I have been missing my camera that I took with me to London and all around during my European travels. But since I got to Portland and to the United States, I haven't been taking as many photos... I don't know what it is, something about how terribly familiar everything is makes the need to take photos feel a lot less. Not to say my sense of adventure is lost, but I have been relying more on my memory to store these local happenings. I have nonetheless been carrying my camera around Portland, and when moving into my new house, I realized I could not find it anywhere. I remembered feeling someone tugging on my backpack in a crowd downtown at a big event called the Flugtag, with 70,000 people in Portland just to see... and I thought maybe someone had reached into my bag? But I had no real evidence, and at the time i rationalized that "i am in portland" and people in crowds don't go around trying to steal things.
a couple of days ago i got a phone message from my brother trev saying that there was a camera with a picture of my uncle benito that was lost in sicily. i didn't respond right away, it seemed weird but i knew that i had my camera in the US so it must have been someone elses coincidence. The next morning trev called again, he said benito called him asking about my missing camera. i told him i lost my camera, but not in sicily, and trev said well... there is a number here and you should call it right now. i thought the number might be a number in italy, but it turns out it was a 503 number (portland's area code). Trev said "i don't know what the story is but call this number right away." so i called, very confused, and a nice man named Erik picked up the phone. I very vaguely referred to a missing camera asking if he knew anything about it, and he said he might know something about it. so i said my uncle in sicily called my brother and gave me your number to call about a camera i lost here in portland. and he asks, do you have brown hair? and i said yes, and he exclaims "i can't believe we found you!"
I have never been so shocked and so happy during my morning coffee before working at the spicy pickle! avery and max were there with me as i freaked out, listening to this amazing story about how this mans son works at the rose gardens... found my camera, and turned it into lost and found, after a month they returned the camera to him because no one had claimed it... and his family happened to have the same camera in their house so they charged it up and uploaded the pictures on the computer... then they decided to try to figure out who the camera belongs to! using my extensive pictures from sicily... none of them involving names or places, they pieced together all the information they could, from the time on a persons watch in the background of a photo to the placement of the sun and the sea which clued them into which part of sicily to start searching google earth for. i suddenly became so happy that my uncle had made me photograph things i wouldn't normally photograph, like the hilton hotel in porta rosa, or the giant mound of pummus stone in lipari.
i met with the family today at starbucks and they printed out a few of my pictures along with pictures they found online of certain places. it was impeccable. they guessed i was visiting my grandparents. they found the town montalbono and realized that my grandparents probably lived there, they gave me the name Silvi and were determined to return my camera to me. they wrote the city hall in montalbono, translated a letter into italian, and attached a picture of my uncle benito, asking if they could help find the person who this camera belonged to. luckily my uncle was a journalist for montalbono growing up and everyone in that town knows who he is. about 5 days after they sent the letter, I had called them up from portland coffee house... and now i have my camera back-- but more than that... i have such an inspired sense of the magic of kindness. i want to do kind things for strangers, i feel like i owe the universe something big, and i'd like the challenge of passing this wonderful gift along.
its amazing how someone found me by contacting my relatives in sicily. and how my story became part of their mystery. it's really beautiful what that incredible amount of kindness from complete strangers put back into my life. i can only hope to pass this kindness on in other forms, letting the magic continue when the right moment arises.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Conversations with Grace and a story about heavy hearts
Grace
She helps me realized in my lowest moments
that the things that make me feel heavy are actually gifts.
I wasn't meant to keep it all in. We're meant to talk through it all, and I'm meant to share love in its limitless forms. Here is a story about how heavy love can feel... and where it took me.
Everything is Too Heavy
i've spent a lot of time thinking of you, trying to be intentional in the ways i care for you... trying not to expose too much or be too involved, but you saw right through me, i think. i was starting to let myself love you. and i started to believe it could work. i could be patient, let you be where you are. and maybe one day you could thrive and love me all at once. my body was fluid to you, my emotions rocks, and the current became heavy with torment. how we managed i do not know. you kept your rocks far from me, but i knew you had them too.
i wanted to give you everything. you didn't want everything, everything is too heavy, so at night i floated on your bed in a place where as long as we were touching it was okay to feel. i loved you in those moments. it wasn't fair.
