This was not a dream.

Tonight I stepped outside for some phone reception, when I heard the lilting sounds of horns trailing off into the distance. I finished up my call and was about to step back inside when the chords rose, lifting into a progession and the sounds wrapped themselves around my heart. I paused for a minute, then wandered in the general direction of the music.

I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, so I wandered the blocks and ran into people walking their dogs and chatting on the phone, all with their heads up, wondering where the music was coming from. Then a quick light beat kicked in and gave the horns a platform, completing the song. I wondered what I would do when and if I ever got close to where the music was coming from - knock on the door and ask what track it was?

Hypnotized and mesmerized by the sounds, I thought how silly it was that I was wandering around in slippers with my front door slightly open, abandoned, searching for that perfect sound. It was like a perfume lover catching a stray note on a stranger's fragrance, a mark of beauty that was so compelling that I was powerless against it.

I finally decided that it must be coming from a rooftop on Milwaukee Ave. and stopped on the curb to let the melody imprint onto my brain.

This week has been as volatile in my life as the financial markets have been in the news, but with staggering heights to match the bottoming lows. I feel a change coming in the air as nature prepares to shift into a new season, and I feel geared up and ready, weary of a long hot season that began for me 7 months ago when I got on the plane to the Philippines and shed my winter coat. I never thought that I would be stoked out for the cold weather, but right now I am looking forward for the shift into news things all around and can feel those changes at work already.

Post-birthday Spiral

I hate to admit it, but ever since my birthday life has been charging forward like a barreling train, in which I have been lounging louchely in the party car. This past week I have gone to sleep (or passed out, exhausted) with dancebeats more times than not, my muscles pummeled by soundwaves from speakers. It sets the soundstage for my dreams, which are larger and livelier than ever.

I don't live like this all the time, and this kind of energy is actually typical for me around this time of the year so I know to enjoy these fun times for what they are. My birthday occurs during a season of change, which always makes me reflective. Recent events have brought a unique tinge to this particular year, which have led me to spend this time reflecting on previously unconsidered meanings of the idea of freedom.

***

This weekend my friend Jenny is getting married. I have known her since we were little girls playing on the swings in the park, from so far back that I remember when she lost her baby teeth.

It will be an honor to read this at the ceremony tomorrow, as it has been such a beautiful thing to read all week for me:

Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.

But I shall show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over
injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things

Love never fails.

Obama DNC Acceptance Speech

Moving rhetoric at the DNC.

I consider this the first presidential election to accurately represent my generation, having grown up in a community outside of Chicago, where my classmates and I were of the first of many different ethnicities to represent our cultures in largely white communities. It was an undeniably historic moment to watch him break through the historically untouched demographic of the power structure of our country and step into the role as a presidential candidate. "I know I don't fit the profile..." - I know how he feels.

I'm not for Obama because of his race, just as I was not for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman. I am for him because he is a critical thinker with principles derived from an unusual upbringing, and a tough but peaceful nature. My opinion doesn't matter really - I'm from Illinois and he's got us in the bag.

He evoked Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. towards the rousing end of his speech, which was what I was watching for. It is a pleasure to listen to an excellent orator.

And some of his last remarks were fitting for the theme of spiralling onward, and moving forward:

"We could have heard words of anger and discord,
told to succumb to the fear and frustrations,
but to people of every creed and color
Our destiny is inextricably linked
we cannot walk alone, we shall always march ahead
we cannot turn back
not with so much work to be done

We must pledge... to march into the future."

BMXes around town

I went over to Mikey's house to listen to music and watch tv, and wound up being around when he got his new bike! He found an aluminum bmx that was rode once before getting stored for a couple of years. We put in new tires and tubes, replaced the seat and put a chain tensioner on the dropout of the back wheel. Stoked!

True to form, Mikey will be customizing this ride to his exact specs. It's getting a new blinged out chain, some pegs and some sweet handlebars. This is the sort of guy who matches his shoes to his moped!

Hanging with Mikey is fun because we invariably feel like little kids who've been let loose in the city. The fridge is always empty except for grape juice, red bull and ice cream. Every time I've hung out at his house over the years, he's always used his small kitchen floor as a mechanic bench and once had all eight of his mopeds squeezed in there. This night, he was switching hard drives on his computers and had like 3 macbooks in different pieces as well, so there were a bunch of different specialized toolboxes strewn about. We sat on the floor and worked on bikes.


