for Ayo

Today...

I am grateful for my dear friend Ayo. (That's her with a monkey plate at my 90's birthday party last year... right before she went to town on the build-your-own ice-cream sundae buffet).

Today I am celebrating Ayo's day of birth, even though she's in Boston and I am 3,000 miles away. Sad face. Very sad face. Because she is more than just a myspace icon on my buddy list. She's more than just a mispelled name in my cellphone or a framed photo on my desk or someone I forward all my chain-letter emails to.

We met Berklee College of Music together. We survived RA-dom together. We lived through rain, hail, sleet, snow, blizzards, and 90 mph winds ALL at the same time, together. We got into relationships and out of relationships together (then into them and out of them again). We ate pastries from Boston's north end for breakfast, splurged at Trident together when no one else would go... saw the RedSox play at Fenway park...danced in the middle of a busy intersection to Michael Jackson. We had tea together at our apartment, a thousand times. Pumpkin Pancakes at Pour House, a thousand times. Waited up for each other so we could talk about family and relationships and how that lame harmony project came out, a thousand times. Cooked chicken and veggies with jerk sauce, a thousand times. Ate crappy thai food together, a thousand times. Meditated on the roofdeck... worked out at the Racketclub gym. Played guitar and wrote heartfelt boys-suck songs together.

But mostly, we opened up together. We GREW up together. We made it happen together... in that city together... in our separate lives, together. To the point where it didn't even feel like "together" anymore... it just was.






Today, living in California, 3,000 miles away from Boston... I am thankful for Ayo entering this world. I am thankful for all my precious friends in Boston who made those 36 plane trips worth every penny and every gray hair. I am eternally grateful for all my childhood and high school friends who gave me such a strong foundation to step out on my own to begin with. And especially to everyone in my family... my bonus friends. Who's love always has and always will, make me whole.

3 Words

NAKED
FULL-MOON
BATH

(again, not my image...mine would have been, well... a bit more naked. But I got a new camera today! which I am also thankful for. So hopefully my own images will be popping up in the next week or so).

Enjoying the fullness of the moon, my body, and life on Earth at a time when we are more free to be educated, elevated, and expressed than ever before in the history of humanity.

Tears

"Tears are the safety valve of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it." ~Albert Smith

AND

"I like the snot to run a little, the tears to accumulate a bit before reaching for the handkerchief. Then I know I'm really crying. Crying just isn't crying unless it's messy." ~D.H. Mondfleur

Tonight...
I am thankful for tears.
Most notably, MY tears.
I try to make it a point to cry at least every other day.
As nana always said, "Better out than than in."
But this summer, meeting that goal has been surprisingly harder than usual.

I'm typically not a picky crier.

Crying for any reason is generally fine.

There are the fool-proof fall-backs of course: heartbreak, my parents divorce, rejection, lonliness, self-loathing, and self-pity. Then there are the unexpected public instigators: long lines at the gas station, no parking places at the book store, an elderly couple tieing each other's shoes at the beach, The Fray comes on the radio, a humingbird hovers within inches of your face while you lay on the hammock... you accidently wash your favorite new shirt that clearly stated: DRY CLEAN ONLY.
And lastly (though certainly no less legitimate), the all mighty, I'm-crying-and-I'm-crying-TONIGHT-god-damnit: anything to start the flood... light candles, play that trusty Sarah McLaughlin song over and over and over and over again... then play it again, only this time in the DARK. Look through old photos, read dusty journals, look him up on myspace. Drink red wine. Watch The Notebook.

Today's tears can be most closely characterized as a Class Two Tear Torrent. Somehow, I don't really think that going to see Pixar's animated, Ratatouille, quite qualifies as a self-loathing or optimistic flood inducing move.
I was just looking for a good time on a Sunday afternoon. Minding my own business. On my way to see a cute flick about a precious mouse with a passion for the culinary arts.

WRONG.

Turns out, what you get is an adorable rat who could turn even Hitler into a puddle with his big, expressive eyes... who gets separated from his family and subsequently battles monstruous adversity, trapped between two worlds, neither of which he belongs in... needless to say, Pixar had me by the hankie at "hello".

But really. Ratatouille. Great movie. Not a tear-jerker at all I'm sorry to say. I just happen to be an incredibly suppressed, emotional wreck at the moment.
But hey, better out than in, right?

Clouds

*this is not my photo (unfortunately)

"You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds."
~Henry David Thoreau

This day...

I am grateful for non-threatening clouds.

You know. The wisped, whip-creamy, unsupposing types that take shape as rodents holding cars, and jellyfish and angelfish and fishfish, and elephants trumpeting short trunks, with hammers and aerial shots of snails...
...And a teddybear breakdancing atop a glass table. His pants billowing with the sheer pop-and-lock of it all.
And for the grande finale...a fat man in a snug, duckie innertube. Bobbing along (no doubt) through another glorious California afternoon. In search of the beach with the best sun or the stand that sells the chocolate-dipped, frozen bananas.

My sister and I hung on the sky for who-knows-how-long. Long enough for my bathing suit to dry in the sun. Not so long that I smelled mom start the barbeque for dinner. But the perfect amount of ticks... just enough to know a day spent passing with even a single cloud is a day of indefinable luxury.

For Sisters

Today...

at 2:33 pm, I am grateful for my sister. I am thankful for the gift of a sister to share this journey with... another girl to grow up with. A woman to become with. As different as we are, or as separate as we may become, we still share the story of family. We still love to swim. We worship the sun. We can smell the ocean from miles away. We combine memories and home and travels and friendships. Like the chocolate chips and kahlua in mom's secret cake recipe. Like two fish swimming for a while in the same stream. It would have been worth it all for one laugh... one summer afternoon of laughs. In gray and red hats, nonetheless. I adore you.

The Body Beautiful

This day...

I honor and appreciate my body.

After coming down with a cold just days ago, I am celebrating my body's quickest recovery in over a year.
I am listening...responding...inquiring...loving (as best I can anyway) this process of conversing with my body. I am not here to dominate and control my body. In highschool and early college, I used to love to manipulate and form my body... watching it change and respond even over night. Now though, things are different. I've been sick and I've been broken and I know how it feels to be so disconnected from my physical home, in more ways than one.

This day, I am grateful for coming home to my body. For growing stronger and stronger each day.

I am not as thin as I was a year ago. I can't wear most of my favorite clothes (namely a pair of bright yellow jeans with stars stitched on the back pocket and my black, leather-fringe riding chaps). But last year I was frail. I was full of foreign parasites and my body was wrecked with trauma. I was swimming in my hospital gown. But I sure looked good. ;)


Today, I am thankful for color in my cheeks. Fullness in my legs and stomach... the reflection of my body's natural desire to nurse me back to full health... to safeguard against further bouts of sudden depletion. I am more sure, today than ever, that I will never be back to where I was. I will only be forward. I can only be more. Everyday, I am reassuring my body that I am here. Truly truly. Yes, I am strong. Yes, I am steady. Yes, I can dance.


Forget the clothes for now... and let's rebuild the village.