Silence

The bus was rank with the smell of our sweat. We sat with our shoulders pressed together, muscles still hot and aching, staring out the windows- waiting. A few people rested, eyes closed, against the glass while its rattling held their dreams at bay. Every other word I wrote was interrupted by the need to itch my skin, or by an escaped laugh thrown from Satheesh, whose presence was impossible to ignore. He was a person as contagious as an illness. His dark, molten skin was smooth and pure, unmarred by the Utah brush that had cut up my own legs and feet. His spirited laugh was what had caught my attention, and what I liked best about him. It lit up his face, slit his eyes and coursed through his gangly six-foot-five body. He spoke with a Malaysian accent and his appreciation of life exploded through his lips as he said to me: "d'eym so bleessed". He laughed, again, this time accompanied by a wide grin. Something outside caught his attention, and now I'm the one laughing as he proclaimed "harses"! at the paint mares in the field out the window.
My feet are beyond sore, and seem to be permanently aching- a feeling I'm sure the majority of the van shared after seven days of strenuous hiking. It's trips like these where every muscle, even bones, are in pain. Dying of heat by day and freezing at night, we might begin to question why we are here; why are we doing this? The answer is not found in asking why, but in remembering who. As I write, my arm is bumping the tanned forearm of Logan, who is impatiently reading through his National Parks Passport that he picked up in Arches. He faithfully turns the pages, looking from Alaska to Maine, and I can feel his entire body tense before he turns to Satheesh and moans "I want to beee there, man". Logan is from Ukraine, but has spent his summers in Montana. I watch him continue to flip through the maps and as I study his face I can see the same controlled frustration there that I feel in myself when I think about everything I want to do in my life. We share that manic impulse somewhere in our heads or hearts that signals us to constantly be reminded that life is too short. Logan has shared with me his touching belief in his religion and and his desire to see all of the kingdom God's created on Earth.
My train of thought is again broken by Satheesh, who in the midst of the quiet on the bus leans over to happily whisper to Logan and I,
"D'eym so glad you geys are here. D'eym so lucky. Thank you, love you", as he pats Logan's knee, leans back to his seat and lets the silence resume.
Logan laughs at each word Satheesh attempts to pronounce in English, while Satheesh is too enthralled and fascinated by each moment and he doesn't notice. Logan and I look at each other, and smile softly. The atmosphere is so pleasant, I couldn't have repressed the happiness if I had wanted to.
I can hear Green Day pounding out of Abi's headphones behind me, every now and then followed by the sound of his Indian accent muttering along 'don't wanna be...'. This time the guitar solo seems to have woken Josefin, who was sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. She pushes back her blonde hair, revealing her electric blue eyes and groggily turns them to watch the red rocks streak past the window panes as we drive. She doesn't say much, but when she does it is poised and meaningful. Perhaps being the oldest of the group at 23 (and ironically the shortest), she feels more inclined to watch our antics rather than take part in them. Her Swedish heritage is heard in her tone when she knows we're being dumbasses, but her smile softens the lecture that's sure to follow.
A few others have woken now, too. Andi suggests we stop to meditate, but the idea is quickly shut down by Brad who makes a snide remark to the Thai/Aussie native. Andi's response is a quick and cool "That's fine, mate", and again, the conversation is only between the open window and the wind. We are all too exhausted, too grungy and too sick of being cramped in the car to really care that we're not talking. Logan shifts to take his sweatshirt off, a feat in such a cramped car. In a while we'll talk about our favorite part of the hikes, the funniest parts of the trip, a near-death experience, or mention how sore we are, how we can't wait to get back home to Bozeman...but for now, as I begin to close my eyes and drift back to sleep, the still of the silence is enough.

****                                                                 ****                                                                  ****

I pulled each leg forward; kept hoping each step would be my last. I'd never wanted to stop so badly in my entire life. I swear, my bones hurt. I kept my eyes cast down, focusing on the changing layers of rock. The pattern bumbled from red to strange shades of grey and green, but my eyes caught and focused on the deep mocha color of Satheesh's calves.
Left foot, right foot. I ignored the burning in my thighs.
I watched his muscle ripple as he climbed in front of me; sliding his feet on the smooth sandstone where mine quickly followed. I took three steps to his one, his stride twice the size of mine. I struggled to keep up. Satheesh was weird. He was possibly the strangest man I'd ever met. His smile never left his face, except for the rare occasion when he looked down and his eyes glazed over, the fear extinguishing his can-do-it attitude. The canyon bed we had just climbed out of had a 1,300 foot elevation gain, only one hundred feet shy of the height of the Sears tower. And Satheesh, was afraid of heights.
In a strange way, Satheesh is everything I'm not. A black male, standing at six five, he's over a foot taller than me. I admired him for nearly all his qualities. We hiked the red rocks by day, and sought refuge in the sandstone arches at night and everything was utterly beautiful to him. The canyons, a clear morning hike, our thoughts, a floating piece of garbage on the horizon.... it didn't matter. Satheesh would say to me, "Woulda you look at that! Leea, Life is a great adventure." He was very right, but I couldn't suppress a laugh when he was overcome with fascination by my Camelbak.

"The vater is just right there!" He rushed to show Logan, who was not quite as enthralled by it's majesty.

We had the same process each day after our hikes; set up camp, get a fire going, then relax our tired bodies. Tonight, the fire cast a comforting glow as we watched our shadows play a flickering game of tag. We huddled for warmth- standing closer to one another than any other circumstance might allow since Utah nights are below freezing and we had to keep the fire small. Satheesh's body was pressed close to mine on the left, his warm skin radiating heat while Logan stood, slightly more distanced, on my right. As I stared into the flames, listening to the pop of wood- the only sound amongst the silence, Satheesh slinked into my peripherals. He was crouching, bending his knees, hoovering at my eye level. I could mostly see his teeth and his eyes, and I allowed him time to give me a huge grin, then returned the favor. He whispered so that only I could hear,

"D'ey wanted to see what life was like, from your point of view!" He laughed.

Somehow, no matter what he was saying, there was a needed exclamation mark at the end.

His comment ate me up though; made me think, like most of the things he said. Maybe it's a Malaysian thing, but everything he uttered seemed to be profound. The more I thought about it, the more I admired Satheesh, and everyone else accompanying me on this trip. These people came from all places, thousands of miles away, not a single one of us calling the same region home. By some twist of fate that life so often likes to deal, we ended up in Bozeman together, and now, here we are, scaling cliffs in Utah's rolling canyons.
In some ways, the time I spent with Logan, Satheesh and the others, cramped in the van mobbing to Utah,  the late nights exposed on the slickrock looking out at the stars bouncing reflections on the Colorado,  defined a part of me. I'll never forget something Satheesh explained to me and the six other strangers as we were poised around the fire;
"D'em just like each and every one of you." There was a pause, as he thought. Not a single eye strayed from his dark face as we waited for him to resume speaking.
"D'ey have 5.5 liters of blood in my body. D'em tall dark and handsome... D'em just like most of the guys out there. D'em just like every one of you- learning, wanting, enjoying life to it's fullest. It's Heaven and Hell, you know? This life..." His sentence trailed off, Silence resumed again, and I don't think any of us spoke until the fire was  exhausted and its smoke rose out toward the stars.

