppose it doesn't have to. I don't write when I see extreme beauty or have a calm happy night .

The day I took my latest set of photos in the woods behind my home I was having a remarkable day (http://www.flickr.com/photos/23281332@N05/ ). You could feel the coolness on your skin, damp and good, reminding one that you were alive. My dog was being adorable, popping in and out of sight but always trotting back to me excitedly when I would call out her name in my little yodel. I felt so wide open. But now I feel heavy, aching, tired, and those eyes that seemed so clear and bright have been weighed down with welling tears for the past few hours.

I think I have said before that the tears come and go. I keep running away from the realities of my family so every now and then it catches up with me and pulls me under. I haven't been getting far as of late.

My mother looked like a different person two days ago because of how swollen her face was but today I got her eating again. I am thankful they still want to continue on with chemotherapy but still, it's so hard. I've found myself cursing the phone. Her friends don't want to disturb her but want to do what they can to keep in contact; ergo - daughter come receptionist. I'm so tired of people saying "no really, how is she" to my explanations of her state. I am tired of their decision that she is going to drop dead any second. I'm sick of playing the "who's life is worse" game with my dad. I'm sick of her not trusting my intentions when I want to ask her for a hug. I'm sick of trying to keep all of this in check so that I can step up to my academic world and pump out final papers and fantastic grades at the same time when I feel like a champion when I actually can emotionally handle spending time hanging out with my mother.

What seems like some sort of terrible icing on my big depressing cake is how this is all effecting me and Ei. I keep on lashing out on her, or hating on people that she cares about, or in trying to run away from all of the stress use her as some sort of anchor in a land slide. I caught myself the other week seeing her as the only joy in my life - a harsh reality that had consumed my own worth in past relationships, but I know this is not a constant for us. I know that we are so much better than any of our hard times could define. We deserve better than stress and fronts that we put up.

All is not lost. We are all still alive and have the chance to redefine ourselves every morning that we wake up, every moment that we choose to.

wednesday

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

Today I got into a rather unfortunate state. Close to tears for the whole morning, the only thing that turned it around was a complicated statistics workshop in which I learned that I wasn't the only one confused with parts of their life. It was actually pretty amusing, all of us running around, hurriedly trying to teach each other something about dividing sigma by the square root of N. Knowing that other people were just as perplexed with the task at hand me helped calm me down from my pent up little state of anxiety, even if for them only had to do with understanding probability.

My trip home became a turning point. I had found my self in a state of self pity; I watched my actions from afar, treading the path of clinging to my significant other in order to bring light and stability in my life. When stuff gets hard I try to distract myself and find comfort in structures that can protect me. Whether it be plain procrastination in running from a duty to myself in school or hiding away from a mother who has been at home fighting cancer for over a year. I distract. I find myself catching my toe on uneven ground, tripping up, and then trying to take away the embarrassment from myself by getting as far away from the place as possible. Like that actually helps a person. Sometimes if you can coax yourself into forgetting the moment in it's intierety.

Tonight I figured that instead of running off it's time to learn to watch where I put my feet. I need to look ahead and remind myself along the way that things can get bad but if I cover my eyes from difficulties as they build I allow myself to become a victim.

So all in all, in applying this to my actual world I need to recognise the state I have gotten myself in to, faults and all, and allow myself to return to ab emotional starting point. I need to be actively engaged in my life every day of the week, not just waking up Monday mornings on a bus as Sufjan Stephens stirs me to consciousness. I need to be a better partner and trust in the fact that the roles I played in the past hold no truth here that I don't let them. I need to be a better daughter and recognise that my mother deserves dependable love and attention. Her wrong decisions are hers. I need to be a better student; recognising that it is a privilege to have the opportunities that I have been given and that the path, duration and penetration of the lessons that I am being offered are up to me. I guess it all is, and I guess that this is a pretty good Wednesday night.

Fucking Bitch

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.