i began to examined the crack that formed in my heart. living there, a tiny bud pulled by threads of hope crept through the lining while i was sleeping, and pushed out against heart-ache fear and worry. This new seedling longed to tangle up with things alive in you. begging to love, to live, to exist and be cared for. i didn't mean for this to happen, but it went on happening. especially when we were close. instead of speaking, i kissed you. this was so much easier, i held the words in and let the truth skim the surface of your body. at least thats how i wished it was.
i don't know if i ever found a way to care for you, now i am too wrecked to try and it saddens me. i would have loved to lift you with my love but it always got so heavy. Because we didn't want the weight of it all, it is as though we gave nothing and got nothing in return. living on a wish, we are being pushed apart like seeds from a dandelion, unaware as we float in the sunbeams that the ground will keep us covered in our separate homes.
the action we used and what we avoided naming brought on the growth of so many emotions. i think i would have felt it all in a purer form without the complication of my pulsing veins and your rhythmic breath above me. but i have no way of knowing that truth. i was afraid that without us sharing our bodies we would have no reason to come together. there was an urgency to make love, to make it good, to stay up all night. i knew it was ending, we had to act fast. but i let it slow down, and you pursued another love with all of your rocks ready to unpack, with all of yourself intact. while i had to break myself off and away. now i'm left with anger, lack of needs, needing to protect myself. never wanting to come close again. you deceived me with your body and your gentle kisses on my neck, i was too afraid to know what was happening in me, you told me from the start it wasn't what you wanted. it was all i had to give.
because we exposed our bodies before our hearts everything is crumbling, and covered up with sadness. you apologized for having to cut the flower growing out of me. something that grew to admire you, now to be admired as freshly cut flowers are admired; in a vase, out of their element left to soak up what water they can without their roots.
i asked if we could put rocks there instead. but nothing seems to be alive anymore. your only choice is to move on. the story i provided for you will help you navigate in the future but i'll never exist to you as i am. those burdensome parts of me have been rightfully neglected, you let them sink below you. i carry them still, in my dark places, even though they are my brightest strengths, and similar to yours.
evidence of what we were can fit in an envelope, two tiny sheets of paper. relics from the war, a summer romance you wouldn't even call your own. i walk away with my most full heart and let it all deflate until nothing breathes there anymore. and i try to wake up again as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything hadn't lived for those moments. history, the dead story i write about now. the story i can only mourn for so long. because i've got to let go. because the story changes each day.
(afterthought--after speaking with my mother Grace)
i dont want to put life back in my dead flowers or re-write the pages over again, i want new growth, i want to stay connected to my roots and let my love flow out in new places. if nothing else, rejection leaves me with the desire to create more than i thought possible, if i can't have this there must be more out there. i will not let my heart die, i am inhaling new breath all the time. our bodies are powerful regenerators, and we will sprout new buds in the same vulnerable space where old growth has run through its life cycle. i'll use all the materials to be new, and to let myself share love with the world, because i was built for this and i am most happy when i give lovingly.
Rejection made me afraid i would have to learn to keep my love inside for ever, but i am built this way and that can never be put to shame in a closed off place in me; its got to reach the surface. I must share my love with the world, let it be kindness to strangers or encouragment to those who i love or speaking for those who get forgotten and taken advantage of. i have all of this in me and its so heavy it hurts, but its so light it could fly in a hundred directions. i am opening a cage of birds in me, because giving to others is how i give myself hope and how i realize the working order of a loving world, messy with dreams and scraps and hugs and gifts. filled up with the power to try again, all the time. we're working in this world, and i couldn't pick a better landscape for creating beauty with all we have inside.
She helps me realized in my lowest moments
that the things that make me feel heavy are actually gifts.
I wasn't meant to keep it all in. We're meant to talk through it all, and I'm meant to share love in its limitless forms. Here is a story about how heavy love can feel... and where it took me.
