ON BEING BETTER

I ventured back to my daily life – settled back into routine – working, studying, playing, and sleeping. That’s about how it goes.

Two weeks ago my routine was broken as I traveled to Hawaii. It was there that life found a new rhythm—full of sun, love, and inevitable tans. We spent our days and nights next to the water. We were in a dream.

I found the greatest peace there – no worries. I had everyone I needed with me.

I left my planner back in Dallas. I have never lived so much in the moment. My senses were on fire and my mind was on what was right in front of me. We lived minute to minute – something I had never done before. And it was a week filled with happiness.

So as I again set my roots back in Dallas, back into my daily routine – I am trying to bring a little bit of Hawaii back with me. Or, better yet, I am trying to be the person I was in Hawaii. A person who take deep breaths and tilt’s their head to the sun.

LIKE A MOTH

I love the nighttime. Especially all the lights – they look like stars, thousands upon thousands of them. The lights lure me downtown – where skyscrapers distort my reality – making me feel bigger and braver in their presence.  Sometimes I feel perfect. I let the buildings envelope me – they seem to grow taller each time I tilt my head to the sky, but I don’t see sky – I see light crawling up infinitely and I lose myself in the illusion.

The wind shuffles through channels between buildings and reaches me – making my pewter-silk shirt flutter as if it has been given wings.  My skin heightens – hair pulling up – searching for warm-rising air. A friend slips his gentle hand down my exposed back into a jean pocket – grounding me – my rising illusion interrupted.

I remember my feet hurt. He guides me forward by my pocket.  I guide a cigarette to my puckered-red lips – the tan tip of it now tainted with vibrant color. I inhale slowly – lusting after every sensation it brings – following the smoke from the embers all the way down deep into my lungs.  I rewind the sensation – exhaling – feeling it travel back up through my lungs as if it were on a journey through every vein and blood cell in my body.  It reaches my nose—breaking free of captivity. I watch it rise up. And for a moment it clouds my eyes with romantic haze.

The smell penetrates every fiber on me – thick and rich. The smoke mixes with my curling hair – blending together in the moonless night. Like the lights it envelops me and for a moment I’m lost again in my perfect world.

I feel the heat of the embers as they burn closer and closer to my hand. I surrender and drop the cigarette to the pavement – all the while my friend’s hand still in my back pocket.

We inch forward like worms towards a dark door. It never stays closed for very long. And each time it opens light pours out – illuminating the darkness that traps it.  The chatter is incessant around me. Like a herd of cattle we move together towards the door. Music reverberates through me – I feel it even in my pained feet. He pulls his hand from my pocket and I finally stand alone at the door. It opens. I exhale and melt into the light within.

MAKING THE PIECES FIT

It shouldn’t make sense. Nothing connects or flows. The image is interrupted – confused. But I can’t look away. I stared at it for minutes – trying to make sense of the shapes illuminated by the computer screen.

I immediately related to the photo. It all fit together perfectly but in the wrong way – maybe not wrong, but not conventional. It’s a photo that doesn’t conform – it started normal and became unique – cut, broken, misplaced, and meshed.

I felt like I was looking at my life. A piece here and a piece there – not flowing together but fitting.

I move like a hummingbird, blindly following my electric heartbeat – nonlinear. And in this flutter I find my own flow – making sense of nonsense – finding beauty in the broken.