I'm the master of my sea...

See the beauty through the pain...

My hopes for the future have been told before. On this very thing that is not a blog, in fact. Yet sometimes life is a circle, and our thoughts find greater meaning when repeated. So here we go; I hope that in the year to come, we make more mistakes. Because if we are making mistakes, only then are we reaching for new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing ourselves, changing one another and changing the world. I hope we do things we've never done before, and more importantly, that we're doing something. So that's his wish for all of you, and for himself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

The one at the sail...

I know there were no guarantees. No way of knowing what came next for me, or him, or anything. Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a great song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down the corners and peering close, hoping you still see the person you see there. That was the thing ... you just never knew. Right now, though, I wanted not to think forward or backward, but only to lose myself in his words.

We went on for some time rehashing everything that had happened, and somehow we were both right. And like two people who have loved each other however imperfectly, who have tried to make a life together, however imperfectly, who have lived side by side and watched the wrinkles slowly form at the corner of the other's eyes, and watched a little drop of gray, as if poured from a jug, drop into the other's skin and spread itself evenly, listening to the other's coughs and sneezes and little collected mumblings, like two people who'd had one idea together, we spoke deep into the night, and the next day, and the next night. For forty days and forty nights, I want to say, but the fact of the matter is it only took three. You were off to experience the world, as he had once done, and all that was left, after everything was said and done, was to cheer your success, and cry as he got ready to wave you goodbye.

Sign of the times...

Just stop your crying, have the time of your life,

breaking through the atmosphere,

and things are pretty good from here.

Remember everything will be alright,

we can meet again somewhere -

somewhere far away from here.

We are family...

I always hear people talk about dysfunctional families - how their version of it was so detrimental to who they are, that they really had no other choice. It annoys me, because it makes you think that somewhere there's this magical family where everyone gets along, and no one ever screams things they don't mean, and there's never a time when sharp objects should be hidden. Well, I'm sorry, but that family doesn't exist. The best you can really hope for is a family where everyone's problems, big and small, work together. Kind of like an orchestra where every instrument is out of tune, in exactly the same way, so you don't really notice.

Our rhyme has to be perfect...

Hungry for the power...

He nods, as if to acknowledge that endings are almost always a little sad, even when there is something to look forward to on the other side. And he has learned during his travels that there’s a trick to the graceful exit. It begins with the banal vision to recognize when something is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out. But also, he knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or of shutting a book, did not end a tale. Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: It is simply a matter of finding a sunny place during a winter fairy tale, where the light is golden and the snow is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content.

Feel it washing over me...

If only you knew...

Over the years I'd lodged her in my permanent past, my pluperfect idol, and I put her on ice, stuffed her with mothballs like a haunted ornament confabulating with the ghost of all my evenings. I'd dust her off from time to time and then put her back on the mantelpiece. She no longer belonged to earth or to life. All I was likely to discover at this point wasn't just how distant were the memories we created, it was the measure of loss that was going to strike me - a loss I didn't mind thinking about in abstract terms but which would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts long after we've stopped thinking of things we may never have again.

"Loss" is a thoroughly inaccurate verb in the twisted skein of pain, where learning from someone, and growing up, are one and the same, just opposite banks on a river that passes from us to them, back to us and over to them again in this perpetual circuit where the chambers of the heart, like the trapdoors of adolescence, and the wormholes of time, and the false-bottomed drawer we call identity share a beguiling logic according to which the shortest distance between real life and the life unlived, between who we are and what we want, is a twisted staircase designed with the impish cruelty that only a higher power could manifest. 

Walk on water...

Why, are expectations so high?

Is it the bar I set?

My arms, I stretch, but I can’t reach.

A far cry from it, or it's in my grasp,

 but as soon as I grab, squeeze -

I lose my grip like the flying trapeze.

Gone with the fallen leaves...

Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. And as much as we'd like to believe that we are unique, and our stories unparalleled; in truth, everyone goes through a period of enlightenment - when we take, say, a different turn in life, the other via. Some recover, some pretend to recover, some never come back, some chicken out before even starting, and some, for fear of taking any turns, find themselves leading the wrong life all life long.

Our cold mornings...

Stars don't disappear, they keep blazing...

Maybe it was the alcohol ... maybe it was the truth ... maybe I didn't want things to turn abstract, but I felt I should say it, or write it at least, because this was the time to proclaim it, for it suddenly dawned on me that this was why I have felt so calm for the last year, and why you are the only person I'd like to say goodbye to when I die, since only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. So I did it, just like that. No thought of the repercussions or any feelings of shame. I simply told the truth.

So right before I will forever shut my eyes, I want you to know and understand deeply, that if you remember anything, and if you truly loved me, then before you leave as well, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of us and get into a taxi because you have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just for that moment, turn to me once more, or if I am already gone, envision me in your mind, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the eyes, hold my gaze, and call me by my name.

I swear I'll try...

Cross my heart, hope to die...

The main thing to learn about how to fight is that some of us are not born with that desire, because while some are put on this Earth to bear weapons, others just aren't. Some of us are forced by life to take up arms and fight. The art lies in knowing when to wield those arms and when to put them down. I don't think it's a matter of pretending to be ideally unharmed by life and untouched by darkness; because that is hypocrisy. Rather, I think it is a matter of being true to your truth and learning when to fight and more importantly, learning when to let go.

You're painting me a dream...

Over the hills and far away,

a million miles from L.A,

I know we've got to get away,

someplace where no one knows our name.

We'll find the start to something new.

Just take me anywhere, take me anywhere -

anywhere away with you.