deep and dark

june 29th. 2011.
i am up early, sipping freshly brewed french roast starbucks, so deep and dark in its ways. naughty. the java is bathing in a hot pool of caffeinated bliss alongside a slightly ridiculous amount of cream and raw sugar, both carefree and totally nude.
the nevada sun is pouring through the bay windows here, designing geometric shadows on the round glass table i am sitting at. looks like its gonna be another triple digit day outside, not a cloud or breeze to be found.
in the background, rex chomps emphatically on his breakfast. And further down the hall, reggae music beats its way through thin air to find its way to my vulnerable eardrums.
even my coffee cup has a reggae theme.
and one more cup, please and thankyou coffee gods.

last night, during dinner, forest and i revved up vintage ideas and philosphies, including the suffering in this world, so deep and dark in its ways. and..in our quest for world peace (ahem), we nodded at the notion that it really is all about perspective. yea, thats a period there. i suppose circumtance weasles its way into unhappiness as well. and maybe even genetic makeup. but the majority of tortured souls have a choice. and what is this life for if not to be happy? how could we NOT desperately seek a state of well-being, as if our lives depended upon it? which they do.

and so it goes. heres to perspective.

elephant and you

so, there is this analogy that attempts to explain the relationship between the two sides in everyone. one side is logical, sensible, and stays on the straight and narrow...attempting to hit 'the mark'. and the other side, careless and whimsical, whose impulses are so strong and beat so hard that the mind and body are consumed and taken over, given free reign to the innate impulses that resonate and push you in a direction, missing 'the mark' by a long shot.
the analogy is this:
imagine that your two sides could take form. your careless side is an elephant and your logical side is a small version of you...riding the elephant. you have reigns and a harness on the elephant and you sensibly guide this big part of you in the right direction, down the path and to a particular destination. the elephant listens and follows your lead. however, if the elephant decides that it wants to veer off of the path that has been laid before it...no amount of redirecting will stop it. it is too large and powerful and hang on because, you are going for a ride.
is there truth to this? yes, i think so. but with discipline and practice, the elephant will begin to adhere to the principles of sensibility far more frequently.
and in doing so, the persons' psyche will be more disciplined to stay on course than be distracted with that resounding impulse to veer astray. also, not all elephants are the same, in that some elephants are more riddled with curiousity and mischeviousness than others...causing this tendency to be stronger in some while milder in others. but its there in everyone, all the same.

naked

i have been in the desert now for a month and a half. ish. its beginning to get hot. the heated serpent, dressed in tans and greens, likes to flick its forked tounge at me...so close to touching me i can feel its hot breath down my neck like the shift of an air current, burning a little hotter than the second before. the desert is a different kind of place for me. it has stripped me of all of my belongings and habits and false bottomed securities. naked i am. alone. with forest, yes. but far away from anything familiar. i have no crutches anymore. nothing to lean on when i feel weak. and this may be a good thing. forces me to stand up a little straighter and summon the strength that i have known was there all along. the courage to face my fears..that seem to lie...in wait...for a weakness in the armor that i wear. these fears have snuck in, manifested, and made a home inside of me. they lie dormant for most of the time. but, here, in the desert, my fears and i...well we have more confrontations. one just as horrible as the next. and i know why. its because i used to have mechanisms to push them at bay. to temporarily relieve myself of the angst of fear. to shut it out and push it down. i have no mechanisms here. when the shutters open, and i feel weak, the darkness inside of me rushes through me like a Montana thunderstorm on a summer day.
and the maddening part...of it all, is that these debilatating fears are not even real. they are but a figment of my tainted imagination.

thirty.

its my birthday today. i am 30 years old. and yes i feel wiser. just like a new pair of running shoes makes you run faster. I am wrapping things up at school, finishing up with photography and web design. currently, i am cleaning, packing, and subsequently moving out of my gorgeous lil loft by campus. my little sister is pregnant with a little girl. my best friend just had a 10 pound baby boy. and i am moving to nevada in 15 days, migrating south with the birdies to be with my forest. life is good. very good. wecolming the 30s with open arms.

click click

awww... 2011... you sweet sweet sassy little year you.

so happy for so many things this year.
forest, my love, who is as sweet and caring as he is gorgaliscious is the one who puts a twinkle in my eye and a smile on my face... (okay after you go puke, come back and continue reading).



while living in the clouds, i have also mangaged to be productive... a little bit.
i am branching off with photography, learning much more about my camera and taking lots of photos...

shutter speed.
slow (long exposure...motion is blurred)



fast (short exposure to light...motion is frozen)



aperture.
the less light let in, the more depth of field...



the more light let in (larger opening), the shallower the depth of field...



high key photograph...(increased photo composition, slower exposure)



low key...

roots

friday morning.
its white outside but warmish. tolerable.
i pryed myself out of bed at 545 this a.m. to go to yoga class.
so glad i did.
there has been so many emotions swirling around inside of me lately. emotions that affect me physiologically, which domino into my physical. and emotions that aren't even real, merely figments and fragments of my imaginative mind.
when these emotions overtake me, i understand that they aren't real. that i am being consumed by something that i am inventing. consumed by something that's not even real. is that insanity? i think its a bit insane, yes.
so, as my heart and mind race through the recesses of unexplicable paralyzing territory, so foriegn yet so familiar...i need to regain a sense of control. of peace. i need to navigate, find the root of the psychological abscess, and begin to work at it until it is free from me.
i believe that we, every one of us, has the ability to free ourselves from pain.
wholly.
yoga this morning loosed my knot. figuratively and literally.
and i feel blessed. and thankful. and the holds that had me this morning have lessened their proverbial grip.
or maybe i should say, light was shed onto the darkness, the falsehood of my thoughts, and they disappeared.

bird it

the skies blue offers a soft backdrop this morning to the powdered sugar puff clouds. the birds are out. the length of my balcony is lined with tufts of soft bread, however the birds must not be as hungry as i thought because half of it is still there. either that, or these jays are bread connoisseurs, scoffing at the thought of indulging in a walmart bread brand. or maybe, the bread chunks are too big for their little beaks.

in any case, i think these little jay birds outside of my window are diva'ish'.