and for no reason at all this

and these

 make me smile and also cry

Remembering fountains

 I love standing in front of fridge late at night with all the lights off, filling my bottle from the water dispenser, watching the glow and swirling ripples under that little light that goes on when you push. It's spectacular. I forget too often this quality of artificial light, how it loves water, a magical combination, a childhood dwelling where you put all your secret wishes and dreams and it reminds me of all the year round fountains I grew up with in LA drenched by all that moviestar light, diamonds dancing in a pool

If I could draw

I would want to show you the biker in blue that just went down the 39th street hill from the west,  on this blizzardous day so beautiful, pedaling upright, and how much his headlight, so round and bright, glittered the storm so perfectly, picture perfectly, like a famous painting,  so much so it was if the whole thing happened just to be painted, another fleeting messenger that passed you by, so as to one day see it again, hanging in a museum, and be reminded that you let it get away, that there was a time, not long ago, where you could still see the world in pictures, even though it didn't mean that much to you at the time, and what you'd give for those days now

without this dying narrative

And when you can no longer lift your right arm above your head or allow yourself a good pandiculation first thing in the morning, it occurs to you that maybe you have been treating yourself the same way they have, subtly at first,  but enough to know it wasn't kind, telling yourself it's not a big deal, there's nothing wrong with your body, wear and tear is all it is; ignore the red flags, stop asking for help. 

It would be easier that way, making them right. In the short term anyway. There are immediate advantages to not trusting your inner knowing; there are benefits to staying stuck. For one, the fight is exhausting. Ignoring yourself is effortless; it feels so familiar you hardly notice. Monkey see, monkey do.

Until the short term becomes longterm and you loose half of your body to the neglect you bought into, wanted to believe. For a million reasons that you've believed before until you could no longer sustain yourself on those beliefs, you had to accept that something was really not right, that, no, it's not all that normal to not be able to lift your arm over your head, just like your brother said it wasn't right when your leg wouldn't straighten or your face felt tingly. You knew it then like you know it now. You know now that there is only so much that they can do and that the doing is on you and you alone, the same way you know you will return, like a moth to light, with your dead lighter to the old narrative and it's dying flame because now what? 

 Now what?                                                                 

Now what without this dying narrative?

Of course with emptiness, with all else