Deep in Cataract Canyon, the morbid walls of red rock rise and fall, plunging into the earth, turning with bladed precision, etched from centuries of the wild river systems murmuring through the ground. As I looked out at the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, and watched them violently run together to create one great body of water, I couldn't speak. Silence swallowed me and lingered in my belly, in my soul. Satheesh, Logan and I had hiked the short hike to what we had thought would be another viewpoint of the same sight... but we were wrong. As John Wesley Powell had discovered hundreds of years before us, the confluence was not just two rivers colliding. The world all around fell down into the canyon- each of our heads empty; thoughts floated away with the current. To borrow words from Powell; "We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things." Whether the three of us were there for minutes, hours... I couldn't say. The rivers ran their paths leaving us as bystanders. I wanted to become part of the landscape, run with the rivers, melt into the rocks. Instead, I chose to become a small part of Satheesh, a small morsel of Logan. Each memory we created together, only we could understand the gravity of its existence. Nature will do that, bring people together in a strange way. Being there and feeling the how the land has a life of it's own- a soul even... it leaves me unable to explain. We each walk away changed, and let Silence say it all.

‎"This is the hardest stuff in the world to photograph. You need a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree lens, or something. You see it, and then you look down in the ground glass and it's just nothing. As soon as you put a border on it, it's gone." -Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, p.58-59

I wake up around 3:45am, every morning. Like clockwork, my dreams stop and I'm forced back to consciousness, usually by the sound of my own voice. I missed Utah, I missed feeling it breath beneath my feet. I'd felt this loss ever since returning and tonight I woke with my windows open. The crisp breeze floated in from my seventh story perch, dragging with it the collective sounds of lives carrying on- living, right outside my four walls.
I wished I could see the stars. My body moaned for the bright moon projecting on the canyons, longed to watch it shed its light just once more.
Nights like these, I go to the window, to what seems like the edge, and press my forehead against the chilled glass. I close my eyes and stand there, with nothing but the screen, the glass and the darkness separating me, from the rest of my world.
I listen for a while.
Blurbs of conversation flutter up from the staggeringly drunk in search of the safety of their beds. Laughter, trivial sounds- I don't bother opening my eyes. Rap music bumps into their words from somewhere far off, and it cooks like a melodic jambalaya of sounds.
It fades.
Someone is dragging their shoes as they walk. Someone is locking up their bike, the chains react violently against the metal rack and pierce the air. A car swooshes past on the still damp ground- they need to get their foot off the gas, I can hear my father getting livid as the tires spin faster, faster. The wind in the valley is blowing through the trees. I can hear it navigate around the sounds outside, slipping between branches, trying hard to leave them undisturbed, bringing me the complacent nostalgia of a childhood in the windy city. That thought is quickly shattered though, and I open my eyes to watch it slide to the floor. Ohh, but my eyelids want to close, and I let them, once again. I like to listen to life outside my window, when my body is tired but my head won't sleep. I listen again, this time harder, wanting to hear the familiar quiet that I love so much.
C'mon, c'mon...
A skateboard battles the pavement in a rumbling duel.
C'mon...
I know she's there, I know she's waiting, just how she was in Utah. I'm a veteran at this endless game of hide and seek, but Silence is asking me to try harder as I beg for her to appear. I start to wonder how many others are up playing, sitting at their windows, looking out, searching for the still of the Silence too...

I was perched atop two massive fins, in Canyonlands. The rocks balanced precariously as I looked out at the sunset melt into an abyss of deep red. I leaned forward, like I was trying to caress the air- the jagged landscape pressed cool and smooth against my mind; the needles that reached towards the sky scraped my skin. The mesas swam into a sea of colors, and away I was swept, up high into the air. I looked down and saw my body, still sprawled up on the rocks, all alone. The harder I tried to get back, the more distanced I became until I struggled so hard the air wouldn't flow into my lungs, and Silence took over my body.

I awoke under the stars, sweating on the ground, to an unbounded black Utah sky. My entire body was tense, preparing for the moment it took to realize the exchange between reality and delusion. I saw Satheesh and Logan on either side of me, protecting me I liked to think, they way they often seemed to do. My startled awakening must have roused Logan, who looked over at me coddled in my bright blue mummy bag. Groggy, I watched a suppressed smirk leak into his eyes at the sight of my frightened expression, illuminated by the wild stream of light my headlamp tossed about, and immediately I laughed. That nightmare still plagues me though, even now that I'm tucked safely back into my tidy little room in Bozeman. Nights like these where I'm without Logan or Satheesh to calm me... Perhaps it's the very reason I wake so frequently, go longingly to my window, and pray for Silence to drown me in that same sea of sound once again.

Now, she arrives with the sun. I can't tell if I've fallen asleep again, or if time just moves faster at the early hours of the morning. Silence now illuminates the mountains, embraces them with her lanky grip, and the world begins to melt. In the still of the Silence, I can hear the grass existing, I can hear my pulse throb in my ears. I was swallowed by Silence in the canyons of Utah, happily never found. But now, I lock my eyes shut, as they should be, and listen. I can hear the feel of the wind, the vibrations of this Earth. I hear the taste of the fresh morning, listen to the melody in the warm sun rising. Sometimes, Silence can seem so loud. I breath out a sigh, and with it slip away my thoughts.

Sleeplessness and Silence and Sadness... the three spin circles in my mind. Day to day I fight, looking for some sort of balance that will beat the sadness and instill the silence, let me sleep. The cycle ended in Utah. I'm not sure the answer was was slipped somewhere between the jagged rocks, and I can't claim the hours of hiking are the cure. But those precious moments between Logan, Satheesh and I were pure human to human connections with no interferences. The silence in the canyons allowed us to override stereotypes and overcome the insignificant noise of everyday life. Even if for just a moment, those canyons gave us the gift of drifting away from a world so loud into our own drowsy silence.

