Finding my place

It’s the place I found my voice and my laugh blended in.

The place I learned that peanuts grow in the ground and gardens are better than supermarkets.

It’s where I learned to speak Bislama, and not care when people don’t speak perfect English.

It’s where I learned that getting a tattoo on you foot in a place full of dirt roads you walk in flip-flops and sometimes barefoot is bad idea, the hard way.

It’s the place I stopped trusting my knowledge of things and started trusting everyone else’s.

It’s the place I found out that custom medicine is better than a pill.

It’s the place I learned that women can be stronger than paper dolls.

It’s the place I realized my society and culture is full of shadows, silhouettes and people wearing masks…and I was one of them.

It’s the place I found out first hand what racisim feels like and I’ll take that every other place I go.

It’s the place I memorized prayers and found God when I wasn’t looking.

It’s the place I learned that I never actually knew mother nature, and the place I learned from her over and over.

It’s the place where I picked leaves off trees and made tea; the place I drank more tea than water.

It was the place I didn’t look in mirrors often but I discovered what I looked like.

Meltdown

The tact I once possessed is seeping through my pores and tear ducts. It momentarily coats my body and masks my rage as you come up and push every button on me. When you get the response of me being unresponsive you leave satisfied on the verge of delight. My brain screams silently at the back of your head as you walk away. I feel my hand uncontrollably clench around my steaming mug and my arm now temporarily detached from my body threatens to throw the cold porcelin at your skull so that it’s own crooked cracks are reflected on your face. My mouth goes dry and despite my vicious heart beating in my ear, I place my mug beside me.

I speak but my words get stuck mid-air like some sort of invisible spiderweb is surrounding you. You reach for them and suck the life from each one before reaching into my body and taking a hold of my spine. I feel the pressure of your hand as you reassure me that you know best. I feel my spine crumble in your grasp and my whole body collaspe, falling to the floor in a mound of flesh that probably looks somewhat like melted rubber.

I’m lying here in a pool of my own corpse enveloped by self pity and as my eyeballs slide out of their sockets and hang from their optic nerves; I can feel something change inside of me. Something inside of me that has been festering begins to grow. My drooping pupils lift to watch you vivaciously shake my backbone to pieces that immediately turn to dust as they smash up against the hard ground. But that change in me grows and grows and my eyes get sucked back into the voids of my skull where they watch your face twist in fear.

I smile widely at you and walk towards you until my fully beared teeth are gleaming a foot away from you face. You release a sort of pathetic moan before angrily forcing my jaw open and shoving your fat hand down my throat and entwining your sausage-like fingers around my newly formed backbone. You try with absurd force to break me repeatedly but I let a laugh escape through my body, shoving past your arm, elbow deep in my saliva.

Your face turns white and you quickly reclaim your hand from my inards. You whisper some sort of backwards apology. I eat your words and spit them into your face. You offer to love me, but I don’t want anything to do with you because I know that love and obedience driven by fear is just a cover for hate and a disguise for a wanted rebellion.

I turn from you and walk upright with my steel spine and my dignity in place. Part of me wants to turn around and maliciously scream that I am better than you, but because of that I know I am not; I am only a stronger version of myself. So I continue to walk away from you and I begin to forget your face; still remembering the message that God brought to me through you.

Diving into Teacups from the Thirteenth floor and other Stimulating Experiences

Sometimes it randomly it hits me; I am living in a rainforest during monsoon season. Generally when I can’t hear my own thoughts over the rain hitting the roof with such a force that it suffocates any noise at all I remember this. Sometimes the rain drives into my spirit acting as a temporary kill-joy, but usually I really love the rain here. It’s loud and inescapable, but it’s also lovely. The other night it started relentlessly pouring and cutting through the conversation that Chelsea, Josiah and I were having. Chelsea and I immediately looked at each other and ran through the door of the library out into the wall of rain awaiting someone careless enough to go play in it. We danced in circles and sang songs and at one point we were singing Backstreet Boys and I fell to the ground in a passionate display of emotion over “show me the meaning of being lonely.” We laughed and splashed and jumped through puddles we said looked big enough to be called oceans. Finally we collasped into a huge puddle on the field of the school. The water was almost a foot high. We sat in that puddle and played until we physically felt like we were catching the worst kind of cold. Now I am currently sitting in the library while students are around me studying for their exams. The rain is once again threatening to break through my thought process. I used to believe that it rains a lot back home in Victoria but I’ve come to realize that our idea of heavy rain is basically a mist over here. I used hate rain. I’ve come to really appreciate it here. The only thing I am having a hard time feeling detached from during this time is a hot shower. It’d be nice to be able to take a shower and actually warm up instead of feeling more cold. Still, I have my friends (who have become more like family then friends) and I have my teacup…mug (Chelsea, Josiah and I all have matching mugs that we sit around and drink tea from together). I’ve come to find that’s all I really need.

