Now

I want to go to the forrest.
I want to sleep among wooden giants.
I want to see the stars,
 to see the moon,
 and the planets,

To escape the city, just for a night just for a moment.

Just to get away from the everlasting hum of fluorescent bulbs
 to escape the hard unforgiving concrete that surrounds me
 to inhale and smell the earths soft breath

to finally release the tension
set betwixt my shoulder blades

I want to open my eyes and see stars not concrete

I want to inhale the moon, suck up the sea and lay on the rivers lonely coast
to shed the iron flakes that have settled where sunshine once rose, to awaken to a day on a lawn of freshly borne stones still warm from the womb of the earth

Yet here lay in my bed trapped by 17 floors of pure civilization

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Sometimes I cant speak.
I can't say what I want. Im thinking the words, they are there in my throat, but I wont let them out. I sit silently listening to you. Im thinking of responses but trapping them in my throat and swallowing them down. You talk to me, telling me your hopes and dreams, but I swallow mine.

I sometimes feel words cannot explain me. I am an intangible catatharsis of self that can only be spoken in a language I don't yet know. So I swallow my words.

As you open your self up to me your words fill my pores, and all I want to do is to reassure you and tell you I feel the same way but words don't let me express my feelings.

I know I need time to meditate on your expressions of self, to find time to discover the language that fits the gap between your words and my feelings. I wish I could just use the words in my head but they don't fully convey the feelings in my soul. I need to find new ones to fit the gap.

So if I don't reply its not that I don't care, Its that I care so much I must explore words to find the perfect language of the birds, to find the words to bridge the gap.

I think I once knew this language, but those who came before you drained it from my self. So I'm left to find something new.

I want to hold your hands and have you know, and have every thing fall into place, but the world doesn't work like that.

Even if it did, everything would fall through the gaps.

So it may take me a while but give me time and eventually Ill find the words and in return maybe you will let me fill you, the way you fill me.

Religion and Food Part III

      I also found my self spending my evenings cooking more and more elaborate dishes. I went from watching Meet Joe Black and eating Mac n' Cheese, to watching the Dalai Lama speak on TED and cooking roast chicken with glazed sweet potatoes and fresh lemonade. I remember watching one of his talks and wishing one of my friends from home would call, and hearing him say "if we all just treated each other the way we want to be treated the world would be a much better place" or something to that effect.
     After hearing that I wondered why don't we apply that idea to more of our lives? Why do we only think of that when we some one who is homeless, or when we see benefit programs to support people in a disaster situation. Why don't we apply that when we are waiting for someone to call, why don't we apply that when we see a friend who you can tell wants to say something but can't. Why don't we empower our selves to call, why don't we tell our friends I can see you want to say something, whatever it is I care about you and always will. Why do we let cultural manners dictate how we conduct our feelings and how we function among others. We don't determine what station we are born into, why discriminate those who were born a different race, nationality, or ability. We don't like being discriminated against why discriminate others.

     I let that moment, the one where I was sitting in my tiny apartment window ledge huddled over a plate of roast chicken and sweet potatoes, to be my epiphany.

     I took it upon my self to let that simple phase be my guiding light:
   
Treat others how you want to be treated

     This simple phase can be applied to everything from helping those in need, to taking a shift for a coworker, to simple things that can make someones day; like buying the meal for the person behind you in the drive through, spending the day watching movies with a sick friend, calling some one you haven't heard from in months, accepting the fact that people make mistakes and letting things go, buying an unexpected gift for a friend or even a stranger.

     While the phrase is simple the idea can be difficult. Sometimes I can't believe the things that people do and I want to get so very very angry, but I remember how hard it is to take responsibility for your mistakes and I let go, if my anger and work towards a solution I can put my energy to better use.

     While this is an idea expressed in Buddhism its only one of the many views. However I am not a true Buddhist. Im not exactly ok with the whole reincarnation idea, I think there is something after death, but Im not sure if its heaven. But the levels to enlightenment thing Buddhists believe in is a little hard to believe in. I believe more in the teachings of the Dalai Lama than Buddhism. He has a really good talk about all paths to god which I am a believer in. I don't care what you believe in, whether it is science, or islam or paganism, or whatever, as long as you strive to do good without hurting others and allow others to believe in whatever they want its good with me.

      So once a week when some people take time out to to to church, or temple or pray with their families, I sit in my apartment cook something delicious and I feed my soul as well as my body. I sit, enjoy the food I am lucky to have, and dedicate an hour or so to fill my soul with positivity. It might be a TED talk or a sermon streaming from the Dalai Lama, an empowering documentary, a youtube clip, whatever. Its not always religious, but it always presents a new perspective or idea.

     So once I fed my soul as a result of feeding my body, but I have come to a place where I feeding my body has just become part of the ritual of feeding my soul.

Religion and Food Part II

     When I first left home for college I was so excited. Within hours I had best friends and I was totally ready for the freedom of it all and leaving Cali behind for a new adventure. My freshman year was great. I had good friends, great professors, easy classes, and no responsibilities.

