A Word of Advice

Don't flirt with me now unless you can follow through.

You listening?

No wait, I like the flirting.

Ok, revision:
Keep flirting with me, but make sure you're amenable to following through.

That's it.

Oh just follow through already, will you?

e (you know what it needs)

31 August 2007

This morning I had an early dentist appointment and then went for bloodwork. By the time I was finished, it was lunchtime, and I hadn't eaten anything since 9pm the previous evening. My sister argued with me and I felt discouraged, so I took myself to a new sushi spot and ordered a few improvised rolls. Most of my time in the bright room was spent looking over the glossy teak tabletops out the front window. I shifted to get comfortable in the hardwood chair, my short skirt causing trouble again. I eavesdropped a bit on the conversation at the table in my view, with a painfully frail woman tattooed neatly in many places talking about her job. It was an uncomfortable conversation she was having with another man and woman, all three of them working out a new business relationship. I was pleased to be alone.

The table adjacent to me had an older gentleman, somewhere in his sixties I would guess, who was also dining alone. Usually I feel pangs for elderly people eating alone, but I felt his gaze on me and no longer felt obliging toward his solitude. I ate without making eye contact, minded my business and my own thoughts.

After he paid his check, he stood, pushed in his chair, and walked to my table.

I finally looked up at him and he said in a volume only for me, "You're a very beautiful woman. I just wanted to tell you that."

I thanked him profusely, and smiled widely as he walked away.

This is why I tell people I think they're beautiful, lovely, amazing, and adored. The unexpected element of love is that the more I give away, the more I feel within me. What a gift.

♥e

Yes

"We all think we’re going to be great and we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren’t met. But sometimes expectations sell us short. Sometimes the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected. You've got to wonder why we cling to our expectations, because the expected is just what keeps us steady; standing; still. The expected is just the beginning; the unexpected is what changes our lives."

Exactly.

Dreamy

I might have to acknowledge it...summer's coming to a close.

What a change from the beginning of the season, when my whole life hanged in the balance. I feel solid and secure, and so happy. It has been such a time of connection when I felt so lost and disconnected at the beginning of July. How quickly things have come together. I have met new people and appreciate them for whatever they are in my life and ask no more of them. One has arrived and departed almost as quickly as he came, but was absolutely precious and beautiful in the moment and I adore him nonetheless. He gave me exactly what I needed at the precise moment I needed it, and taught me so much about myself through being with him. Others have been there for me in ways for which there will never be enough gratitude, for guiding me through the darkest rooms of my grief. Some have been there for me every day, and others were willing to step back into my world after so much time away. One friend forgave me an old mistake and I have missed her. There are new connections, to my lovely Peach, for one, and a perhaps a new and different connection to someone I knew years ago whom I always thought extraordinary. More than anything, I have so much love for all of you. If I consider you a true friend, I hold you so close to my heart you might feel it beat. If we laugh together, if we share ourselves in any way; I love you. You are beautiful and amazing. ♥e

TS Eliot

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Finally.

I had that summer feeling I'd been missing for months...that peaceful bliss of a day well-spent in heart, mind, and body.

My heart...I am clear on so many things now, and have reached a different state of understanding and acceptance, and finally, gratitude. I still have so much love but now I can spread it out a bit. My friends and family have been on the receiving end, and you, my dear, are still so large in my heart; but I have placed a silk ribbon on this page and have closed the book for now. For now. I gave so much love today in word, in thought, and in deed, and it felt beautiful.

My mind...I restarted a book I had gotten a good bit into but had forgotten ... Anais Nin...and got even further in by being transfixed by both the fictive and meta-fictive aspects. I floated around the sunlit pool in a turquoise suit on a turquoise raft below a cerulean sky, utterly undistracted for hours.

My body...I threw open the doors and windows around 8:30 tonight and ran up for a quick shower before dinner. I stood in the hot stream, lathering the rich red currant soap until the room was filled with spicy steam, dried off, and threw on a loose button-down oxford before heading downstairs. I stood at the kitchen counter adjacent to the back door, slicing soft juicy peaches into a cool porcelain bowl. The crickets and peepers sang ardently, everyone cooing and calling, and the breeze slipped in and over my warm clean skin like a kiss. It was the absolute summer feeling: all of my senses engaged, all of my joy unfolding.

