catching up with oneself

I've been thinking about what it would feel like to go fishing. The art of catching a fish is similar to the art of catching up with oneself---that is, just sitting by the water and, well, waiting.

I don't like posting when the seasonal shift seems off kilter. For instance, today, it is November and I am sweating in the sunshine. It's too much for me. My thoughts are always clearer, my writing more direct, in general, more aware when it is cold. It is when I come alive, when my body feels at rest.

I'm trying to recall how it felt writing in this blog back in June/July. I think something happened this summer that was really good. I can't quite put my finger on it.

I think I should go to New York City soon. It's been too long. But I want it to be cold and brutal. I want to shiver when I walk through Central Park. I've been there when it is warm before, but it didn't touch me as much as the winter visits. I often forget that I lived in Manhattan and worked in a factory for a month proceeding Christmas in 2008. Down the street was Alvin Ailey studios where I took class from a woman named Kat Wildish. I wondered around the streets of Manhattan, into shops, around the park, reading at the bookstore. I was aimless but employed. Dancing.

I often am feeling that what is best for us, we already know and have known. However, we often do not act on this intuition right away. This intuition seems to offer itself to us in dynamic moments that we don't recognize. One has to be in a certain mental place in order to recognize it. I think this intuition is there with us more often than not, however, we avoid it. We make other decisions for ourselves and yes, we do learn, but we often learn in a direction that well, brings us back to square one. It's hard to recognize these moments if we are not living well with ourselves. What is best for ourselves is overshadowed by obligation, by familiarity, by lack of vision. Often, in myself, I will try something that this intuition tells me to try, and I'm afraid or, well, I am not quite ready. For instance, New York was great for a month, but I would have been swallowed whole had I stayed:: I did not understand what it means to have a relationship with a place and while I could have learned in New York, it wouldn't have been the same. Philadelphia has taught me a lot---that I think I am a New Yorker. I need it's extreme environment to feel present and at home.

It's a process though. I've had to go on some circuitous routes to get back to the beginning and realize that where I started is where I ended up, to, well, start again. And that's my relationship with this city. I've left and returned so many times because I something inside of me was certain that there was something I could learn from this city in order to live my life well. And my god, was I correct for once!

It exposes itself in other things too. People.

There's reason behind every feeling. Through them we experience the world, through our body. Sometimes, we have to just sit with them and wait. When we are confronted with decisions pertinent, we will be calm enough to make one and run with it.

that's all.

really.