You Chose This

I'm laughing and I can't decide if I continue to brace myself for the bumps and bangs or just let go and let my butt bruise. I'm cradling a baby in my arms and she's fast asleep. I am trying to keep her comfortable as I slide and clench in the back of the pickup truck. The wind is blowing in our faces and dust kicks up around the sides of the truck. Then, she pees on me. 

How is she sleeping through all of this? 

We park on the side of the road and there are two women sitting on the floor of a house with a beautiful view. They have their legs stretched out and I wonder what they are talking about. A dog runs up to us as we climb out of the car. We chat for a minute. With the women. Me with the dog. They still sit on the floor, but let us enter their house to use their bathroom. 

We begin the hike to the river. Somehow, I'm in flip flops. Awhile ago, I stepped 2 inches from one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. And somehow, I'm wearing flip flops. 

There is a lump on the back of my head and I try not to think about it as we walk through the fields. I don't have health insurance. They say its a "torzalo". A batt fly. They lay on your skin and burrow and a little worm is in there. They say its not dangerous. They can squeeze it out or we can suffocate it and it will come out. You get them from being in the fields. I go into the fields a lot. 

I try not to worry. I try not to feel dirty or gross.

You chose this, Jaime. 

We get there and, as always, I am blow away by Mother Nature. I walk away to be my myself for a little bit. My friends set up a little picnic of tortillas and gallo pinto on a rock below the waterfalls. I find a quiet place and I take off my clothes. It feels weird to be naked. It feels free, with my feet in the cold water and all the green and blue and browns around. Still, it feels weird. I feel vulnerable. Like someone can hurt me more readily like this. Like there are eyes looking at me. Judging me. I try not to look at myself. When I look at the water, I see my toes beneath the stream and I am happy and free. And then when I look at myself, I feel a little bit scared and I dig through my bag for my bathing suit. Sometimes, I still don't know who I am.

You chose this, Jaime.

I walk back over to the group and they offer me their food, of course. 

We climb the rocks and we jump off. The baby is watching with her Mom. I bet she doesn't pee on her Mom. 

I stay beneath the water as long as my breath allows me. I love this. I always have. It's so quiet there and, again, I feel free. But this time, I'm not afraid. I am powerful.

I climb to the top of the first waterfall and I find a little space where I can sit in the water without it pushing me over the edge. Hopefully. I sit and I closed my eyes. The water rushes around me. The voices of my friends are sweet hums in the background. They are laughing often, and this brings a small smile to my face. The water sounds powerful, yet you can still hear the birds and the trees blowing.

You chose this, Jaime.

I think I am smiling. My eyes are closed and I can feel the sensation but it is inside of me and not outside of me. 

This is my therapy. And I must always remember that this is what I need. I will always make time for you: water, trees, Earth. I will.

I choose this. 

There is a bump on the back of my head. 

There are poisonous snakes.

And I miss my family. I miss my friends and I miss their babies.

You chose this, Jaime.

There are people starving and now I understand why. I lived with them in El Salvador. I lived with them in the USA. I live with them in Costa Rica. They are children. They are grandpas. They are immigrants. They are lovely people. And they are starving.

I came to Costa Rica to go to the University for Peace so that I could understand why. 

Now, I know. A little bit.

About the system that human-kind has invented. And convinced ourselves that it is reality. That it is the only way. 

And it is not.

I am sitting here in the water with my eyes clothes and the water touching me sweetly.

And I can tell you, for sure, that the system we have created is not the reality. And it is not the only way. And the very system that we have created, in direct conflict with our Mother Earth, will destroy us. It already is.
There are people starving. Everywhere.

I can feel it. I can feel the starvation of the children who knocked on my door in El Salvador and asked me for lunch. I am starving with them.

You are, too. Starving. And you try to fill that void with stuff that the system has told you will make you feel better.

Mother Nature will not tell you anything. She will just be there. Waiting for you.

Waiting for you to feel. 

And when you get there. And sit down in her pool of water. You will know, too, that the system we have created is not working. And for a moment, your starvation will go away.

Because Mother Nature feeds you. 

And you will think, in that instant, that everything is okay.

Before you get back on the pickup truck. And go back into the city. And remember the bump on the back of your head. And that you do not have health insurance. And that you do not have papers to be a citizen. And that you do not have much money to survive in this reality we have created.

And again, you can feel your starvation come back. 

You chose this, Jaime.

