Rumi in the grass
Beneath cerulean skies
Sun-baked clouds
Kind hearts
Silver eyes

What’s the dream worth if days
Spent crestfallen
Reading fantasy keeps me light
Crying on the couch tells me
I’m here to read and write
To cope with beauty and
Time
Drunk on art
Art is life
Life is magic
We’re making poetry in different ways

Drunk on flowers and wind
Summer storms and
Pain, drunk on Love — 
Love can hurt the most
When aching for it
Like water to one who’s scoured the moon
Drunk on sky and drunk
On you — memories
Make me smile

\\

I wanna be bare
Hollow like a winter tree
Only feel lost when thinking of me
What I’m not
And who I should be
I am what I am
Blood and soul reaching for
Eternity

Fed water from a spring
That wells from within
Blocked by thoughts of stone
If it feels like the world is crumbling
Wrap yourself in warm thoughts
I know
They seem so out of reach
Love
Must spring from the well inside
Laughter makes everything melt
Makes the hardest things in life
As light as can be
Your laugh keeps me from breaking
Completely
A stupid laugh
To teach us to breathe
Again

Let the world crumble
If only you may too
Nothing better I could do
Than watch the sunset
Here with you

\\

Tears like bricks
A smile cracks the wall
Of your lips
Fall from the highest tower
Into your joy
Presence, calm, a well of light as
Deep as night
Even in a dessert
You shine as twilight
A canvas of stars
You’re shining.
Even on your worst days
Lower than low
You’re shining.

Unclench your heart and let love
Pour through
Let in summer air
Sparkling off the river.
Let spray of waves linger on
Skin
Then flash a devilish grin.
Fuck it all.

Maybe you’re not famous here
As if that’s what you want
But in the realm of love
Your name is known
Your smile too
Your laughter the language of
Gods
Perhaps not in the earthly realm
But somewhere more important
The zeitgeist of kindness

Where
Sky is all color and light
We’re here — 
Where nothing’s really
As it seems

Sitting in thunder
Just because it rains would
I not seek the river?
More beautiful in shadow
Not waiting for the sun to
Shine

I wonder what it’s like
Under your umbrella
What do you see?
The same colors
Emerald sky
Purple trees
Velvet grass like
Midnight snow?

What color lights your dawn?
What song do you listen to
When it gets hard?
We don’t need umbrellas
Let’s dance in the rain
It’s all just a dream within a dream
Anyway.
A game.
And the one who’s enjoying life
The most—
Wherever it may lead—
Wins

BEAUTIFUL CITY
in all its imperfections
rats are like squirrels
i imagine they’re remi from ratatouille
flowers in the cracks
help us survive
they are the music
we are the light
you make the world go ‘round

between us
no seperation
realizing we are all one
makes things easier
i wanna do you good
your victory is mine
maybe one day if we’re lucky
we’ll all just fade into the sky

oh, there’s supposed
to be more than this?
biking to the river at sunset
music in my ears
a book and journal in my bag?
this is all I could ever dream of
purple rooftops
glistening skyline
orange twilight
seen for the first time

i love the time of silhouettes
evening nights couldn’t be
more pleasant
colors are unbelievable
shifting by the minute like us
animals
everything

how wonderful
there’s a place to go for free in nyc
late into the evening
surrounded by others
faces dusky sparkling eyes
the greatest thing
humans could be doin together
watching the sunset
blanketed in burning night

meaning-makers
what do you make of the heart
that doesn’t stop shining
despite the world telling
it to close?

what do you make of the one
who smiles in squabble?
call them
mystic, sage
as they’re the ones
who understand the game
we just don’t
understand anything

to love life despite
its contents
because it’s the
only one we’ve got
context — 
art must be
reality

why do we rush to
an earthly grave?
there’s nothing to do
for our soul to be saved
so let your heart smile
forget the rules
be the leaf
okay not knowin’
where you’re goin’
again, i come
to watch the setting
sun

Colorful light pours through the windowpanes of the stone building, up on the northern point of Manhattan. I’m here on a Saturday. It took about an hour on the train from the Lower East Side. I like the train, as I don’t have to think about driving or traffic. I just hop on and let it rattle me around for a while.

Sitting on a marble ledge in the corner of a bright green garden, I listen to the sounds of summer. I’m here by myself, and it’s peaceful.

I’ve always liked stained-glass windows. I love the vivid colors. I’m leaning into color as a source of light. Not light of the sun, which itself isn’t color. But light as inspiration. Light as joy. Light as meaning.

The light of day is colorless, traveling as wavelengths and illuminating what is. In fact, nothing has intrinsic color. Life is colored by our perception, our brain, our eyes and our mind. We determine how we see the world. How insane is that?

What the heck is color? Just waves? I’m fascinated by how each color gives a different mood. I like what those moods represent. Blue feels cool and powerful. Green is life-giving, grounding, restorative. Red is fierce. Strong. Volatile. Purple is calming, mysterious and deep. It’s always been my favorite color.

As a human, I’m finding this balance between earthy tones and gaudier ones, particularly in my style—the things I wear, the way I decorate my apartment.

Last week I was in Central Park on this beautiful sloping meadow with large boulders. I was doing some calisthenics on the boulders, just squatting and balancing, and it felt like being on a backpacking trip where I would do the same thing on the rocks.

I felt like an earth bender, or a samurai, or a monk. I’m a Virgo, and I recently found out from a candle at Whole Foods that the Virgo is the earth sign. I enjoy feeling grounded, connected to the source, at peace. Who doesn’t, right? When I feel this way, I feel my best.

I like the flashier colors for the details. My apartment is randomly accented in lime green.

I have a bracelet of iridescent beads that I got from a street stall here.

I wear a hair tie and I have a pack of different colors. It’s a simple joy to choose the color every day.

Those simple joys are everything. They seem insignificant—who cares what color my hair tie is? But those insignificant details make up the fabric of our lives, because those insignificant things are really what nobody knows or understands about us but ourselves, and because we’re the only ones who know or care, they can either matter or not matter.

I want them to matter.

Hair ties.

Stained-glass windows.

A cup of coffee.

There’s so much telling us to be afraid and discouraged by the world. We have to take it upon ourselves to find joy again.

We either choose to see the color in the little things, or we don’t.

At times I feel melancholic, overwhelmed by the passage of time. Am I doing enough with it? Am I enough? I guess is what I’m asking.

Enough for this world. Enough of myself. I get discouraged by the big things that seem important—my career, relationships, pain. It all feels like it passes so quickly, and I’m wasting time if I want to take it slow, or if I simply don’t know where the hell I’m going.

But we’re all going somewhere—the grave.

Not to be a downer, but that inspires me to open my eyes. Smile. Relax.

Take the time if you got it.

I wanna take the scenic route to where I’m goin’.

I wanna take the long way home.

Remember who you are
Remember the mission
To enjoy your life
That’s it
And this is me enjoying it.

The things we worry about now will mean nothing in six months, three months, one. Come back to gratitude. There’s nothing to gain from being so hard on yourself.

Just relax. Everything will make sense in time; it all just ebbs and flows. Emotions. Days. Longings.

Now is all there is. Even though it can feel complex not knowing how things will go; even though the future feels both scary and bright, let go.

Who cares.

Who cares.

Who cares.

Beneath you is nothing but a future of sky, clouds, and it’s up to you how fast or slow you wish to float. You can slow down so completely that you lose yourself in your morning cup of coffee.

You can drift through the sky of life renewing each morning your oath of gratitude, or you can fall through time like a brick. Hoping. Waiting for a day that never comes.

Just take a breath. Let yourself float, even as you tend to life. It’s ego that thinks you should be doing more, better, quicker. Let go of all of that. Chill the fuck out. Long game.

It’s okay—good—to acknowledge how you truly feel. Scared, nervous. Just fucking tired. But whatever’s meant to be will be. The more arduous the journey, the sweeter the reward.

Now I’m in the coffee shop, the place to go when I don’t know where to go. Those sorts of places are important. The places that have been around forever.

The coffee shop. The outdoor market. The park. The museum.

It’s Sunday morning. I usually opt to sit outside, but today I am sitting inside at the coffee shop in the Lower East Side. I like to listen to these sorts of places. Sink into the vibes, the details.

I wear my headphones a lot, but what’s it like when everybody’s listening to the same thing? It’s probably good for us. I had this realization last week as I walked through the farmer’s market.

It’s nice to take off the phones, pretend I’m in an ancient marketplace, just listen to the sounds of curiosity and commerce, a gentle buzz of human activity that tells me I’m alive.

It’s comforting.

Nobody knows where to go. And so we meet here, at these places for all people.

I’m watching rain fall through the large window. I had a scone. It was crusty and didn’t do a ton for me with the first bite, but it got better and better.

Maybe that’s the wonder of the scone. It doesn’t dazzle, but it delivers. Perhaps that’s what we should hope for out of life. A satisfying, subtle scone that maybe surprises us in the end, having taken us somewhere we never expected.

The last of my espresso looks like a galaxy of stars. The decor is beautiful, the espresso cup a dark, coffee cherry red. The table looks like red marble and has a satisfying feel to it. The energy of the shop is calming and bright.

I like being in a coffee shop because I enjoy seeing what’s going on behind the bar. How they do things compared to how we did them at Highwire, the shop I worked at in Oakland, California.

I enjoyed being a barista. It was my favorite job. The morning rush. The regulars. The tactile act of making coffee brought me to the present moment. If I were going through something, the daily interactions with regulars and my coworkers cheered me up.

