08.30.07 11:35 pm

note to self... a reminder... a memory

___________________________________
Friday Dec 29, 2006
Portfolio, Long Beach
with bluedoor

Last time at the ocean...

I was remembering my everytime at the ocean. You had a cigarette in your hand, walking against the wind. Waves slapped against the seawall, making us step off the walk to avoid the spray. I followed you, making myself small beside you.

“What is ocean?” you asked.
“El mar,” I replied.
“Beach.”
“La playa.”
“Boat.”
“El barco.”

Another story from your past: your father, small yacht, you in a rowboat before the storm. So many stories, so many lives and I stay quiet. Smile encouragement. I know you feel at your tallest with these stories, always to fall back on “See, I have lived. I was not always as you see me now. I am the sum of all these parts.” I tell you to write them. “Get them out of you,” I say. “You carry too much, always. It weighs on you.”

I think he will love me for seeing him. For encouraging his life forward. For accepting all, forgiving everything. He tells his stories to any and every girl who will listen. He writes words for any and all who will praise him, fall for him. Cotton candy girls.

You, luna girl, are left at the table. Carved and cold. Where are your stories? Where is your song? Show me your ocean. Walk on your land. Travel these trails of past and present. Share what you have seen. Remember everything. Hide from nothing. Apologize never.

Standing at the edge of your ocean, you give it away. Saltwater spray and windwhipped hair and you bow again to someone else. You are this ocean, deep and vast and full of history, full of tragedy and movement. You can carry the earth with your fluid strength, and flow to fit into the tiniest crevice.

Standing at the edge of your ocean, you remember this feeling over and over again: you are alive.

At this ocean, everything is possible.

You are possible.