Every Day Adventure

There this white man, long haired but balding, in a baseball cap, on the train. His gray-white hair and pink scalp peak out from his cap.  His sentences are drawn out and snarling, speaking the way I imagine an elderly crocodile would speak.

The train is packed and the smell and the people and he occupies two seats.

There's a man who legit looks like Jesus eating a loaf of bread. A fucking loaf of bread.

Am I going to miss this?

Taking a new lover.

I'm reading trail reviews and I ran across the sentence, "I do love that mountain." And that seems so weird.

How do you love a mountain?

Like, I definitely understand how someone can love the ocean. I love the ocean. The ocean is beautiful and wild and kind and selfish and and dangerous and terrible. How can you not love the ocean? Sure, the ocean takes and takes and takes. But it's the ocean. It is supposed to. Besides, it gives so much more. The ocean feels like home and family, and like those things it can alienate and turn on you. Loving the ocean is frightening, and maybe it's a reflection of my own faults, but I think love should be a little frightening and unsettling. Why work hard if it's a sure thing? Why strive if it's comfortable? Not that being happy and comfortable aren't good qualities and that people shouldn't seek them out, but they don't seem very conducive to a life full of adventures and new experiences. And that's what I want: I want to experience all the things.

But mountains? Mountains just kinda hang out. They don't demand sacrifice and pain and uncertainty. Or maybe they do and I haven't learned how to appreciate it.  There are definitely bears and snakes and high places to fall and plants that are trying to hurt you, in mountains. There are a lot of ways to die in the mountains.

Maybe I'm having trouble loving mountains because of the way they make me feel.

When I'm at the beach, I feel bigger, stretched out. Not thin, but like the load of my emotions and being myself, is more evenly distributed across a larger area.

When I'm in the mountains,  I feel so specifically me; like all the particles that make up me are being finely milled into this exact pinpoint of me-ness.  There is no doubt that I am Ynez, none of the overlapping of Ynez + Ocean. And right now, I'm having a hard time with that. It's uncomfortable.

So, I guess I will have to learn how to be me, with diamond cut precision. I will find a way to love mountains.

Forget all that I said, maybe distraction works best.

I was planning on writing something introspective and maybe contemplating whether or not I was having a psychotic break from reality, but then I remembered that life has always been weird and terrible and amazing and exciting.

For example one friend is interviewing for a television show.
And another had a lot of money mysteriously deposited into her account.

Oh, and I did go ghost hunting in an abandoned medical facility, but let the people I was with go first and they were chased out by a swarm of bees.  After that, I decided it was a good time to pick up my car from the shop. 

Life is Good and Appropriate Answers

"So, I hear Big Sur is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in California."

"Yeah, I've heard that too."

"Want to go when you get back?"

"Yeah!  I have a few weeks, we can start in San Diego and camp, making our way up!"

"Let's do it in September, then."

"We better buy a tent heater, then."

"Okay."

Haunted

I stumbled upon the realization while ghost hunting, wandering around abandoned hospitals--I feel haunted.  Not in that moment, but in my daily life.

I feel like so much of my most basic personality, the bits of me that make me feel most like myself, hinge on confidence.  The confidence that I am being myself as hard as a I can and that no matter what happens I will manage. 

I mean, I still feel like myself, but I also feel like I'm always watching myself too--always peeking around the next corner trying to see the blurry faces of strangers just before they're in my line of sight.  It's a weird feeling.  It's not the feeling of loneliness which is this weird gnawing grey thing, vague and insubstantial thing that could be easily distracted and mitigated.  This is something very specific, a noticeable lack.  Like there's this hole in the world and like a hole everything rushes to fill it, but it still drains away.  

I have always been very fortunate.  It's cliche to say this, but it's probably the most accurate word, but I've been blessed.  I've always managed somehow and I've managed to become kind.  I've met wonderful people and continue to go on wonderful adventures.  I have learned to appreciate kindness and the difficulty of being kind.  I have seen my goals and taken steps towards them--for me there are no more "what-ifs."  It hasn't been easy and I won't lie, there have been very dark moments.  But that's what they were--moments.  There was no disconnect with myself; the person I was awake was the person I was asleep.

But now, my dreams are so angry.  And I have differently dark moments.  They're dark the way lava is dark.  But also bright and violent and burning.

What do I do with this?  Is this something I can bring to a priest or witch or whatever?  I feel like I can't talk to my friends, how do you explain that you're being haunted by yourself?  I feel whole, I mean if I'm not myself, who else can I be?  But now it feels like there's someone else here with me too.  

Hit the floor

Today, I collapsed.

Like literally.  I stepped out of bed, stood up and fell to the floor.

And as I lay on the floor, the blackness of a migraine starting at the far corners of my eyes, I thought, "Today, just isn't happening."

Thoughts

This morning when I was walking to work, it was still a little dark.  And I saw the crescent moon glowing against the blue sky like an iridescent fish scale.

And I thought how wonderful it would be if giant galaxy fish were swimming through the sky and that planets were as effervescent as bubbles and what would happen to all the people after the film bursts?

To Do List 2015

 Plugging it in here, to make me accountable.

Gonna Make Friends With Some Rocks
Vazquez Rocks
Palm Springs

Gonna Make Friends With Some Trees
Tahoe
Muir Woods
Yosemite
Sequoia National Forest

Gonna Stay Friends With The Ocean, Pacific To Be Specific
Crystal Cove
Coronado
El Matador
Catalina
Sonoma Coast
Baker Beach
Carmel

Gonna Stay Friends With Some Friends
Seattle
Maui

I should probably start jotting things down here again.