anxiousity.

I keep having odd bouts of anxiety as of late. They come on steadily at times, and then others I wake up with them gripping my gut and perpetuating my mouth into a frown.

This makes me nervous.

I used to worry a lot as a kid. I worried about things I couldn't control, like tornadoes or car accidents; silly things really. I had nightmares often, and I still have them now; they are getting harder to control.

I've started to turn to relaxation techniques. Deep breathing, mental separation, yoga, etc. Yoga has actually helped a lot, just focusing on nothing but my breath and body has already done wonders for me. It teaches me to stop and really examine what eaxactly makes me feel the creeping panic. Today in the shower for example, my stomach started to flip, like the feeling you get before a big test you didn't really study for, or if you are running late to work for the third day in a row. I couldn't understand this sudden onset of anxiety. I had just come from hot power yoga, eaten a wonderful vegetarian lunch with my beautiful gal pal, was all caught up on my school assignments, and didn't have work until later. I examined each of these truths and breathed through them. I'm sure this sounds hippy dippy but it helped. Just breathing. It's all I could do at the moment.

I thought about the mental clutter I accumulate, and how that translates to the physical. I cleaned my room. I changed my bed. I vacuumed. I made things feel fresh again

And then I remembered what the instructor in yoga said this morning.

"Yoga and meditation does not change you; it reminds you of who you are and how you enter the world. You enter with the inhale, and exit on the exhale."

And that's all I can do for now is breathe deep.

SALT

its the crystals that catch light
on the rocks in my hand
the sparkles you see
on asphalt and sand
its the taste of the oceans
my blood
and the briny wind that whips my face,
I like my lips to savor
Summer Afternoon's Lingering Taste.

The light is off, but my mind is sharp.

I feel crazed right now.


Uneasy, anxious, restless. On the verge of tears over nothing. or everything.


I'm losing myself again. Into mundane routines, and forgettable faces and awful attitudes.
 I ran on the beach the other night,


It was the first time I saw her since...well maybe last summer.


It was the first "warm" night of the season and she was rolling eagerly to the shore.
The roar of her tumbling onto the sand, the sounds of the pebbles running under her pull.


I ran fast. I knew I would tire quickly but it felt great to break free. I wasn't on a treadmill. Not on a lined track. Not even a carved path in the woods. So I zig zagged.


I jumped over rocks, I dashed through thick sand, I skirted the waters' edge daring her to lap against my brand new nikes.


I sped like a jaeger down the beach. Transatlanticism crooned in my ear. Softly so I could hear the sea. How fitting. 


"I need you so much closer.."


I ran through the burning cramp in my side. My chest heaved as my oxygen-starved lungs gulped in the briny air. Twice I stumbled, and on the third time I allowed myself to collapse in the damp sand. There I sat, the night sky incasing me and her in a velvety blanket of indigo and stars. 


Ahead was a sand castle.


In many aspects it was perfect. 


About three feet ahead of me it stood, looking out into her. Two large towers flanked a center rectangular fortress with  many twigs and dried seaweed sticking out. I waited, as high tide became inevitable. She ebbed and flowed, easy at first, coming on subtly, like a romantic gesture. The castle stood straight, not even its outer edges crumbled. 


One mighty wave jumped higher than the others had. She was persistent, and when the foam fizzed into the sand, I was slightly shocked to see only half a tower missing. The castle was strong. Resistant. It did not want to give in. 


But both me and the small sand castle knew what was ahead. It would relinquish itself back to the ocean. That is where it had come from. Where everything comes from.


But I felt it my duty to stay, I was the only one witnessing such a fine creation crumbling to its end.


It was gradual, no single wave destroyed it. She took it back slowly, but she knew it would be hers. A patient hunter she had no need to hurry. I waited.


Would she take me too? I was hers. 
I imagined myself staying rooted in the middle of the beach, as the ocean slowly rose with the moon, as my breath turned into bubbles and my body became weightless.


"Your love is gonna drown."

Where have you gone abstract thought?

I'm blank.

Like this page. 

I have no creativity, 

I am despaired by it.

I am a writer

With no words.

I am the thinker

With no thoughts.

I am the traveller

Who is lost?

Surprisingly,  some of my best posts came out of my deepest depression. 

When I felt the most in tune with my thoughts and emotions,

as raw and violent and dark as they were.

Now I feel marooned, alone.

I'm on a distant island

that is empty

I am not sad

I am not quite happy either.

I am waiting

Open to thoughts,

to ideas,

But I am only...........................................................................................................

...empty.

This is nice, Today feels nice.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent,
and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you.
It looks as though your eyes had flown away
and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.

Like all things are full of my soul
You emerge from the things, full of my soul.
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul,
and you look like a melancoly word.

I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant.
It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
let me fall quiet with your own silence.

Let me also speak to you with your silence
Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring.
You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent.
Distant and painful as if you had died.
A word then, a smile is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it is not true.

A Taoist Day

I must be cautious,
like people crossing a stream in winter


I must be alert,
aware of danger


I must be polite,
like visiting guests


I must be simple,
like uncarved blocks of wood


I must be empty,
like a deep cave


I must be hard to see,
like muddy water

Oh no.

My creativity is pent up.

Making my fingers quick to speak

before my brain registers their words.

two separate entities

refusing to cooperate.

ee cummings is brilliant.

my feelings feel stiff

when they are loose 

so are my thoughgts

my words

my spirits

i decided today i need more yoga in my life

and less stress

and love

love love love.