not the ides of march, but you're not exactly julius caesar...

It is not the Ides of March

And it is not Friday the thirteenth either.

It is not the full moon

Or the years lived in the shadow of broken mirrors.

But beware.

It is the ordinary days you need to be wary of,

To take care of.

Oh no, it's not the Ides of March

And there is no indication

That to life you must cling.

It is just an ordinary day.

But it will matter in the end.

We do not each get warnings

Nor do we all cross a prophet's path before our time.

It may not be the Ides of March--

No, to you they will be kind.

It will be another day

One to which you yourself are blind.

Be ready.

And do not give away your time

Unaware.

No, not the Ides of March

But the ordinary days.

See, they are restless and tired

And probably a bit bored.

Do not forget what the ordinary can become.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

These words are so anxious to be out on the page. I do not know if they are ready yet, but here we are.

If we believe these stories...

I was sitting in church the first time I followed that thought: "If we believe these stories..." And my black pen met my black book because I liked the sound of those words and I wanted to inspect their truth later. It has been a month or two or three since (not more than three though) and I still like them.

The sermon was on Psalm 105 and it asked us "why do we focus on the one thing that God has not done and ignore all that he has done?" Verse 14 talks about how God has moved kings for his small group of sojourners. It was good to be sure, but I think the most I got out of it was this phrase that would follow me..."if we believe these stories..."

I look at my Bible and I tell the world that I believe the words written in it. I promise to live by them and, perhaps, to die by them. But I forget.

Tonight is heavy. It doesn't have to be, but there are forces and people beyond my control making decisions, and they do not care that I am wrapped up in their story. They do not grasp the depth of their own significance, especially when one names them family...and that is ok. It is not good; but, quite simply, it is not the point. It is a symptom, not the problem itself. And so, tonight is heavy because I am waiting and hurting and trying to guess at the end. And because I am human. A woman living on a planet under a curse.

And I want to know what to do. I want to know how long this will last. I want to catalog all of my complaints and deliver them to heaven with a final request of answers in the same orderly fashion. Most of all, I want a promise that life wont always be this way, because, quite honestly, it has been just this for such a long time.

So I am sitting again, this time, weeks later, in my room. And just like that, I am holding that black book and looking at my Bible and hearing those words, "if we believe these stories..." Then what? At the time, the first time, I wrote: "If believe these stories...we should realize that we do not stand upon the shoulders of giants only, as the saying goes. But we stand and fall by the breath of God. A God of ancient goodness. We should have fallen a long time ago; but we forget our frailness and think ourselves invincible."

I wont get all of my answers delivered to me in bullet point form--that's hardly a way to live. But I get what I most want. It's truth. And it's a promise that life wont always be this. I forget what has been done and I get so afraid of something I know is not true. "There is a time for everything, for every activity under the sun." "Hope that is seen is not hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?"

If I believe these stories, it changes everything. There are hundreds of people in that book who have fought their way through living. It is not a plan in black and white with diagrams, but it takes care of the bigger issues. It makes itself useful to all people in all places at all times...and it answers my fear and my humanity. It gives me just enough.

tealish blue

Could you point me in the direction of Up?

No? What about Down?

North? South?

Anywhere solid where I may sit awhile...

Because I feel that I have lost them all.

Forces like magnetic poles and gravity have all been wiped clear.

My directions are empty

And my map is a paralyzing white.

I am sure that, next,

I will forget how to breathe.

I have been falling far too long.

Twisting. Dropping. Struggling.

I am always hurtling toward something

And I feel that you must know

Something I do not

Like how to stop.

if soup had a single color

I make you worry and I know it,

sometimes,

at least.

What I mean to say is,

I love you.

I think.

I do not mean to cause such worry.

It is uncharacteristic of me,

really.

And I do love you...

it's just

not enough.

But do not think that

it could ever be

your fault.

I'm just so unpracticed

and so pathetic

and weak.

I suppose that is why you worry,

even though

you shouldn't.

But you love me, so you will.

I just don't quite

understand.

I guess I need you

to keep loving

until I do.

vivid auburn

Judgment? Accountability?

I'm not sure anymore how to draw lines around those two words that can be agreed upon by those who matter most in my life. I do not know how to appease my conscience either. But mostly, I do not know how to help people around me.

