[dog mountain (me,too)]

did you also feel eternal, standing on the summit with the whole world laid out before us, as if it were eden only a single day old?
did you feel invincibletoo, flying down the mountain one behind the other, startling the forest silent with the thundering of our feet pounding the earth?
did you realize, as i did, that life is only rarely this good, that it doesn't get much better?
could you have loved me then as much as i loved each one of you?

i just found out there's no such thing as the real world, just a lie you've got to rise above.

(they love to tell you, "stay inside the lines." but somethin's better on the other side.)

so i realized that i have absolutely no idea what i'm going to do with my life. well alright so i think i've kinda known this for a while now but i've all of a sudden become quite cognizant of this very fact. that's prolly the first time i've ever used the word cognizant. you know what the problem is? i know all the things that i don't wanna do do in life and there are probably too many of them but even so there are way too many choices left over. it's like when you're finally struck with the idea that you can do anything, anything, man it just knocks you over, lays you flat and tramples you, beats into you this understanding that your life is completely and entirely your own and there are more possibilities open to you than you can even begin to grasp. and that's just crazy, it's too much, it's like the greatest gift we could ever have been given. and what do you do with that, where do you go from there, when you've literally been handed the world and can do with it whatever you like? and on top of all this, we've only got one life to live and that, boys and girls, is the great human tragedy. it's that we spend our whole life trying to figure out how to live and we somehow fumble through it and at the very end that has to be enough, it has to because we don't get another shot. we don't get to see what happens if we'd just done one little thing differently and man i dunno why this always gets to me but why should anyone ever regret anything or feel like they don't have a choice or be sad for any longer than necessary to realize how good it feels to be happy again. it's such a shame to waste even a second of it and that there are so many things fighting to hold you back -- time and money and needs and wants and other people and the fact that we need to sleep and pee and worry, because think about how much time we waste sleeping and peeing and worrying. it's my curse that i think about these things way too much. but then maybe it's also my blessing.

so anyway, i've decided that i'm just gonna make it my life's goal to try and learn how to live, not just to exist but really live, to figure out what that means and to have way too many good times and see everything and do everything and be everything, not to knock anything ever again until after i've tried it like at least twice (only definitely with some exceptions, ie. killing myself, and perhaps some postponations, ie. getting knocked up), not to have too many heavy days anymore, and not to let any of those damn ridiculous things get in the way. i will never make money an issue ever again. and i'm not gonna ask permission anymore. dude because i was thinking about it the other night and there's not really a way to dig yourself into a hole you can't get out of anyway. i'm serious, think about it.

(i am invincible as long as i'm alive.)

[wishing for no compromises on a dollar bill for the fountain]

chicago is a train station that stretches across infinity and we're running through it breathless gasping laughing chasing the last train home.

it brought me back to life.

it didn't last long enough, it could have lasted forever. they are my best friends and my favorite people in the world and they don't know it because how could they, how do you tell them that they make you feel just a little bit better about life and living and not knowing where it'll take you and having that be okay. and i never have the words but those times when they're not really needed because it's all understood are the best little bits of life, to just exist for a moment with someone and feel your dreams become a little bit more real, that's pretty incredible and you don't forget it, maybe never.

it's hard to return to the tensions and the rush and all the things that need to be done and wouldn't life be so much better if we didn't trivialize any little bit of anybody else, if we wanted absolutely nothing more than to watch everyone chase their dreams and maybe help each other along a little bit, if we could just be purely happy for a person just for wanting something regardless of where that puts us

(you'll be with me next time.)

okay, so alright, we're all invincible, you know, you and me and everyone we love, we're all young and strong and beautiful and unbreakable and the world belongs to us and we will never die.

i feel it in the air, the summer's out of reach.

yesterday was the most perfect quintessential spring day i think there ever could be. i'm warning you up front, it was the kind of day that makes me go on and on and on about everything and nothing and how it was all so amazing. but oh man, you couldn't've slept in even if you tried, the sun was everywhere and everything was glowing and you could tell it was gonna be a great day. eight o'clock sipping tea outside in just a t-shirt and the sun's already so warm you can just tell. the rooster's crowing and our little baby easter chicks are cheeping their little hearts out and the horse is actually neighing to be let out, they all just want a little patch of grass and some sunshine, which isn't that all any of us need anyway? that's all we should need. and you can hear all the birds singing, they're singing because they know it's gonna be a day like we haven't had in a long while, they've been up already while you've been sleeping and underneath it all is this sharp silence, this distinct stillness that makes you want to never move and just drink it all in forever.

