LIFE! Ah yes, and what IS life, anyway? What is This, why are my ears itching? What is it I'm allergic to? IS it food? Is it beer? is it TV? cats? Being alone? how do I build my life, and once I've started, how do I ensure that I keep building. How good is a house without a cieling? or walls? I guess I can live in a basement, but think of what i'd be missing. It seems i'm always living in basements, so to speak. I'm sick of being ashamed of myself, sick of not being good enough, sick of not getting what i want because of who I am and because I can't follow through with things.

I miss my friends. Sometimes I think i'll never see anyone again. Like i'll just wither away and disappear one of these snowy nights in Roxbury... or one day on the chairlift or at the top of a steep trail i'll just... blow away and exist nowhere but in memory and wispers of something that... maybe happened, a long, long time ago.

---Rip Van Winkle of the vermont wilderness! Atlantis of the American population under 21! Normal, actually, which is the scariest of all.

Damn.

I lay on the floor feeling sick. This day has been like a nightmare, though strangely poetic in it's agonizing slowness. The train whistle that echos through the valley and bounces off each peak of sugarbush haunts me; reminds me of things best forgotten.

there is snow, but not enough. I spent the day on the slopes, with a bunch of ungrateful 15-year olds and a hurt 19 year old. he wasn't there physically for very long, but he echoed in my brain the way the train whistle echos off the rocks. He left in a whirlwind of dissappointment and pain, and after that I rode by myself. Frusterated I took a turn too sharply and as I hit the ground, hard, felt my spine shudder from C1 all the way to S5. I sat there in the snow, in the middle of a vast and deserted trail, feelings welling up inside me like a murky pool. I wanted to lay in the snow and scream, I wanted all my pain to fly away and disappear on the wind like a snowflake.

rather then seeking solace in intoxication as is the norm, I just sit and visualize my cells as snowflakes. I lay in the snow and imagine I am part of it. I am the cool clarity of ice, the immortal yet ever changing pulse of water in the veins of the earth. I imagine the perfect death for myself... simply laying in the snow and calmly allowing my cells to sleep and sink.

and then it's mouse on the phone, and we speak of old times through music and movies, though we mostly just want to hear eachothers voices rise and fall... the familiar tide of comfort and history. And I think, that ever moving energy, that connectedness over distances, the nearness in farness and the ever changing waves of life and living, of dreams being born and dying, of seeds cracking and sending roots deep into the ground... of our voices playing a gentle ping pong accross miles and accross memory, I think, surely that is god.

This morning I couldn't wake up. I tried several times, but always the temptation to curl up in my nest and close my eyes was too strong. My dreams were strange and unsettling.

It was morning, and I was going to work. I started out in one direction, but I got confused as to who I was working for that day and, realizing I was far off course, I took a strange back road I'd never seen thinking it might be a short cut. I came around a bend in the road and there was a big SUV parked sideways in the road. on a whim instead of swerving I drove over the top of it and felt fear as I was airborne and began to fall. while I was flying through the air my mind was wrestling with it's self, half of it was afraid and telling me I was going to die, the other half was calm and saying, maybe not quite that I was dreaming so it'd be okay, but that things like this happen all the time and I'm always fine.

In anycase, after taht I was unable to go to work. It turned out that the house I'd landed in front of was Sonya's host family, while she was at boarding school or something. She was there with four other dark eyed children and their mother. they were beautiful and a little ghostly. My brother was with me, and we moved our stuff into an old winnebago kind of thing, but there was a huge snake in it. while I was talking with the girls michael got the snake into a suitcase and zipped it up. I came in and the suitcase was moving around and rattling and we had a hell of a time trying to get it out the window so the children could play in the camper. they wanted to have a traditional dance party.

weird dream, left me unsettled because while most aspects of it made sense as pieces of my thoughts or reality right now, the girls and their mother came out of nowhere.

In other news....
I shaved my legs. It's strange to hear myself say this, but it's really nice!
I am tired these days, and I need to lose 15 lbs, but I am having a hell of a time with that. I'm super excited about massage school, I'm SO ready for a change.

love and bubbles and snot and frogs and treehouses.

Hate is a strong word. Perhaps disrespect and disinterest are more appropriet. I hardly feel that I love anyone anymore.

It's sort of a matter-of-fact realization... drifted, left, disappointed, forgotten, become a haze of memory, a misty ghost of childhoods past. When is the decision to stop communicating made? does it happen all of a sudden, on a whim, or meditated over every morning for a year? who are the few people left in who;s laughter i detect demension? will they remain? Moving on is exciting and satisfying. It is easy in a way I never expected, to leave behind the things I used to love. It is a delicious time to rebuild.

When I was 4 years old, I saw a national geographic photo of a seagull with its head caught in one of those plastic things that hold 6 packs of soda. I remember staring at it in fascination as much as horror, unable to tear my eyes from the gruesome image. The message was clear to me: humans do bad things to the earth, and the earth does not deserve it.

My parents believed in the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, that graphic images impede children’s capacity for imagination. Perhaps the reason this particular photograph had such an impact on me was simply because I had rarely seen anything like it. Whatever the reason, whenever I saw a plastic 6 pack holder laying on the side of the road after that, I would also see that poor seagull with the plastic digging into it’s head. Still, at age 19 I remember that picture clearly. For the past 15 years I have picked up every one of those fatal, nameless plastic things that I’ve seen.

