Sit here awhile.
Crossed legged.
Face me.
Close your eyes.
Let your forehead rest gently against mine, the way it does when there is nowhere else to be.
Your hands settle on my thighs.
Mine find yours. Strong. Warm.
Come to rest. Be still a while.
And breathe. Just breathe.
No place to rush to for this moment.
For this moment, we can simply be.
We’ll sway. Softly. Almost imperceptibly.
And stay another while.
My hands move slowly up your sides…towards your chest…along your arms.
Learning what it’s like to know the shape of you.
Mmm.
Cheeks meet. Meld together. Lips lightly graze past.
Passion rises. It’s 100 degrees.
Breathe. Breathe.
Pause.
Rest.
Be here still.
Hold the love.
Feel yourself whole.
This year has felt like an initiation into genuine self love.
Loving my body deeply for what it does and for the miracle that it truly is.
I am looking at this lady I see reflected back at me in the mirror and I’m thinking “who is this??”
It’s wildly interesting to watch yourself shift like a butterfly. No trace of a caterpillar in sight.
Suddenly I am getting referrals for “mammograms” and “vaginal ultrasounds” like I’m a test subject. Inspecting my body in ways my youngster, party girl self is side eying like, “WTF?”
Yet, all fascinating.
I’m finding love for my womanhood.
For my cycles.
For women across generations and lifespans.
It’s a peculiar little process.
Last night I walked outside and was met with a magnificent starry night. The air, cool, crisp, fresh like clean linen. It carried a whiff of the year 2021. A whiff of you, freedom, and the sense of being carefree. A scent of that naive, childlike spirit I’ve held so dear. A trace of that grandiose feeling that everything and anything is possible! “I could conquer it all, and look cute doing it!” Ahhh… delightful!
But fast forward to now and I’m stacking up on supplements like the stores are going out of business and getting tired by like 2:00 P.M.
“WTF?” (side eye).
—
Anyway, aging is fun. (It’s not, help me… just kidding… not really).
There is something sweet, solid and wonderful about this wisdom and wrinkles I’ve gained. Suddenly, I’m into antiques, researching “NAD,” and gua sha.
There’s also a greater focus on security for me. I’m wanting to buy a house and some land. Cash, no rent or mortgages because don’t even get me started on how mortgages are a scam. I have major gripes with the housing system. (But that’s a topic for another day).
So let’s circle back to the point before I fall asleep on my supplements as I type this…
A message to me:
I’m proud of you. I love you for you, no matter what. Thank you for the privilege to experience life as you. It’s been a wild and wonderful ride. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
I want to find the person who feels like my whole world. Someone who makes me feel complete. As if everything else becomes optional because all I need and want is right here with you.
Anywhere with you feels perfect. Traffic? Perfect. The grocery store? Perfect. Walking down the same old street? Perfect.
Some might say “you have to find that in yourself” and sure, Carol, you’re probably right but after finding that in myself I’d love to find that with another too.
I think life feels better when shared. What is the point of having the whole world yet being alone?
—
Life has been such an interesting journey. This morning I was hiking in Idyllwild and for a moment could see fragments of my journey reflected in my minds eye like a movie. I recalled being a child in Brazil. I recalled arriving in the U.S and pretending to string English words together in the mirror. I flashbacked through my life up until this point, standing accomplished on 1900 elevation gain, resting against a rock next to a tall, chubby pine tree whose fine needles glowed elegantly in the sun. The air: cool, crisp, soft, silent. The view – magnificent. As I marveled at the scene I couldn’t help but feel this immense sense of awe for how far I’ve come. What a ride! What a privilege I’ve been given.
Thank you, life. Thank you.
Mmmm. Divine.
But where to from here?
—
Driving out into nature used to be my most favorite experience. Seeing the mountains would make me lose it. Obsessed. Enamored by God’s creations. I could linger forever. While this time around I still felt this sense of wonder, it was certainly dimmed. As if life is expecting something from me that I can’t get away from. Some unfinished business of sorts. Like a summons I keep ignoring. It’s as if this isn’t a season for wandering.
“You’ll be happier once you’ve answered the call.” That was the sense I received.
What call!?
It’s is as if life is asking me to become a different version of myself. It wants me focused. Productive. It wants me in service. But what service?
