I am learning so much through everyone's responses and impressions as time goes by. All I can say is thank you. Thank you so much. I paint to express things I have no words for. But I keep painting because everyone inspires me and it keeps me going.

Thank You So Much!
-Gen

_ Invisibility. There's a sort of freedom not answering to anyone. Floating around. You can do anything you want, be anything you want without question or that itchy reasoning telling you to stop and wonder what the neighbors will think.

The reality is that when you spend your life being ignored, you transform into this free spirit of sorts. You are constantly liberated without knowing what judgment is or what it’s like to be among the status quo. The downfall is loneliness.

As it is February, it's becomes harder to ignore everyone in their relationships. I see the fights, make-ups, break-ups, beginnings, and endings, your challenges, losses, and triumphs. It’s one thing to always be on interesting adventures just apparating from one journey’s road to the next, but it’s another thing to look on like a ghost watching people together.

I feel like I am transparently just passing through people’s lives. I feel like people can feel me around and I am hard to ignore but I feel like I am just barely out of reach of feeling close to anyone at all. The wide range of feelings people experience together, the messy beauty of it all that they seem to take for granted, and all the things that make you feel human each day you are alive.

You know what hurts the most, the lies supposedly meant to spare you. Because the truth could hurt. So you spend all that time wondering. So you wander like a ghost until you find the inner strength to move on and be at rest. But you still spend all that time wandering without an answer, without words to help guide you in the right direction.  Most of my life people thought my eccentric sensitivity needed to be shielded from the truth. So many people just ignored me, kept me at an arm’s length, and all it did was make me feel like I never existed at all. As if nothing ever happened. So I keep floating on, constantly feeling like I am possessing others humanity instead of experiencing my own.

It’s been an interesting journey going back to my old hometown as a resident for a while. But strange never feeling right like I am made completely of cellophane. The 390 miles difference from the town I moved from still feels like 390 miles difference living in the same city. Who knows if this feeling is because of the city itself or what I’ve experienced in the “welcome back”. But I am just going to keep floating around until something tethers me to the ground.

Sincerely,
Gen

"I got out of bed today,
Swear to God I couldnt see my face.
I got out of bed today, staring at a ghost.
Who forgot to float away,
Didnt have all that much to say.
Wouldn't even tell me his own name
And where'd my body go?"
-Weighty Ghost by Wintersleep

_ Solitude often doesn't have silence. Sometimes the neglected and much needed monologues clang like a thousand cymbals multiplied against the high acoustic walls of the inner self. To shorten the fanciful description, your mind will catch up with your running and make you listen.

These thoughts harden like a tumor. The buildup of each thought and word press against one another until it creates a solid mass that is hard to ignore. Is it benign or is it malignant?

In the mess of my thoughts and feelings with current events, I feel like it needs sorting out. I feel like as time wears on and nothing becomes resolved, I am fighting the need to keep running. I am sitting still, as still as possible. I am keeping my ears open and listening. I am keeping myself reasonable and open but it’s becoming harder and harder each day I go along. All I hear is the silence around me but the noise of those long ignored self-narratives.

I have to remember things I’ve forgotten. I have to remember what was said to me that I mentioned in my first blog. Everything is hard, I complain, but the difference is that I don’t quit. I know it’s difficult, but I keep going. I know that people know pieces of things and that most of the time I bear the weight on my own quietly in fear of unloading the burden on anyone else. Then it spills out in odd places at odd times.

This is normal.  I’ve had many productive months of gaining so much speed, liberation, and self-accomplishment with the room to breathe and be myself. The timing of when I would encounter the complete opposite was impeccable. Once I get close to finally taking the wheels off my gypsy trailer and finding a solid foundation to build on, I start to experience real heartbreaking loss of things that held promise. They are lost and behind me. The bodies are beginning to make a pile and I need to put them at rest. Mourn the losses and find the best way to move on.

I am finding myself breaking my cool. Parts of my irrationality want to scratch out of the little cage I put her in. Everyone has moments of complete embarrassing imperfection. Moments appear where I am just a complete hot mess. That, reasonably, is part of what makes us all human. With everything that is going on, sure it’s allowed sometimes. But right now I have some really huge decisions to make.

Right now there are people really depending on me to make the right decisions in many areas of my life. It’s all on me to sign, verify, contractually agree on long term everything in many areas and it’s a lot. I have asked to find a place to settle. I am reaching the stop of my many travels to rest and make a home for who knows how long?

The monologue bouncing off the walls are singing rounds in threes. Over and over, one after the other, the lyrics are telling me something I need to hear but haven’t taken the time to listen. Friends have said it as well and directed everything, everything, towards my heart. And trust me, I may be slow and stubborn to come to terms but I have heard you and am so grateful!  Above all else, it’s the heart that needs its voice to ring the clearest. It’s time to let it slow down and listen, no matter how much things become painfully obvious, no matter how disappointing this all had been, it’s all there. All I need to know is right there in my heart. It’s never led me wrong before when I truly, honestly listen.

Sincerely,
Gen

"You know how when you're listening to music playing from another room? And you're singing along because it's a tune that you really love? When a door closes or a train passes so you can't hear the music anymore, but you sing along anyway... then, no matter how much time passes, when you hear the music again you're still in exact same time with it. That's what it's like."  -The character, Danny, describing love. From the movie Music From Another Room

When you watch this movie and you get to that part, you will know the part I am talking about when you get to it, if you don't catch on to the little build ups prepping you for it, you will truly miss the impact and emotion of that scene. There's actually a few scenes like that in the movie but the one scene that was quietly more romantic than that of the main characters is the scene between Nina and Jesus ("My name is Jesus. I was named after a band leader in Panama City"). It's a quiet scene of two people fumbling around to get to know each other and literally/figuratively falling for one another.

What brought me back to this movie after years of not seeing it was the song from Poe called Fly Away. A few scenes surrounding Danny leaving and letting go of Anna impacted me in a different way. Where you can't explain how you feel so you state it in another way and it just has to be said. While he was painting over the painting of Anna's name on his wall and you think he is moving on and letting go; you see something much larger, more expressive, and beautiful of an expression in a mural.

Art is my translator for things I can't explain, express, or say clearly. When I saw that scene, I said out loud that I was so sure this was something I had to do in my life. Something large scale, completely expressive, and to the point of where if you could smear all the feelings in my heart on the wall then that would be it. This movie was a bit of an influence when I began painting murals in 2003. But I could never capture the heart of it as they were just representations of things I saw instead of things I felt. That emotion had been missing in the work and I know I need to pull those two aspects together.

Starting today for an entire year, I set myself on a path I need to go on until February 5, 2013. Right now I am finding the right place to put this mural. After a lot of contemplating and switching around from projects to projects, I know that this is the one thing that I have to focus on and complete but I had forgotten about. Yet once I remember it, it puts everything in perspective and the focus becomes clear. This is something I need to do.

_ Over the next few weeks, I am going to be sharing the process of the initial sketches and the completed paintings. This is the first in the series. It is interesting to see the progress of what a few months of experience and good influences can do for a person. The first picture was from the original digital sketch in October and the second is the recent completed painting.

One thing about blogging is the fine line between respecting personal privacy and being able to candidly express thought and emotion. Yet when a particularly emotionally charged piece of artwork gets shown to a public audience of sorts, the vulnerability becomes more exposed. In the end, this outcome has been very positive all around and it's been a really great experience completing this work.

There are things that need to be unsaid so my life still feels like mine, my personal moments still feel personal, and are needed so that I can grow and process this new path in my life. The things I feel comfortable sharing is the difference in the process from the first work to now. If I look at both in reflection, it feels like the experience and changes as well as all the new artistic influences in my life have changed the way I look at everything.

There are things that are undeniably visually obvious in my painting habits and style of doing things. As it goes along, the "voice" of what I am trying to express becomes more clear so this has been a really great experience. I feel like the painting can pretty much speak for itself of how I was feeling at the time a few months ago. The second attempt at painting the work was different because things had already moved on and it was a strange distant place to visit at this time in my life.

One thing everyone does need to know is that I did not want to move forward with this work without making sure it wasn't taken in a derogatory manner or offensive. Something that really bothers me is if I am doing something openly offensive to someone else in such a public manner. I changed a few things that were going to be included that would be more controversial. I knew there was a way to effectively be able to execute the same kind of intensity without being as extremely vulgar. The good thing is while I got the green light to go ahead with the sketch; the new painting got a really great response. This has been actually a very healing process of getting things to continue moving forward. Even though this is one of the later sketches, I felt like it had to be the first (and most psychologically challenging) one to complete. If I could finish this then I could easily go through the more fun and vibrant paintings I am planning to do. It was quite freeing and liberating to finish this.

