You Love the Beach

you love the beach

from your very first trip

you've loved the beach

where you encounter other dogs

and meet new animals

your velvet ears flap in the wind

and your furry toes dig into the sand

so many walks on the beach over the years

the salty air now stings your eyes

and your ears have greyed

but you still love the beach

and i love you

in memory of eve, 5/18/11

for all that changes,

some things stay the same.

inspired by nikki & david's photo album, "a day at the beach"
(written in hopes of illustrating this someday)

Windows

AUGUST HOROSCOPES:http://www.austinkleon.com/blog/

when i was 3, my family went to the beach. despite nikki having been the newborn, i was the one that was the handful. my mom reasoned with me, "it's not summer yet so the water's still cold. you can't swim in the water yet, okay?" while nodding, they saw the mischievous smile spread across my face. they hot-potatoed my sister to secure her into the baby carriage but with me darting full-speed, i was head-first in the water before they could stop me. i got a cold...and a spanking.

when i was 5, my dad was fixing the roof. i was told, "don't go up there. it's dangerous and your feet will get stuck in the tar." but i recruited my sister and our friend and went up there anyway. as warned, we got tar on our shoes. coming down the ladder, my right shoe stuck on one of the steps and i fell backwards onto the concrete below. i wasn't hurt but the commotion drew the attention of the adults and i got in trouble not only for not listening but endangering my younger sibling and friend. i didn't understand why i had to be punished twice--once by the universe and again by my parents.

when i was 18, my dorm floor went skydiving as a bonding experience our first semester. i told nikki in confidence that i was going too...that it's sort of crazy "so don't tell our parents". my dad called a few days later to warn me that if i jumped off that plane, i could kiss my tuition goodbye. "how could you--accident and illness-prone--even conceive of trying something so stupid?" he asked. "don't throw statistics at me. YOU are that 0.1% whose parachute malfunctions and we hear about on the news of your splattering death." i didn't talk to my parents for a couple months after that.

when i was 25, i came home expecting to be yelled at for staying out until the wee hours of the morning. i had moved back in with my parents and i had heard "it doesn't matter how old you are--OUR house OUR rules" far too many times to expect anything less. instead, i was greeted by my parents with their arms around each other and an eerie smile plastered on their faces. "we're moving to tokyo!" they said, to which i responded, "we?" "yea!" they exclaimed. "you can make a decent living teaching english and write on the side! it'll give you 'the time' you're always saying you need to be creative."

i was excited with the opportunity but the timing was...off. i made artificial deadlines for decisions that kept sliding because i wouldn't commit. as he placed the memory card storing the deed to the house in my hand, my dad said, "i'm not gonna tell you what to do. but i will tell you this: indecisions become decisions too in the end. wouldn't you rather not let life and circumstances make those decisions for you?" then added, "your other option is status quo. sometimes, when there's an opportunity for change, you just have to jump and take a chance."

maybe it's the contrarian in me that just can't do things as instructed. but per the horoscope, i've glanced...a lot.

"whatever happened to that free-spirited kid that dove into the ocean with all her clothes on?" my dad asks. honestly, i don't know. i had promised myself i would stop being so prudish with my choices...that i would be a life-slore and try to take in every opportunity that presents itself...or at the least, regain some of the spunkiness i had lost over the years. but the impact of indecisions had become more than missed opportunities. i'd learned to first look down at the potential fall. and without even realizing, i was perpetually clasping to the sill.

but with august coming to an end...what comes next?
glancing is a fine sport...but i do enough of that as it is. and eventually--glancing or no glancing--windows close.

what i need now is the courage to let go and take that proverbial leap.
...though knowing my luck, it might very well be into an abyss.

