A moment - on the metro

Swarms of faded shoes & knock offs.

Open toed sandals & cropped pants.

I am lost in a book. A world I have escaped to.

I peek over the edge of the words from time to time.

I see the crowd of people, they come and they go.

Footprints marking steel grey floors.

The heat of the day coming to rest on the covering of skin, close to my own.

Shifting bodies - movement as we are jostled on this subway car.

Strangers among strangers.

I am transported between this in between space and this different reality.

Time is shifting in both places. I am feeling it like two trains, passing each other at high speeds.

Crossing lines between real & unreal.

Blurring lights, chatter & millions of tiny conversations.

Echoing through cell phones & whispered into ears.

Our heads are all close together, as if by some transferring paper, we are translating to each other without words.

I can hear distant music coming though my headphones. It is hushed, as if it knows that the world has so much to say. It doesn't overpower or try to conceal.

I feel the heaviness of the words that are escaping lips & fingers. So many stories, emerging messages all around me.

A masking of reality. Like a novel on a train.

Blurring lights passing in the dark.

this city

Chongqing. 

You are a great city. So vast, so expansive. So new, towering concrete skeletons pressed up against grey skies. Historical, brimming with the old. the rivers run together & weave their way through this vast country. Your greatness is just beginning to flourish, plans & work in preparation for even bigger & better. You are a maze of streets, hills & mountains. You are levels & fog. You are a visceral hum. You are sharpening patience. You are new stresses & challenges. You are dirty, crowded & stubborn. You are a valley in between great walls of hills & mountains. You are sheets of rain falling for days. You are a haze shielding the sun. You are humid, sweat beading on my upper lip. You are brushes against strangers, noisy subway cars, children screaming in the streets. You are quiet moments, night time walks with the crickets & the frogs. You are the swarm of mosquitoes that crave. You are the sleepless nights, lights from opposite towers streaming in windows. You are infrequent breezes, air so heavy; a tangible thickness. You are pride, you are struggle. You are change, you are progress, you are forward motion. You are spicy, red peppers in oil. You are bridges and tunnels. You are subway tracks running along river banks. You are uphill walks. You are incredible moments of beauty. 

You are forgotten by many, but loved by many more.

happiness

I need to make my own happiness a priority.

in this time more than any other,

I need to find a tangible emersion of golden light.

I need to create a space that feels good to dwell in.

To wrap myself up in this place &

feel the goodness seep into my every pore.

I need to make my own happiness an every day pursuit.

The clouds, they hang low & heavy

but I refuse to let them in

clouding my mind;

my thoughts, a grey fog

bringing me to a place of sadness & dread.

I need to make my own happiness happen.

In the moments where I find nothing worth smiling about.

In the seconds that I find myself stare off into space.

Feeling alone, restless

discontent

frustrated.

those moments are the embers to the flame.

I can build a fire.

I need to make my own happiness real.

Not a figment of my mind.

Not a whisper of a thought.

A reality.

A truth that I can drench my soul in.

Happiness can be real.

It is a choice.

It is a struggle.

It is within my grasp.

It is a lot of things.

But it is not impossible.

It is not looking for a new home.

It is not picky or selfish.

It is here.

It is now.

I need to make happiness.

my own.