Adventure!

who knew you could float so well when you are such a dead weight.

the good.
the bad.
the inbetween.


face off.

I remember that night when I first emailed you. Before you were signed. Before anything big had ever really happened. We talked on the phone for hours, that first time.

Then, remember those first few nights when you were shaking on stage and your voice cracked at all the wrong times? You had to dance real hard to make it look like you weren't having a seizure. I still don't know how you didn't manage to drop the mic. Everyone was screaming. I wasn't there but you shared stories.

And then you were an explosion. Your face was everywhere, still is. The first time I heard you on the radio you were on the other end of the line. I was listening to you in double.

"Are you playing our stuff?"
"No, it's on the radio"
And our giggled excitement.

You sent a lot of dead end emails then. I emailed back exits for you.

Little escapes to nowhere.

But you started dating that girl and the emails are less frequent, if at all.

Now, the best conversations we have are you on the radio and me listening casually along with my friends who don't know any better, don't know anything. The stuff at your core is always the last layer revealed.

"This song is my favorite." They say. "I love it." But they don't know the eight different drafts you jammed through the line that one night at two in the morning, waking me from needed sleep.

Your word choice is wrong.
Your rhythm is off.

And you saying, you can't play a lick of guitar. you can't keep rhythm in your own stories. you can't can't can't.

But I could write a good line and you could keep a good beat and we really did make some beautiful music those nights on the telephone. You with your guitar playing a lick resembling the melody, me saying whatever came to mind.

Still, your favorite moment was always the pause in the track. The little space of infinity between one song and the next, where, for just a second, everything is perfect.

I want my first book to be killer and something I'm proud of.
This book about my trip seems dumb to me, but I keep writing.

I have adventures unravel like roots in my brain until things are growing so chaotically I can't make sense of it all.

Yesterday I spent two hours reading 120 pages I wrote in the ninth grade and was amazed and what I'd written and what I could do with it.

The question is, will I?

Novels about people fall into two categories: ones that are escapist. Generally adventure story. Plot oriented. The other are undoubtled about the human condition. The second type is rare as it's harder to write. The fine details that define our lives take great observance to capture...

I started another blog to catalogue my favorite quotes because I have too many notebooks lying around the house with scattered leafings of some such line from some such book. This way, I can have them all in one place and labeled too. Nifty. Eventually, I think I'll share my collection but for now it's under strict LOCK DOWN.

The way the world works you either find yourself at the top of the pyramid or somewhere in the middle making sure the whole thing doesn't topple over.

Somehow, I think I'm standing outside the system watching it work, watching it fail.

Are you meant to live to make yourself happy by pursuing your own dreams or are you meant to live to help others and in helping make yourself happy?And if both paths lead to the same destination, wouldn't it be more prudent to take the path that's more inclusive?

But how do you know that both path's will lead you to the same place? If all it is, is FAITH, than isn't that a question of "Is there a God?" Because isn't the point of religion GIVING UP YOURSELF and how else can you give up yourself but by giving up that which you want most whether it be becoming a ROCK STAR or MUSHER or a LIBRARIAN

To me, dog sledding seems like a selfish sport. More concerned with mutt than man. But I live it, I love it.

So the question is, do you pursue what's in your HEART or do you pursue what will help the hearts of those who need it most?

AND WHY ARE THERE NEVER ANSWERS TO THE HARDEST QUESTIONS

and maybe the whole reason we ask them is because we already know. Maybe the reason this question still floats into my head and causes chaos the way a machine gun blast causes chaos in a resturuant because I keep CHOOSING the WRONG answer.

The chaos of being home is amazing. Rope swing jumps at two a.m. Summer has never felt so alive as in the midst of lightening bolts and fireflies. The world will fall apart and put itself back together in a matter of minutes.

Ghosts are the conversations you have in the woods when no one else is walking. Ruminations on so many people, places, things. Don't fear the dark. There's nothing there we can't handle. The way people change is fascinating. The way you measure your change by other people and how they have or have not changed. The way you measure you by what used to scare you and what doesn't.

There are sharks in the water, but you still gotta breathe deep and dive...

The last few days have blurred together with surprising easy. Cape Cod summers are fast. Night and day shift so quickly - always something new to call your attention.

On Wednesday old friends were surprised. I was surprised - their reactions, my own reactions to certain people. The way things changes and things don't change... That ever repeating cycle. Yes. no. Yes no. Yes. no... (rain, shine.)

The way the water is a million degrees is frightening. I could live with the salt on my lips, the wind on my face, and that vast endless blue stretching before me for a billion sunrises and sunsets.

The way I know what I know before you know it, terrifies us.

The only thing missing on days down at the water is the smell of wet fur and hosing down that shining face so grateful for all those thrown sticks or balls or whatever it is you have, you think this is all you need.

Ocean. Sky. Boat. Friends. Dog.

***
I want to wake you like a sunrise
Blow stars into your eyes
So you can see galaxies every time you awaken
(I hope you are shaking with love of life)
***

Anticipation is the best drug. I can't stop smiling. I can't get a grip of myself enough to write coherently. I don't even know why I'm so excited. I feel like the universe is being born inside me and that every minutes something grand is going to happen.

I'm having to beg the clock to move. The second hand has virtually stopped and time likes teasing those eagerly awaiting. This is the moment before the gun is fired, before the ribbon's ripped, the bottle broken on the ship.

Just take a deep breath.
The world only moves slow for so long girl, cherish it while it lasts...

The way you say goodbye is in long exaggerated gestures. Always overly dramatic, but always from the heart. It's hard to leave a love behind. Especially when your lover is something intangible: the perfect summer, the contour of the land, the way everything always comes out perfect here in Haines.

The way the phone-line goes dead and all your left with is static. Redial, call back. Except imagine if you didn't. Imagine if you let the static take over for two full years and then randomly, as if on queue you and the telephoner redial within moments of each other.