Thursday, July 29, 2010

s'morning.

S' morning here and Im glad im awake. Im wide awake, its morning. Im eating an omlette and sippin on sippin' chocolate. Its a gorgeous day, and i dont have much to say. I wish i were outside, I wish i were hiking or biking or kayaking or swimming or jumping or running. I suppose i could remedy these things, but i think ill just go to texas instead. Emmie is coming soon! And my sister will be home from Estonia soon, and my Mom's birthday is coming up which i wont be here for, and so, today i will buy her some flowers from the shop around the corner. Its a normal day.

Im restless again, so its normal. Its a good day, its sunny again so its definitely good. So far, so good. Sometimes I'm very remorseful for my inability to hold still for second, its an affliction, a busy busy busy affliction. I love to move, I love to expend energy, and yet i sometime wonder if I will ever want to sit, because the second i do, i feel like i need to get out the door again.

Even now, sitting in this house, writing this post, Im somewhere up there, thinking, today should be the day that im out, gone, running. And so i just kind of sit here and toil about it inwardly until it buckles at my knees and I sit down melancholy for the rest of the day.

Perhaps its just community I'm seeking.

Perhaps its adventure.

Perhaps its a combination.

Buckle.

The best thing about the internet is that It gives you a voice. A voice when maybe even no one really cares to hear it. And noise when maybe even youre not sure what it means. fuzzy, fussy, grinding, gives you an output where you would normally call someone and leave the voice in a wire, unrecorded. And now we can chronicle things like this, days like these, and they're precious.

All you daughters go buy flowers, and fathers bring the bacon. Lovers give you lover a call and handymen turn a wrench. If youve gotta run today go run and if you dont have shoes sit still, and sing and clap and dance till ya ill. If youre a bug in web struggle struggle all you got and if ya got it easy today, sunshine and pot, and a whole lot of music and just a bit of food in your paw, and your teeth are gritty or clean or youre young or old or mean. Do you what ya do, do what ya do. Dance or work or scream or screw, do what ya do.

Ive missed photos, specifically black and whites, mostly photo booths. Ive missed photography as art in general. I think im revved up now.

In other news i think this choir has managed to make this song even more moving than its original version, so listen:

gorgeous.

cool, calm, collected.
How did it get to be 11 30?


Wednesday, July 21, 2010

water weight.

Today Im moving out the last of my things from the northside to morningside. I love that name, its a great name for a street, it sounds so cheerful. I cant wait to address things "dearest you, updates on my life, love me, at morningside, morningside, morningside" terrific.
And while it all seems terrific for the time being, Im still a bit unsettled, and maybe this is because im barely here at all, and so i cant be comfortable. My mind is in the mountains and my feet are in the ocean somewhere, and my heart is always elsewhere.
Perhaps one of the stranger things about life, and the most glorious, is one's scarce ability to appreciate things for the time that they are happening in.
When i am traveling, i wish for a home, and when im at "home" i wish to be gone. Maybe its just me, or just the age old Sisyphean problem of displacement, and to some degree insatiability.

Today i just layed in the sun, because whatever comes at me the sun always comes with me. Its like the riches of the earth, the resource i constant seek, most needed, more than touch, more than water.
It began to rain. all over. I slung my magazine underneath the umbrella and before running for cover took a deep breath and looked up. "oh wait." i thought "im waterproof" So i just sat there, and sat there, and sat and sat, and eventually the sun came back from behind its cloud cover. A miserable little game of hide and seek. And it was pouring, but blindingly sunny at the same time. And i somehow came out of the breath i had been holding, a bit new, and bit fainter. And I thought, maybe i dont have to choose.

And i dont want to choose. Day to day is too delicious to not try everything you can.

And while my current situation, and trepidations that i may have somehow, gasp, made a mistake in moving back here undermine my ability to get up and run these days. Im starting to realize that all we get is this life, and to not use it to the best of our ability in every way is such a waste, its such a fucking waste. For me that involves a few things i could try to list off the top of my head.

I have to exist here, in this time, in this place, with these factors. I can choose to manipulate them but i must work within them, there is no way around it.

I'm thinking...Why am I obsessing about all of the stupid things im obsessing about? I've slowly dropped most of the baggage, piece by peice through my early adulthood. A hangup here, a Louis there. There goes my wallet just now, out the window tumbling itself down the track out of view now, at the mercy of this trains velocity and its own violent trajectory.

I just figure, if no one is getting hired here, and I want to travel anyways, and i can go to school for practically free overseas, then what the white bread am i doing here?