something happened, something changed, the night before and through the day -- all of a sudden, there were flowers on the cherry trees and with every hour more and more appeared until the whole orchard was in full bloom and then the bees, the faint hum of the bees doing their sweet work high above your head. the neighbor's dog runs over and he's decided overnight to start losing his winter fur in big clumps that the breeze floats all over the yard, and did the birches already have their brilliant yellow-green leaves yesterday, i swear there are new tadpoles in the pond, and the ladybugs finally moved out of the house, and the maples the maples are opening.

no work today, nope this is hammock hangin' weather, this is sun on your face weather, this is the type of weather in which it's sinful to stay inside because the day isn't going to be long enough, no not even close. i dug some beds because all of this means the veggies'll hafta go in soon only i wasn't very efficient, no because i had to see the views and walk down to the creek and investigate what looked like a little nest in an irrigation pipe. and aw, there's a dark little mouse in there with cute big ears and she's looking up at me so adorably and why won't she run away, and then i saw the babies, they're pink and they're hairless and they're helpless and so unbelievably small that they had to have just been born and one stretches out a tiny little paw with such tiny little fingers and that right there is life my friends. and there's one more reason i'll make for a terrible farmer because yeah the mice they chewed through some of my little radishes and cabbage and beets and they'll eat more if they can but i don't have the heart to say that something that small and beautiful and alive shouldn't have the chance to live and call it a nuisance and cowardly lay out some poison so it can die what's probably a slow and painful death from the inside, could you sit and watch it? and you can't trick life or treat it unfairly or deny it that chance, at the very least that fighting chance, because we'll all do anything to live because it's all we've got and because it's as beautiful as those infinitely tiny intricate little fingers. us humans we don't play fair but maybe it's not supposed to be easy, no more cheap tricks.

the swallows have come back and so have the hummingbirds. the frogs have gone deafeningly mad. i swatted the very first mosquitoes. and it was the first night after their long sleepy winter that the bats flew out, flew out somehow from their nooks in the house, from inside the walls of my new bedroom where you only rarely hear a rustle of wings or a faint squeak letting you know that they're there. you should have seen the bats diving and swooping as if it were some kind of dance as if they'd just discovered that they could fly. yellow dandelions speckle the lawn all over where there wasn't a single one a week ago, everything's living, everything's growing, especially the weeds, so so many weeds. in the barn i hear some very faint high tiny sound and i have to listen to the silence for a minute before i hear it again and then i know and i climb to the top of this huge stacked mound of hay, way up to the top near the ceiling and at the very highest part there's that wild orange cat and for once she doesn't run away and her head's just barely sticking out and she's hissing at me. and when i come back later, she just watches from farther away as i climb up again and there they are, seven of them. seven of the tiniest most adorable kittens i've ever seen, they have such soft downy fur already and they're all different colors but their eyes haven't opened yet and they're so so so small, so very small and boy that took the cake for just about the cutest thing i have ever seen.

you know, i sometimes think wonder know that you can't possibly see what i see when i see all this. they're just trees, it's only some hills, magda that's a bug, and yeah of course it's all very pretty and maybe nothing more. and i honestly dunno what it is, if it's silly or cheezy with a 'z' or overly idealistic but it's the realest thing i know and so i'll say it and i'll say it again and i'll say the same thing over and over for the rest of my life. but you can tell when you're doing something right you know how things are meant to be when you feel it all so much and when it aches inside you and when you wouldn't change a single thing.

did you know -- it felt like i was biking through paradise on the way home from the second farm, the best bike ride of my life. paradise is nothing more than a feeling and i got it from those rolling hills and that clean air and those vast wheat fields that are that perfect rich new shade of green. home is nothing more than the place you love most, the place where you feel you belong. i've moved out here for good, because i love it more than i can say, the sunrises and the sunsets and all the time before and after and in between. the suburbs, they're just a compromise. so much in life seems to be a compromise but i can't do it, because you shouldn't ever have to ask for permission because we don't have dreams just to write 'em off like that (oh that would be too cruel) because life's meant for living, didn't you know? and just that's enough. and also it's yours.


(a little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never look back.)

oh my god, i just got spam email titled "prepare your love wand for the next battle."