I am still learning perspective, composition, lighting, shadows, and how to translate three dimension human anatomy into two dimension. Watching the video, I can see how the same way I start sculpting is the same way I start blocking the painting. I start from one end to the next, scaling as I go along, and building from a messy blob into the more defined features. I have seen and tried other painting techniques but when I am free form painting fast, I noticed this weird quirk with how I paint. I can't say it is right or wrong but it is what I have been noticing when I paint since I was a sculptor first then I started really learning how to paint.

I still don't know if this art thing will be what I am going to do with my life. I have some real reservations about some parts of it that I didn't like before when I first started out with art. But I think those reservations are part of one of many options on how to go about doing art as a career. There's many ways to go about this kind of a career and be true to yourself. I think there are a lot of people in any kind of industry that are elitists, cliquey, and take advantage of people any chance they get. It's hard to find anyone real in any circumstance. But once the fake people get filtered, the real people do so much more than make up for it. They completely enrich your life. The many people I have come across and had the fortune of learning from have been so invaluable. I cannot express how fortunate I feel being able to finally incorporate artwork as a integral part of my life. I am sure I would have stubbornly done this anyway but the good people in my life have made this entire transitional period so extremely pleasant and fulfilling.

Happy Chinese New Year! "Gung Hey Fat Choy" which means "Wishing You Prosperity and Wealth"

It feels like I could very nearly break the repeat button while listening to the song For Good from Wicked. There's this tendency to be cynical, disillusioned, and sarcastic. Yet after dealing with so much hardship for most my life I can't help but just let the sappiness happen. I cannot tell you just how absolutely moved I was and close to weeping like a small child when I went to see the musical with a dear old friend. It wasn't just the wine talking when I leaned over and said, "Oh man, I need a hug after that." It was silly and there was so much laughter shared but also that quiet amazement of things being so awesome.

That night was one new memory after another that etched in my heart just how important good people are in your life. Even the friends that weren't with us that were friends back then, they were in our hearts and minds as we reminisced of such great times together. We talked of all the new people in our lives now and how amazing they are. There is just so much bad in the world bringing others down so why not share these amazing things and hope this good spreads to others? I truly hope it does and genuinely get so ecstatic hearing wonderful news from others. I had experienced so much loss and tragedy that it just is such a welcome change to feel happiness, achievement, and the warmth from wonderful people.

The past few years I had a little bit of trouble making each Chinese New Year happen smoothly. I couldn't quite get the hang of the evening before clearing the house and my life of the past. This year is so far the smoothest transition yet into the new year. For a while I have been preparing for a new life and had spent the difficult time letting go of all the things I need to let go of. Make peace with the past and make room for the future.

Recently there had been so many firsts that in my 30 years of living, I am surprised to experience. These things I could not have experienced without the support and encouragement of the genuine lovely people that were there for me during one of the roughest times in my life. The result of it was the first time I really experienced being involved in an art exhibit which also resulted in teaching opportunities. For the next few months, I went solo to see what I was made of and just be on my own. I needed the space to grow and learn. I needed to make some big changes that were well overdue.

First of all, I need to be completely honest. There were a lot of really terrible times and seemingly endless growing pains. There were a lot of things I needed to face and handle. There was so much I had to carry out while raising my kids that were such a fine balance of what they could and couldn't handle witnessing. Something unfortunate happened that was thrown in all of our faces but I think I did an ok job of handling it after and setting a non-hypocritical and good example. This is the thing though, some people just deal with the demons they are comfortable with but I fully and whole heartedly believe that it's worth going outside of your comfort zone to make the changes you need to. It was exhausting, the road felt so long, and many times I wanted to give up. But you do make it through. The speech in Rocky Balboa where Rocky tells his son, I have had the same conversation with my daughter (and quietly with myself) a few times.

"When things got hard, you started looking for something to blame. Like a Big Shadow.

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward.

That’s how winning is done.

Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you.

You’re better than that!"

On this new year, this new day, I hope to continue down this path I have been going. No matter how completely new and terrifying it had been (much like when you were a kid and you transition from one school to the next not knowing what is ahead) it has been worth it. It just feels so necessary to continue to remember where I came from, learn from my experiences and mistakes, and to give credit where credit is due to the people who have helped propel me with where I am going in my life now. I don't forget the "little guys" because you are absolutely huge of an influence on me. More so than all the rough things in my life, you've shined brighter than the darkest of my days. And as many times as I keep saying this, I never feel like I express my gratitude enough.

"I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good"

Thank you and all the best in this new year!

