Transparency Theory

I have this theory that all things sheer or otherwise transparent are magic. Because, if you think about it, what you see is a physical object, and yet you can still watch the world through it. Our long exposure to this phenomenon, and the knowledge that tells us about form and matter and chemical makeup, has removed us from seeing it as such; and yet, sheer fabrics, wine glasses, bubbles: magic. Considering their tendency to denote a clear glass with a mere white brush stroke here and there, applying no layer of paint to represent its surface texture, I think the painters in the old days knew this.

I said this to my dad and he told me [my] imagination is the force behind [seeing] magic. And then I was happy.

Tis the season

Of Rittenhouse picnics on patterned blankets, frayed corners curling in towards the cool earth; of smooth melodies emitted gently from vintage guitars; of grainy picture planes and plastic lens flare; of the world seen through the dreamy film spun by your sunglasses; of backlit silhouettes against blue skies when the sun makes glowing orbs of everything, from your breeze-tossed hair, to the peach fuzz on the arms of everyone in your company.

Is it peace, or simply the idea of it

My head feels like it's about to explode, so I'm just lying in the dark. I turn over on my side and then freeze, straining my ears to catch if the pattering on the window is rain, or merely the ghost of a song drifting in my mind. No, it's not raining, but birds are chirping. I close my eyes. The moody blue tint that the dark lends to everything disappears, so I resolve to keep them open. The image of me lying in a haze of black and blue, listening to the birds, fills me with an excitement, and I don't know if it is the excitement of acknowledging the experience, or the want to write it down.

Electric Dreams

          I want to have electric dreams, the kind activated by the moment of your eyes sealing. One minute you are a person, complete with a face and torso and all of the necessary appendages; the next you are a mere being, not mere because you hardly matter (you do in this instant more than you ever have), but mere because suddenly, all of the ornaments that gave you weight and kept you on your feet in the face of gravity have dissipated, leaving a mere ball of sensory nerves and a perceptive aperture where your identity used to be. In this state of oblivion you exist, unaware where you begin and where you end. Weightless, you slip like Alice down a tunnel into an intergalactic universe.
          There you wash through century old seas pacified by rhythmic brush strokes, eventually sticking to hydrogen oxide molecules that lift you from the waves into darkness and carry you onto a vast ship. In this ship, you meet creatures, and drift as vapor left to right and back again, imitating the brilliant violet to amber light gradient (a reflection cast by cosmic dust) dancing across the walls behind you. You travel like this for eternity, before waking with sweat beads draped across your forehead like Indian jewelry.

image source: glow in the dark eyes
Watch once without sound:

my artist sister

she used to paint patterns and vistas on seashells. maybe these days she can paint me.

body art without the permanence of a tattoo, for people like me who want to change skins like a cicada:

image source: photographer Mariam Sitchinava

Ruby

Love everything about this.



Minus the smoking.

Excerpt

“The trees,” You point to the stalks that form a canopy around you. A web of offshoots cuts patterns into the sky. “Do you think when we get older they will no longer seem beautiful? That the years will strip the magic and leave only the skeleton of what we used to know? Just trees, and nothing more.”

You look ahead, the words pouring of their own accord. The air is gray as you drive together in the car, comprising a unit very small in comparison with the vastness of the universe, but very warm.

“No, I don’t think it will get old.” 

Updated Summer To-Do List

This summer I will

star gaze

sleep outside

learn to drive

find sea glass

find my cause

sit on a rooftop

have an adventure

make people smile

take lots of pictures

go barefoot in the grass

teach Rambo something

and run and run and run and run

Cymbaline

There is a place where paint peels from the walls;

Brightly colored patterns on the ceiling, residue

From plastic bodies in their attempts to fly.

It is what it seems, not what I hoped it would be.

Bohemia

"I will not wait for you." The breeze unravels like a turban against your skin. "Find me, and I will show you."

Birds descend from the clouds and together you haunt the land. Your bare feet breathe in the dirt, weeds, and flowers that fly under your soles. Ahead, secrets and time make their home in the curly contours of trees. They flutter just beyond the horizon, so you chase them.

image source: cosmic dust

Yes

"Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously."
-Tom Robbins, via bldg 25

Not just a dream anymore

Good Music

ec·sta·sy    [ek-stuh-see]

1. rapturous delight
2. an overpowering emotion or exaltation; a state of sudden, intense feeling
3. a state of being carried away by overwhelming emotion
4. a trance or trance-like state in which an individual transcends normal consciousness
5. the frenzy of poetic inspiration

Moonlight

"Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk"

-William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey

Obsessed

Nifty Fifty's

We got our milkshakes and, trading the bustle of the interior for a quiet freedom, escaped to the parking lot. The air poured in through the rolled down windows as we nudged the front seats into a horizontal orientation. Upon reclining, the road with its stream of cars became replaced with clear sky. Our laughter bubbled from our souls and injected the air around us with a sweet poison. In this cloud of contentedness we spent the lazy afternoon, smooth melodies in our ears and peace on our lips.

Harbor Wisdom

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but words are worth a thousand words. Heck, words are worth a thousand pictures.