Category: gratitude

a pot in search of a lid

Remnants of flower petals on the ground everywhere you walk. I’m sitting here reading in the just-breaking-from-sudden-raincloud-sunlight, tears streaming down my face. And I’m really grateful that the bookstore man wearing plaid (there is always a bookstore man wearing plaid here) is just letting me cry and read these words.

Then, I kid you not, “don’t let the sun catch you crying” plays gently on the speakers. Just like that.

I would like to admit that this weekend I reiterated my cynical view, that I don’t know if I believe in love. I would like to admit that it is most likely just that I know absolutely nothing about love, and yet try every day to learn about it with a clean slate and open mind. I would like to admit that I fail all the time, maybe as often as every five minutes. I lose hours upon hours of sleep over it. But what else to live for, but to live to learn how to love, then?

I didn’t want to admit all of that. But today, a practice of vulnerability over pride. Every day.

Oh, and final flowers of the spring (a.k.a how we know it’s summer):

one last thing. decisions made while tipsy on tacos and tequila during a Mexican holiday commonly mistaken to be Mexican Independence Day (but it’s not) are generally great ones, i think.

the decision to briefly type blog posts on your cell phone during all of the above seems adequately great as well.

i just wrote down in my journal 10 amazing things that happened today, and i can think of ten more. Read: gratitude.

sneak peek below – because what’s better than the full moon outshining firelight?

oh god, he’s about to play some Miles Davis. i guess there is my answer.

“love is the time and space where ‘I’ give myself the right to be extraordinary.”

—julia kristeva, tales of love

letting go

You will never be able to escape from your heart.
So it is better to listen to what it has to say.

– Paolo Coelho

During my trip home to Houston, I spent a lot of time reconnecting with a childhood friend.

She’s making a lot of changes in her life- slowly, sometimes with a lot of hesitation, but always with enthusiasm. We talked about the difficulty of “letting go”- she is one of the smartest people I have ever met, and ever since I’ve known her she’s always liked for things to be “just so”. Smart people and needing control are a deadly combination, ha.

She gave us homemade canelés and we popped them into our mouths. We drank wine on her rooftop, I made a somewhat clumsy attempt to teach her how to two-step around her pool (I blame the wine), and we decided on a whim to bring a domino set up. We watched the yellow moon rise and the clouds slink around slowly above us. We let ourselves feel giddy from the wetness of the humid air and the feeling of winning at dominos. We drank Dr. Pepper out of glass bottles and red solo cups. Everything is an adventure.

I asked her later, what if she could just let it be? Stealing a first kiss doesn’t mean it will lead to marriage. Taking a new job doesn’t mean it will lead to waiting around for pension and retirement. While I do think about end goals often, I try to let the journey be the goal. What if we stop holding back?

Happiness as journey. Love as adventure.

“Fall in love,” I read recently. “With everything: with work, with the city, with people. Don’t hold back. The second you start making decisions out of fear, you miss out on the best feelings in the universe. Let yourself be in love.”

Today I drive to Austin under the cloudy skies. I’ll get out of the car despite the lack of sunlight, I’ll fall in love with the bluebonnets, the sticky air, the promise of rain, the pop songs on my Spotify playlist, the rolled-down windows, the bare feet on grass, the kolache pit stops, the wide open Texas sky.

I may have always been unlucky in certain types of love, but I realized that it’s a waste of life to feel cynical about it. I will not give up on it, even if it means I have to look at love differently. If not for the possibility of love, what truly would keep us here on this earth?