play

here are some very recent pictures of sena, aiyana and julia.

eva

one day, i had a really nice experience at starbucks. this experience has stayed with me like a hidden little treasure, making me smile whenever i think of it.
it was early one saturday morning, and i was by myself. ed was home with the kids, while i had this time to myself. i was sitting by the window, sipping coffee and reading a book, when i noticed a woman i knew outside. her name is Eva, and she is a herbalist who owns a little shop i visit once in a while. i know she's been going through a difficult time lately, getting divorced from her husband. i remember seeing them last summer at HerbFest, arms around each other. last time i spoke to her, a few months ago, she told me that he's a wonderful man but she can't live with him. it was obvious she loves him. they have 2 children.

when i saw her at starbucks, she was walking to her car, holding a cup of coffee. she didn't notice me, and she didn't seem to be noticing much, looking mostly down. her expression was blank and a little hardened. i hought that the dampness and grayness outside matched what she projected. as she walked to her car, she turned as if hit by an afterthought, and walked back a few steps. she had noticed something on the ground and bent down to pick it up. it was a purple little flower, lovely and fresh, and totally out of place in the gray gravel. she picked it up with much care and gentleness, and held it as if it were precious. i saw her face light up and a faint smile come to her lips. she held the flower and in her hand and looked at it for a moment. then, she walked to her car, and i swear her step had a different quality from before, more springy, and lighter. i saw her get into the car and place the flower gently on the dashboard. then she drove away.

i felt so moved and grateful to have witnessed this intimate little sceene. what had happened was so small, it could easily have gone unnoticed. yet i also felt that it was big, huge in its significance, and i was deeply touched by it. maybe it was my mood, or the stuff i have been going through lately, but something inside me resonated with this experience.

isn't that how life is? you walk around in a haze, surrounded by events and people that sometimes seem as hard and gray as concrete. if you're lucky and awake enough, you may notice something small and beautiful along your way; something alive, that will make you smile. you stop and you connect with it, smile and give gratitude. your heart softens, and opens a little wider. you recognize that beauty often comes in unexpected ways, at unexpected times. you realize that without the pain you've known you would not have the sensitivity to connect with life and beauty on this level. you feel all these things in a moment, then you forget again. you keep walking.

peace

riding the dragon

last weekend i saw some friends i hadn't seen in a while. they spent the winter in South and Central America, volunteering on organic farms. of course, they had lots of interesting experiences and stories to share.

then they asked what i had been doing. i didn't know where to start, or how to sum up my mundane / exciting life to them. so i just said that i've been riding the dragon, doing my day-to-day stuff. they laughed and seemed to know right away what i meant.

when my neighbor Matt first mentioned "riding the dragon", i immediately loved the expression and adopted it as my own, since i find it a most clear description of what my life is these days...

i'd love to write more, but it's a beautiful day outside, and the kids are restless to go and play. actually so am i. hopefuly soon i'll get to sit again and share some of the insights and experiences i've been having lately.

peace

thoreau

"to influence the quality of the day, this is the highest of arts".

well, i don't like to think in terms of "the highest" and stuff, but i still love the quote. yeah, to influence the quality of the day - not an easy task, but well worth undertaking. i've been working on just this for a while - it's all i can do.

thank you Roxi

my sister lost power at her house after some bad winds on sunday night. so she spent the day with us on monday and tuesday, since our house was not affected by the wind.
wow, what a difference having 2 adults instead of just one taking care of children. all i have to say is i know why they say "it takes a village to raise one child".
i feel extremely lucky to have my sister so close to me (not only when the power is out either...).

some kid news:
aiyana has been saying a lot of new words in the past week or so. it's like, "the floodgates broke open", as one friend put it. she can express herself so much more now, and she loves it. i do too. not only is it cute, but it makes for a lot less frustration and misunderstanding.

another really exciting development is that aiyana started going on the potty. wow, what a relief not having to change, not to mention clean, all those diapers. it's only been a week that she's been doing this, but she is so excited about it, and my life is easier. she loves coming to tell me when she has to go, pulling on my pants to guide me to the bathroom. she pees and poops on the toilet (we have a little seat on top of it so she won't fall in), and when she's done, she wants to wipe, flush and wash her hands all by herself. she refuses to wear diapers now, and wants regular underware like her sister. i still want to put diapers on her when we go out, bc i don't want any accident at the library, or wherever we're going, but usually she fights me on it (and i give in)...