When is it ok to intervene? When is it ok to tell a friend a hard truth, that their partner is cheating on them? I have been faced with this ethical dilemma once before and it didn't bode well. It turns out that the majority of people like to stay detached from such things. I can't though. I swear, whenever I hear of this shit, I feel some sense of duty; like the person getting fucked over deserves to know the truth straight out. I imagine myself swimming in the same situation, and being faced with a friend group that kept the truth from you, kept you feeling unjustly upset at yourself and thinking you have done something wrong. It's almost worse than the deception from a partner in the first place...

Internet, help a girl out; what would you do?

love vs. hate

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

So about them hate crimes….

Ei and I were outside of Chapters on Robson last night as she got a call from her mom about the dinner they were going to with some family friends and her mom invited me to come along. Like any girlfriend or boyfrien, being included in family events is a huge deal and having a mother appreciate you being a part of their daughters life is about one of the most wonderfull thins in the world. Not that I am not normally affectionate with Ei, but either way, we were kissing after I accepted the invite, sweet love pecks out of happiness, and as we pulled away from the hug and nuzzel something unexpected happened. Looking up for a split second as we were pulling away from each other to start our stroll to her car, a big guy wearing a black leather jacket spat in our faces. Shocked and disgusted, we were in a daze for a second, and then the impact of what happened fell upon us, and that he just kept walking.

Fumeing – I went over to him, magazines still bundeled in one arm, and shouted “What the fu*k is wrong with you!?!!!”. He turned around, raised his fist, andstepping towards me seemed to be foaming at the mouth with rage. His jaw clenched, “You want to make this something?!!!”, he sputtered. I can’t exactly remember what I said in reply, he kept on walking after I didn't push him as far as he wanted; his knees turned inward and each step seemed plotted and forcefull. At about 5’10” and 220pounds he could have messed us both up if he had wanted. We kept enough of a distance to know that he wouldn’t have been able to get close enough to punch me with how fast he was walking, called him out a few more times in the next block without him being able to gain enough ground on us. Ei dialed the police and I was talking to the operator almost in a complete hase, before he got to Seymour and turned back on us for real this time. Coming at us pretty fast, we backed off and he started down Seymour towards Georgia. At this point we didn’t care how far ahead he was, we were able to keep an eye on him for the length of the block and I could hear the lines of communication crossing as the police passed the message on to officer after officer. They were honing in on his position, but then, just as he had started to cross Georgia he turned back again and started to come towards us.

What kills me is the distance between us, he was so far, but still, we turned and started walking in the other direction – not wanting any more of a personal confrontation with him, just for him to be arrested. In something like three seconds, we turned back to see if he had gained any ground on us, he was gone. I told the operator this, I couldn’t believe it. We had seen a police car a minute before and they said it wasn’t one set out for us but then, now that he was gone, we saw the two they had allocated for us, ran over to them and told them what was up, that we didn't know where he was but knew he couldn't have gotten far.

After a minute of talking the under cover car left to find him and another one raced up Seymour in search with the regular cruiser staying with us to take our statement. The spit was dry on my jacket, all white and crackly, but the majority of it had hit Eirene in the face. It wasn't the spit that just happens normally, he had built this thick gob up just for us. God, I’m so upset. I keep going over it again and again. Had I tackled him immediately after he had done it, his back was turned to us, I could have taken him down. Even if he had rolled over and started whaling on me – someone would have gotten involved. I mean gosh, if seeing to people getting spit on by a big leather jacketed asshole, hearing a big yelling exchange of words, seeing fists raised in anger, seeing the continued pursuit of this guy, one would hope some bystander would care enough to just ask what was going on without a physical fight happens and people take notice. For some reason that doesn't seem like too much to ask for.

