our purple sky

She sits numb. It came to her in a wave, crashing happiness all throughout the body.
A dream-like state, one she always envisioned but never quite had. 
It was a purple sky kind of day.

She only ever begged for purple skies and now with streaks of mauve and lavender water colored across the horizon, she knew that this was the day she had been waiting for.

She jumps in head first into the water, he stood there already enveloped in the golden light on the water's reflection. They embraced. It was just so.

It was just so.

adventure, of a sort

It is always an adventure that lights my soul with neon fire.
Can't say I've had one in a while.

Oh, what a sorrow thing to say.

I must be frank. There is opportunity, always.

Rather, I find the opportunity more eventful than the moment and then I sink in that idea that adventures only come to those who pray, deeply.

Rah, rah.

This is no way to treat a loving summer.

Perhaps it is the humidity that is churning my head with ideas so vile. Likening these thoughts with actuality.

Neon fire resides within always.

This is not a collected poem; This is a mild rant.

Pardon such absent phrases and words that stick too hard on the page.
I never want to abuse the art form, rather to describe the truth, that to write is to feel and if this is what is pouring forth on the whiteness now, then it must be so.

Oh, I did not know I thought as such. This is news, even to me.

If I pause, I could gather that adventure has been held but moments pass so quickly by these days it seems they get lost rather easily in the midst of all the mind chaos.

So many adventures popping up now, ah, this is more like it!
Happy, happy thoughts that would have been lost, had I not paused and appreciated.

Always a lesson. Always a prayer.

We venture on this quiet road, with nothing but a scribbled plan and we pretend we know the path but we never really are sure.

I get chipper in the dusk when the fireflies come out to play.
Even this, to me, is adventure.

how strange!

How strange it is that we can be so extravagant!
How strange it is that we love to hide it so.

Such a bland existence it would seem. You all follow each other and decide what is cool just because you saw it in a magazine.

Ha.

I laugh at this silliness.
There is something so pure in knowing exactly who you are.
I will pull out my orange heels and walk tall in them, despite what you say.

Dip your hair in a dye, say you love your G!d.
Do what it is that delights your soul exactly.

Dance in the street, dance in your room.
Dance when everyone is sleeping, dance when everyone tells you not to.

Some call me, a free spirit.
I laugh at this too.

I am not so much free, and not more free than you.
I just decided a long time ago that I would not care if people judged.

It is my life to be strange in.
Why hide underneath the pablum?

Ha.

I laugh always.
This keeps me happy and so incredibly strange and extravagant!

At least that is what they tell me.

"was I even there?"

They travel globe now. An easy get up and go.
Peru, Nepal, Ghana, Bolivia, Prague, Madrid, Australia, Paris, Florence, Crete, China...The list could go on for days.
It is just so easy now.
The world is ours.

But I want to see it too, you see.
I saw a glimpse, a sliver of a sort. A tiny amuse bouche that lingers still on the tongue.
Tell me, how does it feel to live with a tribe in the Tanzanian desert?
A home stay in Peru? I bet it is nothing like you imagine.

We go, because we can. It is just so easy. You see, everyone goes away now.
The excitement is choosing a place nobody else has chosen.
A game perhaps.

Let me spin this exotic tale into my own.
A blind pin on a map, yes, that sounds about right.

A fun game. We go, take pictures, pretend we know what we are doing, pretend we actually care.
A constant stream of posts to Facebook, or a "check out my travel blog, I've done cool shit" sort of thing, or a, "Let's party, get drunk and make out with foreign boys"!

When will we realize that this globe is not just ours for a public showing to display how cool we are?

Did you even chat with that local baker? The one you bought your croissant from every morning?
How about that little child who rode his bike in the street? He sure watched you.
Did you learn about yourself? Did you write down how blessed you are and vow to heal the world?

I didn't.

I intended to. It just never panned out as such. I saw, took pictures, posted to a blog and spent most of the time cooresponding with the American world instead of focusing on where I was and how to live there in that foreign home.

I believe that is what most of us do, but I swear, when I get back out there and place my pins on the map, they will be deliberate. I will focus my attention on the people and the culture and how to better myself. I will learn and care. I will desire to be better.

If this is what I learned abroad then it is something so dear, but how come it always comes back to haunt us? How come when I see others post their pictures in the sun, I get a dreaded feeling within that prompts me to ask, "was I even there?"