     But the one thing I knew I wanted at the end of it all was to be an RA. I had a great RA he was really aware of the students on his floor and took time to get to know us as people. I wanted to be able to open up and be real with people the way he was with us. So I applied, and I didn't get it.

     I was crushed. But I knew the worst thing a person can tell you is No. But, no is just a yes if you are patient. So I looked at my options and I applied to be a summer RA. I got the job but that meant staying the whole summer in Chicago and no seeing any of my friends or family.

     The summer was really hard on me I had fun but I ached for the people I loved and hadn't seen. I felt lost without them. Most of my new college friends left and my friends from home were home so it was just me. There were other summer RA's and we bonded and became friends but there was still ample time for me to sit and wallow in my loneliness.

     I became very depressed. When I am sad and depressed there are only two things that make me happy, good food and good movies. So naturally I watched hundreds of hours of Netflix. I some how stumbled upon this fabulous documentary about the Dalai Lama. It was fascinating. It told the story of his life how he was plucked from childhood to be a living god, and how he used his powers to speak to the world on equality, and morals.
   
     He taught the ideas of Buddhism and how the main world religions have very similar ethical codes, but are taught in different ways. This was a revelation for me.

     My main issue with Christianity was all the ideas veiled in stories, and how it claimed to be the reason for meaning in the world. After more research on the Dalai Lama I learned more about Buddhism the pillars, and the stories. I am not a fan of all of these ethical stories, every religion has them, but id rather the message be straight up, why hide the fact that people should treat each other with fairness and love, why do we need to hide that?

Religion and Food Part I

     When I was a little kid I used to drive for 45 minutes on Sunday with my mom to go to church.
My sister my mom and I would be dressed and out the door so we could drive downtown and sit in the pews with my grandparents for hours and hear these old people tell stories in sing songey voices then eat these weird little pieces of bread.
     We weren't Catholic as people often assumed if ever mentioned these never ending services, we were Episcopalian, which Johathan Rhys Meyers has explained to me through The Tudors is very similar but very different. Same beliefs and all, but women can be priests, it doesn't matter who you love aka being gay is ok, no nuns or monks, divorce is more acceptable, and various other changes.
     As a child I didn't really listen to all the speeches, I preferred to color. Sunday School wasn't really my thing either. I mostly went for the company, because I liked buying fancy clothes to wear to church, and the food.
     Almost always after church we would go to lunch with my grandpa and my grandma. I really liked going out to eat and I liked being with my grandpa and grandma, so as a kid I mostly went to church for the food.
     As I got older I didn't have time to spend 7 hours every week at church and lunch, or chunch if you want to call it that. And I began to be bored with coloring and sometimes I found my self actually listening to the old people in the front talking. I agreed with some of it, I really liked when we all shook hands and said, "Peace be with you" and in reply heard, "And also with you" but there were parts I didn't get. Like why we needed elaborate stories about cutting babies in half to learn compromise. And stories of miracles and fabulous feats to teach ethics, and whether or not we are supposed to take these stories as fact. Why did ideas of compassion, compromise, friendship, and empathy need to be veiled with strange tales for them to matter to people.

     As I got older I became disillusioned with the christian faith, I did not believe in the spirit in the sky, and there was no where to go when you died. I did not see any thing other than just ending.

     But it became hard to believe in nothing.

Questions that lead to Questions Part I

     So ive been doing this project for a class where I write down all of the questions that come to my mind. Im only a few days in but I already see trends.
     Most of my questions are about every day stuff, what to wear, what to eat, do I really need to bring that to class. But a lot of the rest are reflective questions. That have popped up going through old friends Facebook accounts or categorizing the 6000 photos I recently uploaded. Questions like:
        What happened to us?
        Why haven't we talked in years?
        Where are you now?
         I wonder if you remember the time when we:
                         fell asleep in class on each others shoulders,
                         wore matching denim tuxedos,
                         had a food fight in the kitchen,
                         played dress up with your moms clothes,
                         spent all of our free time building forts and wooden cars,
                         showed me the hand saw you keep under your bed for "emergencies",
                         would sing at the top of our lungs over the radio,
                         went skinny dipping in the pacific in the middle of the day at a public beach,
                         had a piggyback contest on the hills of San Francisco,
                         had our first kiss during media class,
                         painted a mural for class,
                         would race down the hill to the swing set after lunch,
                         thought that this stump was the coolest thing,
                         played with the wooden swords I made us,
                         tried to make our own legos with hot glue,
                         made tons of "money" on Business Day,
                         woke up in your bathtub with tons of people in your house that neither of us knew,
                         got locked in the bathroom together and the janitor had to take the hinges off the door,
                         spent an entire class period using Photo Booth on my computer rather than class,
                         taught "spoons" to the class and played for the entire rest of the day
                         learned what our teachers middle name was,
                         tried to get our favorite substitute to sign our year books,
                         bought a fancy saw to make projects from a book,
                         almost got lost less than a mile a way from my house,
                         walked from my house to yours just because,
                         rode our bikes to Grandpa's house without telling anyone,
                         went on self esteem walks,
                         did crazy makeup and photo shoots,
                         made bad decisions on a field trip to a mormon college.
                         shotguned energy drinks with our teacher,
                         were eating apples and were warned about finding half a worm in it,
                         went wandering around Sac State looking for a party,
                         danced around the music room instead of homework or studying,
                     