Quickly. Yours Truly, Conflicted.

I just want to say good luck on your first days back this week. I'm thinking of you.

and the moon was a hole in the sky large enough for a whisper,

and the moon was a hole in the sky large enough for a whisper, but too small for an escape, originally uploaded by EricasIsland.

but too small for an escape.

There are moments you capture on photo, and those for which you put down the camera and stare wide-eyed and grateful. That's why the photo isn't sharp, but my memory is; standing out by the shimmering water, the thyme between the slate leaving speckled shade in the moonlight, the trees massaging the clouds with their bony knuckles, the air so sweet I could taste it with every breath.

P.S. I love you!

I really do!

This is for you.

Because I have found the key to happiness in this life; because it is dark and I am the light by which I write; because I have had four days of absolute peace and my world is once more about joy, possibility, and the power that exists naturally as energy between people; because I accept the despair that comes with that joy; because I understand my own capacities - to live, to love, to create; because this is as much yours as it is mine; because as we move from laughter to tears to laughter, we are always celebrating; because the suffering in my life has led me here, where I am accepted, where I accept, where I am loved, where I love, where I am love, where I am; I thank you.
(1998)

Ideas

There are about 15 canvases staring at me over here on the bed so I know that today I'm getting something accomplished. For weeks I've been thinking about a larger piece I want to do but I've been deliberating whether or not I can truly capture the softness of the moment. I took a photo, and my memory is that it I just wanted to take the most delicate parts of my fingertips and gently comb the skin of the person in the photo. I don't know that I can express that with paint.

This is procrastination, isn't it?

This is the last Monday in months that I wake feeling the freedom of a wide-open week. I have so many ideas and hopes; please FORCE me to get things accomplished. If we're on the phone, TELL me to get up. If we email, use caps and exclamation points to motivate me! Comment and GET ME GOING! It makes me smile just to think of it. Don't be shy!

This has been a summer of reconnection with friends and making new ones. I am grinning like a Cheshire cat realizing that my inclination was to characterize this time so positively when for so long it was the summer of devastation. It feels almost mischievous, so much gained with so much lost. Finally I am feeling that the totality of what I've been and become is finally larger than the pain of what has come to pass.

...and I'll write. I promise.

Yum

TylerBender, originally uploaded by EricasIsland.

If someone's wondering what to get me for Christmas, here's what I want. HIM. I haven't met him, but we've discussed making some books with my art as the cover. I totally dig this guy. BIG crush.

Ray LaMontagne ~ Crazy ~

My current musical crush. I love this one, but "Empty" haunts me. There are no videos, he isn't a video type of musician, but here he is covering Gnarls' "Crazy" -- which I always liked.

Enough!

Oh I'm sick of it! I'm done (for now). Enough with the morose and depressing! Not to mention this place looks like a tornado hit it and I'm GOING to take care of it NOW. I have the art show in 6 hours, I have the 32-incher to install, and I WILL wrap my brain around the commissioned pieces. I also plan on looking HOT at the show tonight, for no one but myself.

You'll never know.

You tell me,
after 19 years of kindred spirits, soulmates;
5 years together, committed;
how, after I consistently give love and support,
and wait;
you say you're done
and hang up.

Yeah, I'll say. Asshat. No matter...I have learned here that despite my instinct, habit, and intuition to do so; I no longer protect you. I take care of MYSELF...ME now. I am not wrong here. You are unnecessarily unkind to me, and I don't deserve it. Never did. You want me out; I'm out. However, you now stand alone in the graveyard and stare at the stones; while behind the trees, the living file past, whispering the truth into my ear:

"You knew."

Stockton Gala Days
That summer fields grew high with foxglove stalks and ivy.
Wild apple blossoms everywhere.
Emerald green like none I have seen apart from dreams that escape me.
There was no girl as warm as you.

How I've learned to please, to doubt myself in need,
You'll never, you'll never know.

The summer fields grow high.
We made garland crowns in hiding, pulled stems of flowers from my hair.
Blue in the stream like none I have seen apart from dreams that escape me.
There was no girl as bold as you.

