In Need of Nature

Some days living in the City, I need to see some trees, hear birds chirping among all this concrete, traffic, blaring horns and lights. I try to make my place a sanctuary with pictures of the woods, ocean thematics, vine-accented window shades. I need to do that to balance out what's right outside my window. Maybe I need to find a park to plant myself in for awhile this afternoon.

Append: I went to a nursery down the street, enjoyed the greenery and brought a plant home. Later, I took the 200 steps up to California Street and sat in a park. All's right again.

Tempting but No

It's tempting to go see you tonight, but no, I won't do that to myself. I'd rather cook a good meal and have a quiet night at home. I do think about you a lot though. I know in my heart that you are doing well and that contents me enough. Tomorrow's a new day, new night.

HOA Hooey

I went to the 40th Annual Meeting for my building's HOA this evening. I thought, I'm a new owner, I might as well go and check it out. We were voting on some initiatives and for the board of directors. I noticed the older tenants were mostly in attendance and seemed very serious about this whole meeting - where were all the 30-something owners? We started with the agenda, the new candidates for the board gave their piece, and then two incumbents who didn't turn in their paperwork on time to be included on the ballot started yelling at the president, she yelled back, and a childish shouting match of pointing fingers ensued. That is when Maile turned in her completed ballot and exited - politics are everywhere, even within the home owners' association. Can't get away from it.

Regulation to Breathe

Sometimes I feel like the corporate world is a race to nowhere, a world in which daily administrative regulations take over the real part of the job. We get caught up in all the paperwork, all the tracking, all the covering of our asses, that the whole point of it all is lost. I just want the freedom to do my job as I see fit as I am a capable, educated woman, then after I'm done, give me room to breathe and just be - Is that too much to ask?

Extrication

I tangled with
the world to
let it go
but couldn't free

it: so I made
words
to wrestle in my
stead and went

off silent to
the quick flow
of brooks, the
slow flow of stone

- A.R. Ammons (1926-2001)

Give Me a Reason

To forgive you or forgive myself for letting this go on for as long as it did. Over and over again when I expressed to you my heart, said I was strong, strength made of crumbling rock, yawns while I talked, eyes telling me not to get too close to your heart, yours is not one to rely on, saddest person I know, searching for nothing, anyone would tire of being held at a distance, the perfect insult to injury, taken all too personally but how could I not? Hurt too much to be your friend, couldn't do that to myself anymore, wondering why I gave so much. Give me a reason, otherwise, I stand decidedly still, then gone.

All is not Fair in Love and Work

Love, well, that's a side note, but as I slowly found out this week, some of my colleagues were let go of in a seemingly unfair manner, a friend who is set to come over to this side later may not be guaranteed a position, others in the first group are uncertain and unhappy about their futures. It's like forging forward in a war with people falling all around you, just a few people still standing in the end. Sort of sad, tired, wishing everyone could've gone through together, realizing it was a small miracle that I came to his side at this particular time and place as part of the first group.

Be all about You

You and I had a falling out last year, and we haven't spoken since, no emails, no phone calls, no Christmas cards after almost two decades of friendship. All throughout, I felt this deep-seated sadness and insecurity on your part, but I could never put my finger on it; friends of yours would trickle out and I could never understand why. We'd buy the same music, and I would always adhere to the happier, lighter songs, while you related to the sadder songs of loss, heartache and hurt. You were so hard-headed and super conscious of money and where it would leave you, while I took risks, spent too freely, had a back-up if I fell flat. You were jealous of me, poked fun when I clearly had the advantage, built yourself up because no one else would, kicked me when I was down when I felt the world collapsing around me over and over again.

You told me the truth - two very important people were gone from your whole life, two who we all take for granted but are there. Friends left you when you told them the truth, the truth you were afraid would make me leave too. When told, I felt deep sadness for your loss and all that you didn't have then angry at you for not telling me all these years then stupid for believing you - a plethora of normal emotions, and when I finally expressed them to you, you ran, didn't want to talk it out, be an adult, deal with it, you ran before you thought I would leave you. Well, I never left, I'm still here. You might've moved on by now, it's a thin cover-up, but as each day passes, I believe more and more that our friendship was not what I thought it was and maybe this was all for the best. You never listened to me, and it was always all about you. Well, then, be all about you - get help, get counseling, that's too much to deal with for one person. Good luck, good-bye ~ Peace out.

Bad Seeds Go

In companies, - and in life, generally - the bad seeds are eventually weeded out, and the good ones leave when they are ready as appropriate, when a time of peace or when the next opportunity aligns and falls into place. After learning about dishonesty under the radar and the good life taken advantage of, I see why people were severed for reasons that worked themselves out. They are gone so that the good people can carry the torch and continue the honest work we were meant to accomplish all along. On the other hand, good people seemingly sometimes get the short end of the stick, but out of that hurt comes growth and strength to complete loftier tasks in places where they were ultimately meant to be. Good seeds grow.

It ain't 1999

Stayed out too late, drank way too much, ate lots of bbq - can't party like a rockstar in 1999 anymore. If I go out for one night, I'm down for a week. A guy of 24 today couldn't believe I graduated college in 1995. I look his age, but my body knows best. Time to rest (again).

Men make me ILL

Well, one in particular at the moment; he makes me nauseous just thinking about him. He went off and found someone who might be the better version of me - younger, smarter, same ethnicity and our full names are so alike, it makes me want to throw up again and again. Such hurt I felt when I put two and two together. I felt like I was erased, nothing special about me to make me stand out, to make him remember what it was like to be with me, just me. I'm no one. I took myself out of the picture, out of that world of nothingness but my imagination, out of the equation completely.

I am so done with those who do not love and accept me for who and what I am. I thought I wasn't good enough, but I am, I believe in myself ~ again. In actuality, he is not good enough for me in more ways than one, and I know that deep down. I will no longer put my energy into someone who doesn't truly care about me, he just cares about himself - so be with yourself, by yourself in the end, without me. Everything I believed in, I thought I believed in you, no more, I am letting go of. You will not see that same look in my eyes again, and I know I am not easily forgotten.

Sonnet

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

- Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

Why be Friends?

After a relationship is over, it should be over. It's just simpler like that, no emotions are involved, just go. "I'll call you in a couple weeks" - why? Just leave me alone, don't bother to call me, delete me from your address book. I don't want to be friends, I don't want to share stories, I don't want to give you updates on what I've been up to, I don't want to hear about your present love interest, and I don't want to pretend like I'm interested in what you have to say. Let me let go of the garbage of the past and all the hurts that have brought me down in some way. Maybe I'm denying myself of certain feelings, but who needs to complicate life more than it already is. Just go, bye-bye. Maybe I'm getting too good at this.

Deep Dark Underwater

I wanted to change it up and create this website as an alter ego to my first site Thoughts in Flight, which is more breezy and airy. This one will facilitate the darker side of me, underground, underwater.