This week has sucked

Las Ramblas

There are a few places on earth, I've always thought were magical,
Where the spirit of the place seemed to overwhelm the physical space so much that the laws of science and cynicism weren't needed, and didn't have to apply.

The adventure through the streets was so real, that you could feel the demons and the angels resting on your shoulders, clawing and soothing - as they pointed out the choices, undermined the patterns, animated the very stones, and nurtured your path forward- so that though not fated, felt perfectly predestined, as if the universe had prepared (all this time) to greet you.

The muses meet you there,
And until you feel them latch on and compel you to be- you don't recognize how perfectly meaningless reality had once seemed. 

And as you inhale the vapors rising from the street, your corneas flex just right in the midday sun, revealing every color in existence, and the perfectly sculpted comes to life, smiling just right -she waves you forward, and another plays the rhythm of your heartsong echoing off the old stone walls, and suddenly you are crying, suddenly beaming because you can't help but choose hope, can't recognize anything but the beauty of humanity and of creation. 
-that's what it means to wish a street would never end.

Between the Charlottesville thing, the terrorist attack in Barcelona, and a whole bunch of people's personal issues... it’s been a tough week. I've gotten to check in with lots of good people, that’s been great. But today I was sort of overwhelmed by the idea that this place I've always considered magical was the site of a tragedy. At noon while I was eating lunch with my brother they had it on the news, blood and broken bodies all over the street. It just felt like the perfect example of what so many things have felt like lately... that despite all the potential for good in the world, we have chosen the opposite. The good things are tarnished, we are going backward, the magic is gone. 

It’s hard to understand, you just can’t wrap your head around it, and it is easy to point the finger at one person (Trump for instance), but as a society we’ve chosen this. People talk about the weather or the stars aligning in the wrong way, it’s comforting to think that maybe this is all out of our hands, this is a context we can’t push back against, it is the way things are… but I don’t believe that. This is what happens when good people don’t plan ahead. Yesterday I had a migraine. I woke up too late, had the fan on high, wasn’t taking care of myself as best I could –but at a certain point in the evening as the storm/tornado built, I just couldn’t handle anything. I went home and hid under the sheet and hoped the meds would kick in. This is what we are all doing now…

I’m sort of scared to jump in, it feels like seeing the tsunami approaching and heading for it rather than away.

I haven’t been able to write or edit the last few days… just can’t make progress on the section where the world falls apart. Its too cheesy, too dramatic... it doesn't feel at all like what is actually happening.