The water is wrapping around me and the palms of my hands rest on my naked thighs. God, this world is good. This one here. This real one. The one you can feel. It's so fucking good. This is where I come from. And I must know that. I open my eyes and I take it all in. This vast, abundant goodness of my home. The real one. 

In the back of the pickup truck the baby is in my arms and we are bouncing. I am laughing a lot.

for now.

I don't want her to get hurt. I cradle her. I take the bruises on my bum readily, because I just don't want her to get hurt. She is precious and pure love and she is in my arms. We are natural beings who want to give. Mother Nature leads us to be this way.

And then, we pull into the city. And I pass the baby over to her Mom and there are cars all around the and the bump on the back of my head hurts and I have work to do so that I can pay to stay here and my Grandpa neighbor wants me to go have tamales with him and I think to myself that I don't have time because I have to do work. And this is the reality. No time for my neighbors. I feel myself starving again. 

Just a moment ago, Mother Nature was cradling me with her waters and I was satiated and happy and free.

Just a moment ago, I was cradling a baby in my arms and I was comforted by knowing I could provide for her, for now.

We pull into the city and we separate to head to different sized houses. 

You chose this, Jaime. 

The baby is in her Mother's arms 

and 

she squints at me with curious eyes. 

What is Consciousness?

...and what is Christmas? 

Consciousness: the quality or state of being aware, especially of something within oneself. (merriam-webster) 

Consciousness is a very tricky thing in the modern world. Let's consider our daily lives: We wake up in the morning and we reach for our phone. We have a list of emails telling us who we must respond to today. We have messages asking for favours. We have news feeds showing us what the world looks like outside today. 

Then we shower. We go into our rooms and picket a set of clothes that fits a certain set of standards: the clothes must fit us, they must shelter us, and they must be culturally appropriate. 

Perhaps the TV or Radio are on. Perhaps there are lyrics to songs telling you how to feel about yourself today. Perhaps the news is talking about world disasters. Perhaps there are advertisements showing you what you need to buy today to "stay healthy" or "fit" or "cool".

Then you go downstairs and your husband or mother tells you what they expect of you today.

Outside on the streets you see so many images plastered on billboards and roadsides that you think you are immune to them. You don't even notice. However, they enter your consciousness. They are captured by little neurones in your brain that start to crave the colors, the clothes, the body type, the glamorization of success.

And all this stuff is happening all around you, permeating your brain...your mind...
And you don't even realise it.

But how do you turn it off? 

If you are so used to it playing on all around you every single day, you become numb to it. 

And did you ever stop to think what it is that YOU want?

What if all the distractions were gone?
What if you were alone? 
You didn't have a phone or a family or a society to respond to.

What would you need to live the life that you want? 

This is where your consciousness comes into play. You get in tune with what it is that ticks your soul. And when you connect with it- it propels you forward. Because the Gods and the Sun and Mother Earth have your back. Because they know that when you live from this place, you are not only taking care of yourself, but you are taking care of everyone around you, including our Earth.

And so, in the spirit of, Christmas...

The Christmas that is about 

Celebration
Sharing 
Joy 
Love
and 
Gratitude 

I'm bring Consciousness back. 

What does a Conscious Christmas look like?

A Conscious Christmas is anything that encourages your greatest good to see the greatest good of another. It is sitting there and thinking, what would really make my Mother happy. It is being present for one another.

Some Conscious Christmas Ideas:

• Create!
• Make stuff. Write a letter. Draw. Paint. Collect stuff from the natural world and explain it's meaning to your gift recipient.
• Experience
• Offer a trip. A walk. A picnic. A movie to your partner. Create a time and place where you can just be together and get to know one another. Explain to your recipient why you want to do this. 
• Reduce spending
• consuming products does not often bring lasting happiness. It contributes to a world of waste, anxiety and artificialness 
• Before you buy, ask yourself, is this really necessary? What happens to this product when I have no need for it anymore?
• Listen
• Ask your gift recipient how you can be a better presence in their life. Ask them what it is that they need from you to be a more loving daughter, friend, or spouse. 

I have requested that my family members exchange no purchased gifts this year. Instead, we are just going to have dinner together and spend time with one another. Without and electronics or expectations. 

And because I do so love gift-giving every now and then, we are, instead, going to exchange 1 gift to one another on New Years Day. Something meaningful and thoughtful that will help propel us into a grateful and nourishing 2015.

Conscious Christmas is not just a day- it's a movement. It is setting a new pattern. It is clearing our minds of the advertisements, marketing, news and honestly, the BS. All that stuff that tells us how we are "supposed" to live. It is picking December 25th to get in touch with your own story... 