I feel painfully, yet wonderfully erratic. Volatile.
One day I have a carefully detailed plan, the next I am executing something completely different. It’s like I can’t be contained. I’m an artist. A lover. A dancer in the wind.
I know I want land and a home.
I also want to leave to Italy.
What really matters in the end anyway?
Lately I have been thinking perhaps: experiences.
A breadth and depth of experiences.
Health.
Freedom.
Awe.
Delight.
Magic.
Ahhhh….
Unleash me. Hold me.
I am hard to contain….
And I think I love that about me.
But anyway, back to this world I mentioned in the beginning.
I want it.
I want to just rest on your perfectly strong, warm, cozy shoulders.
You are home.
You are everything.
For a moment there I forgot who I was… like I had early amnesia except it looked more like being curled up in fetal position for hours and crying into my vanilla latte.
On the outside it looks great — sunny San Diego beach life, cozy cafes, bay walks, nature, books, clean sheets.
Inside? A tornado.
Yet, somehow, I lived through it.
As we approach the grand finale of the shit show that was 2025 I have nothing more to do than to bow to life for it’s elaborate, dramatic performance. “Namaste, bitch.” I am thoroughly surprised and speechless. Though I suppose not that speechless because here I am yapping about it.
I am very slowly starting to feel like myself again — a hopeless romantic, addicted to nostalgia and lost in the magic of life. I just want to drift away in unfettered abandon and land gently in the arms of a lover who may or may not exist but surely does in the cloud of my hopes.
Ahhh. Heaven.
Do you ever feel that? In love with someone you don’t even know yet?
Gahhh… whisk me away.
Anyway… I’ve been thinking some pretty negative thoughts and I don’t like it. I believe this has challenged my health a bit. Which is wild since this was the one thing I could say I had pretty dialed in and under control. But time is passing man. I just did my 37th lap around the sun. Whoa… who me!??
I don’t know how to be this woman I’m becoming. Who the heck is that staring at me in the mirror and where’d cute, little Laura go?
Now, suddenly I’m cranky and have the patience of a rabid raccoon.
But I am learning to love me. Not in an arrogant “I don’t need nobody” kind of way. Genuinely. Not a vain love. True love. Compassion. Fascination for the mere existence I’ve been given. I mean, I sort of always hovered around these themes — sometimes much much further away in the distance. But now I am moving closer to myself. Kindly. Unconditionally. Accepting my rhythm without judgment. Without rushing myself to some outcome. It’s still a messy project; a construction site with beams sticking out of the cracked foundation and unfinished wooden framing waiting patiently to be made into something stable. Solid. Complete.
Under construction…yep, that’s me.
Mmm…
Let’s rest here together as we contemplate love a little longer, shall we?
As we contemplate home.
I’ve been yearning for this sense of home, but not the kind that holds an address.
More a person who feels like home.
A person who feels like my whole world.
A bond so deep we don’t need much outside of each other.
Do you think that’s real? Does it exist?
I miss the younger version of me who was filled with enthusiasm and hope. She was chipper, adventurous and going after her dreams.
Now, I feel like a cynic.
Like I want to roll my eyes and scoff at everything. I’m annoyed at everything. So not enthused.
The other morning I went on a hike… normally hikes fill me with wonder. And maybe for a moment I felt a sense of awe but in 30 seconds it quickly faded…. meh.
My eyes open and I wish they didn’t.
“Here, again? Ugh.”
I have so much love for my human. It’s not her fault. I wish I could be better for her. And I want to be.
But this world feels so dense it’s like I’m walking through waist deep mud with a weighted vest.
Anyway. I don’t want to bring you down with my woes.
But I am tired of performing happiness and sometimes you just gotta share what’s real. And what’s real is that I am losing my patience. I don’t want to people please and be overly nice. I’m tired, angry, and cranky. So let’s get to the point.
“Rest in reality” she said, and as an avid dreamer that statement hit me like a ton of bricks, quite in the way reality usually does.
I like living in the clouds. Romanticizing all the little details. Takin’ my sweet ol’ time, ya know?
But lately reality has been hittin’ me hard. It’s reminding me “Sweetie, you’re in a body. On a planet. There are rules here. Laws here.”