It felt like a community, as customers would come in and offhandedly tell me about what they were going through as I poured their espresso, making me feel less alone.

Customers would sometimes mention how the ten minutes at the shop was the most peaceful part of their day, and that made me feel good. I was glad when they shared, as I was making people’s day with a cheeky cortado, and they were making mine in turn.

Mostly customers shared a few cordial words, nothing more. But the small talk meant we were a part of something.

What ancient wisdom is there in the melody of a coffee shop? In the revival of a cup o’ joe? Much. All.

I told the barista the espresso was delicious. I remember my favorite customer used to tell me or whoever else made it that his cortado was delicious, and he would describe why. He would come in, drink it, and look out the window.

I felt like he was a wise fella, like what seemed so insignificant, his daily cortdado, was the key to happiness. It very well may be.

Sorcha watched through the window of her apartment as summer rain fell in a continuous downpour.

She opened the window with a satisfying thud.

A rush of cool wind gusted through the apartment, causing the candle flame to flicker.

The cozy low yellow light cast a shadow of the dancing flame on the bedroom wall, where pale pink paint was artfully chipping.

Sorcha turned down the music and listened to the storm.

God, the cool air felt good.

It was Saturday night, and she was alone.

Sorcha was usually so busy with work that in the evening she welcomed the alone time, either going to the gym or on a run through the nearby forested park. She’d then take a bath with sweet-smelling salts and have dinner, followed by a few pages of a fantasy novel before knocking out.

Since leaving her job, however, she’d had nothing but alone time, living in this foreign city away from her friends and family.

The job brought her here, and she was glad it did. Berlin was historic, vibrant, and sort of crumbly, like a breakfast pastry.

There was a green-blue river she could see in the distance from her apartment. There were majestic trees, regular rain, and bright summer light in the mornings that poured through the window.

Was there a place that could satisfy her completely? Probably not. She didn’t know where else she’d go, anyway.

The storm grew louder. The rain was speaking.

Speaking to parts of Sorcha she’d been too busy to know.

People asked why she would leave her job.

She did it for reasons she didn’t even fully understand, besides the fact that she felt like she was suffocating.

She needed time to do nothing but breathe.

She needed room to understand what truly mattered. In that, the solitude was helpful.

The room smelled of vanilla and pine, and as she watched the rain, she realized that having free time was more difficult than her demanding job was.

What was that about?

Now that she could just breathe, it’s like she didn’t know how to.

Time was moving either too fast, or too slow.

She wondered what the point was—if she wasn’t busy, she felt like she was doing something wrong. The feeling clawed at her insides, even though she knew how silly the concept was.

She knew another job would be just as unsatisfying as the last one. That the things that were supposed to make her happy seldom did, or at least didn’t keep her happy for long.

What would make her happy?

Perhaps nothing more than this.

She pulled out a green apple from the fridge and placed it on the chopping block, then opened the kitchen window to listen to the humming rainfall.

A gust wafted the candle fragrance through the apartment, and Sorcha smiled.

She took a sharp knife from the wooden block and cut a slice from the apple, the skin firm, the inside crisp and white. She bit down and juice exploded in her mouth, tart and sour, with a subtle sweetness left on her tongue.

The taste of a good apple never got old.

The taste, plus the smell of the candle and the sound of rain, was more satisfying than anything she’d accomplished in her career.

Sorcha called her mom, who picked up after a few rings. “Are you okay?” her mom asked. It’s what she always said.

Sorcha chuckled. “Yeah mom, just checking in.”

“Wonderful.” she said it with joy in her voice, just as she always had when Sorcha called. “What’s up?”

Thunder bellowed in the distance, and after a few heartbeats, a strike of lightning illuminated the room.

Sorcha let out a gratifying sigh. “Life is finally starting to make sense,” she said.

“Oh, good!”

A storm rolls from the skyline
I say a prayer for
The sun, sky, mountains
Heart within your chest
Thunder helps my tears fall
Simplifies desires
Pain is nothing
But a reminder
Of the depths within you

Breathe light into those depths
Open up the windows and gulp the sky
Pain, I’ll take you with me
If I can’t leave you behind
Then I won’t fear having
You along
For the ride

Alone in my room
Sitting by the window
The candle flame sways
Listening to Kevin Morby
He’s saved me in the summertime
You’re hurting too?
And then at times you’re just
Happy to be
Alive
The scent of storm blows
Through the window
A cool breath of air
Flashes of light illuminate the page
The end of a J in the ashtray
My hand can’t move fast enough
Pen moving tears falling
Heart pounding
Mind tries to
Make sense of the storm—

It can’t
The light and the fire and the past
And the present and friends
I think of her though
Time has passed
Is it crazy to miss somebody
Knowing we
Weren’t meant to be?
Moments shared
Live only in two hearts
When we pass
They fade into dust
Become angel’s harp strings
Memories that play my heartstrings
It’s okay to miss them
Don’t repress a thing

The storm rolled through
Straight through me, too
I needed the rain
Now light’s pouring through
How to find
The person I’ll love into
Infinity
By letting Earth’s
Magnetic forces
Have their sway
By not looking
Not seeking
Okay alone with my journal
In the dusk-gray light of the storm
Watching puddles to see
If the rain’s stopped
Days can be tough
But the storm comes in the evening
Cleansing streets and broken hearts

Later in the park
I talk to a stranger about the bouncing
Fireflies
And see a silhouette of a
Squirrel high up in the trees
Shedding incantations toward heaven
I wonder if it’s up there to
Watch the sun setting

It feels like I’m entering a new stage of my evolution, back to the beginning and who I was as a kid. There’s an innocence I crave, taking pleasure in simple things like sports, and Pokémon, and rain. But I’m not an innocent kid. In my thirty years on Earth, I’ve grown wiser through my pain—pain of the heart, and pain of the body. It feels like I’m remembering who I was at my core, and that’s all I want to be. Me.

As a kid, New York City filled me with awe. It was the city, but it was simply traveling somewhere new that did it. I’m blessed to have traveled with my family from a young age, as I believe it instilled in me a craving for adventure, novelty, and the unfamiliar.

New York was unfamiliar and seemed to be everything my hometown, Los Angeles, wasn’t. The weather was sultry in the summer where LA was dry. It was cool in the fall, my favorite season, with orange and red and brown leaves hanging from the trees. And of course, it snowed in winter, but by the time I experienced winter in New York, I was an adult. Still, the city blew me away. I always dreamed of living here one day.

So here I am.

Living in New York fills me with that childlike sense of wonder. I came in the winter; it went pretty quickly. The spring did too, and summer’s racing by. I try to slow down, but it’s hard to tell what that really means. We’re always looking toward the horizon, but I try to savor the day, the moment, because it’ll all just blow on by if we’re not careful. I already look forward to the fall, yet while the summer is sticky, I can’t deny how beautiful it is.

It feels like I’m evolving, and I’m calling it my Charmeleon era. Charmeleon is a Pokémon. In Pokémon, the monsters evolve after leveling up. There’s usually three levels of their evolution, and they go from cute, to cool, to downright powerful. One of the most classic Pokémon is Charizard—a big, orange, ferocious dragon. He starts out as Charmander, a cute little lizard with a fiery tail.

Charmander evolves into Charmeleon after about thirty levels, and that’s who I feel connected to. I’m thirty years old, and I’m definitely not Charizard. I equate Charizard to somebody like my dad—in his late sixties and quite the beast. I think he’s earned the comparison. But I still have a long, long way to go. But I’m not Charmander. I’ve gone through some shit; I’ve battled; I’ve carved my life’s path.

Right now, I’m going through some changes. I’m making progress in my personal training career, having gotten certified and close to receiving another certification in Applied Functional Science. My creative pursuits are going well, and I feel like I’m on a mission. To make life a little easier, I’ve decided to stop drinking alcohol for the foreseeable future.

For some reason I’m reticent to talk about drinking. Maybe because it’s a stigmatized topic, and I don’t want to make people feel bad for drinking or for not drinking alcohol. I don’t know. It’s touchy, and everybody is on their own journey with it, that’s for sure.

I’ve had a lot of fun drinking. But I just don’t know how much it’s serving me. As a personal trainer, I want to be in the best health that I can be. I don’t feel like I have any days to waste.

A day isn’t wasted if it’s spent doing nothing, as I’m not stopping drinking just so I can be more productive. That will probably be an unintended side effect, but I just hate feeling less than my best, which is how I feel when hungover.

A day spent at the beach doing nothing, or with friends at the park, or just hanging in bed reading a book isn’t a wasted day if you’re present for it, if you’re enjoying it; in fact, I think that’s the best use of a day. I think it’s why we’re here, not to do, but to be.

I want to feel alive, and while drinking is fun in the moment and makes me feel alive—it makes me feel infinitely more dead the next day.

To me, wasting a day means spending it worried, anxious, or sad—all human emotions that should not be suppressed, but emotions that seem exacerbated after a night of drinking.

Alcohol isn’t inherently bad. For people living healthy, happy lives, drinking a glass or two of wine at night or having beers with friends on the weekends—do you. It’s honestly just hard for me to have the willpower to only have a couple of beers. As much as I try to be balanced, I’m an all-or-nothing guy. I figure I should just lean into that instead of fighting it. When I do something, I do it.

And if I’m not gonna do it, well, then I’m just not gonna do it. And so I’m not gonna do it. Peace of mind is the most important thing to me right now, and I don’t want to do things that jeopardize it. I don’t know how long I’ll stay off drinking, whether it’s forever or just for a season. But it feels right for me at my current stage, and I’m just gonna see how far it can go.

