the hills are alive...with the sound of heavy breathing.
i love flowing in an out of this space. oop i’m here, oop no i’m not, gotcha. anyways, i present to you a journal entry disguised as literary prose for your enjoyment. as always, free palestine.
small change of plans, i’m in california. *insert small giggles, big laughter and evil laughter* i inhale, i hold it, i exhale. i sit on the balcony of the home i’m sitting for and i tilt my face up to the sun and smile. i inhale, i hold it, and with a grand exhale i say, “i’m free.” i’m playing hopscotch with places to stay and it’s liberating in ways that are new to me. house sitting here, house sitting there...it feels like a much more intentional, less chaotic version of what my life looked like earlier this year. i’ve been asking myself “girl, what do you want” and after abandoning and ignoring my own wants and needs for most of my life and calling it “consideration,” i am finding that my inner child is justifiably holding that information hostage. and because she’s holding it hostage and most days i have no idea what i’m doing, i feel like cow. in the best way possible in that i’m just roaming and grazing? i don’t know where i want to settle or what i want my place to look like. my learned experiences tell me that i have to have this information before i embark on anything but...here i am without that information doing just fine? i’m in san francisco on a whim (shrugs and gestures around to nothing in particular with a “okay this is cool i guess?” look on my face) and so i feel like a cow. roaming to and from different fields and occasionally resting in the shade. i keep asking myself “what are you doing bro” with eyes wide of uncertainty and encouragement, heart open. heart always open, but maybe the answer to that question is irrelevant. after all, there are nazi’s in charge and bombs keep falling on innocents and every day there’s something else. maybe, it doesn’t matter what i’m doing, all of this roaming and seeing and just being. maybe, just maybe i can appreciate the freedom in not knowing and instead just enjoy how i'm intuitively feeling my way around in this new life i’m creating. shaping it, smoothing it, one choice at a time. there was a podcast episode that was released with the duchess meghan markle. she was talking about her business pursuits and the woman interviewing her asked if she ever got scared and she said “of course, but my faith is bigger than my fear.” and i cried in the dried fruit aisle at trader joe’s. “my faith is bigger than my fear” i whisper to myself when i don’t have an answer to “what are you doing?” “my faith is bigger than my fear” i hold myself tight “my faith is bigger than my fear” i cry, even when it isn’t. especially, when it isn’t. i’m different in california, i lead with curiosity. i ask strangers what they’re reading, i roll down my window and holler at the couple on the sidewalk “hey! do you know if it’s okay to park here?!” because the parking signs here are all written in simlish so i park and pray i don't get a ticket. i smile big so my eyes twinkle, treating every interaction like i could be meeting a new friend and i’m walking. which is a mistake because every road in san francisco is a hill and i do not have the knees for this. i met a woman a few weeks ago who's been using the same app to find house sitting gigs. she introduced herself to me and said “i’ve gone by gwen most of my life but i’ve been trying to lean back into my full name, gwendolyn.” i tell her that her name sounds romantic. i say it slowly, like the last line in your favorite song. the magic happens right before that second syllable and it settles so beautifully before the third. we laugh about how up in the air our plans are. how it could all change tomorrow. it could all change tomorrow…it could all change tomorrow. i used to crave that feeling of security and stability and now i’m learning to find those things within myself, in places i didn’t know it could exist. right now my freedom is manifesting as this loose, slightly euphoric older woman, who's almost always just a little bit high. this woman comes and goes as she pleases and i’m just grateful i get to watch her unfold. i’m different here. more me but also someone else, someone i’m still discovering, uncovering. i might be dating myself? again? some more? there’s been a deeper respect for the seasons in my life, for my ebb and flows. for the longer moments when winter approaches me tenderly, with love and adoration. a deepening appreciation for how my seasons blend into each other supporting who i am now and who i want to be. no pressure, no judgement or hardness burrowing down to force everything to come together. just more ease, more flow, letting my life unfold. trusting that it will and nurturing my faith so that it is, greater than my fear. m.
what the roaming sounds like: