Remembering fall.

Amy's farm

Photo sessions with Baby the deer.

Playing dress up in a sinewy crate.

Posing for Amy's camera.

Feeling beautiful.

Examining a table of turkey feet laid out to dry.

Editing these photos took me back to these magical moments in time.

Missing the photographic goddesses who are traipsing around Scotland meeting trapeze girls and wishing I was along for the adventure. 

Trying to see the beauty in a particularly crappy winter.

The winter blues., originally uploaded by kaliji.

Perhaps if I had long underwear I would be more apt to explore my surroundings, traveling coffee mug in hand to warm the throat. When I have all day to play the winter blues can't catch up to me.

Saying Yes to September.

Come August I become consumed with tunnel vision fixed upon yet another fall semester at community college, still wading in life possibilities. It feels much like drowning in the amorphous rainbow that is a McDonald's ball pit with nothing substantial to latch onto for the sake of self-preservation.

I noticed that once engulfed in the clamor of The First Day I become hyper-aware of the social dynamics my peers prescribe to. We are lonely souls ricocheting off one another in the search for a tribe, a cult, a gang to call our own--any connection substantial enough to transcend the collective memory of social networking sites into something more concrete. Something accompanied with nicknames concerning canned food items, spirit animals, or sexually explicit catch-phrases. Something which includes forcing nicotine in and expelling it out of our lungs in one shared self-destructive, self-aware breath. Something which has everything to do with quantity and nothing to do with quality. The more bodies you can claim as your friends the better. Resigned to this being a necessary and unavoidable aspect of my social development, I realize that I need to open up, reach out, and connect with individuals my age. It is too easy to withdraw, to burrow oneself deeper into that proverbial ball pit and spend your precious free time watching every Gilmore Girls episode you own (which would be seasons one through five--the good ones). Or maybe that's just me ;)

In September I want to focus. Focus on academics and a few goals that are within my capabilities to make tangible such as creating a space that Agent Pineapple and I want to be in as opposed to just sleep in. A space where creativity, academia, and relaxation can flower. This means consciously filling the well; it is imperative to keep the well half-full by default, to focus on the bigger picture and grasping at anything to keep it saturated with soul water.

Therefore today I have been spending my precious hours of "Lara time" organizing, musing about art, listening to the mix-CD my sister gave me, and playing dress-up: all well-filling activities in their own right. I am breathing. It has been so long that I was worried that my body forgot how.

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