Just a preview. And a warning.
Warning: musings about home and community ahead. Not guaranteed to make sense or to have tact. Product may contain unprocessed honesty and raw confusion.

wildflowers

Cassiopeia 

These plants have been my project for the summer. It's funny. I didn't plant tomatoes, but they grew. Seriously. I didn't plant tomatoes. I planted strawberry plants and chilis. The chilis were eaten by slugs and the strawberries survived. ...then the tomato plants sprouted up from the ground like a time capsule left to me by the last tenant. One of the tomato plants gives me softball sized fruit and has a trunk thicker than my wrist. They have a will to live that is admirable. So I have agreed to take care of them. Besides my most faithful bamboo plant, I also have a eucalyptus bush, a citrus mint plant, a lenten rose named Alexandria, and two pots of flowers that live outside next to the wildflowers. The potted plants are named Cassiopeia and Molari. There are about 5 homeless bees that sleep in my flowers. And I have a mouse that lives in my tomatoes and strawberries that I have named Demeter. This is my house. These are my favorite facts of life that stand between me and the loneliness. 

I had a lonely day last week though. So I went and I took these photos where the sidewalk ends

:

It's amazing how motivativating the sky is.

Sometimes, you can't quite find the right picture to go along with your thoughts. This is close. I think my friend Nicole took this one awhile back. I love the clouds in it. It feels similar to today in that I look at it and know, 'summer is coming'. That's half the battle sometimes.

The other half of the battle is the bloody part. Related to that, I am happy to report that I only have one more paper, one other assignment and 5 exams. In one week, it will all be over--not without some metaphoric blood spilt. Everything has its price you know. The groans of my muscle and bones testify with my budget. Que sera sera!

And then what? Then I am going to write about a girl named Jullanar who loves to fly and a man named Caelum who grew up under the stars.

Belated.

I had a very wonderful birthday. It wasn't my first choice of events. My birthday often gets overlooked because February always ends sooner than people expect and the first week of March comes in seemingly unannounced. Also, I have hitherto spent my life in the rat race that is education with the full knowledge that March is about one thing: surviving until spring break. This year was extra set against birthday festivities in that I couldn't receive calls because my phone was broken and I had an evening class that day. I really didn't have the time to celebrate my birthday.

All the same. I felt loved. It was the little things, the roommate breakfast and egg curry. The boyfriend flowers and necklace. Texts from my family and attempted phone calls from Dallas and other places. A few belated wishes because, hey, we all have days and weeks and, well, years where we forget. It'll be my turn next if I haven't done so already.

Anyway, this post is really about the cake I made and kind of pieced together between classes. Keep in mind that I'm gluten free so if I'm going to go to the trouble of making cake...it's going to be the best damn cake that's ever been made...or close to it. Photographing it was an interesting challenge and lighting sparklers as my candle on my piece turned out to be less tasty than I anticipated (though just as awesome). Unfortunately there are no photos of the sparkler going that I care to put up because it's my birthday and if I don't want to put up pictures of me in my sweats with my hair not brushed staring in excitement and just a little terror at my firework cake, well no one can make me. :) That said, here are my belated photos including a very bad one of my flowers(...but what can I say? I really love flowers. All of them.):

Oh Friday. You feel like a hug.

I wanted to put up something pretty. My blog has been all words and far too few pictures. This is a throw back to the days when all I was armed with was my Powershot A80, whom I still miss. His name was Evelyn. I'm sure this dates to 2006 or something when I was younger and still convinced I could learn 6 or so languages in the next ten (ish) years. It's ok to let some dreams go after all.

A bit overdue:

Montana and I are complicated lovers. 
We should probably move on. 
But I cannot. 
There is something about waking up in the embrace of mountains...
of hearing nothing but the very distant car 
interrupting the slow inhale of hills 
and the long exhale of sky. 
It takes my breath away 
but gives me its own breath. 
And so I breathe easy 
as I take in winding dirt roads. 
I breathe easy 
as on cold mornings 
when you can see your breath leave in puffs 
like lost clouds trying to find their way home. 
I breathe easy 
and I know this will always be, 
in some ineffable way, 
home.

mr. sun, sun mr. golden sun...

I wanted to start this post announcing my first and deepest love for the sun and sunshine and summer and warmth. And then I realized there are many things that were first loves and very deep loves. Stars (And yes the sun is a star but the sun keeps me warm. It's a very different sort of relationship than the nocturnal stars.) And sunshine. Being barefoot. Chocolate chip cookies...or really, cookies. Pie. Fruit. Family. Friends. Rivers. Lakes. Mountains. Clouds. Wind. All the pieces of all the homes I have ever loved.

Apparently, I am a woman who has loved a lot more than I first thought. This a great comfort to me as today... today feels empty. This is because the sky is the color of concrete and it is driving me mad. It is too high up, too intangible, too unstable for me to reach up and paint it. I have to wait for it to change its mind. But I feel like it gets stuck sometimes. Like the sky itself could have seasonal affective disorder and needs a good dose of Vitamin D and the like. And when the sky gets stuck, I get stuck. I want to go to sleep until the Sun feels like waking up. When he comes to wake me up in person THEN I will get up.

YA! Take that.

Because, we are totally on a first name basis, the Sun and I. He's on the speed dial [that I've never set up] and we hang out when he's not too busy with you know, galactic star stuff.



Even I'm rolling my eyes at myself now. I can only swallow so much B.S.

But seriously, when the sky is blank and empty like concrete, I begin plotting. I begin dreaming. I begin hoping for a real dawn.

The view from my high school back in the day.

It's been a long start to this new year, but I am almost to a fork in the road with a promise of a change of scenery. I can see it now with eyes that no longer have to trust that the darkness ahead holds more than shadows. For this occasion, I have a photo. It's of Coloma, California on a beautiful night. It was probably a minimum of 60 degrees after the sunset and we had pitched our tent. Good times. One of those nights I will travel back to many more times through the years.