termites of the page

'68 comeback special

2011-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Shouldn't the words be recorded? When new emotion, new experiences are being trenched through aren't the words the first thing I should grab?

Well, no.

I am thinking about writing all the time. When I am not physically doing it, I'm discovering sentences in my head and elaborating them in the temporal notebook. Honestly though, sometimes I just feel too much pressure to write. I feel that it's something I should be doing, an unexpected knick in my personality. Yet, there is something exquisitely dangerous about living the life of a writer with the absence of words.

Do words make you a writer? No.

I don't care how many projects your working on, what your next great idea is, or how many works sit on the bookstore shelves. To me, what makes you a writer is the passion for the words. To just feel the inspirational juices flow because of how the words looked stamped on a sweet smelling page. For the most part, talking about writing is boring. People know how to sell themselves and there is just something about you thinking your a misunderstood genius that turns me off from ever wanting to read anything your fingertips process. They want the title, but they lack the soul.

This is the first thing I've written in weeks. I felt too much pressure to be on the page so I vacated for awhile. A part of me feels like I should be recording these days. The personal days, the days when you can't stop laughing, the days where your dog stares at you while your crying on the kitchen floor; shouldn't all these moments have space in the lines?

I bring this up because one of my friends always tells me I should be writing about what I'm going through. But here's the thing:

don't

want

to.

The emotions I have felt in the last months of my life are too exclusive for me to keep in the confines of a notebook. They are filled with at times negativity, pessimism, and an odor of jadedness that I wish to experience and then let go of.

I cloud my mind too much with writing to sit down and do it. I think about the quality of the words then and now and if maybe I "lost" it.

Charles Bukowski believed that the gift to write was almost like a house guest. They either ended up staying forever or they left one day and you never saw them again. People think too much about loss to really enjoy what's happening when it is. I love that today while I was getting ready for school and I heard my dad laugh to himself on multiple occasions.

"I just want to make people laugh, not make them sad."

This is an attitude that nothing else but your soul can adopt and shine through the flesh.

I'm tired of thinking about writing.

So while the words still come to me, I will place them down to sleep in their pristine white sheets. Material doesn't make you a writer.

It's where your heart is after you've weathered the storm and the drought.

little hell

2011-07-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

How sad when you don't want to write anything.

grand optimist

2011-06-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

Since the words are a little sketchy today, I'm just going to answer a simple question.

What do you love most about your family?

This is where I search because my family is no different then any other. Different, dramatic, and sometimes the reason your making an appointment with a therapist. I guess despite everything,I love the fact that everyone in my family feels so strongly about what they are fighting for. They believe in something enough to tear through everything for it. I love that from some I get that true support system-- the feeling of not being alone when all you want to do is be left alone. I get tired of answering redundant text messages and updating near and distant cousins. In this sick and twisted way, I love that sometimes you feel stuck with them so you have to find reasons to love them. You have to dig through the bullshit and ego-based judgements and anger and find the raw love. You have to look at them through your heart (which isn't always a gracious and easy task). I also love that family isn't limited. As you grow older in years, you expand your family. You welcome new people, give birth to them, and convert friends into the group. There is never a lack of opportunity to welcome new recruits to the special warm place in your heart. I love that I don't get them, sometimes I can't stand them, and sometimes can't wait to have my chance to start over and create my own. That sounds odd to say right? but IT IS one of the reasons why I love the family I was born with. They are deep inside me enough to where they affect my emotions. A cynicist would say it's because they are assholes and I could care less, but I know it's the opposite. It hurts that my dad's sisters are hot on the looney bin train and don't know how to interact with us peacefully. It sucks that I cut off ties with them, it sucks that sometimes I can't stand my own sister.

But they are mine.

& I will always love them and send them the brightest of love and rawest of love.

l' amor che move il sole e l' altre stelle

2011-05-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

Send him some light and love every time you think of him and then drop it.

When people ask me why I have a pen in my hand when I read a book I simply just say, "I'm an active reader." I draw circles, harsh underlines, and brackets around phrases, words, and paragraphs that in that moment spoke to me. Consoling myself through airport time I picked up "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabteth Gilbert. I remember when everyone was really hyped up about the movie and was reading the book. It's an ironic thing that happens to me, I almost think that it's partially because I'm a smart-ass but when everyone is really into something-- may that be a book, band, or movie-- I am immediately turned off by it. However, in the universe's weird twist of fate I watched the movie one night out of boredom and was completely taken back by it. What this woman did in her times of depression and struggle was something I have always wanted to do. To gain even the slightest bit of courage and take off to find the richness in life, find that peace within yourself, and hopefully find yourself while your at it. So when I was browsing through stores in SFO yesterday, the book instantly came to mind. I feel like you encounter things in you life when you most need it. You don't know why, but titles come to your mind or a movie you want to see. Somewhere their is a lesson needing to be retreived from it's treasury grip. That's exactly what I found in between the book binding.

It is the hardest thing for me to introduce someone new into my life. I get use to routine and aloneness that someone coming around and making you want something different really spins me into a clusterfuck. I use to always think the purpose had to be clear, you had to walk into it with a clear goal in mind of want you both wanted in the outcome. Yes, I'm naive and don't know much about relationships. In the beautiful way that only life can do it, you sometimes find yourself dipping your toes in the water and feeling it out. Is it too cold? too warm? Do I really want to get all the way in? & before you even have a chance to know it, your knee-deep.

Now don't get me wrong, it's a completely terrifying feeling but oh, is it magical. Terrifying I say in the sense because for a girl who likes to always do things with meaning, sometimes that's the one thing you can't figure out. You can't figure out why you like the smell of their skin after the shower or the way their arm feels draped over your shoulder. You couldn't possibly fathom why you find yourself in the most intimate situations when you couldn't even muster up a sentence or two to answer the question, "What do you like about them?"

I think life (God, moon, universe, stars...) shell out experiences in order to press the more crinkled aspects of ourselves. They shell them out and we decide how exactly we want to digest them in the internal sense. It's something that I need to understand about not being able to know everything ahead of time. I can't possibly know the meaning of this person within a week of conversation. I can't expect them to know either. Ultimately, I can't expect from them what I damn well don't expect from myself.

Aside from the scariness, feeling emotion towards someone else is a entrancing phenomenon. All of the sudden, someone who maybe wasn't so attractive to you just became the world's best prize. You find the glitter of the sun in their smile and hope to the great God that they find something wonderful about you. They are a new treasure you found and if you play your cards right, they'll allow you to open the chest and dive in. Sure, I'm use to playing the independent route. I'm use to the solo-routine and the not really caring about dating because it's far more easier to be alone. But it's that feeling, that feeling without being able to understand it. You WANT to open yourself up to them, you WANT to go through all the scary shit just to be able to experience everything you can. You don't know if anything will work out or if they will just become another chapter in a journal on your bookshelf, but by God you want to play all the fields before you really assume you've struck out.

So yes, I don't know what I'm doing, not essentially too sure about how I feel, but all I know is I want to be here. I want to be in this experience with this person even if at times none of the puzzle pieces seem to fit. At times,I find myself doing the familiar thing of closing up, only to have a clear thought in my head the next day to cut it out. I can't shut down because I'm scared for the rest of my life and if I'm going to start attempting, I'm going to attempt with him. Because this could turn out to be nothing, it could turn out to be a really awesome friendship, or it could turn out to be something mind-blowingly magical.

Because he's honest, warm-hearted, and worth the time-spent.

Oh and he's funny.

Two sentences? check.

On a side note, I am completely warmed by the kindness in people. I find the greatness of love in other people at the peculiarest of moments and can feel the smile beaming off my face. To a fellow passenger talking about their travels or offering a small child some fruit snacks. It's in these small gifted moments that I forget about everything else. To me, this is what life is truly all about--finding love in the darkest of spaces. Because if you can find it hidden in the black hole, you can find it anywhere and believe me, sometimes my own chest is the big black hole. Yet, each moment when I try, it is found.

All I want out of this human experience is the chance to love to my greatest ability. To love even when I'm scared, even when I'm confused, and especially in the moments when I find myself with so much anger that I couldn't possibly have ANY love to give.

Because that's when I have the most.

lovelovelovelovelove to you,

le dix mai

2011-05-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

The emotions come out in words. I'm not a crier, not a screamer, I'm not even a cynic! Instead it all comes out in the words. I think of quirky jargon to put in statuses, blogspot whitespots, and even miniature notebook lines. It's what I do to cope, to voice out, and I guess I lied-- even sometimes to be a cynic. It's the deeply intimate process of placing all the pieces on the deck and sorting them to a level of make-sensery (excuse me, I'm just making up words). It's where I get to talk and not be interrupted (even by myself)! so where do you start when the canvas is absolutely fresh and the words have been picking at you since dawn? Well, you start wherever the fuck you want to start. Sometimes I feel like I have some gregarious alter-ego. The saucy Rita, if you will to my timid Lee-Lee. The ask what you will and be prepared for the devilish answer kind of girl. You know as Dr. Jekyll as it sounds, sometimes I think it's almost crucial. As feeble human creatures, we find about 80% of our time being too scared to step out of our "Lee-Lee" zone. We live cautiously and instead of delving into the deep rich treasures of life that are obviously sometimes problematic, we play it safe and bury our heads into what feels like home base. You shush away the urges and gorgeous creatures who beckon you. Lock that saucy temptress up and remember there is work to be done in dreaming. You remember aspirations and dreams and feel damned that you let someone withhold them from that journey progress. You almost make yourself angry about it! You curse your Rita with her lace panties and those damn sexual organs for thumping in the night. How dare you let yourself get off track!? well let's face it: it happens. And why not embrace it when it does? The kisses were sweet and the warm body soothing in the lullaby of nightly furtherism. Hell, even the "empty carb" beer was delectable! Should we not indulge in the Rita? Nourish her and let her exercise her sometimes healthy habits and needs? Because as cliche as it sounds--sometimes being "bad" feels so good...

So Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the introduction of my Rita. The 20% of me that isn't scared to state likes, dislikes, and even wishes. Who dresses to impress and frankly, dresses to undress. She is healthy, disease-free, and feels good to bring out once awhile. You have to keep people on their toes. To keep people believing their is more to someone at times then they show. More then writing, hand-crafting, and working out. More than timidness and girl-next-door sweetness.

The tree of gratitude (#20)

2011-05-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

"The person who has stopped being thankful has fallen asleep in life." -ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

What about life don't you trust?

I've noticed in the recent weeks of my own life, I've been finding MORE of my trust with life, with the universe, with God. I trust that my dad will find the peace and tranquility he seeks. I trust that the journey I am called to will be shown in time. I trust that I have all the abilities and love to complete anything I ever want. But what don't I trust? In moments of heartache, I don't trust myself or the plans of the stars. I am no longer a creature lacking self-worth. I know that I may be complicated at times, but I am truly worth knowing. I will always be willing to give something to someone, anyone who is willing to share a little bit of themselves with me. i don't trust the transformation of myself in times of confusion. I hear the thoughts of a girl whom I have no idea where she came from. When the struggles get too hard, I feel hopeless. When my dad has another confusing episode, I start to feel like I want to die. Which is completely dramatic, but oh sometimes I feel like their is no escape. Refuge with a friend for two hours leaves me no peace. I no longer find myself happy to come home, but instead dreading it. So do I not trust the lessons of the cards that were dealt to me? Do I not trust the fruits and treasures that lay in everyone we come across? Even the overly sarcastic boy that you sometimes you feel like you can't even stand? or the boy you've opened up your heart to and still can't realize how beautiful you are? At times, no I don't trust these things and I don't trust the plan provided for me. I lose faith and lack a shit ton of love. These are the moments when the art of love should be practiced, when I should push for the highest version of myself and let the old Leigh continue to sink. Truthfully though, sometimes I just want to be held. I want someone else to take the initiative to take care of me and carry me through the day. I want someone to graze the curves of my shoulder and whisper to me that everything will be okay. Not just in my own personal life, but in the entire world. There is so much hate in the world it's sinks heavy on the heart. I wish for an entire world boosted on the foundation of love. Where there are no social classes, no races, no competition. Just people doing their jobs because it's what they love to do.

i don't trust the power of the love in my heart all the time,
but I'm learning to.

--You are here--

franchement

2011-04-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

This is what I miss most about myself.

I wish I could tell you what I've been going through and how much the last three weeks of my life have affected me. For the last three nights, I've cried and honestly, I feel like that part in Titanic where Rose is saying she is screaming at the top of her lungs and no one is looking up. I don't know what it is about this time that is different. Four and a half years ago I went through the same thing and aside from the obvious bad days, I feel like I went through it like a champ. I survived the death of one of my best friends. Of course, obvious days of doom and fuck you-ery aside, I knew when it was time to rebuild myself. This time, I feel like I can't escape. It's a constant war between where I would like to be and where everyone else would like me to be. I can't find sanctuary in hours with my friends because my step-mom needs me, I can't confide in my dad because I don't know who that man is in the hospital bed but he is certainly just a shell of the man I once knew. So I just cry and tell all the people that love me the most how alone I feel (when in reality it's the last thing I am).

I decided to take myself out of everything, to put my phone in the closet and deactivate my Facebook. I am too consumed by these things and don't allow myself enough time to heal, to rejuvenate, to remember who I am underneath everything else. So of course, my first step was to come here. To pen these words down even if they aren't beautiful and worthy of an editor's praise. Sometimes the rawness just has to be that--RAW.

I wish for a better time then now.

I wish to feel like me again.

nothing to undo

2011-04-05T23:59:00.001-07:00

On nights like these I soul search.

I stop thinking about all the things that usually trouble me.

Will my dad ever be okay?

Will Ryan ever make sense?

Will I ever make sense?

Will everything work out in the end?

Am I ever going to meet people I constantly feel inspired and bettered by?

Will I ever leave Starbucks?

Maybe these are all things people would think about when they search the deep floor bed of ourselves.

My thoughts don’t actually have structure and aren’t conjugated into perfect sentences and displayable emotions.

Instead it is just a feeling.

A feeling that is triggered by something small, something unforeseen, and yet something called forth.