How I've learned to please, to doubt myself in need,
You'll never, you'll never know.
You'll never know.

Violet serene like none I have set apart from dreams that escape me.
There was no girl as warm as you.

How I've learned to please, to doubt myself in need.
You'll never, you'll never know.
You'll never know.

That summer fields grow high.
We had wildflower fever.
We had to lay down where they grow.

How I've learned to hide, how I've locked inside, you'd be surprised if shown.
But you'll never, you'll never know.

happy

happy
Originally uploaded by EricasIsland

Look at me here.
I was so incredibly happy.
I remember feeling so beautiful,
the world unfurling from my fingertips.
I want that back.

Fleeting

I would like to say that it is getting better, but it's only temporary. From time to time I laugh and mean it, or I'm smiling without intention; but most of the time I am wishing my mind were off the matter and that I didn't miss him so much. I could send a hundred cards to postsecret and I'd still have things to say because it's just a spring that flows endlessly.

Even now, I don't want to write about it because I don't even want to think about it. I need some distraction.

Until then...

I remember when I found it. I know what it is, I know how it feels, but I don't know where it is these days. I am lonely and longing for it, but it's hiding from me now. It's a mistake to believe that it's a permanent state of being. Enlightenment is an understanding that comes upon us are we are more awake and alive than we ever thought possible. People can't help but revel in our glow. I've been told that [sic] "it's as if every pore in my body opens up to take in the world and says 'Yes!'" I love that feeling, that moment, that experience...but I am far from that girl right now. I miss her.

Thank you, Carol MacVey; thank you, postsecret. Follow the link, be the light.

Dear Heather, I am a pathetic excuse for a human being

that's right, I am. And why? Because I want to do things that I know are bad. They all have to do with R.

It's 2:17am here, and I wish you were up.

This comes from a night talking about my life and my situation with my friend Amy. She and I haven't caught up since the first days after the breakup. Talking all about it brought it fresh into my mind.

Then I find out my co-crush now likes another woman. You know, my feelings on this are very strange. I can't figure it all out, but I have to say that what I see of myself in this moment, I don't like. I mean, it makes me really uncomfortable to admit some truths, but maybe I should, just to work through them. This is difficult for me because I know better about what makes a good person, an evolved person...some of this is NOT that at all.

Regarding my co-crush:
1) It's not as if I was deeply invested in this guy. Yes, I really like him as a person, and I'm attracted to him; but I have him in my life as a friend, and why is that not enough?

2) It's not enough because now more than ever I need to feel all the things he made me feel. I enjoyed feeling them, and I want them back.

3) Maybe I could see things somehow working out in a very peculiar way, but 95% of my honest self says that even though this guy IS what I need as a person; he couldn't do or be what I want and need now in my life in terms of a relationship, and why would I even consider something that I don't see working because of logistics? BECAUSE IT FELT GOOD and logic got kicked out the door as soon as something felt good.

4) I liked all of it because all that feeling good distracted me from the pain. The pain is too traumatic.

5) Deep down, I know I am crazy for R, madly in love with him, devastated over things, and scared to death that I'll never really feel and have with anyone the way we felt and what I had with R on the inside. YES, I KNOW THINGS WENT BAD, but it always comes down to something I realized today: R's actions went south...when they were bad, they were really unbelievable; but through it all, I loved him not for what he did, but for who he was. That kills me. Even through this chaos, I feel so much love toward him that I almost can't bear it. I am overwhelmingly sad.

You know, sitting here thinking on this for a few minutes, I'm realizing that it's a good thing that my crush has stopped crushing back. I think it probably served its purpose. GREAT when I needed it to be, woke me up to another life, and then just went into normalcy. I need NOT to be a crazy for this guy, no matter how amazing he is, because it wouldn't work. I wish he had NOT given me all the mixed signals, but so be it. I guess we're all entitled to be a little confused, and I'm flattered that he was confused about me. It felt good. I think--or at least I hope--I'm a lot like you described Andy...a very loving person. I sooooo want to love and give love, and I'm happiest when I do. This, where I am now, is WRONG.

