realization that just blew my mind: there are so many good people out there... honest, good-hearted, unaffected, multifaceted, interesting people that i will never meet. maybe not so virtuous as that. all of them uniquely human. all of them fascinating beyond belief. there are some i'll pass by on the street with nothing but a glance, to never know. and there are some that i will cross paths with, that i may have already met, already overlooked. what if the girl sipping her tea at the corner table in the window dreams of mountains and lakes, fields and trails, dunes and oceans? maybe she has a habit of climbing up grassy hills so she can roll down them. what about the cashier at powell's who rung up that stack of used books... does he take midnight walks? maybe his life goal is to learn to surf. and the dude on the max who gave me a piece of his art... does he keep verses torn out of library books under his pillow? will he ever make it to san francisco?

what about the people in croatia, in argentina, india, haiti, australia, kenya... what if i found my best friend in thailand or iceland? what stories do they have to tell? how many of them could i let myself fall in love with? which one will teach me the most about life? how many people will i laugh with? who else sleeps in a hammock? does any one of them collect kites?

it's just chance, you know, that you'll marry that girl, that you ended up with that guy, that you met that person that day, that you took that class that changed your life. how can it not be, when we move in such small circles? we convince ourselves of this idea that there's only one person for us, one soulmate, or one path we're meant to take, and that everything that happens happens for a reason. but there's no way. there's no way there's anything but infinite possibilities there is so much beauty in this world that it's easy to overlook it to sit and think of unknown friends that could maybe possibly be dear to me almost breaks my heart.

i wonder how many people read thoreau, thought he was a genius of a kind, and promptly forgot about him. i wonder how many books i've read that i thought were amazing but didn't really do anything about and now i can't really remember.

what i really wonder is why we have walk-in closets. and why they're full. and why we buy new stuff when the old's still perfectly good. you think maybe it's possible in this day and age of running gushing water and powdered detergents to live in 10 articles of clothing, no more? you think maybe that here in the land of paved sidewalks and grassy lawns 3 pairs of shoes might be more than enough?

i read that in the jesuit volunteer corps, you're obliged to live on no more than $40 a month. i wonder what kind of food i could get at the co-op for $10 to last me a week. and yet it's silly that i'd even think i'd go hungry.

someone has to sweat long and hard for each one of us to enjoy (or not enjoy) our fine standard of living. us college kids, we're all so broke with our converse shoes and our computers and our cell phones and mp3 players. us and our crappy cars. forced to live off of frozen entrees and cheap pasta and boxed cereal and greasy pizza and starbucks coffee. this crappy heated carpeted powered housing we're stuck with... really, we've got it so damn rough. if even half of the world could have what we have (which they can't, because we had it first and there's not enough to go around, and if you can afford a mansion on a hill and a vacation home in hawaii and a computer or two and a car and a college education for each of your kids, why shouldn't you grab it?), we'd need a second planet.

piety and conformity to them that like,
peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like,
i am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!

-whitman, by blue ontario's shore.

...it had been my hope to write a work of some length in which i intended to bring closer to people the grandiose and mute life of nature, that they might love it. i wanted to teach people to listen to the pulse of nature, to partake of the wholeness of life and not forget, under the pressure of their petty destinies, that we are not gods and have not created ourselves but are children of the earth, part of the cosmos. i wanted to remind them that night, rivers, oceans, drifting clouds, storms, like creatures of the poet's imagination and of our dreams, are symbols and bearers of our yearning that spread their wings between heaven and earth, their objectives being the indubitable right to life and the immortality of all living things. each being's innermost core is certain of theses rights as a child of God, and reposes without fear in the lap of eternity. everything evil, sick, and diseased that we carry in us contradicts life and proclaims death. but i also wanted to teach men to find the sources of joy and life in the love of nature. i wanted to preach the pleasures of looking at nature, of wandering in it, and of taking delight in the present.

i wanted to let mountains, oceans, and green islands speak to you convincingly with their enticing tongues, and wanted to compel you to see the immeasurably varied and exuberant life blossoming and overflowing outside your houses and cities each and every day. i wanted you to feel ashamed of knowing more about foreign wars, fashions, gossip, literature, and art than of the springs bursting forth outside your towns, than of the rivers flowing under your bridges, than of the forests and marvelous meadows through which your railroads speed. i wanted to let you know what a golden chain of unforgettable pleasures i, a melancholy recluse, had found in this world and i desired that you, who are perhaps happier and more cheerful than i, should discover even greater joy in it.

above all, i wanted to implant the secret of love in your hearts. i hoped to teach you to be brothers to all living things, and become so full of love that you will not fear even sorrow and death and receive them like brothers and sisters when they come to you.

-hesse, peter camenzind

half a year until summer and i'm already itching for it... i didn't make much happen this winter. i should have. i will.

we'll all get scooters and hammocks and kites. we'll camp by the ocean and swim in lakes and climb trees. we'll lie on our backs in the sunshine and eat vegetables straight out of the earth. we'll pretend that childhood is still upon us, play all those games we've gotten too old to play. we'll catch ladybugs and chase butterflies and make sandcastles and pick flowers. we'll take a train and a road trip, we won't know where we're going and we won't know when we'll get back. we'll dance around a bonfire and sleep under the stars. we'll hike for miles and miles and bike for even more. we'll have picnics under giant trees and wake up early for sunrises and build a treehouse and go iceblocking and raft down a river. we'll have pillow fights and throw snowballs and roll down hills and run real fast, just because we can. we'll breathe deep and sing loud and dance and dance and dance.

you know... it's the little things in life. i've been saying that a lot lately, but it's true.

and we're all slowly growing up, but we're still really just kids.