The reason I chose this for my transformation essay is because when I was four I felt empathy for that seagull. I felt it’s pain, and I went out and did the only thing I knew of to try and make the suffering less. One little girl picking up trash may not sound like such a big deal, but I think it is. The world is big, and there are so many problems to solve. I think all we need to do is allow ourselves to feel empathy, and to do what it tells us to do. It has become a ritual for me, a sort of homage to the earth, and to the spirit of the bird that spoke to my heart so long ago. Perhaps by now it is just habit. And yet, how will good habits start, if we don’t allow ourselves to feel?

As a child I used to be unorigional and cliche, but it was how I needed to be at the time. Since, I believe, I have been on a quest for origionality. In that quest, I have found origionality by it's self and for the sake of its self to be empty and meaningless. Better to be cliche and heartfelt then to be origional and shallow.

I think a lot these days about how all things are connected (there I go being cliche again.)But truly... think about the butterfly effect, monarch butterflies, GE corn, and the tsunami, Katrina, and Rita. Think about the possibility of a looming avian flu epidemic... no... pandemic? think about global warming, how a few more million cars can raise the oceans temperature by just a few degrees, and how that can raise the intensity of a storm by two or three classes... I mean, if you think about it all together, one might come to the conclusion that we're doomed. Whats more, we've brought it all upon ourselves.

sometimes i panic, when i'm driving down the highway... running madly from place to place in my busy life. often a sad event like a dead animal on the road, or an accident will provoke it, or sometimes it's just the sinking needle on the fuel gauge. Often the rush of emotions that follow verbalize themselves as "I'm a monster" or "we are monsters" (we being the human race as a whole.) and while the human mind, heart, and subconcious are my passion and my chosen field of study... i really hate us as a species.

Thinking also about connectedness in relation to the self... physical, mental, emotional? How does birth trauma effect the rest of our lives? how crucial are the first few moments in this world, breathing independent of our mothers? how interwoven and delicate are those first bonds, those first associations, those first primal beliefs?

anyway, it's late, and though i don't feel it i know i am exhausted.

michael's coming to visit me on friday. i'm way excited.

I registered for Kripalu this evening. Feels really good to have that in place. I'm ordering my textbooks... I love buying books... it's so exciting. Massage school is exciting.

I'm talking to Michael Sotak about optimism. It's quite interesting and refreshing and i'm going to find a way to get back in that realm of seeing the world in a good light, and loving what i do. it used to come so naturally to me... no reason it can't again.

life life life life la la la la....

dOgZgO4CaTZ: what's good
Aapplesause: good is life
Aapplesause: this moment
Aapplesause: the crickets
Aapplesause: and the rain
Aapplesause: and the anticipation of a beautiful night
Aapplesause: and another precious day
Aapplesause: and i am going to see mason tomorrow
Aapplesause: and help him paint his bed tangerine

yesterday was gizzy's birthday. love you gizzy. my ankle, and wrists ache,
and i am having issues getting around to all the stuff i have to do today. birthday parties, birthday presents, a concert, and my dear sonya is coming to stay for a little while. i just found out that i'm staying with willow for 3 weeks this fall, and that'll re-arrange things a bit, but it should be good.

Bikram made me nauseous this morning. it might have been because my body was so full of toxins from friday. I had a lot of fun this weekend, i saw keith, adam, and susannah, and met tons of new people. i played psychologist, sang a lot, laughed, snuggled, bonded, and spun in circles under a gray sky until everything became a blurr of trees, sky, fire, thoughts, emotions, and the people walking slowly towards me through it all. they caught me and i fell, i fell and they caught me, and as my eyes re-focused i saw tears on one girls cheeks. what followed was sad stories and so much frusteration... and after we talked it all over we ran laps around the field, and when she stumbled to a standstill we went back to the fire and watched people sing, wood burn, evolution, and the night.

i won half a long trail on a bet that adam and susannah would hook up, but it got drunk, drank? (and not by me) during all the debating and discussing.

that night i slept for about an hour, but it was a delicious hour. keith snuggled me just like he used to and somehow for that little bit of time i was more comfortable and slept more sweetly then i have in a long time.

saturday morning keith and i dragged adam out of his nest, and away from his hot babe, and i got home by 8:00 AM. slept until 2, babysat until 10, slept again.

so after that slightly pointless rant, off i go to see what i can do with this day.

Sunday afternoon. quiet. my body feels strong and nurished. Bikram yoga. watermellon. I picked up a paycheck today, from the saurkraut guy, and I got a message from my massage school... it sounds like i'm in. i'm sooo excited. my cousins left early this morning. it was soo nice to see them... i got to spend some really good time with Alex, taught him how to drive a standard, and we went swimming and to the drive in last night. charlie and the chocolate factory... it was really good!!!!! johnny depp is incredible. really! how many really talented, versitile (not to mention gorgeous) actors are there these days? ok, so nicole kidman is gorgeous and quite good, but all she does is breathe really loudly and look frusterated(bewitched was terrible).

Anyway, my work is good... i have a wonderful relationship with the family i'm working for, and my construction job is good too. a little frusterating because the guys i work with can be bums and are sometimes slightly vacant and useless, but all in all i'm making money and keeping busy.

i'm going to try and go to my first Aikido class this week.

"through all the wiles of these troubled times, through shadows deep and long, even as our hearts cry out with joy or shame no fear may spoil our song...."

god i miss shape note!!!!