Found my slice of paradise on the southern coast today.

Although I felt ill prepared at first: cycling in my climbing shoes (the only shoes I found tossed in my car),
no helmet, and nothing but a large body of salt water at the end of the trail to quench my thirst for refreshment,

perhaps what I was most unprepared for was this small patch of sand I stumbled across at the edge of the lagoon, much unlike the pristine white sandy beaches with ******* clad women that embody San Diego County, this slice of shoreline is squeezed by a motel parking lot to the north and tightly packed condos to the south and seems rugged and uncombed, like an abandoned lot the city had intended to develop before the recession but instead left it to sit, collecting seaweed and mangy seagulls.

Slightly windy, home to an unwelcoming rip current, and the view of the freeway not far behind me, this was paradise. My unkempt paradise.

Although a few scattered families littered the sand, who somehow felt like intruders to a secret jewel I had just discovered, I still felt that this was my new patch of sanity. I felt a strong urge to keep it a protected secret matched with a sense of pride in finding it and the desire to share this hidden sense of serenity with all my friends on the central coast; bring them here to christen it with the free-spirited energy I had unwillingly left behind.

But instead I left that decision for another day, rolled out my yoga mat I had haphazardly strapped to my back, and started my Vinyasa flow with a view of the Pacific Ocean; a sputtering plane engine was my mental Sanskrit, the tide my metronome for breath.

Even the stares of my fellow beach-dwellers wouldn’t deter me from this spot. I had left my mark near the lifeguard tower, a skinny path from my tires and a rectangular imprint of my mat that said: I'll be back. Perhaps what sealed the deal was the sign I passed as I pedaled away: Bicycle Friendly Community. Yep, maybe this could be a home away from SLO.

Happiness is:

Paul Simon playlists,
Sleeping outside on warm nights,
Cuddling and talking in hushed voices,
Clean sheets and blankets,
Jacuzzis in the rain,
Late night phone conversations that you never want to end,
Taking a risk... on you.

Learning a new craft
Creating something artistic and functional

Happiness is moving into a new room.
A new view with a blank canvas, free of any past procrastination and eager for a fresh painter's perspective:  new ideas, new expression,
Representing a shatter of the old routine and a chance for change : a new path from the bed to the closet, creating a new vessel for photos and keepsakes,
Old pictures with new nails, new dimensions, new materials, new.... thought:

... writing. Happiness is writing.
Pulling a string of words out of my temple like yarn and knitting them into a permanent form. Creating something lasting rather than letting them float around in a soupy mix....only to dissolve and disappear.

Happiness is tea.
Tea and biscuits with conversations,
Sharing these with good friends that you haven't seen in a while.
Dance parties in the kitchen,
Using pots and spoons as instruments, and sugar as the fuel.

Sharing a moment with someone.
A moment that you never thought you'd experience again,
A feeling that is so liberating you feel like this "you and i" could never get old,
Unless it meant sitting in rocking chairs 60 years down the road,
Because we'll never be old until we can't walk anymore,
Because as long as we can walk we will wander for miles until we see everything there is to see and we do it together with eager hearts,
And even when we can't walk with the earth beneath our feet we will walk through our memories,

Reliving the time we walked for 10 miles on steep paths lined with redwoods until we were so exhausted I made you run the last 500 yards to make sure we didn't give up and we jumped in the water just to feel the rush of adrenaline as the cold water made us gasp for air like we just discovered oxygen for the first time and we were so high.... High on nothing but endorphins and nutella from the packs on our back.  

Happiness is wrapping my legs around yours like vines,
so tight they hold like roots.
Holding us to this ground, anchoring us to this feeling, to this moment...

Sometimes I hate being a girl
My emotions want to hate you
My mind wants to know you inside and out
My heart wants to love you, wants to be with you
It’s a battle of the being
Like conflicting souls, fighting in the highest courts, like lawyers they all know the truth but they don't agree

You say you can’t be emotionally supportive right now;
that you need to focus on your own life
Well my emotions don’t need your support they prefer to erase you from my life

So you can keep your separate life,
you can focus on it all you want...
My mind wants to understand your life  
My heart wants to be in your life

The worst part about all of this is that I am attracted to your body, mind, and soul
and when the soul gets involved it captures you and loses you – in emotions
And now, now that you want to “take things off the burner”,
now that you “don’t want to invest too many emotions before someone gets hurt”,
My emotions want to yell at you, they want to scream,
they wonder why you would ever want to destroy a connection so beautiful and pure
But my mind, my mind understands where you’re coming from,
that it’s simply the timing that was wrong for both of us, not the connection
And my heart, my heart wants the best for you

And just as I reach this realization: That while it hurts, it’s logical
My emotions begin to hate logic,
wish that we had more time to explore each other, to understand each other, to be with each other – that somehow, we could make it work and make it last
But my mind, my mind wants to face reality and to protect my heart
And my heart is fragile, always has been

Sometimes I hate being a girl
I hate how fast my emotions get involved, how fast my mind believes that I am with you and you are with me, and that is all there is and that’s all I need, and how fast my heart can be broken

But this time, I can put it back together
This time it’s just a scratch, not a tear or a shatter
This time, I don’t have to pick up the pieces slowly and find their place again
No I learned my lesson from that time, I protected my fragile heart this time - or so I thought

I used my mighty mind to close off my emotions,
to force them into a tiny hole so that you couldn’t see my whole self
Because if I opened up to you completely, I’d be vulnerable

Well, my emotions won that battle
They forced their way out of that hole slowly, like warm blood oozing from a puncture wound
My emotions took over my mind and all logic was lost
I was vulnerable without even realizing it
And even though our love affair - for lack of a better phrase - only lasted a few weeks,
My emotions were present, my mind was drowning, and my heart was fragile and now,

Now I’ll be alright
Because writing is God’s best medicine – it heals the emotions, mind, and heart
It consoles them so they’re all in balance
So that the emotions are healthy, the mind monitors and the heart stays full
But the battle continues and truly, truly they’re never in balance

So give me a bandage
Enough to cover up this scratch and let it heal, but leave a scar
Leave a scar so I will always remember this moment when you showed me that I’m still capable of loving
Leave a scar so that I will always remember that this transition is official,
That I’m done with the phase that existed before you:
Of physical exploits putting my emotions and my heart in danger,
Of craving attention for the sake of comfort and self gratification,
Of confusing hormones and desires to be loved with real, complete and healthy attraction

Leave a scar so that I will always remember that you are the latter, and that there are still guys like you out there