In Dejan Stojanović’s collection of poetry ‘The Shape’ he wrote that he sometimes feels he is both the shore and the ocean, awaiting himself. 

Every time I remember or think back to a certain time in my life, I remember what room I had, and I see in my mind’s eye the window view I had.

A book of poetry I picked up a few months ago had a loose card inside, written in ink—a Valentine’s note from 1928.

“Perfection is static,
And I am in full progress.”
— Anais Nin.

And there was nothing primitive about it, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists.

Some evenings, reading these words hurts my heart, while in the mornings, standing in line for a coffee, it makes me hopeful.

These winter days, I walk through the door and stand, melting into this painting.

I once read that love is everything you have ever lost come back to you. That’s how I felt the first time I held Ziva.

Nestled between six crystalline shores, the lullaby of waves echo through the trees, their rise and crash like thunder underneath my bare feet as I walked upon the rugged ground of untouched wild.

Even the highest peak of the strongest mountain has taken time to reach the clouds of heaven. You are not exempt.

When you grasp too tight, you’re not paying attention to what you’re holding onto, you’re only paying attention to not letting go.

Every hour, a memory of the world held before a somebody left, electrifies a current, brings a breeze, emits light.

To whisper their secrets and fears into the wind, where the rustling leaves and swaying grasses would listen without judgment.

When it does—focus on the wind in your hair. Try to laugh, or at the very least, smile when you catch your reflection.

That box of negatives I developed felt like a film unraveling before me, frame by frame, moment by moment.

Some chapters in life, you miss before they even end. Some, you wake from, wondering if they ever really happened at all.

And some days—like today—I feel like I am exactly the age I should be. And it is beautiful.

But my heart is stubborn like that. It sees the inevitable, yet when the moment arrives, it fights to stay.

The physical reinvention of the world is endless, relentless.

I will inhale, thinking of someone standing on another shore, in another time zone, waiting for their first light.