One of the greatest loves in my life are these words. I don’t profess to be the best, to dress them, and eloquent them better then anybody else. They are my companions, my ship in the storm, and the light in the deep end. Whatever you want to address the higher power as, I acknowledge the gift that was given to me. The ability to flip inward and gaze into the unknown. To live not solely on the outside and to not spend too much time cluttered on the inside. I wasted so much time not writing because I felt intimidated. Now, I write because it makes me feel closest to myself and in those moments of raw and unadulterated exposure, I felt called to press the keys. To glide the ink along the smoothness of the paper. I don’t think about the eyes or what opinions form after the final period. I feel complete satisfaction in knowing I came here and left here, simply for myself. I also think about love and what it means to me. It is the strangest feeling in the world to feel your heart swell for another person. To feel the brightest lights on earth illuminating from inside your skin because this person has a directed a smile, a sentence, and even affection towards you. Then one day to feel absolutely nothing at all. To look at the person and not feel that “click” when pondering the thought of waking up every Lundi-Dimanche with them. I wonder what happens for a split second and just sigh onward. May it be alternating moods or the direction of the winds on my journey, all I know is I’ve learned to accept it. One day it won’t be a guessing game, it won’t be the exhausting story you have to tell everyone you’re close to and whom can offer you an opinion. Everything will be solid and strong with substance. An uncertainty won’t mean a doubt and an end won’t mean the end. Things that were once worth it, no longer feel worth it. I just want to live in the highest version of myself and always feel the challenge of reaching up for that. To struggle and revel in joy when I’ve overcome an obstacle. When I’ve smartly chosen to close my mouth instead of open it. I want to live my life in love and never feel the need to close myself off. I don’t want to “protect” my heart. I want to witness it’s abundance and joy so much that I can’t help but keep the door ajar. Being here with the words, everything feels okay. With my friends here, I know the puzzle will convene.

All I needed was a chance to miss you.

dix-neuf

2011-03-24T22:09:00.001-07:00

"Kindness costs nothing."-IRISH PROVERB

For whom or what could you kneel and kiss the ground?

Looking into my dog's eyes right now, I could kneel to the ground, and kiss him. It's been a hard week for the both of us. He's been suffering his after-effects for getting into some treats he shouldn't have and I'm just exhausted. It's a strange occurrence when you get resentful because you care TOO much. I hope Jack knows how sorry I am when I want to be left alone in my room or watch a single episode of SVU in peace. I just needed my alone time. I hope he knows how much I love him.

I could kneel and kiss the ground for every person that's inspired me, disgusted me, and forced me to grow. We don't chose the lessons that life serves us, we can only choose the attitude in which we digest them, so that they may serve us to the best of their abilities. I kiss the ground for all the people I've met in my life and the one's I can count on my hand that I can call my friends. The people who see different shades of me on different days, some are agreeable, some are very disagreeable. Yet, it's the entire mix-matchup pallet that makes this creature. Lately, I've felt so frustrated. Frustrated by people, situations, missed opportunities, fear, and whatever else. In my depths of me, I want to kiss the ground and just thank whoever wants to listen that I'm happy to be alive, happy to be here. I want to make good of my time in this earth and shacked up in this skin. i want to make good on whoever created me and the puppeteer behind the nooks and crannies of my personality. I want to make good on MYSELF. It's a sure thing in every young woman's life that sooner or later you have to remind yourself that there is more to life than someone's hand to hold, more than the current eye of your affection, more than whether or not they like you back. We consume so much of our time and lives being worried about things we can't control. We worry away all our free time to enjoy life, experience something new, or just feel the waves of our breath shifting through the arteries. To me, it's impossible to love someone when you have not yet learned how to love yourself and being with yourself. Yet, like the feeble fucking creature I am, I stumble, I fall, and I wonder why so-and-so doesn't try/likeme/wanttohangoutwithme/whatever. WHO CARES? I always say that I want to create a good experience for myself, but by the looks of everything I haven't been doing a very good job. Happiness is an art and I want to create it every chance I get.

Like right now as I smile warming at these page full of words. Not thinking if what I said made any sense or if it sounds eloquent and fit for The Atlantic Weekly. The magnificence of life isn't hidden behind a great awakening or a swiss bank account. It's also in the deepest disasters and most troubling questions. Don't be afraid to step out and be present to it.

xo.

THE TREE OF GRATITUDE.

dix-huit

2011-03-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

"We empty ourselves to be filled with God. Even God cannot fill what is full."
-MOTHER TERESA

"What is true about you?"

Every time I see the question, I fill up with fear. What is my answer going to sound like? Will it be smooth and transitional? Jesus, what am I even going to say? What makes me feel most alive is something that I cower away from the most. I don't write because history has showered us with hundreds of other great puppeteers of the words. My own friends can even pen a beautiful paragraph or two. Complete strangers in classes being published and expressing their love of the word. At the risk of sounding idiotic and vain, I have no fucking idea where I fit in. I'm just a girl who knows how to write about life, experiences, and the jargon in my mind. It's where I come to figure things out (or at least make a really good attempt), to process, and to see growth. Fifteen year old me finished a notebook a lot differently then twenty-two year old me. It's where I come to rejuvenate and forget about the world for a little while. No one can touch me here and it's a place where even myself can't forsake and sin it with dishonesty. It's a time to sit, be quiet, and dive in to the great ocean that is me (or you). I tell myself often to never forget why I started writing. That once upon a time nobody even knew that I wrote or could form a decent sentence for that matter. Years of compliments didn't give me a big head, it gave me fear and pressure. While age has led me to be deeply grateful for the gift of orchestrating words, I often feel cramped by the audience. If I write this will they still think I'm a good writer? If I'm such a good writer how come nobody ever comments on anything? What is this fuckery? It became less about writing for me and more about writing for the reader. The words suffered, which ended up in me suffering (sometimes I would even cry at night because I just "wanted the words back"). So here's to a new me, a new time to explore the words, and be deeply inspired by the fact that you never stop evolving as playwright of these delicate letters. You don't need a bad day, a complicating love, or a loss to fill up the space with material. All you need is the confidence to speak and to speak truthfully.

With that being said, what I know is true about myself is that I have no idea how to be anyone but me.
A work in progress but me, none the less.

Welcome to it.

xo.
L.

www.thegratitudetree.blogspot.com

pain doesn't make anything

2011-03-23T00:00:00.001-07:00

I look for an escape.

An escape from where the words are just spectacles for the crowd;

somewhere they are only half-way digested to the reader's liking.

Here it's only my soul who rejects sleep to find nourishment from these words. I seek refuge from these words' usual landing, somewhere that my mind has associated with times that still require days of healing. Also seeking refuge from the eyes' of people I wish to isolate myself from. Once again, where these words can be just mine & no one else's. These aren't stories of imaginary heartache and love but tales of real loss and loneliness. Unfortunately, I say that these are places where I release things I can not release to everyone else. Feelings, words, thoughts that were always in the harbor of my skin, finding comfort in the bed of molecules, and sea of blood that is my own.

Finally a place where I can lay my head.

logiue ou illogique?

2011-03-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

Days off are fun, especially when spent screening films by gorgeous french actors. A friend of mine recently indulged in the somewhat vain task of creating a top ten list of women he thought were beautiful. While bored one night, he asked me who my top ten were. I wish I could say, "It was then I realized that I had no type..." but I've always known that. What attracts me most to a man is a sense of humor and the ability to be compassionate when needed. Sometimes you get one without the other but what the hell --sometimes they get me with all sass and no sweet. For once though, I really tried to think about all the men I thought were attractive. It's like they come in spurts. Sure, one week I'm totally jonesin' for Jason Mraz and his devilish good looks, while the next month I'm occupied with Christopher Meloni. Now and since I saw him in Derailed, I've been captivated by Vincent Cassel. I know nothing about these men and if I ever had a conversation with them I could lose all interest, but for right now they are an example of the extreme beauty of the male creature. Could I make a list though? Absolutely not. The non-actor man I'm most attracted to was someone I would have NEVER taken a second glance at. It was his humor that won me and the way his real self came out from hiding every once and awhile. I don't have the courage to tell him how gorgeous he is to me..or maybe I do and now just isn't the time. For the first time in my life, I take into consideration what's best for me. I love and yet I know my life doesn't need the games or the complications. A great relationship takes great work, but what's the point if your the only one willing to put your toes in the water? A woman I respect told me, "If you find yourself doubting the relationship, don't go after it." It really isn't that I doubt the "relationship" or the capacity of this human's heart; it's me I doubt. I have not yet grown to fully respect and admire myself in a way that I won't need someone to validate me..FOR ME. Sure, the inconsistency and games are no fun but in the bigger picture of things, who controls who? It is I who lets the actions create the hesitancy.

I am just not ready.

For now, I'm okay with trying to make good with what I have. Trying to keep friendships refreshed or if at best, keep myself open in hopes for a fresh face and a change of pace. We will all get to where we're suppose to be. I'm just happy right now I get to be in bed.
L.

2011-03-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

Everything/Everyone is on the back burner.
I'm learning.
In the end my journey has nothing to do with you.

growth

2011-03-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

When you know someone is your friend.

écrivain

2011-03-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

-Beginning paragraph to an essay researching and explaining the choice to become an editor.

"When I think about the things I'm truly passionate about in life, I think about the words. The way my soul feels nourished even when just gazing upon them in a book. The way walking into a bookstore, devoured by the scent of undiscovered terrain of stories, lives, and fonts make me feel undeniably at home. I started writing at a young age. Writing to cope with moving away from my life in New Jersey and as the years went by, writing to cope with the struggle of what I fondly called, "the teenage disease." I birthed words onto the blank white page and in return they made me feel as if the blood was sweeter shifting through my veins. I felt rejuvenated every time I closed my notebook, simply ready to take on what the world had to offer. So when I started to really think about a career I might want to pursue, I obviously thought about becoming a writer. However, I wanted more than that. I wanted the opportunity to be able to help other writers. To be able to influence, ease, and jump-start their journey into the realm of literary magic. So my focus turned towards editing. It gave me a wonderful opportunity to go behind the scenes of the printed words in books and to refine my craft even as a writer, since I would know how to give the words technical, organizational, and grammatical justice on the page."

your soul is in heaven, but your memory remains

2011-02-27T23:05:00.000-08:00

I remember this day. We had started really enjoying going to the park together. Scratch that--we enjoyed getting Tiger's Yogurt, a worn-0ut blanket, and plopping near surely polluted water to feast and talk about life. Monique loved photography and I was dedicated to help her move along. I bought her two rolls of polaroid film and helped her get her fisheye film developed. But let's not talk about that, let's talk about this day.

I remember her taking shots of me and cringing at the developed product.

"Monique, I look ugly."

"I think you look beautiful. Can I keep it?"

That was the thing about her. She had a way of making you feel like everyone should be lucky to know you, it didn't matter what cycle you were on. She always made me feel like anything was possible, that we could accomplish our dreams, and in some magical way we could share it together. I miss the way she smiled, the way she played with her Medusa piercing, and especially I miss her laugh. Sometimes, out of blue, I can hear her and I know somewhere out there, she's laughing with me.

It doesn't feel like in forty-eight minutes it will be two years since she died. It's the strange case when you lose someone close to you that you always have to remind yourself that they're gone. When I think about the way we ate too much sushi or the nights we spent wondering about boys in her room, it's not the timeline I think about but the warmness of the memory. I will always love her like I just saw her yesterday.

I miss the way she picked up the phone and how she sounded when she said, "hello?"

The way she would text me and say, "I'm awake :)"

The way she hugged and how she had to tape the side of her glasses.

I wish every year on the date, we could see her. That I could walk through the clouds and give her a hug and tell her that I love her. That I was still working on making her proud.

Every good thing anyone has ever thought about me, I owe to her.

I miss

I miss the memories so much that my brain can't recall them all.

One, however, will always be fresh:

Laying in her bed, she was sick then and couldn't keep herself from apologizing for not acting like herself.

"Leigh?"

"Yeah?"

"Would it be too much to ask for you to hug me?"

I never thought that would be the last time I saw her or the last time I ever got to hug her.

I can't make this eloquent or the center piece for the morning paper.

Truthfully, as the months go on I lose the eloquence for the words regarding her. She just becomes emotions, memories, and a feeling that thumps through my veins.

I love you, Monique.

Baby I'm howlin' for you

2011-02-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

I want to be able to sit here and write but like always, work calls and I have to get ready soon. I have so much bouncing through my brain I wish it would type the words as I thought them. I realize new things everyday. Sometimes things I already knew and in the mind's feeling of most unfortunate ways; for the very first time. I'm only twenty-two years old in human years and I still have a hard time figuring out what I really feel and what my mind would like me to feel. Relating to particular boys or a job, I feel strung up and down like a yo-yo somedays feeling high off love and others feeling like I just missed the safety net on my landing.

I have hope for people that I don't know if I have any business having hope for. Maybe I should've just got the picture when I read the text, "I don't have the same feelings Leigh." Instead in the whimsical way that women do we fantasize and we give reasons to our hurt. "He doesn't know what he wants." "He was scared and turned his back on me. " and the one that we always tell ourselves, "One day he'll realize."

But what if they never do?

and an even more shocking thought....

What if they never were suppose to?

When relaying a question for Tiffany about boys, I was frankly told, "Simply if someone wants to see you, THEY will. No questions asked. If I want to see you, I will." Even though they were words meant to help out my best friend, I took them home with me. Yesterday I felt angry. I felt angry that I cared about so many people and like the feeble human I am at times, I didn't want to anymore. In reality, it was just because I needed some love and I felt at that time I just wasn't receiving any. Despite being older than the tantrum age, my mind still finds ways to throw a good one in my adult life. So here I am, after jotting entries upon entries exploring the feelings I had for this single, solitary person- I don't know if I really felt it at all. BUT let me tell you what I really think.

Raw, real, and uncut.

I think I felt everything and I created words based on the beauty and overall joy of experiencing that emotion. However, whenever I feel I could be left in the dark- I start to feel like I don't really feel that way. A new way I deal with trying to cover my ass. Why deal with having to face the fact that the person you like the most might've simply never been lying to you? I have to stop creating stories, excuses, and waiting for the fairy-tale conclusion. It's just time to accept what is.

I beg the universe for answers and it just smiles at me warmly and tells me to breathe, enjoy, and live.

Try telling women that it's just that simple:

If he wants you, he'll try.

Da da da da da

2011-02-20T00:03:00.000-08:00

~~We've~~ I've managed to go from here...

To this...

I woke up in one of the moods that I feel on rare occasion. Is it weird to have a day where you wish you didn't care about anything or anyone? Where you could turn off every hint of emotion and go through the day like a sedated robot? Today I don't want to think, acknowledge, or talk about how I feel about people, places, or things. It's so incredibly nice sometimes to live in your own bubble that I see no reason to step out. But I know better and I know it's better to at least try then live your life on the safe side.

Yet, let's be realistic here..

all in takes one thing and I'm back on the bench again.

Till next time, I just want to detach for awhile.

xo.

Il n'ya rien de plus artistique que d'aimer les gens.

2011-02-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

The weather in California today is not worthy of a tv "come visit us!" spot. All my blinds are shut, my pandora station is playing in the living room, and I'm indian-styled on my bed with wet hair next to my sleeping dog. Today is a day to feel at ease, to feel the cycle of twenty-four hours and do whatever the hell I want with it. It's nice to not be on someone else's watch for once AND for my mind to let me take a break. I always say this or at least feel like I do, but I'm a little scared of this empty white space. I have so much stored in the barricades of my chest and still feel that I can't make a dent in this vast white canvas. So I'm going to make an effort to shut my mind off and just be a vessel for the literary jargon.