And if i want to sail the world and i can go, now, free of charge, free of worry, free of ailment, then why am i not there by now!?!? Picasso was picasso by 23, and Newton had discovered and invented things and Beethoven composed and Frida had affairs and Judas doubted! and i have done a third of these things in three lifetimes of some people! Its like, i can plan to go ya know, but i mean, a lot can happen in two to three years. What if i lose a leg, what if i die? I may not even make it to that year I plan to go. Im itching to act right now, with purpose, without fear of loss. Sin temor de perdida. And something keeps pulling me on through the bread line. And here I am.

left, right, left, right.

I suppose i just didn't expect to be back here.

I'm waterproof,

-j

Monday, July 12, 2010

cibo non bombe!

I cant eat a lot things. I mean a lot. Basically processed foods and anything remotely resembling bread and almost no sauces. I have recently developed a sensitivity to dairy. It plagued my early adult hood. Really, the only time its easy for me to eat something is when i make it at home. And then among those things, many times, I get sick anyways because my body is what it is.

So really, I get a handful of reactions that are usual when explaining it to people.

"oh my god that is so terrible/sad/hard" is one of and the most common of them.

Im not sad. Im thankful. In a really strange way im really grateful for all the limitations. One, because it makes me very conscious of what I eat, and very appreciative of good food. And it taught me to cook.

At the risk of sounding pompous, I learned to cook in Italy( I know) a week after learning of my food allergies, from a pregnant Italian woman. Perhaps this has shaped the way i feel about food. I think one of the reasons (among the many) that i love italy more than any place ive ever been or lived is because of the reverence that Italian people have for food and expression and an almost god-like treatment of what the greater part of western society considers "decadent". ha!

Sex? Good?! Chocolate?! allowed!??CARBS!? for christ's sake, its no wander so many Americans fit so snugly and permanently into the framework of Italian culture, its a veritable AMERICAN PLAYGROUND!

But enough of that. Its more than that. Its not just decadence, Its not just pleasure. Its serious stuff. I mean it. (cracks smile)

I talk about it a lot but really i just cant get over how much food means to me. There are so many ways that it sustains me. I love the idea of food as expression, its beyond survival, its survival plus! I feel this way about so many things that i like to lump together into that category of what i can only call under an umbrella "expression". Art and language and food and dance and theater and sex and music and everything wonderful and luscious in life. I think these things not only enhance life, but give us reason for survival. They are sacred to me. They are my joy and my comfort and my constant.

To create is sacred. And everything that includes. The whole enchilada ( pardon my pun)

Anyways i was packing up my things tonight from my parents house preparing to move out soon and I suddenly got hungry. It was past midnight and while everyone tells you not to eat after midnight, im a bit of an exception seeing as I hadnt eaten anything all day for a couple of reasons. One, because my body is strange and is hungry very seldom, and two, because i dont really eat frivolously very often. I really only eat when i can make it good, by good i mean either healthy or fantastic. I dont like food, i LOVE it, and there is a difference. I love it so much that i almost respect it. Well, not almost, i do respect it.

I suddenly realized we had some gluten free angel hair pasta made from flax and rice along with some fresh pesto and a couple tomatoes. I also suddenly realized how long it has been since i have really made anything that I'm proud of, or since ive been able to cook anything for that matter! ( one of the only draw backs of travel is scarce access to kitchens) So of course, I creeped downstairs witha single light turned on, boiled a pot and began to make some angel hair pesto, with a bit of feta, fresh tomatoes, and some spicy seasoning. In my favorite bowl. With an ice cold water in the mason jar. It looked so beautiful, good enough to eat! And it was, and I did.

My love for food is so faceted its crazy. Its visually appealing, its a work in itself. It enhances something we have to do for survival. Its like, we have to eat anyways why not make it AMAZING! And some people realllly have a gift for it, and a style. Its also very interesting to survey tastes of different parts of the world and wonder why people taste what they do. No tongue is alike, and no body similar. It's a social function as well. Everyone does everything around food it seems. It makes your body work and grow and function, and i cant help but revel in that. Many people beg for it. some starve. Some take more than they need. Some exploit it, and some nurture and create their entire lives around it, humbly and thanklessly. Food is always certain, and food will always come in some way or another. So i dont feel the need to chase after it all the time really. To cook takes my mind away from all that i worry about and focuses it for the next thirty minutes to an hour on the specific task in front of me. "make lovely!" its says "make good!". I love to feed other people as well, it sort of equates with love for me, as much as it can. I feel very strongly about the way feta melds with red onion.

