Homework: Open to all friends and passersby
Assignment: Show me something beautiful.
Remember, beauty is multi-layered, cavernous, labyrinthine, and tricky. Can be a photograph, a drawing, a poem or other prose, an incident from the beautiful folds of your memory, a surprise, etc.

Reciprocation: Fiona, asleep like she means it, plastered to my pillows.

Sometimes I look totally different from one moment to the next.

June 10th.
It is my opinion that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a wizard. Magick. Woe to those who have never read One Hundred Years of Solitude. I lie down to take what feels like my last breaths on the pillowy, yellow rose strewn pages of the book. I typically devour work after work of an artist once I develop a taste for them. I'd been putting off reading Marquez for the longest time. Now I've an appetite quite rampant and eager for more. As usual.
The weather has turned from rain to 95 degree suffocation to comfortable warmth. I take my book and journal out onto the porch with the giant hanging ferns these days.

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It is my opinion that women are the finest most superior creatures. I've held this position since first stride, for quite a long long time. Since childhood I have seen countless examples of woman's strength of character, and very little, if ever, in a man. There is no comparing to the myriad folds of wisdom in a woman's depthful mind. Murky dark sparkling depths, morning-tinted honey coloured depths, depths that hang with ancient gold bangles and clove spices, ethereal paisley depths, infinity galactic depths. I have never seen a better artist than what a woman's talents conceive (however closely I hold Hesse, Kerouac, Salinger, Dostoyevsky). The only display of strength I have seen in any man has been when my father entered recovery and completely turned around a life of 20 years as an alcoholic. Woman, science will tell you, has a much higher threshold for pain. I have seen countless women bear in stride a weight of crushing excrutiation, physical, emotional, and come out with an unsettlingly strong gaze, no demands for praise. Woman is still pierced and tied to the tree, her roots go deep. I ask you, where is your depth? These depths are demonstratively beyond the realm of man. Ask them and they'll laugh. Woman is further tied by her alliance with the moon. Science again, during her cycle all five of a woman's natural senses flourish in greater sensitivity. Women, almost exclusively, experience synaesthesia. Earning my BS, my Sensation/Perception Professor sat me down to make a list of the coloured numbers and coloured keys in my mind. 5, green, Db, green, 9, black, CM, yellow honey. I will play you yellow honey. I know this key, because it is three. Even as a straight woman, I'd rather see the naked form of a woman; it's just much more aesthetically breathtaking. I compare the violin to the curves of a woman's body and it's no wonder those strings drive everyone to ecstasy. Time stands still and falls in the heavy slow strings like planets in orbit, gravity, in a woman's presence.
Blast, I tire of this. this is just a sloppy approximation of what is in mind, of what is being threaded oh so delicately, slowly to white pages. My mind may just overflow in a moony migraine. They say that's a woman's disease, but woman can bear it.

(Only marginally related.)
I find myself more and more irritated by women who only wish to collect pretty things. Sedivy has a degree in Interior Design and a budding career in the midst, and I still find her to be the most Earth-tied individual I know. These examples come out in our midnight howlings and races through the streets. I've been called a sensualist with a fierce accusation and I suppose that is true in some aspects, down to the smooth wooden beads that I wear, the satin skirts to the knees, scarves, my round and flavourful coffee and teas, robust wines, and feather bed. Perhaps, but it is the most that I do in my homeless nomadic state. It's been a year in my haunted house, one of the best years of my life. When I moved in I packed all of my meager possessions away into one room in my Father's house and came only with some clothing, books, music, and a camera. I find myself sorting, packing, and storing most of it for my move to France. Who knows? Perhaps I'm just tired of women who spend most of their time accessorizing and filling their homes with pretty comfortable things. [Your boyfriend buys you everything that you are, I should have said to her. My how you tire me.] Perhaps I have just spent WAY too much time in my research on Global Poverty. I'm having trouble switching between worlds. I'm happy on my roadless path, beaten leather sandals beneath my feet, sensual brown shift dress, and a million sweet souls swirled into a locket at my chest.

Speaking of sweet.
My friends - already a hug-y loving bunch - have been overwhelming in their dearness to me lately. Once I returned from Central America and spread the news that I was soon to be moving to France I was greeted with upturned knitted brows and dear laments. Outside of work, I find myself spending all of my time with them - an odd delight for someone as reclusive as myself. I try to make time for my friends, but lately they've been my main priority. I smile so hard my eyes crinckle until the tears come.
I receive a text message to meet everyone at the work bar. I walk in the door and everyone has fake cliché Frenchy mustaches drawn on their fingers with a Sharpie pen. Fingers instantly go to the top lip and overly drippy French accents are sported amid protests to my move.

Brian - exclaiming in mid French drooldrip.


( Locket )

Days burn so quickly lately. From one place to the next, changing in my car, driving for hours with a friend only to turn right back around and drive back realizing we loved the conversation of the drive better than the destination, watching the sunrise with multiple friends, from the floor futon with the feather blanket, women are lucky to ever have sex this good, seeing a new movie twice and only crying half as many times as the first, two trips to the airport, herbs from the drugstore to ease a heinously persistent health condition, researching future destinations so dear Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, all of the wonderful things my managers said behind my back, Allende and Marquez consenting the magick of this world, all smiles.

Now you understand my passion for tea. And by tea, I mean life. The first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.

All hours are experienced - sleep is apparently unnecessary. I let myself sleep late to stave off the burning. I open my eyes and am instantly alight. Sleeping late does no good, but to extinguish the morning which I love. No good at all. In the car with me. I need to go to Target, so I drive to the next state. What? I got to Target. But I don't really need anything there, just coconut. I jog. Once you're a jogger, there's no going back - but I'm sure the universe was just waiting for me to buy better shoes and start running, which I did at age 15 - been over since then. I run, never with my hands in fists, but talons out. I run and then I'm just burning harder. Sometimes I want to stop people in their conversation and just have them run with me. But running is mine. I've taken to honey-thick liqueurs and an overabundance of strings on the headphones. I'd like to crotchet a dark labyrinth and descend it upon the city, touch hands with passersby as we figure the center.

