Today there is one

About a week ago I began writing a piece of short fiction based on the words of Rita in Paradise.

Reading over all that I have written, I got a bit discouraged. It was not any good.

So, subconsciously, I believe I have avoided anything that had to with Rita in Paradise. 

My life is actually busy now. It just so happens that I feel like I am doing something worthwhile with it, my life. Between difficult classes (including "Bodily Expression", for the difficulty there comes from timidity which is rooted in not having a very firm hold on the language, or at least getting sucked into that sort of thinking...I never thought I would use timid to describe myself), volunteering at 3 different NGOs teaching English, teaching music, and playing with kiddies, and various happenings and events particular to the city, I feel full. I always do this to myself right before I collapse. Balance would be nice (I say that as if the gods aren't giving me what I ask for--I am the only one who creates my own problems people! It is just hard to remember! Hard to not be a victim). There actually is not time to go to the beach. There is actually not time to just relax with my friends. But somehow, still, I get bored...

And so, I make art. I write. I make films. I make music. I have always been "creative." I have always been "artsy." But when have I ever actually been a creative artist? It feels really...NOURISHING! The muse tapped me and instead of pushing it away with my fear of failure or sheer lack of motivation I have let it invade my comfort zone for the first time. I hug it warmly. 

Some days I/ feel numb. Often times, I will be feeling wonderful and then something will happen and I/ become anxious. For some silly reason I continue to expect that every second of every day will be packed with only pure happiness at level eleven (a more beautiful combination than cellar door I believe, spontaneity partly making it thus). There is still a gap between what I know to be true and what I feel to be true in all areas of my life. The classic schism of heart and mind. 

I am trying to let things happen. Instead of thinking or forcing I am looking for signs and turning my will over. There is a fine line between passivity or refusing responsibility and letting the streams flow. I am actively attempting patience.

Today I ask for serenity. I ask for acceptance and understanding of mediocrity. Hell, I even ask for mediocrity. Gimme that good ol' boring second third fourth rate feeling. Let me hold it and spend some time with it, get to know it better, and even get to like it for who it is, because I have a feeling I spend much time with it in days and years to come. 

I am grateful for my impenetrable will (and on the flip side, of course, there is stubbornness) until it damages me. 

I am grateful for Brazil. I have grown to love these streets.

I am grateful for solitude and for social inundation. Ideas spring from social inundation, they manifest themselves in solitude, and again are reborn into the people. 

Sugar. Who said sugar is sweet? Who said paradise is Paradise? ME because undefined as we all may be, perfection is ever acheived, and only through our imperfections. It is our holes that make us whole. 

I think everything is going to be ok! The streets await.