What do you need to be happy?

When all the clothes and products and gadgets disappear, who will be there for you?

When your health is compromised, who do you want at you bedside?

When you want to dance, who will you call?

We are social beings. We are not consumers. 

We are fulfilled by sharing.

Not by taking.

Let us come back to Consciousness.

Let us come back to Christmas.

No Presents, Just Presence

"Jaime, I don't like this time of year".

She talks to me with pain in her eyes. So much pain that I don't know what to say or where to look except deeply into her eyes.

"They all start playing the music and that music reminds me of my childhood home and it is hard for me to remember that. We didn't have much. A dirt floor and shaky walls. My father drank away most of the household income. That was until the first old man offered him money for me. That was when it all started and I was only 9 years old. I didn't understand. I didn't understand even when I had the first baby."

It was a long day at her house that day. I spent most of it in silence: listening, absorbing, walking in her tattered shoes. Feeling what she felt. What she was still feeling. After all these years.

In my mind, Christmas is different. Christmas is snow and jingle bells. Pine trees and cookies in the oven. Christmas is my grandma's salami pie and my Mom decorating the house. Christmas is my Dad giving us sleigh rides and my sisters pulling socks out of our stockings.

In my mind, Christmas is carling and happy Christmas music.

It is also TV commercials and advertisements. Envy and jealous. Greed and selfishness.

And here I am, listening to her story of child prostitution, and I wonder how I could possibly relate.

I am going back this year, to New York and I know what it is going to look like. I know what it will look like on the streets on the tv screen sand on the train platforms.

I am a bit frightful, not because I do not like New York, just because my reality has changed and the culture shock never gets easier. For example, as I am writing this there is a herd of horses walking past my window and a gecko walking across my wall. Its just...different...

And the beauty of the contrast, the shock, is that I waken up a bit more to what it is that I am. You see, as creatures of habit, we fall into a rhythm and whether it is good for us or not, we keep going because we have become comfortable with it.

Just as babies, we learned to repeat what our parents said until it became a habit.
Then we grew older and learned how to get dressed and kept doing it the same way because it became a pattern.

And now, we see a world that has formed a habit of consuming. We have inflated our bellies and even more so our minds. Our egos are on the verge of exploding, and often they do, right in front of our very eyes. You can see it in our police officers, lonely adolescents and military men and women. You can see it in our children, our school teachers, even our Catholic Fathers. You can see it everywhere- the obesity of our mind: wanting more and more, never being satisfied, still not good enough, still not happy, still self-doubting, still fearful of difference- we must fill this space so we continue to consume:

the false food
the false advertisements
the bullshit

anything that seems like a quick fix to this hole that we are feeling
in our egos.

And I have nothing against gift-giving
I LOVE it actually
It's just that I don't always see the connection between the giving and the receiving.

The product has become the end goal
Instead of the relationship

And so, I see us continuing to consume, just to fill our egos and grow our bellies, instead of to satiate.
Instead of to fulfill.

Because I think that what was missing from my friend's family, from her father's life, was love and meaning in his life.
And I think I see this a lot in the world in New York, as well.

So what is missing is not presents,
just
presence. 

With anything I give or do this Christmas, I want it to be about presence. I want to put in thought and love and care in all the moments or experiences I share with my Mother and with my Father.

I lost a friend recently, right before I planned to tell him how much I appreciated having him in my life. I used to joke around with him a lot, pick on him. And I wanted to make sure he knew that all the joking was just joking and I really loved having him in Ciudad Colon, because he made this town feel like home to me; a nomad who lives geographically separate from many of the people who give me life. And then, in an instant, he was gone.

And I feel again, the importance of presence.

Truly being there with one other. Sitting there and seeing each other's souls with our eyes.
Being there for ourselves, so that we understand our beauty and also our own shadow. So that we know that we all go through voids and you cannot fill that space with alcohol or cupcakes or an iPad or self-loath. Those things will not make the void go away.

Only presence can do this.
Learning to be there for ourselves and be there for one another.

We are social beings.
We need each other.

The reality of the world we have created today is not conducive to our natural lifestyle. We have invented so many distractions that we often lose sight of our connectedness.

For this reason, I hope to set a new tradition with my family:

Of giving presence
instead of presents.

So that we have just another day to celebrate being with one another. Appreciating one another.

And as I prepare for this upcoming conscious Christmas, I find myself living each day a little more consciously. I find myself thinking about the things that might make my sister Christina happy. I have started wondering what it is that really makes my father smile. I have started paying closer attention to the things my mother says, so that I can create something that will really light up her soul.