Part of me is like, You’re living in New York, and you’re not gonna drink? Isn’t the point of living here to be social, to meet tons of people, to have fun?

Yes, but maybe no? I can still go out with friends, meet people, and have fun without drinking. No, it isn’t the same. I’m less outgoing (I think?) and maybe that’s okay. Maybe I’ve been using alcohol to compensate for shyness, and it’s worked. But as of late, going out and drinking has left me feeling… disappointed, frustrated, and just blah.

I’ve gone on several-month sober stints before, and during those times I tried to overcompensate for not drinking by being more outgoing, by staying out late with friends, by trying to be the life of the party. I thought it was a muscle to force, but I recently had a crucial insight.

I don’t have to compensate for shit.

I don’t have to be the life of the party. I don’t even have to talk to people when I’m out if I don’t want to. I can just sit in the corner and observe, or I can leave early, or not go at all. I can just be with my friends, and I don’t have to be engaged the entire time; I can just be there. In the moments when I’d usually grab another beer, now, I might just sit and try to listen to what I’m feeling.

I can sit back and just be myself, and I’m relearning who that truly is.

It’s somebody who savors the quieter moments.

It’s the kid who loved to play, make up games, smell the grass and the leaves and rain on concrete. I’m going back to the beginning, so I ordered a Japanese Charmeleon Pokémon card to remind me of the mission.

God, it feels so good to wake up on a Saturday morning without a hangover and do what I love, which is to write this, or more specifically my book, which is with my editor right now so I have some time off :)

I may have been a little lonely last night, and I may have cleared an entire pint of ice cream. But the night is always harder when you’re going through a change. I wake up and remember why I’m doing this—because I love the day. I watched the sun come up, made coffee, read, and now I’m writing. I’ll work out in a bit, with a full, beautiful day in store. Life is good.

People who don’t know about Pokémon probably think it’s a childish game, and sure, it is. I played as a kid, and some of my fondest, most nostalgic memories come from it. I embraced my childlike nature while living in Japan, which is Pokémon-obsessed. I’m embracing my nature here in New York, because Pokémon is a part of me—the silly, adventurous, curious part of me—my favorite part. I’m looking at the Charmeleon card that I bought right now. It’s on my corkboard in front of my desk, a reminder of who I am and where I hope to go.

It’s a new era, and I’m evolving from Charmander to Charmeleon.

I played soccer as a kid. My brother was exceptional, and we were both super into the culture. Throughout my twenties as I battled with chronic pain, I never thought I’d play soccer, or any sports, again. I dreamed—literally—of playing all sports again, but soccer specifically. In my dreams I’d be pain-free, playing with friends, sprinting down the field. I’d wake up and I might cry, thinking that part of my life was over.

But just like with basketball, surfing, tennis, and running, I’m back to playing soccer. I can’t describe how amazing it feels. I bought cleats and a ball this week and walked down to a field on the East River under the Williamsburg Bridge. The turf field was empty, with full-sized goals and thunderheads in the sky.

I laced ‘em up and was soon running goal-to-goal sprints, feeling this profound connection to that kid in me, eight-year-old Vinny with long hair and a headband and a beaming smile. Well, that’s me again, and I simply can’t believe it. I even bought the same cleats that I had on in the picture of being eight! Honestly, that’s a coincidence—but maybe not…

New York loves soccer. There are fields everywhere and people always playing! I thought I moved to New York to party, make friends, etc. That’s all happening, but I think I’m here for the quieter moments that help make life slow down.

This was one of those moments, one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

It started pouring. I kept playing through the rain, having the best time. The rain stopped, the dusky clouds blushed, and I hopped on a Citi Bike heading home. The world smelled like damp leaves and wet concrete, and the air was cool, and I thought about how nice the fall is going to be, and it was quiet and the world was still, and I just couldn’t believe that this is my life. I live in New York. I signed up for intramural soccer in the fall. It’s a dream come true.

Ten, fifteen years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that this would be my life at thirty years old. It seems simple, and it sort of is. It feels so good to be pursuing things that feel authentic to me. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to pretend to be somebody I’m not in my career—be it writing or personal training. In fact, my individuality is my strength. It’s taken a decade to find work I care about, where I can be myself, and where I can grow—a decade of working jobs to help me understand what I’m not.

I’m just grateful. I believe in what I’m doing. I believe in myself and my mission. I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m changing, I’m returning back to myself, my peace, my core, the kid. I love these summer storms. Last night, after a sultry day the clouds rolled in, and it poured.

I was walking to the river, and just as I got there it started gushing. I stopped under a scaffolding for a while with some other folks, as we couldn’t walk home in the rain without getting soaked. But there was nowhere I’d rather have been than on the side of the road, watching the lightning illuminate the sky, the thunder roaring. Eventually it settled down, and I walked home through the thunder.

It doesn’t really matter where I am, just that I am.

I get to be, become, evolve, return. I’m the kid who loves the rain, Pokémon, and soccer.

lying in the grass
looking up at the trees + sky
trees so green
sky so blue
when wondering about my plants
i think about how trees thrive
unkempt
showered by haphazard rain

had a conversation
with a man at the park
he said my tattoo
reminded him of rilke
when most people ask i try to explain
but this time
i didn’t
and he understood

he told me there were bees
hiding in the flowers
during the downpour
around the corner were milky white
flowers
it would behoove me to
go act like a bee
stick my face in the flowers
i did and it smelled like chamomile
the park looked like an impressionist painting
people on the hill like beautiful stone
statues
simple pleasures mean
more than anything
if it was my last day
i think i’d spend it in this way
what would you do?
what would you say?

sunset on the roof of the russian baths
part of an eclectic crew
this is what i love
this is what i do

icy water
+ melting away
listening to olive branches
thwack against skin
if this were my last day
i’d take out my headphones
listen to the world
and what it had to say

show me the weirdos
of a false utopia
let’s break the mold
underneath brick
are mountains of gold
why am i so scared sometimes?
i know what’s inside yet
afraid to confide
or even say hi when
i wanna say you shinin’

jesus life is beautiful
in all its deranged complexities
the sky moves quickly
nobody is watching you cause
we’re out here looking
for ourselves in
one another

it’s all good
who knows if i should
share every last drop
unless you feel the same
if you don’t i feel shame
when i try & get turned away
but does it when fuckin’ matter?
when the sun streaks across a wall of brick
it’s shinin’ either way
despite whatever the
gold has to say

before a doorway leading to
all that i may be
afraid of leaving the familiar
comfortable darkness
if only i knew how good the
light on the other side
felt
i’d step through courageously

and so i shall

it’s raining again
i love walking in the rain
when it comes and goes
i like when it’s just pouring, too
warm weather, cold rain
it’s gonna do
what it’s gonna do

we talking about the weather or pain
cause it’s the same thing
you don’t hide or shy away
in fact you enjoy it
it hasn’t always been easy
that’s what made this journey so meaningful

i’ve learned so much
i really don’t know anything
all trial and error
how do i feel in my body
my soul
peace of mind is everything
still
i love your wild side
concrete & trees
make up the city & the
wilderness of me
wanna enjoy each day
no time to waste one
watching new york city breathe is a
miraculous thing

Countless sweaty faces pass me on the river in the morning. It soothes the soul to watch the rolling waves as the sun comes up. Peace shouldn’t feel so out of reach. I get aggravated sometimes walking through the motions. But then I see the ocean and remember what’s important.

I’m afraid to grow up, but I know stability brings peace. I’m tired of feeling out of sorts. I’m tired of doing things that make me anxious; I’m tired of fear.

It soothes the soul knowing every person who I pass feels life’s aches and pains.

Yet we’re here.

All I gotta be is here.

If we’re just a speck of dust, how does all of this exist? We built cities that persist, but what about the blue sky and the morning moon? If we were all gone, would the sky stay blue? Would the rain still fall with nobody to fall onto?

We’re here to simply feel the sun. Travelers of light. It all goes so quickly.

In the evening, I find some grass or a bench, or even just a stair set. It’s something they don’t tell you about city life. Everybody’s moving. But you don’t have to.

I came here for the opportunity, the growth, the inspiration. But that’s not the only reason.

I came here just to be.

Not solely seeking dopamine kicks, I’m here to run my own race; it’s hard sometimes to go against the grain. I treat the city like the country, lying in the grass with my shoes off.

I spend a lot of time looking at the sky.

I want to be seen, but what’s more important is seeing.

There’s so much to see, and only so much that comes from living to be seen.

I’m not here to keep up. I’m here to be me—enamored by the gait of day to day living. I can live a country life in the most vibrant city in the world; what I love about New York is the community.

It’s so damn cool, constantly surrounded by people my age; building community with like-minded folks. I think if you’re here, you’re here for the adventure. That’s what you’ll find every day in this town.

I wake up, and while I have my routine, I can’t say precisely what’s gonna go down. What scene will I witness? Who will I talk to? As much as I can, I try to slow down, observe, and savor the insignificant moments. We’re alive. This is all there is, and it’s enough.

What magic shall transpire on the way to the grave?

I have some family lore in New York. I finally went to the New York Public Library, where my great great great uncle Oscar Lion’s name is emblazoned on the entrance with a handful of others. Apparently he was a leading collector of Walt Whitman’s poetry and donated his collection to the library.

