just spent a beautiful day with myself.

It didn't start off beautifully. It started off really cranky. But as I let the heat of the sun soak through my cardigan, and I ate some lunch on a patch of grass, it got better...and then it kept getting better.

I saw a beagle puppy.
I got a vanilla ice cream cone, with rainbow sprinkles.
I bought The Blue Pages, which I've been meaning to buy. It makes me feel empowered.
I passed a man with eyebrows that looked like Jake Gyllenhall's.
(I nearly died.)
Walked home feeling tired, but in that good way--the tired that happens after walking for a few miles, when you sit down and all the nerves in your legs are ecstatically twitching and dancing because they just got woken up after being dormant for the entire winter. The good kind of tired.

I'm really looking forward to the summer, and carrying these little bits of happiness around with me.

so things are growing warmer.
the days are getting long and sunny, and i'm back at the farm.
(very happy to be there)
ALSO
i got hired to be gateways weaving studio assistant this past week!
this is my first REAL art/human services job!
I feel so blessed to be given the chance to work with the amazing people there. I'd have done it for free (and have been for months!)
...
I look forward to the opportunities this career path might offer me. I'm happy to have found something I can really love this much.



(This is a drawing by one of the client's at gateway.
It's of another client at gateway, who likes to do rag weaving and smile a lot.
They're both remarkable.)

bla bla

It's really hard to live in this world when you realize how much is at stake. It becomes easier when you push yourself to realize that you don't really own anything so you can never really lose it. I've been making art work and giving it away with this idea in the back of my mind. It's been an exercise toward selflessness. This week, I took it one step further and started exploring vipassana meditation at a beginner's class in Cambridge. I'm so glad I did. It has made me think more and more about the things that are true and definite in our lives, and what these things can do to calm my fears.

Even the things I can say I "own"--my mind & body--are actually made of borrowed pieces. In due time, I will die, those pieces will scatter, and they will make new things that I will never see. This is a fact.
I am made of thousands of tiny parts of other people and other places. When I am done with this body, I will become a part of thousands of other people and thousands of other places. This is a fact.

It feels incredible to think that I can stop chasing and grasping the things that make me happy. They're all going to go, anyway. So instead, I will control what I can control and I will let go of what I can not. And while I am here, I will eat amazing food and wear soft sweaters and make things I want to make and kiss people that I want to kiss. It's all going to go away, so why not love it while its here?

And even though I am on the pursuit of release,
I still want more shoes.
I still want to buy what commercials sell.
I still hope to get married.
&
I am still an American who eats at McDonald's Drive-Thru.



(...and who also eats her roommate's boyfriend's birthday cake for dinner)