could you freeze a waterfall?

anytime i look up and think -

i got a plan got it figured out this time - 

i connected all the dots - 

there's always stars i don't see

that'll throw off my perfect symmetry

more times than not i've got it wrong

i'm a  few beats behind and a bit off key

choirs of angels won't be singing my songs

but just as long as someone does

well then

i'll be alright.

When you're lying on the ground staring up at that inverted compass I mean, Christ, who knows?

Today I returned back to Belgium from a little jaunt to the Canary Islands.  Well, rather, one Canary Island that is, I went to Tenerife.  Interestingly enough, during the month of January, the demographics of this island resemble an oceanside retirement community for the British.  But this only enhanced my vacation, because come on - who doesn't love an old British couple discussing the exorbitant amount of dental clinics on the island, or telling you all about their daughter who moved to Boston with her husband whom she met while he was studying abroad in England, and their grandkids?  Lovely, fun, elderly people.  Makes you happy to see that people can enjoy life at all years; kind of gives you hope that maybe when everyone tells you 'its all downhill from here,' that maybe they're wrong.  Or they've never been to an island filled with happy 70 year old tourists. 

But anyway, I felt like a spoiled little brat.  My friends are back in Leuven with the perpetual rain, chill and cloud cover, studying to the brink of insanity, and I'm flopping on a black sand beach off the coast of Africa, with no decision to make other than what cocktail I'm going to order later.  I guess though, life can be a lot like playing the slots, and lately I've just been turning up straight 7's.  

We decided to adventure to the Western part of the island to see the cliffs, Los Gigantes.  Asked the man at the front desk what beach would be best to see said cliffs, and received information about beaches with good windsurfing.  Not so helpful, but he's a nice guy, so we said 'gracias' and used that magical little thing called a Blackberry to google our way to this scenic masterpiece.  We walked around, taking in the incredible views, and found a path to a natural pool, which was an oasis of black rock surrounding a tidal pool with the crashing waves of the Atlantic.  I lay on the rocks, looking out at the water, wondering, as I have on so many occasions, how the hell I ended up here.  

I took a break from my reverie to go swim in the tidal pool.  Now, I've had some bad luck with water in the past.  When I was a kid, I was stuck on an inner tube towed behind a boat going faster and faster because I was too afraid to take my hands off the handles to give the signal that means 'stop this death machine.'  Last summer, I got sucked down a rapid.  In the natural pool, I decided to try and cling to the rock masses while the waves crashed on me, instead of, you know, doing the smart thing and moving to the deeper water, as my fellow swimmers (again, mostly around 70 years old) were doing.  But nay, I had to keep my grasp on the damn rocks, which owe me nothing, just like the ocean.  First wave, oh thats fine, I can take that in stride!  Number 2 throws me for a loop.  Number 3?  Number 3 is a typhoon to me, and knocks me on my ass.  So I get thrown around a bit, pick up a few scrapes and scratches, and lost a flip-flop.  One flip-flop remains in the Atlantic where I left my mark.  The other flip flop is in my backpack because it was returned to me by my prince charming, a tall dark and handsome island native, with whom I certainly would have lived happily ever after if I knew how to speak Spanish.

So I survived that ordeal to continue on and drive up and around a volcano in a tiny stick shift car with approximately 7 horse power.  Have you ever driven around tight switchback uphill curves where you've had to drop down to 1st gear every 8 feet to keep moving?  My forearms are sore, I'm not kidding, and so is my heart.  Jesus.  The drive was gorgeous, but sometimes I wonder if roads were really meant to be there or not.  The area looked remarkably like Arizona.  Driving amongst what my astute friend pointed out to be, igneous rock, I felt like I was going through a time warp.  Once again, how the hell did I get here?  One year ago, I was just getting back to Baltimore to start classes, well, missing my first day of classes due to a hangover (woops).  Now I'm driving a car around a volcano on an island? 

There's that saying - live the life you imagined.  It's a nice thought, isn't it?  That you can control your path enough to make it just what you want.  But if there's something I've learned from my streak of luck, my travels and misadventures, it is that the imagining part - that's not important.  It's the living.  When I think about it, the island isn't what I imagined.  Leaving for Morocco in a few days isn't what I imagined.  Being happy to be back in foggy and cold Belgium after being in the sun, sand, and 70 degree air, just because this is another place I call home, that isn't what I imagined.  But, it is my life, and I love it.  And that's better than what I ever could've imagined.

daydream believer

No one’s singing; Miles Davis is playing so lead vocals are given to a brass trumpet.  The recording, though not the best quality, authentically crackles because, well, they didn’t have the ability to doctor anything up back then.  I’m trying to focus and read, get ready for an upcoming exam, but my mind isn’t here.  My mind’s back there. Sometimes I get lost in my day dreams.  Like this one.  I’d be sitting in a restaurant – I’m not sure what color it would be, I’ve only ever seen it in shades of black and white – one where you could picture Humphrey Bogart hanging out.  I’d sit there and smoke a cigarette out of one of those long ridiculous tube-contraptions, only this wouldn’t be ridiculous, it would be cool and classy.  Maybe I’d wear a hat, not a small one, a big one, with a feather in it. I’d sit by the window and watch the people walk by.  A waiter would come over, it’s a half past five at this point, and ask if I’d like something to drink.  I'd ask for a gin martini, dry and a little dirty, 3 olives.  He'd nod, because I would have been here before more than a few times, around the same time, ordering the same thing.

