crack- fire, bone, heart.

the right side of my cheek is warm as i write next to a crackling fire.
my dog is chewing on a bone snuggled up to me.
the air smells like a cinnamon candle.
the sun is setting through the trees.
my door is wide open.
i can smell the day ending.
damn, that’s a good song in the background.
yoga has every part of me feeling happily stretched.
before i ran through a field fighting w/three dogs for a cheetah tennis ball.
infinite kisses & slobber.

i put my head on the pillow
that’s on top of a sleeping bag
i’m lying on
next to the fire
eating strawberry shortcake
wondering why
every other grown up
doesn’t wake up early
to drink coffee
in a bubble bath.

these are the moments
that keep me living.

these are the moments
it breaks my heart
to see everyone else
growing up.

we’re forced to live
& it’s ironic to see
that in the push
people forget how.

take a chance

today i’m going to
hike to the top
of a mountain
touch the lake
take pictures
eat ice cream
make a big breakfast
snuggle w/my dog
play in the rain
drink coffee
write music
smile frequently
& take a chance.

goodbye.

only after finally seeing
who you really were
did i understand why
you were afraid to share
the truth.

it seems
the greatest mysteries
are sadly solved
w/a broken heart.

tragic beginning

relentlessly you show
education of loving
isn’t something
that can be taught
stop making our beginnings
feel like a tragic end.

it’s also dangerous

my sister says it’s introspective of me to see the best in people, but she says it’s also dangerous.
i tend to agree.

flow fearlessly

i’m a big believer that in order to really live you need to really pay attention to everyone that’s around you & be open to random opportunity.  i’ve met people that have impacted my life tremendously from riding on the same airplane as them playing trivia, really taking the time to talk to artists at pike’s place that i purchase something from & from waiting in line to get a hamburger at mcdonald’s.  i have had a conversation w/a famous musician while waiting for my luggage without even knowing who that were at first that now writes me emails about his travels around the country & his life. once i got lost driving around, asked a girl riding her bike that was my age for directions & ended up on a two hour hay ride and carving pumpkins with her family.  i helped an older women carry her groceries out to her car in college & ended up eating dinner at her house nearly every week for a year.

today i met a woman while waiting for cops to arrive after the car in front of me crashed into a sign, crashed into a pole, crashed into a car & then drove on the sidewalk without ever stopping. i was sitting there next to another witness when i saw an older woman riding her horse.  i started talking to her & it turned out she has lived a pretty amazing and impressive life, to say the least.  we drank tea, i met her husband & my dog met her first horse.  we’re going horseback riding together this week.  she has done many things in her life that i dream of and she lives just the way i want to one day. she said her riding partner had moved away a week ago & stated that perhaps we were meant to meet.

i’m not sure about fate, but i am certainly set on the fact that the universe puts things out there for us all the time & we can either flow fearlessly with what’s around us or we can keep our heads down, only ever paying attention to what is safe & familiar.  i choose to flow.

i find that when i’m really open to my surrounding incredible things happen.  i get a brochure for a lesson blowing glass at the studio i’ve always meant to go to from a fellow photographer walking around snapping pictures during an art walk.  i find that the universe is always reminding me to do the things i’ve not followed up on & to live up to my potential.  recently i’ve decided to take it all a step further to follow up on suggestions from strangers, go to the plays that people hand me brochures to & to say not say no to invitations.  there’s a population of artists, of thoughtful intellectuals, of romantics, of people who have succeeded and people who have failed all around us at every moment. it’s exhaustingly exciting to think about really.  there’s potential for greatness through others even when we walk down the street and we never know how a “hello” is going to change our lives, whether simply or in the most complex of ways.  i want to get coffee w/everyone & hear how they want to impact the world.  i want to be open to possibility all the time.

i love to share lately… stories, facts i know, places i love…  i am starting to see that all we’ll ever get is all that we put out there- whether that be opportunity, love or even a penny to someone at the grocery store so that they can have exact change. these people all have stories… some want to share, some are scared & some just don’t know what they are.  it’s a possibility that by not living up to our own potential we are letting others down that we haven’t ever met.  it’s amazing to think how we’re all connected through thousands of ways, places, people, interests, etc…

it makes the title of a painting i saw on a gallery crawl this week really come to life…

“now that we’ve met i have so much more to learn.”

after all, sometimes strangers are the best teachers we’ll ever have…

Blowing Bubble the Size of School Buses

As I’ve tried to grow up I’ve learned a lot about life that drastically contrasts what I’d always imagined it (life) to be.  Strangely enough most of the lessons I’ve learned have taken the idealistic  image I’d had of so many opportunities/people & twisted them into something I no longer recognize.  It started out as something that got me down at times as I struggled to figure out what I was really meant for and how much faith I could realistically place in people & situations I found myself in, but then it changed me.  Instead of all my perfect forward thoughts becoming failed I realized that how I viewed life was skewed at the very core.  I took the positive & made it impossible, but at the same time I took the miserable & made it unbearable.  As it turns out misery can be quite a sweet commodity.