Edit: Silence in Utah

The bus was rank with the smell of our sweat. We sat with our shoulders pressed together, muscles still hot and aching, staring out the windows- waiting. A few people rested, eyes closed, against the glass while its rattling held their dreams at bay. Every other word I wrote was interrupted by the need to itch my skin, or by an escaped laugh thrown from Satheesh, whose presence was impossible to ignore. He was a person as contagious as an illness. His dark, molten skin was smooth and pure, unmarred by the Utah brush that had cut up my own legs and feet. His spirited laugh was what had caught my attention, and what I liked best about him. It lit up his face, slit his eyes and coursed through his gangly six-foot-five body. He spoke with a Malaysian accent and his appreciation of life exploded through his lips as he said to me: "d'eym so bleessed". He laughed, again, this time accompanied by a wide grin. Something outside caught his attention, and now I'm the one laughing as he proclaimed "harses"! at the paint mares in the field out the window.
My feet are beyond sore, and seem to be permanently aching- a feeling I'm sure the majority of the van shared after seven days of strenuous hiking. It's trips like these where every muscle, even bones, are in pain. Dying of heat by day and freezing at night, we might begin to question why we are here; why are we doing this? The answer is not found in asking why, but in remembering who. As I write, my arm is bumping the tanned forearm of Logan, who is impatiently reading through his National Parks Passport that he picked up in Arches. He faithfully turns the pages, looking from Alaska to Maine, and I can feel his entire body tense before he turns to Satheesh and moans "I want to beee there, man". Logan is from Ukraine, but has spent his summers in Montana. I watch him continue to flip through the maps and as I study his face I can see the same controlled frustration there that I feel in myself when I think about everything I want to do in my life. We share that manic impulse somewhere in our heads or hearts that signals us to constantly be reminded that life is too short. Logan has shared with me his touching belief in his religion and and his desire to see all of the kingdom God's created on Earth.
My train of thought is again broken by Satheesh, who in the midst of the quiet on the bus leans over to happily whisper to Logan and I,
"D'eym so glad you geys are here. D'eym so lucky. Thank you, love you", as he pats Logan's knee, leans back to his seat and lets the silence resume.
Logan laughs at each word Satheesh attempts to pronounce in English, while Satheesh is too enthralled and fascinated by each moment and he doesn't notice. Logan and I look at each other, and smile softly. The atmosphere is so pleasant, I couldn't have repressed the happiness if I had wanted to.
I can hear Green Day pounding out of Abi's headphones behind me, every now and then followed by the sound of his Indian accent muttering along 'don't wanna be...'. This time the guitar solo seems to have woken Josefin, who was sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. She pushes back her blonde hair, revealing her electric blue eyes and groggily turns them to watch the red rocks streak past the window panes as we drive. She doesn't say much, but when she does it is poised and meaningful. Perhaps being the oldest of the group at 23 (and ironically the shortest), she feels more inclined to watch our antics rather than take part in them. Her Swedish heritage is heard in her tone when she knows we're being dumbasses, but her smile softens the lecture that's sure to follow.
A few others have woken now, too. Andi suggests we stop to meditate, but the idea is quickly shut down by Brad who makes a snide remark to the Thai/Aussie native. Andi's response is a quick and cool "That's fine, mate", and again, the conversation is only between the open window and the wind. We are all too exhausted, too grungy and too sick of being cramped in the car to really care that we're not talking. Logan shifts to take his sweatshirt off, a feat in such a cramped car. In a while we'll talk about our favorite part of the hikes, the funniest parts of the trip, a near-death experience, or mention how sore we are, how we can't wait to get back home to Bozeman...but for now, as I begin to close my eyes and drift back to sleep, the still of the silence is enough.

****                                                                 ****                                                                  ****

I pulled each leg forward; kept hoping each step would be my last. I'd never wanted to stop so badly in my entire life. I swear, my bones hurt. I kept my eyes cast down, focusing on the changing layers of rock. The pattern bumbled from red to strange shades of grey and green, but my eyes caught and focused on the deep mocha color of Satheesh's calves.
Left foot, right foot. I ignored the burning in my thighs.
I watched his muscle ripple as he climbed in front of me; sliding his feet on the smooth sandstone where mine quickly followed. I took three steps to his one, his stride twice the size of mine. I struggled to keep up. Satheesh was weird. He was possibly the strangest man I'd ever met. His smile never left his face, except for the rare occasion when he looked down and his eyes glazed over, the fear extinguishing his can-do-it attitude. The canyon bed we had just climbed out of had a 1,300 foot elevation gain, only one hundred feet shy of the height of the Sears tower. And Satheesh, was afraid of heights.
In a strange way, Satheesh is everything I'm not. A black male, standing at six five, he's over a foot taller than me. I admired him for nearly all his qualities. We hiked the red rocks by day, and sought refuge in the sandstone arches at night and everything was utterly beautiful to him. The canyons, a clear morning hike, our thoughts, a floating piece of garbage on the horizon.... it didn't matter. Satheesh would say to me, "Woulda you look at that! Leea, Life is a great adventure." He was very right, but I couldn't suppress a laugh when he was overcome with fascination by my Camelbak.

"The vater is just right there!" He rushed to show Logan, who was not quite as enthralled by it's majesty.

We had the same process each day after our hikes; set up camp, get a fire going, then relax our tired bodies. Tonight, the fire cast a comforting glow as we watched our shadows play a flickering game of tag. We huddled for warmth- standing closer to one another than any other circumstance might allow since Utah nights are below freezing and we had to keep the fire small. Satheesh's body was pressed close to mine on the left, his warm skin radiating heat while Logan stood, slightly more distanced, on my right. As I stared into the flames, listening to the pop of wood- the only sound amongst the silence, Satheesh slinked into my peripherals. He was crouching, bending his knees, hoovering at my eye level. I could mostly see his teeth and his eyes, and I allowed him time to give me a huge grin, then returned the favor. He whispered so that only I could hear,

"D'ey wanted to see what life was like, from your point of view!" He laughed.

Somehow, no matter what he was saying, there was a needed exclamation mark at the end.

His comment ate me up though; made me think, like most of the things he said. Maybe it's a Malaysian thing, but everything he uttered seemed to be profound. The more I thought about it, the more I admired Satheesh, and everyone else accompanying me on this trip. These people came from all places, thousands of miles away, not a single one of us calling the same region home. By some twist of fate that life so often likes to deal, we ended up in Bozeman together, and now, here we are, scaling cliffs in Utah's rolling canyons.
In some ways, the time I spent with Logan, Satheesh and the others, cramped in the van mobbing to Utah,  the late nights exposed on the slickrock looking out at the stars bouncing reflections on the Colorado,  defined a part of me. I'll never forget something Satheesh explained to me and the six other strangers as we were poised around the fire;
"D'em just like each and every one of you." There was a pause, as he thought. Not a single eye strayed from his dark face as we waited for him to resume speaking.
"D'ey have 5.5 liters of blood in my body. D'em tall dark and handsome... D'em just like most of the guys out there. D'em just like every one of you- learning, wanting, enjoying life to it's fullest. It's Heaven and Hell, you know? This life..." His sentence trailed off, Silence resumed again, and I don't think any of us spoke until the fire was  exhausted and its smoke rose out toward the stars.

Deep in Cataract Canyon, the morbid walls of red rock rise and fall, plunging into the earth, turning with bladed precision, etched from centuries of the wild river systems murmuring through the ground. As I looked out at the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, and watched them violently run together to create one great body of water, I couldn't speak. Silence swallowed me and lingered in my belly, in my soul. Satheesh, Logan and I had hiked the short hike to what we had thought would be another viewpoint of the same sight... but we were wrong. As John Wesley Powell had discovered hundreds of years before us, the confluence was not just two rivers colliding. The world all around fell down into the canyon- each of our heads empty; thoughts floated away with the current. To borrow words from Powell; "We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls ride over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things." Whether the three of us were there for minutes, hours... I couldn't say. The rivers ran their paths leaving us as bystanders. I wanted to become part of the landscape, run with the rivers, melt into the rocks. Instead, I chose to become a small part of Satheesh, a small morsel of Logan. Each memory we created together, only we could understand the gravity of its existence. Nature will do that, in a strange way. Being there and feeling the how the land has a life of it's own- a soul even... it leaves me unable to explain.