Sincerely,
Gen

__ "...But is that really in her head
But I just want to live each day to love her
for what she is"
Superwoman - Stevie Wonder

What started out as a quick drawing exercise, launched a series of different conversations on strong female leads. After a few characters, I got stuck after realizing that some of the strong characters I love like Storm and Supergirl are part of an ensemble.

First off, where is it that I could delve into these kinds of discussions without the negative flannel wearing angry "feminist" stereotype hovering over the conversation? Growing up in the south and talking to different kinds of people, I ended up hearing a certain comment over and over again. "You need a man to take care of you." Well, this is a touchy subject. And you know me; I'll prod at a touchy subject until it makes some damn sense. All I found out is that the whole subject of a significant has nothing to do with what I need to do in my life. A real honest love between people helps things make sense, it shines a light in the dark, but who I am as an individual has absolutely nothing to do with me needing another person. You want to talk about my heart, my feelings, and love then that's a whole different topic. I don't need a man, but when I am in love already then I sure as hell need, want, and feel  that person in my life. But me as a woman and an individual really doesn't have anything to do with a man.

I was watching IFC with a Margret Cho interview the other day. My girls were instantly drawn into listening to some of her childhood stories as they had a familiar air to it. I noticed something significant in the absense of that fear I had when my children were first born versus how comfortable I am having a frank conversation with them in recent times. I was so afraid of the influence with mass media images and their personal identity. In my childhood, there was no celebrity like Margret Cho speaking frankly about her struggles with culture and identity. I remember I had a period where I wanted fuller lips and a smaller nose. I wanted to be 5'9" with a curvy figure. I am fine in my own skin and have been for most of my life but there was that one time realizing there weren't any role models that looked like me.

I grew up being a terribly shy child that only went wild with tomboy adventures only with my closest of friends. So public opinions and what was popular at the time was lost on me. Then I saw a movie in 1995 with Christopher Lambert and Joan Chen called The Hunted. The image of Joan staring directly into the eyes of the man that would murder her without fear was permanently etched into my mind. Also at the time was the second wave of feminism which was almost very near a backlash of any forward movement for women as individuals. Coming into your own as a teenager at that time was a very character building era. Sometimes it's the best kind of situation. If your mind is in the right place, you will look within you to see what you are made of instead of what popular opinion is at the time. Walls always have that top ledge to get over. The higher the wall, the more you realize how much you want it. The thicker the glass ceiling, the more finesse you need to break the damn thing open.

I see my girls grow into wildly independent free spirits. Each of them has their own distinct personalities. Every day I realize more and more how my children look at me and see their future selves. Once I realized this, I also understood that the strongest branch can break but the flexible reed bends. If I don't teach my children the gift of accepting vulnerability and the sheer fact that mommy can't make everything (better) then I am doing them a great disservice. I cannot be wonder woman in their eyes. I have seen how they fall apart when they see I don't always have it together. I needed them to know that the world isn't over when that happens. I had been technically on my own for so long that the only thing holding me back was being able to accept help, being able to show that I wasn't so damn strong by myself all the time. I had been on my own for so long because I had surrounded myself with the wrong types of people that would cause me to be guarded. How eye opening it was to change those kinds of associations and let in genuine and loving people.

The past few months have been exceptionally drastic with changes and so much growth that if I were to have a conversation with my former self at this time last January, it would be astounding to see just how many changes have taken place. Most of it would be me probably smacking myself on the ass like a fellow football teammate and saying, “Well, hot damn! You actually did follow through with that thing I said I wanted to do!”

Currently, I am writing and illustrating my children their own little story. I had grown so accustomed to sort of creating things when they weren’t available. If I figured the baby needed tiny arm warmers, I would spend the next few months learning to knit and making her some. If they needed a story to learn and look towards for guidance, I’d make them one. We’d discuss it. I’d let them create their own if mine was total crap. My eldest often looks at whatever I am working on and asks me questions. This draws it back to the initial conversation about female leads. I have to tell you one thing about my daughter, she has this attention to details that there is no way you can get it past her. She’s already analyzed it twice over before I can even blink. At the same time, I am going over another idea for an illustrated story with another female character. It had become apparent that whatever it was that I was doing always had a strong female lead.

Practically all of my work has a strong female lead, message, and challenge overcome. I hadn’t noticed it until my daughter was sort of unimpressed with the montage of comic book female leads that I was drawing. She wanted me to go back to the illustrations I was working on. She wanted to hear these relatable tales of adventure, challenges, and humor with a heart and soul. Since she was born, storytelling by word of mouth was the only way to get the little daredevil to stop leaping off of the couch and testing the limits of gravity and physics by pure experimentation. The stories I was beginning to introduce her to that were written before she was born had her glazing her eyes over. It was almost as if her life was all about writing her own story after watching me create things in a similar light whenever I was going through something or had trouble expressing things.