I am no longer naive enough to believe that I can fix people and make them better. I have been there, and it is somewhere I hope to never be again when I am most honest. It costs too much for no lasting benefit to anyone involved. Yet, I am not ready to pack up and announce that it is every man for himself.

I will not do more than the person is willing to do for themselves...but we can do so much more with the help of those around us.

The last year especially has really tested where I stand when I have to put flesh on all of these thoughts and go about living in a less than idealistic world. Once having decided that it is still good, despite the abuses of people in the past, where do you go? Mainly, what does one do when the rules suddenly change? When people begin talking out of both sides of their mouths...asking you to help them be 'better' and then dismissing your every attempt and intervention as caustic judgment, which apparently is akin to betrayal on a most fundamental level...what then?

Do you listen to who they were when they first asked for accountability?

Do you listen to them when they elaborate on your close-mindedness and faulty judgments?

Do you get any points for trying?

I think I will fall back on my usual "do what you can...and then let go because you aren't responsible for what you can't do."

Betty

I met you, and you asked for money. I'm not the sort of citizen to fall for that. I offered lunch, and you showed me your ratty clothes and told me of the cold. I wasn't blind. I could see all of that and more. And I know all of the things I should do. I am practiced at looking out for myself. As you know, no one is going to do it for you.

But you knew what you needed and you knew I had the money to spare, relatively speaking at least. I gave you $7 and asked your name. Betty.

And then you hugged me.

And I don't really know what to do with that. Not because I was offended or even that surprised. Maybe a little surprised.

You didn't merely cut through my defenses. You stole them.

It has been two days, and I still haven't found them. I suppose you've taken them to line your coat and keep you warm. I can tell you right now, they don't keep the wind out.

Maybe I am better off without them.

Actually, I know I am. But it's hard to get used to the lightness that comes with vulnerability. It's hard to remember that I care about all the things I used to, but I haven't done as much caring as I have talking. And even the talking lately has been little, if that is any indication of the other.

I hope to see you again, Betty. I will look for you. And though I expect to find you, I know I never will. I'm still not one to believe that the world works that way. Still, all my love and prayers and thanks.

swimming pool blue

I have a paper due for a class and an apartment to clean, but I do not feel tonight what I think I should. So I am trying to work myself into a pensive mood that might produce something, that might let me know that I am still alive the way a human should be. Or at least what I imagine a healthy human being to be.

I wrote some very profound things the other day on a piece of paper that I cannot seem to find. I do not suspect that I will. All my art seems to fall into a void these days. I think my muse is starving because I broke the cycle. One must create in order to be inspired, or did you not know? I did not. If I had, maybe I would not be here filling this virtual space with more letters, as if we needed more words and more messages.

Truth is out there, but it is buried with each breath and word and picture forward. It is overwhelming. I think that is where I dwell now, overwhelmed. It is an accomplishment if I can shake off most of the lies and overtly propagandized messages that adhere themselves to me by the end of the day. I think this is why depression and cynicism and skepticism have such deep roots in our society. We do not know what to believe.

But maybe we don't have to have all of our beliefs lined up. Maybe we wouldn't give up if we didn't feel that pressure. Maybe life would be worth living if we weren't striving so hard after a goal we will never touch. I keep hoping life is about more than the striving. I think that it is, but I am afraid to call it knowledge. Cheese-filled as it is, life is about the love we pour into this cracked and wavering planet. And you cannot love with a goal or it becomes a very selfish kind of love. We do not need any more of that.

deepest green

We all smile and pretend to know of something that has lasted forever. I do not know why because it makes us all liars and we know it. But we want to believe so very badly,

so we do.

Against the rules, against logic, against experience, against every guiding agent we have ever known, we believe. It is more foolish than a mere fool's hope

and we know that too.

But we have resigned ourselves to this because we do not want to live in a world without some sort of enduring reality. And we suspect, that we alone have nothing that will last. We cannot stand being alone. Not one, but two jealous eyes, fall upon everything and everyone who might have it better than us. We feel returned jealousy and become terrified that they will find out everything we have has been lost.

This is the fear that is becoming us.

It leaves so little room for anything else. We are equals who sell our equality for insecurity.

But our world is not big enough, or did you not hear? There is so much out there that does not make sense, and it does not speak a word about our value. It is beautiful and not. It is a lot of things, especially more than any of us.

Pain and beauty, mix and shake well. Add some water now and then.

