BILLY:
​"When it rains it pours", they say.
But I don't think rain only pours. No. I think rain rattles. It punches. It hollers. It blows. It sprints. It strikes. It wows. It smothers. It aches. It hurts. It bleeds. It bleeds. It bleeds. When it rains -- it bleeds. 
And this may surprise some folks, but I like it!  Heck yeah, I like the bleeding of the rain, especially on cold lonely nights. I sit on my fire escape, no shoes, so I can step into the precious elixir. So I can get baptized all over again. So I can clean myself of the monster within. And boy do I feel clean afterwords. Like a heavenly spa dropped down and dumbed some holy goodness onto my little human body. And it washed away the dread for a few moments. It washed away the pain. The memory of pain. It washed away the monster. 
Then, when the avalanche of rain stops, it's like a little death just happened. The sudden silence feels jarring, like loss making its way into me, reminding me that no amount of rain can take away my monster. My monster is here to stay, rain or shine.
I'd rather it rain. I'd rather it would always rain. 

Dear Pride,

I sometimes think ill of you, like you are this mean high-schooler who thinks she's better than everyone else. Like you have the curse of hubris.
And when I am in your presence I have the curse of hubris.
And anyways who do I think I am ever being PROUD of myself!?

But see, now I realize, there are layers to you. Today I feel the subtle humble side of you. The Pride that doesn't need to flaunt herself, but she is just there. Just there for ME. The Pride that is closer to grounded Confidence in her essence, than the harsher-than-life Vanity. The Pride that feels good to be around. Not from a place of ego, but rather from a place of acknowledgment. Of validation. Of accomplishment. Of gratitude.

That humble side of you, dear Pride, is in a nutshell - being grateful for myself.
Being truly grateful for the luck in my way, the supporters in my life, the loves, the growth, the challenges, the tears... anything and everything that lead me to be someone I would be proud to be.

I realize, dear Pride, that in order to see all sides of you, I must get to know all sides of ME, of what I would consider a proud action, or endeavor, or moment. Who am I when I am in your world, dear Pride? In your layered world, that isn't only a bragging too-proud villain, and isn't only a mean too-proud school-girl. Who am I when a real sense of Pride comes over me. A humble quiet grateful Pride. 

Proud to be yours,

T. ​

When I was a kid, I was a manifesting queen in the making:
I kept little wish lists that included my dreams of being an actress, living in America (the American dream is REAL yo, even from the other side of the world), and what I wished the new sitting arrangements in my class was going to be.
The latter occupied my mind quite a lot:
I would make charts of the possibilities of the seating arrangements, and visualized my preferences which usually consisted of sitting in the middle and positioning the boys I liked next to me, in a proximity that was based on how much I liked them.
Of course, to do this efficiently and well (I was a nerd, still am haha!) I first would make a list of the order of my boy preferences - yes, I was boy crazy - and only later I used the data I collected in my preferred seating charts. Our seating arrangements in class changed three times a year, maybe four, so I had lots of practice, and once reality even sort of almost matched my wish list. But only once.
Did it deter me? Did it stop me from making those little wish lists?
No. Because fantasy has a purpose. WISHING has a purpose.
Delving a little bit in hope, wish and fantasy - can bring healing and inspire action.
​It can also lead one down a path of delusional magical thinking, yes, but if flirted with casually - it feels good to hope. It feels good to wish. It feels good to fantasize. So good.
And it doesn't even matter if wishes are rewarded, because the reward is in the wishing. 
...So make a wish, and enjoy it while you do...!

I wrote about inspiration everywhere yesterday.
Because I'm an optimist, I see things on the bright side first. But here comes the dose of reality - the not always optimistic one:​ 
Everything we see, goes through a lens of our interpretation of it. 
Sometimes memories cloud our eyes from what is actually there, so we turn to our bias, our known history to pull from, our nurture. Sometimes, it's simply a way in which we see the world. So if I look at a family - I see them from my eyes only. Maybe I see a family who tries to stick together, or rather a family who puts up a face to seem more connected than they are, while someone else will see a happy family, or a peaceful family and nothing more. 
The term 'we see what we want to see' is not wrong.
But even more accurate is to say 'We see what we know to see.'
Our interpretation is how we see the world. our lens. Our glasses.
And if we find inspiration everywhere - we must embrace the notion that how we see that inspiration - is our interpretation of it.

When we say Inspiration is everywhere, we often refer to the seemingly mundane streets we walk on, or nature in all its wildness and softness, or the characters we meet or overhear on the train, etc. But there is also inspiration within that we must pay attention to: the heart when it beats louder, our thoughts and thinking patterns, our dreams, our feelings, our confusions, our resentments, our secrets, our private moments, our inner most deep thoughts. If we forget to look at ourselves as inspiration board - we miss out on such a healing opportunity. Above all that artists do - they heal. Art heals. Artists heal. And it begins WITHIN. The healing, the inspiration, the curiosity, the inner battles. THEY ALL START WITHIN. Bon Voyage to the journey within....

