…where we still get bitten by mosquitos in our bedrooms as we prepare to go to sleep. a third-world country where bugs and science and innovation have lived together, corresponded for centuries, yet one still cannot do away with the other. we can destroy ourselves; we can destroy so many things, but we can’t destroy everything. not even with nuclear power and nitroglycerine…all things in small doses, no?

i have a few people in my life who continue to surprise me. one in particular is stronger than i have words for. i honestly do not know how she is able to do it; how she manages it all and still smiles. in every conversation, with every compelling detail, i am shown just how short my fuse is, how great my fear is and just how far i have never been willing to go. it’s amazing to have fearlessly strong people in your life. you find yourself speechless so often in such presence.

i have another who still surprises me. i keep thinking that after all of this time, after all of my observations and analyzations and careful studying, that i would have him down. that i would cease to entertain him, that all my shortcomings would blare and the ugliness reveal itself like a brown ochre in oils, conveyed with large steady strokes by hands who have been working since time began. but instead he still smiles. he still makes jokes with funny voices and tries with his might to above all things, keep me engaged. he studies me. he indulges me and is constant in his generosity and complete participation and warmth. i never even know what to say.

i find it interesting what we choose to allow to befall us. typically, i want to always be prepared. i want control, i want the upperhand and to orchestrate. maybe it’s the taurus in me. but so often i have desire without application. just pent-up intention, vision, thought with dot-to-dot projection of a plan. a hand-drawn map where X marks the spot. then i fold it up, put it in my pocket, consider it maybe again while before my computer during the week at work, then inevitalbly lose it the hungry devouring power of the washing machine spin cycle that is the life of the young and unfocused.

i have love, i have strong feeling and heated intention. funny how that feeds despair as well as it does action.