what's most interesting to me is that our potty training thing is a lot more about communication and bonding than it is about actually peeing and pooping. aiyana communicates a lot with her eyes, body, and lately speech, but if i'm not receptive to it, and if i don't communicate back to her, then i don't think things would happen as they do now. maybe i'm not expressing myself all that well. what i mean to say is that this potty training has become another opportunity for us to bond and communicate.

sleeping, on the other hand, hasn't been so good lately. aiyana, for some reason, has been nursing like crazy throughout the night. i thought it was teeth related, but i'm not sure now. something else may be going on, have to figure it out. all i know is that i am tired in the morning and throughout the day. but that's been my story for the past 3 years, no news here...

having trouble writing today, mind is a little foggy, so let me stop here...

peace

tough easter

i wish i could brush things over and say what a nice easter we had. but it feels better to say the truth. or as close as possible.

it was tough. ed and i had a hard time during the day, we could not communicate, we were getting on each other in a bad way, and we both came down pretty hard. then it was time to go over to his parents' for dinner, and we all got in the car, but in less that 1 mile, ed decided that he couldn't do it and wanted to come back home. which i felt as well, but i also thought that it wasn't fair to his family and to the kids not to go, esp. since his mom spent lots of energy cooking and preparing, and sena was really looking fwd to the whole thing...

so i told ed that he could go home and i still go to his parents' with the kids. this is what we did, and things went ok. sena had a really good time coloring eggs at granma's, and aiyana had fun riding her trycicle indoors, etc. i was ok, just tried to be in the moment and answer everyone's questions as to where ed was, what happened, etc. i didn't make anything up, i just told them the truth, without getting into too much detail, uinless they kept asking. ed's dad was worried, but i told him these things happen and everything would be ok soon.

i left the house at around 8pm, and went home. sena fell asleep in the car. ed and i talked a little when i got home, and things were ok. not much to say, we both felt pretty drained, but at least the energy btw us wasn't too bad. i went to bed around 9:30.

i had a restless night. seemed like the day's feelings spilled over into my dreams, and gave me no peace. aiyana's teething again too, so that's not too conducive to peaceful sleep either.

sometime during the night i had a dream.
in my dream, i was on a journey. it wasn't an easy or pleasant journey. feelings of restlessness, doubt, insecurity, and nagging questions of the fundamental type were proeminent. eventually i came to a cliff beyond where the path ended. it was the end of my journey.

from the cliff, i could see the ocean, or rather the inlet to the ocean. it was like a bay, and all there was was water and the horizon. the scene was pretty drab, monochrome, brown, not too exciting. i stood there and watched, feeling tired from my journey; and then slowly, the colors started to change. the water took on brilliant, clear shades of blue and green. the sky turned bright blue. the sun shone clearly on the horizon. the feeling came over me that everything was allright. i felt energy flowing through me, and knowledge came in the form of a silent voice. it said:

some people never get to experience the world, they go straight into the sun. (i knew that this was referring to children that never experience birth, but die in their mother's woumbs). the rest of us experience life, (just as i had experienced my journey to the cliff), and it's not usually peaceful, or beautiful, or easy. but in the end, we all go into the sun. i knew and felt, as i heard this, that going into the sun was the ultimate release. it just felt amazing.

then i woke up. a little shaken from the night's retlessness, but then i remembered the dream and my whole outlook for the day changed, became much more positive. so although i'm still tired now, i feel very peaceful and calm.
just thought i'd share this.

so...
rock on, or whatever moves you,
peace

pics from last w/kend in mtl

post-montreal blues

it's been a long time i didn't get these, but i have to admit that i'm under a spell of post-montreal blues. not for the city itself, but for the people that i still feel strongly connected to there.

i was in montreal thursday through sunday last week. drove up on thursday, which went well, considering that it was just me and the little ones. i had borrowed a car dvd player from the library (my sister's suggestion), and it came in very handy. plug them in, as ed loves to say... well, it works...

on friday, i spent a couple of hrs by myself. went downtown and drove around trying to find parking, no easy task. found a spot near le faubourg, then walked around some, and sat in a Second Cup reading and writing. i felt like a stranger in the city. people seemed cold and disconnected. nobody looked each other in the eyes, esp. as they're walking on the street. i felt alienated from the whole thing. but it was still interesting to sit and observe...

