Life Would Be Wonderful if Facebook showed the embedded video

This past week, I had my Canadian friend Gabe staying with me for a few days after he got back from camp but before he returned home himself.  I've known this enthusiastic kid for two years, and this is actually the first time we've seen each other in two years since we parted ways at the Power of Hope camp where we met. It's the kind of price you pay for being minors who don't drive and live a good four-plus hours journey away from each other.
Since we had mutual camp friends organizing an informal after-camp get together on Whidbey Island, the day after my family picked him up, Gabe and I threw a day's worth of supplies in a backpack and took four buses and a ferry North. We ended up staying on the island for three days.

By the end of our stay, despite feeling like I smelled worse than a wet dog, I was told repeatedly by one of the girls in our merry band of love children that I smelled good, leading us to the theory that I emit some sort of pheromonal scent in my sweat that makes me somewhat attractive to women. The cruel irony in this of course is that I'm Capital-G Gay.

Long story short, we had fun and I'm sure the sense of love we all got from that experience together on the island will carry with us through the next year until we can get together again. In the meantime, we've agreed to start a traveling notebook, acting in some ways akin to a chain letter, passing from person to person with us each adding our own entry to the collective story.

I've spent the last four days at home decompressing and writing letters. Which has made me realize I should really get some kind of personalized stationery. It would add quite the personal touch to my letters and look prettier than the standard printer paper I've been using.

Sometimes I feel so old fashioned with my letter writing. There are people in my generation who don't even know how to send a letter, let alone have the handwriting to do so. We're so used to typety-type-type-typing everything on our laptops and cell phones. And while this isn't a bad thing, it lacks that special touch that sets a letter apart.

I for one can't imagine a love letter without the curlicues and twists of some cursive script. What font can really compare to the handwritten for the effort and simplicity that goes into what's being said? Sure, readability might be better, but it doesn't feel like it has as much thought in it. You can tell a person immediately from their handwriting, but the typed word could be anyone.

I haven't posted anything in over a week.

I feel like such a bad blogger, but rest assured dear readers, I will be writing something soon. I just haven't figured out what yet.

Maybe I'll write about my recent excursion to the beautiful Whidbey Island, or maybe I'll write about the horror of what felt like the hundreds of bus transfers it took to get there. I don't know, it's too early to tell. All I know is I'll write it in some kind of word document and then I'll post it when I get online again sometime next week.

Can we agree to that? Is that satisfactory? Well, too bad, you don't have a choice in the matter.

Why i hate biking in hot weather.

The dark spot across my chest is where the strap from my backpack was.

I feel disgusting and tired. However, it was a damn good workout getting to the bank and back.

I think this is a sign I'm supposed to be buddhist.

I was walking home from the grocery store when I came across this little Buddha sitting in the grass on the side of the road.

I'm not really one for portents and omens, but considering I just started a shirt design based on the mantra of compassion (ohm mani padme hum), this is a little too convenient. I mean what are the chances?

Now I think I need to write a post about my religious beliefs. I'll try to get one up in the next few days.

Just suffice it to say for now that I believe in the power of Fate, Kismet and the purpose of coincidence.

Musings on Love

There was much waffling over whether or not I would post this. I had to rewrite it like three times before I was satisfied enough with it that I didn't just delete the whole thing. If you can't tell, I've kind of started myself on a spiritual journey this summer, doing a lot of introspection and soul searching. It's also made me feel very creative so if nothing else I'll get all sorts of cool art out of this.

"I love you."

What meaning do these words have anymore? We repeat them a thousand times a day, often without any thought. I love you means goodbye. I love you means can I kiss you. I love you means I'm glad you're here.

But when I think about those moments of pure love where I look at someone and all thought leaves my mind, all the voices in my head shut up for the power of what I'm experiencing, in these tiny moments words fail me. They're moments full of innocence and an intensity that pull you direct to the bone.

In these moments, my instinct is not to say some stammered "I love you," but to act. I want to reach out, to caress away a tear or kiss surprised lips. To laugh with pure, unfiltered joy and spin in circles until I fall down crying because I'm smiling so hard.

