keep you updated?

Aloha!

So, keeping you updated wasn't really an option. For over a month my hands were too tired and sore for me to do much of anything, and writing wasn't really an option. The summer was CRAZY. Difficult, tiring, challenging, exhilarating, and helped me learn about myself. Good. And bad. Thankfully, I wrote down the major events that happened so I can backtrack and tell you about all the crazy experiences: boats nearly sinking, people trying to throw people overboard, shooting fish with guns, fires, and more.

Currently, I am in Portland with my brother and his family. Getting rest. It's nice to be around people who have known me for more than a few months. It's nice to not be so exhausted and busy that I have time to be my overthinking self again. There was ZERO time for reflection on the boat. So now that I'm away from Alaska I get to choose what my life is going to look like next--a daunting privilege. I am thankful to have the time to figure it out.

new news

we just got word that i'm on the boat for the summer. :) We always knew Mitch was on, it was just getting me on that was the snag. So we're both on one of the nicest boats in the harbor for the summer, doing tendering in Prince William Sound.

Happy happy joy joy

So much has changed in the last month. I left my home in Hawai'i to seek out snowier pastures and love. In Alaska.

As much as I adored the art studio, things went very very bad. My business partner and I reached an impasse, and I just didn't have it in me to fight anymore. As much as I adored Hawai'i, I spent my 4 1/2 years there fighting. For myself, for social issues, to put food in the fridge. And I was just done. Tired. So when this fight arose, I didn't have anything left to put into it. And then Mitch came along.

We met at a friend's apartment for an impromptu dinner, and spent his last days in Hawai'i together before he had to move back to Alaska. After he left, I woke nearly every morning hating being away from him. So, when it all fell apart and I was going to move out of the studio and look for another job anyways, I figured I might as well do that in Alaska. Might as well follow my heart.

I'm currently living in a yurt on a snowy hill overlooking the mountains. It's taken some adjusting, but I've been trying to keep myself immersed in a freelancing project I have--both for money and to make the transition a little easier. We're hoping to get on a fishing boat for the summer (which would be AWESOME). Life is good. Cold, sniffly-nosed, moose- and bald eagle-watching, rain-on-the-tarp-while-working-on-a-rusty-boat, wood-furnace-heated-home, quiet, peaceful, lovely crisp air good.

And so I'm on to my next adventure. I'll keep you updated.

it's 4:34. I'm awake because the place across the hall from my business needs to be shut down. It's a "safe haven" for runaways and drug addicts, mostly turning the former into the latter. Supposedly, there's going to be a police raid soon on the owner, who's known to be on ice. So I'm sitting by the window, in the dark of my lovely art studio, waiting for the sirens. Hoping for the sirens.

Good and evil have always and will always exist in this world. As long as there are humans in the current form, there will be good and evil. It's just surprising how much detriment one life can cause, and how little is done to stop it.

On another note, I love my life. Even this--waiting with bated breath in the darkness, watching the garbage trucks begin to make their rounds, hoping that finally the Bad Guy will get his due--even this I love. Every day is full of challenges and triumphs and moments of rest. Every day is new. And even though there are more challenges than anything else--every day is worth living. Always. It's just easier for me to feel it now. Each battle that I choose is worth fighting.

I'm starting to grow tired, and the buses are now on their rounds, delivering sleepy-eyed travelers to their destinations. Twenty more minutes and I'm supposed to call they cops myself, tell them what's going on, so that they'll raid the place. They've been here twice tonight already. Over 20 times this month alone. Why is it that nothing happens?

I just hope, I hope that his payment for his deprivation comes soon. Before someone gets seriously hurt.

things are wonderful.

And, crazy busy. March's First Friday show was incredible. And, über tiring. It took me weeks to recover. Which means that now I'm scrambling a bit for this coming First Friday. And we just had our main band request more money than we can pay, so now I have to find someone else. Or take a cut if we think we can handle it and still make rent. I don't know. I'm super super super stressed but there seem to always be things popping up that need my immediate attention.

Like today, poor B woke up with a swollen eye. So we found an ophthalmologist and took him in and turns out it's a pretty serious infection--if we would've let it go, it could've gotten real bad and caused some serious damage to him.

Sigh. I have things to say but my brain is currently mush. Sorry for laaaaaaame posting. I'll write something better later. Just wanted to connect with y'all.

sometimes i forget that people don't know me. I've lived in this body for so long, been inside of this mind, walked my own streets--that I forget to tell people who I am. No one here knows that I was composing music when I was 10, that I actually do know what I'm talking about. They don't know my history. Which is, in part, my fault for not telling them. But also should be something that doesn't necessitate history.

