However, things beyond my control have found a way to push me back just as I was getting comfortable.
The warmth, the sun, and the sand will be replaced once again with the grit, tall buildings, and concrete.

I’m excited for what’s ahead, but I’ve never felt so sad about leaving a place.

Here comes another move.  I’ll leave behind some newly acquired possessions, some trinkets, and lots of good intentions.  I’ll pack new memories, stuffed in with the old lessons and take them with me.  I’ll quietly surrender to where life is leading, but I will match every move, unchecked.

It will be good to be home, with the latest outlook.  The anticipation of great things hangs in the air.

Garlic Fest in Delray Beach 2011

With the under-par food, based around one of the most facilitative of ingredients at that, this colorful fair was also overpriced for regular old folk like me.
(Complain, complain, complain.)
I had fun, hanging with friends and kicking back steep light beers in the chilly afternoon, our collective breathing in of the pungent smell of garlic wafting in the air, and the distant sights and sounds of Buddy Guy: white hat and a strat.

My insomnia has existed as long as I can remember.  As a toddler, I used to watch the sky change color in my window.  From black to blue to pale with sun.  Time went by so quickly.

Nowadays, I do try to be a grown up and sleep early, with the help of pills, meditation, and whatever else.  It seems I can’t ever get any rest.

When I have inspiring days, like today, days packed with the beauty of fragile, fragrant flora and tight rows of furry fauna, of gravel and earth and wind sky, of adhesive and paper, of felt and linens, of light and glass, lines and pencils, smoke and breath, of buzzes and bells, of strings and vibrations… I just can’t sleep.

Maybe I’m avoiding reality?  The ultimate in procrastination is to avoid sleep.  Maybe it’s because I don’t want to stop feeling this way.  The whole world is here, and I can’t end the day without being a part of it.  I’m exhausted, but, I’ve got to keep my eyes peeled because all there is, is here, in this moment.

Goodbye Jersey City, again.  My fickle eyes can’t appreciate a familiar scene, my stubborn ears are too accustomed to the sounds…  I’ll return with a stereoscope of memories, and a phonograph of new recordings from other worlds.

When I was a very little girl, I grew up playing hopscotch and jump rope on the streets and the sidewalks.  Jersey City was a concrete wonderland, gritty, and breezy.  Things got more and more dangerous, and Jersey City became this danger zone, a mouse trap waiting to snap.

The present.  While JC was “cleaning up”, it seemed to me the soul of Jersey City had been cleaned up too.  Lately, things resemble only a shadow of the sunny urban streets I remember.  I’m happy that things are safer, but sad that Jersey City is hardly a wisp of what it once was.  The pretense of cruiser bikes and adults hula hooping in the streets make me wonder if there is hope at all. Things are becoming so… homogenized.  Oh, well.

The possibility of traveling and leaving Jersey City for a couple months is becoming more and more tangible.  An electromagnetic phantasm, this opportunity can disappear the second you reach out to confirm its presence.  In the meantime, while my mind sits in a departure lobby, I’m having a lot of fun sweating it out in the infancy of this summer in my home town.  I went to the Hamilton Park Festival, yesterday, and it felt like the Jersey City I remember.

Magically, the sporadic rain seemed to fall everywhere (when it did), except on us.  All we felt was the moist breath of the Savannah air, and the sweet magnolia-perfumed breezes.  We drew in the smell of  dew on the leaves.  Spanish moss dangled from the live oak like a sleepy party streamer, hung there by a ghost statue.  Resurrection fern crawled along their branches, blooming at the drop of rain.

At serene Bonaventure Cemetary, overlooking the river,  the air was heavy with a wistful mixture of peace and sorrow. The nostaligia of aging stones carved with stentorian names echoed in the silence of the moist air.  No picture can do Savannah justice.  It’s a living, breathing city.

All photos taken on Mayfest, May 16, 2010, at Circa Restaurant in High Bridge, NJ.

All shots taken with iPhone 3GS. My favorite go-to point and shoot. Ever.