Digital Candle: #YesAllWomen

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it’s intense that the biggest trend on Twitter and Facebook right now are hitting so close to home. It’s surreal, and I can’t imagine what my roommate’s sister is going through as a student living in SB at the sorority house that Rodger was ultimately targeting. The feeling all women are having this weekend? It’s survivors guilt times a few million. We’ve all been close to situations that made the victims vulnerable this weekend…I’ve been alone at night walking home from class in downtown San Jose, or walking to the train station through the tenderloin alone at night after a work dinner in the financial district…I’ve ignored cat calls and walked fast back to my car from my sorority house, and thank god I’ve been untouched…I’ve had friends with stalkers so strange and disturbed that restraining orders have been placed.

I feel deeply for the women that have been targeted, attacked. They took the hit but I cannot avoid feeling it, too, because I know that it could have just as easily been me, or someone close to me.

I am disappointed that our society has not yet figured out a way to properly address mental illness. I am disappointed that we ignore it because it’s easier. I wish we didn’t need to understand the motives of the mentally unstable but to understand the workings of the illness, and learn to look past the cunning ways of sociopaths. We will not have come far as a human race until we can draw a line in the sand and move forward with fresh eyes that don’t aim to understand or befriend, but to prevent situations with serious objectiveness.

I am glad that the largest part of the trending social conversations are around empowering women. Hash tags are not useless and they can bring us together in conversations of solidarity. For those who don’t feel safe going outside at night, they can be the digital candle lighting a way for hope. It’s not about winning a war on gender as much as it is winning a war on mental illness, in my book, but I still believe in, and fully sit with the motives behind #YesAllWomen.

Wanderlusting

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Wander-lusting pretty hard for June 27-July 12.

I am ready to get lost among people who don’t speak my language, risk near death experiences at San Fermín 2014, see the Eiffel tower, the Seine, and take photos of old doors and stone alleyways.

I’m ready for the dirtiness of the streets and the open minds of fellow travelers that I might cross paths with in these distant places. I am ready for an imperfect experience and discovering feelings of freedom that I can bring back with me.

I am ready to come back financially broke because truly, I know I will be richer for it 🙂

 

The Brightest Blue Ocean.

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I was drifting off to sleep last night, and I started thinking about the physics and logistics of being happy, what it really entailed, like some totally bogged down human being. Then, out of nowhere, I felt something to the effect of: when you feel happy, don’t try to figure it out. Just go with it.

And with that, in a matter of milliseconds, a vision from the point of view of a swimmer on a clear, tropical day appeared, and a smiling–beaming–dark-skinned child cannon-balled into the brightest blue ocean. It came into my mind in such a snap-instant, without time for my consciousness to have possibly conjured it on its own.

I haven’t questioned it. It didn’t matter who he was or why I was seeing it, it just mattered that this is how true happy felt. It was an instruction to not fear or over-think, to just jump at the slightest hint of happy.

I didn’t get to keep it.

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Dreamed about you last night. We were with the usual group of friends and you were the only one who would perform this stupid dance with me. I asked Megan to take a video of it, but when I watched the play back it was warped and altered and I didn’t get to keep it. It was the realest dream I’ve felt in a long time.

Tiny Sweater

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It’s like someone took my yarn and your yarn and knit up a cozy sweater that’s keeping my heart warm.

I got home from our road trip, pet the cats, cut the ends off the rose stems and poured new flower food in the vase. I put the dozen reds back on my night stand and crawled into my cool, unmade bed.

My heart’s all warm.

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In the New Year, we are one.

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I’m in bed drinking green tea and listening to the unmistakable sounds of a dad teaching his kid how to ride a bike in our apartment parking lot. It sounds like it’s going well. He’s getting it down.

I really appreciate the spirit of this time of year; together, we’re all tackling our own new goals, finding our individual freshness, and are all, for the most part, ready to learn new things.

Even if I don’t know the kid getting his pedals to propel him forward in a steady balancing act downstairs, we’re one. We’re one as the sun sets and the chance to start over again tomorrow with a new skill and new experiences under our belts binds us together–he, and I, and all of our other neighbors, too.

I think we’re going to be alright.