‎"This is the hardest stuff in the world to photograph. You need a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree lens, or something. You see it, and then you look down in the ground glass and it's just nothing. As soon as you put a border on it, it's gone."
-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, p.58-59

I wake up around 3:45am, every morning. Like clockwork, my dreams stop and I'm forced back to consciousness, usually by the sound of my own voice. My sleep-talking is bizarre, something my roommate isn't too fond of, but has adapted to by thoroughly ignoring it.
I missed Utah, I missed feeling it breath beneath my feet. I'd felt this  loss since returning and tonight I woke to my windows open. The crisp breeze floated in from my seventh story perch, dragging with it the collective sounds of lives carrying on- living, right outside my four walls.
I wished I could see the stars. My body moaned to see the bright moon projecting on the canyons, just once more.
Nights like these, I go to the window, to what seems like the edge, and press my forehead against the chilled glass. I close my eyes and stand there, with nothing but the screen, the glass and the darkness separating me, from the rest of my world.
I listen for a while.
Blurbs of conversation flutter up from the staggeringly drunk in search of the safety of their beds. Laughter, trivial sounds- I don't open my eyes. Rap music bumps into their words from somewhere far off, and it cooks like a melodic jambalaya of sounds.
It fades.
Someone is dragging their shoes as they walk. Someone is locking up their bike, the chains react violently against the metal rack and pierce the air. A car swooshes past on the still damp ground- they need to get their foot off the gas, I can hear my father getting livid as the tires spin faster, faster. The wind in the valley is blowing through the trees. I can hear it navigate around the sounds outside, slipping between branches, trying hard to leave them undisturbed, bringing me the complacent nostalgia of a childhood in the windy city. That thought is quickly shattered though, and I open my eyes to watch it slide to the floor. Ohh, but my eyelids want to close, and I let them, once again. I like to listen to life outside my window, when my body is tired but my head won't sleep. I listen again, this time harder, wanting to hear the familiar Quiet that I love so much.
C'mon, c'mon...
A skateboard battles the pavement in a rumbling duel.
C'mon, c'mon.....
I know she's there, I know she's waiting, just how she was in Utah. I'm a veteran at this endless game of hide and seek, but Silence is asking me to try harder as I beg for her to appear. I start to wonder how many others are up playing, sitting at their windows, looking out, searching for the still of the Silence too...
She arrives with the sun. I can't tell if I've fallen asleep, or if time just moves faster at the early hours of the morning. Silence now illuminates the mountains, embraces them with her lanky grip, and the world begins to melt. I breath out a sigh, and with it slip away my thoughts.
Silence is misunderstood. It's not absence of sound, but rather the moment of realization of pure existence in the world. She is responsible for cleansing the air of it's daily impurities, and allowing those listening the chance to purify themselves among the noise. I can still hear the grass existing, I can hear my pulse throb in my ears. I could have been swallowed by Silence in the canyons of Utah, happily never found. I lock my eyes shut, as they should be, and listen. I can hear the feel of the wind, the vibrations of this Earth. I hear the taste of the fresh morning, listen to the melody in the warm sun rising. Sometimes, Silence can seem so loud.

I dreamt I was perched atop two massive fins, in Canyonlands. The rocks balanced precariously as I looked out at the sunset melt into an abyss of deep red. I leaned forward, like I was trying to caress the air- the jagged landscape pressed cool and smooth against my mind; the needles that reached towards the sky scraped my skin. The mesas swam into a sea of colors, and away I was swept, up high into the air. I looked down and saw my body, still sitting up on the rocks, all alone. The harder I tried to get back, the more distanced I became until I struggled so hard the air wouldn't flow into my lungs, and the silence took over my body. I awoke under the stars, sweating on the ground, to an unbounded black sky. My entire body tensed, preparing for the moment it took to realize the exchange between reality and delusion. I saw Satheesh and Logan on either side of me, protecting me I liked to think, they way they often seemed to do. My startled awakening must have roused Logan, who looked over at me, coddled in my bright blue mummy bag. Groggy, I watched a suppressed smirk leaked into his eyes; no doubt caused by the sight of my frightened expression, complete with the wild stream cast by my headlamp jerking about as I tossed.
That nightmare still plagues me, even now that I'm tucked safely back into my tidy little room in Bozeman, without Logan or Satheesh to calm me. Perhaps it's the very reason I wake so frequently in the night, go longingly to my window, and pray for Silence to drown me in that same sea of color once again.

Thoreau once claimed, "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for this one."
To Be Continued...

Silence In Utah

The bus was rank with the smell of our sweat. We sat with our shoulders pressed together, muscles still hot and aching, staring out the windows- waiting. A few people rested, eyes closed, against the glass while its rattling held their dreams at bay. Every other word I wrote was interrupted by the need to itch my skin, or by an escaped laugh thrown from Satheesh, whose presence was impossible to ignore. He was a person as contagious as an illness. His dark, molten skin was smooth and pure, unmarred by the Utah brush that had cut up my own legs and feet. His spirited laugh was what had caught my attention, and what I liked best about him. It lit up his face, slit his eyes and coursed through his gangly six-foot-five body. He spoke with a Malaysian accent and his appreciation of life exploded through his lips as he said to me: "d'eym so bleessed". He laughed, again, this time accompanied by a wide grin. Something outside caught his attention, and now I'm the one laughing as he proclaimed "harses"! at the paint mares in the field out the window.
My feet are beyond sore, and seem to be permanently aching- a feeling I'm sure the majority of the van shared after seven days of strenuous hiking. It's trips like these where every muscle, even bones, are in pain. Dying of heat by day and freezing at night, we might begin to question why we are here; why are we doing this? The answer is not found in asking why, but in remembering who. As I write, my arm is bumping the tanned forearm of Logan, who is impatiently reading through his National Parks Passport that he picked up in Arches. He faithfully turns the pages, looking from Alaska to Maine, and I can feel his entire body tense before he turns to Satheesh and moans "I want to beee there, man". Logan is from Ukraine, but has spent his summers in Montana. I watch him continue to flip through the maps and as I study his face I can see the same controlled frustration there that I feel in myself when I think about everything I want to do in my life. We share that manic impulse somewhere in our heads or hearts that signals us to constantly be reminded that life is too short. Logan has shared with me his touching belief in his religion and and his desire to see all of the kingdom God's created on Earth.
My train of thought is again broken by Satheesh, who in the midst of the quiet on the bus leans over to happily whisper to Logan and I,
"D'eym so glad you geys are here. D'eym so lucky. Thank you, love you", as he pats Logan's knee, leans back to his seat and lets the silence resume.
Logan laughs at each word Satheesh attempts to pronounce in English, while Satheesh is too enthralled and fascinated by each moment and he doesn't notice. Logan and I look at each other, and smile softly. The atmosphere is so pleasant, I couldn't have repressed the happiness if I had wanted to.
I can hear Green Day pounding out of Abi's headphones behind me, every now and then followed by the sound of his Indian accent muttering along 'don't wanna be...'. This time the guitar solo seems to have woken Josefin, who was sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. She pushes back her blonde hair, revealing her electric blue eyes and groggily turns them to watch the red rocks streak past the window panes as we drive. She doesn't say much, but when she does it is poised and meaningful. Perhaps being the oldest of the group at 23 (and ironically the shortest), she feels more inclined to watch our antics rather than take part in them. Her Swedish heritage is heard in her tone when she knows we're being dumbasses, but her smile softens the lecture that's sure to follow.
A few others have woken now, too. Andi suggests we stop to meditate, but the idea is quickly shut down by Brad who makes a snide remark to the Thai/Aussie native. Andi's response is a quick and cool "That's fine, mate", and again, the conversation is only between the open window and the wind. We are all too exhausted, too grungy and too sick of being cramped in the car to really care that we're not talking. Logan shifts to take his sweatshirt off, a feat in such a cramped car. In a while we'll talk about our favorite part of the hikes, the funniest parts of the trip, a near-death experience, or mention how sore we are, how we can't wait to get back home to Bozeman...but for now, as I begin to close my eyes and drift back to sleep, the still of the silence is enough.