Sorry for the lame picture - my camera is still broken from the time I sat on it in a club.

There is something to be said for riding in an upright, laid back position. It's quite a nice change from the crouched over racing form that I am usually in when I am on a bike. Riding BMX style means that you can observe the street from a less vulnerable position and get around looking effortless, like its no sweat. All of the 12 year old boys on our block are envying Mikey's bike; I could tell when they gave us a stare down when I rode the pegs down the sidewalk.

Mikey's friend Britton got a BMX the next week. He replaced the brake and has plans for a new drive train, tires, handlebars. He doesn't care because he got the bike for like $40.


He's got the same rims as my friend Jeremy, who loaned me his bike when I visited Denver. It was the best way to get around, and I am so glad to have had the chance to be so stylish when I was there. I couldn't be around all this bike customizing without referring to this sweet ride:


Now that our old roommate finally picked up her cruiser from our back porch, I'm considering a new bike; its probably going to be something laid back and solid.

Ashes to Ashes

This morning I woke up in the woods, listening to the wildlife clicks and buzzing of the early morning face down on my pillow in a pool of drool. I pretended to sleep for an extra ten minutes so I could listen to the nature sounds and think my day through before pulling myself away off of the blanket.

We made coffee by boiling water in the kettle after using the last of the wood chips to make a fire. Everything was damp in the morning coolness. My soundtrack for this camping trip was the soundtrack to Imagine, the biography of John Lennon. I thought of the 9 bundles of firewood that we had burned through, remembering how heavy they were to carry and how as individual units they were almost as expensive as a gallon of gas. In that case our little excursion cost about half a tank. The oldest fuel, as much as commodity now as it has been from the beginning of time.

I stared at the hexagonal ash pit, into which disappeared all those logs, feeding a raging fire that warmed and nourished us. It was the focal point and center of our world for a short while, acting as our hearth, keeping away the raccoons and warming my feet through a dark night. When we arrived, the pit was still hot from the last time it had been used in a fire hours before, and there were old logs of white pulverized powder that crumbled apart when I hit them with a stick.

The ashes were a white shadow of their former form, light enough to disintegrate upon touch. The raging and spirited flames that swallowed all those logs extracted the energy to feed its strength, transforming all that wood into dust.

Jen and Brian tended the fire in a cooperative effort. They made a great team and were excellent at keeping the fire alive, stoked and raging. They'll be married 3 years this September and it was such a lovely thing to see the easy combination of their efforts in mesmerized concentration, sustaining the heat, feeding the flames, fanning them. Giving us insight on the concept of unified energy control.

As I stirred the ashes and watched the dormant buried heat bubble through like a volcano, I wondered what the next part of the process is. That heat was so live! What is ash and how do things like phoenixes and whatnot rise from it?

I looked it up. Ash is comprised of varying levels of metal oxides and minerals depending on what kind of wood you were using to melt your smores and cook your bacon. Burning the wood decreases the wood to 6 - 10% of it's original mass. I was guessing way less than than. The tree that produces the wood extracted the minerals and elemental necessities from its environment (the earth, and the air) in order to grow. The most abundant mineral in trees and ash is calcium, followed by potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and even aluminum. Because of this, ash has been traditionally reused as an alkaline subsitute for lime. This dusty mess was once valued as a fertilizer, recycling the nutrients that were taken from the earth by the tree to plant new ones.

How appropriate that the wood releases its energy like the force of the sun - in a very simplified way when Jen and Brian created the intense beating flames, it was relinquishing that solar energy that the tree had absorbed in a controlled way, leaving behind only what is necessary for the new generation of trees.

A 200 pounder

I was whisked away to Wisconsin before I had a chance to put my things down. My friends showed up on my doorstep and dragged me away - I wasn't even sure I even wanted to go camping and was secretly thinking up excuses to bow out. They weren't taking no for an answer though, and on the way up there I hugged my pillow and passed out with headphones on until we were in the next state.

When I woke up we were rolling into a campground lobby and I saw this guy:

200 lb. black bear