Calling

The hawks are crying today, their calls stretching out from the sky over the trees, ominous reminders of what has come to be, and what will come this way. Lately they trace their conical spirals over my head not as if I am the prey, but that something beside me, following me, invisible to my eye but so close to my soul, is being hunted because it is the weak, lesser, dispensable facet of myself. I want to decipher their conversation, to know what it is they see that I do not. I want the keener vision from above, to know what is strong and will withstand, and what is weak and will disappear no matter what.

Ripped from the Nest

Yes, we are the same person, he and I and you and I and all of us together making complete sense to each other but rolling around bumping into other people and smiling. I was all alone by the water this afternoon, the sun so warm on my naked back, when I saw a bird working to balance on the delicate rim of a scrolled-iron chair. The breeze was stronger than we both expected, and he teetered back and forth until he had to pull his tail into the effort, all of him tipping to and fro to reach that feeling, that unworded all-knowing experience. How like that bird I am this summer; as much myself as ever, but windblown and teetering to find my balance.

Snippets from my past on the mountain ~ a far different time

M: You know, I've been thinking about these men I've been dating and I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. I've tried to give chances and get to know people and not be judgmental about who they are based on the superficial; but I've realized something. Just because they're ugly doesn't mean they're deep.

A: That's one of my crushes.
E: Since when?
A: Since like ten seconds ago!

I can't take it! We are constantly on the brink of make-out!

You know, I meet them at dinner and ten minutes later we're talking about me and all my sodomy!

Fuzz: Talk about emasculation!
E: YOU LOVE IT!

Hag: Oh yeah, I spend $200 on a costume and you take down your curtains.

Waybury Hag: Would you two move AWAY from the door!

How's your crush list these days?

Manifesto

All of my life I have been motivated and propelled by love. It is not only a love and zeal for life, but the intense commitment I want to experience with a partner who is fully committed not just to me, but to passion, the soul, the joy, and love itself. It has been the most difficult thing to find and learn. There are so many people who get caught up in the lust and the possibility and the wide-open unknown that they feel they can master when they start a relationship, only to have them freak out later on when love requires work or they feel overwhelmed by the intensity of their love for me, or more often, my love for them. My entire life is about love...I bring it to my teaching, my writing, my art, my sex, and every relationship I have with friends and family. Yes I have been hurt by promises of love that couldn't do the work in the end, but I am EVER strengthened in my knowledge that I am committed to making love work. I have consistently done whatever it takes because there is nothing more important to me. I feel we have so much to talk about because it has taken me my entire life to find someone, anyone, who is willing to go the full distance in listening to love and the beloved and making their lives about what they both need because the love is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. It is not one person over the other, it is the two as equals who give and take. I want to be sure we are clear...I am not weak nor am I a doormat when it comes to other people, but when it comes to the beloved and love, I am such a listener, such a worker, such a person who tries and flourishes when my efforts for the beloved are realized. I am not subservient or second class to another human being, I am subservient to love because I am its vehicle. If you needed something from that love, I would give it, and I would expect likewise from you. We do not want to control each other, we want to be directed by love and inherently have the nature to give without expecting anything...we are the tools of a larger purpose and a higher calling -- to love. My friends have very often told me over and over that no one works harder, is more patient, is more accepting or understanding for love than I. They marvel at the extent to which I give, understand, wait, allow room, and be present in what my partner needs because they say they couldn't do it. I tell them I see no other way. It is in me, it is who I am. There is never too much work when it comes to a true love relationship.

There is so much to talk about. My head is swirling.

I don't know if I should talk more about myself or my philosophies on love. I want to experience the extent to which you embody love. I want all the things you talk about, think about, feel, and dream.

