Lost

I am lost. Profoundly. Miserably. Of my own volition. Because there are some places I refuse to be found. There are lovers I still recall with tears in my eyes and current companions whose loyalty I question. I drink wine for the taste... until I've lost all sensation in my tongue... and then I pine after the perfect boy to help me find it again. I want love the most when I seem not to. If I dote on you, you'll be forgotten in a week, a month at best. I mean no harm.

I eat what I like as often as I like and run when I feel trapped. The world thinks I'm beautiful, but I don't. I think those who celebrate me do so for my curves...my imperfections..the subtle turning out of my flesh. The fluctuations in me. Because I remind them that we are all human under all the things we buy to cover it up.

If I could do one thing that was not loving, I don't think I could name it easily, but it would probably be to travel. To see the world before it burns. Patagonia and London and the Amazon and the Painted Desert. The place where Mesopotamia fell and the place where the thing that replaced it crumbles-as if it was not built of strong enough stuff to withstand the pressure of people fighting over things they can no longer name.

I regret the last time I didn't say "I love you" when I felt it welling up inside of me. I would have been turned away and abandoned on the spot and there would have been a few days of shuddering pain, but I would have overcome it. And I would have carried around the secret knowledge of having been true to myself.

The last time I confessed my love, I gave him a comic book to show my affection. Because nothing quite says "Be Mine" like images that can't be corralled into a dull facade of monotonous text. If you can engage me intellectually, you can love me. That's the truth of the matter. I'm currently writing a kind of Rosetta Stone for use on First Dates. A way to decipher the esoteric code of my soul. I believe it's warranted.

I want to leave, but I don't know where I'm going to, and it's true in every sense. I have potential, but what's the use if I don't know what to do with it? The less you know, the happier you are...I am convinced of this, and I am convinced that I know too much.

There is either no one like me or everyone is like me-I can't decide which it is. In my world hope and despair embrace in
 an intimate dance and neither maintains rhythm without the other. And I am glad for it.

True Love Knows No Bounds

You are currency, simply put

You have buying power, but it's not always the same

You compete every day whether you know it or not

Your existence is a fiduciary game

You buy into relationships

You expend yourself

You make some feeble attempt at a savings account

But life usually calls upon you to exhaust your reserves

You are a series of charts and estimations and graphs

You are initial hope and the messy aftermath

He fell in love with you when your value was high

But what goes around comes around

And value is always depreciated by forces

Beyond your control

One day he'll wake knowing

He can't get as much from you anymore. 

Because no one waits in grocery lines with the forsaken

Systems regulate themselves

Until they don't.

Love is a gamble

The stakes are high

There's not a corner of this Earth

On which it's not found

And yes, my friends

It does know bounds.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Some pictures aren't worth a thousand words
It's an especially valid point
Before cuneiform and its predecessor
In a place called Kish
A place that no one knows...

But some are worth more.
It's an especially valid point
After the Great Degradation
When language falls by the wayside
In a place
That can no longer be expressed with any means we possess

I am Anachronism incarnate.
I am Time.
And I am worth more than either.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Good things don't come to those who waste their lives waiting
For the sudden suspension of free will
Or the intervention of some kindly deity in a far-off realm
Sometimes good things aren't even that good
And the worst things are the only things worth having
Things in general are variable
"Good things come to those who wait"
Is a thing said by the haves to the have-nots
To minimize their own guilt
Or is it a threat?
That the free will eventually know what it is
To be chained to their desires?

Be Something for Yourself

Be something for yourself, they say
...When we need people.

We were born this way
NEEDING PEOPLE.

They tame us and encourage us and give us a reason to be
A conversation is worth a thousand meditations
In the ancient misery of the shut-in mind
What would it matter without others?

No scientific theory or bestseller means anything
Without people to take it up in their quiet hours alone
We need to be torn apart sometimes
Remade in the image of progress.
Carved from the stone of our daily expressions.

Nothing is enough for itself.
We are Osiris scattered to the far corners of the Earth
And it is communion that finds us and makes us whole
We are one priceless, divided soul

I'll never be enough for myself.

I'll pine and love and dream and rage
I'll threaten death in silent pain upon the page
But at the end of the day,
It's worth it to be shaken to my core
So long as I've got people to do it for

Poetosophy-Thought Constrained by Form

 On the Dark Underpinnings of Love

Is love raw passion?
Or learning to tolerate
A good-hearted soul?

Should I feel breathless
Or is it too dangerous
To forfeit control?