****                                                                 ****                                                                  ****

I pulled each leg forward; kept hoping each step would be my last. I'd never wanted to stop so badly in my entire life. I swear, my bones hurt. I kept my eyes cast down, focusing on the changing layers of rock. The pattern bumbled from red to strange shades of grey and green, but my eyes caught and focused on the deep mocha color of Satheesh's calves.
Left foot, right foot. I ignored the burning in my thighs.
I watched his muscle ripple as he climbed in front of me; sliding his feet on the smooth sandstone where mine quickly followed. I took three steps to his one, his stride twice the size of mine. I struggled to keep up. Satheesh was weird. He was possibly the strangest man I'd ever met. His smile never left his face, except for the rare occasion when he looked down and his eyes glazed, the fear overtaking his normally positive mindset. The canyon bed we had just climbed out of had a 1,300 foot elevation gain, only one hundred feet shy of the height of the Sears tower. And Satheesh, was afraid of heights.
In a strange way, Satheesh is everything I'm not. A black male, standing at six five, he's over a foot taller than me. I admired him for nearly all his qualities. We hiked the red rocks by day, and sought refuge in the sandstone arches at night and everything was utterly beautiful to him. The canyons, a clear morning hike, our thoughts, a floating piece of garbage on the horizon.... it didn't matter. Satheesh would say to me, "Woulda you look at that! Leea, Life is a great adventure." He was very right, but I couldn't suppress a laugh when he was overcome with fascination by my Camelbak.

"The vater is just right there!" He rushed to show Logan, who was not quite as enthralled by it's majesty.

We had the same process each day after our hikes; set up camp, get a fire going, then relax our tired bodies. Tonight, the fire cast a comforting glow as we watched our shadows play a flickering game of tag. We huddled for warmth- standing closer to one another than any other circumstance might allow, since Utah nights are below freezing and we had to keep the fire small. Satheesh's body was pressed close to mine on the left, his warm skin radiating heat while Logan stood, slightly more distanced, on my right. As I stared into the flames, listening to the pop of wood- the only sound amongst the silence, Satheesh slinked into my peripherals. He was crouching, bending his knees, hoovering at my eye level. I could mostly see his teeth and his eyes, and I allowed him time to give me a huge grin, then returned the favor. He whispered so that only I could hear,

"D'ey wanted to see what life was like, from your point of view!" He laughed.

Somehow, no matter what he was saying, there was a needed exclamation mark at the end.
His comment ate me up though; made me think, like most of the things he said. Maybe it's a Malaysian thing, but everything he uttered seemed to be profound.
Silence resumed again, and I don't think any of us spoke until the fire was completely dead and the smoke rose out towards the stars.

I wake up around 3:45am, every morning. Like clockwork, my dreams stop and I'm forced back to consciousness, usually by the sound of my own voice. My sleep-talking is bizarre, something my roommate isn't too fond of, but has adapted to by thoroughly ignoring it.
I missed Utah, and when I woke, my windows were open. The crisp breeze floated in from my seventh story perch, dragging with it the collective sounds of lives carrying on- living, right outside my four walls.
I wished I could see the stars. My body moaned to see the bright moon projecting on the canyons, just once more.
Nights like these, I go to the window, to what seems like the edge, and press my forehead against the chilled glass. I close my eyes and stand there, with nothing but the screen, the glass and the darkness separating me, from the rest of my world.
I listen for a while.
Blurbs of conversation flutter up from the staggeringly drunk in search of the safety of their beds. Laughter, trivial sounds- I don't open my eyes. Rap music bumps into their words from somewhere far off, and it cooks like a melodic jambalaya of sounds.
It fades.
Someone is dragging their shoes as they walk. Someone is locking up their bike, the chains react violently against the metal rack and pierce the air. A car swooshes past on the still damp ground- they need to get their foot off the gas, I can hear my father getting livid as the tires spin faster, faster. The wind in the valley is blowing through the trees. I can hear it navigate around the sounds outside, slipping between branches, trying hard to leave them undisturbed, bringing me the complacent nostalgia of a childhood in the windy city. That thought is quickly shattered though, and I open my eyes to watch it slide to the floor. Ohh, but my eyelids want to close, and I let them, once again. I like to listen to life outside my window, when my body is tired but my head won't sleep. I listen again, this time harder, wanting to hear the familiar Quiet that I love so much.
C'mon, c'mon...
A skateboard battles the pavement in a rumbling duel.
C'mon, c'mon.....
I know she's there, I know she's waiting, just how she was in Utah. I'm a veteran at this endless game of hide and seek, but Silence is asking me to try harder as I beg for her to appear. I start to wonder how many others are up playing, sitting at their windows, looking out, searching for the still of the Silence too...
She arrives with the sun. I can't tell if I've fallen asleep, or if time just moves faster at the early hours of the morning. Silence now illuminates the mountains, embraces them with her lanky grip, and the world begins to melt. I breath out a sigh, and with it slip away my thoughts.
Silence is misunderstood. It's not absence of sound, but rather the moment of realization of pure existence in the world. She is responsible for cleansing the air of it's daily impurities, and allowing those listening the chance to purify themselves among the noise. I can still hear the grass existing, I can hear my pulse throb in my ears. I could have been swallowed by Silence in the canyons of Utah, happily never found. I lock my eyes shut, as they should be, and listen. I can hear the feel of the wind, the vibrations of this Earth. I hear the taste of the fresh morning, listen to the melody in the warm sun rising. Sometimes, Silence can seem so loud.

I dreamt I was perched atop two massive fins, back in Canyonlands. The rocks balanced precariously as I looked out at the sunset melt into an abyss of deep red. I leaned forward, like I was trying to caress the air- the jagged landscape pressed cool and smooth against my mind; the needles that reached towards the sky scraped my skin. The mesas swam into a sea of colors, and away I was swept, up high into the air. I looked down and saw my body, still sitting up on the rocks, all alone. The harder I tried to get back, the more distanced I became until I struggled so hard the air wouldn't flow into my lungs, and the silence took over my body. I awoke under the stars, sweating on the ground, to an unbounded black sky. My entire body tensed, preparing for the moment it took to realize the exchange between reality and delusion. I saw Satheesh and Logan on either side of me, protecting me I liked to think, they way they so often seemed to do. My startled awakening must have roused Logan, who looked over at me, coddled in my bright blue mummy bag. The mix of his grogginess and a suppressed smirk leaked into his eyes; I'm sure from the sight of my frightened expression, complete with the wild stream of my headlamp jerking about as I tossed and turned. This nightmare still plagues me, even now that I'm tucked safely back into my tidy little room in Bozeman. Perhaps it's the very reason I wake so frequently in the night, go longingly to my window, and pray for Silence to come drown me in that same sea of color.

