open areas

joy of flying

To fly with the birds, to reach the sky, soar next to clouds, float in the air. To feel weightless and free, unbound by gravity. To be off the earth for just a few moments, climbing higher, landing momentarily on branches and buildings just to survey everything you left below. 

I dream sometimes of flying. When I reach the height I was searching for, when I get to that spot where I can stop reaching and start soaring, that is pure joy. To look down and see all the places I walked, all the places where I was flying too low, to be up so high and realize the hard work it took go get there. And to actually enjoy that moment of free floating, of being one with the birds, instead of wondering when my flight would end or why it happened at all. 

Just feel it. Savor the joy. So I can, in my waking world, look at the birds and know what they feel. Free. Weightless. Triumphant. 

The joy of flight.

in flight

I’m trying to catch up on the A2Z photo meme, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I’m only up to J now and I should be toward the end. Maybe I’ll feel better later and can find some stuff around the house to shoot.

I took this one out my front door, processed it in Photoshop using filters I made myself. 

I may hate the feel of winter, but I love the sky, the birds, the light and the nakedness of the trees. But damn I hate the cold.

Pitchers and catchers soon. That always makes me feel warm.

here

home.
haven.
happy. 

golden

“At least it’s not snow,” is a thing we say around here on a rainy January morning.

Yea. It’s not snow. But it’s not a golden, warm sunrise, either.

fish and chips

Sometimes on your day off, which is Monday, your boyfriend announces he is going to work from home that day and you’re all “Oh, man there goes my Monday routine and all my writing time and everything I was going to do” but then you go out to lunch and it turns into a really long lunch, the kind where you linger over already finished plates of food and order another beer or maybe a cup of coffee just to stay a bit longer and by the time you leave it’s getting near dusk and you realize it was the first Monday in months where you didn’t spend your day writing for hours and hours in between frenzied house cleaning and other assorted domestic chores and you think man, this was kind of blissful. And you won’t do it every Monday because you need those Mondays to do the things you need to do, but you realize it wouldn’t hurt to let it go once in a while and just enjoy the day off with good, if unexpected, company. 

exit

always the clock.
always the exit sign.
i watch both.
neither seem to move.
the clock is forever stuck at now.
the exit sign is never final.
one day.
soon.
i’ll exit.
the clock will stop.
i’ll be gone.

Decadent (for a2z photo meme)

One day early birthday breakfast with Todd at Left Coast Kitchen in Merrick, Long Island - a restaurant with an extensive beer menu and a San Francisco motif (and owners) - how can we go wrong?

This was my first ever experience with the famed chicken and waffles. It was everything I imagined it to be, especially with the eggs and a honey maple syrup. Todd had something called Morning in the Mission (and then gave our waitress a lesson about the Mission District).

Who drinks beer with breakfast? We do. I had an IPA (I wish I could remember the name) that was a little on the light side, less grapefruity than usual, which was perfect for a heavy breakfast. 

Not eating anything else today.

But currently drinking a Lagunitas. Because as D is for Decadent, Saturdays is for beer.

Dad: What did you do today?
Boy: The same. Looked out the window.
Dad: What did you see?
Boy: The same. Giraffes.
Dad: What were they doing?
Boy: The same. Eating the clouds.
Dad: (silence)
Boy: That’s why it was nice out today. I made them eat all the clouds.
Dad: Good boy.

[conversation overheard in schoolyard, September 13, 2001]

Breathe.

I crave cigarettes. The act of smoking. 

It’s been four years and still the craving has not left my mind or body.

Pull out a fresh cigarette. Hold the lighter to the tip. Inhale deeply as the flame takes hold. It’s best if you are outside at dusk and the red embers sparkle and fade against the darkening sky. 

Breathe.

Smoking was a calming influence for me. I was acutely aware that the act of taking in toxins was the thing that was keeping me breathing when I felt like I had no breath left. But I needed that ritual to survive. Even if it would kill me later.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Inhale.

Feel the smoke work its way down your throat, feel it deeply, the burn, the sting. Feel it in your lungs, a foreign object invading your most precious space. 

Exhale.

In with the good, out with the bad. The smoke as nerves, anxiety, irrational thoughts. Watching it exit, rise, dissipate into the night air. 

Poof. Gone.

Caught up in something, feeling like the world is closing in on you, like you’ve got no breath left to give, you are suffocating, drowning, you have forgotten how to breathe.

Walk outside, find your corner, the place where the misfits who still light up sticks full of cancer go. 

Cigarette to lips. Flick of the lighter. The glow and the smoke.

Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in. Breathe out. A ritual that gets you in rhythm again, gets you taking normal breaths, blowing out smoke like you’re exhaling all of life’s woes.

Watch the cigarette burn, watch as it gets smaller, until you can feel the burn between your fingers. 

Take that last, long drag then do what you do. Flick it, grind it, stomp it. 

Exhale. Breathe out.

How did I ever learn to breathe on my own?

Four years. And still, I crave. I want to feel that smoke burn my lungs. I want to exhale all of life’s woes as if it were that simple. 

But I know it’s not.

So I’ll just breathe.

Alight.

following my sister’s A-Z photo almost every day meme lead. 

Some days it will be the same post as my pictured word, some days not.