Unconditional

I've said this in previous posts, but love is unconditional. Love encompasses and rises above whatever else we may be feeling. If it doesn't, we should question whether or not it's actually love or if it is love, then what other emotions and influences are at work.

It's possible to love someone you hate and hate someone you love. If you don't believe that, just look at your parents. The hate may or may not come and go, but the love endures. Or for another example, look at a small child. Hurt them and they will react in rage and sadness, but as soon as that passes it's like nothing ever happened.

Have the heart of a child tempered with the control of experience. It's a scary thing to do because from experience we learn to harden ourselves, to protect and shield ourselves from all the pain and misery the world throws at us, or in some cases that we throw at ourselves. We're afraid to let go of those protections, to make ourselves vulnerable and open and let our love express itself.

It takes work to break habits we've been in the process of establishing since early childhood, but as the tired adage goes, practice makes perfect.

More often than I like to admit, I've let fear hold me back; fear that my expression of love is somehow inappropriate for the moment or for the person I would be showing it to. But there have been a few times where I've pushed past that and bridged that gap and let my love manifest itself.

The first time this happened in recent memory, was my first kiss. Which I feel understandably uncomfortable writing about that here, but discomfort is just fear of judgment, and if you come from a strong place within yourself no matter what anyone else says their judgments cannot hurt you.

First Kiss:

We'd been talking online for what felt like months, though in reality it had only been a few weeks. There was an excitement and reciprocation of interest I'd never experienced before. We discovered each other through some mutual friends and started talking out of my lack of inhibition when it comes to talking to friendly strangers, or in this case, not so strange people I don't know.

One of our mutual friends was putting on a poetry reading in my area and being that we're both poets of a sort it seemed like the perfect opportunity and motive to get together in person. The only thing was that he would be coming from out of town. Not really thinking of any deeper implications, I offered my dorm room, opening my door and my bed. After all, what is mine is my friend's (except for my toothbrush, but that's kind of a different circumstance).

He caught a bus, or rather several different buses, on a Friday afternoon and was to meet me after my classes ended for the day. Sure enough, I wasn't out of my last class for a full 10 minutes when I got a voicemail from an unrecognized number.

"Hey Danny, it's me on somebody else's phone, just letting you know I might be a little later than expected since I have to transfer buses downtown before I make it to campus."

I waited with my friend, Dani taking silly pictures on one of the nearby sculptures. I saw him before he saw me and almost instantly had this huge, silly grin plastered on my face.

We spent several hours together before the Salt Lines performance talking and hanging out, basically getting to know each other better. Laying with my head in his lap, I noticed he had strong hands. I got to hold those hands later at the performance and again when we reconnected with some friends. I felt safe in them.

Back in my room after all of this as we lay in my bed, he felt warm sharing that space with me, his arms wrapped around me. I think we were both drifting off when I rolled over. I wanted to look in the face this wonderful person beside me. I think I held my breath for a moment before I leaned in and kissed him on the lips. On and off throughout the day I'd felt called to do that, but this was the first time I stopped my fear from holding me back.

It tickled sweetly and it was an unfamiliar pressure on my lips. It didn't go much farther beyond that, it'd been a long day for both of us, but I think that was as far as I was ready for at that point.

My point

Looking back, I'm tempted to call that a beautiful moment in my life, but realistically, all firsts are beautiful in their own way. It means a lot to me though that I've been able to find the peace within myself to think of this moment without any bitterness. So often we let the end of a relationship ruin any happy memories from that relationship or worse, get so caught up in missing those happy memories that we don't let go of the relationship and it hurts us.

But by sharing the experience of my first kiss here on my blog, I'm trying to show how it happened in a moment of love when I let my guard down and just let it happen. I didn't need words to say everything I expressed with a kiss. Of course it doesn't always have to be a kiss, depending on your relationship with the other person and the situation at hand, love could express itself as a hug or a smile or even something as simple as eye contact.

Love is a gift like the air we breathe. We all have it and we can give it freely to anyone. You cannot contain it and you cannot see it, but you feel it when it's missing and you feel it when it's there.