While grating a bit of Parmesan out of habit over my perfect bowl of capelletti, and thinking "i wish i had some pine nuts" my thought was nearly interrupted by my dads footsteps and then and then his sleepy inquiry... "jess? what are you doing?"

And to this i could only reply "praying."

Sunday, July 11, 2010

wobbly, whatever.

I dont think, im ever going to have a lot of money. I would love to, but i dont think im gonna.

There are times when i sit around and my mind isnt occupied and i think of everything ive been able to do and everyone ive been able to meet and all the life ive had to live and i feel incredibly and infinitely lucky.

And i suppose everyone has moments, no, wait, i know, i know that everyone has moments where they let the phrase "what is wrong with me!?" circle around somewhere in the space that isnt occupied.

I love to adjust and i love newness. Im just very worried that ive stopped, ive chosen to stop by coming here. I just honestly dont know what is going to happen to me. While that is so often exhilorating for me, its a bit tiring right now.

How do i exist outside of where i come from? Who am i absent from my friends? And What do I want out of life?

I want too much. All the time.

I feel cursed but not sorry for it. I feel like i will never be satiated. Thats a good thing right?

Cosmic ADD...or something. Ive been able to stick with so few things in my life long enough to seep into them and let them seep back. I am so often saturated by people and things that i love, but there is that bit of hesitance always. Not to say that i am regretful of it or unhappy because of it, Im just aware now. Maybe everyone is like this now a days?

Maybe you shouldn't wash your dirty laundry in public, you probably shouldnt work out your deepest qualms over public forums, But ive never really done anything the right angle way so here I am. Besides, our struggles make us who we are just as much as our triumphs. So here is this part of me. I think maybe if i can just be more vulnerable in that way, then I can be more frank with myself about what i need. And then i can move on more directly.

On the cleaner side.... I feel ready to work hard. I feel hopeful about this thing in atlanta. Im excited about running again and Im loving everyone around me right now. Also I got a new place and new roomie that is basically the best thing ever! fantastic location and rent! looking forward to some memories.

I mean am I alone in bitching about aimlessness?

Is anybody elses nerve a bit wobbly right now?

Im pretty certain of it.

Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. Maybe I will grow old and afflicted early, but you're only as young as the last time you changed your mind. The only thing i dont want to be, is the same.

-j

Friday, July 9, 2010

Hot potato! Hot potato!

If only i could articulate.

I probably over articulate, motor mouth, yes, you guys probably get very tired of my ramblings in the best way possilbe. But hey, if ya dont like it, leave.

All i want to do is be outside.
Speak native.
and run, run, run, run, run every damn day.

I want to live somewhere with a bit of sunlight, and a slight of rain, warm rain.

Somewhere it is raining. Somewhere it is shining. Someone somebody somewhere is actualized.

I want that so bad, it doesnt take much for me, but i just wanna be outside, or in a studio of any kind.

Makin things, changin things, doin things. I gotta be relevant, i gotta keep movin or Im just gonna die.

tinted Red head and curly beyond what she deserves and just nearly a quarter of her life, though she doesnt look it. Callen picked up her nose from the position it had taken in attention to her feet, suggesting she was anything but extraordinary. But life is anything but "extra" and "ordinary". It is simply there, it just is. And you are. And I am. And somehow I gotta burst through this. Sometimes i feel this smolder inside myself that wont subside. Im not sure how to tame it but i dont want to. Its fanned and its nurtured by everyone around me. And sometimes somewhere someone ignites it! And i have to just scream! or sing! or dance! or fuck! or SOMETHING! I feel so much passion burning up my insides, my bones are almost ash! My organs have turned to magma and long since hardened into rock that is nothing but ablaze! A Chemical change in all! And I cant help but stomp down the street and burn everything to the cold damn ground! Sometimes i feel so tired, but im nothing but energy right now! I could just evaporate, and i might, so dont blink.

Maybe im right to be sorry for it, but I will not deney it. I am nothing but gratitude and energy right now, I dont really give what happens to me, as long as i can be outside, as long as i can make stuff.

expression is the stuff of gods, and i live in the churrcchhh.

-j

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

spill

I know that youre not supposed to do things like this, in bodies like mine, in places like here. Youre not ever supposed to say what youre actually thinking in these things, its an edit, a filter, an amendment to the reality of yourself. But suddenly feel as if im coming to my own reality so Im just going to spill and cross my fingers that it isnt dramatic, or something along those lines.

Its strange being home, i mean it. After everything that has happened and ever will happen, here I am again.

She's a real nowhere man...