And suddenly I wake from my twilight anesthesia, drowsy, confused, like “what?”
“Yep. Rules, baby rules” it reminds me.
Sigh.
Anyway.
Rest in reality. Now that’s something I’ve been resisting like the plague.
But I am learning. Learning that IT IS WHAT IT IS SOMETIMES.
Expectations don’t always match reality. Life sometimes will do it’s own thing no matter how damn hard you try. You don’t always get what you want. You WILL feel pain. You will lose. You will get rejected. Your dream might not come true.
Yes, life is beautiful. But also, it is not.
So I just want to take a moment to honor and acknowledge that.
I am learning to accept, and dare I say, love what is. But let’s not get too carried away. I’m definitely not at the “loving it” stage yet. Not even close. I am kind of sort of learning — ya know? It’s been kinda like trying to learn to walk a tightrope while juggling flaming baseball bats with a weighted vest. It’s a circus right now.
In all seriousness though, it is indeed a beautiful skill to develop. To hold the grief in solid wisdom, bow to life in respect and give it a kiss in the forehead in reverence and say “I understand. I accept.”
Because as my good friend Silvia would say, “It is what it is.”
Where do I start? Do I tell you about my gripes with unhinged capitalism? The passage of time? Or the general news of my aching heart?
“Where to from here?”
This is the question that keeps spinning in my mind like a vinyl record. Among several others.
I feel too much. Think too much. Do just enough. Or perhaps too much of the wrong thing, I can’t tell.
I am fighting with myself 24/7.
Mostly, I feel anger, dread and sadness lately.
So I started taking Saffron. Apparently they say it’s meant to help with mood. I could feel it sort of working, or perhaps it’s the placebo affect. I feel this sort of synthetic happiness. Like I can tell I am elevating a little but underneath is still this sort of polluted river.
I think I need to prioritize more of me. Stop getting back into cycles where I fall for a man and end up broken in the end. I’m over that circus.
Today I felt okay being alone. Trying to hold strong and not respond to my ex. Not go back to the past and focus on the future.
Anyway, the world feels cooked.
I refuse to stay quiet about it. I am not going to sit here while prices keep going up without pushing back on this nonsense. Is the answer to push back or elevate myself and others? What does that even mean? I don’t know.
What does it mean to elevate anyway? I don’t know.
A part of me is growing weary.
The other part is stubborn and refuses to give up hope.
I sort of feel like a Billie Eilish song and spirit. Just sort of… dead but alive.
—
Right now I stopped looking for romance. I feel closed off to it. Like I will cut a mother fucker who tries to get close to me. Never thought I’d get this closed.
Anyway, nothing too grand to share here today. No poetics. No magic. No fluff.
If this post could taste like something it would probably be a straight shot of whiskey.
It feels like I’ve time traveled and landed in a parallel universe.
I’m numb and in awe.
It’s you, but it’s not you.
Like I’m in a dream.
You’re picking me up in an 80’s Cadillac, no seat belt. Holding the door like a gentleman.
The speedometer trembling to keep up. A dream catcher hanging from your windshield mirror. The lights on the road, purple. It’s as if I’m in a film. I’m again reminded of the magic. The moments of whimsey my heart lives for. The words coming out of your mouth; strangely familiar. Like you traveled from another timeline, except it’s not really you. Just the semblance.
Today you put a watch on my wrist. Like he put a bracelet. It’s like I was re-living the past in a warped reality where time was outside of time. As if dimensions had been collapsed together and I’ve been brought back here with you, except it’s not you. We drove past a store with his name written on it. What? His name.But not him. You. This moment, this car…
“Am I dreaming?”
Some moments in life are so unpredictable. So magical. It reminds me what I live for.
One moment we’re exchanging glances. The next we’re kissing in your bedroom in the dark.
—
On the surface I’m ok, but underneath there is a volcano.
I’m afraid of closeness. Like once you know me it won’t be the same.
And vice versa. Once I know you, maybe it won’t be the same.
—
The roads here make me nostalgic. If there is one word that captures the timbre of my soul, that one is probably it.
Anyway, this weird abstract message is all I have for today. It’s all been so weird lately.
—
I think I want a husband.
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