This is not a tightrope and I am not an acrobat...

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Lately I have been feeling a tad frazzled with trying to keep track of preparations for the big sailing trip next year (https://www.facebook.com/TheEmunaEndeavor) which for now includes narrowing down my physical belongings, looking up port cities to see where we want to stop, getting a (free) camera to start doing the fundraising video, seeing if any of our current friends know friends in other countries who can connect us to coastal folk that we can befriend and visit (since the whole draw of the trip is to create global community).  I am looking into corporate sponsorship to basically be a floating billboard and youtube ad slot for any company who wants to stand for unifying the world by our commonality instead of dividing us by our differences. I will also be approaching local businesses here in Phoenix as well as in Astoria where Dovid lives and even the port cities we will be visiting here in the USA and abroad. It's a lot of work and I really hope I can get most of it done BEFORE leaving Phoenix in mid January.  I have also been monitoring the twitter and tumblr accounts for the trip and even to a small degree the Google+ and Blogger accounts. Twitter isn't so bad because the facebook and tumblr auto cross post to there, but I do still log on to see if there are new followers or @mentions or direct messages.   Now that I just typed all that out... WHEW that is a LOT of stuff I am doing!

Since I know I am leaving I am cherishing every moment I can with all the people in my life here locally. I am going to as many events as I possibly can. I meet up with people just to connect or even if it is for some other purpose like selling my art, I still spend some moments with the person to connect. I am so super fortunate to have so many wonderfully bright shining lights of kindness and community and people actively doing their dream. Even the new people I am meeting are in line with this energy! So much inspiration around me!

I'm also still working on my poetry... I write all the time. I can't seem to help myself most days. Thoughts come into my head and I type them out and post them on my poetry facebook in the status. If I really like a poem I have written, I will put it in my notes on that page. I also have been queuing my National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) poems to my poetry tumblr. At one poem posted per day once I get all my poems from April 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 that is almost SIX MONTHS of poetry posts! And like with the trip, I also have a poetry twitter account and a poetry Blogger account. Same deal with the poetry twitter, I just log on to check for new follower and @mentions since the tumblr and facebook both cross post there.

Speaking of followers... I am also trying to write each new follower a poem. Which if I had written the poems right away as they came in, no problem... but... I didn't do that so now I have 35 twitter followers and 50 followers on tumblr... D'OH! So I really want to find the time to write those poems too. OH! and I have a banker's box FILLED with poems that if they are hand written I need to see if they are already in soft copy somewhere in my files or online (I send poems to myself via email even if I don't post them anywhere) and even the printed ones I need to make sure I actually still have the soft copy that I printed them from (some I didn't). SO... again... a LOT of stuff I am doing!

Of course there is life outside of preparation, poetry and people... I am a live-in nanny for my friend in exchange for  room and board (I may ask for $30/mo to keep my PayGo phone on too). It's fine most of the time but it can interfere with my social life and my trying to sell my art at events because my friend and her husband are in a band so their gigs are almost always on the nights that things are going on. It's cool when they have a gig that the kids can come to so that I can go with them and watch the kids there, but they mostly play bars so the kids can't go. Which is fine. I am so grateful to have a place to live while I figure out the next phase of my life with this huge trip.

Funny thing about writing this entry... I have had a thought that I am feeling frazzled for no reason, but now that I look at my life all neatly typed out like this, I am seeing that my life is REALLY full. I do take maybe 5-10 minutes in the morning to just be and center before I start my day.. maybe I need to take 15-20 to just sit in grateful mindfulness of my life and all that is in it. <3 p="p">

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Poem: Altered Reality

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I wrote a poem today...




it feels too easy to fake perfection these days
photo shop ourselves into an alternate reality
make everything ugly beautiful
make everything beautiful ugly
we have assigned a new paradigm
but is it really to our benefit

to alter the reality that eventually
we will have to deal with

this wasn't supposed to be about drugs
but about internet memes passing my eyes
then my mind realized the correlation
the connection between fungus and fate
the link between herb and existence
how a horse can race through veins sometimes
and how we swallow the lie of liquid courage