I hate the feeling of being confronted with my age, and my parents age. Its all just a bit melancholy and surreal. I feel sad for growing old, I feel sad for enjoying it. Im not sure what that says about me.

In most ways, i consider myself a very lucky person. In others I am weak, but I suppose we cant be strong all the time. We are meant to lose thing things we love in life, and I have just made peace with that i guess. But you cant erase entirely the feeling of resistance.

I know it in the way that I look at my father at a baggage claim and it makes my stomach sit unwell to see him unwell. I know it in the moments taht i want to speak with someone, hold someone, inexplicably and without reason, suddenly and desperately. I know it in the dread that causes me think that maybe it was a mistake coming here. The thing is,i sort of just bloom where I'm planted but by chosing anything you create conflict somewhere else, And for this reason I made up my mind a long time ago that I could should and would not act for others. It has recently come to my attention that maybe this has forced me slowly into this commitment - evading cycle that has left me lonely in some moments. But maybe that is the price.

Now here I am, and the fear of what could and might be is giving me the urge to run again. But I wont for a while. I promise. It isnt the weather, it isnt the rain. Its the feeling that if i stay here it will all just stop. Everything will stop. I will stop.

I cant stop. I need motion to breathe. And thats just the way it is. It costs me loneliness sometimes, but i think i would have that either way. Now i want to seep into something or someone. Then again i love the weakness, it makes me create and it allows me to feel much deeper.

Something is changing in me i think, i mean, something is always changing but really, now. The times the are a changin. I feel different, not better or worse, just different, most notably...

I have an insane amount of thanks for everything and everyone and everywhere that I have it. I think I feel more gratitude for every second of life than youre average gal, and i think it doesnt show. But im so bursting with gratitude i could just scream! AHHHHHH! there.
Ive got problems too, but i couldnt be happier to have them in this space i call life, so I'm not afraid of them anymore. Ah, thats what it is, im not afraid of trouble trouble trouble much anymore, i just feel so powerful, I have a serious grip on life right now despite my setbacks. Its hard to explain, but that is what's different i think. I have given myself the permission to do whatever i want. ha!

Out of habit, I settled into the space taht was once my home but now just felt like mine and nothing else. All i could think to do was organize. So i did, and i listed and logged and found Paul Simon. Wedged there, lonely but snug leaned up against cat power. I didnt feel quite like cat, she had too much of a blue tint and very little resolve. Paul was exactly the warmth i needed and wanted. That and a lot of mo town. There is a reason that music is its own art form. There is a reason that instruments themselves have a presence in a room, like a person, to put it wisely "like it's another voice in the room" There is a reason why it is incredibly hard for me to describe the way it made me feel to put that needle to vinyl, even now, its too hard. It wont materialize, because there is no way. Because music begins somewhere deep in your person and ends there too. I mean really, deep down , in there, it moves through all the folds within you that see so very little attention and coddling or sunlight. Like a q tips grinding, gritty, satisfying sweep through the outer ear. Yes Yes Yes. Musica. Musique. Ying yue. You are the most sacred and certainly the most holy of things. My body's twine and bundles are simply quenched by your constant presence. Getchya loose ladies moving on a friday night and do what you need to do in the stereos of rush hour commuters...but please please please... make it back to my place by seven wont ya? dont foreget me, lets stay out tonight, lets not sleep, late night eggs, can i come up?

Im sorry for all the messages i left on your machine, Its only 'cuz i want you.

bad.

baby, baby, baby.

- J


Tuesday, July 6, 2010

what now new york.

What do you say when you're given everything and more and nothing?

What can I do now that i have done and have been and have seen and want more?

Where does one begin again?

How can i see natural now that I am new?

Summer never lets me down, i never lets me down. I feel so powerful, and yet more aware of my fragility all of the time.

There is very little air conditioning in the summer in New York, there is very little you and there is maybe too much of me. There's a whole bunch of crazy in a mess of surreality that i just cant seem to live outside of these days. Im really not fighting it, Its not that ive never been happier, although I am, very, and thankful. Perhaps it is just that now im searching for something to seep into, maybe that is colorado, and maybe its not.

Walking through the west village with adria I heard myself say it "yeah, thats the plan" but really what the fuck is the plan, and what the hell does the "plan" have to do with anything really. And so a year ago i planned to be i dont know, in dallas? working steady? sucking heat and saving dough? And im here, and im there, and im for sure not the plan at all.

Im just me, and Im now, and Im living, and hoping to find a bit of you, and a bit of love, and exhiloration, sadness, art, anything.

come at me life as fast or as slow as you want, just dont miss.

looking for america,

j