It was a cool place to work on my book, as it felt like Hogwarts with a massive study hall, endless books, ornate chandeliers, and murals of the sky on the ceiling. It feels like I’m channeling some epic lineage going to write where my grandfather did the same, and there’s more lore yet to uncover…

A couple of weeks ago I was running in Brooklyn before the World Cup semi-final and stumbled upon an outdoor watch party put on by this quaint French restaurant. They set up a big projector and seats under some mature trees at the end of a cul-de-sac.

I’ll always remember this World Cup during my first summer in the city. The game would be on at the corner store, or the commentary would come from somebody’s phone on the sidewalk, and I’d feel a part of something.

At the party, I kicked a soccer ball around with a kid, as there were some goals set up. After the game rain clouds rolled in. The clouds were dusky, the sky a rosy pink.

It’s about to start raining, my friend said. How bad could it be? I thought. I started my run home, and as I was crossing the Williamsburg Bridge the storm hit hard. Thunder ripping, lightning, sideways rain.

I was absolutely drenched, trotting along and smiling. I could hardly see the river below the bridge. It was just the storm and an orange sky. I got back to the other side and it let up.

There were a couple of storms like that throughout the week. On Sunday for the World Cup final, we met out at the same spot. The sun was out and the vibes were right.

This time the place was packed to the brim. When I showed up, the owner thanked me for playing with his kid the week before. That was cool. I didn’t know the kid was the owner’s son.

The experience was pretty special. I’m just trying to find myself in the chaos. I’m just trying to create, rest, feel good, have fun, and find some peace. So I’ll continue looking inward as I roam NYC; I’ll keep going for my dreams while embracing what’s in front of me.

There’s no rush. The only place we’re rushing towards is the grave.

It’s an adventure here—the action, the vibrancy, the people; it all creates this hodgepodge of opportunity, diversity, feelings and emotions. I crave the stimulation, but it’s as if I need to separate from it, observe from afar, and it’s like a foil that allows me to speculate what I truly want from life. There’s no finish line which will make me feel like I’ve made it.

I’ve made it. I hope to take it slow.

I’m flowing down the river of time, and I get confused, overwhelmed, flustered, out of sorts. I come back to my breath, a bridge to the present, and I let go again and again of the weight that doesn’t serve me. The storm clears away the past—sunlight illuminates the present.

I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I’m here, and if we’re here for no reason at all, it may as well be to ease the suffering in other human beings, and a great way to do that is through art, since art illuminates what we feel inside, and what we feel is universal. I can’t be alone in my love of the patient sky. So I’ll write about it, and maybe I’ll see you on my long twilight wandering.

I’m sitting at a cafe in New York City, looking out the window. Across the street in a shop, there’s a dude wearing a Zinedine Zidane France soccer jersey. France plays Morocco today in the World Cup. The jersey brings up a lot in me. That was my childhood. Nostalgia is in. Nostalgia’s the best. New York is it. It’s so goddamn weird. The people. The energy. It’s relentless. All walks of life coming together to vibe in the sultry summer rain.

I’ve had a cold for my first couple of days since being back from my sojourn to La La Land. On my first day here, Tuesday, I ordered Thai food to pick up and wandered up to what I thought was the shop, only to find that there was a boutique clothing store where my Thai food should have been. Confused and afraid of looking like a complete tourist wandering the street looking at my phone (why do I care??) I went into the nail salon next door and asked if they knew about this restaurant.

The woman at the front desk came outside and helped me have a look.

Nope, I’d been had.

I consider this and my cold the re-entry tax into this wondrous city. I think I can just leave for two weeks and come back as if nothing’s changed? Naw, you gotta pay your dues, son. Everybody here’s been sweating and battling and I’ve been out west surfing my little heart out.

Well I’m back, bitches, here to restore chaos, shake things up, confuse people by complimenting them as I walk by or smiling when they don’t expect it.

It’s sultry. It’s pretty gnarly. It’s dense. It’s beautiful. I fucking love it. Just being able to walk around for miles and miles again, which means I get to listen to music and sing and dance in the streets—my favorite thing.

There’s music in it all.

I’ll spend my whole life roamin
dancin
singin
writing poetry to understand
no questions ever answered
maybe the hole will never be filled
still
a life well lived
‘cause it was full of music.

I had an epic trip home, as this is the most into surfing I’ve probably ever been in my life, inspired by professional surfer Sterling Spencer and his podcast Pinch My Salt. It’s funny that I’m getting really into it while living in New York, but I also think it’s perfect timing.

I spent my entire childhood hating surfing, as my brother was a nationally ranked junior surfer and I was the moody little brother dragged to his contests on weekends. But in those dark and early mornings down the coast in San Clemente or up in Santa Cruz, I learned the corelord ways.

Now, as I continue to cultivate my athletic background and sink my teeth into the personal training world, I pine to stay connected to what it means to be a kid, just playing. And I guess for me, whether I liked it or not, being a kid meant surfing.

It’s the best, man. My trip home just made me feel like a kid. I surfed pretty much every day and could feel myself getting better with every session.

LA—as much as I love to hate you, I love you. I ran a lot through the city, got in the ocean every day, and just lived outside in the sunshine with my best friends.

Now that I’m back in NYC, it’s frustrating that I’m sick ‘cause I just wanna hit the ground running. I’m trying to get my shit going as a personal trainer, and I wanna be in the gym getting after it. But I think I got a cold because the universe is telling me to slow down.

Take it easy, lad. You’re floating on an infinitesimal particle of dust through absolute nothingness—just enjoy where you’re at!

Often the hardest thing to do is just let time pass, when that’s really all that’s needed.

God, it feels good to sit here and write. To put the things I think and feel into something resembling a story. Life is fun. Last night I sat in Thompson Square Park under a tree journaling, and there was a girl across the park under a different tree journaling, and the sunlight was hitting her in a beautiful way. I was thinking about social media versus real life. How it feels like I need to feed the online machine, because I want to or because I think I need to, I just don’t know.

But what about the reality machine? So I went up and said to her, looks like we had the same idea, journaling under a tree! It was a little awkward, but it got the conversation started.

Life is for living. And that’s doing what makes your palms sweat. She was receptive and we talked for a bit, and then I went back to my tree. That’s all it had to be. I had ants all over me, and I was thinking about ants—what the hell are ants! Are they even real, or are they the physical manifestation of the little things that get to us in life that are so small we can’t even see them, yet they get under our skin, cause us anxiety, steal our joy? The little things. Like the ants, you’ve gotta just lettem be.

All this to say—I’m here, I’m home, I’m starting the next phase of my life in NYC, and admittedly I was a little sad at first. Overwhelmed is probably the better word, and maybe that’s why I got sick. It was a long travel day after the three-hour delay cause of a storm out east, and I got to my apartment at like 2 a.m. after a couple of much-needed slices of pizza pie.

There was so much that I felt like I had to do immediately. Some of my plants had died too since I was gone, and that made me glum.

But as my brother Mo said when I was back in LA—keep the stoke alive! I always get a little blue when traveling from place to place, when such a meaningful week, or two, or a month, or three years becomes a memory. It’s okay to feel that way. I don’t wanna fight it.

But I can also carry the stoke I felt over into whatever’s next.

Keep that stoke alive, through sickness and through health, no matter what. I’ll say it again. We’re floating on a speck of dust through a wilderness of emptiness. So I’ll let life slap me around a little with a smile. It all means nothing. Keep the stoke alive.

And finally, some words on home:

I love you Malibu
You don’t know how you heal me
Sometimes it’s hard to come home
Because it’s hard to leave
Coming home
Makes me feel like a kid again
Thanks for holding me in your
Nourishing twilight
Even though I gotta fly
You help me remember who I am
Because of that
I may continue to explore
Taking with me
The salt in the waves

From afar, it’s easy to recognize what somebody has done. Epic trips on dem socials, the perfect partner, the body, the ostensible good life. But are they any happier when alone?

You wanna be a legend, be a legend in your own heart.

I have gray in my beard and hair to my shoulders; I guess the gray hairs mean that this kid is getting older. I think there’s wisdom in the gray. I like the salty wizard vibe, and maybe all there is to do is own it. Let shit happen as fate would have it—it’s a miracle to be here at all.

Still, I’m human in our modern world—isn’t it too soon for the color to fade? I’m sick of worrying about what seems so vain; it’s not what I post that’s the real me; it’s what I create into obscurity—loose notes and empty files—the universe receives our unburdened heart.

Got my ear pierced with a sapphire-colored stud. I didn’t know when I got it that for a Virgo like me, blue sapphire stands for intuition. I guess it was meant to be; what do people see when they look at me?

What does the sun see when I roam the city streets or I’m lying on the beach, shedding tears?

Last night I cried on the beach. I feel blessed to cry while listening to crashing waves.

I’m hard on myself; I don’t know why I’m still in pain. I smoke a J to feel better—it broadens my mind, brings tears to my eyes and opens the sky. At times I feel lonely, even though I’m always talking to my family and friends. Why can I write certain things I find it hard to bring up with them?

It’s hard to admit we don’t know what’s going on. It’s hard to admit I’m falling behind. But is it falling behind if we’re slow to post online what we think makes us exceptional in other people’s eyes?

It feels like I’m not made for our society. I just wanna do my thing. I wanna be great. Different. Successful—of course I do.

It’s because I’m scared. Scared of mediocrity. Scared of dying without giving everything. Scared of failure and scared of success; scared that I don’t know what to do, because I don’t.

All I have is what I feel, and it feels good to say I’m scared.

Why am I scared of being normal? Normal doesn’t mean failure. Somebody who’s content—truly content with a “normal” life—might as well be a paragon of greatness.