I don't know if I have anything to say, but I have a lot of things I should be doing elsewhere. So here I am. Besides, it's been a week, or two...or an entire month that feels like it was squished into a week...anyway. I've been holding onto, sifting through, and carrying around this idea for a bit. Even so, it comes a bit unmannered and clumsy.

There is this terrible relationship between beauty and vulnerability. You cannot separate them. Beauty is always in danger...and there are so few champions. Too many pretend to be protectors and use beauty selfishly until it is destroyed or otherwise devalued. Too many just don't recognize it or don't know how to respond.

From a woman's perspective (and that is what I have), it's tricky at best. The extremes are not realizing that you have beauty all your own... or hating it as a weakness. It is more common, or at least, more accepted and addressed, to not realize that you, having beauty, are really beautiful. I am not going to get into the dichotomy of inner and outer beauty because I cannot stand to run the gauntlet of cliches. Suffice it to say that the one causes the other. Enough has already been written past that.

In fact, too many things are being said. There is a trend where guys are finally getting the guts to tell girls that they are pretty, beautiful etc. And it's good. There are so many girls who need to hear that...but actions have got to follow or the same problems will persist, and in many ways worsen. Truth spoken, but not lived is tainted and a most vile poison because it teaches us to mistrust our foundations.

It is imperative that it cost nothing to know the truth, the truth that you are beautiful. And it is true at a depth that lies cannot touch, only cover and blur. It is true the way only a few things are because it is true without exception or effort.

Stop telling me I'm pretty...show me. Because nothing I have seen in this day and age can be trusted and the lies get louder each day. But maybe, if I find myself face to face with it, I can finally know. And it is not as if this is my battle. It is the battle of so many people around me... so it is our battle. And it is not just for women because we will never make it if we are left to ourselves. Nor is it in any way all hanging on the men. We need our women to be women and our men to be men... even if we don't always know what that means or can't quite define it because of the disasters of oversimplification.

Really, what I think I am trying to say is that I am tired of receiving compliments that I cannot feel. And maybe this is arrogance, but I keep hoping that I wont always feel like I have to guard myself because no one else is going to and beauty is inseparable from vulnerability. I'm not sure if I've communicated this idea very well...but I needed to put it out there regardless.

mild red

When I write about you

I will remember

your blackberries and roses,

your bridges and dog walkers

everywhere.

And everywhere filled with

your green.

Even the tree trunks have a layer,

and I am sure

that, if we dug deep enough,

your roots would proudly be so as well.

You are proud of everything you hold.

Proud of all that diversity

Proud of your high class

--your art and coffee and many activists--

proud of your low class

--your homeless and drugs and aired secrets--

proud of how they combine,

proud, even, of your shame.

But I love you

because you are home;

and you showed me

how to love even contradictory things.

forgiveness is a funny thing

Regardless of religion, forgiveness is an important part of being a healthy human being. People weren't made to store up life times of hurt and offense. We can survive such horrors, but the living afterwards can only be called life if we leave the survivor's camps and build something new. I could never accept a religion that ignored the need for forgiveness. We hurt people. We do it more often than we ever like, and it is not all their fault or just poor circumstance. We are going to need forgiveness. And so are they.

It is always different in practice than in theory largely, I think, because we talk about forgiveness so cheaply like it is a makeup we can apply in the morning if we have a zit making an appearance. It is a choice that goes so much deeper. And more.

Because it is rarely enough to make the choice once.

Even once per incident. At some point, somebody is going to hurt you, probably for a long period of time and you won't get to know when to expect it to be over. It is perhaps the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do, this forgiveness thing, when someone is still hurting you to keep forgiving them every day... every time you are reminded of that something. Too often I have acted like things should not hurt if forgiveness is there. I wish.

It is not an anesthetic. It is accepted vulnerability couched in frequently misunderstood strength. It makes no sense. I guess it is the endurance test of love. Can it really endure all things? How patient can it be? There is a balance because forgiveness is not devaluing yourself and it is not ignoring wrongs. I think it is freedom.

To heal.

To go forward.

To live.