Here we go....

I fell asleep last night feeling like emotion was pounding against my skin. Like a cooking child's foot against his mother's womb. Like I've done since I was little I sat in front of my mirror and just gazed. There is a lot of clarity to be found gazing at your face finding your emotion. Last time I did this, I ended up crying. Sometimes emotions come like waves and within five minutes they are calm again. I feel so much in my heart, incredibly SO much that not many of the people who are acquainted with me know about it. People are still amazed to find that I write and that in their minds, I can do it well. This incredibly emotional creature finds refuge in the placement of letters and endings of sentences. Yet, while sometimes people are often confused by me, I am still so confused by them.

Yes, I have a phobia of balloons or sometimes called globophobia.

It's a strange fear and one I often feel quite stupid about. However, it never fails. Place one in front of me and I'll start shaking, hyperventilating, and in some instances have even cried. While researching my phobia, I found many other victims and some of the things they do to cope. Some stick their fingers in their ears, while others simply get light-headed. Me? I tug on my earlobes. In the workings of my mind, I feel that it's protecting me from whatever that balloon is capable of. So when children walk by with balloons, I tug. When people walk into my store with them? I tug and hide in the back.

It's such a foolish response to an innocent joy in the life of a child, but I can't help it. So the times I find where people laugh in my face about it, my sensitive heart feels the sting. On Valentine's Day an older night customer that I'm quite fond of pretended to give me a Mylar balloon that my manager left in the corner of the store. I had told her it was okay as long as nobody touched them. The minute his fingers graced the strings I started freaking out. I later had to admit to him about my fear to which, yes, he laughed in my face. My feelings were instantly hurt and I told him it wasn't that funny. "You have to admit, you are kind of strange." Then like a true seed of the coast of the east, my hurt turned into anger. Why is it so hard for some people to admit fault? Even more harder when they don't particularly agree with why your feelings ended up hurt. I have been nothing but kind to this creature and even sat with him a couple of times when I stumbled to my job on my day off. So why openly hurt my feelings and then continue to do it? Why come in the next night ask me if I'm done being pissy and continue to laugh at me about it?

Is it that hard for not just man, but people to admit their own fault? If hell ever freezes over and the day comes where I get an apology, I'll gladly accept it with a smile. But, the seams in my heart are jaded and I feel that beyond being professional at my job, I'll never make an extra effort to know this person. Which I'm okay with, it's not expected of me and I know that I'm not losing anything. It's just a sad occurrence that didn't need to happen. It saddens me even more that I see how my heart withers and is cast with the petrificus totalus spell.

I'm often astounded by the coldness of people and the coldness of myself on occasion.

I'm also OFTEN warm-hearted when greeted with kindness by another being.

A warm smile, a good morning, even the holding open of a door.

It's the little things that keep things warm and fresh in my skin.

Things like this:

I want to do MORE than exist.

There is nothing more artistic than loving people.

rest my our chemistry

2011-02-14T13:33:00.000-08:00

Mondays are the best days and with age they just get better. While technically Sunday is the start of a new week I've always seen Monday as my clean slate. The chance to start new; to change an attitude, start a plan, or just renew myself in gratitude. This Lundi brings us the celebration of Saint Valentine. While I have no Valentine I don't cower in anger for those who wish to celebrate in love on this day. I'd like to choose to celebrate love everyday...or sadness...or anger...or whatever emotion my hormones decide to give me that day. Today, however, my heart is packed to the brim. I remember this feeling, driving down the non-coastal 5 and feeling the reds,greens, and yellows swirl around in the tank of my chest.

Some people don't understand the power of words and what they can do to a person. I don't understand how people can read the words that form from my fingertips and feel emotion (hopefully that disappears with age to). Mondays are now even more special and higher on my favorite list because I get to see one of my favorite beings. Packed away with a notebook and pen, I greeted him with a bag full of treats. This was followed after a joking, "Did you bring me a Valentine?" Which I smiled and said, "Yes." I don't do things for responses and so the fact that I didn't get anything in return didn't bother me. As much as I love the words and the art of experimenting with them and their meaning, there isn't a chance that they could be equable to this emotion. Honestly, I wish I could open the cages of my chest and just show you for yourself. In my mind an old silent film movie montage of love scenes would be playing and birds would be fluttering around.

I'd like to sit here and write down every experience I have with him, but damn wouldn't that be redundant and boring? The point I'm trying to make is: do some people know what they do? Kissing your fingers, sealing it in a mock envelope, and sending it my way is suppose to evoke some emotion right? Leigh of the past would obsess over this instance and right now I just look at in absolute gratitude. I look at this person in absolute love. It is what it is and I'm just happy to be apart of it. Is anything of this making sense? It's okay just bear with me a little bit.

Tonight, I will go to work with the very handsome Greg Garcia and he will go to the movies with a creature whose caught his eye. I don't feel the urge to shut down, the will to doubt myself, instead I keep my faith. My faith in love, my faith in people, and my faith in myself. I don't want to sound like a girl and her psycho-babble bullshit. I have a shelf full of books exploring and trying to understand the emotion I have right now. I have no idea what this is but I'm going with the fact that I feel it.

Because there is something about someone hand-writing you a Valentine that starts off with the line, I think of Leigh as a part of me..." that tells you to take the risk.

Something about that that gives you everything.

stop before I begin

2011-02-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

Really, please excuse all this stereotypical girl blog with Sex and the City screen caps thing. It's just pictures make me feel the words and right now this is what I'm feelin'. Growing tired of waiting for Netflix, I took it into my own hands and bought Seasons 1 and 2 myself. It's been nice having the four ladies and their lives at my remote control's dismay without worrying about the sixth episode on the disc being over. Followed by that treacherous two-day waiting period. I don't really know how to construct any of this into words but let's give it a shot...

I believe that certain things come into your life for a reason. Now let's take that corny phrase that we've all heard our mothers say to soothe our heartache and expand on it a little. It's MY personal belief that the desires of our heart is an incredibly powerful thing. When our soul longs for something, it calls out a favor from it's buddies in the universe and whether we are aware of it or not, some thing enters our life to aid it. Now I think it's also pretty safe to say that these lessons or helpers aren't always welcomed because we don't always know what our soul wants. Alas, the never-ending battle of mind and soul reading two different books. In my life, when I'm aware of these "soul-aids" I welcome them with open arms and I indulge. I've been known to collect books by authors, listen to single cds, and watch television shows because in some weird way it puzzled into my life. For those mere moments, I understood myself better and whatever situation because of whatever outlet was presented to me. Right now, it's those damn SATC episodes. I don't find myself at the receiving end of the television static feeling hopeless, wishing for love, or even wanting to put on my best dress and have a drink with my girlfriends. Instead, I find myself watching solo scenes between characters and thinking to myself, "Holy shit, that's how I feel" or "I get it now." I may not be able to process those feelings of comprehension into beautifully articulated words, but it's a rest-easy feeling in the soul that clarity has come.

When I speak about the man that my heart has found affection for, I no longer speak of him to understand emotion. I get it and I accept it. I write about him not even to tell the story, because honestly I hate writing about him. Yet, sometimes the soul calls for the words//emotions to be pressed against the page. I try my best now and days to write without thought. To not think about eloquence or even if someone will still think I'm a good writer after it's all over. It's these thoughts that make me lose myself and the joy that I get out of this simple act. Sure, there are still things I wish to keep between myself and the notebooks that sit on my shelf and off the virtual bookcase and I don't write as much as my mind tells me I should. But you know what? I'm tired beating myself up for it and I'll just allow myself to feel grateful when I do follow the page. As scarce as these intimate times between soul and blogspot are, I feel that this is where I'm suppose to be. Experiencing these moments and pulling the pieces together to form the puzzle of paragraphs, transitions, and creative jingles.

I'm scared about a lot of things. While I've dipped many toes into the world outside my comfort bubble, it's sometimes slightly provoking of an anxiety attack. In many ways I feel like I know where I'm going and what I'm doing and in so many opposite ways, I have no fucking idea. The latest bit has come from researching colleges and majors. Struggling between an English and Journalism major and just trying to figure out how the hell one comes to edit books. Looking into S.F State showcased many things required of a Journalism major that really just didn't interest me at all. I don't want to be on television or even be a reporter. The idea of possibly working for a magazine or newspaper is intriguing but nothing I'd really dedicate my life to. And an English major? All that screams is TEACHER. Which I would do if I could accio an entire room of students that gave a shit about exploring the written word and practicing the craft of listening-- so that they may tell your story. This is where I simply just don't know.

What I do know is that my soul calls to write. Someone put me here to write. I don't know exactly what they want me to write about but I know the words called eleven year old me for a reason. It is the simple act that makes me feel closest to myself. Who doesn't want to experience that for the rest of their lives? The choice to become a book editor came out of pure choice to help the fellow writer. I'd love to spend my days with the creative juice of a fellow creature offering insight and grammar construction. These are the faults of my being. I see the BIGGER picture, but the smaller get-theres are always a little fuzzy and it's those steps that scare the shit out of me.

So we'll see where all this goes. The major, the college, the boy.... it's a process I will continue to write about and soak in.

Good thing though is one thing I know I absolutely do have is faith.

open & in view

2011-02-08T23:50:00.000-08:00

"There's a moment in every relationship where romance gives way to reality."
--
Today I had the honor of reading this quote:

"It is our first relationships that wake us up to our vulnerable Self. Those partnerships are intended to highlight the doubts and insecurities that we're here to overcome. Whether, it's overcoming vanity, correcting the silly posture we tend to make being naked in front of someone else, or simply (or similarly) learning how to just hang out with someone else. Our first loves give us the opportunity to see who we are for others and ultimately who/what we COULD be."

There is something magical about finding something that connects with you. For another human being to write something that explains that uncharted, un-categorized emotion you've always known you had. For the first time in my surely young life, I felt unafraid to feel love for someone else. We seem to stamp this warning label on it. We reap stereotypes and stumble in predictability with our first encounters of the creatures of our affection. It always seems to be said within story time that it was the first relationships that broke us. Sure, I still remember the first boy who I believed ever broke my heart. I also still remember the first boy who ever really did break my heart.
To me, that quote was about taking a generally what we see as a negative experience and turning it into growth.
But really, it was to also unveil myself for a little in this space. In the small down time I have after work and before bed, I started my trek to watching the entire Sex and The City series. Still on Disc two, Season one I've already encountered the personalities of the leading ladies, seen multiple lovers and leave ems, and have been introduced to "Mr.Big" who has "abso-fuckin-lutely" been in love. Witnessing the beginning of the Carrie and Big relationship makes me relate to my heart in it's own way. I always use to wonder if the myth among women and men alike were true. Could you really see someone and just "know"? In a way I believe that while it may not be that apparent upon first handshake, maybe after awhile things will start to ring. I grew into friendship with a man that in my heart later grew into love. It was a feeling I never understood and completed notebooks just to explore and define the electricity surging through my veins. I'll always remember the conversation when it all became crystal clear. "You know, I've always liked him. I was just scared." The feeling was named and released. After that it felt too good not to share and the fear didn't stop me. I couldn't explain the feeling in my heart that I knew I had to say something. It ruined us and for two months I was without a friend. It's a time that now I never think about, but I do remember that it was hard. It was a weird feeling of betrayal and that someone had turned their back on you and perhaps their own feelings. I didn't know if I could ever recover , but like the spirit does within it's own time; I started to crawl. I began to find my forgiveness and I rekindled memories with a smile instead of tears. I felt adventurous, open, and ready to explore...then it happened again. Chance encounters and visits didn't do well for my heart and I started to feel how much trust I had lost. The universal question: How do you trust someone after they've hurt you?
A brief meeting ending with a, "See you around" weeks later gave me the confidence to validate what I already knew. It was time to let go and from there, I was really ready for renewal.
I write to you in the second month of the new year. I am back with the man-of-topic in the same way in which I met him. Things, feelings, perceptions, and emotions are all different. I rarely think of what our friendship/relationship use to be. I can only think of now.
I once read Tristan Prettyman speaking of Jason Mraz in the sense that she went from knowing..to kinda knowing...to not knowing...to HELL-NO'ing....to absolutely knowing. I don't know where I am in that spectrum, but all I can say is that I know something. Doesn't there come a time when you finally let logic take a break and let your soul lead you? Right now it's leading me here to these words and to these feelings I have about this particular being. I'm not saying this is the one or even that I wish to be with him. The present doesn't call for certainties with the situation. Where I'm comfortable right now is simply living in the acknowledgment that something beautiful is at work.

It's for these reasons that I shy away about writing about the topic. In my own weird way, I feel that if I don't acknowledge it in writing then I'm not fucking with the universe and putting too much pressure on the cause. As a writer, I'm shocked to say this, but sometimes it's better not to write about the things that impact your heart the most. Maybe it's just a personal thing to me, but it's been nice not badgering the lines for answers.

That's why I reflect and relate on Carrie and Big's relationship. Because I don't want the fairytale romance and the easiness. I want the hardships, the rough spots, and the times you don't even know if you can bear it. It's then that I know the solidity of something, it's then where I know where my heart stands. For the first time, I have an emotion that doesn't connect to my brain. I can't over analyze, I can't think, I can't even decipher. All I have is the pleasure of sharing stories about my funny friend and the power of feeling.

And you know what? I'm abso-fuckin-lutely okay with that.

no one else is around.

2011-02-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

I'd like to have more confidence to shed a little more light on the subject. I think about it often, I feel it often, and yet the words don't show up. I'm inspired by pictures and I often place a picture in this white space before I even start writing. Pictures have that way with me, it can ignite the words, the feelings, that stuff this blogspot. John assists me in showcasing that in certain subjects, I hide. Well I guess we don't have to make it plural, a certain SUBJECT. When it comes to things that appeal closest to the human heart, I've always had a hard time drowning out lines. Instead I retreat back to a private area where I know no one can see or sense the jargon that leaks from the open pores. It was his picture I wanted to put here.

his.