Still, I look in the mirror and expect more. I’m not satisfied. I compare myself to my friends. Other people my age making money. But who knows what they go through. Maybe the ones who seem to have it all are the ones struggling the most, trying to keep it all together.

I want to be a good person. I try to include others. Not pass judgment. Help where I can. Is that more important than anything else? I think so.

I want to be healthy, whole, on my shit.

But I’m not so innocent, not all the time anyway. I hunger for nights lost in dark places with other sweaty shadows. Those dark places draw emotions from me like the moon draws the sea.

I can’t live in the light forever. I need the darkness, the madness; I want to be desired; I want somebody to hold. I love New York, yet there’s so much going on, it feels like I’m missing out if I don’t party while I’m young. But going to the bars the last couple of times has made me feel disappointed; ashamed, even. I go home alone and it’s like I’ve failed as a human being.

I know that shit means nothing. Maybe it’s just not my scene. I love to rage when the time is right, but I’ve made the best connections when sober living life. Surfing. Traveling. Dancing. Talking to a stranger at a park.

I’m thirty. I still feel so young. There’s this doorway into a higher realm of being, one of calmness and strength, grounding and clarity. I feel caught in the liminal space in between. Maybe that’s why I’m home.

I’ve been surfing, writing, running, spending time with friends and family and watching the World Cup. It’s been such a good trip.

Right now I don’t have New York City to walk around, but I have a car in LA. I’m grateful for a car. It’s fun to roll down the windows and breathe the sea air. There’s nothing so sweet. Play music as loudly as I want and scream the fucking lyrics. It’s one of the few places where you can scream as loud as you can and not feel insane.

Maybe we are just insane. I know I am.

Being back here in Malibu does something to me. I need to be alone to cry like I did by myself on the beach about all these things I can’t understand. LA conjures old emotions but it brings out new ones too, of gratitude and the warmth of being held by the place that I come from and the people that I love.

I get up early and the world smells like jasmine. I make some coffee strong and work on my book before the day rolls away.

It brings me so much joy to create.

Less explaining, more dancing.

I’m on the road, and the car smells like coffee and surf wax with my board in it. Everything’s a little sandy; sunlight pierces through the slate-blue clouds. I’m going to meet my best friend surfing.

Not knowing where I’m going, but knowing where I am, we’re kids on a Saturday morning and this is who I am, this is my life and I fucking love it. Jack Johnson blasting on the radio makes it all okay. There’s no rush, nowhere I have to be but here.

The water’s warm, the waves are clean, the mountains shine behind me, life is good. I’m so blessed to be here, so blessed for my family and friends, so blessed for every breath, this body, and this mess in my mind that’s an adventure to untangle.

The need to be great is really a need to feel loved. Those who can sidestep this insidious race and embrace the marvelous mundane are the great ones.

A morning like this doesn’t cost a thing, but it takes understanding what’s important—what’s real. In the ocean, all the bullshit fades away. Success is to feel like a kid playing.

Being great means taking a week, a month, a lifetime—to just chill at the sea, not needing anybody to know you’re truly happy.

i choose me
hope you choose you
we’re never alone
this voice in my head is entertaining as hell
devising my demise and
saying funny things

i like him
sometimes he drives me sick
but at least with him
i’m picked

if we meet out there i’d choose
you, ‘cause i bet you’re
pretty cool
we can catch a flick or the sunset
or a flight across the world
or just hang out in your
apartment and forget
about the
world

maybe after some time this pair
would split
and i’d get back to knowing my
depths of self again

i like being in a pair
i like being on my own
either way
the salt of the ocean
cleans my wounds

It’s an overcast day
I’m leaving New York to go back to LA
Grateful to return in a couple of weeks
Home at summer solstice; 
The season starts with my family 
In the blink of an eye four months have gone by
It’s wild what’s transpired

My life is here
My things
Dojo
Base.

I’m in JFK and there’s this buzz in the air
Going someplace
The travel day gets me in the travel mood
God, I love an adventure
I want to travel while I’m young
See it all
But I don’t know if by doing so
I’m running
Am I giving it everything? 
There’s shit I wanna accomplish

I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know

It’s rather unmanageable
Tying to understand
Hold onto
Grasp anything at all
I can’t grasp a thing
Catching my breath
Back west in the waves

This morning on the train
I felt so much life
So much love
Bursting from the seams of me
It’s summer
What do I want
I don’t know
Really don’t
Something is pushing me; 
Telling me I’m meant to create
In partnership with existence

I’m in terminal five with some coffee by my side
A lack of something fierce on my mind
And that’s good
Pleasant 
Even though at moments it
Feels like I’m gonna burst out of my skin
The way life touches me
The people and experiences 
To express quells the storm

Summer solstice
Concluded my first season in NYC
I arrived in the cold
It didn’t last long
Soon my dojo was warmed with color and light
Plants found there way through cracks of me
I started to worry about them
But maybe I was just worried about me
Spring blew through the windows of my soul
The plants lost a few leaves
But they had to
To grow
I still don’t know how high I can go

Like a storm I came and went 
Endless sodden East Coast nights 
The brightest days 
What did I learn
To be easier on me
That forced connection need not always be 
When it feels right there’s a light
In your eye
Something dancing in the wind makes
Us come alive

I learned - at least I think - that all that matters
Is how you treat others 
Opportunities to help come from passing back a ball
Lifting up a friend
Holding a hand as a stranger pushes from the floor
I see people as people
Life as life without something needed
To achieve or to reach
So tired of reaching
Unless I’m reaching for somebody who
Needs it

I’ve learned to stay true to myself 
Still trying to discover who that is 
When I’m tested 
When I remain
That is how I know 
My
Essence 
Bedrock 
Ocean of feeling

Spring in the rearview
Grateful I’m not leaving for good
I’ve felt that before and it hurts so much
Saying goodbye to people and places I love so much
Hands pressed together
Said goodbye to my space
Knowing I’ll return put a smile on my face

In the train I hurt for some reason I can’t explain
Because of love
Pouring from the sky

Yesterday was summer solstice
I met with friends
And listened to music in the garden
A celebration 
Sunlight fell and I lay in the dirt
Where it all begins 
I discover who I am in the summer

I’m sitting in my favorite place, Elizabeth St. Garden, about ten minutes from my place in New York City. The wind chimes above me are blowing in the breeze, and there are countless statues and people luxuriating in the peace. It feels like Paris.

It blows my mind that I get to live down here. I never really experienced this part of New York before moving here—Nolita, Lower East Side, Chinatown, East Village. The vibe has that Euro charm but with this American grit and flair.

A few hours later and I’m sitting at a cafe on the street, a non-alcoholic beer on the table, the World Cup on the TV. It’s halftime, and I’m facing the street. I’m so glad to be in a city where I can just sit at a cafe on a charming sidewalk and watch life go by, scribbling for hours. It’s my favorite thing in the world to do.

It’s been over a month since I’ve put the story of my life into words
the break has been nice
trying to experience being here
without the pressure to make something of it
But it’s not just a pressure
it’s a never-ceasing itch to transmute living into majesty
not for you, for me, or for any living being
but a mirror for life to see itself

There’s nothing to prove, especially to myself

So much has happened
I’ve been with my friends
I’ve gone through some shit
I’ve felt so much love, have accomplished some things
and have felt young in heart and body
I feel young in the pit of my soul
a humble appreciation
for each day

It all happens far too fast to try to
grasp or understand
it can be scary
time falling away like sand
through my hands
but when I let go of trying to catch it
I fall with time
I let go of any sense of control
where it becomes bliss to fall
in love
in pain
in the arms of family and friends
hands fall into one another
fingers tickle heart strings
I fall like the tears on my face
I cry for the chance to be weightless
slow down
I fall
with nothing to hold onto
into another sunny day

Thunderheads and blue skies
since we last spoke the weather’s comprised
enveloping the New York City skyline
and ripping through
the days and nights of me
completely stewed in gratitude
I’ve never felt quite like this

The city’s dripped out in World Cup soccer jerseys. It’s beautiful to see people from different countries repping their home. Each country has its swag, its color, its identity, and they meld together on this canvas of personality.

It’s the spirit of the times, and I try to capture it, express it, illustrate what it all means to me, so here’s my vibrant rain-soaked summary.

I think about being a kid. My brother and I were obsessed with soccer. In the early ‘00s, sports had this rebellious swag, baggy kits and players like Thierry Henry and Ruud van Nistelrooy, Kobe Bryant and Andy Irons, my guys. I think about the things I love, and they’re what I loved in childhood.

It was my eight-year-old dream to be a painter.

I’ve been painting
expressing myself through color—
the clothes I wear and
the paint on the canvas
a bleeding spectrum of love and light

I think I liked Picasso because I had this book, Picasso and Matisse, where the artists were animals, a pig and a bull, and when I think about that book I think about curiosity and creation and the man that I’ve become. All I want to do is make something real that elucidates the life I’ve had and the way I see and the man that I hope I can be.

I’m fucking happy.

I’ve never had an apartment that felt so much like me. It’s small, but it’s beautiful and has everything I need. In the summer heat I can’t stay in there very long, but the city’s my living room, so I step outside into the boundless potential of this epic place; can go anywhere, do anything, just start walking, running, biking, flying. Go. Be. Live. See.

I think I’m thriving, like the plants in my dojo that I care about growing. The fruits of my life are sprouting from sowing. Ask me again if I know where I’m going. Naw, but I know where I am cause I feel the wind blowing. Sun glowing. Heart pulsing. Time slowing.