Human

I pulled each leg forward; kept hoping each step would be my last. I'd never wanted to stop so badly in my entire life. I swear, my bones hurt. I kept my eyes cast down, focusing on the changing layers of rock. The pattern bumbled from red to strange shades of grey and green, but my eyes caught and focused on the deep mocha color of Satheesh's calves.

Left foot, right foot. I ignored the burning in my thighs. 

I watched his muscle ripple as he climbed in front of me; sliding his feet on the smooth sandstone where mine quickly followed. I took three steps to his one, his stride twice the size of mine. I struggled to keep up. Satheesh was weird. He was possibly the strangest man I'd ever met. His smile never left his face, except for the rare occasion when he looked down and his eyes glazed, the fear overtaking his normally positive mindset. The canyon bed we had just climbed out of had a 1300 foot elevation gain, only one hundred feet shy of the height of the Sears tower. And Satheesh, was afraid of heights. 

In a strange way, Satheesh is everything I'm not. A black male, standing at six five, he's over a foot taller than me. I admired him for nearly all his qualities. We hiked the red rocks by day, and sought refuge in the sandstone arches at night and everything was utterly beautiful to him. The canyons, a clear morning hike, our thoughts, a floating piece of garbage on the horizon.... it didn't matter. Satheesh would say to me, "Woulda you look at that! Leea, Life is a great adventure." He was very right, but I could help to suppress a laugh when he was overcome with fascination by my Camelbak. 

"The vater is just right there!" He rushed to show Logan, who was not quite as enthralled by it's majesty. 

We had the same process each day after our hikes; set up camp, get a fire going, then relax our tired bodies. Tonight, the fire cast a comforting glow as we watched our shadows play a flickering game of tag. We huddled for warmth- standing closer to one another than any other circumstance might allow, since Utah nights are below freezing and we had to keep the fire small. Satheesh's body was pressed close to mine on the left, his warm skin radiating heat while Logan stood, slightly more distanced, on my right. As I stared into the flames, listening to the pop of wood- the only sound amongst the silence, Satheesh slinked into my peripherals. He was crouching, bending his knees, hoovering at my eye level. I could mostly see his teeth and his eyes, and I allowed him time to give me a huge grin, then returned the favor. He whispered so that only I could hear,

 "D'ey wanted to see what life was like, from your point of view!" He laughed. 

Somehow, no matter what he was saying, there was a needed exclamation mark at the end. 

His comment ate me up though; made me think, like most of the things he said. Maybe it's a Malaysian thing, but everything he uttered seemed to be profound. 

Silence resumed again, and I don't think any of us spoke until the fire was completely dead and the smoke rose out towards the stars. 

Human

"She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day".

I wake up around 3:45am, every morning. Like clockwork, my dreams stop and I'm forced back to consciousness, usually by the sound of my own voice. My sleep-talking is bizarre, something my roommate isn't too fond of, but has adapted to by thoroughly ignoring it.
Last night when I woke, my windows were open. A crisp breeze floated in from my seventh story perch, dragging with it the collective sounds of lives carrying on- living, right outside my four walls. Some nights I go to the window, to what seems like the edge, and press my forehead against the chilled glass. I close my eyes and stand there, with nothing but the screen, the glass and the darkness separating me, from the rest of my world.
       I listen for a while.
Blurbs of conversation flutter up from the staggeringly drunk in search of the safety of their beds. Laughter, trivial sounds- I don't open my eyes. Rap music bumps into their words from somewhere far off, and it cooks like a melodic jambalaya of sounds.
       It fades.
Someone is dragging their shoes as they walk. Someone is locking up their bike, the chains react violently against the metal rack and pierce the air. A car swooshes past on the still damp ground- they need to get their foot off the gas, I can hear my father getting livid as the tires spin faster, faster. The wind in the valley is blowing through the trees. I can hear it navigate around the sounds outside, slipping between branches, trying hard to leave them undisturbed, bringing me the complacent nostalgia of a childhood in the windy city. That thought is quickly shattered though, and I open my eyes to watch it slide to the floor. Ohh, but my eyelids want to close, and I let them, once again. I like to listen to life outside my window, when my body is tired but my head won't sleep. I listen again, this time harder, wanting to hear the familiar Quiet that I love so much.
     C'mon, c'mon...
A skateboard battles the pavement in a rumbling duel.
     C'mon, c'mon.....
I know she's there, I know she's waiting. I'm a veteran at this endless game of hide and seek, but Silence is asking me to try harder. I start to wonder how many others are up playing, sitting at their windows, looking out, searching for the still of the Silence too.
She arrives with the sun. I can't tell if I've fallen asleep, or if time just moves faster at the early hours of the morning. Silence now illuminates the mountains, embraces them with her lanky grip, and the world begins to melt. I breath out a sigh, and with it slip away my thoughts.
Silence is misunderstood. It's not absence of sound, but rather the moment of realization of pure existence in the world. She is responsible for cleansing the air of it's daily impurities, and allowing those listening the chance to purify themselves among the noise. I can still hear the grass existing, I can hear my pulse throb in my ears. I lock my eyes shut, as they should be, and listen. I can hear the feel of the wind, the vibrations of this Earth. I hear the taste of the fresh morning, listen to the melody in the warm, rising sun. Sometimes, Silence can seem so loud.