Maybe one day the courage will come.

beginner

2011-01-30T23:12:00.000-08:00

It sucks that I miss my dad so much. It sucks that I miss a lot of things. It's incredibly hard to get back into the grind once you let yourself fall out. I have a hard time writing about nothing, I search for a purpose to come to this intimidating white space and release a little soul juice. Maybe it's my fault, I don't give it enough time, enough practice. I find it easier to day dream about the suffocated lines on the page instead of filling them myself. This semester I don't have an English class, I don't have my incredibly inspirational teacher from the last two semesters getting my wheels turning, ready to lock, and ready to spew. More often than not, I truly feel like I have nothing to say. Which is complete bullshit. Unlike my external personality where I struggle to accommodate the human need for small talk, the experiences of my life always have stories to tell. The thing is, I know whatever I write down I will remember forever and some things I just want to squeeze out of the memory a little faster.
But that's not the point, I should come here even when I feel I have nothing. How many times have I told myself that? When did writing become such a pressure for me? I suppose when people started foolishly telling me I was good at it. It stopped being for me and started being for the audience devouring the words like hot butter savoring the skin of a potato. I guess I do write for myself, just with the intention in my brain that I knew it will be seen....or I'm going to read it to someone. So let's share shall we?
I wonder when the day will come that I will stop savoring folks for a moment and then suddenly feel nothing but nausea. People come into my life in waves and as quick as they come, they wistfully wash away. Am I too insensitive? Do I give people a proper chance? I guess if I really knew I wouldn't be asking the questions. Do you remember those entries not so long ago that retained the deepest and delectable of emotion? Ryan Doscher was the key and faucet to this emotion and now I encounter that interesting turn of events when you wonder how you once felt that way. Human emotions are funny and while I find an awfully hard time casting an imprint with new comers, I do hope that one day some male creature will decide to stick.
But there is plenty of time for that!
I have to become a book editor first, or a writer, or a traveling yoga teacher, or a touring musician. I have to be the deepest passions of my soul and damn do they change ever so often. I don't want to edit books because I get literary boners over affairs with a red pen and a hot manuscript. I just want to help people sink a little further in the ocean that sparkles with the magic of written word. I guess that's the greater picture of it all, I want to help people. Which surprises even myself typing this becomes half the people I encounter make me wants to head for the hills and never come back. I suppose, I just have to gain the courage to want to help. To stop thinking about myself for a minute and think about everyone else. To be love and choose love when I feel like I couldn't lift one damn finger of affection. All I want is to write these words, drain these thoughts, and encourage and allow others to do the same. It's hard feeling repressed and feeling the hot moldy emotions of yesterdays clog your skin. Sure, I know everyone doesn't release within the lines but this is how I exfoliate the garbage.
I was scared to come here, scared to click the "new post" button to feel defeated by the empty area that begs for words. I'm always scared and I always critique. Let's face it, sometimes you just have to tell yourself to shut up and breathe.

& when I do, the words bloom.

onward

2011-01-15T00:25:00.000-08:00

regenerating the word bank.

more tambourine for the masses

2011-01-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

It's somewhere around that time where the hours creep over and you get to start fresh again. Another day done. Another January something 2011 that we'll never see again. I remember when I first realized that every day is unique. Sure we experience the calendar months but those days in those years are once in a lifetime. I haven't been writing much. Damn, I say that a lot. Every couple of pages in my notebooks start with the line, "Well it's been awhile..." I lost track and my train of thought in the scenery of life. It's hard to keep up with I'm deciphering people, places, and things. I come back to the blank space and I freeze. Silly me always thinks that there is nothing to say. I have so much to say and not enough energy to get it out. For the first time in my life, I met a being who makes me feel special without reason. I find that I spend less days criticizing myself and more feeling grateful for the beauty that I am. That's my main mission in life: to love myself. Then everything else recedes in love.
I don't really want to share too much here, but I had to come here.
I'm still desperately trying to figure out how everything works.

I wish you..

2010-12-15T22:47:00.001-08:00

Tonight has called for moments of reflection. Gazing upon a new year of my life and the mental age that follows. The skin bares the age as the soul is infinite in it's wishes and dreams. This last birthday has come and gone in a whirlwind that didn't even bother to make me dizzy. I was adorned with comments, texts, and messages blessing the day fluorescent light was first shed on my skin. It's the one day that people aren't afraid to make you feel special. We bask together in the special opportunity that is this experience we've titled, "life." It was a calm day, a day that felt like any other, and yet I was soaked and showered with gratitude.

Tonight's reflection is based on the loneliness of the feeble human heart. We are irrevocably inclined to see love as one solitary thing. We see it in another person's eyes and the way their body moves through our clothing. We see it in the creases of their eyes when they smile and the softness of their voice when the chords play the sounds of the sentimental heart. I get stuck on this sometimes and all the layers of me suffer. I plant my cheek on my blanket, spread my hair out, and listen to the single song that brought it on. A friend asked me what I had planned for this new year of my life and I could only respond with, "I don't plan, you do.." Today however, while grazing the open roads of this city that's watched me grow, I thought about the things I wanted most out of this experience. I want to make this time useful for my soul. I want to do the things that make me feel the highest version of my self. I don't have some grand scheme to change the world, but hope that the capacity of love will leak and lift up the solar weight. I also want the opportunity to become somebody's mother. To have the experience of loving another creature so much that we duet on the project of life. While it isn't the only form of love we have, it's one I'd like to experience the most.

I think of a single person in the cramp space between the lines.

Yet, another to digest for the history books.

What are you doing New Years?

2010-11-30T10:58:00.001-08:00

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as winter blues or winter depression.

Symptoms include: difficulty waking up in the morning, morning sickness, tendency to oversleep as well as to overeat, and especially a craving for carbohydrates, which leads to weight gain. Other symptoms include a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating on completing tasks, and withdrawal from friends, family, and social activities. All of this leads to the depression, pessimistic feelings of hopelessness, and lack of pleasure which characterize a person suffering from this disorder.

I was explaining to my friend how I've been feeling lately and he brought up this term. All I've seemed to be saying lately is, "I don't know what's wrong with me." I can't wake up for anything, I miss tests in classes and could care less, I feel slightly lost in the trails of life, and my regular salvation of the gym just hasn't been saving me lately. My mom always use to tell me that it was typical for me to get depressed when my birthday approached and it usually lasted until the beginning of the year. A couple of weeks ago I started reflecting on my birthday and how the age of twenty-two would grace me identical to the age of my dearly departed Monique. I didn't think it would escalate into today. However, there is one easy solution for me. It's simply to gain the courage to see things differently. I signed up again for Bikram Yoga today and will start making my workouts more exciting. I want to catalog all my books in my new journal, and just take some time for meditation these upcoming weeks. I have so much to ponder on and so much flooding my veins. Sure, I don't feel like being this holiday season's socialite but when was I ever? I simply want peace, quiet, and the freedom to do what I want.

I want to remain unattached and free.

flushing away

2010-11-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

Writing is the passion of my soul. I feel the tingle of cloud nine simply staring at words printed in a book. It is the ignition to finding the truest source of myself and my being. However, especially in academic circumstances I put too much stress on the pounding of keys and creation of words. I feel unoriginal in my word choice and the complete sentences come out with the sickness of jargon. The editor who sits at a desk somewhere between my frontal and temporal lobe fires away with the red-inked pen. I can't leak the souls words without thinking about prompt and whether or not what I'm saying really matters or even make sense. While I feel extremely liberated in the idea of exploring writers and generations unknown in my English tasks, I also feel suffocatingly cramped. As a lover of the words, I can't turn in bad work and the editor-in-chief says everything is worthy of the chopping block. I know this is where I exercise shutting off connections with the galling editor (at least in the draft process) but where to begin? I have trouble forming my own ideas about writers I know nothing of and spend way too much time reading the opinions of others instead of articulating my gatherings from their words. It makes me think of a time when I would write for fun. I would write with no pressure and wrote frequently (specifically every night before I slept). I was a kid searching for answers and the lines provided space to breathe and grow. Sometimes I simply forget how much fun the act of writing is and how much of a blessing it is to have. I forget to bow my head in grace that I was chosen as their storyteller. The soul orchestrates and the words flow left and right on the screen. I cannot control everything and the mind suffers the blow to the ego upon the thought. So next time I greet my "beatpaper.docx" I'll sit with it with the utmost care and love.

I'll trust the process, believe in myself, and allow the words to change me forever.

beginning the process

2010-11-26T00:47:00.000-08:00

I came here to write an extensive and random to-do list to inspire me to actually accomplish said things. However, I'm not much of a list maker and I have a tendency of writing things down after I've already done them. So instead I'm challenging myself to get out of my funk and just complete the things I want to.

Acknowledge your set backs and move on.

Obviously, this blog is just me talking to my mind...or attempting to get out of it.

Believe in yourself. Trust the process. Change forever

2010-11-24T13:03:00.001-08:00

The little portion of what we experience on the pavement is a rat race. It's a roller coaster filled with highs, lows, and lovely in betweens. We lose people, places, and things that when it happens it seems to gut us from the inside out. We lose ourselves in doses in these experiences and often spend months trying to find the courage to just start to recover ourselves. I watched the video played at Monique's funeral last night and for the first time in the better part of the year, the casket shined like it was yesterday. I miss her warmth, passion, and hidden ambition. I realized the other day that I don't read my writing as much as I use to when she was around, so I've been making a greater effort to speak my words. I try not to think so much when I'm writing them either. The only editor harping my words is the one I can't control on most days in my mind. So here I am flowing and free, not quite sure if everything makes sense, but it's coming out anyway. Today I took myself on a date. I spent money on things I wanted and ate lunch solo with my favorite magazine. As young as my birth year tells people I am, I often have to remind myself to simply have fun and enjoy my days. I've been working out steadily for entire year. It's become a lifestyle change for me and a schedule that is devoured in my mind. For the first time since I've begun, I just don't feel like going, I dread the thought of going, and let the snooze button overpower the mind's nagging that it's a necessity to go. I scold myself when I feel like this, instead of accepting that my body deserves a break from the schedule, I feel like a failure. Today, I let that go. You can't continue something if you don't like what your doing. My number one priority is to learn to love myself and all the benefits and goodness of what I do simply follows. This week, I'm going with not liking the grind of gym life. My brain will not worry about muscles deflating and fat cells expanding. It's about loving yourself even when you don't have the backbone of today's workout. I am beautiful no matter what the agenda has for me. Then maybe next week, I can be back to totally loving what I do.

I am a complete work in progress.

I'm learning to understand, decipher, and love.

Starting with myself first.

While the world continues to spin.

words on a mystery couch

2010-11-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

My word on my laptop pisses me off with the format so I came here to release the jargon. I'm sitting in a freshly made friends empty house and I don't really know how I feel about it. I'm getting gusts of his scent as I type and it makes me wonder how it would feel like in the future to share your life with someone. Honestly, in this friendship I feel like the insecure, still in progress young adult. While he is successful and lives in his own home. Maybe it's just my insecurities that make me feel not as worthy, but god damn if you could only see this house. You would also feel my pain. Why is it that humans always wish to be ahead of the game? They want to be ahead of the other party and feel like with or without them they are fine. When in truth, engaging in that type of mentality means that your only searching for a reason as to why the other person needs you. You think about what you have to bring to the table. Which so far in this case, I'm carrying nothing. Other than my pun, charm, and wit. All of which he hasn't fully experienced. He smells good and has good taste. I always say this to myself, but I'm glad I listened to Anthony when it came to this guy. I was hot on the heels of my friend who was rather annoyed by him and I felt that it was the easiest path to go. I felt like that ugly friend, soothing a stranger's pain of rejection. How do complete strangers inspire us to even perceive that way? Or is it just our insecurities peddling the back story? I feel that my new friend is no longer interested in me and finds my conversation rather boring. He wants friends and I want someone to pass the time with. Where do we meet in our journeys? On this couch that smells so much of a man I hardly know? I don't really know where I belong or how I got here. This strange man has helped me see the light at the end of the dark tunnel devoured in Ryan. I no longer feel the need to be accepted by Ryan or welcomed into his life. Honestly, I rather could care less. For the first time in my adult life, I've encountered a person who (GASP!) has their shit together. Someone who finds you important enough to listen to what you have to say and acts on things. Like last night's conversation about favorite movies. Mentioning that 40 year old Virgin was one of my favorite movies,I found upon opening the door that it say on the nearest chair, waiting for me. Who is that thoughtful now and days? Could I just bare my complete insecurities for a second? I don't feel pretty enough to be apart of something like this. I feel the flaws of my skin, the weight on the flesh, and hazy blueprint of life and AGAIN don't feel like I have anything to offer.

But you know what Leigh? you do.

Your beautiful, insightful, and you search for the meanings of people and life. Even if at times you act out, you openly strive to be love and choose love. Sure, you don't have it all together but for goodness sake's your twenty-one years old. Stop believing that everyone follows a blueprint and your a burden on the assembly line.

Just because you don't have all these material things doesn't make you less.

What makes you less is the way you choose to see it. You think you are, so therefore you act as if you are. You want someone to think you are the world? Then you must conduct yourself and illuminate all the pores of your wonderful being.

You were made somebody and apart of something so great.

Never forget to take the time to believe that.

Corner of Bay and Main

2010-10-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

The sun beats down on the tired currents of the Pacific Sea.

The pier to the far left, like a prize-winning painting

that slowly disintegrates from the canvas.

Am I really suppose to know what to do?

The 3 o'clock bell only has a few shrieks left

and the path forward seems under construction.

I guess I can pretend that I think about it often,

but the teenage clock could care less.

I think about the cove

and the smooth, silky waves reserved for locals only.

This is where I was born, where I grew into the calloused battle skin

I wear today.

The droughts coming and all I'm thinking about is the sweet smell of a crowd in the dog bowl.

The camera lens and the glossy spread on the next newsstand.

Jesus, I could care less about Nixon and what the elders have to say.

I guard the cove, I ride the bowls, and I pray to the urethane wheel.

So no sir,

your schematic for the future can take a hike to the valley.

This is Dogtown, baby!

b-y-e

2010-09-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

If he's dumb enough to walk away, be smart enough to let him go.

