The ocean turns a new face every morning, and though I hear it calling, I pretend it’s just my imagination. I try to dull my senses, keep my shoes on, shade my gaze, and take the side streets, just so it doesn’t sparkle its mirages in front of me… tempting… teasing… laughing at me with every wave it rolls…

Summers past, I would have shed my sandals, rolled up my jeans, let down my hair, and dipped my toes in the cool, soothing water, and let the voices wipe the tears off my soul… this summer banned me from freeing my core. I can surround myself with laughter and company if I choose to sample the feeling again, but how can one touch God in the crowd? When there’s only tending to needs, and can’t even hear one’s thoughts…

This summer is different. Summertime as I knew it is gone. A new summer took its place. Uncertain and unfamiliar. I’ll have to slice it up thin and not think about what it brings… maybe it’ll make it go down faster… I’ll keep the memories of summers past… and visit them when this summer gets too hot. And dream of cool waters, and soothing voices… and seagulls’ screams, and pelicans gliding on the blue… and dream…

I guess the world hasn’t changed all that much. Though we now communicate in tongues, and many of us can express themselves in several of those, we still revert to being primitive and fighting about everything… in words, not fists so much.. so where’s the logic in that? Or progress for that matter? Well, focus on the good, someone told me once… and there’s plenty of that when it comes to words… I love words. A little too much. I see with words like others see with their fingertips, explore each detail in depth, giving my full attention to each thing, phenomenon, feeling, thought, event, person, treating each with the utmost importance, letting them come together in perfect symbiosis… isn’t that all we carry with us though time? Our words, left in our memory to rebuild the past? It may be, again, just who I am.

I was reminded of their importance recently… is the sense of a text lost in translation? And if one reads a foreign book, well translated mind you, should they expect to understand what the author meant? Will the translation be accurate? Or will the translation accurately depict what the writer tried to say?.. Which is more important? Being accurate or understanding the meaning? I think it’s like saying and doing… the two have to coincide… or else the notion becomes confusing, if not completely damaging…

Take Dante’s Paradiso, for example. The simplest of statements… yet twisted beyond recognition. I left the translation as I found it. Someone really believed that’s what it says…

My take would be different. As I believe he meant it… as I mean it… for love can wrap itself around one’s soul in mesmerizing ways, fluidly caressing each sense, until infatuated with it, the soul would whisper in one breath “but thus spun my will and vain desires, like a wheel that keeps on turning.. the love that moves the sun and the other stars”…

Funny thing, words…

Counting the weeks. Down to 6… well, less now. Trying to regain my balance so that I can continue my journey. I’ve traveled too much, seen to much, felt too much… and what’s too much.. well, after a while, it crushes the soul, I guess… it weighed down my stance… for much to my surprise, I really am only human…

When all else fails, one can always count on logic. I’ve been told many times that logic doesn’t matter in everything… but how else is one to travel through time? Blindly? Splatting on walls? Bouncing off the unknown? Maybe that works when only one is involved… but when there’s more than meets the eye to be dragged along, can one be so selfish to disregard all logic and let whatever story unfold? If it’s a happy ending.. great! But what if the grand finale is a tragedy? How can one throw themselves into the tempest, well knowing the risks, and hope for a sunny day?

“Logic takes you from A to B. Imagination takes you everywhere”. I’ll have to let my imagination play a happy ending, over and over, until the story no longer hurts. And let my logic take me to B. I’ve been marching in place at this A for so long, I’ve forgotten how to step one foot in front of the other…. The good thing about logic is that it sets a clear path, whichever one chooses to take. Not much unknown, just the occasional fate… Much more manageable for the lost soul… and much less damaging for any precious cargo it carries along.

Today marks the start of the final countdown. It really started some time ago, but I guess if it’s not written down, then it’s easily overlooked. Now all I have to do is figure out the plan. Isn’t life fun…

When all the dust settles, they say it was just miscommunication; like people speaking different languages and not finding common words… could be. I think it’s more of a personal take on things, the “personal view” that keeps jamming the signals whenever something is uncomfortable, or simply undesired. But that’s just me…

I once thought that love was this unique bubble that one had to keep like a most prized possession, care and protect with their own life. I think that’s what I read in a fairytale, once, when I was a child… In it, there would only be truth, and though storms would cloud it sometimes, two sets of hands would clench together to spare it from destruction.. a sacred gift… one that is only used once, with great reverence… I really am a dreamer… or is that a fool?.. For so far, it seems that nothing is sacred. Words, dreams, thoughts… they are just means for miscommunication… it must be that… for who would voluntarily smash such precious bubbles just for fun… or out of sheer ignorance… or would they?.. In the end, aren’t our actions the ones that define our path, and disprove our words… and aren’t they  stone cold, solid facts?..

Questions better left in the past. What good would it do to turn the ashes… the fire might still be hiding under… and souls would get burned again…

Reality tends to get wild lately, and since no manual comes with the surprises, I try to make do with what I think would apply… it’s not like I’m ever ready for the changes anyway… just try to open my eyes and see them before they come, as much as possible…

It seems reasonable to make a list and check it twice (no pun) if you want to keep your course steady through the angry waves. I never asked for much though, so I have no pressing desires to highlight for my journey. I find myself wishing for small things, as if they were my whole world… silly really… who dreams to curl up on the settee, when the world is still asleep, wrapped in the night and the sofa throw, head resting in a lap, eyes closed, listening to the steady breathing, the scent of fresh coffee and morning dew infusing the air… quiet… content… appeased… or walk the beach at sunset, no words, just listening to the voices of the ocean, holding a hand… or picking fresh basil to chop for the white sauce pasta…

My bucket list would be short. If I were to cease being tomorrow, a handful of little things would be left scribbled on it…

I want to see a child turn into a giant.. a gentle and great one…

I dream of dipping my feet in the turquoise waters, and walk the white sands

I’d like to finish what I started and not lose hope every step of the way, when the world turns dark.. but stand tall at the end of my tunnel…

I wish to be boring, and do all the simple things.. at least for a while…

But most of all, I crave to walk in light… savor each minute, without haste, fear, or doubt… bask in the warmth… and be still.

There must be a thousand other thoughts that would cross my mind at any given time, frivolous demands, but if I were to really pick THE ones, there wouldn’t be many more aside from these… at least not now… and that may be slightly different tomorrow, when the world kicks me to the curb again… and the waves smear the ink on my list, making it look like there are more words… but the markings of the pen will stay the same… engraved in the paper… traceable with the fingertips… promised to the future.

But it could easily be the other way…

Life has a way of taking you places you never planned to go… word of advice, take it with a grain of salt, travel “lite”… walking is in itself too much… why add dragging those bags all stuffed up…

Trust is a dangerous thing, creates dependencies, illusions, and expectations. None of which are desirable, real, or beneficial. Trust is better left to self. When it can be done. Which should be more often than not. Unless it’s more not…