One) Ice-cream eater.

Yes, a very realistic goal that one could definitely accomplish based on the daily. Clearly, as this goal did not require the upmost of thoughts, she moved ahead, satisfied.

Two) Already her palms began to sweat. Somewhere between the last bite of her popsicle and the one sided parenthesis, she struggled with the demons inside that threaten to extinguish any morsel of one's hope or self-worth. Think, think, think...

Damnit.

2) Looker at the clouds by day and the stars at night.

See, overcoming challenges WAS possible and, she added with a sly grin, she'd come up with something of a feat. Not everyone could say they hold both a day AND night job! Well, number 3.

3) Drinker of water (and other liquids, obviously). Now she really felt like she was selling herself short, but one cannot overcome desperation without fumbling with the bra strap for a bit. She was aimlessly walking on the edge of the cliff, except this time, she wasn't looking down and she wasn't stepping away. Too many hours had been wasting cautiously cocking her head towards the furthest part of the crust only to casually look away, pretending she wasn't all that interested in the unknown, the exciting after all.

4) Reader! This was good. Not too far-fetched, everyone reads, right? She wasn't claiming to be the next big, oh wait, is there any person who achieved fame based on the quantity of materials they had read? Probably not. And, point made. So, she would read. Labels, signs, books, magazines. Good, good... Oh, God. Had she really just called herself a "reader" because she was guaranteed to browse magazines? The desire to call herself ridiculous was easing up, persistently, like that damn skirt she had worn the other day. The little bugger just wouldn't stay put and try as you might, or empathize to the extent of your capabilities, and you will probably never accurately imagine the extent to which an unfitted, or rebellious to gravity, skirt threatened this girl's perfectly upbeat outlook on that day. Anyways,

Number 5!
Such a great number. The day of her birth and meaningless besides. She would make this number important, relevant. Option five would be, well, something terrific, really great, she would come up with an option both plausible and enticing. So. Life-long, committed non-smoker? Too hypocritical. Tattooed body, vowing to never regret those three works of art, even when she was old and gray, at the age whenever every "well-meaning" soul told her she'd regret them? No, too abstract, too condescending for such a youthful state in her life. Strike two, but fortunately, this girl was accustomed to the rules of the game (they were her own, in perspective). She would be cultured.

Wow. That came out of nowhere, she sat back reflecting. Up until this point she thought only crap was capable of fumbling from her mind, or so it had seemed up to this point. However, this one, she quite liked. It fit. A guarantee she felt comfortable offering herself up to because she felt quite certain it didn't mean altering any aspect of herself she knew, up to this point and it carried with it a wisp of optimism, a promise she might shine up and stare into every now and then. It also meant she could mine a little deeper into a tavern she stumbled on a few years back, it was a place in her center that was positively delighted with all the subtle differences between her and him and us and them. With the same flowers that grew in Rome, but also at home. With the smile of the child on the metro abroad, that brought the same smile to her lips when she walked into her sister's home and saw her nieces and nephew watching their mother cook. She found love in every crevice of the world and she felt confident that if one of her life's options was to seek out and appreciate cultures, as she had done up to now, well then, that was one option she was happy to include.

Phew, number six. A silly number, in her mind. So close to sex that she often felt like exclaiming that she had a sex-pack of colas at home and sex toes, instead of five. See who would be turning her down after those statements! Who was she kidding, sex was too often floating around in her mind and there really was no reason to relate the quantity with the action, their middles were completely different. Sex, six, six, six, six. Six languages. ATTEMPTED languages, that is. Very closely related to five, but more, as sex often is.

Seven! A faithful drinker of Sprite, as opposed to Seven-Up. Honestly, who are those makers of 7-Up and who do they think their fooling? Too incredulous and inflamed with indignation to stop and consider the absolute foolishness of her own to let this make her list of life options, but then again, at least she had something to be faithful to near the top of her list.

Eight) She promised herself to absolutely, always love her mother. The woman had given her her lips, her life and her button nose. She had inspired her at a young age to not give a rat's ass what anyone thought, even though the reasons for this determination were somewhat fuzzy in both of their thinking. It didn't matter. Her mother's life was full and her beauty only became fuller with age and she was pretty sure that number eight was an option she might always live up to, no matter what lay ahead.