I think the worst part is what happened when I got home. Shocked and getting progressively more and more upset out over the whole thing, I cancelled my dinner date with Eirene and went home. I just sat on the bus, doing nothing save but stare out the window scanning every body I saw, hoping to find him, pull the chain, call the cops and have him taken down. But there was nothing more that could be done. I came into the house after 45 minutes of what felt like emotional torture, walked upstairs and saw my dad at the computer. I really wanted to talk to my mom about it - we would just lay around and talk it out, but she wasn’t home, and I knew I needed someone to feel that support from someone and to hear that it was going to be alright.

My dad hasn’t gotten used to the idea of Ei and I in the past 6 months and although it's dissapointing I know he loves me and he has never been rude about it or made me feel aquward. Him calling her my “friend” with inflection is ok for now, I get that it will take time, I mean my god, it has taken me how long to be ok with the fact that I like girls?! Anyways, my dad had his headphones on at the time so I didn’t get straight into it.

“So Dad…I was assaulted tonight…”, like that’s not getting into it.

He plops off the headphones and they hit his shoulder blades, and he turns around slowly, “What?!”.

“I, well, We, Eirene and I were victims of a freaking hate crime…”, I said pretty calmly, “… We were outside Chapters on Robson, kissing... and a guy came up and spat in our faces…”, I paused waiting to drink in his love for me and wanting him to protect me from this stupid night.

He paused after my own, slowly saying “…Well…you know…you have to be more careful…”. Shocked, I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t mean ‘hide it…”, he said, “…just be more…you know…”.

“What, discrete?!!”, I said.

“…Yeah, you have to be more discrete…”

“You want me to be more discrete?!!! I was fucking assaulted because I was kissing my girlfriend and you want me to be more discrete?!!”, I shouted, completely distressed at the reaction that I was getting. “Fuck discretion!! How the fuck can you say that?!! You’re a real fucking asshole, you know that!!

It took me a few hours, tears and another round of yelling from me to get him to see a shred of the situation. His tone before, was so off of what it should have been given the situation, but my mom is convinced that he is just concerned for me, that he wants me to be safe and he knows that me with a girl will make my life a little tougher, but he has yet to understand that just because something is tough doesn’t make it the right thing to do. If I have to get insults from more strangers, spit in my face again or beaten up one day because I was holding hands with the girl I am in love with – those people are in the wrong, not me, and those actions need to be stood up to. In displaying the realities of my relationship, sure I could run into more crazy people, but I will also certainly walk by girls and boys who may be questioning, afraid of the possibilities, or comfortably in their own homosexual relationships. Seeing others, gives us strength. It’s not even a question for me – but for him...I dunno. Maybe it will take more time, I can give him that, but it’s almost like in these past 6 months he has somehow blinded himself from the daughter he raised. Not recognising the fact that the only thing that has changed, literally, is that I now love a girl who is a far better partner than any of the boys I have had any romantic relationships with.

Freedom and Stuff

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

For the past few weeks everything has been turning up Millhouse. The third round of co-habitation with girlie went beautifully, tickets for the summer of love were purchased, and I was taken out for meals by loved ones and volunteering hookups about 7 times in twice as many weeks. Last Sunday the T.O.D.D. Squad took advantage of potheads to great success with a well thought out bakesale on the grounds of the VAG on 4:20 and our final event, The Bowling Ball, went off without terrible hitches, all in all raising about $2500 for the MS Society.

Last Friday was my last day at TC and it was really really sad to leave. Despite all of the drama and stress that I have had over that place, some of the people I have worked with have been amazing and I am a little sad to say that I am no longer working for the man. A few minutes after I removed my TCID and handed over my door passes and cubical keys I had to run to finish off some paperwork on another floor so I bolted - I felt soo free. It was really neat. Also, on this oh perfect of days, I was offered a job. Although I havn't had an interview with them, they checked up on my references and want me an awefull lot from Tuesday untill the end of June- just funnily enough, the time when I would need to call any job quits in order for me to take off on my journey. Maby even the best part is that this job is at the the Commission for Complaints against the RCMP. Making a difference, no?