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June 4th.
The miserable rain outside.
I went to Central America to sate the burning desire to experience a non-Westernized region. I've burned for this for quite sometime. For a while there was always some nonsense in the way - school, work, etc. I took my chances. In order to quench a bit of this, I booked the few weeks there. In Guatemala I had some of the most profound moving experiences of my life - in Honduras as well, but somehow I was so much more shaken by Guatemala. I miss it, like a howl in the bones.
When I got back it rained for a week straight - nothing out of the ordinary for this little slice of land. A steady constant pissing outside, pervasive grey, all things normal. I look at you like you are a new fledgling, a pompous child still learning when you remark on the rain. The arrow has landed: I will be moving to France in Autumn. The North: Nord-Pas de Calais, Lille, yes. I received the email my second day in Guatemala and hit my head on the sloped ceiling while jumping up and down. From then on, every French person that I met replied with, "Lille, it's rainy." Like listening to a fool talk about the war that I just got back from.
Do not misinterpret, my joy has no limit. I will be teaching in one of the Académies de Lille. Shocking and overwhelmingly amazing. Classroom She, ha! and I settle my nose into work work work as much as possible until I go. But I am constant, this is something that I have wanted since I was a little girl and would look out at the horizon with a quickening pulse and a deepening smile - something that I have been working toward for a while.
It makes me tremendously happy to have done all of this on my own. While I have done everything in my life by my own doing, my own persistence and strength of mind, I still rejoice in this accomplishment. I know oh so many women - some of them my very close personal friends - who have done everything on the coattails of their boyfriends, then husbands. This very thing in fact: go to another country, live off of them, get a job with them, voila. While it is wonderful to achieve any of this however one has in life, it still strikes me as incredibly helpless and reminds me of those vapid lunching ladies discussing their worthlessly overpriced china and nothing of importance at all. Who knows, perhaps it is merely that those who are wildly privileged will always strike me with a sideways slant while they achieve an odd unique sense of idiocy. Perhaps. Perhaps it is just that I have been spending too much time recently with one particular friend who fits this bill. [Sarah, if you're reading, this does not mean you, or anyone in particular. There's my disclaimer. Remember, this is my journal.]
So I have been working and saving with the intentions of making this last as long as possible. I do wonder how thee children will behave with me. However, I've always treated children with respect. Everyone wants to be treated as a valid human being, and children are no exception. I've always loathed people who simply google in a child's face and assume that all must be kept from them, or that they are simply incapable of understanding most things. Children are some of the most genuine creatures around us. Then again, I may be placed with high school aged students. We shall see in a few weeks when all of this is revealed to me.

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June 10th.
The last weekend of May proved to be one of the most exhausting joyous times. A fire circle, fire dancing, no frenzied feet, One Sweet World so let us sleep outside tonight Lay down in our Mother's arms, sitting over these bones, But this I admit tastes so good Hard to believe an end to it Smell Touch Feel How can this rhythm ever quit, Don't mean to dwell on this dying thing, Intoxicate moving wine to tears and drinking it deep, Is this not enough this blessed sip of life,
Late at night with TV's hungry child
big belly swells
Well, for the price of a coke or a smoke
I could keep alive those hungry eyes,
right, wrong, weak, strong,
ashes to ashes we all fall down, Forget about the reasons and the treasons we are seeking Forget about the notion that our emotions can be swept away Forget about being guilty we are innocent instead Intentions are not wicked don't be tricked into thinking so, And I can't believe that we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well, Would you not like to be sitting on top of the world with your legs hanging free, Some might tell you there's no hope in hell just because they feel hopeless but you don't have to be a thing like that, I'm on bended knee Bartender please, We're gonna be Crazy like a river bends, Honey honey come and dance with me, I'm gonna walk you through the pathless roads, Long Before These Crowded Streets here stood my Dreaming Tree, Every whispering wind and second counts, But you might try to save yourself, A smile of sweetest flowers Wilted so and soured Black tears stain the cheeks That once were so admired, The Dreaming Tree has died, Do what you will always Walk where you like your steps Do as you please I'll back you up
I had a clue now it's gone forever.

I'm convinced that if you don't like them, you don't like joy - or teeth or blood or sex or dirt or this sweet world.
Though I tend to take everything on a spiritual level. Sha Ya!

( you must know about my obsession with strings and brass )

Two days and nights of revelry. Although one of the 20 year old boys next to us decided to take the angles of my face and make a joke out of them. I've never quite been the taste of the mainstream/frat boy world, ah well. I find americans are typically interested in uniformity and faces with shallow features. While I would never be foolish enough to complain about physical appearances, my large features and sharp cheekbones are out of place here. Good thing I'm leaving, yes? Ahhhhahahahhahahha!

Pucker up, Loveiekins.

Hello 3am.

A bullet point list of selected moments of the past week

* All bets are off. I am truly freed. When telling my roommate and her boyfriend about climbing the volcano and diving deep below the sea, they cringed and shook their heads and talked of how they'd be too afraid to do anything like that. I was seized by a feeling of pure and natural joy to be absolutely no one but myself. Is this what you call daring? Dive to the deeps. I stopped her in her questioning and asked, "How could you not?"
I find people are too sedentary. Or, conversely, you may call me crazy. Wild. Whatever word it is you please, that I hear selected and repeated over and over, but these qualities have given to me the very most precious life of wonderment, and the ability to appreciate it perhaps to a greater extent - which is maybe the secret.
I am not interested in creating bonds with those who do not share this element. It may sound cruel. Is it? It's not meant to be. I just refuse to be stifled. You may approve or disapprove, but those are your things and do not concern me, nor are they any of my busines...[.]

* Odd sense of restlessness.

I, pointedly purposefully, told him that I hate shy men. It was explosive, whatever it was behind his eyes, but he was too shy to tell me.
I could never involve myself with anyone with less strength of character than my own. I have no sympathy for it. Bold to a fault, perhaps I am - though not likely. A fault, that is. I guess we're a little more rare than I thought. Oh well.

