To return is not enough, one must return with purpose

We give many words to goals.

We call them resolutions, which is to say that we are resolved to do a thing. We call them wishes for ourselves, which invalidates their strength. We call them desires, which stengthens their intention, but weakens their execution. We call them destinations, which takes the importance from the journey. And, of course, we call them goals, which seems to me to take the resposibility from the individual.

Even so, when there isn't a word for a concept, does not the concept still exist? And if a concept exists should not we, as individuals, give importance to such a thing?

If we desire something to change, what makes it so difficult to change? It should be enough to want to change something and, presuming it is within our power, to simply change it. But these things are not so simple.

It would be brilliant to be as beautifully detached from the absurdity of life as Camus' character Mersault. But such things do not truly exist. So, the painful longing of a friend now gone from a world still lingers. I do not wish so much for the sadness to leave, but rather for my own reactions to change, as I am not coping well.

I do not pretend to understand these questions nor the purpose of any man or woman. I understand a little, and that is enough. I suppose one could say that I am a woman in search of a word. And by word, I mean I am still searching to give meaning to my own life.

Engagé!

32.365 - The Ultimate Triumph

I've owned this ring for a long time, and I've worn it as long as I've had it. It reads "Le mo ghrása mise agus liomsa mo ghrá" which is Gaelic for "As I am my beloved's, so my beloved is also mine."

But the point of this photo is not the ring, rather it is a tool by which I achieve something else entirely. The book here is Triumph and Tragedy by Winston Churchill, the last of the series he wrote about the Second World War. Also, not the point of this photo.

The point is the symbolism of all of these things combined to create something much bigger. Both the ring and the book were given to me by people I have loved deeply. I love the ring for it's connection to my heritage and for the message it bears. I love this book for its argument, for it's prose and for the way it smells. It's an old book and I enjoyed reading it with an absolutism that has yet to be rivaled.

I love.

30.365 - Spring Has Sprung!

I took my friend Marcel some NyQuil today, as he is laid up sick at home and had not the energy to do it for himself. The blessing in disguise (aside from, of course, doing something nice for a friend) was finding these GORGEOUS trees on the street outside his house.

So, Spring has sprung, Fall has fell, Winter is here and it's colder than hell.

I'm so ready for Spring.

29.365 - Blossoms

I think I really...like REALLY...can't wait for the warmer weather to get here. I don't mind winter on the whole, but I miss warmth a lot.

27.365 - Looking Up

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm good at this 365 thing any more, and I'm not going to try and pretend that I'm going to get back to uploading one photo every day at any point. I would like to, and maybe I will. But, I want to finish out this 365 with 365 good photos. That may come one per day, or that my come every other day. We will see.

26.365 - Trek On!

On Friday Claire, Jess, Mike, Karen and I trekked up to Alum Rock (Rawk?) park to take photos. It was cold, but blessedly not rainy or muddy. It was full of sulfur water that is rumored to be safe to drink, but smells so absolutely disgusting that I can't imagine getting any closer to it, much less being forced to drink it as part of a elementary school field trip. All the same, we went, we smelled, and we photo-ed. It was awesome.

This is my pick for the 365 for several reasons.

First, I feel it sort of encapsulates the trip in some ways because when Claire mentioned that she wanted to go here, she attached a photo of one of these stone bridges in her message.

Secondly, it has stairs. You all have not yet been introduced to my obsession with staircases yet. I love staircases. When I took photo in college, I took hundreds upon hundreds of photos of staircases. I dragged my mother out for a staircase tour of San Francisco (which, incidentally, is a photo trip I would like to recreate, any takers?).

Third, I like it. And that is enough.

I have awesome friends. I think that they know this, but on the off chance that they do not...well, you guys rawk! :)

25.365 - Old Habits

I am notoriously bad at sticking to things. Any of you who have been following my 365 may have noticed this. At the same time, I am a creature of habit. This makes reforming my habits very difficult. I become very emotionally attached to the ritual of doing certain things, and this is (primarily) what makes quitting smoking very difficult.

I enjoy smoking. As a ritual. It is comforting in a weird, turn-about sort of way. I know it is awful for me. I say (time and time again) that I am under no delusion that smoking is good for me. In fact, I often cite, it is a rare smoker that pretends that smoking is--in any way--good for them. I am no different. I know it is horrible. It is a nasty, disgusting habit. I do not want to be a smoker for the rest of my life. That said, I attempted to quit smoking in 2009. We can see how well that went. For the most part, I was good. But, as is the case with most things, it is the exception, and not the rule, that matters. The fact that I smoked at all was not good. It meant that I had not truly quit. As is evidenced by this photo, I am still not quite over that compulsion.

