Some places, the far away and familiar, help us remember who we are, despite the world helping us forget. 

My eyes, skin, hair and soul have craved home for close to a decade; probably longer if you count the existential pangs of birth. Bloody mess. The desert parched more than paper; bleaching ever exposing bone to hungry dust. Some of us stubbornly crawl over mountains of burnt shit towards a pool or metaphoric pair of new pants. Get to the point already. I prayed. You slayed. Love conquered. Everything is thirsty. Hasn’t all this cosmic nonsense gone on long enough?

I never understood why that red headed fish longed to sprout legs, walk in the sun and live in a house that probably takes all month to clean. No thanks. Give me shellter and sushi.

It probably looked like neglect from a helicopter, but I miss the days of slow time walking or thumbing home from South Beach to turn the corner at the chiseled rock by the water tower. The space between shore break and flea-infested broken when I was nothing more than a collection of silent cells and invisible thoughts, seen only by the unseen presence who follows all of us wherever we decide to go. Free will is such a bitch. Huh? Despite the cold wind, fingers and toes, I knew, sometimes with Lucky trotting at my feet, it was all good. We don’t deserve anything better or worse than the next guy despite believing otherwise because our egos feed us lies out of fear of death which is nothing more than trading one illusion for another. To live is to feel, admit and wipe with a bare hand the snot dripping from our chapped face.

The grey and naked trees. The quiet, weather beaten houses. The twisted and uncritical scrub-brush lining the long, straight, crudely paved road. The empty possibility waiting to be filled. Limitations are all in our head. My cadence and breath were better company than any small talking stranger who might succumb to my thumb so on those walks I often kept it tucked in my pocket.

I’m excited to return.

xo

Going to many of several places I called home in less than a week. I love the timing and at the same time, it’s SO hard to wait.