It's funny to me when people try to teach me about the things that I've studied, or lived, that are so second nature to me that I don't even speak them. That's probably part of my problem--I've gotten tired of so many topics that I don't even venture an opinion. I already know what I think, and so I don't even say anything. Which means people can translate my silence however they feel.

Perhaps silence is, in the end, my problem. I don't feel the need to tell anyone that I'm going to go clean the back porch, or that I'm updating the Facebook page, or that I'm filing the patient's charts, or that I'm whateverwhateverwhatever. I don't always know what to voice and what not to--why do you need to know that I'm going to wait until after I eat to do my dishes? Or that I'm setting up the stage lighting right now, with no one on stage, so that the levels will be right for when someone gets to the stage? These things all seem intuitive to me. Of course I'm turning the lights off--the lights don't stay on when no one is on stage. I'm learning, though, that these things are not intuitive to most people. And so they don't get what you're doing, and ask you overandoverandover what you're doing. Drives me effing nuts.

Anyways, bottom line, people don't really know me here. Rephrase: people don't know my history. There are people here who know me. Just, don't know a lot lot lot of stuff about me. Where I come from. But people view you how they want to in the end, don't they? So you don't need to know that I told off a mafia Don or used to draw all the effing time or write poetry about Plato because I think he's the greatest philosopher ever or that I know about cadence and rhythm because I studied it for years and years and years. You'll either think I'm a hack or not, based on your perception. And, for the most part, that's alright with me.

♥

someone should have told my ridiculously-happy-with-life self to send messages to my future self, too. Sigh.

You know, it's funny to me how matters of the heart can affect you. Ani told me today that it's relationships that will make even the most put-together woman fall apart. Work, family, money... I guess it all affects you in different ways. But matters of the heart are in a whole different store, on a whole different level, in a different mall in a different city about 12 states over.

I've always thought it was silly, with so many huge things in the world that could consume you--injustice, genocide, prejudice, God, ruling structures, and on and on and on--that women become consumed by men. That we let ourselves fall into irrational fits of despair just because someone (who may love you) isn't in love with you. Or doesn't want to kiss you. Or wants to kiss you but not today. Or doesn't love you the way you need to be loved. It just seems so petty.

Over time, I've come to the conclusion that it is actually valid. That the reason why we get so broken is because we're offering a level of vulnerability to this person that we're not offering to anyone else. Maybe it's the little girl inside of us that was fed on Disney fairy tales and is just waiting for the moment when Happily Ever After begins. Probably it's just that we all long to really, truly be heard and understood.

I have an, erm, not so stellar history with men. By choice and by circumstance. So it's been a while since I've had to really deal with my heart. After Scott, there were different layers of heart-related issues, but mostly for 2 years my heart has been quietly gathering itself together in an attempt to rise from the ashes. But I've recently had a friendship that opened up my heart. Which was nice, to feel again, to feel in a stable and healthy way, even if he didn't feel the same.

As I've been dealing with it, I've been finding little hearts everywhere. Hearts made of plastic, little wooden hearts lying on the street corner, intricate glass hearts sent to me in cardboard boxes, hearts in the coral at the beach. I've never much liked hearts but I've begun collecting them. Maybe the sign is that I need to hold on to my own, and not keep it on the windowsill like I was doing. Maybe because this recent man made me feel my own heart beat again. But maybe all that it means is I'm supposed to feel my heart but hold it close to me, wear it like a necklace, keep it as mine.

I never know, but I try to learn from everything I go through. If I don't learn the right lesson, there'll be another situation to teach me what I was supposed to actually learn. I started writing this last night, pride-hurt and wallowing. But right now, I feel okay with everything--happy, even. My heart is mine to give and to keep. I guess my ridiculously-happy-with-life self is still here. Everything is too incredible to get stuck in the mire for long.

there is so much to say. And, at 2 a.m., i feel like saying it all. Nina Simone is serenading me, after another ridiculously talented musician serenaded me 10 minutes ago (Brian Capobianchi. Check him out.), and life is amazing.

I keep on sending messages to my past self. My 12-year-old, angst-filled self, my twenty-something overwhelmed self, my not-even-2-years ago broken hearted, life-is-worthless, perpetually saddened self. I keep telling myself to hold on, that life will get better. That I have this to look forward to.

I have no misconceptions that life will be perfect, or that this feeling will continue. But I do know that I love who I have become--I have loved that for a while but now I feel like who I am and what I'm doing coincide. That I'm actually where I'm supposed to be for the first time in forever. That this is the life I'm supposed to be living. Roommates yawning in the room next door, dogs and cats abounding, people in and out of my apartment and my room, meeting new people every day, and most importantly

giving artists a place to create.

Gosh i have so much more to say. Ridiculous amounts of words. But I need to go to bed so that I can wake up tomorrow and go to my day job. Which is also great, in its own way.