I find that physically, at least, quitting smoking is not difficult. Emotionally, however, was a whole different ball game. I enjoy smoking. It is a highly social activity that has brought many things to my life. At the end of the day, though, that is not enough of a reason to hold on to the habit. Earlier tonight, when I was hanging out at Barefoot Coffee Roasters, a good friend of mine, Melissa, confessed that she had quit. Her reasons were not purely altruistic in the end--it turns out that the expense was one of her chief concerns. So, now that I feel like I have a bit of camaraderie in this endeavor, I make another attempt and chucking this habit for good. I thought a photo was in order for the occasion.

For those of you who have been championing this decision, this is for you. For those on whom I have made this decision very difficult, I apologize. And for the rest of you I say this, "It really is never too late." Go out and do the things that you want to do. Do what you know is best. You will always have someone to support you in the decision.

----

All the commentary aside, I like this photo. It is not perfect, but I got what I wanted out of it. I had the perfect shot...before I realized that the card was not in the camera. So...this close second will have to do. :)

24.365 - Perspective

I have just regaled you all with the fact that I am terrified of self portraits. In truth, I'm really quite afraid of the camera lens in general. I know what I see, and I'm not so sure I want the rest of the world to see it too. If I point the camera at myself, I'm looking through a lens, at myself, and then posting it out into the world for everyone to see. All of those things that I am so terrified of are alarmingly obvious to me. What if they are to everyone else? What then?

All the same, here we are. I have pretty eyes. I like them a lot.

22.365 - Vanity

Sometimes the real joy in doing a project like this (or, in truth, just having a blog) is the chance I am given to allow myself to be completely self-indulgent and flaunt it to the world. I had a shitty weekend, and I'm exhausted. Between being busy with family and friends and all of the work that entails by body went and decided it was going to get sick. By sick, of course, I don't mean just a cough or a sore throat. I mean full blown, laid up in bed, fever kind of sick. I was miserable. And still am. The really shitty thing about being sick like that is that I miss out on everything and whine and cry like a little baby.

So, now that I'm back to the world at large, here we go again. I debated attempting self portraits, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough for that yet. So, attempt number one. I ended today in great need of a hug. Luckily, I have a live-in-hugger. It's quite convenient you see. Any time I want a hug I can turn to Sean and say, "Hey, you! Hug me!" So, that's where I'm at today. Figured I'd toss in a bit of skin while I was at it. He's got pretty skin. :)

21.365 - Patti Smith

My Grandmother is quite the woman. She was delighted recently to have been called "fabulous". She truly is. I generally describe her as a "hoot", because...well...she IS. She's always so happy and likes to spread that joy with everyone around her. She tells stories as though everyone else in the world partakes of them like water. She loves coffee and the color red. She's also got a rather amusing obsession with cats and religions.

I love my Grandmother. She gives in the expectation that others will take and makes it nearly impossible to say no.

My Grandmother is sick. It makes me so sad to watch age take over her life one day at a time. She will be 85 this August. She was left outside the Salvation Army when she was just a baby and adopted by her aunt not long thereafter. She's lived quite the life and has stories to tell to anyone and everyone. It's difficult for anyone to dislike her. I love my Grandmother.

20.365 - Sean Jumps

I tend to avoid posting photos of Sean, even though I take so many of them. The reason is not because I think he's not photogenic, or that the photos are bad, but rather I feel like what I capture with the camera just isn't the Sean that I see. It just doesn't seems like the Sean that I know and love. It makes me a little bit sad, and maybe I'm looking for too much in the photos, but it is just a block I have.

Earlier this evening, Sean wanted a "Spiderman" photo of himself. I believe Claire managed to get the shot Sean was looking for. I, on the other hand, took a slightly different vantage and came out with this little gem. It's so delightfully Sean. He's almost out of the frame by the time I got this shot, which speaks to me of his eagerness to always be on to the next thing. Honestly, that boy never stops moving. I love his shadow on the wall, and I adore that you can follow his line of movement.

I adore this shot in so many ways.

19.365 - Goddess of Chaos and Discord

My cat, Eris, is four and half years old and she's as cantankerous as the day I brought her home. I named her Eris after the Greek Goddess of Strife. I realized a little belatedly that I was tempting fate a bit too well with that name. Eris is an adorable little girl, but she grew into her name as time went along. As I was feeling a little less than motivated today I decided to take photos of my adorable little girl. She didn't like that very much. She was all but uncooperative. Seeing as she's been more than annoying most of the time in recent days I thought it was a bit rich of her to snub her nose at me. So, I did what any good mother would do...I bribed her with food. My rweard for that was to earn her all to sharp claw in my fingers. I love my cat.