Oh, we should address sex.
Some years ago, I turned a corner and went from enjoying love and sex to embodying love and sex. Men and women tell me I am of the most sexy women they've ever met, and not just from how I dress, but how and what I am. I am confident. I am proud of myself. I have humility and am not of the top 5% in relation to the world's opinion, but I believe that what I have within me makes me beautiful, and I enjoy living it every day. I am not at all bad to look at, but sexiness and beauty must emanate for a person to truly be beautiful. I feel beautiful. I love sex. I need to say that again. I LOVE SEX. I am completely sexually uninhibited. I have not had a dozen partners, not even half that, but I HAVE had a lot of sex and I have crossed boundaries when it comes to social mores and expectations. I love to be in constant physical connection with my partner. I love to express myself physically, both in my appearance and with my hands, my lips, my whole body. When we are having dinner (in or out), I do not want to sit across from you, I want to sit next to you and caress your inner thigh while we speak. While driving, I want to trace the line of your ear and lightly feel your neck under my fingertips. When we walk down the street, I may be overwhelmed by the desire to have you, and I will push you up against a wall and kiss you until we are ready to disappear together. When we lie on the beach I want to draw circles on your stomach with my hands. I want to curl up into spoons and press my warm lips into your neck until you turn and press your whole body against mine. There is nothing more powerful than the sex of true connection.

I need you to understand the vulnerability I am expressing in giving you these words on the faith that you tell me no lies and that you are the love you purport to be. My instinct tells me to believe you are everything you say, to give you these words without fear of any kind. Please be everything you say you are. Please be who you truly are because not only are you beautiful on first glance, looking deeper into your eyes I see the longing, the absolute willingness to ravish and open your every pore to love.

I want to give and take in equal shares. I would NEVER want to take more than I give. I have always given more than I have taken, and it has taught me that I must remember that my needs are valuable, too. I do not need financially or materialistically (not that I do not appreciate tangible beauty...I LOVE to experience the beauty of creation) but my true needs are all of the spirit, heart, and soul. I need compassion, kindness, understanding, generosity of spirit, love of life, respect for others...in my own or a witnessed relationship, NOTHING repulses me more than a partner who badmouths, makes faces, or generally disrespects his or her partner in their absence. I NEVER do that and I need to know that there is nothing higher than the partnership I have with that person. I believe that love is sacred. SACRED. While I wholly understand confusion and frustration and the need to discuss a relational issue with friends, I cannot bear sacrilege to that bond.

Friends have told me it is always better to be with someone who loves you more than you love them. I cannot bear this concept. I cannot bear it for you and I cannot bear it for me. Please surrender that with your old demons. I refuse to be with someone who feels they love me more than I love them. My partner must know that my love for them is everything to me. EVERYTHING. When it comes to partnership, we are each responsible for 100% of our 50%. I am 100% accountable.

I want to say something about chemistry...
I believe there is initial chemistry of the body and it can be so powerful that it overwhelm and perhaps is not so telling because it could fade. But wait; there is chemistry of the soul. Right now I feel a very intense chemistry toward you in your honesty, forwardness, eagerness for true love's effort and commitment. I am a person who puts EVERYTHING on the table. I have no boundaries when it comes to the self. Listening to someone else speak in that manner, someone who is on the path and seeking common truths...that chemistry is intoxicating. Truth is intoxicating the way nakedness is arousing. Can you find any corners within yourself that are awakened and made curious by what we share? I want you to be open to being overwhelmed by a deeper chemistry -- to find yourself entranced and mystified by your draw toward me. If you never feel that for me, I am not the woman for you. I want us to make each other shine.

Shall I go on?

It isn't

It has been too long since I've written, and I think I have put the joy into my life rather than my writing. At least I hope that is what I have done. My heart is all over the map, and the further I spread my wings the more I feel the wind lift me higher, but soon I look down and am consumed with thoughts of what could be. All I am needs to look up at the present moment, constantly, and it is often blissful. It is work, and the right time to do it.

There are surprises beyond this hurt, and somehow they touch the pain and stroke me in the moment, caring for me and comforting me. Eventually I will be able to stay on the path, not falling down alone, but walking tall despite the knowledge that this struggle has been of the most painful I know. If I can say this is the worst it can get; it isn't.

14 months ago today

Again I am tired after a day of putting my energy into the world and hoping to find joy in it. It comes to me, I make it, I am happy, but these days are tinged with letting go, and it can overwhelm me if I am not careful. You see, with saying good-bye to you and living in your absence, and saying good-bye to a class I have loved -- my everyday family with whom I have grown -- I am so reminded that life is transient, and the emotion of loss is too close to my heart right now with my mom's unknown future looming like a disembodied shadow. There is a lot of joy in this job, I laugh from my soul, and with that joy I must accept the balance, the pain. But each day that I rejoice in the approach of summer, I also look at them and know our time together is ending; we will never be the same again. I must love change, it is in me and I embrace the growth, but there are some things you just want to hold onto until it doesn't hurt anymore to let go. I miss you.