Number 9) A little crazy. If she could commit to this number, she thought, life might actually be a lot simpler. She did this test on herself every once in awhile actually. You see, our girl had this habit of caring too damn much what others thought, at times. So, to push herself out of herself she would think of the most obvious flaw that one might carry, unsuspectingly. Like, a huge splot of brown right in the middle of her pants and then she would walk around with head held high, smiling more at passer-bys with the knowledge of her secret game and less to do with her actually joy at their brief, much too meaningless interaction. Number nine looked feasible and not too harmless, it had potential anyway.

10. Quite a serious number, in her opinion. Even as we aged, the double digits carried with them a certain coming to age type of importance. And, now? What would number ten be to her? She felt that same fear of failure creeping into her vain. Was this, a list of nine articles, half absurd, half absolute regardless of effort, be the result? No. No, she reminded herself. No more backing down because the fear flared up. What a bunch of rubbish and an idea she would never put up with if a friend or loved one or stranger, for that matter, felt the pangs of its existence.

On a dime then, what would she wish for? To push herself this time, she would claim, no more giving up. Enough of it. If one has the stamina enough to form a dream and voice an aspiration that revealed itself to one in the whisper of a dream of as the rainbow after the storm, then she was done being the one to dash her own hopes. Not that she wanted to do much editing or constricting on her list, but as this was the beginning and her whole life was going to be a seemingly large commitment she would place a sort of lax approach on this item. It must be any fully-developed dream or goal and once it was there, once the heartbeat was felt for example, there would be aborting. Well, she always responded to sternness.

On to eleven. Eleven eleven, send a wish up to heaven. That is what she heard, anyways, from someone who quite believed in the positive ramifications of this action and she had been quite fond of this certain person, so it only seemed fitting. Dear Lord, she'd wish, whenever she spotted this duplicated number on the time.

It's been a long time...

I woke up today, the same as most other days. From the place I sit now though, I realize that something has changed. Nothing new, but altered to a time that I have been before or a place that I have lived in. It is familiar, not boring. Calm and peace, yet notably new and fragile. I love this place. I need to protect it. Like  a new mother who has known these feelings in the past, I am without the rules and guidelines of nourishing and caring for another. While I recognize the tides, I am unfamiliar with the path that this sea or flood of emotion will take. Whatever it may be though I would like to never cease following this path. It is one of self-fulfillment true, but I know it will not be led simply for myself. It is from the prayer I uttered asking for strength and certainty in order to be an example of something better. So, I'll search for happiness because it is what I desire, I desire to find happiness to spread the seeds throughout this place. I want to smile, I seek to be loved because only while loving and smiling am I utterly enthralled. When I am thus satiated, in a way beneficial to most, I believe it will be a domino effect in the most simplest of manners. It takes work, like a honey bee, one so sweet that produces a joy to all who try it, must do what comes naturally and effectively to help others reproduce their own beauty.
There was a time when I felt that to search for beauty was a vanity unforgivable, if I were an artist one might have said I was in a perpetual state of blueness. I feared twinkling because I couldn't deal with the attention it provoked. I lacked understanding of a higher meaning and therefore fear reigned in the forefront of my mind. Then, like the simplest of gestures that at once can cease a quarrel amongst lovers, the words came to me that to sparkle is a gift, to hide it is a shame, to fear it is a waste and to abandon hope would never work. Life continues regardless of who opts out of its game. The trees and flowers and birds were His examples. All created by the same, so why would I feel not worthy of the same attention or self-worth? Do the roses hide their colors because you and I so readily accept their perfection? No, they go on beaming because that is their duty, at least as far as you and I can see.
I do not claim the perfection of those I've mentioned, but I reiterate the semblance to our origins. Now I know some who call this science, the workings of nature to create our intricacies and all the aspects of our lives. That's fine. That is fine to understand that we have all come from the same place. I call my idea of this a maker, the only difference is I will not claim to now the "how." Who could ever believe that they know something when they were never present to me is not more intelligent, just one more inclined to have the answers. I would like to think that as the world continues to heal itself and outsmart those who figure it all out that we could take a hint and stop short of just being in amazement at it. I am a curious being though as well, so if you must know than continue to search. I hope when you find the right answers you will share with us that they may be beneficial to all and with all our best interests in mind.
My journey will be a different one, of that I am completely aware. I'd like to study and to learn, but also to live and enjoy. It is this balance I'm still figuring and I pray my life will continue on in this way.

