Project Parks

The weather is getting much nicer and with it a desire is blooming within me to really take advantage of the beauty of New York City. Though the tall buildings and abundance of people of various cultures is a beautiful sight in itself, I am turning my gaze towards the greener side of things. I want to focus on the parks. 

As a friend has pointed out there are a great deal of parks to explore in nyc but I've set my sights on doing just that. I may not be able to get to them all but I will get to as much as I am able. I am calling this adventure, Project Parks. The whole idea is kinda exciting to me! Winter has been so bleak, so boring, so...cold. Now the trees are regaining their leaves and the flowers are opening up to the world and they are beckoning me to come and see them in all their urban glory. 

So whenever I visit a new park I will name the title of my blog entry, "Project Parks-____" and then the name of the park I visited. I'm not a tour guide but I will express how I felt going there and whether or not I would ever go there again. I will of take photos (naturally) and talk to people (maybe, I'm shy!) and enjoy what the park has to offer. Mainly I'll enjoy myself and I'll share my joy with you. I can't wait. 

The Return

I am now officially back on social media after giving it up for Lent. It's nice to be back on with all my friends from different states and parts of the world. I've missed them all. Being away for all that time has really made me focus on the relationships I have in the real world. It made me grateful to know such sweet and amazing people, who actually want to spend time with me and whose unique personalities always make our outings so much fine. I'm a lucky woman. 

This break from Lent also gave me a lot of time to myself. I had feared that the loneliness would sadden me. All it did was make me realize how precious solitude is. I enjoyed being alone. I enjoyed the silence and the weight of my own body moving through the world. And whenever I felt separated from the online world, I'd center myself with the knowledge that I am surrounded by great people. It's amazing how the ones you love can become the anchors that keep you from losing yourself. I held on tightly to them and then, when I regained my courage, I slowly, cautiously, let go. 

This was an experience I needed, a break that felt as relieving as it did frightening. I really found myself enjoying the moment as it was happening, not trying to post it on Instagram. I just let it be and basked in it. That's not to say I didn't miss posting my experiences somewhere all my friends could see. I like to share the moments of my life I find beautiful. Even the most simple things. Like today for instance, I visited Rockefeller Center to view the beautiful faberge eggs that were on display. I took pics of most of them but not before enjoying them unfiltered. I understood the nature of balance then, of not letting one thing consume you. I can always take a pic, but I realized the importance of enjoying the now. And it was a really lovely experience. 

And while enjoying the beautiful weather and finding myself, I happened to find faberge egg Waldo lol. 

All and all I'm happy to be back in the world of memes and status updates, but I will not neglect what exists right outside my tablet screen. This world is meant for living. I will live it and share these bursts of happy moments on the way. 

Cruising.

So I had my first driving lesson yesterday. 

Correction; I had my first freak out session behind the wheel of a car and then I had my first driving lesson. Being a long time passanger has made me quite anxious and neurotic about nyc drivers and their unquestionable desire (in my mind) to run my down. They drive too fast, barely signal when they turn, they scream at you for walking, they honk if you're breathing...ok slight exaggeration on the last one but you get the point. They're angry. And I, naturally, am terrified. 

So getting behind the wheel of a car with the intention of moving among these manic creatures made me very scared. My instructor was kind. He told me to go slowly and I did. He told me the proper way to get out of a parking spot and into the street. A man waiting to park behind me started screaming. Already. I hadn't even put the car in drive and already people were screaming at me. My legs were shaking, my eyes were wide. I felt like some bug-eyed animal left among a pit a predators. I prayed that I wouldn't die. 

I didn't. Obviously. But I seriously considered that as a possibility. 

What happened instead was a slow but not too bad experience where I slowly but surely turned, stopped, reversed and drove my car with the caution of an old lady, much to my instructor's pleasure. 

He said I wasn't too bad. I thought he was just saying that to be nice but still, I couldn't help but feeling a little pride. 

Openings

I've been having dreams lately about door and windows and prison bars slammed shut. And in each dream I'm on the inside, reaching through those prison bars are closing the doors myself. In my dreams there was always a stranger on the other side, seeking to come in or, in the case of the prison, turning their back away from my touch. Those people were foreign yet familiar, as if I'm seeing my own reflection at the bottom of some lake and mistaking that other self as the enemy. I'm either pulling back or diving in. Existing or drowning. In the dreams, neither choice seems especially tempting. 