* Last night I went out for margaritas with friends and drank to intoxication for the first time in longer than I can remember. Margeeerrrrritas, not something that I drink much of, and the sweetness passed over my tongue with a pinch. Seated on a stool of a dark red bar, my friends curled the entire length of the corner. I laughed and talked with an animation that felt like a great sigh of relief. There is a sympathy among us that draws us so close. The similar paths that our lives have carved have united us closely. Later we met up with friends from work. Raucous joy. We are a deliciously sick bunch. I fell asleep on Matt's couch under a blood red blanket and who knows what time it was.

* Oi. I dyed mein har with plastic bags instead of gloves, just to save money. Now maybe it is as black as my mood lately. Brown. Cha. Get it right. Now all of the shades are even, except the ones behind the eyes.

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Friday 30th
Moods are focusing. Perhaps it is the moon. Surely it is the fire circle this weekend. Tonight and tomorrow night will be thousands of bodies, fire dancers, flames at the feet, a hotel room with friends an hour away, music that is stitched golden from the sky, champagne and the bowl of fruit that I sliced my finger making, dripping, pineapple and strawberries, glutinous addict. Celebrate, we will.

Shhmile.

More later...

I left Claire on Utila; she had several days left to complete her OW certification. I'd heard so much about Roatan - that it was the most spectacular of the three islands. An Australian girl at Tikal told me about the white beaches with sand smooth like milk. I was stirred.
There is no boat that runs between the islands, seems foolish, so I had to go back to the main land, and cross back over. The boat from Utila was temporarily out of service, waiting for a part from The States. Several locals had set up with their boats, offering the ride to the main land for the same price as the boat. Nice. I boarded a tiny motor boat with a few others, and began the 1.5 hour trip back. The trip was longer because the boat was smaller and less powerful, but it afforded me the most amazing of views. I sat, one with the water, right at its level, and watched the great shifting of the tides. Waves rolling like great tectonic plates, slats of water, giant shields rising up in movement and lowering again in one progressive movement. The sea stretched on and on and on and on and blue on, pervasive, with nothing around us. Out in the open sea. I found myself hoping that the boat would break the next wave a little too hard and we would go toppling. I imagined my laughter as I swam back to its overturned backside. I love to swim and do it quite well. There was no fear.
On the mainland I talked with a few others while I waited for the much larger ship to Roatan. Your baggage is checked like it is in an airport. I boarded and took a seat on the open roof of the boat, just out of the intense sun. A man came by peeling paper bags off of a roll and handing them to each passenger. I looked up, two thoughts: his beauty, and what? No thanks I shook him away. I sat reading for some of the trip, until the waves became too intense and the large boat began taking the water in great swooping strides. Butterflies in the stomach, I smiled. It was a bounding as if the ship were a great beast on the run, a progressive circular motion driving forward. I laughed, until I noticed the people around me, moaning and gaging. The bags, I found out, were to aid passengers with their motion sickness. Oi. I never get motion sickness, but the sounds of the people around me, the woman two seats down from me, retching into a plastic bag forced me to align my attention so as not to let it bother me. Two hours later we reached Roatan.

This lovely relic sits beautifully decomposing and destroying the sea and atmosphere as the ship pulls up. Yesh.

It was darkening as I got into Roatan, so I went directly to the West End to find a residence. I walked into one and instantly made the acquaintence of Genvieve, a French-Canadian woman who had checked in earlier that day. We instantly connected and would go on to spend the entire trip together. We decided to check into a better residence the second day, and took a private cabana at the very back courtyard of a residence. The randomness of fate had us bump into two of her friends from back home in Canada. Novelties and a deceptively small world. We made friends with the Peace Corp couple from the cabana down the path, and our group became 6 for the rest of our time there.

Roatan is a paradise like I've never seen. Three summers ago, I had the fortune of going to the Bahamas. It was like nothing I was used to. I am more accustomed to strapping my backpack on my back and roughing it in places where I know little of the language and not a single soul. I am accustomed to driving my travels very hard, to see, to experience, have my life in my teeth, and come very close to something very precious. I am not used to laying on a beach. I have, in the past, highly underrated this kind of travel. I learned to relax a little in the Bahamas. I marveled at the clear waters, chased the lizards, swam in the pool and sea, and just simply pampered myself. Yes, I put my feet into the Caribbean Sea three years ago, but this time they seemed like entirely new waters to me.
Roatan is an incomprehensible beauty. The Sea is crystal like gems that you would find in the darkest coolest sparkling cave. Turquoise is the word that is used to describe it, but I prefer the ice of a blue diamond, the stone that captured me so long ago. Here it is a sea of blue diamonds. A progression from perfectly clear at the lip of the sea - I watched tiny silver fish threading their way through the inches of water, seeing every inch perfectly clearly. The clear gives way to my ice blue diamonds, who them burn off into turquoise. I have obsessions with blue - notes and rocks and veins and ohmy - I could not have painted it better. I spent the majority of my time in the sea or simply staring at the sea. My eyes were shamelessly glutinous for this blue, this view. I took photo after photo - everywhere is a frame - capturing the blue.

( Treasure Chest )

Genvieve and Myself

Excerpt:
Today I watched 3 humming birds share a feeder, flitting back and forth, as I shared a lunch of grilled chicken and lemonade with the cat at my feet. The unique beauty of my life settles upon me and I exhale a constant appreciation.

Honduras is startlingly different than Guatemala. I took a bus a matter of several hours and was delivered to an entirely different world. I paid the customs officer Q30, which is very little considering what they can sometimes demand, got back on the bus and made my way to San Pedro Sulla to connect again. The mountains are still there, always, bordering the view, the people are quite different. In Guatemala I was touched by how genuine each interaction was. Every human connection was made with deep open eyes and honest hands. I felt that the nonsense walls of the Western World did not surround these people. Finally. This is what I seek.
Walking through the vast bus station in San Pedro Sulla, all eyes gazed upon and followed us. Men pored from stores with eager eyes and excited grins, watching us as we went. Women silently and steadily assessed us. I wanted to take their hands and sit us both at a bench and ask them question after question, but perhaps I'd just get lost in their beauty. I silently tried to signal to Claire as each woman passed, remarking on their beauty. Regal.
At each step another man howled or exclaimed, made kissy noises, or implored us with compliments. I am of the opinion that it is necessary to experience such things. Responsibilities. I think it is necessary to walk as The Other to inspect the self - and I long for these novel experiences.
Until we got off of the mainland of Honduras, these incidences never stopped.