I am in a place I thought I knew.
I am in a place I thought I knew well.
I am in a place I thought I knew so well, and nothing was left to be known.
I am in a place I thought I knew so well, except now I am different, so everything seems different, and the place I knew so well seems to act like some place I didn't know it all. 

New York was my first love. She was my first home as an immigrant. She was my escape into adulthood MY WAY. New York was my 'Fuck You' to society. New York was my artistic awakening. New York was my personal discovery into who I longed to be. And then, when I had her - the image of the future me I was holding in the palms of my hands - New York seemed to close in on me, and pushed me out to find the new version of who I longed to be. And she was there, rich in creativity, connecting to nature in the vastly different streets and hills of California. So I left New York and moved in to be this other person, this non-New Yorker who is introspective, and sensitive to sensory overload, and a deep thinker and a curious creator.  To be that person, I had to merge with my new love, my young love, my California, and let her contain me in all her width and wilderness. And wild she is... she found me and kept me and helped me bloom into a person I kinda dare to say I LOVE. (Note: NOT 'like.' But LOVE.) And love teaches you many things, some of which - it teaches you how to love. 
So these two cities, two great loves of mine, are always there by my side. My experiences in them have made me wholer. Have made me softer. And yes, also have made me harder. But above all - they have made me love them. And accept them as they are. And even now, from my California eyes - I see New York is different now. She has grown as well. She has bloomed into who she longed to be. We're not so different, her and I. And she may see me differently now as well. Funny how our eyes change. As we live on, and grow, and develop and change... we change how we see the world, and then - the world changes how they see us. 

BEAU THE DUDE: 
Have you ever seen a flying edge? A toasted, skirtin’ round it’s edges flying edge? I’m not talkin’ in riddles here. I’m really askin’. Like- for real. Like when a man-asks-a-woman-to-marry-him real. Like job-interview real. Like your-son’s-christening real. Real question from me to you. I mean, I ain’t stupid, I can see you’re rollin’ your eyes at me and my questions. Like, why? You think you are some princess in those doc martens and those boobs fallin’ out? You ain’t. Maybe you were a long time ago, but the years… the years ain’t made ya pretty. They made ya sad. And smart. But smart won’t make ya pretty. My momma told me that, and she was NOT pretty, no ma’am, not when she was young, and not when she was old. She rolled her eyes too, y'know? She was damn fine at that. Like you are. She rolled her eyes like it was some doh and she was makin’ challa bread for Passover, braiding it all nice, like people do, like normal people do, so everyone can say to her ‘why Julia, that challa bread was darn delicious! ‘ ‘oh that? Oh yeah, i just whipped it out’ meanwhile, my pops would sport his eye roll a game, because he knew how my mom would slave away at the kitchen all afternoon to try making that challa bread all pretty. So yeah, even the prettiest challa gets old with the years. And it ain’t pretty no more. So whoever you once were, the face under those wrinkles of yours - it’s long gone sugar, and your eye roll ain’t pretty either.
But keep rolling your eye at me, cause what do I know, huh?I ain’t pretty OR smart.
I’m just a dude who loved his mom a whole lot. Im just a dude who’s single and don’t know how to talk right. How to talk right to you. I’m just a dude and you’re just a chick, or a woman, or a babe, or a lady or whatever you’d like me to think of you as. 
What do you say we do what dudes and chicks do, and get a drink sometimes? 
No? Oh, I get the eye roll AGAIN? 
Oh well, ya can't blame a dude for tryin'. 

~Momma, why do people hurt other people?
~Oh honey, I could - in my clumsy parental way - try to answer that. But then I'd have to explain to you also why people LOVE other people.
~Is that also hard to explain?
~It shouldn't be, but it is. Yes. 
~I disagree, momma. 
~Oh, you do kiddo? 
~Yes, because I know why people love other people. It's very easy. 
~Enlighten me.
~Because people are great. They are beautiful, in their hearts but also in their bodies. Their faces smoosh and tear up and move around when they talk. They love hugs. And food. And restaurants. And going to their jobs and dreaming about getting married or going to college. And people have all these places in the world that they can travel and be with each other. People have books, and stories, and music in lots of different languages. People have schools. And children that they care about. Some people also have god. Or gods. Some people love make up, and some people don't. People love each other because they make each feel less alone. They love each other because they connect to each other. We're like glue. We stick to each other. And it feels good. Like super glue. 
~Well, I sure stick to you like superglue.