PART-AY!

How do I begin, other than to say:

I'm back (by popular demand, ahem KERRI!).

This has been my life. Every person with whom I've partaken of this thing called living, every place I've called home whether in passing or for a time, every mile I've run both alone and in company, every mountain I've summited be it for a view or blanket of gray, every bag I've packed with things I've needed and things I've wanted, every manhatten I've sipped and every cigar I've smoked, every batch of granola I've baked, every ridiculous story of being stuck in stairwells and sleeping in garages and eating out of coconuts. Every Milky Way seen from every swamp, forest and sand-dune previously unnoticed on a map...
That collision point of insignificance and significance that I find on the shore of the ocean- the shore that I called home as I unrolled my sleeping bag, the same shore that stretched me to liberation at the tip of Florida; I am changed... and the Atlantic is home.
The way the air moves at the highest point of a peak. My heart moved too.
shifts and swirls and aches and calm.
(become still enough for long enough; there is always calm).
My soul sings for the children playing in the firehydrants
and for the mornings and the nights with my only friend the sky.

My confession:
I've failed-
my God and my self.
But this is life. and I'll die knowing I lived. I took chances. I let my mind and my soul and my spirit be challenged. I believed what I believed because I tested, tried, and experienced it, not because someone told me I should or because I modeled my life after and adopted the many mindsets of a man.

I've made mistakes, a lot of them. Somewhere in the past 2 years of meeting people and discovering the sense and meaning of place, I became someone I don't want to be. My open mind opened itself to the point of confusion and frustration and I forgot that self-denial was an option. In some ways I know there's truth in the thought that perhaps I'm better now than I was two years ago. The things I've seen that have sent me to the place of deep disatisfaction and misunderstanding are also the things that have promised me that life is a whole lot deeper than most of us are living.

I have much to say. I have thoughts on people- on relationships, individualism, purpose. I have thoughts on places- on being here and being everywhere and finding a definition for home.

I have thoughts on dreadlocks and business suits, on dirty needles and breakfast thursday.

I have thoughts on the FACT that I have the most incredible, selfless, true friends imaginable. They say to me "I don't care if this offends you," and I receive.

I have hope that tomorrow I will find life in a new way.

For right now my soul aches. It's been aching for days. This has been my life. Every moment I can't take back, every moment I wish would linger..

This is my life.
I've lived this.

(absorb that, oh my soul...)

*to all who came to celebrate today, thank you. I am at rest and on edge as I lay here in my floor-bed. you make me want to be better.. you crazy Lovers, you!*