august 2011

i remember the day the sky looked like this.


it wasn't long beforethis moment when i had asked daria to describe love to me. she was laying on my bed and she looked up staring to my ceiling as if there may be some past image or thought that had been imprinted there to help her define it. defining the undefinable . eventually she looked at me and said i dont know bird!

i moved from chicago and i lived in new york for a month. while there this girl below came to visit. we had a ceremony at the beach where i cut off my cast and swam in the ocean. all these things healing, finally my little paw was ready to use. when i took the cast off it looked so foreign. like my hand had grown 100 years. yet in the same way it felt foreign, it also felt familiar. as if i was to wake up in the morning dreaming about my seven year old self to find i am actually 23. maybe i was just confronting the hand i may have one day. my 60 yr old hand.

even these images already look dated. but thats what technology does. you can make a photo look aged and you can create an ambiance from color and lighting. yet the beach was really as light and magical as it looks here. this wonder down here topless and free. my dad asked what sort of beach were you at! i went to the airport wearing my long dress that i love, i decided not to wear a bra that day and he said courtney what are you doing, we're in america, youre going to the airport like that?

yes, yes i am.

about 3 days after this i headed off to a 10 day silent meditation retreat in joshua tree. that was an experience i cant really translate through typing.

for me, someone who is constantly moving, it was really..well it was really hard.

and really good, really important that i sit there and see things as they really are, not as some fantasy and to not escape into a book or drawing.

Vipassana, the technique, stands for seeing things as they really are.

i didnt know much about it before signing up besides that and it was free and i was instantly intrigued.

anything to aid in seeing things "as they really are".

a really wonderful gift that helped ground me before my move to india.

i'm in arizona, i leave in a week and a half.

i bought myself a new sketchbook and today i filled it with little nonsense drawings on a car ride that seemed to continue and continue.

sometimes driving in wide open spaces can be soothing, but i had all this pent up energy and i didnt even know how to get it out.

so i drew.

i drew the rain in my mind and i drew the home in my hand. i drew echoes and i drew a secret door.

i drew the shadows of birds that flew to a field out my window and i drew a compact mirror with a hand reaching towards it that said "i miss taryn."

people can come in and out of your life so quickly but sometimes, there are some people, that are really hard to not miss, really hard to not wish they were sitting next to you making you laugh.

mais bonne, anicca.

thats two languages in one.

french and...well the language of buddha, i forget the name.

basically,

oh well, impermanence.

that word has become a stronghold for me.

something of hope and a pacifier.

two in one.