Found in a boutique window at the San Pedro Sulla bus station. Once we recovered from our laughter, Claire and I took comparison photos with each of us. Normal breasts/monstrous haphazard breasts.

Malaria-free and filthy in La Ceiba.


Dees es my malaria-free smile. Don't cut yourself on my bone structure.

We took a small boat to the island of Utila. Before we left we agreed that we had enough time to see and truly experience 2 countries. We both agreed on Honduras for the border crossing, largely inspired by Claire's desire to get her Open Water certification as a diver. She gushed on for a time about her experiences diving elsewhere, and I listened with wrapped attention. I. have always. wanted. to dive. I have always belonged gracefully, torridly, beneath the sea. Underwater Thing. Luna Sea She. I appreciate each womanly body of currents for her unique lore, and I string up a great tapestry of her legends on the walls of my heart and the insides of my eyes. I've always wanted to dive, but I never thought that my life could afford such a luxury. It seemed like a novelty out of reach, something for the bourgeois to fancy and under-appreciate. Oh the gems that this life uncovers.
The Bay Islands are an hour or two by boat off of the Caribbean Coast of Honduras. By 7am the sun is enough to burn you and make you dizzy and sick. We boarded the gleaming white boat and sat on the deck, luxuriating in the sun. I snapped a picture of Claire that perfectly describes our mood at the time, and found rainbows in the sea. The Bay Islands boast a stunning view of the second largest barrier reef in the world and the largest in this hemisphere. Even without diving, the reef is so large and spectacular it can be seen perfectly just by snorkeling. The Islands are the cheapest and most popular place in the world to gain your diving certification. Utila is the cheapest island among the three, so we headed there first. Claire was set to begin her certification. With my current financial priorities - moving, etc - I was not yet - yet is the key - to spend several hundred dollars on certification, but I was definitely going to do a dive. I paid the $80, the $3 reef tax, and went off to wait at the local clinic to be sure that my miserable migraine head would not explode underwater, or that my dormant asthma from childhood would not mysteriously rekindle. I took this picture with a snort as I waited for the doctor to show up sometime between 10 and noon. After a check up and a $15 payment, I said goodbye to the friends that I made while waiting for the doctor, and wandered back to the dive shop to schedule my morning dive.

I arrived at 7am and met with my dive master, a tattooed man with a quirky dark humour mirroring my own. We got along beautifully. He looked me over and estimated sizing for my gear. Tank, XS vest, XS wet suit, size 6.5 flippers. I scowled, I do not see myself as being as small as everyone else seems to. I am a tall tree, sturdy support. He handed me the weight belt and the standard 3 weights of 4 pounds each and we headed out to open waters on the boat. Once settled we began suiting up. Once I was in complete gear and looking like an alien fish, he walked me to the end of the boat. "Your vest is inflated to counteract the weights, so you will be completely boyant in the water. Jump in and you will float." I stepped off of the boat and promptly began to sink. I tread water like my life depended on it - it did - and, struggling, I kept myself above water. My guide's panicked face was comical to me once the situation was over, and he grabbed his flippers and dove in to save me. "Wow. You're lighter than I thought," he said. "Let's get one of those weights off of you." Blast you! I am steal! But please, yes, get this weight off so's I don't drown. I have yet to regard this event as anything but brilliantly and perfectly amusing.
We swam - well, he dragged my too heavy flippered body to the shallow end and we adjusted. There we went over the simple underwater hand vocabulary that he had taught me back on the island. We put on our masks and with the mouthpiece bitten between my teeth, I knelt on the ocean floor and breathed underwater for the first time. A burst of calm elation, like a symphony commencing in my chest. Ecstasy and my eyes closed. My arms floated up, and I inhaled and exhaled with a perfect rhythm of escaping bubbles, cool delicious underwater air. We did a few of the preliminary underwater exercises, clearing our masks, switching mouthpieces, and began our swim into the deep.
I often think of my self as the luckiest woman in the world. This life is brilliant and I have the clarity to see that. I do, and I worship it on slick knees. Swimming, breathing in meditative rhythm to my own personal underwater symphony, I coasted over and between underwater mountains of coral. Vibrant colours shimmered iridescent on impossibly delicate marine life. The coral like vibrant otherworldly flowers, here in my own world, my Sea She world. I swam along with my guide trailing behind me. He points and we see an Eagle Ray, it's long thin body rippling below us. We followed it for a time, hovering above. I smiled and waved at the other dive masters below the sea and invariably confused them with my hand gestures in my elation. Weightlessly gliding through my world, I stared at the golden spindly arms of the coral, the large voluptuous flower-like patches of coral, all breathing in the same rhythm with me. Electrically coloured fish swam by me in clusters, my presence a matter of course. Of course. I glided at the base of one of the coral mountains and watched the sand shifting on the ocean floor, and thought I would lose myself, or that my mask would fill not with the salt of the ocean but that of my tears. Like hands passing in ceremony, one on top of the other, the sands shifted in rhythm on the ocean floor. It's precious the amount of memories this swelling heart holds. I was filled with an overwhelming calm. There is no time in this place, save for the temporal rhythm of my breath. I gazed at the top of the water from the other side. Incomparable.
I didn't even know that we were ascending until the top of my head crested the water, and I raised my face up with a start. "How was that?" my guide asked, and my smiles and elation was like a child at Christmas, marvelling with wondering eyes at the miracle, the fantasy. Our boat was full of dive masters, doing some periodic maintenance on their certification. They smiled at me like the new protege that I was, seeing the stamp and hook upon me and welcoming me into their world. My bones ACHE with the NEED to get my certification - so I am free dive anywhere, with certain restrictions like depth, etc. I throw up my hands.
I lie on the side of the boat, under the sun, waiting for the dive masters to finish. Holding on to the side rail, sitting practically on the roof, we sped back to the island, the wind my rhythm now.