18.365 - Ramen

There is nothing like the holiday season to up and crush any dreams I might have had for my 365. So, I plow along as though nothing ever happened. My holidays were good, thanks kindly for asking. I spent some time with the family and a scattering of hours with my friends and enjoyed it all immensely. There was the allotted amount of drama that always happens. All things considered, it was a good year.

Sean and I, thus exhausted from the holiday weekend, did what we do best in response to exhaustion and stress. We went out for Japanese food. Tonight's main course took the form of Kahoo Ramen's Shoyu Ramen. It was, as it ought to have been and always is...amazing. There's something about a bowl of ramen that always does the trick at the end of a long couple of days.

17.365 - Best Friends

Sometimes all one needs is a good coffee date with some old friends and all seems to right itself with the world.

16.365 - I <3 _______

I've been feeling a little bit down lately. Not for any particular reason really, but it's just sort of been there. It's almost as though I'm sick. Only, I know I'm not. There's no sore throat, no cough, nothing. My sleep patterns have been okay at best, and it's sort of getting to me. I've been taking far too much personally, and it all adds up to something of a grumpy Siobhán. I found this bush vine thing in front of my car and photographed it. Only after it got onto my computer did I realize that it looked like a heart.

There is something about the end of the year and the holiday season that always has me going on an emotional roller coaster of ups and downs. So, as I've been down I'm working on moving righ back up. If I have any power to change the things in my own life I hope that by executive decision I can move right on back up. Between this and the Cafe Brule shot I took the other day, I'm feeling a bit better.

12.365 - I <3 Yarn

Knitting is one of my most obsessive hobbies. I fall in and out of it more easily than I do anything else. Yarn stores are a haven of compulsive shopping and I generally have to stop myself from picking up each and every skein of yarn I see. The green yarn you see there will eventually form a few Christmas presents for a few people. The brown and white skein is awaiting its transformation into a sweater dress for myself. And the pink yarn is one I've been coveting for a good long while and is currently being knitted into a cabled scarf and matching hat. :) I <3 yarn hardcore...you don't even know.

4.365 - Eris

I love my cat. She's beautiful and adorable and inquisitive and highly neurotic. Usually she's just needy. But, I love her. She was named after the Goddess or chaos and discord. Now there's a phone that bears the same name. Despite this, she is truly one of a kind. I love my cat.

3.365 - Making Up for Lost Time

Every relationship has its ups and downs. We all know this. There are days when a relationship flows with such ease and tranquility that it requires no effort whatsoever. Other days however, you wonder how it even stays together. And then, when it gets really bad, you find yourself angry because your significant other went to a new coffee shop without you. Or maybe that's just me. However, with that said, I move on to talk about day #3. If you know me at all, you will know that the act of doing coffee means a great deal to me as an individual. I pride myself on my tastes and my palate. I not only love coffee, coffee loves me. The ritual and act of DOING coffee is a big deal. When Sean and I met, we met over coffee. We then bonded over coffee. He is possibly the first person who can really fit into my ritual that is DOING coffee. So, come earlier this week and I find myself having a truly off day and I'm throwing an absolute fit because I didn't get to go to the new coffee shop with him. It makes sense, if you know me. So, to make up for that, Sean and I trekked out to Palo Alto today to try Philz Coffee. They do drip coffee by the cup. Which makes it expensive, but oh so delicious. The coffee is good and the service is better. I am pleased and mollified.

What a keyboard was made to do...

If I could find a new way to feel like my old self maybe then things would make sense. As I cannot seem to find a new solution to an old problem, I walk off in search of an old solution. I never had a solution. Would another's solution work just as well? Probably not. A strangers answer to my personal question would probably fit about as well as a square peg in a round hole. These things never work half as well as they should. I am not myself these days, and I wonder while I sleep if I ever was myself. I think too much in sleep and not enough in waking and it occurs to me that nights are not for these endeavors. If I never was myself, then who was I? I am a stranger in my own home most days, and home is nothing anymore. Then again, it has been suggested that a family might be no more than a group of people who all miss the same place. What if I miss the security of a person's arms? Does anyone else miss that same place? And if I am the only one, do I have no family. Not only would I not be myself, I would also be homeless and hopeless. The best I can hope for in such an event would be that the arms I miss so much during the day (and even more at night) belong to a person who missed my embrace just as much. That would not be beyond reason to hope for. I am not yet hopeless.