Because these things matter to me.
And I am sure that as I pack my backpack up again to leave New York and head back to Costa Rica, I won't need space for some items that will eventually break or lose value or get stolen.

Because I'll have all the memories within me.

You see...

This conscious Christmas means a lot to me for a lot of reasons. I spent 1 Christmas in a very underserved community in El Salvador in 2011. And by underserved, I mean to say that the commuting is not as acknoweldged as other communities in the world are. And what I mean by this is that the government does not give much assistance to the people there. There is not much concern for creating equal opportunity or access to natural resources: such as water and food. It is okay in that community to beat women. It is okay to starve children. It is okay to educate some over others.

As much as we do not see it on a daily basis, we are all a part of this problem. The uncontrolled consumerism of the world has created a terrible unequal distribution of wealth. The economic system that we have become slaves to creates unfair competition- mostly in parts of the world where the people have the least amount of opportunity. For example, my farmer friends in El Salvador buy chips and soda for lunch because it is cheaper than the important grains- US industrialized farms can produce these grains at a much cheaper cost. So guess what? The farmers get fucked. If you have grown up on a rural farm with no infrastructure and no access to mainstream education, you spend most of your days learning how to farm- because that is your only option. And then, when the cost of living exceeds your daily pay- you are forced to move. I don't know, if your family was starving, would you stay on the farm in El Salvador or would you go to the place that has been glorified for the land of opportunities?

Anyways, without seeing all of this first hand, without talking to the people and walking in their shoes, we are all going to continue living the same way we live today. Because we are creatures of habit and we are not interested in putting in the effort or discomfort to change.
So those who are born oppressed and marginalised, will continue to get fucked.

If there is any day that we can decide, *choose* to be more present, to the reality of the world, then let it be on Christmas.

A Conscious Christmas is not about becoming depressed about the reality of the world we have created and actively participate in on a daily basis, it is about taking a break for a minute and acknowledging the present moment. It is about saying, "I don't need any more stuff this year. I need to learn how to love my mother a little bit more or forgive my sister."

It's not just about giving up the stuff
It's about creating experiences
Thinking about all the opportunities that arise when you can just be present with one another.
And I think this will have more power than we can even begin to believe.

Trapped Awake, Ready to Die

I'm trapped between two worlds.

I am awake in love and gratitude.
Ready to fight: with love.
Willing to die awake.

I am trapped awake.

This morning, I pull the curtains open and there is a family of birds dancing and signing in a blue sky that begs me lovingly to smile.

My friend is out there working with his shirt off, trimming the medicinal tree in our garden, and with each trim seeps out the smell of heaven. He waves to me. My friend's skin is painted in fierce tattoo that is the sacred markings of a story sewed with pain and commitment that I, too, can feel, in a different stitching.

This morning, I receive a message from the man who adopted my dog and he asks if he can bring her to come visit me today.

There is a joy that makes my heart beat and eyes twinkle and soul feel full and grateful for this world.

And there is also something eating at my stomach. 

There is a story of a man who was strangled to death. He is physically quieted by an arm around his throat.
He is asking for help.
He is saying out loud
I cannot breath.

And they are literally
suffocating him.

Who taught us not to listen?

In school they tell us to pay attention. They tell us to go home and read the newspapers. They tell us to vote. We look up to people of authority because it is what we are taught as children. Respect your parents. Respect your teachers. Respect the police.

Who is telling them to respect US? 

Could it be, that it has been so ingrained in our minds to respect something out there, that we have forgotten to respect what is in here?

There is value in learning to respect our elders.
There is value is knowing how to pick up a newspaper and understand what is going on in the world.
There is value in our educational system.

THERE IS MORE VALUE in understanding YOUR OWN VALUE and your own
INNER INTELLIGENCE.

Everyone delivering you information is subject to bias. Based on what they have been told. Based on experiences in their own lives.

Therefore, you must respect, read, learn - And remember that you are also a wise and worthy being. Wise enough to think on your own, worthy enough of love. And you must always remember to think for yourself- the type of thinking that involves both your heart and your brain.

I am not sure, anymore, how often we are taught this.   encouraged to explore this.

Are our parents, teachers, educators, our uniformed-community-members of "high-standing" and authority....are they helping us?

As children of the world, eternally growing
To awaken. To find our inner knowledge and wisdom and let it come out and grow
And expand

Not just in mathematics and science and technology....That, too, yes, of course...
I want to know..

