Fuck science, I am donating my body to MAGIC.

Sometimes IT IS all smoke and mirrors. WICKED.

There are a handful of memories that are filed away in my heart rather than my head. I can only describe these memories as magical, fantastical even. Events experienced with the heart and therefore remembered with it.

These memories have gained a certain kind of mystery and wonder in my repertoire of thoughts. They conjure up feelings of balancing that line between reality and the unexplainable. Memories of events so powerful they exist not how they occurred, but how I remember them. I want to live more of my life like this. More in that space between real and the unknown in which you are willing, if only for a second, to suspend your disbelief and just be. To me, this is Magic.

The following are a few photos taken with my Holga, in NYC last Fall. A trip bursting at the seams with MAGIC. Perhaps it was the vibrancy of the city and the waves of inspiration I was hit with around every corner. Perhaps it was the love and adventure shared with my travel companion, our dance parties in the morning while getting ready, and our late nights in bed, the traffic below our own personal soundscape. Perhaps it was the art, oh the art! and how I was submerged in it. Perhaps it was the food! The chocolate cupcakes that were so delicious I took a picture of them, or the wine that tasted so great out of a paper bag while laying in the park. Or, perhaps it was all of these components combined, thrown in with a little of the unexplainable, a dash of the unknown, a pair of really big hearts, no expectations, and a healthy dose of pure, untouched MAGIC.

Again, given the chance isn’t it always better to believe in magic?

LOVE!

e


clouds and light, constantly changing to make pretty pictures.

leap! ROAR!


fly!

Beautifully Broken Hearted

Good=Bad=Good.

Good and bad. Light and dark. Positive and negative. Rad and...not rad. The world is made up of a complex puzzle of opposites isn't it? We move from one extreme to the other and what happens in between seems to translate into life. It has been my goal as of late to exist more in the middle, more in the center of all of my polar opposites. At the moment I have found myself surrounded by a lot of negativity. Fire, heartache, divorce, death, and disease seem to be all around. These are most definitely extremes. In the wake of such tragedies, I have been trying to find the "light" or the good if you will. Truth is, one can't exist without the other. We all exist as a beautiful, tangled mess of extremes. Each of us searching, exploring, and adventuring to find a middle ground. And life, well it has a wonderful way of showing us this middle ground every day...all we have to do is look for it.

The following short story was written quite sometime ago. It is a tale of Dark to Light, and everything in between. Enjoy.

April 3rd, 2007


Now before we get started there are a couple of things that you will need to know. The following is a short glossary of terms that will aid in your understanding of the proceeding story. Please read carefully.

Beautifully Broken Hearted: A state of being, in which a person with a broken heart transcends the brokenness, and finds the beauty in it.

Pathfinder Family: A group of people (also often referred to as the Art Departy) all of whom belonged to the art department of one of the most terrible films ever made: Pathfinder. Although alcohol and one random night of spooning in a park is what brought them together, their bond is far deeper than that of most.

The Puzzle Theory: A theory devised during a state of total delirium, in which I came to understand that all the inner workings of how humans relate to one another is really as simple as pieces of a puzzle. The following story is an interesting take on the theory, although in it’s purest form the theory is as follows: We are all made up of pieces of a puzzle. There is the big puzzle (the world, the universe, eternity, whatever), then there are, our personal puzzles, which of course are smaller pieces of the bigger one. The puzzle is never stagnant, but is in a constant state of flux. That is, we are constantly giving and receiving pieces trying to find the perfect fit. The thing is there is no perfect fit, that’s the whole point. We get from one person a piece that may fit somewhere else, or sometimes the pieces fit just right for a while until things change. Needless to say the puzzle is never, ever finished although some people may fit into it and never leave were as some may come and go as their pieces are needed elsewhere.

The following is a tall tale not of magic and wonder but one of Beautiful Broken Heartedness discovered by the magical bond of the Pathfinder Family and the wondrous truth of the Puzzle Theory. Enjoy.


It is true, I won’t lie, I was broken. Truth is how I came to be broken is far less important than what I did after the breaking had occurred.

My story starts at 2am on a Friday night on the roof of my little house on the beach. I had been awake for over two days, five hours and three minutes, and my heart was in approximately the same amount of pieces as the seconds I had been counting since the break had occurred. I was still, but the ocean air around me was no. Without warning something inside me changed. Like puzzle pieces scattered on the floor, I picked up the pieces of my broken heart and in one fell swoop let the wind carry them away. I was done. I was running away. You could even say I had picked up the pieces and thrown all caution to the wind.

The next thing I truly remember is driving along the Oregon coast. Now a lot happened between my little house by the ocean and the small towns that dot along the coast of Oregon, but really they are neither here nor there. That is to say, this adventure is, and will forever be retold not how it was, but how my broken heart and I remember it.

If I was to re-capture the essence of me on the Oregon coast at that exact time and date the following is all I would be able to say. I would say that I was raw and that I match the landscape beautifully. Jagged rocks, jagged heart. Grey daylight, grey thoughts. Wind swept trees, wind swept hair. I belonged. I was raw, and honest, and open. I did not cry, I did not speak, but I fit in like a piece of the puzzle, although selfishly I had no pieces to leave behind.

It wasn’t until the California border where the light changes from blue to orange that I got the call. It was the Pathfinder family and they were worried. I had, after all, run away in the middle of the night without so much as a note or a good bye. They were protective as family tends to be, and without so much as a thought they were crossing the border, feverishly catching up to their fallen comrade. There good intentions so sincere, and their will to catch up so hasty, I could almost feel the tail wind of my wingmen behind me as I entered the mighty Redwood Forest.

Now traveling through the Redwood Forest, although majestic, is quite an intimidating venture. With the unparalleled force of the Pathfinder Family behind me, I cautiously passed through the threshold and entered the forest under its daunting canopy, and through it’s stoic trunks. Now demons come out in the most predictable of places, and this forest is of no exception. As I drove along the winding roads of the woods, further and further away from the light of the entrance, the wind picked up, and a change was upon me. It was then and there, in that very forest that I faced my fears head on. As I continued to be enveloped by the forest I let my brokenness flow through me and become a part of all of my pieces. As I continued to weave through the Mighty Redwoods, my brokenness followed, weaving it’s very own way through each and every inch of my being. I was, in that moment, beautifully broken hearted.

As I began to emerge through the other side of the forest the funniest thing happened. As I reached up to wipe my eyes a small puzzle pieces fell from my sleeve onto my lap. As I reach down to pick it up a flood of pieces fell from my sleeve and were taken up by the wind and out the window. In my rear view mirror, with the ever shrinking Forest as my backdrop, I could see the pieces of my puzzle scatter among the branches and the forest floor, resting and waiting for some one else to come and pick them up.