This past Saturday I participated in Earth Day at Jericho park, as per the glorius photo, it was pretty idylic. After a full day of facepainting on kids, including three SpiderMan masks and a dog-girl, I headed off to Jericho Garrison as Ei had invited me to their yearly Stand-Down bbq but she caught me before I had gone too far and we dased under an old willow tree and rolled about in the pastoral scene.

Sunday was the MS SuperCities walk, the end to the T.O.D.D. events, and it was great fun. Being at this beach so early was a good expierience for me, it felt somehow different. These lingering backpacking emotions followed me, perhaps it was the excitement and the drive to go and get out there, but being held back by unmovable events - such as the fact that it was 8am on a damp day at the beach. Regardless, it was a lovley event and getting together with the rest of the team was another great seies of jokes and goofing off.


And today, today I was unemployed for the first time in I don't know how long. I received my acceptance letter to Concordia, made eggs for my family, cleaned my room, got my hair cut, kissed the woman I love, eat the food of the woman I love because she is the best damn girlfriend ever and made it because I was comming, went on a rainy beach dog walk with one of my best friends and had dinner with my favorite non-biologically-related family.



Thanks for the past little while universe.
It has been pretty rad.



Love,
Sarah

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

There are some moments in life when you really can see that just about any thing that runs your way can turn out as a positive. These moments can only take shape when you accept the fact that your life is your own; it is your job to direct it as you see fit. Happiness is one's own to control.

My office runs the full gamete of stress and workload for a variety of reasons, but my co-worker Amanda and I have worked out how put a great barrier in the stream of negativity and direct that flow into the plains of joy where the water gets all rainbowy and pretty. It's called running. Office life is stagnant and in human, often without any creative expressions or ways to have a good time (if you don't get your jollies from 10key and printing labels). Well, when Amanda and I are having an off day, or a good day for that matter, we randomly run around. Sure the desinations of our short sprints have their need but it is in the getting there that we get to find some personal worth.
She is a purveyor of the knee bent, feet close to the ground with bent arms pumping wildly sprint, where I like to take mine in leaps; floating midair and feeling like a dandelion puff settling to the ground with a sigh. I shit you not, my eyes actually glaze over with joy in the fleeting moment away from all of the stress, but the beauty of it is that realizing the fact that you have actually just leapt down the hallway in a governmental building makes you smile at how silly it is, and then a piece of that happiness carries on therefore; decreasing mental strain and in turn increasing productivity.


Soon perhaps this method of workplace therapy may become lost in the sea of paperwork for which even my highest leap may not bring me out. But until that day I will continue to listen to the Greenbelt Collective at high volumes so xylophones are heard cubical away, decorate my space with a pride triangle, VPL Speaking Series poster, an Upcoming Events wall with private views splattered with pictures of my friends and places that inspire me to sit here all day and do what I can to make Canada better on days where I feel up to the task.

For the past few weeks my life has been in limbo. Well, really it has been like this for as long as I can remember. Parts of it make sense and seem to have a path before them who's end point gives me a smile and feel secure, where others can be so immediately daunting that I would rather pile them up in the 'to-do' corner of my room. Perhaps the layout of ones bedroom has much to show for the way that they life the world outside of it.

Chris dying perhaps was the start of this most recent stall period. Last weekend I spent my Saturday helping to put back together a scarred home with some of the friends left behind by this lovely boy, and others still who have come to love Nikki Shannon and feel the need to protect her from what they can in her son’s absence.