Everything is Too Heavy
i've spent a lot of time thinking of you, trying to be intentional in the ways i care for you... trying not to expose too much or be too involved, but you saw right through me, i think. i was starting to let myself love you. and i started to believe it could work. i could be patient, let you be where you are. and maybe one day you could thrive and love me all at once. my body was fluid to you, my emotions rocks, and the current became heavy with torment. how we managed i do not know. you kept your rocks far from me, but i knew you had them too.
i wanted to give you everything. you didn't want everything, everything is too heavy, so at night i floated on your bed in a place where as long as we were touching it was okay to feel. i loved you in those moments. it wasn't fair.
i began to examined the crack that formed in my heart. living there, a tiny bud pulled by threads of hope crept through the lining while i was sleeping, and pushed out against heart-ache fear and worry. This new seedling longed to tangle up with things alive in you. begging to love, to live, to exist and be cared for. i didn't mean for this to happen, but it went on happening. especially when we were close. instead of speaking, i kissed you. this was so much easier, i held the words in and let the truth skim the surface of your body. at least thats how i wished it was.
i don't know if i ever found a way to care for you, now i am too wrecked to try and it saddens me. i would have loved to lift you with my love but it always got so heavy. Because we didn't want the weight of it all, it is as though we gave nothing and got nothing in return. living on a wish, we are being pushed apart like seeds from a dandelion, unaware as we float in the sunbeams that the ground will keep us covered in our separate homes.
the action we used and what we avoided naming brought on the growth of so many emotions. i think i would have felt it all in a purer form without the complication of my pulsing veins and your rhythmic breath above me. but i have no way of knowing that truth. i was afraid that without us sharing our bodies we would have no reason to come together. there was an urgency to make love, to make it good, to stay up all night. i knew it was ending, we had to act fast. but i let it slow down, and you pursued another love with all of your rocks ready to unpack, with all of yourself intact. while i had to break myself off and away. now i'm left with anger, lack of needs, needing to protect myself. never wanting to come close again. you deceived me with your body and your gentle kisses on my neck, i was too afraid to know what was happening in me, you told me from the start it wasn't what you wanted. it was all i had to give.
because we exposed our bodies before our hearts everything is crumbling, and covered up with sadness. you apologized for having to cut the flower growing out of me. something that grew to admire you, now to be admired as freshly cut flowers are admired; in a vase, out of their element left to soak up what water they can without their roots.
i asked if we could put rocks there instead. but nothing seems to be alive anymore. your only choice is to move on. the story i provided for you will help you navigate in the future but i'll never exist to you as i am. those burdensome parts of me have been rightfully neglected, you let them sink below you. i carry them still, in my dark places, even though they are my brightest strengths, and similar to yours.
evidence of what we were can fit in an envelope, two tiny sheets of paper. relics from the war, a summer romance you wouldn't even call your own. i walk away with my most full heart and let it all deflate until nothing breathes there anymore. and i try to wake up again as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything hadn't lived for those moments. history, the dead story i write about now. the story i can only mourn for so long. because i've got to let go. because the story changes each day.
(afterthought--after speaking with my mother Grace)
i dont want to put life back in my dead flowers or re-write the pages over again, i want new growth, i want to stay connected to my roots and let my love flow out in new places. if nothing else, rejection leaves me with the desire to create more than i thought possible, if i can't have this there must be more out there. i will not let my heart die, i am inhaling new breath all the time. our bodies are powerful regenerators, and we will sprout new buds in the same vulnerable space where old growth has run through its life cycle. i'll use all the materials to be new, and to let myself share love with the world, because i was built for this and i am most happy when i give lovingly.
Rejection made me afraid i would have to learn to keep my love inside for ever, but i am built this way and that can never be put to shame in a closed off place in me; its got to reach the surface. I must share my love with the world, let it be kindness to strangers or encouragment to those who i love or speaking for those who get forgotten and taken advantage of. i have all of this in me and its so heavy it hurts, but its so light it could fly in a hundred directions. i am opening a cage of birds in me, because giving to others is how i give myself hope and how i realize the working order of a loving world, messy with dreams and scraps and hugs and gifts. filled up with the power to try again, all the time. we're working in this world, and i couldn't pick a better landscape for creating beauty with all we have inside.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
oh, in love i need...
devra & johny at the end of our time in florence, holding every moment in loveSpace for my own thoughts and reflections
Freedom to still have wild and adventurous dreams seperate from his
Talking out-loud and intentful listening
To Laugh, Laugh, Laugh until my stomach hurts
Equality, meaning to feel both Strong and Weak
Disagreements and the fearlessness to fight
Lots of committment to Growth
Painting each other's bodies and dancing in bed in the morning
Hand-written i <3 u's and feeling like a kid again
Feeding each other's passions and listening to new music
Patience- with myself, with him
Unabound Openness
The desire to say YES to wherever our love may take us
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