There was a little girl and boy who went to the church I grew up at. Hannah was the girl's name, I do not remember the boy's.

I was struck any time I saw them, especially the girl, at how I never saw an expression of pleasure on her face; instead, there was a nearly perpetual worry knit into her brow. On top of that, her whole family had something odd about the shape of their heads, in that they appeared somewhat large, due to the flatness of their faces, while in actuality one could even consider them small, as far as heads go; it really came down to a natural optical illusion of sorts. They also had proportionally abnormal length in their torsos, while their legs erred on the short side. I took note of these features every time I saw them.

Now it is years later, and I have seen Hannah wandering around the streets of downtown a number of times (or what appears to be wandering), mostly on Monroe Center. Her torso has grown even longer, and she has gained some weight in her hips and thighs, while her shoulders remain daintily small, and her head seems even smaller, like someone had their fist around it and kept it clamped tight during puberty while the rest of her developed. Or maybe she is a sandbag and someone picked her up by the head, draining some of the sand that was there into lower compartments.

She has sad hair. It is a strawberry blonde, cut in a simple style, falling just below her shoulders. The same style, in fact, as I remember her having as a small girl, only then she had it shorter and it appeared to be an appropriate cut for a small girl. It seems now to be a reference back to lost childhood. The few extra inches cause it to hang in such a limp way. I have seen her occasionally with a silk flower pinned on one side, in the style of vintage fashion, but even that only lends a chic quality to her sad aura.

Some times I see her with a cup of coffee in her hands, otherwise she half-heartedly holds them in front of her in a squirrelly way, as though she just doesn't know where to put them and is a little embarrassed about it. The look in her eye is the same one of worry and sadness, but too as though she could be just about to say something and can't quite find the words. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if she did just open her mouth and utter some strange phrase, out loud, to no one.

"Tonight I measure how far my brain has blown."

Dear Readers,

How do I get my pictures bigger?

Thoughts of Satisfaction

Today will be the last full day I spend in California until the next time I'm in California.

I've grown to be quite close to the people I'm staying with and last night they invited me to share in the weekly ritual that they call having "group", which is simply a time for everyone in their small community to get together and each have a chance to talk about what's been on their mind, any changes in their life, or if there are problems to be addressed, where no one gets to interrupt or criticize. The space is just open to be filled.

Anyhow, when it was my turn, I was not sure what to say, if I didn't want to stick to filling up the space with long-winded gratitude musings, which for some reason didn't seem right, though it was (and is true) that I continue to be filled with gratitude. So I thought about the place that I came from in comparison to the place that I'm in right now in terms of state of mind.

In general, I would say that I tend to gauge by the pacing of ups and downs that come along, and to be fair, mainly the downs, not out of a pessimism, but because they give me the most to think about, as they involve problem solving and analyzing, whereas the ups seem to just be as they are.

But in being in this place of scenic beauty, of creation, routine, blossoming and open friendship to new people, I've had very few downs.

This has been strange.

Being content, I would call it. Not a state of being that usually hangs on for very long in my life; being content is that place I reserve when I'm in between distinct highs and lows, and usually my contentedness is reserved for solitary times. Here, it is shared. We revel in it day by day, but not to the point of excitement, and we notice how things are good, and the world we live in is beautiful; we are sharing in this or that splendor. The odd thing is not that in itself, it is the sheer duration that this can be suspended over time without interruption or complication. Little emotions come and go, but with such ease and flow.

I realized at a point not too far into my stay that I was bracing myself for some big welling of discomfort to battle with. When it didn't come, I wasn't sure at first what to do, and had to give a big mental sigh to relax into the next stretch of being alright with things as they were.

I thought this must be some big statement about the way we all are, and how most of our frustrations are probably only frustrations because we need them to be, and because we are used to them being so, not to mention our self-importance, but I also think "why not"? It's great to have goals in life, and every frustration I meet is something to tackle and help reevaluate things. It's really more amusing than any tragedy to watch myself having a hard time being content.

Alyosha and Dmitri

In what serves as my multi-purpose notebook called the Nothing Album, I found a few moments ago two papers with many measurements and cut outs of the letters "U" and "I". I then recalled the time that I had sat down to meticulously perfect the enlarged font and cut them out with the intention of using these two letters as sole subject for an art project, a seemingly arbitrary thing to do, I noted even at the time, but not at all arbitrary to me.

A year or so ago, it was that I was at the movies with some friends. What movie it was surely escapes me now, but I felt strongly that I should not be at any movie just then, I should not be with people at all, let alone that one person that I desperately wished to escape; this person, who's repeated behavior, unbeknownst to them, was sending me careening time and again into despair and doubt. Yet there I was, fulfilling a role to be played, and making sure that nothing fabulous and story-worthy would escape my experience; in this entourage, an unusual phenomenon occurred in which extraordinary jealousy was felt by any party absent from even a minor event.

And then it was the opening credits. In the newly laden darkness, anxiety washed over me, as will happen when I have a moments privacy. Breathe began to heave, muscles tensed, salt water welled. Above all, panic mounted that I should be exposed for this torrent of "feeling". My eyes began darting around, searching for anything in the way of comfort, any small reference to some memory of reassurance.

A word flashed on the screen. Not an important one, not even a word by itself; a word buried in the mass of other more significant words. A word that didn't even matter to the author who, as it were, even forgets this word entirely, save for but two of it's parts.

Two letters: "U" and "I", set side by side. For no rational reason should one be inspired by this pairing, and by no rational reason, indeed, did I find myself then so moved by them that I imagined curling up in their contours and resting there till my tension would melt away. I imagined the the relief of temperatures lukewarm and a lower center of gravity; thought of eyelids halfway closed, not straining open to see all; reveled in simplicity above all, and the brilliance of only two beautiful letters with sturdy frame and no frill. Such simple lines, I thought, that comprise this duo. How wonderful. How fundamental and clean.

I was successfully sober and content for the duration of the movie, though I left with remaining discomfort having to do with any interactions with the aforementioned entourage.

Upon getting home again, I thought back to "UI". It seemed natural to make an homage to it, so thus, I began the process that led to what I so recently rediscovered in the Nothing Album.