Geek Love, Pancakes and Piercings

I just want to write a quick almost point form update. My time on the internet is limited and continually frustrating so generally I don’t like to spend time on here.

First of all, something important that I have learned while living in Vanuatu: peanuts grow in the ground! For some reason I had always imagined them growing on trees.

Second of all, there has been a recent addition to my family here. Her name is Pancakes and she is a white dog with brown spots. She is such a character of her own and I love her to pieces.

Thirdly I am reading a book called Geek Love and I actually have time to do some drawings and I am looking forward to starting to painting here with Chelsea. I am taking lots of pictures too! I finally have time to re-appreciate the arts!

Lastly I just want to say that I am absolutely loving my time here. I am always, always learning from the Ni-Vans. Ni-Vans are the most wonderful, beautiful people on this planet. I am looking forward to my trip up to the bush with some of the youth this Friday! I can’t wait!

Ps, making sure to comment on all the things in my title, Chelsea and I have also taken up a new hobby of piercing my ears. Lots. Hahaha. Love you mom and dad! J

characteristics of the colour green

I want to stay on this hill

Grasping this grass

Get the feeling of leaving

And just let it pass

 

‘Cause under this sky

I can feel at peace

My thoughts get tangled

And then they just cease

 

Because if no one ever came around looking for me

I wouldn’t get up and leave

I would just stay

If no one ever asked for me

That’d be okay

I’d lie under the blue sky

Even when it turned grey

If no one ever came for me

I’d continue to lay

Stay away from the stress

Here in the grass

Where my thoughts are at play

If no one ever came to find me

After a long time

I would just stay

Maybe even start to decay

Here in the green grass

Where my worries are at bay

 

I want to stay under the trees

Under the clouds in the sky

No one will ever find me

Even if they try

 

‘Cause I begin to change

As I silently pray

I become the person

That wants to stay

 

I could live on this island

With my feet on the ground

I don’t need the city

Or anyone else around

 

God sees me on the grass

And He whispers in my ear

He says, ‘Child I’ve been waiting,

I am so glad you are here’

Gunther

One of my biggest fears about leaving home and coming to a far away island in the south pacific had nothing to do with leaving behind the usual comforts of home, but rather more to do with what I was going to encounter here. When I first got to Santo I quickly took to scanning my environment at all times and checking every inch around where I was. To the locals I looked extremely paranoid; to me it just became a precautionary ritual I adopted into my life everywhere I went. It was almost like breathing, I didn’t stop to think about it, I automatically just did it.

One day Chelsea and I were leaving our hut and I happened to look up. Outside of our hut hung across from our roof to a nearby tree was a huge spider. The web was probably about ten feet up so it wasn’t like the spider was very close, but still, this big yellow butt with eight red legs was still too close to comfort in my books. I pointed it up to Chelsea and she laughed at the fact that I had actually noticed it up there. I quickly let Chelsea know that his (to clarify, yes, I am referring to the spider) name would be Gunther. She laughed at me again and then she told me that she had named previous spiders too just so that she wasn’t as afraid of them. At that moment I was really glad that I had traveled half way across the world only to land in the same country as a girl as quirky and strange as me. Then she went around the hut and asked Rosaline if she would mind killing a spider for us.

Rosaline marched around the hut and looked up at the spider. She grabbed a big stick to smack it down and before she could even get close to the web I had ran off far away so that there wasn’t any chance that the ferocious Gunther would land on me. A minute later Chelsea called me and let me know that the coast was clear and I was okay to come back. I shuddered and headed back around to the front of our hut. I looked down at the remains of the spider which was basically just legs. One of the legs twitched and I moaned loudly. Chelsea who had been watching my facial expression explained to me that Rosaline had knocked Gunther down and then squished it’s body between her fingers and that the twitching leg was just a nerve and that it was 100% dead.

I carefully eyed the remains. As I did so, something utterly disturbing and frightening happened; the twitch in the one leg turned into a twitch in all eight. Then, like out of the movies, the legs pulled themselves up and planted themselves on the ground and actually started crawling! I screamed loudly and turned around and ran in the direction I had come. Chelsea ran into the other direction laughing in disbelief at what we had just witnessed. Luckily Chelsea saved the day and went back over to the half dead, half alive corpse and repeatedly stepped on it before burying it with dirt.