The day he died I saw the bathroom for the first time and it was the perfect boys bathroom. Cologne out on the dusty sink counter, his glasses smudgy and perched on the rim of porcelain, hairs of unknown origin and a girls bikini hanging over the shower curtain bar. The tub was filthy and the garbage can beside the toilet was filled with junk. The whole house was a mess that day, signs of his life everywhere; Primus was paused halfway through some song with an endlessly long title on his still-running computer, bed all messed up and gross, and one of the boxed Family Guy seasons on the coffee table by the couch. I was awash with this huge sense of regret when I saw Nologo out on that table too. There was so much alike in he and I but I missed my chance. His bookcases were covered with dust, sprinkled over all of it’s contense save for a few voids where novel or dvd’s had once lived. Right by his computer, at waist level, was a cigar box; the type you use to keep them moist or something. Under its glass cover was a photo of him and Jason when they were just kids. It was over exposed and looked like they were at their first drinking party or something. That box is the one that now holds his ashes.

All of the proof of his life, stacked as he saw fit, was piled in the center of the room come last Saturday with a new coat of paint on the walls.
Jason, Jesse and I built a deck that day. Jesse's dog Lucy kept humping his pant leg and the guy didn't seem at all phased; almost a little proud at how gross it was. The boys wouldn't stop asking me questions about my sex life. Chris apparently didn't let Jesse meet me because he wanted to keep me from this shit.

Chris saved Jesse's life a couple of times so I learned as we lingered in Chris's bedroom at one point in the afternoon. Lucy was on the bed by the pillow curled up. Jesse was selling coke in London when the two were living together. Chris could put up with that much but said the second he started selling crack, he would’ve been out of there.

I need to stop running away from people and clean my goddammed room.

i better look over what i've got because it won't last long
i better look over what I've got
long live the pain
long live pain

the price we pay to live is fair
but it holds us down and takes our strength
well there ain't nothing to do here except wait
everbody I know is going to end up the same

long live pain
long life the pain

i better look over what i've got because it won't last long
i better look over what i've got

long live the pain
long live pain

Chris

You know what's fucked up; getting a message on Facebook from your friends mom saying he is dead.

The fact that his sister had died three years before him is fucked up.
The fact that his father left four months ago is fucked up.
The fact that tonight I wrote messages to his friends across Canada telling them that he was dead because there was no other way for him to know.

He loved his mother furiously and protected her from all he could.
He didn't want her to go out of her way to pick him up.

His sisters rose garden was almost fully in bloom.

He was a good fucking guy.

sundaysunday sundaay

sundaysunday sundaay, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

Today feels like a Sunday to end all Sundays.


Waking up in a warm daze, I rolled out of bed.

I pulled my bike out of the shed this morning to see its first dusting of rust in 30 years. Maybe it did better in it's former owners basement. Perhaps even better left in the dust at burning man where it began the leg of it's journey up to my back garden. The brake handles froze my fingers as I rode down to Katie's and back up to Mountain Highway, circling around on the flat bit to try to have a bit of fun. My bangs were too long though and I had this aching suspicion that my best flick wouldn't be able to grant me the seconds necessary to see a car comming and dodge it. I have thoughts like these.

As soon as I came through my front door my pink hands felt all warm and numb running through the fur on the top of my dogs head in a safe sort of way.

Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston Movies under blankets, knitting a gift headed for Halifax, birthday and soon-to-be roommate cards sealed and ready to go and tears for my future. I hadn't realized that Even Rachael Wood was in Practical Magic. I have cried all 3 times I have seen that part where the sisters come together in blood and love to release the evil within Gill as they are circled by the brooms. I like that movie.



I switched my jeans back for pj pants at 3 in the afternoon.

It looks like one of those summer nights that only call for a best friend and a touch of freedom to make it all perfect. But, it's not. It's cold out. The grass still is a bit crunchy where it is near the bushes and it isn't going to get warm enough for a little while yet.

In a breath I had today I could see my fear for this next step in my life. I was looking out the window that I have looked out of since I was a kid, and wanted to wish all of this self pity away. My ever aching suspicion of holding on to 17 as a safety mechanism washed over me once more; the excuse to maybe not be quite ready yet to close my eyes and truly trust my gut. A reason to fake it and be alright with that. I could trust in that, trust in the security of fear and the underachieved. But, I can't. It will be a new day tomorrow and I know that. The sooner I go to bed the sooner I will be eating breakfast with a person who inspires me to take the risks I need to in order to be true to myself and the me I want to be on days where I stand apart from her.