saturday was a whole different story. finally the city came to life again, in my heart. i felt connected to it, and that was because i got to see my friends. it was so nice to feel that closeness again. saturday was a great day, i didn't want it to end.

on suday, we drove back home. i tried not to feel sad about leaving mtl, but i could not help it. the drive went well again, but i found that my mind was distracted, and it was hard to focus on the kids. i felt like when i crossed the US/Canada border, i also had to cross a border in my heart: my old life, of a single woman, versus my new life, as a mother, etc. or something like that. of course it's not so well defined, this border, the spaces mix and bleed into each other...

on my drive back, i was moved by the realization of how supportive my parents are trying to be. my mom really tried to give me time alone, knowing how much i need it. so she (and my dad) took the kids as much as possible, and encouraged me to go out and have fun. my dad also tried to help in his way: he cooked breakfast for us while i packed my stuff on sunday, he cleaned my car (it really needed it), and checked the oil; and basically he tried to assist with any practical thing that needed to be done.

i feel so grateful for my family and friends.

peace!

on having quit my job

some people wanted to know how i felt about quitting my job as time went on.
well, it's been about 5 months now, and i can honestly say that except for one anxious dream, i've had absolutely no regrets about quitting. (in the dream, i still had to make a decision whether to quit or not, and i felt very anxious about it, bc i felt that i liked my job and i was sad about not doing it anymore.)

so while it's true that i liked some parts of my job quite a bit, i can't say that i miss my job at all. my days are full, and i am doing what i most want to be doing at this time in my life. i feel that the time i spend with my children is precious, and i can tell that being together every day is making a huge positive difference in our lives.

one thing, which i am very grateful for, is that money is not an issue right now for my family. so i have the option of staying home w/o feeling any financial pressure. i know that many families are not that lucky. for us, given our lifestyle, and the fact that ed is still working, we feel comfortable with our situation.

i just recently realized that i'm very grateful to my parents for guiding me into my engineering career. the fact that i worked for 10 years in this field, and was able to save some money, is what allows me to feel free to make a different choice right now - whether that is to stay home w my kids, or maybe to pursue a different interest in a few years.

so yeah, it was pretty hard to decide to give up my job, for many reasons, but once i did it, i never regretted it (so far), and my new life actually turns out to be even better than i had imagined. this is where my heart is, and i feel extremely lucky to be in this situation.

peace

welcome spring!

wow, what a last couple of days! i feel great!
my sister and i just went for a walk, from my house to starbucks. it's gorgeous outside, sunny and comfortable. we had 2 strollers with us, and my sister was also carrying julia in her sling. sena and aiyana really enjoyed themselves, except for the part where they both wanted me to push them, and of course i can't push 2 strollers at once...but it all got resolved, my sister and i taking turns pushing the strollers. julia slept most of the time, but when awake she was happy as usual. i've never seen an easier, more content baby!!!

yesterday was also a gorgeous day, even warmer than today (70F), although less sunny. my sister and i and all the girlies went to horsebarn hill at uconn. we visited the horses, sheep and cows. the sheep had lots of little lambs running around, which was fun to watch. but the most interesting was watching the cows, bc a few of them are calving right now. we saw a few calves that must've just been born, bc they were still wet and shiny, and barely able to stand. then there were some cows, obviously very pregnant and just about ready to give birth. one cow was actually in labor, and we got to watch her for a while. at one point i thought the calf was about to come out, but then sena and aiyana started getting restless, and we had to leave.

i would love to watch a birth - although i've experienced my own, being there for someone else's holds a special fascination for me. maybe one day. i'll have to get the word out there that i'd like to attend birth as a support person, or clean-up lady, or anything at all, just to be part of it...and maybe someone in our community will call me up....

tomorrow i'm going to montreal. i'm getting really excited about it, esp. since the weather is supposed to be good, which means that i can do some walking around. i am a little anxious too, mostly about the drive, which could be challenging with 2 little kids. also, i'm hoping that once i'm in montreal, sena and aiyana will want to spend some time w my parents so that i can have some time to myself... that would be really great.

enjoy this beautiful time of year....

peace

learning how to roller-skate

weird "endif" statements

i'm sorry for the weird "endif" type of statements that appear randomly in some of my postings. i think they have to do with the fact that i write my stuff on my laptop at home, whenever i have time, and then copy and paste it into my blog when i get a chance to be online. i've been using wordpad to on my laptop, but i'm switching to notepad in the hope that there won't be any more weird characters and statements.
i'm not all that computer savvy, not to mention that i barely have time to write my stuff, forget about formatting it... but hopefuly this will work.

