ponder the birth

ponder the birth when the date strikes.

one year back i was aboard a van taxi to a campsite that lies outside of venice, italy with girls, disreputable to my taste, invading my karass. one year, with what to prove, if proving be something necessary to mark time and the distinction of age.

i was shacked up in a bungalow with an old woman presumably from the mid-west of America, and i hadn't minded the lack of love on my birthday weekend because becoming acquainted with the city was to define Twenty. someone from the past did save me though, we waited for her vaporetti for a fearsome hour as she navigated the italian transport system to rendez-vous for the weekend holiday. she deboarded the bus boat, flooding relief from my tightening throat. the time spent together was dually wonderful and torturous. thick spaghetti, buxom glasses of wine, a jazz restaurant with bras dangling from the ceiling, a new zealander's drunken kiss, ping-pong with senegalese staff of the campsite, losing ourselves on the outskirts of venice with the tenderest of spanish families--moments i haven't thought of since... to remember them now makes me feel blessed. on october third, two thousand and five, all members of the karass returned to paris to oblige their obligations.

i've always had a wrecked feeling inside when most all people of my karass prefer schedule to sporadic spontaneity. somehow when those i consider members of my karass point-blank neglect to make sacrifice for what i feel should be willing love, i am always saddened. why can't i just expect nothing or less, always. but the birthday fell, as planned, reconciled, and welcomed, to solitude on vaporettis taking me to the techni-colored water village of burano where a genuine pannini and glass of chianti held me over for the stretched trek back to the sixteenth arrondisment. this following the most cool and sweet scooped gelatti, which had been breakfast after a delightful night of drinks with an australian family and some southern exchange students. we'd crawled through the thin streets in pouring rain to another bar. how i made it back to the campsite, i'm not so sure, but i was so alone and if i hadn't have been wiling to venture in solitude, i wouldn't have molded such memories. in retrospect, i deem myself courageous.

most times in europe as i hopped trains and planes to touch different places, disregarding companionship as a necessity for travel, i did feel quite alone. however certain tokens of alliance kept me soothed. a package sent from the santa barbara west coast that i anticipated every day but never received, french customs finding it more appropriate to ship it straight back to the west coast. cecila and julie's strange bond and their embrace of me. madame delacote's care.

what i took from the moratorium from life, abroad, i'm still not so sure. one year following the wet birthday alone in venice, i critically admit to being quite the same. still weary of love and the excessive ways of men. still graced with a heavy soul. still antsy when stagnant or alone. still absorbed in the duality that renders the sensitive thinker in a constant battle. jerked by the highs and the lows, with no avail. i've been fortunate enough to evade any direct tragedy. i have a slight feeling this next year may not be so peaceful in terms of death. but how happy i am to report that although at certain times in this last year i felt utterly out of control of my own life due to the misfortunate ways of others, i've gained a grip wholly independent of heart strings. i've taken a job that dips into one's psychology. this is not always easy. but i hope to find motivation to do something with/about the evidence that sadly drenches upon me whenever i enter the realm of isla vista, or the whole of our society in general.

i want to find someone who meets me. subtle in our approach, we'll take eachother's hands, both laden and light, and grip-- without expectation. without necessity to be falsely complete. we'll tell each other stories with our hands, on sand and between trees. we won't care for just ourselves, but bask in eachother's abilities to care so much for others. most importantly, there will be an oozing confidence in all that we define. okay, this "we" term has reached it's fantastical capacity for the evening... onward... (boko-maru on my subconscious)

birthdays often feel too loaded to bear. perhaps it's when the moon falls that makes this date out to be so weakly trusted. sha-sha to bottoms up, shouts the man scratching out the m.i.p.'s. the chancellor sending birthday wishes and safety instructions. if i were to be back in a foreign country, this day would be like all the rest of the days that mark my birth. counting my life in annual swings, without a viable sense. my birthday wish this birthday of the most reputedly non-arbitrary of birthdays, to be happy and in love with the karass that gathers around me.

a note from the underground of my heart: smile, when the transient lifestyle beckons. disconnect stealthily from this concept of connection and hope in the selfish life mates, live the days as lived on october third in venice, when the downpour sucked at my ankles but not my felecity.