Is love just habit
Or is it something profound?
Will I ever know?

What does love look like?
Would I recognize its face?
As friend or as foe?

Does love clip your wings
Is it mesmerizing flight?
Shackles or freedom?

Will I still rejoice
In the dawning of each day?
Have dreams or cede them?



On the Art of Doing 

History is the gone, the never reclaimed
The thing that's always whispering in the shadows
The lover you couldn't quite tame, and so
Remember with a smile or a stiff drink
The one that got away
The one that makes you think.

And theory is the fickle future's caress
Dark unknowns become silhouettes
You know how it makes you feel
Alive and undressed and pressed against a wall
You can do something, or nothing at all

But the present is the story, your only real posession
Linear life marching in formation as you look on
Tantalizing words joining one another in tidy little rows
To form scenes and shed light and delight your senses
It's the only fulfillment you've ever known
The embrace at last.
The would-be, has-been lover's a thing of the past
You reflect on what you've had and what you might enjoy...
Until you find yourself alone again
Scotch in hand, by a lacklustre fireside
You lament...but confess, that at least you tried 

What am I doing?

Wow, I really suck at keeping this thing up to date! It's December 6th, and tomorrow is a day that will forever live in infamy, but today? Today is a pretty standard Tuesday in all honesty. In 3 weeks and a few days I'll be setting foot in another country on a continent I've never visited. There will be city exploration, beach lounging, glacier climbing, wildlife observing, camping, hiking, hostelling (apparently this isn't an acceptable verb, but it ought to be), and much more besides. I'm also couchsurfing for the first time which simultaneously frightens and excites me.

Two weeks won't be nearly long enough to do everything, and I'll be exhausted by the end, but I will have no regrets. And that's something I can say without even the shadow of a doubt.

it will be a welcome escape.

But what must it feel like to have a life that need not be escaped? I've wondered about that for awhile now. I find joy in each and every day-don't get me wrong. But I often ask myself, "What am I doing?" and I can't really answer that question in any meaningful way. I haven't found the love of my life (or even a consistent lover at that). I haven't had children or started my own business or published a novel or gotten a promotion at work. Instead I'm quitting one job and looking for a replacement for the other. I scribble down ideas that amount to nothing. I engage in my fair share of Facebook philosophizing. I go to parties every once in awhile. I drink a good lot of coffee and wine. I tell jokes and I read my poetry when the compulsion hits and I play with words. I do crosswords and I watch tv shows no one has ever heard of and I binge-read Wikipedia articles on places I may never set foot. I cook and I sleep and I don't spend as much time doing either as I would like. I don't really feel like I've accomplished all that much. And I need to. And I have no idea what the something I'm supposed to do might be, but it needs to be done, and that sense of urgency never really leaves me, if you know what I mean.

I'm a writer in my soul with a seeming inability to impose order on the chaotic stream of consciousness that is my raw material, the granite that I'm supposed to chisel into a Grecian god or something. Or perhaps a cherub. I should really start with a cherub. Those are a dime a dozen, right?

None of this is getting resolved today. I'm going to go explore the interior caverns of a glacier. Maybe something will click inside me and I'll finally know what I have to do. Until then I'm going to try and have a good time.

In the End

There's nothing here for her anymore. Not really. She was always the actress, wise words at the ready, smile, sweet and serene always pasted on her lips. None of it was hers. Not really. Only borrowed, like the coat she's wearing. It's too big now, hanging loosely on her form. How long has it been?

 It's hard now, without a script. She's awakened from the role she's been playing and it's an uneasy process. It reminds her of waking up on the cold pavement. There was a bit of snow in the air today. It comes earlier every year.

She is beautiful in a classic sort of way even without the makeup. A bit worse for wear now of course, but who isn't? It's the way of things.

She's the kind of girl who makes you wish the world hadn't moved on quite yet. The kind of girl with all the answers hiding somewhere behind her gaze. If only she could remember them.

She's losing words these days. She's aware of it and talks to herself to try to slow the process. But it only does so much good. And it's horrifying, the sound of her voice on the thin air. Sometimes she's not even sure it's hers. And what do you have if you can't even recognize your own voice? If the words sound like the guttural utterances of some terrible beast?

She dreams of the others sometimes. She knows they're out there. If they didn't exist, then why should she dream of them?

Adrift

I feel strangely depressed today. I don't have to work this evening...I get to go out and trivia it up with a few friends...why am I feeling this way? It makes no logical sense.