An Outside View

The bus was rank with the smell of our sweat. We sat with our shoulders pressed together, muscles still hot and aching, staring out the windows- waiting. A few people rested, eyes closed, against the glass while its rattling held their dreams at bay. Every other word I wrote was interrupted by the need to itch my skin, or by an escaped laugh thrown from Satheesh, whose presence was impossible to ignore. He was a person as contagious as an illness. His dark, molten skin was smooth and pure, unmarred by the Utah brush that had cut up my own legs and feet. His spirited laugh was what had caught my attention, and what I liked best about him. It lit up his face, slit his eyes and coursed through his gangly six-foot-five body. He spoke with a Malaysian accent and his appreciation of life exploded through his lips as he said to me: "d'eym so bleessed". He laughed, again, this time accompanied by a wide grin. Something outside caught his attention, and now I'm the one laughing as he proclaimed "harses"! at the paint mares in the field out the window.
My feet are beyond sore, and seem to be permanently aching- a feeling I'm sure the majority of the van shared after seven days of strenuous hiking. It's trips like these where every muscle, even bones, are in pain. Dying of heat by day and freezing at night, we might begin to question why we are here; why are we doing this?  The answer is not found in asking why, but in remembering who. As I write, my arm is bumping the tanned forearm of Logan, who is impatiently reading through his National Parks Passport that he picked up in Arches. He faithfully turns the pages, looking from Alaska to Maine, and I can feel his entire body tense before he turns to Satheesh and moans "I want to beee there, man". Logan is from Ukraine, but has spent his summers in Montana. I watch him continue to flip through the maps and as I study his face I can see the same controlled frustration there that I feel in myself when I think about everything I want to do in my life. We share that manic  impulse somewhere in our heads or hearts that signals us to constantly be reminded that life is too short. Logan has shared with me his touching belief in his religion and and his desire to see all of the kingdom God's created on Earth.
My train of thought is again broken by Satheesh, who in the midst of the quiet on the bus leans over to happily whisper to Logan and I, "D'eym so glad you geys are here. D'eym so lucky. Thank you, love you", as he pats Logan's knee, leans back to his seat and lets the silence resume.
Logan laughs at each word Satheesh attempts to pronounce in English, while Satheesh is too enthralled and fascinated by each moment and he doesn't notice. Logan and I look at each other, and smile softly. The atmosphere is so pleasant, I couldn't have repressed the happiness if I had wanted to.
I can hear Green Day pounding out of Abi's headphones behind me, every now and then followed by the sound of his Indian accent muttering along 'don't wanna be...'. This time the guitar solo seems to have woken Josefin, who was sleeping peacefully on his shoulder. She pushes back her blonde hair, revealing her electric blue eyes and groggily turns them to watch the red rocks streak past the window panes as we drive. She doesn't say much, but when she does it is poised and meaningful. Perhaps being the oldest of the group at 23 (and ironically the shortest), she feels more inclined to watch our antics rather than take part in them. Her Swedish heritage is heard in her tone when she knows we're being dumbasses, but her smile softens the lecture that's sure to follow.
A few others have woken now, too. Andi suggests we stop to meditate, but the idea is quickly shut down by Brad who makes a snide remark to the Thai/Aussie native. Andi's response is a quick and cool "That's fine, mate", and again, the conversation is only between the open window and the wind. We are all too exhausted, too grungy and too sick of being cramped in the car to really care that we're not talking. Logan shifts to take his sweatshirt off, a feat in such a cramped car. In a while we'll talk about our favorite part of the hikes, the funniest parts of the trip, a near-death experience, or mention how sore we are, how we can't wait to get back home to Bozeman...but for now, as I begin to close my eyes and drift back to sleep, the still of the silence is enough.

Therapy

The wind cut right through his thin flannel shirt, and chilled his whole body. It wasn't so much the cold anymore that bothered him, since he was accustomed to being numb, but the holes in his shoes. His toes peeked out, and were stung with cold when he walked through the snow. He looked around him at the towering mountains, the trickling runoff, the deep red sunset... they were the only things he would ever really own. He peered down at his shoes again and thought about how nice it would be when spring came.

The dark of the car was illuminated by the spark thrown from the butane lighter, and skewed images danced for a moment across its passengers' faces. A faint crinkle could be heard as he sucked on the pipe and the weed burned. His lungs were full, his chest protruding, and for a moment he wasn't sure if it was the drug or his fucked up head that distorted his flickering friends. And, exhale.
 "Load another one man".
He watched the lighter turn the the greens to ash; inhale, exhale then fade away.

It's been a year today, but he could still remember when he'd gotten that phone call. His mom had been so upset, he could barely stand hearing her struggle to put it in words, to make it real. He could only imagine how she'd felt, losing the love of her life, bu he missed him too. He should have gone back, gone to see him before it was too late. 
Regret now, that's all that was left. Memories and Regret.

You let me just lay there; on my side, curled up and exposed, facing you. Your strong arms were sprawled out, your wing span the size of the tiny bed. The way you were positioned protected me; one arm wrapped over me and the other gently stroking my back, comforting. You made me feel precious that night, and treated me like I was fragile. I remember pressing my forehead against your bare chest, seeping in the heat of your skin. We didn't move, didn't speak, and lay like that for hours. You never asked me for a thing, you just knew I needed that time, that silence and your body next to mine. 

I miss you, dammit. 

 For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to  come, nor height, nor depth, nor other creatures, shall be able to separate us from the love of God 

(Romans 8:37-39).

^ That's bullshit. He doesn't love me.

 I used to be able to walk, and run, and hike. I remember biking, and climbing mountains, and making love to beautiful women. I could swim or sleep standing up if I had wanted to. Why did He take it all away from me? That's not love, and now I have nothing. 

The sun shone in through slits in the blinds, warming my bare skin-- wait. What the hell? Whose room is this? 

I sat up. 

And.... okay, I'm not wearing any clothes. And neither is he. Fuck. At least he has nice abs...

Where is my dress? I could only find one heel. I need to get out of here. Clothes back on, I slipped out the door and breathed a sigh of relief when it was shut behind me. 

I adjusted my bra and tried to find the way outta this place. What happened last night? 

Hope those abs were worth it...

He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept without waking up crying. He was haunted by that same scene every single night in his dreams. The memory tortured him, gave him no way out. He lay down, closed his eyes, and there he would be, trapped in that little room, the sound of the gunshot echoing through his mind. Sometimes he'd wake up there, but sometimes he'd swim through a river of her blood and her screams would get louder, and she'd call to him for help, and there'd be so much blood he couldn't even find her and eventually he'd give up and just drown, right there, cause if she was dead, he wanted to be, too.

He held her down, the sweaty palms of his hands almost breaking her wrists- his fingers curled and locked around her arm. His eyes never left hers as he slid his hand, disgustingly slow, to where it would teach her a lesson. Her body tensed in pain, and she closed her eyes as tight as she could, trying desperately to escape. 

The windows in the sterile, washed out van framed the house as it slid away from the curb. A single tear spilled from each eye and rolled down his face, catching at the tip of his nose. This is the last time. The last time he'd see the house that he grew so angry in, last time he'd be reminded of the "home" that harbored more fear than family. He would never spend another night under that roof, or feel the sting brought on by his fathers lips draining the bottle. He would no longer remember the existence of South 7th Street.
And as they drove, he didn't look back.

He would've gone anywhere; he just wanted to get out. As he stocked the shelves, can after can, he thought about how to vanish. He heard the little bells ding as he pulled the grocery door open and stepped out onto the concrete. He pulled the beaten pack of Marlboro's from his pocket and lit one up. A suppressed cough escaped his lips- he sighed. The little bells jingled again as he stepped back inside. 

Perspective

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/child-brides/sinclair-photography

     Every little girl dreams of her wedding day. The beautiful dress, the love and laughter in the air, the man of her dreams standing at the alter waiting for her to walk down the aisle... Unfortunately for some, the sickening truth forces it's way for a much different reality.
     When I was five years old, I very much doubt getting married was something I was considering, or could even begin to understand. Hell, there are millions of adults who still don't understand how to navigate a marriage. Reading National Geographic's photo essay on Child Brides definitely made me think. I realized how grateful I am to be able to make choices for myself, and for the freedom to love whom I please. The arrangement of photos, which all are focused on different stories of girls in different stages of their marriages, shed an interesting light on the concept of child brides. It first introduces the idea using a photo that shocks it's audience, much like an 'attention-getter' when writing, and is accompanied by the next series of photos that go on to expand it's viewers horizons on the topic. The photographer could have been efficient if she had simply wanted to just display what a child bride was, but she seemed to want to tell more of a story than that. The rest of her photos rise up and give off an almost triumphant feeling- we meet girls that have successfully resisted being brought into the child bride culture and those that are receiving an education as well. To me, it's not suppose to be a saddening essay, but one of resilience.
      One of the captions attached to a photo of two Yemeni brides stated that "...girls see marriage as saving themselves from the control of their families". Is there freedom in engagement? Is trading one hostility for another really a salvage at all? It's hard to look at this essay and not be shocked and appalled. I think as Americans, we sometimes forget that there are millions of other people out there who don't think and don't act how we do. I suppose we can never really know or understand the experiences of others, since such vast differences divide our cultures. However, the more we try to see; whether it be through text, or photography or any other outlet for understanding, the better.