I am currently looking at the sketch of female leads as well as laughing at the picture of me as Wonder Woman jokingly making tacos for dinner. I really believe my girls have been my heroes. They’ve been the driving force with everything I have done to make things better for us. I’ve gained such a better perspective after watching them, learning from them, and feeling their eyes catch every little thing I am doing in my life. They make me laugh, cry, and sometimes hide under the covers in sheer fear of them because they are definitely going to surpass (and grow taller than) me when my eldest reaches the age of ten. I am so very extremely proud of them and would be a total mess without them. I am supposed to help them with their direction in life but they have helped me find mine. These tiny little girls are some of the strongest female leads I have ever known. Even though they are their own ensemble, they’ve all stuck out on their own first before making their own extraordinary league of superheroes.

Home

Over the last decade I have traveled like a gypsy. But each place I would go, I knew how to make it "home". Wherever I was at the moment, I was present even if it was a chaotic mess. The thought was thrown around that once I moved to Charlotte that a natural disaster would happen out of no where. I had a random thought after watching a program on the history of earthquakes on the east coast. Although it was highly improbable, I figured an earthquake would occur. Not too long after moving in, the east coast experienced a rare earthquake with a hurricane following soon after.

In more senses than one, everything was shaken and changed. Although I have been traveling half my life, the following period of traveling would be probably the most interesting and strange turn of events. So many strange, unusual, and sometimes tragic experiences have come to pass. The best lesson learned was to enjoy the slow boring moments. When a person experiences a lot of commotion their sense of normal goes askew. I found myself twiddling my thumbs when nothing out of the ordinary would happen as I had grown so accustomed to something happening. Noticing this early on, I kept my inclination to tip the drama meter in control. There was this greater need to set life in the right direction. It has been incredibly boring but fruitful.

The oddest thing is that perspective and positive thinking propelled so much more in motion that it would have if I paid more attention to the frustrating things in life. It's hard but I will confess something after all the positivity and joking I have done in the past few weeks.

I have been absolutely scared out of my mind about everything. Absolutely everything. I've prepared for all the changes but it never gets you ready for when you have to finalize it all.

Does anyone ever really have it together or is it the few of us that learned how to project grace under fire?

Here's the thing. If I weren't jumping out of my comfort zone, there would be no positive changes. I wouldn't be moving forward. I wouldn't have met all the people I have met or reconnected with those that are dear to me. I had this theory about re-evaluating friendships. Prior to changing, patterns of friendships followed the lines of uneven and pratically toxic relationships. There was an unhealthy comfort zone. My common sense radar was off when I started making changes and I feel really terrible that people on the fringe of my personal hurricane got sucked in and spat back out. Yet they say with bridges burned, you find other paths. People move on as they should.

Ok. Theory is, once you make a life change for the better that you have to change your comfort zone in friends. The test in this theory is meeting new people that have different personality types than you are used to, are going in the same productive direction as you, and have been where you want to go will inevitably exchange an enriching experience with you. The idea is that in your social circle there's a give and take of everyone's best qualities as well as the right kind of friendship to keep each other in line/on the right path. I used to hate this theory because it sounded as if people were using each other. Today, each time I interact with new people, I get this completely different energy when we bounce ideas off each other, just randomly chat about things, and make some pretty cool memories together. I realize now that I only thought it was using people due to my previous uneven friendships. Like all good relationships of any type, there's an exchange instead of one person taking advantage of the other person. Learning to "take" was nearly impossible for me so I always gave. Primarly being the giving friend always leads someone to only find people that take. But when you view things as recieving a gift from a dear friend because they care, that makes all the difference. That warmth extends and is not only returned to the sender but extends to others. Genuine heartfelt acts don't have any sort of payment or reward, they have a radiating contagious effect on everyone surrounding.

I wasn't sure when I would be ready to blog as this whole transitional period feels like a broken record on repeat. As I am gathering my things, my life, and clearing the pathway towards my future, I am realizing just how many of the walls I have broken down in this process. This time in my life where I am travling uncharted territory, it has been completely 100% enriching. There is a point where you look at the mess of it all and realize just how completely beautiful that mess is.