And living hurts. It requires the full spectrum of emotions because there will be terrible-no-good-very-bad-days and really freaking fantastic ones. Only human beings get to live through both, and you cannot shut out the bad. It's not a privilege you get unless you trade in your freedoms. That is what impresses me about Christianity. To see Jesus on the cross, barely alive, dying someone else's death...and still breathing forgiveness...even though they aren't even done with him yet. He doesn't wait. And it doesn't make any sense. But I think this is because I cannot yet comprehend a love like that.

ruby

I have long berated emotions for being inefficient, and for nearly that same amount of time I have wondered what real purpose they serve. They are a large part of why I do not really believe in macro-evolution. Emotions do not aid the survival of the fittest mentality, stereotypical or not. They are deceptive and impractical more often than not.

It was easy to come up with half-answers that were never satisfying, but were enough to pacify. Things like, "they are what make us human" or "to keep us from being fake" and other explanations were in no way false...but they did not seem to be solid defense.

Maybe what I have found will only pacify any other person, but it is the answer I have found satisfaction in. Emotions force us to need the people around us. They make life about more than just getting by on our own and totally destroy the lone ranger. People are not made to be alone and we feel it more than the most perfect empirical science. This life thing, whatever else it is, is dependent on other people. We can take on other people's pain in a way that is uniquely human, even if we do not know them.

Feeling is what binds us together. And it is pain and happiness...and both of those in strange and unexpected mixtures. We need people to help us heal. We need people we can trust to help us be who we were made to...It does not work any other way. There are no exceptions or loopholes. It is horrible and dangerous and painfully clumsy work because none of us know what we are doing. More than that, we wont know what we are doing until we have done it, probably wrong, at least once. All of us clueless people trying to make sense of what we have been given. But it is poetry, or art, or music...and we cannot stop to consider our audience or we will never finish. Because if we lose ourselves to the rules of beauty that other people make we will never wade through those tears or walk deep enough into unknown darkness to feel the weight of the worth of what we are making.

Quite simply, we are making ourselves a life.

summer sky blue

Home smells like ponderosa

baked into tall grasses

with all the warmth

of a summer oven.

And it looks like wildflowers

--flax and lupine,

paintbrush and snap dragons--

scattered everywhere

with strangely majestic thistles in between.

Did you know

that thistles smell

milky and sweet and musty

all at the same time?

And home has so many sounds:

The rumbling of dirt roads

and dashing of deer and grasshoppers.

Crickets and wind and old things

that are too tired, or too loved, to wear out.

I cannot forget this giant theater sky

with its many, many moods

playing and yelling

and whispering so many secrets.

And it does not matter

how long I am away.
I will always have sap

folded into my skin,

baked into my hands.

I may have many more homes

but I will never really wash

this dust from my hair

or this sky from my eyes.

yellow

I have reached a point in my belief in Christianity and faith in God where I have to admit that it's not what it used to be. I still believe the same core things, but the externals are changing, well, have been changing for awhile. I am only now able to attempt to see what they might become. I was brought up on a hot and contradictory mixture of fiery pentecostalism and timid reformed presbyterianism (if I may coin the terms) and both of those juxtaposed the deep New Age of my father's house. It wasn't long before the passion of the pentecostals became my own. I wanted to be radical. I thought I could change the world if I tried hard enough, was righteous enough or something.

High standards are my specialty. I have grace enough for everyone but me. But you can't make a life out of it and that has become my test: Can I build a life on this? Unreachable goals will either be abandoned or else they will destroy some part of you. I had to leave them eventually. I needed healing and I would not find it by always striving for the impossible. I do not want to be a radical Christian anymore. While that sounds horrible, I will stand by it. It is the radicals that my coworkers abhor for their arrogance, hypocrisy, and other flaws. There must be a better way. Can quiet lives shout? How radical was Jesus?

He paid his taxes, went to weddings, drank wine and ate dinner with sinners, he told stories... Yes, he cleansed the temple, calmed storms, and put the pharisees in their place. Still, his life seems markedly different than our modern zealots. In our effort to make him relevant, to communicate how extraordinary he was, we have made him something he never really was and still is not. And I find that comforting because I can't be that anymore. I can love God. I can love people. When I think about it, those were the two greatest commandments anyway. Those are strong enough to build my life on.

I don't want to change the world. There are 6 billion people on this planet and I wont meet them all. Besides, the Bible doesn't preach revolution and revival the way many of today's churches do. It prophesies hardship and a worsening of times...animosity for God and everything, everyone, associated. And we will be known by our love, because that is something that can't be faked, wont go out of style, and will always be needed. Most people don't need to know that they aren't perfect (even when they act like it), they need to know that they are loved.

electric grays

In the last month or so I have established two things: 1. man was made for more than to just work whatever job is handed him until he dies. There is something distinct inside of man that whithers when the desire for a purpose at a core level is ignored. 2. and part of the glory of man is that he will hurt those he loves. It is inescapable. No matter how intentional you are and how good you try to be, you will fail, horrendously, at some point.

