The subtleties of being where I am and thinking about the body, feeling her speak back to me in a long pulse that tightens and then releases where I am. That’s where I am right now, considering what preparation has meant to me and how unprepared I feel in terms of being back in life again after one year with my nose in the books. What comes next?

I want to create beauty in a sense that feels best for me. I have been thinking about what comes next without being willing to think about what I’ve done so far, and how much work I’ve actually put in. The knowledge I know. The things I don’t. 

Beauty has been a lot more about floating in the ebb of doing nothing. Letting myself read books and think without having to be critical and over-analyze. Laying on the beach, underneath a blue umbrella, its flaps moving in the soft August breeze in Monterosso, I stared out at the crystalline blue waters, the color turquoise must have been born here. And I feel it. I consume it. So I wait and bake, letting the darkness of my skin grow one or shade more before slipping into the water, dancing along rounded stones until I can lay my head back and look up at the sky. Taking in the sheer saturation of blue this coast provides. What I want less of and what I want more of, remembering myself and forgetting myself all at the same time. Pondering the future and realizing how I am interweaving the better parts of me to consider what comes next in the heat of the day. 

I make myself a bed in the uncertainty of what will be and think about how much more I want out of my life. Uncertain of the boundless horizon and yet very aware of it, the infinite blue filled with luminous possibilities and my heart speaking in whispers of where it wants me to go. What is the most important thing for me in the moment I’m in? 

How can I get there from the place I want to be? I’m questioning a lot these days and feeling into time, wondering when I can cultivate the exterior garden that I know I want to have in my life. Everything feels like a lot of impermanence. 

Making beauty out of where I am and thinking about how I should be doing more instead of taking it slow. But the slowness is a matter of better thinking. It’s a lot more about my own consideration and making a decision that feels good within the silence of this limbo. Within a connection to the deeper parts of me, embracing the cracks and the rubble of a space I thought could be more. Has been less. Is transitioning to a life of something, all determined in the moments I’m in. 

I’m coming back to more listening and realizing that I’ve let myself out to pasture, the spiritual and creative part of me, so focused on the cerebral connections and expansions that come with plugging deeply into the mind. I’m ready for more beauty.