Happy Sunday Sarah.

Cohabitation

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

Falling asleep to the words "goodnight" having left two sets of lips at the same moment, made my heart skip far too many beats that first night.

Realizing that I had loved you before I met you gives me a still faith.

Knowing that your patience gives my stress the time it needs to wither away lets my hand lie comfortably in yours.

Cruising with the top down; day one BSB sing along, day two Crips and Bloods. You let me take AJ and Brian to your Howie and Kevin. We hadn't intended to end decades of gang violence with our love but it was worth it anyways.

Waking up in sunlight to your kisses after you had lay still so as to not disturb, makes me sure.







Love, love, love, how you can wrap me up.

Full Disclosure

Alebrijes, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

I have suddenly become aware of how freeing writing on the internet can be. The anonymity and ability to release all of ones thoughts without fear of reprisal or judgment from sources you look up to, allows one to be solely themselves. Typed letters can offer that full disclosure we are all afraid of.

Truth be it, earlier today I felt morally unable to purchase the slides of a series of family vacations at the Salvation Army. Despite the beauty of the 70's Hawaiian, Seattle and Arizona shots, being able to see the trusting smiles of husband and wife posing by begonias seemed too voyeuristic. I couldn't help but imagine what prompted their donation; divorce, death, release from material possessions, and I couldn't be party to benefiting from a force that had the ability to shake people to the core of their being. Now thinking back to it, perhaps I may have dramatized the situation a bit too much, but the fun of looking into the images of peoples life's seemed too much at that time.

This all was turned on it's head when I fell into the blog of a loved one an hour or so ago. I joked with friends ages ago at how dangerous emotional emails and MSN messenger can be, sentences can have inflection added where one invisions them. Blogging had seemed to me a benign state of transcendence; somehow apart from the desired judgment of others. But certainly that is not why one publishes their words. We all do it, as we do so achingly much in our lives, in hopes of allowing someone, anyone, in to that precious circle of love and understanding. Judgment comes with love - determining what is right or wrong in a person is a prerequisite of letting one love another. At least that is how it seems from my point of view. Therefore this medium is not without evaluation of our personhood.

I read her blog from current date until the end as I never have before and felt myself dating periods of our relationship to lie correspondingly with words set generically so as to remain anonymous to those that do not know her. When I first met her I looked but decided that for myself, it would be most beneficial to let any person open up to me as much as they chose - not peering into trusted emotions that may not be privy to me. Tonight however I was not of the same mind (funny that eh?). Maybe in an attempt to become closer, maybe out of postponing my own self exploration, I decided to read and wish now that I had held back.

I can’t remember where I read or heard this but it is an interesting thought to see how the world would play out if every child or person we met within certain age groups we called parent or child. To see the worth and potential in all as opposed to the small group that we can only naturally build with one on one connections. Would we care if we could let go of our hang-ups on our personal worth rising above the humanity of others? Would I judge her words as being an evaluation of who I am as opposed to where she is if she had told me how she felt face to face?

Maybe I am trying to fool myself in this forum of my thoughts to strangers but I think I am ok with the ability of an unknown person getting to see me. I, as we all can, put up guards of how I want others to see me and we do it further and mask our natures from our own eyes. If the internet is good for anything other than looking up new stitches on YouTube, it is for the humanity that it can give to anonymity. She deserves that pull away from judgment from me.

Maps & Dreams

, originally uploaded by sarahkit.

In being who I am, the ability to give love is the greatest gift in my world. Sometimes I take that for granted, other times I question it. There are times still when I can feel myself wanting to give over my whole into this great trust that we can build up into a word. Still though, it is something that we allow to be a save-all halo that can change everything. I am a believer in the universe unfolding as it likes while at the same time showing you little signs along the way to let you know you are on the right path. I guess it is all in the noticing.