And that is ok.

It is not right or good, but there is life afterwards. And sometimes, that is all we can ask for. At some point, we need to sift through cliches that we have heard all of our lives and decide what they mean and what they are worth with flesh on them. Things like, "nobody's perfect" and such. If they are true, we can build on them. And that is why I believe in truth, both static and flexible. Not all truth applies everywhere to everyone equally. But there are rules and no matter how you try to flee limitations and laws, as a member of the human race they fall just the same throughout the years on you and everyone.

To refuse to believe in absolutes and yet attempt to build a life at all makes no sense. We don't want the judgments and accountability of absolutes like right and wrong, but we want the security of believing the sun will come up and gravity will continue. But what if ethics is really more of a science than we ever thought? What if the laws of physics and the laws of morality were brothers from the same beginning?

Time

I can live through most goodbyes and I even enjoy stories where things do not end perfectly. (I prefer them most days actually.)But I hate watching things wear out. Beautiful buildings, favorite clothes, old art...I hate how beauty never seems to endure. Time is relentless and it races on at a breath taking rate.

I have caught myself searching, in every new place I go, for some sign that wherever I have arrived is outside of the weight and wear of time. I want so badly for the beauty to endure. I think this is what is meant when it is said that God has written eternity on the hearts of men. Outside of that explanation, the human race makes no sense. We want to hang onto so many things but we have never been told that anything will last. There is no evidence of anything that has lasted forever...but we have an understanding that there is such a thing as 'forever'. At least, we have a word for it.

I do not know what this means for my plan to find out what it means to be human. It looks like it means that we are doomed to long for what we do not know...even as we fear the unknown above all else. We are delicate, fragile, and temporary but we long for strength and immortality. And while we are so temporary, we are capable of so much. The strength of the human spirit is unmatched. There is an undeniable will to live even when there does not seem to be reason to. For me, this leads past wonder and makes me believe in the immortality of the human soul. Where else did this idea come from? Why can we talk about a forever none of us have ever known? Why do we look to eternity? Are we really so lost in delusions of hope? Maybe. But if the hope is real, it changes everything.

Mike and Lucky

This is homeless man named Mike and his dog, Lucky. I believe I mentioned him before. Over the course of several months I got to know him as I began to paint in the park that he frequented and more or less occupied. He was the among most encouraging people during that project. Mostly, he was lonely and I didn't mind letting him talk about art or the cops in the area or his homemade tattoo set. I don't really know why I liked talking to him so much, but I did. It always made the day better. He always provided very much needed perspective on everything from what a bad day is to what my faith is worth.

It is easy to get swept away in all sorts of theology and philosophy, especially in the culture I was living in at the time when I met Mike. He was a constant reminder that nothing that I believed mattered on a working and practical level if it could not offer him love and hope. That is important to remember as I think about what it means to be human. Whatever truth I find only has value if a life can be built on it. That is my presupposition, I guess. I believe that there is intrinsic value in life and living and just being. I guess I believe that because I believe that man is made and not abandoned.

Human

I am discovering something, or rather a lack of something: I do not actually know what it means to be human...and for myself, what it means to be a woman. What is more unsettling to me is that I do not think that this is just the age I am at or where I live or even just who I am right now. I do not think there is any rule that says, "You will eventually figure this out." As best as I can tell, we are too often a species content with not knowing. I really hate it when it is not comforting to not be alone.

I want to know. I do believe that I need to know if I am to build the sort of life that I want. I have a lot of cheap answers and maybe even some good ones but nothing has been sorted. This is not the kind of thing that will resolve itself without at least the small effort of seeking. And I am excited, at least, in part. It is my project for the summer. It may last longer, I can hardly hope to know that this will all be wrapped up beautifully at the end of the about 70 or so days I have left of summer before I am back into classes and routine and schedules.

People do not usually make sense, but I have long justified this by saying that I do not know enough about them...that I am merely reading them out of context. But now, I want to know what it is that we are...and what we should be...and if there is any hope of bridging whatever gap there may be.

