color the era, film it is historical

If it weren't for images, what would we remember?
In the usual spring break fashion, I just went through countless old photos from times not that long ago, but that feel incredibly distant from me now. Although I know that each moment of my life, each person met and experience felt, has led to my life today, it still felt like worlds and lives far from mine were inscribed in those pictures. It's bittersweet to trace yourself through memories that way. Remembering so much good that couldn't last forever as no one instant can.

I've made myself so comfortable now. My life is so simple and easy, in the very way I hoped it could become and chose to make it. But to think of everything that came before-captured or left to abyss of time-feels like a dream. The people and the places all get lost in fiction when lives are encompassed by words and images, but at least we have those tales.

The beauty of love as it was made to be

While reading Wollstonecraft for my women and politics class, I came upon a depressing statement with something slightly beautiful within it-

When the husband ceases to be a lover — and the time will inevitably come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a spring of bitternes; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.
(A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft)

I believe that in the 1790's when Wollstonecraft was beginning to speak for women with a strength of voice and passion of equality that one can only admire this was often true. I also believe that the validity of her statement in many relationships throughout the world today is one of our saddest truths ignored.

I later came across a description of a love beginning that captures the very essence of the feeling as I wish we all could not only find, but continue to feel for all eternity in the most intimate place of our hearts-

You were just a boy in a bed in a room. like a kaleidoscope is a tube full of bits of broken glass. But the way I saw you was pieces refracting the light, shifting into an infinite universe of flowers and rainbows and insects and planets, and magical dividing cells, pictures no one else knew. (Wasteland, Francesca Lia Block Wasteland)

The two most beautiful truths of my young life right now are having found a great love and the infinite possibilities of what I can do and where I can go next. Ironically, the most challenging reality that I face is trying to find a balance between both.

On a more Christmas-oriented topic... I've officially approached the point in my life where airports plague my holidays and I am far too unprepared. I don't really mind airports so long as I'm not waiting inside one. However, the goodbyes to my boyfriend in June, November, and now December I do mind a bit. Cosmic Holiday Gods, thank you for at least giving me New Years.

The only line that is true is the line you're from

One of my greatest bits of happiness in life comes on mornings when the sky lets the sun break through to give light on a new day without the dreariness of gray overcast. It happens nearly every day in the summer, but clear skies are few and far between during winters in the Northwest. If you've ever had a window aligned with the sun's rising path, you can't deny your understanding of what I'm trying to explain. When I wake up on these mornings I feel inspired and remarkably capable, usually with the itch to travel. I came across a word which I think encompasses my current, and regular, state-
Wanderlust: a strong desire or urge to travel or wander

As much as I want to experience a new culture in a new realm of the world, I keep thinking about New York. Places always linger in the back of my mind ( Paris, Rome, the coasts of Greece, Quebec, Morocco, sometimes just San Diego) like distractions and motivations both at once, but New York is certainly the one I'm most often guilty of letting sneak into the foreground and pull me during my day. Maybe because everyone else is talking about San Francisco. Or most likely because I bought my tickets this time last year. The reason isn't what matters, it's presence does. I'm ready to go.

There is a design, an alignment, a cry

Even before I first left home, I was well aware that once I did, I would never be able to go back. How we talk about homes and what "home" really means to us are two different things and I've written before about how home as an emotional place is lost the moment that we leave. However, that's not where I'm going with this, it's simply what I'm going off of because I recently realized the last time that although home may not be a place that we can ever get back to, it is within our abilities to create.