look up

hi friend.  Sometimes, I just want to look up.  I think we forget to sometimes.  I know I do.  I get so caught up in what I'm supposed to be doing.  I look down for so long.  When I look up, it's like an entirely different world.  Looking through the branches of trees, looking at the clouds in the sky, it takes me away from what I'm doing and I find myself...breathing. 

Breathing...like when I met the stranger with my eyes. One of the hardest things I've had to do, say hello and goodbye again.   Knowing that those moments would probably be it.  To take in as much information as possible because I may not have another chance.  To smell the salt air and take everything with a grain of salt because crows' feet do not hide the smile of lies he provides.  Although, sometimes lies taste better than the truth.  It's a fact.  I learned it when I was five.  So after a week of many questions, many answers, truth, lies, closure, exposure....I said goodbye again and thought I should have taken more pictures.  Instead, the disposable camera lays undeveloped in a box tucked away.  Because if pictures aren't developed, I won't be disappointed by blurry underwater pictures of strange fish we believed we discovered.  Dreams are still important even when kids grow up. 

So I hold on to my dreams.  Take what I can get.  Appreciate the family with smiles like mine, steady, strong, consistent, persistent.  Teaching me about resilience.  Because we're doing the best we can.  And I can pretend I never think of him, the stranger with my eyes, but it's like the white bear...then the memories are there...even more.  Affection, rejection, adventures, suspension of beliefs....sometimes I feel like I'm in the blurry photograph.  Things aren't always what they seem.  Sometimes, I wish I had a better memory, to drink in  every moment with strangers with my eyes and grandfathers who smelled like books and  did math problems blind.  Sometimes, I wish I didn't have such a good memory...so I could look at blurry photographs and just say goodbye, without it being a possible last goodbye.

That was two years ago.  The camera's still tucked away in a box.  It seems silly to develop blurry pictures.  Instead, I take new pictures, of everything that catches my eye.  I won't ever stop asking why....why we hide lies behind smiles.  why no matter how old we grow, our eyes still show our souls.  why we forget to breathe.  why we don't look up more often. why we forget to appreciate the small things...

so if you get a chance...look up, breathe, and appreciate the small things.