It’s been an absolute adventure to get to where I am. It hasn’t been easy. The challenges have made me closer to my friends and family. We keep getting stronger together, my greatest teachers.

It feels like I’m part of something I can’t truly grasp.

Living in New York at this particular time in history and just being alive. Four months into living here, and I’m meeting the coolest fucking people.

I get up with the sun so I can catch the city’s eyes dust off last night’s rest; do the streets ever sleep? Do they rest their eyes at twilight, or does the moon compose a nightly symphony to walk to, made of golden counters and white-hot shadow?

Tokyo had the same energy, yet I felt like an outsider, there to observe.

Here, I’m a part of it. I guess it’s called community. Seeing familiar faces every day in the neighborhood, saying waddup to my tattoo artist on a street corner in the pouring rain, or May at the laundromat, this tiny woman with no teeth who barely speaks English and makes me laugh every time I drop off my laundry—she feels like she has to give me something extra if I tip her, so I’ve received a couple of toy chupacabras, oranges, and warm sparkling water.

I got the homies I play basketball with, my friends at the gym, and the baristas I’ve gotten to know. The city’s massive, but you live in a neighborhood, and in that neighborhood you start to appreciate the people who imbue it with life. I guess I’m one of ‘em.

I did stand-up comedy after I met a new homie at a block party in my neighborhood. We were listening to jazz on the sidewalk and somehow decided to do stand-up comedy together. A week later, I did my first five-minute set, telling a recent dating story that fucked me up a little. But it’s all good; everything was meant to be.

If we got our friends and our health, we got it all. If we got our breath, our heartbeat, a place to rest our thoughts; if we have a moment’s rest, a hug, a cry, we got it all. We got life, we’re here, and it’s so fucking beautiful.

The breeze, the decadence of ice cream, the lyrics of laughter, the silly look in a lover’s eyes, a nonsensical conversation with a complete stranger, a giggly baby, a pull-up, two, ten, early mornings in the gym and late nights at the pizza shop surrounded by others going through it too, but we’re here, we’re a little fucked up, we’re in the greatest city in the world, happy to be alive.

I walk through the city singing and dancing; it helps me keep moving.

The summer wind’s delicious. When I run down the West Side Highway at six p.m. as the sun’s going down, endorphins pumping, sweating hard in the salty heat and passing countless people, I thank God to be thirty, healthy, strong, alive. It’s like life hasn’t even started, yet so much has happened!

I love living in a place—living a type of life—where every day is a chance to have an adventure. Push myself, learn something new, speak up, say hello. That’s the fucking adventure, man.

I’ve been super into this podcast Pinch My Salt, by this surf legend Sterling Spencer. He’s absolutely hilarious—I call him a medicinal podcaster because listening to him and my other favorite Theo Von is medicine for me.

Sterling talks about turning forty, and how in his twenties all he cared about was winning contests, being sponsored, getting girls, ego-driven worries and cares. But then he had a gnarly brain injury, and everything changed.

He’s realized that all that matters is health, the people we love, and the time we get to spend with them on Earth.

The podcast is about surfing, and it’s interesting how this podcast came into my life at this moment in time. He was a pro surfer back in the day, and in high school my friends were obsessed with him.

They were all surfers and I wasn’t as much, so I didn’t care. But fifteen years later I can’t get enough because he connects me with who I am—a California kid who grew up in the ocean. It connects me with my best friends, my hometown, my brother, and myself. In this city where you can be anyone, Sterling keeps me close to who I’ve always been.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate surfing more and more. I’ve had some of the greatest moments of my life surfing and am craving it right now. But I’ve also realized that basketball is my surfing. It’s my spiritual place, and I’ve been playing more than ever before.

Recently, I was at this park on the Lower East Side. It feels like Hong Kong with big glistening trees, teams practicing kung fu routines, and people playing mahjong and ping-pong. It’s a vibe.

I was shooting around and this kid came up to me and asked if he could shoot. He was like six years old, and I said sure. We played for a bit, and another kid came up and asked the same thing. I said, you two play one-on-one. They’re going at it and I’m the ref, then the kid’s dad came and we played two on two.

It was sick. And then I got into a game of four on four with a bunch of homies. I was hitting threes, kinda going off. They were calling me cheat code!

When I was in chronic pain throughout my twenties, I couldn’t imagine having basketball in my life like this again. Yet I never lost faith.

I’ve had this thought: something’s gotta bring you down, right? You’ll get sick, or injured, or something bad will happen; it can’t just be good and getting better?

But life is just getting better. I don’t want to make myself believe that I have to go down, that I can’t stay up and continue rising; am I scared of thriving? I wanna be the best man that I can be. And that means bringing other people up, helping where I can, being a good person.

I think I’m doing my best, just being myself, making art, working on my passion, and pursuing a new career that I care about.

Last week I passed my certification to be a personal trainer.

I passed the test last Wednesday, which was the start of a pretty insane week. I’ve never studied so hard for a test in my life, a few hours nearly every day for over a month. It’s felt pretty fucking cool to actually learn about the human body, the different muscles and systems and how to train them. The body is insaneeeeeee.

How this stuff is taking place inside every one of us, constant renewal and death, the intricacies of the heart, different chambers and atriums, as if the things we feel in our chest are birds trying to break free, and maybe that’s what they are.

Back musculature is so cool. Layers like the crusts of Earth, stacked from the spine. There’s so much going on at the spine, so many muscle layers in there, all working together in infinitesimal ways every single moment.

I’ve been workin’ on my ass. The ass is everything, the ol’ gluteus maximus—that thing does it all. But I didn’t realize there’s the gluteus minimus and gluteus medius, more on the side of your thigh. I didn’t actually know what the thigh was, but it’s the upper portion of our leg, the quads on the front and the hamstrings on the back.

I made it through a decade of pain to arrive at this place of utmost gratitude; now I’m thankful for every ache, every gain, every chance to get up and train again, because so many people aren’t so lucky.

I’ve never been stronger as an athlete. I get up every day psyched to hit the gym. It’s the only place in the world that truly makes sense to me. When all else fails, that’s where I go. I need to see other people, get the shit out of me physically, and alter my mindset.

The gym has saved me countless times. When I’m going through something emotionally, it’s all there is. I want to make it a safe and healing place for others, too, as a trainer.

I hope to make training my art.

I’m not permanently done with the chronic symptoms I endured for eight years. They still come and go, but their intensity is a fraction of what it used to be, and I know they are mindbody symptoms, not anything to actually do with the breakdown of my body. So I ignore them and they fade; I embrace instead of fear; I keep moving forward.

It’s a gift just to be able to walk. To run. To hoop. To jump. To feel anything at all. I’m using what I learned while in pain to help others who are going through what I’ve been through, and I can already see that I’m affected lives. It’s astounding.

Just to help one fucking person makes it all worth it, because I would have given anything for somebody just to help me when I was in the tunnel. And so many people did. I have infinite gratitude for them.

I went to a Kevin Morby show the night I passed the test to celebrate, and it was cathartic. His new album got me through some shit recently. I love going to shows solo. I can just dance and sing my little fucking heart out. When he sang Badlands, Javelin, and 100,000 back to back from his recent album, I lost my mind.

Morby sang like the devil and I tried to match his energy. We were ripping. It’s hard to put into words what it’s like seeing an artist live whose music got you through a difficult season.

Music holds me together.

Morby is a poet. I see myself on the same level as these artists, creating our thing in different ways, expressing what life means to us. Not that there’s a level—people are just people, and that’s what I hope to see and treat them as. Artists make life a little sweeter for the rest of us. They ease the pain in themselves, and that healing carries on the summer wind.

On Saturday morning in my apartment, I cried listening to a song playing on the speaker, “Quiet Noise,” by Voxtrot. They’ve been one of my favorite bands since high school. I saw them for the first time a couple of months ago here in NY, and it changed my life.

Concerts are everything. I mean I love going with people, yet when solo, it’s just you with this connection to something so personal and profound that only you truly know the depth of, as you’ve heard this song while crying in an empty restaurant, or belting the lyrics in your car, or having sex to, and you’re there, and you can dance, and scream, and cry if need be with nobody there who expects you to keep it together.

Morby healed me—Voxtrot too.

I cried because the song goes:

If you see me, you don’t know the pain I’ve gone through. That smile on my face is because I’m just grateful to be here, alive with you, humbled by every challenge.

I’m better than I’ve ever been, and it’s because of what I’ve overcome.

I sang the lyrics and started to cry and went over to the couch and hugged one of my best friends who was staying with me. He didn’t see it coming. I was drinking cold coffee and we were in our boxers. I’m so fucking lucky.

That night the Knicks basketball team won the playoffs, which was ludicrous. The city felt like a music festival, with everybody in the streets, boomboxes on every corner, revelry and electricity ripping through every crack and seam of the concrete.

I finished the third draft of my book on Japan. It’s my story. I’m so proud of it, and I know it’s only going to get better, but it’s something that nobody but me could create, and no matter what happens with it, I know that I’ve put into it everything regarding my connection with Japan, and I think it’s pretty cool, a story that I’d be interested to read, an inadvertent guide to the country.

I love my life with all my fucking heart. I love that I don’t know where it’s gonna go, or how things are gonna turn out, but I know things will be just fine. Of course there will always be ups and downs, but that’s life, that’s the adventure, that’s what makes it interesting!

I watched an awesome Rich Roll video recently where he talks about slowing down and having a long-term perspective: the tortoise versus the hare.

I’m trying to have that perspective in my own life, seeing personal training as a long-term career and not needing everything to happen now.