Ashes to Ashes

when you first came home with us, you fit into a shoe.

you made funny noises that made our mom sad and cry about how we were taking you away from your real mommy.

your pot belly was a taut pink and your breath smelled like cocoa. i liked blowing air into your nostrils to make you reverse-burp. i don't think you liked that very much...you always looked at me dubiously with those slightly droopy eyes but you still let me do it.

we ran around the house making scratches on the cherry hardwood and shed carpets of platinum blond. you grew so big, i needed to stretch out my heart just to make sure you fit comfortably inside it.

now, you come back to the place you last called home...attached to a letter from the vet. it's weird that you fit into a little wooden thing that looks like a music box.

nikki says you're gone now. that she can't feel your presence anymore. but there are still pieces of you around...in the scent-stained blankets of this makeshift bed and the eager carpet effusing speckles of white. but eventually, the blankets will get washed and the floors will be vacuumed. then you'll really be gone.

i guess hoping we still cradle a part of you inside of us is probably more for our sake than yours.

when mom and dad come back, we'll scatter you into the sea. and any particles left of you in this world will gently be broken down by the waves.

time will break me down along with these memories of you. eventually the wear of the world will also turn me into dust. then i'll return to the earth and maybe wash out into the same sea.

ashes to ashes. dust to dust.

Where the Sky Ends

(painting by Nichole Macaraeg)

"does the kid and the dog remind you of 'Where Does the Sky End' or what?"

"i don't see the kid and the dog. am i going blind?
also, i think it was "Where the Sky Ends"--no 'does'."

"they're in the sketch by the tree.
i just realized my paintings are pieces of materialized subconsciousness. it's freaky"

"Where the Sky Ends" was the theme to the annual art & lit competition at our elementary school when my sister was 5 or so and i 7. every year, student participation was highly encouraged by teachers and prompts were sent home to be shared with parents.

when we presented the prompt, our parents asked "so where do you think the sky ends?" we answered with blank stares. seeing themselves as artistic souls, i suppose our parents really wanted to believe that we were seedlings bearing their untapped artistic potential.

"what's the world made of?" our dad asks. more blank stares. "it can be broken down into 3 components, can't it? the earth, the ocean, and the sky."

in an effort to fuel our creativity, they drove us around town. we first stopped at a park where just the past weekend, my sister's class had attached packets of morning glory seeds to balloons alongside letters to finders and released them all at once. "do you remember what you did here the other day?" nod. "good, good."

then we started driving toward the ocean where concentrated rays of sun were beaming through thick clouds and lighting up parts of the water. "doesn't this remind you of our trip to moneterey? you asked if the fishies sunbathe in the water." our mom says.

as children, we were clueless as to the profundity of this theme. we just jostled around with our limited past experiences and translated them well (i guess for children of our age) onto the thick acid-free watercolor paper. we consequently won first and second place in the school. maybe participation was super-low...who knows? but lately, somewhere in our collective subconscious, we were revisiting this message again.



"eve, do you remember how to swim? when you start going, swim towards the sky, okay?" our mom says.
"uhh it's usually called flying when it's in the air." nikki says matter-of-factly. and we all chuckle a little.

much to the chagrin of local surfers, there are barely any waves today. if eve's legs still worked, this would be an easy swim. the sinusoidal bulges in the water transform into gentle lapping waves when they reach the beach. we look onto the horizon as if they will bring forth answers from the edges of the earth...but all we know is that this ocean will be here just the same tomorrow...but she won't.

we waste so much of life on useless shit...and at the end of the day, we still feel like we're playing catch-up...like we're constantly running out of time. wading through a muddled reality to get to the moments that we actually want to hold onto.

maybe wherever it is that eve is swimming to now...maybe there, when we transcend to the metaphysical, those nagging feelings dissipate and we become pure entities absent of emotions like regret and resentment.

eve already had a pure soul, so she didn't need further cleansing...but the rest of us could sure use one, especially if we don't want things weighing us down from seeing her again.


if i can ask you to wait just one more time, could you meet me at the edge?

it might be a while...but i'll see you there, where the sky ends.

5/18/11

Waiting for Dogot

"how's life without eve?"