It took me a day and a half before I would even walk to our hut on the side where Gunther had been killed. He must have been pretty livid with me to actually work up the strength to come back to life just to give me one last scare. I figure he was probably upset that I had taken the time to name him only to have Rosaline attempt to slaughter him. Still I continue to carefully check my surroundings and to give ridiculous names to any spiders I come across. So far the only one besides Gunther to give me a good scare was Chester. Chester was a big black spider hanging out beside the door in Josiah and Markus’s hut. I sat on the floor in tears for probably like twenty minutes before I could work up the courage to even leave their hut. Generally the spiders mind their own business though. They are actually pretty afraid of us and if you even come close to one they scurry off. Gunther was the only spider that ever had a bone to pick with me, and I learned pretty quickly from him. Now I either just let them live and try my best to ignore them, or if I feel like it must be killed I make sure they’re actually dead before re-entering the scene of the murder.

The Happiest Country On Earth

For the last couple weeks I have been living inside a National Geographic’s magazine; in a rain forest in the happiest country on earth. Every morning I wake up to the sound of roosters crowing. I go to breakfast which usually consists of a Gato (almost like a croissant, but a full circle, and a lot more greasy) and some sort of fruit, like bananas (which taste like unlike any banana I have ever had before…much more flavourful!) or papaya (or popo in Bislama) and after breakfast my day begins. My days are pretty uniform here, depending on whether it is a weekday or the weekend. Monday to Friday I walk up a short path passing hibiscus flowers and banana trees to the school that consists of five concrete buildings that surround two outdoor volleyball courts, an assembly hall and a field. I head to the library with Chelsea (who is my hutmate here) where we get settled. This always includes heading to the classroom next door to visit our friend Josiah that teaches at the school. We all pick out virtue cards for the day and read them over before heading off in different directions at the school. I then make my way next door to the main office at the school where I count up the kids’ lunch money and make sure that the head cook gets the appropriate numbers for meal time. Shortly after I finish that, it is morning tea. I usually will have some tea with Chelsea and we might buy a samosa or something else small to snack on. Then we both head over to the primary building where we read to classes. After we finish reading I head back over to the library to put the books away and do any of the numerous small jobs I am assigned that day. Lunch is at noon and I am on duty during Thursdays from noon to half past. Monday to Thursday, Chelsea and I eat at the school; a heaping plate of food for only 100 vatu a day. Everyday and we sit and watch the kids play or we sit in the library and talk about life. After lunch I either have art with year 1/2 or Baha’i class with year 8. Every time I can be seen by the kids in grade 1/2 I am welcomed with cheers and small voices excitedly announcing “Ms. Stacey is coming!” Year 8 is never as eager to see anyone from the staff. After school is over Josiah, Chelsea and I usually congregate to the library where we pick up where we left off the day before. We generally head into town to make purchases or we head to our huts where we do whatever we feel. There is only one true town on Santo. Luganville (the town) consists of only one road where lots of people travel through or hang about everyday. There is small stores packed full of random odds and ends and there is a market close towards the end of town where many locals sell their food. We walk about the market as the people behind the tables swat away flies. They wrap up any of our purchases in banana leaves as we pay them in with Vatu (the money in Vanuatu). My favourite thing to buy at the market is Laplap which can be made with different things like for example, cooked banana with coconut or cooked manok with meat. When I first came to the school we had a lady named Rosaline cooking for us. Rosaline is a total powerhouse. She is a very built and very strong (physically and minded) Ni-Van woman. As of this past week Chelsea and I have been cooking for ourselves. This means building a fire (which is actually harder then I imagined it would be) and cooking whatever foods we have purchased at the market. For dinner tonight I cooked rice and kumala and ate it with soy sauce. Dinner is pretty random and we eat whatever we feel like eating that night. On the weekends here everything is pretty quiet. Friday nights we have a youth gathering at the Baha’i centre where we eat food, sing songs, say prayers and talk about events that are coming up. So far this has been my first Saturday on my own. Last weekend was the cluster meeting and then before that we were at the Baha’i centre hanging out. Today Chelsea and Josiah went to the Baha’i Centre to have an intensive Ruhi study and I stayed back at the school. After walking to the mini-market with them (which is only like a ten minute walk away from the school) and picking up some gato for breakfast I came back to the school and had a nice cold (there is no hot water) shower. I did some laundry (which I do all by hand in a bucket full of water with a board stuck in it and a brush to scrub the clothes clean) and then I went back to my hut. Our hut is probably half the size of my room back at home. When you walk inside our beds are on the left and we have a shelf on the right. We have a piece of linoleum down right inside when you enter and we try to keep it pretty clean so that we can hang out on it. Our hut is anything but soundproof. Rosaline lives on the other side of our hut and she tends to have a static filled radio on full blast at the oddest hours. It is very hard to get any alone time or any quiet time here at the school because even when it’s the weekend there always seems to be some sort of noise happening. Thankfully today has been the quietest day I have spent at the school yet. After spending some time reading on my warped-too-short-for-my-mattress bed hidden under my mosquito net I fell asleep with book-in-hand for a couple hours. I woke up and headed over to the kitchen that Chelsea and I share with Aunty Lena (a teacher at the school), Uncle Matthew (the school’s handyman), their daughter Alice, their son David, Josiah, Markus (Josiah’s hut mate; also a teacher at the school), Joseph and his sister, Velindas. The kitchen is a pretty busy place and there always seems to be a fire going with either a pot of food cooking over it or a kettle with water boiling for tea. I finished making dinner and now I have decided to do some catch-up blogs as I have fallen immensely behind. The internet is very slow here and we actually don’t even have it on weekends, so although I am writing this on a Saturday it likely won’t be posted until Monday (which is still a Sunday back home). Well I am finished this wordy, information packed blog and I am going to go write some more blogs about stuff that has happened now that everyone is caught up on how I am living.

