Kaua’i was full of cramped cars, nights of sleeping in sweet peace, & the slowly orbiting stability of gravity on hard, Earthy ground. Misty mountains, shyly exposes pink sunset clouds while roosters & chickens dance around the campgrounds with fat babies that hide under bougainvillea. Got mad & conflicted drivin’ back down the canyon. Attachments. Mindfulness, she rejects it all, but how can we understand & know everything for certain all of the time? I say, “Focus on the step in the now as we climb back down from the waterfall & forget all of that pain.” “I’m doing that & it’s not helping.” Rage, rage. “If you focus on the step, then the pain will be eliminated.” “That statement angers me.” Many shrugs. So, that’s it. I keep the Buddha to myself–even though I’ve been learning so much. It’s difficult at times. I feel these emotions ceasing & pulling. In quiet moments, insecurities swell, I become doubtful & anxious. I made myself suffer. I cling. In these moments I need to learn how to not react, go meditate instead.

Meditation helps me see through the eyes of my own soul. I’m a real jealous girl. I sweated it out in the cool dappled forest of light behind the awapuhi & hedges of ginger torches, or something of the kind. Her laugh cuts thru me, when it ain’t for me, cause it’s probably against me. Her interests scare me, because her thoughts are sharp, rapid fire. They fill her, cooling the data that flows on endlessly through altruistic eyes. I’m a million little contradictions & always a hair short of being something more. Sluggish when miffed, ruthless when not caring with a tendency to be cruel too. I get lazy & possessive, trying to break this habit. Lose the anger, lose the anger. It’s all a delusion anyway. Doesn’t mean anything. Can’t escape it. When she leaves me alone, not satisfied, when she’s besides me, I need to get out. All of her past. My meager insignificance. Clinging, clinging. She wants to leave for a year, I resent–she resents. I want to scream, terrified of what we’ll both find. Never really owning a home, but somehow always okay with that. Seeking comfort with shedding impermanence. With intellect comes responsibility–but I mean real awareness & not all that technical genius wish-wash, the kind that everyone goes crazy about these days. I’m sitting on a tree stump in middle of a forest in a canyon of Kaua’i & I wanna know more about the Buddha & free words with hopeful teachings. I still want to keep writing.

“We create the quality of our moments of existence. Where is the person? What is the self? What actions are made? Only physical instances of energy. Sure, sure. We just need to know how to drive ourselves to get to the other side. Nobel friendship is everything.”