Keeper of the Dam

                 We have hunkered down together in a small room, the eight of us; mattresses on the floor carve a small path to squeeze around each other. The morning started with ease - bottles of wine joined the coffee and chocolate croissants - but now the wind has turned menacing, pushing everyone into the small room and off the porch that was once a safe place to witness nature’s strength. The sound of the wind now carries a bass with it, sending shudders into the earth and vibrations in our bones. If conditions continue, who is to say when our shaking will be from the storm or fear.                 I write by a slice of grey light that stabs through the open door. We take turns gathering around it, searching for the lost sense of safety in the world that so beautifully housed this sunny beach before. Soon the door may have to be closed, and we will sit in this ...

            I am often struck with the feeling of melancholy for no apparent reason. The depth can be subtle - slinking through my thoughts - and other times deep and heavy upon my mind, painting a sepia film over the day. But the tool I’ve learned through this past year is to recognize it, accept it, maybe even try to place its source, and then clear it out by looking at the things around me I am grateful for. Each place I visit gives me a bit more room to grow in that exercise and I am hoping that one day I will be the master of it. But for now, I let the mood shift with the breeze and am eager for the moments when I can swing back into the clear blue tones of a sunny day and see the sparkle of all things bright in this life. I’m currently fighting off that melancholy with a foray back into the hidden coves of my sexuality; I’ve returned to Zipolite nearly a year after my first adventure of two nights. Now with a week secured, I am openin...

          Sitting in a rooftop café in Mexico City, I look out and see smoking rising from the Plaza de la Constitucion . It is the cleansing smoke cast by an Aztec shaman in a purification ritual and it floats to the sky with the spirits that are purged from those in the square below. I wonder if I have been leaving a similar trail behind me as I’ve traveled the past year, sloughing off the negative legions that attached to my soul and weighed me down. I wonder if they have turned to smoke with each day spent in the cleansing sun. If they were dried out by the salty blue waters of the ocean. If the people I have met have hugged me and squeezed out the spirits hiding in the cracks of the collapsing structure that I once was. Here in Mexico City, I identify with similarly decrepit buildings, as they too tell a story of standing through years of wear and tear. Age has put them at odd angles and the shaking of the earth has sent cracks up the cement work. But ...

          Funny how time runs out long and slow in front of us, but then when looked back upon, it scrunches together and overlaps in short layers of memory. My time in Michigan spent with my family stretched out for a very long six weeks. The weekends were punctuated by ragers with my brother, where we would microdose ecstasy, shrooms, acid, marijuana, cocaine, and then drown it all in gallons of Redbull for 3 day bangers in which we slept for 1 to 2 hours a night. On Sunday we would float on our backs in his pool, strung out but still too wired to sleep. Our eyes focused hazily into the distance and a hard-cider in hand. We were clever and never drank too much, and stayed hydrated through it all so that by the time Monday came around, he was able to go back to work and I could sleep a solid 9 hours and wake up in my mother’s empty house to binge-eat on the couch while watching old episodes of Mom (a comedy-sitcom about alcohol and drug addiction) and wond...

Culture shock and whiplash: two great words to describe the feeling I've had jumping from the towering world of NYC, to the vast sprawling hills of LA, down to the quaint coastal villages of Mexico, and back up to the eclectic streets of San Francisco. I’m not complaining - the journey has been marvelous and eye opening to say the least - but my skin is definitely screaming in protest. The cold, humid winds whipping off the coast of San Francisco are a big adjustment from the gentle, warm ocean winds that circled around me in Mexico. I wake up in the mornings with my skin red and tight from the abrasion it fights while travelling on my bicycle the day before. My skincare routine is changing as quickly as my plans, and I wonder if that process will catch up to my mind sometime soon. How am I to know that these expeditions I embark on won't unwind some vital path of synapses I rely on and rewire me to an even more messy version of the person I am now? I suppose that's a risk ...

     The sweat beaded on my forehead, collecting on my nose and cheeks; the temperature was an unseasonable 95 degrees in LA, and I was in black jeans, my long-forgotten boots, a blue chambray button-up, and my trusted red cardigan. With me I trolleyed along all my worldly possessions, packed just so because of the ungodly outfit I layered on (did I forget to mention the undershirt and jean jacket?). With rideshares on the fritz and traditional LA traffic putting on an early morning show, I was running late to my train up to San Francisco. One large suitcase, a backpack, a duffel, one folding bicycle, and a matching bag; I was overflowing with unnecessary items for my month-long trip.      Arriving at the train station, only a bit hassled by that point, I was greeted by an overtly charming woman who chauffeured me down the tracks, helping to push my luggage and hand deliver me to the train. For someone arriving late, I felt like I was receiving first-class ...