lime leaf buds rest
in the hanging air
as snowflakes
paused mid-fall,
like balloons
stopped mid-escape.
cashing in on a moment
of god-like indecisiveness.
gladly stuck in the middle
of an itching, yellow summer
and a yawning, blue winter.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
"The World Spins Madly On"
I don’t care if you comment on my blog. I don’t care if you read my blog. (In fact, I am a little embarrassed that I am only now starting a blog, a few years too late in a twitterpated, Twitter-dominated world.)
But I am writing because I have things to share. I have been circling around this world for four years, writing letters, remembering stories, taking pictures, not taking pictures, watching green sunsets, watching badly subtitled American TV, staring at airline puke bags, learning new currencies, accumulating several international numbers, walking colorful mountains, being bad at keeping in touch and panicking on the phone, learning new words and forgetting old ones.
I have had mailing addresses and cell phones in New York, Paris, Idaho, South Korea, Colorado, South Africa, and Toronto. I have celebrated birthdays in creepy Korean amusements parks, on boats off the coast of Africa, and in small Parisian hideaways known only as Chez Alice. I missed my brother’s high school graduation. I allowed a doctor in a hospital with geckos on the wall and a confiscated-gun drawer at check-in to screw my ankle back together. I have worked with kids that give me hope for the world and seen schools that leave me in despair for our future.
And every day, I fall more in love with the world. I learn. I struggle. I watch. I love. I learn more. I listen. I laugh. I often cry. I write it down. I learn even more. And everywhere, it all just keeps going.
The man that stole/ate the cake off my dinner tray somewhere between Johannesburg and London gets off the plane and goes somewhere.
The Canadian immigration guy who performed my very first background check and searched through every single article of anything in my over-packed/expertly-packed suitcases, even my dirty laundry bag (which I managed not to point out until he has were already too deep to turn back) likely performed his next interrogation the very same way.
Today in Cape Town, students at Observatory Junior School are lining up outside the art room, waiting for the doors to their salvation to open; the small “swap” library that allows them to take a single book home, just like they did a couple weeks ago. And every day, hundreds of men, young or old or sick or cold, sit on the side of the street outside of Hout Bay, hoping for even a couple hours worth of work at a dollar an hour.
It all just keeps going, big, small, beautiful, ugly. And whether I am here or there or somewhere, that matters only to me. And perhaps to you.
So I will write this blog, like my “big emails”, for all the right reasons; for myself, for posterity’s sake, to someday give it to my someday children, because I need an outlet, because some of this is because of some of you, because I get lonely and this helps take the edge off, because if I can’t always experience it with one of you so then maybe I can share it with all of you, and because the very least I can do in return, in gratitude for the life I have been given, is to pass it on.
I don’t promise to post something every day. I also don’t promise anything will be good or enlightening or witty or beautiful. It will just be what it is from wherever I am.
I recently had a dream where a stranger asked my mom how she continues to let me go. My mom responded, “Because, even if it’s just for a little bit, she always comes back.”
But I am writing because I have things to share. I have been circling around this world for four years, writing letters, remembering stories, taking pictures, not taking pictures, watching green sunsets, watching badly subtitled American TV, staring at airline puke bags, learning new currencies, accumulating several international numbers, walking colorful mountains, being bad at keeping in touch and panicking on the phone, learning new words and forgetting old ones.
I have had mailing addresses and cell phones in New York, Paris, Idaho, South Korea, Colorado, South Africa, and Toronto. I have celebrated birthdays in creepy Korean amusements parks, on boats off the coast of Africa, and in small Parisian hideaways known only as Chez Alice. I missed my brother’s high school graduation. I allowed a doctor in a hospital with geckos on the wall and a confiscated-gun drawer at check-in to screw my ankle back together. I have worked with kids that give me hope for the world and seen schools that leave me in despair for our future.
And every day, I fall more in love with the world. I learn. I struggle. I watch. I love. I learn more. I listen. I laugh. I often cry. I write it down. I learn even more. And everywhere, it all just keeps going.
The man that stole/ate the cake off my dinner tray somewhere between Johannesburg and London gets off the plane and goes somewhere.
The Canadian immigration guy who performed my very first background check and searched through every single article of anything in my over-packed/expertly-packed suitcases, even my dirty laundry bag (which I managed not to point out until he has were already too deep to turn back) likely performed his next interrogation the very same way.
Today in Cape Town, students at Observatory Junior School are lining up outside the art room, waiting for the doors to their salvation to open; the small “swap” library that allows them to take a single book home, just like they did a couple weeks ago. And every day, hundreds of men, young or old or sick or cold, sit on the side of the street outside of Hout Bay, hoping for even a couple hours worth of work at a dollar an hour.
It all just keeps going, big, small, beautiful, ugly. And whether I am here or there or somewhere, that matters only to me. And perhaps to you.
So I will write this blog, like my “big emails”, for all the right reasons; for myself, for posterity’s sake, to someday give it to my someday children, because I need an outlet, because some of this is because of some of you, because I get lonely and this helps take the edge off, because if I can’t always experience it with one of you so then maybe I can share it with all of you, and because the very least I can do in return, in gratitude for the life I have been given, is to pass it on.
I don’t promise to post something every day. I also don’t promise anything will be good or enlightening or witty or beautiful. It will just be what it is from wherever I am.
I recently had a dream where a stranger asked my mom how she continues to let me go. My mom responded, “Because, even if it’s just for a little bit, she always comes back.”
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