Are our guiding symbols of love and light and wisdom in the world
Are those parents and educators and uniformed men and women
Are they also showing us the immense capability we have inside of us
To love?

Are they actually creating spaces for us to be more active members of a society that serves our greatest good? As we read the news, it is our right and responsibility as equally intelligent heart-bearing children of the Earth to ask this question.

I do not have anything against people.
And if they treat their positions with the utmost respect, for they, like all of us, are here to serve each other, to serve humanity-
And if they can remember this, no matter what title or last name or paycheck or collar they wear-

If they can remember that their purpose here on this planet
Is to serve LIFE
To serve all living beings
Because we need each other

Then I have nothing against them
As people
inside of a position. In fact, I am grateful for them.

And if you have "become" the Position of authority
Forgetting, in fact, that you are merely just a human
And if you have "become" a position where you have taken on a power stance
that has led you to believe that you are above

Then I will watch you step down. I will strip you of your uniform with my eyes. And see you again as a human.

And if you are one of the ones who want to now, take those down from the power, physically-
I, then, have to ask:

Doesn't that mean that we are admitting that they have some power above us?

Wouldn't it be better if we displayed ourselves in all our power and glory
Wouldn't it be better if we united
Yes, us human beings of all shapes and colors and sizes
What if we joined our forces together?
Not against them, no. Because that would be acknowledging that they do have power above us. That they are separate.
And they don't. They aren't.
They are just abusing a position. Or they are lost or confused. Or trapped, asleep.


There is a family of birds dancing and singing before a beautiful sky today, begging me to smile.
And my heart hurts. And honestly, its a bit fucking angry.

I am trapped between two worlds.

One that everyone thinks is reality. a fake system that we are fighting. and I, naively, often join the fight. forgetting that as I continue to fight I am keeping the system alive.

The other world
are the birds singing and dancing
Actually, we are this world, we are just wrapped up in the story
And most people will call you a hippie if you tell them this is reality
That this is what is real. the fucking birds.

Remembering how to interact with one another. Share with one another. Create with one another.
Let go.
Forgive.
Fly together.

Fucking survival.
Fucking waking up and not knowing if you will get the worm.
And still fucking joining together at the end of the day
To fly together.
Still fucking dancing.

We are

a tribe of lions
a family of birds
a pack of wolves

Supposedly, now, elevated with a conscience...
Where the fuck did we put it?

We need each other.
We don't need the lion tamer.

The tamer is an illusion that keeps us in this cage.

And if we can come together...

Raise our voices, now that they have taught us to educate, read the news, and "vote"
Now, let's really scare them...

Let us become quiet again. Not silent. Just quiet.
Let's scare the shit out of those ones who depend on us to fight.
And let's be quiet.

Let us vote with our actions. Let us let our education carry ourselves forward, not because they are dangling green-paper meat in front of us, but because we want something more. together. not climbing on top of each other...walking together...

Let us show them how much we will stand by each other's side.
So strong, so bonded, that we don't need the lion tamer. We will walk, as a pack, wherever the hell we want to go. And we will say, to our beaten black brother, come with us. And we will say, to our collared white man with a gun, "you have a weapon, and we just have our 2 hands. And if that scares you, to know the power of our own being without a cold weapon, then shoot us. But if you want to know true power too, then put your gun down and walk with us".

I am trapped between 2 worlds.
Because I am still young on this journey. And I don't want to die. And I don't want to live asleep.
And the world is a scary place and I don't want to be afraid. And I don't have the answers, yet I have committed to being part of the solution. I am not willing to believe, anymore, in a system that does not serve me.
And I also do not want to fight it, because it takes my energy and gives me nothing in return.
Loving people, though, animal packs and flocks of birds- they carry me forward. Even thought I am still learning to dance. I find myself moving more freely everyday.

I have over 23 years of reading a story that was sold to me about a reality that I thought I had to accept. And then one day, in the face of starvation, I realized that: it was all just a story. And: i don't have to accept it.

There is another world, where birds are singing and dancing.

I read a "story" once, about a tribe of people, that once, too danced (like the birds). At Wounded Knee. In South Dakota. In the UNITED(?) States....

And you know what?
For those who think that believing in this real world of trees and birds and love
You think that is hippie shit?