I am absolutely out of my comfort zone. My walls are all broken down. I've already had my days of weepy moments of saying goodbye then realizing that I'll more than likely be around again. I can say without a flinch or hesitation, a piece of my heart will always be in my hometown that I am going back to in the next few days. I can also say there's a part of my soul in Charlotte. It is where I truly discovered my personal abilities in art and expression. There was a wide open space where no one knew me and would take what I gave at face value. There was no good old boy system so everything offered to me was based on merit, commitment, and absolute faith in what I had to offer. That was exactly what I spent all my earlier years searching for. That whole experience was something I needed in order to grow and have more confidence with this personal path I have been taking. Whatever it was I chose to do wasn't just for money even if that is a bit down on the top priorities of living a decent life. Each decision was difficult of what I was giving up due to completely listening to my heart. It has been worth it. It has been absolutely amazing. I know I will continue to travel here and there. But my homebase will be a little different. Where things have been going, they will continue to do so no matter where I am claiming as my residence. During this transition, I am not searching for a home but I am certain that where I am going, it will be.

Home.

Sincerely,
Gen

There is something that evokes a strong memory of past years sculpting late at night. Almost ten years ago, I was at a good personal place on my own. It was during that summer I scraped all the money I could gather to pay for an acoustic guitar I named Elijah Wood. This was after living off of a few snickers bars/nutter butters and a single 16 oz bottle of code red mountain dew or nestea for a week at a time. I was a horrible chain smoker at the time. I haven't smoked since 2005 nor will I. It's the light of the room, the smell of the wet clay mixed in with the dry clumps and dust everywhere. The memories become more clear after hearing a song that was related to a book that stuck in my memory at the time. It was one of the few songs I began to learn when I spent that summer learning how to play the guitar. I remember sitting in the driveway under the stars practicing.

Here's a little weird quirk. I don't listen to my favorite songs often. If I hear it more than twice a week, I will turn it off. My thought is that I don't ever want to wear it out so it would still feel special. I figured that if I ever happened to come across it again then I could stop wherever I was for a few minutes and just enjoy listening. It had been years since I heard Norwegian Wood. It had also been a long time since I had been practically on my own like this.

I clearly remember these hours. For different reasons than now, I never had time to myself to work during the day. Back then I took solace in getting away from everything and hid away in the garage or backyard to escape everyone. Now, the girls give me a few hours to sculpt when I need to and I still spend most of my day with them. I reflect of how nice things are late at night and peek into the bedroom every now and again at my girls. I listen to my dogs snore away next to me in the living room. But what is it about this hour that always feels so familiar?

There's a feeling of looking forward to the future. Things I have never encountered before. There's a whole space of growth I have yet to experience. Back then, there were years that followed that tested my character, my moral standings, my absolute patience. Now I am sitting here again in the early hours of the morning listening to mellow songs reflecting life and mostly love. I am all misty eyed and emotional without even drinking a bit of alcohol. Somewhere I lost my faith in the romance of life and experiences as a whole. I lost my perspective on dreams that I thought I would always hold on to. It's crazy that I was 21 and still daydreaming like I was 12. I am nearly 31 and I am reaching that little seat on top of that star. I am finding a comfortable position to sit, singing little songs to myself. Just generally happy to be, to experience, and to look forward to whatever is ahead.

It's hard to say what the song and the book means to me. It was strange to revisit it as if it were someone I was romantically entangled with. It was something I somehow left behind when things started getting rough and moved me around so quickly that I had to leave it all behind. I suppose when the dust settles and I finally get time to look back and it slips back into my memory. I see it had been something so rare and special that I can't imagine why I would have forgotten in the first place. Of course something life altering happened to draw me away from that time. But it's here again. This odd little time, how many more chances in a lifetime do you get to experience it? Even if it is a couple thousand more moments, they become less and less. It makes you wonder why the older people get, the more reserved and hesitant they are to fully immerse themselves in that moment. This moment is that moment where you've come to terms with your past, you are happy with your present, and anything at all possible could happen at this point in the future. These are the little passages in stories that most writers forget to really grasp on but amazing writers do. These little boring insignificant parts of stories that other people would skip over to get to the action. These moments can really define these turning points in our lives. They are worth taking a good look at and really enjoying. Between the starts and stops, these points in life make up the million and one special "trivial" moments of your life that combined make your life unique.

So I just discovered there's a movie out based on the book. It looks beautiful actually. Maybe I will break my rule and listen to that song a few more times than I normally would. Why not?

Sincerely,
Gen