Life As I'm Seein' It

National Geographic

 Alright, in the spirit of the game, here are some sick pictures I found that I had to share. You know, just so that when I put up my own work it can really be dampened by their mastery. Check it:

Zoo Story

My favorite thing about sleep are those pre-sleep dreams. I know nothing of the technicalities behind them, but I absolutely am in love with these odd little dreams that pop in and out of the mind right when I'm rolling into the moments of half-sleep and half-wake. It's evidence of a beautiful moment, just being able to close your eyes and let go of your thoughts so they can swim around, free, for a while. Late last night between the pillowed support of my mattress and covers, respectfully, a thought, or more a memory, jutted into my head. I mulled over it for a while, then finally, couldn't delay my excitement any longer and sprung from the warm cocoon I had myself wrapped up in to read The Zoo Story. Those of you that have read Albee's twisted play, I'm sure, can understand why it refused to leave it's latched position in my mind. For those of you who aren't quite sure what I'm talking about, please, let me enlighten: http://www.douban.com/group/topic/7721039/

I was so glad that for some reason this ran back into my head because it's so curiously interesting. For that reason alone, I thought I'd share. If you have a spare moment, enjoy. I can ensure you won't be disappointed. 

Drowning

I hit the water and the hazy world slips out of focus, it's last images left swirling above me. Further and further I fall with no resistance. I feel the pressure of the explosive air, begging to leak from my lungs. A twisted pleasure lives in the seconds that flick by that leave me knowing I should be immersed in panic... seconds where I find myself reveling in the mysterious, quiet lulls of the water. I want to stay there, to hold on to the still of the silence just a little bit longer. The feel of the water, it's cool existence surrounding me and eating my burdens alike. But timing is everything- a second too long and I'm forever swallowed by the calm chaos, a second too soon and I reemerge unsatisfied.
It's about the peace, the quiet; the surging power found in a cheated moment. It's not the fear of drowning that serves as the drug, but the beauty in the first breath of that crisp, sweet air when my head breaks the surface and the sound of life is no longer muffled. It's the moments of doubt and repentance when my body and mind separate- one pushing towards the rest of the world, the other protected by that deep blue barrier. Even amist the water all around me, my body is lit on fire. The desperate need to salvage my soul battles the desperation to drown. I'm never sure which will win the race against time; I'm never quite sure I'll be able to breathe again.
When I drown in my own mind, my whole body mimics the water. I see my sadness, my anger, my emotion mirrored back at me like a reflection. More pain, and the air stops coming, my eyes can no longer see. I am hollow, all that is left is the sting in my pupils and the soft feel of water everywhere on my skin.
The path that my tears traverse pull dark memories to the surface, like the mascara running down her face. Her eyes are a shocking blue, proof of the water that's welling beneath them. She hides behind her own barriers, like the water does for me; this stolen moment allowing us to see a flicker of who she is when her guard is let down. It's foggy, like the world she lives in, and she's numb, no longer wanting to feel what's around her. She cries, cries, cries searching for an escape from herself, a way to jump in the water. The background is deep and dark, like her  mood. Our eyes are drawn to the direct approach of the shot, like we see her but it would be an imposition if she knew we were looking. It's a moment in it's purest form, stolen and frozen- personal. She doesn't make eye contact, because she's afraid if someone ever really looks at her, they'll see more than she wants them to. They'll see that she's drowning, that she's broken, and that she's not looking to be saved.

Images

Dorothea Lange: Photography

I'm not very observant. As an aspiring writer and advocate of the arts, this is disappointing. It really worries me, all jokes aside. It's not that I don't notice obvious things, that's not necessarily the case. I just can't really look at something and see things that aren't blatant. I like photography though- the thought of capturing a moment forever in time is something magical. But since I feel I'm hindered by lack of knowledge and skills in this department, I'll tell you what I DO notice, as well as what I feel the background might be.

You see, when I look at this photo, I get curious about what its story is. Why was it taken? From the title I assume the white man with the car, indicating wealth and societal status, is the plantation overseer. He also has his leg up, resting it on the car- almost claiming it to be his, the way his positioning also suggests those behind his are "his" as well. This leads me to believe that the group of black men on the porch stairs were most likely "property" of the plantation, working the fields. I start asking questions when I notice the sign on the porch, though, meaning it's probably some sort of store. From the way the black men are positioned, sitting and sort of nestled behind the white man, they look smaller and give off the feel that they're less significant. It's challenging to decide whether his stance is protecting them, or claiming them. There is the profile of a man on the far left, he's white as well, and it almost looks to me like he's smiling but there isn't enough of his face turned to be able to be sure. The dynamic between the overseer and himself is conflicting, and whether it was intentional or not, it intrigues my focus to the man on the left and draws it away from the actual subject of the photo. I suppose from the title's context I would have assumed this photograph to make me feel sad, but when as I look at it now I don't. For some reason, I don't categorize this as any typical relationship between this group of men.
What I'm really curious about is whether or not the photographer is black or white. I'm wondering about this because of the angle the shot is taken from. The photographer's point of view would be between two white men, and across from the African Americans. 

As I look at the photo, I wonder what it would look like if it had been taken in color. Would that have changed the feel of the photo?  I find it hard to imagine it in anything but black and white since the lack of color matches the lack of emotion on the faces of the people in it. Ironically though, perhaps color would change every single thing about the photo since black and white separated  those very same people on such a large scale back in 1936...

Why I Write

Anger. 

Elation. 

Pain. 

Loathing. 

Stress. 

Jealousy. 

Tribulations. 

Excitement.  

Challenges. 

Fear.

 Change. 

Hope. 

I write for myself, solely, because I feel these things. I write because I feel. 

I write for my passion, for languages ability to capture feeling and make it tangible.

I write so that the tumorous and searing pains in my head can drip through my fingers, spread through the ink, and infect the words they take shape in instead of my mind. 

I write so I can sleep. So that at night, when I lay in my mound of blankets, it's only the outside-my-head noise that needs to be blocked out.

I write so that a beautiful moment is captured in all it's glory. I write to continue time, and to cheat it.  

I write in order to remember. But most often, I write to forget. 

Words operate like a lovely illusion. I re-read them to slow the seconds from passing; delete them and they're gone. 

I think most of all, I write to torment myself. Perhaps this is in hopes of the torment itself being enough; to feel the pain of the memories burning in my mind again, and then the sweet release of the words that allow me to throw that pain away. Repeat, repeat, repeat the pattern- to remember, then forget. 

I write selfishly, and in vain. Not to create works of art and leave my name behind in a glorious tribute to my sheer greatness. 

No. 

I play games with my head. Write to resurrect the emotion, relive the moment, relic in the sad remains of the something that's long dead in time's hand, but very much alive in the phrases of my literature. 

I write for control. 

I write for myself, solely, because I feel.