Well, dancing scares the living day light out of people who hide behind uniforms and don't know how to take them off...
Those who don't know how to strip themselves down to what makes us vulnerable

So, once we are quiet and united and awake
Let us dance freely beneath the moon
As is our right
And our responsibility to be joy on this Earth

And if they come again, to Wounded Knee, to take what is rightfully ours
They will find too many of us now
To silence

And if they open fire upon us with their cold artillery
Then we will all perish
Us with Them

Us, first, in dignity
Them, next, in true suffering
Together, at last
As one human-kind
Because they will realise

That they have murdered

The farmers
The caretakers
The mothers
The painters
The musicians
The artists
The lovers

The creators of life.

In Memory of Alex

Yesterday, I lost a friend.

"An old friend from New York? A classmate at the University in Costa Rica?"

My friends and family hear my pain and they ask me these questions.

"No." I respond. "He was a taxi driver."

There is a silence at the other end.
I don't know what it means.

I want to express all that he meant to me. I want to explain how when I got into his car it was impossible to leave without a smile on my face. I want to convey the feeling of "i don't give a f*ck" that one felt when you sat beside him. Not in the way that you are careless and ignorant. Not that kind of not giving a f*ck. The kind that you just fully accept who you are and are not afraid to be it.

I want to tell all of the stories and memories I have with him.

I want to say that he reminded me of Grandma. I kinda want to say that sometimes, I could feel her in him.

And then I think that my friends and family would think I am crazy if I said this stuff.
"You just knew him for 1.5 years. He was a taxi driver." That's the voice in my head talking. Those are old stories and its an old voice. And then it starts to tell me to justify. It starts telling me I need to justify why I am so sad after losing a taxi driver that I just knew for 1.5 years. And I almost listen to it.

But I stay quiet, instead. Because I have become familiar with that voice. The voice that talks in my head that is not my truth.

It's not the little voice who speaks to me softly. And knowingly. The little soft voice that speaks to me in vibrating blood cells beneath my skin or goosebumps on my arms or a fluttering in my heart.
I know this little voice better now, too.

The little voice is just humming along. I trust her.
I am learning to become quieter so that I can heart her.

I can hear her now and she is just humming along.

Probably to the sound of Alex's music blasting from his car as he honks his horn incessantly driving up towards my house.

The little voice tells me that it is okay to love. Anyone and anything.
The little voice tells me not to be afraid.

The thing is, I don't express much of it to anyone. Because it cannot be expressed.
It can only be felt.

To Alex. <3 2014="" 30="" nov="" td="">

And I could feel it with Alex. Something connected me with him on a deep level. Something liberated me when I was with him. I would get this feeling every time I sat in the front seat of his car and he would pick on me.

He told me I was in the book he was writing about the UPEACE students. You know, what happens when they are not on campus.

He told me that I was "brava". Because I told him what I thought, right back at him. 

...And maybe because 1 time I had a few too many cervezas and he gave me a ride home...

His voice was raspy and he talked so fast that I could only catch bits and pieces of what he was telling me and I would say, "Como como como?" "Como Alex??" Smiling. 

On Sunday, he said to me, "Heyyy. Where do you think you're going so pretty?"

He asked to take a photo of me.

I refused. I told him I know that he would put it on Facebook. Vacilando. 

I learned a lot from you, Alex. You don't even know.

And I wanted to tell you. 

You told me to "take care" last time I got out of your car. It always ended this way. We would joke around the whole car ride. Pick on each other. I'd tell you that you charge too much. You'd try to convince me to let you drive me all the way to San Jose. I always got out at the bus stop. And you'd say "ok take care now." 

That was the last time you spoke to me on Sunday. I saw you though, almost everyday this week. One time, I was in the car with another guy and you peered into the window checking on me to see who it was. The next day, you were on your corner and I was out running and you yelled something at me as you always did. I looked at you and smiled. My headphones were in and I kept running. 

I liked your energy, Alex. 

When people ask who it was, that passed away in the accident, they say it was you. We explain who you were by saying that you were the taxi driver in the black car.

You were so much more, though, Alex. Thank you for sharing all that you were with me. Thank you for not being afraid. Thank you for being you. Honest and ruthless with your love. 

Thank you for being You.

I know that you came into my life for a reason. 

It still does not all make sense yet.

I have faith, though, that it will. 

And I promise you that I will take with me all that I learned from being in your presence.

And if you're up there with Grams, give her a dance.

And laugh with her.

She'd like that. 

We all would. 

------

Dare to be vulnerable.
Dare to trust.
Dare to feel free.

In memory of Alex.

And in honour of all the people I forget to express my love to, because I am still learning to quiet the voices in my head. 

Feeling grateful for all the people coming together during this time.
Offering love and support in so many ways.
Being there for one another.
Being present.