peace

how i'm feeling this morning...

i have my family.
i have my good friends.
i have the trees, and the birds.
i have the song of the river,
and the sound of the waves.

i have my writing.
i have my dreams.

i have everything.

i have some knowledge of myself,
and some of you.

i have nothing,
i let it all go.

i have this feeling of elation.
i understand pain, frustration, disappointment,
you know, all that.

i know peace within myself.
i know crazyness.
i know sweet and salty tears,
i know how to laugh.

i'm learning how to love -
i've always known how to love.

i know truth and contradiction,
know that often they're the same.

i love knowing that i'm nothing, know nothing.

i have everything.

the red tent

i've been reading this book since last sunday (when ed took the kids and gave me about two hours to myself, which felt delicious). i heard about it before, heard that it was like the bible, but written from a woman's perspective. i can't really comment on that, bc i never read the bible. but, i can definitely say that i love it, and recommend it - what draws me to it the most is its descriptions of women's lives, from childhood to old age, in a time and place much different than my own. i love the bonds that tie these women together, and the gritty texture of their lives, with all their sorrows and joys.

peace march

a week ago, ed, aiyana and i went to a local peace rally. it was a small thing, 50 people or less marching together for 10 blocks. we stopped in a park, listened to a speech, and then marched back. it felt good to be part of something like this again. in he past, we used to go to big peace rallies in DC in NYC, but it's been much harder with the kids, so now we try to go to small, local ones. i always like the combined energy of the people who get together at these things. it's exciting, i like feeling like i'm part of something larger than my immediate, mundane concerns. but one thing bothered me at this last rally.

on our walk back from the speech, i noticed a young woman walking in front of me with a large poster mounted high on a stick. the poster depicted a mother, dressed in black clothes, wearing black head-dress, and carrying, in her arms, the limp body of a small child. the child, her child, was naked and dead. blood was trickling from the side of his body. as soon as my eyes landed on this picture, i had the knee-jerk reaction which i always get when i see such things. i got choked up, my stomach felt like it wanted to turn inside out, and my eyes started filling with tears. i didn't say anything, just kept walking and looking at the poster. i could not take my eyes off it, and i suddenly felt terribly sad and lonely. the excitement of the gathering, the feeling of a good cause, all of that, gone. although the poster seemed to fit in with the theme of the march, somehow, i felt unease. something felt wrong, but i couldn't put words to it.

finally, i just turned to ed, who was pushing aiyana's stroller, unaware of what i was feeling. i pointed to the poster and said to him, "i hope that when they made that, they did it with a lot of respect". it was a weird thing to say, in a way, and i had to elaborate it for myself and for ed's sake. i think that what i wanted to say is that i hope they didn't just use that picture lightly. it was such a powerful image, and it should not be thrown around lightly. people who've lost children are suffering greatly, and i feel that their pain should not be used for any purpose without the utmost respect. i'm not conveying what i felt really well, but maybe you get the idea...

i actually had he same feeling when i walked in a cafe today, and saw a book on display. it was about a boy soldier, from sierra leone, about the terrible things he had been through. his own account of war, how he was drawn into it and how he eventually escaped it. anyway, as soon as i saw the book, i knew it was powerful. yet, i had that feeling again, something sour coming up inside me. i felt, here's this crazy, heart-wrenching story being used as entertainment for people sipping coffee in their spare time. it's such a fuzzy issue, bc i do think that these stories need to be told, we all need to know them and ache for them and do our best to make things easier, lighter, etc. yet, a part of me feels like these stories are being used as entertainment, which means that some people's pain are used for other's "fun".

i don't really see any solution to this. all i can think of is that when i read or come accross stories / images like these, i do want to take them seriously, i want to let them come in and touch me. maybe what i'm trying to say is that i don't want to get used to them, don't want to get callused, don't want my heart to shut, so that one person's story becames just one more sad story i've read somewhere, while sipping coffee.

peace

playing in the mud, etc.

the top picture is of sena reading to aiyana. i love it when they do that. they get really into it, and it's really sweet, not to mention that it gives me a little break.

the next two pictures are from last week mud-play session. maybe we'll have another one today... (like the boogers hanging out of aiyana's nose?)

my tooth is better!