I've "unpacked" my emotions to some extent-I guess in all honesty it's what I do. The way I'm feeling stems from a few things, I think:

1. I don't really feel that I connect with very many people. I talk to a lot of people. I go out on a fairly regular basis. I'm active on Facebook. And yet, I don't have a best friend. A true confidante. I'll probably spend Christmas alone. My family is deceased or in another part of the country...or working. Friends are (understandably) with their families. I lack the closeness with my family that it seems like others enjoy (or take for granted in some instances). I lack the "girlfriends." I've often been thankful that I've never had a relationship that's gotten very serious because I have no idea who I'd ask to be in my wedding.

2. I don't really feel like I'm working toward anything. I will be-there's no doubt about that. I'll be taking a certification course in March that will qualify me to teach English as a foreign language. It was supposed to take place in November though, and that's caused some understandable agitation. I'll have to find something to do with myself in the meantime. I am taking a trip to Argentina. Will that give me something to write about? Will anyone want to read what I write? Should I try to pen a novel during NaNoWriMo instead?

3. I'm clearly not doing what "everyone else does." It's a good thing-of course it is. But it's also a hard thing. I think that's in the fine print. I think they forget to mention that sometimes. When you don't use the same benchmarks to measure success and happiness, when you are forced to develop your own instead....and when the fact that you aren't living up to society's idea of what you ought to be is thrown in your face...well, it's difficult. We'll leave it at that. I'm still figuring out what the trajectory of my life looks like. I don't think it involves long-term employment with any particular company...or perhaps even industry. I think it involves travel. And writing if I have the opportunity. And learning. And just being. That's not being a bum in my eyes. That's being another lifeform on this planet...making the most of the gifts granted me by my species designation.

There. I think I've said what I needed to say. And I think it'll probably be alright in the end. But I definitely feel adrift at the moment.

The Thrill

Saturday was a momentous day for me-I participated in my first-ever half marathon. I finished in 2 hours and 25 minutes, a very average time for my age group. I'm still a little awestruck. A week ago I was still reeling from three weeks' of serious illness. And I...just...ran...13..miles. There were moments when I thought I might not make it, and there were plenty of times when I had to slow to a walk, but I kept on going. I suppose that declaration sums up my life thus far pretty nicely. I kept on going. 

Plans have been made for my winter vacation, which I will spend in Argentina, and it's just another way that I've proved myself to myself. A love of adventure flows pretty freely through my veins. I'm not one to shy away from a challenge. I'm also not one to lose myself in the planning process, I'll admit. I tend to leap and ask questions later (I'd never actually ran a race prior to the half marathon). I've found the flights I'll take and drawn a rough outline of where I'd like to be when (I plan to spend most of my time in Patagonia and it's a big place to traverse in 2 weeks), but I'm going to leave the rest to the fates.

The idea of celebrating New Year's Eve in Buenos Aires thrills me to no end, though. It is one of those things I'm planning, although not in any serious way. Not yet. I'll celebrate in an exotic locale and do my best to mingle with some of the locals, and try out my Spanish at every opportunity, but I don't know where I'll be specifically, and I think a part of me doesn't want to know. Isn't that part of the intrigue? I like to leave a question or two floating about. Will there be tango? Will I find a nice rooftop celebration to partake in? What will I drink? Will I find myself in the midst of a huge crowd? What will I eat? Will I have the pleasure of a midnight kiss? What hopes will I have for 2017?

I smile when I think of it. All of it. The time away. The adventure. The scenery. The character of the place. I am optimistic, excited, my muscles tensing in anticipation, like a runnner at the starting line. I've trained for this in some sense, but the nuances of the event remain a mystery. I think I'm ready, but I'm not. Of course I'm not. But if there's one tool in my arsenal that's served me most through the years, it's my adaptability.  I am still filled with the thrill of the hunt. I hope I always am.

Happiness

Happiness has been on my mind a lot lately-happiness and what it does and does not look like for me. Freedom is tantamount-there's no denying that. I want to be free to live the life of my choosing. I'm almost to the point where I can say with conviction that I have that freedom, but not quite. I'm hindered by a credit card and a car, two examples of my spending resources I didn't have on hand in the name of procuring a little happiness. And the lesson here? Happiness is not a thing that can be bought outright and it is not a thing that can be purchased with money you don't have and paid off later. I think the latter might be worse just because you find yourself continuing to pay on a thing you're no longer invested in. And that's a sort of depressing place to be if you ask me. Not conducive to happiness at all.