Back on the island, I swung from a hammock, still maintaining my zen-like internal rhythm, and watched a progressive sunset with nothing but my thoughts and the open sea before my eyes.




Swim like a fish, I did, below the blossoms.


Lanky Lizards!
I have chased them and squeeled in Italy, the Bahamas, and now Honduras. This eccentricity is not likely to change. Yarsh.


Blue.

A favourite memory

Us

I am touched by the people that I have collected from the various parts of this brilliant world. My circle stretches to include them, spiraling them in to place. For several days we traveled with three friends from canada, a woman from The Netherlands, and an Israeli woman. At a table in Flores, a few of us split a few bottles of crisp white wine and talked until the night exhausted itself. At 3:30am we sleepily climbed into a camionetta to make the silent ride to Tikal. In the sleeping van, I stared out of the window at the abundantly starry sky, Damien Rice on the headphones, a deep-eyed grin on my face.
We reached the ruins at a dark am hour. Rhianne, my Dutch companion, and I made our way through the darkness of the jungle. All week long Claire and I had been gripping each others hands, "We're going to the Juuuuuuungl", we'd scream the word in an overemphasized French accent. Mad and wild-eyed we were. Tikal is the thick of the jungle. In fact, several armies have sent their troops here to train, because it is considered one of the truest jungle terrains. Tikal is technically a Tropical Rainforest, and the humidity lays thick and fast on your skin. We apply our deet and head for Temple IV.
After a trudge and a climb, we are told to remain completely silent once we take a seat on the stones on the top of Temple IV. Both out of respect, and so we are able to hear the jungle waking up. The sun begins its climb and burns off the heaviness of the morning fog and humidity. From here we watch winged creatures in their morning activities. Knife-like cries break from the beaks of the creatures in the canopy of trees below us. Beautiful foreign sounds that stir our excitement.

Later we are traipsing the jungle floor with our guide. He points and I see black spider monkeys swinging overhead. Hand over foot over tail, they climb easily across the canopy of trees, oblivious to our gasps and stares. Our guide pulls a firm leaf down from a tree, tears it and holds it under my nose. Allspice. I take the leaf from him and greedily inhale the beloved scent, then pass it along our group. Next he picks up a handful of what look like firm green grapes. He cracks them and passes. A familiar scent invades my senses. A natural citronella. Giant birds that stand to my waist wander partially hidden in the foliage to my right.
We make our way to the many temples and ruined villages. I had been eagerly awaiting this part of the journey since the day I booked the flight. The ancient areas draw me, I feel their howl deep within my bones. I would happily spent a lifetime among them, running my hand slowly and softly over their old stones, listening to their lore, the secrets they whisper steadily to those who open their ears to them.
Last year I became similarly enamoured as I wandered through Rome and Vatican City. Enamoured, a frenzy, rapture, wiping the drool from my mouth, I try to stay silent so as not to draw too much attention to my ecstasy. Archaeologist She, collecting secrets.

( ----> )

----------> To Honduras via a roadside shack.

Yesterday, another stretch of travel by chicken bus. Intimately packed. When not standing, the passenger across the aisle and I bridge the gap by leaning into each other and we are held perfectly in place. The spiritedness of the passengers is a sigh of relief to me. We transferred what? 3, 4 times - making our way independently, as we were sure we could do. A stop at a tiny stand among the mountains and I was awash with this unique experience. Several moments later we stopped again. The paving gave way to dirt roads, and we waited as a rock slide was cleared. Mountains our companions in the palpable humidity. My heart full open wide, the size of the canyon, hungrily devoutly gazing at the view. Beginning in the shuttle again, the most exhilarating death defying stretch, where I truly got to fear for my life, winding the bumpy unpaved roads, the edge an inch away and a perfect cliff. Thrilling and still breathing.

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I wonder who made the cookies - brown sugar with large raisons. They were in the lunch that was packed for us on our visit to the Lanquin caves and Semuc Chempey. A great part of me hopes that they are done in collaboration with one or some of the Mayan families, with the families preparing the meals and receiving a cut of the profit and cost of the trip. Obviously homemade, with just the right amount of toasting to the bottoms, I contemplated this on the camionetta ride back to Coban, exhausted from the day. We left at 7am for a delicious and refreshing breakfast of fruit, heavy wheat toast, and real coffee. then it was a 2 hour ride to the waterfalls. We climbed the side of a mountain to behold the most breathtaking view of the lagoons. An intricate and steep rock path provided the footing for the intense climb. At times we were climbing perfectly vertical step ladders. Dripping with sweat, a baptism of sorts, I gazed at the view.
Guatemala provides the most arresting views of rolling mountains that my eyes have ever seen. They plunge into canyons and raise exaltedly to the sky with a dizzying majesty. I began the climb down the side of the mountain alone.
The bliss of catching the various different rays of sunlight that slant and burst through the trees overhead. A slot of sunlight and the green leaves shine yellow. A scurry and I catch a lizard darting across my path and disappearing between rock and tree. Dragonflies buzz everywhere; I let them pass and I gaze on their blue iridescent bodies and wings.
The mouth of mountain delivers me to a wooden boardwalk through the trees; I see the water shimmering only yards away, people bathing. A quick removal of clothing and I am in the crisp diamond waters of the limestone pools. The water is crystal blue and green, the limestone slippery and yellowish brown beneath my feet. I make my way to the mouth of the river and watch the water bursting forth from between the rocks; bold, constant, and certain. Carry these things. My friends catch up and we shared a bagged lunch seated on the limestone. I give my body up to the water again, and glide peacefully across the pools. There was one moment when the realization that it was a day in a week with a time somewhere to someone washed over me, and I smiled. I was exactly where I should be. Later I watched an adventurous Guatemalan boy climb the mountain's edge, mount a tree, and dangle from an impossibly thin branch above the lagoons until precisely when he decided it fit to let go and drop to the pool below. We are not so different.