I've been playing a really innovative video game that continuously refers to a "time of miracles" in reference to a change that happens on the cusp of the journey. Every time I read that line I smile and wonder if my own journey will subsequently lead to a "time of miracles". If so, what would that miracle be? I feel as if it has to do with my dreams of many different kinds of openings closed shut before me and of my reaching out or pulling back. Both actions I commit to hestitantly. 

I'm dream walking. Dream waking. I'm searching for my time of miracles. Before me is a door, a window, a prison cell. I am trapped behind each one, hiding or seeking my other self on the other side. I both scared and desperate. My hand reaches out; pulls back. My reflection comes towards me or turns her back to me. Fear blooms within my heart. Loneliness spreads along my palms, singing my lifelines like the infinite trails of stars. 

And then I wake up. 

A Different Kind of Day

I woke up this morning to the red burst up sunrise stretching over the horizon. I watched it change from crimson to gold and felt my spirit lift, as if dawn had chased away the fog of sadness obscuring my mind. April has come. It's time to put away my mourning. Gray days will come, that is inevitable but at this moment I feel closer to happiness. 

I chose a shirt of dark shades, lightening into a color more springlike and beautiful. It reflects the ascent of my spirit as I face a new day with fragile tendrils of hope. 

I'm waiting for the flowers to bloom. Meanwhile I'll plant seeds in my mind. They will be reminders that rainy days always bring something fruitful in the end, something beautiful and thriving; something that carries within it remnants of sunshine. 

Dad.

Today marks ten years since my father's passing.

It's such a strange thing, remembering the moment my world shattered. It was already fragile enough and his death just pushed it past the edge. It amplified my loneliness, my neediness, my desire to be cut off from the world. I wanted comfort and nothing. My life was, at that moment, a series of chaotic dichotomies. I did not know who I was or where I belonged anymore. All I knew was that he was gone and I was still here and the world was still spinning and it all felt very cruel to me. Like a joke gone horribly wrong. I mourned outwardly for years. Now I just mourn in my heart, in the dark when the world is silent and there's nothing else to think about other than the fact that he is gone.

I think about him everyday. I try to tell myself that I don't, but I do. It will come up as a reminder. Daddy. And then my mind will stir and recall his face and it will cast itself before me like a spell that endlessly repeats itself. I try to tell myself that as the years go by, I'm healing. But I'm not. The hole is still there and will always be. I've just learned to cover it with beautiful things, things that will camouflage how deeply it hurts to lose someone you love. I think that's why I seek out words. I think that's why I seek out the night. Both things are peaceful to me. It allows me to reflect and to cry without judgement.

There are certain things I remember about him, things that I will cling to my heart and never let go of. They are talismans that bound me to him, this man who has become only spirit. Meanwhile I'm trying to find my center again, my safety in such a spontaneous and unknown world. He left so suddenly and still…still there are remnants of him that I'm just now finding. It's like his death was an eruption and parts of him were tossed to different parts of my world, waiting to be found. I take those discoveries as a sign. A photo, a seashell, a song. Any of those. Everyone of those, are mine to reach to.

I want to believe that we are embodiments of light, that even as our shells disintegrate and merge with the earth, our light remains, indestructible. When I lay in the dark and recall his voice, I close my eyes and see sunshine. This is how I know he lived. This is how I know he loved me, this lonely child still grieving.

Gray days.

Today is a gray day. I woke up in a funk and it has continued to ferment inside of me. Days like these I want to cast myself off to a little island where the only inhabitant is me, sit in a warm sea of sand and let whatever comes, come. I want to give my emotions room to detach themselves from my body, float to the surface like little pools of oil in water and slowly, slowly, release me from this state of...

State of what?

Sadness? There's a hint of that there. Anger? A pinch of that is bubbling within me, sure. Despair? I don't know. I suppose it's a mixture of many things. I just want to let it out. Let it go. But maybe I should simply, let it be. Let it run its course through me and then evaporate. Morning mist breaking in the sunlight that is me, just a solitary ember glowing, rising. Or maybe I'm more likely the mist than the sun, cold little particles clouding up my vision, dispersing once a ray of light happens to shine upon it. 

I don't know. I'm just having a gray day. It will pass. I will give it time.