In 17 short days I'll be moving out of my current place, and I'm simultaneously relieved and saddened. It is expensive-too expensive if truth be told. I work two jobs and barely bring home enough to manage my living expenses (I might have figured in the cost of a bottle or two of wine to this figure, but I feel that's my right as a mentally exhausted, overworked American). I'm moving back home and doing all that I can to pay off my credit car and that car that I love to hate and hate to love. So utilitarian, so efficient, so sleek and lovely and such a symbol of freedom itself. I mean who doesn't think of hitting the open road from time to time?

I'm moving backward in a sense. I don't need to be told this-I tell it enough to myself. And in a way it hurts, but probably not for the reasons everyone thinks. My pride is not taking a hit. I don't feel that I am unable to care for myself. I could get a cheaper place and maintain that independence. The trouble is, I don't want another place of my own. Not here.

I've tried Kansas City. I've really tried.

A couple of years ago I returned from a 7-month stay in Denmark. I took care of myself, attended language classes every day of the week, managed to support myself on a very limited budget. I trudged through snowbanks and braved rainstorms without an umbrella, which was, believe it or not, a luxury I wouldn't allow myself. I ate out once in 7 months-I don't even recall what I ate to be honest, only that the waitstaff was not very attentive (without tipping, where does the incentive lie?)

I learned to appreciate small grocery stores, more dimly lit places (I swear, American establishments are blindingly bright in comparison), biking for transportation, small filling home-cooked meals of pork and rye bread. I shared a beer with more wonderful people than I can recall. I was invited to brunch on a couple of occasions (the perfect occasion for eating those open-faced sandwiches you hear all about, literally just a slice of dense bread covered in toppings like sausage, hard-boiled egg, and smoked salmon). My primary goals were to find work and improve with the language. I was eerily good with Danish and it still humbles me to think about the sheer number of people I was able to talk to on account of it. Language is the bridge that connects people. I always appreciated it before, but I never knew it could be magic.

There was hardship of course. Lots of awkward, lonely nights. A romantic engagement that fizzled out. Desperate grappling for meaning. Fear of running out of money. The shock of actually running out of money.

I don't miss it and I do. The people tend to be a bit closed-minded. They don't have the same ease with socializing, nor the desire to engage people they don't know. They aren't unkind. I think they're scared to be honest, scared of losing something as more people flood into their tiny country. The bureaucracy I've encountered in the US paled in comparison to that found in Denmark. Everything is so structured it falls apart. That's not a sentence I ever thought I'd see myself write, but it is a true one.  Still, the pace of life, the simplicity, the great love of simply walking....the organic layout of cityscapes. It was all very charming. And coming back was wonderful and terrible all at once.

The bigness of things made me a little dizzy. I was lost the first time I set foot in an American grocery store. In the first months I used the wrong prepositions, favoring the Danish construction but using English words. I'm not sure anyone noticed, but eventually I did. Then it stopped. And I noticed that too.

I tried to bike in my neighborhood and was reminded why it was a bad idea. I was a child filled with crazy delusions, all because I'd done it differently for awhile. I missed biking. Correction. I miss it. I miss it like I miss few other things. And not just biking in the park. But truly biking anywhere I want. Not worrying about whether or not a bike lane will end without notice. Not worrying about being hit or judged. And I realized that Americans do judge bicyclists. They are enthusiasts or they are the poor and there is very little in between. And that is our way I guess. As we are nearing that fateful day when we must choose between one and the other, the truth of our polarized existence is even clearer.

I haven't been at peace here since I got back. I hide it well. I go out and have a good time. I have friends. I don't hold back on those enriching experiences that make my life the beautiful, wonderful thing that it is. But nothing is quite right. I thought a job would improve matters...maybe a car...a place all my own. A life near the center of the city. There has been discovery, a great deal of it honestly. There have been new encounters of every kind. I've felt immeasurably happy at times. But in the end, there's this sense that I'm meant to be moving on.

I want to stumble upon the right road, the right life. Make the right choice that will lead me to the right spot on the planet. Find the right man and live and love and be in all the ways that feel right to my soul. And perhaps I will. We all have to believe that at any rate, don't we? And what happy accidents can carry us to where we need to be?