( Paraíso )

San Pedro
Lago De Atitlan
Guatemala

From a hammock in San Pedro...
This morning was the experience of the chicken bus. Exhilarating. Mostly old school buses from the US, painted bright colours and blaring music even the locals find to be trite. A short ride for a matter of change and we stopped to transfer in another city. A much longer and suffocatingly packed ride ensued toward the Lake. The bus rattled along, full of Guatemalans and Mayans; some sleeping, some laughing, one Guatemalan toddler reaching up to stroke the floral pattern dress that the girl from Utah was wearing. After so long and so many twisted curves among the mountains, we would stop and several Guatemalan and Mayan people would get on the bus carrying buckets and baskets of goods they hoped to sell to the passengers. Mostly beverages, snack foods and small meals, some weavings. Several exhilarating and almost fatal screaming speeding turns and we were boarding the boat from Panajachel to San Pedro. The boat rhythmically jammed along the choppy water for 20 minutes, jarring my head yet rhythmically soothing my body.

Right now there is a bitterness in the air from the harvesting and processing of the coffee, all done manually several doors down from the residence. Its sharp headiness is not enough to have me get out of this hammock by the Lake. I like its pungent odour. I hear music from several places, out on the street and further down from the deck below the residence. From this place I watch the clouds roll in among the mountains that surround the Lake. There has been thunder all day from the heavy clouds among the mountain tops, but we have enjoyed nothing but sun.

I tend to find myself on the roof of each residence in the early morning hours. Here it is easy. I gaze on a vast lake surrounded by mountains. The lake itself is a product of a collapsed volcano. If you go diving here, the lake reveals its natural warm pockets, suits are not required.

Last night I dragged Claire - continually reassuring me that it was fine - to Los Thermales. Natural thermal pools that we discovered in our wanderings. We paid a little over $US3 and sat in one of the soothing warm pools, a thunderstorm the music around us. The rain fell at various intensities around us, on our faces, and tops of the head. With only a candle we watched the thunder and lightning in the distance. I smiled, fireflies lighting up the trees like faerie folk silently signaling to me. We bolted out of the water, laughing as one lightning strike was too close for comfort.
On the way back to the residence we purchased a delicious meal of grilled chicken, black beans, avocado, tortilla, and jalapenos from the Mayan Comedore woman. It is easy to swing from a hammock with a book at night, gazing out at the lake and the tiny jeweled villages of light scattered along the water's edge and up the sides of the mountain - as if floating in the dark air. This morning, watching the men in their wide-rimmed woven hats out on the lake in their tiny canoe-like boats - peaceful - it is easy to see how one could be detained here for a long and happy life. The streets of the city are narrow, cobblestoned, and impossibly sloped. Packed and crammed in terrible shanty town conditions, these have been the people who have smiled most openly to me in all of my travels. I have experienced similar regions, I suppose, yes. There is a level of interaction free of the what? pretension, fear, selfishness, self-centeredness of the western world. We are able to speak openly with smiles to these people whose language we share little of. I have every intention of coming back to Central America for a period of several months to volunteer and properly learn the language among the people, as I believe it is best experienced.

If you could see this view, would your heart jump maddeningly and then slow to a hypnotizing rhythm of a dream? Ah, my chest beats well and each sea-baring breath is an infusion of pure beautiful life. I am close and touching something so preciously.

( Thunder Heart )

Devotchka

Last night I made my way over to the Southside to meet Xavier at a café and talk about and muse over my recent travels. After an hour I left him and walked down the block to Diesel to meet a friend from work, and to see my loves my darlings Devotchka. Joe turned out to be the perfect concert partner for such an experience; he is perhaps more in love with them than myself. Perhaps, though not likely. It is unique in this life to find a group that makes the music that your ears and heart are waiting to hear. Well, isn't that easy; I didn't have to do a thing. What this body was needing to hear - body, because music is felt with my whole being - is stitched sturdily from their instruments. I explain my penchant for slightly eerie circus music with a healthy and maniacal flair of Eastern European strings to Joe when he asks how I first began listening to Devotchka. I stared at the stage with such wide-eyed eagerness that I hardly noticed that I was holding my breath until my neck and shoulders began to hurt from the rigid, fixed, electric magnitude of the attention that I paid to the stage. I exhaled and dove into their sea of strings and bells, accordion bliss, vaudeville strings, driving percussion, and oh his dream-like wail of a voice.
The evening ended with a deceptively strong woman climbing the 2 long red silk ropes and delivering an awe inspiring aerial performance. It's no secret that I seem destined to run off with a Vaudeville Circus once I have a free moment. I was left feeling as if the night's performance was everything that my senses and my mind seek from a group of artists. Everything felt completely right and perfectly in its proper place.
Joe and I seemed to be unable to stop talking after the show, so I dragged him to a nearby wine bar, a favourite of mine. Shocking, he seems to be a new lovely light of friendship in my life. People fall from the sky sometimes. Our similarities - obnoxious in their abundance - are followed by beautiful and necessary differences.

( Mad & Faithful )