I think daydreams are funny.  I mean, why does my mind to choose to go the places it does? It doesn't take much, either, to tip into a thousand different directions.  I don't even like cigarettes, but for some reason, Miles Davis puts that in my head, as clear as a lot of memories that are up there.  I thought about it the other day, about memory that is - how strong is it going to be?  When I stood in my kitchen the other watching the snow fall, gently and with serenity, like a thousand tiny ships headed for the shore, the clouds shifting slowly as if tiptoeing not wanting to wake up the sun, the street dark but with a wintery blue glow, anticipating its visitors, I wondered what that image would look like in my mind.  Would I remember the cold that reverberated off the glass window?  The heat from the coils of the radiator warming legs as I leaned against it, my elbows on the windowsill? I wondered when I'd think about it.  Maybe the next time it snowed, or in 6 months when everything was silent in just the same way, but I'm back at home?  Or maybe never.

So I suppose that's the beauty of daydreams, and the small memories, the ones that have no significant purpose.  You never know when they're coming or where you'll go.  It's like a chance to get lost without consequence, a chance to drift off, take the scenic route.  A little transposition of night into day, dreams without sleep.

Little things I've realized I enjoy...

-A proper footstool 

-The moment in your bed when you find the perfect, most comfortable position to sleep in

-Accents

-Seeing my breath in the cold air

-When the natural sunlight comes through the windows, enough so that I don't need to turn on lights

-Soft tissues

-Quiet.

-Wearing a jacket with a high collar 

-Waking up 3-7 minutes before my alarm is set to go off

-When people smile and it makes their eyes close like half moons

-Printing out a finished paper for a class

-Showering after running outside

-The sound of someone in heels walking down a hallway

-Coincidences - the 6 degrees of separation 

-Lavender 

-Working late at night with a candle burning

-Finding the perfect gift for someone 

-Comic strips, song lyrics, or passages in books that relate to my life

...thoughts of these, along with the thought of a tropical island oasis vacation (complete with pool bar and cliff/volcano hiking excusion) and an adventure to morocco, is pulling me through these long days consisting purely of study, sleep, and the occasional meal.  But hey, I guess I was bound to have some work sometime.

2010

     2010.  I've been alive for 21 new year's eves, and I've been a conscious living being for over a decade now.  I made it through the 90's with fond memories of "Solute Your Shorts" and "Legends of the Hidden Temple," survived Y2K, managed to crawl through high school without too many scratches, graduated from said obstacle course in the lucky year of 2007, stumbled through 2 years of college and 4 months abroad, and now I'm here.  Sitting in front of my fire in the year 2010, one suitcase packed, ready to fly off to another 6 months of Belgium and all it may hold for me.

Do I feel any different?  Sure.  Don't we always with a new year?  Don't we always expect a change, or a fresh start, or promise ourselves a few new life changes?  In my opinion, January can often equal identity crisis.  More so than a birthday I think, a new year is more poignant a meter of the passage of time.  

I don't have a new year's resolution.  I've never really done that.  I'm not against the idea; however, the argument that you shouldn't need the dials to turn in order to make goals does seem logical.  Anyway, I never seem to "resolve" to much.  Maybe I'm afraid I won't accomplish it.  Maybe I'm perfect and don't need to change.  Maybe I'm overwhelmed and can't choose one.  Or maybe it's just that I don't understand what another year sums up to in my life.

Now I'm thinking about 2010.  I think about the year itself.  How does one even say it?  Do you say, two thousand and ten?  Twenty ten?  It's a year that can't even say it's own name.  This year, I'm going away from home again, longer this time.  I'm planning trips to more amazing destinations, I'll get a new room mate, I'll be further out of the loop, I'll need to have a downpayment on a house in Baltimore by the time I come home, I'll be looking toward senior year, I'll be needing to find an internship, I'll need to figure out what I want to do with my life to pick an appropriate internship...what the hell 2010?  I don't even know what your name is, and look what you're throwing at me.

I was home in Lancaster, PA for two weeks.  Home has never felt so different.  I don't think Lancaster has changed much, I know I have.  It's like a puzzle, and I'm a piece that got wet, or got torn, or got lost.  I don't quite fit.  Or perhaps it's more like as more of the puzzle came together, I needed to be shifted a bit.  Either way, I'm different here.  Things haven't changed, the times haven't been a changin', just me.  And here's the thing; if I'm not the same at home, well, then, where am I the same?  That is to say, where can I locate myself where I'm not in a state of identity shift?  Maybe it's nowhere.  I think I can relate to the year 2010; after all, I don't really know what to call myself right now.