dear you,

you were infinitely disappointing and lost beyond my understanding
then again, i painted this image of who i was hoping for you to be
it's usually me
hoping
so what is it
am i waiting for too much, hoping to fill an unattainable void, a figment that doesn't exist?
it's not you, it's always me

love
forever waiting, forever hopeful

the seed

a little asian girl walked hand and hand down the street with her father.
she stared at this homeless man, slumped down, defeated, a shell of existence.
she stared at him, mouth agape, hand loosening from her father and her little body tensed and stayed still.
this was the moment
she decided what kind of person she wanted to be and she lept.
she shuffled around reaching for her pocket, walking towards the man
she stared
she scurried towards him, grasping onto her prize, determined, knowing…
this man needs my prize, my money, and she went
her father grabbed her arm quickly and hastily, pulling her back into the crowd and she lunged
he rattled off adult words and overtook her characteristic gesture.
she faught what little strength she had, she kicked.
her father took her back and her eyes stared
she stared and i hoped so hard that she kept that part of her, and that she would keep it forever.
regardless of the world she would always hope and see.

dear vicki

hey vicki. i hope you are somewhere you are happy and warm and full. i think about you everyday. i wonder if you think of me too. i wonder how lonely you were and i think about how lonely i was too but i never reached out to you. Remember when we were kids? I hope grandma is making you dumplings and telling you to pick up after yourself and putting rollers in her hair and falling asleep sitting up. please know that you are missed and i love you so much. i got a tattoo vicki, it's an octopus. i thought of you. it was my first time scuba diving and i saw an octopus, it could have been a squid but who knows. i love it and i thought of you and i thought you would love it too. i wish i had something of yours. anything. a stupid shirt or a hat or something. i looked on your Facebook page this morning, people love you so much. nobody hates you, they understand and they miss you. life goes on but they still think about you and i love that. i still cry when i think of you. i love you so much. i miss you. your cousin

City living

So, city life is amazing.
Everyday I walk down the street and see something untraditionally beautiful.
a jello tinfoil top discarded and crumpled into the shape of a heart. Then a block down the discarded clear plastic cup that used to belong to that crumpled top, toppled over with remnants of red left.
I love that I gauge distance with blocks.
I see things differently now.
There is no nature here but there is. The ground here is torn up and covered hundreds of times and smoothed over.
There is human and dog shit riddled all over the ground. Smears of it slowly disintegrating under peoples unknown footsteps until it becomes an ambiguous repulsive stain. To walk here is to dodge and pivot.
My parents used to cringe and hastily tell us to get up, get up the ground is disgusting in our country home where the ants crawled along our fingers and the lawn was manicured to our specifications. I used to tell them to stop, it's fine, the ground is comfortable but they first came to america and lived in new york city. In the 70s and 80s when NYC was disgusting and unruly and terrible. Of all the things I think about, I think about how much shit must have been covering the ground. Nobody sits on the ground here except for the homeless and the labor workers. I think about my parents equating sitting on the ground to being dirty and homeless and poor and struggling and i understand now. The world i lived in was safe and clean and altered to our specifications.
So now i live in this world and i wonder if i'll do the same thing, even in a manicured world.

New Life

I'm in San Francisco now, I live here.

So I woke up this morning and realized, I have no eggs. So true to country girl nature I panicked at the thought of having to drive 30 minutes to get breakfast and it dawned on me, food places. are. everywhere. 

So I walked out into civilization with the crew of construction workers bantering, a seasoned san franciscan way past his youth but still living in it, and the homeless crew pushing their belongings. I took a right and another right and walked into the first café I saw, got breakfast, sat down, and realized… I missed civilization. I especially missed feeling like one of the crowd. It's like coming home. 

The Great Migration!

November 2013 I impulsively decided I was moving to San Francisco. The thought took over me, I got really excited, then immediately impatient. Now I'm sitting in the airport, a month from being 30 with a book in my hand and my stuffed bear in the other. Oddly, I'm clutching onto the bear for comfort. 

So I suppose this little exert is to state that I am 30 and I am starting a whole new life, by myself, with my bear. I have three bags bursting full of stuff. I left two men that love me with their whole heart and I feel endlessly terrible about it. I feel selfish but I'm not sure what to do with that guilt. Just half a year ago I was looking at wedding rings with my boyfriend of 2 years and now I'm back to just me and the bear. I threw away a third of my belongings, the other third I gave away and the rest of the third is scattered everywhere that I will never remember. Years from now I will pick up all those derelict scraps and wonder why I had kept them for so long. Cards three years removed crammed into sweaters eight years forgotten. Another life that I never remembered living. A distant past that i get glimpses of, flashes of old smiles and roads I remember taking with my feet kicked out the window humming a beautiful song. So i'm looking at the present now wondering if the future will give me some more wonderful things, I've already had so many of those. Do i get more or is there some sort of bank of amazing that runs dry after you've dismissed your third wonderful man for no good reason. I look at that future and wonder if i'll have kids in three years or maybe two, maybe a husband? Life was never about that I suppose. I was always hoping for more. 

So here I stay, waiting to board a plane, with my book and the bear, hoping for more.