The heat at certain moments threatened to fill your throat and nose and snuff out all of the cool breeze, the breeze that makes breathing possible. A yard away, I stood gazing at the mouth of an active volcano. It was smaller than I would have imagined; perhaps 10 inches around. The noise, however, could be heard from the other side of the canyon. With a powerful hiss, glowing red and blackened lava was spit into the air, not very high, and began its slow journey down the side of the volcano. Do you know? The stuff glows. It glows a kind of red that gives away to coral, its edges black and hardening. We left for the volcano at 6am. The hike began half-way up the side of the mountain, after winding and careening around the side of the thing. Children expertly sold rods of bamboo to climbers to use as a walking stick. Boys and men repeated their pitch of a taxi service, a horse to carry hikers up the mountain.
We found our guide. Claire and I both speak French fluently, therefor we can read a great deal of Spanish and understand a startling amount when spoken to in the language. Our guide proceeded in Spanish, and I took in all of the details of the avocado trees, the squirrels and other animal life, the names and histories of the 3 active volcanoes, and their various different styles of lava flow. Beautiful black lava rock was left behind from previous "eruptions". I am reminded of mousse, beautiful dark ribbons rippling heavily, black clouds. They sparkle. I pocketed a couple of the twinkling dark rocks. We made our way closer to the top, scaling rough black lava rock. At certain points the ground was cracked, white ashen lips of the Earth emitting a wafting heat. I wanted to pour water down, lose myself in the steam and send praises to the 4 corners, the Earth, and the sky. The sulfur filled my throat and blackened my skin and clothes. I climbed over to the tip and I watched, a delicious fear exhilarating my veins. At times it was so hot it was dizzying, and I looked quickly in all directions for a pocket of cool air. Our guide pushed a stick into the lava and it instantly set alight. Our group stood, laughing, eyes and hearts wide open. I enjoyed a conversation in French down the side of the volcano, shared between myself, Claire, a Belgian man, a Québecois gentlemen, and a Frenchman. My skin was covered with a pervasive blackness that I hardly thought to wash off until late that night before falling into bed.

Where lava shoots.


( She Breathes Fire )

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6:30am on the roof of the residence with the hammocks and palmtrees, lilacs, and the sun, the morning rays giving hints of the full potential of its strength. I sit wearing comfortable brown and black, a smoky pink scarf about my shoulders. With the mountains framing my entire view, I feel entirely calmed, outside of time. I nibble on the sweet pastries from the market and think about leaving Antigua. The sun rises and sets early here. I've fallen in to so many otherworldly moments here. Beauty in its proud full capacity is a simple constant in this place, as is the destitution and youthless stares from the eyes of children - eyes that are somehow still the softest and happiest that I have ever seen. Exactly what I was searching for. These are the reasons that I have come to this place.
Put down this pen, the road again.

( Window/Memories )

There are certain places where I feel completely calmed, at ease. The minuscule pressings of what life in this time has turned into do not penetrate here; these things that are but pests in our lives, that the lucky few will like fools never experience.
I think what sets me apart is that I do not ask for sense, I do not ask for understanding, I do not ask for acceptance, I do not ask for accompaniment. I merely just be. I go between, and simply just am.

My mother's boyfriend is a lovely intelligent man whom I adore - both for how much he adores her and how beautifully he lives his life. Before I left I shared with him a few notes on the gravity of certain places. We spoke of Cathedrals. As I've said, no matter how many old cathedrals I wander through in however many lands, I will never tire of them. My enemy, I know you well. Christianity can no longer touch me with its destructive poisonous spindly little fingers. I walk in your house with perfect immunity. I am calm because I am safe from you, even in your own house. Cathedrals mark the passing of time in a certain place. You will see the art and the style of the time that has pushed through that spot of land. The colours. What was right and wrong, tasteful or gauche. Ceremony. I love that human beings are creatures that move in ritual. Ritual, symbolism is one of the most precious things that we creatures have created. Architecture functions as symbol at times. The surest way to unite a torn land is to plant the first cathedral. The people are gathered. The creation of a cathedral is a monumental gesture. Tread lightly. Regardless of my position on Christianity, cathedrals are a place for people to gather. The bringing together of bodies and minds carries a remarkable energy - together we have come to this place. Whether you believe whatever, the communal place is sacred.
I am forever drawn to these places, and I enter with a sturdy clack of my heels and likewise sturdy calm to my chest.

( The Symbol & the Sacred )

Likewise, Cemeteries.
Growing up, cemeteries were places in which to have picnics with a lover, take a stroll and clear my thoughts, a bit of privacy for reading or writing, an ideal spot to traipse through with a camera. I decided to leave my SLR at home. There were a million moments when I wished I had brought the camera along with me. However, I wanted the ability to be as spontaneous in my travels as possible. Achieved. I was also taking in to consideration the fact that my companion is not someone who is never seperated from a camera, like myself.
I saw the cemetery from the road and was magnetically drawn there. They are a marker as significant as my Cathedrals. Stretching on longer than I ever could have imagined for what is considered a third world country, I was touched by the meticulous care that was reserved for each tomb or wall square. Meticulously maintained by loved ones, each grave is well kept and alive with flowers, ribbons, or other small trinkets that memories conjure.

( A Calm )

Antigua

Sitting here with a warm mug of coffee in my hands. Since I've been back I've enjoyed all sorts of luxuries. Real coffee - or coffee at all, for that matter - cheese, warm showers, clean drinkable water straight from the tap with the option of being hot with the turn of the corresponding tap, toilets that flush with tissue in them. Luxuries.
I went to Central America and experienced exactly what I had projected, however in overwhelming and breathtaking abundance. I close my eyes and my senses swim. I am not of this Earth. A charmed creature, I walk among this place absorbing every starlit speck. I achieve time travel, as it is easily generations since I've come and gone.
Guatemala was everything that my heart and eyes needed right now. The unabashed beauty, nature in perfect majesty, I nodded. A pervasive and constant smell of burning that I often confused with my heart. Dirt in my teeth from the unpaved roads, and the kind of eyes to look into that I'd been searching for.
Recall.

Paper Journal
One easy way to experience paradise is to string up a hammock on the roof of the residence, kick your shoes off, and lie back for a spell. The mountains are easily visible; only a short walk away. They tower above and at all sides, rolling bulbous greens cascading down their sides. Lying in a hammock, I reflect on my day.
Leaving the terminal, a haggle with the many clustering men offering their taxi and shuttle services procured us a private car to Antigua, about 45 minutes away. Green mountains everywhere, active volcanoes, colourful chicken busses, and much too much exhaust and smog. Short women in traditional floral dresses carrying baskets, perfectly balanced on their heads. Crumbling old cathedrals and official buildings - from age or the earthquakes. The delicious sun. Wandering through columns and rows of open markets, a narrow corner and I look up and suddenly I'm inside. Corridors narrow, short women in the flowered dresses sit on the ground selling bushels of a myriad of fruits, making the passages all the more narrow. A turn and a glimpse of the sky, bananas hanging in great bunches, a ducking back into the dark insides of the market. Weavings and bedding, and fast Spanish around me. Pressing on, and I'm inside again.
This hammock is good for my soul. Tomorrow, and I think of volcanoes.