What I’m getting at here is inspiration.  I’ve always viewed it as this impossibly perfect thing.  I always sought out an idea of the sort of person that could frighteningly inspire me, but ironically enough the people who have inspired, changed & pushed me the most have been many people that don’t belong in my life at all.  In the past six months I’ve had to say two goodbyes that have ever changed me, one a little more recent.  It’s difficult to push the way things could have been aside enough to really see how things exist just as they are.  I have an impossible urge to believe that people are all great until they prove me otherwise.  I can’t change this.  It’s exhausting to try to define a way to believe in someone, so I just choose to give every human I come across the benefit of the doubt.  Oddly, I think I really do view people as their potential instead of who they really are at times.  I can so easily take the qualities they have & magnify them into false reality.  I try to push & inspire, but mostly at the core I believe.  It’s really easy to say goodbye to what is there, but it’s so difficult for me to say goodbye because I don’t really see that.  I, instead, have to say goodbye to every hope I saw, every memory I’d already made, every opportunity that never was…

At the inside of everything it’s really the people who have proven me wrong, the people who have hurt me, the people who couldn’t think beyond themselves & the people who never really knew what was important about life who pushed me forward the most.  They have made me strong enough to push forward.  They have made me learn to really appreciate my view of life & the future.  They have made me have to believe in myself to get over pain.  They have knocked me down so I have something that makes the good wonderful.  Through it all I’ve had to also accept that I can’t inspire everyone.  I can’t take them to the top of a mountain, give them a tub full of bubble solution & expect they’ll think it’s life at the core like I would.  Painfully I’m a lot more whimsical than the 7-year-old population, but favorably I can focus on what’s really important when the rest becomes a clusterfuck.

Out of all of it… trying to figure out what I’m meant to do, where the right place to call home is, who the right person is to compliment me I’ve been able to find a really odd beauty in all my failure because I’ve come to accept that none of it has been failure at all.  I’ve bravely decided to always follow my heart & passion when it comes to life, love & my career and it’s taken me in a lot of directions since I’ve graduated.  For one though I feel like I’m home & I know that I’ve found what I love to do.  I’ve committed to something for a few years, and I almost feel frightened when I even think about leaving Seattle, about leaving any of the life I’ve built here.  It’s not always been easy… moving across the country to a city you’ve never even visited on a passionate whim when you don’t know anyone never is, but it is something… It was realizing that I am strong, I am finally figuring myself out & I am my own inspiration… maybe we all are.  Maybe inspiration isn’t about finding people who define our direction at all, but rather being brave enough to take even the worst moments into our hearts and use them as our personal compass to life.

So the point of this all is that I’ve been able to do something amazing lately – to say goodbye & focus on the wonderful instead of all the missed opportunity.  Recently I’ve felt extremely close to a painful situation because of how it has inspired me, how really, it’s gotten me to where I am right now.  There’s still this aching part of me that wishes it all could have existed looking out for miles while blowing bubbles the size of school buses, but there’s a more thankful part of me at the core of it all.  There’s a part of me that knows at the heart of it all I still and will always have this person I am & have become, and that’s something I never have to say goodbye to.

my hope

& while i thought
the water was perfect
for reaping the reward
after fearlessly leaping
clothes on
bets off
you barely
wanted
to
dip
in
your
toes.

i hope one day
you can learn
to leap
by
your
own
free
will.

a simple white lie.

“hi erica,” said the older gentleman who moved into my neighborhood who always told me that i reminded him of his daughter & how much he missed his wife since she passed away.

“why, hello,” i responded back cheerfully. “i have a proposition for you. you let me borrow an egg & i’ll share the amazing brownies i’m about to make with you.”

“well, that seems like a pretty good idea,” he said cheerfully.

a couple hours later i came back carrying a plate full of brownies & some vanilla ice cream. we sat down to eat some & then he began to tell me more about his family…

“do you know how i met my wife, erica? it was the most delightfully surprising hello i’ve ever spoken. i knew she was my forever.”

once again he told me about how proud he was of his daughter & how my smile reminded me of his.  he told me that really living is the most important thing anyone can ever do.  i told him about the things i was afraid of.  i told him about some of the places i loves to go around here.  i told him that sometimes i have a lot of leftovers that might find their way to his fridge.  i knew he was lonely, but over a plate of brownies his eyes glimmered as he spoke about his life.

“thanks, erica,” he said.

“for what?” i responded.

“i knew you didn’t really need an egg from me….” & then he winked & shut the door.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Those were the times I knew I could be anything, do anything…
knowing you.
Late nights making welcome home cards for midnight shifts
& I swore that they were works of art, each line so carefully defined…
by love & longing to be just like you.
Falling asleep under a Christmas tree…
or in my sister’s bed during storms
wondering where I’d go…
you always helped my find my way.
Every morning with a kiss
& pancakes on the weekend.
Everything didn’t always made sense,
but your love for me always did.
Holding me close you let me pull away,
embracing the independence you instilled
& loving me all the same from miles away.
Your laughter is warm & your hugs igniting.
Telling me I was making mistakes,
but letting me go…
and go…
and go…
You tell me that things will be OK
& I know suddenly
that you really are right
most of the time.
When life gets scary you pull the covers
over my head
& promise me
that I am strong
& I hope
even
half
as
much
as
my
mom.