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Warming Months of 2025
New York is a dream in the summer. Long nights where it’s cooler to aimlessly walk in the park than be in your apartment. Days that spray you with air conditioner mist, bbqs, new friends, and fire hydrants. It’s pent up energy and veiny legs seeing the sun for the first time. There’s no reason to leave a place that has it all. No reason to leave a place that sucks you dry every 1st of the month, uber ride, or cocktail. No reason to leave…
How do you know you’ve earned a vacation? Did you reach a goal? Did you burn out? Maybe you just plan them perfectly 6 months apart? I ask because I’ve been gifted (or something) the existential crisis of flexibility. Of course that doesn’t go hand to hand with financial flexibility which is also part of the whole…earning…of a vacation.
Flexibility has always come naturally for me and even gotten me great praise growing up.
I did ballet
got the splits (right, left, and center)
beautifully arched feet
nice back bends
I was even socially flexible moving from group to group, a chameleon
So yes, I lean flexible. I love to stretch, melt, liquify, and make it look easy. But ballet gave words to an idea much larger, “If I am strong I must stretch. But if I am flexible I must strengthen.”
So, is it
flexibility
or
strength
that earns you a vacation?
Or maybe your partner takes you.
Puerto Rico is filled with sun, delights, music, water and colors. I
suppose all of those could be said about New York in the summer
and yet to compare this to that is funny. Those words
deceive. But I know they aren’t the same because New
York was made by man, but sitting here on this beach,
I am certain it could only be made by God. A perfect
cove in an otherwise desolate ocean. It’s like he knew his humans would love to swim. Outside of this little cove I can see the way the water hits the rocks and I imagine how delicate my body is compared to them. The wind is so harsh it throws sand that burns my fleshy body. But the cove offers protection from that too. My love and I walk along the water, playing with our disappearing footsteps. As the sun goes down and the wind somehow strengths more, I too disappear into the grasses, let the ocean see my naked bits as I change out of my swimsuit. Part of being flesh is being soft, sticky, and in need of protection I suppose. Maybe if I stayed in NYC I’d have callused skin more similar to a building than a fish.
Instead I think I’m a little burnt.
I BELIEVE IN GOD
We Wait in the Dark
I fought hard not to go.
I did not earn it.
Which makes the burst of sunlight flooding my eyes as they peel open after a long nap all the more surprising.
THEY FEEL ME COMING
It’s too perfect. A heavy sun hanging above water that glitters. Exhaustion, salt-crusted skin, and ignorance of my appearance. It’s the unearned freedom of these moments that make me want to share it with my parents. Is this what makes a loving relationship? These moments of bliss sitting across from each other as we wait for our Chillo Frito? I don’t think my parents ever did this, but they love each other mostly? Many people find love and bliss without perfection at their fingertips. I know I should too. But I love eating fish with my fingers—meticulously eating to avoid bones. I love the buttery flavor as you get closer to the spine. And finally the two eyeball delicacies filled with nutrients and good luck. Leaving in the dark, no taxis pass or answer our calls. It’s strange to be stranded in paradise.
With help, we make contact with someone who will pick
us up in an hour in exchange for far too much money.
As we wait we see night fisherman having great luck.
We hold each other and wonder what we would have done had our luck run out. And so we sit on a drift wood log looking at the moon hanging over the water that glitters.
So, is it flexibility or strength that earns you a vacation?
It feels good to let rain fall, cover you, drench you, and keep going. When your lungs are heavy and sweat blisters at each pore while hiking through the rainforest, the sudden downpour is kind of a release. I find myself looking over at the mosses and wonder if they’re also relieved or if that’s a feeling only a flesh body can know. My partner brought his task-cam, and I have my camera, both of us ready to observe anything outside of ourselves to capture. We hear birds and creatures as an orchestra around us. Moments come where with a spectacular sound or the sun is just right as it winks through the fog. But each time, just as we pull out our
capturing devices, they feel us coming.
It’s silence. It’s darkness. They won’t
be caught. Heading down the mountain
I keep looking at the mosses and I
know they are relieved by the rain
just as I am. I hear them sigh
when I sigh and feel them lick
their lips as I lick mine.
I’m not sure, but maybe sometimes you just go. I tried very hard to make the trip that
of NYC grit TM and strength TM. I brought my camera, sketchbook, journaled on a scheduled, and even took some work calls in an uber. Unfortunately none of those things felt very strong. I did feel strong in my flesh body most days. I definitely felt stronger speaking Spanish. And I found some strength in allowing a partner care for me as they wanted.
Now to stretch.