                This list is going to get a lot longer, but Ive realized why my work is so nostalgic and spiritual. Because each one of these moments has stuck in me as a moment of love. A moment to be cherished, because it will never be the same. No matter how things turn out in the end if we're lucky we will still have our memories we will still be able to think back on a time where our biggest worry was if thrifty would have my favorite flavor and when the new episode of Star Trek Enterprise was on. We often don't realize the impact simple everyday moment have on us, some of my best work comes from memories of simple things, like ice cream. And even some of the things others think that I would want to forget, Ive come to realize good or bad they happened and as far as I know you can't change the past so why let them consume you why feel guilty why feel regret. Things happen people change but in the moment they seem like good ideas so hold on to that keep the love once felt, the joy in your heart, the tingly feeling on your skin, the wonder that filled your eyes, keep the mist in your hair, and the beauty in the fog. Keep the memories.

The Ends and Beginnings

When I was about three years old I saw a t.v. show that would change my life forever. I was watching a marathon of Mr. Rodgers with my Grandpa. When suddenly the smiley old man with a fondness for puppets and zip up sweaters was replaced by a man with sandy blonde hair and tiny santa-like glasses. It was Rick Steve’s Europe and he was visiting Paris. I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap with my eyes glued to the screen.

He went to Notre Dame, scaled the steps of Montmarte, walked the Champs-Élysées, went on Le Grande Roue, all of the things you are supposed to do in Paris and few more. But of all the things in Paris it was the Louvre that enchanted me. Its history as a royal palace, its strange pyramid in the courtyard, but most of all Winged Victory. How could something with out a face or arms be so beautiful and so elegantly capture movement. I think my child self resolved that it must have been an unfortunate angel who fell in the path of Medusa and was turned to stone, in my mind there was no way something like that could have been made by a human. In any case this city captured me in such a way that at a very young age I knew that I would go to Paris someday. It was not a mater of if but to me I saw it as something that was going to happen, someday I knew I would be walking the banks of the Seine with Notre Dame on the horizon. Even at the young age of three I would tell people that I was going to Paris, it was just a matter of  time.

It was afternoons like that one spent at my grandparents house watching PBS shows, building blanket forts, making dolls out of socks with my grandma, or racing my sister to the lone swing that hung from the largest Pecan tree this side off the Pecos river. That I miss the most from my childhood. I spent so much time with my grandparents by the time I was in kindergarden I had picked up a little bit of their Texas accent.

I remember one day during the dreaded reading group time, which I hated because I already knew how to read, this ornery little kid called me out for saying y’all in front of the whole class. It was incidents like this that made me dislike the people at my school, I enjoyed learning, I just was not so hot on all the kids there, I continued to visit my Papa and Grandma every day and I further retreated into their love. The children in my class thought it was silly that I was going on trip “someday” they were very set on making me feel that I was very odd. At that age I didn’t know anything else that I might want as a grown up, I just knew that someday I would go to Paris.

After school and during vacations and summer I stayed with my grandparents while both my parents worked.  My sister and I would do puzzles with my grandparents, help them in their acre with raking and cleaning up after their fruit trees an garden. In the mornings when my mom would drop us off I would help my grandpa. I would go into his room and help him button his shirt, put shaving cream on his face, help him shave and get his dentures for him from their glass.  Then we would sit down for breakfast. By that time my grandma and my sister would have ate already and would be in the yard working, but Papa and I would always spend our mornings together.

My Papa kept needing more and more help from me in the mornings, eventually I wasn’t enough help for him. I knew that he had cancer, but at the age of seven I just thought It was something that all old people got. First my dad and I had to make all theses ramps for him and his walker which was decorated with every sticker I could get my hands on. Then It was a shower chair and a wheel chair. Next was a hospital bed, then meals in bed, oxygen and a nurse. One day my dad came to pick me up from school early, I thought it was for my sisters Open House but he took me to my Grandparents house where my sister and my Aunt Sherry and my Grandma were and they told me he was gone. I remember going into his room but all I remember seeing are his skinny long feet touching the foot of his bed, his closet open reveling the classic Members Only jacket he always wore, and the owl wind chime that hung from a corner of his room. I remember feeling really sad and crying for hour

When my grandma passed away my junior year of high school, the woman who took care of me as a little kid, the woman who taught me to sew the woman who kept my papa’s memories alive by telling his stories through her tears, and so many other things.  Ironically my grandmas passing allowed me to complete the one thing I had always known, that I needed to go to Paris. She left me enough money to fund me to go on a class exchange program to France for a month.

   Its funny how things end up how our beginning tie our end, how falling in love with an idea in an orange chair can land you swimming in the Mediterranean sea with the taste of salt tingling your skin and the sun illuminating your oldest dream. I was so so sad when she passed,  I still am, but at least now there is a hope that  somehow they will find each other in the heaven they so deeply believed in.