It is such a strange feeling. To be in a place with so many people in such close proximity, yet to only know a couple. How strange it is to spend three months in the presence of a handful of soulful, creative, joyful people 24 hours every day, then to sit on a plane for a few hours and be so separate from all of them. I feel disconnected to be sitting in the house I grew up in, the place I will always call home, yet feel so far from the people who have known me best lately.

Good-byes stir up fearsome emotions inside of me. It is a terrible thing to leave the people you love and the places that fill special nooks and crannies in one's heart. If I could have one wish it would be to have a party with everyone whom I love, everyone who is important to me. People who know me nearly better than I know myself, and people who I have met once, yet we caught that look in each other's eye that marked what could be a lovely friendship. The party would last forever, and we would laugh, cry, drink, eat, dance, swim, make music, build tree houses, dip our feet in rivers, tickle the bellies of fishes, jump from rocks into seemingly magical pools of water, ride bikes down hills and not have to ride back up, lay in fields of lupines, and we would never want to be anywhere else or with anyone else. And new people would come and would fit in perfectly. And we would greet them with unequaled joy and excitement. And we would never have to say goodbye. We wouldn't need to wear shoes. One day. . .

I feel like I have two weeks off from life. Two weeks to take care of myself. To wash all the things I own--tangible and intangible, to clear my thoughts, to reflect, to write, to make music, to remember the good, to discern the bad, to dream, to enjoy the few days where I have to be nowhere and do nothing.