my tooth is so much better! i took golden seal and rinced with kloss' liniment (which is a mix of ecchinacea, golden seal, cayenne, and vodka). it took about 1.5 weeks, but the infection went down gradually and eventually disappeared. i am also feeling better overall, so i'm very grateful to my herbalist friends who helped me.

asleep, by banana yoshimoto

i love this opening passage from banana yoshimoto's short story, "love songs". maybe it's because it captures so well something i often feel, yet fail to put in words:

"late at night the trees in my garden seemed to shine.
awash in light from the street, the quiet glittering green of the leaves and the deep brown of the trunk seemed startingly vivid.
...each time i looked out on that scenery...i'd be overwhelmed by the unbeleivable purity of those colors, and i'd start feeling as if nothing really mattered, like i wouldn't care at all even if i were to lose everything i had.
this wasn't resignation, or desperation. it was a much more natural form of acceptance, a feeling that arose from a sweep of emotion that was quiet and cool and crystal-clear."

better

things have been much lighter since my last posting. i guess i just really needed to cry, you know how that goes.
yesterday, we had a beutiful, warm spring day. we hung out with sena's friend, giovanna, in the morning, and with my sister and julia. went for a weet little walk around roxi's neighborhood. giovanna's dad picked her up at our house at 2:30, and it was so beautiful out that sena, aiyana and i just ended up spending a few more hours outside. first, we played in the mud. the front of our house is a mud pit at this time, and getting in and out of the house can be frustrating. usually, what happens is that it takes an hour for me to get everyone ready to leave the house, and then when we're finally outside, just about to get in the car, one of the kids trips and falls flat in the mud. so then, i have to go back in the house, get a change of clothes, etc. etc, and in the meantime we're late to whatever we have to do, one or both kids are crying, i'm frustrated, etc.

yesterday, as we hung out near the house, i started getting nervous seeing sena and aiyana near the mud pit. they really wanted to play in there, had their digging sticks ready and their rubber boots on. i felt myself getting tense as i was just about to say "stay out of the mud", and then i just said to myself, why not, why not let them enjoy themselves? so i did, i said, go ahead, and that's all it took, before they were both running back and forth through the thickest of it all, falling in the puddles, stomping and splashing everythere. it was so much fun to let it take whatever shape it would, to not try to control it. i wish i could let it go like this more often, but unfortunately they do need a lot of washing and cleaning afetrwards, not bc i care what they look like, but bc they don't like to be wet, and this is just not practical sometimes.

so anyway, after all that fun in the mud, i washed them both (outside, bucket style), changed them, and we headed to the general store for some soup. we sat outside on a bench, in the sun, and it was so much fun hanging out and relaxing (yes, relaxing, i guess the mud play wore them out..). just the three of us. i felt really good doing that.

sena's been coming up with these really sweet things lately. a while ago, for example, she asked if we were going to die, and i said that everyone will die at some point. then she got really serious, and almost scared, and she said, "but i don't want you and dada to die". then she told us that we had to eat a lot and get lots of energy, so that we would not die. i told her that most likely it will be quite some time before we die, and that we'll get to spend lots of time together before that happened. but she still insisted that we could not die.
that was a month ago or so. then, this morning, she told me that she knew that ed and i would die at some time. but she wasn't sad sying this. that's bc, she said, we would all die together. we'd all snuggle up together, and be really close, and die that way. it was just so sweet, it really touched me.

every day, there are so many precious moments... i want so much to be open, to be receptive to them. i want to let any heaviness i may be experiencing be there, acknowledge it - but i don't want to let it control me and rob me of these unique moments. they happen so quietly, so unexpectedly, that unless i'm open, i miss them completely. they are so small, and yet when i'm receptive, they fill me with joy, and lighten whatever is weighing me down.

peace

needing to write

today i really need to write. my dreams have been very intense again lately. i don't know why i'm experiencing this. i feel like it's a test to see if i can keep level. or a test of what is real. because my dreams certainly feel more real than the real thing, and it makes me wonder.

when i wake up from an especially powerful dream, i feel like i used to when walking out of a really good movie: totally disoriented, so absorbed in the world that the movie created. i remember being in montreal, and coming out of a movie theater feeling so raw as i tried to walk down the street; everything seemed so senseless. all i wanted to do was go home or somewhere safe and process all the feelings / emotions that the movie had brought out. often, i'd just want to cry and cry till everything was washed away. movies like "the big blue", or "37.2 le matin", or "the english patient", and many others, made me feel this way.