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.

i won't grow up. i won't lose that sense of wonder, i won't bow down to expectations or obligations, i won't learn true responsibility or compromise or sacrifice... i just won't. there's a lot of honor in those things, if honor's your thing. but i guess i'm not so sophisticated or mature, and i don't think i ever will be. i can already tell it'll make me a bit of a failure in some people's eyes. eventually, you'll see. but i'm not aching for that kind of success. i just wanna live. as much as i possibly can, and be happy.

open your eyes... do you think annie dillard could have written pilgrim at tinker creek had she waited ten more years? have you read the little prince? childhood was the only glimmer of light in ivan ilych's entire life! i'm gonna keep holding on. i'm going to keep avoiding real jobs and saying ridiculous, nonsensical things and being a bit of a silly being and everyone's going to keep outgrowing me but i'll just make friends with the neighborhood kids or something. i'll corrupt everyone else's kids.

seems like kids these days have life and responsibility just kinda thrust upon them and they have to grow up fast and find a way to deal. but they don't seem to mind because everyone's itching to get there, to throw back a few, to start making the big bucks, to get in on the gadgets and have their own this or that... kids doing things kids shouldn't be doing, dealing with things they shouldn't have to worry about... kids having kids. does hitting 20 mean you're not a kid anymore? don't kid yourself. (pun!) i think there's a critical moment in a person's life when they decide they don't wanna be a kid anymore, and then they're not. but i'm not sure you can ever go back after you've hit that point. so why hurry?

i may not ever birth children of my own but i'll steal em instead and raise them laughing and dancing, teach them to love life and befriend spiders, let em have a puppy or two no matter how much havoc they'll cause, and we'll sing and scream and run like we were meant to. we'll jump in puddles and play in the mud and make enormous messes and eat dessert before dinner, we'll spend entire days playing hide and seek and freeze tag, we'll make up all kinds of ridiculous stories and sleep under lopsided forts in the living room and fingerpaint all over the walls and blow off everything for weeklong beach trips. and then they'll know all the important things like how to jig and how fast they can run and how to make things grow and they won't have any bad dreams only ones in which they're flying.

i have too many opinions. or they're too strong. i'm starting to feel as if there isn't a place for me as i am in the real world and something's gotta give. either i've got to change or i've got to change the world. and i'm not convinced it's me that needs the changing.

mother i lost it, all the fear of the lord i was given.

oh man, don't people ever get tired of sayin' "one day"? keep figuring over and over i should be just doin' what it is i wanna be doin' and dontcha know it's a relief to be a nobody. you know hindu philosophy is based on doing what you want without holding back because you'll realize in the end that it's all empty anyway. why then, would you do anything that's empty to begin with when there's everything else you someday coulda shoulda done. there comes a time when one asks even of shakespeare, even of beethoven, is this all? so maybe we shouldn't be stuck in dr. seuss. i might be content forever living in a tent, sleeping in a hammock, stack o' books in the corner, and pretty view outside, maybe. we'll see. dropped all that jazz because life's too short to do anything useless. that's why you gotta have your dance parties and one day we'll all be infinite.

cynda and ian got me a ticket to the iron & wine concert for my bday. i'm pretty sure my life is complete. or will be on december 2nd anyway. (you ever hear the live at bonnaroo album? ...it makes you believe in great things.)

(mother, don't worry.)

i ain't no monkey but i know what i like.

today i was told by a bus driver that beaverton was the new fareless square, gave a high five to some guy in a fuzzy turtle costume, got falling elm leaves stuck in my hair, was asked for money to fund some "alcoholic relief" for a group of streetkids, saw an elvis impersonator singing under the "pod" outside powell's, met the same guy at the farmer's market who gave us a tour of his organic farm down in the corvallis area just yesterday, and witnessed a dude with a green mohawk pull a folding chair out of nowhere and make himself comfortable in the packed streetcar. where else but in downtown portland, right?

it's lovely, it's home, it's not the same.

and if you wanna be free, be free.

stickin' it to the man.

portland, oregon, u.s.a. (the one thing that stays mine.)

so... portland rocks the socks off every other place in the world, and that's all i have to say about that.

europe was great. europe is great. it's amazing and there's more to see than anyone ever could. i've got a boatload of postcards, quite a cache of photos, and some memories i wouldn't trade for anything. you see a little bit more of the world and you kind of start to understand that everything's not black and white, good or bad, pretty or ugly. people are the same everywhere, a lot of things are universal, and borders are only lines on maps and maybe in some cases fences placed there by people who thought they had the authority. most of the things i learned though, i wasn't really expecting to and they weren't really specific to any place or time.

it was a wonderful experience in being a tourist. i toured cities and saw the sights and rode trains and consulted maps and stayed in hostels and spoke in foreign languages and people-watched (and i didn't get mugged and cynda didn't get run over by a moped - success!) ...and i had a lot of fun doing it and it was beautiful and it was truly awesome, but now that all is said and done, i'm not sure i'd do it again. i don't think i'd go back to europe again as a tourist. maybe next time as a pilgrim or a cyclist or a student or a worker or an inhabitant, maybe. if i'm going anywhere as a blatant tourist, it'll be a road trip across america. (do you realize what an incredible land we live in right here in the u.s. of a?) it's gonna happen.

