Entry 1 <Date Illegible>

Little crystals hanging in the air, sand and mist cradled on the wind…catch the sunlight in their midst and envelop it with loving care. Like a mother with her child, their facets catch and hold it close. And when the air breathes out, the crystals pierced will shatter/so softly glowing light will reach to touch your cheek. Feather-soft touch of invisible fingers on your skin, feather-soft sigh to reach your ear and stay snugged in stillness flower deeper into thought and memory.

<illegible>

Every road is special, every road can hear. Just because I know its ending doesn’t dim its song. I got tired of talking to myself…of hearing things stuck in my head. I got tired of walking the same paths-now worn smooth and soft with repetition…a pounded earth road grooved and gutted through overuse. Stuck. So I will stick them somewhere else.

<Illegible>

Deep golds broken in the light that bends and dances in the harshness of full day. Lovely ambers shading one into another reaching like a slow sea to the base of ragged mountains…knobby and stooped hammered by hot winds. Lonely stones seen as solitary sentinels far away through shifting air. An endless sea stretching on and on melding with the pale blue sky in a dull brown streak. Mirage: air shudders with thought, a slow energy passing into reality, in material…a ship. Hazy in the brilliant light. Sails, mast, helm, slides slide into and out of perception and fades. Images, men, caravans the steady rolling of traders and travelers. City, vaulting out of the cliffs. Solid rock, channeled and crafted into gates holding the image of the gods. Higher reach the gates, it columns stretching to touch the tip of nothingness in blue nestling deep into the shadows of its stone face. Doors open, the gates ease. Fade. Sandes rake the face as you turn your eyes up and welcome. Eyes that look from the obscuring storm of wind and stone earth, that look from a face with no shape asking, waiting, needing something I cannot supply. They don’t see and so wait. Same eyes, this time reaching from a blue/green/gray tundra wrapped in mist. Same face with no form. Clouds whip past streaking her young face with gray-white scars. Rolling hills, baby mountains jut from a deep green carpet now gone gray in a simoom of water, a curtain, a veil drawn over the face of the earth. Fade. The mists give nothing back. Sounds leaping from cold stone to cold stone tempt and tease calling names that have no sound, loud in the heavy stillness.

<Illegible>

I wish I had a friend. A real one. My father never had one (I don’t think), so he grew inside himself. Sometimes, I just want to talk, to say the things that are important to me. It is never enough to speak to someone outside myself and it’s never enough to think it inside. I’m stuck. Ironically, I can get myself out. I can do anything. Right? I can do anything. If I wanted to, I could ask XX out. I could go to any party and get smashed. I could travel to Petra to see the City of Stone. I could ride the rapids of the Wolf River. I can do anything. But I play by rules. I’ve always played by rules. The rules say I have to go to school. The rules say I must live with my reputation. The rules say I must fear for my safety and live seeking protections. The rules say I must obey and survive codependently with others. I’m tired of playing. I want knowledge. Real knowledge. Knowledge to survive in any wilderness for indefinite time periods. Knowledge of how to neutralize threat before and after it demonstrates itself. I want to know cold and heat, ice, snow, sand, death, fear, pain, my limits and then I want to go past them to a place where they simply aren’t important anymore. Why can’t I do that? Why can’t I change the rules? Ironic that my chance for true freedom is in the military. I try to explain this, and it is discounted as senioritis, others declare they share the goals inherent with escaping school. I don’t want to hear that. My dreams seem special, unique, personal. To have other say that they hold the same just pisses me off. Yoga teaches that this is an overactive chakra that should be changed. Bah. Why? It’s so pointless to try and gain some peace when around others. Sick, slow, loud, irritating, demanding, arrogant, patronizing, elitist, yuck. No wonder I want a dark corner in the middle of nowhere. I wish I were a ranger, with he power to simply walk away, sing my songs, see the wonders of the world, explore life, not stay stuck in an insignificant corner (that’s boring). I would learn weaponswork, survival skills, weather watching, tracking. Those seem important. Reading, writing and arithmetic are the only things I need. I want to learn map reading, not Government and calculus. I don’t like technology. Toilets, running water, electricity, heat. Those are fine, but I want to live without them. I don’t need a watch, telephone, computer, DVD…just luxuries that <illegible>…story-tellers, dancers, craftsmen…people who create something who work and attempt skills that mean something. I don’t want a car. I could learn how to repair things, heal things, herbology, medicine. Why do only a few people get to do this? How did we decide to die of cancer rather than bad water? Why should we live so long? Stuffing yourself full of drugs, synthetics so it can hold together longer. The spirit holds the body together. Sure, there were problems, but think how much better we could become <illegible> if we combined technology like waste management with a simpler way. We might actually develop a culture, instead of mindless consumerism. I don’t want things. I don’t want money. I want stkill skill. Skill and confidence and control. Get lost in my daydreams.