..................

just as i was writing the above, some chaos happened at our house, and i just lost my center and started to cry, and left the house, and here i am now, sitting outside at the general store, writing and trying to get some sanity back:

about a week and a half ago, i had a tooth pulled out. it had broken, and part of it fell out (this happened over 2 years ago), but i never did anything about it because i was either pregnant or nursing and did not feel like taking any medication or having x-rays. plus, the tooth wasn't really bothering me. anyway, finally i decided to go to the dentist, and i got it pulled out,and they told me that it was infected under the gum. they said that i should start feeling better overall soon, since my body had been fighting the infection all this time, and maybe that's why i've been feeling so tired. so i was really excited hearing this, cuz i could certainly use some extra energy, and i can do without this feeling of cronic sleep deprivation...

unfortunately, my tooth is not better yet, it's still infected, but i'm working with herbs and stuff to clear it up. i could take antibiotics, but want to use that as a last resort since aiyana's still nursing, and she's actually been nursing a lot lately, and i don't want any drugs getting into her system.

so between my tooth being infected, and not getting any good sleep in weeks due to aiyana's teething (all these tooth problems!), plus not having much of a break from mothering in a long time, i'm left feeling pretty depleted and edgy. today, it took a toll on me, and when both sena and aiyana decided that they were not going nap, well, i came close to snapping. it helped that ed was there, in the sense that at least i felt i had some back-up and felt free to cry. (ed took a sick day from work today bc he has a cold, and he spent the morning at school working on his journalism class, and then he came home for lunch, which is when i saw him). i just felt so frustrated that the kids weren't sleeping, esp. after i had been driving around in circles trying to get them to do so. i really felt like today, i could not do without a break. i needed the mental space, some time to myself, and when it appeared that i wasn't going to get it, i just lost it.

so i just sat there in our house, and cried and held my head in my hands. i really wanted to yell at someone, or throw something, but i restrained myself. i needed to let out all these emotions. i felt so frustrated for not having enough support. you know, the typical thing, how the mother always puts herself last, etc. well, for me that is true. but it's not sustainable. somehow i have to get things working so that i can have a break too once in a while. the scary thing is that when i fall apart, our whole family falls apart. the kids get upset, and maybe even scared, and everyone just feels lost. today, when i told ed that i needed to leave for an hour, sena started to cry and told me not to go. so i had to explain things to her, even though i was in no mood for explanation. but i told her that i really need to do this, because if i don't something bad will happen to me. she asked what would happen, if i would die, and i said that i don't know what will happen, but i probably would not die. she was happy with this explanation and let me go.

this has been an issue for some time (my lack of time to myself), and ed and i have been trying to come up with something workable. i think if we could start with a couple of hours per week, it would make me feel a lot better. but i need it to be a set time, something i can count on and look fwd to, as opposed to just a random period of time that i may or may not get. so hopefuly we'll try this and see how it works.

i think i'm feeling better now, just for having written... i don't know what's up with my writing. why it seems so important. who am i writing for, and why? i think what i always strive for is connection, and intimacy. writing makes these things feel more tangible, more within reach. although, ultimately, i know that the gulf between us, humans, is always there, no matter what we do. we are always alone, and even the closest bonds of family, lovers, or friends, cannot bridge our fundamental separation. i've had moments in my life when i really felt like the other person and i melted together. those are amongst the most precious things in my life - yet, i can't hold on to them, because it's just not possible, and ultimately i have to admit to myself, and to accept the fact that i am alone just like we all are. only death will end this separation, but i'm not ready for that yet. i'm ok with this loneliness, i can even enjoy it in many ways. it does not stop me from always trying to connect, always reaching out.

today, i had a really good moment, when i realized that all these things inside of me can coexist: the pain, the beauty, the disappointments, the loneliness, the hope, the seriousness, the light-heartedness, everything. it came to me really clearly that i am not defined by any of my roles: i am not the mother, not the daughter, not the lover, not the sister, not the friend. i am not the anorexic, not the nerd, not the air-head, not the know-it-all. i am not the one who's been hurt, nor the one that caused the hurt. these things trap me every once in a while, holding me with their rigid definitions, but always, i have glimpses of something else, which is none and all of them, and so much more. something so freeing and unknown, that i can't help but feel that everything is unbearably beautiful just how it is.

time to head back home now...

peace