The words that fall from the busy tasks of my fingertips do not seem like my own, and I am certain my voice does not speak them. The voice that others hear fall from my lips is different from the one I hear in concert to the clicking of the keys. I wonder sometimes if the rest of the world even hears the words I intend them to. If my voice is different, why wouldn't my words be?

The other day my phone rang and I went to the door in the hopes that I would see your face on the other side. We've become so disconnected that we would rather phone across a wall rather than walk a few steps to see each other. Even with the people we are closest with we do this. Why?

Time and space seem to form around the life I am building, and I feel myself swinging through time in a way that i have only heard described by Vonnegut. I swung forward recently. The flash of the life was a sight to behold, that was for certain. I could remember everything that came in between and I feel sure that i will dream it tonight once you put me to sleep. As it stands, you sleep now under the crook of my arm and I swing back. Things that have come before this point in time flash in front of my eyes and my finger click on in the attempt to record it all in some inadequate shadow of what is happening. I swing back, and then forward again. The process repeats, and my pendulum will continue to do so. If I thought enough about this, this would frighten me beyond words. As my words continue are continuing to be born into this world, I can reasonably assume that I am not thinking too much on this. My swing forward was a sight to behold, and I think you would have liked it very much. You will see it with me someday, that I know.

Maybe this is what happens when things are working the way they should. What is time in relation to matters of love? Should we count time in centuries? Or rather do we cherish every nanosecond as though it is an hour? I am both here and years ahead all at once. In many ways I want to continue this path, but at the moment I want nothing more than to turn back the clock a few hours so that I can prolong this moment with you. I want to go forward, backward, and stay stationary with you. I want all of these things all at once. No wonder I am swinging through time in such a way. There is no other reasonable explanation.

The only thing that remains is to ask if you miss my embrace as I do yours. But, as usual, you give me an answer before I've asked the question.

-kpp.

less than three...

The dust is in my eyes and my boots are kicked up, I've won a lot of heartsick prizes along the way. I've picked up so much and left even more behind. I never see these things when they're sticking to my skin, but I'm certainly better off for everything that I let in. To be certain, I'm better for what I let in than what I choose to keep out. I lost way too much way too young, and the with all the promise and work left undone. It's funny to think that all that guards me is some created imaginary median line and I used to fear that brutal crossing over. Now it's time and it's not painful at all, and not nearly as frightening as I once imagined.

One days those bullies will be withered up and spent. The father, son, the holy warriors, and the president will fall from the imagined grace of our reverence. Those glory days when we kept up our fists for all the world to see will beat them - and maybe us - into submission in the name of the free. I've heard it said that we're in an evolution, but we're all so busy now that we can't even keep our heads. How do we get ahead? Planets eternally pirouetting and atoms that are cleaved in half remind me that it all will keep moving.

Those crosses on the side of the road tied with ribbons look lonely with the flowers that will die in commiseration for the memories with which they were laid to rest. They remind me, daily, how lucky I am to be able to walk this mile. I lay down at night and smile to myself at my luck. Wake me up again. There's a poem in my head. I don't believe in war but I do believe in luck. The birds call to me in the morning; what are they saying? The gate blows open and the trees sway in the wind. I pass the cemetery sometimes and stop to think. The names forever written in stone beg a silent prayer. When I come home it is time for supper and I know that all I can ask is to be loved, and the only way to ask for that is to give it myself.

I wasn't looking for a lover or a friend. I wasn't pretending and I wasn't working undercover. You walked across that space, an imagined dance floor in my mind, and you said the only thing that could have been said. Intricate steps of a dance I never learned played out in front of me and suddenly I knew how to move. I knew that I wanted to see more and I knew that I would try. Eye contact is all that is needed at times. I don't want to be saved, and I don't want to wake. Let me sleep. I was born a Gemini. I don't mind confiding, or even the word vomit. I've been misled and misguided, and I am easily led astray. I dance with disaster, and I rarely miss a step. I spin faster and faster, long after many have slipped. In the middle of everything there's someone to break the fall. Over and over, again and again. I stumble on in.

I am pulled in so many directions, but I choose my own no longer burdened with regret. I dive in over my head and find a way to stay above water. There is a perfect protection. I am soaked to the skin, but water is my home. There are bones in my closet; I've collected quite a few over the years. Goodness knows what causes any two peoples' timing to coincide or what brought this fool to where she is now. Love a fool!

There is no time and no space and there is a permanent smile on my face. My friends have complained that I'm going insane, but the truth is...we're all just afraid. That's okay. My fear has been thrown out, for it's not worth the time. We all decide what counts for us, and for me it's in everything. Outside, inside, actions, reactions... It's not a lie. What brighter light is there? I'm going with the tide and the angel on my shoulder wonders just why I've blindfolded her.