Part II

all pictures by me

May 15th, and May16th are oddly absent.
I failed to write that day

May 17th

Sing me/ Sometimes brave from your mouth

Maybe I didn't belong there fully
[don't]
but a piece of my aches for it.
Calls for it in loud brave tones.

I am not a deb.

I am me.

A writer. A storyteller?

I did learn about myself there. I did.
About family.
About being alone.
About storytelling.
About words and stories in general.

I learned it's okay to be alone, if you're okay with yourself.

from the first day on the beach, to my final lonely walk
i learnedsometimes, it's okay to be what other people want
-- as long as you remain yourself.

I scrubbed with pink fragrant soap.

The kind he hates.

AND I LIKED THE SMELL. I ALWAYS HAVE.

and i like the Dixie Chicks sometimes too.

I'm sorry you made me forget that.

Present day


As some of you know, I am one fourth Arabic.
I read a book recently.
In Arabian Nights, A caravan of Moroccan dreams.
This book changed my life. I want everyone to buy it, borrow it, get it, READ IT.

It talks about finding the story of your heart.

And it tells in it, wrapped around a central plot of humor and self discovery, a true story following a man in Casablanca.
And in it, are many stories I've heard or faintly recall from my grandfather.

I'll relate one for you.

There were once three men, all of whom wanted fruit though none of them had ever seen any, since it was very rare in their country.
It so happened that they all traveled in search of this almost unknown thing called fruit. And it also happened that, at about the same time, each one found his way to a fruit tree.
The first man was heedless. He got to a fruit tree, but had spent so much time thinking about the directions that he failed to recognize the fruit.
His journey was wasted.
The second man was a fool, who took things very literally. When he saw that all the fruit on the tree was past it's best, he said: "Well, I've seen fruit, and I don't like rotten things, so that is the end of the fruit as far as I am concerned."
He went on his way, and his journey was wasted.
The third man was wise. He picked up some of the fruit and examined it. After some thought, and racking his brains to remember all the possibilities about this uneatable delicacy, he found that inside each fruit there was stone.
Once he knew that this stone was seed, all he had to do was to plant and tend the growth, and wait for -- fruit.