(no picture necessary, how could you forget this one?)

in less than a thousand words

2010-09-05T23:51:00.000-07:00

half-hearted

2010-09-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

so much to say.
so much to say.
I need a new white page.
Something more pristine, where I can mix the colors and tones of the literary palette. Maybe I'm just being stubborn, unwilling to let anything flow past the cuticle and onward through the fingertips. More inclined to be recluse even with the words. I'm infected with the human disease. My mind can't concentrate long enough.
I can't savor any feelings.
I can't digest the word.
Simply stuck in awe of writers of the past.
Let's begin again another time.
I'm tired.

soul message; lundi, le 23 août

2010-08-23T12:52:00.000-07:00

writers & their literature

2010-08-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

Feeling the words thump in the microscopic pores of my finger tips again. I feel the weight of this blank page and how I might come to fill it with slosh of the soul. Yet, the words are coming pounding through the veins and soaring through the top of my trimmed finger nails. They are here and they want to be birthed, sorted, and complete. School has begun again and I feel these words were inspired by my first completed assignment for English. I am challenged to think generously and critically about another's words. Shifting through two poems and a short story I simply ask, "So what?" I fill the margins with notes, thoughts, random jargon, and defecate lines under memorable descriptions. In the end filling my brain up to write three extended paragraphs about what I've discovered, what I felt, and how I could parallel it to my own life. I feel open to the words, accessible to the magic of no boundaries and limitless experiments. I feel apart of the inner circle again, the inner circle of literary magic. I feel closer to myself and more in cadence with the audible beats of the heart. First day of class we were asked to write down a book or film that recently grabbed us. I inscribed in the first page of my notebook the words, "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire." Detailing accounts of Charles Bukowski's brunt brilliance with piecing the words into a string of easily digested poems and stories. In the poem, "Christmas poem to a man in jail" he writes about how the words shouldn't falter over embellished words and metaphors. The words should be humanized and soft like butter, savory like steak or hot biscuits. So obtainable that you could pick them up from the page and eat them. Seconds after reading these lines I scribbled to the left of the bracket binding them, "WOW." It was in those mere minutes of devouring those lines that I felt the passion of the words and for authoring those words. It was within a few lines that Hank gave me a chance to understand myself a little better. We were then asked what we thought made a good film or book. Answers from alternate reality, characters come alive, touches your emotions, to even my answer of helping you understand yourself were given. But it was my teacher's answer that hit me the most. He spoke of reading a book and feeling the message, feeling it change you as you digested the word from eyes, to heart, to soul. That each time you pick it up, you find another lesson, uncover another part of yourself still pristine, untouched, and unexplored. That to him a good book or film meant that you come out of it's grasp a changed being. It was then that I knew what I really felt when I read Bukowski's first nine lines on page 117. Not only did I understand my passion for the word a little bit more but felt myself change in that discovery. I came out wanting to be a better writer, a better listener, and a better reader. I wanted to be damn good at what I love.
So as the words thump in my fingertips, I listen hard as they speak softly of the stories they'll allow me to tell.

wasting time, replacing time with each empty excuse

2010-08-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

"Why do I feel sad about Charles leaving?"
"Because you're that kinda person."
"I feel too much."
"Yeah."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"You tell me. It is and it isn't. I feel like it's a gift and a curse."
"I feel like people aren't use to it and it may make me seem odd."
"Yeah. People don't usually understand. They take it the wrong way."
" I just care about people and I want them to feel loved."

jumblefuck

2010-07-31T23:45:00.000-07:00

I saw this randomly on a blog and snatched it up because I felt that it described how I do things perfectly. People are always telling me or assuming that I just give up on people or that I don't want to confront situations. It was never that and it sometimes offended me that people just pushed this perception onto me. I may not have everything figured out, but I've always managed to know what I wanted out of people whom I call friends. As I've gotten older, I've opened myself up more to small talk and pointless conversation, but for the most part I just want to know you. I want to know what your afraid of, what makes your insides shine. It's a very difficult thing for me to realize that some people just aren't comfortable with offering that. They shield themselves so greatly from human beings that they subsequently shield themselves from life. They answer direct questions with elaborate stories filled with sarcasm and bullshit and expect you to still stick around until they decide they want you to figure them out. I recently met someone a couple of weeks ago that I couldn't figure out. I hate saying this but honestly for the most part people are easy to figure out. You can sort them and needlepoint all their bullshit. This particular six foot human, I couldn't do that with. I found him incredibly fascinating and wanted to know more. As I delve past fictitious stories and irrelevant answers, I realized I was just looking at someone incredibly lost. His ingress into my life was four weeks short lived and despite our minor fall out on Thursday night, I find that I'm strangely dealing with him leaving. I back his decision to return to our mutual home and carry on, but I just feel a little premature about it. Maybe there was more to know, more to unfold. Maybe I'm just inimical to being back to having no one around that's worth getting to know. Back to waiting. Possibly thinking again about past heartaches and wishing for once something could be different. Jesus, to have the feeble mind of a human. It's a fucking plague sometimes.
When do we realize that we can't control everything?
We are just specs in the shit of the universe.

It's time to get myself back on track and recharge my batteries. I feel incredibly jaded and distant from everyone I know. Yet, I'm dealing with past insecurities of fearing being replaced. That's what the words are for; so I can deal.
It's all about going into the past so you can move forward.

One step at a time.

hidden

2010-07-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

I can't say I could never do something unless I try. Writing fascinates me, I think about it daily- sometimes a little obsessively. I devour the thought of how to play with words or how I can relay the message the words have themselves. Intrigued by the challenge of writing for things that don't bring a thought in your head or for something that brings up too many. I've relied on writing since a very young age to help me get through things, and it's always managed to be there for me. The unfortunate times that it's not there for me are the times I don't allow it to be. I cap my pen, close my notebook, and squander in the feeling of defeat. I'll admit sometimes I'm the first to the exit door- it's the easiest way out right? Instead of being there for the words, I sink in my throne and abandon them for weeks. Bukowski once had a ten year drought. Could I ever go ten years without writing? I can barely last an entire week. My mind infects the page all too often which laces my shoes to run. Instead of turning the mind off and experimenting- I become my own personal editor. Which let me say lands me with more blank pages then filled. Maybe I'm just looking for direction, a style, an arrow, a path; something to tape my name by. But Do I really need all that? Can't I just sit around, tell my mind to fuck off and experiment awhile?

See you in the pages.

red light

2010-07-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

The brain orchestrated words for these lines and now they are absent. I feel so much that I dilute the pages with nonsense. The words are pouring, being created whether or not I choose to write them down. When I don't, they are simply lost, a missed opportunity. I want to see your smile. It's always when the hands creep into the night that I yearn for you the most. Is that the haunting time for loneliness? Then when the sun rises I feel dispatched and a stranger to the pre-am spews of love. This is why I always feel inconsistent. I want to feel the same night and day. Maybe I would if I didn't always convince myself otherwise.
--
A sunrise or so later..
--
The sun is up and the courage sinks onto the backspace of the keyboard. No words have to be said, no emotions have to be felt. In the heat of the July sun, I feel confident to hide from what expels from the heart. I don't see the point in having to tell you that you interest me in ways that I wish to explore you and the blueprint of your assembly. I don't want to be the one who watches you with a new item every time the organs ache. Yet, I don't know if I want to be that girl for you. Maybe I'd just like the opportunity to figure it out. I don't know what's holding me back.
Not these lines or the binding of the book.
Just me.

backpages

2010-07-02T15:46:00.000-07:00

April 3rd 2010

Let's not talk about Kellen.
Let's talk about you. I thought before about placing your picture here meaning that you really would've cemented your place. I abandoned the idea and now here you are. I chose a picture of you and your little sister because this is how I would always want to remember you. Can I just say a few words? Thank you for balancing me out. For pointing out all the obvious things that no one else does. For dealing with my stubbornness and pretending to not be interested in my stories. We argue, we don't get along, we respect, we love. It's just the dynamics of what we have to offer each other and the idea that maybe both of us don't quite understand it. Thank you for being you and the forgiveness through the bitchiness. I just keep repeating myself when all I really have to say is
I love you.
Your an absolute gem I'm glad I found.

post-script

2010-06-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

I feel like everyone's trying to figure out something that I'm not. No, I don't care if I'm entering the "friend zone" and I don't know if I'm "in love" or "in like". I'm just experiencing it as it comes. In most instances it comes smooth and with a smile. A feeling of absolute comfortability and the opportunity to just be a raw soul without hiding behind the flesh. It's about knowing when you've met someone special, and though you don't quite know how they are special yet, you feel each pore illuminate when they're present. I don't know how I feel, I just know that I do feel. I don't know if I could be that girl for you or be apart of what you want. Other times I feel I may be what you've been looking for. It feels so premature and unnecessary to write about. I don't want to write about you. I just want the lines to know you exist. Even if they can't hold the capacity to which I beam at your existence.

simple

2010-06-21T23:01:00.001-07:00

I remember when your eyes said love loudly.

it’s not so much that nothing means anything

2010-06-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

When this starts again it won't be about you.
Not out of hate, embarrassment, or inability to cope with the thought of wanting you.
Honestly, it's just that I don't want to write about you anymore.
My stomach still churns even when the period has reached the sentence.
I just want to breathe a fresh pocket of air.

no words left to title

2010-06-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

Words freshly placed against the soft terrain of a blank virtual white page. I never have a reason to create these, however, I simply thought of your smile and felt the nouns, adjectives, and verbs seep from the river of veins and into my fingertips. Is this what happens when people let themselves feel? I’m astounded randomly within my daily life at the velocity in which the love travels through the capillaries and into the freshet of blood that soothes these bones. Finding that the pulsation of emotions makes me over think the chorus of these words. I wish to feel relieved at the end and able to sleep soundly and untouched by the rackings of my brain. I can’t find the words to describe you or what happens in the layers of epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis when your present. Your that someone that I’ve never experienced before. Someone to talk, wonder, and grow into acceptance with. I stop constantly and think about what to say next as I gaze at the soft lines of your smile. I feel stuck and the words dry up as I wait and wait. As previous entries regurgitate, I don’t know what to say in regards to you. I ponder, I forget, I accept. I don’t want to keep writing about you. The plague of a storyteller whose too choked up and swooned to give respect to the stories. Every chapter has been about you.

Tonight, I just want to forget.

Yet, the picture I look at still tells me that my skin is swollen with uncategorized emotion.

so much to dream about

2010-06-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

Your signal fades away and all I'm left with is noise.
Won't you wait up for me?

metamorphosis

2010-06-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

Just like that the feelings change or so it seems.

I lose track of the greater things in life when dealing with the human need to be loved.

I forget that there is more to life and more offered than the radiance of a man's smile or having a hand to hold.

It simply isn't everything and as only a soul in a human costume could; I forget that.

I am inspired when I am here, fully.

Not day dreaming about text message scenarios or the coulda,woulda, shouldas.

I just want to enjoy this life while I have the opportunity to do so.

It's so incredibly good to be alive.

(mobile)

2010-06-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

"I love you to."

Ten words and three spaces to simplify an ocean of emotion.

Posting my reply to a place you'll never see it.

But I have to say it, express it, acknowledge it. I still have so much to figure out.

The journey continues;

a heart case

2010-05-29T00:41:00.000-07:00

I am from the fluffy white layout of the page.
Where the words are labored and sentences birthed.
Where the unquenchable brain creates sentence after sentence, creating lines evolving into stories sometimes without even touching a pen to a piece of paper.
I’m always here writing in between the white margin lines.
I think here.
I breathe here.
I feel here.
I am not the stories yet simply the grateful storyteller chosen to embellish the tales of yesterdays and better days.
I bask in gratitude that day after day, year after year the words flow freely from within. Fingers pressed against the keyboard, it doesn’t take much to find the cadence from soul to page. However, when the days, weeks come where the words are asleep, I feel less of myself. Merely a hollow shell of a vibrant soul that once was.
These bouts of soul splashed across the page are building blocks for the flesh.
Truthfully, it’s entirely too hard to say who I am outside of these clauses, conjunctions, and modifiers.
But if you must: I am a seed conceived in the Garden State. A seed that traveled miles to the sunshine and decided to grasp the soil.
I am my experiences and the soul that digested them.
I am not a name, sex, or a career.
Just a being choosing to live a wonderful human experience.

Who are you?

Colors were drained straight from the sky

2010-05-28T23:40:00.000-07:00

I can't keep track of my emotions. I embrace them and within the next moment, I feel they are disregarded/invalid to the touch. I feel confused as to which one is the right one. What do I truly feel in regards to the delicate matter in which these words are created to discuss. Today has been one of those days worth writing about. You know those days when you wish you could run home and jump in bed next to the warm body you feel safe next to. Simply forgetting about the worldly problems faced and for the next moment or two; to be devoured in love. Gracefully returning to the soft rhythms of your soul, thanks to the cadence of the warm touch of the lover's hand. I stood in the middle of my work and thought about the events of today. Then my eyes set on the door and I wished with all within the cage of my ribs for you to come walking through. To engulf you in my arms and release problem after problem into your pores and layers of skin. To exchange energy and feed love. I think about the words I sent you the other day. "Why are you the best? I always try to convince myself your not, but your amazingness prevails." How come I cannot come to terms with the emotions that brew beneath the calloused skin? I delve into your life in small doses and feel my hesitance and fear. Would I belong and could I see myself apart of it all? I wish to be on the receiving end of your smile and the partner to the intertwined fingers and palm of your hand. In the most unexplainable of ways, you make me feel safe. I want to spend afternoons with you with stories of dreams, fears, and random jokes. What do you search for past the contours of the body and bruised bed sheets and would you search for me even when I can't make sense of it all? Thank you for sitting beside me while I was in pain. However let's face it, I'm scared to feel anything with you.

lonely girl

2010-05-20T18:19:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I become too timid to say what I really want to say. I tire from dealing with the revolving door of emotions and constant non-alternative endings. I act the same, I hurt the same, I heal the same, and I start over. I let people, experiences, and insecurities question my worth and the value of what I have to offer. When hidden deep beneath the sheets and past fears I know I have a shit ton of goodness to offer. So why question it? Why can't I just say, "I'm a magical being and here is what I can nourish in your life." Instead I feel the pounds of the scale, the frizz elevate in each strand of hair, and the journals of teenage me hash open the old wounds. Can I be truthful in the rawest of ways? Without metaphors and eloquent words to soften the cushion of the blow. No, I don't want to hear about the girl your talking to. Of course, I've spent months hearing about countless girls, various hopes, and numerous times when you thought someone was different. I hear descriptions, personalities, and the qualities that make your heart beat out of your chest and just think," Do you know your looking for me?" I don't know what to tell you in these instances. All I can do is just look and stare at you blankly. I think about the gratitude that lacks when they are devoured in your arms or at the mercy of your smile. Would they spend an afternoon in the sun learning the building blocks to each layer of your flesh or just simply tuck the moon away in the devoured bed sheets. I don't want to feel this way about you. I want to move freely in between conversation and not think twice when you say something. Flowing gracefully unharmed and unattached. The words,arteries, and love thump through each vein but I won't write about it. I can't allow that much emotion on the page. Another handful of pages spiraled into a decorated notebook set on the shelf to dust for a few years. I don't want to look back at you and ridicule what I once felt. I want to have the opportunity to cherish you forever. To grow with you, learn with you, love with you.

I want to be a better person because of you.

feel like I'm spinning

2010-05-16T00:10:00.000-07:00

Let's be honest. It's difficult to come back here. To find my balance in the surf of inter-web waves. I feel a little cautious and my thoughts not as raw. I've been trained by academic paper after paper so my mind is thinking about smooth transitions, sentence fragments, and the "so what?" of the jargon. It's not the least bit concerned with the heart, the soul, or what's really been pushing at my skin the last few days. I don't share the words and as of late I write them even less. Is that why they are so hard to come by now? the sad victim of being not so in touch with myself anymore. Running on autopilot and never sinking back in and internalizing what the organs have to say. Who are you and where has Leigh gone? Scattered somewhere across the cafe floor and a random school desk. Let's just for now try to be here.

