I know that life is complicated and often hard, that things are not simple, and that most of all they get better but why can’t I pack up my stuff tonight? and start going I’ll walk all the way down into Boston from the hills and I’ll sleep outside and catch the train in the morning and I’ll ride it down to the coast, so I can swim in the ocean again, so I can feel the salt in my toes and the wind in my hair and I will cut my hair shorter than it has ever been, not to symbolize Change! or even the wayward meanderings of a capricious young person’s heart, but so I can feel the sun sink into against my scalp, so I can sweep my hand across the bony cusp of my skull and know by heart the fissures, the crevices, the fastenings of bone and tissue and muscle that make up me. I

make me up! to create myself by wandering, to beam a smile and open up my mason jar of love to the world. I have lived enough life to write, and I've more than enough love to store for a lifetime, so I can give the extra to the flowers and the strangers on the street.

and maybe if the spirits inside are feeling particularly kind, they can bring me to the white space, or the dark honey corner that the lamplight grazes, when i can walk barefoot and feel earth below me. Maybe if they are kind, they will allot me two extra hours to explore Madrid, or to adjust my binoculars, dip my hands in Lake Erie; gasp and sigh; and ramble on.