i love being home, sleeping in my own bed, being able to see friends... i hate having to say goodbye to people. or not saying goodbye, sometimes it's better that way but sometimes it's even worse.

i was listening to some u2 (yes, u2) that brought back the summer after senior year. do you remember that? it was probably the best summer i ever had and maybe ever will have, who knows? i'd like to think it just gets better, even if we see so much less of each other, even if people leave and may not come back, even if we all decide somewhere else could be home at least for a little while, even if we do get older. just as long as we pray that we don't lose our memories as we age, and we'll all float on.

oh man, we're always in such a hurry to start something new or to go off to someplace or to finish the semester or, you know, to grow up... and then we end up missing our childhood or that crazy high school era or our carefree college days. it doesn't make much sense to live that way. and that's the way it goes, i always feel like i've got plenty of time to do the things i want to do and talk to the people i want to talk to, but somehow all that time slips away and nothing ever gets done. it's a dangerous mindset to get into, thinking you have all the time in the world, because that's not living life to the fullest. people tend to live as if they're never going to die and then they end up dying without ever having lived.

i heard it once put that the greatest sin of all is regret. there are so many things i would have regretted not doing if i hadn't done them and so many things i would never have done if i hadn't thought i'd regret them later. i've gotten crap from people for some of them and there will always be people who have problems with the things i or anyone else for that matter do or believe. hell, i've given people crap when i shouldn't have, but what do i know? i really don't know anything about anyone other than me and i don't have the answers and i'm not always right. humility's one of the hardest things to learn, i think.

hey, just don't live for anyone else and don't do anything you don't wanna and don't let 'em walk all over you just because they can. and when all else fails, just do it so you won't regret it later.

(what're you hoping for?)

wien, österreich.

so vienna definitely takes the cake.



the palaces are a little more regal, the bike lanes are a little wider, the people a little friendlier, the architecture a little more impressive... vienna's got the oldest zoo and the oldest ferris wheel in the world. the zoo was really cool, we saw some very, uh, interesting things.


stayed up all night the first night, then walked about the city at six in the morning... everything was so quiet, it was real nice. checked out some parks, napped under some trees, hit up an amusement park and a couple of palaces, a few restaurants, a botanical garden, a couple of churches, a zoo, various metro lines, a revolving cafe up on a tower (with an amazing view of the city) and the longest nap ever once we finally got to our beds. good thing, too, because we had a night train and a second class sleeper car is no party.


i'm definitely gonna have to go into sculpture you know, so i can sculpt myself a nice ol' fountain like the huge one we saw at the palace belvedere. except mine'll have a roll out water slide and it will be too cool for school. you'll see.



one of the coolest things was going to this museum centered on the work of hundertwasser, an artist with a very cool philosophy who undertook a good amount of architectural projects... houses with rolling, hilly floors or built into the ground with grass roofs, trees growing out of windows... interesting guy, very creative. he was a big environmentalist.


"the straight line leads to the downfall of mankind. but the straight line has become an absolute tyranny. the straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is the line which does not exist in nature... any design undertaken with the straight line will be stillborn. today we are witnessing the triumph of rationalist knowhow and yet, at the same time, we find ourselves confronted with emptiness. an aesthetic void, desert of uniformity, criminal sterility, loss of creative power. even creativity is prefabricated. we have become impotent. we are no longer able to create. that is our real illiteracy." (i dug the guy.)

praha, česká republika.

prague! it’s gorgeous. (seriously magda, how many cities are you going to describe in the same way? i have an extensive vocabulary, for sure.)

okay, so the cool thing about prague is that it’s all so old school. it’s probably only actually the part that we’ve been in, but this city has way more of that quaint european charm… not so much that’s modern, but it’s great. the streets are almost all cobblestone! (quite a bumpy ride on a bike, let me tell you.) and the river that cuts through the city isn’t wimpy, either.

but at the same time, the amount of tourists here is overwhelming. yeah, it’s summer and yeah, i know i’m one of ‘em, but it’s like they all congregate in these little streets and then you can barely get through, but a couple of blocks farther, and it’s unbelievably quiet. this time i mastered the art of weaving through pedestrians on a bicycle. like a madwoman.

prague is very... european. charming churches and an uber-cool 15^th century astronomical clock and a castle on a hill and beautiful bridges... the st. charles bridge is probably the most well-known, because it’s closed to everything but pedestrians and that’s where all the local artists set up their stands, with everything from jewelry and photographs and crafts and paintings… and there’s always different musicians out doing their thing as passersby toss change in their upturned hat. my favorites were these four guys on an accordian, a bongo, a guitar, and a bagpipe-type thing. they were damn good. that’s gonna be us one day raising money for some wild road trips, yeah? (dude, bagpipes!)