I know that I’m moving in a direction because I have these two things that matter to me and I’m pursuing them, writing and training. Every day I do what seem like small acts but are actually everything, because they give my day direction, they fill me with joy, and they progress the plot.

I love writing books. One day I’d love to focus all of my attention just on that. But I know that could take an unlimited amount of time. And so I work on my book most days because it makes me happier, and it’s the one thing I gotta do to get to where I want to go.

Two rules to stay sane:

Don’t compare

Don’t judge

I have no clue where anything is gonna go. My motto has been I ain’t know shit about shit. I just don’t know what’s really going on. So I go to my favorite places, the Russian Baths on the Lower East Side, where I take a cold plunge and bake in the sauna like they’ve been doing for centuries.

I go to the river and lie on the wooden plank at the end of the pier. I started dancing with a group of shufflers the other day when I was on my run with the sun going down, and just dancing at the end of the pier. That sums up my life here. I’m gonna learn how to shuffle.

I’ve never been so sure
That I’m right where I’m supposed to be

i am an outlaw
running through sun-kissed
fields of love and pain
alone in the sunshine
an adventure of the heart and soul
into the deeper parts of me
that scare me in reality
the self is being forged
each challenge, every fucking tear that falls
into this great void of mystery
sharpens my blade
slaying dragon after dragon falling
from the sky

i am an outlaw
running from the dessert of
broken promises
i couldn’t stay because
you said you loved me
to leave is to love myself
when the pain soon fades
all that will remain is love
that’s all i have room for in my pack
stuffed with provisions
my journal book and pen
the things i’ve gathered i let go of
burned away in a cloud of smoke

i run to self soothe
smoke weed on the river
listenin to cudi
try to see the humor
lean back
fill my lungs with eternity
breathe in the sky
i don’t want to hurt you for hurting me
but i can’t deny my own truth
unexpressed
energy goes cold inside of us
no chance to breathe the light
let your darkness shine

god loves me
and i love her
she holds me in her arms of aether
you never know
we could have grown old
but now i’m lying in the grass alone
will probably never see you again
but how am i to know

when i have the thoughts where i ask why
i let them pass like clouds in the sky
in a split second life shatters like a glass castle
i won’t shut myself from love
i’ll invite it in again
because it’s worth it
you’re still on my heart
it hurts but i love you from afar
a dissonance between actions and
the way i feel about you

why does love always hurt until
it doesn’t; until it does something else
open you up from the inside out
although that’s what’s happening to me now
i feel completely pried open heart gasping for air
i could barely sit still could hardly eat
so i have to run

the outlaw running towards the horizon
i don’t want to die
it all fucking scares me
like my pen running out of ink on the pages of my life
thank god i have a backup cartridge
another chance to write my story
for now i have to go alone
chased by the wind
nothing to do but let time pass
i still love you
but i couldn’t stay with you

what is it about walking
moving
i have to stay roaming so that
i may stay in contact with life
reality
myself
my thoughts need somewhere to go
can’t just look at walls
i need movement
music
to ease my heart
physical release emotional peace
i need to see things that are beautiful
and bigger than me
i need to see trees blowing in the sky
and brick buildings in the rain
and nourished flowers
to know how small i really am
to just appreciate every last drop
every fucking breath
the chance to feel it all
maybe if i just keep love in my heart
she’ll feel it too

i’m out here cleansed
by falling rain
talking to my friends
find strength in the pain
i don’t care about a job
i don’t care about money
i care about love, my friends, and uncovering my truth

nobody can deny you your truth
this is another stepping stone into who you’re meant to be
the way you handle this, what you learn
naw, no hard feelings
not in the end, but right now
there’s a mountain of tears in my chest
people make me laugh
i guess that’s why i need to stay outside

i die daily
feels like I’m cleansing
death and rebirth
i look to the phoenix on my arm
thought it was just about my back
but it’s right there
guiding me through life
i have so much to be grateful for
friends and family to call
a body that works
a heart that i refuse to close
thank you for the pain
because when the pain fades
all that will remain are beautiful memories
no hate
forgiveness in my heart
life is too short
still i ride alone

kicked up dust clouds the sun
looking behind me
my tribe forms a pack of fucking steeds
outlaws of love and pain
who aren’t afraid to feel both yin and yang
i fall back
engulfed by their love
serving our hearts
i’d forget my own name just to feel their light
and i’ve been hurt because of it
but it’s always been worth it
i try again, sailing into the thunder
not alone

standing there face to face
puffy eyed from crying
it’s surreal
we turn around and go.

what happens in the time between turning backs and the slow
ceasing of pain is life
and it can be much richer because of that pain
those memories
lessons which sprout like daisies from the ashes

we are the outlaws of love and pain
running through the ashes
rain is on the way

Scotland, Edinburgh, a castle city, cask ale in quiet bars where old men congregate. I’m here with my friends roaming the hills and eating scotch eggs.

We scored a sunny, gorgeous weekend. We’re staying on the outskirts of town in a place called Balgreen. Having coffee in the mornings. Started with a pint on day one at the neighborhood pub, Luckies. There are bagpipes, many laughs, cold wind and clacking cobbles.

I don’t know what really matters in this life, but something tells me time with the lads is up there.

On Monday morning, I open the blinds to a furry cat with big, storm-green eyes, staring back at me. That makes me smile. I was feeling melancholic. A travel day before me. Much on my mind.

Do I wanna make some changes? I don’t even know. What is there to change?

Everything changes so quickly. Good or bad, life just keeps changing.

The mess, the fucking mess; I’m doing my best to keep my head on straight.

Sometimes I wanna yell, scream, the pressure I put on myself that I gotta make it all happen; I’m tired of it. I want a release, but I also want to stop. I want to push, I need to be, I need love, I want to be held, I need to let go, I want somebody to hold, I wanna hear I love you, I wanna say it and feel it too, I’m tired of searching, tired of being alone, tired of all this shit that I hold on my shoulders, I’m alive and feel like I’m doing my best to be alive—the sun is on my face, I want to write a poem, want to make something beautiful like the songs that I love, they’re so beautiful and I wonder what is up with me, all this pain in my body, and I’m close to giving up.

But I won’t. Can’t.

The pain is hard. When I’m stressed, my body feels it. Is the pain opening up something inside of me? Is the pain a door to greater understanding? Is it even really there?

I don’t want to fall back into my old ways, forget the things I’ve learned and just live with pain; I don’t want to live with it, accepting that I’m broken.

The more I fight it, the more the pain fights back.

The pain fights back. So stop fighting.

It’s hard to know what really matters
I miss the souls of my present and past
Shadows now in morning light
Thoughts as sweet as coffee and cake
The further I drift the harder it is
I still miss her
I can’t believe it’s all just over now
How quickly life moves
I’m in a new town
I feel so much love
Afraid of hurting again
I know that everything’s okay.

Sometimes I just feel strange. Life can get me down. It’s tough and it’s beautiful.

Zoom out, kid. You know things will be okay. I miss the people I love. But my spirit is strong. My body is whole. And the mind always clears again in the morning. I guess it’s just being on this plane.

There’s nothing to fear. Just embrace the joy, then. Everything changes in the blink of an eye . . .

Open your eyes and see; be alive. Effortlessly.

I’m feeling better. I’m okay with the way things are. Gratitude is all there is. You’re growing every day, with each experience, especially the difficult ones. Let life pass through you; the consciousness experiencing reality.

You can be a deeply spiritual being and still feel the pangs of being human. Feel all the love, the joy, the excitement, the sadness—let the emotion in and feel it, then let it go.

Everything is playing out exactly as it’s meant to. I have to believe it.

I’m on the train, back in NYC—hope and light restored in me. I don’t know why; before I was full of melancholy. But I’m back, flowing with the wax and wane, sheer excitement for what the day contains.

Coming home to the city of my dreams.

Time to chase them before they chase me.

And so with that, I’m ready for a reset. Time off socials. This newsletter. Drinking.

I need some calm, some peace. I want to focus on my book and getting certified as a personal trainer.

These things excite me. I haven’t lost my fire. Lighten the mental load. Don’t lose hope.

The fire inside will dim, but the fire isn’t out. Keep your spirit lit—let the world roar through you; you’ll find a way. Keep going. Little by little.

Don’t let life take the light from your eyes.