( Buenos. A Greeting. )

Also.
The arrow has landed. Exactly where I projected.
Jumping up and down, I hit my head on the sloped ceiling from glee. Claire hunged me full on and tightly.
Smile.

The enjoyment of a thunderstorm does not require many things. A cup of Egyptian Licorice Mint tea, this leather notebook, and the occasional shutter actuation. I have all of these things. hm. The air carries the scent of a delicious light soil smell, newly budding branches, and an anticipation for the new things to come. Spring. Printemps. Nature provides the soft tinkling rhythm to relax my mood. Naturally, as it should be. It feels right. Tonight is to be a celebration of sorts. I'm to meet with friends soon, but I feel much more rooted in this spot. Thunder rolls overhead, music to accompany my drifting senses; lost in this precious world, the book in my hands my telescope to connect.

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April 24th.
Enjoying my surroundings thoroughly. A caramel latté, a favourite book, my bare arms with the wooden indigo bangle, the warm sun, at a favourite café. I returned home last night, after festivities with KAtie, at 12:30am. I sat down at my ibook, logged on to the work website, and released my shift for the following morning. I had black beans and rice, watched Radiohead on Conan, and drifted off in to sleep. This morning I wandered to the computer screen with a cup of Orange Blossom tea and saw that the shift had disappeared. A glorious exhale. Working too much. I leave on my next journey in exactly 5 days, but I feel I am already at my limit. I very much need to roam this soul. I understand my responsibilities, and that I am sole provider for myself, but my spirit feels so confined by my long hours at work. Fever Nomadic Woman, indeed. I feel stifled. A feeling that seeks to relieve itself in less hours of sleep, as I fill the available hours with delightful life; trying to stretch out like a cat in what freedom that I have.
Funny. A photography job presented itself, but at $12.95 an hour it is over $10 less than what I make currently. With leaving the country in the Fall, I stay snugly and quite happily at my current place of employment.


I started the Larium pills on Tuesday - the pills to prevent any possible boughts of Malaria. The side effects include dizziness, mild hallucinations, psychotic breaks, and suicide. Hooha! I've told myself that I will be fine, so I decidedly shall be.

Café wall graphito.

The barista at Kiva Han used to live below me in my old dilapidated apartment in North Oakland. The day that I moved he and another of his housemates helped me chase a bird out of my attic apartment, as I could get no packing done with its incessant nervous flapping. It was a riotous project. "Why did we never hang out more?" he laughed. They were a group of cute scenester punk kids, and living far too many in their small apartment. He remembered me before I did him, and we had a delightful exchange. Truly nice and interested people I am always touched to experience.

I attached my keys to my camera strap and went for a walk through Oakland in the glorious heat. I came upon this man and smiled to myself and had to take a secret photo of him. Seized in mid-scoot with a desire to read his book, or perhaps finding no better place than simply right there.
Bodies pour out of buildings and from behind doors in weather like this. I heard someone exclaiming at the café that their pupils were permanently dilated from the past sunny days after all the grey.

( you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away )

Sunbath

This time there were more worshipers under the sun. This time the air was noticeably hotter and deliciously toasted my melting winter skin. Goddess-like, I recline under the sun, a tangible calmness lying with me.
I do not know how I survived these years in such grey. It has served to strengthen my bones and cut more finely the prominent arch of my cheekbones. Whenever it will be that I actually settle into a home and shake off my nomadic ways - if ever - I will decidedly point my arrow toward a warm place. Or at least somewhere that boasts more than 54 days of sun per year.

I came home from the park and threw open the French Doors, a delicious natural breeze infusing the house, swirling and pushing out winter's death. No room. I put the couscous on the stove and pulled the fresh fish from the refrigerator, seasoning it with creole spices and lime, vegetables boiling. I broke a greedy branch from the bushel of grapes, rinsed them, and brought the dripping things to my mouth in an overtly sexual and glutinous gesture, biting the grapes from the full branch, water dripping down my lips and neck. Welcome Summer, with sultry goddess eyes.

Later was a grape and lime bath with my new bubbling bath and a gloriously uneven tanning to my skin.

April 18th.
I awoke with the intense desire to re-read the Weetzie Bat books. It rolled out of my dreams and into my mouth, "I want to re-read them," I blurted out, half asleep and propped up on one arm, hair a monstrous nightmare.
I lasted 1 day and then I went out and bought the new Ours Cd, when it still failed to appear on limewire. I must admit, my once preciously intense love for them had faded to dormancy. I'd loved their haunting imagery so much, but I gradually found myself completely uninterested in listening to them. I bought the Cd, and before finishing the 1st listen, I threw in Distorted Lullabies and coasted aimlessly along the highway, lost in the raptures of an old love. A re-awakening, and I've been devouring them ever since. Perhaps that is why I awoke tasting the need for Francesca Lia. Oddly, the 2 are perfectly tied in my perspective. It's odd how this darkly clad band from NYC/New Jersey can transport me to the magic faerietale desolate wasteland of LA. Francesca Lia's LA, Shangri-LA. The Weetzie Bat tales have always touched such an intimate precious part of me, I want to just get right down on my newly-tanned knees, offerings abounding.

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Today I lovingly cleaned out my baby car, clearing out empty sobe and water bottles that I swear are still left over from my January Journey. Foot socks blackened from the studio floor, capri gaucho pants and tank tops from changing after we dance, ties from work, my indigo scarf, a million receipts and bank statements, rappers from Cds, 10 books, and one French magazine that Xavier pillaged from his flight in December. The list goes on. I cleared her out, swept every inch of her and cleaned the windows from the inside, although no one has ever smoked in her comfortable interior. We then headed to the carwash, where I was squirted with the jets before getting my window up in time. Hysterical laughter.

The lilacs that captured me with their scent.


I came home and made my signature chunky guacamole. Another glutonous moment.