To Who I Am Becoming...

It is odd, I think, how something grabs you, pulls you into its self even before you know that it has happened. Yesterday I decided to walk home. It was one of the rare days where the sun and its accompanying warmth were something I enjoyed instead of being pained by. It was good to have the time alone. Even with people all around me I felt a comforting separation, like the way you feel when wind blows so hard against your body that you feel you could lean right into it and the force of the wind would hold you up. How does the song go? Alone but not lonely? That is how it felt. There was only me; my consistent breaths filling every space in myself, the tension of my blood filling my veins as it has longed to do for some time, the elation of my muscles, relaxed yet exuberant in the exertion. My rhythmic footfalls seem to pulse in time with the rest of me and seems to count time moving forward and yet not moving, like how running on a treadmill makes you feel like you have moved great di...

Some days are harder than others. She knew this just as everyone who breaths air knows it. It had been a hard day for her. In truth it had been a hard week, month, even year. She was able to innumerate all of the ways that it had been hard, the deaths of loved ones, the miles of separation from those who sustained her, the long hours of solitude, and the constant realization that nothing can really be checked off the "To Do" list. She honestly tried not to think about these and all the other reasons things had been hard but with the blinding sun, coming earlier and earlier and staying later into the night, came the mocking tones and the pinching reminders. There were many good things too She knew. She listed these every night and most mornings. She reminded herself that there was good all around her. She wanted to enjoy the beauty, the fun, the gloriousness that was constantly around her. She felt most at peace in the grey translucent light that others called darkness. It w...

Tomorrow we are going to move We move a lot I like it … mostly It means putting everything in boxes Mom and I drive in the car with our suitcases Dad and Marc come later with the big truck The driving is fun We play games and eat fun treats When we get there we have adventures and explore I like it when dad and Marc come and bring all of our stuff I get to put everything in my room the way I want it We are the weird ones No one moves around like us No one has adventures It is a little sad because we leave my friends but we always have friends where we move There are always friends We have moved a lot   I get to be fun I am the same but I get to be new too I think we might stay for a while It’s a little scary Mom says that most kids stay at home when they are not at school I go to daycare usually because mom and dad are at school I also go to another place after school some days We like taking trips to see family and friends a lot too...

I don't know how long I have laid here. Time is not counted the way it is in other places, it is counted in  sunrises and sunsets, drops of rain, cloud formations, lady bug steps, and a thousand other ways that are barely noticeable. I once stood tall like the others, reaching to the sky and providing shelter to others and strength to the earth. It has been a long time since I have fallen. I used to be upset about it, feeling the texture softening on one side, being invisible to all those who look up. I had been upset, thinking that I would no longer be able to find my place in the world, a place that mattered to the whole order. I was upset until She came. I had never seen anyone here. I heard stories of people coming to places like mine, but not never this far out, this uninteresting of a place. But, here She was, walking as though she was always meant to come here. As she moved, she touched my friends with kind fingers, making her way to…me. I thought she would pass me by. S...

She couldn't always put a name to what she was feeling. Her life was good; happy. By many means of measurement, She had nothing to complain about. She had a good job that might matter to someone with good friends who made everything seem wonderful. She had good friends that were always there for her if she ever called; She didn't, often. She had wonderful family who showed her all of the different ways of being in the world and the joys that could be had. She had all that she needed to live a comfortable life with relative meaning. And yet … She could not help but think that it might not be enough. She looked out her window at the ever darkening sky with lights being lit for those who might be traveling  like a twinkle of possible lives and adventures that could be lived. She could look into softening light like a fortune teller who looks into her crystal ball. She heard the echoes of lives that She could have lived, the people she could have met, the people she could have be...

Yesterday I watched two little girls play. They were going on a plane, vacationing, to the Miss Universe Planet. They packed what they needed and another two kids were the flight crew and pilot. They were not playing together but their games happened to connect. I began to wonder, why are they playing this game? Is it that this is what they view adult life to be? Is this what their parents talk about? I wondered about my own playing and so I called my mom. "What games did I play?" "What do you mean? We were never a big game family." I tell her about the children I watched and my wonders about my own life. "When you were that age we lived by the Koreans. You would play guns with them. I remember one day you came running in yelling that the boys were chasing you with guns. I came out; I thought they were going to hit you. You looked at me and said "They have guns! Isn't that great?!" You loved their little AK-47s". My mom tells me about...

She often sat on this bench. The wood was old, the paint faded, but it fit here. In this park it was one of the oldest things here but somehow it had survived three high school keg parties, two mayoral renovation campanes, and countless couples breaking up and making up. It had stayed. She liked to sit here were you could only just barley make out the houses from the trees because of how they seemed to have grown together. She liked the open feild which despite the space never seemed to have a lot of sporting events or large gatherings on it. And the trees. She liked the trees because they looked like the bench. They were like old friends who have taken on the likeness of the other and so you can never picture them not existing together. Today was the kind of day She liked most of all. The grass was still green despite the fact that the temperature had started its decent. There were people around but they were sparse and unique like the candy you find when cleaning a child's room...