Tonight I sat over torn up slices of maps that I took home from a recycling bin at work. Thinking I could make something lovely out of the remains I rolled them up on Valentines Day and tonight unfurled them in hopes of seeing some potential in the black squares of major cities and red streak of the 99.

Osoyoos I cut out and popped in a gaudy frame that I had painted white last summer. I grew up in this lake town seeing the Ogopogo with full certainty after learning that my mother had seen the same in her youth. Maybe this memory something that I have built up after the fact, but I can still look back at it in my heart and trust it completely; something far fetched but all the more worthwhile. When I was six a fish bit my foot and none of the adults believed me. That is until a 45 year old father of two had his own incident after heading down the slide set out a few meters offshore. I felt like a champion of truth.

I have memories of eating tacos over checkered tablecloths in a Mexican resturant set in an old movie theater with a slanty floor, the time when the water bomber picked up at our lake and flew right by overhead on it's way to fight fires, and the way that my brand new puppy peed on the road outside of the campsite of a very mean family. It was uphill but the yellow line encroached futher and further, passing the boundary into their site. That night I sung Molly lullabies in the back of my families minifan and kissed her on the soft spot of head to make her feel at home.

I would spend days on end floating in the shallows of Osoyoos Lake with my yearly snorkeling set, bought at Princes in Walla Walla Washington, hunting for gold. Each afternoon I would pull my chubby waterlogged body out of the cold for B&M beans and Tim's Cascade chips, clutching rocks that sparkled in the sideways sunlight. Flecks of fools gold were embedded in them and sometimes they seemed too made solely of silvery diamond specks as opposed to the yellow stuff. The smell of poplars gives my stomach memory of too many cherries in the best possible way.

Besides the general overview of Vancouver as a whole, British Columbia and Quebec found their ways onto the faces of classic paintings with the help of some tape to be hugged by the white frames. It could be wishful thinking that this new place may grow the same sort of memories for me but if we have the power to make our dreams happen we might as well give it a shot.

I have found myself choking back the future as of the past while. Weekly bursts of clarity and wakefulness flowing from abysses of all consuming passiveness come more frequently then they have ever and I know I am on the right path simply from that.

My own experience with love has been trying. The word I have chosen to describe so many of my experiences is often too hasty, in an attempt to make it so with air passing through my lips. I have come to understand that within me it is not in the needing or wanting but in the choosing. As it takes a life, flowing with the growth and contraction of relationships, the decision to stay committed to the steady core of a person. I am not a believer in souls and as our experiences open our eyes to ideologies and gentile opinions, this 'core' that we dream of will take on movements they will and will not choose. Still, if we open our hearts to this reality, despite the fact that we may not have made the same decisions as these few that are close to us, we will love that essence; the decision to go left or right, because they have made it themselves.

Growing up I had become more and more determined that the love that I would feel for a person would be the "truest" that I have ever felt. Today I will deny that statement that has stayed for longer than warranted. Each love is true in to itself. In its changing forms, it shapes our world. I can build expectation, hope, knowing, commitment and the ability to walk away. The ability to be love itself frees one from the binds of pity and hate. It levels.



I don't know what love has to do with taking this next big step in my life on some levels. Maybe it has to do with loving myself and following through on a dream, or perhaps the resembelence lies in not having to be afraid. Shit will happen, experiences will be had that may hurt or raise me to heights of wonder that I would have not known otherwise. Most of all I can't shake the feeling that moving on to this world in which I will walk for the first time on my own legs, will be what I let it. Live it without expectation or comparison, trying to follow my gut and to not loose track of who I am now or am begining to be.

Glasses - October 14, 07

Mayan Rivera

Snow Day

After waking up in love it was too much to resit.