“I make the road. I draw the map. Nothing just happens to me...I'm the one happening.”

"What could be lonelier than trying to communicate?"

- Denis Johnson

Vulnerability
the state of being vulnerable or exposed

Brene Brown on Vulnerability: this gets me every time.



“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“And maybe that was love. Being so vulnerable and allowing someone else in so far they could hurt you, but they also give you everything.”
― Christine Feehan, Water Bound

“We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.”
― Frank Crane

“Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.”
― Stephen Russell


“You can change the world again, instead of protecting yourself from it.”
― Julien Smith



Sometimes I'll sit for an embarrassing amount of time trying to decipher my own emotions and ultimately I sift through other people's words trying to find someone who has experienced vulnerability such as mine. I always succeed more than I'd expect. However juvenile, however cliche. (David Levithan's quotes, today).

unloving- carol ann duffy

Learn from the winter trees, the way
they kiss and throw away their leaves,
then hold their stricken faces in their hands
and turn to ice;

or from the clocks,
looking away, unloving light, the short days
running out of things to say; a church
a ghost ship on a sea of dusk.

Learn from a stone, its heart shape meaningless,
perfect with relentless cold; or from the bigger moon,
implacably dissolving in the sky, or from the stars,
lifeless as Latin verbs.

Learn from the river,
flowing always somewhere else, even its name,
change, change; learn from a rope
hung from a branch like a noose, a crow cursing,

a dead heron mourned by a congregation of flies.
Learn from the dumbstruck garden, summer’s grave,
where nothing grows, not a Beast’s rose;
from the town veil of a web;

from our daily bread:
perpetual rain, nothing like tears, unloving clouds;
language unloving love; even this stale air
unloving all the spaces where you were.

"There are beings that fall forever and never die. They learn to play with falling."
- someone who told me that I would fail in what I do, but also brought me closer to someone I consider one of my best friends

he recites poetry to me. his voice also calms me at 4:30 in the morning when i need to find my way back to my dreams.

"Had we but world enough, and time,"

there is a particular film (many of us know it) starring Jim Carrey in a rare serious role and Kate Winslet with whimsical-colored hair.

i think about this concept often, the idea that if we erase all the memories of a painful lost love, we can be free.

the progression of the movie follows the erasing of Joel's (Jim Carrey) memories in a semi-reverse-chronology. we see the fights, the disquiet, the clash of personalities. we see them turn into the "dining dead," the point in a relationship when you eat your food at the restaurant and avoid eye contact and the silence is only broken by talking about removing hair from the shower drain. we see the thought process of "why did i ever fall in love with this person?"

and then the memories get deeper, get closer to the beginning. the laughter, the treasured hope, the parades, running in the snow. all the way back to how they met, the thoughts running through their heads. the hesitation and excitement. the beauty in the mundane. the reassuring words underneath the bedcovers, the journal entries, the drawings, the inside jokes and games.

and then the plea from within the memory,
"Please let me keep this memory, just this one"

"Well, this is it. It's all going to be gone soon."
"So what do we do?"
"Enjoy it."
and the seed they plant in the last remaining memory that leads them to meet again.


so often i get caught up in the what-ifs, and the future, and the he-doesn't-love-me, and the this-girl and that-girl, and the desire to find certainty in all the inevitable uncertainty. so often i get caught up in trying to prevent pain, prevent heartbreak. so often, our human nature decides to approach resent with resent, doubt with defensiveness, injustice with battle, inequality with more inequality.

But what if this is it? What if this is all we are going to have? Why not enjoy it? Why not approach things with peace? Why not offer forgiveness even when it is undue?


my friend quietly said today, "when it's all over, you'll still be here."

“I was satisfied with haiku until I met you, but now I want a Russian novel, a 50-page description of you sleeping.”  - Dean Young

I was reading about 40 days to personal revolution, which is a yoga/lifestyle/meditation program developed by Baron Baptiste.

Parker Pearson talks about her first week:

This week I observed myself flickering back and forth constantly:

• in my meditation practice from the "now" to planning
• in my asana practice from an inhale to distraction or worry about an old injury
• in my relationships from 100% of my attention on the conversation to spending mental energy on an unsolved issue
• in my food choices when I go from most nourishing to most convenient or habitual

I keep reminding myself, “right aim and right energy”.  

Where it’s time for me to take more responsibility isn’t in how I get my work done, but how I take care of myself and what I’ve been avoiding. I see that a new level of commitment to my practice and nourishment is needed if I’m going to truly thrive.

One of the struggles I've had is spending a lot of mental energy on things outside of my control. Things that will never change no matter how much time, energy, and breath I spend trying to change them. I have been having incredibly eye-opening conversations with friends about how to identify the triggers that make me feel urgent about situations that are not urgent, and becoming emotional about things that do not warrant the emotion I give them.

As with any physical activity, things come naturally if you relax into them rather than forcing or trying too hard. The nervousness and concentration on the thing itself is what causes injury- trying too hard to catch a football rather than receiving it (this causes many jammed thumbs), trying too hard to do those boleos and adornments in tango, trying too hard to stretch myself into handstands. With these things, the greatest lesson I have learned is to relax with awareness.

So, too, in my relationships... methods of force yield the most pain and injury.
I am learning to have faith that if I let the uncontrollable things just be, the answers will unfold. and while they may not necessarily be the answers I seek, I will know that that which is external to me will ebb and flow but my kingdom is within myself.

there was sunlight that day, in the midst of periods of torrential rain and grey. it was warm, for january. i stepped out of the office. took a drag of the suburban air. sat in quiet, on a wooden bench, on a patio behind the building. watched the water. listened. rolled the air around on my tongue and splashed it on my face for a little while. felt hungry. felt sated.

when there is nothing, there is everything.

wind: here are my sails.

“To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope.”
― Anne Carson

I take the passing moments in my hand, like pieces of paper. I turn them over, study their backs which are arched (not crouched) in anticipation. I wrap myself in them, learning their movements.

happy 2013

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.” 

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” 

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

― Neil Gaiman