I came here with a purpose, with a specific thought on my mind. I can only talk for so long to try and figure it out. Sooner or later I have to start writing, it's just what I do to comprehend, to digest, to feel. The googled image is meant to work in cadence with these specific thoughts. The Mraz medley on itunes is meant to help the thoughts flow smoother and sweeter out of my fingertips. The truth is though, I just don't know. I want to say what I really want but I know the audience sits and waits and it's too candid, too raw, too soon for my liking. How do you understand the feelings towards others and how they differentiate from one to the other? Since I keep mentioning honesty, this is about one person. I feel the affection and the feelings that swell when captured by their presence. Do I understand it? Of course not. I savor you at a distance yet ache for the warmth of your closeness. Willing to only say so much and yet completely ready to say it all. I devour in the goodness that is your smile and sink in the grave that some of your stories involuntary dig. I shut myself off in these moments.......

I'm trying, but I just can't write about you yet.

2010-05-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm coming back right after these messages.

2010-03-29T00:12:00.001-07:00

I'm still alive.

Bear with me.

Silence

2010-02-27T23:08:00.001-08:00

I need to reflect on these moments in silence. Without the deep swoon of Dallas Green or the reoccurring memories in every Morrissey line. I keep pounding at the backspace button because my hands are shaky and my thoughts unkept. I've survived months without you, falling from pain every couple of weeks or so. In fifty minutes it will be one year and my heart feels ready to collapse. I reflect on the person I've grown into in the last twelve months and especially in the last couple of weeks. No longer sunk beneath the blanket of shyness or the ideas and pictures of the mind's wishes. I've grown more confident in the person I am and the person I'm always growing to be. I feel okay with being vulnerable and sharing with people my pain and joys. I think about these changes and feel nourished and warm in my soul. However, when that thought comes ready to plague, the emptiness stings. I grew into all these things without you. All these stories I wished I could've shared with you in the last year. All the sentences I wrote wishing I could read them to you. All the encouragement and advice I yearned to receive from you. All the times I realized no one would be you. Suddenly, it's February 28, 2009 again and I'm back at step one.

I also reflect on the fact that the entire year wasn't devoured by this emptiness. I've laughed harder, smiled brighter, and hugged tighter this year. I've opened up, shared, and welcomed people, places, and things into my life. I know that this is most in part because of what I've learned from loving you and being your friend. I always remember watching you sink into the ground and releasing a balloon into the air after whispering into it, "I'm going to make you proud,M." At certain times, I could feel you smiling at me. I could feel you in my passenger seat, hear you laugh, and just knew you were with me. I could feel that your proud of me and I only wish I could wrap you in my arms.

There is a space in my heart that will never be filled.

But I grow, learn, and love everyday because of Monique Rosaz.

It's February 28,2010 and I've survived year one;

through still and through storm.

Bet on it

2010-02-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

I think about these words constantly. I write sentence after sentence, creating lines evolving into stories without even touching a pen to a piece of paper. I write even when there is no physical evidence of me doing so. I think about writing when my bones start to feel the ache of weeks gone by without even opening the current notebook. I am in love with these words and the nourishment I both give and receive from them. I can just gaze at the words printed on the page of a book and feel a warmness in my soul. I go to bookstores when it's a "bad" day, a particularly good day, or any day at all. I love purchasing them even when I still have five more down the line to read.
I don't even think twice to share things I've created with other people.
Yet, when I start to feel that I really branch out; I get scared.
Maybe due to the fact that I can't pin point my writing to a genre or direction.
Or maybe because I just always say, "I love to write" instead of "I am a writer."
A couple of days ago I sat with a cherished friend in a restaurant that I repeatedly go back to because of there fortune cookies. Somehow, maybe by pure coincidence they have always been so in alignment with my life it's eerie. I always sit there and stare at the two cookies, really trying to feel out which one is mine. On this particular day I received a fortune that stated I should really look into an opportunity that was going to be coming.
I received a message today from an old co-worker telling me about a friend whose looking to publish a zine about art/music/culture/etc. and to contact him. She felt it was a direct message to me.

Maybe it's time to start acknowledging it....
I am a writer.

renewal

2010-01-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

The words don't come out easily. My fingers pressed against the borrowed keyboard trying to locate the rhythm, the cadence from soul to blog. Day five in Akumal, Mexico and I feel a stillness in my soul. I feel complete, I feel connected, I feel present. That is seemingly the best present I can give myself. Whenever I feel the sudden push of worldly irritation and the grunt of the ego waking up from it's nap, I resort to my "happy places." These are people, places, things that I associate with connection to the soul. The newest addition is my yoga teacher here in Akumal. Michael is free and in love with his practice. He is devoured in patience and care of each of his students and his love pours out in our poses. I don't feel anything when contorting my body in and out of poses it may not be use to. I feel the stillness in my chest, the chin lowering to the heart, the breath in each individual vertebrae. I give attention to every piece of this human contraption. I feed it love and nourish off the love it gives back.
I've encountered one person in my life recently that whenever they are brought up, whenever we are in contact with one another, I feel the tension rise from my toes to the arches of my shoulders. I have not yet found the most pleasant way to serve our friendship. Instead reeling back and forth from who I was to who I want to be.
I start to feel trapped, the lungs tighten, and the stillness runs a little blurred.
I envision Michael and hear him singing, "breathe,breathe, breathe.." The lungs open up, the air delicious going through the airways satisfying the space in the chest.
and once again, the stillness is pristine and clear.
Jason Mraz is also a happy place.
He is a giving spirit, full in his love and attention of the world.
I find a great deal of respect and admiration for soul whose hand I never shook.
He brings light to the connectedness that we all share.
That even if we are apart, we are all together.
I watch him on stage or listen to his voice to bring me back to that stillness when I seem to drift off in the other direction.

It is important to thank all the teachers in your life, all your loved ones, to be thankful for the opportunity to be in this human form.
It is truly a spiritual essence in a human experience.
I am grateful for these people, these places, these things.
Most of all I am thankful for inner self for having the courage to be who it truly is,
every single moment.

In love and joy,
L.

2009-12-29T01:58:00.000-08:00

I don't know what I came here to write. This journal has become dusty and the words have retreated back to the shelves for a couple month's worth of sleep. Doesn't it always work out that way? I indulge in the basket of words, cherish them, and create them again and again. Creating entries, pages, of feelings that feel justified for the moments they are spread across the white page. Only to fall back into confusion and the constant mumble jumble of the mind's tricks and seldom treats. My skin is raw and the emotions are leaking through, looking for a release and the white page is here to collect. I try to think of one-lined solutions, summing up the feelings of my soul in the least amount of words. This is when I feel the words fails me and I feel overcome with sadness. The release fades and the emotions build up. The release I look for is in the grieving of my friend. I am not angry that she is gone and I don't wonder why. It's just that sometimes I can see her and hear her so clearly that for a moment lapse in my mind I forget that she isn't present in her skin. The realization of the loss again crashes against me, sending the brain to paralyze the nerves, and my body starts to shut down. I start to think of what I would say to a friend if they were present and the tears start to flow. Hearing my voice choke out the words, "I feel like I just saw her, I can hear her, see her smile, and I realize over and over again that she's gone." I stomach the text messages that say, "I don't think your ever going to stop missing her." I flip back to old entries from days after her passing to only return back to the twenty-ninth of December and realize that yesterday marked the tenth month of her passing. Where has time gone? and how have we all changed since our last interaction with Monique? I feel in most ways that I strive to be a person I'll be proud of. To tap into my inner spirit and live life through my soul. In instances, I feel her smiling at me. In other ways, I feel myself more reclusive and quiet. Losing my taste and appetite for all things that once brought me some warmth. I don't understand how my body deals with grievance, I can only tune in to the sounds the soul makes when the mind sleeps.

These words are scattered and the fingers did not dare give the mind a chance to think through them before developing them. I had to come here, I felt it. My body craves the soft sheets of my bed, but my soul pulled me to this virtual white page.

The release comes even after weeks of a word drought.

I am being everything.

2009-12-02T00:11:00.001-08:00

www.thegratitudetree.blogspot.com

your faith has got to be greater than your fear

2009-10-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Thank you Jules for inspiring me to be excited about this.

We got music in our hands and feet and kisses.

hands of the clock

2009-10-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

My thoughts have been with Monique lately. I feel the memories of her presence and the sting of her loss all at the same time. I recall the visions so fully that they feel brand new/freshly made and yet, the pit of my soul feels her absence. Feels the tangy reminder that the memories will cease to be created. That I can only survive on the ones that my mind has chosen to forge in it's walls. I think of the single time in our whole six years of friendship that we decided we weren't going to be friends. I took the walk of shame to her front door with a plastic bag filled with her stuff. Her door creaked open as I made out the solemn look on her face behind the meshy white gate. Standing face to face, we exchanged our plastic bags (since she was armed with one for me as well). The feeling of finality caved in my chest as I thought of all the laughs and love I've shared with this person. I sank beneath the bed of tears as I finally said, "I don't want to stop being friends." To which she crumbled, soaken beneath her own heart, "Me either." We embraced then and sat on her bed catching up on missed events. I couldn't lose her then. My soul knew it would be losing too much. I feel the weight in my chest as I recount these memories. I crave in the deepest part of me to see her face again, not just restricted to my dreams. I yearn to feel the warmth of her arms around me and the full satisfaction of her conversation. Eight months after her passing, the only thing I can think to say today is the same as that afternoon I stood on her doorstep, "I don't want to stop being friends." I relish and I crumble in these recollections. I feel the tears gaining more confidence in the ducts of my eyes and no amount of blinking can stop it. I feel the loss of my friendship, I feel the loss of the love, and even when I don't think I am-I grieve.

where I'm coming from

2009-10-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

"Just a couple of jumbled words from an old student that sat in the back of your English class in 2005 that just re-read her spiral notebook containing journals for your class. Thank you for having me/us do that even when we just a bunch of disgruntled teenagers who didn't really see the point in anything. You've made me uncover the real, deep, genuine love I had for the words. So, from an old student to an almost twenty-one year old soul looking to exercise the gratitude in her life; I say to you only two words: Thank you."

"Leigh!

I can honestly say that I haven't been on Myspace for a very long time, but when I got an email notification regarding your message, I had to come check it out. I'm so happy that you found your journal. You were a great writer then, and it looks like time has only made you wiser (more material for your pen!).
Thank you for being receptive enough to keep that pen moving. I hope all is good for you! Ahn"

from me to you

2009-10-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

To the writer of the bundle of words that soared through the virtual universe to reach my inbox, I say two words to you: Thank you.

little acorns

2009-10-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting to do this. To find the perfect time to feel the sweet blades of grass in between my exhausted toes and allow my brain to resort to a substance much like pancake batter. I don't think when I write these words down. Instead, I feel the warmth of the sun illuminating my back and feel the rays warm up the art on my skin. I'm devoured by the air blowing in and out of my pores, feeling new and refreshed with every hiccup that flees through the trees. Most of the time my schedule doesn't call for times like these even though I wish so much it did. Nature smiles down at me as I finally break away and steal some moments with her. She smiles warmly down and nourishes me, creating words without critiquing them or hoping that they make sense. My dog pants beside me and I can't help but eye him with love in my gaze as I speak to him softly. Nature makes me think about souls and staying connected. It reminds me that even though Jack bears different skin that we are connected on some different universal plane. That somewhere within this boundless part of life, we feel the love we have for one another. I soak in these days and I feel my words breathe a little and indulge in the relaxation. The constant conversation of kids twenty feet away don't bother me. No, today it's just me, my dog, my soul, and the universe.

the air near my fingers

2009-10-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

Three writings//Three pieces of music;

"Minuet from Sontine" by Ravel

Sitting alone at the deeply embellished tabled, she gazed at the coupled bodies waltzing their bones across the finely polished floor. Her thoughts fell back to sunrises and waking up with no alarm in the arms of her lover. She envisioned herself reaching over and feeling the soft bristles of his hair and waiting to be greeted as the cadence of his breath sped up and his movement became more frequent. It was mornings such as those that her mind succumbed to as she unconsciously stretched out a smile on her face. The new resident at the table kept talking about how weddings made single women depressed, yet she couldn't find it in herself to say that she wasn't apart of the lonely hearts club that she was just simply waiting. Defeated by silence she eyed down at the porcelain white table cloth. As the music slowed, she felt her eyes pull her towards the doorway. He was an image more delicate and graceful than any prince. She watched his eyes scatter across the room, darting past the dancers. Finally, her heart capered as they met. Hello love, you have found me.

"Please Please Me" by The Beatles

1964 was a year to remember. Dad finally got the job he was always looking for, Mom finally figured out how to use the washer and dryer, and America was starting to heal from the death of Jack Kennedy. I was fourteen at the time and oh was it a time of flooding estrogen and uncontrollable hormones! I kissed John Madden beneath the bleachers, finally got my hair to do a minuscule version of a beehive, and experimented the cat eyeliner look (without Mom knowing of course!). However, one thing made the year 1964 special. It wasn't Jackie Wilson's lonely teardrops or Murray the K's swingin' holiday revue. It was CBS on February 9 when I, along with billions of people met four fabulous boys from Liverpool that we loved. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah we did.

"Forgive Me" by City and Colour

The paper residue still sits on the upper right corner of my windshield. A permanent reminder of that day. Thirty cars in formation, following the leader to the final destination. Hands grasped tight to the steering wheel, my air flow as inconsistent as the parade of brake lights. Where was I? Why did I have to do this? I could still hear the warm resonance of your laughter vibrating inside my car, could I really be burying you? I waited for you, waited for you to get better, to text me and tell me that you were ready. Now it's just me and the city mourning you. Oh Monique, will you forgive me? I don't think my heart can put it's feet on the ground after this. Not without you.

eight days a week

2009-09-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Some of my earliest, most fondest memories involve four specific people in this photograph. I remember my dad introducing me to them and enjoying their songs so much when I was younger. I would lay out on the couch in my dad's apartment in New York, push play on the cassette player, unfold the cassette sleeve, and read the lyrics as John & Paul led me through. It's one of the most peaceful memories I have.

That or when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade in Catholic School and I was scribbling the name John everywhere. A boy in my class named John Roman thought I was aiming my pre-pubescent crush on him. To which I could only reply, "It's not for you, its for JOHN LENNON!"

It's nights just like these at 11:16 p.m that I realize how much I love them and how much they've shaped me, helped me understand me, and led me through the dark.

When a Beatles' record spins, I always feel home.