Closing:
When I was 14 and on swim team, I had this one after school practice where all I thought was "How strange. How incredible and unique to be me--14 and in a pool, in suburban Illinois, watching the lines move on the pool floor beneath me, dealing with teenage situations. How strange to be who I am, in this particular situation, right at this moment." I captured that moment in my memory forever. I remember the taste of the water and feel of the suit on my shoulders and the way the water felt on my back. That the lighting was tinted green and my hair pulled at my scalp under the cap. I remember nearly everything about that moment. And also remember feeling outside of it.

And now, how strange to be me--nearly 30, living in Hawai'i, surrounded by art and unpacked clothes, musicians sleeping on the floor, hippies from Alaska playing chess in the early evening, newly painted kitchen(ish) area, cold night air after a rain. How unexpected to be living in Chinatown and smelling cardboard boxes filled with ripe fruit on my way to work, to have spent a night listening to amazing poets that know my name, to be ME, in this life. In this century, in this world. How amazing life is. How ridiculous time is.

I think I always knew life was worth living. I mean, self-evident in some ways unless you're in the thick of things. But to actually taste this beauty... it's amazing.

Mahalo ke Akua.

and, (superpostingdana says), i miss my grandpa every day. Every single one. I know how life goes on, I know how things change and how you grow (hopefully for the better), but every single effing day I think of that man. And I miss him. And I can't believe I can't call him. Or that I won't see his ridiculous half-toothed smile (my favorite!), or that he won't ever meet my future mate, possible kids, all that. Every day I miss him. And, I'm taking his absence in my life as a good thing--I don't feel him, and I hope that means that he's not hanging around this planet, but has better places to be. I just wish

I wish he was still here for me.

and, guys, check this out:

not the cutest picture (Shain looks cute, though), but we're makin news!

and, as an aside, i'm writing this from my superawesome studio in chinatown, on the roof out my window, watching the cars pass. Enjoying the night breeze on my skin. In my bra. Happiness, dictionary definition-wise, is currently: me.

how dana does her laundry.

call a friend.
Walk through chinatown with a suitcase full of dirty clothes. Try to look like you're either going on a trip or homeless. Be more sucessful with the former.
Bring a bottle of wine. This helps you feel less like a freeloader.
Do laundry, preferably while watching something great like the West Side Story. Hang out with friend. Get fed, if they have tacos. (Yay for Mattie!)
Walk home through back streets--still meet friends that ask where you're going. Admit that this is how you do your laundry.
Open your suitcase and enjoy that your room smells fresh-n-clean.

i don't know what all i have to say.

I've taken on more than I can handle, in my style. I'm wearing Grandpa-n-Grandma's ring, mostly because I miss him so much. And, as I write this, the song I listened to on repeat the day I heard of his passing has come on (Samson by Regina Spektor). It's still hard to think of my life without him. I reach for my phone on my lunch breaks, to call him and tell him I'm thinking of him and to hear his stories. And I remember that maybe now someone else has his number. I hold his story inside me, and miss him.

There are ridiculous amounts of things to do. I'm trying to gather my life together, but tasks keep leaking out the sides. As is expected.

Still, I am happy. Joyous, one might say. I told an anti-Religion friend of mine yesterday that "The seat of my soul is in joy." I felt strangely church-ey when I said it, and he just nodded his head, and said "That's a good way to put it."

Everything falls apart and comes together. That's the way life goes. There are many things to say, but the bottom line is that, underneath the roiling of everyday life, I am steadily joyful.

there are moments that make you ache. Sitting in nature, surrounded by beauty, and your soul just aches. Right now, I want to become a part of the art around me. I want to take the canvases off the frames and wrap myself in them. I want the music that Travis plays to solidify in the air and wrap itself around me. Art--life--is so beautiful and intense and intangible that my soul rises to meet it, only to fall short.

It has been a long time since I've heard my soul sing. I'm still familiar with the melody, though.

it's hot here. In the new place. Stuffy. So, I'm in my underwear (sports bra and boy shorts) doing work on my bed, as you do when it's hot. And a supercute stranger shows up at my door to ask about the swing dancing class that'll be here tomorrow. And I had to talk to him about it. In my underwear. Sheesh.

inhale, exhale.

It's getting colder. Scarves during the day and blankets at night. Still can wear a tank top and go to the beach if you want, so I'm not complaining. It's just nice to feel like the air is slightly newer than before.

Last night was a success--full (if not packed) house, and I swear that we have the best clientele on the whole island. I had a temporary breakdown (as predicted), but that's why there are two of us. I brought it together, and Shain held it together. Afterwards, I slept until 3 pm. Gladly.

I'm doing things, step by step. I can't let myself burn out completely, because that would take months to recover from. I just have to remember: left foot, right foot. Feed yourself. Drink water. Close your eyes. Breathe.