An Advent of Sense

We slept in beds that were not our own. We occupied head spaces more foreign to us than the soil on which we stood. We watched ice melt into flowers all over the countryside, trying hard to capture each moment and hold it captive. We became vagrants, newly possessed of colorful perspectives and duty-free goods. Beyond tourism, we were elements of an amplified way of existing, too blessed to be real. We saw our histories and our futures from every available angle and We gulped freedom down like famished animals. We are now addicted to that exquisite nectar. Who am I? Amid the stars, the flecks of paint, the bricks and timber, the bones, and the hands that hold? Filling pages with words and ideas, for myself or no one in particular? The cosmos spin and laugh at us in their perpetual mystery. Our brains explode from too much information, Our hearts from overwhelming emotion, Our souls from suffocating technology. We are debilitated by our own success. ...I will just live...

There is no point to any of this. The secret to life is that... there is no secret! We spend so much of our time dwelling, wondering, reflecting--        Am I doing the right thing?        Do I matter?        How can I make a difference to the world? Like finding our purpose is the reason that we are alive. These are not moral questions indicating our desire to improve the state of humankind; They are implications of the roots of our insecurity.        Am I doing the right thing? Subjective. Isn't relevant.        Do I matter? You're a dot of pigment on the face of the earth so...frankly, no.        How can I make a difference to the world? Unless you have an unusually dense system of money, intellect, and other resources, it will be very difficult to do.        Then why am I alive. Because it can be so beautiful. There is duality...

You are the synthesis of all of the beautiful things that a person can be You are a breeze that cools my skin and lifts my hair in the warmth of spring You are rapture, you are light, you are the object of my utmost respect You are god’s gaffer, illuminating the things that I try to hide You are faceted, multi-paneled quattrocento grace Unscripted, unfiltered, uncut and unbelievable. I’m rambling. I’m journaling. I’m documenting how you make me feel. How you crept into frame like a revelation How I’m driven half mad with your frequency in my mind. I have everything I want At least for a few weeks. Why do I crave any more? Joy does not equate contentment. I’m restless to see you to feel you to experience you. I want it, but you need give me nothing more. Your presence is gift enough.

The sweet and small indications of Spring’s coming were positively allegorical for the place in which she felt her life currently existed.   Like a cold, drawn-out Winter, she had watched her own leaves dry up and fall away—not settling down, but settling. People, like seasons, see many phases in their years.   The Winter is not to be feared nor does it live to burden.   It is simply a phase, a recurring theme.   It brings strength, great challenge, and a sort of shedding of an outer layer.   She felt her Winter thawing.   A secret, bright and rosy heat now radiated from her.   Her Spring would be all things that are pleasurable and lovely.   Her outer layer, now melting away, was beginning to reveal ancient buried relics, past lives that had always been inside her but were made new by Winter’s chisel.   She was emerging, fresh and fiery as a flower.   All things before her were possible and she saw ...

And over the course of those three or so months she spent living and studying in Tuscany, she felt more creative, inspired, singular, and aware than she had in what may have been years. Once again sensing mastery of her own emotions, she was able to concurrently observe her life retrospectively and realistically entertain the future. Her life, and outlook on it, had been changed significantly in the previous months and during her time there...to different degrees and at varying paces. How much of it had to do with the breakup she eventually initiated after three years spent unknowingly, and foolishly in her blindness, making herself emotionally subservient to the same broken man? Or perhaps to do with the sudden onset, and then creeping end, to the life of her uncle who suffered from stage four brain cancer...a man with whom she was admittedly not very close? Or, on that strain, the recurring motifs of death that quietly swarmed her--Uncle, ex lover's concession of his occasion...

More and more I am who I am I feel me becoming me I will put art and the lyrics of life far above men, worldly beauty, and fleshly desires. I will contribute to the language of love and will fuse luck and wit--mistress of my successful fate. There is a sacred geometry within me, and all things. A cord of energy weaves us all into a single scientific tapestry. I am the goddess divine of my orchard--my golden fruit can cure your ill. I am the keeper of the keys of my soul--beware bewitchment if ingressing here. I am the Mother Superior of this sculpted abbey--my space is sacred and whole. I am open, welcoming, arms outstretched--I can be your gilded sky. Fare you well, traveler, I ensnare like a rosy bramble.

Give me a second to sit, a moment ot meditate... I grow more feral with each passing moment I sit fixed in this beautiful cage. These stones are illusionist's trick Oh, these hills 'fore my eyes call me free. The air is sweet and ancient and rich but the supply constricts so slightly. My foes are my friends, my new family, slave-drivers. I'm tilling the harvest of their perceptions. My mind says, "Step away and be free," the angry logic frothing. This insecure heart beats and grasps at a perfect respect I envision. Visions are fruitless without action on hand. My mind does as I will it to do... Will I do as my mind so demands?

WHAT I WANT FOR ME: 1. Restore independence 2. Not obsess over romance 3. Learn to love in many different ways 4. Not make myself emotionally subservient 5. Not put up with bullshit