Day 1, 2 & 3 …Getting There.

Day One:

I am possibly on the most ragged ferry owned by BC ferries. There is a constant rattling paired with a droning hum that fills the air. I am bored already and therefore I try to occupy my time with drawing and writing. So far this has only resulted in me feeling nauseous. I remain unamused. I am trying to keep my mind busy so that I can stop worrying that I might have forgotton some vital item for my trip. Nothing else to report on so far. Hopefully I’ll get to Vancouver with enough time to meet my friend Armand without keeping him waiting.

Sidenote:

Have you ever wondered if anything at all is original anymore? I don’t just mean styles but anything; movements, tastes, sounds, etc. Is there a spot that I can stand in and say that I am the first that has stood there? Probably not, but there is individual originality. I have never flown alone to a remote place in the world. So my trip is original to me. I hope that as I continue to grow up that I continue to pursue original adventures and paths in my life. I hope I never stop experiencing life to its fullest. There is just so much world to explore.

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Day Two:

It’s funny how the simplest things can change while you’re travelling. Things that never really impacted you at all before can make the biggest difference in the world. The smallest encounter with humanity can turn your entire day around. Today I struggled to drag around my two suitcases [that weigh about 100 lbs], my backpack and my camera case. I walked uphill from Haro [where my beautiful and generous friend Telia resise in a lovely apartment] to Robson where I discovered I had no idea where to go from there. I walked down to Burrard Street and found my bus stop that will take me to the airport. Then I remembered that I needed to find the closest Future Shop to buy a battery charger for my camera [turns out that I did forget something vital]. I dragged my luggage up to Robson and Grainvillewhere I discovered I was at Future Shop an hour and a half before they open. Desperate for a bite to eat, I crossed the street to get to the nearest Starbucks [which is generally always just across the street in Vancouver...where Starbucks resides on every main corner]. I fumbled my way through the door, bought some yogurt and granola and a coffee which I managed to spill all over my suitcases and made a friend who held my cup as I made my way out. He told me he was a big traveller too and for a moment in the chaotic rush of people with timely agendas, I felt like someone was slightly empathetic. The touch of compassion was all it took to make me feel like the tears threatening to come out from behind my eyes could be held back for at least the time being. I made myself comfortable with all my luggage surrounding me as I sat at a table in front of the Starbucks.

There in front of the Starbucks, I met an older man who politely asked to sit in the chair next to me. When I encouraged him to do so with a smile, he began to eagerly question my luggage, which in turn led to him telling me about the places he had travelled to. We sat there, every now and then paushing in silence to take in the swarm of people in a hurry to be anywhere but on that street corner. Our discussion deepened and we talked about God and how the world portrays religion [I have to stop myself to add that this topic came up because I told him it was a Baha'i school I'd be working at and he told  that he was a Muslim]. This man sat with me until the store he was waiting for opened shop. We concluded our talk with the agreement that it’s wrong how much we waste when there are people starving.