Staying in touch

Isn't it strange how saying "let's stay in touch" can take on a completely different meaning than "I need to say in touch with my emotions"? Quite obviously the desire to 'stay in touch' with a romantic interest takes on a divergent meaning as well.
To say one thing and to mean another, what an odd concept that we developed. Would life be simpler or duller if we erased all of these phrases and simply said exactly what we meant?
I need to, I have a desire to comprehend how I am feeling throughout the day, all day, but at the same time I do not want my day to be ruled by my emotions. Therefore, I would like to be aware of how I am feeling because I think once I am aware, I will be able to match my activities up, or align them, to create a positive flow of life rather than one convoluted with mistakes and regrets. I think that would help because I would know what I want to do before I do it. I just realized though that that would also entail having the logic to work out whether what I want in the moment will coincide and reinforce what I want for my future. That would be a detail I would definitely like to grasp, the problem is that I am unsure as to what I want my future to be. I guess that is why I am in Rome though. I couldn't figure out all of the small details, so I went as broad as possible. I know I like being abroad. I know I enjoy learning. I love feeling alive and conquering challenges. I'm interested in cultures and I like learning the intricacies of places otherwise unfamiliar to me. With all of that said I'm confident now that my decision to come here to take this course was a wise decision. Now that I'm here though I want to make the most of my thoroughly brief time. I want to enjoy the sights, feel brave some more, lose myself only to find me again and to continue meeting people that remind me just how small the world is while simultaneously exploding the idea in my face that I have yet to scratch the surface as some of them have or even because of what they can show me that I didn't even realize I was missing.
I still want to enjoy the small things though and I do not want to chase some mythical being called intellect. I know I will never be able to become familiar with all the places of the world, but I'd like to try.
Today was one of my favorite days in Rome so far. I did absolutely nothing. I sat in a park, listening to an accordion player, who was playing for a group of elderly people and they were enjoying each other and delighting in each new song he began and I read. Ironically, I sat with a copy of Death in Venice, an old copy I picked up on my last day in town and it was coming to it's climax, but I left before the conclusion. I'm always that way. I near the end, but instead of coming to a point of closure I decide to prolong the inevitable. That and there were two little boys riding scooters and playing and I was rather distracted with their antics, so I wondered on home. The day though, was wonderful and relaxing and inspiring. My book is so cliche-ly poetic and I ate it up like a girl receiving roses and chocolates. There is something so satisfying to me about stumbling on a poet's work that is so full of self-expression and lacking in any sort of survival's restraint. I'm not sure if I'd call it hope, but it was certainly refreshing.
I came home and made a patriotic salad full of greens, a sweet and perfect red tomato with a cheese I couldn't tell you the name of, but I know it was packaged in a way I have never seen before and didn't look like any cheese I've ever bought. That combination with a sprinkle of olive oil, pepper and salt concluded my meal and I couldn't have been happier. Home-made meals always do that to me and so far this is day two of what I hope is a continuous streak of American made, Italy provided delights.
Of course, skyping with my mom afterwards was an excellent way to conclude the evening. She and I are, after all, doing our best at keeping in touch.

Support

It comes in all shapes and sizes. 

In colors of violent brilliancy

and whispers as quiet as the night.

It comes at times when it's needed

and at others when you already feel right.

It is more than words, yet it is the easiest thing to give.

No ribbon or bow is required to pass it on to one another.

From friend to friend, lover to lover,

child to mother, stranger to his brother. 

She said," Wait for me."

I said, "How long?"

She said, "Did you see that?"

I asked, "Again?"

She said, "Come play with me."

I was no longer there to answer.

Sometimes the time will trick you.

It will stand still and convince you that you're moving.

You feel as though you've moved ten thousand paces when in reality you took one step back and have only set yourself behind.

Behind the place you've dreamed off and into a day that you never did.

You never noticed this back sliding because the ones around you aren't those who love you and they probably never did.

If and when you look up from the bottom of the hole,

remember at least that you didn't get there on your own.

So while you vow to not stay there

because in your heart you know you're good

look around for those who will help you and then be cautious of the wind.

Do not let them blow you from to and fro

to not let them tell you only the things they know.

Listen patiently and intently,

but then be true to the ever growing voice inside of you.