I spend a lot of time looking at everything around the house, all the big and little everythings around me, and I see the million invisible paths I have taken to put anything and everything in a place (or out of it). I see the ghost of myself in 10,000 places harmlessly placing anything where it is, sometimes intentionally, sometimes without thought, just to put it somewhere, and I am constantly reminded of a song lyric that breaks my heart...I go from day to day ~ I know where the cupboards are ~ I know where the car is parked ~ I know he isn't you. For a long time, there was a he that wasn't you and I lived that desperate lyric like a clenched fist hidden behind a back. But now, there is no other man, but there is everything else in my life that obliquely reminds me that what I'm doing is, for now, to get to you. I revel in the pleasures of each day, but I long for you. I truly enjoy each day of my life, yet the fullness of my life is with you by my side and me by your side and I miss that recognition that yes, there is someone nearby that truly sees all of me, and adores me for all of it. It is almost as if your skin is my skin, your scent my own, your lips so soft and full they match mine as if they are pulled together by the invisible cords attached to our one, full soul. We are both the softer and hardest places of each other. We are a light in the dark and the shade in unbearable brightness. We honor each other by honoring ourselves, and we have always felt it. We do it because to do it is to live, and finally, we know how.

Thick as thieves

All of it was hollow, all your professions and promises, all of it momentary and I was solid; I was real; I was everything right there, always for you. When it came down to the darkest deepest moments, you ran away. I don't know that I can ever forgive you for that. You have broken my heart again and I am smashed in a thousand ashy pieces, my heart, my soul, my whole life on the floor, tread upon. Of all the things I thought I could count on, it was your word, that whatever you said you meant, and you would stand by them come what may. I was standing by you through ALL of this, through the crises, the struggles, the emotional trenching and desperation, I was steadfast. Not perfect, steadfast. Not for one second did I consider or suggest walking away from you. Everything I am and was for you was abused and abandoned, and I'll not soon forget the way you took this beautiful phoenix and held her down, twisted her until her heart and soul were cracked and broken.

I've come tonight
I've come to know
The way we are
the way we'll go
and to measure this
the width of a wide abyss

I come to you in restless sleep
where all your dreams turn bittersweet
with voodoo doll philosophies
day glo holy trinities

the crooked raft that leaves the shore
ferries drunken souls aboard
pilgrims march to Compostela
visions of their saint in yellow

follow deep in trance
lost in a catatonic dance
know no future
damn the past
blind, warm, ecstatic
safe at last

Ulysses

Thank you, Tennyson.

I feel less alone and uncommon in this world, and so with gratitude I send my spirit up to you in the heavens tonight while my earthly body roils and toils endlessly. Time is nothing to me in this space, time has left me. I am suspended within the emotion and it is pain now, pain always, pain to be. I do not accept it like a martyr's cross; I weep with every step. This is not something I have chosen, nor has it possessed me like a demon spirit; it simply is. Everything that was beautiful about me still exists in the deep. I will always strive to bring it to light, but the weight of this experience is a shroud; it is heavy and suffocating, and I move slowly and deliberately. My whole life is running away from me and I am out of breath and can't catch it. I start wandering off the path in any direction that doesn't remind me of what hurts. I have lived with this for almost a month and it feels like the beginning of eternity. I can't go on like that. It will not get better. It is what is.

Yes, I am a fatalist in this way.

and for a moment's peace...around me now
~*~
If you're cold, I'll keep you warm.
If you're low, just hold on,
cos I will be your safety
oh don't leave home

and within me,
Tennyson's last stanza
~*~
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
~*~

So with this I try to emerge and seek a newer world. I will never leave this behind. It will always be me, but I can seek a guide, and a vision of the beauty that the world can be when I let myself see it.

and oh, not to yield. Oh, thank you, with everything that I am, that I know, that I feel; thank you.