We basically shared all our worldviews. He wished me luck and he was off. As he merged into the sidewalk traffic I smiled to myself. Even in times you feel drained God can pull you through just by simply allowing you to be at a place at the right time to meet a friendly face and encounter someone that simply understands. Well I am shivering on the sidewalk still, so I best be off to Future Shop to buy my charger. Wish me luck!

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Day Three:

So today I am finally in Vanuatu.  finally arrived in Santo after what seemed like days worth of travelling. Let me rewind. After waiting around for Future Shop to open I caught a b us from downtown Vancouver to the airport. I ended up having to wait at the airport for at least two and a half hours. So I started to read Scar Tissue [by Anthony Kiedis; one of the few books I brought along my trip]. My flight from Van to LA was alright, I sat next to an empty seat and then an older man sat in the aisle chair also beside the empty seat. He wasa nice man and his wife who was the row over, across the aisle from him seemed really sweet as well. They were from LA so they found it quite entertaining when I stared in complete awe at the endless sea of lights as we began to descending down into LA.

The man asked me where I was going and after I replied that I was catching a flight to Fiji and then going to Vanuatu he excitedly turned to his wife and relayed what I had said, who, in return, did the same to an older woman sitting next to her. Her name was Panina, or Nina, for short. Nina was a super nice lady, salt of the earth sort of person, but for some reason the instant Nina found out that I was on her next flight as well, she assumed the role of an overbearing mother. She followed me around the LA airport and despite having no idea where she was headed, she pretended she knew well, but still, I knew better. She ended up finding me no matter how far I wandered off. She found me at the check in, she found me at the pay phones and she even found m eating Mcdonalds in the enormous food court. It’s not like I really minded company, but she kept talking to me like I was the one that had no idea what I was doing. Let me tell you, if it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t have even bee in the right building for departure. She was annoying me more then anyone had ever irritated me before. When she got her seat switched so that she could sit next to me on our flight, I could only clench my teeth and force the fakest smile possible. Nevertheless, I was stuck with her.

A bit before departing time I started heading over to customs. She stopped me and said that our flight wasn’t leaving until 11:30; I corrected her and said “no, actually 10:30.” She rolled her eyes at me and I pointed to the 22:30 time on the ticket before turning my back and heading over to customs. I felt so utterly annoyed. Worst yet, I walked up to customs with boarding pass and passport in hand and the guy at customs looked at me, and then at the two items I had handed him and he handed them right back to me. I was holding a boarding pass for Panina. I went over to her and sharply traded passes and walked back over to customs.

Finally at our gate I think Nina began to understand that I didn’t need my hand held. She latched herself onto an older lady in a wheelchair and because she was with someone with a disability she boarded long before I did. As she walked past me in line she apologized and said she was going to sit with her new found friend. I tried to muster up a oh-gee-that’s-really-too-bad sort of face but I probably looked more relieved then anything.

Once I was on the plane the guy in the aisle seat complained to the stewardess that he couldn’t stretch our his legs so he left me with an entire row of seats to sleep on. I awoke for a plane breakfest and shortly after had to race through the airport in Fiji to get on my flight to Port Vila. On that flight I met Carren, a lady that takes care of the Baha’i center here in Santo. Her family left her in the airport and she made sure that I got my bags rechecked and that I was good to go. I hung out with a friend staying in Port Vila, and his roomate for an hour before catching my flight to Santo. The flight was on an uncomfortably small plane but fortunately it didn’t last long at all. I arrived in Santo and met with Mr. Whitley, Mrs. Whitley (the owners of the school) and Chelsea, a girl here on service from Canada as well.

First stop was the Baha’i center where I stayed my first night in Santo with Chelsea, Amy and Lucy (daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Whitley). That afternoon Amy and I went to the market and I drank out of a coconut and ate a fruit that was sort of like an apple, but with a pit. We walked around town a little and then headed back to the Baha’i center. There is only one town on Santo, but lots of villages all over the island. The town consists of one road and groups of people that drape themselves over store fronts just to sit and stare. Staring is not considered rude to Ni-Vanuatu people and so they do so all the time.

Before calling it a night I sat on the bed I would be sleeping in coming in and out of extreme tired and dizzy spells wondering it if was all just a lucid dream of if I was really there. So far it feels like a bit of a dream…so until reality kicks in, that’s all for now.

A free plane ride is in the air, and just like that my fear of it disappeared

What’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given you?