My job drains me. It barely pays the bills. I look forward to paying off my car and it could become a reality in the next year, but it will take perseverance. And I'll have to find a reason to be in the meantime. And honestly, I'm not sure I have that right now. And then sometimes I think that I do, and it is in sharing myself with people and letting them share themselves with me, in every sense of that word. I'm resilient and looking back on my life, I can't doubt my own strength. I also can't doubt I'm lost.

But if I can survive in a foreign place and let it change me, can't I be found again? Maybe that's how we find ourselves...when nothing else around us makes sense, when we have to rely on ourselves the most. When we're all we have.

I sat down a few months ago, when this feeling was creeping upon me again and getting a little too much to bear. I sat down and I was honest with myself. And I considered: "What makes me happy?" Because that is my life's goal-one of two. I want to be happy and I want to do my part to make the world a better place. There are several goals that might fit within these two very broad goals, but really, I want a simple life. And I want that to be enough.

The answer seemed to be the spaces in between. The things most people let slip their minds I started to hold onto. The drink with a friend. The night out dancing. The steamy perfection of a particularly wonderful cup of tea. The kind stranger in the hostel. The impromptu roadtrip. The way the rain hit my window, striking just the right note as I was trying to coax my restless body to sleep. My cat affectionately crawling into my lap. All the simple new things I tried. Getting the perfect blend of spices in some recipe I was inventing as I went along. That's where my happiness lies. But it's also being in a place where I can experience more of THAT.

People like to say that it doesn't really matter all that much where you are, that happiness exists within yourself. While I think finding happiness is an active process, place matters. Not every place allows you to find yourself and to be yourself. And this place does not allow me to fully be me. Perhaps that's what's so grating. Happiness was experience and this place can't give me the experiences I want to have.

A change is needed, and soon. And while it sometimes feels that I've failed again, I also see the beauty of possibility. Perhaps travel reshapes you so that you don't fit nicely into the space you used to occupy when you return. Like the favorite pair of pants you outgrow, maybe you sometimes have to outgrow old modes of being too, embrace ones that suit you better.

Home is the place you return to at the end of the day. I don't doubt that. But I don't think it's necessarily a certain roof over your head. I think maybe it's a place within yourself.

To Live

I know I'm supposed to find something I'm not too miserable doing, toil away for 40 hours a week for most of the rest of my life, get married to someone whose goals involve doing the same, have a couple of kids, take on a mortgage, and retire too tired to do the traveling that's always been at the back of my mind.

But I can't live that way. I just can't.

I want to share my life with someone, but he has to be the right someone. He's got to have passion and drive and perseverance and wanderlust and a curious mind that's always probing, turning over the corners of things to see what's underneath. I won't settle, and so I'm mostly alone in that sense. I flirt. I date. I have the occasional affair if I feel he's worth the investment of my time, and then I get back to experiencing this world and living my life to the fullest.

It was roughly a year ago that I came to the startling conclusion that most of my ambitions relied on other people coming through. I wanted to meet the right person, get married, become a mother, became renowned for my writing. And I lost myself. But I think I'm on the road to self-rediscovery and it all stems from a rather simple premise: Just live.

I want to experience places, things and people. I want to try new foods, marvel at graffiti in the unlikeliest of places, meet people just as delightfully lost as I am. I want to help as many people as I can along the way, feel things shift within me as all the barriers I didn't even know I'd erected come crumbling down. I want to merge with life itself, and feel the Universe pulse through my veins. I don't really want distinction. I want to write because it is the expression of what truth I've gleaned from my journey. I want to love because something awakens the impulse in me. I want to look ahead, not at the endless years I must labor in the name of a cause I do not believe in. But instead, I want to look ahead to the prospect of discovery. Of unearthing something in myself or someone else-something no one knew was there. I want to find hidden messages in street art and learn to utter the beautiful syllables of other tongues and smile at strangers, and share all I have and open myself up wide enough that I can accept the gifts others offer me, whether they be gifts of food, wine, money, or their time, more precious than any of the rest.

They say passion fades with age and value years of experience doing the same thing and laud the settled life and respect the man who comes home ravaged from his work or the woman who accepts no help as she slowly pieces her life back together. And that is not me. It has never been me.

I love people. The song and dance of them. The stories they tell when you scrape away the rust they've accumulated in this climate that is so inhospitable to their spirit, so at odds with what they are at their core-a core precious enough to pay their way out of servitude to the gods of capital.

I only want to live. I don't have any other goals and I don't want any other goals. Whatever work puts me in closest contact with the humanity still humming at the heart of the Machine-that is enough for me.