When it is time to leave, you'll know it 

because the whole journey is about you growing. 

It's just a blog, it's just a blog.

I'd like to go back to the beginning. The beginning being an indescribable spot, a fluctuation between multiple memories with the precise hopes of revealing it all. The beginning is the same as the middle, not to be confused with the whole. The beginning is what formed you, but also has very little to do with where you might end up. These are things I have taken for granted, masked behind the screams of feminist outrages. These are the topics no one is paying attention to because it is a time when the cries of hungry children and divided families are silent against the weight of the greed for gold and silver. I agree, the representation of a typical fantasy princess is as different from the head-strong, decision-making king as could possibly be. Polar opposites, as some might call it. The idea that a woman is much more than a great cook, master sewer or even multi-talented house-keeper is firstly not a knock to women who choose to do so. Someone has to do these things, obviously. The more kudos to you who have the stability of income with which only one working parent may be hands-on twenty-four hours a day, most days. However, this is to say that some women prefer to do other chores. I myself must be a current day, transgendered being because while my female nature knows the mystery required to do the dishes and scrub toilets another part of me wants to write a book and share some of my ideas with the big boys. I have been educated enough and seen a decent amount of the world to know that the dilemma and tragedy of undedicated and lost women and young-girls is, indeed, an epidemic. I wanted to know why and my only hope is that this piece will make it beneath your eyes, into your mind and out again of your very mouth. Spread the word(s), please. Let all the young people of this generation, male or female, know that they have been misled. Housecare and parenting does not a bad person make. Those are honorable and necessary in order for our society to continue developing with respectful and patriotic citizens. On another offense, please tell them that a good alternative to a failing economy is to turn on the image that the media has so recently and completely honored; sleaze-balls. Yes, sleaze-balls. People who have no other objective in life than to enjoy every second, without a thought or pretense as to how others may or may not be affected. In addition, in order to turn ourselves off to this image, through a tried and true method, I humbly suggest turning your eyes from the representations, if not only for the moment to look at whoever is around you and ask how you might help them, love them and in turn enrich your own soul that we each one of us most assuredly has residing in us. 

The problem with the argument I am presenting is that the tangents I could take are endless, so I will try to stay on the main road while taking side streets when only completely necessary or slightly beneficial. I think young people are lost. They are floundering and adults are too busy, too preoccupied, too angry, too hurt to take the time to correct what seems to me to be mortally wrong with our nation. Like, Stephen Kieman said in his book, Authentic Patriotism, I know problems exist all over the world, but if we cannott help our own people than we should seriously be considering the appropriateness of "helping" others, especially when half of our citizens and most others from around the world don't consider what we do as help. If, however, you are reading this and anything I say applies to your country and you feel you could be influential to people I only dream of meeting, than by all means, please help your young people too! I don't presume to know the state of youths around the world, much less throughout the United States. I only have my experience, a California born and raised youth to adult who spends her time tutoring kids who can't tell me a dream they have beyond the weekend. No dreamers, no politicians waiting for their age to match up with their ability and no awareness of themselves or others. It is truly a sad situation. I want to yell at the parents for bringing children into the world who only fear the night or to slap the school system for not inspiring more in a child than adequate behavior for lining up properly or for sitting quietly, mostly. Above it all though I want to plead and beg with the people who have become so disconnected from each other that seeing a child with no shoes sparks the comment, "I wonder if his family is even legal" rather than "that poor child, what could five dollars do for him?" What I'm wanting is compassion. Compassion because we cannot understand every situation, all we can do is take care of the here and now and I know that as a kid compassion and sincere love from an adult is what got me to where I am today.

That is just the beginning. I am not, as has been critiqued in the past, some hippie-flower person claiming that love will bring about peace and end all travesties. Instead, I'm admitting that I lost my way and had forgotten at age twenty-two how to try. If you don't understand what I mean, try making someone else's day and see how it alters your own. It may not feel like magic and fireworks the very first time, but trust me when it clicks, when you smile at a kid because they are looking at you and you don't know what else to do and then they smile back it feels like the day just got that much brighter. I loved Kieman's book, but I wanted to add this section if I could. Not everyone can come up with a sincere, life-bettering hospital system and I know that isn't the point of his book, so I just wanted to add this little piece. Start small. Start as small as you want to and I can't tell you much more because I'm beginning there myself. I do know that you will surprise yourself at how quickly your habits can change and how the good deed-doer will just ooze from your own mind and sneakily catch you off your own guard. Perhaps you could start with your own kid or even your family if you need to. Maybe you already show all the love to your family that can possibly be squeezed out of you? Than move on to showing the globe some love. For me, I imagine every trash I return to it's rightful spot, the garbage can, has benefited someone else's day. Maybe I am stretching my imagination, living in a daily fantasy where my neighbors appreciate my effort, but I'm not running back to reality. I like it here and I like to think that others started before me, so I'm not as lonely. You should join me, after all, it would be no fun to go on a journey completely alone.