I’ve gotten nice gifts before. Thoughtful ones; ones you can tell someone could have only been thinking about me when they decided to get that thing. I’ve gotten gifts that have made me smile and feel appreciated. But the best gift I’ve ever gotten didn’t just made me smile; it also made me cry. It made me remember. It made me feel alright about leaving the past in the past. It reminded me that everything was going to be okay. When he pointed out that it might no longer be relevant to me I wanted to stop him and tell him it’s always relevant. It never stopped being relevant and probably won’t ever be irrelevant. I felt too nostalgic and overwhelmed to let him know that it couldn’t get better then that. When I feel like I’ve lost friends and I’m losing friends, [because I'm constantly losing friends] I just remember that I became a friend to someone. It’s not easy choosing the lonelier road in life. It’s not easy when all the faces you once knew so well become strangers and you’re left stranded with your faith and your strength to carry on [which at times seems to shrink as your friendship circle does]. My friends, you make my life what it is. You give me strength when I don’t have it in me. Your presence doesn’t need to be tangible for me to believe this.

On that note, I will miss you all so much.

Goodbye! See you later ♥

See, I’m stuck in a City, but I belong in a field

Outside the weather’s cloudy, grey, damp, gloomy, bleak, dreary, dull, lonely and unpromising.
Inside the weather’s not much better.
I walk the concrete sidewalks that lead into the concrete buildings that hold me captive for hours of boredom.
The slate grey sky mixes with the buildings until the horizon is blurred and undistinguishable.
Life is so mundane.
My unchallenging, monotonous, tedious job is uninspiring.
Everyone is leaving this city; this dump; this prison.
I hold onto the single thread of sanity that I have left and every time I find that it’s You.
When I come home to a seemingly empty house full of cobwebs and anorexic tarantulas, I discover You sitting on my couch waiting for me.
I sit next to You and flick on the dull yellow lamp beside me.
I open the book from beside the dusty lamp.
You hold my empty hand and fill my empty heart.
You call me child and I can’t stop a smile from forming around my vacant lips.
I sit there all evening in Your presence until my eyes feel heavy.
I feel Your arms around me and immediate comfort and contentment surrounds my soul.
I sleep until morning.
Outside the weather’s cloudy, grey, damp, gloomy, bleak, dreary, dull, lonely and unpromising.
Inside the weather’s much better.

Stacey Sieben, Weather

I used to think I was a city person, but lately I’ve began to think that I only really enjoy watching things happen in a city, not actually participating in the events. I think I’d rather be the person sitting on top of a hill admiring the city lights then actually walking the streets lit by the neon glow. Recently I’ve actually discovered that part of me even fears the city. Not the possible violence or drug abuse that occasionally litters some areas or even the fear that I will get lost in the hustle of people that know where they’re going. What I am actually afraid of is the buildings. When I crane my neck and raise my eyes up to the tops of the high rise buildings, I feel my stomach do cartwheels. I get the sense that maybe out of no where, I will be the only one on earth to ever experience a sudden loss of gravity. I will unexpectedly start floating up, up, and up to the tops of these buildings, desparately trying to grab hold of something to stop my ascent into the grey clouds looming above the towers like damp, mishaped halos.

Something about leaving the city makes me breathe easier. Something about leaving the country makes me think maybe I’ve been holding my breath for a while now. Even though part of me is afraid to go somewhere far away from people I love, and afraid of the things I might encounter there, the other part me is afraid to stay. I am afraid if I stay in this one spot I’ll become concrete; a statue among buildings. I feel like I’ve been driving the same roads for so long that I’m slowly becoming the roads. I am disappearing into the grey.

Whenever I see colour my mind automatically connects it to a corporate logo. I don’t know what forest green looks like; I can only picture Starbucks green. When I think of an apple, I imagine a Mac computer. Sometimes I feel like my life is a slogan. I feel like the corporations around me are becoming more human then I even am. I become robatic. Even if I stopped to smell the roses I might not recognize their scent. I can’t keep up. Window shopping and people watching. All I want is to lie down in a field and look at the clouds passing. To stop, stop, stop feeling like I might lose the battle with gravity; the battle against disappearing into the grey. I can’t get a good hold of the stop signs or the traffic lights but if I just grab hold of the grass; of the wildflowers, I might just stay put. The earth around the roots is solid and the stems entwine around my ankles; I will sway like a willow but mother nature will not allow me to fall upwards into the sky. I can rest assured this is how it was meant to be as I disappear into the green instead of the grey.