I believe that people have the right to be themselves. As a whole, we are not honest enough or secure enough most days. Too many of us are who we think we should be without a clear idea of where these standards came from or why. But I think it is important to be different...not for different's sake, but for honesty and beauty and all the makings of art that somehow pour out of the souls and minds of men and women. There is a way to see our similarities without laying aside what makes us different and unique.

Doubtlessly, I am a product of Western society; but I hope that I am not so entrenched in culture so as to never meet with Truth. I am what I am, and I cannot pretend to be anything else. We will see what this search brings. As I said, I am excited. I am also a little be wary of finding what I do not want to know--but more than anything I am curious. There is a life that I am looking for, and I will give up so many things to have it; but how will I know it if I do not even know who it is I should be?

Concept Art

I have been obsessing about a particular project which requires me to learn how to spray paint hands pulling starlight. These are the earliest attempts, which I am sure I will quickly grow ashamed of. I have also made notes on the box about what I learned that day. It is super exciting, but it feels just a little tedious. Hopefully the finished product is worth it all.

Due to my living situation, I have to go to the park to paint. This is always an adventure in and of itself. The park is known for its activity that is well past questionable. Day time is the only time I'm 'allowed' to venture there. On a particularly warm Sunday, I decided I needed to go over and learn how to paint.


I met three homeless men while I was there. I did not have a pen to take notes, so I asked them if they did. We had been attempting to act as if we were ignoring each other while discovering the nature of each other's activities since I had entered the pavilion. I honestly did not think they would have a pen, and I do not think they thought they would either. However, I had been enjoying their music that was streaming from their radio, and not felt comfortable enough to engage them.

The first man, Mike as I would later find out, looked at me like I was a little crazy for talking to them before he said, "You are asking the wrong sort of people." He came over to my side of the pavilion about 5 minutes later, proudly bearing a red pen. From there, our interaction was kept to a minimum.


When I had finished, I returned the pen. They made small talk, introduced themselves. Mike, Michael, and the third...seemed a little unsure of his identity. His name might be Mario. It might also be Toby. He couldn't really decide, which did not incite the alarm inside of me that it probably should have. None of them appeared to have a single whole tooth, except for Michael who was African American and much younger than the other two who were white. As I turned to leave, I was informed by Mike that I would go places. I asked him why he said that and he laughed half-heartedly and asked why I wouldn't. The other two were quick to back him up.

I'm not sure what to take from that since I saw at least two empty bottles of what looked like Saki. (Really guys, rice wine? That's a little too far outside of your stereotype.) According to three displaced men in a park pavilion, I am destined for success.

Home

This is what I saw after a very long night on the bus from Montana to Portland, Oregon. It should have been a train ride, but the train was frozen someplace out east. I suppose the bus was not as bad as I imagined it would be. Besides, the road rides the Columbia closer than the train tracks at some points, and that makes it well near worth it.

It was beautiful to look out and realize it was getting to be light outside and to know that I was almost home. The ten or more hours I had already endured worked to create a sleepy peace. It was then that I realized how relative a term 'home' had become for me. I had left home, to go home...and I found no contradiction. Home with all of the family and friends and people that I knew and loved. Home with all of the accepted idiosyncrasies that have been built into me, that I take elsewhere and that often show that I am from somewhere else. Home.

There are layers and layers to that word. The longer I live and the more I move about, the more homes I acquire. It does not matter if all of the memories are pleasant. Home is where you speak the language, where you respond naturally to those microscopic aspects of culture. There was a time when Montana was home and I lived there. It was good to go back. When I am there, it is home. Yet, I am going to school in Oregon and it is becoming home. I am learning new quirks and meeting new friends and, indeed, new family. In a few years, I will move from here and make a new home.

I wonder how many homes I will have in my lifetime. That is a terrifying thought to me because all of my homes occupy a piece of me; and they will never know each other. I am being parceled out, and I cannot protect all that I love. Therefore, I cannot protect myself. The act of leaving may be wrapped in a romantic mystery, but there is something about coming that makes you vulnerable. You have to prepare for both, I think or it is harder to adjust, to fall in love with the place you go to for its own sake. It is more dangerous that way, because you can be hurt more; but in my drowsy state, as I looked out the window and thought of the hundreds of miles I had traveled in a single night, I decided that it is better. Anytime, you get the opportunity to love something that may or may not love you back, do it. If all that stands in your way is fear, do not let that stop you.