I feel friends all over the country fighting
inside themselves with what they once were
each day a new victory or a new struggle
fallen angels scratching out 3rd eye images
in favor of what seems to be an easier road

I won't pretend to understand their situation
the deep falling into the place where numbness rests
the disappearance of time into the folds of space
how bright things shine brighter
and the darkness falls deeper than infinity

this new bird in the skies of twisted vision
has downy near feathers that can only glide
I have not worked wing muscles to strength
have not used food or rent money for a fix
do not know the dark thoughts that push
over edges that only meditation can cure

who knew stillness could be so hard
to look into that abyss and face oneself

I slid down an acid road into it once
even then I did not face the pain
I only braved my own closed eyes
called visions of sarcastic unicorns named Gary
and pink crowned Haclyon double rainbow summers
they comforted my passage over Styx
as I returned from my inner Hades

I don't have any answers
no way to fix reeds bent by the wind
who don't feel strong enough
to stand straight on their own

I am hoping that somehow
this prayer in poem form can be heard
sent via my spirit to them all
and that right now today
they can feel their own light
and be well
♥

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the long walk home

FOR THOSE WHO DON'T GET WHY I ALWAYS WANT A RIDE HOME AFTER EVENTS & CHOOSE *NOT* TO GO IF I DON'T GET ONE... LET'S TAKE TONIGHT AS AN EXAMPLE OF WHY...

After midnight on a first Friday is not a time I wanted to walk home alone. But since I couldn't find anyone with a car to take me and needed to be up in the morning. I took the risk to walk the 10 blocks.

At about the halfway mark a guy's voice calls out behind me "Hey" and I turn around thinking it was someone I knew from the house party I just passed that a lot of my friends were at. "I'm not trying to be Mister Creepy Guy" says a moderate build man shaped shadow in all black. "If I don't know you, I don't want to talk to you" I say and keep walking. I look back and he's stopped so I keep walking and pick up the pace.

"I'll give you a cigarette!" he calls after me. "I don't smoke!" I call back. "I'll give you $20 and a cigarette" the man shadow says, still following me. "No thanks!" I reply. He still follows. I say "Fuck off!" but he STILL follows me. I reach in my purse and say "I'm pulling out my phone and calling 911" (my phone happened to NOT be in my purse but HE didn't know that). "Go ahead" man shadow says. Creep factor level up 1,000% I cross the street and he crosses as well.

I start screaming at the top of my lungs running down the street towards the nearest house that I knew someone who lived there (about a block away). He STILL followed. There was a woman and man sitting on the front steps of the house across the street from where I was headed and the lady asked me if I was OK. "No! there is some strange guy following me!" She invites me to come and sit with them and I take the offer. Creepy shadow guy walks up to the wall saying "I just wanted to give you $20 & a cigarette" throwing the items mentioned over the gate as he kept walking.

I stayed shaken on the steps of my newfound friends Gia and James while James watched to be sure the guy was actually leaving and not lurking around the corner. He even got on his motorcycle to cruise the block to be absolutely sure. While he was gone Gia offered me a glass of wine and I took it even though I don't normally drink. I laughed it off a bit since the worst seemed to be over "at least I got 20 bucks out of it I guess"

Just as James was back from bike patrol, my friend Zee stopped at the sign in front of the house. I got a ride home from Zee and am now safely in my room typing this... shaken... but safe.

Strange guys approach me and usually "I don't know you" puts them off me. When that doesn't work "Fuck off" usually does... and in the rare occaision that doesn't work, screaming DEFINITELY does... but to run screaming down the street and have this guy do the Michael Myers/Jason slow killer walk behind me was a bit much. I was hoping to get some sleep because I have stuff to do tomorrow, but I don't see sleep coming any time soon at this point.