......empty.

about 24 hours ago, i took my last walk with eve around CdC.
and as of about 12 hours ago, eve no longer resides here.



i got home today and sneakily opened a container of chocolate-covered almonds expecting to hear a thud and that light trot down the stairs at the sound of cpg (consumer packaged goods). but alas, neither were my expectant ears greeted with those familiar sounds nor was my lap slathered with a large pool of drool.

eve's existence was very much what made this house a "home" and without her here, this place is just a collection of white walls and a roof. i had never really resided in this house for more than a month or so at a time until this past year. the fam had moved while i was away at college so this house always felt to me like an in-between-housing type of place.

my rather simple room set-up had not changed much during the 12-month period: a super-crappy TV set nearest the doorway, a queen-sized bed (my best investment in the past few years) situated next to the window, and the make-shift desk strewn with semi-important documents and random cords resuscitating a dying laptop. i'd often gaze out the window to assess the weather-appropriateness of my attire or the chance of rain in the coming days...even if i hadn't planned on stepping outside. nothing obstructed my 5' by 5' view save for eve occasionally jumping onto the bed and joining me in the activity. she would position herself at the edge of the bed and look out the window with a most wistful gaze. what was so interesting about that view, i don't know...but we kept gazing...as if our gaze would somehow will the unchanging landscape to morph into something new.

it is a widely held belief that animals have no self-awareness, but i often catch eve displaying such expressions that make me think otherwise. but we, humans, are animals too afterall. with her basic immediate needs fulfilled, who's to say eve hasn't ascended Maslow's hierarchy to self-actualization? if not, perhaps it is her heightened perception of reality that hinders her from reaching sublimity. perhaps she is all too aware of her limitations as a furry person thereby propelling her mind into a canine quandary of how she fits into the world.

i watched four seasons come and go through that window...looking at the peach tree whose crest now reaches the bottom of my window.....sitting...staring...waiting for the last leaf to fall at autumn's end then waiting for the first blossom to bloom at the sign of spring...and somehow always missing the moment it happens. slowly but surely, the world changes...and i will sit here dolefully breathing in the scent of clean linen clinging to the waft of hot air blown into my room by the adjacent vent.


when i patted eve's head as she boarded nikki's car, she turned her ears back...the way she does that makes her look like an arctic seal. she perceives things on a similar brainwave as my own. she probably understands me more than most human beings ever will. and i know she knows...about the boundless void...the inevitable doubt that encroaches on the finite mindspace that holds all the things we've somehow managed to demystify. "figure things out," nikki said before driving off. indeed. i cannot let my dog 1-up me...

and yet, here i sit in this now empty, eve-less room...still looking out the window...still anticipating a sign......always waiting...waiting for dogot

For Every Season...Churn, Churn, Churn~

although autumn equinox is a good 2 weeks away, labor day pretty much marks the unofficial end of summer.

this has been the most active summer in my whole adult life. i'd gotten myself out of a major rut and no longer seek solace in beer bottles in a dark moldy room. and though my life is far from ideal, for the first time in a really long time, i feel like it's okay. i've come to accept that some things will forever be a mystery to me and that a certain amount of complications will always persist. i have no predilection for drama but maybe drama's what keeps things interesting...no? well, yea probably not, but as long as it's not life-threatening, i'm not gonna stress too much about it.

next week, i will actually have to [gasp] go into an office for a longterm project. even with the more-than-desired commute that friends have warned may "take a toll on my happiness" however, i'm fairly confident that i'll be ok. 2 words: jeans & t-shirt...(or is it 1 + 2-word hyphenate?)
the past few days have been a mad rush of laundry and other cleaning. it's about that time again when i grudgingly do my quarterly ironing. i hate ironing...but the idea that my crisply pressed wardrobe will indefinitely hibernate in the depths of my closet leaves an unanticipated feeling of bittersweet.

i imagine everyone's psyching themselves up for the long week to come be that in the shape of another business trip, the onslaught of post-holiday work, or juggling work and school as i cross my fingers that my friends' forgiveness about the failed hawaii trip (due to my lack of funds) won't fade quite as quickly as their post-vacay glow.

i sit here staring (probably with a vacuous look on my face) at the slightly off-centered Morro Bay souvenir coin which had unfortunately been churned several times in the wash before being rediscovered. it now has lost its copper sheen and instead sports an artfully antiqued look with bits of lint embedded in the small crevasses.
i look back on the many adventures, big and small, from the past few months with new/old/reacquainted friends and family and realize that for someone who is as invariably angst-ridden as i am, this summer has been one of many emotions.

of course, my inner cynical child hasn't died off completely. from the corner of my brain spreads the inescapable truth--these memories will be adulterated by the drudgeries of our daily lives and, like the penny, will too soon lose its luster.