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.