It’s all so good. I’ll see y’all soon after some time away.

in a garden of purple branches
white petals fall from a nameless tree
like snow in gentle fury

even when my sun’s gone cold
i look up to the clouds above
and remember my covenant with mystery

to love her with the weight of the ocean moving
to shower her with attention unconditionally
freestyling life
is there anything wrong with that?
managing the chaos
there’s beauty in the no
not getting what i thought i wanted
but perhaps it was only just a siren
drawing my ship into a sleepy, stormy bay
where i may dock for a week, a month, or merely
just a day
before headed once again
beyond the horizon of open sea
just to be going somewhere
my spirit moving
the trees glistening
everything must be okay
for the world to seem so beautiful

it’s complex and it’s not
i don’t know if i’m just mortally confused
or if it’s all so very simple
follow love and happiness
live like a wizard
exploring this world, this heart of light
and darkness; threads of reality unseen
weaving, weaving

and as i’m weaving sitting here
a kind old woman speaks to me
asks me what it is that furrows my brow
i say it doesn’t sound right when i say it aloud

the birds are chirping
beneath castles of white
spires reflecting sapphire light
what do i have to worry about?
my purpose, my path, financials and love?

what do these concerns demand
when there’s nothing on earth
the wisest of us can truly understand?

she said that it’s normal to feel out of sorts
but worry’s a thief masked as no choice
the most important of cards in the hand we’ve been dealt
look to the heart
the king of our health
take it from me, for time
lends me prescience
this is all just a dream made of
color and happenstance
whimsy and folly and darkness and light
look to the moon in the dead of
the night
when it’s quiet and cold
you can hear your heart beating
that’s all that is needed
to give your life meaning

i look to her eyes
in their emerald pools
i see my reflection
and feel like a fool
for handing my youth
so flippantly away
to chaos and pain
frustration and dismay

she notices my gaze
enlightening me thus
be afraid not of pain
don’t push away love

fret not when you feel lost
i’ve been where you sit now
my mind muddled with questions
the deepest furrow of my brow

looking back it wasn’t easy
but there’s nothing i would change
not a broken heart or too-soon death
nor the aches and pains that come with age
but if i only knew then
what wisdom i’ve found now
i’d put a hand on my heart
feeling nothing but proud

i’m at the end of my story
it was written all along
the meaning of my life
is simply passing on this song
let me tell you, lad — 
happiness is never found
it’s chosen every day
must be given throne and crown

there will be setbacks
of course there’s pain
but life’s too short to not
go dancing in the rain

with that we shook hands and went on our way
i started running beneath the sun
until clouds rolled in i thought i was done
it started pouring
i laughed
kept on running without looking back
thunder roared, lightning struck, people hid
my shoes squelched in the mud
but my hair was tied back and the rain couldn’t harm me
the sun came out and once again dried me
the flowers cried tears of joy
hanging onto rain
as the rain hung onto them
the miracle of everything restored
my spirits once again

Like a star you could hold in your hand, the cobalt sky cradled the stark, primordial symbols. They seemed cut from the blue like puzzle pieces that wouldn’t fit, shining from a distance. Ano didn’t know what the symbols meant, yet they prodded him in his chest, thudded ever more loudly the closer he moved, then started to scream.

Nobody knew what these buildings had been for. Not sociologists or anthropologists, scientists or artists. Not children or their parents, not even the Overseers.

The symbols were found at the highest point of these mysterious, yawning dwellings, buildings that were left to rot in Utopia, the city of glass and diamond. The symbol soared like the last branch on a skyward tree, reaching for thunderheads, begging to be struck.

As much as the Overseers tried with modern technology to expunge what they couldn’t understand, the symbols were immovable. Time was the only force to whittle them away. With time and wind and rain, they softened like glass, left to float in the forgotten sea.

At dusk, these buildings glowed pink. The soot from their spires thickened like molasses. Their windows served as a nook for crows; the glass that was left became nothing but a reflection for passing storms.

When Ano passed these structures he’d avert his gaze, secretly wondering what their inner chamber contained. Sorrow flooded his chest cavity. Sorrow for the world they’d left behind. Sorrow for the beauty that was no more. Sorrow for the meaning that had been lost. Sorrow that he was born when he could no longer die.

What sort of world would construct these sorts of places that would eventually just rot away? Was it cold as it was now, dark and loveless; did the heart beat differently, perhaps more quickly, at a slower pace, or not at all? If time were relative, did the moments move the same, into infinity with no bounds, no reason to slow? Did a day last a lifetime, or could a lifetime pass in a single day, when with somebody who made rationality decay?

Ano wondered what life would mean if it could end. When nobody died, they merely left. They grew tired and eventually would rot, opting to switch their system to autopilot, leaving the world without leaving it.

There was no reason to die. And that meant there was no reason to live.

Utopia was all Ano had ever known. The Caves, as the structures were known, were scattered about the endlessly expanding metropolis. Overseers had excavated the biggest ones in other parts of the glass planet, Earth. The remains of the Caves appeared to have variety, but the basic premise remained: tall structures, sharp spires, big windows constructed beneath the symbol, as if the structure itself had no purpose but to raise the symbol to the wilderness of sky, and the sky held it for something, or someone, to see.

The only time Ano ever felt anything at all was walking by the Caves. Why were they Caves? They were vast, hollow, empty, at least, that’s what his father told him. As a kid, Ano’s father would tell him that Caves were where culture was born. There was art on the walls. Music filled the hollowness. Empty space was steeped in dancing light. Caves had been that place since the beginning of time—an unfathomable distance, an abyss.

Ano never discovered how his father knew this. One day the Daggers came, and they took him. Knowing, of course, led to his Disconnection.

Ano felt alone in the world. He was scared of the things he felt. He wished that time would have an end. One day, walking by a Cave, he went inside for the very first time. He started to cry. He always wondered what it would be like to know you’re going to die. Would you tell people things you’d always wanted to say? Where would you go? How would you live? Centuries ago, the ability to live forever brought about the death of meaning; Utopia began, and culture ceased.

Would knowing that life’s final day was looming make the air taste sweeter? Would we live with urgency? No. Instead, we shut down. Continue in a daze, the spirit eviscerated, the body moving, going through the motions of existence, rotting like the Caves.

Ano heard something. Sobbing. He stepped further into the darkness; the noise was an echo of a feeling somebody had forgotten. But it was more than an echo. Seated far away on one of the broken benches inside the hollow chamber was the silhouette of a man.

It was all shadows and dust, but the man was real. He was crying. Just then the evening sun fell through a hole in the ceiling and illuminated the inner chamber. There were more of them. A woman. A child. An old man with a walking stick. All were seated in the row. The Cave was full of people. They were all shedding tears.

Come, said the old man. Take a seat with us.

Ano approached them and sat down. He felt something in his chest he’d never known. He started sobbing, an uncontrollable force bursting from his chest like a broken faucet. Tears. Glorious tears. The older man patted him on the back.

What’s happening? Ano asked.

You’re safe.

And so he cried, releasing the weight of two hundred and ten years. He cried for those who lost their soul. He cried because of pain and he cried because of joy. He cried and cried, his shoulders soft, his heart easing, his ears cold, his memories true. And when he was done, he looked around at the others. They shone in the setting sun, the tears on their cheeks like dew on autumn wind. For the first time since his father shed his tales, Ano felt like he knew life.

Outside, he felt the piercing cold ripping through the confines of his soul. He actually felt it. The burn of the wind stung his face and brought more tears to his eyes. The wind ripped down a corridor of glass and soughed through the perfectly ordered army of self-piloted vessels. Ano hated order. Hated this world.

But maybe there were more like him, others seeking something they didn’t understand, others who yearned for what the world lost long ago, but that, in places like the Cave and perhaps elsewhere, still rippled on the seams of existence like the tiniest waves on the crest of a pond. There was still light in the cold, gray world. And if he couldn’t find it, he’d have to be it. If he couldn’t be it, he’d only have to feel it.

He started to walk, the bitter winds nipping at his ankles, threatening his chest, urging him to quit. Turn on autopilot. Stop feeling.

Something was following him. He turned back. The silver eyes of a Dagger. He started to run. He knew it was in vain. In three swift moves the Dagger was on top of him, holding Ano to the ground. The soul-less bot ripped open the man’s tunic and held the knife of his hand over Ano’s solar plexus, the Dagger’s knifed hand the only key to Disconnection.

You know what must be done, said the Dagger. You entered a Cave and returned to our world, having seen.

Ano smiled. Those people in there—they remained in there. They cried because they felt something nobody in Utopia could ever grasp. Life flashed before his eyes. His father. His mother. The only love he’d ever known. The only memory worth holding onto. Whatever awaited him on the other side of the Disconnection would be solace. The knife slid into his chest, and Ano shot like lightning into the wilderness above, the weight of it all evaporating in an instant, meaning restored.

Out of the blue, the little girl says Let me tell you my favorite colors.

The dad doesn’t hesitate; he just starts guessing.

The kids—a boy and a girl—are on scooters.

The dad is trying to get them to ride in the direction that they’re walking.

He says, Look, it’s like a racetrack.

Maybe the little boy registers it; maybe he doesn’t.

But the dad is using his imagination. That goes into the subconscious of both the dad and the boy.

In the background, the little girl says to the mom, White.

Oh, white, she replies. That’s a nice color.

Yeah, glittery, sparkly, white.

I just sit there, smiling.

It must simplify things, seeing life through your children’s eyes. How do we lose that? Why don’t we just out of the blue say Do you want to know my favorite color?

Is it fear? We think life must be more serious than that? Or maybe that it has to be?

Our imagination is everything. Our imagination turns reality into art. If we lose our imagination, we lose the point.

We’re on this Earth for a reason. Maybe it’s just to evolve as souls. Maybe it’s just to have some fun. Not in a purely hedonistic sense, but rather to do our best in life and to have fun with it no matter where our path leads. To feel failure and heartbreak, victory and success, friendship and loss, sickness and health.

To feel love.

The human experience is a means for our soul to evolve.

What a ride.

As adults, we act as if it’s a given that we’re here, on this rock, spinning in complete and utter darkness. Of course that’s the case. We’re so caught up in the game we think the point is winning, when the point is to have the chance to play at all.

Kids aren’t thinking; they’re just playing the game of life. Shouldn’t that tell us something? That when a human being comes into the world, all they want to do is play? Heed their curiosity? Create?

We grow out of this, subsumed by culture, standards, expectations, beliefs. And then we think we’re too smart, too mature, too important to act like a kid again, when that’s all we’re really here to do.

We grow, we die, we come full circle.

Some people say it’s selfish to bring a child into this world. So what if it is. Maybe kids are supposed to teach us what it’s all about. We need them more than they need us, if only we would let them be.