JOURN 53 INITIAL IDEAS DUE 8/28

2009-08-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

Working Title: Since Always

Genre: Poems/short essays

Brief Summary: In 2005 I met a girl by the name of Monique Marie Rosaz. She was friendly, excruciatingly nice with a soul that seeped through her skin. I remember telling her the following day after the first time we hung out that I couldn't believe that we had really hung out, and that I usually felt like that when I met someone special. In the six years we shared together we grew, we loved, and learned. Monique was the first person to ever hear anything I had written, the first person to know that I created bundles of words when the sun slept. She was the first person to encourage me to write and to boost my self-esteem when it came to birthing words. Monique loved photography and she could capture the simplest thing through a lens and miraculously it turned into something beautiful, something you would've never saw unless she aimed the camera. We always talked about creating a project where she would photograph things and I would write to the photographs. It was something we could share and it was something that before anything else, we wanted to do for each other. On February 28,2009 Monique passed away. Even though she isn't physically here with me to bring our project to life, I know that what I accomplish, what I learn, and where I go will always be shared with her.

Number of Pages:30+

I'm nervous taking on this project by myself but am pushed by the challenge and just knowing that it's something I know she would want to see happen. Also, the picture above was taken in January 2006. We had just gotten pulled over and so the only fitting caption for that photograph was, "Fuck the police."

you'd rather run

2009-08-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

Their are moments where I find that these words are completely still.

Content in the completeness of their tranquility and satisfied in their lack of presence.

These days my mind catches up to me and I'm in constant competition with the fingertips and words. Naively fighting for title of ownership, that truly in the end belongs to not one single soul. Yet, my mind blurs and continues to fight and rages into it's feeling of defeat. Leaving the lone soul to cower in fear of the make-believe idea of failure.

I'll be truthful and say that envy burns at my eyelids when a good piece is written. I wonder why does the english language not entertain me through restless night as it did Bukowski, his red radio, and typewriter or Amber, the sleeping sun, and that space in her heart that ridicules at the idea of sleep & continues to feast on what's left of her.

Why does all the talent cease me at the sheer touch.

God, the human mind is such a manipulative contraption.

Forever in battle with the humble soul, to see who will live the longest.

The poor mind, all too feeble to realize that it was always destined to lose.

You know if my pen ever stops for good, it'll only be the workings of this demonic human organ.

porkchop ribs// lambchop heart

2009-08-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

I live most of my present days in the cages of my cerebellum.

I've been prone to aggravation the last few days and feeling like the Jekkell of myself.

I suppose life always calls for those times when you just cease to be wherever you are.

Autopilot is always nice, even for a couple of seconds, minutes, hours.

This is the most I've written aside from a sentence here and there.

Forgive me, but I'm shackled to these bones and sometimes the emotions I observe are too naive for my taste.

It just seems to me that whenever I want to grasp something for myself, another one comes along & low//behold; that's what they are recognized for.

Once upon a time these words were solely mine and not a single sou knew that I created them when the sun slept. That is until Monique came along.

The human portion of me always yearns to be a child, it seems like the easier way to deal with the consistent dwellings of not-so-important things.

These words, these bouts of soul splashed onto the page will always be mine;

It's just that sometimes when in a crowded room I sense a lack of ownership, a lack of belonging. I'm mumbling a mouth stew of words and hoping that in the end the soul digests and sleeps.

Is anyone listening?

follow-up

2009-08-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

Being able to survive it doesn't mean it was ever ok.

constant knot

2009-08-01T02:22:00.000-07:00

Devouring thoughts, succumbing to dreams in an online bind containing 383 entries of bundled words given solely to someone else. Three years of constructing/Eight years of loving letters & thoughts that never quite made it to the mailbox.

They have to go somewhere, dying to be released by a virtual pen that never quite loses it's ink. It's the only resort left if they cannot be released into your own hands. & when the years crumble beneath the weight of the clock and our skin bares the age of everything but our soul, I ask only one thing of you;

save a little room for me.

you got that something, I think you'll understand

2009-07-28T18:08:00.002-07:00

(Fulminant Non-Alcoholic Steato-Hepatitis)

Trying to make sense of a packet full of words that medically tells us why you aren't here with us. Why we no longer get to see the fullness of your smile or laugh at the hilarity of your jokes. I no longer get to sit at a park with you or explore the roads with you being the co-captain. More importantly, although your friendship is always alive and growing within me sometimes it's the physicality I miss.

The intense moments of our discussions or feeling the rays of your love. I grew, I learned, and I loved thanks to you. Those were the moments that I hold on tight to, that I feel was taken from me too fast. I feel stranded & left to fend for myself scrunching up love in a world of drought.
Knowing that it's possible because you taught me that to.

Monique, my biggest fear is to forget what it was like to be your friend. To forget the way you walked, the way it felt when we were together. I indulge you in a constant flow of pictures, racking my brain of memories with your face. However, it only takes a five second clip of you walking through a door to send me straight to tears. To see you move around even if only now on a television screen causes the blood to rush all the memories to my brain and I feel devoured by the space in which you slept.
Despite these sadnessess, I dig for my faith, my hope, my love. I can only hope to be to you & Amber what you guys' were always CONSTANTLY to me. & while some days I feel that what I can give is no longer enough or ceases to be innovative for effectiveness; I will continue to willingly search for new ways to share my love, my life, and my soul.

Monique Marie Rosaz wasn't a perfect person but what she had to offer, her actions through friendships & the majority of the people she encountered always overshadowed what people could classify as "problematic."
I've been saying this since 5:35pm on Feb. 28, 2009 when I got the call that I lost one of my soulmates; Monique was a true light in my life.

It's something I'll never forget.
I love you, always Mo.

Month # 5

pull a string, a puppet moves

2009-07-16T13:27:00.000-07:00

" I was recalling yesterday how we sat in Java years ago drinking coffee and talking of what we would become in the future. Destiny was with us, and every note of music, every beat of our hearts rang true with pure hope and faith in the future. I feel that now is a quiet time, meant for gathering our brains and organs so that we may be prepared for what is to come. I have been attempting to learn myself more intimately, exploring the depths of my mind, and when that is too scary I simply sit with a book or a movie. I feel slightly disconnected from my actual aura, and a little lost to tell you the truth..."

for all the good reasons

2009-07-12T10:11:00.001-07:00

" I must say, though our communication has been sporadic (due in large part to the social hole I fell into), I've enjoyed reading the messages you've sent. They are thoughtful and vulnerable and I find myself relishing your open nature. "

When I read the above text from a message my twenty-nine year old cousin sent me I did a double-take and found myself washed over with gratitude. I'm not completely sure why just yet but I am grateful, however, to be connecting with him past knowing where he resides on my family tree.

I think it's just always an awkwardly amazing thing to hear how your words sound to people, how they intercept them, digest them, and perceive you in the end.

I responded with tales of where the days so ever-humbly find me, my present dreams of occupations, and my professing of love for the words. Here is how the latter went;

"Maybe it's just my fascination with words and the potential that they have. When I write

something, I feel as though I've given birth to something and after it's completed it lives it's own life and I was just lucky enough to take part in it's creation.Maybe that's a weird way to look at something so simple as writing but for all it's gotten me through it's hard to not look at it with an excrutiating amount of love in my eyes.My friend actually just bought me an antique Royal typewriter. The previous owner said it needed fixing but somehow I find myself perfectly content by just gazing at it and dreaming about all the lovely things it's written."

The sun is half awake in the skies today but the birds are still singing.

I hope that it is cherishably good wherever life finds you today.

what's the use of a title?

2009-07-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

"But now I am a father myself, and one day I was thinking about my own children, Prince and Paris and how I wanted them to think of me when they grow up. To be sure, I would like them to remember how I always wanted them with me wherever I went, how I always tried to put them before everything else. But there are also challenges in their lives. Because my kids are stalked by paparazzi, they can't always go to a park or a movie with me.
So what if they grow older and resent me, and how my choices impacted their youth? Why weren't we given an average childhood like all the other kids, they might ask? And at that moment I pray that my children will give me the benefit of the doubt. That they will say to themselves: "Our daddy did the best he could, given the unique circumstances that he faced. He may not have been perfect, but he was a warm and decent man, who tried to give us all the love in the world."
I hope that they will always focus on the positive things, on the sacrifices I willingly made for them, and not criticise the things they had to give up, or the errors I've made, and will certainly continue to make, in raising them. For we have all been someone's child, and we know that despite the very best of plans and efforts, mistakes will always occur. That's just being human.
And when I think about this, of how I hope that my children will not judge me unkindly, and will forgive my shortcomings, I am forced to think of my own father and despite my earlier denials, I am forced to admit that he must have loved me. He did love me, and I know that."

straight on through

2009-07-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

Searching for you today and basking in my memories of you through heart & conversation.
It's these days I celebrate the light of our friendship and dip my toes in that depth of space in my heart that will never be filled. In these constant conversation feelings, I feel the urge to state,"I miss Monique today" or "I feel Monique missing today."
But the truth is, I miss you every single day.

view from the screen

2009-06-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

"Everyone says I should be a writer, but I don't know how to be a writer."

to kiss the worms goodnight

2009-06-29T23:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight I find myself wondering where all the love has gone from my life. That borderline love that feels like a nuisance to the skin. That plagues your sleep and possesses the records you play until they belong solely to those moments, those feelings.
Tonight I'm re-reminded of a time in my life where I felt these ways. Such an urge to see his features and be on the receiving end of his attention. We are borderline strangers now but it doesn't stop me from looking back on our time with slight growth and a smile.

If I cherish anything about writing it's that the memories live on paper even when they don't suffice in your head. The simple lines scribbled down of a time when you just walked up to me and kissed my forehead; it's these memories that fade away without written renewal. I relive them now only briefly as my heart swells with the brave vulnerability of the past. I truly cherish these moments, even if only once every couple of years.

In my lifetime I will love more strongly, more clearly, and more vibrantly than this hour-glass timed romance. However, I am proud to look back at you and still eye you ever-so-gently, smile at you warmly, and feel grateful that I had the chance to love you.

Thank you.

heartbreak//procession

2009-06-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

When I take those moments to myself through out the day where I find the courage to have a thought & not chase it, I think of her.

I think of the last moments I saw her; the way she looked perched in her chair finding the energy to sit with Amber & I only to lay down minutes later. Her insistance for me to eat something and as sick as she was she still found it in herself to serve me a hot pocket. That night we layed together and we embraced, she kept telling me she was sorry, I kept telling her I loved her.

Regretfully the moments always come when I think about if she knew how much I loved her, if I made it known to her so much that she never doubted it. I never wanted to say goodbye to her and as Amber stated the other night, I think most of us still haven't.

Maybe that's not a bad thing, maybe it's okay for us to keep in our minds that she's there, that she'll always be there. Keeping her connected in our lives as they forcefully push forward.

I haven't cried in weeks but as the months keep stacking and when I chase after her long enough, the rain surely follows.

It's month # four and I'll keep trying to pour words into descriptons//emotions.

It's just that, I loved her so much that words aren't even justifiable.

lay down//wait like an animal

2009-06-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Scrolling through a notebook I randomly write in when I'm not writing in the other fifteen notebooks I have, I came across this;
"Words are alive, running from you like children."
I'm always fascinated by the things that randomly come seeping out of me that I initially look at with disgust but then realize I love.
It was only one line but one line could turn into two, 4 paragraphs, a 700 pg. novel, etc.

I accompany this bundle of words with a photograph of Priscilla & Elvis Presley. Part-inspired by the fact that I just have all Elvis shuffled around on my ipod. Their has been some good artists to have come after the era I admire but seriously I just always ask, "What happened to music?"

I signed up for a freelance writing class for school and while doing some detective work on the professor, apparently everyone hated her except the handful of people who said along the lines of the same thing, " She's tough but you'll learn something and do your work." Who would've thought that would be a struggle for people in college? ..or KIDS in college..
So yeah, watch out this woman may teach me how to be a certified writer or whatever title people who juggle words look for.
I love these words and they love me.
Does this mean we're lovers?

This was going to just be a little mumble about the line I find in my notebook and it turned into this. Words do run like children.
Let's try to catch up.

hooray say the roses

2009-06-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Some people just have it.

Some people have the words so far on lockdown, you sit there rendered speechless with drool dripping from your comatose bottom lip.

I find an impressive amount of inspiration from the crumbling & chewing of other people's words. I just find complete beauty in the way everyone's individual mind works. I could never critique a piece of writing because to me, everything is worthy of some amount of praise.

I just like soul and regardless of whether you try to or not, once the long-hand starts, the soul follows shortly after.

Maybe it's just my infatuation with words.

You can move them around, misplace them, and even experiment with them. When I was young I use to like to turn on the television and just write down whatever word(s) stuck out. Giving me a paper filled with words that for some reason or another struck me enough to scribble them down. One thing I do realize about words/writing in general is that even though your physically constructing the piece, once released the words take on their own life. It's almost like that word, sentence, short story was always there, it was just waiting for you to hear it.

The written word is just special to me, sometimes while reading a book I will catch myself just gazing at how the words are printed on the paper. It takes a level of courage to drown a wordpad, notebook, or blogspot with emotion. When I started writing daily when I was twelve, I felt that it was the only place I couldn't lie to myself. Eight years later it's still the only place I come to knowing that whether I expect to or not in the end something is going to make sense.

I've sent out three text messages this morning with the words,"I love you" in them. What can I say? I'm just consumed with that shit. Totally, irrevicably devoured by the thought, idea, BEING of love. While, it's been hard for me to find that radical love for everyone around me lately, I have faith that it's there, hiding, and waiting for me to stop screaming profanities at other drivers.

I met up with an old friend yesterday, someone who I once held very near to my heart. Probably nearer than I should've. We sat in a small parking lot eating single scoops and trying to take fetal steps back into a friendship. Do we talk about what made us stop talking eight months ago? Or do we pretend that it never happened? It's intriguing to watch the face of someone who has so much to say and never says it. After awhile, I could only muster while pulling my keys from my purse, "Do we have anything else to talk about?" Whatever existed between us is long gone and while I enjoy being able to be civil with one another, I don't feel driven to push for anything more. It was the single scoop finale to our short-lived "romance".

You know, sometimes things don't work out. Sometimes we predict things in our mind and when they don't turn up like we wished, we feel defeated. As hard as it is, it's just so much better to just go for the ride. To deal with things as they come & smile/wave as they pass us again. The greatest challenge in my life has been to keep finding that love time and time again. Even when the world has told me to forget about it, ignore it, and even doubt it. Alas, it always returns and it always remains.

I keep the lessons I've gained from my friends, whether they are breathing or asleep in the stars or still my friends. Everyone has something to teach you, something to let you in on.