Quitting

I realized this morning that my entire life, all 23 years, has been about quitting. I am, of course, the girl who learns through doing. Does it hurt to bang your head into the wall? Well, yes, it hurts him and her, but would it really do the same to me? *Five seconds later*, "indeed!" It does inflict pain. So, then I know. At least down this route I usually have first-hand accounts of circumstances that others bring up as topic fillers or gossip-bits.
Anyways, I wouldn't say that I am a quitter, just that I was seeing the world in that light and have only, just now, realized this. Instead of perceiving the transitions in my life as just that, as moments when change takes place in order to move me up or along even, I saw it as a step-back. I guess I'm thinking of life more as a yin-yang type existence now where the items of the paradox, whatever they may be, co-exist rather than pull in completely opposite directions.
The best example I have is my struggle to find a sustainable life-style here, when the home I've known is there. The schism between the two felt like a huge void that I was running from. In one plane I was the young girl, family-oriented and people-pleasing and confident in that role and in the other I was self-reliant,  education-grounded and free, in more than a few ways. In my mind, these two were black and white and I could not see that gray was an option. Most likely because when I went there I heard all the negatives of here and so I began to believe that my life-style choice had a hierarchy, one that I knew intuitively was "wrong" while the other just wasn't "right."
It took this year, a most unpleasant 10 months to be honest, to give me a new beginning. See, the old me would have said, "Time to start over. I'm done with blah, blah, blah." I'm trying something new now. I am building, rather than casting the entire model aside. In reality, that isn't how life works and, if it is, there are only so many times we can start from the beginning, which are actually ruins before we give up and hopelessness sets in.
The first step in my perspective-changed being is to acknowledge that I like the way my ground floor was built. (I'm speaking/thinking entirely metaphorically here.) Once I was able to admit that or to see that, once again, I started to see that it eliminates fear as to what I'll create next. That first level will always be there, so the more comfortable I am with it, the easier it will be for me to try new things and not worry so much about making the "right" decision or even about having the appropriate response.
One of the struggles I'm having with this new outlook is how to react when certain characteristics I have bring me down every once in awhile or make me feel guilty in a situation that another individual might never think twice about, but I guess I'm still learning.
I still won't regret any of the choices I've made, but I will remember my "growing-pains" and pray to God that I remember the lessons I've learned. The hard way, of course.

Duplexity

Why is it that your noise drives me to the edge of a cliff?
That the only noise I long to hear is the birds calling to each other in the air?

Why is it that enough is really never enough?
That what I have or have been given leaves me longing for I don't know what?

Why is it at times that I crave solitude?
That one second I find joy and the next finds me in the most opposite mood?

I have never been in the situation where I tried to identify this uncomfortable uniformity
because what I have to compare it to is nothing but ordinary.

One fact in me I keep returning to is that this modern life is quite boring.
I hate the way we wear our clothes, premeditated, stressed over and painfully gained.
The weight of what I'm doing never allows me to commit.
Do I want to wear what you do and have each hair most perfectly aligned?
At times.

Do I stop for a minute and try to realize that what I tell myself every day is the most complicated of lies?
I do.

I sabotage my happiness because I feel I don't deserve it
I look for you for guidance as if I've never heard it
In reality, I'm waiting for some kind of change.
Either one in me that makes me strong enough to be who I want to be
or a change in the world that finally makes me.
I'm sick of all the things I do not know
and all the things behind me
Maybe it would be better to look ahead now
and make the changes that I would like to see
I'm scared of what they might bring though
and fear is unusual for me.
Since I was a little girl I went anywhere alone
never fearing what lay in wait for me
never waiting to examine the possibilities
I did it naively, or do you call it bravery?