So try to listen.

over-joyed//over-loved

2009-06-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

These were waiting for me in a enevelope neatly slanted along my bedroom door upon reaching home last night. The one thing I wanted to do this summer, that I'm not only doing for myself (despite funds) but also for one of my good friends. She once told me that Jason was the music to our friendship now and days (The Strokes was our high school days). Mraz has supplied us with tunage to inspire, calm, and rejoice our adult years with open eyes, hearts, and minds. So what better what to rejoice in friendship (& rejoice her birthday) then sitting a couple of aisles back from Mraz himself? Here we come.

I observe meaning in everything even when the situation, person, object seeks to have no meaning to you. Their isn't a place we could be that we weren't meant to be. Getting a speeding ticket the other day didn't bum me out because for the last three weeks, I felt it coming. Despite having not received one in two years. High-five to the universe for relaying the message and pat on the back to myself for deciphering it.
It's been really hard for to get back into practicing radical love. I know it's there, I feel it but somehow I'm drilling down the wrong well and coming up empty handed.

I'd like to look at everything lovingly, speak to it gently, and be able to "bless" it and move on when it doesn't quite work. I'm working on my judgements, my views, and the amount of love, kindness, and compassion I can shovel out.
Try me, you might just get a bear hug.

People shouldn't form ideas of others in their heads. One of my best friends is one of the most loving/caring people gracing this earth. She still opens her home to people in need and offers her shoulder even when it's our homes, our shoulders we should be lending. This year has proved her hardest and yet she still opens her eyes everyday, still finds that string in her vocal line to vibrate when something funny happens, still exercises the muscles to smile, she's still here and she's still opening her arms to love people. & yet because of past times people think she's tough, doesn't need protecting. They don't bring her around new people in fear of what she'll say or do.
It's frustrates me because their are two questions I wanna ask: 1) Do you even know her? & 2) What is wrong with you?
Reach down past labels and ideas you form in your mind- you might be surprised.

It's just love, that's all you need to get your past anything.

Despite knowing that, some days the cynic rises and I want to give everyone the bird and live my life being a hermit. I recently bought this book. "1,325 Buddhist Ways to Be Happy."
It fills me with things such as:

"If a man who has just moved into a luxury apartment on the hundredth floor of a brand-new building is deeply unhappy, the only thing he'll look for is a window to jump out of."

"Be glad of life because it gives you a chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars."

"You have to believe that inner peace is possible, that you are already perfect, that you don't need to add to anything to yourself. It requires a leap of faith."

"Have the courage to let a thought slip by and not chase after it."

"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling."

Among 1,320 other blurbs that keep my soul full in feeling and light on it's toes.
October 10, 2008 I saw Jason Mraz in NYC. I was going through a really hard time, I temporarily left my job, was shacked on my mom's couch, and going through a weird transition in my life. I walked out of that show and said to myself, "I'm going to change my attitude."
& I did just that.
I moved back to California, lowered my position at work, and went back to school. I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. Raging in radical love and full-flooded appreciation for every little thing.
February 28, 2009 I lost one of my best friends. She was a true light in my life and a true essence of love. It's taken a lot to recover from her death, but I hear her in my heart encouraging me, pushing me forward. I see all the love in my life that still resides, that still blooms everyday, and I carry the love she gave me with me every moment and it grows continually in my life.

We've only got one life to live, let's make it ours.

I wanna hold your hand

2009-06-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

Believe in what makes you feel good.
Believe in what makes you happy.

theramble/rumble/release

2009-06-03T01:36:00.000-07:00

Writers?
What are they?
Are you a writer when the words sleep while your eyes rust in the night?
When the grueling channels of television and web pages hold you as the hours tick and tock.
The wrinkles form, the bags blow, we all go.
Words are words. They cannot replace the nervousness of human emotion on display or the observation of one's eyes to yours. They are just lines pressed on a surface hoping in some way to relieve you of what pounds against your skin.They leak when your mind feels it isn't ready, unable to organize and embellish the words from blood to paper.

They lay down slanted, confused, leaving the reader unsure of the point of their birth or the plan for their life.To me, the creator and owner of hips who birth letter after letter; well it all makes sense to me.

Sometimes in practice of the vomit-inducing art of 'writing' a risk is involved. You close your eyes and you let the words go, turning your mind off to logic or sensibility. It's rather fun to see what you can come up with.Those who crave writing like a good meal find the title poisonous, a traitor to the words.Those who fly high on the tails of their ego talk at seminars and practice autographing their name before bed.
Writer? such things do not apply to me.
I slam these words down carelessly and without aim. I search for something but yet the words are fatigue before the find, yet I write anyway.My eyes shift from left to right crumbling author's words into digestion.
I am no Bukowski.
I'll never try to be.
I'll never try.
I'll just be.
I search images of typewriters, the early forms of our release. The words draped across the surface waiting to be seduced, waiting to be romanced onto the white pages.
We wait & wait.
What do I know? as a musician is just a servant to the songs. I am just minion to these words.

stand by me

2009-05-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

Month # three.

you got it all

2009-05-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm no longer plucking these words from a tired heart, but a heart that is working to recover. Something I never thought it would even want to do. I look at pictures of Monique, think about the memories I shared with her, and re-live memories so vivid in my head; the pain is still there but their is a deep underlying feeling that accompanies it. That even while I may tear up or eventually start crying, their is a peace in my soul.

Everything in my life, I understand because I love. I know love because Monique Marie Rosaz existed in the world. She of course still exists in the sky, the stars, the absolute glory and magic that our minds could never comprehend while shackled to the body. But I've felt the warmth of her skin, seen the whites of her teeth when she smiled, and felt the intensity of her love. These are the things I carry with me on the light-weight, invisible backpack strummed to my shoulders as I continue to walk, crawl, and push myself through this journey.

I miss Monique every day but there are some days when I feel the need to verbally express it. To even just say to the open road,"I miss Monique today." Every street name knows this today.
It was one night last week when I decided that enough was enough. I wanted to be the person that she loved, the person I knew would make her proud, the person I would never be ashamed of being. I went to sleep that particular night and while laying there I simply said to myself,"Monique is dead." & while the tears infused, I fell asleep begging to just know that she was alright. I woke up the next morning for the first time in almost three months willing to get out of bed, willing to make plans, just willing. Now I find that even when the days get hard, when the missing becomes unbearable, and the anger chokes- the sweet, soothing calmness flows through my veins. Monique is okay, I know she is okay.

I sent Monique a clip from a book I was reading at the time to help her cope with the death of her grandmother. I read that passage to myself the other day. It called me and I responded. I decided to re-read every book I read while shacked up on my mom's couch and dealing with whatever crisis moving to New York City was. I liked the person I created then, I was the happiest I had ever been, and while it may take work, I'm determined.

Sometimes people come in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Sometimes they provoke your emotions and push closer and closer to you and when you finally feel that you have something to offer, they disappear. They always tell you they won't but eventually all your left with is the suffocating feeling of their exit dust. I've learned to take these instances in stride, not that I do not appreciate who comes and goes, but to know that this is just how things work sometimes. & all you can really do is digest it and continue on.

My favorite Beatles song just came on my ipod, it makes me think of her, and I know that she would be happy that I'm trying. That atleast I am dreaming again.
Do I know what I want to make out of my life? What I want my breadwinning job to be or where I see myself? Absolutely not.
Sometimes I feel the fear rush in and my body indulges in panic attacks but for what?
I never wanted to have everything in my life planned out, but to just have the absolute faith & belief that I was going to be something. Anything that made a difference on whatever scale.

I'm just holding on to the love I've given, the love I've received, and the love that exists in a dying world. I don't wish to be apart of this world but just a dim light in it.

Bringing comfort.
Bringing faith.
Bringing love.

no help for that

2009-05-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

: There is a place in the heart that

will never be filled

a space

and even during the

best moments

and

the greatest

times

we will know it.

we will know it

more than

ever

there is a place in the heart that

will never be filled

and

we will wait

and

wait

in that

space :

a stethoscope case

2009-04-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

Amber,
this post is for you.
I'd like to imagine that even though this box may seem empty, it is filled up entirely with all the love, adoration, and respect that words could never justify.
You are gold.

keep missing

2009-04-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

I can't start a new journal without you being the first. Pages to grieve, pages to try, most importantly pages for myself and you, of course. I miss you and I hate that the words show it no respect. Every drive, every mile devoured has been to reminding myself of you; the whys and why nots. Do you really have to be gone? & for how long? I'm dipping back into the personal and while the emotions directing the pen are real, the description is only vague. I'm scared to not feel "personal" anymore. To no longer feel in touch with myself. I am however, not scared to die alone. Isn't that just a myth anyway? Not saying that this should be wasted but what exactly is this? and why must we stay even when we beg not to?

Being alone isn't the worst thing that could happen. Laying on a no longer cold floor sucking in gold fumes isn't the worst thing that could happen either. I feel like I'm digging, digging for something to just mean something to me. I can't even look at myself, I can't even feel myself. Numb past the point of knowing. Crying is the only time it comes out. Tears heavy enough to sink Jesus from the heavens. & even then it's a detrimental wave that crashes and falls still.

Daily life; just searching for a way to keep the tweet in the chest, occupying yourself long enough for the clock hands to tell you it's finally over. I wish certain things didn't replay in my head. Like the stone cast sleeping in a box. Once warm, once functional, once Monique. We never thought we would lose you, I never thought I would lose you. To each, their pain the most devastating but we're all just tired apples in a rotting tree. Holding on for dear life, somedays we're confident enough, but most the sweet cool layers of grass seem safer.
seem closer.
seem more like us.

Words. thoughts;maybe they all aren't suppose to make sense. Maybe they are suppose to just live on the paper and die on the paper. Death is heavy and it smells funny. I can keep going for the next 200 lines, 100 pages and I'll never even tickle myself.
Where am I? Where am I pulling these words from?
My absent heart?....

2 months down, every day to go.

hurt

2009-04-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

"I'm alive. Whenever you have some free time, give me a ring."
Going through my comments and reading that, all I could do was involuntarily respond outloud,
"No your not."
That's all that needs to be said. I don't need a subject, paragraphs, or the will to make it.

lying awake until the morning light

2009-04-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

The things we do just to stay alive.

We're all killing time in the waiting room,

but the doctor's never gonna show.

alone with everybody

2009-04-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

Their is something about the last, the final view.
Knowing that this was the last photo that Monique found the strength to take of herself and to just see how beautiful she was. The pure unadulterated feelings it provokes are heavy enough to sink Jesus from heaven like a bowling ball from a 10-story window.

The words come but the satisfaction never does. Sentence after sentence are birthed and bathed on this page and I leave as empty as I began. I use to be able to really sense myself, to feel the depth of my emotions, observe , and construct them with words like a puzzle to paper.
I can't feel myself anymore, the words are like water to a drain, quick & hard to see.

Where do I pull these words from?
An absent heart or a sleeping soul?..

I have too much to grieve, too much to confess, to much to set sail in the literary ocean.
Today inspired by Amber, I bought a composition book (I usually buy spiral notebooks) and it's going to be mine. Not pieces of writing to work on, not future blog entries, just everything for me that only I can see. Their is something so refreshing about that.

When I was fifteen the first person I ever read my writing to was Monique and once the initial terror stepped aside, I would call her night after night just to read her what I had written. Not much has changed since then except Monique sleeps with stars and I haven't had much to read.

doom and siesta time

2009-04-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream that I was going to read Mo what I wrote for her.
The whole time looking at her and thinking to myself in my dream,"When I open my eyes she'll be gone."
Apparently you can wish for many things.
Like being there for someone.
One of my best friends wished for that via text message.

Someone told me that I'll never be the same person again.
That that was okay, just wave it goodbye and don't look down.
My own best friends can't even bare to tell me that.
I don't feel poetic lately and I just feel like slamming the words down as they form in my cerebrum. I read a lot of Bukowski and sometimes feel tired of making things eloquent and graceful. Sometimes, you just have to state it how it is because no other noun, verb, conjunction sentence is ever going to do it justice as the plain, salty sting of the truth.
What if I don't ever want to fall in love?
Would that be so horrible of me.
I just want to lay here for awhile.
Hold me, if you wish.

relentess as the tarantula

2009-04-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm angry.
I'm sad.
I'm alone.
I'm tired.
I'm drained.
I'm in pain.
I'm numb.
I'm restless.
I just want the galaxies to give up and send her back down.
Back to me, to us, to everyone that wasn't ready to let go.
I wasn't ready to stop learning how to be in a real friendship built on genuine love.
I wasn't ready for her to be in the hospital.
I wasn't ready for her to be in pain.
I wasn't ready for her to sleep in a fucking plot.
But the puppeteer pulling strings in the sky doesn't wait for us to catch our breath.
The strings are snapped back up and we are forced to follow the lead.
A death certificate doesn't even sit in my mailbox and yet I'm angry at the fact that everyone needs to keep reminding us what's been done.
We deal with it everyday and time heals not a damn thing.
People create words to extract the sour tastes from our mouths.
My heart will always be broken.
& these words don't even satisfy me anymore.

weight in a grandfather's clock

2009-04-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

8.1/FIC/BUK

2009-04-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

Every day the emptiness seeps into the sunlight.
Grief laying a chokehold on the bluebirds nesting below the sun.
No words are right for you. Your soul was beyond words.
Beyond context, beyond understanding.
Post after post after post of repetitive lines and drained feelings.

Air is harder to breathe.
Life is harder to swallow.
Love is harder to digest.
&the begging won't let them bring you back to me.

she loves you

2009-04-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

Twenty-three years of making the world a more bearable, sweeter, funnier, gorgeous, charming, honest, memorable, simply breath-taking, magical place.

Monique&Amber;

you gotta know you have my heart.

love is a dog from hell

2009-04-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

human interaction is time consuming;
I remember talking to you before my first day of work in NYC. The bookshelf divider between the two beds and how I put little trinkets wherever I could, and kept ice bat by my side hoping that Miriam's bed would start to feel a little more comfortable (it never did).
I remember calling you when I got lost on the subway, crying to your ear-receiver, wishing to just come home (I did).
Your only answer was,"Sounds like a good idea."
When I want things really bad I start to dream about them and when you were sick I dreamt about us hanging out again. To just be able to receive the text,"I'm ready :) "
The layers of my skin felt numb today and my heart didn't sink at constant reminder I have to give myself regarding you.
But I can feel it starting to sink every second I take to pause, just another story of a captain who couldn't save his ship.
You were the one who introduced me to Bukowski, you were the only who made me WANT to keep writing. Just so every night I could call and read it to you.
Remember all our late night phone calls when we first met?
The first time I ever talked to you on the phone you were crying because you got in an argument with your mom. You were embarassed and wanted to get off the phone but I wouldn't let you. I was determined to make you laugh before you left the telephone lines.
I love you so much, you know.

August 27,2008 at 4:35pm- you left me a comment;
"I'm listening to The Beatles and I miss you."

April 10,2009 at 10:17pm;
I'm thinking about the rest of my life and I miss you.

yours,
L